Beccy went from MBA research to creating her own job

For Rebecca "Beccy" Rodger, head of employee experience in the United Kingdom, highlights of her career include finding her passion and creating a role from scratch.

Beccy joined LexisNexis in 2016. After a few years, she was looking for an opportunity to expand her business acumen and narrow her career prospects. “I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up,” she says with a laugh.

She appreciated the support she was given from her LexisNexis managers as she pursued a part-time MBA. “The support that I had when I wanted to do an MBA was fantastic,” she says. “It was partially sponsored by the business.”

In her MBA journey, she came across a LexisNexis working group looking at employee experience. “This was a group of employees who had a side project addressing onboarding and the employee experience.” Beccy joined that working group, which helped her shape her MBA research proposal and capstone project.

“I just fell in love with this whole concept of employee experience,” she says. Her leaders encouraged her to step up and run with the idea. It was during that process that together they created an employee experience role specific for Beccy.

“I was able to use my MBA to provide evidence on where we can make real change in the organization for good, and those are the projects I’m working on now,” she says.

Helping everyone feel included - at any age

Beccy is also passionate about working with a global team and supporting Diversity & Inclusion efforts.

“One of the wonderful things about working for a global organization is you end up with friends all over the world, which is just fantastic,” she says. “You really have this opportunity to appreciate each other's cultures and the diversity that that brings to the table, so it makes it such a unique working experience.”

Beccy is particularly interested in the often overlooked category of age diversity. She is working with colleagues to set up a “Generations” Employee Resource Group. While it’s open to everyone, it’s geared towards team members who are mid-to-late career and interested in continuing their professional development.

“I work for an organization that isn’t writing me off and actually is supporting career development well into my fifties,” she says. “We need to take younger people coming into the organization much more seriously and also we don’t want to be written off as we get older. Age diversity impacts all of us, and it’s often the one that gets missed.”

Connection to the mission

For Beccy, the mission-driven nature of work at LexisNexis is a huge motivating factor.

“One of the things that I think really is the sticking point for me working for LexisNexis is our mission in advancing the rule of law,” she says. “Even when times are challenging, I just remind myself that I’m part of this big organization, and I’m part of this mission that’s so important. That’s really key for me.”