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Gail Rajjayabun joined the David Allen team in December 2022 as Head of People Development. Gail talks to us about the firm’s exciting plans for bolstering its position as the ‘local employer of choice’ and ambitious investment into their people.

My journey to David Allen

My career to date has been varied but has always had a people focus. In 1987 I graduated from Nottingham University with Joint Honours in French and Spanish. I had a wonderful time during my third year working as an English Assistant in a secondary school. There is no better way to learn a language than to immerse yourself in it. My love of coffee started with Parisian café culture – an espresso, side of croissant and people watching!

When I returned to Nottingham for my final year, finding a job became a reality. One of my flatmates said she was going to apply to train as a Chartered Accountant. The combination of working and studying for a qualification appealed to me.

With some hard work and determination, or as my dad would say “stickability”, I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1991. Soon after I became a tutor with a national professional training company called BPP. Over an 18-year period, I taught thousands of budding accountants and loved watching them progress.

Fast forward to 2016, as both my sons were making their own way in life, I decided to enter the world of accounting again. I joined a multimillion-pound food manufacturing firm called Farne Trout and Salmon Ltd, as a Costing Assistant. I loved the operational side and working with teams across the various departments. The following year, I became Financial Accountant for the firm. Farne is part of Labeyrie Group of companies, and this is the only role where I got to combine my accounting skills with my French!

In 2018, I moved to Carlisle to be closer to my family, I worked for a local practice and then joined Carlisle College when an opportunity to teach AAT accounting arose. During my time there, I also studied for my Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). This was one of my biggest challenges – returning to study, balancing full time work, and it was during the pandemic too! With a lot of hard work and more stickability, I graduated last year.

Growing our people

This brings me to my new role at David Allen as Head of People Development. I have a passion and natural enthusiasm to see people develop and thrive in their professional lives. If I can make things better, I will strive to achieve this. I see three key areas at the core of people development: communication, collaboration, and connection.

My role at David Allen is to focus on how we enhance the knowledge, skills and abilities of our people in order to improve our client service through performance, productivity and overall effectiveness. The firm provides a range of professional services: accountancy, tax, payroll, wills and probate, financial services, debt recovery and IT solutions. I look at how we can provide opportunities across these service lines for learning and growth through our training and development programmes. I also look at how we utilise mentoring, coaching, constructive feedback and feedforward. When I was studying for my PGCE, I came across a phrase that has stuck with me “Learn to grow, not to know” and I think this sums up what people development is about.

People Development is fascinating as it can take many forms including on-the-job training, formal programmes, workshops, seminars and coaching sessions. Ultimately, at David Allen our goal is for our clients to have an exceptional customer experience and to do this we need to ensure that our people are equipped to deliver this. By investing in our people, we increase job satisfaction, engagement, retention and ensure that David Allen is the best business partner for our clients.

When I first started at the firm, my mission was to meet with our people, so I set off on my ‘Getting to Know You Tour’ of our offices. This provided me with a wonderful insight into what we were getting right and what areas we needed to strengthen. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about our people’s journeys to David Allen, understanding their ambitions and what they enjoy about working for the firm.

My role also includes looking at how we attract and retain talent. We seek to recruit the best candidates and ensure that they have the best onboarding experience. But that is just the start of their journey with David Allen. There is opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge in their roles as well as opportunity to move within the organisation. One of my ambitions is to create an agile talent pool as opposed to being limited by job role and description.

Whilst I am Head of People Development, success will come through teamwork and alignment with our core values of ambition, professionalism, integrity, knowledge and respect.

Ultimately, every business has work to do to look after its people and more so after the fallout from Covid-19 and the challenging recruitment market. What has really impressed me is that David Allen recognises this and wants to do the best for our people. We have a lovely family feel, and whilst we grow this is something that will remain at the heart of everything we do.

If you are interested in a future with us, please drop us an email at careers@david-allen.co.uk. We would love to hear from you.

Out of hours

When I am not at work, I’m usually out running. I started running in 2016, when I completed a couch to 5k programme and have never looked back. I am now a member of DH Runners, and this year will see me run my first London marathon, Lakeland 50 (trail run of 50 miles in 24 hours) and The Great North Run. I am running for Children’s Heart Unit Foundation (CHUF) at the Freeman to mark 10 years since Ewan, my youngest son, had a lung operation there.

Gail Rajjayabun

Head of People Development