Eight questions to... Jennings Motor Group HR manager Julia Bradford

BRADFORD: I head up a small team who deal with all of the HR issues for the group. We have just more than 500 staff based in 12 sites across the north-east of England. Jennings Motor Group was formed more than 100 years ago and although it has been a Ford dealer through much of its life, over recent years the business has expanded to include other franchises such as Mazda, Kia and Seat, and now motorbikes, with two Harley-Davidson dealerships, as well as a property division and a Subway sandwich store. It’s a very diverse workforce.

The managing director, Nas Khan, who himself started as a sales executive at Jennings more than 30 years ago, is very keen for all of his key managers to get involved in all aspects of the business, whether or not it would fall naturally into your remit. For me, this is great, as key to any successful HR department is for you to be able to understand the business and why things matter in any given area of it, which, as a consequence, allows us to make good decisions.