Leadership Stories Unveiled: Nando Caicedo
We sat down with Nando Caicedo, Director of People & OD at Dementia UK, for the latest instalment of our Leadership Stories Unveiled series.
Welcome, Nando! Could you share a bit about yourself and the path that led you to your current role at Dementia UK?
It is a cliché answer I suppose but I rather landed in HR. It wasn’t a career path I was aware of being an option and not something that was ever discussed during career discussions at school. I was fortunate to attend a University which hosted a CIPD hub. It was at Uni that my interest in HR grew, and I stayed on to complete a Master’s in Human Resources Management. Which was so inspirational in teaching me the breadth of our profession and the potential for making a positive impact on businesses. 20 years later after some amazing experiences working at driven and purpose-led businesses later, I found myself getting a call from an agent asking me to consider the role of Director of People and Organisational Development at Dementia UK. Charities are my heart and home. I love the people the Charity sector attracts, compassionate, collaborative, ambitious people with integrity. Dementia UK didn’t disappoint from day one, it is a wonderful charity with an outstanding culture where everyone is committed to seeing a world where no one faces dementia alone – where everyone gets the specialist support, they need.
What projects or initiatives are you particularly passionate about right now?
We are so ambitious as a charity with huge plans for growing our services to reach more people affected by dementia. This means working at pace to deliver initiatives that enable our staff to receive an employer-of-choice experience. However, my role oversees the Project Management Office, through which I am responsible for the delivery of our 2025-2030 Corporate Strategy. This work requires collaboration with a whole range of people from the Board, and people with lived experience to our front-line staff. I want to hear from as many people and co-create what our next strategic period should look like for the Charity. It doesn’t get much more exciting for me than leading the team and helping to shape the strategic direction for years to come, in what I see as one of the most impactful charities in the UK right now.
Could you elaborate on the strategies Dementia UK employs to support its employees’ mental health and well-being?
We are a values-driven charity. Our leaders starting with our truly phenomenal CEO Hilda Hayo show compassion in everything they do. That culture filters down to our approach to supporting our staff. As a result, we do a lot to support our staff’s mental health and general well-being. We have an active Wellbeing Group that meets regularly to discuss well-being initiatives, such as our online lunchtime Pilates sessions, we have introduced a hardship box called the care and share area, and we have menstrual products as we passionately believe that period poverty should be addressed, we have an active group of Mental Health First Aiders, as well as provide access to an excellent Employee Assistance Programme with Bright TV and access to online diet guidance, a Health Cashback Plan and 24/7 e-GP service. Probably the most impactful support was the introduction of Health Review meetings, which are an informal way for us to discuss individual health and wellbeing needs and put in place bespoke programmes of support to enable everyone to have the tools and environment that enables them to be their best selves.
How do the HR department’s goals align with the overall strategic objectives of Dementia UK?
As Director of People & OD at Dementia UK, I am fortunately responsible for the delivery of not just our corporate strategy, but also our People Strategy. This means I can ensure that both are aligned to help us meet our goals of supporting people impacted by dementia. We know that our people are at the heart of everything we do. That is why our people strategy aims to create a charity that is an employer of choice. This is where our values are lived every day, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and where our employees can thrive. We focus our People Strategy on a few key strategic areas of attraction, retention, engagement and wellbeing. Each of these areas is further split into its areas of activity. For example, under retention, we work on ensuring we have competitive pay and benefits strategies that enable us to attract top talent from within and outside the sector. Having great people who are happy in their roles and are supported to do their best is what enables our charity to achieve its strategic aims.
What is your approach to identifying and nurturing potential leaders within the charity?
This is an area where we could do better. At the moment we have our appraisal system through which we ask specific questions relating to an individual’s career aspirations and how we can support them in their development journey. However, over the coming year, we will also look at methods for implementing fair and transparent succession planning methodologies. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to talented staff members, however, we are also growing rapidly to meet the growing needs of the UK population when it comes to dementia support. As such, we are committed to identifying, developing and stewarding our future leaders.
How does your role contribute to Dementia UK’s commitment to diversity and inclusion?
My parents were economic migrants to the UK from Latin America. When they arrived in the UK, they spoke little English. They worked tirelessly to give back to the communities that gave so much to them. Having seen the contribution, they made within the NHS and local council respectively, I know first-hand how individuals can excel regardless of their backgrounds. They worked unbelievably hard, often holding down up to three jobs at one time, to give me the best possible start in life. Their commitment to their work was an inspiration, and I am now in the fortunate position to be responsible for leading the inclusion conversation at Dementia UK. I am passionate about ensuring everyone we interact with is treated as an individual and their unique and personal needs are taken into consideration. We have worked hard on our Diversity and Inclusion activities bringing in Mental Health First Aiders, sector-leading support for Carers, excellent benefits for new parents, implementing transitioning at work guidance, signing up to being menopause friendly, supporting our colleagues with disabilities with reasonable adjustments, and working to break down barriers by running regular workshops that discuss a range of topics to raise awareness, such as how to put a stop to misogyny, being supportive of neurodiversity, understanding Pride and becoming anti-racist. We believe that each of us is responsible for delivering our inclusive culture, and breaking down the barriers of unconscious bias and discrimination. We are each unique in our way and by applying the principles of intersectionality we work with individuals to support their individual needs and support everyone in a person-centred way.
Can you discuss some significant challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve adapted HR practices in response?
The most significant challenge I faced was building a People & OD function from the ground up. Whilst the charity is now classed as a Major UK charity due to its income and size, this growth has only been made possible by the people who support us, and back in 2014, we were a much smaller £2.8m charity. Today we are a £21.8m charity. Whilst our clinical frontline services received excellent investment during this period, our internal infrastructure services were severely underdeveloped. The Board of Trustees and our CEO recognised that this lack of professionalised infrastructure posed a risk to the charity and our governance approaches. As a result, I began the process of building a new People Team, a Head Office Facilities Team, and our Project Management Office function. These functions support the delivery of our corporate strategies. Over the last 18 months, we have transformed the Charity’s People & OD Team and delivered some exceptional new initiatives. These initiatives include supporting Dementia UK to better define its corporate Vision and Mission and reviewing our corporate values.
With succession planning being a critical issue for many charities, what proactive steps is Dementia UK taking?
This year we updated and digitised our appraisal processes. Part of this update was to understand our staff members learning, development and career aspirations. We have trained all our managers to be able to have these, sometimes difficult conversations, with our staff. The People Team captures information, and individualised plans are put in place for our staff. We understand that some staff may want to develop in their role, others may be happy with where they are and what they are delivering and want to continue to do a good job in that role, and others have ambitions to move to other roles or careers or even look for a promotion. Our discussions are open to all of these options. We try to support each of our staff members no matter where they feel they are in their career journey.
How is Dementia UK incorporating AI into HR practices responsibly?
I feel like we should do more. Maybe that’s just a fear of missing out. Whilst we are aware that AI has the potential to create efficiencies in the way we do things, we have considered the current capabilities and are holding off on launching AI-based initiatives. The work we deliver requires a huge amount of people contact and relationship building, understanding the business and its culture to support individual staff members and overall organisational development. This is not something we are willing to hand over to AI just yet. That being said, all our staff have access to AI more broadly and training is available on how to use it day to day. This is to make them more efficient in their roles. We are also investigating the possible development of AI chatbots that look through our vast datasets. These chatbots will advise on basic queries for those accessing our website. We have considered how we might use this functionality to answer recruitment related questions such as ‘what is it like to work there’?
Reflecting on your experiences, what is the one piece of advice you would offer to someone aspiring to work in the field of HR within the charity sector, particularly in an organisation like Dementia UK?
Breaking into the charity sector is not straightforward. Particularly if you leave it until later in your career. This is often when people feel they can afford to make the move. From my experience, the charity sector pays lower salaries than the private sector. In many ways, this is to be expected as you want as much of your income to be directed towards those you are trying to support. As a result, people are driven to the sector because they want to make a positive difference in the world. The charity sector is not slow or sleepy. Large charities in particular are ambitious and have a highly commercial mindset. However, the sector is unique in terms of culture and language, which often excludes those without this experience. My advice to those wanting to break into the charity sector in the future is to find ways to engage with the sector, this may include becoming a Trustee. There are nowhere near enough trustees in the UK and becoming one would provide opportunities to show your passion for the sector and make a difference along the way.
With over 20 years of experience supporting organisations across a range of industries, Nando has worked for a number of Charity and third-sector organisations such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Leonard Cheshire Disability and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Together with a degree in Business Management, a Master’s in Human Resources Management, and a further postgraduate qualification in UK Employment Law, as well as being a Fellow of the CIPD and a Freeman of the Company of HR Professionals, Nando acts as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Bexley Mencap and is a Trustee of Toybox, an international street children’s development charity. Nando is a specialist in HR, change management, organisational development and strategic leadership and in his current role, he leads the People, Project Management – Strategy Development and Head Office Functions. As a transformational leadership advocate, Nando is passionate about driving business success through excellent people services.
