HR People Pod

Trancript available shortly...

Transcript will be available shortly...

Transcript will be available shortly...

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.