International Women’s Day- Interview with MIMA winner Hollie

International Women’s Day- Interview with MIMA winner Hollie

Hollie from our HR team was recently awarded the HR Professional of the Year at this year’s Made in Manchester Awards! She spoke to us about her work and how it felt to be recognised on such a platform as the MIMA’s


“I’m one of the HR Coordinators in the team and have worked for Creative Support for over five years,” said Hollie. “I’ve had three different roles in HR, starting out as a HR Officer and working my way up.”

“I’ve always liked working with people, and HR really appealed to me. My mum worked in Mental Health services when I was growing up, and I saw how much she helped people. I wanted to incorporate this into my work too, and so when I was looking into HR roles, I knew I wanted to work for a social care company. I have so much respect for everyone who works in the care sector.”

When asked about her recent work, Hollie said that “as a whole, the HR team have worked really hard on our usual HR workloads on top of our Covid-19 queries and to support our staff teams throughout Covid-19. My role generally involves helping people with a range of different issues, but also recently focussed on employee wellbeing with how hard times have been during the pandemic. We wanted to ensure everyone has had as much emotional and financial support throughout, such as with the Covid-19 discretionary scheme, the Covid-19 hardship scheme, and a lot of welfare support, along with reasonable adjustments to help people get back to work.”

Hollie’s recent win at the Made in Manchester Awards was a proud moment for everyone at Creative Support. “It was so lovely, even just to be nominated and have the work we do in HR be recognised, it felt like a win already,” explained Hollie. “I was over the moon to receive the HR Professional of the Year, and it made me really proud to work for Creative Support.”

To mark International Women’s Day, we asked Hollie about a woman that’s inspired her. “I would say all the women at Creative Support are very inspiring, and I feel very lucky to work in a company that has a lot of female leaders and staff. Someone who has really inspired me in my personal life is my mum. She raised me and my sister as a single parent, and worked really hard to make sure we had everything we needed. I’m lucky to have her influence, as she really taught me the importance of kindness, and I got to see the positive impact she had on people’s lives.”

Hollie’s advice to anyone is that “life can throw a lot of challenges at us, so don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Treat others with respect and how you would like to be treated.”

In 2022, Hollie is looking forward to “getting back to a bit more normality. I’m going on holiday for a wedding in Majorca later on this year which I’m really looking forward to. Work wise, I’m looking forward to when restrictions reduce so that I can get back to meeting people face to face and visit services again.”