Growth Through Opportunity | NIE Networks | Workplus

What does stepping outside your comfort zone have to do with building a successful career? Everything.

In this episode of Workplus, host Richard Kirk sits down with Paula Leathem, Head of Human Resources at NIE Networks, whose remarkable journey from clerical apprentice to senior leader proves that the opportunities that challenge us most are often the ones that shape our futures. From working in a newsagent at 13 to leading HR for Northern Ireland's electricity network, Paula's story shows how curiosity, respect, and seizing opportunities can unlock unexpected career paths—even if you don't have it all figured out at 16.

Whether you're a parent, teacher, young person exploring careers, or an HR professional, this episode is packed with honest insights about apprenticeships, career progression, and the future of work in the energy sector.

In This Episode:

• Why practical subjects and team sports matter more than you think
• The value of early work experience—from newsagents to care homes
• How Paula went from customer service to leading HR (without an HR degree)
• What NIE Networks offers beyond STEM: finance, IT, procurement, and more
• The future of green skills and achieving net zero
• Why AI won't replace people—but will change how we work
• The surprising role of cyber security in electricity networks
• Paula's advice to her 16-year-old self: embrace the uncomfortable
• What makes work meaningful (hint: it's about people)

YouTube Chapters:

00:00 - Opening quote: Don't be afraid to take opportunities 

00:28 - Welcome to Workplus 

01:09 - Meet Paula Leathem 

01:20 - School days: favourite subjects and team sports 

2:46 - Early work experience in newsagents and care homes

04:10 - Making the leap after school 

05:14 - Starting as an apprentice at NIE Networks 

06:22 - The challenge and reward of customer service 

07:09 - From customer service to HR leadership 1

0:33 - Apprenticeship and graduate programmes at NIE Networks 

12:03 - Opportunities beyond STEM subjects 

12:56 - Green skills and the future of energy work 

14:19 - Cyber security in the electricity network 

15:34 - Advice to her 16-year-old self 

16:27 - What's so good about work? 

17:15 - Closing thoughts

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Transcript

[0:00] Paula Leathem

Opportunities are there. Don't be afraid to take them. And I think a lot of those types of things

that push you outside your comfort zone are what actually make you in the future. And it's

about having that ability to push yourself out of your comfort zone, learn from that and don't

regress back. So very much. Any opportunities that come your way, get involved. Take those,

and it helps you just build teamwork and supporting others, and maybe how you influence and

negotiate things that you maybe at 16 don't realise what you're actually doing, but they're

really important in your future career.

[0:28] Richard Kirk

Welcome to Workplus the podcast that shines a light on the people doing good work across

Northern Ireland. I'm your host, Richard Kirk, founder of Workplus I've spent years working with

employers, schools, colleges and universities, helping young people and career changers to

make better informed career decisions. Each week, I sit down with real people doing real jobs

to explore how they got there, what they've learned and why their work matters. If you're a

parent, teacher, carer, or just curious about what good work looks like today, you're in the

right place. Let's dive in. Paula, so pleased to have you in the studio today. Thanks for joining

us.

[1:08] Paula Leathem

No. Thank you very much.

[1:09] Richard Kirk

We love having conversations on the podcast about career journeys, but we want to take you

right back to your school days. What were the subjects that you loved doing at school?

[1:20] Paula Leathem

Yeah, no. It's interesting to reflect back. It was quite a while ago from being in school, but you

know, when you sort of pose that question and you think back, it was very much the practicaltype subjects. You know, even through primary education and the secondary education, it was

very much around ICT, or computer studies, as it would have been called at that particular

time, biology. I absolutely love biology. Did not like physics and chemistry because it was too

much of a mathematical background, certainly around a lot of sports as well. I mean, that sort

of whole area of sports was coming much more into education, but was involved very heavily

in a lot of the team sports during school as well. So English was probably an area that I

enjoyed because I enjoy reading, but certainly those more deeper mathematical type subjects

were not my forte at all. Just preferred that more practical type program.

[2:12] Richard Kirk

We love team sports so you liked being part of a team then?

[2:15] Paula Leathem

I did. I was very strong with hockey throughout my time at Carrick Grammar School and

athletics, not that I could do either of those now, Richard, to be perfectly honest, but yes, I

played hockey for many, many years, and even after leaving school, continued to play hockey

so enjoyed that sort of team sport and being with people and that sort of whole supportive and

coaching type environment.

[2:36] Richard Kirk

That's good. That's good. And did you do formal work experience when you were at school?

Did you have a part time job? Tell us a bit about those experiences you had outside of the

classroom.

[2:46] Paula Leathem

Yeah. I mean, again, thinking about careers, unfortunately, wasn't a big focus at my time

during school. I think it was one of these situations where a teacher had it as an add on, and

there was occasional discussions, you know, maybe around you were trying to choose some

of your subjects at different stages. But you know, I was lucky enough to have a part time job

in a local newsagents from I was 13, actually. So worked there right through until I was 18, at

weekends and after different sports activities. So you know that could be a very challenging

environment on the basis of dealing with customers, and you know what was coming if things

weren't going right for them on that particular day, in relation to whether they've got the right

newspaper or the right magazine or whatever that might be. The other piece that I was lucky

enough to do was I had a part time role in a care home, which was part of my Duke of

Edinburgh at the time, you had to do a voluntary service. So again, another environment of

working with people and supporting and caring for people. And I continued that for quite along time, even after having completed my Duke of Edinburgh Award, because I did really

enjoy it. You know, go down and just being with the people in the home and talking and

helping and supporting them in any way I could.

[3:54] Richard Kirk

Oh, that's great. That's great. So you did that at that stage. You had some work experience,

but what were you thinking? You maybe didn't get a lot of careers advice at school, but so

how did you end up making that step beyond school then? What did you do after you'd

finished at Carrick Grammar?

[4:10] Paula Leathem

Yeah, I think, I mean, I went back to school in lower sixth, as it was called then, because, you

know, I knew I needed to do something. I wasn't going to be sitting at home and doing

nothing. So I'd gone back into the education system at that time, but looking outside to see

what I possibly wanted to do. So I suppose a lot of parental support and influence around

considering what those careers might be. So my mum was a school teacher, and had lots of

school teacher friends in our family. I also had a number of connections within the police

service at that particular time and social work as well. So through a lot of family friends, those

sorts of roles, I suppose that I was thinking at that time that I would want to work towards, but

again, very much that people focus piece. So yeah, that teaching, social work, those types of

roles. But meantime, I wanted to be working. But I also recognised the importance of

continuing with education alongside that. And when an opportunity arose to join NIE Networks

as an apprentice, I took it.

[5:07] Richard Kirk

Yeah, well, so you started as an apprentice at NIE. What was the job that you were doing?

[5:14] Paula Leathem

Yeah. So I actually, I'd been lucky enough to secure a job in the Northern Ireland Civil Service

initially, and then I met a friend at college, because part of that programme was, you went to

college, and she was working for NIE Networks. So it was a clerical apprenticeship

programme. So it was a two year programme where you went down to the training school,

and there was 12 people in each intake, I suppose, in the organisation. And it was very much

around visiting different parts of the business. So my role started off in credit control, which,

again, then was dealing with customers, albeit on the phone. And that transitioned then into

there was a customer facing desk in the old shop electric, many years ago that lots of people

will remember. And that's where people come in and ask for your help in relation to how youcould support them if they were struggling, maybe with, you know, paying their electricity bills

at that particular time. So at that stage, then you had to look for an opportunity in the business

and secure a role. So I'd applied and secured a role within that sort of credit control customer

service environment for the first couple of years.

[6:12] Richard Kirk

So dealing with members of the public then, and was that a job that you enjoyed? It sounds

like from your background that you did enjoy that, but was it challenging as well?

[6:22] Paula Leathem

No, yes, any of those roles can be challenging in a customer service environment. But, you

know, equally those individuals, some of them were coming from very difficult positions, you

know, of hardship, so you were trying to support them as much as you could. And there were

other people who were coming in and were very generous and very authentic. You know, it's

trying to strike that balance, I suppose, in relation to how you would deal with those

individuals. And for me, you know, it always, no matter who you were sitting facing into, you

give them respect, you know, and that's a very, really important part, I suppose, of anything

that you do, in my mind, is just respecting everybody equally, and trying to help and support

them as best you could.

[6:59] Richard Kirk

So what's your... you're now heading up the human resources function. What did the journey

look like from becoming an admin apprentice to that role that you're in now?

[7:09] Paula Leathem

Yeah, I spent the first couple of years within that customer service credit control environment.

But even at that stage, I then was looking, you know, what more could I do? Because yes, the

role was interesting, but I thought there was more, you know, to do. So I moved from

customer services credit control into a payroll environment. So again, still very much

supporting people, you know, and employees in this particular instance, but again, dealing

with the public via the employee. So we were administering their mortgage schemes, you

know, season ticket loans, different types of allowances and bonuses and overtime, those

types of things. So it was another element. And I suppose the mathematical element, because

you had to obviously work with numbers and had to be able to calculate things. So yeah, I

found that very interesting. The other thing that I suppose then led on from that was at that

time they started to do a lot of organisational change and the privatisation of nie. So that then

meant that we're in a new commercial environment. And I had the opportunity to work onsecondment within human resources, within organisational development, change

management type roles. So lots of that type of activity that needed to be done, you know, to

move people through their new roles and different opportunities and everything that came

around, redundancies and all those types of things. So again, you know, really privileged to

have worked with people at different levels across the organisation during those particular

times as well, and seeing how that type of change and support helped them through a

significant piece of organisational change.

[8:23] Richard Kirk

Yeah, and I think people listening might be surprised that that's the route into HR. You didn't

go and do an HR degree.

[8:32] Paula Leathem

No, no, no. I just... you know, I went on and did a part time business degree, and that was

again, whilst working within NIE, so I continued my education alongside and did that through

University of Ulster. And that was very much my mum was quite pushing on the fact that I

needed to have something. And it was always just called the bit of paper, you know, you need

to have the bit of paper in case the job's not there. So I did that, you know, alongside being a

mum of two children and holding down a full time job and playing hockey and doing all the

other things that people do. So it was quite an interesting time, but I think it gave me a whole

different perspective about the theory versus the practice and being able to marry those two

together.

[9:10] Richard Kirk

Yeah, yeah. And you're there in a customer facing role, in a payroll role, you know, getting to

understand the organisation, and then you... the opportunity opens up to move into HR on that

secondment. And was there a realisation at that point that actually, maybe this is the place for

me? I'm quite good at this.

[9:31] Paula Leathem

Yeah. I think even when I was, you know, as I mentioned earlier, even as a young girl, I was

working in the care home. I think I knew very early that it was people was my thing. So, you

know, whatever particular role that was, I knew I wanted to work with people. And you know,

I've moved through the customer piece supporting the organisation through our

apprenticeship programmes and different things like that. And I spent most of my career within

human resources, the last 25 or so years. And I suppose about 12 years ago, I joined the

senior leadership team to lead the function. But even within HR, there was lots of differentroles that I've undertaken, and that's the beauty of the HR piece. You know, you've got your

employee relations, you've got your talent and development, you've got, you know, your

reward policies and procedures, all of those types of activities are there. So the breadth, even

within the HR function, is quite substantial.

[10:22] Richard Kirk

Yeah, yeah. You mentioned apprenticeships there. How many apprentices and graduate roles

would you have coming through nie in a year? What would be roughly the numbers that you

might take in?

[10:33] Paula Leathem

Yeah, so over the last while, we've made a big focus of apprenticeships. So on average, we

take between 25 and 30 apprentices a year now. And they would range from the areas of

trades craft, so you're talking about jointers and line persons and those types of roles. We

also have engineering apprenticeships. And more recently, actually, we've introduced in a

professional service apprenticeships that are aimed at those sorts of areas. We have a

graduate programme and that's usually in the region of about 10 graduates a year, and they

have been engineering focused up to this point. But I think over the next few years, we would

be looking more and more in relation to other types of apprenticeships and maybe some other

sort of areas within our graduate programme as well.

[11:21] Richard Kirk

Yeah, so it sounds like it's not just all about STEM subjects, that there are opportunities there

for people to come into the organisation. Absolutely. I mean, I suppose our main focus would

be STEM subjects. You know, for young people coming through our apprenticeship

programmes or coming through our graduate programmes, and we need the engineers of the

future or the jointers or line persons of the future, because that's the bread and butter of the

organisation. But you know, there's more beyond the STEM, as I've said, you know, we have

finance, we have IT, we have human resources, we have procurement. So there's lots of

opportunities for careers in a business the size of our organisation as well.

[11:44] Richard Kirk

Brilliant. That sounds like you mentioned about back in school. You didn't really like physics,

chemistry, maths, but you've found your way in the organisation. You're using all those skills

and the knowledge that you've gained, and yet, there are other roles there for people who

maybe are more mathematically minded or science minded, right? There's a nice mix there.[12:03] Paula Leathem

Oh, look, absolutely. I mean, I suppose our main focus would be STEM subjects. You know,

for young people coming through our apprenticeship programmes or coming through our

graduate programmes, and we need the engineers of the future or the jointers or line persons

of the future, because that's the bread and butter of the organisation. But you know, there's

more beyond the STEM, as I've said, you know, we have finance, we have IT, we have

human resources, we have procurement. So there's lots of opportunities for careers in a

business the size of our organisation as well.

[12:31] Richard Kirk

Yeah, yeah. We were chatting before we started the recording. Just every conversation might

have a little bit of AI in it right now, but just thinking about the new skills that are needed for

the people that you're helping to support within NIE. Can you tell us a bit about what that looks

like and where you see the future going for the electricity network and the people that need to

support that?

[12:56] Paula Leathem

Yeah, and there's no doubt. I mean, there's a lot of skills that we probably don't even know

that exist yet that are needed as part of the whole green skills going forward. And I think it's

much broader than what people might think in relation to how you can support or move into

that space of green skills.

[13:11] Richard Kirk

So it's all about trying to reduce the amount of carbon that the network uses. Is that right?

[13:16] Paula Leathem

Exactly. So it's really achieving net zero. And there's a lot of work that we're doing around the

whole network rebuild to facilitate that into the future. You know, we're very much an enabler

for that as to what needs to happen in the wider Northern Ireland economy. But I think, you

know, there's a lot around AI will be really helpful in supporting a lot of people. It's not

necessarily going to replace roles. And I think there's that fear factor at this point in time, and I

think it's very much about trying to reposition it that it can help you do your job, it can make

you more effective. But ultimately, you still need a human being at the end of many of the

roles that we would have as an organisation, because it is very much about, as you

mentioned, you know, out in storms or fixing faults, those are still going to be hand skilled

tasks that need to be done, and need that strong technical knowledge and background to dothat. But I think there's a piece around AI and data. We're all hungry for data, so when we get

that data, it's then having the ability to analyse that data, to problem solve, to look at

innovative ways of maybe using that data to do something better. So those are the sorts of

skills which are very much transferable across lots of the roles.

[14:19] Richard Kirk

Brilliant, brilliant. I was talking to one of your colleagues who works in a cyber security role

within NIE, and again, it struck me. I never thought of that being something that you would

need within NIE, but you're clearly trying to protect the network as well from cyber attacks as

well.

[14:37] Paula Leathem

Yeah. I mean, you have the network. I mean, that's obviously a huge part of our business and

our systems are very secure in relation to ensuring that nobody can access them because of

the types of information that would be there. But you've also all your customer data. You

know, we're dealing with 900,000 customers. We have their data, so we have to protect that

data. You've all your employee data. So when that cyber security piece is ever... very big

growing area, and we've seen recently in many instances where organisations have come

under attack, I suppose, from that and the significant effect that that can have. You know, at

the end of the day, we're providing electricity to people, and you know, we want to be 100%

reliable and providing that, so it's important that we keep our networks secure.

[15:20] Richard Kirk

Great, great. Well, our listeners include parents, teachers, young people, maybe thinking

about careers. What would you say to your 16 year old self, Paula, if you could do that today?

[15:34] Paula Leathem

Yeah, that's a good question. I think. I mean, I mentioned Duke of Edinburgh earlier, for

example. People that would know me now would not believe that I spent three days in the

Mournes in a tent, you know. So it's very much about opportunities are there, you know, don't

be afraid to take them. And I think a lot of those types of things that push you outside your

comfort zone are what actually make you in the future, you know. And it's about having that

ability to push yourself out of your comfort zone, learn from that, and don't regress back. You

know, so very much. Any opportunities that come your way, get involved, take those, and it

helps you just build, you know, teamwork and supporting others and maybe how you influence

and negotiate things that you maybe at 16 don't realise what you're actually doing, but they're

really important in your future career.

[16:19] Richard Kirk

Final question, which we ask all our guests, is simply, what's so good about work?

[16:27] Paula Leathem

What's so good about work? Well, in my case, people. I mean, I should be saying that

anyway, from a human resources perspective, but I think it's important to have something to

get up every day to do, and something to do that you enjoy, and something that gives you

structure and focus to your day and the team that you work with. You know, you obviously

build lots of professional relationships, but lots of personal relationships come from your

workplace as well. And then it really is about that support that you have for each other. I

mean, it's really an extension of your family. So, no, absolutely, I think it's an important,

important part of everybody's life is your work life.

[17:02] Richard Kirk

Great. Well, Paula, thank you so much for your time today. It's been great to hear a little more

about your career journey and your story, and look forward to seeing what you do in the future

as well.

[17:13] Paula Leathem

Thank you. Thank you very much, Richard.

[17:15] Richard Kirk

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