Jill Hamlyn`s business cards are an awkward size. Quite a bit bigger than usual, they refuse to fit snugly into a conventional cardholder. Which is exactly the point. Hamlyn does not believe in putting people into boxes.
"It`s funny how people jump to conclusions, though." Women in business, for instance, still tend to be seen either as fire-breathing feminists or as one-woman outfits. Hamlyn says she`s no feminist - nor does she come across as one - but has been mistaken for the latter. When someone she`s just met hears she runs her own business, the next question is often: `Oh, do you work from home?`
Hamlyn, whose staff of 24 wouldn`t fit into a home office anyway, seems more amused then annoyed. "I know who I am, and we`re more of a real business than most."
After emigrating to SA from the UK 21 years ago, she worked for big corporations like IBM and Don Gray, before branching out on her own. When The People Business started up 15 years ago, Hamlyn focused on IT recruitment and then expanded steadily into the full HR spectrum, including payroll consulting, management and leadership development, executive coaching and conflict resolution. Growth over the past 15 years has consistently averaged 20% and annual revenues now exceed R21 million.
[VIDEO]"I absolutely adore running a business," says Hamlyn, who has an honours degree in social sciences and used to do voluntary counselling as a Samaritan, the UK-equivalent of Lifeline. "I love negotiating and the cut-and-thrust of business, while showing that business can be done without ever detracting from the dignity of others."
She pauses: "Maybe I sound soppy. I don`t mean that business is about being nice to everyone all the time. It`s about being fair, trustworthy and excellent in communication, so that people always know where they stand."
Increasingly being called in to do executive coaching and high-level conflict resolution, Hamlyn says her greatest skill is probably to get people to open up. "I don`t judge, so people open up. It`s an enormous privilege and I would never break a confidence. There`s no price on that kind of information."
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