Hi, I’m Natalie, a People & Culture Advisor in the People and Culture team for Vista Group, where I focus on ensuring our people get the support and advice they need do what they do best. What I love most about what I do is the variety of work that comes through; no two days are ever the same!

I studied communications at university, and never envisioned being a part of a P&C team (or even what that would entail). All I knew was that I wanted to work with people, so I was excited to discover opportunities in a field where the goal is supporting people.

Morning – My morning normally starts with going through and responding to emails and Teams/Slack messages, and on more fortunate days, I’ll have a bagel from Best Ugly Bagels keeping me company.

Most weeks kick off with welcoming new members to our teams, so most Monday mornings I get to meet all our incredibly talented new starters and run through an induction with them to catch them up to speed on all things Vista Group. I take them through our social groups, planned events and initiatives so they feel included and welcomed.

Recruitment is part of my role, so next I catch up with our Talent Manager to go through our vacancies and any updates to how we’re tracking with them. Following this I work with our People & Culture Administrator to coordinate and organise interviews with our hiring managers. I also like to take the morning to update candidates on their application status and ensure they’re kept in the loop.

Every month, we will have a global People & Culture meeting with our wider team around the world, including those in London, LA, and Mexico City to catch up on all our current initiatives. This ranges from sharing ideas and initiatives on topics from health & wellbeing right through to how to celebrate milestones and achievements that our teams accomplish. As you can imagine with multiple timezones, these meetings are either very early in the morning or late at night, but it’s always exciting to hear about what’s happening in our global offices.

Lunch – At around 11:30am I start to plan and scope out what to do for lunch. We’re spoilt for choice here in Auckland CBD, so lunch is one of my fav parts of the day. Today I’ve gone with Poke House by Victoria Park, and it’s a lovely short walk to grab a teriyaki tofu bowl – yum!

Afternoon – This afternoon I have a few first stage interviews to conduct so I can get to know the candidates, as well as answer any questions they may have before progressing with their application.

This is the part of the recruitment process I enjoy the most. Meeting new people, finding out what motivates them, and having the opportunity to potentially align them with their dream job is such a great feeling. After introducing myself in an interview I love to start the conversation with the classic “tell me about yourself”—it’s broad, and as much as it sounds like a trick question, it definitely isn’t for me. It gives me great insight into what’s important for people to share with me. From this I’ve had conversations that go deep into people’s passions, from their love for baseball to their journey of making the perfect sourdough loaf.

As my role is focused on people, I dedicate my afternoons to projects and ad hoc support that help our managers and people with any queries they may have. This part of the day is as varied as it gets; I get to interact with people from all across the company, from our services & engineering teams right through to product.

End of day – I save the final moments of my day to a final email/message check before heading home to a very excited golden retriever.

If you’re interested in working with Natalie and the rest of the fabulous Vista Group team, check our careers page to see what roles are on offer and get in touch!