Caroline Reidy: There's nothing sadder than when somebody feels they haven't maximised their own potential
What A Woman PodcastShow Notes
When Caroline Reidy came home with her Leaving Certificate exam results to her father, she was surprised that rather than congratulate her straight away, he simply asked: 'But are you happy?' It was this simple but impactful question that Caroline says stopped her in her tracks and is a question she has repeatedly asked herself on her career path to becoming a business owner. Caroline is a HR and Employment Law Expert and founder and Managing Director of the HR Suite, a human resources consultancy offering expert advice, training and third party representation to over 500 clients throughout Ireland. Caroline appears regularly on radio and television to speak on employment matters, she is a TEDx presenter, a mediator and a mentor to other female entrepreneurs as part of the ACORNS programme.
Caroline says that not following a conventional graduate route in her early career and being given responsibility at a young age in companies like Kerry Group, nurtured her confidence and allowed her to learn what she was good at and to delegate the rest to a strong team to build a successful business. Caroline is author of the book: The Art of Asking the Right Questions, a 'go-to guide' for employers to maximise the talent of their employees but in this conversation you'll find that Caroline is just as brilliant at giving answers, packed full of advice and wisdom for our professional and personal lives, most importantly to have the confidence to ask for what we need and not to assume our employers know what that is; to have a great tribe of colleagues and friends around us and not to be the barriers to ourselves and our own happiness. Oh and also to keep asking ourselves the right questions!
During our conversation we talk about:
Why women need to ask for what they need at work
Why delegating is a key to success and work life balance
Why we must ask for feedback
The importance of mentoring
HR policies around female health
Why HR needs to be centered on the individual and driven from the top of the business
How we can be our own barriers to success
The three ingredients to a happy life
The most important questions of all: Are you happy?
Follow Caroline:
@thehrsuite
@cars0109
Caroline's Books:
The Art of Asking the Right Questions: A People Manager's Toolkit
Celebrating You - a children's book celebrating diversity and kindness
To see Caroline's TEDxTralee talk on ‘The Art of Asking the Right Questions’ follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSZ8lROfJ24
More from What A Woman Podcast
Our guest this week on What A Woman Podcast is the lovely Victoria Mary Clarke, the author, artist and wife of the late Shane MacGowan, frontman of the iconic band, The Pogues, with whom she shared an incredible life & love story. It was a real privilege to meet Victoria Mary as she opened up to us about her early life and her feelings on grief, addiction, children, spirituality and why she might never find another soul mate like Shane MacGowan. She also reveals some exciting plans for the future about new music and her own career, so this is a must-listen!
Our guest this week on What A Woman Podcast is Ranae Von Meding, a Dublin based writer, speaker and co-founder and CEO of Equality For Children, a not-for-profit organisation fighting for the rights of children born to LGBTQ+ families in Ireland. Ranae also has three children with her wife Audrey and has been campaigning for several years for her wife to be recognised as a legal parent to all of their children because of current laws in Ireland discriminating against LGBTQ+ families. We talked about:
Our guest on What A Woman Podcast today is the Award Winning Hair Stylist and Entrepreneur, Denise Phillips. She is co-founder of Voduz, a hugely successful haircare brand and owns the hairdressing franchise, Pelo Hairdressing which is unique because it was one of first salons, in Ireland, to offer scalp camera consultations and treatments for hair loss after Denise suffered her own hair loss during fertility treatment.
Our guest on What A Woman Podcast today is Dr. Monica Peres, a GP based in Cork and an online sensation with over 110k followers on Instagram as she posts short, engaging reels on health, especially for women. We talk about:
Dr Katriona O' Sullivan is an academic and best-selling author of 'Poor' which is the story of her life growing up in extreme poverty as the child of two heroin addicts and how she survived abuse, neglect and became pregnant and homeless at fifteen before finding an access course in her twenties at Trinity College that changed her life.