Upon leaving school Alison Paton was still not sure what career path she wanted to take.
But what she did know is she wanted to do something in business.
After leaving secondary school she went off to university to study economics.
However, this wasn’t the route for her and she quickly discovered she had a passion for speaking to people.
Fast forward three decades and the 54-year-old now runs Align People HR, based in Aberdeenshire.
Unsure of career path
The mum-of-three admits she “underestimated” the challenges of starting a new business.
When she left university in Portsmouth Alison was still not sure where her working career was heading.
She said: “I knew I wanted to do something in business. I quite liked maths. I went off to university and I did a degree in economics.
“I spent three years there and still really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated.
“So I went back to Coventry when I was 21 and got a job with Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce working on their youth training programmes.”
People interaction
It was her first job and one that ultimately shaped Alison for the start of Westhill-based Align People HR.
She said: “I really enjoyed the job and really liked the people interaction during my three years there.
“I knew it was something to do with people I was interested in and it made sense for me to start studying for my HR qualification.
“Started to look for other opportunities because I started to want to take the next step up in my career.”
Start of business idea
Alison moved to London and got a job as a training and development officer with Bovis Construction, now part of Lendlease.
After four years there she was keen to take another step up and started working at BBC Worldwide as employee development manager.
Having spent four years there she moved to Aberdeen in 2003 with husband Neil and gave birth to daughter Elspeth, who is now 21.
A year later she started working for Scottish Enterprise as a client manager before three years later having twin boys Innes and Hugh.
Alison said: “After having the boys I was debating what to do in terms of work and I had the option to join a small start-up business called Adil.
“It was a great opportunity for something different. I was there for 11 years and during the time the company grew to more than 200 people
“In 2018 it acquired by Schlumberger and I left. It was kind of what next? I knew I was really passionate about working with smaller businesses.
“I wanted to share my knowledge and learning with them. That was the premise behind starting my own company.”
HR a real passion
In 2019 Alison started Align People HR, which is currently based in Westhill Business Centre.
Since then she’s hired two members of staff and works with a range of clients in sectors including construction, oil and gas and hospitality.
Alison, who enjoys hill-walking and gardening in her spare time, said: “Although I didn’t realise at the time it was clear HR was the path I would take.
“The interacting with people and the learning and development aspect has always been a real passion of mine throughout my career.
“It hadn’t even crossed my mind because I’d been in an employed role my whole career.
“Being employed was a natural thing to do.
“Someone suggested it to me and I’d never thought of that before.
“It sounded like a real challenge for me, I probably underestimated it but I’m still here.”
‘There will be ups and downs but you learn’
Alison, who is launching a Life Long Leadership program, in March next year specifically for SMEs, admits to having some challenges during the years but would encourage everyone to follow their dream if running a business is what they want.
She said: “Being an internal HR person is completely different to running a business I had the knowledge to do the HR bit but I didn’t know about running websites, marketing and the finance.
“I had to learn all of that. And I had to look for work. Obviously when you are employed your customer is the employee.
“That was nerve wracking but once I discovered I just had to go out and speak to people I realised it wasn’t as daunting as it sounded.
“I’m all about learning and growing and the only way to do that is step outside your comfort zone.
“If you want to set up your business and it’s a passion of yours then go for it. There will be some ups and downs but you learn from that and grow as a person.”
Conversation