HR People Pod

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name's David D'Souza and I am Director of Profession at the CIPD. This week, we are delighted to bring you the second episode in our conversation with multi-award-winning journalist, author and former Olympian, we've got really similar CVs, Matthew Syed. Matthew, hello.

Matthew Syed: Well, it's great to do this. We're actually doing this back-to-back with the previous one. So, we're in a flow now, aren't we?

DDS: It is. We'll be done in five or six minutes.

MS: A seamless, a seamless transition into part 2. But although what is the sequel? What is the topic of the sequel? This is like "The Empire Strikes Back" coming after "Star Wars". Or maybe...

DDS: I am your father, that's the twist.

MS: What's the worst sequel you've ever heard, in films? Or watched, is probably a better word.

DDS: The worst sequel is "Jaws the Revenge".

MS: Or what about "Rocky"? "Rocky V" was bad. "Rocky V" was awful, I thought.

DDS: "Rocky V" was bad, but there's a lovely quote about "Jaws the Revenge", which is, Michael Caine was asked if he'd seen it, because he starred in it. And he said, "I haven't seen it, but I've seen the house that it built my mother, and it's lovely". So, when your stars don't even want to watch it, you've got a definite problem there. 

So, for anyone joining us halfway through, we've done an episode where Matthew spoke about high performance within individuals. So, we spoke about growth mindset, touched a little bit on psychological safety, but we also talked quite a bit around actually risk-taking and complacency. So, do go back and listen to that if you want to gain some more insight, having listened to this. But in this episode, we're going to pick up the conversation around organisations more broadly and performance within those. 

So, at an organisational level, what do you think, Matthew, is essential to creating that high performance culture? So, we talked about it for individuals, is it similar for an organisation or is it distinct?

MS: I think it's really powerful for an organisation to have people within it that are in a growth mindset. We talked a bit about that, didn't we, last time, because we kind of jumped from individual to team and back again. But I thought it might be fun, in this episode, to talk a bit about team dynamics and psychological safety. 

I always hesitate to use that phrase, "psychological safety", because it's quite jargony. But what we know from the data is that many, many of the most high-value judgments in businesses, not to mention governments, are made in teams. That is a pervasive pattern. And by the way, also, we interact, do we not, ever more with AI and LLMs? And I think psychological safety is of huge significance to the future of our world and I think it's quite a multi-dimensional thing and sometimes a bit misunderstood. So, perhaps we could talk about that. 

And of course, one reason why teamwork is important and psychological safety, to make teams work well, is cognitive diversity. The optimising: you mentioned in the last episode, "Black Box Thinking", which I was really grateful for and the 10 year anniversary actually of the book is coming up next month. And there's a new edition that's going to be published with a new preface and some other material. But I also wrote a book called "Rebel Ideas", about cognitive diversity. And what fascinates me about it is, diversity has come very politicised. The Trump administration is pretty negative on DEI, for example.

DDS: Yeah.

MS: I think there are legitimate criticisms about the way diversity initiatives have been introduced and implemented, but what is clear, and in fact irrefutable, is the most successful teams and organisations are rationally optimising, forgive the way I express that, but for cognitive diversity. And that is an absolutely central feature, I think, of the world we're moving into, not just because of its complexity, but because of AI too.

DDS: So, you can't have everyone thinking the same thing because there's simply no added value in the extra thinking. Would that be a fair characterisation?

MS: That's right. And there's two aspects to this: one is demographic differences of the kind that are often forefront of DEI initiatives. So, differences in race and gender and social class, and that is very important. It's often missed its significance by people like Trump, because these demographic differences are very significant proxies for tacit knowledge. The experiences we have as, growing up, for example, inform a huge proportion of the knowledge we bring to bear, particularly in any context where we're. I mean, let's make it a bit, this is all too abstract. Let me give a couple of examples. 

So, imagine you've got a, you know, an advertising team coming up with a campaign to connect with a broad group of consumers. I hope it's pretty obvious that if all of the creative team are, you know, from one very narrow demographic: white, male, middle-aged, middle-class, private school educated, you know, Russell Group graduates. Each one of those has a huge amount to contribute, of course, to a team. But if all, 100% are from that background, they may lack the tacit knowledge to connect that campaign with consumers whose lives are very different from their own. 

You know, I remember Tony Blair giving a speech on how to crack down on anti-social behaviour. And he said that we should give police the power, this is when Blair was Prime Minister, to identify people engaged, you know, with anti-social behaviour, get them to a cash point, withdraw £100 and issue an on-the-spot fine. And the journalists, almost all upper middle class by the way, in this country at that time, thought it was a masterstroke. Took somebody from a different social class to spot the flaw, which is not many of them would have bank accounts at this time, and certainly not £100 bank balance.

DDS: Yeah.

MS: And in the opening chapter of "Rebel Ideas", I start with the CIA. Where tacit knowledge of a demographic kind, cultural difference, are massively significant to anticipating threats from different societies with different patterns of radicalisation. And I argue that the CIA made very significant strategic misjudgements in the post-war period, because almost all of the analysts were white, male, middle class, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, liberal arts graduates. So, it had a very narrow, they were, if you like, individually perceptive and collectively blind. So, these demographic differences are very significant and shouldn't be underestimated, but they don't capture anything like the full array of differences in the way people think that are relevant to solving complex problems. Because it's not just about demography, is it? These insights can be much broader. 

If you're designing an aircraft engine, you want people with backgrounds in materials science and aerodynamics, and they don't map on to the demographic differences. So yes, demographic differences, even in an engine design team, can be important for signalling to the next generation that people from, you know, my background can still become engineers because there are people who are doing great work. It can be, you know, an engine of social mobility and meritocracy. But I do think it's important to be highly strategic in the way we populate teams in a way, if I may say so, I think many organisations are not doing effectively at the moment. But some are, and they're reaping enormous rewards as a consequence.

DDS: So, you need to plan how you bring your teams together. And then you spoke about the conditions that they then work under. 

So, you spoke about "psychological safety". It's a term that's probably used and abused, possibly in equal measure. I don't think you're talking about how you can make everyone feel lovely and make everyone feel as though they're not in any danger of anyone ever disagreeing with them. It's quite the opposite, isn't it? There's a technical use of that term that really matters when you're thinking about the construct of the team and the environment.

MS: Very, very important. Just on the how to populate a team effectively, you know, just one thought is in science. The highest value science in the world today is not people working within a given narrow subject specialism, going deeper into one particular piece of siloed knowledge, like biochemistry, it's interdisciplinary teams because the problems they're solving are complex and interconnected. And it's the same, you know, say something like professional services where you have people with deep subject specialist knowledge, you know, in audits or some area of the audit or consultancy or deals. But the real value now is being created by bringing these different lenses together to solve interconnected problems and anticipate issues the client doesn't know they have yet. And so, the really successful partners have deep subject specialist knowledge. Yes, you need that. But also, the capacity to pivot into interdisciplinary teams to bring the wider array of insights that are relevant to the problem we're solving. That, I think that agility is absolutely central to organisational success and I just think there's a deep, rigorous science behind how we do that well. 

However, you can imagine, you have a diverse team with lots of great information, but if they're not communicating well, or if you've got a leader who's the kind of egotistical leader in a fixed mindset who thinks they know everything. So, no-one says what they think - they just say what they think the leader wishes to hear. You're just narrowing the capacity of the team to the one brain, and that is a disaster. That's one way that psychological safety can shut down. 

But psychological safety is about more than sharing ideas boldly and courageously - that's one aspect of it. We need to be able to share ideas, otherwise, you don't get the flow between the different brains that enables us collectively to come up with the best judgment call. Typically, I think a leader is going to have to probably, not in all circumstances, but in many circumstances, listen and listen well. But we also need to be able to test each other's ideas. This is tremendously important because if psychological safety - people interpret that that means every idea is a good idea, that clearly isn't true. Not all ideas are good ideas - some are bad ideas; none are perfect ideas. The whole point of the group discussion is both the sharing ideas and the respectful criticism of them. 

We found, in some of the work we've done with our clients, that people are often not willing to criticise ideas because they say it's not very nice. But failing to criticise an idea is truly not very nice. Because if we're committed to the same purpose of trying to improve what we do, and one fails to criticise an idea that can be improved, we're undermining, we're really betraying our collective purpose. And it seems to me, if you think about it, you know, what is? Science is about testing hypotheses, getting feedback from nature, and therefore learning as we go. If you think about a team, there's different information in the different brains. There's errors in the different brains. Really the whole process, without wanting to get overly technical, of a verbal discussion, Zoom, corridor, meeting, is about pooling the information and filtering the error.

DDS: I talk to my team a lot about information asymmetry. The idea that we're connecting to reduce that imbalance of information to allow us to make better decisions. And like you say, every interaction, whether it's Zoom, whether it's in a corridor, whether it's in a meeting, what you're trying to do is make sure that that pool of information is effective enough to then proceed with decision-making.

MS: Yeah, that's right. And I think it's worth saying that, you know, if I'm playing table tennis and, you know, I've got a terrible forehand topspin technique and I used to be, just for those who are unaware, I used to be a professional table tennis player. And I get to the end of my career, and my coach says, "Matthew, your forehand topspin technique was a bit defective, but I never mentioned it because I didn't want to hurt your feelings". You know, is that kind? Well, it certainly meant that I didn't become aware of a weakness in my technique. You know, maybe that was nice, but actually not really because I've now wasted my time, I could have improved it. I wanted to be the best table tennis player I could be, and I never got that feedback. I think that is a real issue, when one prioritises a harmonious relationship over the respectful, but incredibly useful feedback that is the whole purpose of teamwork. 

And I suppose it's worth thinking maybe in these terms, you know, if the coach does say to me, "Look, Matthew, your forehand topspin technique's a bit defective". If I don't trust my coach, I'm hearing, you know, "Oh, that's a bit nasty". You're probably trying to knock my confidence; you're colluding with my competitors. If I do trust my coach, what am I hearing? That's useful feedback. I may disagree; let's look at a video and see if you're right. But the way we interpret the feedback, it seems to me, is fundamentally shaped by our relationship with the person who is giving it to us. 

And so, I have thought a lot about where does that trust come from? Another buzzword in organisations, by the way. And I think at least part of it, maybe a very large part, is a shared sense of purpose. If I know that, you know, I aspire to be the best ping pong player I can be, and my coach also is committed to that purpose, you can see how trust emerges from that shared purpose. And that's why I think, in the psychological literature, trust, psychological safety and purpose, they may seem like disconnected topics, but I think they're profoundly synergistic. That as we reach a shared sense of purpose, it becomes much easier to provide feedback to each other, and it isn't taken as negative because we're all committed to doing great work and therefore we need to hear it. And we don't need to be so worried about providing it to each other. It creates the dynamism that permits this teamwork to come to life in a way that I think, you will go into organisations, I do too. And when I watch a team that is truly psychologically safe, it's not a meek environment. My goodness, it's robust, they're challenging, they're sharing, there's conversational turn-taking. Why? Because they want to go and act. They want to act upon what they've decided because they want to operationalise the value that it creates for their customers, internal or external. They don't want to waste time with these values, they want to get to an answer. There's a bias towards action and it's a very profound thing. 

And I think it's just worth people reflecting upon whether those cultural, you know, culture can sometimes seem a bit ephemeral, but these are measurable characteristics. And it's really worth, I think, seeing the extent to which we've got this and how we can shape it if we haven't.

DDS: Do you know what? I'm going to show my age. If anyone ever wants to see it played out dramatically, watch "The West Wing". So, in "The West Wing", you will see a group of people challenge each other incredibly robustly, because all they're fussed about is, are we going to reach the best decision at the highest pace that we can do?

MS: Yeah.

DDS: And you never doubt that group has trust within it, you never doubt there's professional respect. But actually, the conversations are at times brusque and direct, simply because there is that underlying trust and underlying shared purpose.

MS: Yeah, that's so true.

DDS: If you haven't watched "The West Wing", watch it now.

MS: It's great.

DDS: And there's a gap between the current reality and what's perhaps dramatically, romantically positioned there.

MS: We probably don't want to be too political. And I, you know, but the Trump administration, there's definitely a very steep hierarchy gradient in the administration. You just have to watch the cabinet meetings that have been aired on video, on YouTube. And I think whatever your political complexion, there is a very significant risk there. "The West Wing" is great. The other one is "Monty Python". 

I've got to know, name dropping here probably, again, John Cleese has become a very good friend, who was one of the co-writers of "Monty Python" and "Fawlty Towers". And he said that it could be incredibly, brutal's the wrong word, you know, just very, very severe feedback. But it was because they were trying to make the material as brilliant and as funny as possible. They didn't take personal offence. This is, this is what these conversations are about when Cleese and Chapman would meet Palin and Gilliam and who was the other one, Terry Jones? They’d get this feedback precisely so they could improve the material. And I've noticed with my friendship with John, if I ever send him anything or we meet for lunch or dinner, he will be in a wonderful way exactly what I need. I'll hear where he thinks the weaknesses are, which is precisely what gives me the opportunity to improve. And the longer we've got to know each other and the closer we've become, the less he has to sugarcoat it. He just says, "Oh, no, no, this is..." And that to me is a real test of a shared purpose. In fact, in that terms, it's a test of a great friendship. I think if you're constantly pulling your punches with a dear friend, you know, that is possibly a sign that the friendship isn't as truly authentic and meaningful, with all of that depth that the greatest friendships have. And I just think that that is as true in a great organisation. It's different, obviously, with a friendship. But it's why I think, you know, when you read books on purpose or psych safety or trust, they often seem similar. And I think it's because they are all, as I said earlier, very, very synergistic.

DDS: Can we just go and skip back to the very start? You mentioned AI, and you thought that actually, you kind of mentioned a link between psychological safety and AI. Can you just bring that to life for a bit, because I don't think it's a natural kind of harmonious relationship people would think of.

MS: I'm not, you know, I wouldn't claim to be an expert on AI, but two things that strike me. One is in complex digital systems, I think the LLMs are going to help us have an interface with them. So, if you remember the Horizon Post Office scandal?

DDS: Yeah.

MS: The machine was giving an output. And they were like, the Post Office submasters, they must be lying. And one of the reasons is because they just got the output, but they didn't know why the machine was, you know, the digital system was providing the answer that it was providing. And I think LLMs will provide an interface between humans who think in one way. We have a very different architecture in the way we think to digital systems and from AI, which we can go into. And that will be very, very useful. But the other thing that I'm benefiting from is using Large Language Models to interrogate and to ask questions. But the quality of the output is often contingent on the quality of the questions we ask. And I think asking really great questions is often a team thing. So, we can definitely ask questions on our own and then bring our thoughts together as a team after we've worked with LLMs, or we can ask questions as teams. 

But my sense is, and it'd be interesting to hear what, put it to the AI people you have on, that the benefits of cognitive diversity in human teams is going to increase in the age of AI. Because it's going to be a process through which we are using our conjectures, if you like, to interrogate the fitness landscape. And I think that's just going to be a crucial adjunct to great teamwork.

DDS: Interesting. And we will put that question to some AI experts. It's going to be interesting to think about how that, not only, as you say, the kind of individual to LLM chat interface creates itself and evolves, but secondly, as you say, how it works through teams. So, as a kind of final note, for any of our listeners who don't have access to John Cleese on a kind of regular basis, which may be the majority, I'm guessing. What specific behaviours do you think leaders need to model, to create the type of environment that allows performance to flourish? 

So, there's probably two elements to that. We've got the leadership behaviours themselves. You've also got professional teams, HR teams supporting them to create those environments as well. What does someone who's great at this look and sound like?

MS: I think the best leaders today are high on humility, and high on conviction, but they know when to show them. Show humility when you've got a big judgment call, "I don't know everything". By showing humility, people share their ideas, they step up. Because if you go in and say, "I know everything", as a leader at the top of the hierarchy, people won't share, and they'll shut down. And I think showing that humility gets to really rich evaluations, discussions, meetings. But then the key, of course, is to then make what we have decided happen. And at that point, when actually implementing, I think diversity, dissent is obviously much less valuable. We've already had that; we need to go out and operationalise. 

And I think leaders who can galvanise the team, really build the, get them to commit and commit hard. I think those two things, leaders knowing where they are in the performance cycle, when to show humility, when to show conviction, that's when you get the blessings of both of them, because they're really two sides of the same coin. We need to think about what we're going to do, and we need to then do it. And I think leaders who have a really vivid sense of where they are and what attributes to show, they're just capable of getting incredible commitment from diverse teams, reflected both in the willingness to dissent and then to really get behind the judgment.

DDS: Fantastic, thank you. Great ideas delivered well, a recipe for success. So, that's all for our second conversation. So, again, just a nod to the first one if you want to think about it more from an individual spectrum. Matthew's books continue to be available, and you continue to also find, I'm sure if you try hard enough, other ways to access his thinking. We'll include a link to the first episode in the notes for this and we publish new episodes of this every fortnight. Well, I'd like to say a final thank you to Matthew. I'm David D'Souza and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod. The CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name's David D'Souza. I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD, and this week we've got the two best guests that we will bring you this week. We have. That's you, it's your bit. You need to say your name now.

Trish Hewitt: Just this week. Oh, sorry. I'm Trish, Trish Hewitt.

DDS: You're certainly in the top three this week, aren't you, Trish?

TH: Fabulous. Thank you for that - appreciate it.

DDS: And what do you do? What's your background, Trish?

TH: So, I run Haylo HR, which are an HR consultancy, and I'm also the CEO of Resolution at Work.

DDS: Fantastic. And that second bit's a new bit, isn't it?

TH: Yes, very new - June. Yeah, so.

DDS: Congratulations.

TH: Thank you.

DDS: And Jon?

Jon Dawson: Morning, Jon Dawson, Chief People Officer for the Lore Group. We own and operate hotels in Europe and the United States of America, where I've just got back from, hence my voice. So, apologies in advance.

DDS: You have, you were, you saw. We'll, come on to music in a bit, actually, we're going to get into it as a subject, but you've had a good week from the entertainment point of view.

JD: Yeah, I've just come back from New York, watched a little band called Oasis. So yeah, had a great week David, thank you.

DDS: Some of you may have heard about them. So, the context for everything we do, and I think it's particularly pertinent today, is that we will be talking about things in generality. So, we'll take a story from the news or something that's currently being spoken about. We'll talk about it in a general way. If we're talking about individual cases or organisations, it's just to look at the general principle sitting behind that.

So, first thing that's been I think causing some conversation is, we're looking at some headlines that are sparking debate around the use of AI in workplace disputes. So, organisations like ACAS are exploring AI and digital tools to manage conflict or to discern, actually, what should happen next, promising speed and efficiency that can come from that, given that we know that in fact, there's a rising number of workplace disputes and conflicts that need resolution.

More widely, that brings up some questions around is it possible to use technology to solve human problems? Will people even listen to it? And how could that be deployed in workplaces? So, the first thing we're going to talk about today is that. Trish, you mentioned that you recently acquired an organisation, which.

TH: Very well timed.

DDS: So, and all of us will have had to, dealt with a conflict in the workplace and the cost of that and the impacts of that as well. What are your thoughts about the use of technology in that space?

TH: I feel like when people have got conflicts or when individuals are upset in the workplace, using AI just takes away from the fact that that whole situation needs empathy. We need to have a look at how people are behaving. I feel like it just needs a person. I think AI is really cool. I think it could potentially support in things like helping mediators create the questions they want to ask or running an approach past it. But ultimately, if two people are annoyed, the last thing you want is someone going, "Hang on a minute. Let me just pop it through ChatGPT" and then give you a response. It just kind of loses that empathy that I think is really important.

DDS: So, you think there's maybe a role in it for providing some of the scaffolding and support, but not for decision-making?

TH: I think, potentially, yeah. I think AI is a really good tool to support us with doing a lot of things, right? But equally, there's bias built in. It doesn't get things right, and there's some legality issues, right? So, I think it's important, if you're going to use it, to use it to support what you're going to do. But ultimately, if you've got two people in an organisation who are in a place of conflict and your response to that is to pop it into an AI tool. You're probably out of your depth and you probably need a bit of help.

DDS: Interesting. Jon, same thoughts or vary a bit?

JD: Yeah, very, very similar in many ways. In, you know, we all use AI. I certainly do, every single day but sort of I agree, I agree with self, you know as in that human touch is. You can never lose that, really. What was kind of staggering for me was, when I heard about this and saw the article, was the amount of potential savings that ACAS believe that they can save, I think was like 2 billion. It was something like really, I was like, "Wow!”, eye-watering. So, I’d be sort of really intrigued to, to understand better how they came up with that number. But I do think AI can be useful by, you know, like you say, by analysing certain data, providing overall summaries. 

But I don't ever think we're going to get away from being able to pick up, you know, the phone and speak to someone from ACAS and really have a pragmatic conversation to understand, you know, how the individuals may be feeling at the time, sort of like put across sort of like what the organisation can do in certain ways. And I think that AI could make that process very, very functional and take away that human touch. So, there is definitely a place for AI, and it does help me summarise my emails every day, make my life easier, but I still go in and I still will verify the summary is actually, you know, giving me the right type of information. Has anything in there that's really significant been missed. And I think that could be the risk by using AI for certain, all cases let's say. Particularly with ACAS, say.

DDS: What about kind of earlier kind of in that kind of piece? So, by the time something's reached ACAS, it's normally gone through a degree of mechanics, internally, quite often. Thinking about how you reduce and, I think it's probably important to say, harmful conflict in the workplace. So, that's conflict that's either damaging people or it's damaging results and performance because actually, some conflict and certainly disagreement's a really healthy thing to have in any environment.

Do you think, if you've got teams in dispute or people that aren't getting on well with each other, having that kind of third-party intervention needs to come from a person? Or do you think actually there could be a use for AI to go, maybe even, you know, saying to people, "You should have a look at this in a different way", or "If you reframed your argument, that might be more useful or constructive in terms of engaging".

JD: It also, I don't know if you saw the piece on you know the team that created ChatGPT and how they were teaching it. The emotions and voice levels and things like that, to actually generate responses. So, I think the piece of what that AI technology could generate, it could have been fed by certain bits of information that's generating a response, but that may not be the right response and that someone who's in the room could read the room a lot better, from a human perspective as well.

So, my view would be, it may be a tool in future that can provide some suggestions and recommendations. But as to whether that is a better response than a human doing it? Still up for debate for me.

TH: Yeah, I think, I don't think we're at a stage right now where AI can replace a human interaction in terms of managing conflict resolution. That might change in the future, and I'm sure there's pieces of AI that exist right now that we just don't have access to, that are more kind of complex and nuanced. But I think the thing that makes what we do as HR professionals interesting is the people, right? Like a redundancy situation is a simple thing to manage, but the thing that makes it difficult is people. An argument is an easy thing to manage, but the thing that makes it more complex is the way someone's reacting, because I could be sitting here telling you that I'm super comfortable - I am. But you know, if I wasn't, and you needed to analyse the nuance in like the tone that I'm using, my body language - something like ChatGPT just can't do that right now. 

So, I think you could definitely use it to support, at least in the guise that we've got right now, but I think there's something so special about the human touch, right? And that's why we do what we do.

DDS: So, it might be really good at pulling apart arguments and inconsistencies?

TH: Yeah.

DDS: Or even finding common ground, if it had a summary. But working it through and getting buy-in from people, having an understanding actually, of some of the dynamics around it, it's much more challenging, isn't it?

TH: Definitely.

JD: If you, if you step back and think about it. If there was, if we've got a, you know, a difference of opinion, let's say. And that was just fed into AI, and it just produced an outcome that, you know you're like, "Well, I'm not happy with that". "Well, the outcome works for me. So, I'm happy with it, move on". I can't ever see it getting to that level. It would need someone as an interim, to say, "OK, let's kind of just discuss and debate this" and lets you know, understand why and the reasons for it. But yeah, that human touch makes such a difference.

DDS: Excellent. It's going to be a really interesting one, I think for professionals to follow over the next few years. And I think a couple of aspects. One, because of the pressure that is on that system, full stop. So, something needs to be done to give people access to justice and also to allow organisations to progress, because it's, you know, very draining, I think for everyone involved, when things go badly. And secondly, just within organisations as well, there's a cost involved there as well. So, it's keeping a lookout for tools, but it's also remembering the unique things that professionals can bring into that environment.

Really briefly, we're going to move because it's important that people recognise you are fully formed human beings, aren't you as well? So, we were chatting earlier about music and what your favourite music or your best gig has been. So, Jon, you were in New York, and you saw a little band called Oasis, is that your favourite-ever gig?

JD: Do you know what, I shouldn't say this. I'm lucky my wife's not going to listen to this, hopefully, but I actually thought Oasis were better in New York than Wembley. They were absolutely brilliant. But my favourite gig, believe it or not, was actually watching Oasis in the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas, and I was just there, off-chance, having lunch and didn't realise they were playing. This was back in the early days.

TH: Oh, wow.

JD: And it was in front of like 1,000 people, my wife was there as well. So, that was probably my favourite gig of all time, because it was just such an intimate place. They were so big, at the time, in the UK and you know they were just sort of starting off in America then. So, I was lucky enough to go and see them. So, I've got to say that's my favourite one.

DDS: OK. Because your wife was there.

TH: I love those caveats.

JD: Hedging my bets there with that one.

DDS: And what would you go for?

TH: You know what? I got to see Moira Kerry recently, which was epic. But I would say my favourite was seeing Lauryn Hill, because she was just amazing. Her voice was brilliant; Wyclef came out, she brought her son out. So, I'm thinking this is as close as I'm going to get to Bob Marley. So, yeah, it was just brilliant. My daughter was there. So yeah, it was just a really lovely experience.

DDS: And did you see Lauryn Hill and Wyclef, one time, two time. Is that like?

TH: I love that. That's so good.

DDS: Thank you.

TH: That's so quick.

DDS: I didn't know that was coming. I'm quite proud of that. We may end this podcast here, actually.

JD: I think we should put David on the spot now and throw him off. What's yours?

DDS: What's mine? Do you know, I said it on a podcast last year. It's seeing Olivia Rodrigo, which may not feel particularly, demographically, like a tight fit, but it was the first gig that my daughter went to. And, like, watching her face light up was just absolutely magic. And I still maintain "Driver's licence" by Olivia Rodrigo is one of the best songs for at least of the last 20 years. If you haven't heard it, and there's a confusing amount of people that haven't, go out and listen to it, it's got all the feels.

TH: I still don't know who she is.

DDS: Still don't know who she is?

TH: No, I don't.

DDS: I mean you've had, like a year to listen to her.

JD: You know the first thing you're going to do, when you get in your car and go home, you're literally going to put that on, right?

DDS: I mean, I kind of feel like a year ago that was a reasonable position. She headlined Glastonbury this year.

TH: I mean. I'm sorry, Olivia.

DDS: Olivia Rodrigo, if you're listening.

TH: I apologise.

DDS: On behalf of, an apology from Trish, right? We've got a section. We've, it's becoming increasingly popular, I think, which is where we're taking questions from the CIPD community and putting them to the experts that we have with us. And the question that's kind of coming up in the forums at the moment is around older employees. And I guess it's two-fold. One, are they getting the support that they need ahead of retirement? And secondly, are organisations putting more time and effort into supporting other groups?

So, if you're trying to support people during the entire life cycle, in fact, are we doing more for people early in their careers ,are we doing more for certain groups when they hit kind of key life stages than we might be for people who are approaching the end of their careers, retirement or want to keep working and want to keep advancing. So, any hints or suggestions? But also, some thoughts on that theme, because I think it's a really interesting question.

JD: As well as sort of overseeing the hotel-side of the business, I've recently been given the opportunity to look after our real estate-side of the business as well. And the two very, very different, you know, I'm going to call it "demographic" of teams and individuals. And one of the things that I was talking to the CEO around is actually this topic. We've got some amazing people in the real estate-side of the business, but you know, many of them are coming to you know retirement age and you know are looking forward to that. So, I was like, OK, so what are we actually doing to, to one, backfill those roles, but also that level of experience that we're going to lose. What are we going to do and how do we actually support those actually, you know, winding down, because that's what they want to do.

So, it's one of the areas that has just literally landed upon my lap only a few months ago, that I'm actually looking at. And it's, what are the things that we can kind of do with that? How can we? You know, we just put a sort of a, we've looked at our sort of like performance competency-based framework, looked at how we can sort of like change that to develop people coming through, but actually support those leaving the business as well and passing that knowledge on.

On the hotel-side of the business, it's the completely opposite end of the scale. It's taking school leavers out of, you know, out of school, out of college. How do we develop individuals like that? But also, how do we develop them, not just within our business, but more from an industry perspective as well. So, it's, I think it's a great question and probably something that organisations don't think enough about that sort of. I call it sort of "hire to retire".

DDS: Yeah.

JD: You know, life cycle as well and what sort of things can you put in place as well? So, maybe ask me back in a year's time and I'll tell you how that's gone.

DDS: OK. You said it had been exactly a year since you came on.

JD: Exactly a year to the day, so.

DDS: There you go - commitment. We'll get you on in exactly a year's time to talk about how that's going. Any thoughts on this one?

TH: I suppose it's that piece around kind of inter-generational workforces, isn't it? And how you look after people who have potentially got quite different needs and quite different drivers. I mean, something I've been talking about recently is kind of "reverse mentoring". I think that's a really cool way of working because, I've not done it myself, but I think maybe organisations can potentially think about that and how you support people who are at different ends of the age spectrum.

DDS: And that's, like to bring it to life, that's where, essentially, historically, a mentoring relationship would have been someone more senior in the organisation, someone more junior, and you flip that.

TH: Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's brilliant. But I suppose I'm slightly controversial, I suppose, when it comes to things like this, because I think we should just be treating people in the same way that we would treat them, regardless of their age. And I know that might be a little bit controversial and maybe it's just a little bit simplistic. But I think if people are towards the end of their career, we should be still treating them in the same way that we would if they weren't. It's just understanding what their drivers are and what they want to do, right?

DDS: And what their needs are.

TH: So, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand that they're, people may well have different drivers, but I was talking to somebody else about it the other day and saying, you know, "I'm in my 40s". Don't tell anybody. But what drives me is very different to other people in their 40s. So, if you lump me into a bracket and say, you know "People of this age all want this", we're not the same, right? It's just understanding that kind of individual preference, I think.

DDS: Come on, then. I'm biting, what drives you?

TH: Do you know what? What drives me? I want to make the world a better place and that sounds really sh(bleep)ty doesn't it? Oh, sorry, I don't know if I can say that word. Shall I say something else?

DDS: I don't know. Can we bleep it out?

TH: Yeah.

DDS: We'll bleep it out. I think, I think everyone should know that you swore.

TH: Yeah. Yeah. I just.

JD: It proves that it's not AI-driven. There you go, it's a human talking.

TH: No, I just think like in the small way that I can, I want to be able to make the world a better place. Now, I know that HR is not going to make everybody happy and make everything better. But if I can help my clients make their workplaces better. We spend so much time at work, right? And I'm sure we've all been in those jobs where it just feels horrible and you just hate it. If I can do something to help stop that, with the little knowledge that I have, that definitely drives me. And in whatever way I can, I think that's the thing.

DDS: That's nice. More people doing that is only going to make the world a better place.

TH: Ah, thanks.

DDS: So, next up. We've spoken about conflict at the start of this and about can we use technology to help resolve it. We're diving into a topic, that is subtle on the surface, but potentially kind of a bit more serious. So, "Could repeated eye-rolling at work contribute to a hostile work environment?" is the question. Although, I'm not sure it is the question, and we'll get on to that. So, a recent case in Edinburgh saw a dental nurse awarded £25,000 in compensation after experiencing what was described as "rude and bullying" behaviour from a colleague. Among the cited behaviours, and I think that's really important, was repeated eye-rolling. Something that people might see as trivial or just part of a normal conversation. But in this case, was shown to be a pattern of repeated behaviour, leading to her resignation.

Looking beyond the headlines, is there anything we can learn from this? And the other one that kind of caught the eye this week was a headline that said, “It is now OK to call your boss a "blank" head”. I don't think that's what any reading of the outcome from that tribunal would actually show. I think there's always a lot of other things going on, so I guess the question is twofold, for me. How much of an impact do you think those subtle gestures in between people have? Can it destroy relationships? Is it OK, occasionally? And then secondly, how unhelpful do we think the media is, in terms of summarising some of these cases when there's more going on? That's a really leading question, I understand.

Trish, if I come to you first, like in terms of conflict in the workplace there's obviously, you know, verbal kind of cues that people aren't getting on and then there's non-verbal as well. How big a part, do you think that plays?

TH: I think context is the key, in particular with that case. When you read the detail of it, actually this individual raised issues multiple times and they were ignored. And also, when we talk about context, it's how the person receives it, right? If I'm receiving it in a negative way and I'm telling you continually that I'm receiving it in a negative way and you do nothing about it, that's an issue. So, I think, I do think the way that things are reported is to grab your eyes, right? And it's a headline to grab your attention. But when you look at the detail, actually there's a failing here and something should have occurred. I feel like I've missed your question in.

DDS: No, I think that's it.

TH: I think it is, yeah. I think it's just that, yeah, I think, understand the context before you kind of judge from reading a headline, I think is quite important.

DDS: Yeah, I think it does make me eyeroll. So, when I give, quite often friends will send this to me and go, "This can't be right?" And I'm like, "It isn't right. That's, that's like a fraction of the thing that happened", and in fact there's normally like far more important things that happen in the background, and I sure, I would say sexual harassment cases are reported really badly from this point of view as well, because quite often there's a pattern of behaviour that's been happening for years. But a newspaper will latch on to one thing and go, "Can you believe the payout's this size?" And it's just, it's unfair to the victims. It's misrepresenting what's happened?

Jon, I've not left you much to go with there, unless you disagree. But in terms of that, could you? You manage a lot of people in a quite high-pressure environment at times. How do you spot signs of conflict but also how do you make sure it's proportionately understood on both sides?

JD: It did make me smile, especially when you see these glorified headlines, right? You've always got to really look at the context, you know, as in. And that's, whenever you see those pop up. It's always a case of, OK, they're picking on a little piece of probably a big, big, big area here as well, but you know it did make me smile when, you know, I read that because we work in. You know my role works with lots of different cultures, lots of different countries. And a quick, quick story about sort of you know body language and sort of how that can be interpreted on an international level.

We work, you know, we've got properties in Amsterdam, the Dutch - very straight-talking. And for years I had an amazing CEO called David Taylor. We created this hotel together, back in London 10 years ago and we had a Dutch hotel manager called Edwin. And, great guy, and we would go into some meetings sometimes, and something would be said and then Edwin would come back the following meeting, "Oh, look, this is what I've done". We're like, "OK, he's clearly not getting the message here". And about three years ago, we did a big team-build in Amsterdam and as part of the gift in the bedrooms, it was "What the Dutch say and how the English interpret it". And funny enough, both of our flights got delayed. So, I'm sat on one plane and my CEO was on another plane and we, you know, picked this book out and literally I go to message my CEO and he messages me saying, "I wish we'd have had this book when we worked with Edwin". And it was to do with, you know sort of how the British say you know, "What do you think of this idea?" and we'd say, "Oh, you know. Yeah, that, that's great. Let's park it till next time". What we're saying is, "We think this is a really bad idea". You know, let's move on. Edwin would take that as, "Great. They love my idea. I'm going to do some more work and come back" and like, just that as an example for me, different cultural differences. How people behave, you know their gestures as well can be really interesting when you look at different countries.

So, you know it's, it just made me smile when I saw that pop up this morning. So, there's my little story. I've got nothing more to add on that one, unfortunately.

DDS: Thank you. We'll take that. But yeah, like genuinely, I think it's a really important thing for people to do, to, I know it may sound odd but read the proper outcomes from tribunals. Do not go for the headlines. And finally, it's caught the back pages more than the front, I think, this one. But what can HR learn from a messy transfer saga?

So, for anyone who follows football, or who has accidentally tuned into the news recently in the UK, there's been a controversial transfer involving a footballer called Alexander Isak, where basically he's been courted all summer. His club wanted him to stay and in the end, he's ended up transferring to another club, which always creates a problem for the club that he's left in terms of, how do you replace a really high-class player? We're using that as a tenuous "in", to talk about succession planning.

So, every organisation has talent of different dimensions, but you have some people that are really pivotal because of either their skillset or their seniority and accountability. How do you make sure that you get smooth transitions and reduce the risk of that? What can people do as practitioners, to make sure that their organisations can mitigate that as effectively as possible?

JD: I'm happy to lead on this, as in I have loads of friends who are big Newcastle fans, so are not very happy that he ended up going to Liverpool. And I think one of the things with this particular scenario is, it's very, very unique, I would say. Where player power is more than the, let's call it the employer power. I think, generally, in most organisations you know, you're not going to see a scenario like that, where someone effectively goes on strike to leave, to go and work and somewhere else.

DDS: Yeah, you just resign, don't you?

JD: As well, you just take. Yeah, you resign and go somewhere else. Or if someone has a conversation with you and you want to go somewhere else, generally, the employer can make a counteroffer or have a conversation. But I think to kind of flip it back to the succession planning piece, it's something, particularly within the hospitality-side of business, that is really important to us.

And I can share some practical examples of actually what we've done this year at the Lore Group. For example, I have a Head of Talent called Simon Tetley, and one of his objectives this year was to actually do a full succession planning review with all of the individual like GMs, of all of our properties. And what we kind of did with that is, we looked at like, we did performance-based analysis and then you know underneath that it was the "person in the pocket". Who do we have within our teams and what do we actually do to develop them, to get them ready for the next move? Because we want obviously to grow our own people. But there are situations where there's not a person ready to move up.

So, the next sort of challenge was "OK, how do you then go and you know, source the external market and identify external talent", bit like Liverpool did, in many ways. To actually then go and connect with those people and say, "Hey, listen, if we have any future opportunities", you know, "Would you be interested in working with?" and actually proactively go and do that. And that's quite common, by the way, in hospitality. That people will kind of go out and have people in external environments that, if someone does move on that they've got that relationship for, if they've not got that internal talent.

So, that's sort of my practical example of how we do it within hospitality. And I've, I've got to admit, by having a really robust plan in place, a document that shows that, when those opportunities do arise, you know you've got a plan in place. It really does help.

TH: I think that's half the issue, isn't it? People don't plan.

JD: Yeah.

TH: Or you have succession plans that are based on the person that the CEO likes and not necessarily the skills that they actually have. So yeah, I think the whole having a proper plan is crucial.

DDS: Yeah. Who would be the successor? Are they ready now? If not, what development do we need to give them? Who would care-take, because I think that's often, people get those two mixed up. If someone's out for two months, that's a really different thing to, we need someone who's going to take us through the next few years. And then, as Jon says, who's, who would you go out to on the open market, offer them £300,000 a week and a five-year contract? Which is totally normal in any other organisation. I do like that about. Yeah, it's not very similar to football, is it, our role?

JD: I, as part of my own personal development, I was really interested in potentially going to be HR director of a football club and I know, I won't name them, but I know a few. And as part of that, maybe I want to explore this. I went and spoke to them, bought them lunch, had a coffee. "Tell me about what your role is like", and wow! There is no organisation like it, when it comes to succession planning> How they, how they deal as a HR - those are some of the best HR directors out there. To be able to cope with some of the challenges that football throws up. So, maybe get some in, in the future on the podcast.

DDS: Yeah, years ago I spent a day with a Premier League football club, and it happened to be the day they sacked their manager. I know, it's just like the HRD kind of took a call and they went "Oh, yeah. You're going to have to go. I can't tell you what it is, but you'll find out on Sky Sports by the time you get home". It's a true story. I just happened to pick a good day. So, thank you both. That's, Jon you're coming back in a year's time.

JD: Yeah, look forward to it.

DDS: Trish, maybe even earlier. I'd like to thank both of our guests for all their inputs. Remember, we publish new episodes every fortnight. Quick reminder for all of the CIPD members, our annual CPD audit is coming out this October, so make sure that you do update your CPD records. It's really important that you keep up to date. The world is changing; your skills need to too. So, make sure that you go onto the website and update that. My name's David D'Souza and this has been and probably will be next time we're on as well, The HR People Pod. Thank you.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the CIPD HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the world of work and the profession.  My name's David D'Souza, still hasn't changed much.  I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and joining me in the studio we have for a first appearance:

Mark Pavlika: Mark Pavlika.

DDS: Didn't seem sure there.  There was a slight pause.  We'll see if we edit it out. And we also have:

Alix Bolton: Alix Bolton.

DDS: And just before we get into anything, if you could tell us a little bit about yourselves?  So, your University Challenge intro.  So Mark, if we go with you.

MP: So I am Mark Pavlika.  I am Chief People and Purpose Officer for an integrated advertising agency called Bicycle London.  I live in London.

DDS: Excellent.  Chief People and Purpose.

MP: Yeah.

DDS: So you're a CPAP.

MP: I'm a CPAP, yeah.

DDS: I think you might be the first CPAP.

MP: CPPO.

DDS: CPAP.  CPPO?

MP: CPPO.

DDS: I think you might be the first of those we've had.

MP: Sometimes they've tried to call me C-3PO at work, and they don't… they saw me dancing once and they called me party.  People Party and Purpose Officer.

DDS: We're going to stray into what we should share about things like partying a bit later, and we have Alix Bolton, second time on the podcast.

AB: Second time.  Thank you for having me back.  So I'm Alix Bolton.  I am European Chief People Officer for a business called Smollan.  We're the world's biggest outsourced retail provider and brand activation agency, working with some of the coolest brands and retailers around the globe.  Six months in, still the new girl, although I think that ended after about three weeks.  Having fun, yeah, doing lots.

DDS: And so you're really big as well, aren't you?  Because I genuinely hadn't heard of you.

AB: Same.

DDS: And I think you weren't expecting me to have, but your headcount's massive.

AB: Yeah, 90,000 globally.  Not that many in Europe because, you know, imagine territories like Middle East and Asia where it's feet on the street.  Yeah, about 15,000 across Europe and growing.

MP: We're Tiny Tim.  We're 60.

DDS: I mean, there's room for growth there, isn't there?

MP: Yeah, absolutely.

DDS: I mean, just give yourself six months.  Who knows where you'll be?

MP: Yeah, see.

DDS: Just before we kick off today, I'm going to give a shoutout, which we don't do very often, but I thought we'd do because I saw something really nice this week, which is on LinkedIn, Pete Colby, who is a genuine expert on mediation and how to avoid conflict escalating in the workplace, gave a really nice callout to Faye Wallace who is an absolutely remarkable member of the community. Faye is the host of the HR Coffee Time podcast, so I'm happy to plug other podcasts on this one, and it was just really nice to see that appreciation.  I think social media can so often be used for bringing people down or having a cheap pop and Pete just popping up and going, "Do you know what?  I've been thinking about Faye and she's awesome," (1) it's a sentiment I share, but secondly, yeah, more of that from the community will always be welcome.

Before we get on, though, just to find out a little bit more about yourselves as well as the organisation, what have you been… I'll start with you, Alix.  What have you been reading, watching?  What's been catching your attention recently?

AB: Ah, well the last time I was on the podcast, I talked about my obsession with romantasy novels, so maybe not down that route this time, but interestingly, I've been whipped up in the frenzy of Netflix biggest craze at the minute which is the KPop Demon Hunters.

Now, bear with me because it's, you know, Japanese anime, singers by day, demon hunters by night, but massive lessons around, you know, culture, modern, you know, ways of working, performance, team work, coming together, battling challenges.  So there's a huge link there in…

DDS: Battling demons.

AB: Battling demons.

DDS: Yeah.

AB: In finding, you know, inspiration in somewhere where you wouldn't expect to find inspiration, but it's amazing.  Give it a watch.

DDS: Okay.  I had not expected that to be the recommendation.

AB: Honest.

DDS: I'm intrigued by the fact that it's…

AB: Intrigued.

DDS: And I'm all up for a bit of demon battling.  What about you, Mark?

MP: I am struggling to, sort of, keep on par with you now, Alix, for, sort of, you know…

DDS: It's quite a hard (Inaudible 04.01) that's… yeah.

MP: What am I doing?  I guess I am… I love my Netflix, I love my dog, Baxter, which I think you guys have all met.  I am going back into the olden days, so I'm looking, sort of, at sort of thrillers and police programmes on Netflix like Line of Duty and I watched the most recent one which is called Adolescence.  I thought that was absolutely brilliant.  So yeah, I'm a bit of a TV fiend.  Was it supposed to be HR related, or…

DDS: No, doesn't have to be HR related at all.

MP: Did you want it to be something that you're obsessed…

DDS: If anyone's wondering why I've met Mark's dog, Mark is a really long-standing volunteer of ours.  I have not… I cannot claim, with a membership of 165,000, that I've met everyone's pets.  It's not the way that works.  I've just finished a book on, essentially, con artists and how people get deceived in different scenarios and the psychology behind that, and I've just ordered a book on the history of assassinations and paid killers, and the socioeconomic backgrounds that trigger that and the different methodologies through the years.  I don't know why, I think I just couldn't sleep one night.  There's no… I'm not particularly into assassins.  That would be a weird thing…

MP: It's interesting though, isn't it?

DDS: To be into, but yeah, it crossed my path.  I went huh, that probably is just a… to your point around things you might get lessons for work from.

AB: Yeah.

DDS: I think sometimes extreme scenarios can give you some insight into work.

So, for everything we'll be discussing today, it's a reminder that if individual organisations do come up, there's probably more going on behind the scenes with them, so we'll never comment directly on the good or bad of the situation, but we'll talk broadly thematically about things.  But that said, as we move into our first one, there is some noise and some early signs around what might potentially be the start of an early shift or it might be a one off, which are the stories in recent weeks about the pharmaceutical multinational, Moderna, and the UK housing association, Peabody, taking some different steps with the way they approach HR and technology.

So at Moderna, there's a decision to merge HR and IT teams into a single people and digital technology function, which is a broader organisational shift driven by the growing role of AI in organisations, and at Peabody, they've embedded strategic HR partners, data specialists and their own internal academy to bind people strategy more effectively to the pace of change.  I think I managed to read those out effectively.  So, apparently a survey of IT leaders thinks that… nearly two-thirds of them think that the functions will converge within five years, and I guess converge and merge are very different things, but I know you've both got quite interesting views on this.  So Alix, I'm going to start with you and then we'll shift to Mark, but feel free to argue between each other as we go through.

AB: Let's see how heated we get.  You know, I am… I'm a huge kind of fan of this as a topic.  I think how we evolve our workplaces to be more digital and kind of mirror how we operate as consumers in the world is a move that needs to happen, but you know, like you said about merge converge, this has got to be, you know, a… it's more than a structural move.  I suppose it needs to be a cultural and strategic shift, but done well.

There's evolutions in the digital landscape around data and workforce planning and colleague experience and the stuff that we get excited about, but that's not just about sticking two functions together and, you know, presenting this Frankenstein thing to the organisation.  I think whatever we do has got to be led with clarity, and leadership, and purpose, and a real kind of story behind it, and strategic intent, and competitive edge.  You know, what do we want to really achieve from this?  But yeah, it's got to be well thought through.

In my own personal style, I always get close to the IT functions because it's usually where the colleague is having sicking points within their experience.

DDS: Yeah.

AB: So, partnering with them to really bring in, well this is what our people are facing at the frontline, at the edge of productivity.  You know, where we carry out our business to innovate and modernise and clean up where we can.  But yeah, got to be done with some (power? 08.26).

DDS: Or not at all.

AB: Or not at all.  If the business isn't ready, you know, got to be ready, otherwise it just becomes…

MP: Do you know, when I read the brief, I was like absolutely not, there's no chance that they should be put together.  And then I slept on it and I was actually thinking of course they should.  Because, you know, you've got one that… it's gone way beyond the, sort of, you know, just fixing the laptop now, you know, when you're talking about IT.  It's way beyond that, you know.  We then evolved into cloud and networks and whatever else.  We're now talking about AI and the transformation of how that is going to affect work in the years to come.

Everyone is quite cautious about it, whether they're going to lose their jobs or whether there's… it's going to be dehumanised and whatever else.  So actually merging it with our profession will mean that the evolution of AI or the evolution of technology will be humanised in some sense because there will be the ethical side of it, of making sure that we do things the right way and we use it for the right things, but also making sure that it's embedded into our culture in the right way, whether that's in the working practices, whether that's using it to communicate externally, whether that's to communicate internally.  Or for, you know, our procedures, whether we're using it to write documents or whether we're using it to create websites or whatever, I think that it will actually add a lot of value to the organisation.

AB: I think about, you know, the digital fluency within HR as a profession as well, so even if you think about we're kind of becoming develop… mini developers ourselves already.  You know, creating our own dashboards, you know, playing around with, you know, multilayered systems already.  So, I think we can be at, kind of, the cutting edge of something.

You know, what we don't want to do is in ten years' time, have the old accusation of, "You know HR can't do numbers."

DDS: Yeah.

AB: It'll be, you know, "HR aren't digital or driven or whatever."  So, yeah, I think we could get ahead of something.

DDS: Do we need to be really careful, though, about being clear on what HR can do?  Because you wouldn't want to swap out your HR service desk for your IT service desk in most organisations, though.

AB: No.

MP: No.

DDS: For a number of reasons.

MP: Yes.

DDS: A couple of reasons, actually, probably.  We wouldn't be great at fixing the laptops, to Mark's point, but separately, there's a really important separate skillset and value that HR brings and that's why I think it's really important that organisations think about this in a rich and contextually informed way, and we spoke a little bit about this earlier.  I can see some of those areas that it absolutely… we need to work hand in glove, but actually, we also need to not mistake one for the other.

If I made a comparison, I think the shift from employee engagement to employee experience is benefitted quite a bit, to your point around consumers from us looking at some of the tools used in customer experience.  

AB: Yeah.

DDS: Again, how do we overlay those internally?  But systems, infrastructure and architecture is very different to doing OD.

AB: Is it?

DDS: Let's go for that, then.

AB: I might… I might…

DDS: Do you not think?

AB: I might challenge you there.  So if you take something like, I don't know, however many Ss McKinsey are playing with these days.  Might be up to nine or something now, but seven.

DDS: Bonus Ss

AB: You know, yeah.

DDS: Yeah.

AB: Bonus Ss.  You know, systems, structure, strategy, skills, all… which is, you know, out of the box OD kind of tool, I think you can absolutely think about architecture as a subset of OD, you know.  It doesn't replace it, but approaching as a colleague, you know, what have I got access to here and how does it all fit together, and then therefore, how does it transcribe into the colleague experience absolutely is an element of OD, but I totally take your point around IT HR are different mindsets and we've got to be clear about that and make sure that there's still demarc… whatever that word is.  What is that word?

DDS: I'm going for demarcation.

AB: Demarcation of accountability.

DDS: It could've been demilitarise, though.

AB: Could've been anything.

DDS: Could go either way.

AB: It could've been anything.  Yeah, demarcation of accountability, otherwise, you know, it just can… come messy.

DDS: And so I can see the opportunity, I guess to your point.  That's where some of the risk is, and it's being cognisant of both of those in terms of design.

AB: Yeah.

MP: I do agree with it, but I think we as a profession still need to, sort of, dare I say form our identity as a profession, because like you say, what can we do and what can't we do.  You know, when you're looking at the HR sphere that Jackie did many years ago, you know, we do recruitment, we do advice, we do a strategy, we do engagement, we do all these different things.  What does that mean as an actual profession and then how can we blend that with the IT function?  Because then if we don't do that, then we're at fear of, kind of, losing our identity when we… you know, the people and tech people or something, you know, whatever it is.  You kind of want to have your own stake in the ground when you do converge, as you say.

AB: And what the opportunity is in merging, obviously gaps will be exposed but then the plan is how you then solve those gaps, which…

MP: Yeah.

AB: Maybe I'm just more risky in my approach, but I'm like yeah, do it and then we'll see what falls out.

DDS: Well, we certainly need people experimenting.  So, one of the things we're going to be doing at the CIPD is over the coming months, you'll see us launch a couple of things: one looking at the future of work; and then informed by that, the future of the profession.  And there's no doubt to your point that as the external environment changes and the way that organisations need to react to that changes, there are things that the profession will need to reconsider doing differently.  It's still just that contextual overlay, isn't it?

AB: Yeah.

DDS: So, it might work… it might be necessary in an organisation of 90,000. Might not be necessary if you're in an organisation of 20.

AB: No.

DDS: Or it might be perfect either way around.

AB: Yeah.

DDS: And I think that notion of experimentation and being informed by evidence is really important for us to adhere to over the next few years, but…

AB: And how do we have a voice in the wider landscape as well.  So we see so much, you know, people HR tech coming down the line.  Where is our voices, you know, experts in actually, this is what businesses…

MP: Yeah.

AB: Are challenged with and this is what we need… this is what works.  Because often, we often find when we go to market when you're, say, looking for tech or digital tools, I've never met one that is perfect, but maybe if that conversation was a little more joined up, then you know…

MP: It's a bit of a race of… against time as well.  So, for our organisation, we're quite fluid because, you know, you can do more or less let's make the decision, start it tomorrow, whereas for you I would imagine shifting a 90,000-employee company…

AB: Yeah, the dismantling.

MP: Would take you so much time…

AB: Yeah.

MP: That AI would've probably moved on by a certain degree, so you've kind of got a bit of a race against time to actually implement it and if it going to become a joint function, you've got to, kind of, almost understand the purpose of that function first.

AB: Yeah.

MP: And really, relatively quickly if you are going to be doing that.

AB: We're having really interesting discussions internally about our approach to AI and we've, you know, we've put a policy out there because there's got to be some ethics, especially around IP, customer data and that type of thing.

MP: Yeah.

AB: So things have got to be, kind of, locked into the business' infrastructure rather than it be open channels.  But it's really interesting and when we're talking about skills and how skills evolve and how much onus is on the colleague rather than on the business, because to your point, Mark, by the time, you know, big, heavy organisation 90,000, you know, evolves, the world will be ahead.  

MP: Yeah.

AB: So how do you stay agile when you're, kind of, pulling a big tanker with you as well?  So we're really thinking about actually, let's let colleagues lead this but within a space where they can experiment and innovate and that type of thing. Because if we mandate what AI skills are needed and then you build that into, I don't know, mandatory or compulsory learning, something like that, it'll be out of date and…

MP: I was going to say.

AB: The business will have moved on.  So, it's really interesting, you know, live conversation.

DDS: So, we'll be doing some of that landscape work for the profession.  Keep a lookout, if you're listening to this, for ways to contribute because it's really important that we've got our member voice in that as well as being informed as you'd expect us to be by a range of different evidence points.  But I'm excited about it.  It's an opportunity for us to keep shaping and refining the contribution that we make to a business, contribution we make to the economy more broadly, and the difference it makes to people.

We're going to move onto now something that is uniquely about people, and once again I say you probably wouldn't want to sit in the inbox for the IT team as currently configured.  Just being really open to different possible futures.  So, we've had a conversation on the CIPD community recently and we're going to start trying to bring more of those into these podcasts.  So, if you do… if you have a problem and no one else can help, either go to the A Team or the CIPD community and we'll keep bringing them in and asking our experts.

So, there's been a recent thread around people looking for advice on how to deal with loud, opinionated employees who have no time for their manager's authority and whose so-called banter has tipped into something far more corrosive, and the stat that we picked out around the, kind of, boundaries between outside of work and inside of work that we thought was most stark was a recent survey that suggests more than a third of workers will be comfortable details of their sex life with their manager.

Peter (Inaudible 18.05) and I rarely talk about that, if any… if that's the first thing people are thinking about, like… it's not come up.  We're together a while now. It's… he has never asked, I've never told.  It's (Inaudible 18.17) and I've never offered, but that blurring of boundaries and the potential creation of tension, where's the line between healthy openness and harmful oversharing?  So, for the people who contributed to the community and went, "This is a challenge for us," where do you draw that line?  But also, you know, you're both really senior, what do you do with that?

AB: I mean, this podcast's recorded and you kind of see us, you know, scooting in our chairs.  We're over indexing here, really, aren't we?  I'm not quite sure where to start, or maybe not.  Diplomatically going to throw it over to Mark.

MP: Oh, thank you.

DDS: I really like the way that was handled, by the way.

MP: Yeah.

DDS: What do I think of it?  I think it's one for Mark.

MP: Yeah.  Look, we're all trying, especially since the pandemic, to make sure that people feel like they belong, they can come into work and they can offload some of their issues because that will impact on their performance.  This kind of stuff, where, you know, talking about your sex life or dates last night or… and going into graphic detail on stuff, again, is contextualised because I think, you know, certain cultures may have a different barometer.  I can't imagine, you know, working at the House of Lords and talking about your sex life in the office, whereas, you know, in advertising it's usually quite light, you know, and I can imagine they're talking about their dates, but they might not go to the graphic detail.

So it's, again, it's contextualised, but coming back to the point, I think there needs to be some level of professionalism within your organisation, whether that… I don't know whether that can become policy at all, but I think there needs to be some level of professionalism that the manager has clout to say, "I'm… I can't be talking about that kind of conversation with you because we are colleagues and on the surface, we are friendly but we're not friends."  You know, may not want to say in those kind of words, but I think that's the, kind of, the premise of what you want to try and get over.

DDS: We're not friends is… that's what I took from that.  Convey…

MP: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DDS: Convey to everyone you work with, "We're not friends."  No, I absolutely understand where you're coming from.  Do you have any thoughts on this?

AB: I do.  I mean, it's just a massive case study on situational awarenesses and if, you know, if rather than pollicising it, maybe it's about giving managers, you know, really sophisticated ways to feedback or handle the conversation, which is with openness and compassion and clarity in saying, "I'm really struggling to have this conversation with you now.  I'd much prefer if we, you know, approached our one-to-ones…

MP: Yeah.

AB: Like this."  So still professional, but you know, aware and tackling the situation almost, and then that pulls through into the wider workplace as well. But there's a need for accountability here as well, like…

DDS: There's an educational and coaching bit to it as well.

AB: Like, surely… yeah, yeah, yeah.

DDS: Oh, yeah.  Which is, like, these conversations have been happening.  That's not appropriate for…

AB: Yeah.

DDS: For where we are.  That's not the way that we do things.  You probably didn't understand that.  It's a reasonable ask of us for you not to do that.  If, for anyone, you assume that people aren't going, "No one wants me to do this but I'm going to do it anyway."  In which case, actually there's an asymmetry of information.  You can close that gap.  If you care enough to do it, walk towards it.

MP: There is an argument, though, that, you know, when we were young, when we went… you know, we were there eight hours a day, spending most… you know, a lot of our time in the office, five days a week.  It was a different framework, whereas since the pandemic, we know that work has become a bolt-on to your life rather than being, you know, work being a huge element of your life.  And there… it has blurred the lines.  

So, the younger community, and specifically in this example, I can… you know, haven't probably experienced what work was like when we were at work, and therefore professionalism is less important, and therefore, that’s why they feel they can come into work and talk about things freely like that.

DDS: Yeah, and you… we'll probably close this one off here, but a couple of thoughts on that.  (1) You can actually see that, we've got a good work index that if you go on our website, you'd be able to pick up, and that looks at that motivation.  You can see it's shifting by generation in terms of why people are in work and what their expectations are, and secondly, it's just this… it's that marrying.  I think things always change in the workplace.  You know, there's no way if we were doing… you wouldn't have been doing a podcast 20 years ago, but if you were, we'd probably all be suited and booted in, like, very different way.

MP: Yeah.

DDS: With different expectations, and I think it's making sure that organisations are adapting to the people that they are employing and understanding their needs to the point that you made earlier about people as consumers, but not losing sight of the fact that organisations also have agency and they have a right to expect behaviours of a certain type from their employees.  And that'll change organisation to organisation.

So we've got one more dilemma and we'll do the two community ones together. So, I'm quite enjoying this, actually.  Like, this is nice, like, having a… you two on a panel.  So, final nugget of wisdom on CIPD community.  So there's been a healthy discussion over the past week or so on the subject of triggers for absence management conversations.  So, at what stage should you intervene and trigger a formal wellbeing or welfare meeting, and should that be a blanket approach?  Should it manager's discretion?  Should it be a trigger that's set centrally?

So, I guess there's a question around how do you approach it in your organisations.  Also, because we work at different organisations, what do you really think works?  Because they may vary a bit.

AB: Yeah.  They vary wherever we've got vastly different, you know, sized organisations, but… so whilst we are huge globally, actually the business is made up of, you know, smaller operating companies and organisations which do things in different ways.  I mean, personal opinion, absence triggers, they should be a conversation starter rather than a policy tripwire.

DDS: Yeah.

AB: But again, I think it comes back to that agency around expectations in the workplace and something kind of needs to be there, but it shouldn't be a hard and fast rule until it, kind of, needs to be.  You know, rigid four absence equals a meeting and then we do this and then we do that seems really impersonal.

MP: Yeah.

AB: So, if there's compassion and candour in the conversation then, you know, surely that's a place to start around these are the expectations, but I understand that there's a conversation that we need to have and a, you know, support mechanism that we can built in.  But ultimately, you know, we've got organisations to run as well.

MP: Yeah, and I think that… just going from that point, I think ours is on an individual basis.  So, does the person's absence impact business performance, and the individual manager will probably bring that to us and say, "This person's been off far too much because of X, Y, Z."

However, what you don't want is, you know, you've got somebody with quite a serious illness, will not be treated in the same way with somebody that's, you know, had the sniffles, let's say, for, you know, constantly and regularly.  So you kind of have to individualise it and the impact on business performance and the impact on the rest of the team, etc, etc.  But having triggers like that will just… it ruins culture, I think, because then you're… are you run by policy or are you run by the heart?  And I think for us especially, we are quite proud that they've got somebody at my level of sight and a business that's 60-people big, because you would not have a Chief People Officer at 60-people big.  You know, you're talking in the hundreds.

So, they’ve put people at the beginning so there's no way I'm going to come in and start saying, "Right, you've been sick four times, therefore, you're going to be on an absence management programme."  Not going to do that.  It's individualised on business performance and you leave it to the managers.

DDS: Yeah.

AB: Yeah.  I think the sweet spot, though, there is, you know, guided discretion. The risk with being too flexible is line manager bias.  You know, one…

MP: Yes.

AB: One line manager might treat you with compassion, another with control. Employees experience things in different ways.  Jotted down a point earlier, so, you know, absence management is often used as a proxy for engagement where actually, if we can get under the drivers as to what's driving rather than just the mechanisms of managing it.

DDS: So you want clarity, candour, compassion and…

AB: All the…

DDS: And consistency?

AB: All the Cs, yeah.

DDS: All taken from what you've said, I feel we've got a new model.  We've got… over the next couple of weeks, actually, you'll see a new health and (wellbeing? 26.55) report coming out from the CIPD.  Keep a lookout for that.  So if you want to understand absence trends more broadly and some of the challenges in organisations so that you understand what's a universal issue and what might be local to you, do keep a lookout for that.

Final topic, I think we're going to spend just a few minutes on, if possible, and if we can come up with another model like the four Cs model, like one… we'll put it on an infographic.

AB: Coin that.

DDS: And even more famous.

MP: I'm getting jealous here.  I need to come up with my own model in, like, you know, two minutes.

AB: We'll get one, we'll get one before the end.

DDS: You've got your own Ask the CPAP section, is the way this is working.  Now to drivers of high success.  So… that are often talked about, but rarely mastered, so accountability.  So, regular listeners will know that we've just done a couple of episodes with Matthew Syed talking about high performance.  The first one's out already, so check that out, and the next one's out within the next month.

But someone supporting the idea of high performance or high growth, there's a recent article that cited research from Culture Amp that looked at the idea that shared sense of responsibility and transforming accountability for a top-down demand into a collective standard - there's a mouthful - was pivotal to high growth.

So, how do you make accountability something everyone owns rather than something that is imposed from the top?  So, how do you get that sense of people are getting up in the morning and they've got their own personal drive, but it's aligned with the organisation?  And how do you do that without just piling pressure onto people?

MP: I'm going to go with textbook stuff.  So, I love quoting Patrick Lencioni.  If you're going to… accountability, you've got to start with the basis of trust.  If people can trust and they can say things with impunity to a certain degree, then we can have healthy conflict and disagreements and things like that without fear of losing your job.  Therefore, I will take responsibility for that muck-up of something that went wrong.

So we've had that a couple of times.  In recent times, actually, where one of our employees… we're a digital agency, so overspent on Meta for a client, and one of the employees who'd spent over… a lot more, and it was a bigger (Inaudible 29.09) came in, absolutely my problem, do not blame anybody else, I absolutely messed up, please don't, you know, and was real… tail between the legs.  He ended up keeping his job.

Another person tried to get away with it, hide it, didn't show any value towards the overspend of that money.  Unfortunately, he's no longer with us and that's not necessarily… the consequences of that was his attitude to that rather than not coming in and going, "Do you know what, guys?  I take full responsibility." So…

DDS: Yeah, integrity and accountability often, kind of (Inaudible 29.47)

MP: Absolutely.  So, we… I do feel that we've got a good level of psychological safety in our organisation and good level of trust, because people can disagree with us, you know, have healthy conflict, and people are taking accountability for their own areas.  Yes, there are still issues, but there's… generally they're newer people that haven't quite built that, kind of, you know, foot under the table yet kind of experience.  But people take accountability for their areas, for sure.

DDS: Alix, final thoughts from you.

AB: Oh, and accountability without trust is micromanagement, right?  You know, accountability with trust is empowerment.  I think the danger is that accountability at the minute is over-romanticised.

MP: Yeah.

AB: You know, if people aren't crystal clear about how they're contribution, you know, adds to the organisation, how they can be accountable, it's kind of all just going to fall over.  So, we need to make sure that it's not a one-size-fits-all model.  You know, different businesses, different functions, you know, different people require that at different levels, so how can you, kind of, create an ecosystem of accountability that's not imposed, it's shared and it's right for the organisation, because high growth isn't about just working harder.  It's about everyone being crystal clear on how we all work together to achieve.

MP: Yeah, to achieve the greater good.

DDS: Fantastic, thank you.  So some key tips for organisational performance there.  The… there's a number of things that Alix said which will be available on t-shirts very rapidly.

AB: KPop and CPAP.

MP: Yeah.

AB: I think have… that's that…

DDS: KPop and CPAP… it's the overlap that no one knew they needed.

MP: I like that.

DDS: And, oh, it's probably worth pointing out, actually, for anyone who's… when Mark, you were saying you like your models.

MP: Yeah.

DDS: That’s five disfunctions of a team, isn't it, that you're kind of working up that pyramid.

MP: Yeah.

DDS: So, anyone who hasn't seen it, it is a nice way of thinking about where accountability falls down, and quite often it is because, like, I agreed with you just to get it out of the way, but I never thought it was going to work, and therefore, when you come back and go, "Why hasn't this worked?" I go, "Well, you know, never thought it would."

MP: Yeah, and you've got to look inwards as well.  You know, inwards.  If you haven't got trust in your organisation, you can't just tell people, "Trust me."  You know, there's a reason, so you've got to, kind of, look inward and say, "What are we doing wrong that isn't influenced… influencing trust?  Is it the leadership?  Is it the way that we work?  Is it the way we speak?"  You know, psychological contract.

AB: Yeah.

MP: You've got to, kind of, do some kind of audit in your organisation.

AB: And getting the buy-in, right?

MP: Yeah, absolutely.

DDS: Take accountability for it.  So, those thoughts (Inaudible 32.16) well, well, well.  I'm just going to go away from this very proud of me.  That's the way that I… that's the way this works.  So, that's all from us today.  I'd like to absolutely thank our guests because it's been super fun, Alix and Mark, for sharing your thoughts, and as ever, to you our listeners for tuning in.  I will… I've stopped recommending that you find this in different places because you're obviously finding it if you're listening, but we do publish new episodes every fortnight, so do make sure to catch up with everything and make sure that you're subscribed.

I've been David D'Souza.  I assume I still will be.  I don't know who wrote this script, and this is the HR People Pod.

 

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights impacting the profession and the world of work.  My name's David D'Souza.  I am Director of Profession at the CIPD, and I'm delighted that we can bring you a special guest today in our series of bringing you exceptional thinkers.  

So, joining me, not quite in the studio today, but live from his home, we've got an author and highly acclaimed speaker in the field of high performance, a multi award winning journalist and Olympian, someone who left school at the age of 16 to focus on table tennis.  Is that correct, Matthew?

Matthew Syed: That is, David.  Great to connect.  I hope the signal holds up, because we've had a few problems, but it's great to have this conversation.  I love what you're doing at CIPD, and you're right, you're right.  I left school to play table tennis, much to my father's… what's the right word here?

Disappointment isn't strong enough.  He was more than disappointed.  He said, "Matthew, table tennis won't last a lifetime," and he was right about that, I realised in my late 20s as I'm slowing down, that I'd have to reinvent, but it's been a, sort of, a coherent journey, really, because in table tennis, although it's quite a small sport in the UK, it's quite big globally.  Quite competitive.

So, it was often, you know, one's life was about trying to improve to be the best that one could be to perform under pressure, and then when I stopped playing table tennis somewhat after the Olympic Games in Sydney, I started writing about those kinds of topics and it's really been a great journey of trying to understand not just individual performance, but team performance and performance of organisations, the cultures that can support them and also societies.  You know, what makes societies function well.  I try and look at that as much as possible in my Sunday Times column.

So yeah, it's been a strange journey at times and when I look back now, I still find it difficult to believe how long I invested in table tennis because I was… it was, sort of, the main thing in my life between the ages of about 8 and 32, which philosophically, spending that amount of time hitting a plastic ball over the net, yeah, it's a bit… it's been a bit surreal.

DDS: And do you often wake up at night thinking, should've spent that time in a different way?  Are you very content with where you've ended up now?

MS: I often dream… I have an anxiety dream where I'm due on to play a match at 9.00am and I'm trying to get to the tournament, and it sort of takes me back to when I used to be driven to tournaments by wonderful mum who I had Sunday lunch with yesterday.  And she used to take me and my brother Andrew to tournaments, you know, in the Cotswolds or in Cleveland or in Birmingham, Tunbridge Wells.  There was a big tournament there.  And the real fear was not getting to the tournament on time because if you didn't get there on time, you got scratched and you would have this announcement on the Tannoy in these municipal sports halls.  You know, "Matthew Syed to table seven within two minutes, or he will be scratched."  And I hear that voice in my head and I wake up thinking I've got to get to the tournament.

So, that's what I… that's what, sort of, seems to be playing on my mind.  So, in my dreams, I'm still a dedicated table tennis player, oddly enough.

DDS: It's… I think my school hood memories would be just forgetting about exams altogether, so a reminding voice would've been very handy.  So, taking inspiration from blockbusters like Avengers Infinity War, Endgame and Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows, and Squid Game, we're splitting this conversation into two.  So, two distinct parts, if you're listening.  Across both episodes, we'll be focused on high performance, but we'll look at it from an individual standpoint and we'll look at it from an organisational one.

So, you spoke about both of these things at the Festival of Work, the CIPD's event this summer, in a really well regarded and welcomed keynote, but if we start off with that, kind of, the individual and the mindset, do you consider that high performance mindset to be a rare thing?  Or do you consider that to be something everyone's got access to and maybe it just takes a bit of training and discipline to act?

MS: I loved that event, by the way, at the Excel.

DDS: Yeah, we first met when you were speaking at our annual conference years ago up in Manchester, so it's nice to be able to, kind of, connect again now.

MS: Yes, yes, yeah that's right.  Didn't we talk in the bar at the Radisson Hotel? 

DDS: Yes, for hours, and at one point…

MS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DDS: I'm happy to… always a bit false to any of our listeners.  I started lecturing you on how I thought Jose Mourinho would do next year, forgetting that I think you were the sports journalist of the year at the time.  So, yeah, very in-depth conversation.

MS: I loved the event at the Excel because wasn't just the event itself, was afterwards I, sort of, hung around and talked to the audience, all of whom were so interesting on culture.  And so, I learned a lot from those chats, and it reflects one of my books, that diverse perspectives often create a far bigger and richer information space than just having a group of people who think in the same way.
But on the question of individual mindset, I think this idea of a growth mindset is very, very important because effectively, it's people… I mean, there's a lot of ways to go into what the growth mindset is, but I think it's particularly significant in the world today, a world of change and dynamism and complexity, because what it means is what we're currently doing is likely to be superseded by new ways of doing things, new technologies that can inform the way we're currently doing things.  And therefore, having a mindset that enables you to be willing to adapt, to respond to new information, to try things and to fail and to overcome some of the complacency that we can easily drift into, I think is very, very important.
And so, individuals can cultivate a growth mindset.  So, it's something which is a bit different to personality, which if not completely set in stone is rather more fixed.  Our mindsets can change and cultures can help people to shift their mindset.

DDS: And there's obviously a body of work that sits behind this.  There's a degree of contention, I think, around some of the evidence in there, but it does also seem to be common sense in terms of the fact that if we do not practice at things, we will not be able to excel at them, and if we do not believe that practice will make a difference, we won't even try. 

So, there's something in that heart, as you say, of believing that you can be better as an individual to even have a chance to advance.

MS: Good way to think about it is… to get a big picture in here is the history of science, and I think most historians would agree that science didn't advance very much between the time, at least in Western science, between the time of the ancient Greeks and the scientific revolution.  And one reason for this, I think they were quite fixed.  They thought that the Earth was the centre of the solar system, that it was 6,000 years old and a range of other dogmas, and if there was any evidence that showed that this might be incorrect, the people who provided that evidence were often shunned or even killed.

What you might call a high blame culture.  And of course, if one becomes fixated on a particular way of thinking about the world, it becomes very difficult to adapt, and it was only when scientists said, "Okay, yeah, we have good models of the world, but they can be improved," that they started performing experiments.

Experiments, really, are a form of curiosity.  You're trying to find out what you don't know and that requires a willingness to recognise that what we currently know can be superseded and so we're going to test our hypotheses, and if they fail, that will set the stage for coming up with richer and more explanatory hypotheses.

And so, I think science itself, not unlike biological evolution, is just a process of testing, learning and adapting.  And I think we can introduce that into our own lives, to an extent, and that as we learn and adapt and reinvent, we just have a more interesting journey in life, but also the one that can be much more productive.

DDS: So, at the heart of that is an assumption that people shouldn't be complacent, or at least if you are complacent, there's a natural level that you will reach and you will not supersede.

How detrimental can complacency be?  Where if you think about individuals initially, how much of a limiter do you think that is to people achieving their genuine potential?

MS: I think it can happen with organisations and individuals that have had success.  So, I think I mention in the speech at Excel, this is what Satya Nadella diagnosed at Microsoft when he became CEO in 2014, that they had had success historically and they had understandably thought we're pretty good, we're developing prestige, we're getting the answers right, but that… and there's nothing wrong with being successful, but it can, in cultural and psychological terms, lead to complacency.  You know, we've got the answers and therefore, there's nothing more to learn, and he described Microsoft at that time as an organisation that had become a group of know-it-alls, where people's self-esteem became bound up with being the smartest person in the room.  Which again, isn't necessarily a bad thing, to want to look smart, but if one's ego or self-esteem is bound up with having the answers correct, never making mistakes, being smarter than anyone else, the kind of expertise that one associates with omniscience, then one becomes very threatened by failures.  Because instead of seeing that it's an opportunity to learn and adapt, it becomes threatening to one's ego and one doesn't want to hear about it, or to hearing about the deficiencies in the product line or the next advertising campaign.

Because if one was the originator of that campaign, again, it can be a threat.  Or if somebody else comes up with an incredible idea, which is the purpose of teamwork, but that idea didn't emerge from my own brain, again, that person's trying to look smarter than me, and people in those circumstances can send off signals that shuts down the open exchange of ideas and constructive descent that is a cornerstone of effective teamwork and of, you know, related phenomenon, forgive the jargon, sometimes called psychological safety, which I think is a very big deal, by the way, psychological safety.

And so, Nadella said, "We really need to shift from an organisation of know-it-alls, complacent, not being adaptive, not effectively functioning as a team, to an organisation of learn-it-alls.  Which sounds a big naff, admittedly, but when one is a learn-it-all, one can still be an expert, but one is seeking to connect that expertise with new knowledge, new technologies, new information, new insights to bring the collateral of the wider team to the cross-germination of ideas.  And I think it was that cultural unlocking of the talents at Microsoft that really transformed its trajectory under this extraordinary journey under Nadella. 
And it does map, I think, onto the scientific revolution where there's just this extraordinary flowering of knowledge, of testing and learning, multidisciplinary work, and I think, you know, these are obviously big-picture characterisations I'm giving, but I do think it's worth being aware of how complacency can set in, and it… you know, I measure my mindset every six months because every now and again, it sets in with me.  You introduced me as a, you know, as a great thinker.

You know, it's lovely to hear it but my goodness, how easy to sit back and think, you know, what a… and just to stop learning and to stop engaging with the extraordinary research that's out there.

And I'm of… you know, I do that all the time, so I like to have that little wakeup call, that little internal monitor.  Because the other thing worth saying is I think that life of intellectual adventure and change is a really, and this is an independent point, really, a much more interesting and engaging one.  But it's worth saying that moving from the fixed to the growth mindset, it's not just about overcoming complacency.  I think we can also put limitations on ourselves that maybe we're not good enough to adapt and grow.  We don't have the talent; we don't have the potential.  We can be held back by imposter syndrome, and you know, I think of when I was moving from playing table tennis into writing.  You know, when I wrote my first piece for The Times and got invited to give a speech at Goldman Sachs, and I'd done very little public speaking before - I went to a comprehensive school - and I remember being weighed down with imposter syndrome, thinking what on Earth can a table tennis player say to a group of traders?  And I didn't do very well.  It didn't go down as well as I hoped. I prepared hard, but I didn't really have the social confidence or the eloquence, frankly, to really deliver a great speech. 

So, I read it out and I remember leaving that and realising it hadn't gone down brilliantly and thinking you know what, if I'm ever asked to do a speech again, I'll just decline.  I haven't got the gift.  And that is a fixed-mindset response, because people… I should've really explained this earlier, but people in a fixed mindset on an unconscious level tend to associate success with talent, and therefore any failure's evidence that you lack talent.  Quite a binary thing.  And therefore, it becomes… it can become rational to give up.

But then I thought let's have a growth-mindset response to this, and I got a friend to google public speaking practice, and I went to this club called Toastmasters where you can practice in front of a group of likeminded and often really supportive people, and I just got better and better at, not becoming the best speaker in the world but improving my ability to read a room, to speak without notes, to answer questions.  And I was very passionate about that because I knew that journalism was what I wanted to do and I might occasionally get asked to go on the radio or podcasts, and it just was remarkable to me how much capacity we often do have for change, particularly, yes, the technical skills, but the non-technical skills too.  How to conduct a meeting, how to listen well, how to build rapport, how to sell, how to communicate in public.

These are eminently learnable skills, but I suppose the willingness to practice them and to build up that capability is sort of presupposed by a belief in our capacity to learn, which is really the point that you were making, that it can lead to a certain type of self-efficacy.  And as I say, doesn't mean we all become the best communicators in the world because, you know, I'm not the best.  It just means we get to be the best that we can be.  That's got remarkable dynamical power within a company or a team or an ecosystem.

DDS: Where would you start?  So, you're talking about you developed a discipline of, kind of, self-reflection at least every six months and you've got areas that you know you can work on and develop and you're committing time and effort to them.  If someone was listening to this now, and public speaking's a brilliant example because… it is the one that seems to strike fear into otherwise absolutely expert people, is the idea of sharing their expertise with others.

Where would you start?  You said Toastmasters, but that initial step, that initial result, that's at the heart of the mindset that you're talking about, isn't it?

MS: Toastmasters was a gamechanger for me.  I was lucky enough to be a member of a group just over the bridge from where I am now in Twickenham, South West London, Riverside Communicators, and it was just 10 or 15 people like me trying to improve their communication skills.  And I've bumped into a few of them over the year.  I went for four or five years, slowly building up my… because it was very important for me as a journalist to be able to communicate verbally, because I did get invited onto the Today programme or more recently onto Question Time, and I wanted to be able to get what was in my brain across to other people verbally, to think on my feet.  My goodness, these were learnable.

You know, it's funny, I did a podcast with Robbie Savage and Freddie Flintoff and, you know, one of them had gone from cricket into broadcasting, then other from football, but what they both had, they weren't necessarily the best communicators but they had incredible growth mindsets.  So, Robbie had a teleprompter in his home, so he was practising, trying to read a teleprompter while listening to… because that's what you have to do as a presenter.

DDS: Yeah.

MS: You have to multitask.  Fred, who is becoming an ever more brilliant broadcaster, and he actually got the Top Gear gig, big gig, off the back of the podcast we did.  You know, he went on a musical theatre tour, you know, singing in front of audiences to overcome his self-consciousness and, you know, we can forge those kinds of opportunities.  Toastmasters is brilliant to do that, by the way, because you get an opportunity to speak in public, you know, every second week if your club meets every… we met every second Wednesday, and you'd just be amazed at how much you improve.

But we only have a limited amount of time in the day.  I would say focus on those things that you think are going to be really fun, enjoyable, you know, career enhancing, helping you pursue your purpose, and allocate a bit of time for it, you know, in our busy lives.  It's part of how we grow.

DDS: And it's inevitable that you won't grow if you don't.  So, to your point, there's that self-limiting assumption that some people have, that this is as good as it gets.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: But for anyone listening to this, I think there's a few things really interesting that have, kind of, come up.  You talked about keeping pace with the scientific revolution and that notion of experimentation.  And that's really important for practitioners where we have to keep learning more, we have to keep challenging our assumptions, and you used the word dogma earlier, I think.

That's a really important thing for the profession as a whole, but just to take you back, because you've written a number of books that deal with the themes that we've, kind of, spoken about, and I know we've spoken a lot around purposeful practice in this, which would've been the, kind of, heart of bounce, but equally, one of the books I've seen most in HR professionals' libraries sneaking out, you know you see the cameras in, kind of, people's houses now and you get to see what's on the bookshelf, is Black Box Thinking.  And you just want to touch… because one of the things that can really cause damage to people's careers is where mistakes actually derail them.  So you see someone make a mistake and then the next year is just them recovering from the mistake.  You write a lot in Black Box Thinking around people's… that ability to take a mistake and turn it into a…

So, if there's something that someone could do to improve the growth mindset, how do you personally cope with mistakes?

MS: I think the key here, to just… you know, one of the international editions of Black Box Thinking had a subtitle, you know, "Why failure's good," which isn't quite right, is it?  I mean, you don't necessarily, you know, want to play in the Olympic Games and just lose really easily, make loads of mistakes.  I think one needs to… and I try and make this argument in Black Box Thinking.  You really, I think, need to apply a strategic lens to making mistakes and what failure means.
I mean, I'm flying abroad next week and I wouldn't necessarily want the pilot, on final approach, to think I'm going to try a new lever today and potentially crash the plane.  We wouldn't say the pilot, if they survived the crash, "Oh, well done.

Well done for trying something new and… probably prosecute them for gross negligence.  If a pilot had a hunch about maybe changing the way they interact in final approach, we wouldn't want them to test it in a real-life flight, we'd want them to test it in a simulator.  That way, you get all the benefits of learning from failure without anyone dying.  You know, or a retail company wouldn't necessarily bet the equity of the business on, you know, a hunch that if we change the configuration of the shelves, we're going to improve customer experience.  But if they test it in the pilot scheme, they might get lots of benefits from learning, but without jeopardising too much value.

And I think, for what it's worth, people in a fixed mindset empirically are more likely to test pilot schemes in very conducive conditions, you know, with the best manager, best area, best customers, because they're trying to corroborate, if you like, the hypothesis, but they don't learn very much.  It's important to test rich hypotheses.  You're always trying to maximise the benefits of learning while minimising the downside cost.  Toastmasters is a good example of that.  You can fail loads of times in front of a group of friends and it doesn’t really have much impact on your career, and then you can hopefully take a more skilled capability in communication into the real world.  And I think that strategic lens is very important.

I watched a podcast a few days ago with Demis Hassabis of DeepMind and he made a really fantastic point, that when we fail, and AI is obviously designed to do this well, you really want to split the hypothesis space.  You want to come up with a conjecture where whether you… if a hypothesis is sufficiently rich that you're dividing the hypothesis space in two, so of all the infinite possibilities out there, the hypothesis that you test tells you that either half of these infinite possibilities are wrong or that they're right, then a success or a failure has the same meaning.  And he also made the point, and it's a point that E.O. Wilson made, that if you test a trivial hypothesis, you get a trivial answer.

The real art, if I can put it that way, and science is to come up with very rich conjectures.  Now, that is something Hassabis said that AI is not yet capable of doing.  AI is very good at testing hypotheses, but it isn't yet good at coming up with interesting conjectures.  But I suppose that long story short, I think the way we frame failure has to be around trying to maximise the benefits from learning from potential failure while minimising the downside cost.  That’s true of failing fast in Silicon Valley, by the way.  They're not failing randomly with these prototypes or minimum viable products.  They're testing them such that they are able to make much bigger strides forward with each failure.  So, there has to be a strategic lens in how we fail and fail well.

DDS: Yeah.  Move fast and break things is about understanding actually what works and what doesn't, at pace.  Like you say, it's not… the aim isn't to just break things.  That would be a very strange thing to aspire to as an organisation.

I'm going to ask if you could just… two things that you recommend anyone listening to this podcast do around their own personal disciplines or performance.  And then we'll wrap it up and we'll look forward to the organisational version of this coming out a little bit later.

MS: Well, the… you know, slightly self-serving here, I take Mindset Advantage which is a took that me and my team have designed to test my mindset every six months.  It's a really useful check for me, drifting into complacency or having failed to not collaborate well or not building out new skills.  It's just a really good thing that I do.

And then I would… every six months, why not try something and… that you're likely to fail at?  You know, I think we sometimes catastrophise failures that actually don't mean much.  Like, if in the early days of Toastmasters, I'd messed up when the consequence is actually quite low and I thought, I'm never going back there again, you know, what's… it doesn't matter that much.  I think just failure's a part of life and just reinterpreting it sometimes can be a real boon to our own mental health, as much as anything else.

DDS: Caring enough to try and not caring so much that it's going to be an anchor, I think is that balance that you're, kind of, talking about there, isn't it?

MS: Yeah, exactly.

DDS: So, you put the effort in with Toastmasters, but it was never going to be the thing that stopped you dead in your tracks, and that's a difficult balance for any professional to carry.

MS: Yeah.  I really like that, and I think particularly of young people who… there was a finding in psychology a few years ago, the curse of perfectionism, that kids in a world of social media where people are posting their best lives and looking perfect and airbrushed pictures, if kids start thinking that life's about being perfect or acting perfectly, they'll just be paralysed by, you know, not wanting to try new things, you know, not asking questions in class because, you know, I didn't understand that.  Well, what?  But by not asking questions about something you didn't understand, it means you're perpetuating your lack of understanding.

You know, when I was at Oxford, even back then there were… I suppose I had a bit of a growth mindset back then because if I didn't understand, I really felt that I ought to ask the tutor or the lecturer.  Fantastic to get that feedback.  But there are others that really wanted to look good in the eyes of the lecturer by not asking the question, but of course it meant, you know, when they got to the final exams, there often were gaps in knowledge.

There was another thing that fascinated me, is that in the buildup to the exams at Oxford, there were some people who were very conspicuously in the quad drinking Pimm's and I was like why are they not… you know, we've been here for a few years.  Might as well do your best in the exam.  I mean, seemed to me a sensible thing to do.  Now, I came across this phenomenon of self-handicapping where people are so worried about potentially failing that they try and proactively construct an excuse in advance of the test.

DDS: Yeah, see quite a bit with interviews where people just put themselves in a position where it's likely they'll fail, but it's a lovely defence mechanism.  The reason I failed wasn't I wasn't good enough or I wasn't a good enough fit, it's just…

MS: Yeah, right.

DDS: This happened on the day, or I wasn't able to prep.

Thank you for this.  It's been a brilliant first episode.  Just a reminder, there will be a second one following hot on its tracks.  We will include links to a number of the resources, kind of, mentioned within this.  As I say, Matthew's books will be a lovely addition to any of your bookshelves, is the way that I will position it, and remember that we publish new episodes of this podcast every fortnight.  So, you can catch up with anything on demand.  My name's David D'Souza.  This has been the HR People Pod.  Thank you so much to our guest, Matthew Syed for all of his thoughts on how you can be a better performing professional.  

Thank you.

Amy Crutchfield: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting people professions and the world of work. I'm Amy Crutchfield, Change Management Specialist at the CIPD, and I'm standing in for David D'Souza, who I'm reliably informed is in a sunny, far-away destination. But, safe to say we've got our own sunshine here in the studio today and I'm delighted to be joined by:

Beth Samson: I'm Beth Samson. I'm the People Director, Investors in People. Thank you so much for having me today.

AC: Thanks, Beth. It's your first appearance on the People Pod.

BS: It is. Yes, I'm very excited.

AC: Welcome. We're in this together.

Garin Rouch: Hi, my name is Garin Rouch. I'm a consultant for Distinction Business Consulting and I also do a lot with the CIPD, supporting organisation development.

AC: Great. And joining us from Ireland.

Alison Hodgson: Hi, good morning. Alison Hodgson, I'm the Country Market Director here for the CIPD in Ireland.

AC: It's a pleasure to have everyone with us today on the People Pod, Garin and Alison, welcoming you back for the second and third time. And welcome to our listeners as well. So, before we get started, I'd like to get to know you all a bit better if that's OK? And as I'm the substitute teacher, I'm going to, I want to change the way we do that today a little bit.

So, we normally ask what you're reading, listening or watching, but I'm going to shake it up and I'm going to ask a question that actually came up in our CIPD community. And that is, "What was your first ever job?", perhaps was it your most favourite job and kind of what did you learn from your first ever job? So, Garin, I'm going to start with you, if that's OK?

GR: Potentially this question is quite triggering, going back in time a little bit. My first ever job was working on a fruit and veg market stall. It wasn't in the career plan, I just got offered the opportunity because of a friend who had a family business, and it is actually the only job I've ever been fired from.

AC: Oh wow!

GR: So, I'm never going to talk about.

AC: That strong!

GR: I know we're going to talk about unfair dismissal today, but this was very fair dismissal. Basically, I quickly realised I can't do arithmetic in my head. I can't tell the difference between certain types of vegetables. I know people are colour blind. I'm actually vegetable blind.

AC: Vegetable blind.

GR: I cannot tell the difference between the calabrese and broccoli, still to this day.

AC: OK, not doing the weekly food shop?

GR: No, I'm totally off that.

AC: Alison, what about you?

AH: Triggering is the very word, my first ever job was, I was an overlocker machinist in O'Neill's Sportswear factory where I used to do the cuffs and the collars in the sweatshirts. And I had to do 19 dozen pieces a day and the key learning is; I am much better at talking than I am at stitching.

AC: Well, today's all about talking. So, no stitching required.

AH: Good, good.

AC: And hopefully not as traumatic.

BS: I don't know. Actually my first job was in retail, so I worked in a shop in Canterbury and I really enjoyed it actually, talking to people And it gave me a catch phrase for life, which was, "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean." So, we were encouraged never to just sort of be standing around, there was always something to do. So, I actually quite liked it as an introduction to the world of work.

AC: Nice. And similarly, my skills for my first job. I worked at a marina, helping people in and out of row boats on the weekends. Also, not a skill we need today on the podcast, but yeah, great to talk to people and meet members of the public, I think, when you're that age, getting into the world of work. Cool. Thank you everyone.

So, as always for everything we discuss today, we're going to talk about the general principles of what's happening. Everyone knows, as experienced people professionals, it's really difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes. So, we're just going to use the stories and headlines as a kick-off point to get us started. So, later in the episode, as Garin alluded to, we're going to talk about unfair dismissal. We're going to talk about flexible and hybrid working and some recent CIPD research on that. We're also going to explore the challenges facing new graduates entering the labour market, particularly in the wake of AI, but also the impact that might have on future talent pipelines.

But before we get started, I want to say "thank you" to our departing Chair of the Board of Trustees, Valerie Hughes D’Aeth and extend a warm welcome to our new Chair, Professor Christopher Bones. Christopher is the former Dean of the Henley Business School, a senior HR leader, and he brings extensive experience to the role at a time of real evolution for the people profession. So, kicking us off this week.

AC: I don't know if you seen the news. The House of Lords have backed an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill. So, Labour in their manifesto obviously wanted to change unfair dismissal to become a day-one right. But the House of Lords have recently backed an amendment to change this to six months, which would change that initial qualifying period from two years. So, if that's accepted back in the House of Commons, that would mark a U-turn, obviously on the manifesto that would have given all workers protection from unfair dismissal, and we explored the sentiment of that a bit in a recent episode - episode 10, our Employment Rights Bill Special. So, do check that out if you haven't already.

But, following this latest development, then, to a six-month period, does that feel like a sensible compromise? Garin, I'll come to you first.

GR: Yeah. I guess obviously with organisational development we're always trying to think, "are we asking the right question here?" and I think one of things I was sort of thinking about, about the whole thing is about unfair dismissal in itself.

So, you know previously should I have to wait for two years to earn the right to not be unfairly dismissed? Should I have to work incredibly hard for two years to not be fired without warning or explanation, to be dismissed for whistleblowing or being pregnant? You know, all those things. So, why shouldn't it really be from day one? In a way like six months could potentially be a bit of a fudge.

It might seem a little bit controversial, but it really is about managers upping their game and organisations upping their game as well. I think you find that sometimes probation can be misused or it's a "wait and see" and it's then the burden of responsibility's on the employee to demonstrate their capability. Whereas, really, we should be investing in them from the beginning. They've got through the recruitment process, they've demonstrated the things that we're looking for, now it's our responsibility to really see them through and give them the support and the strength that they need to develop. You know, it's about us providing the runway.

So, I think before we dive in and say, "is six months enough?", we really need to take a step back and think you know, "why do we actually need this probation?" And do we actually need this at all?

AC: And perhaps you know if people are, if that was the change and it did become a day-one right and we did see an increase in unfair dismissal, is the question then actually are our hiring practices and our recruitment selection processes suitable for assessing suitability at an organisation? Are they fit?

GR: I completely agree. Yeah. And I think, I think sometimes we can overblow these things as well. So, I remember when the minimum wage was brought in. Brought in at £3.60 and it was thought that it would crash the economy and there was genuine legitimate concern that it would, and it went in, and it had little impact. So, we genuinely don't know what it's going to do until it's actually enacted. It's, you know, we're putting it into a complex [inaudible, 06:56] system. I think the big thing is that the government has a moral responsibility to deal with the unintended consequences that comes with it, because we don't know. Some organisations that are large, that have good processes will be in a good place. It's probably the smaller employers that will find it most challenging.

AC: Definitely. And Beth, what do you think this means practically for managers then?

BS: Yeah, I think on this point, philosophically, I think everyone should have protection from day-one from unfair practices. I don't think that should be up for debate, speaking about the question that we should be asking. Practically, it means that you need to be doing the right things. As we all know, following the right processes, giving your managers training, supporting them. And I do think there's another issue here, which is, as an employer we don't want to disincentivise hiring at all: that's so important. But we have to accept that there's a balance of risk here. And as an employer, you're taking, you know, a leap of faith, you're taking a risk in hiring someone. But as a person accepting a role, that's probably, you know, got a huge impact in your life, potentially on earnings, your family, where you're living even.

So, I think we need to accept that although it maybe will put a little bit of an extra burden on employers, if they haven't got these practices in place already, we're doing the right thing here for people who are entering new workplaces.

GR: Yeah. And just to build on Beth's point there. I think there's a lot more that can be done during the current processes, to actually really contract with people before they begin, to actually demonstrate really this is what the role is like. This is the good, this is the bad, and this is the boring. And so that people then go with informed consent. I think there's that mismatch of expectations and that's where the disappointment often arises.

AC: Definitely. And I think when you're in those processes, you're very much still, up until day one and even beyond that, you're like, "I still haven't got the job". You know, you've got your offer, you've got it in writing, but you're like, "I still don't want to put a foot out of place." And if there's those niggling questions in your head that, "Oh, not quite sure about this, I'm not quite sure about that". You're kind of too afraid to ask them, aren't you? So yeah, it will change the balance there. Alison, what's? How does this sit in Ireland? Tell us what goes on there.

AH: The legislative landscape is slightly different here, so unfair dismissal generally does not apply until an employee has completed one year of service, unless it's as, to Beth's point, unfair practices have been enacted by the employer. But it's further nuanced here, we've put some more guardrails around the probation piece.

So, probation typically in Ireland is six months and technically should not be extended unless there are absolutely exceptional circumstances and they would be things like prolonged absence of the employee during the probation period where they've not had a chance to get up to speed and get their feet under the table. And then, if the probation is extended, it technically can't exceed more than 12 months, but during that extra period, resources, training, support, mentoring need to be provided in order for the individual to get up to speed and have a fair chance.

AC: And probation is also about that person having a fair chance, embedding into that organisation. But what do you think is helpful to assess, from a management perspective in those six months, from their side as well?

AH: I think it's about clarity of understanding. So, we've talked about the deal that gets struck. This is where proper objective-setting, proper, OK hours, you know objectives, key results need to be outlined, clarified, understood and accepted by both parties from the get-go. So, if you're a salesperson and you're required to generate X amount of sales during that first six-month period, then that needs to be very, very explicit. So, this is where implied objectives aren't helpful.

AC: So clear, measurable objectives that are known from day one, and that six-month probationary period so everyone knows where they stand.

AH: Yeah.

AC: CIPD research published this week explored the current state of flexible and hybrid working practices. Flexible and hybrid working, it's always; it's been on the agenda a while. We're always going to see it on the agenda, I think, and it's important to consider alternative perspectives within that. So, we're not going to sit here today and debate whether flexible and hybrid working should or shouldn't be a thing. I think those debates have been around for a long time and will continue to go on. But interestingly, about this research, we found 1.1 million workers had actually left a job in the past 12 months due to a lack of flexibility.

So, we're not now just seeing prospective candidates demanding flexibility and seeking that out in opportunities, but actually now actively leaving roles that aren't serving them in that way. So, I think it's really, isn't it, about finding a solution that supports people's performance, supports wellbeing, but meets the needs of the business?

And I think what we can consider today is the key challenges from an employer's perspective with hybrid working, because that's what we see more often than not in the headlines. It's, you know, certain employers marching everyone back into the office five days a week. We've all seen these headlines, but the two specific challenges that came out of the research, mainly were: the ability of managers to lead teams effectively in this hybrid and remote way, but also a lack of employee connection to that organisational purpose and that sense of being together.

So, Beth, I'm going to come to you first. What are your thoughts on those challenges and how can organisations start to overcome them?

BS: Yeah, I think it's so interesting. So, we did some research recently in our latest White Paper about the kind of management crisis. It's called "The Broken Ladder" because what we found was that basically people don't really want to be managers anymore. Surprise, surprise.

AC: Yeah.

BS: It's not seen as particularly aspirational for more than half of the people that we surveyed, some would actively avoid it. But interestingly, and we asked about the top ten challenges and out of the options that we gave, managing hybrid and remote teams was actually second from the bottom. The number one challenge cited by people was the perennial one: balancing workplace demands with individual people that they're managing's demands. So, I think what we're looking at here is probably more of a management problem than a flexible working problem.

AC: Yeah. OK, so interesting. So, the managers surveyed in that research wasn't to do with the hybrid work. They didn't think that was really a challenge for them, it was actually just leading the team in an effective way. So, unpack that a bit more. You know what, what came out of that?

BS: Yeah, I think it's. I think the pressure's increased massively on managers. The rate of change that we've spoken about in the world of work has increased.

AC: Yeah.

BS: So, for a manager, they're not just, you know, achieving objectives anymore. They're coaches, they're therapists, you know, they're having to be experts on technology and AI now as well. And on top of that, they've got teams which are working in different ways. There's been a lot to get to grips with. So, I think out of that sort of shopping list of tasks, actually, if they can crack the core skills of being available, building trust, having clear objectives like we've talked about, treating people as people, then the hybrid/remote working challenge isn't top of the list, because that almost solves itself.

AC: And Alison, from your perspective, how do you think? How do think managers can role-model this to their teams?

AH: I think language is everything. So, interestingly, this week in Ireland flexible working and return to office has been headline news, where one of our pillar banks has issued an edict for people to return to office a minimum of three days a week and language such as, "non-compliance will not be tolerated" was actually used in the communication. So, as you might imagine, that was not welcomed. It has caused probably I would say significant disruption and unrest and has made the life of the manager even trickier than Beth described. So, it's, as with everything in life, it's about how you do it, not necessarily what you do.

AC: Yeah, it's. It's how you do it. It's the action, isn't it, Garin?

GR: Yeah. And I think it's one of these questions where opinion outweighs the evidence. Like, I would struggle to find a study which sort of says that that would potentially affect productivity. You know, working in a hybrid environment. In fact, a lot of the benefits are huge. So, in a way, the fact we're having this conversation makes my heart sink a little and the fact that, you know, really, you know, well-run organisations like AIB are mandating people back into the office, because that does a thing, without a doubt, and it leaves a real sort of after effect within the organisation about how people feel treated and respected as well.

I think in your framing of it, you were talking about connecting employees to purpose. And I think it's something that organisations, on the whole don't do very well at all. I think you know, if an organisation even has an articulated purpose, it's more of a tagline than an actual philosophy or a direction, and those purposes are often not actually then woven into the strategy, to the systems, the incentives, the job design that we do as well. So, it's not just really a hybrid problem.

I think you know there's a real sense of people not necessarily feeling that their jobs feel meaningful or significant in relation to the fulfilment of the purpose. Like they may well do the job really well because they're loyal to their colleagues or they want to do great work for their customers or clients or service users or whatever. So, we really need to do a lot of work on that, and I think one of the big things is that you know this, this hybrid managing is not witchcraft. Like, it's not like, "Aha, I shall now manage in a hybrid way", a lot of the really good practices are just things that you would do on management anyway. You know?

AC: Yeah.

GR: Managing on outcomes rather than outputs and hours. I think that's really important. You know, the thing that we always try to instil into organisations is really good team operating rhythms so that we have a really good cadence of meetings, where people come together, connect meaningfully. We observe a lot of meetings and many of them are status updates, which are these circular, life-draining exercises where we repeat the same thing week on week. It's about really good design and making it meaningful. So, there's so many things that we can do to actually make the workplace a lot more engaging for people and a lot more purposeful.

AH: And I think it doesn't need to be overly engineered. It's really simple questions like, "I need you to do this, so that we achieve that goal". "I need you to do this and next I need you to do that, so that we arrive at where we all want to be". It's just really asking the, "so that" question and "what" question, "what next" question? It's just breaking it down into digestible, bite-sized actions that remind people why we do what we do, how we do it, where we do it, who does it, when it's done. It's, you know it is, as Beth said, back to the basics.

AC: And you can't over communicate the purpose, right? It's one of those things that organisations, as you say, they take for granted. We've got it in the big shiny writing - everyone knows it. But actually, do people on the ground? Are they talking about it every day? Are they living it as part of their day-to-day activities?

Why do you think there's been that shift, Garin, you know? From you say, purpose perhaps you know isn't as well known or communicated across now, and that's having an impact on people, you know feeling connected, especially as we say in the context of hybrid and remote teams? Why do you think that's happened?

GR: There's a D, it's a D.

AC: It's the $1,000,000 question.

GR: You have to say the word, "it depends". But I think if you kind of looked at some of the examples, I think sometimes if you really scratch the surface and what is the purpose of the organisation it's not very sexy to say, "maximise shareholder return". It doesn't spring people out of bed in the morning.

AC: Yeah.

GR: So, how do we sort of start to create ways of actually, you know, what is the purpose and how can we make it meaningful? So, there's a certain amount in the design, but I think also, when you go across to an organisation, we don't create space for people to make sense of what the purpose is. Like, it's a statement, but people have to relate it to their own world, where they are in the organisation. So, we need to create space for that as well.

And also, it's often a top-down exercise. So, if you can actually engage people in the process, so there's a sense of ownership around it as well. And it's, because it's such an important piece of work, it's literally our purpose, therefore, it deserves the space to have people to input into it, so they feel proud of it.

AC: Yeah, it's one thing knowing the purpose, isn't it? But the second part of that, it's believing in that purpose. And I think, like we spoke about just now about, you know, you come in, you're hired, you've done your research, you've got the job. You know what the purpose is, because you want to get the interview and you're hopefully interested in the purpose, of course. And we know Gen Z workers; that's a big part of why they apply for certain companies. It's because they want to work somewhere with a sense of purpose.

BS: I had a view on that actually, on the question of purpose. I think during COVID we really narrowed our focus on what purpose was, because everything was heightened - leaders were a lot more visible. There was a lot of active communication about, actually, this is why you're showing up to work and you know companies were doing things in their local community. I think it kind of brought some clarity to that. I think what's happened since COVID is maybe a return to the status quo.

AC: Yeah.

BS: People are talking less about purpose and there's that, we talk about the iceberg of ignorance, you know, between leadership and people on the kind of the frontline of services. I think maybe that distance has grown again, leaders may be less visible dealing with things like you know, how on Earth do we use AI? So, that conversation isn't happening as regularly and it's drifted a little bit.

GR: Yeah, I'm loving Beth's phrases. So, far I've got, " if you got time to lean, you have to clean". The "iceberg of ignorance" I'll mine this one.

AC: We've talked about this in the context of line managers then and that connected point, but is it all up to the managers or are there other roles and other change enablers and organisations that are also responsible for communicating that purpose? You know, is it technology, do HR have a role here, leadership, all of the above?

GR: All of them. All of them, yeah. And HR has a huge role to play here. Not necessarily leading it but facilitating it. And I think that's probably a really big evolution of the HR role, moving forwards, is the ability to facilitate, you know, whatever it is, the implementation of new technology or you know. There needs to be an area that actually connects the dots of the organisation together and part of that is connecting people to purpose. Then HR should absolutely be at the forefront of this. This should be almost like no. 1, no. 2 on the list of things to be involved in.

AH: Yeah, I think everybody has a part to play. And for me, a good HR function leaves no footprints. So, the ultimate success for HR is when a line manager, naturally starts to talk about these things off their own bat. So, if they're talking about their team, they just naturally start to talk about the engagement of their team, the alignment of their team with the overall goals. They naturally start to talk about strategic workforce planning for their team in terms of capability and capacity. That to me is a real. That's gone live, performance review, look, you know that, you know that a good HR function leaves no footprints. It just happens and that happens, you know, by osmosis.

GR: I'm just writing that down, "good HR team leaves no footprints" I've got that. That's a brilliant saying; I've got that noted.

AC: Now time for a pop quiz feature. I don't have a jingle even. Maybe if they invite me back, I'll do a jingle for the next one. This continues the theme of hybrid and flexible working. So, following a latest report by the CIPD, we took a temperature check on the state of flexible and hybrid working practices. So, we did this in 2023, and we've done it again, now we're here in 2025.

So, it's a simple game: higher or lower. So, I'm going to tell you the figure in 2023 and all I want you to shout out is if it's higher or lower, now that we're in 2025. Seems simple in theory. What percentage of employees would feel comfortable requesting a formal, flexible working pattern? In 2023, this sat at 47%, so now do you think that's higher, more employees are comfortable, or lower?

BS: I'm looking at you. I don't want to put myself on the line.

GR: I want to say higher, but I've got, I'm very concerned that it might be lower, so I'm going to say lower.

BS: Can I hedge and say maybe it's level, hasn't changed much at all?

AC: Ooh.

AH: In Ireland I would say it's higher because there's the new right to request remote working legislation now, so I would say it's higher.

AC: We have a winner. It is indeed higher. So, that's at 59% of employees would now feel comfortable and I'm sure that's to do with the flexible first.

GR: I'm so glad I was wrong on that.

AC: It's a good thing to be wrong about. What percentage of employers perceive working from home or hybrid working to have a positive impact on productivity? In 2023, that sat at 46% and now, would you say that's higher or lower? The perception is more positive/less?

BS: Well, that's a tough one, isn't it?

AH: It depends on the definition of productivity. If productivity is about tasks, then higher. But if productivity is about collaboration, innovation, progress, culture: lower.

AC: Any other takers?

BS: I think it should be higher because the data has shown us that people can work really effectively, working hybrid and working from home. However, the data also shows us that lots of employers are asking people to come back into the office, so I don't know which way it's gone on that one.

AC: It's lower. 36% now of employers perceive working from home to have a positive impact on productivity. So yeah, perhaps the yeah, related to those headlines maybe.

AH: It is, it's the whole debate of output versus outcome, isn't it? That's what it comes down to.

AC: And it's become the norm now, isn't it? So, it's not that new thing, novelty anymore. Final one: percentage of organisations that say their organisation has hybrid working in place. So, in 2023 that sat at 84% of organisations who had hybrid working in place; higher or lower?

GR: It's another one where I want it to be higher, but I think it will be lower.

BS: I agree.

AC: Yeah, it's lower. It's 74%. So, same thing, we're starting to see people be kind of mandated back into the office more, aren't we?

AH: And a lot of that is because our pension funds are all invested in real estate, so there's a practical, there's a practical consideration here.

AC: There's lots of office buildings out there isn't there? And they are expensive to run. So, we've spoken in previous episodes about apprenticeships and the role employers play in making it a viable route into employment, but should employers be doing more to help graduates into employment? So, previous CIPD research has found the proportion of graduates in low-to-medium-skilled jobs has doubled over the past three decades. We obviously now have AI in there as well, not only supposedly taking entry-level roles, but we know candidates and graduates are using AI in their studies, in their schoolwork, in job applications.

You know, they are the generation that are growing up with AI. We often talk about unintended consequences, but I guess my question here is, what's different for graduates in 2025 and to what extent is AI making things harder? Alison, coming to you first.

AH: You know, this is such a tricky debate. I think graduates and apprenticeships is the way forward, particularly for our own profession, because I feel we need to make our own profession more accessible. And thankfully, in Ireland we've, at the CIPD, we've just started creating an HR apprenticeship. So, we've made our application to the National Apprenticeship Office and we're currently in a consortium with the National College of Ireland, which is our biggest learning partner here in Ireland, to create an HR apprenticeship.

In terms of graduates here in Ireland, you know, the starting salary is anywhere between 29 and 39,000. Average salary in Ireland in and around 45,000. So, it's an expensive business for everybody concerned and where AI is playing a part, that to me is about fundamental skills of being able to discern and decipher what AI is producing. So, when you're a little bit more seasoned, if you prompt AI and it gives you an answer that you sort of think "hmm, doesn't look quite right", you know instinctively from your own substance to reference check that with another source. And you know, people who are less seasoned might not understand that it needs second sourced or validated.

So, AI is very, very tricky, but it is still a skill in its own right. And it's a skill that we, as professionals, need to develop and hone and cultivate because the genie's out of the bottle now, it's not going away, and we all need to you know get our heads around it.

AC: And we're seeing a reduction in graduate roles as well. So, mixed with this, you know, they've got the AI making things a lot more competitive. But you know, KPMG reduced their graduate cohort by 29%, Deloitte by 18%. So, we're actually seeing less graduate roles out there. So, therefore the value for money in gaining a degree, perhaps perspective students aren't, you know, aren't seeing that as such a positive thing. So, how do we balance that? AI is making the job market more competitive. People can apply to many more jobs at much quicker speed than they used to do, but the graduate jobs are less. How do employers deal with that challenge?

GR: I think it’s; you sort of said about the law of unintended consequences, and this is one of these moments. So, if employers are looking short-term, which is to reduce the cost of basic entry roles, then yeah, absolutely, the balance sheet will look much better this year. But what they're also doing as well is, you know, and there's often a systems thing and there's a delay, is that further down the line their talent pipeline will dry up and they'll have to buy in talent because you're not developing. I think you know, we often talk about the diamond-shaped organisation, moving away from the pyramid. So, and the pyramid process isn't in any way perfect, you know, and job markets do evolve over time. So, sometimes we just have to be ready for it.

But I think it's organisations just being really intentional, and I think a lot of them are sleepwalking into AI. So, we're looking at it on a very tactical level. So, what can we automate? What can we not? But we're not necessarily thinking about, well, what capabilities do we actually need to design? Are we going for AI to cut costs or are we using AI to enhance human performance. And once you've got a policy that's really clear, that's actually built into the, you have a grand strategy about it. Then everything should flow out of it anyway.

So, then you know, well, these are specific capabilities that we're looking to develop within the organisation, we do actually need some basic entry roles for that, so then we do it with intention. I think sometimes these kind of knee-jerk responses and also looking at our competitors or others that are in the same area as us can actually influence it. We have to really think what do we specifically need for our organisation? What do we need to sharpen up on?

AC: So, you think those entry roles, some of those entry roles are absolutely here to stay and it's just about changing that and the landscape of AI?

GR: AI yeah, it may well be that apprenticeships do that, that doesn't. That's no help for anyone listening to this who's got £90,000 worth of student debt, but the, I think also for students that are entering the market, it may not be as linear as it used to be. You know, to actually be able to get a traditional job, you may have to develop and build your own job, so some freelancing or whatever it is to get those skills to sort of demonstrate you can go into that, sort of the main part of the diamond as well. So, we have to think quite sort of innovatively as well.

AC: Yeah. And I think, you know, graduates need to be a lot more creative, as you say Garin, it's not that linear: you get a degree, you apply for a graduate scheme, you're on the graduate scheme and you progress up and up at the same company. And we know perhaps generations coming into the workforce now want different things from workforce anyway, but it's perhaps not using AI for the "in the box" stuff, it's thinking about how I can use it more creatively. Beth?

BS: I just want to say, I think it's so tough to be a graduate. I mean, when I did my degree, it may not surprise, well, it may surprise people. My best mark was in a module called "Host/parasite interactions". I did a biology degree, and I think this is the thing for graduates. You sign up for a degree and it is a leap of faith. You're putting your hope and trust that the labour market will catch you, after three years. I don't think the labour market is catching our graduates. And it is so stressful to have invested all that time and money and then come out the other side, like I did. I graduated in the recession, there just weren't any jobs in science. So, I had to rethink everything. I had to take a job that I could find, which was in retail, which turned out to be great because it gave me a pathway into HR.

But I just wanted to acknowledge that it's a really tough moment for young people. Compounded by the fact that, you know, we've got the cost-of-living crisis, it's more expensive than ever to live in cities where jobs are, you know, flexible working, hybrid working would give a pathway into that. But that pathway is now being curtailed as well. And you've got AI. So, I think as a young person, maybe if anybody's listening to this, that has that debt, I'd say keep the faith, things can work out, keep taking opportunities, make those human connections wherever you can, invest in networking, invest in yourself.

From an employer perspective, I think it's really interesting. I completely agree that there's a strategic question here. So, we've talked about catch phrases so far. I listened to an excellent piece of training on change management in HR for AI and they said, "it's much harder to build a jigsaw puzzle if you don't know what the picture is on the box". So, you need to know what your vision is, and that includes your vision for people, your strategic pipeline planning for talent and that might be that you want to perhaps work with graduate apprentices. That's something that we do at Investors in People. They get all the benefits of coming into work, learning the workplace, while training. It releases that pressure with debt and also gives us some fantastic young people to work with because we're really conscious they're the leaders of the future and they're also potentially the voices of you know potential customers as well. And I think building those connections for them through mentoring as well, benefits our leaders. 

So, those would be my tips as an employer. But yeah, I just want to say it's tough out there graduates and I'm sorry it's not easier.

AC: Totally, and I think lots of graduates come out of university, you know, misspelling broccoli, Garin. They're on the Tesco checkout and they're thinking, "Gosh, this is a step back. You know, I've got, 90K of debt, I've got this law degree", whatever it is, but actually those kind of skills. I mean now when we see, we're recruiting graduate roles or even advisor-level roles as you say in our profession, Alison, like if you've got those customer interaction experiences and that business experience, that's only going to serve you in a future role. And I think yeah, that's a reminder to graduates that that is absolutely not wasting your time. There's skills you can pick up from any part-time job, as we alluded to at the start of this episode.

AH: And the best thing about being a human is that we've got five senses, and you know, using all five of our senses is what differentiates us. And that's what will help us outrun AI.

AC: Yeah. And we've got to stay ahead. I think that's the crucial. It's, that's happening. It's here to stay, as you say, we've got to lean into that. Trying to develop a catch phrase for that for our next episode.

So, that is all from us today. A big "thank you" to our guests: Beth Samson, Garin Rouch and Alison Hodgson for sharing your thoughts. And as ever, to you, our listeners. We publish new episodes of the HR People Pod every fortnight. So, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen and of course catch up on anything you've missed on demand. Just a quick reminder though, as mentioned on last week's episode, the suite of podcasts will be moving from SoundCloud to our new home, Acast, I hope I've got that right. So, you should notice a difference, but if you do listen directly on SoundCloud, you can still access this podcast and all of our CIPD podcasts, including the CIPD Ireland podcast from the CIPD website. And of course, wherever you listen: Spotify, Apple Audio, YouTube, across all socials.

I've been Amy Crutchfield, and this has  been the HR People Pod. Thank you.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to a new edition of the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the best and breaking information in the world of work. That said, occasionally we do a special episode and this is going to be one of those. So, today we're going to be zooming in on one particular area with one expert that joins me in the studio and I'm delighted to have taken a break from our format, we have an author, international speaker, and consultant in the field of neuroscience and change management joining us. Hillary Scarlett. Hello, and welcome.

Hilary Scarlett (HS): Hello. Thanks for inviting me.

DDS: Absolutely delighted you're here. We're starting this podcast late because I was finding the conversation so interesting before we kicked off. So, I'm hoping we've got some pieces left. Just before we start, we tend to ask our guests what they've been reading, what they've been looking at recently, what they've been enjoying, just to bring a bit of humanity to proceedings before we get into the detail. What's been catching your eye recently?

HS: Well, currently I'm reading a book about AI because I guess it's one of those areas that I feel I need to learn more about but the human side of AI, that's what I'm reading at the moment. So, learning and it's a relief for me, I guess, to be away from all the neuroscience papers that I've been reading over the last eight months or so.

DDS: But we're glad you've been reading them. It helps us. What book is it? Is it a hard recommendation from you?

HS: So far, it's good. Yeah, it's by Paul Gibbons and James Healy. And it's about AI and the human aspects of that. So yeah, I find it very readable as someone who's not an expert in AI, I find it very readable and very approachable. And so, it's all about the human side of AI and how we introduce it into organisations. So, so far, so good. Absolutely.

DDS: Excellent. So, you are just about to release the third edition of Neuroscience for Organisational Change?

HS: That's right. That's right. It's coming out in July and it's the third edition. So, the first edition came out nine years ago. So, this is the third edition.

DDS: Quite a bit has happened in that.

HS: Quite a bit has happened. Yes, quite a bit has happened. Absolutely. Yes, yes. And that's partly the reason for going back and writing a third edition and adding to it.

DDS: And we were talking earlier about the things that you've needed to change between the first and second editions. Some of that was touching on actually how the evidence base shifts over time. So, how do you go about choosing what goes in, refining it over time as you move between that second and third iteration of it?

HS: Yeah, I work very closely with neuroscientists in the States and particularly University College London, because I'm not a neuroscientist by background, I study psychology. But so, I want to work closely with them. Yeah, with the third edition with one of the professors at UCL, he kind of reviewed it, went through it. Good news is this time around there wasn’t too much that needed to be changed in terms of replication crisis. There was a bit more from the first to the second edition, because at that point there were some questions about some of Baumeister's work. This time, there's a little bit of watering down.

There was an experiment I loved with Danziger and team who looked at the decisions made by judges, people coming before them for parole. And Danziger and team could see that it really, your chance of getting parole really fluctuated during the course of the day. Initially, they thought it was to do with circadian rhythms and then their eyes know it's it was fluctuating more than that, between 70% and 0%. And when I wrote the second edition of the book, six years ago or so, people thought it was all to do with blood sugar levels. It was all to do with when the judge had last eaten. If the judge had recently eaten, you had a 70% chance of getting parole if he or she was getting a bit hungry.

DDS: I'd have been throwing sausage rolls at them as I came in.

HS: Exactly, take sandwiches in if you're ever in front of a judge. Yeah, if they hadn't recently eaten, it dropped down about 0%. They had a coffee break back up to 70%. All about blood sugar levels. Now they're not quite so sure because would whatever they've eaten have had an effect on them that quickly in terms of the decisions they made straight after the coffee break or the lunch break? So, for sure there's something happening there, but is it because they're having a break? Is it because the actual blood sugar levels? Or is it because they have eaten something and therefore, they're kind of just feeling slightly better about themselves? So, there's some things like that I've kept in, but you've got to slightly water down because we're not quite so sure as to what's impacting that decision making.

DDS: I mean it’s really interesting isn’t it because we expect all of our professionals, all of our members to be outcomes driven, principles led, but also evidence based. But evidence isn't a kind of one set in time truth, is it? It evolves over time. So, you mentioned the replication crisis. Could you kind of bring that to life for anyone listening?

So, the next time they're reading a scientific analysis or a summary of academic research, they understand some of the things that have been going on. Yeah. So, the replication crisis is about, in some ways, it's about people trying to replicate research, that's being done earlier and not getting quite the same findings. And various reasons why it seems to be part of a problem, sometimes, I guess, in the excitement of the initial research and science, people wanting to get out there and share their results, perhaps slightly cherry picking which data they use. And I think also pressure on scientists from the scientific publications, they want new, exciting, shiny things. So, they're very quick to push scientists to publish things, perhaps sometimes sooner than they would want to. 

Part of the problem also is that it's not terribly interesting for a lot of scientists to be repeating other people's work. There's not so much glory in that. They want to do their own work. So, things don't get repeated often enough. But sometimes when they are, people say, we cannot get the same evidence. We can't get the same findings. So, it's worth keeping an eye on that, research comes out. We're all very excited about it but it's worth keeping an eye out for the follow-up research and what that says. 

Yeah, and that's why it's worth our professional digging into sometimes what is being said. Because it’s really attractive when someone says,  research shows this but actually does research show that, in every context, is actually that research as well-backed as it might be. So, always one for people to listen to and a really good reason for people to buy new editions of books as they come out, as well, I'm sure you'll agree.

HS: Absolutely.

DDS: We were talking earlier about actually the things that you've included in this new edition and why. What's been new in it? So, when you've looked at that change not from nine years ago but from the second edition, what did you feel was really relevant for people now that might not have been there?

HS: Yeah, there were several areas. When I went back to UCL, there were several areas I really wanted to explore. One of those was something called interbrain synchronisation, which is when multiple brains begin to synchronise at the same time and the reason we can now learn more about that is, again, technology. There are now little caps that people can wear, EEG or fNIRS. And what that enables neuroscientists to do is look at multiple brains at the same time, rather than sticking one person in a great big noisy fMRI scan in the lab. What this now enables neuroscientists to do is go out into the workplace, put little caps on people, look at multiple brains at the same time.

DDS: Which is a totally natural thing to do, isn't it?

HS: Exactly, exactly. I mean, well, it's better than being in a lab.

DDS: True, true.

HS: It’s an improvement on that it is in the workplace or indeed in a school. And it's called hyper scanning, the ability to look at multiple brains at the same time. And the really interesting thing that's coming out there is that when our brains begin to synchronize, similar bits of the brain begin to move in the same way, the suggestion is that we're beginning to look at the world from a similar perspective. We're beginning to have a similar viewpoint. So, really interesting in terms of things like reaching consensus, collaboration, those kind of things.

Also, there are studies that show when brains begin to synchronize, actually teams begin to perform better. Some of the research seems to suggest that maybe that's partly because we have more psychological safety. The suggestion seems to be in teams where you've got brains synchronizing, that people are perhaps prepared to share more information and therefore you're making better decisions. And there's research that shows actually when brains begin to synchronize, that's a better indicator of success and performance than even how much people say they like other members of their team.

What's really interesting about it, obviously we can't go and put little caps on people's head in the organisation to see if brains are synchronising or not. But what is also useful is there are indicators of what helps brains to synchronise. And one of those things are the more familiar we are with people, the more we see people. It's interesting, there's one bit of research that was done between mothers and children. Closed brains synchronise a lot when they're talking, mother and child talking to each other, lots of synchronisation. But get the mother and child to talk to each other on the screen, synchronisation stops. So, there's a price we have to pay for technology. So, just being aware that that synchronisation doesn't tend to happen so well when we're working virtually.

DDS: So, bringing it back, I suppose, to some of the really practical problems that our audience might be facing into. You've got a tension at the moment in many organisations around hybrid working, variants of that. What you're saying is at the very least, organisations should be considering the detrimental impact of losing alignment and potentially performance through not having people together, that may not be all of the time, but enough time to create that kind of effect.

HS: Yeah, I think, again, it means what we need to do is think about when is it best that we're together and what work can we do on screen? Because there are times when you don't want brains to synchronise. If you want people to be creative, you don't want people looking at the world from a similar viewpoint. You want different ideas. So, you don't always want brains to synchronise. So, but again, I think it just adds part to the decision making about, as you say, when do we want people to be together when it is important to be face-to-face and when can we do things via screen? So, it just adds another piece to that thinking about where is work best done.

DDS: Yeah, and for some organisations it's pretty simple. Everyone has to be on site and they have to be together and there's that physical reality. And for other organisations it's a pretty new problem, isn't it, realistically? Or it's a more pronounced problem post-pandemic when different ways of working were forced. What else did you update in the book? What new nuggets?

HS: Well, the other area I was really interested in is this thing called interception gut feelings.

DDS: That feels like the Christopher Nolan film with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's not, though, is it?

HS: It's not quite that but what it is, because we talk about having gut feelings about things. And one of the very nice things about neuroscience is that it often backs up those things that we believe in, all those things we say. So, interception is this ability to pick up on our internal feelings and there's research that shows that our bodies are often picking up information before we're consciously aware of it. And I think there is so much information out there in the world that we can't possibly be conscious of all of it but sometimes our bodies are picking up information.

And there's a really interesting experiment done by Damasio 20 years ago, actually, where he got people into a lab. They had to play a game on screen, a card game and they were told the four packs of cards, you've got to keep turning over cards and make as much money as you can. And people were wired up for skin conductance. We begin to sweat very slightly when we're a bit stressed.

DDS: Lovely.

HS: And what people didn’t know is that two of these packs were bad packs, inverted commas? You'd get forfeits, you'd lose money. Two were good. And they got to about card 10, turn them over and they could see by card 10, when the cursor was hovering over the bad packs, people were beginning to sweat very slightly. But ask the participants what's going on, haven't got a clue. Haven't got a clue. And it would get to further on and then they're beginning to make decisions about going for the good packs rather than the bad packs, but they still weren't conscious of it. And it took to about card 50, I think, until people went, I get it, two of the packs are bad and two are good. So, it just brings home that point about our bodies picking up information which we're not conscious of and again, there's been some interesting studies in the workplace, famously with kind of city traders, that finding that city traders who are more in touch with their, in this case, their heart rate, actually made better decisions under pressure, lasted longer as city traders.

So, the suggestion seems to be that when we're in tune with our bodies, we can sometimes make better decisions under pressure. There's also research that shows it makes us better at emotional regulation, staying calm. And again, the useful thing is we can get better at this. So, that's the good thing.

DDS: So, as an extension of that, and challenge me if it's not, please, that actually we should listen to our gut more, but we probably need to interrogate that feeling a bit more. So, there are various situations where people go, this doesn't feel right, or this interaction doesn't feel right, or you might be doing an interview and something just feels off. I've always counselled people, and you can tell me whether I'm right or wrong to do it.

So look, there's probably something in that, but you have to be able to describe it and to pick that apart and reflect on what the detail is underneath it. So, don't ignore the feeling, but equally don't just give into what might be a bias rather than actually an evaluation. Is there something in that? Are you saying?

HS: Yeah, no, absolutely. No, definitely because I think, as you say, if you just go with your gut feeling, it might be wrong, it might be a bias, but it's just listen to it. I think with so many things, it's stop, pause, give yourself a chance to reflect because that initial reaction might be wrong but it's worth just interrogating as you say.

DDS: Excellent. So, you mentioned stopping and pausing and we had a conversation about that earlier in the importance of it. So, life is coming at people fast at the moment, a number of different dimensions. Work can be for many people quite choppy and changey, that phrase no day is ever the same seems quite exciting in some ways but also can mean a lack of rhythm. You were talking about the importance of people actually finding those moments to reflect in a day. And I know that's something you've covered in the new edition as well. Could you bring that to life for people in terms of what you've seen there?

HS: I've been in organisational change long enough that I can remember when there were change programmes that had a beginning, a middle and an end. The challenge for all of us now, there's never any end, it's layers and layers of change. And I think that does require a different mindset for all of us about constantly learning, being resilient but that bit about the ability to stop and pause is so important.

From a brain perspective and there's part of the brain called the amygdala that processes all sorts of emotions, but it's particularly associated with that threat response. So, it's the bit of your brain that will go, oh, it's a spider. The prefrontal cortex is slightly slow and go, yeah, but it's dead. And I think that's a really useful thing to keep in our minds that part of our brain, it's a spider. Yeah, but it's dead. So, just buying ourselves that moment, being in a meeting, if someone's been rude to you or thrown you or whatever, just finding that moment.

And perhaps between meetings is also, as we were saying earlier, between meetings, especially I think for many of us, the problem now is back-to-back meetings, going from Teams to Zoom or whatever. Again, some of my clients what they’re doing now is deliberately starting meetings at say five past or 10 past the hour, just to give everybody that break between meetings to allow their brain to kind of settle. So, I think between meetings, I think in the moment, just that ability to stop, pause, just use the breath, just breathe out slowly and pause. And that's a really useful thing to do in so many aspects of our lives.

DDS: It is. It's just that taking that moment to gather yourself as well, isn't it? And that can be sorely missing, impacts decision-making, impacts particularly people in leadership positions, but anyone in the profession will be going into a sensitive situation. You need to be thinking very clearly about how you want to show up in that space. It's difficult to do that without.

HS: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I was talking with a group yesterday about psychological safety and it takes time to build that up for people to really trust a leader, to trust that team, that I can speak out, I can ask questions, but it's so fragile. It's lost so easily. I mean, I've sat in meetings where, you know, a leader suddenly, someone says something and suddenly they're down on like a tonne of bricks. That moment, people won't forget it if that's what the response was in that moment.

So, it's one of those things we've got to keep working at every single day, that kind of psychological safety, that emotional regulation. And I think for any leader, manager, any one of us really, to develop that ability to stay calm when we're under pressure, when we're stressed is really important, both for performance, but also for our wellbeing as well. I think on both sides, it's a really important thing and we can develop it. That's the good news.

DDS: And there's been work in the past, hasn't there? And I think it's almost become a kind of an axiom, but, you know, consistency matters as well in the way that we lead.

HS: Yes, absolutely.

DDS: So, if I know actually I'm working for someone quite difficult, but I know they're going to be like that every day, that's easier actually than.

HS: Yeah.

DDS: I thought you were fine and then suddenly one day I get a very different reaction. Whilst I've got here, psychological safety, that feels like one of the terms that's been overused over the last few years to the point that maybe it's lost some of its precision in usage. It's not just about everyone feeling nice and comfortable, is it?

HS: No.

DDS: Could you tease that out for people? Because I know there'll be people listening to this where they've heard that phrase used in different contexts. It's got a very specific use, doesn't it?

HS: Yes, and it is that ability to speak out confidently. As long as I'm doing it constructively, not to undermine other people, but that it's the ability to speak out, to question, and know that that will be taken in the right way. So, as long as I'm doing it in a constructive way, not to try and undermine other people. So, Amy Edmondson, who's the personal researcher there, she said, yes, it's not a nice thing to do. It can be, in some ways, it can be quite difficult because it is people questioning, putting a different viewpoint, but it's having the confidence to do that. But her original research showed that teams that can do that, where people can question, tend to be more successful teams.

And the industry often referred to as aviation because they kind of famous, there were far more accidents back in the 1970s than there are now. And one of the things they realised from black box recordings after the accidents, that quite often the first officer could see the mistake the captain was making but didn't have the language to challenge the captain. And captains in those days were very hierarchical. So, one of the things they changed was the language and relationship between first officer and captain, and just giving the first officer the confidence and language to challenge and encouraging the captain to be more open to the questioning or comment or whatever it might be. And what a difference that made in terms of that relationship and one part of helping to reduce accidents.

And as somebody said to me, gosh, if only that were true in more organisations, if only the chief executive or whoever, or the leader of the team were open to that challenge in the same way, what a difference it would make. And I think that's a good way of kind of thinking about psychological safety.

DDS: Yeah, and it's creating that conditions, isn't it? For the best ideas to come up, a level of challenge to happen within the system. It's not about, and I hear it sometimes characterised this way, it's not about people never feeling uncomfortable. It's not about removing every source of possible discomfort in an organisation. Actually sometimes, it's about creating an environment where there's enough trust that people can actually challenge.

HS: Yeah, someone can be devil’s advocate or whatever in that meeting if they’re trying to get to a better, yeah trying to get to a better answer.

DDS: So, the book is about change and I want to talk to you about kind of two things that I think could be really useful for practitioners. One is, people will be working in organisations now and they will be going through change programmes. What should they be thinking about? What extra information might you have that you could share with them? And then we'll come on just before we close so people know what's coming next. We'll come on to, in a world where everything seems to be changing around us, how do you help and support people through that? So, if we start with the organisational change piece now. If I'm running an organisational change programme or I'm setting one up, or even if the organisation is just going through a series of changes and it's not being done programmatically, what are the kind of key lessons from the book that you'll share with people in terms of approach?

HS: I think one of the key things, one of the key things I observe in organisations and insights from neuroscience is I think so often when we're going through change, leaders disappear into darkened rooms perhaps with consultants and look at all the data, look at all the information, and then kind of emerge and go into what I call broadcast mode and kind of go, here's the change. Here's why it's good for customers. Here's why it's good for stakeholders. Here's why it's good for you, the employees. Now, please get on with it. I wonder why most employees dig their heels and don't want to do it.

The research from the world of neuroscience is pretty clear on this, giving people a chance to get it is really important. Just as leaders have had that chance to look at all the information, reach the conclusion that A is better than B or C. We need to give employees a bit more time around it so they get it too and some organisations I've talked to go, yes, yes, yes, but we're under real pressure to get on with change. We haven't got time for that; we just have to get on with it.

But I think, as we all know, when we've been through change, you've got a choice. Either you spend some time upfront taking people with you or you spend a heck of a lot of time afterwards kind of mopping up and cajoling and persuading. And neuroscience would say, research would say, try and take people with you at the beginning because when we've had that kind of aha moment, I get it. I can see why A is better than B or C. It makes a big difference to our brains. We're much more likely to stick with that change. So, that would be one of the big things that I think we need to do. Second one, some control, some choice is really important to the human brain. Where can we let go and give people a bit of control, a bit of choice over what's going on? Nobody wants to feel they're a complete victim of what's going on. So, giving people a little bit of control makes a big difference.

DDS: There's the instant cake mix piece. Have you ever heard? Do you know that?

HS: Oh, yes.

DDS: I'm going to share that. So, this is a really good example because it's a good example because I don't think it's true. From what I can tell, it's not true, but I've used it. So, rumour has it. So, most people have used instant cake mix at one point in their life and now what you have to do is you break an egg, you add the water and you get the cake. Apparently, the original mix you didn't have to break an egg and it didn't sell, and it's because it didn't feel like people were involved enough in the baking process to put it in front of someone with pride. However, when you made it a little bit harder for them and it was something that it was a skill they'd acquired, they felt like it was then their cake, despite the fact it was always going to be a chocolate cake because that's what you bought.

I always think change is a little bit like that. If you can help people feel part of that process and as though they’ve contributed, it becomes theirs to own. If you give it to them completely pre-packaged, it becomes more challenging. Not true, just to be really clear with. I don't think it's true from what I can establish, but I do think it's a brilliant analogy were it to be true.

HS: Yeah, and I guess the modern-day idea of that is the Ikea effect, isn't it? They talk about the fact that you've put it together yourself, that you feel a little bit of ownership. And it is true from a brain point of view. I think, you know, I think there's much more of a shift towards a coaching way of leading people now rather. And neuroscience would back that up in terms of goals that we have chosen, we process in a different part of the brain and we feel more committed to them. It's my goal. I chose it. As opposed to a goal we've been given by our line manager. When the going gets tough, we might go, I give up. But if we've chosen something or been involved in some way, we do feel that bit more committed.

DDS: So, the Ikea effect, for anyone not aware, was essentially some research that suggested people would value things they had built. So, if you bought pre-made furniture from Ikea and you put the blood, sweat and tears into building that, you would then value that in terms of the price you would expect for it in a very different way to someone who was buying it. Because you were seeing your effort, they were just seeing the object.

And again, a good one for leadership teams to think about. I’m not entirely sure it has held up over time. The one thing I will tell you for sure is you do not want to share that as a piece of research and example and then find out the entire front row of the conference you're speaking to come from Ikea. Done that, been there. (Inaudible) awkward in the Q&A afterwards. But another good way of thinking about change. I've done lots of bad things in my career. I just find situations. And that was kind of the first two lessons. Have you got a third one on kind of organisational change?

HS: I think that…

DDS: Sorry, you've got a whole book.

HS: I guess another one, actually one that comes up quite frequently, I think, and is a tricky one. It's about communication. Do we communicate quite early when we think changes might be coming up, but we're not too sure what they are? Do we wait until we're absolutely sure? And there's no perfect answer there, I think. If you go early, you might have to make U-turns. I think we should allow people to make more U-turns, but we kind of frown on U-turns. If you go early, you might have to say, actually, we've got that wrong but if you wait till quite late, and I think as we all know, we don't like uncertainty. So, we all gossip, we speculate and because the threat state is strong in our brains, we're always speculating about how bad it's going to be around here in terms of the changes. And also, people waste a huge amount of energy gossiping and speculating.

So, it's a tricky one but I would say, as much as you can, do tell people reasonably early because otherwise, you know, they will be distracted, they will be gossiping. And I think in a world where there's not much certainty, giving people certainty, where we can't. So, maybe just saying to people, OK, there's going to be change. I don't know what it's going to look like or how it's going to impact you, but I do promise you, I will sit down with you every Thursday morning, or whatever, and tell you what I know, or I don't know. So, at least people have got certainty around that.

And just a little thing, bear in mind, if you're calling a meeting, send an agenda. Just tell people what the purpose of that meeting is. I run so many sessions where employees say, going through lots of change, lots of uncertainty, lots of worry. And then a meeting suddenly goes into their diary. And of course, we all go, oh, what's it about? What have I done wrong? Is this redundancy? Just telling people what the purpose of the meeting is just settles the brain and allows people to focus back on their work.

DDS: I've seen meetings go in to settle people down without clarity of what they are and it panics people even more. It was just an update to say things were actually going OK. It's really interesting to hear you say that there is no wrong way of doing this and I think anyone who's handled any scale redundancy or change process will know that you will have a mix of people who will say, depending on how you've done it, either you should have told me earlier because you knew it and I don't have enough time to process this. Or I can't believe you told me this far in advance when you can't give me more clarity on what's coming next.

HS: Yeah, yeah.

DDS: And so, if anyone is having to deal with that, I can kind of reassure you, and kind of Hillary said it now, that there are wrong ways to do it, but there isn't really a palatable way to do that.

HS: Yeah.

DDS: So, your job is to make sure that you don't do it badly, to make sure that you are giving people empathy, compassion, space, and you're doing it in a sensible and considered way.

HS: Yeah.

DDS: People will not be happy.

HS: There's no easy way to do it. The one thing I would say to people that on the whole, once we've got the bad news, that's better than the not knowing. It's the being in limbo; it's being uncertain that is so difficult for us. And I've seen lots of organisations going through change and maybe jobs going or locations going and once people have got the bad news, after that initial shock, they can kind of take back some control and make a plan. OK, I'm going to be out of a job. I'm going to look at my CV. I'm going to start applying for jobs. It's the not knowing that is so difficult for us. On the whole, once we've got that bad news, say we can get on and make a plan.

DDS: Fantastic. So, just bringing it to a close, but on epically bad news. So, work is challenging for many people at the moment. Life has been challenging for many people over the last few years and whenever you pick up a paper, open a website, normally there's some degree of uncertainty. And that could be geopolitical, that could be what's going to happen next with technology, a range of different things. In fact, so much so that climate change and long-term concern about that appears to have dropped down in terms of the news cycle. But you could worry about everything from extinction to where my job's going to be in 18 months' time. That is something that impacts people outside of work, but it will also have an impact on people because we're not separate beings inside of work as well. What are your suggestions for organisations in terms of dealing with that, taking that into account, helping people through that?

HS: Well, I think I want to recognise that and acknowledging that, and that, as you say, there's so much uncertainty both inside and outside work at the moment. A couple of things on that. I do say to people, if you've got a very stressful day at work, turn off the news feed you know, all that's happening in the world at the moment. If you've got a really busy, demanding day, try and focus on that. I think being a good listener, sometimes I know you say there's nothing I can do in terms of whatever change or whatever it might be, but just being a good listener actually, not surprisingly, being listened to is rewarding to the brain, it feels good. So, being a good listener, acknowledging what's going on, I think is really important.

And just on a small level, I think if people are struggling, I talk to people about setting short-term achievable goals. If people are struggling right now, with all that's going on, set people goals that they can achieve today. Because if we get to the end of the working day and can go, tick, I've done that, it feels good. We feel capable, we feel competent. And it sets the brain up to take on bigger challenges the next day. So, it's one of those little things we can do if people are struggling right now is, they say, short-term achievable goals.

DDS: Excellent. I like that, that feels doable, doesn't it?

HS: Yeah.

DDS: And I assume that's setting people goals, but also for anyone watching now feeling slightly overwhelmed, breaking things down into those smaller component parts. So, you can, as you say, tick it off, get that sense of achievement. I have been guilty in the past of writing things on my to-do list that I know I've already done and then crossing them out.

HS: I think lots of people do that.

DDS: I'm glad to know I'm in good company. But it does just make you feel better about it.

HS: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, at the end of the working day, reminding ourselves of what we have done and what we have achieved. Again, the human brain will always go to all things I haven't done or things I messed up or whatever. And again, one of the little things I say to people, just the end of each day or start of each day, just think about the three good things that have happened. And it can be quite a small, that nice cup of coffee, the fact that someone smiled at me. But just what we need to deliberately do, the brain will always go to the negative because that's what is there to try and protect us and keep us alive. So, what we've all got to deliberately do is counterbalance that and try and activate that reward network in our brain, which can be about as small as just think of three good things. Remind yourself of the things you have achieved today that reward network.

DDS: Fantastic. Hilary, thank you so much for today. So, Neuroscience for Organisational Change, the third edition comes out in July.

HS: In July, yes.

DDS: So, everyone can look out for that. If you are a CIPD member, then you get a 20% discount off anything published by Kogan Page. So, it could be an extra reason to go out and buy that. We'll put some useful resources to the things that we've spoken about in the notes for the show. And we're here every fortnight, regularly talking to CPOs, senior members of the profession about what comes next, but also with our series of guest stars with people like Hillary. Thank you so much for your time and attention today. Do try and follow up on some of the practical recommendations from today as well. Everything that's recommended has the opportunity to make a difference when you're doing a really tough job. I'm David D'Souza. This has been the CIPD's HR People Pod. See you next time. Thank you.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and I'd like to make a shout out to Lorna Adair, who’s apparently a long-time listener who caught me at a conference and I’d like to apologise for the fact I never look good in selfies. Joining us today, we have Janet Campbell making her third appearance.

Janet Campbell (JC): My third appearance, yes.

DDS: It is your third appearance.

JC: Should I get like a silver cup, a gold cup?

DDS: We’re working towards that.

JC: Super. Thank you very much.

DDS: Fantastic. And what are you doing currently?

JC: I am currently, for at least the next week, I am the HR Director for the House of Parliament Restoration and Renewal Delivery Authority, that is such a title.

DDS: And that's coming to a natural end.

JC: That’s coming to an end.

DDS: Next week, you're not going to do something really bad in the next week.

JC: No, not at all, no, no, it's coming, it's coming to an end, my time has come to an end and so that's another week.

DDS: Well, I have absolutely fascinating because we were all three of us were in a House of Lords.

David Blackburn (DB): We were.

JC: We were.

DDS: On Monday, talking about the employment rights bill, talking about the kind of future progress of that, but also as CIOPD's way of thanking lots of our members who've kind of inputted into that. So, lovely to see that at your place of kind of work or the thing that you're helping architect. And then your fourth appearance on my right…

JC: Fourth?

DB: I'd lost count, actually.

JC: It's a reasonable thing to do.

DB: It's lovely to be here. I'm David Blackburn. I'm the Managing Director of David R Blackburn Consulting and I'm also currently the Chief People Consultant at the charity Gamble Aware.

DDS: Fantastic. Thank you very much. So, we're shaking up some of our format today, so it won't be as posh as Monday where we were at the reception. Lord Barber of Ainsdale did a wonderful job hosting us, listening in on Justin Banners as well, giving an update on kind of the progress of the bill and the hopes for that. CIPD continue to play an independent role in that taking the voice of our members and inputting it into that as well as accumulating data to help the government understand the potential impact of some of that work. And if you are interested, we also had a conversation with Alice McGovern last podcast possibly the one before so go and pick it out from the index where we talked about Keep Britain Working and get Britain working in some detail as well.

Today, as a reminder, we'll be talking about generally what's happening in the world. If we do a light on individual organisations as examples, there's nothing sinister about that. And anyone who's worked in the profession for a while knows there's a lot more going on behind the scenes but first thing we want to dive into was we're going to start bringing more and more questions through from the community, the CIPD community. And there was a conversation recently around span of control.

So, someone was saying, what is the ideal span of control for management in an organisation? Now, there'll be a number of factors impacting that. When we were talking before, we talked about what some of those factors are. So, if you were thinking about it for your organisation, Janet, I'm going to start with you. What kind of stuff would you be thinking about?

JC: So, it's a great question and I think that there isn't a single answer. Right.

DDS: Janet.

JC: I know sorry, it’s always hard. Typical HR, right? There's no right answer. I think actually, what do you need to look at? You need to look at the context of the organisation. You need to look at the functions that will be reporting up and you need to look at the individuals in those functions as well. So, have you got somebody that is new, fairly new to management and therefore they need a bit more support versus somebody who doesn't really need an awful lot of support at all? That's one of the things you need to take into consideration. Plus the complexities of the specialisms that would sit into that reporting line. So, I think they're some of the things I would consider when I would look in at spans of control and also the person themselves somebody might be quite happy having eight people reporting them directly and can manage that really nicely. Other people will feel more comfortable with, say, five, right? So, there's lots of things to take into consideration before alighting on the right number.

DDS: And it is worth saying, whilst we were chatting about this earlier, there's no right number. Five to eight feels about right. David, do you differ on five to eight, but also what would you add to that?

DB: I mean, I think that, as Janet says, context is everything. And I think that, yes, you can pick on a number, but it has all of those various factors. Also, one of the things that we were saying earlier is that, you know, some of the roles themselves, so not just the individuals, but the type of role. So, actually if you’re managing a technical expert or a standalone you know, lawyer, or you know, someone who is completely self-sufficient in their world and is the expert probably more of an expert than you are in that particular topic, you know, that's going to be quite light touch versus in either individuals, whether the role, either with the experience or the type of the role. So, I think it's not just the experience of the individuals and the structure, it's also the roles themselves within that span.

I do think that it's interesting that we talked about that the thing that where you notice it's at senior level, so actually across all organisations, actually where the C-suite, I think, has post-Covid got smaller. And I know we're going to be talking about, you know, our increasing remit as HR professionals, but actually that's not just true of us. I think that's true of lots of roles. You know, actually, what does the Chief Operating Officer do today? What does the Chief Transformation Officer do? What does the CIO do or Chief Data Officer? So, I think, you know, that's the C-suite has got smaller, but the remit of those individuals has got bigger.

DDS: So, how would you start? Because I guess there's a really practical question, of all the context when you're doing an organisational design and you look at those principles. How would you start and kind of evaluate what it might look like? Or is it so is it per organisation? If you're kind of a student listening into this, you go all of those things make sense, but what would you do when you first kind of sit down to work it out?

DB: I think it's what is it that you want, know organisational design is what you want to achieve, ultimately you know, your design, OD is about saying, if we if this is the strategy in the strategic direction of the vision of the organisation, how is the structure accurately aligns to the delivery of that? And I think you know that's the starting point and therefore, rather than that's why Janet is absolutely right, there isn't a single answer because even within that design you might say the span of control in this part of the business, in this business unit, is different to the one over here because it's about what they're delivering, the roles within that the skills within that.

So, I think that's the question that you should always start with, you know, there's a great piece of research it's not new, it's old, I quote it all the time it's called the Evergreen Project, it was done by Havard, back in, it was published in 2003 and they talk about what is called what really works and the four things that they identify, I'm only going to talk about two of them, but one of them says is the organisation has a really clearly articulated strategy that is understood by its customers, its stakeholders, all of its employees. And the second observation they make is, is your structure aligned to deliver that strategy? You know, the other two are culture and execution. They're the four things, and they say, because if you do those two things, then you should be executing great services for your customers and how does the culture enable those things but I think that's where I'd start.

DDS: So, if you're listening to this rather than watching on YouTube, Janet has been nodding vigorously throughout.

JC: I completely agree. So, you can't determine spans of control in isolation.

DB: Absolutely.

JC: Right. So, that's the only thing I would add to the very excellent research that David's just talked about. You can't do it in isolation.

DDS: And just, I'm going to expand this point and then we'll move on to, as you say, talking, we're going to talk quite a bit today in depth about the profession, how it's shaping, some detail we've got around kind of what's changed post-Covid. We need to apply this to HR structures as well because one of the things that I quite often get asked is like, two things. One, what's happening in other organisations? I'm like, well, it doesn't really matter. Does it? It matters in that you might want to add to your toolkit of ways that you think about things, but you should never be following someone else for your own organisational design, that's like outsourcing your thinking. And secondly, what structure you need in your HR team will be entirely dictated by the maturity of your organisation, the size of your organisation, the ambition of your organisation, the complexity, the balance of what's expected to be done operationally by teams versus HR. There's a whole range of stuff. And we've just got to hold on to, I think, perhaps having design principles, but context is more important than anything. If it can't get the job done, there's no point doing it.

DB: Yeah. I mean, principles should get, you know, you need a framework, I always think. You know, principles are a frame in which you are going to hang what it is that you're going to do, you know, so that it's not just, I'm making it up as I go along or, you know, you know, but I think it should be a, you know, the analogy I was using, it should be a skeleton off which you hang things, not a strait jacket with which you, you know, you stop yourself from saying, oh, it doesn't fit this rigid formula where it doesn't fit because actually, and to your point about the shape of H, the function itself, we've all been around long enough to go. If you stay in an organisation long enough, I was 10 years in my last organisation, you know, you end up going, I've now put, I've moved, I've changed the structure enough times that I go, we started with this, we moved it to that, we moved it back to this, we moved a thing, because actually it should also be responsive to what's going on in the organisation.

JC: Exactly.

DB: Because actually as the organisation goes on its journey, you know, if you're just saying, well, no, it's this and that's where we start, then it's never going to deliver for your customers.

JC: Exactly. And if you 100% agree, and it's quite simple, really, if you think about the organisation is set up to deliver this thing, if the thing that you are going to deliver has changed, you've got to look at the structure to make sure that's still appropriate to deliver the thing that you need to deliver. So, you can't, it cannot be rigid. It's got to be responsive and agile, that doesn't mean that you're shifting people around all of the time. Because people all get giddy with all of that, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. It's just you've got to pay attention to what is it we're here to do and are we structured to do that thing and are we clear about that and keep that in mind.

DDS: Yeah, and for anyone who wants to return to kind of old school organisational development as well, design models, Bert Litwin is brilliant because it just starts with the external environment. As the first thing you look at, look, what's going on? What are we trying to do? Therefore, how does that need to manifest culturally, structurally and in terms of incentives and all the other parts of that model.

DB: And there's great OD&D learning content on the CIPD Learning Hub.

DDS: Do you know what, this is why, he's absolutely right. We've got content on everything that we're talking about today. We're going to do a deep dive now on the profession and there's some brilliant research. In fact, I'm going to contextualise this and I'm going to be quite honest about this. We had a bit of a reshuffle about 18 months ago and I kind of took over the content team. And I was looking for some detail on what's happening in the profession itself. And we were really strong on what was happening in the outside world, what's happening in the labour market, what's happening in terms of recruitment. There wasn't enough on the profession itself to the extent I checked on ChatGPT and it went, you still have to see CIPD about those and I was like, well, you know.

DB: Well, at least they said that.

DDS: So, you will find more and more coming out from us. One of the things that we've done is we've boosted the sample on our Good Work Index that we do. So, we can tell you not just what it's like working in agricultural financial services, but what it's like working in the profession and we'll be doing regular poll surveys as well. We've got some of the first information coming out from those, and we thought it would be a really good one to dive into today with two expert guests.

We've interviewed, or interviewed is a bit grand, we've surveyed more than a thousand people, professionals across different levels of seniority in different stages of their career about their current challenges, perceptions of HR and career development opportunities. It was quite interesting, got feedback from a member saying, is this marking our own homework? Do we need to look more externally? Actually, we've got loads of kind of detail externally, and we will continue to do that. I think it's really important to listen to the profession and see how the world is changing for that. We're a professional body, that voice is really important. So, we're going to work through some of that and tease out some of the differences. I think there are some quite pronounced differences, actually, between how CIPD members feel about some of these things and the broader profession. But also, there are things that are very clearly impacting people at different stages of their careers. 

So, if we start with careers. The three biggest barriers to progression that people described in their careers were lack of opportunity, so there just isn't a thing to do there. Organisational politics and line management capability, so I'm working for someone who's not going to be able to kind of push me on. And another thing that was probably noteworthy in that is that people found it harder to progress in either large organisations or micro-organizations. So, either it's so big that getting lost and can't see a way forward, or people aren't recognizing the talent, or it's so small, I actually can't see a pathway forward. So, lack of opportunity, organisational politics, line management. I guess between the two of you with kind of the breadth of careers that you've had, do they ring true for the people that you're supporting now to come up through their careers? And did they ring true for you?

JC: So yes, it rings true. And I think one of the really important things about helping one's career and development is about mentoring and, you know, I'm really passionate about mentoring. If you were at the CIPD Festival of Work, you would have seen me on stage with Leah and Asha and Hashim on the CIPD Trust talking about it's really important.

So, I think if you're in a really large organisation and you think that you, oh, it doesn't matter actually the size of the organisation, let me just reverse that. In any organisation having some sort of mentoring is a really helpful thing for one's career, whether that's an informal mentor or a full mentor. Just having been able to have a conversation with somebody about where you are, what you can or cannot see for yourself in that organisation, because it might be someone who needs to help you to see that as much as you love this organisation, whether it's a micro-organisation or a large enterprise, your next step is not in that organisation is it somewhere else where you can take the step that you need. So, sometimes you need to get out of your own head in a way, get out of your own way sometimes because we do get in our own way sometimes and have those conversations.

So, I'm a massive advocate of mentoring and using that to help us think about what our next career paths are because a career isn’t a ladder, it’s not a straight one, it's like a climbing wall, right? And you've got to think about careers, career progression as being broadening oneself, taking on different experiences, getting involved in different projects and things, it isn't necessarily this linear path to the top. So, that's my thinking about…

DDS: I like that. I don't know, the idea of climbing a wall that seems like but that kind of sense of options and kind of planning and it being quite organic.

JC: Yeah, and having some external voice and helping you plot that through and navigate it rather than looking to your internal career path, that may not be what it is for you, but somebody else may help you to see various options for that.

DDS: That's lovely. So, we've got a killer start on that, actually, that's probably worth kind of illustrating a point. So, we asked specifically around whether people had confidence in getting the support they needed from their peer groups or a broader network. 71% of people who've been in the profession 10 to 15 years said that they did. So, that's probably quite healthy but it drops to 40% of people who've been in the profession less than a year. So, when people are starting off, they really need that helping hand.

As you mentioned, we've got a mentoring scheme through the Trust for Aspiring HRDs, but we've also got a broader mentoring scheme, check it out on the website. If you're missing that support, you can get that through us, that is something that we want to enable. There were a couple of things I wanted to kind of come to you to about, David, which is about confidence in meeting those career goals.

So, you talked about the importance of that structure around it. 87% of our members say that they're confident in developing to meet their career goals. Only 61% of people who aren't in membership, which I'm glad, but I am not glad that the people in membership aren’t confident meeting their goals but part of what we want to do is help make sure that people are planning their career successfully. How have you gone about planning your career, mapping your career? Is it, as Janet said, a kind of squiggly accidental climbing wall type thing, or has it been quite a, this is where I want to go in five years’ time?

DB: Oh, that's a big question. How long have we got, I've been doing this for almost 30 years, so it's been quite a long story.

DDS: Year one.

DB: Month one. I so agree with you, Janet, on this thing about it not being linear. If there's one thing that people should take away is, and you're right, squiggly careers, however we want to describe it. If you think about your career as a pathway and a journey, you know, not going, how do I get the next biggest job? How do I take the next step on the ladder, we need to get away with that ladder analogy, I think that's not the way the world of work is now. I think every time I've changed roles, apart from once, I also change sector and if the skill set around HR professionals is completely transferable because we are managing people and we are dealing with organisational design and learning development and all of that stuff, then, you know, that has been, you know, one of the reasons I'm now a consultant is because I have a breadth of experience because I've worked in lots and lots of different organisations. And so, you know, I think that's something that I think is helpful for people to think about. I think not just going, I’m going to stay in the same sector, I’m going to stay in this particular lane to build on mentoring, I think, the opportunities that you get just to go and talk to people. Just to get, you know, people love, you know, not just me, people love talking about themselves.

And, you know, so if you are, you know, and I always say, you know, a good friend of mine, Sandra Kerr, you know, business and community talks a lot about sponsorship, you know, and she says, you know, actually people who, who get, you get to know in an organisation who know what your career aspirations are and thinking, it might not be a formal mentor, but actually will say when you're not in the room, oh, I'll tell you who is a really good person for that, Janet.

JC: Yeah.

DB: You know, people who put you forward and help promote, you and I think just exploring the art of the possible and saying you know, I think and I think sometimes we, our career journey, you know, work is, you know, we're on the hamster wheel and it's an old term thing. And the one thing that, you know, let's be honest, you know, we're not always the best at as HR professionals is thinking about our own development because we're always so focused on everybody else's and delivering it for the organisation and all of that. So, I think, you know, take a breath, create the space for yourself to think about, you know, and what is the long-term destination? So, beyond again, I’m a (inaudible) of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. But he says, Habit two, begin with the end in mind, which is saying, what's the destiny? You know, what really is the destination? You know, not the next three to four years, you know, but what does success look like when you get, you know, where do you want to get to really? Because that I think helps shape what the steps that you take. And lastly, never stop learning. You know that I think is really important, don't go, oh, you know, we should all be learning all the time, I think, especially in our profession.

JC: And I think there's two things I'm going to add to what David said. Just to go back to that point about we are the cobbler's children. We always, and we have to stop doing that and that's one of the things I say to my team all of the time as an HR professional, do not become the cobbler's child. So, that's really important. Looking at our own development is really important. And then the second thing is sometimes as HR we can be the enemy of our own progress, right? Because someone's recruiting and say, oh, actually I need somebody that's got sector experience and it's like, and so we can be the enemy of our own progress in terms of enabling people to easily change sectors. That's not always easy. So, every now and again, we've got to break that habit. We've got to work with our talent acquisition teams, with our recruiters, with our execs who are recruiting. They don't need to have sector experience because you can learn the sector experience. Had they got the breadth of skills and expertise…

DB: Absolutely.

JC: Around the broader HR agenda that's going to help our organisation. And actually, sometimes different sector experience opens up the world of possibilities in our organisation. So, let's not be the enemy of progress for ourselves.

DB: I love that.

DDS: It's normally easier to learn a sector than it is to learn how to be excellent at everything else, isn't it? If you're going to pick one, I'd rather kind of pick that person who's going to pick up the key.

DB: And can I just say, Janet, it's right, actually, because the really frustrating thing.

JC: I’m actually right.

DB: I know you do but the really frustrating thing is, and that's still true. You know, it's still true. You know, I applied twice. I would tell the story, I applied twice for the role that I had at the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and I wasn't shortlisted the first time because I didn't have financial services background. And 18 months later, the job was available again. And I applied a second time. And when I got, and when I was in the final interview, I said, what is it? What's more important? Sector experience? Or actually, don't you want somebody who's got lots of change and transformation experience? Because that’s really, what you need and they went, oh yeah, maybe that is what we need.

DDS: And it's a really important point around fighting your corner and making sure you recognise what you do. Two things I'd like to probably point out from a CIPD point of view. There's going to be a lot of work that we're doing this year on making sure that we help you be able to plan your career and where you want to develop, and resources around that. And the second one, make sure that you're showing off what you have achieved. So, we will have digital credentials available.

DB: I'm very excited.

DDS: In a few weeks.

DB: I'm very excited about my digital panel.

DDS: So, if you’re sharing on LinkedIn, make sure they're recognised for that. We're going to move on to a little bit about the remit of the profession and how it's changed and there are some really interesting pieces in here. But first of all, I'm going to sense check the current challenges that practitioners are saying they're facing. So, we did this in 2023 and we've done it again now. Line management was the top thing then at 36%. It's now the top thing, but at 43%. So, even more of a pressing concern. Collaborative working shot up in the last five years from 25% of people saying that's kind of a key problem to 37% and finally, change management is the one that kind of makes out that cluster. I'm going to take an early punt on collaborative working and say some of that is going to be driven by the shift in many organisations to technology trying to collaborate online.

DB: Yeah.

JC: Yeah.

DDS: Not for all but for some, and it's worth this kind of like doing consistently doing the mental maths as to what's moving us to where we want to be and what might be moving us away in terms of some of those defaults. But do those three things strike you as the likely priorities in organisations? I'll go back to that challenge we have from a member, is this marking our own homework? When I speak to CEOs and senior members of organisations, they're struggling with those three things.

JC: I think that's right. So, the technology/hybrid/virtual working that is, I think that's going to be a challenge for the foreseeable future. And that challenge is also going to be underpinned by the increasing use of AI in our roles which goes to the line management challenge because you need to manage people quite differently and depending on the environment that you're in, because again, these things are always contextual on the environment that you're in. How people use AI in their everyday and how that is cross-referenced and checked and all of that sort of thing to make sure it's appropriate, etc., etc., that requires a different set of management skills to some of the skills that maybe we have seen previously. So, I can see that being absolutely one of the challenges. Change management, I think it's connected with the rest, it is this fast-paced adoption of AI in organisations and we, you know they've been, we've been talking about that quite a lot over the last 18 months quite a lot within HR and the extent to which that you know some of our basic entry-level activities, jobs, tasks are going to be replaced by automation and the extent to which we are, how that then is used to do some of the basic things, how that is communicated more broadly, how we collaborate with our colleagues in data and digital to integrate those tools into our everyday, etc. So, collaboration is also, sorry, I'm rambling now.

DDS: You're not rambling. David, first of all, do you agree with that? And secondly, if so, I'm going to give you a question around remit next.

DB: I guess, yes. So, let's take them in order. So, the common denominator, I think, is that none of these things are new. None of them.

JC: Agree.

DB: They're not new. Line management capability was the top, still the top. Actually, the numbers got bigger. Good management report by the CMI two years ago says 82%. If I get the number wrong, I apologise for misquoting it, but I think it's 82% of managers, what they call accidental managers, have had no formal leadership training, development training whatsoever. Then, in the same way, we're asking them to do more to Janet's point, we're asking them to do more in collaborative spaces with hybrid teams and that sort of thing. So, I think the hybrid question, I think it's because lots of organisations I've always seen it as a problem they've got to solve rather than an opportunity that they need to embrace.

So rather, you know, we have to do it post-Covid and then it'll just get back to the office, return to the office agenda, all of that sort of thing. So, that I think rather than go, OK, this is going to be the way that we work. So, we've got to work out, we've got to just work out, we've just got to work out how to do it and how to do it successfully. And I think there are people doing that, but I think there's too many people going, well, is this the future? Isn't it the future thingy? And change, absolutely. One of the clients I work with, the Bank of England, the common denominator, the theme for the connector in all the work that they're doing around professional communities and professional development, beyond HR, across the whole organisation, the single common denominator is how do we get better at successfully delivering change and transformation across this organisation, wherever we are. And so, yeah, I think that is a, you know, and that's true for all of us. And to Janet's point, at every level, at every level, especially in HR.

We're going to move to a pop quiz format here, right? So, we're going to see it out at pace, right? So, I'm going to ask a question. I want to know whether the number is going to be high or low from you. People, HR professionals who say that the remit of HR within their organisation has increased within the last five years. So in fact, guess a number. Let's go for that. Janet?

JC: Let's go higher. More.

DDS: Higher. Big number.

JC: 10% higher.

DDS: Oh, no, no.

JC: No, sorry.

DDS: Just guess the number.

JC: Guess the number.

DDS: Just percentage.

JC: 25%.

DDS: 25%, David?

DB: Oh, no, higher than that. 60 something.

JC: Oh, 25% higher, I'm saying.

DDS: 25% higher than that.

JC: Yeah. Just in case.

DDS: Right, we're going to get the hang of this.

JC: I'm sorry. This is not a pop quiz at all.

DB: No, it's not.

JC: Numbers is not my thing.

DDS: This is emergent learning. We're totally going to get there. 78% of CIPD members say that the remit of their function has increased in the last five years. 50% of people who aren't CIPD members. Right, next question. Janet, I'm going to come to you first because I'm just going to enjoy it. This is the percentage of people that say the reputation of the function has improved since 2020.

JC: OK, I'm going to say. 67%.

DDS: OK.

DB: Yeah. Oh, so I think it's higher.

DDS: OK.

DB: Can I just say higher? Am I allowed to say…?

DDS: Like The Price is Right?  

DB: No, Janet has actually given us a number. Can I actually just say?

DDS: So, 70% of CIPD members say the reputation of HR is improved.

DB: Oh, you were very close.

DDS: It's only 39% of non-members, which is interesting.

JC: That's interesting.

DB: That is, isn't it?

JC: Very interesting.

DDS: HR, so a percentage of people that say their HR function is acknowledged as having an important impact on the business. Janet.

JC: Why me?

DDS: Because there's only two of you and it's more fun coming to you.

JC: I know. So, I'm going to say less than before, 58%.

DDS: 58%.

JC: It's random. Yeah, I don't know.

DB: That's quite a hard one. Higher.

DDS: So, 72% of CIPD members say that their function is acknowledged as having an important impact on the business, that drops to 59% for non-CIPD. And then this one's a bit of a killer, actually. So, I thought I'd close on this. So, we spent a lot of today talking about the importance of solving with the end in mind, being really clear that actually it matters that whatever you do gets the job done. What percentage of the professionals say their organisation has clear measures of success around HR activity?

JC: I think that might be a bit less.

DDS: There's just noises coming from David Blackburn.

DB: It's the anticipation.

JC: So, I'm going to say that's a bit less. I'm going to say 45%.

DB: That's a good number. I, but I think it's lower.

DDS: So, good news and bad news. 64% of CIPD members say they've got both measures. It does drop to 45% for non-CIPD. So, I think Janet wins that, but for the organisations that don't, potentially organisations lose that. So, it's massively important. We talk as a professional body about being outcomes-driven, principles-led, evidence-based. If you aren't clear on those outcomes, very difficult to design, monitor, and kind of progress against them.

So, that's all that we have for today. I'd like to, I'd genuinely like to thank our guests. This has just been an absolute ball. Janet Campbell and David Blackburn for sharing their thoughts and strange noises as we've come through this. We'll include a link to a number of useful resources and there's a bit that I need to tell you before you go away today. So, anyone who's staying on for this. So, one final thing from all of the CIPD's podcasts, we'll be moving from SoundCloud to Acast. For the most part, you won't notice a change as to where you access them. But for those who listen directly on SoundCloud, you can still access this show, as well as the longstanding CIPD monthly podcast and the CIPD Ireland podcast from the website or wherever else you listen to them. All of the stuff that we've spoken about today, we have detailed on the website. If you ever want to know what you get for your membership as part of the profession, contact us. Don't put it on LinkedIn because you'll find that we probably have a better command of what's happening and what's launching than possibly people that haven't been close to us for a number of years. It's going to be an exciting and cracking year. 

Genuinely, the stuff that I know we've got up our sleeve and some of the stuff that we've already shared and we'll keep progressing is going to be really exciting. I've been David D'Souza. This has been the HR People Pod. Thank you so much for listening.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the CIPD's HR People Pod.  My name's David D'Souza and I'm Director of Profession, and I'm delighted that today we've got the Government Minister for Employment, Alison McGovern, here with us.

We're going to be putting to her some of the questions that our community and our members have about the government's policy and taking the opportunity to just bring you a special insight in a bit more depth into that world.  But before we get started with heavy stuff, we always ask our guests what have you been watching and reading recently that's keeping your attention?  So, Minister, what's getting you excited in your spare time?

Alison McGovern: Well, thanks, David.  It's lovely to be here with you and with everybody at CIPD today.  Obviously, as a minister in a department, the Department for Work and Pensions, that's got a big change agenda at the moment and having had the spending review on the go, and also for my sins, having done two hours with the Department for Work and Pensions Select Committee yesterday, my spare time for reading and watching things is… let's just say it's at a premium, but I would give a big shoutout to This City Is Ours, which if you haven't seen it, is a BBC kind of crime drama thing, kind of like the scouse Sopranos.  It's basically like a drugs crime story, a bit gangster-y, all based in the city of Liverpool.  I'm from Birkenhead myself, so just over the water from Liverpool, and it's great because it's a bit of a kind of classic story.  Like, it's a classic kind of crime drama, but Liverpool as a city is very much a character in it and looks absolutely beautiful, so I would really recommend it just if you want to look, see Liverpool looking absolutely fit, then I would just watch it because it's amazing.

And in terms of reading, I'm quite boring in that I don't often read a lot of novels, but I do like reading, sort of, historical biographies and things like that, and at the moment, I'm reading a book about the philosopher Hannah Arendt.

DDS: Okay, and that's quite a range, isn't it, between those two things.

AM: Yeah, it is.  Scouse drug dealers and 20th century philosophy, yeah.

DDS: Different types of heavy, I think, going on there.  Fantastic.  Thank you for that, and I mean, that's a hearty recommendation.  Scouse Sopranos from someone who's time is an absolute Premium.

AM: Yeah, it's really… it's good, though.  It moves along quite quickly and it's quite funny.  As you might expect, it's quite funny in parts, as well as very dramatic.

DDS: Excellent, that's my weekend sorted, and you're joining us today at the Festival of Work.  We've got thousands of professionals here.  What's encouraged you to give up your time and spend it talking to the HR profession today?  Why is it important?

AM: Well, I would say that the CIPD have been an organisation that I've had a relationship with for a very long time.  I've been a Member of Parliament for 15 years now and that makes me feel really old, but right from the very beginning, I was involved as a constituency MP in talking to, you know, people I was representing about things they were unhappy with at work.  One of those things was 0-hours contracts and I remember coming to CIPD events, 10, 11, 12 years ago to talk about what was happening with the growth of 0-hours contracts and, you know, poor management culture that that represented.

So, CIPD have been a constant in my life in politics.  How we make changes to people's life at work is probably one of the biggest questions in Britian today. Unfortunately, we've got into a situation where we have 4.5 million children growing up in poverty and their parents, 70% of them are in work.  Their parents are working really hard for that poverty.  That's got to change.  So, how we manage that change is absolutely crucial to the mission of the government.

DDS: So, the government's proposed and has brought through a raft of different policies, but there are two key ones that the profession probably need to continue being focused on, which are the Keep Britian Working and the Get Britain Working initiatives.

AM: Yeah.

DDS: Could you just bring those to life for anyone who's not familiar with the terms or the key elements of them?

AM: I certainly can.  So, coming into government, it was absolutely clear that we had a big problem with unemployment.  Now, not, sort of, technical unemployment, the unemployment rate as it gets reported statistically.  People who are out of work and not actively looking.  So, people who are economically inactive, and most of those people, there's nearly 3 million of them, most of them are out of work, not well.  They've experienced some ill health or they're a disabled person and they've been unwell for a while, and that's the reason why they're not working.  So, back in November, about six months after the general election once we'd, kind of, got in and made some initial changes we published a white paper called the Get Britain Working Plan, and that plan has got three elements to it: a focus on health and economic inactivity to try and bring our colleagues in the NHS together with us, to act together to give people a bit of help on the health side with support to then move back into work or stay in work.  We've also got a massive focus on young people because there is a large number of young people who are not doing anything at the moment.  They're not in college, they're not at school, they're not at university and they haven't got a job either.  There's nearly a million of young people in that position, and if that happens to you at the start of your working life, you will carry the effects of that period of unemployment with you throughout the whole of your working life.

So, we've got a focus on that, and then the last thing is a massive change to our Jobcentres.  I have said before and I still agree with myself that Jobcentres are the most unloved part of the public sector.  You know, it's the public service that, like, if we're all honest, nobody really wants to go to, and like, that's not okay because we've got brilliant skilled work coaches in Jobcentres who can really help people turn a corner in life, so we wanted to bring about some big reforms to our Jobcentres so that our frontline work coaches have got more time for people and they can really help them.  So, those are the three elements of our plan.

Alongside that, Secretary of State, Liz Kendall, asked Charlie Mayfield, the former Chair of John Lewis, to do a specific bit of work called the Keep Britain Working Review, which is to consult with employers and people… you know, individuals, people working and disabled people and the organisations that support them to ask ourselves the question what needs to change about the world of work, how can employers and businesses support people so that it becomes less likely if you have a period of ill health that you become unemployed?  And you know, if you do happen to have a health condition that means, you know, you need to work differently, how can we help employers navigate that?  And we're expecting Charlie to publish his independent review later in the year.

DDS: Fantastic.  So, the two elements, again, then keep… have to do the get bit first.

AM: We needed to start on the road to change.  I mean, the changing Jobcentres is a really big programme of work and if we look at where we have got people out of work sick, it clusters in areas where the economy in those places hasn't been working for a really long time.  So, we need to start that quickly and that work will continue over the next two to three years.

DDS: And it is where the economy stacks up, isn't it?  So, this is things that are important to individuals, things that are important to families, communities, but then also businesses and the economy as a whole.  This needs to work as a system for us to be able to flourish as a country.

AM: It does, and I've been talking to CIPD over many, many years about, you know, quality of management and how you improve that, because I think sometimes businesses will want to do the right thing.  They will really try hard to do the right thing, but lack knowledge and experience and through no fault of their own, and that can mean that somebody ends up, you know, effectively on the scrapheap out of work and no businesses that I know of would really intend that to… you know, we all know that there's poor practice out there, right, but no business worth its salt really intends that to happen.  So, what is it that needs to change systematically to mean that businesses are more likely to keep people working than not?

DDS: So, that's actually the first question from one of our members, so that's a perfect podcast guest, kind of, bridging wonderfully for us.  So, what impact do you think underinvestment in management capability has had on those long-term absence rates and people being able to work?

AM: I do think it has an impact.  I think there's other systematic things that are a problem.  For example, people have been trying to change fit notes for years and I'm sure, you know, we'll come back to that at some point as a government, but I think if you as a manager feel that you have confidence that you understand the condition that somebody might have and you understand from an HR point of view what the right kind of process is to go through with that person, I think it's very possible to get it right, but I think it's that lack of knowledge that often businesses experience.  And it can't be beyond us as a country to put that right.

DDS: You talk about eight trailblazer areas that are going to see investment, and you've talked about specific communities.  Could you bring to life for people how that might work, what might be seen as different there?

AM: I can.  So, one of the things that we identified was the point that I made before which is that if you look at where our biggest problems with unemployment are, and I'm including economic inactivity in that, so people who are out of work, they would like a job but they're not actively looking at the moment.  If you look at where that's the biggest problem, it's places where for a long time, they've had low jobs demand.  Now, we have quite recently as a country created combined local authorities and mayors.  Why has that happened?  Because there was a recognition under the last government… although actually, I agreed with it very much. There was a recognition that you need an economy of scale at the size of a city region in 1.5 million, 2 million people to really get the kind of investment that can turn around an economy.

So, if you think about somewhere like South Yorkshire, very longstanding employment problems.  Now, the mayor there, Oliver Coppard, has got an economy that's a good size across South Yorkshire where he can advocate to bring the kind of capital investment in for things like advanced manufacturing that will generate new jobs in places like South Yorkshire where demand on the employment side has been too low for too long.

However, we also know that if you've had a period of real stagnation in an economy and then investment comes and people, you know, want to build a new factory or a new research lab or something like that there, that's a good thing. But people who are there often won't have the skills, will have been out of work too long, to move into those jobs.  So, our job in DWP is to say, "Okay, how do we build a pathway into work?" and that's what our trailblazers are about.

Saying, "What is it that people need in those communities that have been blighted by unemployment for too long to move into the jobs that our mayors and our combined authorities are creating?"  And so the trailblazers is funding and resources for those places so that they can work with the voluntary and community sector in communities, and work with health colleagues and others to really build that pathway.  And one thing that Mayor Oliver Coppard is doing in South Yorkshire is working very closely with small businesses, because if you're a massive business, getting good HR and occupational therapy advice might be okay for you, but if you're a small business, it's pretty tough.  So, the mayor of South Yorkshire is trying to work out okay, how do we do that for small business? That's just one example of the work that's going on across the country in our trailblazer areas.

DDS: Fantastic, thank you.  Want to talk a little bit about apprenticeship reform, if that's okay?  So, there's a proposal for a new youth guarantee which is the government pledging to provide all 18- to 21-year-olds with access to an apprenticeship, training, educational help finding a job.  One of our members has asked very specifically around the skills that… around employability.  So, a report that we did actually, so changing face of youth labour market, showed that employers felt that young workers lacked social skills in some cases, didn't always know how to behave in the workplace.  That's an employer perception, to a degree, but equally, there's work that needs to be done to meet employer expectations with, kind of, the employee skills.  What role do you think apprenticeships can play in bridging some of those gaps?

AM: Well, I'm a very big fan of apprenticeships in general.  I think most people are.  It's, sort of, everybody wants to see more apprenticeships, but I think we're still in a position, in reality, where we haven't got enough of them in the country.

So, again, this is going to be a big part of the government's work across us in the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Treasury, communities and the local government.  Like, I think we're all very invested in making sure we've got more apprenticeships.

I just want to answer directly the point about young people's skills, though, because I would say two things in response to that point.  The first thing is, you know, 19-year-olds today were 14 during lockdown, 20-year-olds were 15.  I think that's got to have had an impact.  You know, without getting into lockdown and the rights and wrongs and, you know, it was very, very important to save lives.  I think young people, you know, the coming generation gave up their social life in their mid to late teens to save the lives of people much older than them and we owe them for that, don't we?  You know, they've given up a lot: the chance to get public transport by yourself for the first time around those years, the chance to go to your first house party.  You know, they gave that up during Covid and I think we've kind of forgotten about that.

So, I think the whole country really owes the next generation a bit more attention and a bit of a chance at life and to get that first job.  So, many CIPD, you know, members will have experienced being someone's first boss and know how important that is and how influential you can be.  So, I think there's a big mission for us there as a country for the next generation.

I mean, it's also true that, like, you know, it's a story as old as the hills, isn't it? Like, us all having a go at the generations to come.  I'm 44 now and you know, obviously I'm, like, as nostalgic as the rest of us about my teenage years and early twenties, but the idea that somehow, like, this generation are any different, they're not.  People are always having a go at young people.  The thing that this generation really needs, I think, is a start and a chance and an opportunity.  What we're doing in Jobcentres is to try to really understand some of these issues about social confidence and whether there's more that we need to change and do with employment support rather than just, you know, help with writing your CV.  Actually, young people need support for their confidence and for their experience, you know, picking up the phone, having difficult conversations, all of those things.  So, our work coaches in Jobcentres are very focused on that at the moment for young people, and I think that will help businesses as part of our big change to shift the Jobcentre service towards employers and be focused on what they need, is making sure that we can help bridge that gap that perhaps some of your members see between what they need of young people and where they are at the moment.

DDS: It's a really interesting one.  It's really easy to always think the next generation are going to be the problem.  They tend to be the solution.

AM: Absolutely, absolutely.

DDS: And it's making sure that they get the support and the guidance, and as you say, that recognition of that disruption, to make sure that they can build better.

AM: Absolutely.

DDS: And I'm really happy, you know, we launched a new mentoring scheme last year for our members.  We've also… do some great work through the CIPD trust just to help with that access and support piece, because it's critical.  People will lack skills if you don't even try and give them them.

AM: Yeah, and also it's not… this is not insurmountable, right.  We know that good work and good mental health go hand in hand.  That's true for this generation like it's been true for every other generation before, so let's try and focus on giving young people a really good quality start at a job, and I think, you know, like all of us, they will learn.

DDS: I mean, I haven’t managed it yet, but I'm getting…

AM: (Laughter)

DDS: If you're telling me it's going to happen, I'll take it.  Jobcentres.  You absolutely seem to… we're not videoing this.  You come alive every time you mention Jobcentres.

AM: Oh, I love them.

DDS: So, the white paper talks about a national jobs and careers service, bringing that to the fore and, kind of, more joined up.  I think there's two things that it might be worth talking about: (1) the role that you think they play now, and it's clear that you think there's possibly more capability that they're given credit for; and secondly, where you see that going in the future.

AM: So, let me just say first, like, why Jobcentres exist, because I do think they've been really unloved and really overlooked, definitely, in politics.  And I do think… I mean, forgive me being a tribal leftie here, but I do think there's a class element to that.  You know, it's often working class people who will end up having to go to the Jobcentre and people in, you know, in my world, in politics, are often not that.  So, I think that's part of the reason why they've been overlooked.

But there is a huge amount of capacity there.  The point of Jobcentres is matching, job matching.  You know, back in the early 20th century, there was a recognition that if you are at the low-paid end of the labour market, you are less likely to understand all of the chances and opportunities that might be open to you.  So, the old idea of a labour exchange, which is now a Jobcentre, that that idea was about trying to systematise the way we improve the chances and opportunities people have in the labour market, and that is exactly the purpose of them today.  You know, think of that young person who's been a bit lost.

Ideally, they go into the Jobcentre.  Many young people don't really know what jobs are out there, and our frontline team should be understanding that young person in front of them, knowing what they're passionate about, what they care about, and broadening that set of chances and opportunities that they have.
Unfortunately, the system as it is now is very admin heavy.  It's very box-ticky.

Some of our… the technology that is used in Jobcentres is like from the ark.  You would be surprised how many times you go into a Jobcentre and the Wi-Fi doesn't really work very… like, the basics have got to change.  It's not fair on our frontline colleagues or our customers who come into Jobcentre that that is the situation, so we're determined to change that.

We also want to build Jobcentre in your pocket.  The NHS app, I think, has been pretty successful and it's helping the NHS frontline, you know, use its time efficiently and we're going to build on that and by its side, we're going to have Jobcentre in your pocket so that people can access our services, you know, any time, day or night, and again, we can use a data-driven approach to open up opportunities to people that they may not know about.  That will give our human being colleagues the time to do what human beings really can do, which is offer people a bit of solidarity for the situation that they're in.  You know, being supportive in a way that actually, if you've experienced the loneliness of poverty, you need that human-to-human contact and so that's what we're trying to help facilitate.  More time for people.

At the moment, most appointments are ten minutes.  What can you really do in ten minutes?  So, we're trying to facilitate more time for people in Jobcentres whilst we, you know, upgrade our technology and let the technology take the strain of more of the administrative stuff, and for those people who are, you know, wanting to access our help at, you know, 8.00pm whilst they're watching the telly, they should be able to do that.  So, we're trying to use technology and time as our big change for Jobcentres.

DDS: Brilliant.  Our community question was in fact, "Do you think it's a bit box-ticky and could it be more personalised?" so…

AM: It's very box-ticky, yes.  So, that's what we're trying to change.  I want people to feel like it's help for them, that's designed for them, you know, and be seen as a human being, not just you're in a category and if you're in that category, you know, you can do X and Y and Z.  No, everybody's unique and an individual, and that's what we're trying to build as a new culture for the news jobs and careers service.

DDS: Fantastic, thank you.  Closing question for you.  What impact of the Get Britain Working, I'll say initiative, paper, how would you… programme?  How would…

AM: Plan.

DDS: Plan, plan, plan.

AM: It's a plan.

DDS: It's a plan.

AM: Yeah.

DDS: Would you like to see in three to five years' time?  So, how would you know it’s a success?  Where would you, kind of, sit back and go, "I'm sure there's still more to do, but I'm really proud that we changed that"?

AM: Yeah.  Okay, well, strictly speaking from a, sort of, government policy point of view, we've set ourselves an ambition of getting to an 80% employment rate and within that, we've published a series of metrics.  For example, the employment rate for disabled people is about 20 percentage points lower than the average employment rate for all of us.  You know, that's not acceptable.  It's also not acceptable that we're still in this situation I was talking about before where, you know, geography determines so much of your life at work.  So, we want to close the gap between places in the UK and then obviously we want to see the women's employment rate continue to rise so that it is equal to that of men, not least because women as parents often determine whether or not… you know, their earnings often determine whether or not their children grow up in poverty.  So in terms of our anti-poverty mission, closing that gap is very important.

On the human side, away from the numbers, I know in my heart for a lot of people at the moment, if they have to go to the Jobcentre, it feels like something bad has happened in their life and so they've ended up in this position and they're having to go to the Jobcentre, and that's not a good place to begin, but I would like in three to five years' time for people to say, "Well, I wasn't in a great situation, but when I went to the Jobcentre, that was the day it turned around," and I think if we could get that as part of our culture, we'll have succeeded.

DDS: Final question from me; what would you like to see from the profession in terms of support?  So, you've talked actually a lot about how important the profession is, but also what happens to people in work.

AM: Yeah.

DDS: And in moments of critical access to work. What do you want us to be doing?

AM: Recruit young people.  I think we've, kind of, gone through that, but if all influence that colleagues, CIPD colleagues, can have to recruit young people and across the profession, that will really help and I know that there's so much enthusiasm for that.  And I think continue to be demanding of the government, because people spend, what, 60%, 70% of their week at work.  I think it can really affect how people feel about the direction of the country.  You know, what you do Monday to Friday or, you know, even if you're working part time these days, it can really determine how you feel about the direction of the country.  So, I would say to all of those in the profession, continue to be demanding of the government about what you think will make successful workplaces.

DDS: Thank you so much for your time today.  Quick reminder the CIPD is apolitical, but we will engage with any government, any party that's trying to do the right thing in this space and increase those opportunities.

AM: I wouldn't respect you if you weren't demanding of all governments.

DDS: We are demanding of all governments.

AM: Excellent.

DDS: But we have been, just to kind of reciprocate, we've been delighted with the level of engagement and contact the other way as well.  It's really important the profession has a voice.  It's important that our evidence is part of the conversation, and so we try to solve problems that impact the nation and impact the quality of people's everyday.  Like you said, it's a key part of many people's lives and many people would like it to be a key part of their lives, and it isn't. Thank you so much for your time today.  I know how busy you are.  My name's David D'Souza.  This has been the HR People Pod for the CIPD.  Thank you very much.

AM: Thank you.

Steve George: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. I'm Steve George, Head of Learning at the CIPD, sitting in for David D'Souza. And joining me in the studio today we have:

Francisca Beloso: Francisca Beloso, Inclusive Diversity Associate Director at Alvarez & Marsal, which is a management consultancy in London.

Alix Bolton: I'm Alix Bolton. I'm Chief People Officer for a business called Smollan. We do retail solutions and outsourcing for some of the world's coolest brands and product developers.

Kevin Green: I'm Kevin Green. I'm the Chief People Officer of First Bus, taking on some group responsibility. We're a FTSE 250 transport company.

SG: And it's a pleasure to have you all join us for what I know will be a fantastic conversation. A quick reminder for all our CIPD member listeners that now is the time to renew your membership too. Staying active in membership means that you continue to access our professional community resources, our learning, our support and all that credibility that helps you make an impact at work and beyond. Your membership keeps you connected, current and confident in the fast-changing world of work. So, don't lose that edge. Renew by the 1st of July at cipd.org and keep the power of membership working for you. So, now let's get to know our panel a little more: tell us a little about yourself. What's caught your attention in the past week or so, and anything you've been reading or watching recently.

FB: I guess, like everyone, I don't want to talk too much about politics, but unfortunately, especially as my role is Inclusive Diversity and also, I'm responsible for the MENA region. So, it's not only the UK, it's the whole you know, how the whole work is reacting to that, and also how the different organisations and people and the context there. So, I think anything related to people, anything related to inclusion and how not only the organisations, referring to what you mentioned earlier. It's as well more importantly, how the people are reacting to the, how they are expecting the organisations to respond to that. I think that's what is grabbing my attention, so it will be too long. We will need the whole day if I start going on about everything I'm reading, But really just a bit of a summary.

SG: Interesting, thank you. Alix.

AB: Flicking through a book called "Net Positive" at the minute. So, written by a chap called Paul Polman, who was the Chief Exec. of Unilever for a long time, who's a good friend of our Chief Exec. over at Smollan. So, flicking through that, watching things on the TV. But I'm growing a slight addiction to romance and fantasy novels, which is my chosen way to wind down in the evening. That's all I'll say on that.

SG: Thank you.

KG: In terms of reading, I've been sort of dipping it out of a business book called "Ruthlessly Caring" by Amy Walters Cohen, and it's about paradoxical mindsets for leaders and for me, I think it's very insightful. So, there's things like "responsibly daring" or "ruthlessly caring". And it gets you to think about what we're asking of leaders. So, I've been dipping in and out of that for about six months. And then on TV, there's only one thing really that's grabbed my attention and that's "Mobland" and I've been addicted to it. It comes out every Sunday and I sort of can't wait till the evening to watch it. And it's an amazing performance. So, Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, it's about family, a set of gangsters. But Tom Hardy is just exceptional. In terms of references to HR, there's a bit about strategic thinking, taking a long-term view, but there's also lots of violence and lots of humour, so it's very.

FB: It's all there.

KG: It's escapism, absolutely.

FB: Exactly.

AB: Yeah, I think the ability to respond to changing circumstances, I mean, it's just incredible, slightly unhinged, amazing production and definitely keeps you keeps you hooked.

KG: It does.

AB: I think in terms of the people space you know, thinking about how we craft our approach to different things. But you definitely know who's in charge in that show.

KG: And also, it's about human nature, isn't, you know, there's a family at the centre of that.

AB: That's what we do, yeah.

KG: And you've got all sorts of, you know, personalities being played out. So, yeah, as always, there's some, you can grab some insight from it, but I'd certainly recommend it.

SG: Some great recommendations. For myself, I've been reading a book called "Embers of the Hands", which is a. It's a history of the Vikings, told through ordinary objects. Similar to you, Kevin, I've tried to shoehorn in some kind of business relevance to it. The closest I can get is, it's not about the kings and the raiders and the kind of Vikings we know. So, it's the ordinary stories told through things like combs that are engraved with runes and things.

KG: OK.

AB: Interesting.

SG: So, my shoehorning-in of the business context is, however much you think we know something if we broaden the narrative that we're prepared to listen to and understand, then we get more context and deeper understanding.

AB: Yeah, yeah.

SG: So, for everything that we'll discuss today, we'll be talking about the general principles of what's happening. So, we all know, as experienced professionals, that it's very difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes on some of the big stories. So, we'll take the stories as the jumping off point for the discussions that we have. And the first story I want to kick off with is one about pay incentives and how reasonable it is to reward compliance with rules versus rewarding positive performance and behaviours. So, we've seen in recent days that another High Street bank has joined a bit of a trend, particularly within that sector, by no means exclusively, where compliance with returning to office mandates is being factored in when awarding bonuses or pay rises. So, context is always key, but it does prompt an interesting debate when we talk about performance and its link to annual salary reviews. And further, how much weight is actually being given to policy-compliance as opposed to performance when making these decisions. How can policy-compliance be equated with behaviours that might be reasonable to be reviewed and rewarded.

AB: I mean, where do you start with it because you know performance itself, as a concept as it is so wide and dynamic and sort of lives and breathes in the organisation. So, I think that there's certain mechanisms that you need to have in businesses that are the undercurrent of, you know, how the business runs or the target operating model or something like that. But the way that people perform within those frameworks and the clarity that the business gives can be, you know, so wildly varied across, across many different chasms. We could probably talk about it all day, if I'm honest. I've seen it in, you know, in different businesses depending on what the business model has been. But the current sort of shift to, you know, "back-to-office" versus "visibility is value" and that type of thing. I think, you know, it's a false economy, if I'm honest.

SG: Sure.

AB: We've tricked ourselves into thinking that you know, physical presence equals productivity, and it absolutely doesn't. I've seen an interesting comment on, in catching up in one of our HR Leader Groups this morning on WhatsApp, around if that was the case and it got me thinking about this conversation, take the likes of AI and the whole where that ,holistically the world of work and the future of work is, and how we do work is changing. AI has no physical presence in an office, yet it now forms part of, well, most of our you know every day work. So, it can't then just come down to the people to be physically present and then rewarded, and then and there. You know, we've got to give people autonomy and trust and a way of showing up that is good for them.

FB: I think we forget about the context here sometimes, as an organisation. We just say, yes you, I think you alluded to that before; you get a mandate. But without putting any context, "just because I say so". I'm going back to your point about going back to, we are going backwards rather than being forward. Yes, it's important, I think, and I believe that that sense of the connection, you know, the power of that networking and the collaboration, but you have to be intentional. Just me to be there, sitting at my desk doing what? And is that really benefiting the business, myself as an individual, in terms of that collaboration I want to encourage, as an organisation, is really driving my performance? Are we understanding? That's why I'm referring to the context. What is the impact on? Some people may have caring responsibilities; I'm not talking only about mothers. It can be parents, it can be people that have any other kind of responsibilities, any kind of disability as well, that they might have an impact? And let's not forget, and I have experienced that this morning, transport is not great. You know, if we had a great transport: and much cheaper, I'm sure that will maybe, you know, put. So, that's what I'm talking about: the context. You know, so it's very easy for someone seated on their ivory tower, saying "I want everyone here, but I get driven here by chauffer, for example, and I've got a nanny at home". But the people that they do work for me and they will really, will have that impact. They have a life, and they have a number of financial considerations. So, I will take into account that inclusion to make sure. That's what I call about the context. And also, the people need to understand why are you asking me to come to the office? Are we explaining that as part of my communication or not?

KG: I think there's a big role for HR in this debate, actually, because the bit that I see, time and time again in the headlines and when you start to look at the stories is: "there's been a decision by a Chief Executive or a board to say we've got to work three days or four days or whatever it is, in the office". And there's very little evidence produced to back that up. And there's. Why. What's the why? Why? What are we going to be able to do by being in an office that we can't do at home? And for me, if we're, you're in a process where we're trying to engage our workforce and treat them as adults, then you've got to listen to them, there's got to be a dialogue. And this takes you back to Command and Control and arbitrary decisions by leaders because they think it's right. And I think they've got to be able to articulate the "why", which is your point. But I also think they've got to listen and understand what it means for individuals. So, rather than just making a mandate, I think you engage your workforce over time, which is, "we believe there's a productivity improvement that if people work in". Yeah. So, let's have that debate and then let's try and accommodate individuals so that we retain people. And if we don't do this, I think as a profession, if we don't stand up and push back and get the organisation to face into these issues, I think you will then be dealing with the consequences. Which is people make choices about where they work and who they work for.

FB: Exactly.

KG: So, I think there's a big lesson in it, in the HR profession here, not to just accept decisions and to get organisations to think things through in a much more robust way, but also do it with people rather than to people.

FB: Exactly.

AB: We can go one step further with that as well. You know, whatever policy we mandate, we need to then know that leaders locally have got the ability to see it through or to tell the story or to you know support the business's direction.

FB: Exactly.

AB: So, there's no "one-size-fits-all" approach, but it's got to be built on evidence, absolutely.

FB: Yeah, and there has to be a middle balance there. So, you can't go from one extreme to another. We went through the period of everyone at home because it was a context. Again, there was a reason, but now not everyone has to be back. So, if I think about that our own example, at work, we don't. We encourage the people to come to the office twice a week at least, to encourage that, you know, collaboration, that social element. But there is an explanation there for that. But equally, in another hand, it's not that it's fully mandated, the five days. So, it's about everything. It's about having it, you know that. Yeah.

KG: But you know also, that point you've made about, you know, reward being linked to it. Again, it's reinforcing "We know best", right? So, we're going to punish you if you don't follow the rules, you know.

FB: That's right.

KG: And I think that what we've been trying to do is create organisations where people are listened to, where they feel that they can have a proper conversation, a mature conversation about what works for them and how they work in the best way. And to end up saying, you know, "you've got to be here three days a week and if you don't do that, we're not going to pay your bonuses", I think counterproductive. I think it will create huge problems in some of those organisations.

FB: Yeah, people make choices. Like you say, right?

AB: Yeah, with their feet usually. You know, if we're creating depersonalised organisations, you know, isn't that everything that we've said we're not going to.

FB: You won't be rewarding good behaviour or inclusive behaviour or something that's conducted. You will be doing the totally opposite. So, what kind of culture are you building?

SG: The industry for this particular story is a High Street bank, so financial services. Is there an element of risk mitigation for the organisation, when we're talking about compliance? So, by bringing people into the office then perhaps mitigating some of that risk and the onus is on the employees more than the employer then?

KG: I'm not sure.

AB: Sounds like a hand-off.

FB: You got us to feel. You've got us to feel like, hmm?

KG: I mean, I think the point is: all change is context-specific, isn't it? So, what I think we're all agreeing on is. You need the HR Director or Chief People Officer in those types of organisation, has to try and get the organisation to face into that issue and to explore it with some depth and look at the evidence and look at the productivity and ask the people, "when does it work for you?" And then come up with something that works, because I think you can then, you can then sell it to people, and they can understand the logic and where it's come from. But if you start saying, "it's about risk mitigation and we're going to, you've got to be here three days a week". They're going to go, "well, what risk?" Tell me how the me being here three days a week, which creates difficulty. You know, I have to when I'm in London, I have to commute for an hour and a half each way. That's three hours of non-productive time. When I'm working at home, I can be. I can do my prep. I can be on calls from 7 and I can get; I can work at it. I know I'm more productive in those days, but I need to be in meetings, I want to engage with people and have informal conversations. So, you know, for professionals, you want people that can design their own work.

FB: Yeah.

KG: You know, as much as you feel. You know, we know from motivation that one of the things that drives motivation people at work is their ability to work in a way that suits them.

AB: Autonomy

KG: Autonomy. So, we've got to build that into our systems and ways of thinking.

FB: Yeah.

AB: Yeah.

SG: We're going to talk about upcoming reforms to the apprenticeship system in England and touch on upskilling your workforce. So, the UK Government has announced a sweeping £3 billion overhaul of apprenticeship funding, with 120,000 new training opportunities for young people. This move recognises the need to tackle persistently high levels of youth unemployment, economic inactivity and a nationwide shortage of technical skills. From January 2026, employers will only be able to use apprenticeship levy funds to support Level 7, which is master’s level for existing apprentices and those aged 16 to 21. So, the CIPD viewpoint on this is that, while the aim of rebalancing the system towards young people is important, this approach risks undermining the overall breadth and ambition of the apprenticeship offer. The CIPD have called for a more ambitious approach that genuinely expands opportunities and rebalances the system in favour of young people, including an apprenticeship guarantee for all 16 to 24 year-olds. We've also argued for a more nuanced approach to managing the costs of delivering higher level apprenticeships, for instance, via reduced subsidies for older apprentices. So, what's your thoughts on the announcement? And should apprenticeships be focused, towards young people?

FB: This is quite personal to me, because I actually I did my MBA using that apprenticeship scheme. So, I know I benefitted from that, doing it at Henley Business School. And so, the rest of the people in my cohort, from many different organisations, so I know from first experience, what is the benefit. Also, I've done quite a lot of work as well on age and ageism, or what we call as well the generational diversity. So, I think quoting a word you said about being binary thinking. We are doing that, young and versus olders, or more senior, why is it different? What is going to be a difference on the way we learn? Our learning means, our needs or any age for development and the type of support they may need. So, I think, I appreciate maybe where they're coming from. Maybe the system needs to have some kind of fine tuning. I get that, and I think probably that's the thing, but maybe going into that direction probably is not the best one, especially because what is that being "young", you know what is that label any longer, you know? Are we going to stay working much longer and we want to work and continue learning much longer, not only that, we want to. So, are we limiting that capability as well of learning. And also, you know the value that all the different generations can give back to any workforce. So, I think it's that, I think a little bit more personal there because I benefitted from that one. So that's that, you know, my experience and my opinion on that one.

KG: I think the government's been, I don't think it's been radical, don't think it's really thought about the issue. I think it's tinkering with a system that doesn't work. And if you look at the apprenticeship funding that we pay, employers pay, it's our money and it goes back to the state. If it's not utilised, people, employers are not using the system, and the money is going back to the Exchequer. Why is that? You know, we're all currently talking about skills and talent and what we're looking to hire. So, I think there should have been a much more radical overhaul of the apprenticeship levy and the way it's used. I think you need to give employers the ability to create a much more flexible approach. I think about age just being binary again. You know in reality, government has got a problem with young people. There is too much exclusion. There are a lot of young people that are sitting at home and not in education or at work. Now, do we need to do something about that? Absolutely. Is the apprenticeship levy really going to fundamentally get at that issue? I'm not convinced. Though I think government policy in this area is, you know, again, it's not been thought through. I would be advocating, in the long term, that employers should pay more into the apprenticeship levy or a training levy but then encouraging us to use it in a much more flexible way. I mean, I, we do apprentices. We do a lot of stuff with young people. It's really hard. It's bureaucratic. It takes time and effort and what most employers do is, "We'll just treat as a tax. We'll give them money, and then we won't bother doing the stuff". So, what the government's got to do is talk to employers, get them to provide the feedback so that it can be a system where everyone wants to participate and engage and utilise the funding to do things that are of benefit to their workforce and to individuals. So, you know, I think there's a much more radical overhaul that's required at the moment. I think this is a bit of window dressing.

AB: I agree. Completing the system is too hard for employers to navigate, but it this isn't just the apprenticeship levy, is it, though? This isn't.

KG: Yeah.

AB: This isn't the pay-in. This is about funding, which is, you know, government, into education for level 7 apprenticeships being limited to under 22s. Now, I'm all open to, you know, more access for young people - that's welcome. But removing support for older learners; that's just going to make our workforces less resilient. Now, for me, the, this is not a rebalancing policy. This is a restriction. It's putting an extra restriction into the, you know, the wider portfolio. I've got a lot to say on this. So, I sit on a Board at an FE college, and if this is to be the way from 2026, the system will not react within that time scale. Let me tell you, you know, we're already into 2026, 2027 curriculum planning. This is, you know, this is like T-levels all over again, which the industry, especially in education, is only just reacting to. Again, you know, agree with my colleagues in the room. It's a tinkering. It's not an overall redesign.

FB: Yeah, it's very performative, rather than actually having thought through and saying, "OK, what is really the problem we are trying to solve here?"

AB: Yeah.

FB: I don't think it has been, just like "Oh, OK." Almost like putting something temporary, which is going to create perhaps more issues rather than addressing, as you are referring to, the actual problem that is the intention, of investing in the young people, you know, as well to give them the skills that are needed for the future of work.

AB: And I see this massively, you know, widening the inclusivity gap as well because.

FB: Yeah, exactly.

AB: If you think about Level 7 apprenticeships, which are, you know way more vocational. They need, you know, far more, you know, written and numerical skills to get there. We are still living within a, you know, an epidemic of our children leaving school with a way below, you know, average level of reading, writing and arithmetic skill compared to other European countries. And then we're pushing, probably more privileged folk, into Level 7 apprenticeships. It's just not going to work, the output.

KG: If you think from a macro perspective, if you really think about this from a, you know, an economic perspective, you know, we've got skill shortages, labour shortages, talent shortages, right? We're stifling immigration. You know, we've got less people coming into the labour market, right? Employers wanting to grow. If you want to grow an economy, it's about private sector employers, you know having the right skills and talent. Right, so if you take it from a macro point of view, then what government should be doing is, with education and the training environment, is working with employers to think about what skills do you need over the next 5-10 years. We've got lots of people that are choosing not to participate. How do we get them back in? So, how do you incentive employers to work with young people and bring them into organisations and give them some kind of, as you say, competency that will give them the ability to earn a living, and not rely on benefits? And I think we've also got to recognise that we've got to take a responsibility to invest in it as well. But I think that, you know, the point is, you know, I was hoping that this government would have a much more inclusive wealth for our education and training response. And this does just go, you know, tinkering.

FB: Just being too reactive rather than thinking, as I mentioned, what is really the problem we're trying to solve here.

AB: Yeah.

FB: And I think it's, building on your point, you know, many of us in the profession, the typical thing we hear, especially from our leaders, is "Oh, the lack of talent. We cannot get the right skills. We cannot get the right competency". Well, we are not investing on that future of work. So therefore, like with artificial intelligence coming and everything else, all the changes. Are we preparing the workforce for that? We are not.

SG: Is breaking the rules what's needed to break barriers in performance? So, the so-called "Enhanced Games" is set to debut in Las Vegas in 2026. This is a controversial new Olympic-style sporting event where athletes will be committed and even encouraged to use certain performance-enhancing drugs. All in the name of exploring new, previously unexplored levels of human potential. It's a move that's polarised opinion, some claiming it's cheating and unethical, and others saying it's pioneering, experimental and bound by completely different rules. So, in a workplace context, when does performance enhancement become cheating or unethical - drugs or AI? Or in a broader sense, when is it acceptable to break away from the norm and mutually agree to ignore good practice in order to achieve desired results. Another conversation that I'm sure could go on for a very long time.

KG: It's a huge question.

FB: So concise then.

SG: So, Kevin: in 10 seconds. What's your take?

KG: Well, I look, I mean I think, you know, you've got to have some boundaries, right? So, we've got regulation or legislation, right? That creates an environment for businesses. So, that's clearly a given, I think. And then I think you know, I think this is a leap forward. You know, I think most organisations are quite poor at getting the best from their workforce. You know, their current workforce, working in the normal way. So, before we start thinking about, you know, augmentation of the body or mind-enhancing drugs that could enable people to work even more productively, why don't we just go back to basics, right? And think about how we are managing our current workforces. Are we fully utilising the skills and capabilities of our? And I think from an HR perspective, I think every organisation I've been in, I think there's room for improvement and I think that's where we should focus rather than worrying about whether we should be encouraging people to augment themselves or giving them, you know, enhancing drugs to improve their performance.

AB: It's such a, you know, intellectually stimulating, to think about cause I can put myself in, you know, thinking about either angle. But when I was thinking about it, there's something around the power imbalance for me that I think this topic brings through. It's kind of like, you know, fire and rehire dressed in Lycra, isn't it, you know?

KG: I like that.

AB: Be these conditions, you know, be this, be that, augment this. Where does, as Kevin says, where does the legislation and governance come in, to be the undercurrent of, of whatever? And where does it stop? I mean, we were saying outside of the room, it kind of gives talent more choice, if that's the way that employment moves, because some employers will be more early adopters of different practices, but it creates, you know corruption and that imbalance of power for me.

KG: Yeah.

SG: And pressure on people.

AB: Yeah.

FB: I think it's like, what you both say, you know. Yes, we need to have boundaries, but equally, we've taken it too far. You know, it's all about getting the right balance. And let's not forget the context, which I referred to at the beginning. One size does not fit all. Each organisation is different, and each individual comes with their own context when they come to the organisation. So, are we taking all of this into account? To get the best, as you say, of the skills or what you have to offer to the organisation, the value-added that you have. Are we? Not really. Are we still operating with the old models in the new world. Well, probably that's what we're doing, as organisations, as an individual, we are human. At the end of the day, that's normal. That happens. But I think, as a profession, we've got that responsibility, as you said earlier as well. "OK, hold on a second. Let's take a step back and let's challenge those decisions to make sure that we're creating the right environment for the talent to thrive?"

SG: This is a new segment for the podcast, so that we're bringing in for this episode.

FB: OK.

SG: So, what we're going to do is turn you into trusted advisers to support on a question that's come up in our fabulous CIPD Community, which I'd recommend everyone to look at. So, there's a thread that's been circulating, and at the heart of it is a challenge that many people professionals will recognise. What it is essentially is the need for an HR manager to strike the balance between compassion and managerial accountability. So, the scenario centres on supporting an employee with frequent mental health-related sickness absence. Understandably, over time this has started to affect wider team performance. So, what piece of advice or nugget of wisdom would you offer someone in the profession? Perhaps a Line Manager who's trying to manage repeated short or long-term absence with empathy and compassion, but who's also accountable for team performance, morale and making sure that work gets done?

FB: Again, and that's what I keep saying. You know, we sometimes jump into conclusions, and we don't communicate. OK? We all have bias and that's fine - we are human. We don't. I mean, some may be artificial intelligence by now, but it's how we use that bias. So, I'm not jumping into conclusions. I'm asking the right questions and understanding. OK, that individual, what is the pattern of absence and why is that absence happening and am I creating that environment or not for that individual? And yeah, it may be a reason and that's why I need to address it with performance management, but we cannot do that with absolutely everything. Are we creating, as I mentioned earlier, that environment where the people will feel free and safe to tell me, "I've got this situation" or simply, "I don't like working here"? Maybe, I don't know. And then, you know, have that open conversation and manage that as appropriate. And taking each case on their merit. Don't apply one size fits it all.

KG: Yeah.

AB: Yeah.

KG: So, isn't it? It goes to the heart of great people management, doesn't it? Which is, in reality, you've got to ask the questions and have a conversation, which might be quite difficult.

FB: Yes.

KG: You know, it might be quite difficult for the person on the other side of the table to be talking about their mental health and what, you know, what activates that? Why is it happening, you know? And you may end up with situations about, you know, could be about addiction, it could be about home life, it could be about all sorts of things. So, what we've got to be able to do is train our managers to be able to have that conversation, right? That's the first thing is - you do have to have the conversation because that's how you do the investigation and find out what's going on. Then it can be a range of different responses. It could be actually, I think this person is, you know, perhaps, they're you know, not behaving correctly and you know, so it could be performance management, it could be I need to refer someone to Occupational Health or I need to, you know, make adjustments to their working hours. So, the point is, there's a whole range of different responses, but the fundamental thing is: have the conversation, right? And then the second thing I always say about this is, you've got to make sure that there is a communication to other members of the team afterwards.

FB: That's true.

KG: Because the one thing is; you need other people to be empathetic to the individual. And you might be saying, you know, "this person's going to be working three days a week for a period of time." And they need to understand why, because otherwise you know people are being seen favourably, they've been allowed, they've been let off or whatever it might be. So, for me, it's all about having the tough conversation, exploring things in a really empathetic way, thinking about the right response and then thinking about how you communicate it to others.

AB: Yeah, it's diffusing the ambiguity of it all, isn't it? Completely agree. So, you know, recognise the person, not just the pattern. But like Kevin said, it's not your responsibility to fix it overnight, but it is your responsibility to face it. So, use data, evidence base, get the right people in the room, make sure there's clarity and then, you know, take it from there.

SG: So, that's all for today. I'd like to thank our guests Francisca Beloso, Alix Bolton and Kevin Green for sharing your thoughts, and as ever to you, our listeners as well. We'll include a link to a number of useful resources discussed in the episode in the show notes. And remember, we publish new episodes of the HR People Pod every fortnight, so make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to us and catch up on anything you've missed. I've been Steve George, and this has been the HR People Pod.

David D'Souza: Hello, my name is David D'Souza and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the broader world of work. Joining me today, dialling in from around the world, we have.

Adrian Waite: Hi everyone. I'm Adrian. I'm an HR talent consultant, based out in Dubai.

DDS: Fantastic. And.

Alison Hodgson: And I am Alison Hodgson. I am the new Country Director here in the CIPD in Ireland. After 25 plus years out in the field of HR in various sectors and various roles, I have now moved to my dream job.

DDS: Dream Job, dream job. You haven't worked with me for long enough yet, Alison. That will soon change. And Adrian gave you a little clap there as well. I was quite impressed by that.

AH: Ah, thank you.

AW: Yeah, I think some might suggest that you're bound to say it's your dream job, but we're going to let that pass, we're not going to come back to that.

AH: Poor David has listened to me throughout this very rigorous process, and you'd be hard pushed to disagree with me, wouldn't you, David?

AW: David's going to vouch for you. Fair comment, never going to argue with that one.

DDS: Passion shines through. So, genuine pleasure to be joined by you for this episode. This episode is actually a special one because it's got a truly international perspective because it's the 20th of May when we'll be releasing this. I sincerely hope you may or may not be listening to it exactly on that day, but that marks International HR Day. And so, we wanted to talk about actually the international landscape, how things may differ and how things may be the same, in line with the themes of International HR Day. But before we crack on with that, I just want to get an insight into what's going on in your world. So, Adrian, I'm going to come to you first. Something that you're watching, you're reading, you're consuming recently, that's kind of piqued your interest, that you'd recommend to others or you'd go, "that's an interesting thing"?

AW: My mind goes to. I've got young kids, and my mind goes to all of that, that stuff that's going round in your head and all of those songs. But I think it's the last series of "You", which is running on Netflix. As a social scientist, I'm fascinated by how really, really smart people behave in very stupid ways when they get into groups. And that kind of explores the way that people behave in different ways. So, I've really, really enjoyed that. Not for everybody. But I've really enjoyed it.

DDS: Excellent. Thank you for the recommendation. Alison?

AH: I have just finished reading "How to see around corners", by Rita McGrath. I don't know if you've come across that, but I found it really, really enjoyable, mainly because a lot of it was just common sense and validates what we all would see and hear on a daily basis. In terms of watching, I am watching "Your Friends & Neighbours" on Paramount, which is when it all goes wrong for a hedge fund broker, and he turns to petty theft of his friends and neighbours’ houses. And everything that spirals from there. But my favourite podcast at the moment is, "How to Fail" by Elizabeth Day. And she actually has just done a tour, and she came here a couple of weeks ago, in Dublin, and interviewed an Irish writer. So, that's kind of my listening and my media intake.

DDS: Excellent. Well, and we will see how much we can fail on today's podcast. Actually, one of the most embarrassing moments in my career was meeting Rita McGrath, and I was introduced to her specifically because we both are interested in the innovation that happened around bubble wrap being created. But someone just introduced us and went, "This man is also interested in bubble wrap" and then walked off.

AH: Random.

DDS: I know. And she just kind of, she looked at me, I looked at her and I went, "Very nice to meet you" and we both went our separate ways. Genuinely, like a, meeting of Rita's, yeah, incredible mind and my short love of bubble wrap. So, brilliant. Well, right. We're going to get on to things now, but there's clearly things to watch and see out there. So, I want to kick us off today by getting a real sense of, particularly for the region, the markets that you're operating in. How much of an impact AI is having and how organisations are beginning to react to that, acclimatise to that, make cultural adjustments to that? We'll come onto skills a bit later. But what role is the profession playing in your individual regions? So, Alison, I'm going to start with you because I know that that was a topic in the conference that you were at yesterday.

AH: Yeah. And we've just released our research, and AI was obviously a topic that was explored in that. Rather surprisingly, we have learned that 58% of Irish workplaces have not provided plans or parameters for employees when operating AI within the realms of their roles, and even though 60% of workplaces have reported increased productivity. So, there's something quite counter-intuitive about those two things. And even more, an even higher percentage, 67% of employers have not provided any training. So, in terms of the role of the profession, I think there is a lot to do. I think the opportunity is there. I think that we are pushing on an open door, and I think it is for us to really enable support and facilitate ethical, responsible and sustainable adoption of AI into the world of work, making sure that the jobs that follow are good quality jobs.

DDS: Adrian, I'm really curious on your thoughts because I know there's some really interesting things happening kind of in around where you are. Similar story or different?

AW: Both. So, there is definitely some similarities. There's a big spiky profile going on between organisations that are really quite advanced in their adoption and organisations that are not at the starting line. Some of the recent kind of conference activity and publication stuff has been more about reassurance. If, you know, a lot of leaders are feeling that well, it's, "The boat's gone. The boat's over the horizon and we've not even started yet". And the feeling, you know, the feeling that they're so far behind, it's like "what to do" and it's like, "just relax. It's OK we can catch up with wherever we're at right now". You don't need to have gone through those early adopter pain points.

So yeah, you know, just down the road we have organisations like G42, we have data centres and further investment, which is the biggest on the planet. Absolutely huge, billions of dollars going into make Abu Dhabi the world centre of AI, you know. No, ifs, gloves off, they're absolutely going for it. And then down the road, you'll have a multinational that's being run out of North America or being run out of Europe, that's still using a 25 year-old HR IS and is still, you know, using a 9 box model for talent.

AH: Right and Excel workbooks, Excel workbooks all over the place.

AW: You say that like it's a bad thing - I must take issue that. So, how that's coming about, I think, is fascinating. I've been absolutely blessed with this savant genius, a shout out to Sanjay, who's been my People Analytics guy for the last five years. He's like a mercenary in the field. So, when we're looking for, we're looking for something, it gets projectised, there's a lead time, Sanjay will just whisper and go, "I can smash that out in four weeks. Just let me prepare that." And I think he's not alone. I think there's a lot of AI mercenaries going, "Are we clear on the data? Can we clean the data so that there's no risk by putting this through?" Agentic AI that's being run, you know, he's set that up for our legal.

DDS: Sorry, that's probably a good one to pause on, right? So, we've spoken about how you've got earlier adopters, you've got some people who might be intimidated by, where people are. I can explain it, but do you want to explain Agentic AI and why that's a slight shift on from what people may have been talking about prior?

AW: So, I think it's the one thing that many of our operation type roles are worried about, that we can put something in place, whether that's hybrid or exclusively an extra team member. But we're not going to hire the biological version, we're going to create the AI Agentic version, so an agent can be created. That's beautifully prompted, that's so elegantly evolved in its interaction, that can do specific deliverables almost faultlessly. And some of our people can put that together in days. It takes months to test it, but it can be built in days and without any hassle. So, HR is not adopting that too quickly in this region. That's lagging, there's certain fear factors. But we're seeing little versions of it popping out.

So, in-house, becoming really common that we can have that agent to be able to access policy through an interaction. "What's the three policies that are going to affect my business trip or taking my team away?" I don't need to access the SOP; the agent can do that for me. And it means that the design of SOPs and policies has changed. We're starting to see much longer, much more detailed policies being written because the agent interrogates it, not the employee. So, these are early steps.

DDS: SOPs for anyone who's listening and they're earlier in their career or international.

AW: Apologies, Standard Operating Procedures. Often mixed up with policy, but they're not the same thing. But often they've got the same level.

DDS: Indeed, brilliant. Thank you. Alison, I'm going to come back to you, just before we move on, actually. What kind of hope do you hold for Ireland over the next two/three years in terms of adoption, the role of profession should play?

AH: One of the first points that you made, Adrian, is that it's not too late. AI is actually very young; it's in its infancy. So, for folks that are listening and tuning in, don't worry about that part. It's very, very easy to get caught up and there's so much available online to get your head around, what the whole Large Language Model world is and why it works the way it works and all of that. So, I think the hope, you know, if 60% of organisations are already reporting an increase in productivity, then the potential and the possibility is infinite. And for us, it's about making sure that we understand enough of the principles of AI so that we can support the design of future organisations. And when I talk to any of the Chief People Officers and the Senior HR Directors in the tech world over here, they are all consumed with "fit for future" organisations. And I know we're coming onto skills later on, but when you actually talk with them, they spend their day listening deeply, deeply listening to what is being said and what is being not said in their organisations, to make sure that the way in which we arrange ourselves and how we do what we do is impactful, effective has the reach, delivers what it is intended to.

So, I think until now there perhaps has been an overly organic approach to working with AI and maybe now that needs to tip into intentional approach to working with AI.

DDS: It's difficult to have a conversation around AI and how it is changing jobs without digging into skills in a bit more detail. So, different countries will have different levels of flexibility in their skills base, they'll have organisations more or less inclined to invest in skills and think, to your point, Alison, around you know what the future requirements will look like. Where does the onus see it around skills? Is it for the profession to drive it? Is it for organisations to play a role in it? Is it to be driven by states? Where do we think that sits and how do you create environments where actually, people are going to accept. Adrian if I start with you on this one?

AW: Yeah. I may not give the CIPD-polished answer for this.

DDS: OK, we're going to edit this out. Whatever's coming next.

AW: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Career-ending moment. No, I've got real concerns about this, and I know many of the leaders in this environment do as well. There's a strong sense that we're about to, or maybe just about started making many of the mistakes that we've already made before, by looking at skills outside of the context of application. So, 50 years ago, our instructional designers would point out, "Sorry, you're looking at skills and you're not looking at where it's being performed? And you're not looking at the systems where, that are working there. And you're not looking at the context and the workflows and the crosses between teams. You're just looking at skills in isolations. Are you crazy?" they would cry. And they would be right to cry that. Also, we're not colleges. We're not in the education business; we're in the performance business and there is a hard truth.

Education and, let's look at skills within, you know, role taxonomy. We don't develop that outside the context of performance; we develop it in the same context. So, we're developing skills so that we can see outcomes and performance, and we need that performance to move into reflective practice so that we can work on the skills. Trying to do either of those two things separately, I would say, is a big mistake, and it's a mistake that we've made several times. Many of our L&D colleagues are suffering from the way that we segregated those things 25 years ago and it seems that we're about to do the same thing again. Big worries, big concerns.

DDS: Really interesting.

AH: Yeah, I would probably build on that and say, you know, the state of readiness for change and transformation has always been a critical part of anything and everything that we have, that we do in HR. And I think, without understanding the context, the processes, the systems, the platforms, the interdependencies, the various stakeholders, where the handoffs are where, where the bottlenecks are? Without understanding that context, you cannot establish what your state of readiness is for adoption of new ways of working, which is ultimately what AI is going to give us all, I think. So, I think that hasn't changed for as long as we've all been in HR. It just has become more acute I think in this current world.

DDS: So, if we anticipate a shift in requirements of capabilities to deliver performance and productivity, then you need a strategic plan that takes in all the different component parts of that deliverable and works it back into to your point, Adrian, where we might need to provide people with support and the right environment to flourish, and to build capability in those spaces. Is that a fair summary or not? Adrian, you look thoughtful, which is good.

AW: I usually look puzzled. It's not a, it's not about the. I just have déjà vu here. I think the Toyota Way spoke about this decades ago. It spoke about not worrying too much about the skills of the individuals. In fact, really average, just people like me, really average people, who are nothing special in any way but really smash those systems. So that those systems are reliable, protected, committed. And shifting the focus away from rock star individuals into collective results. Looking at skills base without looking at systemic analysis is one of the most naive things I've heard coming out of HR in the last decade.

AH: And that is frustrating because I worked at McDonald's for a long time and we had a principle called "operate as designed". And if you get the process, the system, the procedure, the workflow right, then just rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. "Operate as designed" and you're right about moving away from the over-dependency on rock stars, because that key person dependency is always what comes up on your risk register. It's always what comes up.

AW: Exactly.

AH: In the talent management landscape. Who? Who's ready now? Who needs development and all of those challenges.

AW: Yeah, McDonald's is just a brilliant example. And as much as it might get knocked for all types of reasons, you cannot knock their systems - world-leading, absolutely fabulous at what they do. I don't like the end products firstly, but you know great systems, you know.

AH: And they conditioned customer behaviour, first and foremost, and now what you find is that customers behave like that when they go to other places. So, it's, you know.

AW: Brilliant observation. Yeah, indeed.

AH: It's because, all of the five. They use all of the five senses. We are human beings. We have got five senses, and they optimise and use them all.

DDS: So first of all, I'm going to point out that I have no sense of smell. So, you made an assumption about me, Alison, you're way off whack. I'm one down, which is like I'm McDonald's worst customer. They can't go after me that way.

AH: Ah.

DDS: So, stepping back from it a bit, I think the point is a really well-made one, that you cannot address skills in isolation of the systems and the ecosystem that people work in. Equally, the ecosystems are shifting, and it is likely that what we might need from people in five years, ten years time might be intrinsically different to what we need from them now. And that's where I think it's really important. It's a genuine - it's not an L&D challenge in isolation, it's an OD piece, looking at the external environment and working it through. That seems to make sense to me that it would genuinely be a systemic piece with an element of it around people, but it seems to me there might be something bigger on your mind, Adrian?

AW: There's one observation I want to make, and anybody listening or watching in on this might have their own views. I don't hear various operations streams in the various businesses being anywhere near as concerned about this as HR is. I hear HR becoming anxious about predictability, standardised wallpapers and the way that things are being mapped, but business isn't looking for that.

AH: Because do you know why I think that is, Adrian? I think that is because, for some reason, HR are still applying the one-size-fits-all approach. And one size never fitted at all.

AW: Right, right. Yeah.

AH: Everything was always personalised. Everything was always by employee segment, by audience segmentation, by whatever product flow you were in. One size never fitted all.

AW: Yeah, this beautiful. You know, we get the corporates, and they'll sit and do this beautiful OD work and the wallpaper and desktop exercise. It looks beautiful from a corporate, but when we try to put that out in the operations, it's a bit clunky. And if we let the field operations kind of design what really works for them. Oh my gosh, that wallpaper is a big, big hot mess and HR have a, have some sort of aneurysm. But the truth is; complex organisations with, you know it might be the right fit for them, right? And there's nobody, it's just this fear of being out of control a little bit.

AH: I know, and it's that really difficult balance between consistent and subjectivity. That's a really tricky piece.

AW: Right.

AH: That then legislative landscapes don't help in that whole space because they do take a very homogeneous, binary approach to most things. So, it's always a fine balance and very, back to the original question, David, context driven.

DDS: No, I think that would be my point. So, in some places it might need to be clean, in some places. You know, McDonald's actually is relatively clean, right? They've got a model that runs straight through. To your point, Adrian, and other environments, it needs to be a bit messy. It needs to be a bit organic. It needs to have a degree of flex in it, and in fact there may be innovation that comes up from people having to work in variants of that environment. I think it's less a question of whether there's a role to play in evaluation and support and more a question as to how you go about doing that really effectively. To your point, not trying to treat things as pretty parcels, but understanding actually, the system has a voice and some agency all in itself. I'm loving this, by the way. Thank you very much. So, we could keep doing this. However, I'm going to move you on.

Earlier this morning, we recorded a special of the Pod with the acclaimed author Hilary Scarlett about landing and implementing organisational change. Could have had you two on at the same time, I think it would have made for a great conversation. But one of things we were talking about or alighted on was pace of change and challenge in organisation, and the impact on people. And in fact, living in quite an unpredictable world, and the impact on people. So, what role does HR have, or the profession have more broadly in helping people not just cope with what's happening, but to develop resilience? And resilience, so I'm going to couch this really carefully. Resilience is not treating people worse and expecting them to be able to cope with it, but we all need a degree of it to be able to cope with the fact that life is not straightforward and organisations are not either. What role has the profession got there? So, as things change, and we came in talking about actually the level of change that we may see. What's the key role for the profession? Alison, if I start with you on this one?

AH: Yeah, because it's back to the same issue that we talked about under the whole skills piece. Again, it's very personal. Resilience is very personal - pressure and stress is very subjective. So, I think for me there's two sides of the same coin.

One, it's about having the choice to work in a way that suits you best, and you know, or would hope that you know your own triggers. You know the way in which it plays to your strengths, and you can manage that.

The other side of that same coin is about role-modelling the desirable behaviours. So, making sure that the balance of being digitally enabled and empowered versus not being "always on", because that's not a sustainable, healthy way to be. So, I think it's the role-modelling of the desirable behaviours versus the personal choice and managing yourself, your energy, your resilience in a way that works for you best. All within, back to the other point, context, the context within which we all operate.

AW: I think, going back to the core question, David, I think you know what's our key role in this? The key role, I believe, is to help the organisation stop smashing holes in the bottom of the bucket, from wellness. That's the first step.

Now, pouring wellness into the bucket in terms of making sure that we've got leaders who are going to see, recognise, value and support people. Do all of these, these, these mechanisms that are in some cases, if we were cynical, we might say sticking plasters and Fruit Fridays. I think we moved past that several years ago, but why was that not needed in previous eras? Some would say it was needed, and we just turned a blind eye to it, others would say we weren't sabotaging the workforce in the way that we do today. We weren't wringing the juice out of them and then wringing them again. We weren't pushing to, pushing to levels of challenge and compromise that was just really difficult for employees. So, every time that we take an action that drains from the bucket, we need two actions that are going to replace it. 

And the truth is, a lot of organisations are not respecting their people in the way that they need to, and this is an afterthought and it's a thought way too late. Don't expect that initiative to come and fix the sabotage that you were doing two years, three years, five years ago.

DDS: Yeah. And you don't want your efforts to be compensatory for problems that you're creating. You want them to be beneficial and in support of the broader piece. Sorry, Alison?

AH: And so, can I ask then? If we are? So, just say I'm still in HR, out there in an organisation, whatever sector. If I am on shaky foundations, how do I move forward? If I'm on rocky ground, and you know a bit of quicksand underneath me? How do I? How do I then take a stand, make a point?

DDS: One: we've got a range of resources that people can draw upon. Welcome, Alison. So, we'll, kind of push those. Secondly, I think it's genuinely contextual. So, there's a few things you do, isn't there, you'd step back from the problem, get analysis. You'd look for your allies, internally, you'd check your diagnostics. You'd look at the evidence base that sits around it, you'd dial into your broader community and the support that you've got to help think around that problem.

AH: And reset.

DDS: And as with, I guess, anything that might be going wrong in organisations. Occasionally, you have a choice. A few years ago, I was at a conference, and someone came up to me and they said. their organisation was a very well-known employer. They went, "It's horrific and people are being treated this way". And I said, "You can either understand that you probably have limited agency to solve that over time, or you can step away and you could do something else". And I thought nothing of it. And then 18 months later, I got a message from someone going, "I'm really glad that you told me to quit my job. I'm now enjoying it somewhere else." And I was like, "I really didn't mean it like an instruction". That could have gone horribly wrong. I just meant like sometimes you've got choices.

AH: Yeah.

DDS: So, you've got to work out, I guess as a professional. Is that a journey? How much influence and agency do you have on that journey? And is that a journey?

AH: Is it a reset?

DDS: You want to stay for? Because you're probably in that position yourself.

AW: Also, I would say you know, we see, sometimes get executives and leadership teams and they get cast as the villain with a curly moustache and the cloak and all of that. Not at all, you know, they're just people trying to do, you know, trying to do the best job and not mess up too much. And oftentimes, the board or the executive team may not be as tuned in and aware of what's happening further down the organisation and what pressures people are being put under. You know, I do a lot of team and systemic coaching. I do a lot of it, the work for that level and not HR - outside of HR. And they're horrified when they find out what some of their people, what their internal pressure has been, what they've been put on to. And back to, I call it the grey, we have a savant coach out here, a guy called David River, and he would say that "we promote what we permit" in an organisation, you know. We get the culture that we tolerate, we don't get the culture that we aspire to.

As a CHRO, you might think you don't have an incredible agency to change cultures in your, in your operations. Oh yeah, you do. Oh, absolutely you do. And if you don't, you know somebody that does. And those leaders, you know, I think for every toxic leader, there's another two really good, well-intentioned people and we can get them on side, and we can wait for them in the car park, and we can get them. We can sort it out.

DDS: I feel all revved up now and I just, like all. So, to kind of wrap up, all this piece around systems - and there's been some really good points. Kurt Lewin said, brilliantly I think, "the best theory is that which works in practice".

AW: Absolutely.

DDS: And I think that's where you've got to engage with the practicality of organisations and what's in front of you. One really short story and then we're going to move on to kind of the closing segment. Years ago, at a conference, someone said, like it was a wellbeing conference, and they said to me, "I can't get my senior team interested in wellbeing and all these initiatives that we should be doing in HR, what do I do?" And I said, "Well, what are your senior team concerned about?" And they went, "well, they're concerned about everyone getting burnt out". And I was like, "They're concerned about what you want them to be concerned about. It's just not the language that you want to use". And sometimes I think we've got to kind of get out of our way. And to your point, Adrian, like leaders are people too - engage with that, understand their perspective. See if they've got - if you've got information that they might not have. And just make some benevolent assumptions to start off with.

We do a section called, "Is it a thing?" and what we're essentially saying is like something that's popped up in the media, that's catching attention. Is it a real thing happening in organisations? And this will be the first, I think, international version of it. So, it may be happening in one place or another, but we're looking at "stress bragging". "Stress bragging", so that is people are overworked and proud of it. The people in your office environment or wherever you're working, just want to tell you how busy they are and how important they are as a result of it. I'm going to go with you first, Alison. Is it a thing you've seen? Do you like it? Do you do it.

AH: Absolutely. It's very real. If you're, if you're here in Ireland and somebody, you see somebody and they go, "Hi, how are you?" There'll be one or two answers. It'll either be, "Busy, out"  or "Happy, out" and it's a real thing. It's a real thing. "Yeah, great, I'm busy out", "Yeah. No, Great, happy out". That's how people answer you here. It's a real thing.

DDS: OK, excellent. And Adrian for you.

AW: It's really topical. I want. I'm not going to quote it, but there's another HR organisation that is flooding social media with "feel sorry for us because how hard HR is" I empathise. It's really hard. But you know, we're not working 16-hour shifts in an ICU. We are not digging holes and trenches in the rain, we are not, we are not, we are not, right? So, as we've been lucky enough to work around different sectors. I just put all that back in the box because you know, you work with people who really have it tough, and you go. "No, I'm sorry. I need to keep, you know, I can't bring that, you know".

DDS: Look, it's a really challenging career and at times it is impossibly difficult. We deal with really difficult stuff. Equally, like you say, a sense of proportion is one of the things we need to always bring, to the work we do.

AW: Can I make one last point on that, though in the, some wonderful people out here doing some wonderful work on mental health, particularly after COVID. And with a massive, we have 1000 people a day arriving, there's a lot of loneliness, a lot of depression. When that shows up, when we hear people feeling that need to say, "look, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm stretched to the". There's also a component to go, "just let people be heard." I don't need to correct you. I don't need to say, "Oh well let me go and introduce you to somebody who's got, who's really having it tough". That's not helpful, you know that person is feeling it in that moment. They want to off-gas, they want to do that. Take a moment, let them feel heard, let them feel empathised with, it's not going to kill you. It takes a moment, and we don't need to be so judgmental. So, I'm trying to take that lesson on board. Not fully, but you know, but kind of.

DDS: Couldn't agree more. Like if we all just do a little bit more of that, that's going to help, isn't it? None of us will ever be going on the whole time. That's all for us. I'd like to thank our guest Dr. Adrian Waite and welcome, Alison. I'm sure this won't be the last time you're on, but welcome to the CIPD. Delighted to have you here.

AH: Thank you. Thank you.

DDS: You'll find resources about the things that we've spoken about online and in the comments. We publish new episodes of the HR People Pod fortnightly. Not everyone is for International HR Day - that would be odd. And beyond that, make sure to subscribe so you get the latest updates. My name's David D'Souza and this has been the CIPD's HR People Pod. Goodbye.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories, expert insights, incredibly expert insights from my panel here today that are impacting the profession and the world of work more broadly. My name is David D'Souza and I work for the CIPD and joining me in the studio here today we have…

Caroline Roberts (CR): Caroline Roberts. 

DDS: And what's your background Caroline? Just because you said that like you're a footballer with one name. I'm Pele. 

CR: I work as an HR director. I'm currently at The King's Fund as HR director there. I had an early career making radio programmes and working in the media before going over to the dark arts of human resources. 

DDS: Perfect. The questions do get easier from here on in. And we also have… 

Sarah Mason (SM): Sarah Mason. So, I'm a chief people officer at a global STEM workforce consultancy, which is a bit of a mouthful. So, I focus on staffing and providing project solutions and I've generally focused most of my career in recruitment or estate agency, very sales-focused companies. So, that's me. 

DDS: Fantastic. Thank you both very much. Pleasure to have you here. Just before we get started, a reminder to anyone listening, we deal with general themes here. So, we take them from the news and what's happening in the world of work but our idea isn't to pick on a company in their practice, it's to say actually more broadly, what's going on here? How should organisations think about it and draw on the expertise and knowledge that we have in the room? So, just before we kind of plough into things more broadly. Over the last week or two, what things have been catching your attention? It might be things that you've been reading, things that you've been watching. Caroline, if I start with you. 

CR: Well, at the moment I'm reading, and I've been saying this for a while because it's a very, very long book. I'm reading Citizens by Simon Sharma, which is a very, very long book about the French Revolution. But it has some interesting standpoints like the role of women in the French Revolution and the lack of their rights and things like that. And there are a lot of parallels as well in the way that people have been treated, except they've resorted to revolution. Hopefully there will be no revolutions near me in the next few months. But I'm a passionate believer that you can learn a lot about the present from the past. 

DDS: Wonderful. Thank you. Sarah. 

SM: What have I been reading and looking at? Reading The Let Them Theory, which I think is quite a big popular one at the moment, which I'm loving. 

DDS: Everyone is talking about that. 

SM: It's so good. It's got a mix of psychology, a mix of act therapy, if you think about it. How do we manage our emotions, manage other people's emotions around us? Very, very good. Honestly, it's worth a read. I'm listening to that on an Audible book. And then I've been watching Black Mirror because I think that is obviously nailing it at the moment. Some great, if you haven't watched it, I mean, it's dark. Have a look at it on Netflix. I've watched all of the series. I'm just on the new series at the moment. It's very edgy. Yeah, it's an eye-opener. So, if you haven't watched Black Mirror, I'd give it a go. 

DDS: The early ones…

SM: Dark. Very dark. 

DDS: Were really dark. Is it less dark this series? 

SM: Maybe. No, I don't think, I think it's as dark. Yeah. It's still pretty dark. Yeah. Worth a go though. 

DDS: Excellent. I'm still trying. I'd like my 15-year-old to get access to that level of, I think, critical thinking and vision that Charlie Brooker's got. I'm not sure I want her to access some of the other stuff that happens in that programme. 

SM: Definitely not.

DDS: So, we'll gloss over that. Excellent. And I'm reading, I think it's probably my third or fourth of these in a row, books on why people make mistakes, the quality of evidence, how you get better critical thinking into systems. It's by the authors of The Invisible Gorilla and the people who architected that experiment. So, for anyone who doesn't know, there's a video that you can watch. I'll spoil it for you all now. But essentially, they ask you to count the number of passes between basketball players and what you don't notice because you're so intently focused on that is someone in a gorilla suit coming into shot, waving and then running away. And the idea is that our level of attention to one thing precludes us being able to pick up signals on another. So, I'm enjoying that, that's super fun. I'm also enjoying a bit of sun. So, I think sometimes it's good to turn off, isn't it?

So, just before we get going, we are consistently talking about things that come up in the news. One of the things that in the UK in particular has been of interest to professionals over the last few weeks has been a Supreme Court ruling which happened on 16th April, which was about specific definitions within the Equality Act, in particular around sex and the implications that that would have for what meant by the name, the words man and woman. There was clarification by the Supreme Court on the reading that should be taken of that. Since then, the EHRC, so the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has published what they're describing as an interim update, describing the implications of that. It's causing lots of challenges for practitioners attempting to work out the best way to work out the implications of this and also the practical implications of this as well, I think, for their organisations.

We won't be covering that in detail in this episode because actually there's a lot still developing in that space. What we are doing is we're in contact regularly with the EHRC. We're in contact with Acas, who will also have a role to play here in terms of what's happening in the workplace. We're inviting our members to contribute their views, observations, concerns. Also, if you found ways to solve some of these challenges or problems in your organisation, I'm sure the EHRC will be glad to hear that as well. Through the consultation period that will happen in May.

So, I wanted to just acknowledge that that has been happening and that practitioners are wrestling with it. We will be guided by the statutory guidance when it comes out. And it's worth reminding that there's probably two obligations that professionals should be aware of at the moment. One is the obligation to remain legal in their activities. The second is the obligation to treat all people with compassion even where there's a difference of views. So, I'm sure we'll come back to it and I know we'll come back to it in our guidance and our tools and we'll update them as the situation develops. But I wouldn't want people to think that we weren't acknowledging that equally at the moment. I think it's important to follow the cues that are given by the organisations that are in this space, but also to keep the conversation going. So, from that point, please do look out for your ability to feed into it. We take our members' voice really seriously on it.

Moving on to the first topic of today that isn't that, is this feels like going back in time to the start of my career. We're talking about the suggestion box, which feels like it's slightly antiquated, but it's really important to employ voice potentially. So, it's being dusted off from what we're calling the Museum of Employee Engagement. Is there a new kind of version of it for 2025? So, traditionally it would have been an anonymous and perhaps underutilised tool originally. It genuinely would have been in many organisations, a box with a hole in the top of it where you wrote a thing and stuck something in it. Major employers like JP Morgan and Amazon are reportedly embracing a digital version of that, where it becomes easier for employees to suggest ideas, suggest improvements, create a kind of focus on what may be operational strategic opportunities. I guess my question to you two is, did it ever disappear? Is this just people discovering a new thing that's really an old thing? But secondly, what's the power of feedback and how can that change and drive organisations? So Sarah, I'm going to come to you first on this. 

SM: It's an interesting one, isn't it? Because I do remember the old school ones where you'd have a you know, an old biro on a string normally and, you know, you'd write something and every week you'd go through it and it might have things like, you know, tell Janice not to steal my sandwiches. So, you'd have some grievances in there. You'd have a, you know, can we get paid more money as well as some. 

DDS: It's an impressive message to send, isn't it? We'd like to hear from you, but we're scared that you'll steal the pen. There's two things going on there really in terms of organisational culture. 

SM: It's such a thing. But I think, and I think these days, luckily, you know, we've moved on to employee engagement surveys, which have the ability for someone to give that kind of suggestion, but at least in a more measured way, because then you can see, is it just one person or is it many people? You know, having one person writing one thing without any context is unhelpful. Having an employee engagement survey, whilst they are flawed in many ways, I'm not suggesting they're perfect. They give a bit more use of data. So, would I go back to, you know, the old school suggestion box? Probably not. Do I think there's value in allowing people to have suggestions? Yes, I definitely do. Yeah. 

CR: I remember having done a few jobs where there have been suggestion boxes and rather embarrassingly, a few months later, someone said, do you know where the key is? And eventually it'd be broken into after about a year and they'd be found to be, you know, one solitary piece of paper. 

DDS: And lots of sweet wrappers. 

CR: And the pen was chewed. It was always chewed as well. 

SM: So, I'm not sure how well used they were. I think if you've got good employee networks and employee representative groups, they can be brilliant. The problem is if particular interest groups take those over and people feel afraid they can't say anything. And I think part of the role of the HR leader is often to be the person spotting the gorilla in the passage. There can be things going on and you might be the only person who sees those things and they can really affect an organisation. So, I can see the validity, particularly of having an online one. I would always much rather they weren't anonymous that people felt that they could have a chat and they wouldn't be discriminated against. They wouldn't be not heard respectfully. But I think there is the value of that kind of feedback, the off-the-cuff. But I think at the same time, having really good, trained employer representative groups is a better way forward to distil some of the Janet stealing sandwiches kind of issues that can take over.

DDS: I think they work really well when they're directed. So, if you can get people away, I guess, from those hygiene pieces and around the environment and start hearing from people who are really proximate to customers or might be able to see things that the organisation should obviously be doing or might want to do. When I first started and suggesting those, that can be really powerful. When I first started years ago at M&S, I remember in kind of the induction. We always use the word induction. I like to call it welcome. When they welcomed me to that organisation, one of the stories they said was they used to give a slice of the savings or the kind of money generated by anything that was suggested back to the employees. And they said one employee took home, it was a massive amount of money because they allegedly, I don't know if it was made up, with a person that suggested M&S started advertising the products on the side of the lorries for distribution and they hadn't thought of it centrally and that came from an individual. I think focusing people's attention on what you want to know and learn as an organisation can be really powerful. Do you think there's a, you mentioned engagement surveys. Do you think they're the same thing? 

SM: I think they're similar. I think engagement surveys, it depends on how you run them, but they generally have an element of suggestion and suggestion across a range of topics. And they should have, most engagement surveys have real open boxes where people can put in whatever they want. So, because engagement surveys generally by the nature cover pretty much most topics in the workplace, apart from stealing sandwiches. I appreciate there isn't a topic about Janice, but I think, you know, there's an element of people should have opportunities to put forward views on pretty much anything. So, there's enough similarity with me there. The topic you raised, I think, is a good one around anonymity. Again, should it be anonymous? Should it not be? I think it's worth getting into because I think part of it is often alluded to around trust of people. Do people trust the employer? Is there psychological safety? But part of it is just simple bias, right? So, social desirability bias. People, when they know their survey isn't anonymous, will often put responses down where they want to be perceived positively. So, you've got to take into account the bias when an anonymity is taken away but whether it's a survey or a suggestion box, whether it's anonymous or not, getting people to suggest things that are valuable and then play it back to them, whether it's valuable or not, is the key bit for me. 

DDS: And I think it's playing back to the organisation, isn't it, as well? I mean, it's worth, I think it genuinely is worth rewarding people, it's worth recognising people. If you want that level of focus on organisation improvement, rather than I'm just doing my job, but I'm looking for how we could all do our jobs better. I think it's actually, I think it's not anonymous or not. I think you want the opposite, which is people are incentivised to get associated with, you know, that's what we want here. We want people getting up every day and going, how can we do things better? 

SM: And choosing appropriate questions as well in the survey. I've seen some really good ones, but some of them, they're phrased in the kind of way that would be very overly positive as well. And sometimes when the engagement scores are linked to bonuses as well, the people who've created or signed off the survey can have extremely positive things, like how great do you think your leader is on a scale of 10 to 100? I think getting the right questions because some of the questions people end up sometimes just ticking the wrong things and just writing anything because by the time they get to the end of the survey, they're feeling quite angry and fed up.

CR: Yeah, I can see that. It's an interesting one. And the bonus one, I often get that comment from a few of our employees because people can get cynical about the idea of bonuses linked to engagement. And again, is it good or is it bad? I think often. Rightly or wrongly, PLCs aligned to the corporate governance code have to find a way to measure culture for the non-execs. Right and often rightly or wrongly, the easiest way to measure culture is through an engagement score, it's benchmarked against other companies, it's numerical, boards love a figure, a KPI. 

DDS: It can go up or down.

CR: It can go up or down, it's neat, and actually, rightly, your board should be measured on culture. They should have an engagement score linked to their bonus because it demonstrates they've got the one of their stakeholders, their employees, best interests at heart. So, it's often seen as, oh, isn't it terrible?' They're gaming their engagement score, but often it should be. I agree and I have seen a lot of that. What I'd look for is benchmarking around professional benchmarks. 

SM: Absolutely.

CR: And that's why a lot of companies use the kind of ones that have, they can benchmark against a number of companies but I agree. I've winced at some of the engagement surveys I've seen out there. 

DDS: Look, I'm going to leave here. I'm going to ask my team for ideas, but I'm also going to ask them to rate me on a scale of one to 100 and how great I am. 

CR: You don't start at one. It's got to be at least, least you know, 80.

DDS: Yeah I'll say rate me one to 100, the numbers available are 90 to 100. So, we've touched on employee voice there, and I guess the different mechanics for it. When we do a regular, we do a few regular pieces of work that people should be aware of. We do a regular labour market outlook, which looks at hiring sentiment, a number of different things. So, if you want to know the landscape your organisation's operating in, is it going to be tough? Is it going to be easy to find people? What are other people doing? Have a look at that. We also do one called our Good Work Index, which looks at dimensions of good work and quality and more detail on our 2020 index, one in five people reported having no employee voice channel available to them whatsoever, that included a one-to-one with their manager. Well, they appear to be living a blissful disconnected experience, and we'll come on to what you get paid for in a little bit but employee voice is really important for a number of reasons around conflict, around improvement, around feeling valued and autonomy. But also, it's really important because sometimes when things go very wrong, you need to have a channel for that. 

So, it's been reported this week, following an independent workplace culture review at the BBC, that there have been incidents of employees being punished for speaking out and put off raising issues due to fears of protecting the organisation's reputation. The BBC has published an action plan alongside that, and we won't concentrate on the BBC exclusively, but there's a broader conversation here around what happens in cultures where speaking up isn't encouraged and the potential implications of that. So, Caroline, I won't ask you to talk about your time at the BBC unless you'd like to, but actually, I know it's a subject close to your heart in terms of people being able to raise their voice when they do have challenges. What do organisations need to do to create those right channels and what are the consequences of getting it wrong? 

CR: I think it's really important that, and this does come down to the HR function as well, that the HR leader can be safe in talking about certain things, can talk about things that could be potentially career limiting. I remember working for a really, really great guy once who said, you can say what you like because I'll give you air cover. And that was so reassuring and it meant that you could really tackle some systemic issues. But definitely I've had experience where you do raise something and you know that your career will go no further in that organisation. You may not be invited to some meetings. Things will be hidden. People disappear. Of course, it's not ideal, but that's a reality of many businesses. It goes on an awful lot.

There was a lot of talk a few years ago around NDAs and things like that being used but there are lots of companies, both small and some very large household names, where these things do go on. And it's very much down to individual leaders, I think and the CEO setting the tone as well that you can actually deal with these. And sometimes it only takes one test case, if you like, to actually change a whole culture and how people believe they're going to be treated with things. And I think, the other aspect to it is training your managers through a whole range of scenarios. Get some real scenarios from your employees as to the kind of things they might encounter and work through those and so people can see the logical conclusions but I think firmly rooting it in practicality and not having rose-tinted spectacles because these things do go on. 

SM: Yes. And on that point, these things do go on. I think it's really key because I think particularly for anyone listening to the podcast who's joining the HR profession at the start of their career, that can be quite fearful. If something happens on my watch, what do I do about it? And I think it's reassuring for them to hear these things happen and they're going to happen and you will never stop them from happening. An HR job isn't to ever stop that from happening because that's unrealistic. People will say and do whatever they choose to say and do. What we have to always be mindful of our job is to react to it. So, we get judged in our reaction, not the person's behaviour. People behave in a way that's rogue, right? Now obviously, we can do what we can to prevent it, a code of conduct, values based organisations absolutely prevent those behaviours. But when it happens, because it will happen, it'll happen a lot. Otherwise, you wouldn't need an HR department, frankly. I do joke if people behaved in a job, there's an element of that but when it happens, it's about how we respond and that's really important because, first of all, don't worry about the behaviour, just worry about your response. Everyone can hopefully take some comfort in that.

But secondly, be very aware you will be judged for your response, right? And you should be. So, HR leaders who are responding in a certain way, they are going to be judged on that. All of the leadership team will and HR don't operate in a vacuum. They need the tone from the top, I agree. But it's really key that people focus on our response to this is what we get judged on. Is it defensible? We talked about before, they talked about, is it moral, legal and commercial? How do we respond in a way that covers a basis, it's right for the organisation, it's legally robust, and it's the right thing to do. And sometimes it's tricky to align those three, but organisations are full of people who will judge the leaders on it. 

CR: And often the HR leader will be the person who gets hauled across the coals for these things as well and I think we've all seen select committees where they've had the HR leader there. And you think, but it wasn't their fault. What are they doing there? So, I think you're absolutely right. You are often held accountable for your reaction to these things. 

DDS: And it’s difficult in many ways to reconcile what can appear to happen to one individual with the fact that largely, I think, well, I’ll see if you both agree, if there is someone doing bad things, they quite often do bad things on a regular basis. And it is the unsaid thing in the organisation, but kind of acknowledged behind the scenes, which means that symbolic piece around the response that you both spoke about. You said, you know, it can only take one incident to actually change the way people think about it because they'll understand the way you'll deal with it. So, if there's something bubbling under the surface. a large number of people will know that and it will become a you know, if your culture is your kind of unwritten assumptions around the environment and the response in it, if what you've got is someone repeatedly doing bad things and that, people are pretty sure the senior leadership team knows something's happening and nothing's being dealt that has massive ramifications but to your point the opposite is true which is you can resolve it in private or you can resolve it in a local space and people come to understand quite rapidly that if something happens here, something will be dealt with.

SM: And it's how you talk about it afterwards. I've worked in organisations where they've been very open about something, perhaps someone has been dismissed for a particular reason, or there has been a tribunal case, and they have tackled that. And then they have discussed it with staff and other organisations where they've said, oh, it's purely recreational. That's a very common one. People were OK with that, that's the culture. That's the way, you know, it happens in lots of other places where they try and downplay it and being open about it always seems to have the best outcome. 

DDS: And that's interesting because lots of organisations naturally aren't. They treat it as a behind-the-scenes issue that's being dealt there. So, for anyone listening, that's probably something you're saying, done it, seen it, open about it, grown up about it and actually had a positive impact rather than backing away from it, which is really practical advice to kind of give people. Any final thoughts on this one before we move on? 

CR: All I would say is I think we get the behaviour we tolerate. So, if we tolerate a set of behaviours, then that is a behaviour that is in an organisation. And I think you do often get either pockets of top talent who might get protected. I can understand that can happen in organisations. Again, people take their lead from that and I think it's for the leadership to make clear signals what behaviour is tolerated in the organisation. They cannot be surprised if they see those behaviours everywhere if they are tolerating them, so there's an element of what is accepted and what isn't. I think. 

DDS: And what I'd say really practically for anyone in a situation where there is something that they are aware of and they're uncomfortable, you have to deal with it. Our code of conduct and ethics is really clear on it as a profession, it's your job to step towards that space that doesn't make it any less profoundly uncomfortable for it, and I remember the first time it happened to me and I had to step towards something like that and I was like, I don't know if I'm still going to have a job at the end of this because I don't know how the organisation is going to react. You know, I was very junior in my career time as well. We've got a whistleblowing helpline if you need support there. We've got advice lines if you need support there, we've got the community which is brilliant. Don't feel that you're alone. But also, please don't think that if you just leave it, it's going to go away. I think would probably be my advice on both of those things. So, we recognise, and I recognise, we've got a really senior and experienced group here. This stuff is harder the earlier you are in your career. But if you don't do anything, that, to your point around, it's what you walk by, that becomes actually a defining contribution is your lack of action in that space. 

Going to move on to performance management. Never gets sexier than that, does it? I spoke to an organisation once and they were asking me for advice on their performance management. I was like, when have you left it the same for two years? Someone started giggling and they said, I've been here 14 years and we've changed it every year. And I was like, do you want essentially your kind of HR headstone? You're kind of like, you're kind of the way people remember you to be like, here lies this person's career. They change the performance management approach every year. That they were there or that you really help people to perform and the organisations to excel. And there's a choice there, I think. So, if anyone listening, don't tinker, have a philosophy and work to it and test it and experiment. But then, you know, if you are going to revise, make sure that you're not doing that because it's busy work. I've just gone off on one there. We may edit this, I don't know. We may edit this, we may keep it in. But it's one that I, it's tempting to always change it. 

But we're going to talk about one financial tech company that's rolling out a points-based system, we've got hints of gamification about it, I think, where employees can earn or lose points-based on how well they stick to risk and compliance guidelines. Yeah, it gets even sexier. Ultimately, points earned will go some way to determining payouts and bonuses for its workforce. The scheme has been pitched as a way to remove good behaviour and foster a healthy culture. It feels a lot like the points my daughter gets in school for good behaviour, bad behaviour, not attending, that kind of thing, where we get a report on a quarterly basis saying, how she's doing. Is this a smarter way to implement accountability or is it going to have lots of unintended consequences? And is it, you know, is it basically how you treat kids rather than how you treat adults? 

CR: I did recoil. 

DDS: A recoil? A proper recoil? 

CR: It was a proper recoil with this one. 

DDS: I love a good recoil. 

CR: And I thought there are so many reasons. In terms of gamification, what game is it? Is it Game of Thrones? 

DDS: It's the game of risk and compliance, the most fun of all games. 

CR: And then you're thinking, gosh, here I am working in financial services. I could be innovative. I can come up with new ideas. Or I could work somewhere where the psychological safety may be compromised by these things. I think for people in terms of inclusion, for people who are neurodiverse, working with those kind of points-based systems may work really well or supremely fail. But then I actually sort of questioned my own bias here whilst I was busy recoiling. 

DDS: So, you're re-recoiling at this point? 

CR: I was re-recoiling. I was rebounding and thinking, well, it is. There are some organisations where actually, who cares about innovation? You know, you do want to be non-compliant. If it works for them, you know, go ahead. So, I think with these things, I would test it, but I would probably work to the aphorism around fail fast. So, if your points aren't working, just ditch them.

SM: Interestingly enough, I had the opposite reaction. I was generally thinking, what's the problem with that? I think it's absolutely fine. And I think, obviously my background, I work in lots of sales-based companies where KPIs and metrics and goals, it's part of the norm. And I think, if we put the psychology in there, it's pure behaviourism. You've got reward-driving behaviour, and that's all the way through an organisation, whether it works with toddlers and children. You know, if you behave nicely, you get a sticker or a behaviour point. In the world of work, if you behave nicely, you get promotion. You might get a pay rise. You might get a seat at the board, or in this case, a point for getting your compliance score up. So I think, for me, the behaviourism element, I think, is fine. The idea of metrics, for me, the question is, are they having points linked to the right things? And if risk and compliance is important, great. I noticed it was a collective score, by the way, not an individual one. 

So, as long as it's not points that drive poor behaviours, I think some companies have done that around peer feedback. They game it and it becomes political, as long as it drives the right outcome, as long as it drives the right behaviour. And that behaviour is in fact important to the company. Compliance is important to financial services. Whereas if it was an innovative company, you'd have innovative points, wouldn't you? As long as it drives right behaviour, as long as it's not driving too much self-interest, as in someone wins and someone loses, you get the right outcome, you get the right behaviours. I'm good. I'm all good with that. And I see it all the time in sales organisations, where it becomes problematic is it drives the wrong outcome or people game it for self-interest and it's hard to find a system that you can't game, if I'm honest. There you go. 

DDS: It is hard to find a system you can't game. And so looking out for those unintended consequences with whatever you do is key. And I've yet to see something that someone hasn't found a cute way around. 

SM: Every time. 

DDS: This has, I sort of feel the same as Caroline, but if I were to step back, I'd say this has clarity. This has transparency. This has consistency. This has good alignment, that’s a quite good start to designing a system. So, I think my advice would probably be systems need to work for the context that they're working in. So, to your point if it's an environment where it works, then actually it could just be a really good piece of design. Equally, you could lift and drop and this is the problem when organisations do that and go, what's someone else doing? What's in the news now? What's exciting? You lift and drop that into a different context. And suddenly, actually it's a horrible way of doing things. So, context is the ruler in that situation. 

Finally, we end up with our regular piece, which is, is it a thing? Which is something that is doing the rounds in the media or social media. And we say, is it a thing? Is it a new thing? Is it a thing at all? Is it happening in organisations? Has it been made up by someone? And this week we are dealing with job polygamy. So, this is more than engagement. This is being married to several jobs at the same time. So, we've seen a number of reports surface about a growing number of remote workers hoodwinking their employers by holding multiple full-time jobs at once without anyone knowing. Also dubbed over-employment, it sparked headlines after it emerged one civil servant was working three full-time government roles simultaneously. Firstly, if they're listening in. I'm really interested, that seems quite an interesting skill set. There's obviously some challenges around integrity there, but three jobs at once, quite impressive, and the stamina. 

SM: And the reward charts. 

DDS: And the reward chart. And performance management, they're smashing it in three different organisations. Is this a new thing? Is it a new trend? And what should managers be doing if they think someone might be a polygamist? 

SM: I'm happy to take it up. 

DDS: We'll go first there. 

SM: I have had an incident of this in my career before. 

DDS: Polygamy. 

SM: Polygamy in my career, clearly, not in any other areas of my life.

DDS: Just clarify.

SM: Absolute clarity. So, is it a thing? Yes. But is it a new thing? No. So it's been around, you know, as long as you're going to pay people money, they'll find a way of maybe making a bit more money. You know, that's always been out there, unfortunately. Not widespread. You know, we're talking small numbers. You know, most people are decent. You get a couple of people, you know, we talked about people gaming the system that might include gaming, you know, their pay. Right. So, I think it's there. 

I think two things, I think, underpin someone's ability to do more than one job illegally. One would be motivation. Clearly they're in it for something, maybe it's money, maybe it's something else. And secondly, opportunity and that's what makes this probably news. Is it because it's a whole work from home debate? There's lots of jobs where you don't work from home that you could have the opportunity to kind of hide a little bit. It depends. It's much easier for office workers these days if they're out of sight to maybe, you know, have a couple of jobs. I can see how the opportunity arises now, but there's plenty of jobs out there where they're not in the sight of their line manager. And the way you overcome that is obviously much tighter line manager. 

If you think about it, I mean, we're talking about performance management, the classic bar there is the manager's job is to ensure they deliver their work to acceptable standard. This is even lower right? This is do they deliver their work? We just want a manager to check someone's delivered their work. So, my question is, how does someone not know that person hadn't delivered their work for a few years? There's an element of that the line manager's responsibility on that one, I think.

DDS: What if they're hypothetically using technology or other means to deliver successfully for three organisations? If you're getting the outcome that you need, is that a problem? 

SM: It depends on their contract. The word is successfully. Successfully deliver. If someone's delivering three jobs, I'd first of all go back to their contract and go, you're saying it's a full-time job, maybe it's not. Because if they're doing three full-time jobs in one, then the job spec is possibly a bit wrong and secondly, what's in their contract? But if we're saying a job takes roughly full-time 40 hours a week and you're saying someone can successfully deliver three of them, then something's a bit weird, I think. 

DDS: Yeah, and also I think realistically there's always a, whilst many organisations are moving towards that will judge you on the outcome, if I'm paying you to be available to us as an organisation for that amount of time, it's a reasonable expectation of an employer for you to be available for that amount of time. If you finish your job in 10 minutes, I'd expect you to be going, so what's next? 

SM: Doing something else. 

DDS: That I can do because I'm getting paid. Caroline, when a side hustle instead becomes a triple hustle, what are your thoughts on that? 

CR: I think that the media did pick on a very extreme case and I think, you know, Sarah, you absolutely nailed your answer there with it's about performance management having some outcomes. I think in terms of how it really affects managers is sometimes where you've got somebody who may be going sick. I've come across one worker who was going sick every Thursday or had a childcare problem, things like that, was actually working somewhere else on Thursdays. So, it takes a while, it takes a disproportionately high amount of effort from the line manager. And by the time you've actually established that, they've moved on elsewhere.

So, I think that in the press, there was an extreme example. And, you know, they could have been working, well, you know, 120-hour week, you know, never sleeping and, you know, performing relatively well. But I think the truth is more often like, you know, with the job planning. What were they actually going to be delivering? Where was the contact with the line manager there? Where were they bringing people together? It sort of forgot all the principles of management. And also with some examples that, you know, it's different parts of the same body where they're working and you think, where's your HR system there? So, I think often, you know, it comes back to basics, think about what the job is. Think about the outcome and also having some contact with your member of staff as well. 

DDS: Thank you. So, not always be hustling, just hustle an appropriate amount of time for your contract. 

CR: Legally.

DDS: Always has to be done legally. Put that on a t-shirt. So, that's all for us today. I'd like to thank our guests, Sarah and Caroline, for sharing their thoughts and as ever, I'd like to thank our listeners. We'll include a link to a number of useful resources that we've discussed in the show today. As I say, there are some changing things in the legal landscape as well, and we will keep updating our resources there and there will be new episodes of this every fortnight or so. So, make sure that you subscribe to make sure that you catch one. I'm David D’Souza, and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

 

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello, and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza. I am Director of Profession at the CIPD, and on this episode, I'm really lucky because what we're doing is we've got a broad international panel full of experts drawn from different parts of the globe to give an insight on the profession globally, and some international perspectives on some of the issues we're talking about. So here with me in the studio, I have…

Roisin Walsh (RW): Roisin Walsh, Head of Workforce Capability and Inclusion in the Irish Civil Service.

Radha Bharj (RB): Radha Barj, I am the co-founder and CEO of a consultancy called Rhythmic who specialise in the future of work.

David Ducheyne (DD): And I'm David Ducheyne, I'm the Vice President of the European Association of People Management, and also the founding manager of Otolith Consulting.

DDS: Fantastic. It's a pleasure to have you all join the show. Just before we get started, I wanted to find out a little bit more about you. So, the question is, what have you been watching or reading recently? So, if I start with you.

RW: So I've actually been watching Breaking Bad recently, and I know I'm a little bit late to the party, but yeah, I'm really enjoying it.

DDS: Do you find many parallels to the world of HR?

RW: Well, a lot of innovation happening in Breaking Bad. So that's interesting and also maybe a lack of regulation, potentially something else that I've experienced in watching that show. But yeah, some parallels, but maybe not direct parallels to the world of HR.

DDS: OK, so our first recommendation to the profession is, well, it's about someone creating drugs, isn't it? Pretty much, but an excellent insight into, like you say, unregulated environment.

RB: I am listening to a lot of Diary of the CEO and the variety of the content on there is just keeping me on my toes all the time. So, that's what I'm listening to right now.

DDS: OK, so we have to compete with that today and since you brought it up, the expectations are on you, I think, to kind of bring us into that.

RB: We will try, for sure.

DS: I was on the Battlefield of Arras last weekend and I read about that, about the carnage of the war, First World War. So, it was not so happy literature, but it was interesting.

DDS: Oh, wow. So you actually, was your visit prompted by reading about it or were you there and then?

DD: Vice versa. So going there and then reading. So that's my literature.

DDS: OK, excellent. Excellent. Thank you all very much. I've been reading, what have I been reading recently? Probably, I think, for long-term listeners of this podcast, I might still be reading the thing that I said in the last thing. So, I'm going to avoid and steer away from that, actually. So, the first thing we want to talk about today, and we've spoken about artificial intelligence quite a few times on this podcast, but really specifically, we're going to get into initially ethical use in organisations. And I think there's a couple of lenses on that, but then we'll come on to talk about the implications for skills in a changing world as well. So, that point about responsible and ethical use is a really easy thing to say, but actually what do organisations practically need to be doing to make sure that when they're using AI, it is one, useful, but secondly, a force for improvement or good in the workforce?

RB: I think the first thing that we need to understand is, is recognising that artificial intelligence, whether it's artificial intelligence in its true form or generative AI, for example, isn't going anywhere. And the fact that it is advancing at the pace that it is advancing, we have to be very, very conscious that the employees and people in our organisations are very most likely already using it. OK, so there is a little bit about having a bit of a realisation as to where we are in the world right now and the fact that we need to act and we need to act quickly. And it's not going to go anywhere.

So responsible and ethical use of AI, if you really sort of strip it down and think about what that actually means, is how do we use the technology that is advancing at the pace that it is in a way which is safe? You know, it's safe for our employees, it's safe for our data, and it ensures that it's being used in a way that people can make the most of it but also understand the limitations that come with it. And we all have heard about horror stories when it comes to artificial intelligence. You know, you just got to put LinkedIn on or the news and you see things like deep fakes emerging. You see the potential that it could have if it gets into the wrong hands or if data gets out.

So really understanding, firstly, what is going on in the space is going to be really, really critical but then thinking about actually what do I need to do that so, when we think about the profession, what are the guardrails, what are the policies that we are embedding within our organisation to ensure that there is a way to do that. And giving our employees the licence to innovate without fear, right? Because we need to ensure that there's psychological safety for innovation across our organisations, but it's done in a really responsible way and people are empowered to do what they need to do.

RW: So, I completely agree with you there. It's really important that we create an awareness and understanding of what AI is. So, what is the definition of AI? To educate leaders and employees around the value that AI can bring, but also to ensure there are really robust guardrails and policies to support the responsible use of AI in organisations.

DD: So, technology can be used as a weapon or for good, and it will be used as a negative thing anyway, because it's possible but of course, we shouldn't be afraid of that. And I agree with you that we should have guidelines or rules and look at what the EU is doing. Maybe it's a bit too much, maybe, but there's a lot of rules in place to protect the human rights. So, I think we should have that. But let's not be pessimistic because of it, because of the potential danger. Let's not be overly optimistic either and just look what we can do with it and go step by step. I think the potential is huge. So, let's use that.

RB: And the regulation piece is really important because, what you have now is nations coming out with their own regulations around artificial intelligence and I think it's really important that we work with other businesses in our organisations. So, for the first time, you know, in a way that is going to be very, very different from what we're used to before. So, the need for us as HR professionals to come around a table and sit with our legal colleagues and sit with our IT colleagues and understand what this means because, as HR, we are the custodians of this culture, but we need to have the input from the subject matter experts to really put something in place that's going to resonate and that's going to make people understand that this is going to be something that we can't do inside us or by ourselves anymore. We have to really come together to make this happen in our organisation.

So, again being very aware around the implementation of it too, it's not just about we're going to go and create a policy and we're going to go into our little room and as HR we're going to go and create a generative AI policy, and this is the guardrail that we've got, is we have to really understand what it means. But also then, one step ahead of that, also is thinking about the maintenance of that. This is not going to be a policy that we can just implement and then tuck away and look at it a year later.

DDS: Yeah, and the policy and the regulation are different, aren't they? So, it will vary from jurisdiction and place and being aware of that as people are starting to design, particularly if they're in multinational organisations, will be absolutely key because what might seem like a great idea in one place could be absolutely a thing that you can't do in others. Do you think there's something around the media narrative being around these kind of apocalyptic scenarios or things that could go really bad that could get in the way of actually pretty mundane day-to-day improvements that could be kind of taken up by organisations? Because AI sounds scary. Can you pull these documents together in a more rapid fashion sounds attractive.

DD: Well, the media has always done it, but I would say that every technology has destroyed jobs always but has always created jobs as well and so there's going to be transition anyway and we talked about ethics. We must make sure that we don't lose people in that transition so that we make sure that people who might lose their job because of it, that they are retrained or upskilled or reskilled or whatever you call it, so that they have an employment and that they are employable in the future. So, I think that's an important aspect but I don't follow the negative, apocalyptic images of post-AI or whatever they call it. I think it's going to create a lot of jobs and opportunities for those who are able and willing to use it and to integrate it in their work. So, I don't think it's going to be problematic.

RW: I think there is a fear factor there, and particularly like I come from a public service background and context but there's never been a better time for HR, I mean, we've been talking about HR as a strategic partner for years and years and years. This is a real good opportunity for HR to work in partnership with the business to drive this agenda, to provide that reassurance for employees and leaders to actually embrace this technology in a sensible way, in a way that creates value for organisations and adds value. So, I think it's a time like no other, for example, in our context, in the Irish Civil Service. HR are now working with IT to drive the AI agenda forward. So, we know in HR that we can't do it without IT and IT don't fully understand, you know, potentially some of the implications around trust and ethics and all of that. So, we have to work hand in hand and collaboratively with the business. So, it's a really exciting time from that perspective, I think.

DDS: Yeah, and it is that partnership approach, but it's also, to your point, I think being on the front foot. So, what we can't do is just wait for someone to come and say, we think we've automated your roles. What we need to be doing is showing that value. Did you hint in that that maybe IT don't understand people? I heard a hint of that coming through, but that may just be my reading of what you said.

RW: I think that that's changing. I think IT has been, you know, come to the realisation over the last number of years that people actually are really at the centre of everything and to deliver services in IT, they need to understand people. So, for example, in Ireland, we have an apprenticeship programme in ICT and there's a real strong focus on soft skills, or we call them power skills, around communication, customer service. So, they are really important skills for IT professionals. So, the two sides are coming together in a very positive way, I think.

DDS: So, that's a brilliant place for us to jump into then that conversation around skills. So, the world's changing, capabilities are changing, the way people interact changing, the work that people are doing is changing. What are the implications then for skills in the midterm and the long-term? And it's really easy to talk about, you know, soft skills versus, you know, like kind of some of the other elements and in fact, there's, you know, lists published on a regular basis around what most important, but what do you really think are the substantial changes where you go like in five to 10 years’ time, if you don't have these skills, you're going to really struggle to be useful to organisations in the way you might want to.

DD: I think maybe we should first say that human behaviour is not changing. So, regardless of the technology, people have their needs and there will be always things happening like they've been happening 10,000 years. And, of course, technology changes and the context changes, but behaviour doesn't change so much. And I think if we take it from there, there's going to be a lot of skills that will remain relevant, so don't throw them away, it's empathy, it's critical thinking, it's collaboration, and I would, well people say in an AI era they become even more important but these are behaviours that we have, skills that we have, and so that's not new, and then you can add, I would say tech-related skills which is probably very short-lived. There are still people working with COBOL, which is an ancient programming language, but there's going to be new stuff coming up and we have to pick that up. And then you have more the cognitive things like reasoning, making sure that you can distinguish fake from real, which is going to be very important and stuff like that. So, there's some new things becoming more important than before because of the tech change. But there's a lot of things remaining the same.

RB: I totally agree with what David is saying. I think the realisation is that we have gone through many different types of changes before. Industrial revolutions have come and gone, and we've adapted and we've changed. So, to look forward, I always say we have to look backwards and understand what the journey has been, and we've been able to make that change. Now, if we just focus on the, if we look at the digital, for example, one thing is given is that the digital skills are going to be core in the future of work, right? So, with the pace of change of AI, so AI is going to be an enabler of more digital transformation at a pace of change that we haven't seen before. So, that digital literacy is going to be key.

What does that mean? Digital literacy will mean that we will have data like we've never had before. So being able to interpret that data, our data literacy skills are going to be really, really important. So, how do we ensure that we're ready to look at the data that the technology is going to give us, interpret it and contextualize it into our organisation? So, the critical thinking with data and how we can make the business decisions around that. And of course, to exactly what David was saying around the human, which is the empathy, which is all the things that we hear about all the time. But the focus really, as I see it, is on human-centred design. So what does that mean? It means that we are designing solutions, products, services with our employees front of mind and that is absolutely a skill that we need to think about and we need to hone into in the future of work.

RW: I think digital literacy will be key for the future of work. Understanding digital tools and digital technologies is important, but even more important than that will be the whole digital transformation piece. And in order to enable that, leaders and organisations need to create environments that support organisational transformation and change. So, agile working structures are really, really important in relation to that. Inclusion is a really, really important skill for future leaders. And also ethical decision making as well, I think, is a really important skill. Really important.

DDS: And I think what's interesting is, because you could make an argument, couldn't you? Or I'm going to make the argument and everyone can disagree with me. I'm sorry, totally fine. You can make an argument, actually, digital skills, technology skills will become actually less important because what we're looking at now is a lot more natural language interaction. So, if you worked in HR 15 years ago and you wanted to get a decent answer out of the system, you really needed to know your way around that system and it might only be a couple of people in the department that might be able to do that. Whereas now, if we're reaching a point where anyone could ask a natural language query of the system, I'm interested in this trend. I'm interested to know how this has been changing over time. To the point that's been made around actually data literacy and the ability to bring critical thinking to it, that suddenly becomes far more important for more people, but the adoption time for technology becomes lower, doesn't it?

DD: Yeah. What's interesting in tech is that there's also de-skilling going on. We cannot read maps anymore. We cannot calculate anymore and so that diminishes our ability to be critical about what the technology is giving us as output. So, we really have to train our children in basic skills so that they can judge what's coming out of it. If we don't do that, we're going to believe anything that comes out of it, which might be totally wrong. It's a disaster. So, we have to really make sure that the basic critical skills of thinking, reading, calculating. Are still there, and then we can have natural language interactions, and then we can say, OK, you give me the answer, but I can still think about, is this right? Can that be right? It shouldn't be.

RB: Your question there, or your statement rather, was really interesting, actually, because that's one perspective, but I would probably say something to sort of add to that.

DDS: You're allowed to disagree. I just want to remind you…

RB: OK, so let's disagree then.

DDS: It's such an HR thing to do, isn't it? I don't want to undermine what you said, I'd like to build on it.

RB: But what I would say is that this is different. And it's different because of the pace of change. So the point is, is that, yes, digital will automate a lot of the things that we're doing, but we need to think about what next because that is the reality that we're living in today. So, the skills that enable us to do that are going to be our agile ways of working. It's going to be the skills that enable us to innovate better, faster, and with the people who, you know, obviously have the skills to enable that sort of next thinking around, OK, so this is a scenario and this is the technology that can bring it together. And how do we bring that to life in our organisation? So, I see what you're saying with regards to, you know, we'll have more dependency on the digital technology that we've got. And it will automate a lot of things for us, but it is changing at a phenomenal rate and we're not going to be able to not carry on that (inaudible).

DDS: I think my point's more around, I guess, the barriers to adoption are getting lower and lower and lower.

RB: Yeah.

DDS: So you don't need to...

RB: For sure.

DDS: You know, the great thing actually about this technology is anyone can use their mobile phone to access it. Not necessarily to a great depth, but actually what you don't have to do, you don't have to learn how to program to do it and to that extent, it democratises it. And that’s a brilliant opportunity for the profession actually to be able to utilise things that previously would have been difficult to or you would have had to spend a long time doing, but the point around whether it's agile or it's other kind of different ways of working, the interesting thing about that is that's how you organise people, that's the dynamics and relationships, how knowledge flows, and that's a remarkably and beautifully human thing. People can't make fires anymore, can they? They can't start a fire from scratch.

DD: Not with wood, like rubbing wood against other wood.

DDS: It's not.

DD: I mean…

DDS: I don't know how often it comes up.

DD: It's a disaster. It's really a disaster.

DDS: If you're listening to this podcast and you're going, yeah, yeah, I was trying to start a fire from nothing yesterday and couldn't pull it off.

RW: Thankfully, in HR, we're good at putting out fires. Very careful.

DD: I remember that I taught myself HTML in the 90s and I programmed websites at that time and it was 1994, 1995, and then in 1996, 1997, the first what you see is what you get editors came, and I was really pissed off, and I said, I had so much trouble in learning the HTML language, and now it's useless because there's a machine doing it for me. I was really pissed off, and I think a lot of people are feeling that when they have a skill that was valued once and it's taken over by technology, they feel they have this regret and/or this feeling of loss. And if they have this, they will distrust the technology because it's taken away something that is valuable from them. So, we should help people understand that the change is inevitable, it's not going to go away, it's going to go faster and either you jump on to train and go with it or you don't. And we should really make sure that people can cope with the loss but also see the gain of the change that they have and we have to help them in that.

DDS: So, coming on to that change piece, there's a profound change for the profession, it's a profound change for the world of work. How do we help organisations? What's the role of the profession in helping organisations understand that change but making sure that it's being carried out in a way that's compassionate, humane, and respectful of people as we go through it.

RW: Yeah, I think back to the point around working really closely with businesses and with organisations, so having a voice, being part of the conversation from the outset, a lot of it, and we've discussed much of it today, it comes back to skills and structures. So ensuring that our workers have the relevant skills, what you're saying about losing skills and skills no longer being valued. I think it is about reinforcing that actually some of that stuff that you were doing before wasn't, it was quite administrative, potentially, and maybe the work wasn't that interesting.

DDS: People love hearing that.

RW: There are lots of opportunities to get involved in different types of work and maybe more interesting work and work that adds value in different ways. So, it's about getting that message out there. And then on the other side, around the structures and back to the agile structures, supporting organisations to create environments and structures that are more fluid and dynamic, where knowledge can be shared across the business. Where teams from different parts of the business are collaborating with each other and I think HR are in a really kind of critical kind of role and have a position in organisations to really support that and build that capability to drive better performance ultimately for organisations. So, it's really across skills and it's across structures as well that the discipline of organisational design and development comes really to the fore in that regard.

RB: I think just being really human about it, right? It's change. It's scary. A lot of us are not digital experts, probably far from it. So, there's a huge level of upskilling, reskilling with all the things that are happening also, there's an element of unlearning things. So yes, we're talking about a lot of learning, but we're going to have to unlearn a lot of things to start adapting to this new environment we've got and I think for me, I think it's just about being human about it. And as leaders, as HR is, you know, what are the role modelling that we can do to help our teams on this journey? And how can we be very transparent about it also, how do we create safe environments where people feel that they can talk about things openly and their fears and their anxieties, and what that could look like and how it can obviously be implemented too?

DD: Isn't that something that leaders in HR should have done all along? That's not very new. It's not the first time that there's new tech and changes and there's a lot of massive changes in the past and there will be new ones in the future, that we have to learn that now, or we come to that conclusion, oh, we should really do this.

DDS: Well, I think you said behaviour has been the same for thousands of years. I think it's that, isn't it? And I think there's something around the positioning, you used words like scary, like it’s a very accessible word, what you're not saying that there are numerous business benefits to this. So, we need your stakeholder buy-in, do you know what I mean? There's a business language that distances itself, and people go, I don't think you understand what's going on for me here or you can't see it from my perspective. And then there's something which actually connects to people and understands where they are in terms of that change. So, I think to the point, I guess we made around skills which was like look, to maybe succeed in that kind of digital landscape, what you need is to go back to some of the stuff that's always been important and been at the core. It might be another example where actually what we need to do is less transactional about change and actually more human-centred, you know, when you talked about it in terms of human-centred design coming to the fore.

RB: There's a really, really important skill that I think is also really important, that's the skill of storytelling. Because that is where you tell your story and you can open up and you can be vulnerable and you can share that with one another. And I think that's also, you know, to your point when we were talking earlier, skills for the future. I think storytelling is also a huge one because it's got so much power, especially with what we're seeing right now. It could be massively beneficial.

RW: I think as well, you know, transformation is a capability almost that leaders need. So, it has to be baked in, in the civil service in Ireland, we've recently reviewed our capability framework for recruitment. And one of the key capabilities now around leadership is building future readiness. So, it's thinking about the future and digital transformation is a key component of that. So, it's no longer OK to be the autocratic hierarchical leader who has all the answers. You need to be able to innovate, to support change, to leverage the collective wisdom of your employees, your management team, and to really drive transformation. So, it's a central capability for leaders and it's inherent in organisational transformation. So, it's not something that happens at the side and that's where HR really needs to be at the core and can support leaders to build those capabilities.

DD: In Belgium, there was an organisation, a big one that had to reskill a lot of people because they had old technology. So, they got rid of the old technology. They went for new technology and there was about a thousand people who had to reskill and so it didn't work. The reskilling didn't work, and so they had to fire hundreds of people and so there was an outrage. Why do you do that? There's a scarcity of labour and so on, and now you're firing people. Well, they said, well, actually, we tried and they actually did try to reskill people, and it didn't work. So, they invested and invested, and then finally they got rid of them. We only saw the end phase of the redundancies, but actually there was a lot of work done. Is that company irresponsible? I don't think so. They took a lot of effort. They made a lot of effort to do that, but at the end it didn't work and that's something that should worry us, their scarcity of labour. So, there's new technology, there's changes. What if people cannot or are not willing to change? What if they lack the cognitive ability to change or the motivational aspect to change. And so, this this is something that worries me in this transition, and of course, in the end, we'll go, we're going to get through, but there's going to be a phase of disruption, and people will, will maybe be left behind anyway.

And that brings me to education, we talk about employers that have to help people to change, but actually, we should start in education. People should be educated in the way that OK, you will never stop learning, you will always have to change, you better change proactively than reactively if you are doing your job too long in a row maybe you should think about it so manage your career. You have a hundred year life, you have to have 60 years of career, so manage that and do something about it. And, and there I see that that and I'm talking now for Belgium, is that we don't do that. People come in the labour market not prepared for this. Even young people really not prepared. We say, well, the young generation, the new generation is digital. Well, a part of them are, but not everybody is and so, I think we should also focus on that. loses half a million jobs in one place.

DDS: I think it's important, isn't it, to have stories of things working well and stories of where things just don't work so we can engage with the reality of both. And it's a really important kind of observation. I think that just because an economy loses half a million jobs in one place and gains half a million opportunities elsewhere. It won't be a direct match in terms of skills. They're not perfectly flexible. Thank you all so much for that conversation. We're going to come to the light-hearted section now. I feel really bad about just people in Belgium that I've never met. Going to come to the, which is right.

So, whenever we have one of these episodes, we tend to have a section called, Is this a thing? Where we talk about something that's come up either in the news or in TikTok or kind of a social channel where it's being reported as a new phenomenon occurring in the world of work. And in this episode, the question I'm asking, is this a thing? Is pleasanteeism. So, instead of presenteeism, which is kind of always being there. This is a notion known as fake happy, where no matter how tired you are, no matter how fed up you are, you put on a happy face at work. So, someone says, how are you? And you go, fine, thanks, when you're really feeling the opposite of that, because you believe that's the expectation within your workplace. So, my question to all of you is, is it a thing? And if it is a thing, is it a new thing?

RW: I'm not sure if it's a thing. I mean, there's kind of maybe a fine line between pleasanteeism and professionalism. So, is it just that we're all being a little bit more professional but I think also there's a psychology, isn't there, around putting a smile on your face. So, if you have a smile on your face and you meet people with a smile on their face, you feel better about things.

DDS: It's never come up for me. I'll have to give that a try.

RW: So, not sure really, but potentially, yeah, it is a thing. It's always good to see the authentic self from time to time as well, though, and get some real perspective. But yeah, I'm not sure if it's a thing.

RB: It's a thing. I think it's been a thing for a while. I don't think it's anything new.

DDS: Doesn't make it a bad thing, does it? Not necessarily. I think, you know, if we talk about from a sort of HR perspective, it means that, you know, we've got to be more aware of our sort of wellbeing strategies and what we're doing and we're allowing people to speak openly and talk openly. So, there's a lot of things that we obviously need to make sure we're doing. But I think it is a thing and I think it's been around for a while. It's been around for ages. So, yeah, to answer your question, yes, it is and it's been there for ages.

DD: I think it's a thing. It's keeping up appearances, image, reputation, whatever and we have the moral duty to be happy and if you ask someone, how are you doing? You're not expecting the answer, I'm really miserable. So because we expect everybody to be happy and content. And so I think it is a thing, keeping up appearances in terms of happiness.

DDS: So, final question for you all really quickly then. Do you think that burden to be happy and to be positive, falls harder on this profession than others. So, you don't expect to go to a colleague in HR and have them talk to you about how bad you're feeling at the moment. Do you think the profession almost has to almost has to commit to that thing almost more firmly? I'm not saying that's a good thing by the way, maybe the case that different conversations need to happen there but it's probably an area of the organisation where you are expecting people to put on a positive and sometimes quite human and corporate front at the same time. Stunned silence. Stunned silence. Do you think, like, you all do the jobs.

RB: Yeah.

DDS: Do you feel that you're as free as another colleague to say, actually, I'm having a really bad one?

RW: Well, I think we as a profession are supporting others to be well at work. So, we feel that, you know, we need to be well when we're engaging with others to support them. And we need to be very resilient as a profession as well. So, it is challenging. for sure, for HR professionals and maybe it is more, pleasanteeism is more present in the HR profession than across others.

DDS: The presenteeism of pleasanteeism.

RW: The presenteeism of pleasanteeism, yeah.

DD: Maybe it's a leadership thing. Leaders have to do that, and so HR has to show leadership and so keep up the neutral or happy face.

RB: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm kind of in, you know, I've got sort of mixed opinions about this because I think there's that whole element, as we've sort of discussed as well. But I don't think it's unique just to the profession, right? I think it's anyone across any part of the business and the organisation. I don't think it's just unique to the profession.

DD: But imagine that you have HR or a leader saying, oh God, it's not going to go well. We're going to walk into the abyss, whatever. This is not good and they complain and so on. I don't think it's a good thing. It doesn't help anybody that you're crying and complaining as HR or as a leader. So, you keep up, even if you don't believe.

RB: On the other side, if you've got a salesperson, for example, and they're having an awful year and they need to get that message across, isn't that the same thing? You know, isn't it sort of applicable in any part of the organisation.

DD: Are you now really comparing HR to sales?

DDS: That feels like a brilliant place to end this. And apologies to anyone who works in IT that's been listening to this as well. We know that you do have human skills. Thank you. So, all I want to do now is just thank our guests. It's been absolutely wonderful having you here and thank you so much for kind of offering your insight. We will continue doing these on a regular basis and I would remind you that if you go on our website, you will find a wealth of things to support you through everything we've spoken about here, whether that's AI, whether that's change management, and we've got some more resources there than you might expect as well. And also you will find in all of the familiar places, previous episodes of this podcast and our others to keep you up to date as well. So, final thanks to our guest, and my name's David D’Souza, and this has been the CIPD People Pod.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on the world of work. If it's troubling HR professionals or they're moving to embrace it, we'll be talking about it. My name is David D'Souza, Director of Profession at the CIPD. Before we start, I'd like to wish happy birthday to my wife. This will mean nothing to her because she still hasn't listened to this podcast a single time, even though she regularly asks me for podcast recommendations. But joining me here today, two voices that my wife will never hear, the first is. Come on, Katie, bring it, bring it home.

Katie Obi: Hi, I'm Katie Obi, I'm the Chief People Officer at OneAdvanced.

DDS: Fantastic. And joining us live from Belfast we have.

Rob Rees: I'm Rob Rees. I'm the Group Head of People and Culture for a hospitality group in Northern Ireland called the Hastings Hotel Group.

KO: And happy birthday to your wife.

DDS: I mean, it makes no difference. This is just valueless conversation at this point, but the sentiment I think always counts. So, Katie, it's a pleasure to have you back and Rob, absolutely delighted to have you on for the first time.

RR: Thank you for inviting me.

DDS: No, it's fantastic. So, I was across in Belfast couple of months back now and Rob and I were chatting, and I thought he'd make a perfect guest. So, I'm delighted that we've been able to make that happen. So, before we start, just want to know a little bit. It's been a momentous week, but what have you been watching, reading, consuming at the moment? Could be a book, could be seen a great movie, could be you've learned a wonderful thing that's going to help you in your role. Rob, I'll start with you.

RR: I didn't know this question was coming, but this is going to paint. I'm not sure this is going to paint a very good picture of me, but.

DDS: Excellent.

RR: Yeah. Right. So, reading I've got quite into Jeffrey Archer and his William Warwick books as a way to switch off. So, I don't know what that says about me, but anyway. And then watching, being a massive foodie, I have been really proud to be British this week with the finals of the "Great British Menu" and seeing some really great food being served at Blenheim Palace was definitely a highlight. I was trying to spot some people that I knew from the TV, but they managed to avoid the cameras, apart from one of them. And then just consuming lots of rugby. So, that's what I've been up to this week.

DDS: Fantastic. So, is Jeffrey Archer still alive? He says, in a sense. Is he still alive and writing?

RR: I have no idea, but I don't know why I feel that it's so controversial that I'm reading his novel, but his novels, I should say at this point. But he's quite a good writer.

DDS: Indeed. And for anyone who hasn't read "First among equals" in particular, it's absolutely stellar. I did not think we we'd be doing a Jeffrey Archer plug today, but we've almost managed it. Katie what about you?

KO: Some of the things that I've been really looking into, I think very similar to a lot of the population right now. Really trying to keep up on AI and what's happening in the world of AI and trying to educate myself more and more around that. The news is always an interesting one to keep an eye on at the moment and see what's going on in all the various different places. And, from a TV standpoint, we've been watching our way through "Adolescence" as well, as I think a lot of people are doing. Which, obviously raises all sorts of different topics and thoughts as well.

DDS: So, I've got a 15-year old daughter and I was considering sitting down to watch it with her. Is it? Is it going be perfect for that or is it going to be, could you explain a little bit about it for anyone who has missed out on the noise?

KO: Hmm. Perfect is a, would be an interesting word to use for it. I'm not sure there's anything about it that has perfection, I think. But it's a really interesting topic in terms of what is going on, especially for teenagers at the moment. I think it's something that all of us as parents should explore with our children in terms of what is actually happening. It's, I don't want to give too many spoilers away, but it's about a 13-year old boy who ends up committing a murder, of a fellow schoolmate who is a female, and some of the things that are happening around that in terms of misogynistic influences, different ways emojis are used to represent various elements of that. Also, family dynamics, how that plays in and bullying, and also how that plays in to what's happening in teenagers’ worlds right now. It's a deeply thought-provoking series. Well worth watching and what it has done, I think for a lot of parents, is open people's eyes to what is going on that we may not even consider is going on for teenagers at the moment, and how many different influences there are and potential really serious ramifications of that.

DDS: Education rather than entertainment, potentially. I'll have a chat with her. I think that's always the best way to do it. We're going to kick off and get into the depths of the conversation here, during what's been a really interesting week and we're going to touch on that as well.

So, kicking us off, the CIPD is sponsoring a new report with Winmark to investigate what C-suites professionals are focussing on in 2025. So, it surveys CEOs, CFOs, CHROs, CPOs to understand what the opportunities and challenges facing organisations are and how they're prepping for them. There were four key areas outlined. So, Change and Uncertainty, and we've obviously had a week where there's been a massive economic announcement coming from the President of the United States, which has worldwide ramifications and has sent the markets into what can reasonably be described as turmoil. So, trillions of pounds worth of value wiped off markets, billions wiped off individual organisations and a really different economic forecast, probably, for most nations, including the US. But President Trump has been very clear that this is part of putting the US first.

So, there's a lot of change there. But equally, that's overlaying on the implementation of and governance around AI, existing skills and talents gaps. And what you need to do in them to address growth areas and opportunities. And investing in a workforce to prepare to take those opportunities. That's an overwhelming amount of stuff for an organisation to attempt to be juggling. It's an overwhelming amount of stuff at times for individuals to have to be trying to sense-make around.

So, within your organisations, if you think back through your career. How do you go through the process of placing your bets. Or do you have to try and solve for all of the uncertainty in the world and all the stuff that you know is going to happen and the short-term and the long-term. Rob, because there's a wry smile on your face, I'm going to start with you.

RR: So, thinking about earlier in my career and how I placed my bets. I think one of the things that relates to this for me is Brexit and the uncertainty that that presented at the time, especially being based in Northern Ireland, it provides a certain degree of challenge or at least it did at the time and still does to this day. But one of the things that are really concerning this week is obviously the tariffs and what that means for not just the UK, but also for Northern Ireland, being geographically, sharing a land border with the EU and all of the networks and supply distribution and everything that comes in with that, because a lot of our produce comes in through the Republic. So, we're not going to have a 10% tariff on everything. We might have a 20% tariff on certain things and being a hotelier and being in the space of creating great experiences, American Bourbon whiskey, all of those things, not to mention some linen and some of the key things that you wouldn't even think about, suddenly got a lot more expensive.

But equally, I also think that whilst what the President announced yesterday was his starting point. I don't necessarily think that's the end point that we all end up with. I think the Prime Minister has played a particular blinder in terms of trying to "keep calm and carry on", and I think that will hopefully go in our favour, but I don't think what he announced yesterday will be the final tariff that is actually imposed on the world economy.

DDS: So, really quickly on that, Rob, you kind of talked about "keep calm and carry on", is that kind of your mantra internally as well? Because you've got rising costs, increasing uncertainty plus you had that blend of things that you would have known you wanted to do anyway. So, we talked about the skills challenges around catering staff, people working in preparation, but also throughout your supply chain. What? Has it changed what you're doing this week or do you just go, "that's another complex factor. We'll wait and see"?

RR: I think it's a bit of both. I think there's a complex element of it that there is so much uncertainty around at the moment that we don't really have a clear enough picture. However, we are, our chairman constantly refers to being ahead of the curve. So, staying ahead of the curve, whereas what we have within our organisation is the value of having sustainable success. I think we are in a very different place, where we are looking for incremental growth to stay ahead of inflation. To not open another 100 hotels, but to do what we do in the luxury market very well and continue that steady growth. And I think companies that are, organisations that are going for exponential growth are in a far different position with all of this and understanding, "right I've just gone into the US market. Well, now I'm going to have to put my prices up." How does that look? How does that feel? How does that operate in that? That space is very different to what we're at.

We are trying to sustain our success, so whilst we might not be the biggest consumer of bourbon, or the biggest consumer of whiskey, a lot of our, of the beverages that we serve, a lot of the, some of the spices that go into our food. Some of the linen that's on our beds, all of those things may now incur an extra cost that you know, it's not exactly budget-friendly, a five start hotel, but at the same time, we are operating on what is quite lean margins to make sure we can offer value for your money. So, I think in short, what is very roughly answered, David. But in short, I think it depends on the organisation. From us, we see the uncertainty and we try and be ahead of it. But if you are going for that growth phase, if you're in that seed phase, if you're going for a B or a C funding range, that must be chaos right now and I'm really interested to see how that plays out for those types of organisations.

DDS: Katie, is it chaos?

KO: It can be. I think one of the things, just reflecting back, you know, throughout my career is. you can never actually predict what's going to happen. So, you almost have to expect the unexpected, you know, to build on one of Rob's points. I think if, I think back through my career, there was a big push to offshoring at a certain stage. And then from a tech standpoint, things moved from on-premises to the Cloud, which was another shift in the industry that I work in. Then we had 2008 and then we had Brexit, COVID etc. And it's just, the pace of change is just rapidly accelerating. So, I think whereas once it would have been possible to predict some of these things, I think we now work in an environment where it's not predictable and we have to be prepared to expect the unexpected. And the only thing that we can do is prepare as best as we can and doing things like preparing our people in the best way for them to be able to navigate through some of these changes, making sure that as an organisation you have contingency to the point around funding as well. That's really important in terms of trying to prepare and have as much contingency as possible, from a cash perspective.

So, you have choice rather than you are in a position where you have to raise funds in a certain way. And also, where possible, scenario planning you know, "what if?" and "if this happens, what will we do?", so that you have the ability to be a bit more agile. I think for us, as people professionals though, that preparing our people is really important. And if we think about the introduction of AI and the skills and the talent gap. We don't know how this is going to impact people in every industry, in every country right now. But the only thing that we can really do is prepare our organisations and our employees to have the skills that they really need to, in order to be as resilient as possible, as those changes happen.

DDS: And it's really difficult, isn't it? Like, everyone's busy. So, you can have people kind of saying, "look, I don't. I don't want to deal with the hypotheticals". But to your point around scenario planning, having good scenario planning, it allows you to take the pressure off decisions in the moment, doesn't it?

KO: Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, we talk about this quite a lot whenever we do things like crisis management as well. If you have a plan that you can follow, you might have many different plans based on the scenario. But if you have a plan that you can follow and you've thought that through, it takes away a lot of the stress and anxiety and leads to better decision-making in the moment. So, thinking about things like that from a wider strategy standpoint, keeping that strategy updated on a regular basis to incorporate those elements really, really helps in terms of preparedness and the ability to be able to navigate through it. And one thing I think is really certain is that, unless you're agile as an organisation, there will be headwinds and things that happen that you can't navigate through.

DDS: Yeah, and it gives people confidence internally, doesn't it? If you're able to say, "look, we knew this might happen. So, here's the plan".

KO: Yeah.

DDS: That's a lot better than "we're thinking through it. And it's massive and we didn't see this coming."

KO: Yeah.

DDS: So, if you're going to choose between those two scenarios, go for the approaching it in the way that you've described.

KO: That's certainly my preference anyway.

DDS: Don't go for the one that causes mass panic and uncertainty I think is a top, top, top tip. We touched a little bit on transfer of skills and learning and the impact of AI, and that's the next area that we're going to talk about now. So, a recent FT article explored two possible scenarios. The most positive of those was we use AI to accelerate progression, and it doesn't compromise the acquisition of knowledge or the quality of the application of the knowledge, which I think is equally as important. The gloomy end was, or the different scenario, was AI taking away a lot of learning opportunities that people have and people not having the expertise that they need to make good situational judgement calls.

It's particularly pertinent, I think, in a profession like ours, where loads of it is situational judgement calls. People think about the profession as following process, but actually how you follow that process, whether you step outside of that process and what you do in really complex situations with multiple stakeholders where it's about human emotion and motivation.

It's what makes it fascinating and fun to work in, but also what makes it, I think, more challenging than some others. How do you see this panning out over the next few years, Katie? Are you worried that the next generation of practitioners, maybe not now, but coming through in kind of five to ten years, are going to miss out on some of the experiences that you might have had as you grew, or do you think actually they're going to be, they're going to have an advantage?

KO: Yeah. And I think it's much broader than people practitioners. I think it's in every role in every organisation. This is something that is a super interesting problem statement to think through and something that we're thinking through quite a lot, as an organisation. We've actually been talking about what is, what kind of skills are really important in a future AI-driven and AI-supported world. And how actually soft skills have always got a bit of a bad reputation or they're secondary to some of the technical or functional or kind of deep functional skills. But I think that's entirely untrue and completely reversing it. If I look forward to the future and we've been talking about what we call the six Cs of human skills and they're things like critical thinking, curiosity, courage, customer co-creation, change management and communication.

DDS: I was really impressed that you got. I mean, if I were doing that, I would have gone with the three Cs.

RR: Me too.

DDS: And even there I would have gotten the first two and there's another one. Six! Just straight off the bat. That's been well rehearsed.

KO: We talk about it a lot.

DDS: Apparently so.

KO: But these are the things that we think are going to make the difference in terms of being able to navigate through an AI-driven world. And they're the things that only humans can bring. And your question really, you know, dug into that first one, which is critical thinking. And this is the difference between what can you do and what should you do. And that's a really important distinction, for people to have that ability to not just assess what is possible to do, but what is the right thing to do. And I'm really concerned actually that our ability to critical think is going to go down with the use of AI and for a couple of reasons.

One of them is the, you develop critical thinking skills by layering knowledge. You start with the foundational knowledge and then you build from there, as you progress through your career. And then you understand how everything works. So, you understand, is it working as it's supposed to be? What might be missing? Is it producing the right outcome? And AI is going to take away some of those foundational layers of knowledge because it will do it for a lot of people in the future. And that means, do you really understand what's going on? And can you really critically think about it? And then there was some really interesting research that I read, which is even more concerning, that those of us who already have critical thinking skills are less inclined to use them if AI is in the mix, because we naturally assume that it's going to be accurate. So, we've got a double whammy there, I think, in the workforce of the future when both humans have less ability to be able to critically think and less inclination to use it. And I think that's a really worrying place to be.

DDS: And Rob, I'm going to come to you and just put an extra spin on that, which is; it requires a degree of expertise to understand whether you are getting the right recommended answer from AI. If you were unable to acquire that expertise, does the risk go up disproportionately in terms of poor decision-making?

RR: I think there's a couple of things there. One thing that springs to mind is the Netflix film where the AI robots started killing everybody. I think that's the most, the most extreme, the most extreme risk that you've got there, David. But I think.

DDS: What? What? What film's that? That just seems like the world's vaguest recommendation.

KO: It's "Cassandra", right? The series.

RR: Yes, thank you Katie, because you literally just saved me from what I couldn't remember the title of, so thank you.

KO: No, I love a good dystopian film series.

DDS: I was like, "is it Terminator? I, Robot?" I was like.

KO: It's all of those things.

DDS: All of these things?

RR: Yeah. And the AI bot had a shut-down phrase that only it knew when it changed itself and anyway. But that's the risk, if you submerge yourself in this technology without necessarily understanding that critical thinking piece that Katie's just articulated. And even listening to Katie there, I realise I'm going to have to find something else to listen to as I walk the dogs this week. So, I'm not going to listen to my own voice. But I think Katie makes some really valid points around this isn't just about every role and every organisation that's affected, it's also wider society. And that for me is the big piece, because we are in the business, and I would argue that every business makes money from connections and makes money from relationships. It's about how we harness the ability, for me, that AI provides, in the right way and we spend a lot of time, certainly as a HR team, thinking about how automation can make our lives easier and how we can use AI. And certainly, I learn lots myself from AI around, how best do I structure a letter or how well do I structure an email?

Those type of things take seconds now, compared to deep thinking, but it is that ability to have not only the critical thinking piece that Katie talks about, but also having the social and emotional intelligence to understand the impact and what to do with that information. And I think, to go back to the original question, I think that the AI piece in general, totally resonates with us in terms of hospitality and tourism. You have no idea how many people turn up at our front desk having a ChatGPT, other AI tools are available, but they rock up and they have a pure itinerary of what to do in Belfast or in Northern Ireland, purely from AI, and then our concierges and our receptionists are busy helping them to bring that to life, which is huge. But the scary piece for me is, are we losing the ability to have a conversation? Are we putting more things in the way of, do you know what, just having a coffee? And I think one of the things for me, as a male you tend not to have those conversations and it's even more excuse not to have those conversations in some aspects and that's the bit that scares me.

DDS: So, it's almost like we've planned this episode, almost like. So next up, we're talking about communication in the workplace. Rob, thank you for that really easy handoff.

So, new research by ACAS has revealed that many employees are unhappy with video calls and messaging apps. One in three dislike video calls, one in four find platforms like Teams, Zoom, irritating. A fifth found phone calls irritating and one in ten don't like face-to-face conversations either. I'm not sure what's left by the time we've gone and knocked all those out. And it's worth saying that this is a method, a way of communicating, that has obviously proliferated in many organisations, post-pandemic. So, it was there as a channel for many, but many are using it now as a norm, and it's also worth pointing out, as ever, that this is disproportionately impacting some parts of the economy, primarily knowledge work and others, more than some other areas.

So, Rob, you will be in and around your people today, you'll be chatting to them. I, you know, had the privilege of kind of watching you interact with your team, and that knowledge there in that kind of face-to-face contact, is obviously a premium. But before we retreat and go, "nothing works", in terms of communications, what are the real issues that underlie dissatisfaction? Is it a, do we think it's a platform problem? Do we think it's the way they're used, or do we think actually this is a fundamental shift in the way that people are communicating, not only within work but outside of it? Mobile phones, devices, video-calling. And I won't ask what should be done, because I think that's too big a question, but how do you build effective communication between colleagues within workplaces?

KO: Yeah, it's a really interesting one. I think there's a; there's a lot that potentially to unpick between people's personal preferences around how to communicate. And then perhaps some deeper things as well around, do we do we have too many meetings in general? Do we have too many types of communication in general? Not enough time for focused productive work? And is that what people are getting frustrated by? I don't think there's enough to be able to understand what is underlying some of the feedback that was given through that. I think one of the things that is definitely true is the way technology has been designed isn't necessarily in line with the way our brains and human biology is meant to function, and that at some point causes stresses.

You know, apps and mobile phone technology and social media that all, not all of us, but a lot of us use. The notifications were designed to be addictive. You know, there's constant triggering of dopamine. We go through our lives, permanently distracted with context switching all the time, and we lose productivity at each stage of it. And with people working in more hybrid or remote environments, often there's more need to have things like Teams and Zoom and you know, messaging in a way that we do it, because we feel that we should, and we should stay connected.

But do we need to think of a different way to be able to work with people in different types of environments? And I think it's choosing what communication is really important for what you're trying to achieve and not trying to force in a technology that is solving the wrong problem. And giving people enough time to do that deep, focused work where they're really concentrating, and they're not distracted. But every day we're training our brains to do something differently in the way that we consume technology and media, outside of work as much as inside of work. And I think that is causing, just problems in general with communication.

And Rob, a bit to your point too, which is we put so many barriers. We, it looks like we're communicating all the time, but are we really connecting? And is technology getting in the way of some of those really true moments that matter, of connecting and collaborating and producing something that's greater than the sum of our parts?

RR: Katie, you're absolutely, completely right. I think one of the breakthrough moments that we had as an executive team. I stood up, I stood at the front of the room and said, "I want all of your mobile phones" because the whole distraction, the whole notification. I can see on my screen right now I've got seven notifications from LinkedIn. It's driving me crazy that there's a seven there, but I'm being intentional with my attention. And that for me is a big piece around what we did as a leadership team is say, "Right, we have a few hours here to enjoy each other's company. We need to be in the room." So, let's associate being with each other in a fun environment. So, I took everybody's phone off them and put it in a box and put it on the side and then took them all. And we did archery and whatnot and then we came back and had a board meeting. And it was the best board meeting we've been involved with because we were all intentional with our attention and I think that's the one big thing around.

We are constantly surrounded by ping, vibrate, ping, vibrate, ding for our email and it's like, "whoa, where are we going?". And even in an environment where we don't necessarily have any remote work or any hybrid work, but we do have people based at different sites where yes, they're still using Teams or they're still doing that. The value of getting people in a room is important but equally associating that interaction with something that's fun. Not like going back to 2016 with death by PowerPoint, you're sat there going "well, why did I drive, because this was an email?". There has to be some focus and some outcome, not goal because it all, you might not hit the goal, but you'll always have an outcome. What's your desired outcome from bringing this set of people together? And what are you? Where are you trying to move to? And then how do you supplement that with, OK, allowing them to, some freedom to get out of their way and allowing them to do what they're, what they're great at; to create, to innovate, to serve the guests to, to create that experience. And empowering that conversation and create creativity, I think is one of my biggest priorities as a leader in this organisation.

DDS: We're going to come on to the final topic now, which is really strongly linked, actually. So, we're going to be talking about body-doubling. Someone pointed out that "Body double" was actually a 1984 Neo noir erotic thriller. So, if you are, if you are Googling it, just, like, have a think about your IT policy and your organisation before you kind of go for that one and follow that down a rabbit hole. But we're not talking about that Brian De Palma film, starring Melanie Griffith. That would be far too niche for this, we're talking about.

KO: You know a lot about this film.

DDS: We do more background research than the way I describe it may lead people to believe. It's, probably every single time I step in this room I do a disservice to the team. But body-doubling is a technique to improve focus and motivation. So, it involves working on a task in the presence of another person, either physically or virtually, who may or may not be working on the same task, but the idea is that it helps create a degree of focus and a work environment. I've heard it, it seems like a spin of, of what I've heard described before, as "accountability buddies", where actually you're making commitments, they may be your commitments, but you're making it to another person, and linked to the psychological principle of social facilitation. We're always saying, "is it a thing, is this a thing that's happening everywhere?"

So, Katie, is your organisation full of body doubles, being really clear not the Neo noir erotic thriller. Rob, is it the same for you, or do you just think this might be a good idea, that might be useful for some people? So, Rob, I'll come to you first on this one.

RR: I think it definitely is a thing I get more energy from, and I am able to do more deep work if I'm sharing an office with somebody or I'm sat next door to them. But equally there are times where I need some headspace of, "OK, you know, I just need to go and sit somewhere quiet and be by myself to think about this." That deep-thinking time is really critical. But if I'm preparing for something or I am in the throes of something that requires my attention, I am much better having a colleague to my left or right than being sat in my, in my lonely office in Head Office, because I'm much more productive because they're normally keeping me accountable. I think it does help, if you think about how different people operate and what their neurology is.

If they need that quiet space, we as an organisation need to facilitate that. But equally we have a culture that's very orientated around the team. I will always advocate for the team, so it's always about making sure that that team ethos is right. But equally, people have the space that they need to achieve the outcomes that they need to achieve.

DDS: Katie for you, for an organisation full of body doubles. Double the headcount.

KO: So, I don't think I've seen this as an organisational practice or policy that's been that's been put into place. I think individuals often work out what's right for them, and I think one of the things is your ability to be able to focus and how you're best productive is a really individual thing. And what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for someone else. I also thought of the accountability buddy, the gym accountability buddy.

I was speaking to someone the other day who said they have swapped one of their shoes with somebody else and they take it home with them from the gym. And then you feel you have to show up to the gym because you have the other person's other shoe. So, it gives you that sense of accountability. So, I started thinking about those things as I was thinking about this one. But I think it really depends on each individual and I think people come to their own rhythms around that too. So, for some people, it's really helpful to have someone who is sitting there and stopping them from getting distracted. For others, having someone there that actually, often they get on well with, can be more of a distraction because you start to chat about things and actually you need some deep focused work.

DDS: Yeah, and particularly if they were, for instance, a classically trained opera singer, and they just burst into song. Katie, if that were a thing, do you know anyone who's a classically trained opera singer?

KO: I don't.

DDS: You don't? Is that what you're going for? Right. OK, I'm hoping that next time you're on, we'll be able to see the full breadth of your talents. We've spoken about, actually, you know, it's really important that talent's nurtured in different ways. Everyone learns different things at different times.

So, that's all for today. So, I'd like to thank Rob for his first appearance on this, it's been brilliant. Katie, we're looking forward to having you back because I've now built that up. It's been brilliant and thank you for sharing your thoughts with our listeners. We'll include a link to a number of useful resources the CIPD provides in the speaker notes for this show. So, do make sure that you kind of look at the follow-up information as well and we'll publish new episodes of this every fortnight. So, please do tell your friends. There's no point telling your family because even my wife doesn't listen, just to make that point one more time. And you can catch up with anything else that you want on demand.

Final thing from me, we probably don't plug the CIPD enough on this, given the nature of it. If you are a member, you can look forward over the coming months to having digital credentials to represent your membership grade online, which I think would be a massive step forward, we've never been asked for that. And secondly, coming up very soon, we will be taking out of pilot and putting into common usage, the next upgrade of Buddy, which is our AI solution to help you get the resources that you need at the speed that you need them. I'm really excited about that. I've been watching the latest results come out from the pilot and we've stepped that right up. It's really exciting. So, we want you to be excited about what we're doing. If I don't communicate that, there's no chance of that happening. So, please do keep a lookout for that, because we want to keep providing you with what you need at the speed that you need it and the recognition that you have for your skills and expertise. My name's David D'Souza. Thank you very much for your time.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR people pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights from the world of work and the stories that most impact the profession.  As usual, my name's David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and we have trapped two HR directors in a room with us.  We have:

Emma Jayne: Emma Jayne, Group Director of People and Culture for Kyn, a late-in-life living care home company.

DDS: And…

Gareth Neale: Gareth Neale, Head of HR for Crimson Hotels.

DDS: Fantastic.  Both of you have been on before, haven't you?

GN: Yes.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: So you know exactly what to expect.  So, we can weave through this at a pace.  So, before we get started, I just wanted to ask you, because it may be useful for listeners or it may be useful for you to reflect yourselves, what's the best piece of advice you've had through your careers?

EJ: Well, first of all, thank you for having me back again.  The best piece of advice I was given was very early on in my career when I first went into HR and I was told to really… if I wanted to try and understand a situation and be a good communicator around it is to really try and put myself in the other person's shoes.  So, early on in my career that really looked like trying to understand an employee and their issues so that I could try and support them, and now many, many years later it's about how I might prepare for a board presentation, thinking about what investors want to hear from me.  So, that piece of advice I've carried with me through, sort of, 30 years of working in HR and it's evolved as I've gone along.

GN: Great.  That's too good.  I'm sorry, I'm going to go…

EJ: Oh, sorry, Gareth.

GN: It's beat me.

DDS: Is that now the best advice you've heard in your career?

GN: That's the best.  That's it.  Thank you.  I just will just skip this bit.

DDS: Two for one.  No, that was clear.  Yeah.

GN: So, thank you for having me back.  Third time lucky, hopefully.  So, the best piece of advice I think that I've had is thinking about the bigger picture, thinking about actually what… how things affect not only the person, the individual, the business, but also thinking about how it frames with employment law.

What you have to do is try and think about how that balances between the three, because too often I was thinking of one of the other three before I made a decision and I think actually, trying to take a step back and think what really is going on and what… how can I have the best input, I think is the most important piece of advice I've had.

DDS: Have either of you had awful pieces of advice?

GN: Yes. (Laughter) Had some terrible, terrible, terrible stuff in the past, yes.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: So, I think…

GN: Yes.

(Laughter)

DDS: I think my piece of advice would be be really selective about where you get your advice from.  I think there's always, particularly these days, actually I would say, there's always a pithy quote on LinkedIn or, kind of, someone standing on a stage with a bit of a sound bite.  I think it is peeling that back and going but actually, what would that look like?  Does that really mean anything?

GN: And I think the genuine advice is that stuff that, kind of, stays with you throughout your career and you've got those reference points that you go back to.

DDS: Just to pick up on that, one of my first jobs, I was working in John Lewis at the time and we had a library of books, of HR books, and I just picked them up and read them assuming they were all correct or all… and that boy, was I wrong, and it wasn't until later in my career I've thought my goodness, some of that stuff, you know, it's just… you need to really reflect about what you're actually reading.

EJ: I was given a bit of a dodgy HR book as well, actually, now you say that.

GN: (Laughter) Bit of a dodgy HR book, is not…

EJ: Quite early on, it sort of, yeah.  Read this, but as you realise, it's… a lot of it is about… through lived experience, isn't it?

GN: Totally, completely.

EJ: And reflecting on it and just trying to get better all the time.

DDS: Yeah, yeah.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: And I think it's when you start reading enough of them that you realise they all disagree with each other, that you go right, that makes sense and that makes sense, but they can't both be true.

GN: Yeah, exactly.  Yeah.

DDS: That's where it gets a bit tricky.

              (Music)

For everything we discuss today, as usual, we'll be talking about the general principles of what's happened, so we're not picking on any individual organisation.  We know your jobs are complex, so we will talk at a level of detail that makes sense for that kind of conversation, but we're going to kick off this episode by acknowledging a tragic anniversary which is… in and around when you'll be listening to this, it's likely to be five years since the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced in the UK, but obviously that was part of a broader worldwide pandemic.  

It was an incredibly challenging time for everyone inside and outside of work, but it obviously had massive impacts on the world of work and the economy and those are still felt to this day.  It was a trigger for a lot of change and we wanted to have a bit of a conversation around what is that lasting impact on the profession and working practices.

EJ: I just want to start off by saying I think everybody listening and probably the three of us had our own unique experiences through Covid, and I loved every second of it.  It was the hardest I'd ever worked in my career, but professionally and personally it changed my life forever, which sounds very dramatic.  I'm not a dramatic person, but it was so profound I actually changed sector for the first time in 30 years and it's just had the most amazing impact on myself, my family, my learning, but back to five years ago, first of all it seems to have gone in a flash. When you said that I was like oh, surely not.  

For me, it was so amazing as an HR person to be right there, almost leading the day-to-day, sort of, coming to work in the morning, trying to get an understanding of what we needed to do that day as we got ready to close our business down and then of course by lunchtime, it had changed.  So, you had to regroup and start again.

But I really loved immediately being involved in that strategic direction of the day-to-day business and that's where we should've been.  We work with people, it's all about people, and I love that I've, sort of, stayed in that space.  I feel even more than I did before the pandemic happened that I'm now hugely responsible for the strategic direction of the business that I work in.

GN: I've genuinely never heard that time described in such a positive way. Possibly because it's so completely wrapped up with such negative outcomes for so many people.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: But it obviously has had, as you say, a really profound impact on your career.  You can see a, kind of, different pathway that you're able to take because of it.

EJ: Yeah, that's why I wanted to caveat what I said at the beginning, knowing that many people didn't have that experience, but I… that's how I genuinely feel.

DDS: No one would want you to have a worse experience. I think in fairness, it's a difficult balance, isn't it, because it's such a sensitive subject.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: But actually, there was obviously at that time I think a really significant shift in the accountabilities for the profession.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: In many organisations, the expectation, and with that actually quite often came a recognition that these things matter.  You know, if we're going to do rapid change that matters, there's a degree of expertise that sits behind the work the profession does and actually, you know, in the UK we were getting quite often changes to the terms on which we could employ people.  Things like furlough, on a Friday evening…

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: …that seemed to be… that seemed to be the best point for the government to announce a change.

GN: Yes.

DDS: The profound impact of people's employment was about six o'clock on a Friday evening.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: But then that meant people were looking to us for answers and it, again, brought that technical capability into the spotlight.  So, can absolutely appreciate what you're saying.  As you say, it's a… I'm sort of glad that you were able to discuss that, you know, you look back at it in a slightly different lens to I know how many will.

GN: Yeah, so I'd… I was freelance up until the beginning of the year and joined a new business in February 2020, and suddenly within a month everyone's looking at me for the answers.  It was an extraordinary situation and did I have all the answers on tap?  No, I didn't.  Yes, it was one of the greatest learning experiences I've ever had.  I wouldn't quite say it was quite as… as wonderful in some challenges we had.

I mean, I became acting COO of the business as well as Director of People and Culture in my previous business and what I will say is the most important thing that came out of that and the reason probably why I'm sitting here is the HR leadership community coming together.  It was absolutely brilliant because… it was also brilliant simply to know that most people said, "I don't know, but I'll… well, I'll try and find out."

And we were constantly scrambling for information.  I think that was a breath of fresh air and I think that the power in your peer group is so critically important and I think that's the best thing that came out of it.

DDS: Yeah, and I know many of those relationships have endured as well.

GN: Yeah.

DDS: So, you know, that, again, an inflection point.  What about changes in the world of work?  So, I think there's a couple of observations I'd make.  One is that there's just a long-term scarring, psychological in some cases, health wise in others, but also economic, and those changes, kind of, impact the way that we operate today.  But there have also been changes in working practices for many, changes in expectations around what people may expect from their employer.  To what extent do you think those changes have been for the better?

EJ: Well, it's like I'm going into a restaurant and opening up the menu and there's just so many things on there.  So many things have changed.  I mean, oh, God, I could talk about this all day long and bore you to death.  I think for me, a lot of it is about what the employees want from us as an employer and the line has become and remains still very, very blurred, I think, between home and work.

There's huge expectations on support for wellbeing, mental health, childcare issues, hours of work, what they have to eat when they come to work, in my case. And honestly I love it all.  I think Covid really took us back to the, sort of, welfare part of what HR or people and culture did and for me, that's remained.  But I think that's how it should be, but it's actually we're being pulled in so many directions now and now we're expected to stay at the strategic front of the business, which I think we all love to do, but still we've got to keep an eye on the welfare.  And I think it's just widened the spectrum of things that we do in people and culture, which if you're someone like me that gets bored very easily, it's just a great opportunity to look at every facet of work.

GN: Definitely.  I think the interesting thing I'm starting to see is people coming into the workforce who were at school or weren't at school during Covid.

And the expectations are completely different to what… they haven't really fully experienced what a workplace was before all this and I think there's a different expectation.  Sort of, how they interact with people, what is on tap for people, what's available for people, and I think there's been a fundamental shift in… from a hospitality background.  All you have to do is go to central London on a Thursday evening.  You'll see pubs are packed between 6.00pm and 8.30pm and then suddenly no one there.

And then very quiet on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  It's totally transformed London and I'm sure it has, you know, cities and towns across the UK.  Because there's a different thought process about how people see hospitality in itself, but in terms of the workplace, there are different challenges, particularly with wellbeing. There's a lot more thought process we have to put into how does this affect someone wider than just the workplace itself while we make a change.

DDS: Yeah, and it's reconciling that with the performance challenge.  You know, the economic challenges as well, isn't it?  I mean, I think that's where organisations are increasingly feeling pressure from a number of different sources and… because it still needs to add up.

GN: Of course it does.

DDS: There's a reason that, you know, people are paid to work and that's to deliver an outcome.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: And it's making sure that actually, as you say, that welfare piece is an enabler to that rather than that being a trade-off.

EJ: And I think, you know, we were talking a little bit about retention before we came in, and I think people, if it's not ticking boxes for them, they just leave because they know they can maybe go and try another employer where they could get what they want.  I think that's huge.  I've never seen retention… I just have so many conversations now about retention and how can we do better, because a lot of it of course now is to do with cost of living, so even for a small increase in an hourly rate, someone who's supporting a family, they'll move on but it's the younger generation, as you were just referencing, yeah, that they'll just go somewhere else.

DDS: Which is a challenge.

              (Music)

Now, that was obviously a worldwide crisis.  Occasionally organisations have a crisis that impacts them in particular and seemingly Gareth and I were talking about this earlier.  Seemingly, it happens when Gareth comes on a podcast.

              (Laughter)

Is it fair?

GN: My fault.

DDS: I'm not saying there's an established cause and effect, I'm just saying that last time you were on we had…

GN: Microsoft, I think.  What was it called?  I can't even remember what it was.

DDS: It was essentially there was a worldwide cybersecurity fail.

GN: Cybersecurity thing, wasn't it, yeah.

DDS: Wasn't there, and it took down large chunks of services across… today on the day that we're filming this, we're probably about 30 minutes' drive from Heathrow and Heathrow, one of the world's biggest airports, is shut for the day due to an electrical fire.

GN: Yes, yeah.

DDS: And Gareth, I know you spent some of your morning having to deal with that.

GN: Yes, yeah.  So, I think there are internal crises and external crises and actually, the other thing is the way I look at it, there are real "crisises" which is Covid, and there are smaller things that affect things in a… in a shorter space of time that you have to react to, and I think it, you know, one of the key things is about that flexibility and ability to be agile with some of these issues.

And also, you know, having that experience on tap and that knowledge of here's how we deal with it, but once you've dealt with it, reviewing it and thinking very carefully about actually, how do we avoid this happening again?  Or not avoid it happening again, sometimes, but what processes do we need to put in place if it does happen again?  I've dealt with situations where we've taken on a business and that business, they have a lot more problems with it than we realised and the challenge is okay, well we've done that, we've gone down that road, we've realised there were lots of issues and lots of problems.  What do we put in place so we can actually assess it better before we take on something like this?

DDS: And I think all three of us, we were chatting earlier and I'm not going to ask you to name names, but all three of us have worked for organisations historically that have been in a negative media spotlight.  So, prominent people go, "Oh, you work for them," and that's a difficult thing to handle when you… so much of the job is trying to make people feel proud about the organisation, confident in the direction of the organisation and wanting to contribute.

How do you deal with that?  So, you know, your organisation is either locally, nationally, internationally in the spotlight for the wrong things.  What do you do to help guide people through that?

EJ: I think it's often employees and how they feel about work that will pull a company out of a crisis successfully and leadership, you know, Gareth, like you this morning, it's leadership that I think have got to put plans in place and act fast because it's the frontline workers that have got to deal with the actual crisis itself. So, I think acting fast, being as transparent as possible, communication, giving as much information, I think all of those things can lead to harnessing the employee group to think okay, right, you know, we now understand what we've got to do and we're going to go and do it.

So, it's, sort of, rallying the troops, as you might say, but yeah, the funny thing is it's the employees that will pull the company through, so it's critical to make sure that they've got all the information that they need and feel motivated to work towards a successful outcome.

DDS: Yeah, and that you're filling some of those gaps as well because I think it's… we talk about what you communicate.  Actually being really clear about what you can't communicate, we don't know.

EJ: Yeah.

GN: Yes.

DDS: Or, you know, like, please don't speculate on this because it will be unhelpful, because that's where it tends to go a bit wrong, doesn't it, when the rumours start.

EJ: Yeah.  Really, Gareth, I love what you said when we were talking about the Covid crisis, that often we had to say, "Listen, we don’t know.  We don't know and actually, that's okay because we're going to find out and we'll come back to you."

GN: Yeah.

EJ: And I think it is literally… I feel so confident saying that now in the workplace and, you know, your example is so great, letting employees know, but actually you're quite right.  Because customers potentially will want you to… will want to pull you into a bit of a speculation about what's going on and it's just not helpful, is it, for anybody.

DDS: No, and it's that two-way piece, isn't it, which is you're trying to be as open as you can with people, but actually setting some requirements of that, like please don't go away from this room and speculate about things.

GN: Yes.

DDS: We don't know.  The information isn't available, so actually if we can just get back and start focusing, that, to your point, is going to be the best thing for the organisation.

GN: That… brings me back to Covid because I remember having to sit down with every single team, you know, in person as we were closing down the office, saying, "I don't know what's going to happen, but here’s what I know," and…

EJ: Yeah.

GN: You know, I was supporting the CEO and CFO in some of those conversations because they didn't know.

EJ: Yes.

GN: I was trying to guide them into what to say and what shouldn't leave the room at that point, and those are really critical conversations to have, but I think the culture of the business, what's underlying with the culture, if you've got a strong enough culture within the business and people are behind that, and even, you know, will accept there are bumps in the road and there are problems that come up, then you can get your way through it.

If you don't have that culture, if you don't have a supportive, you know, psychologically safe culture, it's very difficult.

DDS: And HR's got a really interesting role to play and I mean that… when I say HR, I mean the breadth of the people that might work within the profession because I think for whatever reason, we are always expected to tow the corporate line probably a bit more than other colleagues.  And that means that every person is working, whether they're a sole practitioner in an organisation or whether you're part of a broader team but you're not the most senior person, I think the messages that we send are amplified.

GN: Yeah.

DDS: So, particularly if it reaches the point where people are concerned about, so the existence of the… the ongoing viability of the organisation, they're looking for cues from the people that they think might be making them redundant.

GN: I had to pretend to certain during Covid we'd be fine.

DDS: Yeah.

GN: You know, I was putting on a bit of an act because I just didn't know.  I didn't know, but I had to play that part and I think…

EJ: Yeah.

GN: …sometimes you do.

EJ: You have to because the employees are watching facial expressions, body language, but I think the positive that's come out of that since Covid is now that we can influence the narrative as the people person with the people in mind.  I was just thinking, actually, I've had to do something like that this week and I didn't even reflect on it, but that's been a great legacy from Covid is that we're now expected to control the narrative and I really love that.

Because we've got the culture at the forefront of our minds and the people and that's almost a given now, which is really wonderful.

              (Music)

DDS: So, we've talked about people.  People are traditionally human beings, but I want to talk now about that, kind of, overlap between the roles that we would've expected people to do historically and the capability of AI.  So, we're talking about the rise of the coach bot.  So, that's the idea of AI chatbots which can offer some form of workplace guidance or even in some cases suggested mentor people.  There are quite a few products on the market.  Some of them are mass market, so some of the biggest names in the world to provide them career guidance being a, kind of, area that's quite popular, and using AI to help roleplay that and play different roles within that conversation.

Can artificial intelligence really replace, if we focus in on mentoring, can artificial intelligence really replace the role of a mentor for your career?

GN: So, what I can say about AI and technology is I think broadly there is some positives with this and I think actually, having a different way of accessing this information, if it is accessible to everyone, is fine.  If it's only accessible to the very top then it's a different story.

It depends what you're trying to achieve.  So, with AI, doesn't necessarily give you all the answers, but it'd give you a starting point.  So, actually if you're looking for some advice in terms of where you want to take your career or what you want to do, AI might be able to help you with a bit of guidance as far as that. But the human touch is really, really critical and I think having been a mentor myself in the past, being able to actually listen to what someone's… not just what someone's saying, but what’s underlying within that I think is the critical bit that AI wouldn't be able to pick up.  What really is going on with that person?  Where do they really see themselves?  Are they willing to put the effort in and not just saying it?

Because actually with AI, it'll just… it won't necessarily pick up those sort of things.  But I think I'm not, you know, a complete sceptic about AI.  I think ultimately it is a tool that can help you and support you, but I don't think it's the be all and end all.

DDS: But you think there's an opportunity in there, and I think…

GN: I think it's a starting point, yeah.  I don't think that's a… it's problematic to think actually, that AI can help you.  I mean, I was at a conference the other day and an HR leader was talking about that they were using AI for roleplay, and helping people to roleplay out…

DDS: Workplace roleplay?

GN: Workplace roleplay, yes, just to be very clear.

DDS: Just to be… I'm just…

GN: Just to be very, very clear.

DDS: Yeah.

GN: Workplace role…

DDS: We're all adults.

GN: Yes, yes.

EJ: Phew, okay.

GN: And I think… yes, yeah, that's… yes.  It wasn't that kind of conference.

              (Laughter)

And ultimately, you know, they said it really helped people because people can sometimes feel strained in opening up to someone as a person whereas actually, with that situation, they could be themselves and felt a bit more, you know, felt as if they could just talk.

DDS: I guess I wasn't expressing surprise at anything apart from the fact that quite often, people fall one side or the other on this.  So, they either go, "Yes, it's brilliant and it's going to take over the world and it's doing everything that we don't," or they go, "This is the worst thing ever.  It should never go anywhere near that."  Just to hear you go, "Look, there's some value in this and we need to understand that…

GN: I mean, I…

DDS: …feels like a good place to be.

GN: I do think AI is enormously overhyped and I've said that before in different situations, but it does have a use and it has… it's… the way I see it is at the moment in particular where it is a starting point rather than an end point.

EJ: Sorry to ruin your theory.  I agree, I'm definitely in the middle.  It's definitely got its place.  I love the, sort of, real-time aspect of it and also the fact that sometimes mentoring is only available to maybe senior people within a business, but with the coach bot it could be available for everybody.

As I say, I like the real-time nature of it.  I've looked at a system, actually, for where I work now and thinking with retention in mind, it's that real-time reassurance when you're brand new and you can't remember the way down to your locker or what policies you're supposed to be reading that day and it's really clever and you can make it speak in your own culture and your own language. You know, managers I think are spread so thinly nowadays, having the opportunity to interact with a coach bot could really help an employee feel more comfortable coming into work.

But back to your question, I think mentorship, you're absolutely right.  It needs that human element to it.  Yeah, I really disagree that a coach bot could mentor.

DDS: It feels really odd, doesn't it, if someone said, you know, "Who mentored you throughout your career?" and you went, "It was version 2.3 of that," but…

              (Laughter)

It hasn't got the same resonance because I guess the other thing that I think you quite often tend to get from mentors is they tend to make connections for you.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: Or ease.

GN: Yeah.

DDS: So, you've got that role of mentor and you've, kind of, got that overlapping role of, kind of, patron, which is they're going to give you patronage and support or connect or introduce, and I think that's something that you also tend to get with, kind of, human beings.

But yes, you did both take the same nuanced position which means we'll have to edit that out.

              (Laughter)

EJ: Sorry.

DDS: There's just too much sense being spoken here this morning.

GN: Just to reflect back to what we've been talking about, if AI had been available during Covid, and there were moments where I would've loved to have asked a question, you know, rather than thinking ah, you know, I have to wait for someone to respond or… you know, about certain issues that… and, you know, not entirely relying on the information that comes out of AI, but it would help in those sort of situations.

I think when you're talking about in the moment, I think that's the really critical bit.  My experience of mentoring is you have to book in meetings that could be weeks in advance.  Actually, sometimes you need a bit of advice there and then.

DDS: So, I'm going to give the CIPD a bit of a plug which I think I'm okay to do because it's our podcast, but there's a couple of things I'd like to, kind of, plug through here.  One is we are currently in pilot with, and we think we've got a way to step up the effectiveness of our AI chatbot that will provide people with access to our resources in that kind of instant way, and we're also making our resources more practical.  So, I'm hoping you can ask some really practical "how do I" questions and you'll get that information.

It will just sit in the bottom of your laptop of your phone, whatever you need it, and it'll be there.  I'm really exited about the potential of that.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: That said, the limit to that will be I don't think it replaces, you know, the capability and the experience of all the people around, and then the other thing that I'll, kind of, flag up is we do also have, because we launched it tail end of last year, a new mentoring platform.

So, if you are interested in giving people a bit of human guidance, please do sign up as a mentor, but equally if you were interested in getting guidance from a proper human being, please go have a look at the platform as a mentee.  We know it's been an often-requested, kind of, feature or provision that we could make for people.  Equally, we know that communicating that to people can quite often be challenging, so the most frustrating bit of my job is people going, "If only you did this," and I'm like, "We've got three of them."

And so I'm plugging these really overtly.  Check out what we do, kind of, around that AI solution over the next few months, but also if you are interested in mentoring or being a mentee then please do check that out as well.

              (Music)

Right.  We have just enough time, just enough time, to do our final section, which is always, as always, is it a thing, is it a thing, is it a thing, is it a…

              (Laughter)

And that tune is totally my own, in no way ripped off from an eighties game show.  So, in "Is it a thing?" we look at a buzz word or something that's been in the media and essentially we say, "Is it a real thing?  Is this happening?  Is it something people should be paying attention to?"

This week I was asked to comment by a national broadsheet in the UK on gentle leadership and gentle management.  So, that's the leadership approach which prioritises empathy, emotional intelligence and a people-centric mindset.  It focuses on leading with kindness, respect and understanding, whilst maintaining clarity, decisiveness and effectiveness.  Is this a new thing?  Is it… is…

              (Laughter)

Is there a new way… is this a "revelationary" oh, I didn't know what existed there, or is it just well, yes, that's what you'd always aim to do, and actually is gentle and hard, is that the right way for us to be talking about leading people?

GN: It's like soft and… soft and hard skills and things like that.  

DDS: Yeah.

GN: It's almost going back to that.  I've got an interesting spin on this.  So, the…

DDS: Super gentle? (Laughter)

GN: No, the name Gareth in Welsh, one of the personal interpretations of that is gentle.  So, you know, gentle leadership might be something…

DDS: So, you think it's…

GN: My name's all over this. (Laughter)

DDS: You think it's named after you?

GN: I don't think it's named after me in any way, shape or form.

DDS: This is a big… this is a big claim.

GN: It's a big claim, no.

DDS: Big claim from Gareth.

GN: No, but Gareth…

DDS: Does someone owe you…

GN: Maybe, not me.

DDS: Does someone owe you money for this?  Is that the way it…

GN: Well, they could do.  That would, yeah, would be…

              (Laughter)

But, you know, is it just as, to quote Alan Partridge, it's just been rebadged, and I think probably it has been rebadged from something else, and the thing about these, sort of, concepts is yes, it's a great idea and a great thought process, but also what situation you're in.  You know, we've been talking about crisis.  Are you able to think in that way when you're leading through a crisis or in that moment of crisis?

You know, the way I always think back to is if the building's on fire, you don't say, "Oh, you know, how do you feel about this?" you just tell people to get out of the building.  So, while it's a really good idea in terms of the concepts behind it, actually that doesn't work at all times in all situations.  And I think actually, being flexible with how you approach a situation is a really critical bit of leadership.  But as an overall concept, you know, there are some great things about this.

DDS: I'm learning Welsh at the moment.  I'm struggling.  It's a very difficult language to… but I am…

GN: It's gwaredd is gentle.

DDS: I'm enjoying it.  What are your thoughts?  Gentle, hard, somewhere in the middle?

EJ: I don't know what Emma means, is what I was thinking.

              (Laughter)

Sorry.  

DDS: So, as… sorry.  In terms of your name, or just general…

              (Laughter)

As I say… I don't know what I'm saying here.

EJ: We don't have time to cover all of that, but maybe in another episode.  So, I love this concept but I have issues with the word gentle.  I think the connotations around gentle are that it's soft, as you said, or maybe weak at worst, and it's really not.  It's about, as you say, emotional intelligence.  Employees want to be listened to and they want to be heard.  

Of course, there are moments in businesses that dictate a different style of leadership and I think this is what we all should be working towards.  You know, adult to adult, two-way conversations, listening, feeling heard.  I think there are some sectors that since the pandemic have probably gone back to their very traditional model of leadership.  It's such a shame, but for me, this is everything and it's kind of nice that it's come at the end of the conversation about Covid, because surely this should be one of the really great legacies of the pandemic.

DDS: Yeah, it… I can tell you what I said, which was actually, you know, very similar to Gareth.  It's contextual.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: Leadership is contextual.  How do you get the best out of a group of people?  How do you help them flourish?  How do you help them deliver?  How do you help get good outcomes for an organisation?  And the consistent labelling of things as though it's a new thing is just really unhelpful, because what you want is people intelligently solving for.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: What do I need to do now?  You know, what do I need to do to help this person's career arc versus what do I need to do to help this person perform now, might be… there might be very different styles required for those two things.  So, is it a thing in and of itself?  No.  Is it really important, to your point and people are consistently mindful actually about how they're turning up, how they're delivering, what outcomes are they driving for, and how they're doing that through people.  That's at the heart of the job and the profession.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: Excellent.  So, that's all from us for today.  I'd like to thank both of our guests for coming to see us in the midst of another crisis and for their thoughts and, Gareth, coming back…

EJ: Sorry, can I just say, I'm not in a crisis, it's just Gareth. (Laughter)

GN: So, I'm not in a crisis… hang on, hang on. (Laughter) Hold fire.  Hang on, hang on, hang on.

DDS: That's fair.

              (Laughter)

I mean, what we have established is that Gareth's probably got, you know, just trademarked the name and you've got money…

GN: I think so.

DDS: … money coming in then.

GN: Yeah, I think so.  Gareth leadership is a new thing.

              (Laughter)

DDS: We've got a wealth of resources, as ever, available and it's probably worth highlighting just a couple.  We've done… for the first two months of this year, we did a really big focus on AI, so we've got all of our resources available there, and you can look at the impact on your role and the workplace, and secondly we've got a quiz available to find out about how your management approach aligns to behaviours that support health, wellbeing and engagement outcomes.

But we'll continue to focus in our work on how do you drive those positive outputs.  We publish new episodes of this every fortnight, so do make sure that you follow or subscribe.  You've found us at least once if you've managed to get to this part of it.  My name's David D'Souza and this has been the HR People Pod.  Thank you very much.

GN: Thank you.

DDS: Are you saying thank you at the end?

EJ: Thank you.

(Laughter)

DDS: I so want you to leave this bit in because…

Amanda Arrowsmith: Hello, and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession, and the world of work. I'm Amanda Arrowsmith, People and Transformation Director at the CIPD, and joining me in the studio and online, we have:

Jamila Lecky: Jamila Lecky. I am People, Transformation and Change Manager at GroupM.

AA: Lovely.

Victoria Keith: And I'm Vicky Keith. I work in Talent and Learning and Development for Total Marketing Support.

Rose Watkins-Jones: I'm Rose Watkins-Jones, I'm the People Partner at Impression Digital, which is a performance marketing agency.

AA: Well, it's an absolute pleasure to have all join the show. We are shaking things up just a little bit this week. We recently held our annual student conference, where future HR leaders come together to learn and grow. And I'm pleased to say that today's panel all share at least one thing in common. They are all former CIPD students and better yet, are all previous CIPD People Management Student Award winners. We will be jumping into some core news items shortly, but this feels like a good place to kick-start the episode. So, as recent student award-winners, tell us a little bit about your experience of being a student and what it was like juggling the pressures of work and learning. Jamila, do you want to kick us off?

JL: Yeah, sure. It was really hard; I'd like to be honest with you. It was harder than my degree. I also did a post-grad after my degree; it was harder than that. Working and studying full-time is so, so difficult. It was only this year that I started reading books again because I spent a lot of time with textbooks. Particularly for me, I studied between 2019 and 2021, so over COVID. I was doing my CIPD course, and we had to switch from in-person seminars to Teams or other providers of webinars, which made it really, really difficult to be able to focus on top of that. One of the things that I found hard was like working in a silo. When you're at university or, you know, other institutions, you kind of tend to work as groups.

So, what I did with some of my team was say, "hey, come over to my office". I actually managed to book out my office on a weekend sometimes and we'd go sit there and we'd go through like case studies and just put our heads together and really try and understand a little bit better and share some of that research and like periodicals and things like that, which you probably wouldn't have found by yourself, if you'd just been doing it alone.

AA: Yeah. Fantastic. Rose, what was it like for you?

RWJ: Yeah, similar, really. I mean, my learning experience was really positive, but I was quite apprehensive about getting back into study. It was within my first kind of HR role. So it was a completely new topic to me, but I felt really supported during my course and actually that flexibility was a real privilege for me because, in my role, I'm quite flexible at the moment in terms of how I work, but I did my course completely online. So, having the option to kind of work when I needed to and then dip in and out of studying was really important. And the way that I study is very much kind of bite-sized learning. So, that really worked for me and throughout the process, kind of learning again what my learning style was through university, it's very structured and through my CIPD course, I kind of got to understand actually how do I put this learning into practice in my role at this moment. So, it was a really interesting journey.

AA: Vicky, tell us about your experience and your, how your learning was, particularly learning and working.

VK: So, I did my CIPD course in conjunction with an apprenticeship, so I was doing an apprenticeship at the same time, and of course that requires you to do on-the-job learning. So, I was constantly searching for projects at work and all of these kinds of things that were getting me to do the things that I was learning about, and I really, really enjoyed it. And the CIPD element of it, I also really enjoyed. I mean, it's hard work, all the research you have to do and all the writing that you have to do is really hard work. And I never did a degree, so I've never, I've never done any formal writing before, so it was quite, it was a real challenge, but I really, really enjoyed it. I think doing this through the apprenticeship, I think it really, really effected quite a lot of change in the way that I do things because of the practical, actually having to apply what you've learnt. So, it was a really great experience for me.

AA: So, we know that the qualification can be quite full-on. You've talked about it; you've all talked about what you've been doing and also, it's a great foundation for entering into the profession. But how do you keep wanting to learn? How do you keep that hunger and that curiosity alive to stay up-to-date and keep wanting to learn, post-qualification. What do you do with that?

RWJ: Yeah, I think something that I've found really works for me is the reflection element. So, this is probably something that I didn't do before my CIPD course, but whenever I've got a real-life situation in my role, I try and set some time aside after, to reflect on actually what do I need to practice a little bit more? What do I need to learn more about to kind of make that situation better and to improve on my skill set? So, that kind of drives the hunger to continue learning for me. But on a practical side, yeah, I totally agree. It is, it is hard to manage kind of a full-time role and whatever you've got going on in your personal life as well with finding time to continue learning. And for me it's the bite-size piece again, whether that's having 15 minutes in your day where you're checking up on the news or looking on LinkedIn. And really, that kind of mutual learning piece. So, being with other people, whether that's virtually or in-person and chatting through actually what are some of the challenges or what are some of the wins for them and learning through other people as well. That's where I feel like I get my best life-long learning from.

AA: Jamila, what are you doing to keep that curiosity alive and keep learning?

JL: Honestly, and you probably will have experienced this as well Amanda, being in transformation, you kind of have to. With transformation and change it is about, "Right, we've just delivered this. Now, what's the next thing or what's the new thing and how are we moving things forward?" So, for me being able to be up to speed with you know, what's going on with employment legislation, what other companies are doing, case studies, that's really, really important. So, kind of what Rose said about "bite-sized", it's just a constant stream of information and it's not necessarily going and doing courses, like doing the CIPD course, it's just general keeping up-to-date with what's going on in the industry and what's going on in organisations in general. So yeah, for me it's just little bits here and there.

AA: And Vicky, are you doing anything in particular or is it a bit more of the same?

VK: I think for me; I was just thinking about what Rose was saying about reflection. I find it really useful to work with other people, like a coach or a mentor, to be able to talk through what I'm doing because whilst I'm not, I would never sit on my own for 10 minutes and think about something because that's just not what I'm like. But I would happily sit and talk through something with someone for a long time. So, for me, working with coaches, people like coaches and mentors is really, really what really works for me very well.

AA: So, it would be really remiss of me to not talk about, as you've mentioned, mentoring, the CIPD Mentoring Scheme. So, I don't know if you've either signed up to be mentors or you know people who might be mentees. But we launched our Mentoring Scheme last year and it's fantastic. It's a great opportunity to give back to the profession, but also just to kind of connect with other people. I'm fortunate, I'm taking part in it and I'm learning so much from my mentees as well as having that opportunity to do it. But I'm with you, I think mentoring is great. But also, I'm just really curious. I love learning from other people and judging awards because I know that you've had the opportunity to judge some awards, you guys have been award-winners. Judging awards, you get to learn about what other firms are doing and what other HR people are doing, and it's a fantastic way to stay curious.

So, for everything that we discuss today, we'll be talking about the general principles of what's happening. We all know it's very difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes. So, we'll take the stories as a jumping-off point for our discussions. Regular listeners of the show will recall our "Deeper dive" episode, exploring some key elements of the UK Government's Employment Rights Bill. And if you don't, then go check it out.

I just want to take a moment to bring you up to speed, following last week's first round of amendments passing through Parliament. The amendments that are set out, the main ones, the first one is that agency workers will be included in plans to ban exploitative zero-hour contracts. Next one is that the waiting limit for statutory sick pay entitlement will be removed and that the way that we pay will change, meaning that workers who are too ill to work will either receive statutory sick pay or 80% of their weekly pay, whichever is lower. There will be tightening on fire and rehire rules, and the amended bill lowers the threshold for union recognition, introduces digital balloting and greater access to workplaces for unions.

You can find out more details of the latest updates on the CIPD website and a link can be found in the show description, but perhaps just a thought from you all about whether the, any of these amendments surprise you. Are you pleased about stuff that's coming or was there anything that you were disappointed about?

VK: I think it's really interesting. I think things like having access to sick pay, for a lot of people is really quite fundamental, it can make such a big difference to people. So, things like that are really going to make a big difference to quite a lot of people's lives. So for that, I think it's really positive.

AA: Yeah, definitely. Rose, what are you thinking?

RWJ: I would say the same, I think the sick pay element is the biggest for us. It's something that we see you know, more and more whether that's taking time for mental health or physical health. And I think that will have a huge impact on the workforce going forward.

AA: What do you think about the Employment Rights Bill?

JL: I think it's a great step forward. Particularly for me, the bit that jumps out is the agency zero hours because the way that we work now is changed and it has been changing for a while. So, it's great to include agency workers in that as well.

AA: Well, yeah, I think we're going to hear a lot more about it. There's some great resources on the CIPD website. I'm sure that when Dave is back, there'll be more talk of what's happening in the Employment Rights Bill and how we're going to implement that. So, keep up-to-date with the CIPD, keep up-to-date with what's happening, and we'll keep a close eye. We'll continue to talk to the Government, we've been fortunate to be around the table. We'll continue to do that and let's hope that we can work with them and work in a positive way. So, whilst not part of the Employment Rights Bill itself, much has been made of the consideration to introduce a "right to switch-off" as part of the Government's New Deal for Working People. We've actually seen a growing number of European and South American nations adopting Right to Disconnect laws or codes of practice. However, in the UK, recent reports suggest that similar "right to switch-off proposals" will now be scrapped. So, I'm interested to know for you. Do you think there's a need for a proposal in the first place? Do we need legislation or is this something that organisations should be better at managing?

RWJ: I think it's a really interesting one and I hate to bring up the elephant in the room that nobody really wants to speak about anymore. But I do think that COVID had a really significant impact on people's ability to switch off from work. So, it was the first major shift for a lot of people, working from home, and whilst I'm a massive advocate for that and you know, transparently, I certainly wouldn't accept a role that didn't offer me that flexibility. I do think that many organisations are still learning to adapt to that cultural shift. It's so much harder for people to separate home and work now and therefore the lines are really blurred. So, I know that during my first role out of university I was, during Covid, living, eating, sleeping and working in one room. And that meant that a lot of the time I was logging on at 10:00 or 11:00 PM just to finish something off. So, for a lot of people, especially those who have experienced their first professional roles, you know straight out of COVID, they might not have experienced a different work/life balance.

So, you know, I think that the legislation around this would, of course, be welcomed, but I think really we need to be looking at the organisational, cultural piece and making sure that we have processes and lines of communication in place to mean that this legislation wouldn't be needed in, in as much you know in as much detail.

AA: Yeah. So, the technology and the change was kind of "it happened", didn't it? You can't put that genie back in the bottle, but what are you thinking, Jamila, how are finding this? Do you think we need a formal legislation or a code of practice on the right to switch off?

JL: I'm not sure that we need something formal on the right to switch off. I think there should be something there but, as we're kind of all touching on, during COVID, we all started working different ways. I myself was working in a global role which meant there were times where I was working at midnight to speak to Australia and New Zealand, to you know, do some training on something or have a meeting. Now that we are working in this kind of digital age of work, where you can be located in one country but working with another side of the world. Having that right to switch off between your contracted hours can maybe actually be limiting to you as the employee rather than just to your organisation or to your employer.

So, I think there should be something there to protect you. But having that flexibility to be able to work when you need to, we kind of touched on before. When it's summertime and actually maybe you just want to like pop out and go and have dinner whilst the sun's out or go for a drink and then come back and finish off some work that you're doing, that flexibility for the employee is really important. I think it differs if you've got an employer who's constantly calling you and asking you to do things or finish things off on a weekend. But at the moment, I think it's in the benefit for the employee.

VK: I think the flexibility that people now sort of take for granted is really, really brilliant. The flexibility that people have to be able to do things like take their kids to school, drop their kids off, that kind of thing really works for an awful lot of people. And it works for businesses as well. So, I also work in international role, and I sometimes get up early so I can speak to colleagues in a different country, sometimes I work a little bit late. But our organisational culture is set up for that. I don't have to rigidly stick to my hours, and I can take that time back when I need to and it's perfectly fine to do so. So I think it would be really good to have something that protects people if they are working in businesses where the culture isn't quite so fair, but it also needs to not be rigid, like if it's too rigid, we won't be able to have that international collaboration and that set of flexibility that's enabling more people to work well, I think.

AA: How do we allow that flexibility but think about people's well-being and make sure they're not overworking and that we're protecting that. Because you talked, Vicky, there a little bit about culture.

VK: Yeah.

AA: If you've got a culture where everyone's in at seven and everyone's picking up their emails on a Sunday and everyone's working all the hours. What can we do in organisations to support that and help that?

VK: I mean, I think it's got an awful lot to do with how, how that's role-modelled. If you've got people at the top of the business who are constantly emailing you on a Sunday, are you putting people under pressure to then email you back on a Sunday. You need to make sure that that's not happening, and I think you can really get some good role-modelling and top-down influences.

AA: And it's technology as well, isn't it?

VK: Yeah.

AA: You know, my team were very happy when I figured out you could delay Send on Teams which, it took me a long time to figure out. I didn't, I know you could on email, I didn't know. Full disclosure to everyone, I'm quite a bit older than our guests today, so I come from a different generation. But there is something about how we, how we respect people's time isn't, and what we do.

VK: Yeah.

AA: Rose, how does it work in your organisation? What do we make sure we do, for culture, to ensure people aren't overworking?

RWJ: So, I think for me, and especially within [inaudible, 00:16:08], the answer to this is having open communication and transparency. So, we have core hours, but we do have flexibility around them and I think the answer is often opening up a conversation to make sure it's an individualised approach. So, we make sure that you know line managers and our direct reports are having that trust and transparency to say, "hey, look, I'm really switching off after 4:00 PM today" or "I'm really not going to be, you know, available during this week". And, in general, I think that means that if you've got that individualised approach, then people feel again, trust and heard, and you're not too worried about stepping on toes outside of working hours as long as you've communicated your needs.

VK: It's got an awful lot to do with trust, I think, and that sort of psychological safety for you to be able to go, "I don't need to reply to that immediately because it's Sunday and I'm not working, and I can wait". And then also people to be able to trust that things are getting done even if they're not getting that immediate response.

AA: Following on from this point around, kind of that organisational culture piece that we've touched on here, we've seen some new reports over the last week and in fact over recent months, scrutinising organisations for toxic workplace culture. All of this suggests that actually this is far more commonplace than we ever want to see or even expect. We see far too many headlines either reporting issues around bullying and harassment, micromanaging or neglect for employee well-being, to name a few examples. But being able to turn the tide on a toxic workplace culture takes more than policies and requires behaviour and quite often a mindset change. So, what's the role for people professionals in this and how can organisations effectively shift the culture in a workplace? What do you think we can do, Jamila?

JL: Well, you know, I'm going to come at it from a change management perspective, as I like to.

AA: Lovely. Makes me happy.

JL: Pull something out of my back pocket. So, I'm going to shout out one of my amazing managers, Jess Nichols [phonetic, 00:18:05], for this because she introduced me to Prosci and the ADKAR model. Amanda's nodding, once you go ADKAR, you don't go back.

AA: Do you know, I've never heard that before, but I might be using that very regularly now.

JL: Yeah. Yeah. So before when I was doing change, I didn't know about ADKAR. As soon as I learnt about ADKAR, and Jess would say, "Let me tell you about my Lord and Saviour ADKAR" and I'm quoting her there. It very much helps you to think about how you do things. So, particularly when it comes to workplace culture and culture in general, because culture is one of those very difficult things that you cannot snap your fingers and change it. It's one, first and foremost, finding out what is the root cause of this issue? So again, going into my methodology bucket, it's doing some like root cause analysis. So, what's the real reason for this problem? You can look on the surface and see that there's bullying happening or sexual harassment maybe, if you want to go down some of the darker routes of things that we know are happening in organisations with these toxic cultures. But if you don't know where that's really stemming from, and if it's a toxic culture, it's never going to be one or two individuals, it will be across the board. Then you're not going to be able to fix it.

So, first and foremost it's that. Then you want to build your awareness. So, we know this is happening, we want to reach out to let you know that we're going to do something about this. How can we make it better? The second part of ADKAR is "desire". So, now that we're all aware of where we stand, that we know what the problems are, how do we make it so that you understand what's in it for me? Maybe you like going out every Friday night with the team, doing shots and, you know, stumbling home, maybe, maybe not. But what's in it for you now that we're going to change things or we're going to tweak things? How does this make your work better? How does this make your life better?

JL: And then, I won't go through the whole of ADKAR, but that knowledge piece is so, so important, which is the "K". And how do we then make sure that everyone has got that base level of knowledge about what we do, how we work and particularly the values, the values and beliefs of our organisation? And that they're modelled by everyone throughout the organisation, particularly your leaders.

AA: So, not everyone's going to know what ADKAR stands for. Obviously, you've given us the "ADA". Can you just, so ADK. Can you just give us the A and R, so people know what it is?

JL: Yeah. So, the second A is "ability". So that's where you start looking at training. And yes, we need training, but training is not the be all and end all. Hence why it's the fourth letter in ADKAR. If you don't do those first three letters, you can't get to the fourth letter. So yes, we need the "ability", but don't focus everything on it. And then the last is "reinforcement". So that is, how do you make sure that people are still buying into what you're doing? It's your reward and recognition. It's building it into your policies, your practices, your people management, your performance management, your talent management, it's all of those things, all embracing what you're changing?

AA: You touched on training there and Vicky, I'm going to come to you because you had a brilliant response when we talked earlier about training. Do you think that mandatory training on its own is actually effective in implementing culture change?

VK: The short answer is, no.

AA: Give us the long answer.

VK: The long answer is, so, like mandatory training, we all think about it. It's those e-learning modules that you get where you know, you read something, or you listen to something. They're really good for knowledge transfer. So, obviously if you're going to have a wholesale cultural change that you're trying to enact in your, in your business, people need to understand what that culture change is going to be, they need to understand what that end point is going to be. So, you could use some training to enable people to understand what that is, some mandatory training, but you're not going to get behavioural change just from giving someone some e-learning to do. So, you need to then think about what else you need to put in place. And I think like, it needs to be systemic change, doesn't it?

You need to have role-modelling. You need to have that reward and recognition. But again, if you start rewarding people for things and you've not explained why they're getting rewarded from it, the reward and recognition doesn't work either. So yes, it's going to, it takes in a whole lot of different things for you to get. Behaviour's one of the hardest things to get people to change, it takes a long time, you know. So, you're not going to get a one, you know, "let's do this e-learning and then everything's going to change". It's not, it just won't work like that at all. So, it has its place and it's good for some things. But to get complete change and to change culture and to change people's minds about how they do things, it's not that simple.

AA: But it's interesting, isn't it? Because when we think about, when we study for our CIPD qualifications, we talk about culture and we talk about change. And one of the things that comes out is that actually, it's not that straightforward because it's about your people and it's about how it works and culture. You can have microcultures, depending on how you're working, because you could have a culture in your leadership team and a different culture in the rest of the organisation, how do you work those together? So, Rose, when you're thinking about culture, do you think that culture change should be led from the bottom up, like developing values for engaging or is it something that's directed top-down? How does it work?

RWJ: So, I think rather than it being positioned as being led from the bottom up or top down, I kind of prefer to see it as a mutual collaboration. So, I understand that this isn't going to work in all businesses, but especially for SMEs like ours, we have a really brilliant opportunity to lean on diverse experiences and opinions to find a balance that strikes well with the whole workforce, and it might be that the Leadership Team or the People Team identifies a need for a cultural change. But as soon as that need's been identified, we really should be looking at the evidence and what are our data points? Where is our evidence that this change needs to happen? And at that stage, it's really likely that you're going to want to engage lots of different stakeholders to get that involvement. So, especially when it's something like developing values and expected behavioural competencies, we like to really lean on our top talent and engage them in conversations to understand what is it that they're doing that we want everyone to be doing. And with values, if you're kind of developing them or changing them, again, it's so important that we have diverse opinions in that conversation so that the values feel right for our whole workforce, because otherwise it's going to lead to that disengagement and kind of disillusioned employees that don't feel that this role is right for them.

AA: One of the things that we hear about the return to office mandates and some of the kind of the anti-flexible working is the risk to workplace culture and the fact that that's perhaps caused a risk. You've all worked through, you know you've grown up in your careers through this kind of much more digital age and working in this [inaudible, 00: 24:44] way and much more remotely. What can we do, as organisations, to make sure that we still have an identifiable and perhaps a culture that isn't toxic and deal with toxic behaviour in this kind of remote and flexible working world. How do we deal with that?

JL: Well, first and foremost flexible working is a good thing, and I will be the first to say it and I'm an advocate of it, I'm a user of it. I have a step-parent who has a terminal diagnosis, so I'm often acting as a part-time carer and so utilise that flexible working. But on top of that and this is a very, very core value for me, we spend 70% of our time at work, so the work that you do do and the time that you do spend there, it should be good, it should feel good. You should be around people that you enjoy being around. You should feel like you're doing good work and the culture that, of your organisation should show that as well. So, bringing people on that journey; provide them with the resources that they need, provide them with the space that they need and the tools they need to do their job. Where we have got things like Teams and.

AA: Or like a Slack or a Yammer.

JL: Yeah, exactly.

AA: And those sorts of things.

JL: Yeah. We've got all of these work-focused social media channels, if you want to call it that, that allow you to do your work and to do it wherever. For example, on the train on the way here, I was on my laptop, and I've got access to SharePoint, Teams. I've got Teams on my phone, if I need to quickly send someone a message. It's so accessible to be able to collaborate and talk with your colleagues and to, you know, pick up an email or do a little bit of work. That it doesn't stop you, now, from doing what you need to do, and I think having a culture that embraces things, like Rose said, like core hours or in my organisation, we also do early finish on a Friday or summer hours. But on the flip side of that, we also have a rooftop bar on the top of both of our offices. So, we have that balance of you know, we're going to look after you when you're outside of the office and we're going to look after you when you're inside the office too.

VK: We're a really distributed business, because we've got people in a lot of different countries. We don't really have very much in the way of physical office space and what we tend to find is people always say that there's, because everything's online, people aren't organically building those team relationships. If you are going to be online all the time, leaders, managers, team leaders, all of those kinds of things need to make space for people to enable those relationships and that culture to build. Because if you're just going into all of your meetings and then you're just going straight into the operational side of what's happening, you're not giving people the chance to get to know each other and form that culture. So, I think if you are online and you want to build a positive culture, you've got to make the time for it and you've got to put the extra effort in because it won't happen as organically as it might do in a physical space.

AA: So, it's a bit more intentional?

VK: Yeah.

AA: In terms of what we're doing and how we're working it and hopefully that's how we avoid the toxic workplace culture because we call it out when we see it, don't we?

VK: Yeah.

AA: Hopefully. Finally, and we couldn't wrap up without our regular segment, "Is it a Thing?". Now, in the past, we've talked about "corporate catfishing", but are we aware of the practice of "career catfishing"? Career catfishing is the act of applying for a role, going to an interview, signing a contract and then failing to attend on the first day or any day, just kind of disappearing. Our latest Resourcing and Pilot Planning Report revealed that 27% of new recruits didn't turn up on their first day. It's really high. It's much higher than I would have thought it would be. So, I mean, clearly it's a "thing", but what should employers do about it? Rose, is it a "thing"? Are you aware of it? What do you think?

RWJ: Do you know what? This is the first time I've heard of this, so it's not something that I've experienced, and I don't think it's something that I've done myself, if I can remember. But I do think that like, the stats are very shocking and what I do worry about with this dialogue is that we're feeding into this narrative that Gen Z might be doing this because they're lazy, which we see a lot. And I think probably the reasons for career catfishing are definitely not laziness, it's to do with the environment the aspiring talent is facing, professionally and personally. So, you're kind of going back to what we can be doing to kind of alleviate that problem. I think we have to understand the job market that younger people are facing and that it is incredibly challenging and really time-consuming and that leads to a lot of people just being checked-out and kind of disillusioned.

So, I read a stat. somewhere that in 2025, those who have graduated this year, compared to people who have graduated prior to, are submitting more than 20% more applications before getting their first role. So, I feel like, if you've had bad communication, bad feedback, bad kind of pre-onboarding at the process, it is no wonder that a lot of people just think "I'm going to check out. I might not turn up on my first day." So that being said, I think you know, we have a huge opportunity to change that narrative and make sure that, in particular, early careers roles and early careers recruitment, we're building that trust and mutual respect and kind of living up to a lot of you know, what the younger workforce are looking for in terms of our total reward packages. Which is; how can we support their well-being? How can we support their goals?

AA: Vicky. Career catfishing is it a "thing"?

VK: I think it is a "thing", but I think it's just a thing that's been happening for a really long time that someone's just given a shiny name to. I think it's probably always been an, I mean, there does sound like an awful lot of people are doing it at the moment. So, it's probably, I agree that the numbers have probably gone up. It's also not just Gen Z that are doing it. Everyone's doing it, they're just doing it a bit more than everyone else. So, I don't think it's solely just something that it's happening there. But I do think it's got an awful lot to do with the way people are treated in the recruitment process. We all know the stories of like you know, you're trying to get through to a recruiter, they don't ring you back. You know, all of these kinds of things. It's cut-throat.

AA: Yeah. And then how we then do the onboarding as well is really important, isn't it? It's that recruiting, it's interesting. I don't want to have a go at Gen Z particularly as I found out this week that the oldest Gen Zers are now 29, which means they're not that young anymore. I mean, no offence, they're still young. As a Gen X, they're still young, but they're not these really young people, just coming out of university, that we think about anymore. Career catfishing, Jamila. Is it happening? Are you aware of it?

JL: I'm eye-rolling, for those who can't see me, I completely agree with Vicky. It's just a bit of a buzzword, I think. If I go back to when I was a HR assistant, which is not that long ago, but we had people that wouldn't show up on day one. It was a thing that happened and it can often be through negative experiences as part of the recruitment processes, like you guys have mentioned, but it could also be that you're pretty hot in the market and maybe you've got a couple of offers and you've accepted something else that may be paid you a little bit more, gave you better benefits, was a bit closer to home. Maybe it's got that you know additional flexible working or rooftop bar that you're looking for as part of your employer. So, there's probably lots of different things in it. I also do think we've kind of stopped talking about it, but the cost of living crisis is still a thing. And so, if you are getting multiple offers because maybe you're in a bit more of a junior role that's got lots of roles available or there's lots of opportunity, then you will go for whatever the best thing is, especially if it's the salary.

AA: Yeah, of course. I think we've got to be realistic about, there is still an element of choice, isn't there? So, people have that element of choice and there is a bit of change. People are making much more of those choices, but it's interesting you've all kind of talked about that recruiter ghosting and that challenge of the additional applications and how hard it is to sometimes get a job, and I think as people professionals, that's something that I'm. I know with my team, I'm really keen to make sure we respond to everyone. We show people respect because when people give up their time to apply for a job and go through that process, it's important for us.

VK: 100%

JL: To make sure we're supporting them, isn't it?

AA: Listen, that's all from us today. I'm so grateful to all of you for your time. It's been so lovely to meet you. I feel really confident about the future of the profession. I feel like it's in really safe hands. I feel like the old woman of the profession now, but I feel like it's in really safe hands and I want to thank our guests, Jamila Lecky, Vicky Keith and Rose Watson-Jones for sharing their thoughts on an array of timely topics this week, and as ever to you, our listeners.

We have a wealth of resources available to members to support you. And as mentioned, we'll share a link where you can keep up-to-date with the latest movements on the Employment Rights Bill. Also, you can find a suite of supporting guidance and practical resources to help to assist you with any of the topics that we've spoken about today. We also recently launched our new Student Pages, so if you are studying at the moment, we've got some brilliant new Student Pages, some fantastic new student resources. Full disclosure, I'm going back into study in April, I start my doctorate in April. I feel like maybe that was a mistake. You know, I'm kind of going maybe five years whilst working, I'll be OK. But if you see me in a couple of years time and I look really haggard, you know it's because I'm trying to learn or have not read any fiction for a couple of years.

We publish new episodes of the HR People Pod every fortnight or so. So, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you listen to us and catch up on anything you've missed, on demand. I'm Amanda Arrowsmith and this has been the HR People Pod.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories, expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. My name is David D’Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me in the studio we have…

Melanie Steel (MS): Melanie Steel. Hello, glad to be back. 

DDS: And we have…

David Blackburn (DB): David Blackburn, lovely to be back, David. 

DDS: And whilst you are both multiple attendees, could you just give the audience a bit of an understanding of your background? 

MS: Yeah, I'm a career interim, prior to that I was an HR director, Chief People Officer and now I specialise in change and transformation. 

DDS: Fantastic.  David.

MS: A bit like Mel, and I've been around for longer than I care to remember. I'm a chartered companion of the CIPD, and for the last two years, I've been an independent consultant. 

DDS: Fantastic, and I was thinking that Blackburn and Steel sounds like some kind of 70s TV show, doesn't it? 

DB: Oh it does, it does, I like that.

DDS: Or a series of murder mystery books, that could kind of work as well. So, brilliant to have you both back on the show. The CIPD has recently launched a new campaign which we're calling HR30, which is to recognize and celebrate HR leaders have made a fantastic impact within the year. If you know someone to nominate then please look that up on our website, it's not hard to find, but from time to time we see headlines bashing the profession and the role it plays in organisations or doubting or not understanding that. At times the role can be a little bit thankless. There's a lovely quote isn't there which is, if you want thanks don't take on a thankless job. It shouldn't be like that to work in the profession, but some days I know it might be. So, I'd like to start this show with just a little bit of you sharing what you think the best of what the profession is to offer. So, if I could ask you both to share a story, whether it's a personal story or whether it's kind of a peer that you've got in mind, of someone who deserves a shout out or has done brilliant stuff. 

MS: Look, there is a lot of work that goes on, unfortunately, most of the time due to lots of reasons it doesn't always get out there. I wanted to talk about an example which was something that actually I was able to hear about our conference. It was about a business that was going through change. They were changing their engineers, no longer needed to go to people's homes to provide different services and they could do it remotely, and the operations director said we need to make these people redundant, so quite a lot of people to make redundant. And the CPO said, well hang on, let's just step back and think if there's a different way we could do that. Why don't we look at whether there's an opportunity to reskill these people? Which the business was a little bit horrified about thinking about, even more so the finance director, felt that that wasn't going to be a quick win, and of course he was right with that.

But to cut a long story short, a third of them wanted to take redundancy anyway, the next, third were up for reskilling and then the third kind of decided to do different things but the third that they reskilled did so exceptionally well in these new roles because of the fact that they could put themselves in the situation that their success rate was off the scale compared to those that hadn't done the role, the engineering role personally before that, the time obviously that people didn't have to call back or the success rate that they felt from that person giving them that advice was so high over time, the business case proved its worth. And what I loved about them coming with this case study was the fact that they decided to come two years after it happened. So, it came with that data because typically people sometimes come a bit too early. 

DDS: Here's the thing, we're currently doing or here’s the thing we’re thinking about…

MS: Yes, and she was really, you know probably when you look at cost at that beginning it was difficult, it wasn't without its saying a third obviously decided they lost it, they were hoping it'd be like two-thirds and that but actually what they then realised was that these were the people that they needed to train who they then hired to do this role in the future. And you know, the CPO was always focused about two things, you know, the customer service and what's the right thing to do with the people. You know, she was honest; the pressure was on to just get rid, because the people that were made redundant were gone! But actually, the morale that it built where some people were being reskilled was the baseline of how they then told their story about their workforce. 

DDS: Excellent. So, we're going to be speaking a lot today about redundancy and change and that's a brilliant place to start us off. David, what's your heartening or cheerful story?

DB: Well, first actually, I've got an interesting statistic linked to re-skilling. 

DDS: You're coming on with statistics, I am, I am. 

DB: It’s nice to see the prep.

DDS: So, great um piece of research by PwC last year, so when our CEOs, globally CEOs, what's the number one thing that's keeping you awake at night and 74% of CEOs say skills. Lack of the right skill and thing, yet if you ask the same organisations only 14 of organisations are actually investing in re-skilling.

MS: Yeah.

DB: And I just, I love anything to do so actually funnily enough, and Mel and I hadn't rehearsed this my story has a little bit, it's a bit similar but I am going to name somebody specifically. So, Jane Casserole is the Executive Director of People and Culture at the Bank of England, and Jane, has been in post for about five years. Apologies, Jane, if I got that wrong, 

DDS: I'm assuming this is going to be a good story about Jane, not just like name and shame. 

DB: No it's a great story so actually it's very much about, skills so the future skills that the bank as the central bank needs across its whole 16 professional communities. So, it's creating professional communities including a people professional community. What does it mean to be a people professional in the bank and also having some really Interesting discussions around saying, so actually if these are the skills that we think we need as HR professionals, what skills do we also think that our leaders need from this suite of people skills? So, not just the skills that we need, but actually if you're going to lead a team or be a manager, what things cross over actually if you're a data professional or your people professional? What data skills do you need amongst these various sets?

But the big shout out really is that not only is she progressing that work, it's pointed to Natasha to lead on that and Jess Benyon who I've worked with, this is against a backdrop of the bank over the course of the last year phasing out its final salary pension scheme, and I know there'd be people falling over with gasps going, oh my God did anybody have a final salary pension scheme? Yes, the Bank of England did and I know that it has been two years of Jane's life to lead that negotiation and unionized involvement, what really tough. So, I think sometimes we have these great examples and case studies of things that are really powerful. And at the same time, actually, lots of HR professionals having to do that. It's like changing the wheels on the car while the car is still moving, at the same time as dealing with some really, really complex stuff and negotiating with the unions and landing a pay deal and all of that stuff. And I just think she does it with panache. 

DDS: Fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. In those surveys of what keeps you up at night, no one ever says like the washing machine is too loud. Like there's never anything really mundane. 

DB: My husband not loading the dishwasher correctly. 

DDS: What's keeping you up at the moment? My partner snores. It seems like a more reasonable one to have in there. And I just, it's worth calling out actually some of the work that goes on, I think behind the scenes, because it's really interesting, isn't it? Like when you think about that, I've seen HR directors step towards genuine issues with sexual harassment at a systemic kind of level. I've seen life saved by actually negotiations with insurers and healthcare providers. None of that stuff tends to get circulated. It's not, it's not a good news story. 

MS: It's not newsworthy is it? 

DDS: It's not, but actually the impact it can have on people's lives. I've seen people intervene at absolutely important, critical career decisions and people then, you know, years after being thankful for that conversation. That's the heart of the job that I think often doesn't get covered. So, that said, the job does have profound impacts on people's lives. We discussed recently on a recent episode a decline in business confidence and largely as a result of either choppy or uncertain economic or political conditions, because those two things go together. Businesses have been quite vocal about the fact it will be a difficult year coming up, particularly in the UK, which will mean some difficult decisions to be made. The CIPD's latest Labour Market Outlook, which we publish on a quarterly basis, confirms that direction of travel for the UK. So, it's the worst set of results that we've seen in a decade, beyond or outside of the pandemic, where obviously that had quite an exceptional impact, including impact on retail and hospitality.  So, we essentially we asked businesses, what are you doing? What are you thinking about this? What's going to come next? And more than a third of businesses plan to reduce their headcount through redundancy or through recruiting fewer staff.

Organisations have got a good chunk of time to reflect on the impact that any increase in cost is likely to have. To your point, Mel, there's a kind of long-term and a short-term thing playing out here, which is the obvious thing to do if you want to get your costs down, is to look at how you can cut costs. That might be different to what's healthy for your organisation over the next five years. Equally, there are no doubt some times that you have to kind of make some difficult choices. And Mel, I'll start with you because it was a really good example. How do organisations make sure that they are looking at the medium and the long-term rather than the short-term when there's obvious pressure? 

MS: Yeah. Well, I think this is where HR played that business role a little bit in that room because I think that's where the numbers start to kick in and finances become balance sheets, become the top, which I'm OK to start with because my starting position is about profit because it gets me a bit angrier. You also know, I am absolutely kind of open in a world of business. Businesses need to make profit. It's not a dirty word, right? That's just how life is. But equally, I am starting to get a little bit angry when I'm reading some of these situations where they're like, we've got no choice because of, you know, costs going up, which we know is true. We've got to make redundancies. And then I'm like, well, how much profit is this company making? And a lot of businesses are back to pre-pandemic profit, right? So, to me, I don't think that's doing really badly. So, I think there is a context bit, I think, you know, bigger, bigger picture of when we start talking about, are we basing we're not doing very well based on the profit side of things? 

DDS: It's interesting. So there's that, when an organisation says we have no choice but, some organisations will have no choice but, some organisations will have actually a choice to take that they're framing in that way. 

MS: Yeah. And I think the bigger questions have to be asked. I'm not for one minute kind of saying, you know, that you get very far with that, but I think someone has to put that on the table of like, well, hang on the starting point is if it is a company that's making profit or washing its face, you know, let's look at the bigger question first and ask ourselves, are we doing everything? Are we being realistic about, you know, is our shareholder being realistic? And you can always ask that question, right? And I think we should, we shouldn't just take it as a thing because you're putting that on the table saying, OK, we're business people here. Can we defend that first of all, in our own minds, because actually we're going to have to defend it when we get out there and start telling people why we're doing it. So, let's be authentic in our approach of it and it does shock me when I ask that question and challenge that to the CEOs, they’re like yeah, but we’re never making enough. You’ve got to start opening that conversation. And then I think the conversation has to go to, yeah, the short-term bit of what you can do. You take the numbers out, you pass on the costs to the consumer if you're able to do that.

But I also like them to look at, then, what about the longer term side of it? Because actually, what we know is there's a lot of talk at the moment about efficiency, productivity, it’s like the new in word, right? And, you know, I've been quite vocal in the last couple of weeks about that's not a cost-cutting exercise. You have to invest in parallel to driving efficiency and productivity. And it does come, it does come. And we've seen that with digital transformation, right? Over the last few years, businesses that have heavily invested in that, and they're now starting to see the benefits of that from their consumers, really loving the service they're getting, the way they've made things more efficient and streamlined. But you don't get that quick hit on the balance sheet. 

DDS: And the quick hit's really attractive, isn't it? 

DB: Yes. 

MS: Always. 

DDS: Because the quick hit says we've solved the problem. The quick hit says we're decisive. 

MS: And look, sometimes I've been in businesses where they've got two months of cash left to pay people and they don't have much choice. 

DDS: Yeah. Doing something in three months is not.

MS: Me kind of saying to them, hey, have you thought about, you know, driving? So, you know, kind of putting on the table what is it we're trying to solve for here? Because I always then will talk to them. Let's not underestimate the impact of getting rid of people, which is the horriblest expression there is, because getting rid of people translates into people having to have one-on-one conversations and blowing people's lives apart, typically right? So, you know, when you actually get into the detail, it is one of the toughest things that you have to do as a manager or in HR to do that. 

DDS: There's a lovely, one of the organisations that I would say struggled through the last financial crisis. You kind of recognise the name for it. I've kind of visited their offices and they had up on the wall, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. They had, how will our decisions made in this room look in 10 years' time? And I thought that was just a brilliant way of starting to focus people's attention not just on what's the immediate problem in front of us but actually looking back would you think we've done the right thing, the mature thing, the kind of considered thing around that space? 

DB: And I think I really like what Mel's observation about. I think sometimes we just use these terms interchangeably, you know, effectiveness and efficiency and productivity and, you know, and actually what do we really mean by those terms? And actually just reducing your overall costs or cutting your balance sheet is not efficiency. You know, that doesn't mean that you are necessarily going to be more efficient or more effective or more productive. And actually, ironically, the thing, I totally agree with the observation about investment. All of the studies say that one of the big reasons that UK PLC is a laggard in terms of productivity is poor management. And what's the first thing? We were talking about it earlier. What's the first thing you cut? Oh, I know, we cut the training budget. Let's get of the learning development professionals. You know, we won't invest in that thing. You know, we're not taking a longer term view.

And also the only other thing that occurred to me is that, you know, we don't have a choice. There's so much in the press right now, it's all the national insurance increase. It's all the fault of the national insurance increase. That's the reason why we've got to lay people off. Or it's all the fault of the minimum wage. Now, that's a whole other episode talking about, you know, what do we think is the sustainable position? But surely we as a society want to pay people a fair wage for what they do. I just think that, again, is an easy thing for employers to go, oh, it's that, therefore we must do this without us going, do you really? Because actually, if you're going to have to accommodate that, where are you accommodating that from? Why don't you take, can't you reduce your profit margin? Or even in not-for-profit organisations, and I've worked with lots of charities, where you take a view about what's the amount of reserves that you have, or what's the amount of capital and how many months of operating expenses that you have, and all of that sort of good stuff. I think very rarely, Mel is absolutely right. If you're an organisation where you've only got two months payroll, well, then perhaps I would go, you haven't got a choice. But I think in most other circumstances, there probably are other options. 

MS: And that's the key word to me, options. So, being an old timer now around the table, you know, in my early career, redundancies were part of the norm, really, unfortunately, it was a difficult time. A lot of industries were changing, a lot of cost-cutting, it was a tough environment. And thank goodness we've had quite a few years, you know, of what I'd say considerable growth and, you know, different times. But actually, you know, we learn our skills aren’t really about efficiency and productivity. And one of the things we'd always do is de option. 

DB: Yeah.

MS: You know, so what is it we're trying to achieve? I mean, from a business perspective, not just, and the answer wasn't default, redundancies, crack on HR, off you go. It was an exercise, a proper options piece where you looked at what are we trying to solve for? What are we trying to achieve? And what's the timeline that we'd get from A to B? And we would, in that option piece, you know, look at things like impact. Impact of an organisation going through redundancies or taking people out, I will often say to an organisation, you know, actually, you think that's hard? What happens afterwards is hard too, because it has such an impact on the people that are going, but also those that are remaining too. And whilst you might have moved on in the boardroom, because on the balance sheet, you see the people have gone in numbers and the costs are reduced. You are still a business that then needs to be productive and needs to inspire these people to continue. And, you know, in markets where they're difficult, they might not leave you straight away, but that will hang in the air for considerably longer than what the top teams think about it. 

DB: Than just the number you're looking at the balance sheet. 

DDS: I'm going to talk a little bit about the emotional impact now, just to kind of round off the conversation. But I think there are a few key points that came out from that. One, genuinely evaluate your options. Secondly, look at short, medium and long-term impacts of what you're doing. And thirdly, particularly in terms of the profession, making a case for things, if you're going to end up with a smaller amount of people, you're going to want those people to be excellent at what they do. In which case, L&D, OD, looking after people's wellbeing, they're at the heart of making sure that actually the people you've got left can perform in difficult circumstances. 

MS: Sorry, the last bit on that one, I just say that knee-jerk reaction is that it's the anyone who provides support services are the easy target. Because actually having very senior people and expecting them to do things, which takes them 10 times as long when, actually, you could have a very small and nimble team that just because there's technology, yes, that helps them but actually makes no sense having the most senior directors and we say, well, everyone can self-serve themselves. Well, yes, to a point, but then we also have to go to value of work and what are jobs and what are they made up of and what skills do we need? 

DDS: If your CEO, your CEO could theoretically do their own paperwork, book their own travel, but actually given the amount you're paying your CEO, is that the best return on investment? Following on from this and kind of linked ahead. So, it's kind of a focus on redundancy and change this time. There's a story surfacing around Southwest Airlines, an organisation that were once famed for leading with love. There's a lovely book by Ken Blanchard, I think, if you want to kind of think about how you can get care and congruent results kind of running through an organisation. But they're making their first set of layoffs in the company's 53-year history.

Don't want to talk specifically around Southwest Airlines, but there's obviously a very, you talked about it, Mel, when you have to do it for the first time, it used to be maybe more common. We're coming into a period where there may be more redundancies happening. In terms of the emotional journey that practitioners go through, what does it feel like to know that it's coming, or likely, know that you're going to have to do it, and then to go through it? Because there'll be people listening to this podcast that haven't done it. I think all of us have done it, regrettably, multiple times. My tip would be that you get used to it, but you never get all the way used to it. Like it still hurts. It's still uncomfortable. And quite frankly, I'll suggest that if it isn't, that you don't care enough. Someone once said to me, the trick is to just care enough. You don't care enough, that's the problem. You care too much, that's equally a problem. There's something in the middle. But when you're having to do it, when you're having to deal with those difficult situations, the anticipation, the kind of journey through it, talk us through that. 

DB: I mean, I always say, because I've been made redundant myself, and actually, whenever I, and I'm hoping that not every age old professional ever has been made redundant, but actually, there is something about having gone through the experience. And actually, when I'm talking to people, that's pretty much what I always open with. I say, I have been in the seat that you're sitting in right now, and I've been through that journey.

And I love your observation, David, about how much you care. Because if you care too much, and you're absolutely right, this isn't about not caring. I think you do absolutely want to be empathetic and put yourself in the shoes of those individuals because each individual journey is personal. And the minute you say redundancy or restructure or reorganisation, people are immediately leaping to the mortgage, the school fees, the bills, all of that. How is my life going to work beyond this decision? And what's the settlement amount? And how long will that last me? And all of those sorts of things, you know, that's immediately what happens. So, I think holding people's hands through that journey, but if you're doing this on scale, you realistically cannot hold the hands of 400 people or 300 people without you becoming a completely, you know, it destroying you. And I think back to what we were saying earlier about having explored all the options and I always say, you might not, everyone might not agree with what the organisation is doing but actually if you as the practitioner really understand the business rationale, if you really get why you're doing it, why it's happening and you're able to explain that in terms that everybody can understand.

So, I've got loads of examples from my years working in social housing where we were making people redundant on a pretty regular basis because in an environment where you are commissioned by local authorities to provide services, those services go up for tender and the early 2000s when there was a race for the bottom, you know. Local authorities paying less and less and less and less housing providers. basically just said we can't provide this service anymore we absolutely can't do it whether we want to or not. So, sometimes that might mean that you tube it out but then sometimes it meant that we're making people redundant. I think being really transparent is absolutely essential. I think don't come up with as Mel said you know, not just you making some decisions in the executive space, unless it's completely sensitive, you know, business sensitive, legally privileged, you should tell them everything. You should say this is what's going on so even it still makes it painful for you as an individual. I think the more you're able to say this is horrible, but this is why and this is how we can support you. I think that helps with your own ability to go home and say, it was the conversations that I've had today, were they good conversations? Were they supportive conversations? And did I do the best that I can do as a practitioner? 

DDS: How do you feel when you go home?

DB: I mean it's exhausting, I mean it is, I mean it is exhausting. And I think that we we've talked about this on the People Pod, the emotional burden that we carry as practitioners and the burnout in the profession, and all of that sort of stuff. I mean, is because actually it is difficult, there aren't numbers, to Mel's point, it's not, you know, get rid of 400 or you know get these people out. They're not, each one of those is an individual and it's their livelihood, and it’s their life story and it's their family and it's all of that stuff. So, if you take all of that on and I think that's why I think it's so important to have boundaries, you know? You have to be able to compartmentalise, you do have to be able to switch off and not everybody finds that as easy. I've learned over years to be able to go, OK, I need to park that again another People Pod I think discussion is said about you know, do you bring your full self or you bring your professional self to work, you know, that whole I think it's important to have boundaries and to have a sense of what you're doing because I think if you know, it will always be difficult. I think that's my final observation, I think if you know, it's always going to be difficult. I guess it gets easier because you've got more experience in doing it. I don't think it emotionally gets easier and I'm not sure necessarily that it should. 

DDS: Yeah, I'm not, I'm not anxious. You get confident in the process, you understand what you're going to go through, but it's still…

DB: But I think knowing that up front, I think is a good thing, OK, this is what it's going to be like and it is going to impact me. 

DDS: Mel, what about you? And again, kind of focusing on as a practitioner doing… 

MS: Yeah I think, I go practical in the sense that there are so many people in our profession that have never done it. And thank God that they've had time where they haven't you know, many of us started our career where we did a lot of it. And so, you end up learning different skills, right, at different times in your career due to, to how the economy it might be.

The first thing I say is, you know, it needs to be planned out. This doesn't happen easily, and by that, I mean not the process but how are you going to support that emotional. So, first thing I always say, is you know HR practitioners have to have to put their own oxygen mask on first, they cannot help others if they don't feel in themselves. So training HR practitioners on what is it in terms of the technical side of redundancy, because there's a lot of people even if they did it as part of their qualifications, probably didn't pay that much attention to it because it seemed like quite a dated thing, which I don't blame them for because we were in realms of growth and entrepreneurship and everything was rosy, you know. So, I think going back to basics understanding teaching practitioners about what is redundancy, and then as we're talking about the human side of it, so how should you feel and about if you ever go home and you don't get any feelings about how challenging it is then you're probably in the wrong job. I agree with that. It never gets any easier but also, what type of support are we going to put around you?

So, there will always be people like us who may have done it more unfortunately and therefore we feel confident maybe in the approach and we know we've been through it so, we know that there's a good way of doing it which sounds terrible but there is, and there's a terrible way of doing it, and we see some of that maybe in the US kind of, you know, you turn up, you're gone, bye. Although some of that behaviour is kind of coming over into the UK side of things which was never how we did it. So, I think, oxygen mask on first. How are we going to upskill? How are we going to support so being on a plan in a sense every Friday, we're going to get together.

It's just time for you to say how has it gone this week what did you need to do and them having an option to have a one-to-one about I decided to do this terrible call, it caught me unaware, you know, it does sometimes you feel very emotional when there was one time in Covid when I was helping a client and I got an SOS from one of the team. She said, I had the worst call. I started telling him, he unfortunately had been selected with his manager on the call, but the manager was completely silent, of course, it was all being done remotely. He said, I'm really sorry, I'm going to have to pause because my wife has just gone into labour.' She said, everything that had been happening just made me. She said, I just started sobbing. I just thought, Oh my God, you know it's I'm breaking this whole family apart and it was, she was one of the least people I would kind of say that that would you know feel like that but it catches you. So, her being able to come and have a conversation about how it affected her, I think is really key. And sometimes we miss that bit about how and then the other most important bits, side of the coin, managers have to take responsibility in this situation.

So, you know, HR, have to be shoulder to shoulder to both the employee and the manager but the manager has to take accountability for these conversations too. And therefore it's really important that we train the managers and really ensure that they feel supported too through it because the people were then, obviously employees will want to talk to them about it. And they carry the same you know emotional turmoil if anyone any managers ever made anyone redundant, then no one ever says, oh, that was easy to do. And again, having being really clear about how will we train those managers, not just on the technical approach but on that the human side, about what reactions you might get from people, you know, the silence or you might the people might just go mad on you know. You never know how an individual might respond when you're telling them this situation. 

DB: So, I absolutely agree about the training for both managers and HR professionals. I just think also in order to have the space to be your best human, you do absolutely have to be really confident about the law and the technical elements of it. So, actually that that's not what you're thinking about, going, oh my God what if they ask me a technical question, that you know that stuff. And equally we should never forget that redundancy actually is a business process that HR is enabling and facilitating and I just think that's such an important point. We've all been in that situation where it's like there you are, HR, you go and sort it out, no, it should be absolutely, as Mel exactly said shoulder to shoulder with the line manager and the business.

DDS: We're going to come on something a little bit more light-hearted now, but just before we do that, there was something going through my mind when we were talking about like the impact, just one or two sentences from each of you. Is it easier, hard, or the same to do it for a smaller number of people versus a larger one? I mean, emotionally.

DB: Yeah, I think it's the same but different if that's not, so I think if you've worked in a a smaller organisation, you know if you're working in an organisation of 50 people, everyone really knows each other. I think it's emotionally draining and difficult no matter the size, but I do think it's slightly different having worked in SMEs and small, the relationships are very intense. And so you do know everybody's backstory that you're talking to, and I think that sometimes adds an additional weight because you're like, oh God, it's Mel and her husband and Lex, you know the backstory of people. 

DDS: Mel?

MS: I think it's the same, because you're just having many companies within companies, right? So the person who is closest to supporting that business with that change is going to feel it. You then become the support mechanism for many people. You do have to sometimes stop yourself, I think it'd be fair to say when you're in that top role, to not fall into the numbers bit yourself because you are there, but you know, isn't it the difference between 400 or 2,000, and that when the reality strikes is when you're sat around or you have a couple of those personal conversations maybe with your team who are out there doing those conversations. So, it's same but different. 

DDS: So, we're going to close off today talking about well, we have a regular section it's called, Is It a Thing? Where we ask the simple question, is it a thing'? 

MS: Is it a thing?

DDS: We now have a jingle.

DB: Has it got a jingle? It should have a jingle, David. 

DDS: Is it a thing?

MS: We’re so creative in the HR.

DDS: Just a just a hub of excellence in this room, we're going to be talking about mini retirement so it's come up a bit more recently, I think, with people thinking about taking you know it's a long career, do I take three months out? Do I take six months out? Maybe smaller than a traditional sabbatical, equally there's a, I can only describe this as a micro retirement. Going to quote Gary Neville for example, this weekend I'm heading to Spain from Friday to Monday morning, it's like a mini retirement, it's a short break where, for three days, I can be fully present and not focus on work. Though ideas often come to me during these trips, in about six weeks I'll take another mini retirement of four to five days instead of planning a long six-month sabbatical, I take shorter breaks more frequently. I mean they're known as either weekends or annual leave to most of us. But to Gary Neville, with that work ethic, there are many retirements, but is there is it a thing do you think taking let's go longer than two days for obvious reasons. But taking two or three months' breaks at sporadic points throughout people's career might be a good way of managing the, your energy and the way that you think about work? Mel? 

MS: Yeah, I mean that's a top one percent type problem, I think when you look at Gary Neville and that kind of thing. But I think what I do love seeing, you know, now about different generations is their desire to work differently, and actually really taking opportunity of traveling and working if they can. I know that's not possible for everyone, but even people who are in a job where it doesn't allow them to do, they're saving money maybe doing that sabbatical piece as well. But they seem way, I think social media has kind of publicised that a bit more, and I think people do have a desire to experience different things. Financially, that's not the only driver, because you can do it on quite a small budget. And I think on the other flip side, everyone is working longer, a lot of people financially are having to work longer too, right? Because maybe their plans aren't quite what they wanted them to be, and I think having that ability to do balance, which I think the younger generation has really taught us something about. I mean, for my generation, I think it's really taught us something about the younger generation, which was always about work, work, work, work, and then they seem to have that balance a bit more, I think. It can only be a good thing. 

DDS: David, is it a thing? Is it a thing? 

DB: Is it a thing? Yeah, I think it is. I'm not sure whether I'd call it a mini retirement's an interesting term but Linda Gratton and Andrew Scott's hundred-year life, what year did they publish that? 2017 you know, and they said we're going to all live longer. The three-stage life, journey, education, work, retirement, will be defunct. And I agree with Mel, you know actually, I think there's something more about beyond that concept about just wider flexibility. So, actually, you know the two 200 whatever it's 200 of the organisations who did the four-day working week pilot are permanently adopting it. You know even though everyone is at the same time saying get back to the office. I think and I've got friends, I've got friends who aren't in the top 1%, they're IT consultants and they travel endlessly and work from different places. You know they just say, you know, we're going to go and Airbnb somewhere in you know Grand Canaria and we’re off going to…

DDS: I mean it sounds a little bit one percent, you know. 

DB: When they're not, when I say they're not like independent IT consultants, they work for company and they do IT. But you can do it from anywhere and I know that's not every job as Mel says but I think if we're going to you know, and some people are returning as Mel said, some people actually returning to the workplace because actually they go my pension is not going to sustain me because I might live another 20 years, actually, I might have to go back to work and you know, and I just think you know, that's not sustainable in the long term unless you have a bit of a break. And there's a man who spends time working in France anyway. 

DDS: Lovely to have you here today. So, that's all from us today. I'd like to thank our guests, the Blackburn and Steel Detective Agency, for sharing their thoughts on some really challenging topics. I really appreciate you talking in such a raw way actually about the experience of working in the profession. We've got a wealth of resources available to members supporting you for a number of issues we've discussed today. We've got more on the LMO, and the detail there that you can find readily on the website. But you’ll also find a suite of supporting guidance and practical resources around change management in particular. We updated that at the start of the year with more tools for practitioners, so do make sure that you take heed of that. Publish new episodes of this podcast every fortnight or so, so make sure that you follow or subscribe. We're now on YouTube and I believe we may also be on Audible as well, but I'm pretty sure they'll edit this bit out if we aren't I'm David D’Souza, this has been the HR People Pod, thank you very much for listening.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello, and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D’Souza, I am Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me in the studio, we have…

Elizabeth Harvey (EH): Elizabeth Harvey, I'm Head of HR at the UK Functions at HSBC.

DDS: And…

Jo Carlin (JC): Jo Carlin, so I'm Senior Vice President HR Europe for a company called First Source Solutions Limited.

DDS: Fantastic And it's your second time on the podcast, Elizabeth, and it's your fifteenth...

JC: I don't know, but I've lost count,

DDS: Jo has actually done this podcast more times than me, I’m not even sure how that works, that’s a thing. So, we're going to play about with the format today so we're not going to ask you yet what you've been watching or reading. We're going to get straight into the heart of things and the first thing we want to talk about we're going to do, is it a thing, first up this time. So, is it a thing is a regular section where we look at something that's being talked about in social media or the papers and we say but is this really a thing happening in organisations. So, we're talking about this week dry promotions. It stems from a seemingly commonplace trend in Australia where four in ten employees have been reported as being promoted without any increase in pay. So, that's taking on new assignments, tasks, and responsibilities and possibly changing job title but not receiving any change in reward. I don't know why that's called a dry promotion. Jo, I'm going to start with you, up until this point in your career, have your promotions been dry or wet, which I assume is the other version of it?

JC: Right. So, first of all when I read dry promotions, I thought, 'Is this a January thing like as in…

DDS: Dry January.  

JC: Like Dry January and then of course I read it fully and thought, oh no, no, it's not, lots of people, yeah…

DDS: To commit to not getting promoted in January.

JC: Yeah basically.

DDS: See how that was.

JC: So, I would say my early career promotion, if I can term it that way, was dry, one of my had a dry promotion. I didn't live in Australia at the time, so I obviously have lived in the UK forever. I'd say I don't know, yeah, I've had a dry promotion, but I was kind of grateful for it and I don't know whether that's a thing. I hope it isn't a thing. Since then, they've all been wet, so that's fine, first one was dry though, yeah. I got given a nice big role and nothing else other than the job title and the responsibility.

DDS: But you were happy with that at the time because you kind of saw that as a step forward.

JC: Right. I think I was grateful. I mean, I know that's going to sound awful, but I was pretty grateful. I was like, just thank you, thank you for giving me the job.

DDS: We'd like to do more work for no more pay, and you were like, that’s the best thing ever.

JC: The best thing ever, yeah, thank you.

DDS: It’s what I always wanted.

JC: Well, yeah. And actually, at the time, you think, well, maybe this is how it is? How do you know? How would I know? I mean, obviously now, I wouldn't stand for it, I'd put my foot down all the rest of it and I would never do it to other people, but at the time, about 20 years ago, I was super grateful and celebrated.

DDS: Do you think it worked for you?

JC: Yeah, well I'm sitting here now on this podcast.

DDS: Which is all anyone could ever hope to do.

JC: Which is all I ever aspired to do before I realised that I was aspiring to be on the podcast David.

EH: For the fifteenth time.

DDS: I'm not, so, for anyone listening early in your career, I don't think we're saying you'd have to…

JC: No, absolutely not.

DDS: Dry promotion to be able to appear on this podcast at some point but it didn't hurt.

JC: No, I think, look, it gave me an opportunity. Whereas perhaps maybe my view was that I didn't have the opportunity to do it, maybe they wouldn't have given the opportunity, I wasn't the most qualified for the role at that time, I mean I definitely wasn't the most qualified, but you know, I looked at it and thought I was cheap. So, and then I sort of proved myself within that and then it was all fine after that. But yeah, I mean I looked and thought, well maybe I'm the cheaper option, but that's all right because I get something out of it as well.

DDS: Elizabeth, thoughts.

EH: So, I've never had a dry promotion.

DDS: But you've also made it onto the podcast.

EH: Precedent is set, you can join the podcast without going previously, but I sort of agree with Jo in terms of there are moments when you're given more opportunity. So, you're given more breadth, more scope and actually it's useful for development purposes rather than actually this is a new role, this is a new grade and so on. And I think in industry, it's probably a little bit of a blurred line because roles are quite agile and the environment is changing and you know, the goals or aspirations of an organisation are moving and therefore roles also need to evolve with them. So, I think from a pure sense colleagues who maybe face this situation probably need to look at the jobs that they're doing the activities and actually as more activities come in or more scope of responsibility, what drops off? What do you almost say I shouldn't be doing this anymore? Or this could be done in a different way using technology or new people in the organisation. But from a pure sense, you know you've been given your manager's job, their scope of responsibility is a bigger team, we should be pushing for you know some type of benefit, whether it's flexibility, more holidays, more pay shares, you know, different things that there should be a barter there.

JC: I was going to say, so I suppose it's when it's a promotion not a promotion, maybe that should be the headline. So, is it a promotion? As in you've got your boss' job, you've got more responsibility, or is it just that actually your some of your breadth of work might have changed slightly? And maybe we should all just go to Australia and do some kind of study in Australia, David, I'm thinking that maybe…

DDS: I’m up for that.

EH: I haven't been to Australia, so I'm ready.

JC: Let's do it.

DDS: The three of us, let's lock it in.

JC: Yeah.

DDS: Just want to touch on something that you said there. We're going to come on to, just so people know and I'll flag this up nice and easily for you. We're going to come on to a discussion around equal and fair pay. You were talking there about people having the confidence to ask for proper recognition for those shifts that have been made, there's been a lot of historic research, you can find more detail on our website actually around that not splitting perhaps equally in terms of the willingness to ask for that between male and female employees. Do you feel that something like a dry promotion would put an additional risk of unfair pay in organisations? If the only way someone's going to get that extra money is if they have to put their hand up to ask for it, rather than can expect it?

EH: Yeah, so there definitely is a risk, and you know pay gaps all these things kind of span into it. And especially I think you know, where maybe females for example they come back from maternity leave and Jo, you kind of mentioned gratitude, actually, you know what, I don’t know who I am anymore coming back from maternity leave. I’m getting used to kind of my new life and balance, and therefore I feel grateful for being here. So, yes, I'll take on that responsibility. I think the onus actually is on leaders and managers rather than the colleague. And you know what? We have a load of tools, job evaluations and pay grades and scales. That I suppose as a people function, we kind of hold the key on to make sure that we're being fair and we're treating colleagues with the right principles. So, I really see the leaders and managers to where they see a role change to utilise the tools to make sure that they're doing right by their team. Albeit, I still feel that you know we can't always rely on managers or leaders to do the right thing. So, colleagues should just keep an eye. Is this something you've asked for because it's for your development, it's your EBI to help you get to the next phase of your career, or is this something that's just been given over time? If it feels cumbersome, raise your hand.

JC: Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you said actually, there. Sometimes it can be more complex than that isn't it, if i think about the person I was 20 years ago, it's not the person I was now and I absolutely would not feel grateful to get a promotion now without any money and I'm pretty sure I'd say something about it but actually what was really interesting from that experience as a leader. I have always made sure I take care of my teams and the people around and I think it does have a profound effect. Because yeah, I was grateful, I was also quite young and quite inexperienced. And I think sometimes that's not a good thing because if you are in an organisation that thinks, I'm just going to give this person more work because they're capable but actually the budget is a bit tight. So, instead of going outside I'll give them a chance, it's that balance isn't it and I think that's a really tough place to be. And I suspect that for large organisations like ours it's a bit easier, we've got all the tools we've got everything available to us but for SMAs it’s not so easy. So, how do you kind of get around that? I think the equal pay, the value of jobs debate is slightly different for sure, because that's around am I paying the people that I've got who are doing roughly same, the same or similar work, am I paying them the same or in the same benchmark rather than promotion?

DDS: So, if we move on to that, it's a really nice bridge. So, we're going to talk about pay. We know that pay is massively emotive for people. There aren't many things that spark debate more in organisations, quite often than when someone accidentally or on purpose lets a colleague know that they're getting paid more than them. There are a number of long-running cases involving retailers in the UK, primarily, and it's around equal pay and it's as Jo just described it's about is work of equal value and how do you remunerate those roles? We're not going to comment on that case directly or any of those cases because they're still being reviewed and a number of outcomes are possible as they kind of reach finality and potential appeals. But the question I'd like to get to is, at the very heart of it how do we decide the value of a job?

Is it market rates? Is it how much we can get away with paying to attract a person? Is it a sense of fairness around the complexity of tasks how demanding tasks are, and it's a really difficult equation, but it will be really good to get your insights for you know, if we've got students listening or if we've got people facing these challenges and organisations. How complex is it? What should you be doing to make sure that you're staying not just on the right side of the law, but you're not demotivating people and you're creating the right environment for people to flourish whilst being sustainable.

EH: I really think that it does depend on the organisation's values also. So, you can see, you know, parity roles in different organisations for completely different rates of pay because I think there's also a brand perspective in it, around actually we want to be market leaders, or actually this is what we stand for. Public sector versus private sector, and I think market rates are a kind of a big piece in this, and almost that war for talent. So, there are you know roles or skills that are in short demand or short supply, and therefore they need to be brought in, and that you know, buying that in just becomes a premium, despite you know how hard it is to do that role, or actually how much qualifications sit underneath it. I also think there's a piece around legislative and regulatory environments, and how that plays into It and, therefore, that means there's a criteria to pay at a certain band, and so on. So, it is quite complex to say, you know, the value of a job, is it easier to do or harder to do? And, therefore, does that weight a premium? There is just a lot of kind of complexities that sit underneath in order to define.

JC: And it's always that debate between internally promoting and externally hiring. Because, to go back to your point Elizabeth, we've got all the tools that have ever been invented, ever at our disposal now, you don't have to pay for them, you know, gone at the time when pay grade was the thing that everyone coveted. You can actually get hold of that data pretty easily now, for free, most of the time, actually. Although, you do have to watch out that you know it's not one of these free surveys because they can be weighted in the favour of usually the companies that have gone out and looked for those. I would say, for me, going back to your point, I've always looked at it and said it's basically it's supply and demand, so that's always going to skew the market. But equally, time it takes for competence to be reached, whatever that version of competence is, because obviously, the harder it is, the more you can command in terms of salary, etc. but some of the time, it still goes back to Your own confidence levels to demand some a higher range within that band, if we're looking at bands for example. And I still think that comes back to, there's still a disparity between and I don't want to bang on about the kind of female-male polarisation in this, but sometimes it is still a little bit like that. So, it's going to take us a bit of time to get out of that. But I think the more as organisations pay for potential, as opposed to paying for experience, that's when it'll start to shift, I suspect. And look, I've long since been an advocate of, if you're looking for somebody to come and do a role, don't ask them what they're earning now because what's the point? Yeah, it doesn't matter what they're earning now, it's what are you willing to pay for the role and what are you willing to pay for the potential that they can have in that. And I think that's idealistic, and I get that, yeah, and that's not where a lot of organisations are, but that shift if organisationally we can start making those shifts, some of the arguments will go and if we are a bit bolder in our approach around that, then actually it's not that it's defendable, it's not that we have to be legally compliant but it's just a really good practice and we're going to get the best people wanting to come and work for us.

DDS: There's a really interesting distinction I think you both touched on, which difference in the internal market versus the external market. So, when you are going out to attract someone, you're clearly more exposed to market forces and supply and demand than you might be when you've already got someone in your organisation, and we know that it takes quite a lot for someone to move roles. Particularly when you get to mid-to-senior, it's, you know, finding somewhere that will pay in the right way, that will have the right conditions for you to work in an environment and you can get the job. There’s a few things that need to happen there. Do you think you kind of both touched on that of how it can get out of kilter over time? Do you think it is, that part of it is that the internal market, the external markets work really differently?

JC: I think supply and demand plays so much into that, and also if you haven't worked hard enough to get the skill level internally that you need, and you become a bit complacent about that because lots of organisations, yeah it's not it's not even conscious I think it just happens over time and when you suddenly find yourself in an organisation or in an environment like we are now where it's moving so fast, that you've got these huge skills gaps, you’re then fighting against everyone else wanting that same talent and it's usually 5-10%. So, you end up having to pay more and then you get a massive disparity between what you've got, but it's not an overnight thing because I think we're just perhaps we're not focusing as hard on our internal skill level as we are focusing as hard on, what do we need for the future because we're always just assuming you know, we're going to go out and get that, and there are organisations that do that stuff brilliantly, and then there are the majority that don't.

EH: I think it's evolving, and I think more transparency that is being brought into kind of the pay agenda and the total compensation package is helping the potential disparity between internals and externals. And when I mean you know, making sure we've got the right pay benchmarking data internally, making sure managers and leaders are also equipped with that, so they're making the right decisions to look after their internal people, so that when they're going external that same data measures up and it might be that they have to go a little bit further to really bring a key talent in but that shouldn't be the mirror that's cost for every single candidate that comes to a new organisation but it is still a risk. I think also the compensation strategy of an organisation, it's not always just pay. It's the rest of the package you know what are the benefits, what's a pension, how much flexibility does an organisation bring and actually, the brand, the brand equity in itself that kind of heeds the external market more than your internals who maybe just take it for granted because that's their norm, that's their rite of passage.

DDS: Yeah. And just to make it more complex for everyone, you've also I think going to throw in and you touched on different brands but also different sectors. So, you could do a comparable job between the charity sector for instance and private, and probably the remuneration may well be different. There's a lot of complexity when people are trying to tease all of those things out as well as what I've described as, there's always a degree of exceptionalism which is but our organisation is different or this role I'm hiring for is specifically different to anything else that you'd find anywhere else in the planet. We're going to move on to a more straightforward piece in some ways, talking about productivity. Productivity is complex, but possible to do, I think at a kind of economic level, more challenging when you reach down into individual productivity, in particular knowledge work. But there's been a narrative running in the press recently around workers getting lazier, so that might be the narrative of home workers slacking off or developing sit-no-culture, all the things that we know capture headlines, but may not actually be manifesting in the same way within organisations. Politicians have been in the UK declaring that we need to find a better work ethic to stay competitive. But is there an argument that we're actually learning to be more smart in the way we work without having to necessarily work harder? And equally at times, pushing people to work beyond their limits is not good for the organisation or individuals. So, is it really the case do you think from your experience talking to peers, so I don't anchor it too much on your own organisations, that people are getting lazier? Do you feel that work ethic has shifted over time, or do you think there's just a media narrative?

EH: I think it's a media narrative, but I also think technology has evolved and changed which has maybe somewhat made it easier. So, in years gone by if you needed to send information to another organisation you were doing it with a pen and paper, and letter, and so on. Now it's a push of a button and typing on a keyboard. So, technology has made some things easier. But I think more has come into colleagues' lives in terms of workload, and maybe a burden per se, so we always talk about work-life balance. So, with technology getting easier, you know you maybe assume that therefore lives get easier, work-life balance gets easier. But it hasn't shifted in that direction, and there's a lot more focus on wellbeing and supporting colleagues to make sure they've got some balance. So, I don't think colleagues have got lazier, I think there was a headline around, Britons needs to almost get up and work and do better. But there is a shift.

There's also social media, so when I talk about the younger generation, it's almost there's a click of a button, and you get it immediately. And I think social media paints a picture of people's lives, and actually, it's quite easy. So, you know, if you go on to some of the platforms, you can see colleagues', a day in the life at work. This morning, I went to Starbucks, and I got my coffee, then, I sat in a meeting for half an hour, then, I got a snack then, and you know that perception actually gives the younger generation, it's quite easy at work, and you know you can have a really relaxing day and then you can have an evening out with all your friends, and look, that's great. And then coming into the workforce. You know, some of our early careers have really struggled with the reality of the environment, so I think that's also played in. But the headline was about Britons, and for my postgraduate dissertation, I was part of the higher education study around actually, economically, do we need to do more in the UK to help our talent kind of progress and grow to help with the economy? And my dissertation was about encouraging undergraduates to go on to postgraduate study and the benefits it could help with kind of careers and longer-term progression. And all of those studies together that the higher education kind of pulled together actually, lent us to do the postgraduate student loans which you know we're starting to see an uptake on. So, I think there is something around the UK and trying to get some of that growth in the economy and how do we birth it ourselves rather than relying on other countries? But not lazy.

DDS: Jo, who are your two laziest colleagues?

JC: Yeah, I mean I'll write it down and uh and you can see. So, I don't have lazy colleagues, David. If anyone's listening from my organisation, they're all super wonderful, fantastic people. Oh, look, I looked at this and thought, are we mixing up presenteeism with laziness here? Because let's be honest if you go into the office, every day you're still getting a Starbucks, you're still getting a snack, you're still checking your phone, you're just doing it while you sit at your desk. So, it might just be that people can see it more and of course, January is a slow time for the press. So, I get why some of the headlines might be about being lazy. But I genuinely think, and I don't necessarily buy into the work-life balance piece. Not that I'm not advocating for it, but I look at it more to say people have role conflict because work-life balance means so many different things to so many different people. That I look at it and say, when the roles are in conflict, or our roles are in conflict as a maybe a caregiver or you know a parent or I don't know, whatever all the roles you've got, a professional when those start to push up against each other that's when you get the friction and I think what the more recent working ethic is around just making sure that those roles don't conflict as much. It's not a bad thing, yeah, I might not be able to see all of my team all of the time, that's not a bad thing. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they don't want to see me all of the time either, but do I trust that everything is getting done, absolutely are we still making progress, totally. I think, we have to be careful don't we? I think. Look, non-controversially, but lazy people are always being lazy. It doesn't matter whether you can see them or not, it's not a new thing. People always take opportunities to do things that perhaps are not on their to-do list, but as long as the to-do list gets done, what do I care if they walk their dog halfway through the day? I don't mind.

DDS: Yeah, it's quite interesting, and there's some really nice pieces that people have pulled together that you'll be able to find. But people have been criticising the work ethic of the next generation coming through, not just for centuries but for millennia. You can genuinely go back to kind of classic kind of Greek and Roman literature and you can find people going the use of today, you know, genuinely. And it's just a lazy, it's lazy thinking actually in and of itself, isn't it? I haven't talked about productivity as you will say there's some lazy narratives around laziness, but I'm going to talk about failure. So, we're hear it all time, move fast and break things. Fail fast, fail often. As though failure is an inherently good thing, but not all failures are the same. There are some environments where if you fail, that has massive ramifications for people and you still need to learn, but ideally, you also need to mitigate that. So, Amy Edmondson's written quite a lot around this and discussed the idea of intelligent failure. How do you create environments where people take smart risks and you minimise poor decision making so you're pushing on but you're not risking the things that could happen? You know, manifest impact on people. So, creating that environment where you're not letting accountability slide but you are having that creative freedom. Any ideas? Any suggestions? How does it work in your organisation?

JC: I think first of all, I'd reframe failure and I do like the Amy Edmondson intelligent failure, I think I'm going to use that in my end of year performance review with my boss to describe the year.

DDS: It was intelligent failure.

JC: I had some intelligent failures but overall, it was good. But I do think there's a lot of context to it because there are jobs situations where look, failure is failure and we really do have to mitigate for that but there are most of the time, yet, 90% of the time, there is room for something to not turn out as you would have expected it to turn out. It doesn't necessarily mean it's failed, but if you take a whole, I don't know a whole project for example or a whole initiative, you might not get to the end of that initiative and have achieved absolutely everything you set out because who's knows what happens during the course of that journey? But it doesn't mean that everything's been a failure. It might be that some stuff hasn't worked as you would have liked. I think for me, that's how I frame it definitely with people, but now I'll call it intelligent failure, because I think that's a really good way of doing it. But actually, it doesn't mean that everything's wrong, you know, it just means that there's some stuff that perhaps if we'd have done it a different way, or some stuff that didn't quite give us the results that we would have liked to have seen. But hey, we learn more than we did when we started out. But that's contextual in an environment where actually it's OK because you're building in time to actually change the direction that you need to change but there will be other times where you can't. You’ve actually, just got to get it done and people are making not great decisions, and that's the piece that you've got to keep an eye on as a leader, but it's a fine line because the more you come down on that side, the less people are going to be clear about intelligent failure, the less they're going to want to do that, and they just will stop being creative in that space. So, it's really hard, and I think it's a leader's job to help navigate that.

DDS: It's difficult, isn't it? That kind of narrative, everybody makes mistakes, so therefore we need to like that's fine, but the third month that you haven't paid people.

JC: Yeah, that’s different.

DDS: Yeah, well you know we're learning from it. There's definitely, to your point, it's highly contextual and I think the problem is when you get these kinds of banner words or headlines or principles that people work to. I remember chatting a few years ago at a conference, I was like, move fast and break things maybe move fast and fix things, you know? You need to give people confidence at the start of a programme of work, you're going in the right direction. If the first three things you do are all failures, that's going to cause a real problem in terms of faith. So, you need to find a way to get that working. What are your thoughts, are you failing all the time? Is that the way you kind of frame it? Or…

EH: I'm hard on myself as a person, so failure is like a doom word. But I do like the way she's kind of intelligent failures because I think it gives people space to grow and learn. And, to your point, Jo, around that's the leader's responsibility, it's psychological safety, it's candour, it's giving them space to be able to find their own pathway. If it's a critical failure, like not paying people at the end of the month, a problem, a problem, and that's going to need a real, you know, difficult conversation or a constructive conversation. But actually, I think Amy coined it kind of basic failures, that's where you get learning, that's where you get kind of future technology or innovation, that's the space where that can occur. So, failure isn't always bad, I think you need an essence of it and that's how we have the society we have today, someone has failed over and over again and kept reworking and kept trying until they got the right result. But I think from a kind of normal BAU work environment perspective, what really is failure there? There's probably meeting a task or meeting a project or exceeding it. Failure is very unlikely, there's normally a safety spot to allow that not to happen.

DDS: There's something kind of about the scientific method in there as well. So, as long as my team, they've got a good hypothesis that's backed by data and we did the things that would reasonably give us a good chance of success, proportionate to the problem. Sometimes, to your point, it's just not going to work out, you'll miss, you'll try a thing and it doesn't work. For me it's where that there's that lack of thinking or consideration and then it's like, oh, it's a learning experience, and it's like, well, hang on, hang on, we could have seen that coming, therefore this shouldn't be a learning experience. it should be baked into what we're doing in the first place, but I might just be mean.

JC: No, I think it's absolutely true and I think I'm going to remind you of your lazy thinking quote that you had before David because that is lazy thinking isn't it? It's oh well, it doesn't matter what we do. I think that's a very different situation where we go into it saying, oh it doesn't matter what we do, well, we'll just see if we make some progress. I think the scientific approach of, we have a hypothesis, we're going to test it and that's the same for everything. I'm with you though. On the sense that I mean paying people is a bad example because you're going to have to fix it pretty quickly, but maybe that's the polarisation if it's a failure where you have to fix it otherwise it's going to create damage to others. Then maybe that's not into that's definitely not an intelligent failure, but if you are working on something and it hasn't quite achieved what you want then maybe that can be coined an intelligent failure. Yeah, but as with all things we cannot polarise.

DDS: And I imagine to some degree all of us our careers over time are a series of intelligent failures aren't there? There are times that you should I've moved jobs beforehand, it's happening live. It's a massive learning experience, a massive journey throughout your career. We encourage not just our students but actually all of our members to do reflective practice that will involve to your point being harsh on yourself, with one framework, but always recognising those gaps. You know, if I did that again, what really worked in that situation? What didn't? And then that's how you build your experience up over time, it's through that reflection that builds a better practice and better delivery and better outcome.

JC: I mean, look, perfection is the enemy of progress when you're looking to transform or grow. So, you've got to balance that. But you've got to do it in a safe space, to your point, Elizabeth. You've got to do it, you've got to contract with your manager and say, I want to try this. What do you think? Here's my guardrails, to any students out there, look for people who can help you with those guardrails and create a safety net so that you can learn, grow, develop. Because otherwise, nothing is ever going to happen, you're going to stay in your safe spot, and nothing's going to work.

EH: I think it just has to be wrapped into some type of purpose. Or, a goal and that itself will give a guardrail to what you're trying to achieve. But honestly, failure is great, that's where you get your biggest learnings, I think, from my experience. And it almost gives you such a reflection that you're going to be an even better person or you're going to do this task even better for the next time.

DDS: And some resilience that you can bounce back because we'll all have failures in our careers. There's some really interesting research by Gary Klein on naturalistic decision making where he talks about just creating conditions where your insights go up and your errors go down over time, and that's essentially what you're driving to in success. And to your point, unless you can acknowledge those errors, it's very hard to do that. But the insights piece I think again is it goes back to that evidence-based piece, there's a difference between taking a punt on something and having a hypothesis that is backed up and you're understanding the risks that sit around it. I said that we'd flip this episode over. So, we'll be talking at the end about what you've been reading, enjoying consuming, Elizabeth. If I start with you.

EH: So, I'm not sure if the word is enjoying but I'm currently doing a coaching apprenticeship, just to almost refine.

DDS: Excellent.

EH: Some of my own skills and why not go back into learning, who knew that you had to write essays and read books again. But yes, I'm doing that.

DDS: Chat GPT. I'm kidding if you’re one of our students, that's not the answer.

EH: So, coaching performance, (inaudible) well that’s my bible at the moment, that’s my textbook but I have a very great skills coach who's helping me navigate working and also do an apprenticeship to which I'm very grateful.

DDS: So, you're kind of buried under Whitmore and Clutterbuck, and like that kind of space.

EH: I'm in that realm.

DDS: So, coaching performance you recommend any other kind of books or things that people should be looking into?

EH: I actually just think different mediums. So, I think it's been nice to have a book in front of me and textbooks and so on. But just podcasts, videos just getting in to understand other people's perspectives, that I think that's been really great for my learning.

DDS: Can I have like a quick thought from you, coaching is one of the areas in the profession that I think I'm going to say suffers most, and that might give you an insight into how I feel about it but occasionally like, you get those lazy parallels with sport, are you a fan of like, there's no way this is the world's most leading question, isn't it? But, like, do you think there are lessons from sport that can carry over from coaching or performance improvement into the way you think about things, or do you think it's really different domain?

EH: I can see it and I can see in all the texts and all the narratives because it's a really easy parallel to rely on because you can almost see the cause and effect. I think it doesn't always translate to the world of work because there are so many variables, you know a football team needs to win, right. That’s the goal, everyone understands, it's a common understanding, and everyone works towards it. In the workplace, there are so many different goals that conflict and surpass each other. So, it's not as clear. So, I think it gives a great fundamental to kind of give the principles and understanding but doesn't always directly translate. But I'd say a fan because it works.

DDS: Fan excellent. Jo?

JC: I knew you were going to ask me this, so I have a wide and varied reading library, David, a lot of which centres around human behaviour, yeah, and actually what you know some of the more scientific ends of why people do what they do. And there's also a reason why my bookcase is out of sight during any Team's calls.

DDS: Right.

JC: Because it ranges massively from how does the brain work to psychopaths, you know there's, I have that variety in my bookcase. So, I'll always be picking something up. I'm reading on and off I'd say something called, Coaching into the Crosswind, which is around that difficult bit of coaching where people are really struggling and they're really stuck. It's all right, it's quite interesting, it's a bit dry so you kind of have to on and off it. The other one I'm reading is, The Messy Middle again, bit on and off, that's about Change programmes, which I'm quite interested in, and then I'm reading all sorts of random fiction, yeah. Which I will classify as chewing gum for the brain, do not underestimate in the difficult world that we find ourselves now in. The beauty and joy of a random fiction book where you do not have to think and it is just great, it can wash over you, you'll never remember it, that's all right, you don't need to.

DDS: Yeah, I've gone from barely reading any fiction to alternating between that and stand-up comedy, and just watching, like, it helps right? Just to have some gentle stand-up going on, and then you start getting into actually the techniques and how it's written, and things like that’s again a pleasant diversion that has work parallels but doesn't keep you buried in it. I did actually admit to Jo that we share very similar tastes, and I have books on psychopaths, far fewer than when I was younger, because a bookshelf full of them when you first start dating is just not, it's not something people look for.

JC: Well, you see, I never thought about that, and you know, I'm 20 years in, and my husband is still around. I think there's an element of fear that's crept in over the years.

DDS: When people are like, oh, what are they and you go, oh, they're all my books on the history of Quantico like right? OK, you know, like in Silence of the Lambs and they're like, yes, I do.

JC: Yes, I do know that. Please stop talking.

EH: The question is, does your husband share?

JC: No, actually he's an ex-football professional football coach. So, you know he listens to like weird podcasts about football and they're not weird, they're not weird to him, they're good to him. So, you know I don't think they, I wouldn't listen to them, not my thing but he enjoys it so we have a really polarised bookcase. He's not allowed in my bookcase. He gets one quarter that's it of one shelf. That's it, he has to find his own bookcase because I've got far too many books in there now.  

Yeah. And you know, I do like the thing we know when people, get stuff delivered they go, I've always had it, that's, I do that but with books. He’ll come in and he'll say 'it looks like a new book and I go, it's always been there. It’s always been there.

DDS: Thank you both so much for today, it's been absolutely wonderful listening to you and I can't wait until we have you on again. We've got a wealth of resources available to our members supporting a number of issues that we've spoken about today, including the breaking news stories that we've covered or the areas that we've kind of focused on. Remember that we publish this every fortnight and I'm delighted to say that you'll now find us on Audible and Amazon Podcasts as well as YouTube and all of the other places that you may be listening to us on currently. So, do make sure to follow or subscribe. We also have just published our new change and performance management toolkits. There's a range of really practical tools in there. I spoke in previous podcasts about the fact they were coming, they are now out. So, make sure that you go on the website and make use of them shifting from telling you what you should be doing to helping you with that in lots of our content over the course of this year. My name is David D’Souza, a final thank you to our guests, and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the CIPD's HR People Pod, the fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories, expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza, Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me today in the studio we have.

Amanda Arrowsmith (AA): Good morning, my name is Amanda Arrowsmith. I am the People and Transformation Director at the CIPD.

DDS: Very nice to meet you, Amanda.

AA: Thank you, nice to meet you, unusual.

Patricia Hewitt (PH): And hello, I'm Trish Hewitt. I'm a CPO for an international travel company and I run my own HR consultancy.

DDS: Fantastic. I'll be tapping you up for a discount later. And…

Daniel Mortimer (DM): Good morning, everyone. I'm Danny Mortimer. I'm the Chief Executive of NHS Employers.

DDS: And is it your third time back, Amanda?

AA: I've hosted when they allowed you to have some holiday. I hosted the podcast and otherwise it's my second time back as a guest.

DDS: Danny, second time for you.

DM: Second time.

DDS: Trish, first time for you.

PH: Yeah, what's going on? Why is it only my first time? I don't understand. Everyone else has been before.

DDS: Because I met you last summer and we were at an event where we were the only two people involved in or excited about the Employment Rights Bill, which was like a perfect way for me to spend my evening. I invited you on there.

DM: And at that point he knew.

DDS: At that point, this moment was destiny. Saturday Night Live does a kind of five-timers club where if you've been on five times with the jacket and stuff like that, we may do that, only budget will be smaller. So, it might be a glove or something like that.

PH: A badge.

DDS: Yeah, something like that. So, just before we get into the depths of what actually I think will be a really interesting and wide-ranging episode, we normally ask people, what is it that you've been watching, reading or consuming that's kind of giving you pause for thought or you recommend to other people. So, Trish, if I start with you.

PH: I've been watching Severance, Bad Sisters and Silo. So, I don't know if it's given me pause for thought. Oh, and From. I'm a massive From fan. Is anyone else watching that?

AA: No, I don't know that one.

PH: They're going to be like, I'm crazy. OK. So, From is about people who get trapped in a village and there are horrible evil monsters and they've got to try and figure out where the monsters are coming from. So…

AA: Nice.

DDS: And Severance, from memory, is just that's negotiation of settlement agreements.

PH: Yes, that's why I enjoy watching.

DM: That's why you're the director of profession at the CIPD.

DDS: It's the only way I see the world. What about you, Danny?

DM: I saw Nickel Boys at the weekend and yeah, really highly recommended. Very unusual film, filmed in a really unusual way. But one of those films that you kind of find yourself thinking about.

DDS: Well, what's it about?

DM: It is a film about a young boy who's sent to a reform school in Southern States of America in the sixties. So, it's fundamentally a story about racism in America, but it's filmed in a really quite exceptional kind of way. Very unusual and it does kind of stay with you, yeah.

DDS: Nickel Boys.

DM: Nickel Boys, yeah it’s called.

DDS: One for people to rush out and see. And Amanda?

AA: So, I found myself watching a lot of the inauguration and a lot of the kind of the stuff around the inauguration and things like Hillary Clinton laughing at the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and those sorts of things and some of the cuts of that, but also just the pomp and circumstance around it and the way that it's all done and the kind of the whole production of it. So, I found myself watching quite a lot of that and then almost the aftermath of that. So, some of the podcasts and some of the clips and some of the news from that. So, yeah, probably quite a lot of American news and consuming that sort of thing in the last week or two.

DDS: Excellent. And that's super handy because that's going to be the first thing that we come onto. So, that's going to be a perfect bridge into what we're talking about. I've been watching with my daughter a lot of, there's a comedian called Nate Bargatze, who is apparently the most popular comedian in the world and we discovered him about two months ago. So, we've been working our way through his specials. Highly recommend it. He does what he describes as gentle comedy. So, anyone can watch it.

PH: Did I see you getting excited about getting tickets to see him or something?

DDS: We did get tickets for Nate Bargatze and I may have been slightly too bouncy when that happened. I'm sure I was probably doing it in a meeting. I'll just confess that now.

DM: So, he's coming here? Or are you going there?

DDS: He's coming here. He's coming here. I'm really, really, really excited about it. It's just nice, gentle. I recommend that. So, turning to all things American. Obviously, the big story of the week was we have a new president in the White House, or rather, a return of a previous president, Donald Trump, his inauguration, which is the start of his second of possibly up to eight terms as US president. Lots of the talk this week has been, interestingly, around what impact that will then have on UK organisations. So, he's immediately coming. He's made his stance on a number of issues very clear. He's made decisions around EDI, DEI. Presence in federal government. US organisations are, in some cases, following his lead on that. He's made a decision that in the US, there are only two sexes and he expects that to be represented in law. And he's made some other decisions and notifications around trade, as well as renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which for anyone who hasn't followed, is now called Jessica, which is a bold move that no one saw coming. So, the question that I'm kind of posing to you all is, away from the politics, if we look at the organisational impact of that external impact on US companies and then potentially the crossover impacts into the US, what do we think it will mean?

And the reason we're asking that question is because I know some of you will be earlier in your careers. For probably the last 20 years, many organisations have been really keen to understand what Google do, what Amazon do, what Netflix are doing. And it didn't really matter whether those organisations were making money or whether you were doing the same things as those organisations. That was seen in some organisations as, well, we'll just do that because that must be what smart people do. Do we think we'll see the same level of bleed over? Or do we think that the context is now so uniquely different in the two countries that we'll see different things happening? Trish, come to you first.

PH: So, what do I think? I don't think because Trump has made, and from a broader context anyway, I don't think because Trump has made decisions that's going to change the way that we do things in the UK. It doesn't make us say we're all going to stop doing EDI in the way that we do. I don't think it makes us all think that we're going to stop doing HR in the way that we do. I guess from my perspective, I work with and in companies that have got American subsidiaries. And I guess for HR professionals, I'm a bit nervous of just how people are, right? You're going to have some people who are super emboldened because Trump's in and they're happy. You have some people who are quite nervous about that. Some people who are in groups who might well feel threatened, where you all kind of pulled a certain face when you said certain things there and then in a country where carrying guns is legal. So, it's all quite a bit of a kind of a powder keg really. So, I guess, I think in the UK, if you've got companies that have subsidiaries in the US, it's just thinking about how you support them and how you support them from afar with something that's quite hard for us to understand. I can't really comment on the trade stuff. So, Daniel, I'll let you do that. But yeah, I think it's just thinking about how people are feeling over in the US and how we can support them where we can really.

DDS: And like you say, there’ll be very different feelings around that that will impact some like say groups, will either feel emboldened or they'll feel heard because they've got the person they wanted, represented. Other groups will feel under threat or they won't feel represented, but also that immediate impact on organisational structure and the messages around business feel pretty unique.

DM: And there are lots of organisations already that have to manage that complexity around values and the law often in different countries. You know, there are countries where it's illegal to be a homosexual. There are countries that have got interesting human rights records. And, obviously, in this country, we're very interested in America. We take a lot of interest in what goes on in America, often to the exclusion of what goes on in the rest of the world sometimes. But there are companies who've had to kind of find that balance in terms of how they operate in those kinds of nations for some time. But I think Trish makes the point really well. We have a set of values in our organisations in this country, and we need to stay true to those. That's not without its challenges, you know, the context for us in my sector, you know, particularly the way in which some areas of EDI practice are covered in some of the print media is challenging. It doesn't stop us doing the right thing, doesn't stop us focusing on the fact that there's talent we're not making best use of, that there are services we're providing to the public that are sub-optimal. And we have to confront those things and improve them.

DDS: Yeah, because you need the people in and you need the people excelling and that's at the heart of this as well as making sure that there aren't unfair outcomes. So, you add those things together, it's quite interesting when you describe that balance, you know, organisations actually find a balance. I guess that balance is harder if there becomes a kind of greater divergence between perspectives on actually how to run organisations, what best practice might look within.

AA: I think for me, whenever something happens in the US, particularly something this loud and this, you know, it is politically defining, we're going to feel those ripples over here and there will be nervousness and there will be some impact. But we do have protections in law, which is very different. We work in a different legal environment. But I think it's really interesting about the way that it gives permission for people to act in other ways. So, we're already starting to hear quite a lot around, oh, because they're making these changes in the US, they're going to do better business in the US and that because they've got less restrictions in what they do, so they're going to have a better economy. We should be doing the same here. And we saw this the last time that the Republicans were in power. We saw the same, there's some really interesting research around with kind of the rise of the ult-right and what impact that has on HR. Particularly, Trish, thinking about what that does to people and people's feeling of safety and security and how they feel in themselves and what that means for them. And, you know, we've seen that in our own country just this last year. You know, we've seen how that impacts individuals at work.

Where I hope that we will continue on this and what I believe we will, because I think we're very sensible about this, is we know that actually the people we work with, we want them to feel safe at work. We want them to be happy at work. We want to make sure we've got the best talent. We want to make sure we're opening that. You probably both work in industries where sometimes it's difficult to get talent. You have to open that up, you have to resource in different ways. To do that, we have to look at our practices and we want fair people practices. We want practices that work for everyone. So, I think we'll feel ripples. I think we'll definitely feel an impact from it and we'll have to adjust and we'll have to be aware of that. My hope is that we just continue doing what we're doing. And most of the people listening to this, working in HR, most people working in HR, they're dealing with this every day. They're working with this in what they're doing. So, they need to know that it's OK to continue.

DDS: Yeah. And I think the key thing is, or one of the things that I think organisations need to focus on is the uniqueness of their context. You're solving for the problems and challenges that you have, therefore importing solutions from other countries or other organisations. Isn't it a great way of going about things? And it's always a temptation to say what's best practice but actually ignore what's best practice. What are the challenges that you have? What's the most effective way that you have that's likely to solve those challenges? And there's no reason that something happening external to you would change that framing for an organisation.

DM: It's that point that Trish rightly started with. The context here is different and choosing my words carefully because I work in an apolitical organisation. The CIPD is an apolitical organisation. Our political context a couple of years prior to the election was sceptical about a lot of EDI activity. I know that was true in terms of my own sector. Organisations in this country by and large carried on with what they were doing. They kind of noted the view of the government and the kind of concerns they reflected. We now have a government that is, in terms of some of the work it's already done, particularly the tripartite work it's been doing, is really keen to push forward some legal protections around equality. Lots of organisations are already in a place where that makes sense because they've been working on it for a long time. So, the context is different and politics in America, civil society in America, it is very, very different to here.

AA: It's that them and us, it’s the divisiveness that concerns me, not so much here in the UK but it's that does it give permission and does it give the right for people to behave in certain ways, rise in certain ways, and how do we make sure that we continue just to be fair and be open with people? And I think you're right, the political winds will change and they always do change. But that doesn't stop business being business, and we still have to do good business. Businesses want to make money and they need good talent to do that, so they're going to do what they need to do to get good talent, and that means you want to have an inclusive and wide open policy and approach because you want good talent, and you want to keep good talent.

And you want to develop them because businesses want to make money and they want to be successful or they want to deliver against their purpose for their customers, for their viewers, for their service users. So, I don't think we should get too scared there's a risk that we knee-jerk and that we react but I really love Trisha's point about putting our people at the heart of it and thinking about those people and I think that's really important for us to remember. It's very easy for us to get caught up in that shiny and the headlines and it's going to be this and this has to stop and all this money is going to change, and this, but actually keeping our people at the centre.

PH: Yeah, I like that. I think that's really important. And I guess also the unseen element. So, I have a lot of family in the US, but I wouldn't necessarily tell a lot of people about that right so whilst it's probably not worrying me too much from an HR perspective, I'm worried for them, right? So, it's just having space to talk about it, I think. Because yeah, it's a scary time.

DDS: Yeah, it's really interesting because there has been as Danny would say, push back from people that feel that actually they're not being focused on as much as they were prior. Or, that efforts aren't directed in their direction the way that they might be, but division just purely doesn’t help inclusion in any direction. And I think to your point, it’s about how do we solve for everyone in the best way that we can to drive those organisational results, but to also make sure that everyone coming through a system has the opportunities that they should have and are treated in the way that they should have. And actually, the debate in this space by its very nature being divisive stops those solutions being effective for everyone. There's we actually covered political speech in the workplace probably three or four episodes prior, and it was really interesting if anyone would like to go back and listen to that, we had some organisations saying that this is just an intrinsic part of who people are, so they should be able to express it. And then we had, it was fascinating actually, we had the UN saying, we can't even countenance that. Because by our very nature, everything we do has to be very much one step removed, apolitical in everything that we do.

And there are good arguments to be made either way, but it's difficult to find a good argument for saying that people should be excluded from opportunity, paid unfairly and not given the opportunity to progress, and that's what the counter argument sometimes amounts to, if you cut through some of the noise, yeah. We're going to talk about not robots, but Agentic AI.

So, for anyone who's listening who goes still haven't quite worked out what AI is, and now there's a different version of it. Essentially, the easiest way of thinking about Agentic AI would be to say that you could instead of having one AI solution for something, you could apply different AI solutions to different parts of a task or different tasks to improve performance you could have one thing doing a thing and you could have a bot checking that work and you could have the third one making sure the bot checking the work is doing it effectively and essentially, you start replacing tasks or finding different ways to do tasks rather than thinking of it as a broader piece. But Sam Altman, who's the CEO of Open AI, has said that he thinks this year is the first year that we will start having essentially robot agentic employees, the word, employees probably doing quite a bit of work there. I don't know what their terms and conditions will be, or their terms and conditions will be available on the Play Store or the Apple Store. Rather than a kind of signed contract, right? So, resignation will be a difficult one. But there's definitely something there with organisations looking to progress in terms of AI.

There's a couple of stats I'll throw into the mix. We've done some surveys, we'll keep doing them. But we know about a third of organisations where we've asked them, and saying they see AI as a pathway to cost cutting. So, there is a people impact there and we keep talking about augmentation versus replacement, some organisations will take that cost-cutting option. And the second one just getting really niche on the profession actually. If you look at the task that your average HR administrator would do, if you do analysis on that looks like about 40% of those tasks could be quite rapidly automated or a right for automation, and that's got some quite profound implications for people's education experiences. They come through. Trish coming to you first, is half of your organisation already Agentic AI and you're just about to replace it with the rest of it? Or are you starting that journey where are you on it?

PH: I feel like I need to say, is Skynet coming? Because I feel like I'm the only person that's watched The Terminator films and is petrified.

DDS: I mean, it would be awful. If that happened and so again it's not like you weren't warned.

PH: I guess thinking back career-wise, I'm not sure this is a new thing. So, a long time ago I worked for quite a big law firm probably can't say who they were can I, but they were doing this kind of stuff then and it was it kind of ties into the second point that you made and that it was having quite an impact on the way the paralegals were working because the tool that they were using, I can't remember what it was called, it started with K. But it was an AI, a piece of software that would do things like read contracts and that could help get rid of the grunt work for want of a better term, but that's quite essential to people's development. And we had this kind of real conflict between actually we can just pop this through a system but actually we need to train our paralegals and I know before we started we were talking about how that impacts people in HR. So, I'm not sure it's a new thing but I think although kudos to the guy that's mentioning it now. But I'm not sure I see anytime soon anyway, AI replacing people and becoming employees. I know we were talking about the definition of employees, but I think we probably need to change our way of thinking about, is this a tool that can help us rather than be scared of it and something that we think is going to hinder us or take something away from the way that we work?

DDS: Yeah, it's probably worth saying and I'll just before I'll come to you next, Danny, but, there's been a couple of organisations that have already come out, particularly where they're running contact centres, actually, and saying we're significantly reducing numbers because we can believe we can make calls in different ways.

And it's a step on from chatbots and that kind of space. So, it's quite interesting, I think it'll be too your point it'll be very industry specific as well and the speed of embracing it will be interesting. Danny, do you see this as pivotal year or do you see it as noise? They're the only two options, I'm giving you. Danny gets a one-word answer.

DM: Yeah, yeah. The AI conversation as a whole is a really challenging one isn't it because it there is a sense in which AI is both the messiah and the devil at the same time and we take the conversation to extremes really, really, quickly. In our sector, what we're trying to think about is actually how do we root the conversation in AI in what will make a difference to our patients, you know, what is it that the public will benefit from and in some ways, that's continuing the conversation we've been having for many years now about digitisation. You know, how can we make things easier, more effective for patients? The money piece of course is there because there's a limit to what the taxpayer can put into a publicly funded system like ours, but it's that bit, and I appreciate different businesses, different sectors will need to have that conversation about ethics. But for us, it is that, well, how do we root this? How will this make a difference? And also, how do we accept that it, it's not a kind of universal thing, it's not going to touch every bit of our business in the same way.

There are some things that really are worth pursuing. So, you know, a lot of the stuff in our sector is about diagnostics. It is understanding actually, there are some things that technology can do, AI in particular can do, that is as effective if not more effective than people and that benefits patients because it leads to better diagnostics, better treatment. But there are also some things that only a human being can do when we're receiving care. And it's about working that through, and in terms of our HR processes, we're a long way down the road now in terms of digitisation and simplifying things. You know when I first started off in HR, 30 odd years ago actually, the amount of paperwork that came across my desk to be signed. So, all I did was I was signing it. I wasn't learning anything about what I was signing, I was just signing it.

I was a bureaucrat and I was signing it. That wasn't developmental, that was just me signing a form and the fact that's been digitised in the last 30 years has been the right thing. If there are things that we lose developmentally because we've been able to digitise something because it improves the experience for the employee, it improves the process for the organisation. How do we ensure whatever learning there was in that process that we capture it and help professionals as they develop?

DDS: Can I just pick up on that because you made a really good point around, we were talking earlier around fear. I remember reading eight years ago, and I imagine the research is now out of date now that if robots could perform surgery, even if they could do it more effectively than a surgeon or with a greater kind of replicable success rate, people would still prefer to have a human being do it. Like particularly in the sector that you’re working in where health outcomes are so personal, there is that blend of care and confidence whilst also the need for productivity. How's that playing out at a system level? I realise asking you for a punchy answer to all of those things…

DM: A massive question.

PH: And go…

DM: So, one of our kind of think tanks, the Health Foundation have been in a lot of work on this in the last couple of years and actually In terms of staff attitudes, probably about two-thirds can kind of see the benefits in terms of particularly giving them more time to care, you know, relieving them from some tasks. A bit more complex for the public. We already do have certain situations where robots assist surgeon. So, it's a human being but being assisted by a robot for very sort of precise surgery and that's been around for a long time, 20-30 years. We're at the place where I think there are two things in particular, the one is about understanding where it will make a difference, and the second is where it doesn't make a difference and the ultimate judge is there will be our patients. And we've got to work with the public to understand that, that's the first thing.

And the second thing is as with any technology, particularly pharmaceutical technology that we apply in healthcare, we have to evaluate it, we have to make sure that it does improve an outcome for a patient. And the concern is that a lot of the kind of conversation around AI in our industry is based on assumption, AI could do this, it's bound to be better because it's going to be quicker. Well, actually when we trial a new drug, we don't just let a drug company say, I've developed this drug it's bound to be better. We have a process of trailing it and evaluating it.

DDS: Which is very reassuring.

DM: And evidencing that it makes a difference. And actually, the argument is it shouldn't be really that different for AI, for our clinicians, you know, they clearly have a particular responsibility for people's safety and we have to be sure that it is actually going to work that it is going to be effective. And we have well established processes for evaluating treatment and AI should be subject to something similar.

DDS: We can't treat it like it's magic.

DM: No. Exactly.

DDS: Amanda, just can I come to you on something really specific which is…

AA: Of course.

DDS: You spend a lot of time with our students connecting with practitioners coming through. I know you signed up almost immediately for our new mentoring scheme.

AA: I did.

DDS: So, mentoring platform, if you're a CIPD member and you'd like to be mentor please do that. And if you’re an experienced practitioner, honestly it's so rewarding kind of giving back to people at a different stage in their careers. How do you think it's going to impact learning? How different might that experience be from, when you came through the profession initially.

AA: So, it's really interesting, I'm actually going to talk about, I'm as you said I signed up for mentoring pretty much immediately and I wasn't forced to, I was I decided i wanted to do it because i was very fortunate earlier in my career. I had great mentors and you know, it's an opportunity for us to give back. So, as David said if you haven't done it and you can mentor please do sign up, it's a fantastic thing to do. I’ve got three mentees, none of them using AI and we've been having conversations about, one of them's doing a big transformation plan and she's working on stuff, and I said, oh, have you asked AI? Have you looked at AI? Have you put your proposals in? Have you thought about how you might want to do that, just to give you that sounding board to give you that opportunity? And she hadn't, but now she's thinking of. Another one was looking at her plan and her what she wanted to do for her HR plan for the next couple of years. And I was like, well, there's a whole resource out there, you can try these things. So, they’re using it.

The interesting thing for me, I think, for students is we've already seen and people working will have already seen, we're already seeing younger people wanting to move, progress in their careers more quickly than perhaps myself as a Gen X did. I felt I had to do my time to get to a point where we're seeing that there's an ambition and there's hunger, and I love it that you know they want to move forward and want to get, progress more. What's happening with this democratisation of knowledge and this opportunity to get everything really quickly is people think that they're able to do it but that human interaction, they haven't necessarily had. So, they're book smart or they're computer smart, as it might be now rather than book smart, but they haven't necessarily had that interaction with the person.

The other side is from a student's point of view, it's really interesting because the academic institutions are not able to keep up with AI in the same way that AI is. So, in order to check the cheating in order to teach using AI to make sure that they're using the best materials, those academics are going to have to catch up and work with that so that’s going to be a real challenge. There is a risk, if we don’t embrace, if we don’t deal with this potential fear, if we don't find ways of working together, that we're going to remove some of that entry-level work through AI and not replace it with meaningful work for these young people and for people coming into the career.

I don't think there isn't work for them, I think there really is, I think there's opportunities for people, I think there's work for them, and we can find a way of using AI in whichever form we choose to, to support their work and to help them. Because who hasn't had to go through a spreadsheet early in their career with hundreds and hundreds of names and cells and everything in, and actually if you've got tools that can help you do that probably a little more accurately because they're not relying on me not losing my focus and not looking at the wrong thing. Then I can use the output of that get onto good work, then that's got to be a positive thing. What I would encourage everyone listening, and anyone working at a senior level HR, but also those that are perhaps earlier in the career mid-career, don't wait for it to be forced on you. Go and learn about it now. If you are nervous, if you're a member of the CIPD and you're nervous, we actually have an Essential Insights on AI which you get free as part of your CIPD membership.

DM: It's really good.

AA: You go on to our Learning Hub, it's an hour's course, it'll give you a great introduction to AI, and that's a great opportunity. If you are nervous, just have a look at it, but otherwise go and have a play. Open it up in a private browser or a secure browser, go and have a play, give it a try, you never know what might happen. But we've been having this conversation for two years.

DDS: Yeah and what I'd say to people is a couple of things one if you're listening to this in January or February 2025, we'll be in the middle of our focus on AI series.

AA: Yes.

DDS: So, it should be hard to avoid. But go on our website, you'll see all of the assets lined up, including some of the ones Amanda's mentioned. All I'd say to anyone who's got some fear around this in five years' time when you look back, you will not have wanted to pretend that this wasn't happening, that will not have been the optimal strategy for your career  or for your organisation. I think the interesting thing is actually around some of these conversations is what you'll start seeing is more embedding in enterprise tools which means it will be less about or as an individual are you using Chat GPT or are you using something else. You will see this start cropping into the tools that you're using an enterprise level but then that creates a separate challenge actually for kind of smaller organisations.

AA: Although I am seeing lots of adverts on TikTok and other social media, I'm sure, around how these AI is going to help me run my life. And how everything is going to be easier. But I need one that can walk the dog, feed the chickens, do the ironing. I've already got a Roomba, wouldn't be without it. I always think that when I think about robots doing surgery, they're little Roombas going into a body. I love that idea, that's the only way I can vision it, when I think about robots.

DDS: I'm going to draw this bit to a halt just with everyone being left with the clear visual of a hoover for your insides, that seems as the future of the NHS.

PH: I want to know what the chickens are called?

DDS: The chickens are called. I think we'll do a supplementary special episode for anyone who wants to tune in on chicken naming. Final section that we do each time is called, is it a thing? So, we take terminology that's been used on TikTok still available in the US or elsewhere or different platforms and we go look, is this the thing really happening in organisations. And if so, what does it say about the world and the one we're looking at this week is called snitchtagging. And snitchtagging is where organisations or managers within them are increasingly getting called out by employee complaints but on social media, so everyone else can see it. So, you're tagged into a post on LinkedIn saying I had a really poor meeting with my manager today, Steve and this is what he did, can you believe it folks? Or I went for an interview with company X and they treated me like this, isn't it disgusting, rather than that being dealt with as it would do traditionally by people who are taking it up internally and having those kind of conversations. Danny, you're frowning, what's behind the frown Danny? I'm not sure we can turn it upside down but what's behind the frown?

DM: I mean, I'm as David knows, I'm not that up on my tickety face base.

PH: Oh my God, I love that so much. That's the best thing I’ve heard all day.

DM: But two more serious points, what one is you know, clearly things like Glass Door are, have kind of brought a degree of accountability and feedback to ticket candidate experience, you know, that's a healthy thing. There are, as we talked about earlier we need to be better at attracting talent, we know we've got challenges in terms of the diversity of that in all our organisations. There is a feedback loop which is important. There is a second bit which is I think in our sector we haven't had the snitchtagging piece, but we have had I think particularly because we've had periods of really profound dispute between the government and parts of our workforce. We have had debates turn quite toxic quite quickly in a way that's not unique, you know, there is a sort of a there's an element within social media discourse where people do forget themselves. They forget some of the rules of courtesy, they forget they forget the way in which they, the routes that are available for them to raise concerns and they use social media to do it and we all struggle with that. And I guess that you know, there's a risk that the snitch tagging isn't constructive, it's got malice in it, but there's also an opportunity that snitch tagging may well tell us something about our organisations or about the way in which a particular manager manages a process that we do need to know because it doesn't match the standards that we would set.

DDS: Danny is being very humble about his social media presence but if you’d like to connect with him MySpace or I think he's more maybe Bibo or (inaudible).

AA: Yeah, I think it's a really interesting thing so I don't think it's new, I think that if we think about why someone might post a bad experience on social media, often it's for the you OK hun. You OK hun? It's that, it's that they want people to see it they want people to feel it and by tagging a larger organisation, be that complaining about your supermarket because they didn't have the right type of quinoa or whatever it is you're complaining about this week. I’m not, I am looking at David when I'm saying complaining about (inaudible).

DDS: (Inaudible) quinoa issues.

AA: But whether it's that kind of complaining or whether it's I had this experience and this happened. I think the tagging is often to broaden that audience. So, sometimes someone will tag an organisation, or tag an experience, or tag something because they want all their followers to see it, they want to broaden that audience, they want to advertise whatever they've got going on you to the organisation that they're tagging in that. And I think that can be, I'm sharing my experience, so sometimes it's about, I've had this experience, I want people to know about it, I'm sharing it, I'm talking about it, this way. I think also people forget that social media isn't always all your friends, sometimes you're just broadcasting into a void, but there is increasingly people, community has changed, the way we work changed, the way we live changed, who we see has changed and so I am putting it out there, I am saying I’m annoyed whereas previously I might have said it down the pub or I might have said it to a friend on a walk. I'm putting it on social media and it's that two things. So, I don't think it's a new thing, I think it's always happened. We may see a rise of it for employment, but I think that's because most people live their lives online.

DDS: Trish, final thought for me...

PH: I would just like to recant my previous statement, that tickety face was the best thing I've heard. Obviously, it's been a brilliant conversation. It is, I mean, I'm stealing that and I don't know, I just expect people to take accountability and behave in a reasonable way, and sometimes I feel like we've lost that. Do you know what I mean? So, if somebody has wronged you and something poor has happened in the workplace, well cool, you need to do something about it, but let's not shove that all over social media. Go and talk to the person, go and talk to the HR department. If that's not available and if the only thing you can do is put it on social media, great, but I don't know, I just want it'd be lovely for people to just be reasonable.

DM: And you also see a lot on social media which is the kind of thing (inaudible) police stuff often self-generated. Let me post something on social media which is largely about telling you about how great I am or how great my organisation is and we, that can sometimes be a bit icky as well. And the second bit is that we don't often evaluate our recruitment experiences. We tend to focus on the people we employ, understandably. And partly because we might have 100 people who've applied and we don't ask them what their experience was like, we don't go to them and say, actually did we treat you well? Did you have a good interview? Did you have a good experience? And in the absence of that feedback loop, people might feel they've got no choice but to…

AA: Yeah.

DM: For all the reasons Amanda described. They're saying it to their community and the community is bigger than it once used to be.

DDS: So, um I'm going to bring everything to a halt here. The final confession I have to make is that I didn't even really know that quinoa existed until like maybe four years ago, I reckon.

DM: Sure, sure.

DDS: And then I genuinely, I reckon it was probably two years ago that I learned that it wasn't called quinoa. So…

AA: And I'm glad that I brought that into your life.

DDS: Yeah, I’m just being, I'd like to thank our guests today, Trish, thank you very much for coming on for the first time, Danny heading towards the five timer club and you'll all be hearing more of Amanda this year because we're going to rotate the hosting. Thank you all for your thoughts and your inputs. We've got a wealth of resources available to members with the issues that we've talked about today and broader, you'll find our guidance for people professionals and navigating unexpected changes in the world of work on our website, as well as our latest content on AI, which is spoken about today, and a new suite of practical change management tools, which I'm really excited about, so not just telling you to do a thing but helping you understand how to do that thing. And we'll have more and more of those tools rolling out over the year. So, new episodes of this come out every fortnight, and we'll have some more specials this year as well. But other than that, my name is David D’Souza, and this has been the HR People Pod. Take care.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the first episode of the new year 2025 of the CIPD's HR People Pod, a fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession itself and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me today in the studio we have…

Andrea Gordon (AG): My name's Andrea Gordon, I am a HR Director, I've had over 20 years' experience in HR, worked in NHS, education, I was HR Director at the Olympic Park and most recently in housing.

DDS: Fantastic, thank you for joining us. And we also have…

Emma Jayne (EJ): Hello, I'm Emma Jane, I'm the Group People and Culture Director for KYN, a later life living company where I have worked for two years. I have worked in people and culture for 30 years, all in luxury hotels until I moved to the later living care space a couple of years ago.

DDS: All in luxury hotels, that's posh.

EJ: I've been very lucky.

AG: Showing off, showing off.

EJ: Yeah.

DDS: Now, for long time listeners, you will know that what we normally do is we ask our guests what it is that they've been watching or reading at the start of the programme. However, when we were doing the pre-brief for today's show, it became clear that the only thing anyone's been watching has been traitors. So, for anyone who hasn't seen Traitors, it's a show where a group of people, contestants, are locked away in a castle. They have to do tasks together to win money, but they're trying to establish which three people are traitors. So, there are people hidden in the group who are eliminating others each night and which people are faithful. So, they are people that are just trying to find the traitors and banish them before they can get picked off and lose the money that's due to the group. It's catching on like wildfire. There are episodes of it around the world, you can stream it wherever you are and wherever you're listening to it. So, we decided to basically try and change this into a Traitors-themed episode for the entire thing.

We are all faithful in this room. I want to be really clear on that. I'm 100% faithful. There may be some traitorish behaviour as we go through, but that was the general premise. So, I'm going to come to you both to kind of give you general observations around the psychology of it and why you enjoy it and how close to real work is being locked away in a castle. I'm trying to pick off who isn't trustworthy and who is. But it's your first time watching it this year, isn't it?

EJ: Yes, I am new to the traitors. I have been obsessively watching Claudia Winkleman's outfits over the previous seasons, but I haven't managed to persuade my husband who works in IT. It's a very different job to me to watch it, but he caved, and I very quickly become obsessed with it. I think the dynamics of it really do mirror the workplace. Not that we want to be murdering each other. Well, I don't know, maybe, but maybe not. Not that we want to be murdering each other. But I think there's so many lessons to be learned on trust, on observing human behaviour and strategy. I'm literally four episodes in and I can't get enough of it.

AG: Yeah, I've watched all three seasons so far, so I'm a huge Traitors fan. Very keen on looking at, yeah, again, the psychology of how they work. I think even if you're a traitor or a faithful, you have to work together to get the money. So, I think that, you know, really mirrors how we work in the workplace. No matter what team you're in, what department you work in, you have to come together to, you know, achieve that end goal. But yeah, absolutely love it. I would love to be a traitor, I think.

EJ: I think I would as well. Yeah. So, I haven't, oh no, we're not going to talk about last night's episode, are we?

DDS: No, we're not. Just to be really clear, I've had to work a couple of evenings this week. I haven't been able to see all of the episodes. So, I've asked both of the people here with me today not to give away spoilers because it will spoil my entire day as I'm settling down with my daughter to watch it later. So no, let's talk about specific, let's not talk about specific episodes. However, you mentioned trust being a kind of really important part of it.

And I think what's really interesting is how rapidly people come to a conclusion that they can trust people or they can't trust people based on no real information apart from really small signals. And I was just wondering, do you think that's like the workplace or is it a kind of turbo-charged version of that?

EJ: I think it's turbo. But I'm fascinated by this part in particular because I'm new to it. I don't really know what's about to happen, but I was so curious because when they get it wrong, when they vote somebody out, do they reflect on that? Do they refine their practice to say, well, why did we choose him or her? And I haven't got to that stage yet in the programme. So, maybe you can help me because I'm kind of really hoping that they learn and they reflect. And then my husband says, stop being the HR director, just enjoy the programme.

AG: I don't know whether there's that much reflection, more frustration.

DDS: You wouldn't typify it as a learning organisation for anyone who's coming in.

AG: Yeah, I think it's more frustration that they vote out a faithful, they think they've found the traitor, they stand up, they say, no, I'm a faithful and they're really frustrated. I don't think there's much reflection there afterwards. But I think just going back to your point, David, that they're making a lot of these decisions based on very, very small things.

EJ: First impressions.

AG: First impressions. If we think back to business and think back to work and the decisions we make that are evidence-based decisions. Not really much of that goes on in The Traitors. It's, you know, how somebody's looked at somebody across the breakfast table or how they've performed in a challenge and they've got their card marked once somebody's got it in their head that they want to banish them.

DDS: There's a lot of post-rationalisation, isn't there, as well, which you do get in business, which is, I made the wrong decision, however it was right, given the information, I had, or the way that I was thinking about it, or the thing that someone else said to me. It's a really good study in group dynamics. It's a hyper-unrealistic situation, but you see some really strange things that people, you know, similar to sometimes you get, I used to speak to people about recruitment processes and they'd go, I could just tell from their eyes they weren't going to, you know, you could, you could hear that.

EJ: I said that last night in the episode, I was watching the eyes. Yes. So, I'm now doing it myself.

DDS: I assume you don't do that in recruitment processes.

EJ: No, I definitely don't. I definitely don't.

DDS: But it's those kinds of notions that we are just good at telling everything about a person from a small interaction and we discount the context that they're going through or the reasons they might be doing things and look at it through some quite tight lenses. So, there's something about learning around decision-making. There's something, as you kind of both touched on around trust as well. How do you choose how to trust and who to trust and how quickly. In your roles, do you consider it important to, because there are different ways of thinking about trust, defaults to, I will trust you unless you show otherwise, or do you think that trust needs to be earned in organisations?

AG: I think I generally default to, I will trust you. I think you've got to, haven't you really, unless somebody from the outset shows you a reason why, why you couldn’t trust them. But yeah, I think, you know, in business and in organisations, you’re working as part of a team, you trust each other, you support people, expect them to trust you. You know, it’s a matter of, you know, being honest and being open about what you’re feeling. If somebody shows you that you can trust them, then, yeah, I expect them to support you. And that builds that trust. So yeah, I think unless it does get to a point where somebody shows you that they can’t perhaps quite be trusted. My default would be to trust people from the outset.

EJ: I think it's so critical for all leaders, you know, not just us in People and Culture to show that trust to people that are within the organisation, to allow them to feel trusted. It means they can perform better and do better. I think I've definitely experienced times in my career where I've thought, Oh, I think I've broken a bit of trust there and I need to work to get it back but it's made me perform less, I would say.

So, I think you're absolutely right, we should be giving trust until a person may show us something different,

AG: And it just builds learning experiences as well, doesn't it? It's you know really the more you trust people, you know, they're empowered to get on with their job, they can make a mistake and learn from that, and it's all part of the whole sort of trust cycle.

EJ: I think that is really important. They're making a mistake because it happens all the time, it's totally normal, and building that culture to let people know that's OK, you're not going to be blamed, but we're going to reflect and learn, and we're going to move on. I think that is so important.

DDS: Talking openly about those mistakes as well. So, one of the things that happens on Traitors it's quite often because people want to, if they have made a mistake, they're really open about talking about it because they want other people to understand why it was that they created that situation. Potentially, it's important for them because the judgment happens the very next day. But just in organisations, there's a same thing that happens in Traitors, to a degree, which is you're working with people who've got a combination of commitment to an organisational goal, commitment to rewards for themselves, but also with a value set that might be slightly different to your own. And there's an interplay between those three things.

And quite often, one of the things you're trying to do is work out from the people around you what they're leaning into. So, some people it's just you want to get on with my career, other people are you know proper, you know dedicated to the company, and then you've got people I guess with some very hard value sets and principles, and some people who are maybe a bit more fluid. What do you favour in your organisations or where you've worked with because I think it's possible for any of those types of people to be a success in an organisation, there's always a blend, but do you think that those people are kind of more focused on the organisation are useful? Is it the people that actually really want to get on as long as you point them in the right direction or is it a combination of things?

AG: I think it's a combination of things, actually. I think you know within every organisation, every team, you've got those people who come in, they're very values-driven, they're very ambitious, they want to get ahead in the organisation or their profession, whatever it might be, whether it's HR or finance or they've got a passion for that sector, you know. Whether it's health or education or whatever it might be, and then you've also got people who, you know, want to come into work, do that job, yes, they might be aligned with the values of the organisation as well, but they might not just have that same ethos. But I think you know if every organisation, everybody was that ambitious and trying to you know grapple their way to the top, then that just wouldn't work. You need that balance of the sort of different types of colleagues within teams and organizations.

DDS: You don't want people murdering each other

AG: You don't want people no, you don't want people murdering each other trying to banish each other along the way so they can get to the top.

EJ: Where I've had success with this is sort of accepting that people all have different motivations, where I've had success is recruiting for the values of the company. So, making sure your recruitment process, your hiring managers are all fully trained on how to understand if a candidate fits your organisational values. Then, of course, it's a competence side, they need to be able to do the job as well, that's quite important isn't it? But I've seen that most successfully trying to marry those two things together and then just accepting there are people that will come in at 9 and leave at 5, is absolutely fine and then there are other people that want to climb the ladder, and you need you need them all you need all of those types of people in your organisation.

DDS: I think the formation of subgroups is a really interesting thing, so you quite often get those tight groups of three or four people.

EJ: Yes.

DDS: And they are utterly confident that they are thinking about things in the right way, they're confident that actually everyone people in that group have got the right ideas and the right values, and therefore the problem is a threat elsewhere and I think that you quite often get that fragmentation in…

EJ: You do.

DDS: In organisations, even within broader groups. So, it might be that you've got 10 or 12 people on a leadership team, or it might be that you've got different teams that kind of come together. And I think you see some of that playing out and how quickly it happens as well.

EJ: The subgroups worry me because I feel that their narrative then becomes their reality, and it's not necessarily aligned with the overall goals of the organisation. So, that bit in the current episode we're seeing that start to form now, and it does make yeah, it worries my little HR heart when I watch it in the evenings.

AG: Because I think what's interesting in the Traitors without wanting to give away any spoilers from last night's episode, David is yeah, once you've got those groups formed and all those subgroups, that narrative does start to move in a different direction and it can quite quickly sort of flip from one person being the traitor to you know, coming round the round table full circle to now it's Jim over here he's now the traitor, and everybody follows, and actually nobody thought that originally. So, I think when you get those subgroups, it's just being mindful of the narrative that they are creating. It's the same within organisations and employee engagement, and the narrative that different groups or different colleagues in the organisation or leaders in the organisation create. And actually, you know, thinking about whether that is the right thing to do or it is the right message.

DDS: Yeah. And how people develop sources of power just through conversation, just through relationships and exposure, because you've got a group of people throwing together, and then within three or four days, you've got leaders emerging from those groups, and people saying no, you know, I trust them or not, and there's suspicion over those leaders or there’s trust, and all of that happens I won’t say organically because it’s such a, it’s such a forced premise, but it’s very human in terms of things that are happening.

We’re going to move on to talking about the economy however, as long as there aren’t spoilers, and I can feel people kind of dodging around it, and I really appreciate that. The problem is, we can edit it out from the broadcast, we can’t edit it out for my memory, and that’s the thing. I’m going to talk more broadly about economic conditions, so in lots of parts of the world at the moment, there are either choppy economic conditions or uncertain. In the UK, there's been some recent reports that have suggested that business certainty is not where it would ideally be as we head into a new year, and there are a number of reasons for that, some of which are related to people costs. So, changes in national insurance, and challenges as well in terms of the labour market at large, in terms of access to skills. So, businesses have been quite vocal about the fact that it may be a very difficult year coming up and there are difficult choices that they may have to make.

At the CIPD, we pulled together a group of probably about 20 or 30 CPOs, HRDs at the start of the week and spoke to them about what was high up on their agenda for the coming year, and this was a framing for it. Equally, we've got some more data that will come out and we'll keep providing you throughout the year around confidence in hiring and things like that, but I just wanted to open up a conversation, I guess initially, around what are the messages that organisations should be sending out. So, how are you honest with the people, but also don't, I suppose, the old version of the world would be don't speak to the horses, I think is probably what would have been used at the start of my career. So, how do you have openness and transparency in organisations whilst also giving people confidence? And then I want to talk a little bit about actually the impact on skills and lead, how do you lead through this, but also how do you build skills in an organisation over time, when it can be quite difficult to hold on to people, or you have to really look after potentially a smaller group of people than you would have done prior.

AG: Yeah, I think it's I think it is important to communicate to colleagues about the impact of any change. So, whether that be, you know, national insurance contribution and cost pressures around that. You know, we're at the time of year now where everybody is budgeting, they're doing their huge, big exercise that everybody loves, working out all their budgets for next year. So, everybody will have calculated those NI changes into their budgets for next year. I do think it is important to just update colleagues, you know, you don't have to go into too much detail with vermin and you know, bore them to death with numbers, but I think if organisations aren't transparent with colleagues, they will make up their own narrative about what the impact is going to be. Whether that's you know, cut in learning budgets or a redundancy or whatever it might be. So, I think you know chief execs or whoever in the organisation, I think it's really important for them to be transparent with colleagues but actually do it in a sort of really digestible way. Depending on the size of organisations, you have colleagues who are out there on the front line sometimes maybe in the NHS or in in housing for example, and you have other colleagues who are office-based and you know, those are the ones that will probably see leaders maybe more often than others. So, I think however, you do it, it's a range of different communications so that everybody understands but do it in a really sort of digestible easy way and just make sure you're giving that reassurance to colleagues.

DDS: It's about developing that sense of shared purpose as well isn't it? So, it's not the organisation is trying to do this and it might have an impact on you, it's actually, you know we all need to be conscious of costs, yes, we all need to be focused on the opportunity because you know, we kind of succeed or fail together.

EJ: Yeah I mean businesses have been left with some really tricky decisions to make this year and I think you're absolutely right all of us need to get hold of the narrative very, very, quickly because otherwise people will start to make up their own narrative which will lead to well just won't lead to good things.

My background in hotels there is always something in every year that really impacts the economy and affects travel and tourism as well. So, I learned some hard lessons very early on about transparent communication about speaking to, what communication means to each level of employee. But how out of a really tricky situation you can garner loyalty and employees that will stay with you for a long time, if you bring them on that journey with you, speak to them in their language about what these cost reductions might mean for them, and often you know, what, well, always in fact these employees are at the coalface if you like every day. So, they are going to have the best ideas of how we could maybe save some money do things a bit differently make make efficiencies. I was also thinking about Covid which was a very long time ago now but the different ways we had to be so creative with communication and we couldn't get to each other, we had to do it all through we had to do it all digitally. So, we are used to doing this. Luckily, now we can be together to have these conversations and to communicate. So, it's not something new but it needs a lot of thought because if you get it wrong it can be really devastating.

DDS: Like you said the business impacts of getting it wrong-yes, loss of talent, risk to performance, loss of alignment, missed opportunity are really significant aren't they?

EJ: Yes.

DDS: So, you know pressure comes into that system how you react to that and whether that shapes better outcomes or whether that pushes us into a worse place and people start panicking or people start checking out.

AG: I think that's a good point there about engaging colleagues in that discussion and asking for ideas, it just sort of fosters a sense of joint responsibility doesn't it. And you mentioned David at the start, that during the communication it's, you know, our budgets are tight, we have to make savings, and I think if everybody has that shared sense of responsibility, it just feels a little bit easier and it's not a message that's coming down from the top, that this is what we're doing to you sort of thing.

DDS: So, one of the things that no one's thinking about in Traitors is, I think I'm on a relatively safe work here which is long-term strategic workforce planning. So, it just doesn't come up much, they might think about…

AG: Well, they are David because last night they were advertising for people for next season, that's long-term workforce planning.

DDS: I'll let you get away with that without it being a spoiler. I was panicking for a moment but no one's really thinking beyond two weeks. And one of the problems I think when organisations and us as people are under pressure is that our planning horizon tends to shrink and we tend to look at the immediate problem but not the ramifications. We know that from our surveys of members in the profession, one of the things that organisations are most concerned about is quality of leadership and management skills just because of the challenges that we have at the moment, how, because that is going to be your key for getting the most from people that's a long-term challenge together with investment in people's development. How do you have the conversations in an organisation where money's tight to show that actually we need to keep investing in learning and development of our people. Otherwise actually there's a long-term impact to that. It's tricky because people are looking to save money it's often said that's one of the first areas to be cut but actually, what's really interesting I think from recent conversations is, it's the first time I'm speaking to people and they're going, that's the thing that we need to protect.

EJ: I don't think a lot of employee retention strategies and learning and development initiatives need to cost money. It's so true what you're saying. We can be so short-termist, can't we, when we're faced with a big problem. But actually, we've got to think that the world is going to carry on and we need to think about our businesses and protecting the future. There's so much talent within organisations that I think is under leveraged to grow teams.

And you know, my strength might not be our CFO's strength and our managing director's strength, but actually, what could we do to have conversations with leaders? Again, reinforcing values, what's important right now. We have quite a young leadership team within our homes and they've never seen stuff like this before and they tend to shy away from it. So, I think we've all been around the block a few times. I apologise to my colleagues for saying that. And, you know, we've got that experience that we can impart to them. That does not have to cost money. That's maybe a cup of coffee and a conversation and some coaching. And I think senior leadership has got a big responsibility to think about how they could deliver that, and to help that.

DDS: Yeah, you know, I've said to a few people over the last few years, if you can't afford upper quartile pay, and many organisations can't, it doesn't mean you can't afford upper quartile care and investment in terms of time and emphasis on people. But I know you, Andrea, you've done a lot in terms of long-term planning for people and pieces I know in recent roles. I was wondering if you could kind of bring that to life for people.

AG: Yeah, so at PBD as an association, and I guess, you know, this is something maybe people can think about if, as you say, the first thing people look at is a cut in L&D budgets. And I think in most organisations I've worked in, that's probably been the case at some point in the past. But at PBD during the recent merge, I say recent, a couple of years ago now with Catalyst Housing, I wanted to take a little bit of a different approach and look at how we could deliver learning and development on a more cost-effective basis. So, I'm sure many organisations are in the same boat. They have an apprenticeship levy, which they don't fully utilise. I think we were losing about 40k a month, something like that in levy. You know, we did use it. We have people doing MBAs through the apprenticeship levy. We had apprentices that we brought in, but not in big cohorts, but we were losing a lot of money. And obviously, post-merger, you have to make savings. That's the point of most mergers. So, I established the PDB. So, PBD became an employer provider, Ofsted-regulated academy, which means that PBD now employs tutors or teachers directly, and they directly deliver the apprenticeships.

So, instead of colleagues going off for one day a week to college or to an FE provider for their off-the-job training, they just stay in PBD and do it. So, not only is that sort of more cost-effective, it creates a sort of a more or less cost-neutral model. It's much more flexible. It creates much more flexibility. You know, they don't have to go off for one day. They can do their off-the-job learning through maybe, I know we were talking earlier about inductions that could be counted towards their off-the-job learning. It could be something like a toolbox talk if you work in property services. So, it creates much more flexibility and a much more cost-effective model. So, I think organisations now, if they are finding that L&D budgets are being cut, one of the things to look at is how can they better use their apprenticeship levy? And obviously, I think we were talking the other day, David, saying that we know that there are. There are changes coming down the line through the whole sort of apprenticeship framework. And I would really welcome that because I think it's a little bit too rigid at the moment. I don't think you have the flexibility within how apprenticeships are set up to be able to use the levy in the best way. So, I think that would be one to watch over the next few months or so.

DDS: Yeah, completely. I'm pleased to keep following the CIPD's channels for kind of our position on the levy and updates on how it's changing. And I think what's really important for us, because there'll be organisations potentially listening to that who go, that's a great idea. Maybe we could do that. And there'll be other organisations going, that's a size and scale that we're not close to.

AG: Yes, yeah.

DDS: But what's at the heart of that is not going, there's a cost challenge. So, therefore that goes, we're going, there's a cost challenge. How do we think differently to preserve and continue that investment in people over time? We're going to move on to a section that we call, is it a thing?

So, we do it on a regular basis and we take a terminology that's been used out in the world quite often on TikTok, does tend to be on TikTok actually. And we say, look, is this a real thing happening in organisations? And the one we're looking at this week is the deceptive practice of corporate catfishing. So, that's where a company misrepresents its corporate culture or identity to potential job candidates, creating a gap between the image of the work environment they project and the reality within the organisation. So, we make it look like it's brilliant to work here. And then you turn up on your first day. And actually, it's a modern hell, it’s that isn’t it? So, question to both of you, is it a thing? Is the enduring question, but also I guess there's a bit for me and we talked about it briefly before we started. Probably every organisation doesn't put its worst side. I see it look like front and centre when it's trying to attract candidates. You never see a come work here, competitive rates of pay. But also. we had a really bad incident that happened last September because one, you hope that those incidents will never be repeated. But secondly, you are trying to attract people in to come and work for you. So, question to both of you, is it a thing? But also, how catfishy would you need to be for it to be a catfish? Is the really clear question that I'm asking.

AG: To be honest, I'd never thought about it before we were sent these sort of topics. But I guess you've got platforms now like Glassdoor and obviously LinkedIn where organisation, particularly on LinkedIn, organisations have their sort of corporate pages and they're posting their stories and their culture and their message and photos and all that. So, if you are going to a certain organisation, being interviewed for a role, you do your research and you look at all that. And obviously that's all going to be positive. Glassdoor, you may again do your research. And you could find some things on there that are positive or maybe not so positive. And those are from people who've maybe still worked there or have worked there in the past. I think, as you said, David, it's, you know, you're not going to advertise a role and in your advert say, you know, we got a 20% score on the engagement survey this year for, you know, transparency or whatever it might be.

So, I don't know whether organisations deliberately do it. I suspect there is a little bit of maybe embellishing the truth sometimes in interviews. But I think by the same token, as we were sort of saying before, that depending on what level role you're applying for in an organisation, if you're applying for a senior role, a director or, you know, an executive team member or chief executive and you're going for an interview, you do expect whoever is interviewing you, be it, you know, chief executive or whoever, to talk to you about challenges that are happening in the organisation, because if you're going for a senior role, you might be going in to fix something. Whereas, you know, if you're coming in at a more junior level, you wouldn't expect to get that level of detail in an interview.

DDS: Yeah. And quite often the senior roles, the job advert would read, going through an exciting period of change or something like that, wouldn't it? Kind of, you get to recognise the language and go, OK, so they didn't make any money last year. So, what's going to happen next?

EJ: Yes. I think corporate catfishing is a thing. And I think we are all doing it, even though we don't mean to. And we're doing it with the best of intentions. But actually, the extreme outcome could be making a hire that you just lose trust with immediately because you've sold them the dream and that's not the reality. So, I had to Google catfishing and the two teenagers in my house helped me with this as well. And then on reflection, I realised that I've done it twice myself. In the last couple of years at my new company.

DDS: So, you're a serial catfisher.

EJ: Yes, I am.

DDS: So, this podcast is no longer a Traitor specialist. It's now called Confessions of a Serial Catfisher.

EJ: With the best of intentions. So, since I joined the company I work for, we've opened up two later living care homes. And we had a huge lessons learned from the first one. We really sold the candidates on the dream that we were new to the sector. We're very lucky. We have a lot of capital behind us, and we're trying to do something very, very different that the sector hasn't seen before.

But what we forgot to tell them was that when they joined us, actually, the home wouldn't be opening for a couple of weeks. And they would be part of the team that would help us get everything ready. And then very slowly, we would build up the resident community. So, this was a disaster because I'd forgotten to tell them that they wouldn't be able to come in and do what they do best every day. And I really believe that people's number one thing that they want to get out of their work is to be able to deliver meaningful work. And I wasn't allowing them to do that because often they weren't working in their job roles. So, when we came to open our second home, we had very honest conversations with the team and a few people selected themselves out. It's not what they wanted to do. They didn't like the sound of the unpredictable environment and they just wanted to come and give care, which was their passion. So, retention was much better in home number two because they knew what they were going to be coming into. And as the resident community builds, I see them all really coming to light because they're so excited to welcome residents and to care for them. And then I, my second, oh I feel terrible. My second…

DDS: I'm on the edge of my seat. This is shocking.

EJ: Well, I know my second misdemeanour was around induction. When I joined the company, I was asked to put together an induction to really bring the company's values to life. And it's just two things I'm really passionate about, L&D and culture and values. So, I was on cloud nine. I felt like Willy Wonka. And unfortunately, I did create a dream of the chocolate factory and we had a really wonderful induction that we got super feedback on so, I was delighted. But when I went to check in on those employees at the end of week one, week two, and I would say to them, you know, how is it going? How is your training going? Do you do you feel happy? They would say, no, Emma, I don't. This is just not how I thought it would be. And I just thought, oh, my goodness, this is a disaster. What have I done? Anyway, I realised it wasn't a disaster.

I unfortunately had forgotten to tell them about the reality of day-to-day coming into an operating business and that they have got their beautiful orientation and their hundred day learning journey. But actually, they're going to be many days in the week where that will be interrupted because something will happen. However, there will be a learning opportunity within that. And I'm saying this out loud now thinking, what was I thinking? But actually, we've changed the orientation now. And the recent cohorts that have come in are much happier because we've sort of told them how the reality will be. So, I feel much better now. I feel like I've absolved myself.

DDS: Yeah. I mean, it is that middling piece where you are open enough and honest enough to show, it's a good possibility. That's what tells me you're not a traitor. But that's kind of the bit where I go, you know, you're not trying too hard, I think is kind of part of that. So, we're going to close this episode here. Thank you so much for your time and expertise. And have you got any final thoughts just before we stop on Traitors that have come up as we've gone through or any tips or things that people should be watching for as professionals as it progresses?

EJ: Yeah, I think I've gone too deep on my expectations of it because they don't have a common purpose, the faithful and the traitors. So, there's never going to be a happy ending. Sorry, this is just dawned on me whilst we were talking. So, I know I'm not happy about this now because what's going to happen? Well, you know, you know more than me what's going to happen. But it's made me realise that common purpose is so important, isn't it? And they don't they just don't have a common purpose.

DDS: So, we're watching traitors and we're thinking it's a lack of strategic alignment from you is one of the takeaways. So, yeah, very business focused.

AG: Yeah, I think I agree sometimes lack of strategic alignment, although ideally they should be all working towards a common purpose, which is about £120,000, I think. But yeah, I think some of the things we've spoken about around like communication and not making early judgments, transparency, all that sort of aligns with business. I think I will be eagerly watching over the next few days to see how it all pans out.

DDS: Yeah, definitely. The OD practitioner in me also, I'm fascinated by the prevalence and power of stories in it. The ability for people to weave a narrative, saying I saw that and therefore maybe that means that, and then if I put that together with that thing and then people's ability to sell that to other people in a short amount of time. I think that tells us a lot about the dynamics of an organisation day-to-day where people are filling in those gaps. And to the point that both of you have been made, that's why that openness and communication is so important. So, thank you so much for coming in. I look forward to next time you coming in as well. And thank you so much for allowing me an evening with my daughter watching three episodes without me having to sit there pretending I don't know what's going on. So, all that's left to say is thank you very much for your time. There's more detail on everything that we've spoken about today, actually, bar Traitors, if I'm being honest, on the CIPD's website, which we've improved the accessibility of in terms of discovery over the last few months. I also wanted to give a shout out to we've got a new mentoring scheme. And I know that Andrea has signed up as a mentor for us. If you would like to sign up as we go through some challenging times to help the next generation of the profession understand what's going on, enhance their skills and do that piece that we talked about long term planning, then please do make contact with us and sign up for it. It's painless, but it's entirely beneficial for the members that you'll be supporting.

We publish new episodes of this every fortnight. It's on YouTube as well now, so you can watch it if that's your preference. I was ill over Christmas. I do look this pale. So, you don't need to adjust any settings if you've been watching in that case. But otherwise, my name is David D'Souza and this has been the CIPD's HR People pod. Thank you very much.

David D'Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on the world of work impacting the profession. My name is David D'Souza. I am Director of Profession at the CIPD. And joining me in the studio today we have…

Laura Callahan (LC): Laura Callahan from Willow HR Consulting,

Bruce Daisley (BD): Bruce Daisley, Workplace Culture Consultant.

Garin Rouch (GR): Garin Rouch, Organisation Development Consultant and a lot of things for the CIPD as well.

DDS: A lot of things for the CIPD. And Bruce, you obviously also have your own podcast as well.

BD: Yeah, yeah, that's right. I jettisoned a career in tech, working at Twitter before that guy, and did a podcast called Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat.

DDS: If you haven't listened to it, well worth a listen. It's humiliating enough having people more qualified than me talking about HR but having someone also who's better at hosting a podcast in this is just really the team doing my dirty in the run-up to Christmas. So, before we kick off today, I just wanted to do something a little bit different, which is we've seen a number of stories in the press recently about the value of HR. And I wanted to get an instinctive kind of view from you as to how it feels when you see that type of thing appearing. There's been a framing of HR as running a shadow empire, which gives us an incredible amount of power. Actually, when you think about it, we should probably use that in slightly different ways. But when you see that, how does it feel? We're going to come back and we're going to do a special in the new year. But Laura, if I come to you first.

LC: How it feels for me is I don't think there's a great understanding of what HR is actually there to do. And a misunderstanding as to whether what our purpose in an organisation is.

BD: Yeah, I think it demonstrates that there's clearly a lot of more perceived power of HR and other people inside organisations are a bit threatened by that. So, I think it demonstrates firstly that HR themes and people themes are on the rise. And the question then becomes, how can these themes be owned across organisations rather than just felt like it's a fiefdom of HR, I think.

I just think, oh, HR is getting dragged into the culture war. Potentially, it's a really good opportunity for us as a profession to step up and really sort of go about how we are evidence-based and we do make a significant impact. I guess if we are being painted as the evil empire, then I guess the CIPD is the Death Star. So, what can the CIPD do to try and put this right, to really sort of state the case for HR, to really sort of say that it does create value. And the way it's grown is a reflection of how our organisations have become more complex as well.

LC: And how culture has changed and people's expectations of what they receive at work. It's not that transactional, I work, I receive pay anymore. We've got far greater expectations of how you need to protect my wellbeing. You need to give me a future. You need to invest in me. If I'm investing in you, you invest in me. So, those reciprocal relationships are far, much more on the agenda than they ever have been before.

BD: Yeah.

DDS: So, at the CIPD, I can assure people that what we don't do is plot which planets we'd like to destroy to make sure that we rule with fear. But one of the things that I think it is very much our job to do is to continue to make the case for the profession and the value it adds, the complexity of the work, and the expertise that's needed to do that. So, we're going to come back to that in the new year, but I just want people to know, one, that we're aware that that is happening. And secondly, that we are absolutely confident in the work that you do and the way it's approached. But we have a special guest today joining us as well, which is Lizzie Crowley, who's our skills advisor at the CIPD. I'm going to talk a little bit in depth about reports, but Lizzie, you're also going to be the first person that I come to, to ask what's going to be your choice of Christmas movie this year? What's the one that you're really looking forward to watching?

Lizzie Crowley: Oh, Die Hard, maybe. I mean, there's a big debate about whether it is a Christmas movie, but you know, I used to strongly (inaudible) off down the side that it is.

DDS: So, first of all, there isn't a debate about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

BD: Controversial.

DDS: There's a group of people who haven't yet recognised it and they need educating, but I don't think there's a debate around that. So, one vote for Die Hard.

GR: I'm the father of two young girls, six and three, so it's Frozen all the way, followed by every other Christmas movie you can think of.

BD: I've never seen Elf.

DDS: You've never seen Elf?

BD: Never seen Elf. And every year, I say to myself, I'm going to watch Elf this year. And I never do. I never get around to watching Elf. Would you recommend?

DDS: It's pure joy.

BD: I can't stand that guy.

DDS: It's pure, pure joy. So, I came into this with a lot of respect for you Bruce, but he's almost dissipated.

BD: Do you like Will Ferrell, though? There's something about him that proper, like, least trust levels of disdain. I cannot stand that guy.

GR: So, it's just magical. And I would suggest, like, if you've got any joy. If you've got any joy in your heart, then watching it, you should do, because it is a perfect vehicle for him not to engender your disdain, but for you to, like, kind of fish out of water. It's amazing.

BD: OK. This year's the year.

DDS: Right. Elf, Die Hard, Frozen, and?

LC: I also have never seen Elf. So, yeah, I don't have the same level of disdain for Will Ferrell. However, I've never taken an opportunity to watch it.

BD: Let's do it this year.

LC: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I commit, I also commit to watching Elf, but Home Alone has definitely got to be at the top of our list. My son loves to see people hurt themselves and cause great pain. So, yeah, we find that hilarious.

DDS: Lizzie, at the end of November, the government published the Get Britain Working white paper outlining a range of proposals to reform employment, health and skills support in the UK. The goal is to address economic inactivity, productivity, and quality of work. But one of the key focus points is around young people. And I know that we've just released a report, and you're the brains behind it. I wanted to give you a chance to talk about some of the things that we've discovered in that report and then give people a chance to discuss actually what they think the implications are for workplaces. So, if you could give us some highlights, that'd be amazing.

Lizzie Crowley: Well, I think kind of one of the biggest things that we found looking at changes in the youth labour market over the last 20 to 30 years has been the massive decline in the proportion of young people who combine education and employment. So, although we've got greater and rising levels of economic inactivity amongst young people who are outside of the labour market, it is actually the large collapse in the proportion of young people who combine earning and learning that is driving the collapse in employment rates amongst young people. We also sort of identified that actually, although there's a real need for a strong alternative pathway to the higher education system, just 6% of young people, are in an apprenticeship now, participating in one, and that's the same figure as 20 years ago. So, although we kind of welcome the government's announcements to provide additional support or coordinated offer for 18 to 21 year olds, we feel that there needs to be a much bolder action to unlock apprenticeship opportunities for young people via an apprenticeship guarantee is one of the things we're calling for.

DDS: I mean, that's a remarkable start, isn't it? Now you're shifting the number of people doing apprenticeships, the percentage of people, I imagine, over the last 20 years. Any thoughts on what else should be done or how this is playing out in organisations?

BD: I'm a big fan of micro measures like this. I think genuinely they work. It's really interestingly, as I was on my way in, all of this is in service of that 9 million economically inactive people and these, I think, about 2.5 million people on long-term sick. Today, John Byrne Murdoch from the FT, who's becoming a national treasurer actually for the way he uses data and analysis, has published an analysis saying he thinks the number is substantially overcounted. And he says for two reasons. He says, firstly, it draws from the, I think, the GB Labour Force survey. And he says that data, the response rates are falling very strongly over the course of the last few years. He makes a comparison to the UK household longitudinal study. And he said, if you take that economic activity is about the same as 2019. He says, in combination with that, the incentive to be signed off unemployment benefit and onto incapacity benefit has increased because the assessment has gone online only in the last few years. So, people are filling out a form, they're getting the form online and they're getting more money. He says, effectively, if you address that, this economic inactivity will turn out to be a mirage. So, it's an interesting thing. I'm strongly in favour of these youth schemes, but I suspect the sort of the national anxiety that we've got, maybe it's a statistical aberration rather than necessarily a societal one.

DDS: And there's quite a few interesting pieces at the moment around the reliability of stats at that labour force level, aren't there? But I think it's really interesting is that you would always want to increase economic activity. That's potentially slightly different to those measures of economic inactivity, isn't it? So, definitely the diagnosis, you can have questions over that, but intent, probably always pushed towards.

GR: Yeah, I think the fact that it's still obviously Bruce's numbers, you know, it's good that we're challenging the numbers before we even start coming up with solutions for it as well. I think there's a lot of very smart people with very big budgets that have tried to shift that number before from 6% and it's continually failed. And if you do look at other countries like Switzerland, where it's like two-thirds of the youth are actually in apprenticeships, there's a huge number. So, it just, the model does work.

I think if you actually look inside organisations about what happens, we just have to think about, you know, it's the talent operating model. So, what is it that we're doing when we're bringing apprenticeships on board? We've got to develop them. And I think part of the challenges and the challenge for HR is that we're not geared up to develop raw talent at scale. And often, you know, I sort of speak to quite a few HR people, and a lot of the apprenticeship schemes, it's so variable, the quality, some are excellent, some are negligent, you know, seeing a sort of cheap pair of hands and sort of deposited into a team and left, not rotated or looked after. And also, there's so many managers, you know, that are accidental managers, you know, they're not ready to be or not, you know, ready to actually develop and really know what's required to actually develop people through as well. So, I think there's a lot to be done. It's one of those things, it's such a big problem. It's a systemic problem. There's not going to be one silver bullet that actually moves this. It's going to be a whole aggregate buildup of different solutions.

LC: Within my consultancy, we predominantly deal with businesses that don't have HR teams. And so, they're absolutely terrified to bring in somebody who requires such structured learning because they don't feel as though they've had the skills themselves to support them, nor the time and the resources to do that. So, for them, it's there's a fear factor over, can I actually deliver what this person needs? So, the thought of that, that structured environment that they don't have anyone internally that can be providing. they don't have the resources to do that. So, there is definitely a fear within the SMEs that don't have HR teams.

GR: Yeah. And I don't, and this is an opportunity to do generation bashing either. Like we look at the new generation coming through, you know, I came through and I worked and studied at the same time. And yet I cost my organisation a huge amount because I couldn't work a fax machine and kept sending through blank copies of a contract. So, there's no guarantee of quality in there, but I think it's just like giving people the right environment to actually excel and develop but giving them the time to do it as well.

DDS: Lizzie, if we kind of conclude this section, not on fax machines, but on kind of calls to government, first of all, I'd urge everyone to go and have a look at the paper if you're interested in this. If you are interested in the problems and a proper diagnosis of it and feedback on it and structured thinking, please do have a look. But what would you, your kind of key takeaways for people be and the calls that we're making?

Lizzie Crowley: Well, I think kind of one of the big things is we need to ensure that young people are actually building the skills employers highly value when they're in the education system. That means giving them opportunities to you know, trial and test out ways for instance of teamwork, problem-solving and building their communication skills. We don’t focus on that currently enough within the education system and that will improve the transition into employment. Secondly, we need to really unlock more apprenticeship opportunities for young people. On this area, we feel that there should be wage incentives and additional wrap-around support for SMEs in particular to overcome some of those barriers. That there were already highlighted in the segment. And thirdly, as a way to boost that is to introduce an apprenticeship guarantee for all young people, age 16 to 24, to really boost that pathway and create a viable alternative to the university route.

DDS: Perfect. Lizzie, thank you so much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it.

Lizzie Crowley: Thanks.

DDS: Moving on, we're going to take a moment to look at the trends, challenges, and opportunities that shape the year ahead. So, we're coming to the end of this year. It's been a rollercoaster, lots going on, but there have been shifts in technology, there's been shifts in politics, there's been shifts in geopolitics. There's a whole range of things that have been happening. As we look into 2025, which feels like it's the future, and technically is for a few more weeks, I guess. As we look into 2025, if you kind of like peer into crystal ball, what do you see kind of as challenges, opportunities, and things we need to be looking at?

LC: My view is really prioritising the employee experience, because recently on a panel discussion within the private sector industry, it's not all about the money anymore. It's about the money, but it's not all about the money. So, we've got to be looking at what is it that people are wanting and needing and looking for from their employers in order to attract great talent and retain them. So, we need to be looking far more at things such as having great development plans, individual conversations about mutually beneficial experiences, and coming away from just thinking about our remuneration packages and how we're rewarding people in that way. I'm seeing that the fantastic companies that are doing great things and achieving great things are focusing more around the employee experience. And especially considering we're seeing budgets getting cut, everything's becoming more expensive and costs to employ people get higher and higher. It's a great opportunity to be looking at these things that perhaps take more resource, but aren't about kind of benefits, schemes, and just what you can pay people. So that's far more important.

DDS: And there's a piece there very much just joining up to what was discussed earlier, isn't there, around management capability as well. So, you may not be able to pay upper quartile, but if you can give people upper quartile, leadership, management and development support, that's one attractive, but secondly, that's growing your capability over time as well.

LC: And the way I describe it really simply is to say like, right, this is what I need you to achieve. These are the things that I need you to deliver. What do you want out of me? How can we make this worthwhile for you? And people will stick around for far longer if they feel as though that person understands what I'm looking for and I'm delivering something for them and they're delivering something for me. I'm getting something out of it. You'll hang on to people for far, far longer in that way.

BD: I think I fully agree with that. The work to some extent has, for some people is feeling transactional and, you know, amongst people's friends, they say, oh yeah, the culture's not the same. The experience here isn't the same. So, organisations that can elevate themselves from that will get a strong word of mouth and will get a strong employee experience. I spent a little while last week going through hundreds of trend decks or certainly dozens of trend decks. And the things that come out, firstly, yellow is going to have a massive year next year.

DDS: The Coldplay single or the colour?

BD: People are saying yellow is too basic. No way, but yellow is going to have a massive year. But secondly, one of the things that comes out in the trend decks is the leadership discourse about AI is creating some frustration with employees because a lot of employees feel like AI is being talked about, but we've got no strategy inside our organisation. I think in the last 12 months, we have seen organisations break out like Klarna said that they replaced 700 employees with AI. And those stories I think are going to become more and more common that if we're looking and the grass is greener on the other side, there's going to be more organisations saying actually now they're getting strategic benefit from AI and it will make the organisations that are still trying to work it out feel a bit more flat-footed. So, I think big differentiators are going to be culture and employee experience and organisations who are meaningfully making a benefit from AI because most won't be.

DDS: And that AI point is a really interesting one. We will be doing quite a lot of work, You'll see it's January, February, March, we've got a concerted kind of focus on it. But the AI one is really interesting because people quite often their experience of using it is individual.  But what the impact will be in organisations will be quite often be part of an enterprise roadmap, won't it, rather than that. So, it will be, we're changing our entire contact centre approach due to this rather than we're going to give you access to chat GPT and that's what's going to change your world.

BD: I see it as the BitTorrent era of AI. And what I mean by that is, of course, I wouldn't want to talk about illegality, but there are a lot of people who downloaded movies and music illegally via BitTorrent and it's quite popular, but you were self-taught because it was quite esoteric. It was quite complex to do it. And so, if you invested the time, there was a meaningful bounty. It was not a mainstream product. When Spotify came along, when Apple Music, when Netflix came along, it made these things very easy. They were very easily packaged and we could get the benefit with one click, a little search. We're not yet at that Spotify, Netflix era. We're still at the BitTorrent era where for illustration, 99% of college students are using AI. Why? Because the gap between the personal benefit to them and the effort being put in is definitely worthwhile. In organisations, I did some work with a professional services organisation two weeks ago. They've got their own AI. They spent loads of money on it, but people are going, having one go. It doesn't work as they wanted. There's no incentive for them to spend 12 hours getting up to scratch on understanding the foibles, so they're not using it. And so, we're still at that BitTorrent era of AI. And I think we're going to start hearing from organisations or competitors who are getting the benefit. And we're going to be like, yeah, yeah, we should have invested a bit of that time. So, I think it's going to be, there's going to be a lot of anxious comparison next year.

DDS: Interesting. And that accessibility bit is key, isn't it? So, we've had BitTorrent and we've had fax machines so far. It feels like an unexpected throwback episode.

GR: Yeah. Well, I guess just building on the point about AI, because I think it's one of those things, I think everyone's talking about it, even if they don't know what to do with it as well. But just looking at the big four, what they're leading on, if you look at their front pages of the consultancies, they're leading on AI. And generally, that does create a lot of contextual force for organisations to follow. I think we're probably at peak agile, whatever that means in your organisation. So, we then start and go into a bit of a process hunting for a new fad, which is potentially quite dangerous, making sure that what we do next is evidence-based.

I think some of the challenges we've got out there at the moment, there's been so much brilliant work done by so many courageous individuals around ED&I, and we're at a real tipping point now. We have to make the case. We have to make it really strongly that it works and it does make a big difference. And we don't get led away by all the different headlines that we're seeing, because it is an easy thing to kick at as well. So, that's really important. And I think just from our perspective as organisation development practitioners out in the field, I think one of the big challenges is that organisations are so drawn into the short term right now. So, many priorities shifting so much so quickly. We don't see things through, we don’t, organisations don't take the time to slow down to think through the implicational effect of their decisions. Initiatives only last one, two years before you even bear the fruit of what they're trying to do. So, I guess it's a prediction, but it's also a hope and a wish that organisations do start to slow down and do start to apply more participative decision making and just more thought into how they actually make decisions.

DDS: Yeah, there's a story about Russian coders that's in Flash Boys by Michael Lewis. It's absolutely brilliant. I quite often use the comparison to HR, but I'm not going to do it in this podcast because we don't have time. So, I'll come back in a future podcast and I will talk about Russian coders. But just to come back to your point around the length of initiatives, there's something in there, right? So, if you say to an organisation, it will take two to three years to see the fruits of your labour, that does two things, actually. It manages the organisation's expectations potentially, but it can also, I think, detract from us being able to articulate and be really critical about whether the work we're doing is making a difference. So, culture can change actually, I think, quite rapidly in some organisations. If your working assumption is this is going to be four to five years, that can give you, I think actually as practitioners, we need to lean into that part around evidence-based delivery, focus on productivity to enable us to have the credibility around the long burn, because otherwise it's a bit jammed tomorrow the entire time, isn't it?

I think the one thing I would say, because I'm in the type of job where I quite often get asked at this time of year about two things, and we're going to come on to Christmas parties next. But the other thing I get asked is what are my predictions for next year? And I always make one of my predictions being that there will be some other external event that triggers a change that people aren't anticipating. Because quite often, it’s easy to be quite insular. So, I've got a piece I wrote in 2019 where I go, something will probably happen next year that changes everything that we need to react to. That wasn't me being smart ahead of that. I'd written the same piece in 2018, 2017. It will be the same this year. There'll be an economic shock. There'll be something which forces organisations not to think what are Google doing currently and should we copy it but actually have to change the way that they're approaching things because it fundamentally impacts their business. That may be to your point around AI, that may be that that actually gains traction next year, and suddenly there's a need to adjust and adapt to that.

But I think we quite often look at the stuff within our control rather than looking at the external environment, the potential shifts, and I'll need to often work that back, which to your point around peak agile. Agile is a number of different things, and whether it's a noun or an adverb is kind of an important distinction. But there's no doubt that actually the ability of organisations to be able to adapt to their external environment changing has always been important, but never more so than now.

Going to come on to Christmas parties. Festive period can be a brilliant chance to bring people together. Lots of organisations celebrate that by bringing their employees together, being really blunt. Historically, that's also been combined quite often with large amounts of alcohol being consumed and with an expectation of poor behaviour. We've covered, in particular, sexual harassment and evaluating risk in organisations in quite a bit of depth on the podcast. If you go back to episode eight, you'll find a kind of cool bit of that episode on that in-depth, but we've touched on it relatively. But the challenges for organisations shift when people come together socially with alcohol in a relaxed environment. What do practitioners need to be thinking about this time of year so that we aren't spending our entire time thinking about how can we make this less fun for people, but we’re thinking how do we create an event or a space where people can really celebrate their work? It's gone straight, there's a nervous giggle.

GR: It's just one of those subjects where it's like HR is in the wrong place around this. I think when you think about what it is that you're trying to do with the Christmas party, I think you have to go back to first principles. What is the task? What is it trying to do? Is it trying to build an inclusive environment? Is it trying to reward our employees for working so hard all year? Are we trying to build a bond so that everyone feels bonded enough that whenever it goes back to hybrid work in the new year, we all feel close and a part of the organisation? If it's those things, then Christmas parties aren't necessarily the answer because they're not any of those things. They are for some, and I'm being very mindful here because my 23-year-old self would think very differently about Christmas parties than how I feel now, because obviously I'm on the other side, whereas it was a great opportunity to let your hair down and it was great. But even then, you could tell it wasn't for everyone. And I think people have different responsibilities outside of work. If you want to say thank you to people, you can say thank you in different ways. And I think there's just so many tactics you can do. So, just a big shout out to Judith Flashman at the House of Commons. She gave me loads of tactics. She was like, downplay Christmas, celebrate the party. You know really, don’t necessarily front-load the fact that it's about alcohol, but really emphasise the fact that there's a juice bar. Don't lay drinks on straight after people have finished because they have an empty stomach.

All these things that you've got to stack the odds of probability that it won't go the way that it will. And also, just, it's the role of senior managers like in it as well, like the role modelling, because HR needs to get the right to get all those valuable bits. It needs to have good relationships with people, but it is not positioned in the right way when it's policing people and holding people's hair out if they're sick. That's not where it needs to be. And so, we need to be very careful we don't accept that invitation to be that person. And that responsibility is shared with others.

LC: I definitely would agree with that. And let's not let the few spoil it for the many. And there are many teams out there who want to socialise and, whether that's going to the pub as a small team or going or hiring a big event space. But what HR does have a responsibility to do is to support people to understand what the expectations are. And so, being very clear to people that it's still work time. Surprisingly, many people don't know that. And so, reminding them about that and being clear about behaviours is doing them a favour. So, it stops them from kind of getting into trouble in the first place. Unfortunately, I've dealt with many fallouts from Christmas parties in the past. And being really upfront about those expectations does do everybody quite a favour. And making sure that you swiftly deal with if there is somebody who's taking it a bit too far, if there is somebody who's mis-stepping, that you swiftly kind of deal with that there and then. And so, that it is more inclusive so that people at the party, everybody can enjoy themselves in the same way.

GR: Yeah. And it's difficult for less experienced HR people that maybe haven't developed the professional boundaries that they need, where they're still in that place where they still, you know, you've got friends and those boundaries aren't clear. And that is a really difficult time, isn't it? So, I think there's a lot we can do as a profession to support newer sort of members that get involved in this to help support them.

BD: I definitely think this is an area where leaders need to take a step up because if the message is just coming from HR, then it just looks like HR are ruining the party. Here they go. Health and safety, like they're sort of stepping in. So, the message needs to come from leadership. Broadly, if you remember that culture, a lovely definition of culture is that culture is the behaviours of an organisation, whether encouraged, rewarded or tolerated. And it's the tolerated part, the really critical part here. And look, the big issues with Christmas parties, are principally when power dynamics and misbehaviour come into that. And so, it's all about leaders reminding people, I want to remind you that this is an opportunity to have fun and to have a laugh. Go ahead and do it. But the strong rules apply and normally cultural mishaps, things that go wrong are when someone who's senior has done something inappropriate or someone middle management has done something inappropriate and a blind eye is turned to it. And all of a sudden that's become the new culture. And so, you know, that’s my view on these things. I think they can be one of the best forms of bonding. If the message just comes from HR, then you've already lost.

LC: And definitely having an idea around what you want your work event to be, exactly around what's the objective of this event and making sure then around, how are we going to make sure that as many people as possible can feel included and can feel like it's a safe space. That kind of might feel a bit like you can, I can actually feel the eye rolls around the country, you know, as HR kind of brings this to the front. But that I guarantee you from experience is far easier to deal with than the other side of it, if you don't have that preparation and it goes wrong, is that that preparation beforehand, you will thank your, thank the stars that you did that, if you are then on the other side of dealing with it and more so than ever now, because of the legislation that came in, in October. And this stuff happens, it happens across the land every single year. And if we face into it and anticipate what can go wrong, it's going to be, it's going to pay dividends.

BD: Absolutely. Every party of 100 people. There's going to be one issue that you deal with every single party. So, getting ahead of it, making sure that you've, you know, you have reminded people of the rules come from the big boss.

DDS: Yeah. I have the rare distinction of stopping a fight, breaking out an HR Christmas party, which is for obvious reasons, I cannot go into detail on this podcast, but you know me like, this is just so close to home. At 10 o'clock, I always used to leave. I'm like, I don't need to be here and that was partly just to make sure. Because quite often just being really practical to your point around people earlier in your career. It is very hard if you become part of an incident, if you've had it, if you've had even a little bit to drink, but suddenly there's something happening, for you to be independent of that is really difficult. And I do think you should be able to work in HR and have friends and you should be able to work in HR and socialise. I think actually remaining distant from an organisation is very difficult, but that point around professional boundaries is really important. I think the point that I guess everyone's making is that you have to set an expectation that it's not all right for you to have a good night. If it means other people are having a really bad night. To your point, you know, if you've got one person in a hundred, who's going to be a problem, how do you make sure that that problem is…

LC: And most people probably already know who that person is going to be. Like, you know, who your liability in your team is. Let's face it. You know that guy, you know, that girl, I'm not like, no, not gender specific, but you know who that person is. And so, let's not just kind of keep tolerating it and allow it to be part of the culture and, oh, here they go again. This is what they do every year. That's, that's not OK.

DDS: Yeah. Because then what happens is that's what happens at a Christmas party.

LC: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

DDS: And that's not OK. So, if you're listening to the podcast, we hope you're having a wonderful end to the year. We hope you're looking forward to next year. And we hope that whatever happens over the next few weeks is brilliant for you, brilliant for the people around you and that you get a chance to relax as well. Our final piece that we do each episode is, we do a piece where we do, is it a thing? Where we take something that's come up in the media on a regular basis. Maybe it's come up on TikTok and we go, yeah, everyone's talking about it, but is it actually a thing that happens in organisations or is it just a rebranding or someone's got carried away with it? So, this week we'd like to introduce the practice of malicious compliance. So, that's behaviour, which is a passive-aggressive protest where an individual strictly adheres to a superior's instructions. So, for any of you steeped in the history of things, there's got to be a work-to-rule probably around that. So, that's not new, but even when they know following those orders will lead to unintended or destructive outcomes. So, you're going to say look, the boss has told me to do it. I think it's really stupid. I'm going to do it anyway, just to teach them a lesson. Do we think that's, such a strong nodding of the heads coming from my left. Like you only did it yesterday. It's just like, yes, my Friday afternoon, that's what I've got lined up.

GR: So, it's so a thing. It's a symptom of so many things underneath. There are so many drivers that create it. We deal with it a lot. We get called into organisations and there's all sorts of things. Often we'll get called in by leaders and they're like, maybe they're dissatisfied with the performance of their team and we'll actually go in and then start to, you know, wind the clock back and understand what is the origin of this as well. So, maybe like a case that we were working on a little while back is a good example. So, often what happens when you wind the clock, it often happens with new managers. So, new managers get called in a CEO or senior managers frustrated with how things are. They hire a new manager, shake things up, disrupt things. They're no good. You need to really get them going. New manager comes in, tells people how to do this thing, but doesn't have the full context, doesn't understand why things are the way they are and how hard these other people have worked to date to get the organisation. And so, they start giving out commands. And often the symptom of it is when someone says, sure, I'll do that. Could you just send me that request in email? And they will then go and do it. But it's so common. And it's probably one of the things that happens in an organisation. It's somebody who's got a brain, experience, and all that kind of thing. And they're checking out and they're doing something. And they're basically trying to get a short-term win, it's almost like a Pyrrhic victory. They're making the organisation suffer, the team suffer and ultimately it's just for the sake of that as well but it's a really sad situation I find.

BD: Look, the phenomenon this year we heard of coffee badging, which is people told they've got to be in the office three days. So, they're making journeys in at 12 o'clock one day, having a coffee in the office, having a chat with the few people heading home. Very common because I've witnessed it firsthand. But that's another example of this. People applying to the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law, because they think the rules are badly constructed. And I think what we…

GR: I guess the question is, do you need a law?

BD: Right. But it's an interesting phenomenon right now where return to work policies are a really good example of workplace insubordination. It's probably a bad word for it, but workplace disagreement with policies is at relatively high levels. People finding that their company policy of Amazon, five days, but other places, three days. People are thinking, yeah, yeah, even for the promised team bonding, that is not what's required around here. And so, they're not abiding by it. And so, you witness the amount of organisations I've worked with this year who have had several return to work pushies and they haven't worked. And they've got this interesting challenge that how do they turn the screw on this? And it's an illustration of that. Broadly, if you boil it down, people don't just disagree with their bosses because they're being obstructive. They disagree with their bosses because they're like, I came all the way in, no one spoke to me all day. What was the point of me spending £12 getting in? And I think that's the bigger issue that sometimes when there's a gap between what the employee thinks is right for the job and what the rule is coming from bosses, and understanding that misconnection, I think is the bigger issue here.

LC: It's definitely I'd agree that that kind of return, to work piece and return to the office piece, because it's like, OK, I'm going to travel in, I'm going to sit with my headphones on all day and I'm not going to speak to a soul because I'm annoyed that I've been made to travel in and sit here. So, if you want people to come in to collaborate, create collaborative environments, make sure that you are bringing the teams together to do that piece. And so, it tends to come out from much more dictatorial type environments where people feel like they're being told what to do. And so, that collaboration and understanding, right, so this is the, the intent behind it, and then having a conversation to see whether we deliver against that intent or whether we can foresee that it's not going to work for whatever reason.

GR: Yeah. It's an expression of power.

LC: Yeah.

GR: And often it's because power underlies, but people who have power, have an enormous amount of power in organisations. it's often underestimated as well.

DDS: Yeah. I mean, I've got a Death Star. I didn't know that at the start of this podcast.

GR: Who knew?

LC: But what's, what kind of, what's also driving that to say like, we need to do this? So, that bit around everyone must be in the office three days a week. Why is that becoming so important? What is it? What are they annoyed about or what is it they think the problem is that they're trying to fix by that? Because maybe that isn't the solution. So, you've got to draw out to say what is the most basic level of the issue? And then let's work out how to solve it rather than somebody just thumping the desk and saying, right.

DDS: So, is this, this might be the first, is it a thing where it seems like everyone's saying it is a thing?

GR: Unfortunately, it's a thing.

DDS: It's a thing. Malicious compliance is a thing. We can put that in the…

LC: It now has a name. It's definitely a thing.

DDS: And it's like, whatever the opposite of Room 101 is. We don't actually have a repository of things that are a thing because it's never come up before. So, excellent, it's good to hear. And the next time my team asks me to put something in email and says, can you just drop me a note with that? I'll be like, I see what you're doing and we'll work through that. So, that's all from us today. I'd like to thank our guests, Laura, Bruce, and Garin. It's been an absolutely wonderful episode, so thank you for sharing your thoughts on a breadth of topics. Bruce, I'm going to give you one more chance to plug your podcast actually.

BD: OK, I'm just coming up to 200 episodes. Eat Sleep Work Repeat. It's a podcast about workplace culture and I guess it's evidence based. I try and interview people, I try and avoid leaders who are just telling how they solve the world and try and interview people who've done research or have gathered evidence.

DDS: No and I've been on it as well. So, I recommend that episode above all others. as well, but no, it's really worth a listen. So, if you only listen to three podcasts, listen to the two that we do and Bruce’s. We've got a wealth of resources as ever available to members, supporting you through a number of issues. Please do keep lookout for communications in the new year because we're going to do some things fundamentally different as well I'm really excited about that, but I'll probably get in trouble with the comms team if I talk about it on here rather than actually through the channels that I should. You'll find our latest content including, some new pieces on L&D and actually the report that Lizzie spoke about as well on the website. So, do make sure that you get there. And we'll publish new episodes of this every fortnight within the new year, so do make sure to follow up. As always, I'm told to get you to subscribe and stuff, and tell you where it's available, but if you're listening to this, it feels like you've already managed that. But do catch up on demand and it's been wonderful the reception that this podcast has had throughout the year. Please keep supporting us in the next year so that we continue to get guests of this incredible calibre, coming on my name is David D’Souza and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much. See you back in 2025.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello, and welcome to this special episode of the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD, and I'm thrilled to welcome a very special guest for this episode. Joining me in a quite makeshift studio from the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition in Manchester is Professor Michael Woodridge. Hello.

Professor Michael Wooldridge (MW): Hello, nice to be here.

DDS: And thank you very much for taking your time out to be with us. For those of you not in the know, Michael is an academic and author who specialises in artificial intelligence, described himself earlier, I think, as being only known for the Ladybird Expert Guide to AI.

MW: Well, I got asked to write a Ladybird book on artificial intelligence, and I'm sure many of your listeners will remember the Ladybird series. They were. They were kind of completely ubiquitous when I was a kid and I couldn't say no, but I was really worried that a lot of my colleagues were going to kind of think this was a bit sort of beneath me or, you know, not really an appropriate thing to do but an amazing number of them said, how do I get to do one as well? So, I'm very proud of having done it.

DDS: Absolutely. Making difficult things accessible is a skill in itself, isn't it? I bought four or five of those books for my daughter recently. I found them in her room and they were about professions, so it was quite interesting. So, there were certain professions, it just went, this is a man who does and then it would say, and there is some secretarial work always done by women. So, they were quite, you know, going back to the 1950s.

MW: Well, the 1950s, 60s, 70s books certainly had some stereotypes, which we wouldn't regard as acceptable today.

DDS: Excellent.

MW: Just put it that way.

DDS: And I would urge…

MW: I hope my book is free of those.

DDS: I would suggest that people buy it in time for Christmas, just to kind of check.

MW: Absolutely.

DDS: So, you split your time working as a professor of AI at the Educational Upstart, the University of Oxford, and also as director of AI for the Alan Turing Institute, as well as obviously authoring books. You were awarded the Lovelace Medal from the BCS for your contributions, the advancements of information systems, and a range of other awards as well. So, you're absolutely the person we should be having this conversation with, and far more reliable than most of the large language models that people might be drawing upon.

MW: Well, that I think I could hopefully agree with, yes.

DDS: And you gave an example in your speech earlier about your educational attainments being shifted by a large language model. So, it's suggesting you'd attended a different university?

MW: Yeah, so this is a completely true story. So, back in 2020, a program called GPT-3 was released and GPT-3 was the predecessor to ChatGPT, which many of your listeners will have played with. And in fact, GPT-3 is the technology that really underneath ChatGPT. And so, I was playing with it and just asked it if it knew anything about me. I knew that the training data included, roughly speaking, everything on the World Wide Web and I have a web page, so I wondered if it knew anything about me. But I had to prompt it a bit, it turns out there's a BBC News reporter called Mike Wooldridge, there's also an Australian health minister but finally, we got to me and mostly what it said about me was that I was a truthful person, broadly speaking. But it said I studied as an undergraduate at Cambridge and this is really weird, because I'd never had any affiliation, I never studied there. I've never lived there. So, why would it do that? And really, the reason that it does that is that it's read lots of biographies of Oxford professors and studying at Cambridge or Oxford is very, very common for an Oxford professor. Now, it happens I didn't but in the absence of any information to the contrary, it just makes its best guess about what's true and in this case, it guessed I'd gone to Cambridge. So, it did occur to me afterwards, I should have asked for a pay rise if I had a Cambridge education. I think that's…

DDS: It's worth a try. I mean…

MW: Much better qualified.

DDS: I'll go the other way. So, having done similar in the past, I gained a couple of extra children and moved to Cambridge. So, I apologise to the children that I pay less attention to than my daughter. So, AI has never really been a fringe topic. It's always been an interesting topic but you described it as going viral. So, very much kind of hitting a critical mass in terms of interest over the last few years with 2005 being an initial turning point, but then the release of ChatGPT, moving it into a next space. I want to concentrate on particularly the impact on the profession and the world of work. But actually, it'll be really interesting to get your view on how mainstream is it? And actually, what can we see or expect over the next few years in terms of adoption and usage?

MW: If you go back 20 years, actually AI was very much on the fringes. It wasn't, it was in some areas wasn't regarded as a respectable thing to do at all and you know, people were who wanted to study neural networks, which is the AI technology, which, which has started to work recently, and which all of the AI fuss is about, you know, we're being quietly advised, you know, this isn't a good area to go into, it's not quite respectable, and so on. But then it really started to work around about 2005, took off big time around about 2012 and then it got supercharged with the release of ChatGPT. And the reasons for that are really that to make neural networks work, this core AI technology, you need lots data and lots of computer power, and they became available in the last couple of years. So, what this has opened is a floodgate of enormous number of potential applications of this technology, many of which are going to be relevant, but you need to go into adopting this technology with your eyes very, very wide open, I think and one of the crucial things that you need to be aware of is that this is not infallible technology. This is technology that gets things wrong a lot, that it can't be relied upon at a moment in mission-critical scenarios. You absolutely shouldn't be letting this technology decide whether somebody gets a job or a pay rise or something like that. All of that should be reserved for human judgment. I'd be very, very cautious in even about taking advice from this technology in areas like that. So, it has lots of applications, but you need to be aware of its limitations. I think that's just so crucially important.

DDS: Yeah, we're actually piloting for anyone who is a CIPD member, we're piloting an AI-enabled solution to provide people with up to date guidance from our background. We're deliberately doing that in pilot just because of that reliability issue, and we've asked it not to address certain issues because of that reliability challenge. So, it's quite interesting having people frustrated with us because actually it won't answer a question that's deliberate because we can't get it to answer that question reliably, particularly in a space where changing a few words around when it comes to employment law, it has massive ramifications.

MW: My worry there, though, by the way, is that one real danger is that people take AI far too seriously, that they listen to the advice and they just assume the advice they're getting is correct. You know, AI says no, it's like the old joke, you know, computer says no, and people just listen to it blindly and don't want to question what's going on or why that decision is being made. So, I do think really important, you know, you have to be prepared to question. You shouldn't just accept what an AI tells you as being gospel. You need to be ready to question it and demand more information, demand explanation, and to question those explanations.

DDS: Completely and that's part of being a professional, isn't it? It's bringing your expertise to bear on the solution. So, if AI can help us access some of the information that we need more rapidly, that's fine. But actually, having the professional knowledge and expertise to understand the boundaries is really important. Just before we go into some more specifics around the profession, we're going to speak for about 20 minutes. It won't be any longer than that, I don't think. I will definitely use some loose language. You're less likely to, but it's definitely a space where actually people need to understand the ramifications of what's happening, even if they don't need to understand the deep tissue, if you like, of the technology. What are some of the things that most annoy you or get your goat as we're kind of talking about these topics in terms of the language that's used incorrectly, where you think it's unhelpful for people to do that?

MW: I think it's science fiction language is there's this, I mean, because we all watch movies and play computer games and read books where AI features prominently. And some of that kind of worldview seeps into the discussion about AI and that's incredibly damaging, I think, and incredibly worrying and in particular, this idea about, you know, when people use phrases like superhuman to refer to AI, if you think about what a pocket calculator could do, it's superhuman in its ability to do sums, but that's not very interesting. It's not really superhuman intelligence and all AI programs are glorified pocket calculators. So, using, using terms like superhuman, or even, and I know I do this, and I've done it already in this podcast, when you talk about the machine thinks, machine isn't thinking anything in realistically, but it's very easy to start applying that language to it. So, using human terms to refer to things that the machine is doing, I think is that's the number one concern and it's I say it's a habit that's very easy to get into and I know I do it from time to time, but it's really important to avoid doing it.

DDS: Excellent. So, we're going to talk a little bit about the profession and actually it's led us into a horrible place, because I was going to use one of your quotes, where it very much is anthropomorphising kind of the concept. But there's a lovely quote from you in The Guardian where you said that AI could become I think it was the ultimate bad boss. So, surveilling employees to work out who gets fired, selection decisions, those kinds of things and I was just wondering what principles employees should keep in mind when implementing AI in their workplace. So, what are the first things that organizations should be thinking about before taking that step? Because there's a lot of pressure in organisations to act fast. But acting fast and acting well might be very different things.

MW: So, I think the most important single thing is not to hand control to AI. AI can be another voice in the room but we have to be trained to recognise that he is just another voice in the room, and it shouldn't be calling the shots. So, the example that I use in a Guardian interview, what I was talking about there was this emerging class of systems that some companies are starting to release where basically AI monitors everything that you do in your working life.

So, a lot of us basically spend most of our working lives in front of a computer, answering emails, filling in forms on web pages, filling in spreadsheets, and so on. But imagine that an AI is monitoring every single thing that you do and every email that you send, you get a critique of that email. I didn't like your use of these terms in this email, you didn't upsell our product, why didn't you mention this latest product there? Be more positive in your outlook. You know, I imagine that every single thing that you do at work, you're getting that kind of critique and every week, you're getting a summary. You took 10% more comfort breaks this week than you did last week and by the way, that's 20% more than the company average. You know, please try to moderate your comfort breaks. All of that kind of stuff going to the point where, you know, you have an AI-driven PDR, you know, where this sort of stuff is automatically, all of that data, every keystroke that you type in your computer, every mouse click, that you make on your computer, goes to an AI that analyses it and critiques it. That's a very scary prospect. It absolutely is not an unrealistic one and there are some products that are coming out under the guise of management information tools that do that kind of thing, or the elements of that kind of thing already and I think the problem with that is it just reduces us to human robots, where more or less sort of end up with no scope for human robots originality or thought or personality that we're just reduced to the tasks that a machine can't do on our behalf.

So, there's a famous example from a large online retailer that I won't name, but you can possibly guess and if you work in one of their warehouses, you'll have something that looks like a smartphone, which is telling you, you know, go to aisle number three and shelf B, pick up three of items number 10, then pick up another three. So, why doesn't it just ask you to pick up six of those items? Because it doesn't translate trust you to count to six, it's completely dehumanising. It's completely alienating in that respect, just eliminating all of human thought, originality, and so on and that's profoundly unsatisfactory for people that are going to be in those jobs.

DDS: Yeah and it doesn't understand, I guess, the psychology of people either. So, if you'd have said, how do you create the world's best and most productive workplace? The starting point for many wouldn't be, well, I need someone looking over my shoulder the entire time and yet that's what we've got the temptation to create with the technology, because the capability is there, but whether we use it or not is a separate question. So, I often say we shouldn't let the risks blind us to the opportunities, but we shouldn't let the opportunities blind us to the risks either and it is really tempting to steam ahead with some of these things. Where are you seeing organisations starting to use things in a more positive way, where you go, actually, look, there's genuine time saving there, that's freeing people up to be more capable or improving jobs.

MW: Well, in my own area in science, it's being completely transformative. It's just like we've got this incredibly powerful tools suddenly available, which is allowing people to think about what they do in completely new ways. I mean, it's as transformative as the arrival of the computer. And so, we're seeing really a seismic shift. I mean, what we call in science, a paradigm shift. You know, it's fundamentally changing the way that we do science. So, a beautiful example, just from DeepMind, a London-based AI company headed by Demis Hassabis. And Demis and one of his colleagues got a Nobel Prize two weeks ago for work on a program called AlphaFold. And what AlphaFold does is a classic science problem called protein structure prediction. Now, we don't need to understand what protein structure prediction is, except that firstly, it's very important and secondly, previously, it was really time-consuming and expensive to do. It would take you months and now, a student can do that on their computer in a matter of minutes.

And what that means is it's just massively accelerating that scientific process and we're going to see change reverberate through science. Now, of course, most of us aren't doing protein structure prediction in our job. But actually, these AI tools, I think, are going to enable us to be much more productive in routine white-collar jobs. I mean, a lot of the stuff that we find routine, but a little bit tedious, like, you know, you've got a big, long document and your boss wants a summary of it. Stuff like that will be much easier to do in the future. Extracting the key points, more interesting one, taking two different documents, presenting two different viewpoints and what are the points of commonality and how do they differ? You know, how are they disagreeing with each other? And AI is going to be able to help us do that much, much more quickly. So, I think for me, the key word is productivity.

DDS: And it goes back to that point that you made, there's something around analysis versus decision making that sits within that. So, having AI, being able to rapidly compare large tracts of text to then enable people to make decisions around them in the background. So, you said that you weren't overly pessimistic about the impact on the job market. I think that was the kind of wording you used. But there's obviously an impact on skills, no matter what happens. So, the world's changing, we need to change with it and we need to have some agency over that change. What do I think the biggest changes in the skills people need are? Or actually, by its very nature, in terms of its accessibility, is this actually a time where it's going to democratise skills or reduce the need or complexity of access to some spaces?

MW: Well, I think this is part of an ongoing trend. It's something that your readers will be very, very familiar with. You know, we're no longer in a world where you go to school, you then maybe go to university, you learn some skills, and that's it for your working life. Those days are long, long, long past and we are in a world where you need to continually update your skill set. So, I mean, and this is part of that much, much bigger trend. The skills here, actually, interestingly, the most relevant skills for your profession, I think, are about understanding what this technology is good and not good.

For understanding its failure modes, to use the terminology you know where it can go wrong, how is it likely to go wrong and understanding that. And understanding that sweet spot between where you're getting the benefits from the technology, but you're not taking risks with it, and you're not playing fast and loose with people's jobs, so on. So, understanding that and a lot of it is about being ready to question the AI. There are some more practical things like if you're using large language models then being able to understand how to coax the best out of them, what's called prompt engineering is the skill set there that people use, that's something that people can learn, but actually I think for most people aren't going to be doing prompt engineering in their role. Most people are going to be encountering AI just as a productivity tool to help them do summarisation and translation and extracting key bullet points from. So, I really do think you know, actually top of my list of priorities are understanding what benefits this technology can bring, but actually as important, if not more important, what are the key risks? How can it go wrong? How can you spot those where it goes wrong and how can you train yourself not to fall into the traps when you use this technology?

DDS: I think what's really interesting there is that it's not about learning the complexity of how this is built from the ground up, it's no, it's about learning the capability and limitations to it. You mentioned something really interesting there which is about the difference between it being utilised as a standalone technology for chat versus being embedded into other systems. Do you actually think the future of this Is more likely that it's just going to turn up in the systems.

MW: Oh, absolutely. It's going to be everywhere, every time you make a decision, it's going to be embedded there. A nice example is satellite navigation systems, so satnav systems, they're about 20 years old. It was around about 2003-2004 that they first started to appear, and at the time they were very expensive and they were kind of a bit of a status symbol at the time, if I recall correctly. And now they're completely ubiquitous, we've all got sat nav systems on our smartphones and so on.

But what satnavs do is they take the strain of a routine but tedious cognitive activity, you know, before satnavs navigating in the Wooldridge car was a very sweary activity. I have to tell you know, the language was not good that we used to use because it wasn't in principle a difficult thing to do to follow a map and to navigate, but it was tedious and it was error prone. Is this a junction? I'm not sure if this is a junction, yes, that was the junction, you know, that kind of thing but what satnavs do is they take the strain of that activity, they just take that routine but tedious activity away from you and make you smarter. Just on my travel here, you know, there was some roadworks on the M6, and the satnav automatically re-routed us completely seamlessly around that and we barely noticed it was even there. We didn't, you know, we didn't even have to pay attention and previously, that would have been a really tedious and irritating thing to have to do, frantically pouring over maps. So, the way to think about it is that AI is going to be everywhere, that you make a decision in exactly the same way that the satnav is helping you, it's going to be helping you to make better decisions.

DDS: And the key with the satnav is, you're still making the decision. So, once every six months or so, you'll see someone who's driven into a river because their satnav told them to, or a lorry stuck under a bridge, right. There was a famously a couple that drove into the middle of Venice, which is quite difficult to do given the way it's designed because they followed their satnav. The key is that we retain the agency over it and I think that's a key thing for the profession, we can't just say, well, we were told to do this, we have to take responsibility and accountability.

MW: No, absolutely, and you shouldn't delegate, you can't delegate to an AI programme your professional or legal responsibilities, absolutely not. And I think that's a really nice point to raise actually. AI can't be held accountable for the mistakes it makes, it's you who's going to be held accountable. So, if you're using AI to make a decision and that turns out to be a bad decision potentially leading to legal action, I'm sorry it's not the AI that's going to go to court it's going to be you. But nevertheless, I mean with the satnav example, the point is what we're doing is we're setting our goal but that AI has helped it and it is AI by the way in a sat nav, it's simple AI but it is AI that's helping us to get there in the, the least painful, most efficient way possible but imagine if that's there everywhere in the world.

DDS: Yeah completely and the other point I make around satnav, I'm not anti-satnav that would be a very strange position to date, it's understanding that you still have to pay attention but you wouldn't want to work without it.

MW: Yeah.

DDS: And finally, if you could leave the profession with one key takeaway regarding the implementation of AI into the workplace what would it be? What would you either want them to you can choose I guess, what would you either want them to do or not do when they're thinking about deployment?

MW: So, I think when you think about this technology the single most important thing that everybody needs to understand is however smart it appears, it is not a mind like you and me. It is not thinking about what to say, it's not thinking about its response, there is some glorified statistical process that's going on behind the scenes to generate its response, it is not having a conversation with itself about, about how to respond to whatever you want it to do and you shouldn't treat it as if it is a mind, it is not. You should be prepared to dismiss to question and demand further explanation, you have to demand, you have to be ready to question it. I think that's such a crucially important skill,

DDS: Yeah. I actually managed to get gaslit by AI recently which was quite interesting. So, I asked it to do a graph, it did a graph for me, I asked it to change the axis and it said it couldn't do graphs which then related a long chat where I was like you've just done one and it said well maybe you're thinking about a graph in a different way to me which I thought was interesting. Look, I'd like to thank you so much for giving up your time today and sharing your thoughts on what's a really critical topic for us and it was wonderful to listen to you earlier as well. As always we've got a wealth of practical resources on this available on our website including responsible use of technology and broader updates.

You'll see more from us over the coming months as well in this space because we know how critical it is to the profession. There are new episodes of this coming out every fortnight, but this has been a lovely special for us to have catch up on anything that you need on demand, and we look forward to bringing you more like this in the future. So, I'm David D'Souza in Manchester, and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HL People Pod. It's the CIPD’s fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting business and people practice. If you're listening to this, it's the first recording that we've done live. We've got people walking by us, some people are throwing things. It's a very febrile environment here, but essentially we’re piloting this at the CIPD’s annual conference. So, we’re going out straight after that. My name is David D'Souza. I am Director of Profession at the CIPD and joining me on this special, quite emotional moment are three of the HR's finest. So, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourselves in turn and tell us what you do for a living. So, on my left.

David Bearfield (DB): Hi, my name is David Bearfield and I'm the Director of Human Resources for the United Nations Development Programme, which is the Development Aid part of the United Nations system. We have 22,000 people around the world in 170 plus countries and I'm based in New York.

DDS: Thanks, David.

Peter Collyer (PC): I am Peter Collyer. I'm previously Chief People Officer for Ted Baker. I've been a CPO for the last 20 years and this year set myself up as Independent Executive Coach and Consultant.

Berna Oztinaz (BO): Hello, my name is Berna Oztinaz. I'm the President of the European Association of People Management, also a CHRO of Ghana. And while 25 years in HR and in the Strategic Business Support Functions, currently based in Istanbul, travelling all around Europe to do my job. Thank you.

DDS: Fantastic. So, a reminder for everyone, the point of the podcast isn't to name and shame organisations, it's to talk about general themes. So, we will talk about three things that are pretty present in the news at the moment and work through them. But just before we get started, just to get to know you a little bit more as people. I've asked you all to think about the tip or the advice that you would give yourself if you were starting your career again now. I'm hoping it's not don't go into the profession and that you're all very satisfied with the choices that you've made.

DDS: But Berna, if I start with you.

BO: Well, it's a deep question indeed. Not an easy one indeed.

DDS: I'm a deep person. I mean, that's what…

BO: We all know. Well, I think, find the right mentors. So, mentors really do contribute your career and also your personal development, but I would also have told myself that find different mentors for different aspects of your life. Do not stuck with one, but find the right ones to support you, challenge you. So, probably next to calm down a little bit, it would be the advice to myself.

PC: For me, it links to that actually and it's about hierarchy and I think, I was always taught by my father never to allow hierarchy to get in the way of making progress and never to be afraid of titles and people, and so that served me really well because I would go at very young age go and talk to the most senior people in the room without any concern, always respectfully, always with curiosity but it never held me back and it got me spotted in ways that other people weren’t being spotted. So, it was very helpful all the way through my career.

DB: I think that's great advice and I've probably done the same myself. I completely agree as far as I can say, I gave a talk just last week for a load of early careers people in UNDP and I gave them nine things and I'm only going to maybe pick out one or two. The first is really to be driven by a sense of purpose. So, go in your career with what you really feel passionately, don't follow the money because it's not going to fulfil you. Where you're doing something you know every day, you've got to be passionate about it. You've got to feel you're making a difference and I think that's the kind of motivation that you need to sustain yourself so. For me, working out what your purpose is and following your passion, really, really important. And the second is to be open to opportunities, that's a bit how I didn't have a career plan, I didn't set out to become an HR professional but an opportunity came along and I thought, that's interesting and I took it. And I think it's really important to just be open to what opportunities come and try different things, take a risk.

DDS: You took that opportunity and regretted it every day since?

DB: Absolutely sitting here, yes.

DDS: All of those moments brought you to this desk. I have to say the live format is working well because I've just seen someone nods to something that's been said as they walked by in the background, which is, we're inspiring people far and wide. Coming onto our first topic, and it's a difficult one to talk about because it's genuinely impacting people's lives as we're talking about it. But in the last few weeks, we've seen reports about the devastation caused by flooding in Spain. But it adds to an almost permanent sense of tragedy around the world, it's a very connected world. We get news reports on that wherever we live, but it also has a direct impact on organisations that are involved in really significant things that manifests in a number of ways. It might be because you've got friends and family working in places impacted, you might have suppliers there, parts of your organisation or you might be tasked with supporting in those spaces. So, what should companies need to prepare and how should they respond? And David, it's obviously really close to your heart and the purpose of your organisation. We're going to come to you for a bit of a deep dive first in terms of what you do because it's fascinating but then we'll come to our other two guests to talk about more generally, we're in organisations where it happens to them rather than they're determined or kind of part of the solution what happens there. So, starting with you.

DB: Yeah well obviously that that's you know goes to the heart of what we do in the United Nations Development Programme. We're, you know we're not doing obviously peacekeeping work or that kind of thing there's lots of colleagues in the United Nations who are very much often in the front line of conflict and sadly some of them do lose their lives every year. But in UNDP, we’re everywhere, so that means we're in places where there are active conflicts and we're often there where there are disasters. We help with the recovery and building resilience. So, for example, where you see natural disasters very soon after, we're on the ground trying to help rebuild things. We have people who hundreds of colleagues on the ground in Ukraine, we have people in Gaza, we have people in Sudan, in Haiti. So, very often, very, very difficult situations.

And so, we have a whole established plan to deal with that, to keep people safe. Obviously, we have to take people out on the orders of our security department of the United Nations, where it's too dangerous for people to be. And so, you know, we have policies on rest and recuperation. So, where people are in very, very arduous places that they rotate out every so many weeks so that they can cope. But on another level, obviously, we have people who are living often a long way away from family and friends. We have lots of what we call non-family duty stations where it's safe for people to be, but they can't bring their families because the conditions are too arduous and all of those things cause stresses and strains.

And then just the fact for many people, they're living a long way away from home. And what do you do when, for example, families get sick? And it could be really tough. I had the same situation with my mother who, you know, I was living in New York. My mum was here in the UK with Alzheimer’s. How do you manage that kind of situation? We have all these kinds of things. So, we really work really hard to help people. We have our people strategy, people for 2030 and one of the key areas of focus is our duty of care and we've really tried to take that much more seriously to ramp up our efforts. We have counsellors covering each region. They’re usually based in the region and they’re offering individualised cycle social support to colleagues who are finding it difficult. And we give lots of individual counselling sessions. We give sessions to people in country offices more generally and do everything that we can to try and support people. We now have, since the pandemic, more flexible policies on telecommuting, for example. So, we allow people for periods to go and work, for example, from their home country. So, they’re able to, you know, take care of difficult situations that they need, for example, with sick relatives. So, we do a huge amount and this is absolutely going to be part of what we do. It's also part of what people sign up for, but it doesn't make it any easier to cope with.

DDS: So, that's a fascinating insight into, you know, it happening in real depth. But Peter, Berna, kind of thoughts on what it looks like for an organisation that is possibly more difficult.

PC: Yeah, well, firstly, I think the CNN's got, people can learn so much, really, from your experiences and expertise. And I think that's part of it. HR is often the gatekeeper when crisis is happening around the world. And, infrequently, you know, the HR functions are not trained. People are not going through rehearsals. They're not understanding the importance of accurate data, accurate reporting, and actually speed of response. I've been advising somebody recently about following the disastrous hurricane Helene and the impact that had with people's flooded properties and demolition of properties. And the HR function was responsible for reporting on it and got the information wrong. It was reported to the board incorrectly. People had lost their homes. People were in crisis. And so, there's a lot of responsibility on what we do as a function within the organisations and I think we can't underestimate the impact on that because it can happen at any moment at any time. And I've also experienced individually in companies the more isolated one-off events. Someone's house burns down, something terrible happens. There's individual crises that we have to respond to with compassion and speed, we've really got to be able to have really clear policy. People need to know who to speak to and make sure that the data we're working with is timely and relevant.

BO: Well, you have the responsibility of care for people, right? So, I think you need to think even broader nowadays because nothing is off the limits. So, due to the climate changes, political pressures, and unexpected tensions, anything could be knocking your door. So, creating a trust environment and giving your people the confidence that you are there for them is also important. I mean it's as important as what you do after the fact. So, my example of this is when I think about it, I think one of the worst situations was when the earthquake in Turkey, in the east of Turkey, happened. So, people in Istanbul couldn't get sleep for days, they were in panic. Nobody wanted to come to work and we were all asking questions about the building itself. We were having nightmares about the windows being broken. I'm not trying to, you know, create a panic in here. But still, I mean, you need to think about this kind of things through beforehand. And it took a lot of counselling, trainings, and preparation and even sharing the technical information regarding the building's earthquake safety with people.

And also, you need to be ready to take steps, even radical steps. If you think that there is a potential risk that might arise from, you know, something unexpected. I mean, if the building is not good, then find another building. But as HR, you also have the responsibility to trigger this kind of radical decision. But very necessary decisions when the time comes.

DDS: Yeah, it's that mix, isn't it? And we've had the pandemic. So, we've all had to experience a shared event where people had to do it but they'll keep on happening and having the plan and then being able to vary it, you know, depending on what you need is very different to not having that plan. So, have we got any questions from the floor? We do. Thank you very much. What if you are working with a smaller organisation with more limited resources for things like disaster response. So, if you're working SME or you're working MCAT rather than the UN, what should you be doing? What should you be planning?

PC: Yeah, I guess you'd be connecting with the charities that are in that space to be able to support you. Still going to be limited impact. But at least you'll be talking to some experts who can provide some direction and input, I think, that's the initial thing that comes to mind for me.

BO: Create your own experts, invest in your people to get some trainings. And, you know, to be responsible from some of the emergency actions, I think it helps. Work with NGOs. NGOs are offering really good help, support. So, they are with you, they could be with you to support you. And invite your employees in to take more accountabilities and, of course, support them.

DDS: Yeah. And I think I can speak in this bit, can't I? Because I'm not just interviewing guests. I think the other thing is just lean on the profession. So, for most problems, someone else has had to solve that prior. So, approach an organisation a bit bigger than you, ask for their templates, for their plans and then don’t be afraid to kind of work from that and go, this wouldn't work for us, that would need adjusting. But at least you're not staring at a blank piece of paper going, where do I start from here? Use our community for that as well. We've got a really strong one. That's the kind of thing you should be popping up and going, Can anyone share? Can anyone help me out?

I'm going to move on a little bit now to talking about supply chains in organisations. So, there's been some recent investigations given media coverage, which has, again, shone a light on low standards, particularly in the fashion industry. But it's not exclusive to that around the way that people are treated further down the supply chain, where it's maybe less visible to customers or to organisations commissioning from them. So, is there an ethical obligation for organisations do you think about their supply chain as well as a legal obligation? And what role, if any, does the people profession have to play in that directly? So, where that, where we're trying to aspire for better work, that should be better work for all rather than better work for the people that are just in our eye line. Peter, I can see you've taken the mic.

PC: Yes, well, no, not necessarily. But we've seen Panorama. I've been involved in some of the Panorama programmes over the years where they've been, you know, accusations of child labour and other factors happening through the supply chain, fashion is renowned for it we know. So, I think, firstly, it comes down to clarity of purpose and I hate to say it, but the policy and the approach is really critical here. People who are not policy-driven, we have to have real clarity on what we stand for in writing so it can be interpreted and translated accordingly. I think checks and processes are absolutely key. You don't know that you're passing out through the supply chain, that the contractors are not subcontracting which is what happens so many times. The company is not even aware that it's happening and it's being subcontracted often to family members out in those territories where fast fashion is being created. So, we know that that happens. There has to be a great network amongst the community. I can talk for retail and in retail itself, if we understand there are certain practices happening in Turkey, Portugal, Leicester, you know, there's things all over the world. There's a great network. We will call each other as other retailers and say we've got something we're not sure about here. Then we'll make the visits and then we'll go and audit what's going on. It's really critical that once you've got an action plan in place, you don't have a knee-jerk reaction to something that's happening.

Because there was one business I was working with where there was a child labour issue. Several of the board members believed immediately we should withdraw from that country our production and that would have been absolutely the wrong thing to have done because those children would have been another form of labour which could have been far more damaging to those children. We picked up the costs for those children's education for the next three years. So, we made some proper decisions as to how to deal with the situation, course correct it and put processes in place so that it didn't happen again. So, you can't treat these things lightly, but we all have a responsibility to keep an eye open for it.

BO: I agree, all of those and I think the communication of your policy about this is really critical and inside out. I mean, we all have our policies about these kind of issues but I think it should be communicated to the external world in a very clear manner. And I think, I know that it is not the most popular way to collect information but I think your whistleblower lines should be open to receive those kinds of tips as well. And again, the communication of this with the outer world is important. So, people need to know the way that they can reach you but I also think that it's an important decision and critical decision for a company to make. Because when you start to receive the tips, then you need to have the resources and commitment to go through them and make the necessary investigations and take the actions. So, you need to get real about it. So, it is not a pretending job.

DDS: Any thoughts on that, David? Or should we move on?

DB: Well, we obviously don't have supply chains. We don't make things. But in UNDP, we probably come at this from a different angle because as the UN's leading development agency, we are really making a huge contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. And so, we are trying to encourage the right practices around the world to lift people out of poverty, to build sustainability into supply chains and everything we do. So, we really work towards that but obviously we are coming at it from a different angle than the more commercial one.

DDS: On supply chain specifically, how much is the management of that within the remit of HR, the people profession? So, it is obviously a broader business issue but to what extent should the profession be working towards that?

BO: I think it's very much related with how you define HR's role. And I think for HR, one of the aspects of now and future HR is being the shepherd of the ESG issues and governance issues and social issues and environment issues. So, I think HR should not lock itself into traditional roles. We have been listening for two days. Isn't it? I mean, what is expected from HR in the future? So, the role is expanding. I think we are the shepherds and gatekeepers for this kind of ethical issues in the organisation.

PC: Yeah, I would add to that. I guess in one of the organisations, I was also responsible for the ESG group, the function. So, ethics and sustainability and it was a perfect partnership with HR. Because if you are caring about people, you are caring about all those different aspects. If you tie it into the SDGs as well from a people planet perspective, it can be really, really powerful. I think you have to have clarity on where the boundaries are and often it is during the intersection where something gets handed over from HR to the ESG group or health and safety or facilities. Whoever is looking after different components, that is where things fall through the net. And I think you have to really look at the workflows and processes and test it, you know. It works well.

DDS: You made a really interesting point earlier which is around principles but also policy and having one manifest in the other. And I think there is a lot of talk quite often that does policy down? You are never going to solve it just through policy but actually anchoring stuff, being really clear on where it happens, who is accountable for it, what steps you will take if something happens. It is a really important thing to do to get people clear and stop things falling through gaps.

PC: Yeah, I think comms is so important, the whole communication process throughout the entire. From top to bottom in the organisation. One of the models that I found very useful over the years is the think, feel, do approach in any communication that is going out. So, what do we want the audience that is receiving this to think, feel and do as a result? You know, you can't always control that. But you can have an intention as to what you are looking for and you have to question that as an organisation and really assess it. I think the other thing is major projects, major things that are being launched. I am a big fan of pre-mortems. So, post-mortem is too late. You do it when someone is dead. There is nothing you can find other than what is the cause of death. A pre-mortem is before you launch a project. You tear something apart. Really critique it to understand where you need to fine-tune how this project is being launched or a communication. Whatever it is. Transformation project. Really critique it and go through it in a way that will enable you to really fine-tune some of the things that you can prevent from going wrong and it creates a much more successful output.

DDS: So, for anyone who hasn't done one of those, essentially what you are asking is, if this fails, what would have happened? Because that is not often the question that you ask at the start of something. You go, what do we need to do to succeed? If it fails, what does it happen? We didn't get the comms through. Okay, so what do we need to do about that? Or actually, we didn't have the technology through it. So, what do we need to do about that? Just a really nice different lens. So, brilliant practical tip. Next up, we are tackling a timely and sensitive topic. How should companies handle political talk at work, if at all? So, we have had the US elections recently which has been taken up front pages. Highly controversial and at times very adversarial but that's the first of a number of topics that we know in workplaces causing active discussion or occasionally conflict. So, what role should the profession play in moderating discussions, enabling discussions, preventing discussions? Because there is an active choice to be made around what blend of those three things that we do.

BO: Well, this is a very difficult subject. I mean, we're humans and we have our values, opinions, of course and the places that we work, the offices, wherever we work, they are not somewhere out of your life. It is a part of your life. So, you need to feel comfortable in your skin, in your workplace as well. But there are things that you could moderate a discussion around.

But there are things that you cannot moderate a discussion around. What's happening in Israel and Gaza is not a topic that you could moderate. You don't have the expertise to moderate a discussion around. So, I think as HR, all the leaders of the company, we need to also know our capabilities and limits of our capabilities. As long as people are respectful to each other's opinion and values. I think discussions cannot be prevented. Or, you know, voicing our opinions cannot be prevented but I don't think that we need to put ourselves into a position to moderate any kind of political debates, discussions.

DB: I think you've made a very strong point there, Berna. And, you know, obviously, coming at this from the point of view of the United Nations Development Programme, the UN more generally, at one level, you know, we are held to very high ethical standards and being absolutely impartial is really, really important. So, you know, we have very strict rules about that. We're not allowed to express any kind of political opinion, you know, privately. You know, not even to click like on political Facebook posts. We have to remain strictly neutral, strictly impartial at all times which, of course, sometimes I think people, an individual level can find difficult. But that's part of what you sign up to with the UN but when you get down to the level of kind of the office and, you know, my team are, you know, plus, minus 100 people. We have people from every continent, we have people from all main religious backgrounds, different political views. You know, and I started there six and a half years ago. And I thought, how is this in reality? You know, you have 194 nationalities all working together, very, very different people, different backgrounds, different experiences. And actually, I found that this kind of requirement in a way for impartiality turns into a culture of deep mutual respect of each other at work and I just don't see any conflicts or heated discussions about that, people I think, all understand we leave our personal views at the door and focus on what we're doing. People might have a discussion at the water cooler over lunch, whatever but it's always in a very respectful way. And I think, you know, your choice of the word respectful is really important because once you start going in one particular direction, it's very hard to say you can talk about this subject but not that subject.

DB: So, it actually, it works really well and I'm just amazed that, I mean, it sounds a bit cheesy, but it does give me a lot of hope when I see how we work in UNDP that people, you know, everyone has a deep sense of shared purpose. We put your views to one side to serve that and people just get on. You know, even if you have people at work who come from countries on different sides, you know, of a conflict that might be going on. It just seems to work and I think that's a great thing to see, it does give me some hope, as I said, that, you know, people are people and we can, when we're focused on a joint goal, we can just get on with each other.

DDS: It's quite interesting, isn't it? So, there's that recognition that if I recognise you as an individual, that means you need to recognise and respect other individuals.

DB: Exactly.

DDS: Rather than just being a, I have a right to express. It's actually, look, we need to find a way to be good together.

DB: Yeah.

PC: I had, for 20 years, I had a plaque on my wall that said, offence is rarely intended but frequently taken. And it was, it's nothing is so true, you know and it's helped me and actually my functions that I've built over the years in HR to think with that mindset, that what you're communicating, how you're communicating, and how you're dealing with it, there's always other perspectives and it doesn't mean your version of the truth is at 100%, you know. There are other versions of the truth. So, I think that's really important, there's one example, though, where I was working for an organisation with 5,000 millennials, Gen Z, X, Ys, etc., through the Brexit process. And we'd always come from the philosophy that, you know, politics and religion has no place in work conversation. It has a place but you can deal with all of that outside of being productive in the workplace. And we kind of reached a point through that really painful process that said, what are we doing? You know, this is, this decision about Brexit is impacting the future decades for this generation. Why shouldn't we be talking about it more and allowing that dialogue? So, to Berna's point about the topic being appropriate, if it's appropriate, drop the boundaries.

But make sure you're clear about why they're being dropped on this occasion. But we really opened up discussion and dialogue that people needed to understand process and just debate what was happening and what the implications were. It was out of their control, largely, because decisions had already been made but it helped people through the process.

DDS: I think I like your comment, if I can just butt in about offence, because I think it's very easy to take offence. For me, I try and kind of always think about the principle of what's the person's intention. Because most people are actually not setting out to deliberately cause offence. I think it's really important to see what's the intentionality behind it and I think if people think about that a bit more, you know, people would find it much easier to get along and respect each other's views. I can see you're grabbing the mic there, Berna.

BO: Well, yes.

DDS: I hope you're not offended.

BO: No, no, no. Not at all. No, I was going to support you. The thing is that, well, it's very much related with your real values, isn't it? I mean, again, what are the genuine values of your company, your organisations? Because it is not specific to a political debate, but it is about how you work together, how you live together in the workplace. So, I mean, if you are able to embed respect. If it is one of your company values or embracing diversity, if it is a company value, and if it is really genuinely there, then everything works out.

DDS: There's a really interesting thing around company values, and we will move on, which is I think you can require and expect people to behave in a certain way, congruent with your values. You can't expect them at all to think the same way. And I think it's really easy to trip and make that mistake and go, everyone around here thinks the same way, That's probably not a healthy.

BO: I mean, I cannot agree more. I think when you are calling for the things that you wanted to happen in your company values, also, you need to be brave enough to make it clear that what is not acceptable. And it's not an easy job all the time.

DDS: I mean, I have to say the main bit that I've taken away from this section, because I think it has been quite profound and deep, is that Peter had a plaque. That's quite fancy. Plaque. Can I just say, David, do you have a plaque?

DB: No. I do have a thing on my wall, though. It's not a plaque. It's a piece of paper, because my youngest son, when he was growing up, must have heard me coming home, kind of exasperated, you know, frequently at work. And so, for Christmas a few years ago, he gave me this thing he printed out nicely, and it said, how difficult can it be? And I have that on my wall in my office.

DDS: I like that. I like that.

DB: I guess I must have said that a lot of times when I got home.

DDS: I mean, we talked about mentors earlier, actually. My first mentor, who, in a really strange turn of events, only agreed to be my mentor if I shaved my beard off, which I did for long enough for him to agree to it, and then I grew it back. But active, petty defiance.

BO: Might not be the right mentor, maybe?

DB: Possibly not.

DDS: But he had a lovely saying, which was a cold assessment of the facts. Warm development of behaviour. So, see things as they are, but then work through them in a way that's compassionate with people and I'll be getting that on a plaque. I think that's the way forward.

DB: We should all have a plaque.

DDS: Sounds like a good idea. Have one made immediately. Finally, regular listeners of the show will know we have an ongoing segment where we say, is it a thing? So, we take something from the media. It might be TikTok. It might be a headline in a tabloid newspaper where it talks about an emerging trend that may or may not actually be a thing. So, this week's buzzword is ghost jobs which is not jobs for actual ghosts that would be a weird thing but it is a report that revealed that nearly 40% of organisations are advertising positions that don't actually exist. So, it doesn't stop there, some businesses are even conducting fake interviews for roles that they never intended to fill. I imagine they're then paying those people fake money to do fake work. Why would organisations do this? Have you ever done it? As professionals. Is it a thing? Peter, I'm going to start with you. Because you'll start with the microphone.

PC: No, I haven't done it like that. I mean, we've kind of posted positions for the future. Talent pipelining for the future, there's nothing wrong in saying we are planning ahead and posting opportunities and skill sets that you're looking for. Capabilities that you want to assess the market see what's out there and identify people that you might connect with 12, 15 months from now. But as long as you're transparent and open about that at the outset, you know what you're in.

DDS: So, when you're advertising that, it would say on the advert.

PC: Future Talent Pipeline Development or something along those lines and so, people know what they're doing and you have a really authentic conversation at the interview. There's nothing wrong with that, I think, that's all good news but I've never experienced anything like that. I was shocked by the 40% statistic that it happens.

DB: Who has time to post fake jobs? I mean, we have enough trouble processing the ones that we actually have. I mean, I think it's really unethical as well and how is that going to actually affect your employer brand? Because people talk. I mean, that's just not very consistent. Why would people want to go and work for an organisation that's prepared just to waste people's time? And indeed, the company or the organisation's time. So, we wouldn't do it but we certainly just don't have time to engage in that. That kind of thing.

DDS: Can you imagine talking to a recruitment team? And they go, we're so busy, we've got 10,000 vacancies on the go. And you go, but we don't have 10,000 jobs and they go, yeah, that's why we're busy, we've been making them up, we've been advertising them anyway. Berna?

BO: No, I mean, to tell you the truth, I didn't know about this. So, then I tried to educate myself why an organisation on Earth can do such a thing. But, well, there are reasons, reasons like you're trying to prove that you're an up and running business, growing business, or sometimes there are organisations who can think that, I mean, they need to show their employees that they are replaceable. I can't say that I like this kind of mind setting. But still, I mean, those are the reasons, I guess and, of course, creating a pipeline. Because you don't know whenever that you will need them. I mean, nobody can say that this is a good way of planning. So, I never had those kind of resources about fantasies. But I think, yes, this is not ethical and it shouldn't be acceptable. I can’t think of a good reason for job ghosting. Maybe I have limited imagination. I don't know.

DDS: So, I just want to pick up on one of the things you dropped in the middle, that one of the reasons you might do it is to scare someone that their job is under threat.

BO: Yeah, I read it then. I mean, we were talking about it with our VP in the European Association this morning and he said that it was on papers in Belgium last week. So, apparently, it's a thing. I mean,

DDS: I'm not offering this as a top tip to the audience.

BO: Don't do it.

DDS: But there's a level of cunning there that I'm actually quite impressed by.

DB: It's more of a what not to do, though, isn't it, really? I mean, you know, it doesn't make any sense and if you want to manage people's performance, I think there are better ways to do it than ghost jobs, frankly.

DDS: I'm going to go Google my job after this and just check that it's not being advertised currently.

DB: Going to get my phone out immediately.

DDS: Look, that's all from us today. I'd like to thank our guests, Peter, Berna, and David, for sharing their thoughts and being so open and coping with people waving at them as they go past as well. It's been a new and exciting experience. We've got a wealth of resources available to support people in all of these spaces and more coming. So, please do keep a lookout for your communications from us, this was described as the best podcast that someone's listened to by someone who was attempting to get an invitation on this to sell to us recently. I still can't get my wife to listen to it, but one day I'm sure she will put up with my voice for a bit longer.

DB: Advertise her job and stand by motorway.

DDS: I'm going to put it on a plaque, that's the way to go. So, yeah, the Create Your Own Plaque campaign started here today. Monumental. Please do catch up on demand. You've already found the podcast because you're listening to it, but it's available on all the main platforms. I'm David D’Souza, and this has been the CIPD's HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

 

Amanda Arrowsmith: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. I am not David D'Souza, as you may have noticed, I'm Amanda Arrowsmith, the People and Transformation Director at the CIPD sitting in for David for this week's episode and joining me.

David Blackburn: It's David Blackburn. I'm very glad it's you, Amanda, because it's always very annoying when there's two Davids in the room. I'm David Blackburn. I'm the Managing Director of David R. Blackburn Consulting Limited and I'm a Charter Companion of the CIPD.

AA: Thanks, David. Welcome.

Elizabeth Harvey: Hi. No, thanks for having me. So, I'm Elizabeth Harvey, I'm head of HR at HSBC for the UK functions, and I'm delighted to join you.

AA: Thanks so much for being here. It's a pleasure to have you both join the show, and my first one hosting, so I appreciate it. Be gentle with me. So, before we get into the details, I'd like to hear a bit more about you. So, perhaps you could tell me something that you've been reading, watching, been up to recently. David, you want to start?

DB: Yes. So, I was delighted that season 2 of "Pachinko" has just gone live on Apple TV. If you don't know it, "Pachinko" is an amazing novel about a long, it's a long saga, of a single family, a single woman's journey. And it's set in South Korea and Japan. And when I read the novel, I knew nothing about that history, that time of, part of the world and it's been serialised and it's incredible.

AA: And so go back and watch the first series?

DB: Go back and watch the first series. Yes, because otherwise it won't make sense. So yes, there's a linear journey of one individual, the main female character. And how she traverses her own journey, her family journey during a really turbulent period of Japan's invasion of South Korea. And she goes to live in Japan. It's amazing. You, there are episodes that are so incredibly emotional you'll be in floods. Well, I was certainly in floods. I mean, floods, I cry at a lot of things, but that really, it's a real emotional roller coaster but it's brilliantly written and beautifully filmed.

AA: Fantastic. Thank you. Elizabeth, what have you been up to?

EH: So, I'd say I'm not as sophisticated because I'm definitely watching "Married at First Sight".

AA: Oh, yeah.

EH: Which just gives me a bit of a kind of a brain rest. But otherwise, I'm currently on a programme called "Solaris", which is a female leadership development programme and we have an amazing powerhouse, Yetunde Hofmann, and she has a book called "Beyond Engagement", which is all about love-based leadership. So, you know, what would happen to the world? What would business? What would it be like in the workplace if we had the premise of love as a starting place. So, it's a really powerful book, which I'd encourage you all to pick up. And she's an amazing leader, I must say, a privilege to kind of engage with her on a one-to-one basis as well.

AA: Yeah, she is.

DB: She is.

AA: I think we can all agree that Yetunde is definitely a powerhouse. I've been doing my homework ahead of ACE, so it's our annual conference and exhibition in November. So, I've been doing my homework. And I've got the pleasure of hosting one of our keynotes, which is Bruce Daisley. So, I've been rereading some of his books and some of his works, but also, I've been listening to his podcast and just kind of getting there. So, it's "Eat, sleep, work, repeat" and I've been getting into that again, just to get myself prepared for meeting with Bruce in Manchester and I hope we'll see lots of you there. Before we move into our first topics, I just want to give everyone what might be a really timely reminder, is that on October the 26th, employers have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees and workers in the course of their employment. Whilst we're not going to be talking about that today, I think it's really important just to remind people that's coming in, if you haven't prepared for it, you should be preparing for it. So, we want to make sure people are thinking about that and perhaps listen to one of our previous podcasts where we talked about what employers could do and how that might work? OK, then let's get into our first topic of discussion. Over the past fortnight, we've seen a number of headlines around the theme of workplace well-being. We've heard for calls to increase statutory sick pay and have seen reports around proposals to trial weight-loss jabs as a way to tackle worklessness and just recently have observed "Menopause Awareness Day". I'm sure we've got opinions on all those headlines, but that's not what we're going to open our discussion about. I want to pick up on a headline stemming from a study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health that reports that half of UK workforce lacks access to reliable workplace health support. This includes things like winter flu vaccinations and checks for cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, the Institute for Public Policy Research made the headlines this week when it suggested that employers who failed to provide healthy work environments for their staff, such as subsidised nutritious food, should face regulatory action, including fines and public censure. So, let's start with, "what is an employer's responsibility and where is the line around that?" David, do you want to kick us off?

DB: Well, I think this is not a new topic and we've been talking about what constitutes a healthy workplace for at least the last, you know, 15 years, if not longer. And I think that the balance of around what are you, the employee as an individual accountable for versus what is the employer accountable for? I think is a line that has been constantly moving and shifting, especially post the pandemic. And whilst the idea, very often the idea is a great one. Why would we not want all environments to be a healthy working environment? Everyone's going to sign up to that and going to say "yes". I think those things are only possible if we have the right investment in the infrastructure that sits behind it. So, when we make policy decisions or the government makes policy announcements, then it's backed up by the right skills and supports because employers simply can't do all of it themselves. The example you know I'd give is that investment in occupational health and we were talking about it before we sat down in the studio, is the fact that, you know, back in 2010, you know, the Fit Note Revolution was supposed to be supported by a whole investment in occupational health. That actually the ability to have meaningful conversation about what an employee could do versus what they couldn't do. All of that great, again great idea, was not backed up by the required investment. So, actually what we have today is a system that doesn't work and that recently we were talking about you know, are we in "sick note culture" and all that sort of thing. So, I think where the accountability sits, most organisations that observation about the meals for example. I mean, in many organisations that just would not be feasible. I mean it would not be financially viable; it wouldn't be possible. And I think that we shouldn't be, rather than trying to treat the symptoms, which very often we are in this space, "let's have a fruit bowl", "let's have massages". "Let's have" well don't get me on my pole well-being on now, what does well-being look like? But you know, so actually we'll do all of that stuff. Actually, we'd be better off focusing on what are the root causes of employee illness, sickness, absence, all of that sort of stuff. So, I just think we've got to, there is a responsibility and accountability for employers, but I think defining what that is, the devil is in the detail, and I think it can't just be more for the employers to do.

AA: Where are you coming from on this, Elizabeth?

EH: So, it's a massively important topic and we've seen so much change in the last couple of years. You know apps like Headspace and so on. But I think employees also have a choice. You know, they have a choice to make, and you've seen organisations who offer unlimited holiday. You then find that they're having to force or push colleagues to take extra holiday because they haven't even taken the statutory minimum. So, that employee choice also comes into this. And, as we were talking, there's something around the parent-child relationship, and so where does the burden really lie? And on the employer, there is only so much that certain organisations can do and you'll have, you know, huge organisations who, from a total compensation perspective, they can do private medical, they can do group income protection, you know, they can do additional pay in terms of sickness and you name it, and there's so much in that. Whereas smaller organisations aren't able to access this. They're not able to do so for their employee. The institute talks about, you know, kind of an FCA-like regulation and so consumer duty comes to mind about, you know, the need to not do harm to colleagues. But I think it's putting too much burden on business, on the employer versus actually how do we understand what colleagues and employees really want and where can the government also play in these spaces, rather than trying to push it across to the right.

AA: I worry a little bit about the potential impact on people who aren't considered to be the normal healthy. So, you know if you've got someone who's perhaps a little bit overweight or you've got someone who has a disability or someone has a physical impairment, this push for workplace well-being and this health requirement, what does that do for us as employers? And I'm really interested in where you think we draw the line and what we can and can't do.

DB: I think that's a really good observation, Amanda, and it links back to what Alison was saying about you know, what's the employee and the employer’s responsibility around health, because health is intrinsically something really quite personal.

AA: Yeah.

DB: And will be, and to your point, will be very different for different individuals at different life stages. And if you think about the journey that organisations have been on and we've been on in society, "Menopause Awareness Day" that you've just been talking about. That didn't exist 10 years ago, and we understand neurodivergence in a way that is different. We understand long-term health conditions in a way that is different in a long COVID, post the pandemic. So, I think that there's a huge amount of nuance to this and I think there's often, the response sometimes is a very binary response. Alison's observation about, you know that they're, what they're suggesting, a sort of because in my head, I'm 10 years in the financial services sector, "Yes", I thought, "well, it's a bit like the consumer duty, isn't it?" But the minute you start getting into that sort of space that says I'm going to regulate this thing; I'm going to fine you if you're not. I just think that, you know, that's a sort of one-size-fits-all idea. I don't even know what that framework would look like and how would you apply it to the host of SMEs, for example, that make up such a huge part of the workforce in the UK economy. You know, they've got lots of other stuff to be getting on with and thinking about. It's not that having a healthy workplace isn't important. We all absolutely agreed about that. But how you go about achieving that, I'm not sure fining people is the right answer.

AA: So, Elizabeth, what does a healthy workplace look like?

EH: So, a healthy workplace really needs to have a baseline of trust. So, I think you could have all the benefits in the world. You could have all the different factors, you know, health checks, you name it, that pick up things kind of proactively, as you talked about, David. But really, you know health is so personal, to your point that I have to be able to share that with my line manager or with my organisation. So, when we talk about well-being, I think the premise of trust or psychological safety to allow you to speak up. So, you know, "I'm not feeling too well today" or "I'm going to take this time off" without any unintended consequences, that's really important. And also, I think, being able for colleagues to come together and share their opinions. So, you know we talked about, is it healthy nutritious meals at a good cost price? Well, can we talk about that? Can we be part of the decisions that are made for the rest of the organisation? How do you kind of collectively come together to make sure we're providing the right support for the colleagues in that organisation?

AA: I love that idea, because that also comes back to that inclusion point, because it's great if you want to do a team competition around a walk. So, let's all walk the, you know, the Great Wall of China, I did once in one organisation where all the team walked it. But we needed to find a way to make that inclusive. So, how do you do that for people who perhaps can't walk, who can't do exercise, who can't do physical things? And having that employee involvement, I think, is a real opportunity to support that. Have you got any suggestions or tips that you'd say if you're going to, say into an organisation, what's the one thing you'd like to see people do?

EH: I think there are definitely things that are getting more standardised around health checks and even some kind of the meal provisions around a vegan week, vegetarian week, just variety of cultures and so on. Whereas you can taste things maybe on a basis to improve your whole lifestyle. So, things that you can introduce in the workplace that might just tip someone to do something more holistically for their lifestyle and their families, I think, are really important to change well-being.

AA: Yeah, I like that. David, anything from you?

DB: I think Elizabeth is right. I think it's the small, nudgy things that you can do, which sometimes isn't about a health check or I think, it's just about a conversation, so creating a space where actually you're making that front of mind for colleagues, so that actually they're thinking about it. So, then that might make them go away and take individual accountability for doing something. So, yeah, I agree. I think the more we have a conversation about why it is important and how we can support you, but without that necessarily being, "here's a fruit basket", yeah.

AA: Yeah. I think the one practical thing. I love our fruit basket.

DB: I mean, I love a fruit basket.

AA: The one practical thing that I would suggest is, there is something you can sign up to called "Time to Test". Which just encourages employers to give people time off to go to the health checks that they're asked to go to.

DB: Ah, that's good.

AA:  So, if you as a woman, are asked to go for a smear test, that's generally during the working day. Give people time to test, don't make them take holiday to have those health checks that actually are going to be preventative medicine and help them in the future and those sort of things. I want to move on and talk about how, earlier this week, the new Real Living Wage rates were announced, seeing a 5%, 60 pence increase to £12.60 per hour across the UK and 5.3 percent or a 70% increase to £13.85 in London. In the CIPD's labour market outlook in summer 2024, we explored employers' approaches to the voluntary Real Living Wage, with accredited employers citing it as fair or the right thing to do and opting into the recommended wage rate can improve employee financial well-being as core reason to commit to paying the wage. Of course, we also are aware that there are a number of employers who are not officially accredited but choose to pay workers at or above the voluntary living wage. But even with that, 25% of employers across large and small organisations have no intention to increase their minimum pay rate to match or exceed the voluntary living wage, and there's a wide range of reasons for that, cost being one. But I want to open up the conversation a bit around your thoughts on the Real Living Wage and particularly how that might impact, and what those employers that can't afford to do it, could do. Elizabeth, do you want to start us off?

EH: I am a complete advocate, Amanda, I would say you know. The Living Wage Foundation, it's fantastic to see the movement that they've created across such a huge spectrum of employers. I think they have something like 15,000 employers that are now signed on and you know some of those employee benefits that are then seen around productivity, recruitment, even investment, coming back into those industries. So, there is something that is right there and I love what you shared around the fact that it is the right thing to do, albeit it can be hard for every type of organisation to do so. And you know your larger organisation will easily be able to say, "Yeah. Sign up here" or even if they haven't signed up, you know they know that their pay is a premium to that living wage. Small organisations, entrepreneurs that are hiring a few people, you know, how can they afford to do that? I think this is where the government also needs to kind of support and build some infrastructure around this. And I know there's conversations around the Minimum Wage, whether that should move towards being the Real Living Wage. And that will be really hard for those industries, and I suppose there is a tipping point here. We're seeing mass unemployment in the market and we're seeing the number of vacancies decrease. LinkedIn talked about the fact that, you know, suddenly we'll see a huge shift and we'll see colleagues kind of just moving around jobs as the market starts to pick up. So, whilst it's great for bigger organisations who can build in that infrastructure, some of those smaller organisations, they're going to need support. And, you know, whether it's the government, whether it's larger organisations leaning in to help others out to try and make sure that, you know from an economics perspective, you know we're able to have spare money to spend, you know, build the UK economy. There's something there that needs to kind of shift.

AA: Thanks. David, where are you on this?

DB: Yeah, I mean, like Elizabeth, I'm an absolute advocate and have been a Real Living Wage, you know, Foundation supporter and member in all of the organisations that I've worked in, probably for the last decade. How long has the Real Living Wage Foundation been going? Probably as long as that, I think would be my guess. I think that the challenge, as you've both mentioned, is not just by size and scale of organisation, but it's also within sectors and, you know, earlier this year you know I spent six months as the Interim Executive Director of People at Mencap, the Royal Mencap Society. It's one of the largest charities in the UK, you know, it employs 8,000 people, about 90% of the workforce are paid the National Minimum Wage, and that's because that's what the charity can afford, and doing, really support workers do incredibly valuable, important, complex, often very complex roles, supporting adults with learning disabilities with complex needs. And a bit like the conversation we were having earlier about, you know, are we treating the symptom, or are we treating the root cause? I agree the journey surely must be from Minimum Wage towards the Real Living Wage. You know, that should be an aspiration. If that's the aspiration, then I think the question is how is that achievable? And exactly as Elizabeth said, is that businesses supporting other businesses and how do we do that? But also, I think that you know there is a fundamental debate and I'm really delighted that you know the new government want to have that debate about social care as a sector. And pay rates and is it aligned to the NHS? And all of that good stuff. I think that's massively important. So, actually I am a huge advocate and a supporter. It's just not feasible, financially viable, even for big organisations in the charity sector. And, you know, within social care. But it should be. And I think, how we answer that question, I think is really, really important.

AA: Yeah. So, it's that financial reality of how you can support people, particularly the risk of the working poor, which we know is increasing. We're seeing that increase, aren't we? We talked earlier, before we came in, about the increased use in foodbanks and how that supports. And it it's where the employer fits within that and how you support your employees, which almost comes back to what we talked about "healthy" and that kind of that place of having a healthy workplace of how you can support employees around that. I'm not, I don't know the answer. I'm not sure what any of you would say.

DB: No, I mean, Amanda, that's a really good point, isn't it about, you know, the thing that always strikes me is, and someone I'm sure will correct me if I'm wrong. So, I think we're the fifth largest economy in the world. We're in the G7, so we're either fifth or sixth, and there's a lot of money in UK PLC. There just is. Now, I'm not a Marxist, I'm not saying suddenly we should be, but there is something, isn't there just about the way in which what does a healthy, forget healthy workplace, what does a healthy, balanced society look like? How are we closing the gap, which we know has widened, significantly widened over the last decade? We know that the pandemic has had a massive effect. We know there's been a cost-of-living crisis, but actually it has disproportionately affected particular groups, particular areas, particular geographies. How do we focus on, you know, having a sensible conversation about rebalancing some of that, I think.

AA: It's that guaranteed minimum income-type approach, maybe, which I think one of the Nordic countries have had, haven't they.

DB: They have, Finland. Finland and it's and it's worked I mean, because it's one of my soapbox subjects about the Scandinavian, you know. So, actually every single year, consistently when they rate the top places to live in the world, the Scandinavian nations come in the top ten, if not in the top five. They have a base rate of tax that's over 40 percent, 45%. There is a deal that we haven't quite got our heads around in Britain. You know, all of the coverage right now about the upcoming, you know, October budget is, "Oh my God! They're going to put taxes up" Oh my God" They're going to put taxes up!" and at the same time we're expecting world-class NHS services. Well, they, these two things are completely connected with each other. Unless, and what the thing that the Scandinavians have, over generations, post the Second World War got their heads around is saying, "well, we pay for it", we make this investment in order so that, actually, the quality of our public services is really good. And I just think we, no government in Britain wants to have that dialogue. I'd hope that with the new government, with a big majority, maybe we could start having some of these more challenging conversations about, and I don't think it's just individuals. I mean business, exactly as Elizabeth says, businesses. I'll get off my soapbox now.

EH: I might join you on the soapbox, to be honest.

DB: Come on, there's lots of room.

EH: I think some of the, some of the stats that you can see are quite stark for me. You know, teachers having to come out and say, "I have to buy breakfast bars so that some of these children are able, to kind of have something in their stomachs to be able to focus on learning". Lots of numbers around, people having to skip meals or even foodbanks saying, "Potatoes get left". You know, "Pasta gets left in boxes because people can't afford the gas and electricity to cook these meals at home". And so, the government's doing some great things around, you know, breakfast clubs, oh, we're going to introduce breakfast clubs to make sure that our, you know, our future of this country is fed and equipped and they're going to be able to learn. But the balance somewhat is, is slightly missing. And I don't think the onus is only on business. I think it's collective, to try and do something to really kind of boost the economy and make sure that, you know, our people are looked after. That, I think I got into a rabbit hole on YouTube and there's something called like "Britain's worst" and it's everything you can imagine. "Britain's worst", you know, towns or poorest towns. And to be honest, there are parts of this country that have just been left. There's no investment, there's no jobs. And I think, as we look at in employment rates shifting and then if you overlay where they sit jurisdictionally, there are some really big challenges to be faced where I do think business and the government coming together could really kind of, you know, work to fix some of this.

AA: Yeah, that collective responsibility thing is really interesting, isn't it? And that rise of the working poor, I think, is a real risk. We all know that we've seen a massive rise in foodbanks and how that works. And unfortunately, you know, as I've mentioned previously, we can't rely on Taylor Swift.

DB: Yeah.

AA: To keep coming in and bailing out the foodbanks. So, I think, I know that we've, always in our village we do a Christmas Foodbank and it feels little just doing that once a year, but it's good to bring things together and you know, if you can help your local foodbank, either as your employer or as your society, there's, it is that collective and how we do things as a society. Thank you. I feel hopeful. I feel like we're, I like this soapbox. I think actually there'll be a lot of people, it might have to be a soap platform or something bigger.

EH: We can build it.

AA: If you build it, they will come, is that it? Yeah. So, on this podcast, we like to talk about something that we hear being talked about and coming about. It's a bit of a familiar segment, which is, "Is It a Thing?" or hashtag, "Is It a Thing?" as I like to call it. And we want to unpack the latest trend or buzzword that's impacting the profession. So, this week's buzzword is "fauxductivity". And it's a term used to refer to employees keeping up appearances of productivity without actually achieving anything. So, instead of tackling meaningful tasks, they're apparently attempting to look busy, or maybe mouse-jiggling to give the illusion of working. So, common examples of "fauxductivity" reportedly include looking busy by checking emails or social media constantly, repeatedly organising and reorganising a workspace or desk. I feel that's seen or maybe attacked by that one, I'm not sure. Creating elaborate To-Do lists without any intention of completing them, including adding items you've already done or completed so you could cross something out and filling up time with unnecessary meetings or conference calls. So, David, is it "a thing?"

DB: Well, I think there's two observations. So, one, I think it definitely is "a thing". It's the only thing that's new is we've just given it a new name, just given it "fauxductivity". I think it's always existed. And I was saying before we came in, in a previous organisation I worked with an individual who absolutely had got this down to a, you know, to a T and would, you know, spend at least, I guess on average a few hours every day, sort of circumnavigating the building carrying, this is how long ago it was, you know, carrying paperwork. You know, so carrying a bundle of files. And then whenever you saw them, you'd say "hello", they'd say, "Oh, please don't stop me, David. No, I'm so busy. I'm so busy." And I'd go off and then I go to my meeting and then, you know, an hour later they'd have moved about, you know, five inches. Because they'd be stopping somebody else again. "No, please don't stop me, Amanda, I'm so busy." And that would take up hours in their day. I mean.

AA: Busy, busy.

DB: Busy, busy, I'm so busy and I would just think, well, she's been that. She's been on the hallway for about three hours. So, but the other thing that popped into my head was this thing about in, you mentioned you know the mouse-jiggling thing. Have you seen that? So, that's a thing that you can buy. You can go on Amazon, then it's like a little thing that you put your mouse in, and it shakes the mouse.

AA: Although, obviously, none of us would recommend that.

DB: No, none of us would, absolutely. I'm not giving any "fauxductivity" tips here. Amazon suddenly sees a spike in mouse-jigglers. But I mean, who came up with that idea that when, "oh what you need is something to jiggle your mouse while you go off and do something else?" I mean, that's yeah. So, I don't think it's new. I just think we're just giving it a name.

EH: I agree. It's definitely "a thing". And I also think you're always going to have that colleague. That colleague who is going to spend time wasting time and just, you know, just removing any productivity out of the day. So, there's always that one person. But I, I suppose as an empath, maybe I almost feel it's a dangerous term. Because actually, are we overlaying what needs to be a bit of rest or a bit of space and you know, you said, where did it come from? Well, you know, there's always a to and a fro. Lots of organisations have introduced productivity software and you know, checking and surveillance. So, where does it come from?

DB: Yeah, number of mouse clicks.

EH: Maybe counterintuitive for it to be, you know, for the software that's been given. But I also think, you know, Microsoft did a study around your productivity and your decreased levels of stress where you take scheduled breaks. So, you know in Outlook you can now reduce meetings by five or 10 minutes, so you give yourself time to recollect your thoughts before you go into the next meeting. So, I think even in "fauxductivity", in this new word, there's something that says, "why are people maybe doing this? Is there a reason? Is the point that they need to take a break? Do they need to take a walk, do need some headspace before getting into the next activity?" and so on.

AA: I think that's a really positive way, for years I've had green time in my diary.

DB: Yeah.

AA: Which is time, pretty much every day, where I'll try and put a little bit of time in, just to think. And that might be the time that I rearrange my desk, but it's allowing myself to have that mental and physical reset sometimes, just to kind of think where we are. Maybe we need to be a bit kinder to people?

DB: Well, it's funny. I mean, I was just thinking, actually, there's a sort of emerging theme, isn’t there, that connects lots of what we've been talking about today, around "are you treating the symptom or are you looking at what the root cause is?" So, actually why are people doing you know, so actually is it because I need a break, you know? And actually, I need some mental downtime, and you know, I think we're still on that journey, aren't we, of adjusting post-pandemic? Which is, you know, the expectation that we're sort of "always on" or "always available" and, you know, we've got umpteen devices, and we live in a digital world and I'm with you, Amanda. I love rearranging my desk so.

AA: I'm going to start going for that seasonal thing, decorating depending on the season.

DB: Oh yeah. I'm not as bad as that.

AA: I think it's going to be interesting. I mean, we'll, I'm sure we'll talk about it in a future pod, but this potential right to switch off, that's going to be really interesting about how that fits with us.

EH: Yeah, in the digital world.

AA: Yeah.

DB: Yeah.

EH: How do you do that?

AA: Fascinating.

EH: How do you do that? Yeah.

AA: Thank you. That's all from us today. I'd like to thank our guests, Elizabeth and David, for sharing their thoughts on a breadth of topics and, as ever, you our listeners. At the CIPD, we have a wealth of resources available to support members with a number of issues we've discussed today. You can find our new quiz to help you maximise your well-being offering or explore our guides, both how to support employees’ financial well-being and how to tackle in-work poverty, all on our website www.cipd.org. Remember, we publish new episodes of the HR People Pod every fortnight, so make sure to follow or subscribe on your favourite Podcast platform. Catch up on anything you've missed on-demand, and please do share your thoughts and continue the conversation on socials on the CIPD community platform. I'd really like to know about your hashtag "Is It a Thing". If you can share anything you've got coming up, please do. I'm really pleased to say that our next episode of the HR People Pod will be a live recording at this year's annual conference and exhibition in Manchester. I may have mentioned it's the first week in November. It's our ACE conference. I'd love to see you all there. I've been Amanda Arrowsmith, sitting in for David D'Souza and this has been the HR People Pod.

David D’Souza (DDS): Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting business and the profession. My name is David D’Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and joining me in the studio we have… 

Carl Quilliam (CQ): Carl Quilliam the CIPD’s Public Affairs Manager.

DDS: And… 

Oonagh Johnston (ON): Oonagh Johnston 

DDS: And once again…

Melaine Steel (MS): Melaine Steel.

Gareth Neale (GN): And Gareth Neale.

DDS: And I'm really looking forward today because Mel's disagreed with everything that I've said this morning including the things where I've agreed with her. It's a pleasure to have you all join this show, this week's episode is going to be slightly different because we're having a deep dive focus on the implication of the UK Government's employment rights bill which came out yesterday, so this is hot off the press. We'd like to remind listeners that the CIPD is politically independent, we're not here to play politics. What matters to us is championing better working lives and the profession that we serve. We'll continue to engage with the government and other parties to influence their position on a host of issues on behalf of our members. But just before we dive into the key areas covered in the bill, I wanted to come back to Carl to shed a little bit of light, on the or a lot of light, Carl, it's up to you, degree of pressure, either way, on the broad implications for employers, and also just a bit of the stuff that's been happening behind the scenes. So, first off, it's probably worth talking about the three documents that were released yesterday. Each of them slightly less complex than the previous one. 

CQ: So, yeah, we got the full bill yesterday. So, that's over 150 pages, 28 provisions, there's a lot to digest in there. We also alongside that got the explanatory notes, so if anyone's had a chance to Google it yet they might have found that on the parliament website. And then after that, we got what's called the Next Steps Document, which is about 16 pages and that runs through in a lot simpler language what's broadly happening with the legislation and some of the next steps. It doesn't give us all the detail we probably like but it does give us a kind of direction of travel from the government.

DDS: Fantastic, and just for anyone who does want to delve into it, there's a couple of things I'd say. First of all, the bill in itself is almost impossible to make sense of because it will say things like, we're removing one word from 14th paragraph and the document that isn't included here. The explanatory notes are super, super helpful. Because it kind of says this is what we're trying to do, and why, and when it may take place, and the next steps document is really useful for a lot of things that you thought might be in the bill but haven't been there. At the CIPD, if you remember one of the things you can do is go on our website and we have broken down the key elements of the bill, the implications that they have, and also the timelines. We will keep updating that as future consultations take place. Please do make use of it. We've got the podcast coming out today, that won't be a surprise to you because you're listening to it as I'm speaking about this, but we'll also keep going with videos and other things so that will be a one-stop shop for knowing how it impacts you in terms of the profession. So, coming back to that, we've got all of this information, how much in there was what we expected, how much shows that the government still committed to consultation, and what happens next. 

CQ: I think from a CIPD perspective, we've been quite engaged in the lead-up to this. I think the vast majority of this is what was expected from people who have had those conversations. The last thing you heard about it was the Labour party in opposition, and it was their new deal for working people. There's probably a few more surprises in there, actually some of the things in there may have been moderated or certainly will be subject to consultation in a way that you might not have expected. So, I think particularly that's a really sort of key point I think for people listening is that this is a big piece of legislation like I say, it's 150 pages, it's a lot of different provisions but there's we've got quite a long timeline now for a lot of it. 

Unfair dismissal has been a really big piece that's come out from the profession, particularly when we've had conversations when we've done surveys. There's been a lot of concern about the scrapping of the unfair dismissal qualifying period. We now know that's definitely going to happen, but what we also know is there'll be a new probation period and that's going to be consulted on next year so, in 2025, it isn't going to come in until the earliest autumn 2026. So, there's quite a long period now on something like that for us to both feed into what the bones of that probation period look like, but also then to understand it and implement it further down the line and that's the same across most areas. 

There was a conversation that happened yesterday just after the bill was introduced, you and I were sort of listening to civil servants talk about some of these timelines. The vast majority of these the consultations are going to come in 2025 and actually not early in 2025, likely March, April, maybe earliest we're going to get some of the big consultations. That said, there's a couple. So, for those interested particularly in the trade union provisions, it's likely those are going to come fairly soon. So, this this year without getting into the details just yet, but there'll be bits there that are consulted on straight away and there's probably going to be some more consultation at the back end because there'll be secondary legislation as well, but that's one of the big bits that's going to come sooner. The rest of it likely next year. 

DDS: Guaranteed hours, zero hours is that another one that they kind of said that they go quite quickly art? 

CQ: The consultation piece, there will be a consultation around how zero hours impact agency workers, that's going to be the other thing that kind of comes this side of Christmas. They'll be likely to be more next year as well. 

DDS: So, for anyone listening who has been reading headlines over the last few months saying that they shouldn't be hiring, that this is going to fundamentally change everything, that next Tuesday the world is going to be like we've never known it. The reality is, this is going to be phased. We still don't know for the most part exactly what's happening in all the different spaces. The government is committed to consultation for a really extended period of time, and one of the other things that they said to us was that they will phase that consultation as well. So, they're not trying to do everything at once. So, they can relax a little bit, 

CQ: I think so. I think there's always a tension with this kind of thing, where businesses want the detail soon and that's one of the things the calls that people have made but actually we can't get that because of the consultation. So, this long timeline is good because it allows both that consultation but then hopefully towards the back end of 2025, we'll start to get more of that detail, there'll be a kind of recognition that businesses need time to implement this stuff. 

DDS: Excellent and look for the rest of the podcast, we've we brought Carl in so that if I say anything incorrect he can put me on the right track really quickly.

OJ: He can give you a little kick under the table. 

DDS: Having both worked through about 400 pages of text yesterday, the other big take that I had from it, so it'd be good for you to confirm it, is that there were quite a few things that people were expecting to happen pretty close up front. That are actually a longer-term. So, single employment status, is one that's been pushed out. So, that's not even in the next steps beyond referencing that that's going to be over a longer time frame and the other one is right to disconnect which we've spoken about on this podcast prior and looks unlikely that they'll happen at pace and it looks far more likely to be a code of practice than it would be anything else, is that that about right? Anything else I've missed? 

CQ: No, I mean that's exactly it. And it's on those things it's at this point it's reading the tea leaves a little bit as to when they're going to come in. Hopefully there will be some of those conversations behind the scenes with civil servants and we'll get a bit more certainty, but that's exactly right. I mean the thing that that sort of says really is that, we've got 150 pages of legislation. We're also going to get loads more secondary legislation and we're going to get codes of practice. So, it is, it will be a lot, but there has been a recognition from government that actually this needs to be phased. It's not all going to you know, we're not going to get 100 consultations all at once. So, we will be able to feed in to the stuff that's in the bill, but then things like that, there'll be that bit more time as well.

DDS: Brilliant, so if you're a practitioner listening to this, one, relax just a little bit, it's certainly enough to recognise that it's not everything happening at once and it's not everything happening now. Secondly, please do follow us on LinkedIn and other channels, we've just upgraded our website functionality to make it easier to find things as well. So, do go on there and look out and as I say we'll keep those key tables, those timelines, we'll obviously update all the supporting documentation as we find out more but you can at least relax this weekend or at least not worry about extra things arriving on your desk related to this. Really want to bring in, you know, Mel and Gareth now that's a whistle-stop tour because there's so many elements to it but I was just curious if any of you had any other elements that you noticed in the bill that you thought were worth talking about. We're going to do a deeper dive into the Single Enforcement Body, unfair dismissal and zero hours contracts or guaranteed hours as we kind of work through this podcast, but anything else catch your eye? 

GN: I think that the sexual harassment part and particularly the fact that the third party is now back in which it which they took out from the previous act. And I think that could be a challenge from a hospitality perspective depending on how it's written currently, it's very much a equals b equals c equals d which is very difficult to follow sometimes. But it's about actually how you avoid risk and it's going to have to take a lot of thought from hospitality companies, because we obviously have members of general public coming in, drinking, and anything you know could potentially happen. We try and prevent that obviously, but it's difficult, it can be a challenge. So, you know it's a really important piece of legislation, but I wasn't expecting that to be part of this particular bill. 

DDS: Yeah, so there are two prime changes, and we spoke about a couple of podcasts ago actually, sexual harassment, and the requirement to do risk assessment. Two changes seem to be a strengthening of the language to say that, all reasonable steps must be taken not just reasonable steps. And, secondly, that piece around third parties so making sure that you recognise your commitment as an employer isn't just to protect people from colleagues, it's to commit people, protect people, your workforce kind of full stop. So, yes, not one that I think have been heavily kind of trailed but a kind of important piece. Mel? 

MS: Yeah definitely that one I thought, I thought it was good that that that was in there. I think some of the other things relating to statutory sick pay, a lot of people yesterday were like well that happens anyway in most companies. Well, there's an awful lot of companies who do the absolute minimum they're not really tiny companies, necessarily too. So, I think bringing everyone up to a particular standard is not a bad thing to do that? I liked as well some of the protection relating to paternity, maternity, that kind of thing. Again, good businesses have gone way beyond some of that, but it's not the case actually in a lot of, in some of the big names, that they don't do that. So, anything where it kind of pushes us into 2024 and rather than relying on businesses doing the right thing, the tips and the gratuity thing, I obviously was my background for years and years ago, you know, I always thought that you know if you do good service, you should get your tips, and I've been coming, as a customer now, I've become increasingly disappointed with businesses who, you know, that forms part of their wage or what have you. So, again, if this just forces that behaviour to change then that helps. And I guess the thing, you know, what we've just talked about, it's great that we know we've got this lead period. But I would say, you know, with the trade union side of things, we're not going to major on it here. 

But there are a lot of companies who over the last few years have been having these conversations and I think there will, there'll be quite a few members who will appreciate knowing getting support and understanding, kind of where they stand with that. And you know, hopefully someone who's got too many days to count of non-recognisable service for strike action back in her early career and non-pensionable, let's hope you know it becomes a good thing, where we can have really good constructive conversations you know with employees, employers, and trade unions. And Oonagh was saying that before we come in here, you know, make it a modern workplace which I like hearing you know that's got to be where we're all aiming towards. 

ON: Yeah, I see it as some practical pragmatism that needed an overhaul that you know, it's 40 years probably since massive reform and the generation, the work generation coming through needs that kind of simplicity remove some of the complexities. So, for me it was you know. I could see that this is a modern type of working, it's more about being inclusive you know, there was lots of things for parents and women and better protection. That's been long overdue, to bring out the best in people, you know we know that bereavement can be crippling. So, you know to recognise that from day one, I think yeah, it's just how it should be. You know the bit for me personally the zero hours, we've used zero hours before hopefully we've always used them in a way that's provided flexibility. So, again it's a modern way of bringing more innovation into the workforce and enabling that flexibility. If you've got students or people that just want to work temporarily. As long as you provide them a guarantee within a fixed period, you're not abusing them. So, it, you know I applaud it that unscrupulous employers will now be stopped abusing that particular way of employing people. But for me, it was pragmatism and modernisation, a sigh of relief. Hurrah. And we're starting to kick some of the old practices. 

DDS: Quite unequivocally positive reaction there.

MS: She is glass half full. I love it on a Friday. 

DDS: Look, we've been regularly polling our members, we'll continue to do so, holding senior round tables as well. It's going to be really interesting to see the reception when people have had a chance to reflect as well, but it's nice to at least start with someone cheering on the day after. There's plenty of time. I think Mel, that point around unions is really well made. I think it's going to be something that we need to look at our support for and members need to reflect on, greater chance of union recognition in organisations that haven't prior, it’s a different skill set, different protections that are sitting in there as well. And I think broadly one of the other things that's been interesting from our point of view has been that kind of tripartite model of consultation that the government is going through, involving unions, involving business leaders, organisations like ourselves. And the government itself, and you've had the social partnership model in Wales for quite a few years now, and that's an interesting one for people to just kind of cast their eyes across and think about how that works. And the ramifications. 

GN: Can I just pick up on the union piece because for hospitality, that's quite a challenge because we don't really have a classic union for hospitality. And also from an HR perspective, the HR teams wouldn't have had experience of working with unions, and that in itself means that there's an education piece for the HR teams because particularly the younger generation would never have even experienced having to deal with unions, unless it was literally a disciplinary meeting. It's usually where you first meet a union person. There are challenges with it as well. I think if it's a broadly positive that it's about working with businesses to give good practices for employees, that's great. If it's the other way around, that's a challenge. 

MS: I think it's to try and see it, I worked for ASOS in a previous role, and so I absolutely echo what you said about a younger HR function that's never had experience. Exposure to unions, but if it's seen as a partnership and not going to you know absolutely to butt heads, it's a way of working through a particular problem with that group of individuals or taking a different stance of we've got this complex issue. How do we work together to resolve it for the better good of what we're trying to do for our workforce. I grew up in you know kind of financial services where it was you know, a staff association and it got very much, you do as I say. I always took the view even ASOS where you know they were striking outside, I went out and said, look, who wants a cup of tea? Somebody want anything to eat? And they were like, yeah, I'd love a cup of tea. And so that's how we brokered that conversation. You know, we're humans at the end of the day. We want to get the best out of you know how do we get this conflict resolution going. 

DDS: So, it's not a 100% guaranteed? So, we will try and provide more kind of content to our members on it but a cup of tea seems a good starting point. Coffee should be made available as well, people have different preferences. So, I'm going to move us on to I guess the first substantive topic which is around unfair dismissal and probation periods. When it was trailed, I think a lot of the media coverage was suggesting that essentially from day one of a contract, people would have exactly the same rights and protections as they would have if they've been with the organisation for 20-25 years. There's a lot of pushback on that, what appears to be what is going to be consulted on I think that's the best way of framing it now, is that there will be a probation period, potentially, of nine months, where there are different levels of protection, afforded, slightly unclear at the moment. 

If an organisation were in a position where they felt that someone needed to leave during that period, they would need to have a formal meeting with the person where they could be accompanied, where they'd have to make that clear to them. Essentially running through what might be relatively normal business process elsewhere. That appears to be the substance of it at the moment. So, for any organisation that has stopped hiring and apparently there were some of those in the media on the basis of this change it appears at the very least it's different to that. There's still going to be consultation around whether it's nine months. So, the government has expressed their preference for nine months but it's also said they'll continue to review that and to consult. It has definitely been an area of contention for employers and we've spoken to, as you can imagine a range of major employers and SMEs with concerns about this. Genuinely wanted to open it up to the group with with how it's now currently formulated how big an impact do you think it will have? 

I think it goes back to everything in terms of you're saying about the time we've got. The head of this is about not panicking and planning. I talked to my team about this. We were already thinking ahead. We knew this is coming so we've already changed some of our induction processes so we've got proper forms, that hopefully will align with what the legislation is coming. It's also an education piece for managers, as well, about how to deal with performance and how to handle people's capability to do the role and some of the challenges with that. 

GN: And I think the fact that it's likely to come through in 2026 gives you time to actually plan out what you're going to do. Do I think that this is really scary? No, it is if you don't do anything about it, if you just think oh well, we're just going to continue as we currently are and then suddenly realise, oh my goodness, what do we do? I think the change from two years to potentially nine months or even six months, as long as you're prepared for that and as long as you're thinking that process through, and I think actually it's not a scary as it, it's made out to be. 

DDS: It's a really good point to make so we are probably two years away from this. So, they've said autumn 2026 will be the earliest. Equally listen, another couple of things that they'll need to work through including compensation for people in that position or who have a grievance or legitimate grievance in that space. Mel thoughts on it.

MS: Yeah, I mean it is what it is, right? 

DDS: That's very true. 

MS: You know, I think it is challenging. We're in a situation at the moment where the tribunal service doesn't work right. So, we've got a two-year qualifying period. It's how when you're in those situations and how long it takes to get through the process if you end up in that, it's hard to advise businesses like you know stick it out sometimes and go through the actual process because actually what you've done is correct. And then it's like oh should we just pay to get this out of our hair. So, do I think that by doing this it changes the relationship the behaviours to treat people better, and such like. No, not really I can't see that this is the shining light that's going to change everything right by bringing in this legislation. I hope as part of it we work out OK, if people are going to be able to claim from day one. How does that actually work in reality? How does that get supported with Acas and all the rest of the paraphernalia that actually comes through when you go through this. And I think we have to start there because just by adding more into the current system, I think we'd all say would be a terrible way forward, right? 

The probation period. I think you know there will be some employers that will be you know really strong, you know with managers in that sense of that's your, I mean it goes back in time as far as I'm concerned, that's how I started my career. You have a probation period, you use that time to test out whether the person can do the job and vice versa, and if not then that's the time you do what you need to do. So, I don't think that's dissimilar. I think it becomes more harder than we're well over the years. I think in the UK, we've probably softened that a little bit more, but in Europe and such like it's not dissimilar. 

DDS: Yeah, we certainly know of organisations that deliberately remove the probation period, and we'll now have to think about that in a different way. But equally, the processes that you'd have to go through seem really similar to what you do most places in their life cycle. Oonagh you've been a ray of sunshine so far, I'm assuming you think this is the greatest thing to happen to the planet ever. 

ON: Do you know what? I do think it goes back to what I said earlier, it's simplification, it's efficiency. If you've been wronged, you don't want to wait two years to be able to fix that, and if that's scarred your employment experience, and you,  you know, you need to have your right to protection, but do you need two years for it? So, I do think, as we've discussed, and as Mel said, we've got a system that's not working and it's log jammed. So, if there's a way to do that, then do that and make sure that that agency works effectively. Will it stop us hiring? Absolutely not. I do think you need to get your ducks in a row. You need to understand if you've got someone that is not performing or you've got someone who's joined your organisation that is definitely there to cause trouble. Then, how do you manage that in an efficient and effective way, and it's not ruthless but you need as an employer to be able to deal if you've got with a bad apple and not be afraid of that. So, you need to have your processes. You need to be able to understand what you can and can't do, and we've got time to work that through. And there's enough skin in the game that we know, we know how to handle that if you do that effectively without it coming back to bite you.

MS: And protection has been there from day one for you know we're talking about capability predominantly aren't we, right in here. 

DDS: Yeah, so automatically on fares they're already. 

ON: We've had that protection there from day one on it. I mean with some of those cases I would like them to be seen and to be heard much quicker because I think spending your time in that system waiting for something to be heard is crippling, yeah, for both businesses and individuals. It's just not. So, I start from the position and I don't know if in the conversations you guys have had any, how we're going to sort out the bigger issue of what we all say isn't working at the moment because that has to be unlocked before we then kind of change the legislation. 

GN: Can I just talk from an employee perspective because, personally, I got dismissed just before the two-year gap. This goes back about 10 years ago.

MS: Deliberately, probably. 

GN: Deliberately. 

MS: Yeah.

GN: And you know from a person, it was a complete shock and I at the time I didn't really, fully understand the law. And I think actually there is a point here where if you can't work out whether someone's good enough within the first two years that's a bit worrying. There is a more reasonable time limit for the employee, and that there are processes in place, you know, so I think there's a balance here and I think absolutely businesses need time to assess someone, particularly someone in a senior position, because you can't work that out within you know a few weeks but there does need to be a balance and an element of protection for the for the employees. The one final thing I'll say on this is it's the Christmas day for employment lawyers. They're going to make an absolute killing out of this 

ON: On settlement agreements, yeah, yeah. 

GN: Their dream, but that that dream will be made by employers who aren't planning and prepared for this sort of stuff, and that's the key bit here. If you are planned, prepared, you should be able to handle most situations.  

DDS: The risk appears to be minimal if you go through a minimal amount of formal process. It doesn't appear onerous currently, we'll have to wait and see what comes out of the consultation. 

ON: I think that's true. But I would just say, not all businesses are equal in size in support in setup. And we've got many businesses in this country now, who are still quite big who don't have they have a very small junior HR function they might have a lawyer on tap now we can debate whether that's right or wrong. But I think we can't just kind of go into this as well because the world of work has changed but you know. 

DDS: So, what you've done there Mel is you've interrupted my bridge. 

MS: Find another segway. 

DDS: So, what's happened there just for clarity for anyone watching or listening is that my next sentence was going to be however, we know for many employers they don't necessarily have the structure or the expertise to be able to prepare for that.

ON: She read your mind.

DDS:  It’s good isn’t it? It’s alignment. But I was just like you need to remember and I'm like no, no, I have, it's even in the script. 

MS: Oh, we're getting like the husband or wife on a podcast now. We need to change this. 

DDS: I couldn't choose anyone better. 

MS: Oh my God, it's on tape and on video.

DDS: And you don't even have to reciprocate. There are a few challenges here which is that we can see a few places in the bill where there's probably an increased chance of tribunal and that would be for most organisations, the balance of risk slightly shifts, and there are ways to mitigate it. One of the challenges that's been raised by the FSB amongst others, so the Federation Small Businesses, but we've also raised as well is that the education and capability in small organisations and knowledge of the law is also and often lower just by dint of circumstance. Those two things combine potentially to put increased pressure on Acas who attempt to avoid things going to tribunal, through mediation. The tribunal service itself, which is already in many cases creaking, leading to really long times for either employees or employers, depending on which the circumstances to access justice and resolution. But also, we've got a range of enforcement bodies which the government is planning to bring together under a Single Enforcement Body, which is, I think a sensible plan. I haven't heard anyone say that isn't a sensible plan, but the timing and phasing of that is key because what you don't want is for there to be more and more pressures on systems that haven't yet been reviewed.

So, the idea is to have a Fair Work Agency. There's a broader point here and I want to open it up to you all, which is there's a balance between education enforcement with this change. So, I'm curious as to where do you think the government has got a role, where different organisations have got a role to help people understand their legal rights and their legal obligations, and equally what would you want from that Single Enforcement Body that would really either give it teeth or make sure that was acting in a proportionate way. So, I'll open that up to you all but I absolutely agree like there's a greater burden of risk on SMEs. We need to recognise that as we go through so therefore we've got to have better mitigation for SMEs.

GN: I used to have my own small business and I know that, you know the challenges and the conversations I would have with other people in small businesses who were constantly in fear and sometimes in fear of just simply employing people full stop. Calling it a Single Enforcement Body is absolutely what it shouldn't be called because that scares living daylights out of me. 

MS: I was going to say that's prohibitory, isn't it?

DDS: They are going to call it a Fair Work Agency. Do you prefer that? 

GN: It should be about advisory and support first, and then enforcement later. So, it should be about advising and supporting businesses, and then if there is, they are ignoring what they should be doing, then enforcing because I think you know there's an element of a kind of a yellow card here that some businesses need, as a bit of a warning because actually, you can easily make a mistake or you can easily make a slip-up when it comes to employment law. It's very, you know, it's complex and as you said, Mel, they're often very junior HR people within small businesses that don't have that experience and knowledge. I've set up HR teams within small businesses and quite often there are mistakes galore when you go just simply go for a contract let alone anything else. And I think that's the real challenge is that there needs to be a support out there for small businesses to be able to be more confident in making decisions that are right for them and right for the employee. 

MS: I've worked for you know, SME. I've been parachuted in when there's been problems and I think what we've got to do is help them in a way that is going to again make things not debilitating and make things easy for them to find or access, so it needs some sort of overhaul. We know that, and it's probably time to say that needs to probably be a bit more radical. I think the fines that they need to put in place again for unscrupulous employers need to basically bite and have teeth rather than just being there, don't do that again. So, it's a balance isn't it? And I think it's providing the education, signposting, comprehensive guidelines but also when it's at the other end of the spectrum being able to say you're not be able to do that, that's just not on. And we'll find you will, we'll get you where it hurts, but not stop small businesses still operating the way that they need to operate. 

DDS: That yellow card concept is, it is, it so one of the things that we do know because we've got plenty of data on it is that minimum wage violations quite often are not intentional, it's a problem probably in the calculation, it's a lack of awareness what you haven't got to your point is it's not about being an unscrupulous employer. It's about finding an adherence to the law, trickier or the understanding of it, trickier, if we're making a raft of changes, I think there needs to be sufficient education before you get to the enforcement, and that's different to saying if employers are acting in a completely incorrect way deliberately, that that shouldn't be enforced. But I think it's a really interesting point around how you tell, how you separate but also how you have good enough oversight. 

MS: I don't think I have much confidence if I'm honest you know setting up a new agency I think what's always interesting in government is you know business being such a big thing but when you, you know work for departments and that is always the one that gets dissembled or you know or it gets split up it never has the consistency or continuity and one thing we know about businesses that's what they need. Setting this up I mean that in itself is no small order. So, we create it then what is it going to do? It should be there right but we've had we've got different departments already that should be there for business and support but when you try and get to engage and to take that agenda forward it's incredibly difficult. 

ON: If you want to go and talk about defence or something else you can easily get in there and talk about that but business seems to be one of those things strangely for me that doesn't seem to hold the same whack. So, I guess our let's see if it kind of materialises. Can it materialise quick enough? And I think it should have some teeth. I completely agree there has been some really terrible things that happened with some businesses, and how they've kind of got away with it. And I think in we've got to a place in when it comes to financial issues that they're regulated, and it really hurts them when they do that. And the reputational damage that it does near enough breaks them as a business. Now, I don't want that because that means those people are then made unemployed etc. But I think again if they're going to do this then it's got to have some teeth. 

DDS: Yeah, and sometimes the teeth act as much as deterrent as anything else, like you say if you know that there are going to be sanctions and that they're likely, and that they're going to be serious, that forces you to take it seriously, and you know prep, like Gareth has a couple of years ahead of it.

GN: Trying to, trying to.

DDS: So, I'm going to bring it into the home straight now, but one of the things that I can say is that we think the Single Enforcement Body piece is actually almost key to making sure that the rest of this works in the way that it should, so it's going to be one of the areas that we'll be politely requesting and pushing the government. 

CQ: I was just going to say can I add a little bit at the end to that which is to say it feels like it's quite narrowly drawn at the moment, the Fair Work Agency. We don't know how well it's going to be resourced, that is a key question. An interesting thing in the legislation is that it will have a general power to take on existing enforcement powers that government already have. I'm not expecting that to be the thing that it starts to do on day one, but it does sort of open a slightly interesting door for us all in terms of actually what the future of that looks like if it works. If they get it up and running in a way that is doing all the things that we've talked about, actually there is an opportunity for organisations like the CIPD but for businesses generally to kind of push for it to be a bit more expansive and do a bit more potentially. 

DDS: So, I think it's always important in life to acknowledge your mistakes. Normally we only have three guests on here, we've had four, I completely forgot that Carl was sitting off to my right-hand side. Carl would you be able to explain to us the changes on and the framing, I think it's important from zero hours contracts to guaranteed hours contracts and the CIPD stance on this? 

CQ: I think you talked about on the unfair dismissal piece, nine months is the preferred thing for government. Actually, there's going to be a consultation around that. That's the same with zero hours contracts. They've talked about having a preferred I think 12-week reference period which will ensure organisations use that to set their hours, set hours for employees. So, I think that's the headline is that there's going to be consultation. We're going to have an opportunity to kind of feed in on it. 

DDS: So, if you work in something that would currently be regarded as zero hours contract and you do that for 12 weeks, you would then essentially have a reference period, potentially if it was 12 weeks where you’d look back and you'd have the right to essentially have a contract, that kind of recognised that. You'd have the right to opt out of that but it's designed to make sure that you don't have exploitative or one-sided employment practices where all of the burden of risk sits on the employee. 

CQ: That was much better than the explanation I started on. 

DDS: Look, I knew there was a reason I've been ignoring you, Carl. OK, I'm going to pay for the that for weeks now. Can I just say that? Carl and the team have been putting in such amazing shifts to get us up to speed, and to get me in a position where I can actually cogently describe it, that's possibly the cheapest shot we'll have in this podcast. So, what the government is trying to do is provide a degree of security of earnings. Implications for employers really interesting on this one. I don't think anyone would ever defend any employment practice that could be turned exploitative equally the level of flexibility and that's provided historically for the employer and employee can sometimes be mutually beneficial. Any thoughts on this one before we close down? 

GN: Hospitality, it relies a lot on zero hour contracts. And I think it's become over reliant. I think what happened during the pandemic was there was a big panic about actually offering people a set of hours purely and simply because during the pandemic we couldn't guarantee it. And so, what suddenly became a trend and has become a trend throughout hospitality is offering zero hour contracts, it's the first thing you do for majority of roles. And I don't think there's a real need to, and there's a way in which you can work around this, they're talking about this 12-week period, I think it is possible to be able to work out for majority of those zero hour contracts now. Here's how many hours we can offer you and what we can do with that. There are some, there are some people that it really works for a zero hour contract is a great thing. I mean, I worked in the leisure industry previously and personal trainers would never sign anything other than a zero hour contract because for them they could earn more money elsewhere. And I think that's really key and I think also for employers, flip that around for events companies, you can't guarantee hours. So, there is a balance here, but I do think that there has been a bit of an over reliance on zero hour contracts, and I think there's a rebalance that’s required with it. 

DDS: I think, you'll have to explain to me at some point what a personal trainer is. It's an entirely new concept to me, so we'll pick that up afterwards. Any final thoughts on zero hours? 

ON: Zero hours are part of your employment toolkit and it's a diverse way of working. It enables people to have that flexibility, and I wouldn't want to see that faced out as, you know, the fire and rehire stuff that needs to be got rid of. So, I think zero hours, as long as you're using them fairly, as long as the individual is getting what they want out of it as well and you have that framework, then I hope that they're here to stay, but in the way that we all want to use them effectively.

DDS: That's a really good point around fire and rehire as well. We haven't spoken about that, but that's another change which is perhaps more caveated than unions may have wanted, which is essentially that notion of fire and rehire, so kind of mass change of terms and conditions. You will be able to do that, but only if it's essentially stopping the business from serious harm. So, the existence of the business is at threat, is pretty much the way that it's framed in terms of it being a going concern. So, that'll be an interesting one to, again, look at the justification, the range and space within that. Mel, final word with you. 

MS: On? 

DDS: Zero hours contracts. Anything you like, actually. 

MS: Yeah, no, listen, I think we can't be talking about modernisation and such like and empowering individuals and then treating them like, you know, we know what's best for them. So, I think there's definitely, you'd expect that from an independent, wouldn't you? But there's definitely a place for them, for sure. I think technology is advancing where people can select in your industry and in other industries where you can select your own shifts, you can swap shifts, you can get that flexibility that you want in life and work loads of hours, one month, and less, you know, anything that kind of stops that from happening where it's an individual's choice would be terrible. But also, I've been horrified by hearing some of the stories about, you know, where people just can't live off of the way that they've been contracted. 

ON: Or they've been cancelled at the last minute and not. 

MS: Yeah, you know, things like that, there's no place for that. So again, this is where it's difficult with legislation, isn't it? Is trying to litigate against, you know, what we consider is good human ways of working in 2024. 

GN: The thing for me is it's the conversation with the employee and even before they're an employee that is the critical part. What works for you as well as works for us? And the balance between the two. And I think all of this is, that's what it's really focused on is, you know, having that conversation with the employee, seeing what, you know, hours they can work, what's going to work for us as a business. If you have those conversations early, then you don't get the bigger issues that come up later down the line. Final thought from you, Carl. The invaluable Carl, who I couldn't live without. Carl. 

CQ: Yeah, the word exploitative obviously has come up quite a few times when we've talked to employers about this. The phrasing in what was the Labour manifesto was they were going to ban exploitative zero hours contracts. I just wanted to throw in that actually, we don't need to focus too much on that wording. We do have proposals, we have consultation. That word is a word that was used politically so that they could say the words ban and zero hours contract without banning zero hours contracts. So, I think we've reached the point now where we can kind of move on and say, actually, this is what it looks like. We don't have to worry about necessarily what they mean by exploitative. We just need to focus on the proposal. 

DDS: Absolutely makes sense. I'd like to thank everyone. So, Mel, Gareth, Oonagh, and the invaluable Carl. I cannot believe I forgot you for so long. I'm so sorry. For anyone who's been listening today or watching today, the key messages from us as a professional body are I think probably threefold. One, you don't need to panic. As Gareth mentioned, what you do need is you do need to prepare. But actually, there are some things you can't prepare for yet because if you believe the newspaper headlines, they're hurtling towards you and the reality is this is going to be a long and complex process where there's still space for voice and still. The second thing is that you have a chance to influence us, to then influence the government, because we're at the heart of these conversations, to make sure that those changes are as best informed as they can be. We're delighted to be in regular conversations with the government around this. We're genuinely right at the centre of the conversations. We're very happy that some of the things we've asked for have come to pass. And indeed, the over-framing ask that we've made around there being broader and longer consultations. So, we can work through detail has also come to pass. So, we'll do that as your professional body. And the third thing is we will keep our assets and our communication, and what you need as a professional, to see you through this period up to date. So, keep visiting the website, keep looking for the updates. We'll make sure they're really prominent when they change. Our fact sheets and all of the other areas will change as and when needed to. What you won't find is speculative changes on our behalf, because our job is to make sure that you are properly equipped and properly informed. 

So, really hope this has been helpful for you today. Please do keep staying involved with this. Please do keep using the things that we have. I mentioned it really briefly earlier. We've upgraded our website, so it is now far easier to find what you're after, and we'll keep working on those things. Expect more from us on the policy side as we pass through this period and continue to consult. But also, on the practice side, it's our job as a professional body to make sure you've got what you need to do these things well and properly. So, thank you to everyone who's contributed today. Next time, we'll go back to the more normal format, funny stuff. Talking about practical stuff that's probably happened that week rather than things that may happen in three years' time. But thank you very much for listening. This has been the CIPD HR People Pod.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting business and the profession. My name’s David D'Souza. I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD. And joining me in the studio, we have:

Melanie Steel: Melanie Steel.

DDS: You sounded slightly unsure there, do you want to?

MS: Yeah, I like the err.

DDS: I've met her before and it is Melanie Steel, I can vouch for that.

Caroline Roberts: Caroline Roberts.

DDS: And

Jo Carlin: Jo Carlin

DDS: Fantastic. It's a pleasure to have you back, Jo. I think this is your third time for you?

JC: Third.

DDS: Third time for you Mel? Second time for you, Caroline. So, a bit of catching up. It's like the hard core, like the hard core, it's.

MS: Available, I thought.

DDS: It's a mixture.

MS: The willing.

DDS: It's a mixture. There's a Venn diagram and you're both available and dedicated.

MS: Yeah, it's quite small.

DDS: So, just before we get started, we always have a section where we talk about what people have been reading, watching, consuming, finding interesting. Jo, if I start with you.

JC: Oh God, right, so I have had a book recommendation that I've got in my order off Amazon called "The Messy Middle". And our CEO recommended it, so I'm going to give that a good read. I am reading some, like nonsense fiction as well. I think last time I talked about the, did I say I was reading "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat"?

DDS: Yes

JC: By Oliver Sacks, that’s a really good one and also "Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Connect." That's a brilliant one. I keep picking that up and putting it down. It's quite chewy.

DDS: Yes. Excellent, Mel, come to you next.

MS: So, book-wise, not anything at the moment, deliberately because I wanted to do more kind of podcast reading and just like not have 500 articles saved that I need to go back and read and then by that time. So, I'm trying to do more like, in the moment stuff. Watching, I've been watching. I don't know how I missed this before, but that programme about round the world, the race.

DDS: "Race Across The World", it's the greatest thing ever, it's lovely.

MS: Yeah, "Race Across The World." I don't know how I missed it before, but I think I saw like an advert for the celebrity one and then I realised that it’d gone back and I'm absolutely loving it in the sense of this. Anyone who knows me knows I love, like I've never backpacked or anything, but actually even watching this I'm saying to my husband how amazing would it be to just go off and go through, you know this. I mean maybe not quite as extreme as what they're doing, but just to go through these different countries and understand. And it does restore my faith a little bit of how helpful and kind people can be.

DDS: If you saw the Canadian one, all he had to do was stand at the side of the road and go, "I'm trying to get to the other side of the country" and somebody would go, "oh, that's fine. I'll drive you there". For no reason.

MS: That's so nice.

DDS: It was so nice, defeated the object of the whole programme. They had a limited budget, but any Canadian would take you anywhere and feed you with their family and take you in. That's awesome though.

MS: Yeah. So, I'm watching that with husband, and we're thoroughly enjoying that and playing into the whole kind of future travel and trips that we might do.

DDS: There's maybe an HR version to be done, actually. Just get senior professionals and we'll race from one end to the country to the other on a limited budget. We're doing an extended podcast based on that. I'll free up a week next year so.

JC: Nobody’s giving us a lift.

MS: I would love to do that, yeah.

DDS: Caroline?

CR: Well, rather like Mel. I'm listening to a lot of podcasts. I'm really into "The Rest Is History" at the moment because I think there are a lot of HR lessons that can be learned from things like the French Revolution. And it makes you realise that things aren't quite as bad as we think. But what I'm reading at the moment is actually a book about the life and times of Machiavelli, which I actually think is essential reading for anyone who works in human resources.

DDS: For anyone who's not familiar with Machiavelli, do you want to give a broader overview?

CR: I think suffice to say that he's known for writing a book called "The Prince", and it's a study of leadership and it has top tips and things like doing complicated exits as an HR director. And his advice is very much, do it very swiftly. Exit someone so that they don't have time to gather their ammunition or the details for their ET1. But there are an awful lot of parallels for today's HR, budding HR professional.

DDS: Yeah, like, are actually practical. So, for any students who are listening or people who haven't heard of Machiavelli before, he existed in the time of the Italian city states so lots of competition between the individual cities. He wrote a practical primer on essentially how to run a city state effectively. And it's probably a nice companion piece with Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" which is obviously slightly more aggressive. But they're both, sort of, timeless texts that tell you how to do a thing in a really functional way, whether or not you agree with that thing. So, lots of you will have come into contact with the issues around Harrods that have come up in the media and the allegations there, and a large number of women coming forward to talk about hugely traumatic life-changing experiences. I read the deeper BBC article yesterday and it genuinely, it's difficult to read it and not have a physical reaction to it. Some of the stuff in there is absolutely horrific. We covered sexual harassment on the last podcast. We covered how it feels to be an HR professional when something horrific hits your desk or an allegation happens. We covered the changes in the law in the UK around your duties in that space and we covered actually the level of prevalence as well. So, we won't be covering that in detail because I think two in a row would be too much. But please, if you are interested in that, there's some really good content there. As I say, we only published couple of weeks back. Equally, the entire month we've been focused on conflict in the workplace and sexual harassment as part of that. So, if you go on our LinkedIn feed, go into our website, you will find information around that as well. So, going to park that and try and change the tone. But as I say, it's not that we're ignoring it, we've covered it quite extensively, recently. You will have heard some of our advisors on the radio, kind of, in the press this week as well. We will never comment on an individual organisation. We will talk about what organisations need to do in situations like that. So, going to pause - complete change of tone. First story today. Could we be seeing '90s science fiction coming to life? So, a large retailer has introduced its own RoboCops, robotic security guards known as PID 360 to combat rising thefts in stores, which are a genuine problem and a genuine issue of risk for retail staff, as well as the financial impact, across Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle. These devices, according to the press, emit a loud warning siren and a menacing message in a Northern Irish accent, which seems like a very specific design choice has been made there, which probably raises its own questions, and they're designed to deter intruders. It comes as new research from Thomson Reuters says, two thirds of legal, tax and accounting professionals think AI could save them hundreds of hours. There's a piece here around how we utilise technology most productively. There's also a piece around job displacement. Again, as the professional body for HR, we'll be covering a lot more of that in times coming and the people development opportunity of what we do is key there as well because in terms of reskilling people and keeping them up to date. Jo, if I come to you first. You can either talk, I'll give you two choices. You can either talk in depth about the RoboCop security guard, or you can talk more generally about the issue and job displacement.

JC: I mean, I just think Terminator, you know, I can't help it.

DDS: Well, that's worse, isn't it.

JC: Yeah, but I think there's just part of me that, I don't know for the, certainly, for what it's being utilised for, whether we agree or disagree with the use of Northern Irish accents is irrelevant. I think you're right. I think there's roles that AI can play that arguably, as people, human beings, it's probably better for us not to be doing that. I think in general, if I look at AI in general. I don't know. There's a lot of talk about displacement of roles and what it's going to mean, but actually maybe it's just that we need to change, and we need to change how we look at stuff and we need to change how we look at security, for example. So, maybe we don't need a load of security guards because actually that's putting them in danger, potentially, but maybe we need something else from those individuals to look at it differently. I think it's the same with everything though it's the same with every profession. And to look at it critically and ethically and work with people to say, "how can we enhance?" but give them an opportunity to say, "OK, your role might not be this, but it could be this." So yeah, I mean I'm going to go to Newcastle next weekend. I'm going to looking out for RoboCop.

DDS: OK. I mean, I hope to see you again. I hope that doesn't end badly.

JC: I'll take a picture and send it to you, David.

DDS: Well, I will look forward to that. Caroline, thoughts?

CR: There was a study recently, I think it was BCG did it when they were looking at the role of AI and how it could help productivity. And it did help all performers but where things required interpretation, there wasn't so much of a role for AI. And I think it's very easy to jump to conclusions with AI and, you know, talk in very blanket terms. But I think it's really important that teams get together, talk about what AI can do, what they’ve found, but also its shortcomings. Because you think about the security guard, I think was it, was it the ED 209 was the RoboCop?

DDS: It was, yeah, "you have 30 seconds to comply." yeah.

CR: Yeah, I mean, quite honestly, you know with looking at the resourcing and policing, you know, if someone goes and steals a load of fillet steak from Marks and Spencer's, whatever, what's going to happen at the moment? There's not the infrastructure. So, it's almost a bit of, “well look over here. There's something going on over here” when in fact there are other much bigger issues. I think the other thing around anything to do with AI. It's a leadership challenge. It's a people challenge. It's not just a bit of tech.

MS: Yeah, I mean, theft is a big issue in retail, right? But as Caroline said, you know, there needs to be a different way to deal with it. I'm not sure that's going to deal with it, but I don't want to minimise the fact that it's hard on retail staff having to try and deal with stuff and in these particular locations I'm sure that it's rife and not great. And so, they're trying what they can, I guess to try and be a deterrent. So, let's see if that pays dividends at all. On the AI side of things, I think things are moving quick, right? I kind of like every week. I kind of dropped the book reading thing because I'm like, "Hell, I don't think I can catch up at the moment of how quick things are moving." And there was an article this week by Andy Spence who does the futuristic stuff and I think it was Matteo [phonetic, 10:50] that had written it this week, but he was explaining, like with software engineers, just how close is AI performing to those and redoing the tests they did six months ago and how close they are now in the reasoning side of things. And you go this, this is a lot to get your head round. You know there is obviously huge benefits but there's also. I think HR have a difficulty because, yes, there's about the roles and stuff, but the ethics piece is the thing that probably keeps me awake most at night because it's the thing that, you know, people probably don't want to focus on so much. Everyone's very excited about the shiny new object side of things, but no-one really wants to think sometimes about the consequences, and then it's typical that HR have to kind of step in and help with some of that. And there was also, I think it was Hunley that had done some 2025 predictions for recruitment. And just in that talent acquisition space, how much further the human interaction kind of is going to be and I think it only really comes to life, I was with like 300-odd students this week and they're all going into the workplace, you know, next year. When they're talking about their experience so far of recruitment or graduate schemes, or understanding them, they don't have any contact with anyone. And so, when a human actually turns up, the queue was like as if I knew all the answers, but it was like, you know, long in that sense of people just wanting to ask a human, I guess, some stuff. So, I think we've got our work cut out, but I think there's still a lot of companies that don't have great HR software and technology in them. So, when we're talking about this and the advancements and like this week with the, there was a big conference workday wasn't there in the US, in Vegas, I think, talking about the agents and stuff. What about the organisations that haven't even got that in? And then people say, "oh, well, that's only the small stuff." No, it's not.

DDS: And there's a lot of small organisations there, if you like, they're like the backbone of the economy. So, I think it's some really practical stuff and please feel free to chuck some extra stuff in. One: where you are working with a software provider, look at the road map as well and the AI integration, because that's going to stop you having to go off and do it separately. Secondly, think really practically about use cases because it's really easy to have a general chat about technology coming, but actually what problems are you trying to solve and where can it help you?

CR: Yeah.

DDS: Thirdly, don't be afraid to reach out to others through our communities or other means to other organisations that are facing the same challenges so that you're not just feeling like there's a big, overwhelming thing coming, but you're drawing on the resources and the people and the expertise that you have around you. Because I think otherwise, it just feel, it's really easy to ostrich it and go "I know there's something coming, but you know, it's not quite here yet." To your point around the ethical problems and the ethical challenges, you need the time and space to think those things through. Now, I'll give a really practical example. I was chatting to someone around utilisation in a contact centre and what they said is they'd stripped away a lot of the low value calls or the repetitive calls, but it only left the really intense calls.

JC: So, all day.

MS: So that has a knock-on impact? Well, I my organisation is a call centre, and it has a real knock-on effect on well-being so it has a, and then you've got a whole range of new skills that you get caught out with if you're not careful and you move too fast. If you flick that switch too fast, which we haven't, you're stuck.

CR: I mean, somewhere where I've seen it done really well is around stroke pathways in the NHS and at the trust where I work there's been some brilliant work around there in terms of looking at people's scans. Because, if someone rings 999 because they think you've had a stroke, it's really important that you're treated as soon as possible. Every hour counts. But trying to get somebody to look at that, to compare things, that's something where AI can come in and they've had much, much better patient outcomes from doing that, which they have then translated into the community. AI is looking at data from community GP practices and then seeing if anyone's at risk, can they, you know, treat people, giving them preventative medicine. But that's being done step-by-step with the clinicians and not as a separate thing that’s suddenly in implementation or transformation.

DDS: People are working more hours than they're contracted to. That isn't particularly new, but Aesh [phonetic, 15:20] have reported that over half of them are still working whilst feeling unwell, so a presenteeism challenge there and one in four people are working more than 48 hours per week. Are extra hours par for the time if you want to get ahead? I'm going to go for that as like the kind of biting question. Is it still a case that discretionary effort needs to come in the form of hours? And if you want to progress your career, you should be the last person to, kind of, log in or the first in? Mel, what are your thoughts?

MS: I think we're muddying up a number of things there. I think having been first in and last out doesn't make you someone who is, you know, using your discretionary effort necessarily wise. It shouldn't be the same person doing that. I think there's multiple things there, I think if people are doing work, they should be paid for it. There's a simple kind of for me, basic equation in that. I have a big issue with companies that, as someone who worked in restaurants, you know and stuff in my early career, sometimes they used to try and change it. Say, "You need to be here, you know, 20 minutes before to do." But you didn't get paid until. My view is, you need to be there, that you start work on the time that they're paying you from, right? That's just how it is. That's what contract's about in that sense. I think you know, as you go through your career and then you're being salaried, and you're expected to maybe do other ways as ways to do that and flexible working and how that works. But I also think, speaking to younger folk today, I like the fact they're a lot more appreciative of their time and where they want to spend it. If I'm really honest on it, I was someone that went through my career and very much, you know, would do extra hours and was told, "if you did this, you'd get that." I didn't really challenge it, if I'm honest and probably made some quite big sacrifices personally to do that, but I'm pretty proud of like some of the people that I speak to now who are in their 20s, bright, energetic, in really, really great jobs in companies but refuse to do this presenteeism to a bit, and actually there's been a few of them who have left those jobs because the expectation been placed upon them is they have no life. I mean, I'm talking extreme. They're in at 6:00 in the morning, they're there till 11:00 at night, they're expected to do stuff at weekends, you know. Like big companies, won't name them but we know who they are. And they're just like, "I'm not doing that. I want to be able to, you know, do my sport." They work hard and that's not the issue, but there is definitely this piece that's jarring, which is slightly different, that career piece than if you're hourly paid-type work and you're not getting paid for the hours that you do. So, I don't think it's a bad thing on individuals pushing back on what I did. I mean, I can't, like.

DDS: And setting boundaries.

MS: And setting boundaries and actually, now I would not give up doing something that was for personally for me, whether that's, you know, fitness or what have you, I would, I would really hold it hard because I know how important it is to me and the fact that they've got that understanding in their 20s to do it, it will actually serve them better, I think, in the workplace and in the future. So, I think that's how it should be, not the presenteeism bit. But if we're talking about hourly pay kind of stuff and being exploited, no, if you're doing the hours, you should be paid. If you're going over a certain, then you should get paid overtime. That kind of thing.

JC: I think the HMRC has got, has nailed that one though, hasn't it, for the hourly pay? I know for sure a couple of organisations I've worked in have been on the receiving end of some pretty meaty audits and certainly I think that's, and I'm not, you know, by no means against that, I think that's the right thing to do. But I'm with you, Mel. I think there's a big difference between discretionary effort and presenteeism and my generation, which is slightly older than the generation now coming through.

DDS: That was so delicately put that was just beautifully done.

JC: It was, wasn't it? Thank you. Because it's podcast and nobody can see me, David, that's what it is. I think there's a difference because we thought presenteeism was discretionary effort, yeah? that's it. We were, you know, we were the whole "we've got to be the first ones in." I mean, who cared? I was playing solitaire. You know, sometimes at 7:00 in the morning.

CR: Eat your breakfast.

JC: But I was stood. I was there, but I think there's a massive difference, isn't there between presenteeism, which as "I'm just going to turn up and be there" frankly, or discretionary effort which is "I'm going to come and I'm going to do my best work for that organisation whilst I'm there." And I think that's the piece that we all need to get right in our own minds because it, I'm with you, I'm not giving up my some of the stuff that I probably would have given up, yeah? I mean, I was, I was the person who said "yes" to every project. I think that's different. And I say that to a lot of people who are coming through now that we're, you know that you mentor along the way. There's a big difference between always being available, like all of the time and saying “yes” to the stuff that's going to stretch you. And I think that that's a really healthy rebalance that's happened.

MS: Agree.

CR: Maybe over the last decade or so.

DDS: I remember having a conversation with a colleague years ago. I hope she, if she is listening, this conversation took place, and you'll know the one. And she was working till 9:00 every night and I was saying, "why are you doing that?" And she was going, "because there's no capacity to cover it." And I was like, "there's no incentive for the organisation to do anything other than having you working till 9:00 every night” because the work’s getting done, you're not complaining or raising about it. I was like, "you've locked that in". And it is about those boundaries and, you know, that wasn't atypical, you know, going back through the years, you would like to think, I guess, to your point, Mel and to the kind of way you're framing it with the people you're mentoring, that we could maybe get better at that rather than wish the same on the next generation coming through.

MS: Absolutely.

DDS: Because I think there is that "we did the hard yards, so therefore you must" which you hear all too often.

CR: No, no, I think it's a ridiculous comment.

DDS: Rather than like, wouldn't it be great if we could just create better working conditions for people full stop? And if we could play a part in architecting that is a far better ambition than. "Well, guess what, we suffered. So, you're going to have to do the same if you want to".

MS: People are fatigued, otherwise, it's getting to the weekend and they're dropping.

CR: Well, absolutely. And I think there's a, there's actually some really negative sides to this. I mean that you've got the economic pressures, people want to keep their jobs. You know, there are some managers who manage by fear. You know, they want to get a bonus and things like that. Some managers measure performance by presenteeism and rather than outcomes.

JC: Sure.

CR: I think there's a whole range of equality issues if you're, if that's the kind of, you know, work that people are expected to do. But I've noticed there's a lot of hybrid guilt. So, people say, "well, I'm going to work from home two days a week, but it's OK, I log on at 7:00 in the morning, and I check my emails, and then I drop the kids, you know, for 15 minutes. But then I'm back, and then I'll work in the evening as well", just because they feel they have to justify a hybrid working arrangement and I think that's really sad.

DDS: Yeah, I'd agree. Caroline, I'm going to come first to you on our next one, which is our newly launched Resourcing and Talent Planning report, which you can download from the website, found that more than 1/4 of employers had new hires simply not show up and over 2/5 had new joiners quit within a year. I guess the second bit of that's maybe a bit less surprising, that feels like one for the ages. But a quarter having new hires just simply not show up, is it a sign of the times? Do you think that's reflective of the market or are they indicators of actually some of things we've spoken about with different expectations, different commitments to employers? Any thoughts?

CR: I don't think it's a new thing. I worked somewhere once where, after I've been there about a week they said, "well, you're doing better than the other person who joined a couple of weeks ago because they climbed out through the toilet window during the 11:00 AM break on the induction day." I admire their ingenuity, actually for doing that. It's interesting, it's part of the employer-employee contract though, and you know some places you work, they will have a great induction, you're really committed the induction starts before you join, they've already won hearts and minds. And others, you know, you might feel it's a bit of a privilege to join them and I think if you're in a profession where there is that kind of choice you do see the dropouts, but I don't think it's anything new in particular. I think people have always done that, there is something about the expectations. Yeah, I don't see that this is particularly new story, people have always been climbing out of those toilet windows.

DDS: I'm not sure that sure is a sentence, that feels like I mean.

JC: And also, lots of windows don't open now.

DDS: I think between us we have a fair degree of experience, and the toilet window climbing was quite new, quite novel for me.

MS: I think it's a good sound bite for this podcast.

DDS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is.

JC: If you ever feel like climbing out the toilet window, listen to the podcast.

DDS: Mel, your thoughts on it? New, old, stuff that we can do?

MS: I think in some industries, for sure it's draining. You know, when you're doing high-volume-type recruitment. You put a lot into it, and people not even let you know. I also was quite surprised last year of seeing profession, profession people in HR too. And I don't know why I have a higher, kind of, threshold for HR practitioners in this.

DDS: Because we're better, because we're just fundamentally better.

MS: Because I feel like they should be if you're in there, you know, trying to advise.

DDS: If you're, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a better person. Just know that.

MS: And them doing the ghosting is well, you know of being in quite a big process and then just suddenly disappearing out of it. And no, no conversation, no honesty. And it's a small world, right? We all know we're one degree of separation from someone.

DDS: It's relationships, then.

MS: So, if you do go, we're going to go and find where did you go. Because I'm just nosey like that. Because if you do, do that, ghosting and seeing it happen, you know, with a lot of colleagues when they were hiring, I just find that incredible they’re doing that. And I think at some point you have to be careful that doesn't catch up with you. I wonder if it will be difficult going forward because you know some of this is about how much you're bought into organisations that reputation or your own reputation I'm talking about, in that you can be honest. But I also see the flip side this year. You know, it's a really difficult market as well out there. And I always would say to people "be conscious, be honest" because there's other people that would, you know, die to get those opportunities too. And years and years later, no matter what we seem to do in the resource and recruitment world, it just still blows my mind that we've got all these great people who want to go and do something great, and then we've got all these employers that are looking for great people. But no matter what tech, no matter how we do it, we all, we still seem to have this disconnect.

DDS: Yeah, the match is never perfect.

MS: Of getting the right people in the right place at the right time to use that.

DDS: Jo, you're, you're a large well, you're not personally a large employer, you're an individual person.

JC: Oh yeah, we're a pretty large employer. In fact, we've just acquired another organisation that's added another 2000 on as well. So, we're a pretty large, pretty large, high volume, yeah. No-shows, bounce-outs, whatever you want to call them are fairly commonplace but getting less, and they're getting less because what we've done, to go back to your, to your point Caroline, is we've actually said, “what can we digitise, outsource and which leaves us free to do the onboarding”. Or the piece, the human content. I think going back to your piece Mel at the beginning where you said you had this huge queue of people. We found that by flipping it and pushing all of the, you know, the administration and the stuff which really isn't making any difference out and just having a few good people, focused on talking to the people coming in. It's had a massive difference, because it's big money, you know, it's huge money for us. If we're churning, it can be catastrophic. So, we've managed to reduce our attrition rates pretty significantly. I think something like 50% over a year which is bucking the trend. But I'm, like you, we're seeing it more and more in professional roles, not necessarily HR but that's probably because I haven't hired too many people in HR, but other roles, you know, significantly senior roles. Your, getting to the very point where they're hired, they're on, they're on-boarded, you've got their kit and then you get a call the week before, they go really quiet. And then they say, "oh, I've decided to stay where I am."

MS: Yeah.

DDS: Yeah, and for anyone.

MS: I've got a better deal.

JC: I've got a better deal, yeah.

DDS: For anyone early, early in your career. Particularly as you kind of reach the point where actually some of the choices, you might make a more relationship driven as Mel says and Jo's kind of pointed out, that's the kind of thing that can stick. So those relationships matter, you want someone to think actually this person's dependable or they'd see this through so.

JC: They've just got to be honest with you.

DDS: Yeah, honesty, it helps, doesn't it? We have a section that we call, "Is it a thing?" where we take something that's either blown up in the media or online and we go like, "is that a buzzword or is it actually a thing?" I was asked earlier in the week, and you may have seen some articles about it. Genuinely, I had to write to our media team and go "specifically, am I being asked a question around unbossing or conscious unbossing?", because they're two different things. So, really quickly, unbossing is organisations removing the middle management tier in the belief that it is going to create a better connection between the leadership and purpose of the organisation and frontline staff. We've seen some organisations commit to that. It's kind of a framework of thinking that they need to do in a different way. Conscious unbossing is coming from the other side of that equation, which is primarily Gen Z, potentially more than half of Gen Z, according to one report not wanting to be middle managers because it's just not worth the hassle. So, it's too stressful, management's too big a headache, doesn't pay enough to make up for the reality of having to look after a group of people.

JC: Smart.

DDS: And so that's been termed "conscious unbossing." So, Robert Walters, I think, have coined that term in quite a smart move, it's had lots of media coverage. So, Jo, I'm going to come to you first. Is conscious unbossing a thing, should it be a thing as well? Because actually, I think we've all, we had a chat earlier, and we were all like, "yeah, fair play".

JC: I think if you can, if they can figure out how to get to the leadership level that they're all wanting to get to and not do the messy middle bit, then kudos to them. Honestly, the reality is nobody wants to do that bit. Nobody ever wanted to do that bit because you're right, you get all of the pressure, lower paid, you know, everything's coming to you from below and above, but you've kind of got to work through it. But I know we were having a conversation earlier, saying this also plays into the "I want it, and I want it now", moving around and that's not generational. I think that's multi-generational. Yeah, I don't think it's got anything to do with what year you were born. I think it's, it now has to do with where do I want to get to? The market's a bit tight. I'm probably not going to get to that role. I need to earn a bit of money because my mortgage has gone up. So, I think, you know it's a clever article. Is it a "thing"? I don't think it's a thing. I think it's just a nice clever article, but if it is a thing, I want it, I want part of it. So, just saying, I'm going to hedge my bets if conscious unbossing does turn out to be a "thing", I'm going to say I talked about it on this podcast.

DDS: Excellent. You're an early adopter. Caroline, is it a "thing"? Should it be a "thing"?

CR: Well, I think it's always been there. You know, when you're 21 years old, what is sexy about "Oh, I want to be a middle manager"? I think that it's a really useful step. Get some management training in and some experience in having those difficult conversations, get it in early. But you know what's exciting? You know, at that time you want to be the CEO. There's so much stuff about, if you're watching Succession, you don't want to be the person who's doing the governance reports at the end of the meeting, you know, it's you want to do something exciting very often, at that age and it's just human nature. So, it's not a "thing".

DDS: But it is a critical role, isn't it? And I think it's a difficult role because you don't have the agency that you'd have in a senior role. You don't have the pay that you'd have in a senior role. You also don't have the ability to just switch off at the end of your day because you're taking care of people's well-being, taking care of people's development, and often you're relied upon to fix those kind of things.

JC: I think it's an important step. You've kind of got to do it in order to, I'm not really sure how you can become a leader if you haven't worked through that middle management piece and learned your trade.

DDS: Mel, final thoughts on this?

MS: At the Uni this week, they get polled on, you know, what do you want to get out of the degree this year. And actually, one of the topics was about how do you manage people at work, how do you lead people. And when they were asked, "Oh, what does that mean?" Some of their experiences where they've had to do group activity and then been the lead, I guess, in that group, how badly it's gone. And one of them quoted, "Yeah, because they just didn't do what I asked them to do", which made me chuckle. Oh, welcome to our world, that sense of things. And you know, it was a genuine thing. So, A, I liked they're asking, let's have the conversation about it. B, I don't, you know, you can't go through life not doing it. C, maybe it's one of those things that we need to bring back. I mean, it was a big thing when you joined the workplace if you wanted to get on, there was brilliant management development, you know, and stages you used to be able to go through and it felt hard, but it felt like you were being, you know, supported within that journey, whereas now people just seem to get pushed into those types of roles. So, maybe they're seeing more of that, you know, and maybe not the supported side of it. And it's a big thing for us in HR, right? Because if you don't get that piece right, we know it falls on HR to either deal with it when it goes wrong, or we end up filling that void where you don't have good enough management. So, we can encourage them that you can get a lot out of it. But I'm also really aware, I think, when times get tough in businesses and budgets get pushed, you've got to do more with less. There's huge pressures on people. It can feel incredibly, hybrid working, all of these things that have come about, you know it, it's hard to manage people for sure.

DDS: I guess the overall tip from everyone is don't do middle management as a side hustle, that's probably the worst combo of all those things, isn't it? So, I'd like to say so much thanks to our guests today, Jo, Caroline and Mel. We've got a wealth of resources available for you to support you at any point and, as I mentioned at the top of the programme, we've concentrated this month on conflict. You'll find a lot on there and sexual harassment. We've also just launched our new Resourcing and Talent Planning report, and we've touched on some of the kind of headline figures from that and some of the trends. Publish new episodes of this podcast every fortnight, so make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you listen to us and catch up with anything on demand and keep sharing on the community. There's a lot of stuff happening, and the brilliant news is that it's all good. My name’s David D’Souza, and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD. And joining me in the studio we have:

Danny Mortimer: I'm Danny Mortimer. I'm the Chief Executive of NHS Employers.

Janet Campbell: Oh, sorry Janet Campbell, I'm the HR Director for the Restoration and Renewal Delivery Authority. Got to pay attention.

DDS: Brilliant. Thank you, we have Janet back for the second time, which is why she's so relaxed and chilled. And also, our third guest today is:

Amanda Arrowsmith: Hello. I'm Amanda Arrowsmith, I am the People and Transformation Director for the home team at the CIPD.

DDS: You work for the CIPD?

AA: I do work for the CIPD.

DDS: That must be a nightmare. What's that like?

AA: It's lovely. I get to do HR at the heart of HR. I love it.

DDS: Absolutely. And you, obviously, get the rare privilege of working with me and we'll come on, a bit later in this show, to actually talking about the things that organisations should really be advertising as benefits when they're trying to attract employees. And the CIPD obviously have that as a unique selling point.

DM: Very unique.

DDS: Unique, kind of in inverted commas. I want to start the show as we normally do, by going around asking people what they've been watching, reading, consuming recently. But before we do that, I just wanted to give a brief overview of today's show. So, we're going to try and split it up into two parts today and that's because I think they necessarily have to be very tonally different. So, we're going to spend the first portion of the show talking about, as we normally would, things that are coming up in the news more broadly. But the second part, we want to have a conversation around sexual harassment in the workplace. So, one, I want to flag that up for people so that if they wanted to avoid that section they could, or if they wanted to, kind of think about how they're going to approach listening to it, they can, but secondly because that will explain why, as I say, it will be probably a very different tone to the conversation there. But we think it's an important one that needs to happen. So, before we launch into the fun bit. Well actually, at the start of the fun bit, let me frame it that way. Danny, what have you been listening to, reading, consuming at the moment? You can either go for, as some guests do, this is the most impressive thing I can think of, or you can be honest with us.

DM: Because I've been away this week and sitting my hotel room, I watched a documentary called "Storm Foretold", which is about a guy called Roger Stone who was an adviser to Donald Trump when he was president. And US politics, is really, really topical, I'm quite interested in US politics in particular. So yeah, it's a fantastic documentary. It's a fantastic documentary because Roger Stone is the most remarkable character. The way in which the documentary plays out and is filmed, it's really remarkable because the documentary-maker and Roger Stone become quite close. But it is a truly disturbing picture of what happened, and particularly what happened on January the 6th and the role that Roger Stone played in kind of making that happen. It's a more interesting watch than I'm probably making it. But yeah, I'd, that's the thing I've enjoyed the most, recently.

DDS: So, we'll take that as a strong recommendation, thank you. Amanda?

AA: I have nothing quite so highbrow. I am delighted to say that last weekend the NFL is back, and so my weekend last weekend was watching NCAA college football, "Go Irish", and then following that up with NFL Sunday in our house, which becomes lovely apart from the two times a year that my team, the New York Jets, play my husband's team, the Miami Dolphins, when we watch the games in separate rooms because the rivalry is fierce and for many years my team were in the ascendancy and better than his team and would beat his team, and that hasn't happened for the last couple of years. So, it's hard, it's a hard season, but it's a good season.

DDS: And for anyone who's not familiar with the game, NFL Sunday is where you have a massive ice cream whilst watching the game.

AA: Exactly. That's exactly what you do, yeah.

DDS: That's excellent. That's fantastic. And Janet, what have you been watching or reading?

JC: So, I'm going to say two things if I'm allowed, I have just finished reading a book called "Fingertips", which is the third in a book series called "Courageous Love" by an author called Terreece M. Clarke. It's a bit spicy, I love it.

DDS: Bit spicy!

JC: There's a bit of spice in it and I couldn't wait. I was really waiting, and I literally read through the night because I couldn't put it down, love it. And then I started watching a series on Netflix called "The Perfect Couple." Nicole Kidman stars and Liev.

DM: Liev Schreiber

AA: Liev Schreiber, yeah. And I'm only one in and I'm thinking, "oh, this is going to be really good. It's about massive, big society wedding in a wonderfully state, in Nantucket, I think, and a body, a dead body washes up on the shore, so everyone becomes a suspect. So, I think it'll be quite intriguing, and I think there's going to be, based on the first one, a bit of in and out, each person's story will be told through it. So, I'm looking forward to watching, getting into that.

DDS: Excellent, yeah, murder mysteries and whodunnits have, kind of really made a comeback. I'm going to drop two recommendations. One is, in the last podcast, I think, I referenced, later into the podcast, "Women, Money, Power" by Josie Cox. Who is a friend of mine but didn't give me a free copy. So, if she's listening, still slightly bitter about that, Josie. But that's a really interesting, kind of overview and examination of the history of some really important tales of the relationships between women, money and power. But I've also been reading, less seriously, the book around the creation of the film "Airplane." It's a comedy that's aged perfectly in some places and less well in others but is absolutely hilarious. And you may say, "surely you must have read that before." And I'll say to you, "I haven't read it before and don't come on the show" Thank you. But there's a lovely story in it and I think it's something actually appropriate for workplaces in terms of commitment versus vision. So, general principles apply today, as they always do, which is we will talk in generalities around things. So, we may mention an organisation, but if you're working in that organisation, I swear we're not having a pop at you, we're using you as a jumping-off point for something that we hope is of more value to the profession at large. So, the first thing we're going to kick off is talking about workplace benefits. We recognise that every organisation would like to be advertising that I work there, however only five or six can maybe do that at any one point in time. So, there's a story in people management referencing the fact that almost half of current UK job vacancies list a statutory right as a workplace benefit and a good example of that is an instance of an organisation listing free water as a perk, possibly access to oxygen as well. Our own research at the CIPD highlights the need for clarity in what organisations and employers see as a benefit, but I think we were more ambitious with that, which is helping organisations think around total reward, how you invest in people's development as well. But I was really curious, just to go round, what do you think as a group and individuals, really attracts people to working at your organisation and what do you think's, I guess, the most desperate thing you've ever seen or what do you see, if you were to see it in an advert yourself, you'd go "well, that's not really saying much".

JC: Well, I think it's not so much if you're offering free water as a benefit. Although, jokes aside, I do wonder whether back in the days of austerity, lots of organisations stripped out a whole load of benefits, you know, free teas, coffees, whatever, whatever. It all got stripped out, right? Because people were trying to save money wherever they could and lots of organisations became hair-shirted about all of that, and some of them still are. So, free water might well be a great perk. Actually, I think for me, it's about trying to just have a rounded view of what you're going to get when you come here. I know some of them are statutory, but if you didn't have it, I don't think you'd get as many people applying for jobs, free water aside. I do think you have to list out as much as you can because it's part of what makes you an organisation, what makes people attracted to you. I just think if you only listed the things that were beyond statutory, you'd see a massive drop off in applications. It might be. I don't know you think, Danny, but.

DM: I suspect you're right. I think the majority of the working population probably don't know what the law guarantees them in terms of their holiday entitlements and everything else, and that's not just people entering the job market for the first time. I suspect, in my sector I did, I did log on just to check actually. I mean, I was surprised at how little we sometimes said about the benefits we do have, which are often in excess of the statutory. But yeah, I would think that it's there is a role for it. It's not as maybe as sinister as people.

DDS: So, that's another interpretation might be, kind of, you're educating people.

DM: Yeah.

DDS: And you're helping them go, "look, if you were to work here, this, this is it and some of that will be above and beyond and some of that will be".

DM: Yeah, and we have to accept that are some jobs that you don't get, that. You're a gig worker, you get very little. At least for the time being, who knows if that will change in the coming months and years. And there are plenty of parts of the economy where that will be true for some people.

AA: And I think you're right. I think the, it's easy for us because we live and breathe it. So, we know what the benefits are we know what the statutory is. I agree most people probably wouldn't know what all that is and actually listing it helps people to make those decisions. So, actually listing what we might consider that, I don't know the 20 to 25 (inaudible 09:15). Whatever it is, actually helps them to make decisions about roles and what they're doing. I think the interesting thing for me, about the other point you were saying, was around we're seeing more interest in that personalisation of work. So, many years ago, we saw big rise in flexible benefits and people having their choice in what benefits they wanted and that kind of has, has gone off a bit, but it's coming back. There's some really interesting research being done out of UI. Where they're looking at personalisation in work. And that's not just around benefits, it's around contracts, it's around how you work. And so that's quite an interesting concept for me. I was asked just yesterday by someone who we were talking about parental leave and perhaps some changes that might be coming, frankly, and someone else was saying "can we include it for dogs?" Because they don't have children, but they do have a puppy, and they would have liked some time off. And I know that there are organisations that have given time off for puppies and helped people to have puppy leave and those sort of things and so it is interesting about what's important to someone because it's not the same for everyone is it? It is different about what's important to people.

DDS: I genuinely, when you said that I was like, "why would dogs need time off?"

AA: It's very hard working with people, David, so you need time off.

DDS: But how do you work out how much you have to pay them? What's the reference period? There's a lot of (inaudible, 10:25) for me in that bit. So, moving on from benefits, but talking probably about, I think something very linked to that individual choice piece, but I think there's some really interesting arcs actually and cyclical pieces in some places around individualistic practices and work versus solving for a collective and the role of the individual and obligations of it, compared to the organisation. I know where everyone in this room is today, because they're here within a couple of metres of me, but some employers are starting to wonder more and more about where their people are and planning to start monitoring employee working locations in a bid to police or enforce their hybrid working strategies. Whenever we talk about hybrid work, I just want to be really clear, the reason we talk about it is: one it is topical, secondly, it's topical because it's a sea change for a large percentage of people. Equally, at the same time, and it will definitely come up today, we recognise that for many people their choice of work, just work location certainly isn't just there in the same way. So, for lots of people, it's "as you were", for many other people it's a fundamental change in the way they think about work, which is why we cover it. So, a number of media outlets revealed the PWC has informed its UK employees that it will begin monitoring office attendance as part of a stricter hybrid policy. Individual working location data will be shared monthly to ensure fair application of the policy. A PWC spokesperson was quoted as saying, "employees who do not comply with the three-day policy will be asked to explain, seeking an informal resolution without formal disciplinary action". So, genuinely curious to get your thoughts on this. We know that some organisations would like people in more but are struggling to find a way to make that happen. Is this a good way of doing it? Is this something that organisations should be examining more of? Danny, I'm going to start with you because I know your starting point might be different.

DM: Yes, and in obviously, in my sector, the vast majority, not everybody, but the vast majority of people do need to be in the workplace. And that's been a constant over recent years because it's quite hard to do, you know, to do some of the more hands-on things.

DDS: Surgery over Teams is quite tricky.

DM: Surgery on Zoom is not a straight-forward prospect, no. And whilst, you know, there are things that we need to look at about making my sector more agile and moving more into that hybrid space and we're doing work with the University of Sussex and others to look at that, through a programme called Agi Lab. It, until you raised the question, I'd never really thought about how you tracked those things. Yeah, I kind of, I kind of get the setting an expectation bit, I do understand that. Business, business like that and lots of other businesses are about particularly supporting clients and clients probably have expect, are increasingly having expectations about people being on site to do things. I guess the kind of the role of technology in tracking people, it does make me feel uncomfortable.

DDS: I can see you shuffling in your seat.

DM: Yeah, it does make me feel uncomfortable, and also we are also a pretty heavily unionised sector, and I, you know, I'm sort of partly thinking, "Well, gosh, how would my trade union colleagues respond to that idea, that we are using technology to track their members?" and I think that would be a complicated conversation to have. So, yeah, I don't know enough about it because it's not a particular issue in my sector, but it, I must admit to a kind of, a slight sense of unease.

DDS: Janet?

JC: I think the slight sense of unease is where I am with it all. And again, I'm sure there must be some underlying data that we don't, we haven't seen. We've just seen this article about what they're going to do and there's some underlying data that says to them this is the right thing to do for our organisation, for our employees. But if I was an employee, I might feel a little, a bit uneasy about it, and I might be asking, "Why? What will be different? What output will be different if I'm in the office versus working from home? Am I not trusted to be in the right place for delivering this task?" If I can use that phrase? So, I'd sort of, I'd want to question the kind of culture then that my organisation is trying to create or move to if that were the new thing. I can see you nodding.

AA: Yeah, that's where I went to. I was kind of thinking about values alignment and most organisations have trust as one of their values, but we're going to start using your clocking-in data to check that you are actually going through the hoops. It sounds like a line manager problem to me, not a problem.

JC: Yeah.

AA: And actually, unfortunately, a lot of what we come back to is. You know, if you want people to come in, give them a reason to come in, tell them why you're doing it, be open about that "why" And sometimes that "why" might be, we want to get together, we want to check the standards of work, we, you know, we want to, we know that for people earlier in their careers, actually sitting with other people and being together really helps you to develop that work, and we get that but also we know that we can make sure that our clients are getting what they need. Because it's client site or own site, I believe, I was reading, you know, we can check all of those things. But what does it say about your values if you're going to start using technology to track that data rather than actually having honest conversations with people and using your line managers to build that and trust that. It's an interesting one, it's not new, we've all, we know we've had like clocking-in systems for years, haven't we? I wonder if it's because there is a struggle for the the working population, where people have gone hybrid or come back and because it wasn't hybrid, it was fully remote for a period of time and I think a lot of us in that situation are struggling with the, "How do we get that back in? How do we help with our culture?"

JC: And I get that, and you know, there's no doubt that we've lost something, right? In terms of how teams gel together, spontaneity and so on. It's very difficult to be spontaneous if you've got to schedule a Teams call, right? So, I do understand that there is something to be gained from encouraging people to be in the office a bit more often, but I'm just wondering whether, just because you can track them with technology whether you ought to? Is there a different way of doing that?

AA: I think for people professionals as well, and I know we're not talking about resilience today, but we have at CIPD, we've issued some work recently around how you can support people professionals with their resilience and their own well-being. I was chatting to some people in my team and in the past, we would see someone, and we'd go, "are you all right?" and you'd have that conversation. Whereas now we only find out about a thing when it's an issue.

JC: Yeah.

DDS: True.

AA: The, this level of things that we're dealing with and that, kind of, that impact, it's always when something's an issue or something's got to a point that it needs someone, rather than actually before.

JC: Yeah.

DDS: Regular listeners will know that we've got a section called, "Is it a thing?" where we take a workforce trend that we might have seen trending or it's been covered in either a high-end or a less high-end newspaper and say, "Look, is that actually really happening in the world?" We're shifting a little bit today because we want to talk about something that probably sits behind some of these things, which is the notion of shadow policies. So, last time we spoke about something where you would only really know about it, I think, which is people kind of taking secret annual leave whilst pretending to work, and we talked about, well it would be difficult to monitor the incidence of that because no-one's ever going to tell you. So shadow policies, for anyone who doesn't know, are policies that are enshrined by being written down. But maybe the working practice is different. So, a good example used to be, if you asked IT departments whether they allowed WhatsApp for communication, they'd say, "Absolutely not. That's not thing we have", but then you'd find that almost everybody in the organisation was using it and IT knew about it. So, you've got a really different kind of what we say we do and what we actually do sitting there. So, we wanted to talk about how prevalent, I guess people think shadow policies are in different spaces and any examples that you've had of them where you go, "Yeah, we say that. But actually, we probably don't do that." And Amanda, you're giggling, so I'm going to start with you.

AA: I think back to early in my career where no-one worked after 4 o'clock on a Friday. We all did, everyone, you know, the contract said we did, and we were open and the poor receptionists all would have to be there. I was working at a law firm, no-one worked after 4 o'clock on a Friday. If you needed to find someone, you'd go to All Bar One, and that's where you'd find them. So that's

DDS: As late as 4 o'clock?

AA: As late as 4 o'clock?

DDS: I'm impressed.

AA: It was Leeds, it was the 90s, All Bar One hadn't been open that long in Leeds. It was early. But it's really interesting, I wonder why we're naming things? Is it not just treating people fairly, is it not just give and take? So, "Oh, I've got an opportunity to do this. Great. I know you go over and above". It's difficult if you're working shift work and if you're working in a team. But if you're in those situations, and I suspect we've all seen it. The risk, I guess, is favouritism.

JC: Yeah.

AA: But the shadow policy's a thing.

JC: It's not a thing, it's not a thing. It's always been, you've always.

DM: It's not a new thing.

JC: It's not a new thing, it's not a new thing. Shadow policies have always happened. You know, you have a policy and, you know, you think about a policy as being, you know, a framework and some people operate slightly outside of that but as long as you're broadly consistent in it, is it a thing?

DM: And it's sometimes it's about the ability of the organisation to change the policy, "that's a stupid policy."

JC: Yeah.

DM: And, as HR professionals, we've all had moments where we've had.

DDS: Perish the thought.

DM: On a policy where, you know, as soon as they, yeah, they just don't survive any contact with reality.

JC: Yeah.

DM: And sometimes it is that ability to just change policy.

JC: Change it, I agree, I agree.

DM: And, you know, having those kind of feedback loops and everything else, whether it's through managers or through trade unions or whatever it may be, being willing to change policies. And sometimes policies, kind of have this almost holy, "We can't change the policy. You know, it's only reviewed every three years." You improve the policy to reflect the practice, and the sensible practice in the organisation.

DDS: So, we're going to move on. And as I said at the start of this, we're going to talk about sexual harassment in the workplace. For many practitioners that will bring back bad memories and potentially many people have been impacted by it directly as well. So, we'll be conscious of that as we go through. I want to flag it up really clearly, that is the conversion that we're having, but we think it's a really important one to have. So we are, at the CIPD, focusing on conflict in the workplace this month. Next month you will see more material coming out from us around, in the UK, the Making Work Pay policies the Government's new range of policies. And separate to that from, we know from October 2024, the Worker Protection Bill will be coming in, which is an amendment of the Equality Act in the UK. For anyone listening, it's the Equality Act, it's not the Equalities Act. I just want to pick up on that because it's really a marker of whether you should be in some conversations or not as to whether you understand that, but it will strengthen existing protection for workers against sexual harassment and placing slightly different duties on employers around reasonable steps. Now, there was an interesting example of an organisation attempting to mitigate risk around its parties, events, kind of celebratory things for staff recently. What they said is, "you can drink alcohol, you can drink free water," obviously, we've covered that. "But you can drink alcohol only if you have a sign-off from your line manager." And that's an example of a policy designed, I think, to try and reduce risk whilst placing the onus on the line manager and making it quite a strange discretionary call. Amanda, I'm going to come to you first. How do you risk assess? How do you manage, not only I think the obligations that you have in law, but I think more importantly, how do we reduce what steps the organisation is saying, reduce the instances of and the likelihood of sexual harassment in the workplace.

AA: So, I think where I believe we need to start is with that awareness-raising and with training. So, it's about setting the standards but making sure that everyone is aware of those standards and knows what is and what isn't acceptable. But also, if there is a complaint, if there is an issue that they will be heard, that that can be, that will be dealt with and unfortunately, we do need to have policy to make sure people are really clear and how that can be dealt with. And give people the tools that equip them to do that. But it requires you to create a psychologically safe environment where people can say things and can raise concerns, but also, it's just about us as leaders calling it out. It's about us recognising behaviour, however small that might be and actually being brave enough to call that out. And that's difficult. Earlier in my career, would I have called stuff out? No, I probably wouldn’t, and I probably didn't because there's a power imbalance and I'm scared of it. But what we have to do is make sure that we are creating the environment where it's clear what's acceptable, but also if there is an issue, how can we support people to raise those issues and sort them out.

DDS: Sorry, if I can just push you on that a second.

AA: Yeah, sure.

DDS: So, there's a cultural piece and my guess is a lot of the conversation we have will be around that, that specific point around risk assessment.

AA: Yeah

DDS: How would you go about that? So, summer party, what are your thoughts? Where are you seeing the risk in that? What's the best way of managing that while still keeping it celebratory?

AA: So, partly that's about people taking responsibility for their behaviours and for the behaviours of others. So, when you're risk assessing, you would go through your process for your risk assessment to start off with and that would be identifying. So, the risks of 60 people who haven't been together for a long time, all coming together at a free bar, potentially, and thinking they can drink as much as they can in two hours and then there might be some canapes. And how, you know, how do you support that, how do you do that? And partly that has to come from before that. So, you mitigate that risk by being clear of what that understanding is. The other thing is, if you're, in your risk assessment, and as part of the new law in the UK, you will be required to do sexual harassment risk assessments. If in your risk assessment, you're identifying that you don't want to put a particular person in a situation or your mitigation is to not have someone getting a lift with someone else, you've got a bigger issue there and you need to deal with that bigger issue.

DDS: Yeah.

AA: Bravely, sorry.

DM: No, no, I'm agreeing with you entirely and I think there is always a risk for us as a profession that when the law lands, it becomes a kind of mechanistic approach to risk assessment. And we think it's about events, it's about Christmas parties and it's about those kind of things. It's not, you've got to step back. As Amanda said, it's actually, you've got to take several steps back and say, "Are we clear about? Do we accept there's a problem." And in every, you know, we have to start accepting that there is a problem. And actually, some organisations I think do struggle to accept that there is a problem in their workplace because people haven't raised concerns because they haven't felt able to raise concerns. So, you've got to accept there's a problem and then there is something about leaders setting some standards and then that informs the risk assessment then about specific events. It's just a function of actually, this is what we will tolerate as an organisation, this is how we will deal with this, this is how we will educate you. These are the behaviours we will and won't accept and I think there is also a point about that kind of education about acceptability in particular, I know, Janet, we've talked about this previously.

JC: Yeah. So, I think I agree with all of that and think that when all is said and done, risk assessment, you're dealing with people and you can never predict how people are going to react and behave in a given set of circumstances, irrespective of the policies and procedures and all of the prior risk assessments that happen because people just react and respond in certain situations. So, I think, at the heart of all of this, there's got to be something about trusting. Trusting, if I feel or that I have been harassed, whether that's a micro-harassment or something much more significant, because often we don't recognise harassment when it's micro, we only recognise it when it's big and significant. We've got to create environments where people feel they trust that if there is harassment, regardless of the scale of the harassment, I will be heard, and someone will take me seriously when I raise this issue. And then because we're going to create the conditions for that to happen, which is where you come back to then, full circle, back to your your assessment, your policies, what's the organisation culture?

DM: And there is a risk, and this is something we've got to be aware of, I think in our organisations you've got to be aware of as a professional body. That the conversation always starts with the Christmas party. It always starts with alcohol. And in our sector, we're increasingly talking about that point Amanda made about safety, about sexual safety. This is a daily, daily issue, it's not a once-a-year issue. The sector that's done the most work in the health service on this, it's the ambulance service and some colleagues there have have done some really terrific work. And actually, you know, I think what they've highlighted in particular is that, particularly women who are in a real minority in the ambulance service, there's a real prevalence of both sexual harassment and sometimes sexual assault. The paramedics, their colleagues that are behaving in that inappropriate way, aren't drunk. These are things that are happening daily in ambulances, in other working environments, and we've got to have that conversation as a profession, we've got to have that conversation in our workplaces, with our boards about the reality of that experience, for all people, but particularly for women. I think that's something that we've got that opportunity to do that in the lead up to the act.

JC: Because in the, there aren't many workplaces where alcohol is involved nine to five, right? So, I think it's, in my view it's slightly disingenuous to start the conversation about the Christmas party or the summer party because, you know, if you're afraid of getting in the lift with somebody or you don't want to be caught in the coffee point with someone.

DM: Exactly.

JC: Or you don't want to have a one-to-one one meeting with someone, that's got nothing to do with alcohol or the Christmas party, and we've got to have those honest conversations and create the space to do that.

DDS: Absolutely, and it's worth saying that I think the focus goes on those events because there's quite often a spike. But it's the fact that it's the prevalence day-to-day and in fact the extreme prevalence of it that's challenge. Danny, I'm going to cheat on this because we need to close up, I think, in terms of time. You made a really important point when we were chatting earlier, that actually the organisational response to this needs to be right to enable the HR or the professional response to be right to this.

DM: Yeah.

DDS: So, I'm going to come to Amanda, actually to, kind of, have a final thought, which is, what's it like when it hits your desk? Because we've all been there, when you get that call out of the blue or someone sets up a meeting and you don't know what it is and then suddenly, you're very aware of what it is. But the, I think the point that Danny makes is that, yeah, it has to work within a system because actually, if you know what the right thing is to do, but the response you get from the organisation is pushed back or undermining the victim or the work that you might want to do around it, it's really difficult. But just because we'll have lots of people who maybe haven't reached the unfortunate bit of their career where this is something that they have to deal with, and it is hugely difficult and hugely draining. Could you just talk us through, I suppose about, if you were to receive a complaint today, let's say, around a senior member of staff, because quite often that is, it's the power imbalance which we kind of referred to. How does it feel and what do you do?

AA: So, let's start with how it feels. Even if you're not new in your career, you haven't dealt with it, it still makes your stomach drop because we genuinely believe that people are good. And so, when this comes up and someone raises something, your initial reaction is that pit of the stomach, I have to deal with this, because we're also employees, we also have relationships. And we're having to deal with someone, potentially, in power. So, recognise that, it's real, it still happens we all have that. In terms of how you deal with it, the first thing to do is make sure that people are not in harm's way. And that might mean making some difficult decisions. That might mean going to your Chair of your board, that might mean going to a CEO if it's someone senior, that might mean removing people from situations. But the most important thing is that you remove that harm, and that's where you have to start. You've got to do things in a way that becomes really challenging because you need to balance fairness and equity. And until you've done an investigation, you have to be really careful about making assumptions and how that works, as you would with any potential grievance or disciplinary. Where it comes to sexual harassment, it's that harm piece and how you protect people from that harm. So, you have to take that extra. You need to work fast, but with detail. You need to be calm. You need to be clear. You need to follow all those things that you will have learned many years ago and make sure you're taking notes, make sure. Keep it small. Speak to people that need to be spoken to.

JC: Yeah.

AA: Just because someone's been brave enough to bring an issue to you doesn't mean they want everybody knowing about it.

JC: Yeah.

AA: Respect that confidentiality, work with people. But first things first, make sure there's people that have, don't have any more risk of harm. I hope that's helpful.

DDS: No, really helpful, thank you. And it's multi-dimensional for the victims and I think that's a point that we need to make, that it's not just an incident. I was fortunate to be able to help someone a couple of years ago, going through this situation, but it was giving them advice about how to work with their HR team. The HR team did nothing wrong. Everything they told me about the way that team reacted was they were supported by this and all those things. But the level of jeopardy they felt for raising it, for the potential impact on their career. For, "Am I making too much of a fuss about this? How are people going to see me?" Everything from, "What if I don't get promoted any more?" To, "If I do get promoted, how do I know it's not as a response to this?" It's putting people in an almost impossible situation. It's worth remembering, as practitioners, sometimes the response you might get is to a bundle of things going on for people in a horrific situation rather than the way that you're handling it as a professional. So, that's all from us for today and I really appreciate all of your openness on that topic in particular, but I'd like to thank our guests, Amanda, Janet and Danny for sharing your thoughts on a breadth of topics today, and as ever, to you, our listeners. I'm always asked to tell you where you can find this podcast, but you're listening to it, so you must have found the podcast. But it seems like a really obvious thing. We've got a wealth of resources available to members, supporting you with the number of issues we've discussed today. Please do reach out, either for guidance or for support from the community that we have. Publish new episodes every fortnight, so make sure to follow or subscribe. Catch up on anything you've missed on demand and please do share your thoughts and continue the conversation on our community platforms and within your branches and all of the support that we offer. I'm David D'Souza and this has been the HR People Pod, stay safe and well until next time.

David D'Souza:  Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work. My name is David D'Souza. I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and joining me in the studio we have:

Jon Dawson: Jon Dawson, Chief People Officer from Lore Group.

Jo Carlin: Jo Carlin, SVP for HR Europe from Firstsource.

Jane-Emma Peerless: Jane-Emma Peerless, Director of People for Caxton Payments.

DDS: Wonderful. Absolutely delighted to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself before we get going. So, what have you been watching, reading, broadly consuming that might give us an insight into your life, Jon, if I start with you.

JD: Watching everything about Oasis, I'll come back to that later on. What am I reading at the moment? Big fan of, and I know it's bit traditional, Stephen Covey's "7 Habits". I've been shopping a little bit and reading a great book, being from the hotel industry, called "The Enneagram at Work" by an amazing guy called Jim McFarlane. And it's all about how he uses that profiling of people within his career and there's some great stories in there about when he was GM and Kanye West turned up late. So, I can really relate to Hotel. So, I'm really enjoying that book again.

JC: I mean, really, I haven't been reading anything quite so high brow.

DDS: He hasn't either. He's just made that up. All right.

JD: This is true. Honestly, it's the truth.

DDS: He's read the back.

JC: I've read some, you know, I can classify them as chewing gum for the brain-type novels. Yeah, which is just rubbish fiction interspliced with "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks. Really great book about psychology, really fantastic. It's odd. Don't read it on the train, you get funny looks. And also, the psychopath test, again, not really a train-appropriate book, but all good.

DDS: And that's Jon Ronson, isn't it? Really good?

JC: Jon Ronson, awesome book

DDS: Excellent

JC: So, I've normally got about four books on the go, mainly because I forget where I put them, so I have to start another one and actually the one I'm, two that I'm really enjoying at the moment, one is called "Slow Productivity", by a professor Cal Newport, I think it is. Who is, he's a Professor of Computer Sciences in Georgetown, and it's, I think it's really interesting because it's all about what defines productivity in the cognitive world in, for knowledge workers, which no one has really been able to do. We talk a lot about productivity, and he tries to, I mean basically, what's the basis of his book is the fact we're all running out of steam. We're all getting burn out, we're all exhausted. And how can you find the time? How can you accomplish things well? And I think it really speaks to this whole idea about how, of pseudo-productivity, which is what we're seeing when people are going back into the office, probably. I don't know if it's a topic we're going to come on to, but a fascinating topic in its own right. So, that's so I'm interested to see where that, whether, what the answer is to that one. And the other is a great book called "The Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller". About three women, 20-odd years ago, who set up a book shop in Cairo at a time when book shops didn't really exist and they set up a kind of Waterstones-type book shop and it's about their journey, their journey being three women in a men's world, the adventures they had, the issues they had and it's a brilliant read.

DDS: Excellent. I thought you were going to say "The Chronicles of Narnia" for a bit.

JEP: I did as well. I mean, the film was amazing, so maybe the book's good.

DDS: Yeah, exactly that. I'm, yeah, I normally have three or four books on the go. I've actually lost track of what I'm reading. I'm going to reread "The Jaws Log" by Carl Gottlieb which is about the making of "Jaws". He was, kind of on set and he helped the screen writing, but it was such a chaotic process making that film that it's genuinely, for anyone who wants a good understanding of programme management, the things that you need to think about and the structure, it's a lovely way of bringing that to life. So, the fact that initially in Jaws, the plan was, when they bought the rights, to just train great white sharks to swim really close to people and then swim away because they didn't have enough understanding of what they were working with. It's just an act of, like utter genius that they managed to get that movie made.

JEP: You're saying that, actually, people were killed on set because of it? I mean that would make me read the book.

DDS: There's lots of stuff that comes quite close to that actually, so, no, absolutely wonderful read that I recommend from the archive. So, today we were going to do an Oasis-themed bit, genuinely, and someone's written a lovingly crafted, Kristian's lovingly crafted a script that said, "we're just going to rock'n'roll with it, given news that rock band Oasis won't slide away without a reunion tour, and fans of the band can finally stop crying your heart out." However, we're not going to go into that in detail. Going to use that as a bridge to the fact that, bizarrely, I think, or possibly very much of our times. Even the fact that a band has said that it's going to come back, and it's going to go on tour has ignited debate on social media and aggressive stances. With people going "this wonderful", people going "this is awful." Couple of reminders before we go into our next topic. It is possible to hold an opinion lightly and it is possible to not have a strong opinion on something and it is possible for people to feel different ways about things without one set of people being right and the other set of people being wrong and therefore not worth your time, which is where we're going to gracefully move on to talking about whether your business should be staying on X. So, the artist formerly known as Twitter. So, in recent years, this social media platform has become increasingly toxic, offensive and sometimes borderline unlawful, depending on where you sit. There's also an argument that it's there to exist for free speech, that people should be able to express views, that different parts of the world will have different tolerances for that. For organisations, there's a genuine decision to make about where you want to show up in the world, whether that might be a platform that you want to do it on. Where you say that it doesn't align with your values, but also then how do your values manifest in different spaces and what your customers would expect and what your people would? So, I think there's something really interesting happening there, but part of it actually is just around conflict and at the CIPD, we're going to spend next month, actually, talking about conflicting fact, by the time you hear this, it will be this month which is very exciting and bring all of our resources together to support practitioners. Without going into how you feel about Oasis, because Jon, I know you're particularly excited about that and that would just take up the whole half hour. But what do we think around that, kind of, manifestation on social media? Jane-Emma, I'm going to start with you.

JEP: I was hoping you weren't going to start with me, actually, but I will carry on.

DDS: I could see the fear in your eyes, and I went for it anyway.

JEP: Yeah, I mean, I'm not on X. So, difficult to have a view from a personal point of view. I've tried it, I found it overwhelming, an inordinate distraction at the time. I did, I know that as a company we do have a couple of accounts, but mainly from a, sort of, as a customer outreach, customer support route. It barely gets used. I do know, I was talking to our marketing team, there's a nervousness about it, particularly at the moment because of all the changes going on, because of the change of ownership. That actually you might, there might be a sudden change, there might be a change of policy which actually then works against you and then suddenly you're stuck. So, I think there's a nervousness from businesses, certainly small businesses generally that you might commit to something on a social media channel, which suddenly either the rules change, it gets taken away or you don't know how much it's going to cost. So, I think there's a general nervousness around it and I really, I think other than politicians and journalists, I kind of can't see what the point is.

JD: And for me, it's a really, it's a really an easy answer from an organisation perspective because actually we actually don't use it as a medium as well at Lore Group as in, I did a little bit of homework before and actually had a look and we have a page and I think it's got, like 25 followers. So, it's not something we proactively use anyway as a medium to promote our hotels or the industry around that and it's such a topical subject at the moment, that I think if, outside of Oasis and X, I think we could be here for two days talking about, about these two subjects alone. But certainly, for me, you know, I have my own account, you know. Everyone has an agenda whenever they're using X, whatever that may be, you know, whatever view you have of it and, for me, a lot of, we're having conversations, you know, with peers and you know various different people. And there's another theme for me that kind of stems off from this, and it's actually the actual trust in what we're actually seeing from a news reporting piece as well. And actually, people actually, you know, going on to the likes of X for, you know, is there another view to what you're actually seeing in the media that's being portrayed on TV and in news at the moment as well, which I think is a really, really interesting sort of area. So, I don't particularly have one view or the other on how you should use it or is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I think it, I think it needs a lot more debate of where this goes, but it's certainly a huge subject at the moment.

JC: I think we're in danger of over-thinking it, frankly. I think it's a social media channel, it's going to have people with opinions on it, to go back to your point, David, it doesn't mean that other people's opinions are right. You know, my view is having an opinion is great, being opinionated keeps you stuck. Let's be honest, it's probably had its day. And it's controversial for a reason. I think it's gone down that controversial route because it, I don't know, I'm not in the mind of Elon Musk, but I would imagine that that's playing into, you know, people using it. So, I mean we don't use it extensively at all and genuinely I think sometimes, you know, as organisations we can over-think these things. It does speak to a bigger issue, which is where do you get your news from and how much work are you doing to authenticate the sources of that news? I worked for a newspaper industry for 20 years and Financial Times being one of the core of that. And it was drilled into us about authenticity. And, you know, and I don't think enough people do question, these days, the sources of the information they're receiving.

JD: I think anyone that uses Twitter/X as, as a medium is going to have their agenda and you've, kind of, got to question what is that agenda that you're seeing on there and you've, kind of, whatever you see on that medium, you've got to take a view of it may not be, you know, the real agenda that you're actually seeing, no matter what it is and, you know, it is becoming very, very blurred at the moment, you know, as in with what you're actually seeing on a wider news audience, media perspective as well. And I think, I think whatever you now see whether it be, you know, switching on the news or going on to X to look at a particular topic or something. I think you've really got a question actually what is the motive that you're actually seeing behind it. I travel a lot and see a lot of, you know, a lot of things in the US, especially the presidential campaign. You know, you switch on one news channel, and you see a certain view of the world and then the next morning I wake up, switch on another one and it's a very, very different story that's been told. And I think X is very, very similar to that in many ways as well.

DDS: You know, there's a really good book actually by somebody who used to work in that space called Ryan Holiday that covers actually how you plant. It's kind of the other side of it, how you plant stories, how you develop a narrative, how you use shock value or mysteries to slightly influence an agenda. And it's one, I think for the, you know, we talk about the profession needing to be evidence-based, to your point as you are understanding what is likely to be true. And that goes down actually to, I would say more mundane, but actually more practical things. If you are doing something in your organisation, how can you be confident that that is the thing most likely to be effective? And if you are doing that because you saw headlines or you saw a conference speech or other things, that's less useful than actually a constructive kind of review of the different sources. And I think particularly when you get into making large investments and organisations, how you assess those effectively is key. So, we're going to move on to, and we've kind of lent into that media narrative piece and positioning it actually in the way that we're describing it, which is the next piece we're talking about is the idea that the so-called "great resignation", which was capturing media headlines a few years ago, has now become the so-called "great retention". And it does feel like everything needs to be "great" or "quiet" at the moment, they're kind of like the options presented to us. So, a story in The Sunday Times, noting that where the pandemic era saw chief execs grappling with worker shortages and other things. I have to say, they had quite a lot on their plate at that time and offering large pay rises to entice employees stay. We're now contending with a so-called "great retention" with many employees staying amid an economic backdrop that's pretty precarious. So, they're not confident enough to leave. So, our data at the CIPD shows the percentage of employees who had had less than one year's tenure has fallen from about 16% at the start of the year, from a peak of about 18% after the pandemic. And our labour market outlook in the spring, so that's a quarterly survey where we ask more than 2000 employers what it is their intentions are, anticipated that turnover and vacancies were both likely to decline in a period of normalisation. So, I guess there's a really practical question. What are you all seeing? Does it feel like it's tightening? Is that kind of borne out by that kind of headline? And also do we think this is a problem for firms, an opportunity, what do we think the implications are?

JC: Well, I work in the outsourcing sector. Low attrition is amazing. Let's keep the low attrition trend. Let's go with you know.

DDS: It's working for you? It's nice to hear.

JD: I'm with you on this one as well.

JC: It's working for us. Yeah. I mean, frankly, yeah, I'm all over this. this is brilliant. But on a slightly less glib note, it's cyclical, everything is cyclical. I think, when you've been in the profession for a length of time, you see things come and go, it's ebb and flow. I suspect what's happening now and we are seeing it, actually, in areas where perhaps we would have seen a little bit more attrition, we would have seen more churn. But in all honesty, people are staying put because they're not sure of what's going to happen. Everyone's a bit cautious and I think you know, look, have organisations become so reliant on people leaving that they're becoming, they've become a bit lazy and they're refreshing of the things that they would normally do, they're not getting that churn, so it just feels a bit stagnant. And I wonder whether there's just a little bit of that kind of stagnant pond-type feeling going on in businesses at the moment and there's no, you know, there's. It's always good, isn't it, when you get a bit of a refresh of your team sometimes, sometimes not. My team, obviously, if you're listening. But yeah, I wonder whether there's that at play as well. Everyone likes a, you know, a jazzy headline. So, if nobody's leaving, then they obviously must be staying, it can't obviously be because the organisations have just got better. Which I suspect they aren't.

DDS: Or, like you say, there's something in the middle, so there's that notion of a healthy degree of attrition. Probably, you know, it helps probably individuals to move on as well. Normally, in terms of their career progression, we know that. Jon, thoughts from you?

JD: I work in hotels and hospitality, so for me this is a great question because actually this week, last week at this time I was actually in Amsterdam doing a sort of a quarterly update with the senior team. And one of the data stats I was particularly keen to show was our retention rates because, we're on course this year, since, you know, since I've been with the group, to have our best retention rates that we've ever had as a group.

DDS: And just to be clear, that's down to your amazing work and the conditions, yeah?

JD: That is not down to my amazing work, that is down to a collective team strategy that we set out actually last year around that, and to back that up, we've got, you know, our NPS score is 14 points above the industry average. So, my sort of.

DDS: If you're early in your career, by the way, take notes in this bit, right? Broad economic trend becomes Jon's work of excellence that's been planned for years.

JD: So, my narrative last week was. "Aren't we doing fantastic as a group?" All of the strategies around retention, labour turnover, employee engagement. Because hospitality in general as an industry has had a really, really tough time, coming out of COVID, where you know the Brexit effect and we have seen huge levels of turnover as an industry and we purposely have set out a strategy you know, last year to work really, really hard. So, there's nothing that pleased me more, when I went into that meeting and then, you know, looking at some of those stats there on that there and like, well, at least we're sort of ahead of the market within hospitality. But I can absolutely say that, speaking with industry peers and peers within the people profession, that is those trends are definitely what we see and it is, I'm going to call it. For us, it's great to be stabilised. But it is absolutely helping us as an organisation, grow and develop a lot of people that maybe in years gone by were actually thinking I'm going to leave the industry and go and do something else. So, we're actually investing quite a lot in the development of people.

DDS: Yeah, we had a chat probably about 18 months ago when it was a significant problem.

JD: It was a huge problem.

DDS: And I remember from the point of view of salaries, but also the other work you were doing, one it was really impressive, but secondly, I genuinely hadn't recognised some of those salaries that you were having to pay to, kind of, bring people in. Good careers available in that sector, if you'd like to get in touch with Jon?

DDS: Jane-Emma?

JEP: Well, I'm going to, I have to say I agree with both of you because I'm, we're enjoying a period of relatively, relative stability, which is lovely. And I can't say it's all down to our efforts, but I do think that I mean, well, let's face it a lot of this has come about because some of the very large recruitment companies who are listed on the Stock Exchange have had very bad results this year and they're putting that down to the fact that people aren't leaving, aren't moving. The work that we all had to do as businesses when the "great resignation" was going on, it made us all work much harder to look at our pay, our pay deals, look at the remuneration we were offering, look at the succession planning we were offering. I think those things have now been put in place and people are generally happier. Also, certainly in our sector, which is the tech sector, there have been a lot of companies that have gone to the wall. And suddenly people are nervous and going, "Hmm, maybe we should just hang around a bit longer, we don't know". All these companies that were backed through huge investments have run out of road and suddenly had to make huge cuts, mainly in staff, and I think it's made people more nervous. So, I'm hoping it's a combination. We'd like to think it's all the great work we've been doing, but I think it's cyclical. I think there's a lot going on around the scenes and it's, just let's enjoy it while it lasts.

JC: Yeah, I agree with you. I think there's, we've got a headwind, haven't we? Let's be honest, we've got a little bit, or a tailwind. I can't remember which one's which actually.

DDS: We've got wind, which we hope doesn't… You've got wins. Yeah, but we, we we're a... Which we hope doesn't come through our mics.

JC: Bit we're a bit blessed at the moment, aren't we? But I do agree with you, actually. I think, the "great resignation", it does feel like a Western film, "The Great Resignation". It has, it sharpened the tool a little bit, didn't it? Made us look at things a bit differently and say, "OK, what do we need to do differently? This is really hurting us and hurting our businesses." And I think there is substantially and certainly that's what I'm telling my organisation, that all the great work, coupled with, you know, a little bit of, of a helping hand from the economic environment.

JD: You could also argue as well, there's many organisations that actually did focus, particularly this year, back end of last year on a lot of retention engagement strategies. You could argue that a lot of those coming to fruition are actually contributing to it. My Head of Talent, for example, we set him a really tough target this year around, you know, funnily enough, reducing any recruitment fees and we've not used any head-hunter fees, touch wood, this year at all. And he was super delighted.

DDS: New global benchmarking data released by one of the employee experience platforms, Culture Amp, suggested that business leaders, including HR leaders, are facing an uphill battle to maintain confidence in their leadership as employees are more sceptical about companies' direction. So, our own research, the Good Work Index 2024 revealed that nearly four in 10 people didn't think that senior managers have got a clear vision for the organisation. So, there's a couple of things happening there, one: people being willing to voice that they're not convinced and secondly, a clear challenge for business leaders that actually that clarity of purpose and uniting people behind it in alignment is really important. We've just talked about, actually, pay as kind of a key driver, but actually that confidence that Jane-Emma raised in the future of the organisation is the key one as well. So, it would be really good to get some practical tips, I guess, rather than just observations, kind of, practical tips about what you think organisations should be doing. Jon, I'm going to come to you because you've obviously, you've kept everyone, no-one's left this year. Great job! Well done!

JC: What's your secret, Jon?

DDS: Tell us more.

JD: We did have people leave, just for the record. I'm going to again wind the clock back to about two and a half years ago, when we actually looked at this as a subject matter as a group and what we actually did is, you know, we were very, very fortunate, we've got some beautiful hotels at Lore Group and that's not an advert, by the way. But we took all of our teams, our senior teams to Amsterdam. We actually looked at, you know, what the vision for the group should be and wanted to really build a strong set of values that would resonate in different countries, with different sort of demographics of people and we did a lot of kind of work around that. And one of the key themes that sort of stemmed from that is; how do you actually create something, you know, the vision and the values that someone, who's dealing with a guest, dealing with a customer can really relate to as simple as possible and not, as I call it, not over-HR it. And we did a lot of work around that and what we've actually seen, two years on, is that's kind of really landed and it was all about actually keeping that vision simple. But then actually coming up with programmes around when we launched "here's the vision where we want to take the group?" How do you actually do that change management piece? The training that comes around that, where actually every single employee can actually feel. It goes back to that, like Simon Senik, you know the why is in, how am I contributing to that? And I think many organisations sometimes maybe overcomplicate that too much. You know, as in, it's easier for us because we're not a huge, huge organisation. But you know, I was, took the family to Florida recently and Disney World. And if you walk round Disney World and you see what Disney does, you know, it's still got that magic of how it does that. So, it can be done on a huge, huge scale. But for me again, Disney's, super simple, every single employee that works there knows why they are on, their purpose. So, it's something that I feel that we're doing well at the moment, obviously, we can always improve but, but sort of that'll be my, sort of like, sort of "top tips", let's call it.

DDS: OK, Jo, thoughts?

JC: I think where you've got a huge organisation that's really global, I think it's difficult to do these kind of things from the ground up, but in organisations I've worked in where it's been slightly smaller, that's exactly what we've done. So, we've gone out and interestingly, it was for the hospitality company that I worked for, and we went out and we said to people, "Look, what is it that makes working here so special? What is it that you think our purpose is? What is it?" And we ran, you know, I ran workshops. I had a great time, frankly, I just toured around the country doing workshops. And out of it was born these guiding principles, because that felt more in tune with that organisation in particular. Although that was some years ago now, they're still using it because it's not, you know, it isn't, it wasn't born out of a bunch of execs sitting in a boardroom. It was born out of actually speaking to people who are doing "the do" in all sorts of walks of life in terms of their role at that organisation, and that was a great piece of work, I think, that really had an impact and effect. And I'd say, if you're in a small organisation, do that; don't be afraid to get out of the boardroom or the meeting room and go and run workshops and ask the question. You're left with a whole ton of work, but it's well worth it in the end and just get a fab, you know, a fabulous team that can actually do some analysis on it. In this organisation and in other global organisations, we've sort of gone down the route of culture, cultural playbooks, so a very strong vision, cultural playbook more focused on behaviours, because I think that sometimes we miss that, don't we? But that stripping it back to very, very, very simple behavioural statements, yeah? Which mean something to that organisation and each team can make their own. But I'm, you know, I suppose if I had my way and I had my choice, I'd always go out to the people and I'd always ask them. It took six months in that organisation, from start to finish. It's not fast job. So, it took six months, and you have to get through the conflicting views and you have to sell it at all levels. But it works. Everyone had a great time.

DDS: Yeah, and it's worth saying, it's never tidy as well. So, we can explain all these things, kind of like top level, it's never tidy. You've got people who dissent, you've got people who you lose along the way, you've got contentious issues, you've got people. I remember years ago, working in an organisation where one of the values was "Human". I remember the COO standing up and going, "Human is giving people the tough messages. Human is telling people exactly where they stand, so they are left in no question around that". And the CEO came up next and he went, "Human is about how empathetic we are." That's like, so what you've done is, you've got one word and as a leadership team, you're attempting to express that in two different ways and you're trying to get alignment from that. And it is it's, it's messy, this stuff, isn't it, right?

JC: Yeah, it is messy but, but that's why you've got these behavioural, you know, what does it mean, broadly speaking? You are always going to get people interpreting it and you're going to get people. It's always going to be a bit aspirational. Some's aspirational, some is reality. But that's kind of, you know, that's the beauty of it, I guess.

JEP: My question is, "is there anything new here?" Of all the customer, employee satisfaction surveys that have ever been done, that I've taken part in or have looked at the results from, the results are pretty similar: "great people", "love the workplace", "love the products", "love the team", "love my job", "senior management don't know what they're talking about, they're useless." You know, that's pretty much a consistent message all the way through. So, I do think I, kind of, really feel for the senior teams here and being part of that, because there is a massive disconnect with the kind of issues you have to deal with at a really senior level and how people just get on with their everyday jobs and they can't understand everything that goes on. What I do think is really important, I think certainly, I mean and we're a small company, you know we've got, we don't have that many employees. We do try really hard, and you spoke about values. Values are, it all comes from the values, because if you're living and breathing your values and everybody understands that all the way through, they will feel much more comfortable with the direction the organisation is going in. And I would say that, coming out of the pandemic, I mean, it kind of implies that we went through a period of time when actually it was very clear that leadership that, you know, organisational vision was much better, it was easier to understand. The pandemic, I think, made us better at that. We had, there was so much uncertainty, we had to be really clear in our communication. We had to over-communicate all the time and we had to do it remotely, which was a challenge. And I think that post-pandemic, it's become much more difficult for businesses, particularly smaller businesses. Because, OK, we're over the the worst of it. But we're not really out of it yet. We're still living with the hangover of the loss of confidence within the, you know, within consumers particularly, cost of living crisis now has kicked in as well. People are not doing, are not following the typical patterns of behaviour they were pre-pandemic. So, businesses are struggling to find their new purpose and their new vision and their new direction. What I do think is really important is that you just have to keep communicating. So, we have a daily briefing call every morning with the entire company and we give everybody a chance to speak at that and we have a, we do our employee, we have an employee Rep. Group. So, even though we're a small company, everyone's got a voice, and I think giving people a voice is really, really important and to be honest, they will let you know if they're not happy, very quickly.

JC: I agree and disagree because some of the stuff that I'm seeing is that there is trust and confidence in managers, so there is that "we trust our managers, we're confident in our managers." I think the vision is slightly separate and I think your point around the pandemic is the thing that kind of sparked that thought. I think in the pandemic it was, it was easy to have a clear vision. It was easier to say, "We're all lining up behind this" because you had no other choice.

JEP: It was survival, wasn't it?

JC: Everything else, everything else was stripped away and I think now the pace of change, generally. I mean, you, if you come out tomorrow and say, "this is it, this is our vision for the next five years." I mean, it's going to be out of date in six months. So, I think there's maybe some education around that and some, I don't know, some more honest conversations with workforces, with employees to say, "look, hey, we don't have all the answers" and we're doing a bit of that. But I think some of the time we're afraid to do that, aren't we, because we had the answers a few years ago.

DDS: I think there's a degree and this is really unsexy, but it's about reducing asymmetry of information in organisations. So, to Jane-Emma's point, I think if people don't understand the complexity that the leadership are trying to deal with or they don't understand some of the other problems that may be happening in that system and you've only got one view of it, it's really easy to go, right essentially, to kind of, back-seat drive an organisation and go, "I can see these problems. Why aren't they throwing resource at it?" It's that connection, isn't it, between leaders need to understand what's happening, you know, on the frontline, what's actually happening in terms of customer interactions or whatever that looks like. But equally the more you can help people understand this is why we're making these decisions, because we've got to make choices. Final thing, we're going to talk about, we said we'd start a section in the podcast called, essentially, "Is it a thing?" where we unpack the latest trends or buzz word impacting the profession, things that you might have seen online. And this week's "Is it a thing?" and feel free to suggest "things" that you'd like evaluated by our panel of experts. Ruffling feathers this week, we'd like to introduce you to the concept of "office peacocking". That's the idea of making office spaces more attractive through aesthetic enhancements such as upgrading decor and adding amenities. That was a really difficult sentence to get through, by the way, I'm quite proud of that. But essentially making the office look more attractive in a bid to encourage greater attendance from staff. One, do we think that's a "thing?", secondly, do we think that's a sensible thing or are there more substantive things organisations might want to do if they do want their people in and around more. Jane-Emma, I'm going to come to you first.

JEP: Yeah, I think it's doomed to fail.

DDS: Doomed to fail! Doomed, doomed?

JEP: Yeah. Doomed to fail. I mean, I the whole idea that you're going to get people back into the office because you've got a few nice, few chairs that have been improved or you've got a new coffee machine or something else. What you're talking about are people who've got very used to working remotely or working from home. They've probably, I mean, certainly when I talk to our guys, their home setup is probably better than in our office and our office is really nice. And asking them to make a choice about coming in and going through all the, sort of, the pain of commuting just because you might have a few improvements in an office. I just don't think it's going to hold water. I think it's doomed to fail.

DDS: Doomed, so we have a "doomed" from this side. Jo?

JC: I mean, I like nice things and so I'm more than happy for all of the offices to peacock, go for it. I think, you're right, it's not going to mean you're going to go in more. It's not going to mean people are going to go in more, but I think people like to work with people, yeah? People like to socially connect, that is never going to change. So, making those offices the best that they could be, you know, chuck in a Starbucks machine. If anyone's listening, that would be great. But you know, chuck in a Starbucks franchise even. Make it somewhere where, when people do go in to connect, it's the best that it can be. And I think putting that spin on it is much better than saying, you know, I don't know, "we've got all these fancy things, now come into the office." I think the coming into the office is the "I want to come into the office because I want to see people and socialise and do other things with people." Not because "I'm going to go in for the coffee." But saying that, I would go in if there was a Starbucks machine, just for that.

DDS: It makes me sad, just before we come to Jon, so it makes me sad the organisations would only be doing this because of that. So, so many people don't have a choice over where they work, right? So, there's this quote, you know, it's linked in many ways to the conversation around knowledge work and where people do it, so many people don't have a choice. I would like to think people would want to create a great environment regardless. And in fact, particularly for people who don't have a choice around where they're going to work, it feels the wrong way round to me. But Jon.

JD: I actually love going into the office. And it's not necessarily just about the design for me, it's the environment that you create, the ways of working and the culture, more importantly around your organisation, rather than just having nice Starbucks machines and nice chairs. And I think, the reason why I love going into the office is exactly to your point, is to actually interact with people and to have conversations that you can't do remotely because they're very, very transactional and actually talk about ideas and suggestions. And I was, you know, when this sort of topic came up, I was talking to someone and I said "yeah, have you ever heard of peacocking?". I'll go and Google it and it was it was an interesting. So, this is what it means and, you know, I've never heard of that and they said "it's a really interesting subject actually, because what we've got really, really well here is we've just had like a new financial analyst that started, someone who works in digital". And they said, "I actually heard them saying it's really good that we're able to come into the office because I've worked in organisations before that give you a choice of home working or not. But actually, here I really want to come in, because the reasons why I come in is because I'm learning so much from some of the conversations I'm part of because it's an open plan area and just I feel a lot more part of the organisation." But for me, it's all about the culture piece. How you create that culture rather than actually the design space, that's just one small element.

JEP: And I absolutely agree with that, but that's got nothing to do necessarily with what kind of chair you're sitting on. Is it, necessarily? I mean, if you're having to, if you're getting back pain from it, that might be an issue, but you're absolutely right. I mean, we work in a hybrid fashion. People come in, when they come in, they want to come in, they want to see everybody else. So they tend to congregate on a few days when they know they're going to see a lot of people and they want to work with them and they want to see them and they want to do all those things face-to-face, which are so natural and easy to do, which you, which are much harder to do when you work remotely.

JC: David, we have a lot of people who have no choice. They have to come in, yeah? So, we make their spaces great, yeah? We provide stuff for them so that they can come in, so when they do come in, it's nice. But actually, what we've discovered of recent times, because we have done, I was laughing when I read about it because we have done exactly that. We have upgraded a number of our offices, but it's because our people are going in there and they were, saying, "actually the facilities are not as great as they could be" and you recognise they're not. So, I do think it leads to the "am I valued?" and it's one of the ways I think companies and organisations show that there is some like, "yes, you are valued because we're creating a nice space."

DDS: So, I'm going to have to bring it to a close here.

JC: No!

DDS: Because I have to, it's the way it works. Otherwise, I'll be here in fortnight. But I think we can all agree that there are many ways to support people. You can support their career development, you can support their aspirations, you can support their well-being. Supporting a really nice environment is one of those, but it's not the only thing that's available. So, that's all from us today. I'd like to thank our guests: Jon, Jo, Jane-Emma. Really thank you for your time today, it's so appreciated, and your openness. We've got a wealth of resources available to our members, supporting you with a number of the issues that we've discussed today. And as I say, over the coming months, we're going to move to a more thematic view at the CIPD.  The first month will be around conflict, so lots of things that we spoke about earlier. You'll see our resources surfaced on that. We publish new episodes of the People Pod every fortnight. You obviously know where to find it or you wouldn't be able to listen to my voice saying this but do make sure that you subscribe and get it on your regular rotation. And keep talking about the issues that we covered today in the CIPD Community Platform as well. My name's David D'Souza and this has been the HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

David D’Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. This is episode six and we've already had guests from a range of organisations, large and small, bringing you their expert insights. I'm David D'Souza, Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me in the studio today we have…

Caroline Roberts: Caroline Roberts.

DDS: And what's your background, Caroline?

CR: Well, I started my career making radio programmes at the BBC before moving into HR. I've worked in various sectors from architecture to television to membership bodies and I also work as an Associate Non-Executive Director in the NHS.

DDS: I feel a lot of pressure if you've previously done radio in the BBC this feels like, or maybe actually you're an asset today, maybe I should see it as a strength rather than a threat.

CR: I didn't tell you that I was any good at it though, did I?

DDS: That's true. That's true and very honest. We also have Claire McCartney.

Claire McCartney: Hello, so I'm Policy and Practice Manager here at CIPD with a focus on resourcing inclusion, talent management and formerly worked at Roffey Park.

DDS: Fantastic, so barrels of expertise personally, but also you pull together all of the work that we do that we put out giving people expert guidance and influencing on policy as well. So, delighted to have you here, Claire. So, really glad that you both joined the show, but before we get started, I always ask our guests what have you been watching or reading recently that might be interesting or give an insight into your soul? So, Caroline if we start with you.

CR: I think what I've been reading is quite worrying for an insight into my soul because it's, I've been reading a book about life in medieval London, a history of surgery, but I am currently reading Atomic Habits, which I think everyone else has read, but I've got a few bad habits that I need to sort out.

DDS: Is it helping because it's quite popular at the moment isn't that part of the zeitgeist?

CR: I think what's really helpful about it is, it talks about systems with things, so you create systems in order to create habits. So, rather than focusing on the future all the time it's what you do every day. So, it's much more manageable but I'm yet to crack the habit of stopping eating while standing up in the kitchen and sticking my head in the fridge.

DDS: That's quite a niche one isn't it as well, but if you do come back actually in a future point and let us know about that one. And Claire, what about you?

CM: I've been reading a book called Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, which is really actually beautifully written, quite a challenging you know subject about the way that women were treated with regards to having to give up children and the way that the children were treated, so, it's quite a challenging read but it's beautifully written, and I've been watching One Day and managed to make it to the end of the day and couldn't stop crying at the end of that.

DDS: What is One Day? I have no idea, what have I missed?

CM: Yeah, so One Day is about two people who meet when they're really young; they never quite get together but actually at some point, they make that connection. I can't give away too much. I've read the book a long time ago and actually, I blanked out the ending because it was yeah, a bit challenging so.

DDS: I've been reading a book by Alex Edmund and it's on evidence-based within organisations, and at the same time, I've got another one going on which is about the history of conspiracies, which I think is really interesting. So, it's how ideas that are not true spread, and what are the social dynamics that lead to that, and what are the kind of traits that you can see within some of those dynamics, which is really interesting for our times. Now, just a reminder for anyone listening, we talk generally about subjects so we will have a topic as a jumping-off point, but if we talk about an individual company as a jumping-off point, that doesn't mean that we're commenting on the individual company following that. And you all know as experienced professionals that what's going on behind the scenes isn't necessarily what gets talked about in the headlines.

So, we're kicking off today with a difficult subject, but one that I think it would be remiss of us not to cover. So, over the last fortnight, towns and cities across the UK have seen violent protests, vandalism, looting, rioting, and racist acts. Whilst the rioting has subsided, that doesn't mean that that's the end of the issue or the end of the impact for people, and indeed there are still different acts of vandalism and violence happening on a smaller scale now. That's against a background of a really traumatic last few years in terms of significant conflict across the world, and that can play out in organisations, but we also know it impacts individuals working for organisation whether it be their friends or families or direct impacts or fears for them. So, the priority for any organisation should be of course to support employees through that, but equally you've got different views on what's happening in different points of conflict. I wanted to get a view from you both actually as to what you think the challenges are within organisations and what they should be doing at this point. Over the next month actually as we go into September, the CIPD will be placing a particular focus on conflict management within organisations that’s part of a broader piece of work we’re doing to make it easier for you to find what you need from us in a thematic way. And unfortunately, conflict management seems a sensible place for us to start. and what they should be doing at this point. So, if I start with you Caroline, it’s been a really difficult few weeks but, as I say, it’s not over yet. So, what it impacts in organisations, what do organisations need to be doing?

CR: Well, I think it's really important for organisations to be clear and reiterate what the expected behaviours and values are for the organisation and be clear about that. And also, for leadership to visibly model those behaviours and values. I think that there's a lot of anger and fear generally in society, and that's not new, but also to remember there is more that unites us than divides us. Organisations, their policies are still in force so behaviour that is unacceptable, the policies around that are still there. If there's the belief that someone has committed a criminal act and there's excellent guidance on the CIPD website around that, there are still policies and procedures to follow around that. There's been an awful lot of anger I think in workforces generally post-pandemic, cost of living, the jobs market, not feeling heard, fear about people's safety, policing, you know it's much wider societal issues and still having a safe space to discuss, these contentious issues because they are deeper than the very polarised ones that we've seen and heard in the news and talking about those and still having that trust. I think in terms of HR leadership one thing to be aware of is virtue signalling because it's easy for you to become distant from your colleagues and workforce. People spot it a mile off. So, don't make further knowledge or incite anything further by feeling that you need to come out particularly strongly on your own behalf around things. Think of your workforce, think about their points of views and just look into things a little bit deeper and taking that measured approach. We don't always have to react, but responding is often a more helpful way forward.

DDS: So, just to kind of dial into that last bit because I think it's a really interesting one. There's quite often a criticism about the gap between the rhetoric in some of these spaces and actually what's helpful, and I guess it's one of those times, isn't it? It's quite easy for people to make big bold statements, but actually what's the substance that's sitting behind that, which is the challenge. Claire, have you got any thoughts to add to that?

CM: Yeah, I think we absolutely need to acknowledge what's going on in broader society and I think you know, that there's been a great deal of kind of polarising through different channels like social media, and you know we can't brush that under the carpet. Many people have felt you know very unsafe. There's been you know a great deal of racism that needs to be challenged head on, really. So, I think we do need to create those opportunities within our organisations to acknowledge that, to create safe places for people to discuss, but also to ensure that there is you know some quite strong facilitation there as well. You know, to make sure that we're not tipping into really contentious areas as well. So, you know I certainly think it isn't something that we can brush under the carpet. We need to engage and talk to our workforces around these things and make sure that people are feeling safe.

DDS: Yeah, and I think that point around race is probably the key one because if you live in an area impacted by the riots you will be concerned about that as a point in time and have other concerns lingering. But actually, if you feel that you've been specifically targeted because of your race or your religion that's a statement around how welcome you feel in society day to day and I think that's the, that's the bit that is enduring and comes on the back of not just Black Lives Matters but long-term systemic problems and I've spoken to people scared to leave their house, spoken to people scared for friends and family and that's a massive psychological and real impact on those people. Is there something around practitioners as well? Because I think it's hugely challenging to deal with people who are in that state of fear, it's hugely challenging particularly if you work in an organization where perhaps someone has been implicated in being involved in this and the tensions that that caused. Huge time of strain for the profession again. Caroline, have you got any advice for kind of that separation of the day-to-day, there is something, how do you stay calm in a circumstance like that? How do you not take too much of it home with you?

CR: I think there's something just about the sort of common humanity, checking in with people, when these things started happening, I just checked in with friends saying, you OK? You know not over-egging things which for such you know, some of the really heinous acts as well, you know, that might seem I’m playing it down and I'm not, but it’s keeping that perspective, that you know the vast majority of people are welcoming to people as well. Keeping you know, keeping that very much as a focus, but doing those little regular check-ins and having it in your organization as part of the way that we do business, But I do think that the modelling behaviours is so important, you can say whatever you like, but people will look up and they will see you know how are you behaving with these things.

DDS: Excellent, thank you, and as Caroline has pointed out actually helpfully, so I didn't have to. We do have resources on the CIPD website, so do make your way there if you're still reconciling or struggling with these problems internally, and indeed, if anything further comes up. We're going to move on something a little bit light-hearted now or not light-hearted, but it's certainly a change of pace. So, job hunters are reportedly flooding recruiters with AI-generated CVs, according to one headline, with some estimates suggesting about half of all job seekers using our tools to apply for roles. Clogging up recruitment mechanics and putting low quality applications into quite a difficult labour market already. I've been speaking to some recruiters specifically around this and it's a real challenge for them. So, I think there's some substance behind that headline. But candidates are increasingly turning clearly to generative AI to assist them writing CVs, cover letters, and there's a degree of contention over whether this finally is the end of the cover letter and potentially also completing assessments and interviews. I've heard about as well so, live transcriptions from whoever's interviewing you being turned into advice as to what you should say. So, the CIPD community forum has been having a chat about this and there's I think a degree of contention between acknowledging that, you should be able to use tools to enhance and assist you in your applications, versus it should be you that's getting assessed rather than technology. So, question for you both, I suppose is what next? Is part of it, so what do we think the general direction of this is? And secondly, should candidates be using this technology or what are the limitations? We wouldn't criticise the candidate now for using a spell check, but this feels like that's it's certainly a level beyond that. Claire, if I start with you, because I know it's a particular area of expertise for you.

CM: Of course. I mean, I think it would be naive of us to say that, you know, we that candidates shouldn't be using AI tools. I mean, employers are using them as part of their recruitment processes, hopefully in responsible ways. So, I think it's about, you know, really thinking quite carefully about how they might be using them so, it might be perhaps to kickstart to structure to polish but actually, candidates really need to be aware of you know some of the weaknesses that actually if they're using AI considerably then they're going to get very generic responses, they're going to be impersonal; they're potentially going to be quite poorly evidenced as well. So, it's about you know, really thinking quite carefully about that perhaps using AI tools sparingly as I said to get started. Then making sure that they're feeding in personalised context, that the context should definitely be you know be their own work and tailored to your own personalised skills, interests and motivations because actually that that is the thing that's going to resonate most in terms of, you know, getting through to selection as well. I’d probably challenge, we've done a lot of work around inclusive recruitment and with the behavioral insights team and I would challenge necessarily the use of CVs you know, application forms and seem to be more inclusive and then there are ways when we get into interviews which are also kind of better predictors of on-the-job performance like, certainly structured interviews over non-structured interviews but also work-based assessments as well, which can help tackle some of the challenges that you've been talking about, David.

DDS: So, a couple of things I just wanted to pick up on one is: and we've obviously got some resources as you say on how to create a fair process; but secondly, within that, I just want to pick up on that notion of cover letters because you mentioned structured versus non-structured and application versus CV. Thoughts on cover letters?

CM: I think our general advice, you know, from an inclusive recruitment perspective is not to use covering letters and CVs but to use short application forms as part of the process and they would be, you know, they'd be a better kind of indicator and more inclusive as well for a broader range of candidates, so that's generally our advice based on the evidence that's come through from that guidance.

DDS: Thank you. It's interesting isn't it over time I've seen, I've never lied on my CV actually I can say that honestly, what I have seen is other people's CVs with stuff that I've done on it which is always an interesting one they pass your desk. Caroline, we're going to talk actually a little bit in the next section about exec recruitment because we were having a chat about that earlier and I think we can thread that in nicely, but what are your views on this increasing automation on both sides of that process?

CR: Well, first of all, I just couldn't agree more with what Claire has said you know, absolutely, things like work-based assessments, there's, you're going to get a much much better result at the at the end of things. And around motivation it's quite funny sometimes to to put in some wild questions into things like, you know, ChatGPT, things like that. And if you put in, what is my motivation for X, into it, it comes out as so hollow and generic, you know, it will be seen through straight away. I think what we really need to think about is how are we going to improve the hiring process? So, thinking about things like work-based assessments and the application forms. And at the moment, very often the recruitment process can be demoralizingly unpleasant from both sides. Last night, I was having a cursory glance at Reddit to do a little bit of research into recruitment and how people feel about it and what phrases were they using for the recruitment process? People were saying painful, hellish, constant anxiety and ghosting and this is something that we can actually change. And through changing it, you get the best person for the role, much, much more inclusive, versatile workforce. And it's just more pleasant for everybody concerned with it.

DDS: And Reddit is, as you say, a very valid place to do that research. I guess my general concern is it feels like a race to the bottom on both sides of this equation. So, you've got organisations using more technology and putting people through processes at times. And this is the worst of it. I don't think every organisation is doing this, that are less and less human and more and more distant or with multiple stages where people don't feel valued. And on the other side, you've got people turning to technology to almost combat that. If every candidate starts applying for every job using technology, the possibility of getting that rich feedback naturally declines because organisations are being overwhelmed. And I read about, read a few this week with organisations getting you know, 1,000, 2,000 applications for one job. Makes it very difficult, particularly if 50% of those aren't genuine. So, I wanted to move on to, occasionally, I do some research for this show. This week, I was doing some background research, and I started reading a really interesting article on BBC Worklife looking at the US exec jobs market and the gap between the diversity statements that organisations are putting out and the reality of the experience for women candidates and the mix in the workplace there. And then I was delighted to see when I checked the authors, it was actually someone I know. It's a fantastic journalist called Josie Cox, wrote a book called Women, Money, Power about the relationship between those few things that’s worth checking out whilst we’re doing book recommendations. But I wanted to talk specifically about the HR profession, our profession more broadly and the shape of that. So, in many industries women are disproportionately represented at the senior levels, as in there are fewer women than you would expect from the general population. But in the people profession, we’ve got some different statistics which is that women represent over half of senior roles so about 61% but 9 in 10 of roles at a more junior level, so, entry level positions 9 out of 10 declines to 6 out of 10. And I wanted to have a conversation, I guess from two aspects. One is that a problem in terms of not having more male representation in the profession as a whole, so is there a reason for that? But secondly Caroline you and I were chatting earlier just about the reality of the job market, particularly at that senior end earlier and I wanted to start with you before I come to Claire for some kind of comments around the gender mix within the profession just around what's it like at the moment if you're looking for a role, what are some of the challenges? And you mentioned a few things in terms of the changing shape of roles as well that I thought would be really good to share.

CR: Well, I think in terms of HR being at the top table being C-suite, I have seen a decline in the number of those roles where businesses are making savings and so, they'll take off the people director role and perhaps the HR manager role and combine it into a head of HR. So, that's one thing that I've you know that I've really Noticed, I think that it is extremely tight job market and when people are trying to redeploy internally there's a trend in some organizations that they'll move someone else from a different area who may not have a background in HR or qualifications. But that you know, I've come across with some leaders there's an assumption because it's got people in the title that anyone can do it because we're all people, aren't we. So, that’s one thing, it can sometimes be seen as a softer option. I think the other thing that I wanted to bring in here is around the point at which people are applying for a job. And they're not applying for particular roles, you know. They're going to be coming to a certain age perhaps when they feel ready to go for a particularly senior role, and for women that may coincide with a point where they may have taken a career break to raise children or they may be going through the perimenopause as well, which is a point where for some women they may experience a loss, a loss of confidence at the same time they're ready to apply for those roles. So, if we're seeing you know fewer roles or fewer suitable roles, more demand for less flexible roles that might be quite a difficult thing. So, I think, I think, Professor Chung at Kent University was talking about the work placement requirements, particularly for women of colour, hampering progression and a bit of a backlash against DEI, you know, people seeing that its feminism gone too far. So, I think that places, you know, that places an added pressure onto something. But it does, you know, it does concern me that you have 91% of HR admin roles being occupied by females and then suddenly go to the more senior levels and it's and it's down by 30%. So, I think that's, I think that's something that is concerning.

DDS: Is that the concern or should it be that we don't have enough men at junior levels coming into the profession, and that we then don't have balanced representation at the top end. It feels to me, and I'm just, it's a really interesting one in this space, isn't it? That there are two views we could take, either that actually it's important that there are some professions where the disparity is actually different to what we see in the main economy, and I think there's a compelling argument there. But the other argument is that for a profession that's focused on equality, inclusion, and diversity, we should probably be finding a way to invite more men into it and sorting that balance over time. Have you got a view on that because I've heard both and I've heard both get, I've heard people be shouted down on both sides actually physically done.

CR: Well, I think that in terms of you know, in terms of percentages, those are going to fluctuate and that, and I think that that's fine. I think when it's 91% of HR admin being female, that's the thing that we should be looking, we should be looking at, you know, why are there so many, and what happens to them. So, I think getting some more data around that, some more insight in order to address what the fundamental problems which will be intersectional ones to find out what they are and then we can address some of those.

DDS: Claire, what your thoughts?

CM: I think it's kind of a combination of the two, I think we do need to get more men into the profession, and you know, I think we need to be doing more work in that space, you know, sharing male HR professional role models at all different levels. But also, perhaps more, you know, focused career advice and outreach work as part of schools and colleges. I think that will help to bring in more men to the profession. I completely agree with Caroline around addressing some of those challenges for female progression within the profession and, you know, it's not just within our profession, it's obviously across lots of other profession sectors. But, you know, we need to be addressing those issues and there are, you know, there are still kind of gender bias at play but there are also other challenges with you know, women still predominantly taking on caring responsibilities and the need for greater flexible working but also, I think, you know, greater transparency as well in terms of, promotion decisions as well could be really helpful. So, there are a whole kind of range of things that we can think about but we I think we need to think about both of those aspects actually.

DDS: Yeah, and at the CIPD it's probably worth saying we're going to be doing a couple of things that people will see from us one is more work on the shape of the profession and what's changing in it. So, to your point around the changing job roles and the changing demographics that sit within it and secondly there's a really interesting thing that just picked up on there which was your point that because it's people CEOs think that anyone can do it. And we need to make the case as a professional body for the fact that it's important work, it's expert work, and it requires experts, and it requires investment in their skills and recognition of their capabilities, and that's our job as a professional body. And I think, we'll spend more and more time and effort on that because I think it's absolutely critical for the profession that, the role continues to be recognised and in fact the recognition of it grows. And I think during the pandemic there was a spur of interest in it. We need to make sure that that's not lost. It's a bit of a running theme on this podcast to explore the meaning of the latest trend or buzzword that's impacting the profession. Claire will know that we get lots of media inquiries, each week going, what do you think about this? And my response is normally a bit of an eye roll, and we'll do the interview anyway and try and get them to talk about something grown-up. So, I'm thinking about calling this section, is it really a thing? Because I think that's kind of the level, we're reaching with some of this. Just a reminder to all of our viewers, whether you're a student, whether you're experiencing a change in your career, just because something happens on TikTok doesn't make it real. Or it means it might be a tiny thing, it might have happened once but doesn't mean it's happened all the time. So, in our last episode, we talked a little bit about the implications of a workation, so, that's continuing to work for but from a different location. This week is the turn of what might be considered its evil twin, which is quiet vacationing, which is looking like you're working but really taking a holiday. Claire, I'm going to come to you first, what are your thoughts on quiet vacationing? Is it a thing? What should organizations be thinking about?

CM: I mean, I think I'd challenge that it is a thing, I mean I'm not a fan of the buzzwords and you know sometimes they just come up, come from absolutely no, I suppose what we need to get at is the underlying, you know, situation within organizations, you know. Do people feel motivated? You know, have supportive line managers? Are they engaged with the work that they're doing, and I think those are the aspects that we need to be really focusing on rather than, you know, suspecting people are off on a quiet vacation, you know, so I suppose that would be my perspective. I'm a little bit cynical about it.

CR: I'm with Claire on this one, also known as unauthorized absence, which sounds rather less, rather less glamorous. If an employee was doing this, it's unlikely to be out of the blue, they're going to meet some performance issues, breakdown of trust and confidence, you know manager's trust is key and also having some performance management with outcomes as well. So, looking at the way that people do work best but is it really a thing, not really.

DDS: So, it's quite interesting, the media inquiry we got combined it with Gen Z so, this is a Gen Z thing that only they're doing it's like well, look, people have been slacking for years, people have been lying to their managers for years, that's a, it's maybe a slightly different form of that didn't exist before and one of the things I said to the interview when they went, how often does this happen, I was like well, if they're doing it successfully we're never going to know. (Inaudible) that, that's an unreasonable thing, it's like saying how many really effective ninjas are in this room at the moment. I don't know so, that's all from us today. I'd really like to thank our guests today, Caroline and Claire for showing your thoughts on the breadth of topics and as ever to everyone listening. We made top 10 in the charts, you'll see us undulate because we do this every fortnight, but we are now a top 10 podcast for business on the Apple chart. So, please keep recommending us and please keep the conversations going in our communities and on our forums and with your colleagues and peers as well. So, we publish new episodes every fortnight, make sure you follow or subscribe, catch up with anything you've missed on demand, and please just a reminder to check in on our resources as well. We exist as a professional body to support the profession, absolutely, please do make the most of that. I'm David D’Souza and this has been the HR People Pod. See you next time. Thank you.

David D’Souza: Hello and welcome to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories and expert insights on issues impacting the people profession and the world of work. My name is David D’Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD, and joining me in the studio today as we celebrate South Asian Heritage Month is…

Janet Campbell: Janet Campbell, I'm the HR Director for R&R Delivery Authority. Hi.

Garin Rauch: Hi, my name is Garin Rauch, I'm an Organisation Development Consultant for Distinction Business Consulting and also heavily involved in the CIPD.

Woosh Raza: My name is Woosh Raza, pronouns are he, him and I'm the Director of People at NCBO which is the membership body for charities in England.

DDS: Excellent, Janet you've actually got a really fascinating job, you said you used an acronym, what's your job?

JC: I do. So, yes, honestly acronyms, yuck, hate them. So, the R&R is the Restoration and Renewal Delivery Authority, and my organisation is responsible for developing and then delivering the scheme to restore and renew the Houses of Parliament.

DDS: This is an amazing thing, isn't it?

JC: It is amazing.

DDS: Yeah, that's like once every few hundred years.

JC: Absolutely, once in a lifetime thing.

DDS: Once in a lifetime.

JC: Once in a lifetime for sure.

DDS: Excellent, wonderful to have you all join the show. Just before we get started, just to make you all seem a little bit more human because you can be very scary, particularly a couple of you, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? So, what have you been watching, reading, consuming recently? So, what's kind of getting you excited?

JC: So, at the minute I am absolutely fascinated by the Olympics. I found myself watching archery and then pausing it and rewinding it so I could work out the scoring mechanism and then was fascinated when the magnifying glass was the thing that determined who won the women's, whether it was South Korea or China. South Korea did it, 10 years, massive, wonderful, I've been amazed by the whole Olympics thing.

DDS: It is amazing. Do you remember Craig David, the singer?

JC: Yes.

DDS: Do you know he's on the Olympic team?

JC: No, never.

DDS: Yeah, like the archery team, he's the bow selector. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

GR: Oh my God.

DDS: It's niche, isn't it? Garin, what have you been watching?

GR: Well, I've got my own Olympics of a different description. It's the childcare Olympics for the summer holidays. So, it's literally balancing two children in different clubs and that as well. So, it doesn't give much free time, but I guess I'm a bit of a geek. I do like to; you have to constantly read about organisation, development. So, I'm trying to currently master John Seddon and his system thinking. So, it's a little bit techie, but it's really enjoyable reading.

DDS: It is, and that's a difficult one to juggle, I think. Have you got any idea how you think you'll medal or rank in the childcare Olympics?

GR: Currently I'm a DNF.

DDS: OK. I'm still coming.

WR: And finally, Woosh. OK, so I'm going to bring the tone right down. I've just finished watching Love Island. Love Island finished on Monday. I'm so sorry. I’m such a big…

DDS: We're moving on. We're keeping it a level above that, at least. I've been, I'm watching, it's rare that I watch a TV programme more than once, but I'm watching the first two series of The Bear for the third time.

JC: I love Bear.

DDS: And it is, to your point, Garin, look, I love stuff around work. It's what we do day in, day out. I find it of interest. And that show is so powerful, showing the intensity of a kitchen. But also, I don't think I've ever watched a programme where I care about the characters. Everyone so much. And there's something for me about, I guess, the locus or the limits of our care in a work environment. So, if I'm watching a show and I can care about every background character and what happens to them in their narrative, how does that translate to a workplace? But also, I've never found a show so stressful and draining to watch. And from that point of view, there's an emotional toll that comes with caring for everyone around you. But just as a reminder, for everything that we're talking about today, it's the general principles of what's happening. So, we might mention a report, we might mention an organisation, but we want to have a broader chat with experienced professionals about what it's like going on behind the scenes and the reality of it. So, it won't be context-agnostic. We'll talk about a topic, but we won't be talking about the organisations involved. So, let's crack on. The first story that I'd like to talk about this kind of podcast is about paid transparency. It's been a long-term kind of point of debate in the profession. So, the headline stems from research carried out by Adzuna. Other providers are available, who report that less than half of job adverts featured salary information in June 20,24, the lowest figure they've got since 2016. The CIPD's own pay performance and transparency report this year further supported that finding. It said that just 41% of employers always share pay ranges in external job adverts. Less than one in five, fewer than one in five, less than one in five, fewer than one in five, always share specific salaries in internal job adverts, so you've got something really interesting there which is what you tell people internally, what you tell people externally? Do you do that consistently?

JC: I was really surprised to read that; really, really surprised! I'm like, gosh, haven't we moved forward?

GR: But we haven’t.

JC: And we have another, and I'm a real fan of transparency in pay. Not least because if you are really transparent about what you're paying when you're going out into the market, you are less likely to bring into your organization historic pay gaps. So, I don't understand it; I don't understand why.

WR: Do you know what I saw? I'll use an example about a year four or five years ago, I applied for a job. So, I want to take it one step further. I'm not even a fan of pay bands from this to this because the job that I applied for was like this is the salary range from this to this, right? And I looked at it at the top end of the salary range, made sense for where I was and what I wanted, and why I wanted to move and kind of earning potential. I went through the whole process, and it was extensive as an exec appointment, and at the end of it, they were like, oh, actually we're going to give it to you at the beginning of that pay band. So, I was like, well, why have you, why have you published, why have you published that that job within those saying that you're paying from this to this? And they're like, well, we won't be able to do anything other than this. Well, then say that on your job application, you would have wasted my time and actually your time. I went through the whole process. And the other thing I just want to add to that point around pay transparency. All right, it's really sad that we're still in the situation and I was shocked by those kinds of figures, is how we're going to close all these gaps if there's ethnicity pay gaps and meant gender pay gaps and disability pay gaps? If we're not being clear on what we're going to be paying people for doing the job, like I still don't understand why we aren’t more transparent when it comes to our pay.

DDS: Yeah. Well, I think there's in theory who would disagree with it because you know, it does all these wonderful things, it promotes equity, it simplifies recruitment, it's fair on the candidate, all that kind of stuff. But I guess there's obviously two sides to the coin here isn’t it? There’s the market in terms of attracting the right candidate, but it's something that it does internally to an organization as well. And often it can reveal sort of decisions that have been made over the years, and it can cause some internal disruption because, can, you know, internal people start looking at their salaries and go, hang on, what's going on here? as well. So, I think it depends on whether the employer's taking a long-term or a short-term view if they're looking for a short-term, let's try and just get through this thing without ruffling too many feathers, then they'll go, the path of least resistance but if they're really serious about equity if they're really serious about transparency, then they'll lean into it and provide a space to deal with all the internal fallout as well.

JC: And on that internal part, I think the internal point is really interesting and I think it's about, what's the narrative you create in your organization and do you give space to have that conversation internally, right? So, at what point do you have a conversation because somebody the head of rewards, the HR, whoever it is has a view, right? They know what what the what the span of pay is across the organization they can work out if their organization is, if you do regular pay audits and all of that, you know. You know if you're looking at your equal pay gaps, your gender pay gaps, your ethnicity pay gaps. If you do that on a regular basis, just as a hygiene function for your organization, you know what what's going on and you know the sorts of things you need to do to resolve it. Deal with it, there's no because you stick it under, chuck it in the corner, it'll come back to bite you eventually. Sorry, I'm gabbling because I feel so strong about this.

WR: No.

JC: If you don't deal with it, all you do is you create problems

WR: Absolutely.

JC: That just get worse and worse and worse and worse.

WR: What are you saying to your internal people when you bring Someone in on like 5, 10, 15 grand more and that person gets pissed off because they're like well I'm not earning that much for this similarly the same job.

JC: Exactly.

WR: And your answer to that is to hide the fact that you're giving that that salary to someone. What does that say about how you are seeing the talent within your organization? I just think that's a really awful narrative in 2024.

JC: Indeed. And I do wonder whether there is actually a generational thing as well, whether you know did we come up in an era where you were less likely to talk about what you paid, you kept that a bit more private but younger workers are much more open and transparent about what they get paid.

WR: Yeah, absolutely.

JC: And therefore, you're more those conversations are more likely to come up.

WR: Yeah.

JC: Right? Across a coffee or whatever.

GR: Yeah, and I think there's also it's important that there's different flavours of transparency. So, there's like your your actual salary but then there's total reward and I think if you do go down a path of actually having transparency, if you actually see like the full package that people get as a reward, particularly the more senior get, that’s, it’s not an equal thing. So, I think that's something that to really sort of take into consideration. We work with a client that they did the fatal left the salaries on the printer. And we had to go in afterwards, which is possibly the worst way.

DDS: Can I just say for any students listening, and there will be some, certainly, look for a, for a period, and it still happens occasionally here; it was like a rite of passage, a really painful rite of passage, I think, for any HR team, because the chances of sending out everyone's salary by spreadsheet but sending it to the wrong people, all those kind of things. That there was a point earlier in my career where I felt like once a year, I was just consoling people who had made that egregious error of sharing everything with everyone. And you're right there's a there's a kind of transparency bit there but the amount of organizations over time that did accidental transparency, I think was an impressive list.

GR: But it just presents an amazing opportunity. So, this organization it was it was a terrible fallout, and I think probably the reluctance that stops organizations actually pressing the button, going right, is that initial discomfort because it brings it all to the surface. All the unfairness, all the different decisions that were made in different contexts, it all comes out. And so, it's the fear of dealing with those moments that's, because this organization, we did an OD intervention. We did dialogical spaces, all sounds very fancy, doesn't it? But basically, it was an opportunity for people not to shout each other but work through it, and they afterwards were liberated because it was all out on the table, and they could then focus so much more organizational energy to what really mattered, which is the task rather than the corridor conversations and gossip.

JC: And actually, I think in that way, I don't, I'm not saying that there has to be this equity all the way through, because that's not realistic, right? So, we just need to be real about it all. I just think that hiding what you're paying, what people I'm not and neither I'm saying, let's print out, oh everyone's paid and let's share that in that way. If when you're hiring, be clear about what the salary is and if you have a range, it shouldn’t be £25,000 to £100,000 because that's unrealistic to your earlier point, that's ridiculous. But if you're thinking, do you know what? Is there a have I got a 10% margin? Right, so advertise that at the midpoint, so you’ve got a 10% margin. Do you know what I mean? What somebody was paid in their previous role has got nothing to do with what I'm prepared to pay them for the job that I've got.

DDS: Brilliant. Thank you, I'm going to move us on because we've now established that there's a range in this room between, Dialogico D and Love Island, which is quite pronounced. So, look, I hate the next topic viscerally, I think you know it will be of interest to people listening, but I hate it because I think it pulls up a few arguments which I'm really frustrated with. But depending on where you are in the world right, you may or may not be taking holiday at this point, but in the UK, it's been horrible weather and it's now getting slightly nicer, but we're also into school holidays which means people are attempting to as an Olympic sport in terms of childcare, but over the last few years there's been a blurring of the lines between work and home. Some of that's technology-enabled, some of that was you know caused by some of the changes and shifts that organizations saw in some spaces in some sectors for some roles which is I guess part of my gripe during the pandemic. And there's this term, workation, which is where people change their environment but continue working.

GR: My toes are curling as you're saying that.

DDS: With a view to sparing their creativity and productivity so I'm going to swap out my environment, I’m maybe going to work from the beach. I was actually at a campsite with my family last week. You could see people with the laptops out there. There's a growing desire among workers which I can understand and again I would say some workers, some sectors, some roles to adopt that type of flexible working. Look, there's a range of stuff right, on site vs knowledge work, flexibility like general thoughts on this but toe-curling appears to be the first thought that's coming through.

GR: Yeah, well OD people always say I'm only allowed one for this conversation, it's an, it depends answer. So, it there's so many factors that depend on this as well. So, I guess the the initial thought was it kind of makes sense, but then when you look at it deeper, every organizational context is different. So, if you like to think of Janet's organization, the House of Commons, there's a real blend of operational staff and knowledge workers. So, you know, you can have people that can easily go into something like workations, but there's a whole plethora of stuff that can't have that, and that creates a sense of equity and fairness as well. So, and then there's just so many mitigating factors here, isn't it? Can you actually get out there and get a good reception and it's not necessarily something around the me, it's about what's right for the team as well. So, you know I think with anything it's a lot of organizations haven't got hybrid right before even embarking on workation. So, you know how do you make sure that those boundaries are kind of in place before people can actually get it right?

WR: Oh my god, so I literally saved myself for this because I'm such, it's such an awful like fad, like that's gone. And actually, there's so much in this and that depends piece that Garin’s just said, I think yeah 100% like look at what's right for your organization but like effectively aren't we saying like, aren't we saying that like, the right to switch off isn't that part of like something that's coming in the new deal. You know, because this is a request that we're making, and I think the word boundaries is so important right now for employers. Like put boundaries in, if you're off, you're off, like let's be clear on like what we mean by this because it drives all sorts of inequities, employee relations issues, disciplinary is on the basis of like you know, you asked me to do this, this that and the other because we're being ambiguous in the ask of people who are working within our organizations and banking on discretionary effort to advance those efforts. Whereas actually that should not be the case, we should be clear that we are allowing anyone, regardless of whether you're in a physical building or a knowledge worker, to have that set time off. And that is my issue, I think we need to build boundaries back into the workplace, and the term workation is a joke. Sorry, it's an actual joke. Like, if you're working from home and you're working on the beach, or you know, campsite, or Portugal actually, because I've realized that Portugal doesn't have a time difference by the way. And I'm seriously considering the implications that for me, but like if you're working and that's cool, but if you’re taking leave then that is your time to take. And we need to as we need to lead the way and role model. What does that mean for everyone?

JC: There is an unhelpful blurring of the lines, right. Working from, working away from the office, let's call it that. And if I'm working away from the office in Portugal because I'm working, that's fine. But being on annual leave on holiday, on vacation and then saying, oh, I'm having a workation, doesn't make any sense to me.

DDS: So, I'm going to move us on because I think there's broad consensus, but I think, I think there's something here which I think is really interesting, which is some of these and we talked about it on the last podcast, so do go back and listen to that. There's something around the fact that people are naming things in probably quite a lazy way or for attention, that's getting in the way of some really nuanced debates, I think around the questions around balance of work time and work. The flexibility of environment that may, we'd all recognize that if someone, if someone said look actually, I'd like to go for a walk before a meeting because I think it's really important to get out into a slightly different environment, we have a different calibre of conversation, I don't think anyone would go, that's ridiculous. So, none of these grey areas are helped by lazy terminology because we know that there are challenges around people recuperating, we know there's changes around contact time for people. We know that work environment plays a big part, but we also know that there are working dynamics within the economy more broadly and within organizations that mean you wouldn't want to end up with a completely two-tier workforce in terms of treatment. I'm going to bring down the tone a little bit and really draw on your expertise and experience on this one, but I think if there's one thing it's not hard to agree on it's that organizations should have a zero-tolerance stance on bullying and harassment. Unfortunately, we know from the CIPD's own evidence reviews and our ongoing work that conflict remains a continuing problem as does bullying and harassment, more common in the workplace than people would ever want it to be, it's been hitting the headlines again Strictly Come Dancing for those of you who may or may not be fans is a UK based show where people, celebrities, dance and the treatment of people behind the scenes has been something of great concern. With allegations of bullying and abusive behaviour by some of the staff. The common nature and persistence of instance even in really high-profile environments where you would assume that the scrutiny is massive. They’re talking about in this case things happening, and it's been filmed, which kind of is even more concerning. Highlights that continuing issue but I wanted to have a conversation with you all about why it's so difficult to spot that, address that, have it raised and deal with that because it is one of the trickier things you can come on your career.

WR: OK. So, I think we're evolving in the sense of what bullying means. I think the word bullying and harassment, of course there's legal definitions of the terms which we use to frame what is appropriate conduct in the workplace, but we haven't moved, I think you know I think where we are now seeing evidences or instances of bullying and harassment. There's so much more in this new world that we're now in, that encompasses that definition. So, for example from a race equity perspective you have things like microaggressions and gaslighting different terminologies which are new language that people are still kind of finding getting to grips with because we have a bit of work to do. And I mean HR folk to educate our organizations in terms of what that means for people and how that might show up for different people. So, I think the difficulty is also because we're in a cancel culture situation, right? So, there's two different elements of this one, is that you know for me anyway from a discriminatory standpoint, discrimination in the workplace is evolving at a rapid pace and I don't think our policies and procedures are keeping up with actually how to safely report these issues, what that looks like and also putting the burden of onus from the victim to actually what they're saying. So, when I use an example, you know, historically if someone's saying actually someone's being racist towards me, we would you know, to comply with the equality act and the HR profession, I think, and we are culpable in this, would be like where, like what's you know, what this that and the other, and I think that has to change. We have to go at it from position of trust, and also get the right expertise in to resolve those issues, which I think is two things that we need to navigate as HR professionals. Secondly, I think there's such a fear of, so this cancel culture. So, I think with such a fear of like oh god, if I've done something wrong or if someone if I behaved in a certain way. There's two sides to the coin, one is actually if I put my, if I speak up and I'm not then believed, then that could have an impact in terms of my career or my work, and that will have an issue because it's my living, it's like my livelihood, right? And the second impact of that is obviously the fear of, like, how that affects you in terms of career advancement and all that kind of other stuff. So, I think there's a lot of a plethora of issues that relate to the fact that I think we need to deal differently with how we manage those issues in the workplace, and those old rules that we currently have are, rules that are outdated now. I think they just need to be looked at, scrutinized, and reviewed for people to feel safe. We talk about psychological safety, right, in the workplace and it's become a buzzword, psychological safety. But this what you've just described is examples of psychological safety, it's about making sure people feel safe and understood when they're raising concerns in the workplace.

JC: And I think it's much more challenging when the person who is being bullied, when the bullying is being done by somebody more senior, more experienced. I think it's much trickier when there is an imbalance of power in bullying scenarios. 

WR: As an upward.

JC: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's much trickier and it doesn't matter, I've seen situations where somebody more senior has been bullied by somebody junior.

WR: Yeah.

JC: That is equally hard.

WR: Yeah, it is.

JC: To unpick and get, and I think Garin wanted to come in but I, you know, it's difficult.

GR: Yeah. I'd be provocative, I don't think we're looking for it as I don't think we want to see it, you know. I think there's measures in place like you know engagement surveys and whatnot, as well. But they're often lag indicators, you know. They a lot of things have happened for that to show us a blip on a survey but if you really look and obviously, we're external people so we go in and you're looking for it. So, you can see it everywhere. And it's very subtle and I think the strictly thing is a real case study in terms of how you need to think about it because there's the individual that didn't report it because she was worried about her career and prospects and that. There's the actual dancers that were raised in a system where they were taught in that way, they were the victims of that, in the dance schools as it's been reported, and then you've got a high-performance environment which is can't fail, and so but it's kind of dressed up as a family show. So, it's like kind of we're a lovely warm family organization but geez we do some there’s some things going on here. So, and I think the way in which we intervene so the way it’s rolled out so far is that the dancers have taken the blame for it. But there’s a systemic element to it as well and I think I was really disappointed with what Tim Davies said. I think he sort of said, I'm really sorry that anyone has had an experience that hasn't been wholly positive. So, that's really not where you start when you first hear it, you know what I mean it's like, how do we really get to the heart of it. And when you go into organizations it's so micro, it's like people just start to withdraw a little bit, you know, communications, cameras off, people communicating through Teams, Messenger rather than in-person. We just start to withdraw and that very rarely solves it. It just starts to sort of calcify the problem. So, we're not really looking for it. And I think if we wanted to, we could actually identify it. And I think incivility is like a really good way of defining the halfway house. Bullying has its own kind of feeling about it, but incivility is where people sort of exude themselves in a certain way. I think if we can really be clear with organizations and the world is full of behaviour frameworks that lay in drawers unused, no one knows. They don't guide behaviour. They don't guide feedback. Managers feel comfortable giving feedback about metrics, not subjective things like incivility.

JC: But it's because you can't measure it. And incivility, that's such a good point and it's such a good way of framing it because some of this, at the heart of it is exactly that, incivility. But you can't, people, we don't, you know, most of us are not equipped with the language to be able to describe that. And because it's subjective, you can't measure it.

WR: A hundred.

JC: Right?

WR: So true.

JC: We, you know, the exact one, numbers. Where's the hard evidence to support X or Y? You can't measure that sort of stuff. It's a feeling. And when your antennae goes up and says there's something quite not right. You know, when you walk through a department or you walk on the floor, you're thinking, the energy's off.

DDS: Yeah. When I used to run specific HR teams, one of the things I used to do, when someone joined the team, I used to say, look, we're going to work on your organizational antenna. I want you to be able to walk and get a feel for or to see two people in a room and go, there's something going on there. So, maybe I need to go and check with that. And it's, I think it's harder to do that when people are working remotely by multiples than it was before to have a feel for the space and the environment and the ecosystem that you're working in and the relationships between people. But I'm going to move us onto some happier stuff. I think just to, just to wrap things up, right. We're going to get into a good space on this one. So, British Airways has announced it will fully fund up to 200 places on its pilot training programme next year. Just to clarify, that's a training programme for pilots, that's not a training program that's being piloted. I'm not sure if they're going to do it in future years, in which case this is a pilot pilot training programme, but their pilot training programme in a bid to be social mobility and diversity within its pilot community. Now I'm really lucky because we were chatting about this prior to starting to record. The CIPD actually does some brilliant work in this area. So, we've got a dedicated CIPD trust. We gave 72 bursaries last year to people who couldn't afford qualifications to help them on their way in their career. We've got an aspiring HR director programme and 50% of the people who've gone through that programme have been promoted into more senior roles during it. And we also help with mentoring job seekers, parent returners, people with convictions, and refugees. So, there's some really, really good work, and I don't think we shout about it enough. So, since this is our podcast, I'm shouting about it. If you go, that'd be a really good space for the CIPD to be in it. We're in it. We need to communicate it more, but there's some good stuff happening if you are a professional on your behalf. But I wanted to generally talk with you all about your experience at that, but actually more importantly, that notion of social mobility and organizations and what organizations can practically do to shift the dial on it.

WR: So, I just want to start with saying that I am a huge fan and advocate of, the Trust HRD aspiring HRD programme. I am one of those people that went on the programme and then secured my first exec HR director role. So, I cannot speak more highly of the programme and what Aaliyah and the team have done is an incredible programme. And I would say to anyone listening and really considering kind of that, that next step for them. I come from a working-class background. I grew up in a council estate, you know, there was a lot of, so I'm really passionate about social mobility. We were talking about this before the show. And so, I think, you know, it's really interesting because actually I work in a sector, so the charity sector, which is really middle-class and really white. And I've been doing some work with EY foundation on this recently. And I think, and Janet, you and I spoke about this, such an amazing conversation because if you can focus on social mobility in your organization, you will inadvertently address so many communities. So, you know, disability, ethnicity, gender through the work on social mobility. So, that's kind of where I'm taking the fight if it comes to the kind of, you know, the kind of, what are the, the top things that we need to focus on, you know, for our sector and for our organization. And so, I'm a huge, you know, huge fan of any programmes that can support that. So, one of them is the example, you know, for HR professionals is the Aspiring HRD programme. So…

JC: And you know what, big up the aspiring HRD programme. I was a coach mentor on that and honestly, it was a privilege of my life to do it. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. And I, so big it up actually.

DDS: That's lovely.

JC: Yeah. No, genuinely.

DDS: That's a really nice thing to hear.

JC: Yeah. I found it. I loved it. Loved it. Loved it.

DDS: So just to make this really practical, just to kind of start wrapping up on a really practical note. What's one thing that your organization has done, or your organization could do that you think would make a difference in terms of social mobility?

WR: Advertise your jobs in places, in different places. Yeah.

JC: Organizations need to approach this with honesty, transparency on authenticity.

GR: Stop unpaid or low-paid internships and pay expenses for job interviews.

JC: Yeah. 100% agree.

DDS: Wonderful. So, I'm, I, I'm going to bring us to an end there. So, we've covered Love Island.

JC: I love how you're bringing that up.

DDS: Dialogico D, things that make people's toes curl. And we've finished on a really positive note with a kind of congratulations to British Airways on its non-pilot pilot, training programme. So, that's all for us today, I'd like to genuinely thank our cats, our cats. I'd like to thank our cats. If there are any cats listening, dogs, any pets more broadly, we know there are a large percentage of our audience, and we don't want you to go. We don't want you to go unrecognized, but I'd also like to thank our guests, Janet, Garin, and Woosh for sharing your thoughts on the breadth of things we've covered today. We publish new episodes every fortnight. So, make sure that you follow or subscribe. You found us at least once, catch up on anything that you've missed on demand and please do share your thoughts on this podcast and beyond in our communities and our channels so we can know what's going on for you, and we can make sure that future episodes cover the things that are important to you. I've been David D’Souza. This is the CIPD HR People Pod, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.

David D’Souza: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the HR People podcast, CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing you the topical stories, expert insights on issues impacting the profession and the world of work right now. My name is David D'Souza and with me hopefully for the entire duration of today's episode are…

Gareth Neale: Gareth Neale, I work at Crimson Hotels, I've had a career in retail and hospitality, and I've recently become a fellow of CIPD, I had an assessment, it was brilliant, Sue Hayes if she's listening helped me and supported me through that and I recommend anyone to do that in the future. 

Vilma Nikolaidou: Hi, I'm Vilma Nikolaidou, I'm the Director of People and Culture at the British Film Institute with a background in the arts and the creative industries. 

DDS: And last but not least…

Markos Koumaditis: Hi everyone, hi David, thanks for the invitation, I'm Markos Koumaditis, I'm coming from the University of Oxford, and I work mostly in universities and government. 

DDS:    Fantastic, so as we're recording this, well first of all we weren't sure whether we were going to be able to record this because we woke up on the day this is being recorded to news that critical IT systems had gone down right across the planet. So, that was healthcare systems, news systems, banking systems, transport systems, most of the useful things. So, I'm delighted that we're all here now but actually we said that we cover kind of topical issues, this is happening right now. There's something really interesting around organisations being prepared for things like this. You wake up in the morning and the world is different to the world that you expected to come into. We've had a number of external shocks, some of them very sad and traumatic over the last four to five years. What's the role of HR in creating cultures and driving behaviours and processes that can help deal with issues like this? Vilma if I can come to you first.  
VN: Compliance is really important. HR has got a big role to play in this. We know how important it is. It gets a bad name sometimes, although it's there to help us do sensible stuff that keep us safe and keep the businesses and the organisations we work with safe, like safety belts in cars and bicycle helmets.

So, we have a big role to play in that and make compliance feel not like a drug. And I think the second element of kind of culture change that we can actually influence, and we must, is the culture of urgency in organisations. If we're constantly chasing the day-to-day, we will never have proper time to consider what's coming and prepare for it. 

DDS: And there's a couple of things there, isn't there? There's kind of how do you keep things effective day-to-day, and then there's that longer-term piece as well. And the longer-term piece I think is quite often sexier, isn't it? You get rewarded for that probably in a way that you don't for not having a business continuity plan in place. It's one of those things that you notice it when it's not there and things have gone wrong. 

MK: Well, we had a massive pandemic, and I think it was very interesting the role of HR there because I worked in the House of Commons at the time. And from day one, everybody had a number of questions about what they're going to do, how they're going to meet, how they're going to progress the business. And we have to think on our feet of how to change the whole business model. In Parliament and the House service behind the scenes and use new technology, new ways of working. And we've done that. And that's where really the value of HR were actually kept a very calm and collected outlook on how you can manage your business and help your staff and your stakeholders to be able to execute them. But Vilma made a very, very good point. I think sometimes HR lacks this strategic outlook and also lacks the capability to convince the business leader that it needs to be part of the conversation about the future. So, I was listening to another podcast where people were saying, are we ready for another pandemic? And the consensus was that we're not. And I'm wondering sometimes if of the gains of the pandemic, the flexibility of working, for instance, are we going to lose that if we're not serious enough about how we're going to take the benefits and also, you know, question some of the things that probably isn't going to work in a more calmer times. So, HR really proved its worth during the pandemic. But I think in a times of peace, people forget again what's the role of the function. 

GN: So, I think it's really interesting when you talk back to the pandemic; I reflect back to what was happening in the business I was in at the time. During the pandemic, we'd never had anyone work from home. There was no such concept of remote working. Everyone's in the office five days a week, we hadn't tested anything to see if anyone could. And that in itself meant that we completely had to change our culture from the moment we closed the office, we tested Teams to see if that worked for us the day before. And also, we tested some of the remote working practices. So, I think the key thing that we are is a driver of the culture and able to support the cultural and cultural change. And I think that with this particular situation today, as an example, yes, you couldn't have predicted that there would be this security update that would affect a number of different systems. But what are your backups? What are the things that people can do? And equally, what are the reflections after this has happened? Are you actually getting people together to think about what is the, what are the business continuity risks going forward? What do we need to consider or what do we need to carefully plan out if something else happens? Because you might not expect that the exact thing that happened, like Covid or this particular situation today, but something will happen, so you have to really carefully think that through and work with people on that.

DDS: I agree. I want to move us on a bit to a name that's often associated with crisis or drama, which is a leaked email has resurfaced. So, it's old news but in new packaging and we know that happens in the world from Tesla and ex-boss Elon Musk outlining a series of productivity recommendations for employees. And one of those recommendations was to allow people to walk out of a meeting or drop off a call if they felt that they were not adding value to that. Musk had previously defended the approach as suggesting it's not rude to leave, it's rude to make someone stay and waste their time. I was reading another piece which was some analysis from Microsoft looking at meetings usage post-pandemic, suggesting that actually, we've reached a tipping point where the way they described it was people spend more time talking about work than actually doing work. Now, I realise there's an Alanis Morissette level of irony that we're talking about this on a podcast, that's not lost on me in any way, we're having a podcast talking about whether people talk too much about work and we're considering that work, but it's a really interesting stance, I think because one there's something really important around culture sitting in there. Secondly, there's something around clarity. And thirdly, there's that drive for productivity. And we spoke about this beforehand and I think I was the only one who's done anything like walking out of a meeting, and I'm happy to talk about that. I didn't storm out; I have to be really clear, but I made it clear that the meeting shouldn't continue. I was wondering Vilma if I come to you first, but what are your thoughts on this? 

VN: I was thinking about this, it probably suits the culture of his company, it suits him as a leader, so before I should have judged. I will put those caveats out there. Yes, I wouldn't want anyone to walk out rudely, as you say, I think there's something around purpose and meaning here. And I think as leaders, we can set up a tone and purpose around meetings and role model how to have them being more meaningful with agendas with clear purpose and duration and good chairing to avoid anyone having to walk out. So, I think the things that we can do before it gets to that and if it does get to that then I think people should, should do it in a way that doesn't offend anyone. But I would put a lot more emphasis on the work pre the meeting. 

DDS: I had a flip of this actually I was chatting to a HRD last week and they said when they started their career, they worked for a CEO who used to lock the meeting room at the time the meeting was due to start. So, if you arrived a couple of minutes late you would just find that you weren't able to enter the room but they said you know, in terms of setting a tone for an organization, as soon as you started, you saw that for the first time, you recognized that actually turning up, seven, eight minutes late to a meeting wasn't an acceptable thing and that's the way the place worked. So, I was wondering do you think do you think those cultural strong cultural markers are useful or destructive? 

GN: Well, it's funny because my previous business, our CEO would if you're, every minute you were late for a meeting, you would be charged a cocktail at a future event. So, you'd have to buy everyone in the room a cocktail, so that would get people in a lot quicker. I just had a reflection if I just decided to walk out of this studio right now, you’d be quite shocked. Hopefully I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t be. 

DDS: I’m thinking that through right now, 

GN: But I think it’s the key as Vilma said was just preparing ahead of the meeting, thinking about who you’re inviting, thinking about what the meeting’s outcomes are and why you’re doing it, and who would be the best people to be there. I think quite often, and I experienced this when I was freelance, there's this, people are doing large-scale projects and just think that everyone has to be there for every meeting. Whereas that's not necessarily true, and I think also think about how long your meetings are is it comfortable to be on a Team's call for two, two three hours? Well, obviously no. So, it's about thinking, that preparation and then at the end of the meeting, it's a check-in, how did that meeting go? You know, was it valuable to you? Did you find it useful? And if you're chairing that meeting, are the people actually getting involved? If they're not, then they why were they there? What is the real value that they're offering. So, I think there's lots of things to carefully think about when you're planning the meeting in the first place, but also allowing people to come up to you afterwards and say, I didn't find that useful, it's really important.

DDS: So, and I'm hoping that you do stay for the rest of the podcast.

GN: I don't know, it's nice, it's nice, sunny day today.  

DDS: There's an edge that we normally don't have in this podcast, just in case we'll see if we can keep Gareth engaged. Markos, just it's a general kind of question, I realise you can't speak for the universality of every organization. Do you think modern organizations get return on investment for the time they put into meetings? 

MK: That's a very good question, as you said it's really difficult to to answer that you know for everyone. I think the meetings for me it's a window to an organizational culture and and the leadership style and also the business models of place. If you work in a university, you conduct all your business through committees. This is our business model, we like it or not some of this is going to take forever, others going to be more succinct but, in the end, this is how you have to get through to get these decisions made. There's always things you can do for instance you know all my meetings are half an hour, 45 minutes. I decided when I go to the leadership position, if I'm able to survive this I need to get to see a lot of people, so I need to put some boundaries. Some people didn't like it but actually it works because if you cannot do your business in half an hour obviously there's a challenge and a problem there. I think for me, it's about values and behaviours. It's sometimes not what you do is how you do it. So, you can have conversations, you can have the best preparation about meetings, but sometimes, the meetings can actually show you that you don't know what you're talking about. You don't, as I said, you know, we discussed this before, if you don't have a clear plan, you don't have the resources in place, you don't know what you'd like to achieve. Probably, you try to cover all this gap in your business planning by having more meetings. And I think that's the question I will ask beforehand. What we try to achieve here, it is a better way to do this. 

DDS: Now, last week, maybe a couple of weeks back, we got an inquiry from a journalist at the CIPD around discrete reporting for microaggressions in the workplace. So, it was a legal firm that's launched a new way to improve relations in the workplace is the way it's positioned by introducing a new online platform to report unacceptable behaviour or microaggressions. So, it was described as a smoke alarm that exposes problems before they become severe. It's really interesting, by the way. If you are in a position where you're getting asked to comment on things like that, because one, you know that actually by the time it reaches print there's probably only two sentences from you or your organization. And secondly, particularly in a case like this, you're dealing with two complex things, would you like to see improved workplace conditions? Yes. Would you like to see people speak out more and have a safe environment to do that? Yes. But actually, broadly in organizational culture, would you like that addressed peer to peer, colleague to colleague. Absolutely, for the most part. And I think trying to find that balance is really tricky. I was really curious; Vilma think you said that you've worked with or in organizations in the past that have had similar reporting systems.

I was wondering if you could bring it to life for us a bit, because there's definitely a trade-off in there, but actually it's a really interesting trade-off I think between two things that organizations would tend to want to achieve which is a safe culture but also a healthy collaborative culture. 

VN: Yes, and it's one of those issues in my career that I have shifted my position. I started some years ago, think with the view that this isn't actually a good thing for organizations. People should be able to speak up, we should be able to create cultures where people come forward and speak up and we know who they are, and they they give us the testimony and I have shifted my position and worked in a university where an anonymous reporting system existed. And actually, I supported its introduction because the world has changed a lot. I understood a lot more around power dynamics and how safety really works in organizations. So, I decided to see it as a tool for data collection or organizational culture. Sometimes it's very difficult to take any action on anonymous reporting but it does build a picture around your culture and therefore on balance, I think they can be useful. 

GN: I think the challenge is what you've just said there, Vilma, is that although you've got reports, it's what you do about it. And I think that's the really difficult thing here is someone reports something anonymously about someone else. How do you take that matter forward? And what do you do about that? It might give you a snapshot of the culture of the business, but really what that person's probably crying out to do is, I need a bit of help on this. I need some support. So, I think although this can be a support in some ways, I think it's far better to be able to have conversations with people, be able to open up, and also to recognize body language from people, whether that's within meetings or within just day-to-day interactions with people. And I think also it's about the training that you give and the support you give for leaders and managers in the business to ensure that they're considering the language that they're using, the way in which they work. I think all these things are really critically important. A reporting system will just simply tell you there's a problem, but the action points are sometimes really difficult to achieve. 

MK: I agree with that. I agree completely with that. I work in a university who have a similar system. And I think universities are still quite hierarchical places where the power structure is attached to the longevity of your position and your academic qualifications. So, in places like that, I think especially for people, who don't feel they have the power, it's important to have a forum when actually they can go and express their dissatisfaction or their experiences. That's why I always supported this mechanism. But the problem is, as Gareth said, what are you going to do about it? And I think in itself, it's not enough. You need to link it with other data, casework data, complaints, anything else, in order to improve your policies and actually put things in place. The most important thing for an organization is to hold themselves accountable and actually, turn the mirror on the senior leadership and say, this is, you know, the instances we have across the organization. This is the complaints and I'm talking specifically over the last 10 years about sexual harassment. After the #MeToo movement, I think across the university sector and many other organizations, that became the number one concern we had. And we had to react to this, and we have to really respond to this. So, I think it's important to be transparent and open. It's not easy. It's uncomfortable. But that's OK. 

DDS: Is there, because I think it's really interesting. It's one of those things, isn't it, where there is quite clearly, I think, a graduation. So, by that, what I mean is, it is probably clear and obvious that there should be an anonymous reporting mechanism on safe channels at the very least for people in situations of sexual harassment. If people have had a difficult altercation within a meeting, it's possibly less clear to think that that tool should be used for that. And I think that's the, I'm not entirely sure where or how you draw that line, but it does feel like it's a sliding scale, but there are also two different categories of things. 

GN: I suppose the question that comes to my mind is, what is a microaggression and how do you define that? And what would a microaggression look like versus an aggression or something that was outwardly obvious? 

MK: An example of this could be when you get someone's name wrong all the time. You send email after email, and you misspell their name. You never apologize for that; you never acknowledge this. And if you're in a position of power and this is a junior member of staff, they were never going to mention it and they're going to feel aggrieved and they're going to carry this. That's a very small example, but I think that's exactly the microaggression that we didn't consider 20 years ago. 

DDS: And there's probably, I would imagine, three of us on this podcast that have regular experience of that. I still receive emails, emails from people that I work with or have close working relationships with that don't get my name right. I imagine the same is for you. I imagine the same is for me. Gareth, are you all right? 

GN: Yeah, usually my surname usually gets misspelled quite often. 

DDS: You as well. 

GN: It's really interesting. You mentioned that. I think back to, I kept getting someone's name wrong and I kept apologising and I can never remember how they did it. And they wrote down a little note for me. E, f, a, efa. Because it's an Irish name and it can sometimes be, and that was, for me, massively helpful. 

DDS: A question for Vilma. What kind of stuff do you get from that reporting? Is there something that you found really useful and that you found that you've spotted a trend within those particular? 

VN: Yes. Yeah. I mean, in a large organisation, most universities are, you will get those reports in volume and then you start building a picture. I'm not quite sure how it would work in a smaller organisation. But it does, if it's handled well, it does create a culture of, you know, I'll raise this because it's worth raising and it's better than me leaving a meeting thinking, can I talk to someone about this? Is it in my mind? Have I imagined it? Will I be told that I've got a chip on my shoulder? So, we were getting a lot of things where people were giving us their names, and others were sort of small trends were discussed like precisely sort of the ongoing mispronouncing of somebody's name or misgendering someone, things like that..

DDS: So, I want to bring us on to a different type of trend altogether, or a different type of trend spotting to finish it off, which is going into the murky world of social media. First of all, like, subscribe to this podcast. This is wonderful. Share it with your friends. Either handwritten notes to say, do listen to it, or make sure that you share it in your organisations. But I want to talk about the growing rise of #worktalk. #worktalk. For any of you who don't know, it's where things are becoming apparent on TikTok or catching on in terms of TikTok. So, some examples are, at your wage, so the idea that people should work in a way that's appropriate to the amount they're being paid. A raft of things under the quiet heading. You'll have heard many of these. So, quiet quitting, quiet hiring, quiet firing. We could probably invent another one today, which is, I don't know, quiet meeting, exiting. Rage applying, career cushioning and resenteeism. So, it's a really interesting one. Again, I'll come back to, we quite often get, as a professional body, ask questions around this. What do you think about this new trend? And I guess my take on it is quite often, they're not new trends, they're new naming conventions for those trends. However, that said, I guess if things are being amplified or people are kind of seeing resonance in things, there's something interesting for the profession as well there. So, Vilma, is this something we should be paying attention to? Is it something that keeps us connected to the world or is it something that we can just ignore because actually these are, old problems anyway and we're already working on them?

VN: I don’t think we should ignore it. I think there’s something that people are saying there that we should pay attention to if you dig deeper, these things were always there. People perhaps weren’t broadcasting them. So, what happens when they do? I remember an interaction with a new member of a previous team I managed that I asked the question, what do you think about this? And she said, I don’t get paid enough to answer this question. And that was, that was about five years ago, and it stopped me on my tracks. I just thought I never encountered anything like this in my life. Was it instructive? I think it told me something about the relationship that people started having with work around the time of the pandemic. I don't know if it was coincidental.

GN: What occurs to me is this is all about how you give employees a voice and give the opportunity to talk about things. I would rather know ahead of a situation or be aware of a situation coming up than someone doesn't tell me about it and just leaves. I'd rather someone says, this is a problem, or this is something I don't like. And I think it's about how you get people involved in that and how you can encourage people from all different areas of the business to be able to input into that. Otherwise, you just become any job anywhere. And I think that's the real challenge is giving people the opportunities to be able to discuss these issues, the things that matter to them, what they really like about the job, what they don't like about the job and what could we potentially do about this.

DDS: So, do you think it's a healthy thing then that it's popping up and we're hearing about it? Or do you think it's unhealthy that it's not being raised in their workplaces and people feel that actually they need to talk about their work in that way externally? 

GN: Well, I think that people used to do this in the pub anyway. It's no different now. It's just that it is online, and people are sending out to more people. But you still talk to your friends if you've had a bad day at the office and talk about the bad experiences you've had throughout that day. And I think the critical bit for me is how you try and encourage people to be able to raise those issues sooner and be able to feel comfortable about doing it because that's sometimes the issue is people don't feel comfortable about saying, actually, I've got a problem, or this isn't working for me. 

DDS: Anonymous reporting tool being obviously one of the options. 

GN: That's one of the options. 

DDS: But not the only one.

MK: But I think it's 21st century language and how people talk about their workplace and the experiences. I mean, Gareth mentioned the pub. I think most of my colleagues, my teams, they don't go to the pub anymore. They do different things. They experience life differently, which is, you know, just different. It's absolutely fine. And they're not going to go to the trade unions to become members. They're not going to respond to the traditional employee voice stuff, experience stuff. So, they're using social media because this is how they grew up, they grew up in social media. It's a whole different generation. And I know this is not about different ages and stuff, but I think we need to accept that the employee voice is everywhere. It can be quite fragmented, and you need to keep your ear on the ground of what's going on. So, for me, it's absolutely part of the wider workplace experience. And I wouldn't see it negatively. I wouldn't also overplay their impact. I think it's part of what you hear. You need to keep your ear on the ground. 

DDS: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think there's a difference between someone doing it for attention and someone doing it because they feel that that's a positive outlet for connection. And I think I've seen both. So, I've seen organisations slam for their recruitment processes in public. And you think actually, you could have just taken that up with the organisation. And you know, that's probably either an accepted practice or probably a more constructive one. But I've also seen things shared and we touched on actually since, really significant issues prior, where actually people needed to escalate outside their organisation for that to get significant attention. Vilma, final thought from you on this one? 

VN: I think as HR leaders, our job should be to create the best conditions within the organisation. So, these things get aired within the organisation and not just get aired but get addressed to the extent that they can be addressed. So, there is a constant sort of dialogue in the business around those issues. As Mark was saying, we can't stop it. It's there. Social media is part of people's life. We broadcast whether we, we do it all the time. So, I think I would rather put emphasis on creating conditions for people to do it at work safely. 

DDS: #worksafely #qualityofwork. Hashtag. Hashtag always kind of. 

MK: Hashtag enjoy yourselves. 

DDS: Well, or hashtag, you know, or hashtag pay for other people's cocktails. 

GN: Indeed. 

DDS: I don't know where you were working.

GN: Oh, well, I'll tell you later. It's part of working in hospitality. So, the bit that occurs to me as well is that if you post something on social media, it doesn't necessarily resolve it. And I think that's the bit for me. Are you just airing your grievance and getting it out there and saying I'm fed up with this? Or do you want it actually resolved? And what we have to think about as HR leaders is how do we give people the opportunity to raise these things so we can help them and support them? 

DDS: And I think it's probably a good place for us to finish because I think it ties up actually neatly lots of the subjects we've spoken about. The question around meetings isn't around do you walk out or not? It's about how do you drive productivity? How do you make sure that you're making a difference? The question around reporting, as you say, is actually, OK, so what are you going to do with that information? And again, in this space, if you know about it, how are you going to shift the culture, drive the culture, drive change, to make that happen? And there are certain spaces where just having the voice doesn't make a difference and certain spaces where it should drive a difference. So that's all from us for today. I'd like to give my utter thanks to Markos, Vilma and to Gareth for sharing their thoughts with us, and Gareth for staying with us for the whole duration of this. 

GN: Am I allowed to go? 

DDS: We released new episodes every fortnight, so please do make sure to subscribe on your favourite podcast platform and recommend us wherever you'd like to. It's worth saying we had a conversation just before we started about the best HR films. So, it's a bit of CPD, whether you're a student listening or whether you're more experienced in your career and you want to get, you know, an extra jolt of learning. Two brilliant film recommendations. One is Up in the Air with George Clooney, where his job is the least glamorous of all, which is doing large-scale redundancies up and down America, but helping people feel good about that experience. And I always think it's a difficult part of the job, but if you can do it with dignity, that makes a big difference. And the second was Office Space, which is an unknown gem, but it's as good a film around workplace motivation and bureaucracy as you will ever see. So, carry on the conversations in our communities make sure that you continue learning, and we look forward to your joining us next time. My name is David D'Souza, and this has been the CIPD's HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

David Blackburn: Hello, my name is David Blackburn and it's my pleasure to introduce you to this edition of the CIPD HR People Pod Election Special.

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome to this special episode of the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast bringing the topical stories and experts on the issues impacting HR, people practise and the world of work. This is a special today. We are recording the morning after the election result has come in, so they're still dribbling in the final results in the background, but it's covering the fact that we will have a new government in the UK. It will be a Labour government and we'll be diving into some of the detail around their New Deal for Working People and its implications for the profession. If you'd like to see more, then you can go to www.cipd.org.

My name is David D’Souza, and I'm joined by two senior HR professionals. One a Chartered Fellow at the CIPD and one a Companion of the CIPD, so I'm in lauded company today, to unpack what it means for employers. We'll be covering three specific areas that we know legislation is likely to change in, and we will also be speaking to a former MP about what it takes to get laws done and what we can expect to see and actually what it feels like to wake up on Election Day on a landslide. Before we kick off, I just want to explain a couple of things. So, the CIPD is politically independent. What that means is what matters is the impact of policies to us, not who is putting them forward. So, it's the impact on the world of work and the profession that we focus on. As the government settles in, we'll continue to engage with it as we have done in the past and we will continue to engage with the opposition parties to influence their positions as we have done in the past as well, on behalf of the profession and our membership. So, just before we get started and before I take you over to that exclusive with a former MP. I'd like to introduce our guests today.

DB: Hi, I'm David Blackburn. I'm currently the Interim Executive Director of People at Mencap. I've been a member of the CIP for 21 years and have been doing HR for longer than I can care to remember.

DDS: Which could be just two or three years, depending on how dramatic they've been.

DB: Yeah. Yeah. Well, at my age, yes, exactly.

DDS: And

Jo Carlin: Jo Carlin. I'm the Senior Vice President for HR Europe for an organisation called Firstsource Solutions. I've been working in HR profession for three decades now. Forever. Basically forever. I have been working in HR, HR lifer, I think I term. It's a term I've created myself.

DDS: Excellent. So, I'm tired because I stayed up all night. You two just appear tired by life, actually.

JC: Yeah. It's 30 years in HR.

DDS: Just before we go into and we speak to our guest, former MP, how did you spend last night, David and obviously, safe for work comments though?

DB: OK. So, watched, so my husband and I sort of split election night duties. So, I watched up until exit polls and a little bit beyond and then went to bed. He stayed on and then, I think, and he came to bed and then I got up early. So, I got up about 5:00 AM this morning to watch the, by which point most of the, I think we were waiting for about 40 results by that point. So, they declared it.

DDS: I like that, I like that HR, so concrete shift patterns, you know in advance. You know exactly what you were doing then.

DB: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

DDS: Jo?

JC: Oh yeah. I was not as interesting as that, David, frankly, I went to bed with a peppermint tea, which is pretty much what I do most evenings. And then I got up at 4:15 and checked my phone and I was like, "oh, yeah", I mean, it was a little unsurprising, but yeah, that's what I did.

DDS: Excellent. Thank you.

JC: Peppermint tea and a book.

DDS: Every night?          

JC: Every night.

DDS: Routines and disciplines matter.

JC: Yeah, apart from the nights when it's wine.

DDS: I'm delighted to welcome to the show, a former MP to shed some light on what we can all expect in the coming months as the new government take forward their legislative agenda. Chair of the CIPD Policy Forum and former Labour MP, Iain Wright, welcome Iain.

Iain Wright: Thanks for having me.

DDS: Really glad that you can make time today. So, we're the morning after the election, the results are just kind of finally trickling in, which is very exciting to get you on kind of live now. So, what about you? How did you spend your evening last night? Did you stay up glued to the screen or did you go to bed early and peacefully.

IW: No, I was up till 5:30 and then just got about an hour's sleep before getting up to do this. So yeah. And you remember what it's like, you know, you are, you know, being driven on adrenaline and often really bad food as well when you're going through an election campaign, especially on election night. But yeah, I wanted to stay up to see this.

DDS: And just going back to that time when it happened for you, do you sort of want to collapse the next day or does the adrenaline keep going?

IW: It's a funny mix of emotions, actually, because the adrenaline has kept you going through an election campaign. It drives you forward for a bit, but then you crash. You need to have a bit of a sleep. I never did this as such. I know that I spoke to a number of colleagues on both sides of the House who said, "I slept for the entire weekend". You know, "I was so exhausted that I just had to catch up". I never did that, there's always stuff to do, there's supporters to thank, there's media to do, there's correspondence to start. You know, it's a busy time and it's especially a busy time for an incoming government and incoming ministers. But the adrenaline has pushed you through and probably will need to push you through for a little bit further as well.

DDS: Fantastic. So, many of the people listening for obvious reasons, won't have been MPs in a landslide victory. So, what can we expect next? So, in organisations we often talk about that first 100 days, but it's been very clear that actually the government or the new government, incoming government would like to hit the ground running. So, what's the likely time frame for implementing elements of the New Deal, particularly those around employment for the profession to look out for?

IW: Well, I think there are a number of stages. First is of course, the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, needs to form a government. He'll be doing that over the next couple of days, so the expectations will be, the cabinet will be appointed today. the junior ranks of ministers will be appointed on Saturday and they've really got to hit the ground running because I think there are two things to bear in mind. July, Parliament is often winding down into recess in July. It's going to be absolutely the opposite because, first the new Prime Minister will be going to a NATO summit on Tuesday, so he'll want to bring in the parliamentary Labour Party on Monday to give them, you know, a great speech to set them on their way. And then he's off on the international front. But then the other key point is the King's Speech on July the 17th. So, it's not long, about a fortnight or so where the new government will set out its legislative agenda and there'll be things in there, like the introduction of Green Energy UK, things like putting in place independence, full independence and publication for the Office for Budget Responsibility, an industrial strategy we'll put in place, and the establishment of a formal Industrial Strategy Council. But as you say, I think one of the big centrepieces of any legislative programme of the new government will be this “making work pay”, having a New Deal for workers and I think that will be a key part of the King's Speech.

DDS: And how will that, in practical terms, come into force? So, are we likely to see an Employment Bill with a kind of cluster of activity and changes sitting within it, and how likely will that, you know, be to be in the kind of foreseeable future or is it more likely to be policies being dripped in after consultation with industry?

IW: It's going to be both actually, because I think what you will have is, you will have it as a big point in the King's Speech. You will have first and second readings, probably before recess at the end of July, beginning of August, if the parliamentary people can draft it appropriately. And of course, the civil service have, will have been working on Labour's manifesto on that. So, there will be a big piece of legislation, but also what Labour has committed to do is having, in conjunction with that legislative programme, a full and comprehensive consultation. So, there's going to be perhaps a summer and autumn of businesses, trade unions, civil society and I think CIPD needs to play a big role in this. In saying, "well, these are our proposed plans, how do we put them into action?" And so that there will be that twin track of consultation, a bit of a drip feed but backed up by a major legislative bill going through the House in the autumn and winter.

DDS: Thank you, Iain. That sets the context brilliantly for the conversation we're about to have with some practitioners about actually the implications of some of that legislation. But I'm delighted that we've got you as the Chair of the CIPD Policy Forum to help us with that interaction and influence over government as we go forward. Have a great rest of the day and I hope you get some rest.

IW: Thanks very much and thanks for having me, appreciate it.

DDS: So, we've said that we'll continue to consult and try and influence government and one of the areas that, actually at the CIPD, we're delighted to see within Labour's manifesto and the New Deal was significant changes to the Apprentice Levy, which we've been calling for, for a long time, on behalf of our members, knowing that large amounts of funds don't get spent. So, we're going to unpack, as I say, several areas in detail. All of the other areas will be covered on our website, and we'll give you an overview there. But there are three areas that we're going through particularly and the first of those is the skills agenda. So, in particular, planned reforms to the Apprenticeship Levy funding and a commitment to a new Youth Guarantee. So, there are two things here, but in a nutshell, Labour have pledged to reform the existing levy into a more flexible skills levy available to employers. Businesses will be able to use up to 50% of the levy contributions to fund training opportunities that aren't apprenticeships, but additionally, a new Youth Guarantee Commitment will ensure training, apprenticeships or job support for all 18- to 21-year-olds. We've advocated, as I say, for changes in this space for a long time, and it aligns with quite a bit of the research and the calls that we made in our recent work with the Youth Futures Foundation. Jo, I wanted to come to you first because I know that you've had personal experience that you're very passionate about, of apprenticeship schemes. So, how do you feel about these changes?

JC: First, brilliant, because these changes mean that we can do so much more with that, with that 50%, I mean, if we use 5% of the levy, I'd be shocked. I mean that 50% just means that we can go into different skills areas. There's so many emerging fields that are coming through that we're just not even considering. And then to get a formal apprenticeship, you know, organisation or companies set up in those type of fields, it's just insane. So, this is brilliant. I think for the young people, look, I am a, for those of you who are listening and are old enough, I'm an ex-YTS. Youth Training Scheme. For those of you not old enough, that's what it was called. And I think if it wasn't for that, that was my lifeline. You know, that was an opportunity to earn some money, learn some stuff and actually figure out what I wanted to do because I had no idea. And then I landed up in HR and the rest is history. But YTS, was not in HR. My YTS was in IT at a time when IT wasn't even a thing. So, I look at that and think, "well, what could we do now with that levy, what could we do with that money to help the young people come in?" And I think more responsibility on employers, for sure, to say, "here, you've, we have this emerging issue in the UK with skills and with reskilling, reskilling and upskilling our existing employees".

So, I don't think it's just about, you know, the kind of this youth reform, although that's critical. I also think it's about people already in work actually though that type of work changing and we're sitting here going actually we've got all this money banked and I'll use that word, it's banked that we can't really get to because we can't afford for people to take 20% of the time off the job. So, this is music to my ears and long may it continue. I'll be interested to see actually what happens with it and how far it goes. And I would push to say, can it be more than 50%? That would be my view, can it, you know be somewhere near 70 or actually why not just let us decide what we do with all of it? There's a radical thought. But I, you know, I guess that's that'll come.

DDS: So directionally, a really good thing from your point of view?

JC: Yes.

DDS: Question marks, I guess over whether there can be more flexibility with it. David, what are your thoughts?

DB: Yeah. I mean, I agree with Jo wholeheartedly. I mean, it's not just, I think about the skills of young people. I think reskilling, upskilling, you know, we know that by, I think it's 2030, you know there'll be eight, the World Economic Forum says 85,000,000 roles will be unfilled because we don't have the right skills. And we also know, you know, the frustration that HR practitioners have felt about the levy. Let's just be honest, I mean, the levy hasn't worked. It has not delivered what it set out to do and in some areas, actually, we know it's accentuated some of the problems. So, I think that I really like, and I agree with Jo about, there's something isn't there about how radical we want to be in this space, you know, and the problem, we know that we've got a problem, we've got a retention problem, we've got a tight labour market. You know, I'm currently working for a charitable organisation that provides social care. You know, the social care pathway skills for social care: massive thing. We could be really using that money, but we can't right now. We have a pot that we can't access, as Jo says. I really love Jo's suggestion, and I think we maybe should be advocating for that. That says, "why aren't we being allowed to decide, actually, what we do with the whole amount?" So, I think it's a great starting point. The other thing I'd say is that I think as Iain referenced, I think you know it does need to be linked to an industrial strategy. You know skills can't just be this sort of thing on its own. And I think maybe that's part of a learning from the Apprenticeship Levy. You know that we sort of said, "we'll create a pot of money, we'll do these things". Actually, it's got to be part of a bigger jigsaw, which is about, you know, UK PLC. That's what I think. But I do think Jo's right. I think it's a really good starting point.

DDS: There's a really interesting point in there, isn't there, which is the eye-catching bit, is potentially the guarantee for young people, but actually the need for lifelong learning and reskilling is as, if not more important than ever. And we've got to join those things together and look, we, you know, as an organisation on behalf of our members and having heard feedback from our members, we've been calling for this, for long time, broken. You know, we haven't sat on the fence on this one. It's been a very clear thing that hasn't been working in the way it was intended. It's really good to hear that actually, I think, directionally it's going to move into a different place.

JC: If I think about emerging skills and how can we use this pot of money? Because I totally agree that businesses should have a percentage of their salary bill taken in order to upskill and reskill. I think it's the responsible thing to do, absolutely. How we use it, as you said David, it's got to be up to us with some parameters. But if I think about the new emerging, you know, I mean, we can't get away from AI, you can't get away from digital , but there's also all segments of sector building up. And if I think about our sector, which is outsourcing, the traditional model is, we're moving away from the traditional model into something which is augmented with more digital, digitally enabled experiences and we, at the minute, you've got to find some way. You've got to find some money to pay for that upskilling en masse. So, we can't, you know, we can't play around at this stuff because we're getting left behind by other countries, so it has to happen. For me this has to happen fast. So, we can't be in endless navel-gazing debate about this. We've just got to move.

DDS: Yeah. And I think that digital literacy thing is massive, isn't it, you know. So, you know, the Microsoft suite, you know, if you say to people right now, you know, you have access to AI tools on your desktop because Microsoft launched Copilot, didn't really tell anybody about it. You know, it's just there. You can, you know, can go in and get its right role profiles and do whatever you want, sort of thing. No-one's had any training on it or development, and if you do a thing, so actually in my time in the financial services sector, the Financial Services Skills Commission identified digital literacy as absolutely essential. Where's the money? To your point, Jo? I mean, where's the money to invest in that? And that's in all sectors, isn't it? I mean, that's not sector specific. We all need to be more digitally literate. We all, so we do talk about AI as this big thing, but actually the practical reality is, what skills are we developing in the workforce of today for tomorrow? Because we're already, they're already here.

JC: I would add to it, David, just for a final point. I think digital skills are brilliant, but I also think we need to focus on our more behavioural skills as well because it's this, it's this latent ability. So, we have to think about the barriers, what stops people from playing around with Microsoft Copilot, for example? I was on it yesterday. I was doing some translation on it yesterday. It was amazing. But what stops people? And it's fear. So, I think, you know, we go to the skill first and then we try and say OK "oh, it's not working”. Now how do? The adoption's not there? So, what do we do? So, I think having access to a pot of money that allows us to do both of that - perfect. Just give me more than 50%.

DDS: Yeah. OK. So, I'm going to. I'm going to move this on, but it's nice to hear some accord and disagreement in the room. This is how this should work. There are a raft of changes that are coming through, we're not going to touch them all today. So again, if you go to www.cipd.org, you will find information on, you know, the range of things that we need to address actually, and which are likely to come in. So, that's union recognition, fire and rehire implications, changes to National Living Wage. Changes to, potentially, sick pay, zero hours contracts, a raft of things and right to switch off, which we actually covered in an earlier episode of this.

I think it's episode two, if you want to go back and have a listen to that. However, one of the things that we know is most contentious for practitioners is the removal of the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims. Obviously, not automatically unfair, currently, just to clarify where the law is on that at the moment. I'm going to come to you first on this, David. What I think is portrayed in the media sometimes is that organisations treat that two years as like a kind of free hit and you know, just you have no rights in that period. When I speak to employers, when we speak to our members, that's not the way it's viewed, but there's a balance of risk here, which is really interesting. And I think, we were chatting earlier, everyone can understand the intent behind this, but what I really want to get into is the practicalities for employers and for practitioners. So, do you want to kick us off?

DB: Yeah. I mean, we were laughing earlier, weren't we? Because, I mean, as Jo and I shared, as HR lifers, you know, I think we're agreed that the intent is right, but I guess my question is, "what is the problem that they think? What is the problem this is seeking to solve?"

JC: Yeah. What's the question we're trying to answer?

DB: Yeah, you know, I, because I think that is massively important for practitioners. And I'm also mindful, which is what we were reminiscing about. You know, cast your minds back to, you know, the previous Labour administration, 2004. You know, the Statutory Dispute Regulations, which on paper seemed like a really, seemed like a really good idea. You know, it's a great intention. You know, we're going to set down in law what the statutory process is for the resolution of disciplinary grievances and if you don't follow the, if you go wrong at any point and you don't follow the three stage process, the dismissal, the process will automatically be unfair and will bring the right to Employment Tribunal Claims. The industry absolutely said, at the time, HR practitioners, employment lawyers said this will be a disaster and the Labour government pressed on and ignored it. And what we saw was a massive increase in Employment Tribunal Claims. The system became overworked and basically it didn't work and so then it got revoked and I can't remember what year it got revoked about four years, I think probably. This has the potential to do the same exactly to do the same again. And I think that sometimes, again, I'm going to borrow with pride a phrase of Jo's. I might get it a bit wrong, but Jo was saying "we need more than just, you know, these banner headlines, manifesto promise, state".

JC: I said, I said it's a poster. It's a “poster quote”.

DB: It's a “poster quote”.

DDS: You said it. I think more charismatically and eloquently as well, Jo. So, you know.

JC: Yes, I did. I mean, frankly that's the case. Yeah. Absolutely. But, David, you can steal with pride. It's fine. I won't charge you later.

DB: And I just, and I just think that's the. The reality is that we know that already. You know, we'd be much better off I think. There’s this thing isn't it about prevention and cure? You know, are we focusing on what Jo was saying earlier about soft skills, you know, actually are we focusing on managers being better managers, having better quality conversations, all of those things so that they don't, because, to your point, David, I don't think that we use it as a free pass and you know, and if we are then I think that's probably not that, that's not the, that's not what the intention was.

JC: I think, let's be honest, some employers will use it as a free pass, yeah? I mean, I think there's a reality, isn't there, that some people may, we don't know because we're not in all of those employers.

DB: You flag it in your HR system, don't you? A little alarm bell that tells you.

JC: Yeah. Well, you. Yeah, I mean, you're not, but again I echo your point, David, it's got to be, what's the question we're trying to answer with it? I'm not against. I'm not against, I suppose, most of what's in there, but if I take my organisation, for example, we took away probationary periods for a reason because we said, "look, it's about the quality of the conversation, it's about the quality of the discussion and how well we are interacting with our employees and they are interacting with us". So, we're not going to have them under duress during that probationary period because it creates a certain behaviour. So, we're like, "look, we don't want to do that anymore", but sometimes things go wrong, yeah? On both sides, and that's just the way it is. But now I'm looking at it thinking. “Oh. OK, I'm going to have to put those probationary periods, right back in there.”

DDS: It is difficult, isn't it, to guarantee a match between an employer and an employee's expectations and organisations already put a lot of effort into trying to be transparent about what it's like to work here, because we know that someone joining and then leaving is both expensive and it can be disruptive. So, it's not like, to your point you've been working to try and resolve these issues anyway. There are potentially implications and changes that you would have to make if the legislation were to change in this way.

JC: Yeah. I mean and look, let's be honest. I think we were listening to, taking Iain's point from earlier, it's likely it's going to come in in, you know, August, September, or something's going to happen in the autumn, which is going to be a very, it's going to be a very busy time for everybody, including HR professionals. And so, I like the intent, I think that's great. But some kind of, you know, not "edge of cliff" decisions would be great. And I'm looking at the CIPD to, you know, help do that actually with our new government. So, not "edge of cliff" would be fantastic, think a bit deeper. Nobody wants to get into the situation that we did. I am old enough, unfortunately, although I don't look it, but I am old enough to remember the reforms as they were. And you're right, it created chaos then with ACAS. So, ACAS are already stretched from the changes that have happened over the last maybe two or three, four years. What's going to happen now? You know I don't want us to get bottlenecked into conciliation and have all of our time spent focusing on that and none of the time spent doing the stuff that we really want to do, which is managing our people well.

DB: And it's worth saying that it's not just ACAS, the tribunal system itself is completely overloaded. You know, on average in London, you know, you're talking 18 months to two years for an unfair dismissal claim to reach its tribunal date. You know, so adding more into that system, I'm not sure it's going to be the right.

DDS: Yeah, it's a really interesting one. So, because we're talking about it, obviously from the practitioner point of view, but like you'll be in the same position as me that when someone finds out you work in HR everyone points anyone having an employment issue in your direction and then they assume that you understand the capability of the person involved and they go, "they're my cousin, so they must be really good at it". But it's that thing at parties. It's like that thing, when you get. You've been there, right?

DB: You always slightly say "Oh, I work in HR", you say it quietly.

DDS: But it's that thing, when they go, "oh, these things are happening" and you ask the follow up question, "how long have you been there?" and they can't see the relevance of that. And it's because people need to kind of understand those rights. To your point, Jo, it's, we really, we are entreating the new government to consult on this. We know that the perspective of our members is there, actually there will be consequences, and the preference is to either not change it, or certainly not change it to the level that is currently being proposed, and we'll make sure that we're articulating that in a consistent way. We've got some quite compelling statistics that would suggest it wouldn't be welcomed by the profession, but you've both made a point around ACAS and the tribunal system and actually, if you are in a position where your employer has done the wrong thing, potentially, how quickly you can access justice and the final thing I wanted to cover is: the new government. Do you see how I bridged that, that was quite?

JC: That was amazing.

DB: It's skilled, skilled, yeah.

JC: Honestly, like professional, professional level.         

DB: Like he's done it before, Jo, I mean, it's.

DDS: It's like we're on Good Morning Britain or something.

JC: I know. It's no wonder it's in the top 10.

DDS: And now over to the weather.

DB: And that's before we've even been on it.

DDS: I'm just proud of myself for that one and everyone can know it. So, the final piece I'd like to cover is how the new government plan to enforce and ensure compliance on these changes and the broader legal landscape. So, Labour has committed to establishing a single enforcement body which they say will strengthen the collective voice of workers and enforce and uphold workers rights. The new body would have the power to inspect workplaces and prosecute for health and safety, minimum wage, exploitation, discrimination issues with tougher penalties and personal liability for directors who break the law or fail to comply. I realise that's a lot of words, but the general gist is trying to get a more powerful body with broader oversight that can really make sure that, where things are going wrong, they're dealt with in an appropriate and swift fashion. So, Jo, I'm going to come to you first. Do you think those changes will improve employment standards in themselves? Do you think it's going to make a change and drive one?

JC: The big question is, how are they going to enforce it? So, fundamentally, I don't think there's anything that you've said that I would be against. Absolutely, at the core of us, we should aim to be good employers. Where there are not and where there are things that are going wrong, my question is how are they going to do this? How are they going to enforce this in a swift? I think the point you made is, in a swift manner. So, it's not going to change anything if it's just a paper threat. If it's, you know, "you do this, and we'll do X". And I suppose that's my worry, with an already creaking system that surrounds some of these things, I'd be really interested in, that, that's fantastic. But what? How are you going to help organisations get better, because it's not always that organisations do these things because they are wanting to be bad employers. It might just be a, you know, they didn't realise. So what? What's that mechanism in order to get from where they are to where they need to be? I have to say at the minute, you know, I'm not seeing that, at the moment, helping organisations at all. You know, there's a lot more onus on the company, on top of all of the other things that are already based on, I suppose, you know, you can have a piece of legislation, but you can interpret it as you wish.

DDS: Yeah, I know.

JC: Loosely.

DDS: It's a really key point. So, increasing enforcement and the pace of enforcement is one angle. Improving education is a key part of that, and that will be actually you look at SMEs and you look at their access to support and their access to understanding and some of our members do a great job, obviously, providing direct support to them, but that is a real challenge and you have to do those two things in parallel. And because the amount of organisations that, as you say, are almost accidentally not complying or there are some particularly technical elements that it's quite easy to fall afoul of. It's making sure that, not just pacing resolution, but actually that prevention piece in the first place. David, just picking up, you mentioned ACAS and their role in this. Again, I think there's a couple of funding questions primarily aren't there? There's funding for the enforcement piece and then there's funding for some of the preventative or interventative. Interventative, I've just invented that word and I'm patenting that.

DB: Interventative?

DDS: We are not taking that (inaudible)

DB: That's our word of today, interventative.

JC: Interventative.

DDS: Interventative is now part of the lexicon. What do you think needs to happen on? I guess there's three sides to it. So, we talked about the education piece, the role that someone like ACAS might play and the enforcement pieces, what needs to change across that landscape?

DB: So, I think Jo's right about, it has to be a joined-up approach. You know changing, you know, for me this feels, you know, it's a bit like, let's just get a bigger, better stick to beat employers with. I'm not sure that that's going to drive building better workplaces. And I, which is what the intent is. So, I think we're all agreed that that's what we should be trying to do. I'm not sure that, and I'd quite like the idea of, you know, maybe streamlining processes and having it all under one body. All of that makes good staff sense but we know it's not properly resourced and I do think, to your point, David, it's about. The education piece for me is the most important piece. You know the CMI did a study last year, the Good Management Report, and with YouGov, you know, and I can't remember the exact number. So, if I quote it wrong, apologies but it's something like you know 82% of managers in the UK have absolutely received no formal training and they talk about "accidental managers”, and we also know that SMEs make up a massive part of the employment landscape in the UK.

So, if you're an SME with an accidental manager who just gets things wrong, not because of their intent, but because of lack of resources, lack of training thing, they can't get through to somebody at ACAS. You then saying, “well, we're just going to beat you, beat you up more”. I mean I'm not sure that's going to, that's so I do think how you put the pieces of the jigsaw together is the most important bit and I guess that’s, sort of, my sense about all of it. You know, Jo and I were saying at the start, you know, I applaud the Labour government, you know, Labour for having such a massive set of statements about employment. It's really refreshing, you know? That's great. That's news for us as HR practitioners. God, we're going to be busy. But I mean, I just, but I think that, you know, you can't rush. You know, I think there's this desire, isn't there? I can't remember who it was, it's either Barack Obama or Tony Blair, you know, in that "I wish I'd done more in the first 100 days", that's where the 100 days thing comes from.

JC: Obama.

DB: Obama. And they're now all obsessed by it, aren't they? Oh, my God. In the first 100 days, we must do, you know, crack on. Well, we're not going to fix all of the employment issues in the first 100 days and actually so I think that's, you know, it's got to be part of a joined-up and it's reassuring that Iain says actually in the King's Speech, they really want to talk about the industrial strategy, because for me, that's the missing bit that we've not had or not had a sense of. How do skills and enforcement and law all fit together? Because our aim surely should be, if we build better workplaces, we drive productivity.

JC: I was having a conversation earlier actually around.

DDS: You were up at 4:15. You've had quite a lot of time since you.

JC: Oh yeah, I've had loads of conversations earlier. Yeah, it just.

DB: She was doing star jumps on the train wasn't you.

JC: I was doing walking lunges at Preston train station. That's how I spend my Friday mornings, David. But I'd say we were having a conversation. I was having a conversation with someone earlier around the kind of green reform and what that means as well, and how that might generate jobs, generate income. But equally, as we get more complex, so all of the things that we're talking about, all of the legislation, all of the pieces of the puzzle, they're getting more and more complex. And going back to this SME point, I'm a Non-Exec Director for a County Football Association, Lancs FA. I've just given them a bit of a shout out.

DDS: Many of our listeners are big fans.

JC: Big fans of Lancs FA. Yeah, I mean, don't tell them, but what I know about football you can write on a Post-it note. The CEO, if you're listening, just close your ears at that point. But I'd say that, you know, my experience with them has been quite eye-opening because it's so complex and you don't realise it because you've lived it. But it's so complex to navigate your way around some of this stuff and then to layer more things on top without the education piece, without the, you know, kind of dispute resolution being a full circle of learning. It's just not going to get any better for people.

DDS: So, I think I'm going to bring things to a halt here because I think, I know we could keep talking forever.

DB: Oh, I wanted to say something really important.

DDS: But like, do you know what? We'll bring you back and we will showcase that in a later episode.

JC: Just you, David.

DDS: So, there's a couple of things I need to give a plug, David mentioned. David mentioned skills and HR advice in small enterprises. We've been running a scheme for a number of years and we're just kicking off the next phase of it, called People Skills, which looks at the value of HR advice in those. So, if you're an independent consultant, we are genuinely working on the evidence to make the case for the advice that you provide to organisations in a really structured way. But the really interesting take from this conversation for me, is that there's alignment around the intent behind a lot of what's here. There is an alignment around, actually, directionally these are some of the things that would have to, but it's the unanticipated consequences. And it's making sure that you're not capturing or altering practising good employers instead of bad. And the final example I'd make, you know, our position on zero hours contracts as an organisation, which is evidence-based and you can, you know, look at the reports we've done over the years, has been clear that they provide flexibility, but where they're exploitative they're absolutely disadvantageous for the people involved and shouldn't happen. And it's getting that nuance into all of the policymaking to make sure that actually getting that balance between not creating less positive conditions whilst you're attempting to stop some of the behaviour that I think we'd all agree shouldn't happen. So, final thing I'd like to do is thank both of our guests today, long night for some early morning for others. So, thank you very much, David.

DB: Thank you.

DDS: And thank you very much, Jo.

JC: Thank you.

DDS: And please do continue tuning in. It's delightful, as Jo mentioned earlier that we are high up in the charts at the moment. It makes us feel very funky and valued. So, please do tell your friends and tell other professionals about this because we want to keep bringing you the news as it happens or just about. So, you'll be listening to this just after the election. This is pretty much live from the morning of the election. Thank you very much.

 

 

 

David D'Souza: Hello and welcome once again to the HR People Pod, the CIPD's fortnightly podcast, bringing you the topical stories, expert insights about the world of work and HR and people development. My name is David D'Souza, I'm Director of Profession at the CIPD and I've got two wonderful guests who are both Chartered Fellows with me here today, absolutely wonderful people. I have Gemma Dale.

Gemma Dale: Hello, I'm Gemma Dale. I'm a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Business School. Before that I was in HR for about 20 years.

DDS: And David Balls.

David Balls: Hi there. David Balls, Chief People Officer at Newcross Healthcare.

DDS: Before we get started, just wanted to ask, David, what have you been watching, reading recently? Tell us a little bit about yourself, give us a bit of insight.

DB: It's all about the “House of the Dragon”, back on TV as of this week. It's the second episode on Monday. I've been waiting all, I think it's about a year or two years, actually I think since the last one. Love “Game of Thrones”, loving this. So, yeah, that's what I'm into at the moment.

DDS: Excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I've got it recorded, but I haven't quite got there yet and Gem.

GD: I have mostly been reading a book on crypto, called "Number go up", just finished that and now diving into new Stephen King.

DDS: Excellent. And they book on crypto, is it how to invest, how it works?

GD: More a little bit like how to avoid the scams.

DDS: How to avoid the scams, I am more than happy to share with people. I made a medium amount of money on crypto and then lost a medium amount of money on crypto very rapidly. It was a, it was a roller coaster journey having had a tip off from a cousin, who I don't speak to anymore. We're going to come back to, later on this podcast, as I say, obscure Japanese TV programmes, but also sport. But one of the things that's caught people's eye over the last few weeks has been BP staff concerned about a crackdown by the organisation over workplace affairs or what might be called intimate relationships, depending on how it's framed. As always, we'll be talking about the generality of the policy rather than the specific story, but this has got our thinking juices flowing. So, what's happened is that in 2021 the BP CEO left BP following serious misconduct over his failure to disclose past relationships to the board. BP are now asking for relationships between employees going back as far as 2021 to be disclosed. In a recent poll by the CIPD, more than 30% of respondents said that a policy is needed around romantic relationships for leaders and managers. But a further 50% said it's needed generally to avoid conflicts of interest or bias. David, just coming to you first, and it's really important when we do podcasts like this, not talking specifically about BP, but generally, your thoughts around things happening in this space. Should organisations have policy on this? How? Is it intrusive? Is it practical?

DB: Yeah. Look, I think having a policy around relationships feels a little bit dated, with the amount of time that we're now spending in employment and at work. You know, relationships are going to happen. I think the issue here is about what are you trying to protect individuals from, and I think the two that immediately come to mind are sort of conflicts of interest, as you say, or corporate governance issues. And then the second one is any sort of harassment at work. And as long as you've got policies around that and you're managing within that context, I think we're fine. So, you know, I wouldn't have a manager and a subordinate in a relationship where they're signing off expenses or complex packages of activity where there's financial implications because, clearly you could find yourself in a position whereby it's being signed off for the benefit of both of them. But look, you know if a manager's going out with someone in a different department and they're a consenting relationship, then I don't see the issue.

DDS: Yeah. And I think it's a really important point actually when we talk about conflicts of interest, perceived conflict of interest is something that we need to be concerned about as well.

DB: Yeah, I agree.

DDS: So, even if people are in a relationship and do play things perfectly straight, how that looks matters as well.

DB: Agree. Agree. Absolutely agree.

DDS: Gem, what are your thoughts?

GD: Well, we love a policy in HR, don't we?

DDS: Addicted to them.

GD: But it's the easy answer, it's the easy answer, isn't it? You know, let's write a policy for everything and you just end up with documents that nobody reads. So, I think, you know, note the point we need to be mindful around things like harassment. We need to think about power imbalances. But you know, you can't have a policy, you've can't document absolutely everything. So, if you try, you just drive the thing underground and you end up with unintended consequences. So, I'm a bit more, I think in general in favour of treating people like adults, and if there are issues that arise like that, you know, the example of signing off expenses inappropriately or something like that, we've got disciplinary policies already that that would fall into. So, I think unless you've got a very good reason why a policy like this is important because of your particular organisational context, it wouldn't be my first choice.

DDS: So, real life example, years ago I was working at the same organisation as my wife. And we were going through redundancy programme, and I was managing that redundancy programme, but I would have happily made my wife redundant, and I don't mean that in a callous way.

DB: Does she know that?

DDS: Yeah, look, we take this job seriously, right? So, that's what you sign up to. But quite wisely, my HRD at the time went, "look, actually you probably need to be removed from this for a number of different ways". And I guess to your point, Gem, it's people being open enough to have those conversations and it's probably harder, to your point, when people might not be aware that people are a couple or to that point. you know that I guess expenses is a very clear line, but actually how you assess someone's performance when you're in a relationship with them is more problematic. Would you still say, Gem, "no policy for that?"

GD: Again, I think it does a little bit depend on your context and, you know, I'll throw this into a slightly different space. I work in higher education. We have policies that says, you know, if you are a lecturer, for example, you can't have a relationship with somebody that you're supervising as a student. So, you know, there are times in certain contexts where policies are important because there's a power imbalance. But as a general rule, unless you need one, let's just not write more and more policy documents. It's not really where HR add value.

DB: I think, you've pointed there though, Dave, you made it earlier, around perception is key in this as well, isn't it, which is I think I think if you found yourself a manager and a subordinate having a relationship, they'd probably want out in the open anyway for both their benefits, you know? They don’t want people looking from the other side of the fence saying what's good and what's bad and, in that situation, if it was happening, maybe something would happen with the relationship. But, going back to your performance review, for example, I'm not sure either party would want the other party doing their performance review. So, I think the more open you are about it and the more people know about it, the more organisational activities that could impact on both of them can be amended or changed to suit the circumstances.

DDS: Yeah. And we all have friendships at work as well, don't we? And we expect people to still be able to make rational logical decisions and set them to one side.

GD: It is a slightly different point, but I don't think there's any issue, generally, in sort of reviewing the performance of one's spouse. You know, in terms of, you know, DIY, contribution around the household, that sort of thing, I think you know that kind of performance management is perfectly acceptable.

DDS: Quarterly basis? Or are you suggesting that's sort of more of an ongoing conversation?

GD: Definitely the feedback should be in the moment, David.

DB: I agree. In the moment, definitely.

DDS: OK. And look, I'm going to come back. We're going to move on now, but I'm going to come back to that notion of kind of slippery slope definitions. So, when is a friendship or a casual relationship an intimate relationship? We're going to come back something similar later in the programme about, actually like, where do you draw the lines on some things? Because I think it's the, it's part of the art of the job. But I think it's also some of the areas where we'll naturally disagree because it's more subjective. Next headline that probably would raise eyebrows in a slightly different way is. "U.S. bank fires, mouse jigglers pretending to work." So, it's a story that the U.S. banking giant, Wells Fargo has sacked several employers who were faking keyboard activity to fool the company into thinking they were working when they weren't. So, companies have been using more and more sophisticated technology, particularly where people are working from home to ascertain whether they are still contributing, when they're still active, but what's also happening is that people are starting to use technologies to essentially fake the work on the far end. Before we get into the nuances of the technology. Is it right or wrong, I'll start with you, Gem, to monitor employees in the first instance?

GD: I guess that we're into what do we mean by "right and wrong" there. Are we thinking about this in a purely legal sense or are we thinking about this from a sort of morale, engagement, you know, being a great place to work sense. So, you know, from a legal point of view, as long as you are following GDPR and, you know, information governance rules and things, you know, you can monitor people. Of course you can. But just because you can doesn't necessarily mean that you should and.

DDS: Gem's just basically stolen my line which I stole from somewhere else there and I'm feeling slightly bitter about this, but we'll continue the podcast. That's fine.

GD: I think, you know, my broad question with that is, if people feel the need to use one of these to sort of, you know, have productivity theatre, what is going on in your organisational culture?

DDS: But is it? So, the challenge back to that right would be, it is clear in this case that people are faking work, they're getting paid for stuff that they aren't doing. It's harder for an employer to spot that because they're remote, it feels a reasonable check and balance. It feels an unpleasant one to have to put in. But equally, how else would they have told that? I'd have liked to have thought there are other indicators around productivity other than whether someone's mouse is moving. You'd have thought that there are other output measures there, but David, I don't know your thoughts.

DB: Yeah, that's exactly where I am, because when I read this, I thought, "what's the world coming to?". You know, look, organisations have every right to put in monitoring software, right? But that says something about their culture and how they view the individuals that are working for them, and you choose whether you want to work in an organisation, right? You know, last time I checked there weren't, you know, bars on the door that stopped people getting out of, in out of the companies they work for. And if you work in those organisations, you should accept that's part of what you're doing. And then to, to then have some, you know, some way of, nefarious way of trying to show your boss that you are working. Just what a waste of time for everyone. So, I think my points there; the first one is: choose the organisation that you work for and if an organisation, I think to, to Gemma's point. If the organisation is saying we want to monitor our colleagues, what does that say about what you think they are doing and the engagement levels within that organisation? But look if you choose to do it for a lot of the right reasons then as individuals, you should accept you're in that environment and do the work accordingly. I wouldn't be trying to circumvent it.

DDS: It's a really interesting development in terms of technology, isn't it? Because the parallel I've drawn, and it's not a perfect one, but it's, I'm talking to recruiters who are seeing cover letters or CVs coming in that they believe are produced by ChatGPT. But we've also got that in kind of academic environments with students doing that. So, then you've got people trying to produce software to track that and then you've got people trying to produce software that evades the software that's there to track that and it feels like, to your point, we're getting away from the simple, “look, how do you tell someone's doing a job?” Well, there should be an output.

DB: Absolutely. And I think this is where the world is moving on, right? So, take an example, you said there about covering letters. If you think they've been done by ChatGPT, why have a covering letter then? Why not actually ask the person to come online and talk to you directly so you can see that that's the person you're talking to and ask them, yeah, you know, to tell you a little bit more about it and I know, it's clearly. It's an application process, it's about a funnel, the numbers, etcetera, etcetera. But yeah, if you're not getting what you want from a covering letter, don't just keep pursuing it because it's the way we've always done it because the world is moving so quickly now. Look at different ways you can get to the same output.

GD: I think the mouse-jiggling thing specifically. Employees will respond to the organisation signals and the situation in which they find themselves. So, if the organisation is assessing productivity by how many e-mails you send, how much time your Teams colour is green or how responsive you are to a message coming in. Then that's the signal they will take. That's what, how they will see I'm going to be judged as being successful, so they will respond accordingly. So, they will, if necessary, demonstrate that and I saw another example recently. This idea of we just don't know really how to manage and assess productivity. So, it was an organisation that had pushed for a return to office because they'd identified that when people were working from home on a Friday, for example, they were sending fewer e-mails. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing less work. They might be doing different work, they might be doing deep work, they might have saved their, sort of, focused work. Equally, they could be watching “Homes Under The Hammer”. But employees will respond to the signals that the organisations give them.

DB: There's an intersection here which, we've touched on it a little bit, and I think this is one for another podcast maybe, but the, you know, with the advent of AI and what people will be able to do with AI and organisations. If you're worried about them not logging on or doing the work at home. If you're going to give them access to AI, you should be really worried. If they're, if they're finding ways to get round, you know, logging on and logging off, they'll find some interesting things to do with AI when they get access to it.

DDS: Yeah. And we will, we will keep diving into that. We'll keep coming back to it in the podcast. So, at the moment, CIPD, we've got kind of four clear areas of focus. One is: champion the profession, we've got productivity and skills in there, workplace conflict. And we're just going to come on to that next, actually, but also AI because we know it's changing the way that people work. So, I am going to bring us onto workplace conflict next, or a version of that which is, we had the CIPD's Festival of Work recently. Really large show, brilliant attendance this year, but we had a journalist who attended who wrote a follow-up piece, essentially asking, "does the world need therapy dogs or does it just need good old-fashioned management skills?" I had a really good conversation with them. It was about "quiet quitting" and that notion, and I said like the noise around quiet quitting, it's possibly overwhelming some really important conversations that we need to have about quality of management, quality of support in organisations, what we need to drive productivity. So, there's some stuff that catches the eye on social media, catches a lot of attention, but actually it's getting in the way of some of the bigger things that we need to talk about. But there was a really interesting piece where he was essentially observing the shift that we've seen in organisations to providing more well-being services, to providing things to support colleagues, either through difficult times, financial or it might be mental well-being and stress and performance. Do you think that is a healthy evolution for the HR profession? I'm going to ask two questions. Do you think that's just where we are societally at the moment in terms of that need being greater than it has been before? Gem, if I come to you first.

GD: As a general rule, I have no issue with, sort of, secondary well-being interventions. So, whether we talk about therapy dogs, whether we talk about other support that organisations can put in, like financial support, that help people to stay well. So, they're a good thing. It's easy to criticise them and say, you know, massage at your desk or whatever is not going to, kind of, deal with work-related stress and that's true. I think where things fall down is when we don't do the other stuff, which is we don't look at the potential causes of ill health within our organisations, when we don't look at things like leadership and management and try and prevent that stress from arising because the secondary interventions on their own will not help your employees to be well. They can help people, you know, with, you know, small issues or, you know, help them to stay well broadly. But I think we just need to lift that conversation and look at those more strategic things. And yes, that does include how we lead and how we manage.

DDS: Yeah, it's a really interesting one, isn't it? I always think that you need things within organisations that compensate for problems and mitigate problems, but they can't. They're not the solutions, they are compensatory and mitigatory. So, the work that you have to do has to be on reducing, getting to the root cause and reducing the need for those things. So, I think the interesting thing about the chat I had with the journalist was just reflecting on how much, how many of these things are things that happen outside of work perhaps or impacting people outside of work, that we then can't separate them and ask them to be entirely different in work. You know, you can't leave all your problems at the door. You can ask people to do that, but we know that if someone's in financial hardship or someone's suffered a bereavement, that's going to spill over and has an impact. David?

DB: I've got to declare a conflict of interest here, as the father of a dog that's in training to be a therapy dog. My wife runs a unit for children who have behavioural difficulties and maybe school-refusers etc. and our dog, Loki, goes into that school on a daily basis. And she will talk about stories where children will come to the school purely to see Loki, yeah? And that breaks a barrier, right? That breaks a barrier, so where am I going with that is, I think as we're talking about here, and I agree with what Gemma said earlier, which is: there is the first thing which is getting people over a threshold into the organisation or, you know, into the environment and if bringing your dog to work helps you achieve that because it gives you a sense of comfort or trust or what? Yeah, whatever the adjective is you want to use, then that's great, right? We should, we should encourage that and look at many different ways to get people to feel comfortable in the workplace. But that's not going to address underlying issues if management or leadership aren't leading that organisation in the right way, or if people aren't engaged, or if there's poor management practices. And you've got to address those at source.

You might want to put in things like employee assistance programmes, but I think the issue with those is, and I've always said this since they've been around is, you're saying to a person, “you've got a problem, call this number and we'll do something about it”. Yeah. And that just feels wrong, doesn't it? Which is, if we're seeing people struggling in the workplace, for whatever reason, and it could be because of something that's happened outside of the organisation, because you can't just switch off as you come to the boundaries of it. We should be trying to help them, right? What does that look like? That looks like just great management. You know, people sitting down, talking to them, trying to understand, looking at solutions. Sometimes you won't have the solution, but just trying to work it through with people's got to be the way forward.

DDS: Yeah, it is. It's a stretch, though, isn't it, for the profession? Because we're not trained counsellors, we're not trained social workers. So, knowing when to refer, I think, is an important thing for, it's an important thing, actually for the people that we're supporting within organisations, it's important for profession as well to draw that line as to where it can.

DB: I agree, two points in there, David. I think it's really important. First of all, we don't have all the answers and I'd say to any practitioner in the people function, you don't have to have the answers, right? We had lots of challenges through the COVID period where we were being asked on a daily basis to make decisions which we had no idea about. That's fine, right? We can try and give the best ideas and the best solutions we can, based on our experience. But sometimes we just don't know the answer. That's fine. And the second thing you said there that's really important is something like the difference between coaching and counselling, yeah? At some point in a coaching conversation, you can go to a very, very dark place and you are not qualified to have that conversation. And in actual fact, you do a disservice to yourself, but more importantly, a disservice to the individual, and it could be very clinically, quite challenging. So, at that point you should drop out and pass it on to someone who's more professionally qualified.

DDS: Completely. Gem, any final thoughts on that?

GD: I think you know, we know that the role of managers has such a huge influence on people's health at work and I think if there's one thing organisations absolutely should do, it's make sure that they are providing training, guidance for managers so that they understand things like signs and symptoms to look out for of things like poor mental health. Know how to have those conversations and also know how to lead and manage in a way that isn't actually going to have a detrimental impact. So, I think if there are things to do, that's one of them. You know, easy to criticise, but if the therapy dog's going to help or indeed a massage at the desk or a lunchtime Zumba class, do that too.

DDS: Absolutely. One thing the CIPD has, which we really hope people make use of and we know they do, is we've got a really substantial range of fact sheets and guides on the issues of the day as well as reports that come out on a regular basis. What we don't have is a fact sheet on the obscure Japanese TV programme “Massage Detective Joe”, which I really want to try and find a way to link from that because I only found out about it this morning and just the idea that someone's written that, produced that and got it funded, I find absolutely amazing. But I want to get from that to a conversation around treatment of sport and entertainment in organisations. So, I'm going to see if I can do it. So, “Massage Detective Joe”, and the clue's in the title. It's a whodunnit, kind of, Colombo-type show based around someone who uses their massage detective skills in a massage parlour to solve crime. And in episode 7 of “Massage Detective Joe”, they use their massage skills, advanced massage skills to work out that the perpetrator of the crime is a professional Kabaddi player.

Now, many of you may not know what Kabaddi is. It's actually one of the biggest sports in India and Bangladesh. Easiest way to explain it is, it's like dodgeball but without the ball. You have to try and tag people on the other side and get back to your side and that knocks them out. Historically you had to repeat the word "kabaddi" many times to prove that you weren't taking a breath, that was part of it as well. But the world Kabaddi Championships take place next year and I imagine there aren't too many conversations around whether we should be giving employees time off to watch the world Kabaddi Championships, whether in fact, you know, organisations need to be more sympathetic with people coming in the next day and they're quite tired. But we know, with the Euro's kicking off and the Copa America and other large-scale sporting events, it's the Olympics and Paralympics this year, that those conversations are coming up in the workplace. So, I wanted to ask both of you, look, where do you draw the line? Where do you start considering it? Do you think it's a requirement for organisations to support? Gem, I'm going to come to you first because I know you wanted to wedge in Roller Derby as well, but from your point of view, you know, this comes, we always have sport in the summer. It comes up, it will be a question for workplaces. Where do you stand on it?

GD: Well, as somebody that does play a niche sport, I have some sympathy with the view that it's about more than just those really, really big events. But you know, we've all seen this conversation, I think probably every time there is a major sporting event, it's a common HR conversation. I think I'm going to, if I can, link this back to my area of interest, which is flexible working, which is, you know, we still have this view that a lot of knowledge work has to be done Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00. We're still kind of hardwired to a system that evolved from the factory system. Frankly if people want to watch a particular sporting function, or indeed anything else, go to, you know, their child's sporting event at school, go and do something else that's more life-related, it doesn't have to be sport. If we think more broadly, if we give people flexibility, if we're open to things like non-linear working days, it becomes less of an issue. And frankly, if you can't do anything else and you worry that people are going to call in sick, which is the thing that I see mentioned all the time, put a big screen in the office.

DDS: Yeah, it's really interesting. At the CIPD, I can guarantee each year we'll get enquiries from the press around, "how do you manage Christmas parties", will be a big one. What happens with sport in the summer will be, kind of, the other one that you can kind of appreciate that rhythm. David, what are your thoughts? And I know we spoke a little bit. prior to this podcast, around different environments we've worked in so contact centres, retail, if you need people physically on-site, it's a slightly different challenge, isn't it? I know Gem kind of mentioned knowledge work, specifically but we've got a challenge with everyone in the workplace.

DB: First of all, I'd like to congratulate you on the segue. I think you pulled it off.

DDS: Thank you. I'm. I'm not sure. I'm never going to listen back to this, so I'll never know. But if anyone doesn't, then please do phone our Contact Centre and complain. Just not, just not during the match.

DB: But no to the more serious point, I look, I think, there are things to take into consideration here clearly, which is you know different types of workers can have, work in different ways and it's easier for some to accommodate a event of whatever kind. So, if you're on the phone every day or in a call centre, it's very difficult to take people off the phone for 90 minutes and allow them to watch a football match. Whereas you know, if you're working in more of a support-type function, you know, people function, for example, it might be easier for you just to slip off and watch 90 minutes and make that time up at another point. So, I think, not only is it role-specific, but then the impact between roles. You know, because clearly if you're a frontline worker who's facing off to the customer and seen to be generating the revenue, if you can't come off to watch the game yet, someone in a support function can, that can create some tensions. So, you've got to be aware of that.

I think the other thing with any big event and let's take sports as the conduit for this point. Which is, you're bringing different types of people together in an environment where emotions will run high. We know certain countries have histories, we know certain individuals from those countries have history with each other and throwing them together in a field way with watching, watching football, for example, can cause that stress or tension to overflow. And you've got to be cognisant of that. And then the final point I'd make is: you know, when you're bringing groups together, invariably sporting events again, you know, you might encourage people to have some social time together, which might include alcohol. Again, if people are driving to the office, how do you manage that? But my overarching point would be the same as what's been made by yourself and Gemma, which is, you know, we should encourage people to work flexibly, and we should encourage people to enjoy these events. We shouldn't just have a classic 9:00 to 5:00. And if something sits in that period of time, you either call in sick so you can watch it, or you don't watch it. I think we should find ways to try and work around it. And I think organisations should try and address that by having, you know, groups of colleague representatives who can act as a conduit or as a way to manage this. So, you know, open the debate up with your colleagues. What are the important ones? If it's, you know, if it is Kabaddi's the most important event and it's not the Euros. Kabaddi should be the one that we give people time off for, but have that conversation with colleagues, get it out in the open. Let's find a way of managing it with the people that we work with in an adult way.

DDS: Yeah. And if you've never seen Kabaddi. It's worth searching for.

DB: I used to love it.

DDS: On YouTube, I'm not pushing it too hard on this.

DB: It was fantastic. It used to be on Transworld Sport on a Saturday morning, so if you're from my era, you used to get up early and not have anything else to do except watch Kabaddi on Transworld Sports. That's where I got it from.

DDS: We're actually now plugging TV shows that don't even exist anymore.

DB: Oh sorry. Yes, other TV shows are available.

DDS: So, yeah. So, just kind of, digging into that a little bit more because I'll come back to that kind of slippery slope piece. Where do you draw the line? Are you both saying that actually a line doesn't need to be drawn, it could be done individually more than anything? Because I think one of the things that I think is really interesting at the moment is we're resetting the expectations, I think. The kind of social, psychological contracts between employers and employees, a lot's changing. It's not really a reasonable contractual expectation that I get to watch sporting events that I like, when I like is it? You wouldn't, you wouldn't go actually, "that's a duty of an employer". You would go, actually that's an additional benefit or level of flexibility an employer could provide. So, is there a line to be drawn or is it just look, "this is just good judgement and it's about the individual organisational culture?" Gem?

GD: I would say the latter and I think you know the pandemic has had an influence on some of the things you've just said, David, this kind of reshifting this reemergence, I think of some aspects of the psychological contract. And that we are starting to see research emerge now that says you know, that was a fundamentally, a time of reflection for a lot of people, they have rethought about what they want from work. They've rethought about the place of work in their lives and that's part of the sort of, the push to work from home more frequently. So, I think, within the constraints of each organisation and noting, you know, that there are some roles, some organisations, some job types where you've got to be in-person, you've got to work at a specific time. But the more we can allow individuals to craft their work around their lives, the more we allow them to have that flexibility, whether it's a sport, whether it's family issues, caring, whatever that looks like. The better that's going to be for the individual from a well-being perspective, from an autonomy, engagement, all of those things. And in turn that has greater organisational outcomes. So, my argument is always; within the constraints of your own environment, maximum autonomy for that individual to shape how they work, when they work, where they work, and noting that's an ideal scenario and it's not achievable for every job. But I do believe that, within most jobs, there's some way of allowing individuals to craft, you know, some elements of that.

DDS: If we are essentially leaving it down to the individual, how are we going to make sure that actually the parameters that we set for the organisation and the individual don't end up in competition with each other or don't end up causing issues?

GD: I'm not sure you can leave it solely down to the individual. I think it's a conversation. The more you can devolve down flexibility from the high-level policies to the line, the better the outcomes generally seem to be, from the emerging research around things like engagement particularly. But you know what's right for an individual will sometimes disconnect with what's right for the team, what's right for the organisation, what's right for you know, cultures and relationships. So, I don't think you can just purely go, "you know, it's over to the individual". I think it has to be like a team conversation, a manager conversation and all of those people that. There's, you know, there's not always a Venn diagram where everybody's kind of completely happy and there's a circle in the middle that's perfect. You know, we have to kind of balance those stakeholder needs within that conversation.

DDS: Yeah. So, I wanted to close with the final thought on turkeys, which just I, thank you. I like to think we've really covered a breadth today. But I think, from memory, it was kind of the authors of “Freakonomics” described it in terms of the pact and the contract that people make with organisations. I thought it was quite an interesting one to think about, which is, it was a turkey farmer who gave his workers a turkey as a Christmas present one year as a thank you for the year and it utterly made their day, and they were really thankful for it. The next year, slightly tougher, he gave them a slightly smaller turkey. And all he got was people absolutely aghast that somehow what they've come to expect had been removed. And I think we've got some really interesting changes happening in the workplace at the moment where we're trying to find that balance and a lot of the change and a lot of, I guess the, the bartering in the nicest possible way, the resetting of those parameters is seen as a loss, rather than actually still, quite often still beneficial to the employee over time, really fascinating relationship. Nothing else to do except to plug the CIPD's resources, suggest that you keep listening to this podcast because we got some great guests coming up and thank our guests for today, for being so patient and allowing us to roam across a vast range of things from “House of the Dragon”, to jiggling, to roller derbies to, and I know you're all going to go and look it up on IMDB. It's a real thing. “Massage Detective Joe”. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Gem.

GD: Thank you.

DDS: And thank you, David.

DB: Thank you.

David D'Souza: Hello and a big welcome to the HR People Pod, CIPD's new fortnightly podcast, bringing you the hot topics, expert insights, and stories on the issues impacting HR, people development, and the world of work right now. I'm joined by two senior HR professionals in the studio here today, and I'm thrilled to say they are:

Katie Obi: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Obi, Chief People Officer at technology company OneAdvanced.

DDS: And.

Melanie Steel: Melanie Steel, I'm a Career Interim

DDS:   And just a reminder for everything that we discuss today, we'll be talking about the general principles of what's happening. You all know, as experienced professionals, that it's very difficult to know what's going on behind the scenes. So, we'll take the stories as a jumping off point for our discussions. I think broadly today we're talking about the difficulty of boundaries in work and working life. So, we've got a few stories that have caught people's attention over the last few weeks that talk about that. Where you draw that boundary, that kind of final line in some different aspects of work. And I know, Katie, if I come to you first, one of the things that caught your eye was a recent product launch which suggested some interesting balances between where we get value from something and the implications on privacy.

KO: Yeah, absolutely. There is an interesting discussion that was happening, you know, across some of the social media channels, really about Microsoft's product launch around a product called Recall, which is really connected to its Copilot product, which goes and takes screenshots of your computer screen at various intervals throughout the day. And the aim is really for this to be a productivity tool to help you be able to search through everything that might have happened during the day and really get powerful recall of information. One of the things I think is really interesting about this is, there are obviously real productivity gains that can come from that, but there are also significant privacy concerns for employers to be aware about as well, in terms of what information is being captured. The information is being stored locally on someone's device, but who can access that device? Whether that changes in the future as well. So, that was a really interesting one for me in terms of trying to think about, as an employer, what do we need to be able to balance as new technology comes into the market and really making sure that HR populations are educated around positivities around productivity and advantages, but also unintended consequences before these types of things are rolled out.

DDS: So, Mel, I'm really curious. What do you see is the opportunity in it? So, if we have both the opportunity and the risk, I think that's probably the best way of giving it some balance.

MS: I guess it can be useful, if you are thinking about something that you did, you know previously and you can't quite, we all know like search engines or kind of filing systems are always, you put in keywords, and it still doesn't really nail it. So, I guess that could help with that. When you said productivity, I was thinking about those people are there where you're thinking about something, and it takes a snapshot and then two hours later you've still got a blank page. And then whether, you know, employers go, "well, that wasn't very productive." You know, "we've got these different snapshots in time and it's still no words on the page". I mean, I've felt like that sometimes when you're doing like, you know when you're trying to brainstorm something, but also then I kind of think about the security implications of that, right? You know, in government, I'm sure they would be able to switch it off or something, but you know, you're cleared to a certain level to have access to certain information, quite rightly so and therefore you've got the whole issue then about how you protect that if it's taking a snapshot of sensitive materials and what have you.

I mean, I guess what Katie said is like something that starts off seeming like a great idea, which reduces time in being able to circle back around to stuff, what's the unintended consequences of having that that ability too?

DDS: Yeah, and it's key that the profession I think is really cognisant of both those opportunities and risks. You know, I often say we can't let the risk blind us to the opportunities, but we can't let the opportunities blind us to the risks either. And I think it's going to be one where, as the technology is moving at such a rapid pace, to your point, Katie, we need to do two things. We need to go, "this is exciting because we've never been able to do this before, so what might it allow us to do in a different way?" and to your point, Mel, yeah, I'm sure I spent a large chunk of my professional life staring at a kind of blinking cursor going, "I hope something's coming next". But equally, the ability to track down documents you haven't seen before, pull together information in a really rapid way would be really useful, but you've got those implications you need to think about in terms of how it's going to be used within the organisation, what the implications are for security as well, and I think there'll be a range of products, I'm sure, continuing to come out in that space that it'll be worth practitioners thinking and reflecting.

MS: Just like one last thing, before we move on, on that is we talk about practitioners, but there is a bit about everyone's responsibility in it. Because I think the days of like, you know, HR, we've tried to move away from being like the policing and policies and such like. What we need is to educate everybody, right, within that, you know, managers, individuals have to take their own responsibility about these things that will come through and it can't all rest, I don't think, on the HR profession to be the ones who are thinking about the unintended consequences as well. You know, it has to be. We've all got to be because it's moving too quick, right? Otherwise, we force, I think the function back in that thing, it's not that we don't see things as a positive, but we can't be the only people that are thinking about the flip side to it.

DDS: I absolutely don't think it's about identifying the downsides. It's about understanding how we harness it really thoughtfully. And that has to be cross organisations. But we've got, you know, we've got a core responsibility around change management, our expertise in that space and we'll come on to talking about a few stories where actually we've got choices and influence around culture as well, and some of those boundaries. But you're absolutely right, it's not a, it can't and doesn't all fall to us, but I think we've got a really critical role to play.

MS: Yeah, for sure.

DDS: And a really exciting one as well because lots of things we talked about five years being theoretical and now actually arriving month by month, as opportunities for us to deliver and make a difference with. Moving on a little bit, but actually there is a slight link here because I've spoken to quite a few people over the last few years who believe that some of their employees are working, effectively, a second job, but using AI to do that, or some who are suspecting that, in fact, people are delivering a large chunk of their core job using generative AI, in particular. Notable cases in the U.S., I think where most of the anecdotes are streaming out of, but certainly it's come up with me with a few HRD's and again that feels like a, feels like a message from the future, doesn't it? Actually, this person's juggling different jobs, but they're using technology to do it. So, one piece of news in the last fortnight. A recent study revealed or suggested that, in particular, Britons have become a nation of side-hustlers, which I love as a headline. So, partly in response to the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, people of all ages. So, it's not just kind of limited to kind of one demographic, have increasingly sought additional income streams. So, sounds like a good thing? Sounds like a bad thing? Sounds like a necessary consequence of where we are?

MS: I mean, listen, as someone who started, I worked like two jobs, you know, when I started my career, there was no way I could have afforded my rent and stuff on a Civil Service salary at the time. And I did many years actually with a second job, doing waitressing. That's what I needed to do for me. And I think like there's multiple issues within that kind of statement, as you were saying. So, I believe in the right that people should be able to do what they feel is right for them and their family and such like. Obviously, there are certain jobs where you need to ensure that people aren't, you know, doing stuff which might impact on intellectual property and such like that, and therefore they'll have stuff in their contracts. But also, I am sensitive and I have been sensitive, you know, over the last few years with the cost of living rises, people who are in, particular maybe minimum wage type jobs. When you know senior folk are publicly talking about the bonuses and such like they're making, about them thinking about, you know, is that, are you taking account that some of your workforce are having to use food banks or do multiple jobs not by choice, but just to put food onto the table. I think there's a sense of responsibility in that one that, you know, they need to be cognisant of what's going on in their workforce.

And actually, it's quite interesting sometimes they're not always so in touch with that. I saw Emirates this week had had record profits, and they'd decided to dish out additional bonuses to the rest of the workforce to share in some of that success. So, I think there's that piece about making sure, if you are making money in business, are you making sure that that's going to those who may be struggling, you know, and having to use food banks and stuff? And when you're talking in the press about mega bonuses and mega profits, so that feels a little bit out of touch. And then lastly, I love a good side-hustle. So, you know generations who have decided that actually they want to do that. I've had lots of conversations with clients who are saying, “look, I just don't think this is right because they don't have this, you know, they need to reserve their energy for the "day job"” as they call it. I always challenge them to look at it about how can they bring that side hustle expertise and what they're doing, running their own mini little (inaudible), how they're doing their marketing. I mean, there's some really good, brilliant skills. Some of them have been doing it since the age of 14 and stuff as well. I'd be like, "hell, that's great. Let's bring that into the workplace. And how can you help us with some of those things?" So, for me that kind of is a far-reaching kind of bit and I know we don't have a lot of time with it, but that's just my thoughts on it.

DDS: Katie when we, Mel mentioned there, you know, the expectation of a leadership team, to come back to that notion of boundaries. Is it reasonable or is it old-fashioned for an organisation to think like, "I'm buying your focus rather than just buying your time" because and we'll come on to it when we talk a little bit about right to disconnect later, but there's a really interesting notion there, isn't it, which is; if I employ you, does that mean that essentially your contract is solely with me and that's where your attention should be all the time? Or actually is it, look, there's contractual hours and that's pretty much the deal. What are your thoughts?

KO: If we think about second jobs, people who take them, I think, fall into three main categories. Obviously, there are outliers. The first one, as Mel talked about in terms of a necessity to work a second job in order to be able to make ends meet, and that's obviously exacerbated with the cost of living. I also think there are, there has been a breakdown in terms of the employee/employer relationship in terms of job security over recent years. So, lots of people are taking on a side hustle because they want to build the security in case something happens to their main job and then they've got something that they've started to build that can see them through a period of unemployment. Or they're starting to build something out on their own in terms of building their own thing. We've got lots of people who opt out of the workforce over time because they want to have more flexibility and be more in control of their own destiny. But I think there's a third one, which is, there's a difference between having a side hustle and moonlighting in terms of taking on a second job during core work hours, maybe working for a competitive element.

MS: Agreed, yeah.

KO: Which comes in a bit more to your question, David, in terms of what happens if a side hustle moves into that realm? And I think that's where the boundaries need to be, from an employer standpoint, and it tends to be contractually what we put in people's contracts to be able to prevent. So, side hustles that actually aren't competitive, that are happening outside of core work hours, I don't think employers should intervene around this. I think people's time that we're not paying for should be their time to be able to use on something that doesn't cause damage to the business.

MS: Agreed, yeah.

KO: I think that's entirely different than people who decide to take on multiple concurrent jobs and they use their work time that an employer is paying for in order to be able to do those. I think that's unethical from an employee standpoint.

MS: Or it impacts on that day job because they're like, tired or not, you know, I think about if you're a driver or something where you have a safety element, you probably have got something in your contract about that, right? And the rest days are purely meant to be for that. So, if a pilot, you know, has rest days, you really don't want that pilot to be doing stuff which kind of zaps them so by the time they come on shift, you know, they're less capable than what they would have done. But I mean you have to be clear about that of what you're talking about.

DDS: Yeah. Look, my time as Batman obviously left me quite drained the following day quite often. But sticking with this notion because I think there's a really cool thing in it, almost everything we're talking about today, which is that employees have rights, but they also have responsibilities and the same sits for employers. And working out the balance between them, either in terms of the actual contractual terms or in terms of the social contract, implied psychological contract that we have. There are shifts in that balance recently and lots of organisations are struggling with where to draw the line. Another headline that's kind of stood out over the past few weeks is the growing number of European and South American nations, primarily, but not exclusively, that have now adopted “right to disconnect” laws. So, essentially prohibiting larger employers from contacting their staff outside of normal working hours, so if you like the flip of the problem. It's about actually the employer asking for a bit more or an expectation outside of that contractual piece. In Portugal, breaching the law can be punishable with fines up to €10,000, so a not insignificant sum. Is this a legislation piece? Is this an understanding, an employer piece? Katie, I'm going to start with you. But I think again, it's in that rights and responsibilities bit, isn't it?

KO: Yeah, very, very interesting. We're seeing more and more countries go down this way. So, clearly the legislators think that there's a legislative element to it. I have mixed views on this, so on the one hand I think where it has not been possible to self-regulate around making sure that work is sustainable and healthy for people, maybe there does need to be legislation that comes in. But I'm also worried about unintended consequences and as soon as you legislate, rather than do it on a company-by-company basis, then it becomes a mandate and there's flexibility that's lost. The number of people who come to me and say, "I have commitments outside of work and actually it's really helpful for me to maybe finish a bit early so I can do some caring responsibilities and then I come back on later at night" and I do this. If you put in legislation, that means that after a certain time of night, no e-mail can be sent to somebody, it's punishable with a fine, and it's essentially illegal. Then that takes away an element of flexibility. So, maybe there are unintended consequences associated with it. So, I think. I think, always wherever possible, companies should make sure that they're setting themselves up for providing good work environments, and they are trying to balance employee and employer needs without the need to have to legislate. But we're also so integrated now with technology and expectations that it's interesting, the lines are blurring more and more socially and for individuals and yet we're starting to see more and more boundaries being enforced as well to separate it out again. And I don't think we've necessarily understood the pros and the cons associated with both.

DDS: It's a really interesting one for me because we're going to come on to talking about working from home, but not in the way that people may expect, because we want to look at that though a slightly different cultural lens. But there have been bits, if I think even in my career, early in my career. Might have been shift work, might have been doing a role which didn't require that carry-over responsibility. So, you've done your work for the day and then you go. That's an interesting piece of even legislation to look at because when you think about the beneficiaries, it's unlikely to, for someone to be in an industrial or retail setting, you know, doing that type of work. This is more likely to be impacting office workers, I would think, and we'll talk about the flip as we come on to it around different sides. But, Mel, I know you've worked across a range of different industries and sectors. Well, what are your thoughts on it?

MS: I fundamentally disagree with it. I just don't think work should be set up like that. I'm also not naive to know that in some industries, in some areas that it's gone too far the other way. But with all of these things, what kind of goes to my heart, I think on it is, we really need to get to a place where frameworks are good in businesses, because actually having something from a starting point and a jump point, I think always helps. Legislation is absolutely right where we're looking at fundamental things which affect, regardless of what company you're in, should be there. So, I'm a big fan of legislation at the right time. But I think for me it's, I want to get back to this bit where there's a deal to be had between managers and individuals, because ultimately that's who you're working with every day and every business that I've been in operates in a slightly different way. Yes, you can roll it up at the macro level that you can say it's got so many similarities but at the micro level, individuals have different things going in their life.

I think about it. Recently I was at a gym. I'm in the changing rooms and I hear like, particularly different generations. You know people in their 20s and 30s telling each other how they're going to leave a job because they just can't do the thing, which is very important to them, like go to an 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM class, which to me is not something that's a, you know, should be a deal-breaker because they're OK to work till like later on in the day. But they've been told they need to be back in the office, they've got to do these timings, and I feel like that's a step back. And I kind of hear and I want to will them, "look, speak to your manager. There's got to be a compromise in this". And I think, when I hear a number of these things, we have to make sure we empower the manager and the individual, because between them, to me, that's where it should work. Not for everyone, I appreciate that, but I think once we start legislating, you know, using legislation to try and do stuff we get into kind of that policing regime.

KO: I agree and that's a great example because under that legislation there you can't, you can't as a manager be that flexible for that employee because you can't have them start late because they can't work later in order to be able to do everything they need to do. So, it limits the ability to match flexibility to individuals needs, and I also think, I've worked for a lot of global employers and it's very interesting thinking it from that lens.

MS: Yes, good point.

KO: Which is, you know, where, as a global employer are you going to focus investments in particular countries? And I think countries that introduce more hard and fast rules around this, especially with financial penalties, they may not be the countries that people invest in. So, there are also unintended consequences for individuals and employment in each of those countries as a result.

DDS: So, there's been one organisation in particular making a number of headlines of late: Manchester United Football club. Their new owner has offered an early payment of an annual bonus if people were to resign this week as part of their drive to get people back into the office physically. So, that's an, essentially an incentive to people to make up their minds and leave if they're not going to be comfortable with that way of working. Now, we said we wouldn't talk about hybrid working per se, but actually it's a really interesting way of seeing an organisation being so decisive around culture, but obviously quite a controversial one as well. So, Katie, if I come to you first, what are your thoughts around how you'd set expectations more broadly, about the cultural norms within an organisation?

KO: I think, on the one hand, clarity is really important and leaders need to be clear about what the organisation stands for and also what their position around various different elements are, because then people can make up their own mind about whether that works for them and whether that doesn't. And lack of clarity that can cause so much uncertainty as well. So, I always think being open, honest, upfront and direct about what the organisation will and won't tolerate is extremely important and it helps people to be able to make really informed decisions.

I think also our duty as leaders and as organisations is to make sure that we offer good work, we're a good employer, we have well-designed jobs, we have strong collaboration and relationships, we're focusing on productivity, but we're also flexing to individuals needs as much as we can as well, is really important and one of the things that concerns me is, whilst I really believe that clarity and leadership is very important, mandates also. It depends on what is the motivation behind the mandate as well. If the motivation is for those elements of cultural norms that I just described, that's great. And that's a really good way to be, to provide bold leadership and clarity around what is expected in order to be successful in the organisation. If the mandate is for a different reason, then there are unintended consequences about that. If the mandate is just to be able to see people for presenteeism, you'll get presenteeism as the outcome. So, really thinking about what is the reason behind what you're standing for as an organisation and how you embed that all the way through end-to-end and then communicate with clarity. I think that's really where the role of leadership comes in terms of establishing the cultural norms.

DDS: Yeah, because leaders and organisations need to be able to set out really clearly what they value, what behaviour they'll incentivise and what behaviour they won't tolerate. I think it's really important if you work for an organisation, you know what they want you to do.

MS: Agreed yes. Yes.

DDS: They know how they want you to show up. You know what you're going to get rewarded for. Yeah, it's the basic bargain, isn't it? And you talked about working for a manager and that importance of a relationship.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: I think everyone should know what a good job looks like.

KO: Yeah.

DDS: You know, and I think behind that, I do agree. Values themselves can be a little bit nebulous because the lack of congruence you often get between the espoused values and the real values. It's a problem for every organisation. And that means particularly if you make a difficult announcement. Sitting behind them is quite tricky.

KO: Yeah, it's a really interesting one around, well, as we're talking about cultural norms, cultural norms aren't what you put up on the wall and the nice shiny things that you put on your website

MS: Exactly

KO: Cultural, cultural norms are more about, you know, how do people show up every day and also what's the worst behaviour that you'll tolerate and when you've got two really difficult decisions to make, which decision do you come to? That's where it really talks to what your culture is, what the leadership really value and I think as organisations start to navigate through some of these more difficult challenges around boundaries, that's where we're really starting to see what does an organisation stand for and what does it not and actually proactively thinking about that and communicating about that is a really good thing, rather than having it reactively done through lots of smaller decisions.

DDS: Mel, final thoughts?

MS: I think if, in terms of people going back into the office. I think we've distilled work down to task too much and we have to help people understand again, if that's what it takes, that work is more than just task. It's about relationships, it's about collaboration and I think businesses should be honest about that. And if they believe that's what they need for their business, they probably do. I read this week that someone had said, "we need to earn the commute." So, they're investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in good office space so that people can work in a really great way. And I think we have to be bold to individuals and say, "it's on them too." It's not a one-way relationship. So, you do the commute, but you also have to come in willing to be part of that workforce and show up and by that, I mean the willingness to collaborate, to build relationships. It isn't all like, you know, businesses give us the tools, but ultimately, we as individuals can do so much together too. And I can't help but feel like we've lost some of that.

You know, I'm not a fan of 100% of anything. So, 100% in the office or 100% working from home and I do want people to have flexibility because it really does hurt me when I hear people saying that they can't do certain things which are so important to them because, you know that's only going to impact on them and what they feel of that company too. I think again, frameworks are good. I think be bold, if that's what Manchester United need to do. Try and give the basis of why it's important and don't expect individuals to immediately agree that they think that's a great idea if they've been used to having, maybe more flexibility on their terms. We're humans, we don't suddenly, we change. We don't suddenly go, "oh great, I can see the benefit that I can collaborate and that", but many people I've talked to who have been made, maybe, to go back, have been able to see that actually, when push comes to shove, it is better and they can probably get back into that if they've still got an amount of flexibility. So, that would be my view on that.

DDS: Perfect. Thank you. And a very clear one and to come back to it, I guess the point is be clear, be requiring, be considerate whilst you're doing that and if organisations can step into that space, employees can recognise their obligations as well within it, then that's probably your best way of setting your boundaries is doing that relatively collaboratively but with a lot of clarity. So, thank you to both Katie and Mel for their time today. We, as a professional body, obviously asked people to look at the evidence, make sure that they are focused on the outcomes that they're driving and to work to really clear principles. If you'd like to find out about our position on any of the topics that we covered today, please do visit the website. Otherwise, we look forward to you joining us next time for another stimulating HR People Pod. Thank you very much.

MS: Thank you.

KO: Thank you.

 

            

 

David D’Souza: Hello, I'm David D'Souza and welcome to the CIPD’s new fortnightly podcast bringing you the hot topics, expert insights and stories on the issues facing HR and people development practitioners and the world of work right now. Over the last fortnight, we've seen a number of stories surface on the theme of recruitment and we're going to touch on that today. Even the recruitment of a potential new leader for the United Kingdom.

So we've just had an election announced, and that's obviously quite an onerous selection process there. And we'll be talking a little bit more about selection as we go through. But I'm thrilled to say we've recruited an expert panel, today. And they are…

Mel Steel: Mel Steel, former HR Director, and career interim, specialising in change and transformation or, of late, specialising in travelling around and having a nice holiday.

DDS: Yeah. So, Mel has a really horribly horrific, like, perfect glow about her at the moment. Looking really healthy.

MS: Thank you.

DDS: Okay. Al...

Alastair Gill: I'm Alastair Gill. I've had a long old career in HR, and most recently I've set up my own consultancy doing coaching, working with senior leaders. But my expertise really is in leadership development, strategy, culture and engagement, which, thus, is about building the future of work.

DDS: Excellent. cool. So we're going to get right into it. One piece of news that’s caught people’s eyes in recent weeks has been John Lewis taking an interesting step in sharing interview questions with prospective candidates ahead of the job interview. So, before you go to the job interview, you get a clear sight of the questions so that you can prepare effectively for that.

Wanted to come to you first Al, we had a chat just before this kicked off about actually understanding context that decisions are made in. So I’m wondering if you could just give your thoughts on that.

AG: Yeah. At first my instant reaction was, oh my God, this is, this is crazy. Why on earth are they doing this?

DDS: So quite positive there.

AG: Yeah. Quite positive. So then you start thinking now, actually, why? You’ve got to understand why? What's the driver. What's the goal. What's the, what's the business trying to achieve in doing this? Or is this just some sort of crazy idea. So it's very easy to pick it apart and stuff. But my instant reaction was like, wow, you're giving everyone the questions before they come to interview. I can see the benefit of that. But that plus AI that sounds a little bit, a little bit crazy. So yeah, I think what we were talking about earlier is that you’ve got to understand why the business is doing this. John Lewis has been through a lot the last couple of years, so does it link with what the business is trying to do? Or is it just a sort of a vanity project from the team to create a lot of work? I'm not sure, but, yeah, it definitely divided my WhatsApp group of HR people.

DDS: Mel

MS: Yeah. No, I was like, okay, what is the story? Because I'm like, is this just some clickbait headline, first of all? Obviously, it's John Lewis. So, as a customer, then I'm thinking, okay, let me have a read and see, see what they say. I mean, look, I don't know why they decided to go down that route. Many businesses, I think if you go on their website, do offer, you know, example type questions of what they ask at interview. I don't think that's necessarily anything new. I know in the civil service you could go on and see what type of questions you might be asked. I, I'm guessing it's related to fairness and giving people the opportunity, who need it, to prepare for, I mean, we were talking earlier about as an extrovert it'd be my worst nightmare. Probably having, like, if there was pages of questions because my natural default is, oh, they’ll expect me to prepare. And therefore, I think you can overthink it and maybe, you know, not get the best out the person on the day. But I think it goes back to the point. Not everybody's the same. So, they're doing it for those that need it, which I'm sure would be supported. I think there was quite a lot of positive stuff that had come out, in the press, from neurodiverse groups and such like, for those that don't, it's not a precursor that you've needed to go on it. You can equally respond, in the moment. That's kind of what I took away from it. That’s what I took from it.

DDS: Yeah, nobody's worse off and some people will be better off. That seems a good space to be in. And actually, I know what you're saying, that your initial reaction was like, here's a headline, but actually it's really nice to think that there's a team of people at John Lewis thinking through, actually, how they can support more people to show up in their best, during that interview process and selection process. Because if you went back a while, the point of the selection process would at times be quite an aggressive culling of the group of people to try and get to kind of last person standing. This seems like it's genuinely trying to help people turn up and show their best on the day.

AG: Yeah. Does it create another, you have to think, does it create a problem down the line? That's the kind of sort of way I look at this kind of thing. So yes, I'm assuming that they've, they've done it to widen the field and make it fairer.

MS: Yeah.

AG: Yes.

MS: Yeah.

AG: So then does it create a problem down the line. You've got more people come into the funnel. everyone knows the questions. So, does that raise the bar for the pass rate, so to say? And I'm just speculating. You have to know what they're looking for. Do they need to hire a load of people? A load of people with particular skill sets. You have to be conscious of what unintended consequence could this create, further down the line in the next part of the recruitment process?

And then that would be my sort of potential flag, but I'm obviously just speculating. I don't know what they're trying to do to achieve it. But when I saw 25 questions for the leadership.

MS: Is that how many it is?

AG: It was 25 questions. I was thinking, my God, I got to prepare for all of these. I've got to do this, got to do this. And I went straight into overthinking mode. So, where it benefits one, it’ll always take – rob from Peter, give to Paul.

DDS: I just want to touch on it because, I've chatted to quite a few, either CPOs or recruiters recently about this, and it keeps on coming up. ChatGPT or other generative AI systems are available, being used for either interview preparation or for live response during interview, where it's being done over video or certainly for cover letters.

MS: Oh wow.

DDS: Do we think that we're evolving our recruitment processes rapidly enough? I guess is the question for me.

AG: I can pin that onto what we just said, that’s the unintended consequences. And I think it's called Goodhart’s law. It's like when, when a measure ceases to become a target, ceases to become a good measure. It's like, are we then encouraging people to utilize ChatGPT, or other AI tools. I thought, that's why I just chuck all these questions in and see what it spits out. So you're creating another problem further down the line? I just think it's, yes.

MS: But I mean, it's not any different. I mean, you know, there's the technology so you get it quicker, but you could have asked people before, couldn’t you or, you know, like the cover letter, you could have asked a friend to check it or to write it for you.

AG: Yeah.

MS: So now they just put it in a machine. I mean, at the end of the day, you're trying to get to the authentic self of the individual. At some point, I always like to think that, if you're not, I always say to people, well, look, you can do what you want. But at the end of the day, if you can't do what you're employed to do, then it will find you out at some point, right?

AG: Yeah. If the nature of the job is, is that – I'm sure I heard Malcolm Gladwell talking about this, about the tortoise and the hare. His idea of the legal system, the stake favours the hares. So the people are very, very quick at stuff, get through the system. And actually, would the legal system, be better if there are more tortoises who need to slowly process it. But, for me, if the world of work is getting quicker, quicker, quicker, faster, there's, you sort of go, actually, I know we're speculating around it, it comes back to what are they trying to achieve? That would be my, what are you trying to achieve? Is this the right way of doing that? Or, is it going to create another problem and deviate you from the business?

DDS: Yeah, I have no idea of the plural of tortoises. Tortai? But I’d kind of love it to be. There's a bit of me that deeply hopes that if you get many tortoises together, you call them ‘tortai’.

MS: Okay.

DDS: That's not strictly relevant for this podcast.

MS: Thanks, David.

DDS: It matters to me in a like, very, very deep way. So, I'm going to, we're going to stick with, because it's been a couple of weeks for them, we're going to stick with that kind of focus on technology and recruitment. So, HMRC have enabled some of their roles to have a selection system that doesn't involve a human being in the loop. So essentially you, you go on, you do a series of tasks, a video piece that's then assessed. And you can, if you're successful and accept a role, through pressing yes. That's a thing that I'd like to do. I think there's a couple of really interesting things with this. One is in both of the cases that we’ve spoken about, you made the point around context. I think you both kind of made it around what we solve.

Unless we know what's happening within those organisations, it's really difficult to judge. And I think it's always interesting I think when you see a headline come out and there are people strongly for and strongly against, and in fact you kind of go, look, do you actually know what that organisation is solving for the challenges it has? But secondly, I wanted to open up a broader conversation about where the profession's going in 4 or 5 years' time, but also flicking back a little bit to that really painful time during the pandemic, but where we know there was a lot of praise for the profession around its contribution. Now, there was some exceptional work done in that time, but I also think it brought to light a bit of focus on some of the great work the profession's always done and the contribution that it makes. But I was just wondering, like, be really good to have a rounded conversation about in five years' time, what the profession needs to have done to get itself into the right space with this raft of technology coming through.

MS: I mean, for me, I think it's around, you can't predict, right, in five years' time. I mean, look at where we've been over the last, you know, few years. None of us have been able to, to predict it. So therefore, I go on the basis of you've got to be ready for whatever might come your way.

DDS: Yeah.

MS: So for me, it's about the profession being prepared. And I think the only way you can prepare is you have to invest time in yourself. So, I don't know where the, I mean the HR did amazing work during Covid, but was it just they do amazing work and it was just more recognized during that time because people suddenly had, well, leadership had people at the heart of it. Look people talk about that all the time. But the reality is we know when push comes to shove, maybe the people agenda kind of gets tweaked a little bit and they start focusing on, you know, financials and other stuff that, that come into play. So, I think for me, I would, the props go for at last they were recognised, or we were all recognised for, for what we've been doing for a long time. It just happened to be within a climate that other people really respected, I think, and, and had time to maybe step back and appreciate. And I think, you know, in terms of the change in the future, I'd really like to see, HR practitioners, you know, investing in, in time in themselves. And I know it's always going to be busy. They're always going to be oversubscribed for work. But I think the only way you can really take, you know, with new technology come in and new stuff, I mean, we're in a privileged position. Al and I, I guess in many ways, because of what, how we work that, you know, we have to keep on top of things all the time to be current, to be relatable, to be able to source new, new work.

And I think, that, that will become the same, I think really within the profession. How will you know what's coming? How will you be able to think about what you're doing today and how it might impact my, got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help others, and it isn't going to be okay to be too busy or to do it. You’re going to have to. Al I think our, you were saying before, you got to prioritise yourself within it and then you are useful to your business, to others, and also to yourself. That sounds like a bit of a sales pitch there for CIPD kind of development and that.

DDS: Oh don’t worry I’ll take that. We haven’t organised it but I’ll take that.

MS:  But as you know only too well that's kind of really you know, that is passionately, that's what I do believe in.

AG: Yeah, I 100% agree I think the bit I was thinking, when you were just saying that is about you've just got to be, we've just got to be ridiculously useful. We're obviously useful during the pandemic. People know, oh, how do you do this? How do this? We've got to carry on doing that. We can't ride that way for being useful in the pandemic. Then help with some sort of, hybrid workplace, all that sort of stuff. We've got to be ridiculously useful and point that at the business goal.

MS: But do you think that, sorry to interrupt you, but that bit being useful, do you think that’s because people could see? Because I would say, I think HR people are being useful all the time, but it was just maybe, it was just taken more, people understood it and wanted it more. Whereas now when they go back to all the other pressures that are going on in the workplace.

AG: There's a, there's a bit of that, isn't there. That's the, that's the branding piece. That's the perception piece with we're not the best as a profession, as a presenting and influencing and doing that sort of, that sort of work and sort of influencing that perception of us, rather than just ‘we’re doing great work, are people are going to notice it?’ No, they're not, because they're as busy as you are. But I think with the, with the pandemic, one thing I really learned is like, we’ve just got to be useful. Think about what the business needs, figure out which bit of your work delivers that the most. Don't try and do all of it. You've got to leave some value on the floor.

MS: Yeah.

AG: Useful, useful, useful. And then tell people you've been useful. Tell people what you've done, tell them of how you’ve helped them build that sort of impact and influence. And then the, you were saying about the AI, I think that's the, that's the opportunity, how we look at stuff coming at us. I'm old enough to have seen, sort of, go from files to emails to laptops to phones and all this sort of stuff. If we've got to be, I know I have got to be, ahead of the curve to go, look, we've got this AI coming at us at 100 miles an hour. How is this an opportunity so we can be more useful? And I just see this is an opportunity to get rid of some of the, yes, slightly less useful stuff. Some of the clutter, some of the stuff that is getting in the way of us delivering the best work, the opportunity we had. So I think looking at AI and looking at technology, looking at it through the lens of being useful or productive and how can we utilise this before somebody else thinks how to do it better.

DDS: It's kind of, it's kind of an enabler, isn't it, for it. So to kind of bring those two things together as two sides of the coin, you're only going to be able to add that, what you say ridiculously useful?

AG: Ridiculous, or relentlessly, or sort of like, yeah.

DDS: You seem really confident. Like that was the thing you always said, but.

AG: It began with an ‘R’.

DDS: So let’s go ridiculously useful. If you want to be ridiculously useful, then you have to understand the environment that you're operating in. You have to be well equipped for it.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: In which case, the only way you're going to get to be ridiculously useful, to your point, Mel, is to make sure that you continue to move with the times, develop your own skills.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: Invest in yourself. So technology can help solve that problem. But just freeing up a little bit of extra capacity that we don't go, that's a saving, we go, that's an investment that we then going to make in future capable.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: That has to be part of the narrative.

MS: I think the AI thing, it's not just about what it does for us in our own profession. Right. It's about what it's doing in the wider business. And so, too often I kind of have been to these sessions and it's all about AI in HR. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that's one part of it. But as change agents too we need to be thinking and advising the business. Look, you've just put that bit of AI in your sales team and that, what's the impact of that? How do you know that it’s giving you, you know, reliable information? What's the ethical stance on that as well? So, I think that's always a difficulty. We've got to kind of be looking at what it means for us as a profession, but, but also be the ambassadors or the governors or, not the police because we don't want to be in that, that place. And so, if we understand it, if we are able to role model it, if we're able to understand and say, look, this isn't about a cost saving. Yes. This piece of work is being, you know, AI can do that way better than we can. That doesn't mean to say I'm getting rid of three people. That means those three people can go on and do stuff they probably should have been doing anyway.

AG: Yeah.

DDS: Yeah, we've got, we've got a range of materials on the website I think I am allowed to plug the CIPD, I think that's the way it works.

MS: Yeah, you go for it.

DDS: It would be very limiting if I couldn't. But you know, we, we absolutely recognise within that that there are three things that we need to solve for. We need to solve for those principles of implementation and usage.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: So to your point, when you, when you're solving for it, it's not just putting a tech solution in. It's what's the impact that has on people, their jobs, the accessibility to jobs and quality of them. Secondly, there's a change management piece. And you're right, that's across the organisation and I think it’s really interesting. I was chatting to someone the other day about the need for industrial relations skills. You know, there was obviously a time that was of a primacy in the profession. Then it probably became less current for a while. And then current environment, we've had a really challenging few, many, many years in a number of sectors where suddenly that's the skill set people are really, you know, caring about and investing in. Change management seems like that's going to be an [inaudible]. Change management. OD. The cultural understanding, that collaboration piece across organizations feels like that's going to be of massive value over the next few years. And then the final one to up to your point, and actually it links to stuff we've been saying. Is the profession being comfortable using the tools and understanding tools and not seeing it as a threat. So I'm still chatting to people who are essentially scared of it.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: And it's like, well, we don't really get to opt out of this because this is a, you know, potentially society-changing shift. We've got to understand it. We don't need to learn how to code. We don't need to know the ins and outs of the nuances that sit within it. You don't need to be able to map the whole market. But you need to understand what it can do and how it might impact.

MS: Yeah, I mean, I would go and I'd be a bit more pushy, but I know, why not, I would always be but.

DDS: That’s so rare for you.

MS: David I knew you were going to say that.

DDS: I’m going to take it, and I’m going to push it.

MS: That’s what he does Al, he’s just like. But they need to be on the forefront of those, those things. It's like I don't know how you can help others if you, if you're not comfortable with it yourself.

DDS: Yeah. You wouldn't hire someone in IT, who went I was really good up to Windows 95 and then I just kind of opted out. You've got to stay in that space. So if we are, look if we're going to try and help support organisations to be the very best for their people and, and for their performance, and their contribution and impact, the only way you can do that is to choose from whole of market and go, look, all of these things are available to me. What's the best combination and tech’s part of that mix, right?

AG: Yeah, I just, I think there's a critical point there, isn't there. I was thinking, we've got to look at AI not from an HR lens, but from a business lens.

MS: 100%.

AG: And go that was one of the big bits. If we're just listening to the leadership team talk about AI and how it helps their departments, we've got to think about it from a business perspective first. If we want to be considered business people and then we bring the lens of HR, the human lens, this is the impact. In the same way a CEO would ask the FD, what's the cost of it? The tech CTO? What's the, what's the impact of this? How long is this going to take? I think that as soon as we start seeing it from a business lens and understanding it, and that requires us as individuals to understand business better, rather than just our silo of business. I know I've gone on a hell of a journey over the last decade to try and understand the business and understand how it works. We're one of the only professions...

MS: Have you got the answer, though. That's what we all want to know. Now, to understand business.

AG:  I haven’t got the answer, but that's how you can influence people, in other departments, if you understand that's the empathy where they're coming from, their problem. If you understand how AI could potentially impact business, then you may have the permission to go, ‘this is how we’re going to use this in HR. And this is the benefit’. So, you're getting one step ahead of the curve, one step ahead of the problem, one step ahead of the other people in the leadership team or other departments. Which to do that requires stepping back a little bit, putting our oxygen mask on, saying no to some of the work that's keeping us relentlessly busy.

DDS: Yeah, and it's that alignment piece, isn't it? So years ago, I was at a conference and I remember chatting to someone and they, they said they couldn't get any traction with their board, over wellbeing. So, they just weren't able to get the board interested. So I said, well, what is it that is on the board's mind that's taking up their time? And they said, we're worried about people getting burnout. And it was literally just needed to step back just a tiny bit and go, no the business problem that you're trying to solve is actually almost entirely congruent to the thing that you're trying to put in then.

And I think, you know, you're right. Tech, tech, I think, is special in some ways because it's driving a lot of change, but in others it's just another component part that we need to deal with within that.

MS: But we also know, you know, I talk to people a lot about, they've put tech in and they say it's not working, but it's nothing to do with the tech. It's the adoption of it. So, you know, tech is some technology. But really what we're talking about is about people.

DDS: And change.

MS: And change. And that's what we're about. Right. So, you know, with AI isn't about the tech that's, that's an enabler. But actually, it's about what we're going to do with it. How are we going to make it work for us? It's all about the people question. Right. And that is our bread and butter. That is what we're good at. And that's what we've got to ensure that in, you know, now and in the future that we're, we've kind of focused on in helping the business. Yes, I get it. All the other stuff has to happen when I say the other stuff, you know, the stuff that makes, you know, hiring and, and such like, but, you know, it's still very much progression of a business is still very much a big key role of us to play, for the profession to play, as well as, the chief strategy manager, if you've got one of them or whatever they call themselves, like, these days,

AG: I think it's a phenomenal opportunity for us, in HR, now to lean into this technology and go, oh how can it actually help us do what we really want to do? Do all the stuff we've been talking about for ages. It's going to give us permission, but we've got to make sure we're not automating something we don’t need to do.

MS: Yeah, and make sure the ethical side of things. Right. Because, you know, I, as David knows only too well, I'm not a big like, policy kind of thing. I kind of, when he invites me to things sometimes I'm if I'm like [snore], I’m like if it's not kind of like enough.

DDS: Live feedback [inaudible]

MS: Feedback in the moment. But, you know, I do think that ethical piece is, you know, a really big thing when we're talking about what's the right thing for it to do, you know, what is it having access to? And people get very excited about new things, but sometimes they don't always think about that total impact on it. And maybe we are the only ones thinking about it. And in this time, it really is where I know the act has come out. The European directive, now. But, you know, it, it is something that we're running it in real time. So, we have an onus on us to, to catch it and hopefully to, to move it forward. That doesn't mean to say that's what we over focus on and we just become like in the ethical space. We also need to balance that with the change piece too, which becomes more you know, we're trying to say, well, we've got to do it all haven't we.

DDS: Yeah look, well you know, as the professional body we ask people to be three things. So principles led us.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: You're absolutely right. It's that framework that you have, you know, evidence based and, and that's not falling for some of the hype that's going to be coming over the next few years.

MS: Yeah.

DDS: But thinking really clearly about what's possible and what evidence we've got and then outcomes driven, which links to, I think, the whole conversation, which is what are you genuinely trying to solve for and is this the best way of doing it? But I thought I'd just leave people with a story to reassure them that there's a little gap that we've got to operate in, to upskill, to get on the front foot, because it's not quite there yet. So, a couple of weeks ago, I was, playing about with one of the natural language models, and, I asked the bot to draw me a graph, which it did perfectly. Absolutely amazing. Like it went out into the internet, got the information, drew a graph. I then said can you change the axis on the graph? And it flatly denied that it could draw graphs or that it had drawn the graph. Right. So, like, because they are sometime quite human-like, I ended up in an argument with a chat bot.

And I’m going, but I can see it and it's going you must be mistaken. I’m going, literally, it's two things above. And I ended up feeling, I think the words are overused, but I end up feeling genuinely gaslit because it, and it started going, well, what you call a graph might not be what I consider to be a graph. I was like maybe it's just semantics.

MS: No but in real terms. If you're someone, we’ve all been on the on the end of those kind of conversations, right, where you want some help and how many times do we say, oh, I just need to speak to someone about this. And I always take it back to that, to people when they say, oh, well, AI is going to take over the world type thing, and it's like, look, let's hope it takes over the stuff which is really easy to do and can make people's lives so much easier in any walk of life, not just in, in the profession, but there's also hope that that gives us the capacity then of when people really need to have the human interaction where there's nothing better than a human interaction. Let's be honest about that. That it's there, there's the capacity and there's that human element we can bring. Because at the end of the day, if we lose that, that's that.

DDS: Yeah, it's complex, nuanced, really important work. And that's going to be hellishly hard to automate. And you could probably make a good argument that you wouldn't want to do that anyway. And I think being in a profession that operates in that space, it's about absolutely how we make sure that, you know, we talked about five years forward. It's about how we actually make sure that that stays at and becomes ever increasingly at the heart of the work.

So, nothing else to do. So thank you so much to both of you, for coming in today, Mel, for looking so, healthy.

MS: You're welcome.

DDS: Al for making me feel that actually, I'm not the odd one out. thank you so much. Look forward to having you back again. But, to everyone else, the only other thing I'll say is, as many people know, because it's been difficult to avoid it. We've had, an election called, in the UK. So, the CIPD has been engaging with parties, across the spectrum with our calls for policies around the world of work. So we're looking forward to seeing the manifestos that will be appearing. If you want to see our work so far, please check out our calls for action page on the CIPD website.

But excitingly, I can say that the very day after the election results, as the last results are trickling in. We'll be having a dedicated election special of this podcast where we'll be getting luminaries, and experts to come in and talk about the implications of whatever the result is for the world of work and for the profession in particular.

To close, the final thing I'd like to say is that, you've been listening to the CIPD’s new podcast. We hope you'll keep listening to it. You'll find it in the same place on a regular basis. But I'd like to thank Mel and Al for their contributions today in giving up their time. Really appreciate it. Thank you

MS: Thank you.

AG: Thank you.

David D'Souza: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. wherever and whenever you're listening to this. Welcome to the CIPD's new fortnightly programme, available on iTunes, Spotify, limited edition vinyl, wherever you get your podcasts, but you don't need to worry about that because seemingly, you've already found us. We'll be bringing you the top stories from the world of work that are impacting the profession and the organisations you work in or support.

I'm David D'Souza. I work at the CIPD and joining me today are three of the finest brains from the profession. Woosh, who is Exec. Director of People, Culture and Inclusion at NCVO, which is one of the longest job titles that I've come across. Katie, who is CPO at OneAdvanced and Bertie, who is CPO at Collinson. We'll be doing a couple of things today. We'll be running through some recent news that's caught the eye of our expert guests and then we'll be doing a deep dive on, actually some of the changing impacts on the profession and the changing demands on the profession and what that means for the future of it and a little bit, actually, about what it means for you as practitioners and how it feels to do the job. So, without further ado, I'd like to come to Woosh. What's been capturing your eye over the last couple of weeks?

Woosh Raza: Hi everyone. So, I, this headline kind of grabbed my attention. "Gen Z aren't lazy, they just know that work doesn't pay". So, there's a body, of kind, of interesting research, and that's hit the news around Gen Z being lazy or, sorry, not being lazy, just being clear on, like, work and life and just kind of, you know, seeing work in a more transactional way. And that's been, I think, kind of some evidence that CIPD have also kind of shed some light on around transactional attitudes towards work, specifically for those under 35. So, yeah, I thought this was interesting. I think inter-generational challenges for any HR professional right now who, like, who copes with having to deal with an inter-generational workforce. I'm sure we all see it in our kind of day-to-day.

You've got so many different attitudes in the workplace because you've got four or five different generations that are kind of all, you know, working at the same time. I find it it's interesting because I don't see Gen Zs in that kind of way. From my kind of view, from my point of view. Well, I don't have a point of view. I think every person is different. We see a lot of that individuality coming through Gen Zs, a lot more kind of purpose that they know what they want. They're very clear, the social purpose piece is really strong. But at the same time, I kind of can see this in, in terms of like, where does work stop and life begin and actually just being clear on the boundaries. Which is really interesting after the pandemic, you know, when everything just got mushed into like one big ball of life. So, yeah, I'm not sure what we, what we think, what others think around that around the Gen Zs not being lazy?

Bertie Tonks: I had a personal experience, probably within the last year, where I walked into my son's bedroom about 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock in the afternoon and he was in bed and I was like, "get up, come on. It's about time you get a job". He's 17 years old. I want him to start earning his way. He said, "why would I bother to get a job?" He said, "do you realise that this morning I've earned £250 just by buying and selling trainers without lifting a single finger?" And there you have it. He was like, "only a fool would go to work". And like, I literally couldn't argue with him.

WR: Did you shut the door? Did you go, “all right, have a good day?”

BT: Yeah, it's just, but you know what? He really wasn't wrong. And I think, I do think that Gen Zs, there is a sometimes a negative connotation that's talked about, like they feel like they're gifted, and they should have everything they want and it's just a different expectation and we do need to appreciate that they see things automated. They, you know, they're digital natives. So, everything is, it should be easier. There's an, should be an easier way to achieve any result and we don't really, we don't really embrace that in the world of work when actually it's a very thing that we're looking to drive.

WR: Yeah. Katie. Because I know you've got some view on purpose, right? And like purpose being clear with this generation. Like what, because. I think there's also resentment. Like, I think that's also coming because I hear. We got told the Millennials were lazy, like, you know on the news like five/ten years ago. It's like every new generation's lazy and I think it's just, there's something about resentment in the workplace. Well, I wasn't allowed to do what you do, which is work from home. I had to go into the office all the time and stuff, but I don't know. What do you think? Like, do you think there's more purpose do you think they're clear in that purpose?

Katie Obi: Yeah, I, firstly every time I read or listen to anything that it talks about generation, and it stereotypes everyone in a generation, I'm, my heart sinks as well. So, I know people are more individuals, so I don't think one rule applies to everyone. And as, as you rightly said, Woosh, you know every generation that's come through, we've had similar debates. I think one of the things that is different though is society has changed and it has changed quite significantly. So, if we look at people who are coming into the workplace now, often they would have completed schooling or university in the COVID era where actually things weren't, they didn't have the same kind of experiences as the rest of us did; finishing school or going to university if that was our choice.

The world is different in terms of whether there's in-person relationships, the flexibility that you can now have in your work. The flexibility of options that are available as well. You know, the entrepreneurial options as you talked about in, in terms of your son. There are just different ways to be able to get to the end result and people have more choice around what they choose to, want to spend their time on, which links into the purpose statement too, which is people, if people have choices of how they can achieve the same end result, they're going to choose something that is meaningful for them, whether that's the mission that they're associated with building up, whether it's flexibility, whether it's the ability to earn money while you sleep, you know those are all different things that are available to people and the transaction is different in terms of reward for, for performance and results and working in a traditional environment because student loans are, you know, people have accumulated a lot of debt. It's really difficult to be able to secure housing. It's different for this generation than it was for a couple of generations ago. So, people are having to rethink how they get to the outcomes and the lifestyles that they want and what's important. So, it all ties together from that standpoint.

BT: Yeah, yeah.

DDS: And then the answer might be trainers, apparently.

KO: Might be trainers, from bed.

DDS: So, we need to be open to that. Bertie.

BT: Yeah, and you know, I think, I think what they're really looking for, from the conversations that I'm having is the opportunity to do meaningful work. You talk about purpose, Woosh, absolutely spot on, but you know purpose isn't just about charitable organisations and doing good to the planet.

WR: Yeah, yeah.

BT: It's about feeling like you're actually making a difference, gaining the opportunity to play to my strengths, so actually I feel like I'm on fire when I'm working and work isn't just work, it can be fun, and I can enjoy what I do as well. But in order for them to do that, you need the leadership above that also exhibit similar behaviours and to acknowledge that that's actually not just OK, it's going to help our businesses thrive.

DDS: Katie, what's caught your eye?

KO: Yeah. So, there was a news article which was about, really about the rise in the UK minimum wage, but also the unintended consequences because I think a lot of us really think about that and think, "well, that's great". You know, it's important that we're keeping, we're keeping minimum wage increasing because costs have materially increased for people. But then there's always another side to anything that happens, and the unintended consequences and this news story was around employers who were cutting hours and hiring less to offset the cost increase associated with minimum wage increases. And I thought that was really interesting to think through in terms of, there are unintended, really negative consequences for individuals as a result of those increases. And it got me thinking a little bit in terms of; there are tough economic times for both people who are working and also for employers and there's a balance here that has to be struck and how a company is really thinking about navigating through this and how are we, as HR professionals really thinking about how we navigate and how we find the right balance. We do play that role that's in between the two. We want to make good workplaces, and we want to be able to ensure that people can afford to be able to meet their needs. At the same time, we also have to make sure that the organisation is able to be scalable and sustainable.

So, I started thinking also with the discussions that are happening around automation and AI and productivity. How do we create these workplaces that are beneficial for people, beneficial for society, bring in opportunities for productivity to be able to help enhance the way people do their jobs in a way that is sustainable for organisations so we can continue to strike that balance? Because it shouldn't have to be a one choice or another, which is what this article really implied, you know, was happening. We need to find ways to be able to navigate through that successfully, going forward.

DDS: Yeah. And there's a range of things going on there, from industrial skills strategy. So, how we help rebalance economies at large right through to that kind of, you know, notion of what jobs are going to be created and how do people flex into that. I think one of the weirdest things I heard from an organisation a few years ago. So, they were reducing the number of jobs, but for the people that remained, there would be better quality jobs. I'm in favour of better-quality jobs for the people that remained, but equally it's not going to help anyone pay their mortgage or rent if they're not in that group. So, it's a real challenge I think in that. Bertie?

BT: Yeah, I, I mean we do. We've got to continue helping people, helping our people grow, learn and build successful careers in whatever path that might go. There's a long way to go, I think in our organisations, even though the learning is all there, the research is all there to tell us what we need to do. But if we're going to get this right, we have to create different pathways for people and enable them to be able to tap into that.

DDS: Yeah, absolutely, Woosh?

WR: Do you know what we need to do? We need to let go of the notion; HR need to let go of the notion. We need to stop educating. We stop talking to our CEOs and stakeholders, of the notion that talent is going to be retained at the, like for a long time. So, I think we need to stop measuring, and I know this is really bold, retention because that links to your cost of living. Like, people are going to leave quicker because the world's a more difficult place. If you're going to get more money somewhere else, they're going to go and it's OK for that to happen, for people to support their families and their houses and their and have food on the table. And actually, for us, we have to get our organisation to be more agile in thinking about what talent looks like and how we can bring talent in and stop letting go of this, "the longer you stay somewhere" and all of that stuff. Yes, that comes with its benefits as well. But we're in a different market right now and I think we have.

DDS: Yeah.

WR: To kind of get on the front foot for this.

DDS: Completely. Bertie. Well, the story that caught your eye as you had probably quite a strong link to retention of talent and how it's looked after in the different ways organisations are looking at that.

BT: Yeah, absolutely. The headline for me was: "No more return to office". So, "London firms let more staff work from home full-time", by Bloomberg. Clearly a really well-worn path I think, this conversation amongst HR circles, but for me it's not going to go away anytime soon. At Collinson, my company, we're doing lots of really good stuff around this I think, but lots of lessons still to be learnt. Companies have a very clear reason why they want people in to work, but I think we also need to think about how we can give people a reason to come in as well and that this is a two-way exchange, again that more rewarding valuable work is part of it, making sure that our organisations remain much more social is also important. You know, the human-centred organisation is more prevalent today than it ever has been, and yet it almost feels like it's out of reach. Now we talk about hybrid, people communicating online through Zoom or Teams or what have you, that hasn't got rid of the social element of our organisations. But when they, when people do come in, the biggest problem for me isn't our workforce, whether or not they're coming in. It's that when they're in, our leadership and what I describe as a leadership deficit is a huge challenge because our leaders aren't equipped with the skills, techniques or even capabilities to be able to encourage people to want to come in in the first place. Personal view.

WR: Yeah, I think. I'm so glad you said "leadership deficit" here and I know we've all spoke about it. It's like about kind of what we do in an HR to equip leaders. Because it's not a good, easy message to go to your, like, senior leaders like, yeah, "you ain't got the skills to navigate this". What you're saying? Right. But you did it really well there, like you did it. Really.

DDS: I mean, there's a whole stakeholder management thing that we could do here. I wouldn't lead with it, but yeah.

BT: Yeah, but interesting. Interestingly, I do that in my own organisation, because we talk about this, we're quite forthright and what was interesting is when we do, everyone says, "yeah, I know what you mean. We, they do have a problem." And so, no-one. Everyone sides themselves away from the problem.

DDS: Yeah. And people management capability was a challenge pre-pandemic. So, you know, strong links to productivity. We knew that it was a challenge then. It's harder now than it's been. You've also got what's a really interesting shift, which is a lot of attention on hybrid working and the shifts there. But we know it doesn't impact the entire economy and that leadership capability and managerial capability being uplifted would benefit us right across the piece. But we can't have those conversations unless we're going to be, to your point, open and challenging and open with ourselves as well about what needs to change. Katie, you got any thoughts before we go on to the meaty topic of the day?

KO: Yeah, I do, actually. So, I very much feel that leadership is a duty and it's a duty that we all, that we all carry and it's. I think a lot of people think that leadership is a privilege, it's not. It's a responsibility and it's not one to wear lightly. And if you're not ready to take on that responsibility, you shouldn't be a leader and we need to make sure that there are lots of paths available to people who don't want to go down that route, where they can still progress their careers and we don't become accidental managers or leaders that aren't equipped to be able to do it. It's a really important role in an organisation, as is the role of a manager too, and I think not equipping people and putting the wrong people in those roles because it's the only opportunity for progression, that's what leads to this management deficit. But if you are a leader, it's really important to be able to step up in that you have to be out, you have to be talking to people, you have to be listening to what's going on in your organisation and you have to say "thank you". I mean the power of someone who is senior coming up to you and recognising and being specific about what you've done, what they've noticed and have a thank you for it that goes such a long way and if we're not doing that, then we're not in the right role. So, I really think that we need to make sure that everybody understands the role of a leader, how important it is and that it's just non-negotiable to be able to do those things.

DDS: Yeah, I said "thank you" to someone a few years ago, and I know that one time I did it, I know I had a massive impact. Bertie, some final thoughts on that?

BT: Yeah, it's just to sneak this one in very quickly. I think one of the big chasms that I still see is the is the gap really between the academic world and practitioners and actually consultants as well. Let's bring that, just triangulate that a little bit. There's so much research out there, whether that's coming from neuroscience or some of the business schools etc. We need to be bringing that in, particularly in relation to behavioural science and the link between behaviours and reward and because you know, it works for animals, works for dogs, works for people. Honestly, this stuff's still. You know, we're still apes without hair. It. There is so much to learn. I think if we can, if we can tap into this, it will really help our leaders understand what is it that they really need to do to make the difference.

DDS: At the CIPD, we ask for practitioners to be three things. We ask a lot of practitioners, actually, and that's what we're going to be talking about now. But we talk about being evidence-based and that talks to your point around needing to draw from those different sources of evidence and make connections there. We talk about being principles-led, so actually you can't just make any decision, there's a kind of code of conduct and ethics that sits behind this. But we also talk about being outcomes-driven. All of those three things, I think, are more demanding now than they were five to ten years ago. And that's not to say the job was easy five to ten years ago, several of the people sitting around here would have been doing it. But the world is moving on at a rapid pace. But equally, I think the diversity of things we're being asked to do is ever more challenging. That places more pressure on practitioners, both in terms of expectation and that expectation can come from others or that can come from yourself. And we know that it causes challenges around burnout and feelings around confidence for the profession at large. I want to have a really honest conversation about actually how it feels, what's shaping up, what we need to do differently? Katie, if I come to you first, is all that right?

KO: Yeah, definitely. The breadth of what we're asked to cover, as people leaders, is huge, maybe more so than almost any other function in the organisation. So, I think in some ways, just even acknowledging that we can't be experts in all of those areas is a great first step. What we have to be able to do is govern and manage and navigate through it and make sure the right things happen, and we have the right people around us. But there is often an expectation that we should be experts in every single area, and we should know all of the answers to things. And increasingly, work is getting more and more complex. And we don't need to know the answers to everything. What we need to do is be able to navigate through them and we don't navigate through things on our own. We have to navigate in partnership.

One of the things that I always find really important is that we, as professionals, should be business leaders who have an expertise in people and in talent. We are, we have a responsibility around ensuring that we're doing all the right things to support the organisation to be able to achieve a strategy. Talent is a really massive part in being able to do that, but we can only do that effectively if we understand, commercially, what the organisation is doing, what the rest of our counterparts on the C-Suite [phonetic] are trying to achieve and we can help figure out the right way to be able to do that collectively, in partnership with the CFO, in partnership with the other leaders to make sure that we are getting to that right end result. And I think the expectations about being a lot more commercial, understanding the business strategy as much as we do the people strategy, that's an emerging.

I know we've been talking about a seat at the table for years, but it's an emerging requirement in that it's not a "nice to have", we shouldn't be people leaders first who understand a bit of the commercial, we are business leaders who understand people and use that to be able to help the organisation be more effective and build a great environment for people and that is a fundamental shift, to me and it moves us away from that requirement to, the older way of doing things, where we're more of a compliance function or an administrative function. We shouldn't be that. Yes, we have to make sure we're compliant. Yes, we have to make sure people don't do things that are illegal. Yes, we have to make sure that the administrative pieces are done. And yes, we have to make sure that we're advocating for employees needs and rights. But we have to do so with a commercial lens.

WR: So, can I just, you know, that "seat at the table" thing, right? Oh my God.

KO: I know.

WR: Literally, I'm so over it.

DDS: I'm glad you 've said that.

WR: We have got a seat at the bloody. Like, I am bored of this. It's like we need to use that seat at the table to do things that only we can do.

KO: Yes.

WR: Like having a seat at the table is, and you're so right, it's a shift, right it's not just about, I don't know, "we want to make all these massive issues and redundancies whatever". All "Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. Three bags full". The current. It's in the profession map, I think, "courage to challenge", isn't it? And "courage to challenge" is like key. But I don't think we do enough of that in our profession. I think we need to be braver and bolder when we have that seat at that table, we've got the seat at the table. Do you know what I mean? Like we've got this seat at the table, we just need to actually do something like to champion the people who work in our organisations, and I think that we are still finding our feet in the profession around this. Like I don't think it's consistent.

DDS: Katie, I'm just, there was something that you said that I thought was really interesting, was around working in partnership. And you talked about all of those partnerships kind of internally and you've talked about doing things together. And I actually think there's a real challenge for the profession to come together, if only because some of these jobs are some of the most emotionally demanding, isolated and lonely jobs that anyone can do in an organisation. Bertie, I know, you know, we were all chatting beforehand, but you know, we talked about the level of issue that people can have to deal with, how emotionally draining that can be. Don't know if we, I think it'd be a really good place to take the conversation actually, to kind of bring it into not just the changing impacts of HR and the shape of the job, but actually the changing demands on people doing the thing, yeah?

BT: On us, right. You know, us three in this room are all practitioners and we feel it. And for people coming through their career, no matter what level you are in your organisation in HR. I've got a little bit of bad news is things aren't going to get any better. I don't want to paint dark cloud actually

WR: No, but it's true.

BT: Because this is the opportunity for us. But we have to recognise that all roads in businesses come back to talent and cash. Those two things ultimately. And when it comes to talent, the Board sit. I sit on a Board and people in this room do. The Board will look around and say, "how can you solve these challenges for us?" And I think your point around, Woosh, around being bold is really important. I can't tell you the number of times where I've had to almost be prepared to put my job on the line because it's something that I believe in. Now that's scary. I've got, I've got commitments, security, family, all that kind of stuff that I have to protect. But it's one of those things that in a, unusually across all professions, that's one that we have to be able to stand behind that integrity. And I find that, there's the saying, "It's always lonely at the top." I tell you what, it actually really is. It is because you're there for your CEOs, we're there for our CFOs. If we share too much of the negative thoughts and feelings that we have, the challenges that we're experiencing with our team. It's almost like it's the end of the world, so they start to panic themselves. And yeah, "if you're feeling like that. Oh my gosh". So, we almost don't have anywhere to turn and increasingly I'm understanding the real power our profession holds, from the boardroom to the broom cupboard, of being able to be more vulnerable.

WR: I love that.

BT: In our conversations and relationships.

WR: I love it. And you're so right. I mean, I, oh, my God. So much of what you've said just resonates with my, with where I'm at. OK. I'm sure you probably feel this as well. We hold so much and that's what I think we need to be talking in the profession more, and we're not talking about it and like, that's the thing that I feel like is such a game-changer. Even this conversation is cathartic because, like, you know, a problem shared is a problem halved. We know that we're not good at doing that, though in the profession because we think we have all the answers, or we need to have all the answers, and we don't. We don't have all the answers right now. And that's OK to say that. And if we say that our leaders will start to recognise that as well, but that takes courage and that's a difficult path to navigate.

DDS: Yeah, and every everyone in this, everyone in this room, everyone part of this chat we're, you know, we're established in our careers at this point, but actually that loneliness can hit, and that challenge can hit at every part of your career. In fact, you know, in the early parts, you know, you've also got the uncertainty of, "I've never faced this before" happening on a far more frequent basis. But equally the impact of your actions, whether it's having to sit down in a room with someone who's suffered a bereavement, whether it's having to explain to someone that they're not going to get the promotion they want or even, you know, they're not going to continue to be employed. They're hugely emotionally draining topics.

BT: They are and you know what? It's not worries me, but I actually feel I've done a lot of work around my personal purpose and that is; truly leaving a lasting impact on the changing world of work, and one that I'll hopefully one day when I'm dead, I'll be remembered for.

WR: And the hats.

BT: And the hats, yeah.

DDS: For context, Bertie's wearing a hat. So, there aren't visuals on this and that would make no sense for anyone outside this room, but there are two things we're hoping, when he passes away, that he's remembered for; impacts in the world of work and the hats.

BT: My hats, yeah. But I'm determined that, you know, we're in this position now, like we are in this room, we're discussing these challenges, we have to change this for people coming up through the profession, right? Because the world of work is just not going to get any better or any easier. So, part of that, I think, is making sure we start to push our leadership teams when they turn around to us and say, "this is, what are you're doing about this in HR?". It's not because they're trying to, I believe, trying to put everything on our doorstep. It's because they don't know how to cope.

WR: And how to deal with it, yeah.

BT: These are challenges that they don't know how to cope with either. And I think part of what we can do to change this situation and start to improve it is actually, is instead of pretending that we do know the answer is to turn it around and say, "how are we going to deal with this? Because this is our challenge, collectively".

KO: I completely agree with that, and going back to the comment that you made in terms of these are lonely roles that I think this is. It's a lonely profession and we are here. We are the rock for everybody else. So, we're there to support everyone else and then there's nowhere else to go. Bertie, as you said, you can't talk to your team about some of the things that are, that you might be privy to. A lot of the things that we are working through with employees, we also can't talk about. They're deeply private things and very demanding topics that often we haven't been trained for as professionals as well. We're trying to play multiple different roles and there's a lot that we can't talk about. And then because we are so used to keeping the right things appropriately private, we then don't talk about things too, and sometimes I mean, I know something that has been really valuable for me is reaching out to peers in the profession as well. And obviously we don't share anything that's commercially sensitive or that's sensitive for an individual. But to be able to talk about similar themes of things that are coming up and realise that you're not alone, there are other people who are navigating through it and to hear different ideas of how people have managed to resolve certain items or where they're focusing can be so valuable. I've personally found it very, very valuable, when there isn't anyone else to talk to around those different elements.

BT: I had, I had the most beautiful, Kate, the most beautiful moment, literally about two weeks ago, the head of our CRG, our LGBTQ+ community. I was walking into the lift, actually having a cracking day and he walked up to me. He said, "you all right?" I said, "yeah", he said and we, small talk. He said, "you look like you've just been crying". I mean, I absolutely hadn't. And he said, "I was going to give you a hug then" and I went, "well, why don't you give me a hug anyway?" And we had a hug, a random hug in the hall, and I can't tell you. It's really strange, right? It's just a hug and I was already having a good day, but I felt even better because someone asked me twice how I felt and they were really, really concerned and interested. My gosh, that was immense for me, even to, I'm talking about it today, but it's also a lesson for me in leadership.

WR: I think. I love that we have this chat, and I love that you shared that example, Bertie, because I think, you know, men in particular need to be more vulnerable in the workplace and that was a great example of what you just shared. But I do think we are look, back to your point around what's coming on our, around our desk, we've got trauma coming into our spaces that we've never had to deal with before in the profession, right? So, I mean, yeah, that's really tough, bereavement is really, I mean that of course all of that is difficult, but I've had to deal with suicide. I've had to actually be on the phone to the police last year, to go to an employee's house to, because that employee expressed suicidal ideation, and you know. I come from a background, psychiatry, mental health so I was able to remember some bits and pieces from my back then, but counselling and mental health, I think it's so, there's so much of that coming through our kind of, you know, our desk and I think we, if we can't if we don't get it right with like connecting with each other now we have to start doing that.

DDS: And I think that's, I think that's the point, isn't it? It's the difficulty of things coming across the desk, the intensity of that as well. It's then actually as a community, how do you form the bonds that you need for support, how do you make sure that you've actually got the right information that you need to act as confident as you can do? It's also, and I think conversations like this are really important. It's also being really open that everyone feels like that. Kind of one of the most enduring memories from the pandemic was chatting to a series of HR directors. All they needed to know was actually that other people were feeling the same way too. Because to that point around, you know, loneliness and isolation. It's really easy to feel, actually, because the expectations are so high, that it's impossible to meet them. Katie, I'm going to give you the final word and then we'll wrap up for today. I know like loads of pressure on there as well.

KO: I wasn't expecting it to be the final word.

DDS: So, I'm just. I'm just making the work environment even worse for you - live on a podcast.

KO: I wasn't expecting it to be the final word. I was just going to add to that to say I think sometimes we feel a lot of guilt as well and that these issues aren't directly happening to us. They are very emotional and intense, but we feel guilty about having a reaction to that and saying that it's actually difficult for us because we're too busy wanting to make sure that person is safe or we're helping the families navigate through what they need to. So, I think that that guilt thing is a really important thing because we're quite good at compartmentalising in general, but letting people know it's OK to feel anything that they're feeling, that is OK. I think if you then add the, those different pressures that are coming through and those topics that we're dealing with, with also going back to the earlier comments around how the role is changing as well and that we have to also make sure that we understand commercially what we're doing and that we're having a role to play in that and we should have an opinion on different parts of the business and what's happening from a strategic standpoint. Those are a lot of things. We're asking people to, you know, navigate high, navigate low, be able to deal with lots of different, very intense topics all at once. And I think we as a profession need to understand how we can reach out and support each other more as we go through that.

DDS: Absolutely, and you'll see more from us through the year that's focused directly on the profession. It's utterly something that we recognise, a greater focus from us will benefit the profession as a whole. We want it to feel like home. We want it to feel like the place that you go to connect to people that are discovering new ways to do things, as well as discovering different ways to cope or places that they might need support. I'd like to thank you all for the conversation today. I think it's an absolute critical one for us to have and for bringing such interesting news stories to us as well. Bertie, I hope you're with us for some while longer, actually, that sounds morbid, but as part of this conversation.

BT: I will be. I thought you were my friends.

DDS: Couple of reminders from me. One is that we'll be putting this out to you on a regular basis and I hope that you'll continue to enjoy the conversation. Secondly, as the CIPD, Bertie mentioned it earlier, it's really important that that evidence base is brought to light. If you go to www.cipd.org, you'll be able to find a range of things that we already do for you, and information on more stuff that will be coming soon, but otherwise thank you to our guests and we look forward to you listening again soon.

BT: Thank you so much.

WR: Thanks everyone.

KO: Thank you.