Leader in leisure
Tea Colaianni has been a major part of Merlin’s phenomenal growth story, and her own career is going from strength to strength.
With a background in law and an HR career that has included stints as Vice President for Human Resources at the optical networking company GTS/Ebone and European Vice President of Human Resources for Hilton Hotels Corporation, Tea Colaianni is a heavyweight HR executive.
She joined the rapidly growing entertainments business Merlin as Group Human Resources Director in 2010, and has a pivotal role to play in CEO Nick Varney’s challenging 15-year target of turning the £20 million business into a genuine challenger to Disney.
Merlin Entertainments is the second-largest entertainments company in the world. The £1.2 billion group runs more than 100 attractions in 23 countries across four continents and, depending on contingent hiring, Colaianni’s remit can cover 26,000 employees, who are responsible for more than 60 million customer visits each year to attractions including the London Eye, Madame Tussauds, LEGOLAND and SEA LIFE. It was recently ranked 15th in The Sunday Times’ list of the Best 25 Big Companies to Work For.
All change
Merlin is a company with dynamism and change at its heart, Colaianni says. “I love that this organisation is like a family, but I also love our growth story, our success, our unique identity, and the fact that it’s fun.”
The rapid global expansion of the business means that Colaianni can forget some of the talent retention headaches facing less successful businesses. “We offer great opportunities for people to grow within the business. We have a range of brands, operate in many countries, across different groups, and are constantly opening new attractions or acquiring new businesses. There’s never a dull moment,” she says.
Merlin’s successful IPO in 2013 and continued growth led to Colaianni’s appointment as a non-executive director to retailer Poundland, which was itself preparing a flotation.
“I think that the Merlin IPO raised my profile, and I got the call about Poundland two or three months after it completed,” she says.
“I joined the Poundland board in February 2014 as chair of their remuneration committee, and the business listed in March.”
She says that the appointment is indicative of HR’s growing responsibility and many boards’ understanding that HR has something to offer when it comes to top-level insight, even if only in a non-executive capacity. Nevertheless, it is one step closer to the top table, and Colaianni’s career demonstrates that HR talent can bring tangible value to a host of businesses.
Thrill of the race
Just like Merlin itself, Colaianni shows no sign of slowing down. “There is lots of room for growth around the world, such as in Japan and South Korea, and we’ve got a new brand to grow in Shrek’s Adventure. LEGOLAND is expanding and the group is growing through acquisitions and by expanding our existing estate through hotels and diversified accommodation,” she says.
Is Merlin’s success in HR simply a case of the basics done well? “We do employee engagement surveys, and they show that when the basics such as pay, culture and career opportunities are done well, people are engaged,” she says. “But 95 per cent of our people enjoy coming to work, so clearly we’re doing more than just the basics right.”
Unsurprisingly, the complexity of Merlin’s HR strategy is tied to the pace of growth, particularly as the business expands across multiple countries and brands simultaneously. “From a brand perspective, we’re similar to businesses such as Unilever or P&G now, and some people still don’t get that,” says Colaianni. “But fewer people say, ‘Merlin who?’
If you enjoyed the above blog then you might also appreciate these other articles, which too originally appeared in the Hays Journal:
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- Managing external resources
- Four pillars of people
- Family values
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Author
Barney is Director at Hays Human Resources, the leading UK HR recruiting experts, leading a team of 80 HR recruitment consultants in 40 locations across the UK.
Barney also has operational responsibility for Hays offices across the South of England, with responsibility for teams placing professionals in over 20 industry sectors, from accountancy and finance to construction, IT, marketing and education. Across many of these sectors, Hays also has further teams dedicated to public services, not-for-profit, executive and international recruitment
Barney is an active partner to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), sitting on the CIPD People Management Awards panel.
Barney joined Hays in 1993 as a business graduate and has spent much of his career recruiting for blue-chip organisations and SMEs.
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