Sarah Watkin spent eight years transforming a New Zealand business group with no HR function into a people-led organisation
When Sarah Watkin, head of people and culture at Enterprise Group in Auckland, joined the company nearly eight years ago, tshe was tasked with developing a thriving HR function.
What followed was a methodical building of people strategy that offers a clear-eyed lesson for HR professionals navigating the difference between large, established organisations and smaller, fast-moving ones.
Enterprise Group comprises two businesses: Enterprise Motor Group, which operates four used-car dealerships across New Zealand, and CFS Finance, a company that finances used-car dealerships throughout the country. Together they employ approximately 140 people. Watkin is the sole HR professional across both entities.
Compliance first, culture second
Watkin's first priority on arrival was not strategy – it was risk. She conducted a thorough audit of policies, employment agreements, and payroll processes before anything else.
"You've got to start with compliance. We don't want to be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. At the end of the day, our role is to make sure that we are doing things by the letter of the law," explained Watkin.
She described this foundational work as unglamorous but essential – the kind that trips up HR practitioners when it goes wrong. The business had employees who had been there for 30 years, some still on outdated agreements.
Bringing those arrangements up to date was among her first acts. It's a challenge familiar to many HR leaders stepping into newly created roles at established small-to-medium businesses, where New Zealand employment law compliance can quietly fall behind as companies grow.
Eight years on, the business recently implemented a new HR system – prompting Watkin to go through the same compliance review again. The work, she says, never truly ends.
Adapting, not adopting, best practice
Watkin came to Enterprise Group from significant corporate experience – including a period managing global HR at Pumpkin Patch, the New Zealand-founded children's clothing retailer, and before that, a stint at GE, where goal-setting and performance review frameworks were deeply embedded. That background sharpened her view that what works in a multinational does not necessarily translate to a smaller organisation.
"I don't believe that there's a thing such as best practice. Best practice in HR is really adapting to the environment that you're in and doing what works, as opposed to – if I sat in here and said, right, we're going to do a full blown goal-setting, performance reviews like we used to do 15 years ago in GE – there'd be uproar across the business and it just would not fly," she said.
This philosophy has shaped how she approaches workforce strategy at Enterprise Group. Rather than importing frameworks wholesale, she tailors HR practice to the culture and scale of the business. The evolution of HR technology and systems in New Zealand has helped – but it is adaptability, she argues, not tooling, that separates effective people leaders from ineffective ones.
The advantage of proximity
One of the most tangible differences between operating HR in a small business versus a large corporate, Watkin said, is the speed and authenticity of feedback loops. With CFS Finance's 40 employees sharing an open-plan office, she can test an idea and get a real answer within the hour.
She offered a recent example: when fuel prices rose sharply, her team began exploring whether a public transport subsidy – in partnership with Auckland Transport – might ease cost-of-living pressure on staff. Rather than commission a survey, she walked around the office and asked. Two of 40 people said the subsidy would actually change their commuting behaviour.
"Whereas in the past, potentially you'd make a decision from HR that felt right or would look right, but actually doesn't hit the mark. Here I was able to walk around and get the feedback and go, okay, that's not actually going to add much benefit to our people," Watkin said.
That kind of real-time, low-cost consultation is difficult to replicate in a large organisation spread across multiple sites or countries. It points to a broader truth that HR leaders across New Zealand's small business sector are increasingly recognising: proximity to employees is itself a strategic asset.
A seat at the table – without the title
Watkin is candid about why she prefers the pace and ambiguity of smaller organisations over the structure of large corporates. At Enterprise Group, HR is not a side function. She is involved in decisions about opening new branches, assessing what calibre of people are needed, and how leadership structures should be designed – not just consulted after the fact.
"I operate in a much more strategic and faster-paced way than I would if I was in a corporate," she said. "The chaos and creativity works for me."
It is a disposition increasingly valued in the profession. As HR continues to evolve from a compliance-and-reporting function into a business-critical discipline – particularly as workforce strategy, culture, and leadership development take centre stage – the skills Watkin has honed in smaller settings may prove more transferable than they once appeared.
For those considering a similar move from large to small, her advice is implicit in her story: start with the basics, earn the trust, and only then begin to build something lasting.
