Ami Jones, 36, is a HR Consultant in Cardiff
To mark three decades of the IWA’s role in making Wales better, we decided to look forward to ‘the next thirty years’ by introducing some of the people who will be shaping ‘the Welsh agenda’ as the future unfolds. We have teamed up with PricewaterhouseCoopers and their #GreatWales campaign, which celebrates the ideas and people who contribute to the Wales of the future.
Ami Jones, HR Consultant, aible
Cardiff
My business is called ‘aible’ and I am an independent HR consultant. It can be tricky working with people day in and day out and then having to manage a situation when things go wrong, but managing people doesn’t have to be a nightmare. I’ve worked for a vast array of commercial businesses in a range of sectors: utilities, energy, retail, financial services, property, digital media, construction, manufacturing and care, and so I’ve dealt with every situation imaginable. This means I can help my clients focus on their business operations, increase their confidence to deal with HR and show them how to be proactive in managing their people.
After working my socks off, I was more than a little pleased to gain a distinction for my MSc in Human Resource Management. I’m an accredited workplace mediator with the Open College Network and a Chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Leadership & Development.
I’m delighted to have won a Call Centre Management Association (CCMA) award for operational management and a health and wellbeing delivery award at the Occupational Health Awards. I am also very happy to be a mentor for Exeter University’s Career Mentor Scheme, a committee member of the South East Wales Branch of the FSB and on the Board of Directors of a new Charity called Shiftmakers.
I am one of those lucky people who really love what they do and that is because I love people! It is definitely the people who make or break a business and that is why I enjoy helping my clients to really value their employees so that they can get the best out of them, but also as employees we spend the majority of our time in work so it’s always better if it’s a good place to work! Also, although I see a lot of similar situations, people never stop surprising me so that definitely keeps me on my toes!
My ambitions for the future are to start supporting some youngsters of today to increase their skills base, especially in regard to business and entrepreneurial skills. We have a major skills gap in our country and unfortunately I don’t think the education and business sector are working together closely enough to bridge this gap effectively.
I get my drive and energy from my parents who were both in the position when they were young not to be able to continue their education, yet they worked hard and built a good life for my brother and I. They encouraged us to work hard in school but also to get part-time jobs to teach us the value of money and the structure of working life. They also always taught us to stand up for what we believe in and that we should never judge anyone as they always did, and I still try to maintain that to this day. For Wales for the future I hope that we create a generation that has the skills to support our Country to become more productive and leads to a higher level of wealth that is spread more equally across all classes.
Each day, throughout the month of June, we are celebrating the exceptional people on the Next 30 list by publishing a short pen portrait here on Click on Wales, as well as raising their profile on Twitter using #IWAnext30 and #GreatWales to highlight the exciting contributions these people are making to Wales’ future.
