Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of amazing
Joanne Lockwood: people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's s S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You can catch
Joanne Lockwood: up with all of the previous shows on Itunes, Spotify and the usual
Joanne Lockwood: places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going. Today is episode
Joanne Lockwood: 34 with the title driving the message that
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion is a cold nose business priority. And
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by a great friend, Neil
Joanne Lockwood: Carberry. Neil describes himself as someone who is on a
Joanne Lockwood: crusade for better workplaces and great work. When
Joanne Lockwood: I asked Neil to describe his superpower, he said he can play
Joanne Lockwood: the steel drum. I'm sure we'll find out more about that in a minute. So
Joanne Lockwood: hello, Neil. Welcome to the show. Hello, Joanne. It's a real pleasure to
Neil Carberry: join you. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. Really
Joanne Lockwood: well. Lockwood. You can almost feel the end of lockdown coming. The
Joanne Lockwood: vaccines all fall under way. So I think we're in a positive place in the
Joanne Lockwood: world right now. Yeah. I have to admit that, I my main
Neil Carberry: emotion last week was envy because my partner teaches in a
Neil Carberry: college. And so they went back to work, and,
Neil Carberry: my kids are back in school. And I'm still stuck in the room I've been
Neil Carberry: in since since a year ago from this recording when we, when we moved out
Neil Carberry: of the office. But it's not long to go now. We can see the light
Neil Carberry: at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. Well, I'm jabbed up. I've had my
Joanne Lockwood: AZ. I I have my, 24 hour of,
Joanne Lockwood: feeling really, really lousy afterwards, I think which many people have.
Joanne Lockwood: Popped up by paracetamol and a couple of hot cups of coffee and Netflix. I
Joanne Lockwood: was fine 24 hours later. So yeah, it's I think I feel
Joanne Lockwood: well on my way and hopefully the nation will get going soon. Absolutely.
Neil Carberry: Absolutely. So Neil, tell me,
Joanne Lockwood: why do you believe that inclusion should or is a cold nose
Joanne Lockwood: business priority? What do we need to do to keep driving that home?
Neil Carberry: So cards on table. Right?
Neil Carberry: I work for a business organization, and it's the second business organization
Neil Carberry: I've worked for. I'm a capitalist. I'm a cold nosed
Neil Carberry: and proud of it. And, you know, often, when you talk about
Neil Carberry: inclusion, priorities of inclusion and
Neil Carberry: diversity have have sometimes been seen as of the
Neil Carberry: political left in some way associated with,
Neil Carberry: with, different forms of economic organization. I think
Neil Carberry: if you look at our society, I think what
Neil Carberry: all businesses need to understand is that we operate. Your business
Neil Carberry: and society are not separate, they operate together.
Neil Carberry: And business in many ways has a, a license
Neil Carberry: to operate from the society in which it exists.
Neil Carberry: So from a from a a business leader's
Neil Carberry: perspective, you have to reflect
Neil Carberry: and serve the society in which you operate.
Neil Carberry: So that reason number 1 is that your custom base,
Neil Carberry: your employee bay base is more,
Neil Carberry: is more diverse than ever. Reason number 2
Neil Carberry: is we know that people perform at work when they are
Neil Carberry: able to bring them their whole selves there. So why
Neil Carberry: would we choose in a cold hearted
Neil Carberry: not cold hearted, cold nosed,
Neil Carberry: business perspective to put people in situations where they are less
Neil Carberry: productive than they might otherwise be.
Neil Carberry: All of that speaks to a different form of capitalism.
Neil Carberry: And I I think that we will see over
Neil Carberry: the course of the recovery from the pandemic, this
Neil Carberry: concept of responsible capitalism become
Neil Carberry: more and more common currency. I think you're beginning to see it. And
Neil Carberry: that's a space in which businesses are able to
Neil Carberry: articulate their purpose, more able to clearly
Neil Carberry: set out why their success is beneficial, not only for their
Neil Carberry: shareholder, but also for the wider society they serve. And that actually,
Neil Carberry: their shareholder interest is in serving that wider
Neil Carberry: society well because that's where the longevity and the long
Neil Carberry: termism of, business success comes from. So
Neil Carberry: if you think about businesses right now, whether it's
Neil Carberry: inclusion or it's climate impact
Neil Carberry: or it's recovery from, from
Neil Carberry: the pandemic, You know, the kind of commitment you've mentioned having,
Neil Carberry: the AZ vaccine, the kind of commitment AZ made in terms of how
Neil Carberry: that would be supplied at cost around the world. I think
Neil Carberry: these are things which are redolent of a business
Neil Carberry: community that needs to think more about the long term to remain competitive.
Neil Carberry: And as you think about the long term to remain competitive a
Neil Carberry: bit more, you set people and your people
Neil Carberry: policies in a business in a different light. And I'm, you know,
Neil Carberry: I have a habit of standing up in front of HR directors. I worked with
Neil Carberry: big company HR directors for 15 years at the CBI. Standing
Neil Carberry: up in front of big company HR directors and say, if people are your
Neil Carberry: greatest assets, why do you hire them like you buy paper
Neil Carberry: clips? Why do you manage them? Frankly,
Neil Carberry: sometimes, like you manage your paper clips. I mean, I I I do not
Neil Carberry: like, the phrase the the term human capital at all
Neil Carberry: because you, you know, the Isle original founding declarations
Neil Carberry: of the International Labour Organization are pretty clear that labor is not a commodity.
Neil Carberry: People need to be managed in a different way. I
Neil Carberry: come from a school of employee relations rather than
Neil Carberry: human resources. Thinking about people coming to work from very different
Neil Carberry: backgrounds with different things to achieve and the art is aligning
Neil Carberry: what they want to achieve with what you want to achieve.
Neil Carberry: That is fundamentally an inclusion message. It's a
Neil Carberry: mainstream inclusion message. It's not about an individual strand. But I do
Neil Carberry: think that unless companies are thinking that
Neil Carberry: way, they will progressively be less relevant.
Neil Carberry: And it applies just as much to
Neil Carberry: any member of the workforce as it does to anyone who's protected by one
Neil Carberry: of the characteristics set out in the Equality Act. So for me,
Neil Carberry: inclusion is is a critical business
Neil Carberry: priority going forward. And the the main
Neil Carberry: message that I share with business leaders that I talk to is don't leave it
Neil Carberry: to your HR director. It's gotta be about how you do business, about how the
Neil Carberry: line behaves. Now Antonio Hootersario at Lloyd's said that
Neil Carberry: he started seeing a real difference in the hiring that they were doing when
Neil Carberry: he stopped saying he wanted diverse and started throwing shortlist without
Neil Carberry: diversity back at the managers who put them up to him. And I think
Neil Carberry: that piece around, this is a business priority. We need to behave
Neil Carberry: like it's a business priority is a big message. We've set
Neil Carberry: out just recently, at the REC where I work,
Neil Carberry: the impact of doing recruitment well and in inclusive ways on
Neil Carberry: productivity as well as an opportunity for individual people,
Neil Carberry: through our new recruitment for recovery campaign. And I think we need
Neil Carberry: you talk we talked in the intro about a crusade. I think this piece
Neil Carberry: around good work and fulfilling work and
Neil Carberry: productivity is not just about being nice to the employees, although
Neil Carberry: that is an important byproduct. It's actually about having workplaces that are
Neil Carberry: fundamentally productive because people are comfortable there to work
Neil Carberry: in the ways that, are most effective for them and are bringing
Neil Carberry: them their whole selves. You know? Yeah. I I've been
Neil Carberry: privileged, for instance, to work with a lot of, truly talented
Neil Carberry: gay colleagues over the years. And they have all been very clear with
Neil Carberry: me that the day they didn't have to spend Monday morning worrying
Neil Carberry: about, not slipping up on what they said about what they did at the
Neil Carberry: weekend was liberating in more than just personal emotional
Neil Carberry: sense. Yeah. I I I
Joanne Lockwood: so much of what you're saying there is resonating with me completely. We
Joanne Lockwood: know these facts. I mean, McKinsey have published these
Joanne Lockwood: stats. You've only got a Google DNI stats and we all know that
Joanne Lockwood: businesses are 19% more of this, 30% more of that.
Joanne Lockwood: So this data has been around for many, many years now, and it's kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a every DNI person chants these these statistics.
Joanne Lockwood: But we're we're all well aware that the facts don't change people. You know, we
Joanne Lockwood: know if we drive too far fast on the motorway, we shouldn't do that. But
Joanne Lockwood: we all think we can get away with 75, 80, or a100. We know that
Joanne Lockwood: red meat, we know that wine, we know that beer, we know that smoking isn't
Joanne Lockwood: good for us yet. We still persist in doing these things even though we
Joanne Lockwood: know the facts aren't changing. So what do you
Joanne Lockwood: think what businesses and organizations can do to start
Joanne Lockwood: moving from these stats and making it so that
Joanne Lockwood: they really get their own ROI return on inclusion?
Joanne Lockwood: What how do they wake up or become woke if you like?
Neil Carberry: Oh, there there's a politically loaded term all
Neil Carberry: of a all of a sudden, isn't it isn't it woke? I look. I
Neil Carberry: think that there are a couple of things that are on my mind
Neil Carberry: right now. One is,
Neil Carberry: I think, being more cognizant of
Neil Carberry: where you are now, which I think is very
Neil Carberry: is very frightening for a lot of business
Neil Carberry: leaders because it involves admitting that things might not be perfect,
Neil Carberry: or might even not be good and stepping into a
Neil Carberry: territory where you are fundamentally uncomfortable. I think one of the great things about
Neil Carberry: being quite short term and looking at the sales figures and driving the short term
Neil Carberry: performance of a business is that you always know where you
Neil Carberry: stand because the numbers don't lie.
Neil Carberry: The longer term stuff is more difficult because it
Neil Carberry: rests on belief, purpose, direction, strategy,
Neil Carberry: and a a real sense
Neil Carberry: that you're putting
Neil Carberry: more of your self into it. So I
Neil Carberry: think the thing that is changing is our understanding
Neil Carberry: of leadership in businesses. I think they're kinda
Neil Carberry: alpha very kind of
Neil Carberry: numbers focused, almost impersonal
Neil Carberry: leadership style that has dominated, our
Neil Carberry: thinking for maybe the last 20 or 30 years. I think
Neil Carberry: there's a it is being gradually placed by a much more
Neil Carberry: authentic approach. And that authentic approach is not
Neil Carberry: unconcerned by the short term performance of the business. But I think
Neil Carberry: it does allow for people to, act
Neil Carberry: with more humanity. And as they act with more humanity in what
Neil Carberry: they are doing, I think the big question that we
Neil Carberry: ask ourselves, and you and I have discussed this before the recording,
Neil Carberry: is how do we not just not be part of the problem as a
Neil Carberry: leader, but how do we actively use our influence to make the
Neil Carberry: problem go away? And that's difficult for
Neil Carberry: corporates because,
Neil Carberry: culture in any business is is difficult to to manage,
Neil Carberry: but leaders are better equipped to manage it than most. And
Neil Carberry: if so if you think about the debate after the Black Lives
Neil Carberry: Matter, protest began following the
Neil Carberry: killing of George Floyd last year. There was a big debate about
Neil Carberry: how corporates can be not just not racist, but
Neil Carberry: actively anti racist. And I think a lot of
Neil Carberry: those same themes flow through to a lot of what many of
Neil Carberry: us were feeling, you know, in with the recent news about Sarah Everock,
Neil Carberry: which is it's not just enough you know, I I speak as
Neil Carberry: a as a middle aged man. It's
Neil Carberry: not just enough to be one of the good guys. It's actually
Neil Carberry: more about how do we actively challenge
Neil Carberry: the environments that allow harassment of,
Neil Carberry: women to happen. And I think those things,
Neil Carberry: in lots of companies,
Neil Carberry: even up until quite recently, would have felt quite, and
Neil Carberry: inverted commas, right on, would have felt like,
Neil Carberry: yeah. No. No. We're here to do our Jo, and our job is this. And
Neil Carberry: I think the real art for people who care about this in
Neil Carberry: corporate is to make the link
Neil Carberry: to corporate reputation, which we know can be trashed in a second these
Neil Carberry: days if something goes wrong, is to
Neil Carberry: make the link to the what I said earlier about
Neil Carberry: making sure that people can bring their whole selves to work.
Neil Carberry: And it's to make the link to the fact that no one loses when
Neil Carberry: we do this. Because I think that's
Neil Carberry: the that's the thing that I I think often doesn't quite
Neil Carberry: cut through. You know, flexible working is a great example of
Neil Carberry: this. I'm a working dad. The
Neil Carberry: flexible working revolution was brought about in its original
Neil Carberry: in its in its beginnings. It was being done,
Neil Carberry: in inverted commas, for working moms? Well,
Neil Carberry: maybe. But, actually, flexible working benefits everybody in the
Neil Carberry: workforce if you get the structure right. And companies need to kind of think
Neil Carberry: about how they do it and how they do it well and fairly. But
Neil Carberry: that level of inclusion, because I
Neil Carberry: think flexible working is a tool for inclusion of people who might not otherwise be
Neil Carberry: working into the workforce, benefits
Neil Carberry: everybody. Classic case post pandemic. We've now proved that
Neil Carberry: everybody can work from home for a year, in lots
Neil Carberry: of office based jobs. If this isn't transformational
Neil Carberry: transformational for, Britain's disability
Neil Carberry: employment rate, that will be shambolic. I mean,
Neil Carberry: our disability if you look at our employment rates, our disability employment rate
Neil Carberry: is actually much the worst. And a lot of it is about
Neil Carberry: access to the workplace even though there are some pretty good government schemes
Neil Carberry: to support, access to work out there.
Neil Carberry: This should be a moment for us to say, well, here's an a new route
Neil Carberry: to opening up disability employment. It's
Neil Carberry: a whole slew of things there, I think, where if we
Neil Carberry: get our people planning into our business planning
Neil Carberry: and don't approach it as though we're thinking about human
Neil Carberry: capital, we can open up some productivity
Neil Carberry: upside. As I mentioned earlier, our recruitment and recovery reports are really
Neil Carberry: clear that doing recruitment well opens up £7,700,000,000
Neil Carberry: of, productivity upside every year as people start more
Neil Carberry: engaged. Yeah. This isn't new stuff. I
Neil Carberry: mean, Nita Clark and David McLeod were doing all that work about employee
Neil Carberry: engagement, and its and its benefits
Neil Carberry: well over a decade ago. And as you said, Joanne, the,
Neil Carberry: it's about how we get cut through. I think cut through only comes at the
Neil Carberry: center. And this moment of leadership change that's been driven
Neil Carberry: by the pandemic is a huge opportunity. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Completely. I've got so many thoughts coming out of what you've just said there.
Joanne Lockwood: Going back to almost at the beginning of what you're saying there, the the term
Joanne Lockwood: woke, you're right, it has been kind of hijacked as a kind of a political
Joanne Lockwood: statement. And someone drew attention the other day, the the
Joanne Lockwood: opposite of awake or woke is asleep.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're quite right when you're saying that what's happening is many businesses, if
Joanne Lockwood: they're not careful, will be asleep on the watch. They won't
Joanne Lockwood: realize that they're no longer becoming relevant. They their their
Joanne Lockwood: reputation will suffer. So rather than seeing woke as being this
Joanne Lockwood: political statement, think of it as being awakened or
Joanne Lockwood: woken up to the idea that your business needs to have
Joanne Lockwood: someone at the helm, not in their course, the trajectory, the
Joanne Lockwood: velocity of how you're gonna get somewhere that includes their people
Joanne Lockwood: and really engage with their people. And I think I see too many
Joanne Lockwood: organizations still thinking about going straight back into the office. You
Joanne Lockwood: know, as soon as whatever date it is, 12th April,
Joanne Lockwood: where technically I think you can go back to the office straight away, I see
Joanne Lockwood: many people just saying, well, I've been told we have to go back now. And
Joanne Lockwood: there's been no consultation. A lot of a lot of business leaders in many
Joanne Lockwood: companies are just saying, we've decided.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. We've not consulted. We've not done our employee engagement survey. We've not done
Joanne Lockwood: the pulse test. What do people think about this? I think they're missing a trick
Joanne Lockwood: because there's a lot of anxiety out there because the workplace
Joanne Lockwood: isn't gonna be the same. We may still have to commute with masks on. We
Joanne Lockwood: may still have to Joanne space space everywhere. We might have to have
Joanne Lockwood: plastic screens between desks, social distance in the office, not making each other cups of
Joanne Lockwood: coffee for a while. All these kind of guidelines are gonna come out. So when
Joanne Lockwood: we go back to the office, it won't be the same. We'll be sitting on
Joanne Lockwood: buses or trains or transport feeling kind of
Joanne Lockwood: vulnerable. Jo I don't think many employers are really thinking about
Joanne Lockwood: this this human personal centric anxieties that are
Joanne Lockwood: still going on. We've chucked everybody to home, said right now we need to get
Joanne Lockwood: more back. I want to go back. We need to go back. So
Joanne Lockwood: do you see that that divide happening? Some great
Joanne Lockwood: companies really engaging, some not? Funnily enough,
Neil Carberry: one of the calls I had earlier today before we jumped on, the
Neil Carberry: pod, Joanne, was with a group of
Neil Carberry: large companies in London and a group that KPMG has pulled together that I
Neil Carberry: sit on thinking about the future of the London economy, which of course is
Neil Carberry: fundamentally, bound up with,
Neil Carberry: that question of how do we work. My
Neil Carberry: take on that would be this.
Neil Carberry: Different groups of the workforce will have different priorities.
Neil Carberry: By and large, I think senior execs want to go back.
Neil Carberry: By and large, I think younger workers want to go back as well. I mean,
Neil Carberry: we've all done the call with someone who's sitting on their bed or
Neil Carberry: using the ironing board as a desk. And
Neil Carberry: that that's a challenge as is the kinda health and safety
Neil Carberry: responsibilities that employers have for people who are working at home in in
Neil Carberry: less than perfect, situations. After all, you know,
Neil Carberry: we all started this a year ago,
Neil Carberry: thinking 4, 8, 12 weeks. The the
Neil Carberry: health and safety concerns are a bit different when you've been doing it for a
Neil Carberry: year, and it's no longer really an emergency, measure.
Neil Carberry: But in the middle, you've got a bunch of people who might not want to
Neil Carberry: come into the office, as much.
Neil Carberry: And that's a real challenge because it's not just about
Neil Carberry: how do we accommodate people's needs or how do we make
Neil Carberry: everyone work the same. It's about how do we balance the 2.
Neil Carberry: You know, young workers want to come into the workplace because maybe they're living in
Neil Carberry: a, a house share. They actually need to be in the work
Neil Carberry: workplace. We've all advanced our career by being in the right place at the right
Neil Carberry: time and getting the right advice from a colleague, who was who was
Neil Carberry: around. Equally, that colleague might want to be at home a bit more. There's a
Neil Carberry: whole framing of how people engage and that that we
Neil Carberry: need to get right. And the parallel
Neil Carberry: and this maybe is where those who are trying to drive
Neil Carberry: an inclusion agenda, and
Neil Carberry: I always have. You know, the reason I can play the
Neil Carberry: steel drum is I went to a really right on state comprehensive in the
Neil Carberry: eighties. And our music program was a little different to the one
Neil Carberry: that, that maybe you would have got at one of England's
Neil Carberry: great public schools. But the
Neil Carberry: my driver's always been social and economic inclusion. You know, I'm
Neil Carberry: from a working class background. I, you know, I I
Neil Carberry: I worry about how we make sure people make
Neil Carberry: pathways through, into career and people's
Neil Carberry: people's, potential can be fulfilled.
Neil Carberry: And I think when you think about that or
Neil Carberry: any other form of inclusion that might fire up someone who's listening
Neil Carberry: to, listening today,
Neil Carberry: What have we learned about other people's experiences
Neil Carberry: that aren't our own experiences? We listen, don't we? You know, I've spent a lot
Neil Carberry: of time listening to my senior female colleagues at the
Neil Carberry: REC over the last week about how the REC
Neil Carberry: should Joanne, the the kind of stuff that's tumbled
Neil Carberry: out the Sarah Everard case.
Neil Carberry: We've got 2 ears and one mouth. I think increasingly,
Neil Carberry: leaders are appreciating you should use them in that ratio. So
Neil Carberry: when it comes to opening up the office like you,
Neil Carberry: suggested, Joanne, or indeed any kind
Neil Carberry: of initiative in this space, you you
Neil Carberry: wouldn't you wouldn't go
Neil Carberry: and, play football on just a random field.
Neil Carberry: You'd want it the grass to be cut and you'd want to feel that
Neil Carberry: the you'd want the goals in place and all of that. And there's something there
Neil Carberry: in making sure that the action
Neil Carberry: bias that many leaders have, this is an issue.
Neil Carberry: We need to do something. This is something, so let's do it.
Neil Carberry: Doesn't drive us off down the wrong path and all this stuff.
Joanne Lockwood: Did you think leaders have learned a lot over the last year
Joanne Lockwood: around well-being? You know, we
Joanne Lockwood: we use the old phrase here, same storm, different bows, but, you know, well used
Joanne Lockwood: over the last year. Each of these leaders have
Joanne Lockwood: often been in their own boat and and and have realized
Joanne Lockwood: their own mental health, their own family needs. Even if they're in a position of
Joanne Lockwood: privilege, they've been touched in some way. And the impression I get is that
Joanne Lockwood: everybody has become awakened
Joanne Lockwood: to this need that maybe we didn't have a year ago.
Joanne Lockwood: But what really worries me still is that we're gonna revert to all habits
Joanne Lockwood: and there'll be this momentum to try and this
Joanne Lockwood: has been a blip. Let's go back to as we were.
Joanne Lockwood: And I also think there's there's a divide between some of the larger organizations,
Joanne Lockwood: the organizations that have the infrastructure, the DNI, the momentum
Joanne Lockwood: versus maybe the midsize or small organizations that don't have the
Joanne Lockwood: budget sort of resources, the workplace workplace planning in
Joanne Lockwood: place. And we'll end up seeing 2 tier,
Joanne Lockwood: employee experience if we're not careful. So,
Neil Carberry: I mean, I I'm less concerned actually on the
Neil Carberry: size piece because I do think as you get smaller, you get more personal
Neil Carberry: involvement from leaders. And I think that that adds to the humanity
Neil Carberry: of the of the response. I think in many ways,
Neil Carberry: it's more difficult for big firms to deliver
Neil Carberry: consistency of experience. And in particular,
Neil Carberry: thinking about how you support your first line managers
Neil Carberry: to do what they know is right, but they might find sometimes the signals are
Neil Carberry: pointing them in the opposite direction. So
Neil Carberry: there's no I I think it's fair to say it's challenging in every size of
Neil Carberry: businesses, and the challenges change. Capacity is clearly
Neil Carberry: always an issue at the small end.
Neil Carberry: For me, I think there is
Neil Carberry: something in leaders
Neil Carberry: having seen inside people's lives over the
Neil Carberry: last year in a way that they haven't previously. You know?
Neil Carberry: I talked to my team from from my house, and they're all in their
Neil Carberry: houses. I think we've been powerfully
Neil Carberry: aware as leaders in businesses
Neil Carberry: of people's mental health more broadly and the bleed across from
Neil Carberry: things that are happening in their home lives to their work life as well
Neil Carberry: as, as well as, vice versa. So there's
Neil Carberry: a whole kind of
Neil Carberry: potential moment of reset there. You're right,
Neil Carberry: though. The risk is we just flick a switch and try to go back.
Neil Carberry: Now let me be you know, I talked about being cold nosed earlier.
Neil Carberry: We do need to go back to a certain extent. The economy is still quite
Neil Carberry: significantly smaller than it was in February 2020. We need to recover that
Neil Carberry: quickly. Not because, you know, the corporates
Neil Carberry: need massive profits, but because those profits need to fund
Neil Carberry: people's pensions, and we need people to be employed, and we need to be able
Neil Carberry: to fund pay rises and all of the the kind of the good things that
Neil Carberry: business does week to week and
Neil Carberry: month to month for for people all over the country.
Neil Carberry: But we've got choices in how we normalize and how we go back.
Neil Carberry: And so that
Neil Carberry: process and it's probably the biggest challenge leaders have, which
Neil Carberry: is what is
Neil Carberry: normal once the pandemic is over?
Neil Carberry: And it's clearly not what we've been doing for the last year,
Neil Carberry: but it's probably also not what we were doing before. And
Neil Carberry: that's difficult, especially in a position where people are tired. Everyone
Neil Carberry: is tired after the after this, last period.
Neil Carberry: So the really good leaders
Neil Carberry: that I observe are carving out space
Neil Carberry: to think about what the normalized business
Neil Carberry: that they are building would look like. And that's
Neil Carberry: difficult because some of the edges are fuzzy. We don't know what the appetite for
Neil Carberry: returning to commuting to major cities will be. My
Neil Carberry: bet is that it will actually be quite high.
Neil Carberry: But we do know that, yeah, that that
Neil Carberry: there will be a challenge with sectors like retail, which have changed
Neil Carberry: fundamentally forever through this, through this period. So I think
Neil Carberry: the the if you're
Neil Carberry: interested in driving a more inclusive economy, and I think that's
Neil Carberry: where, you know, where my, kind
Neil Carberry: of agency is on inclusion. The advantage
Neil Carberry: is actually how blank the canvas might be now because we have to
Neil Carberry: rebuild back. And I find myself sort
Neil Carberry: of saying to inclusion and diversity,
Neil Carberry: professionals, this is the moment because the canvas is blank.
Neil Carberry: And, on the other hand saying to business leaders, let the canvas
Neil Carberry: be blank. Don't, you know, don't be the
Neil Carberry: leader that you described, Joanne, who's saying right where I just want everything back
Neil Carberry: to normal as quickly as possible. Because that may
Neil Carberry: very well be helpful in the short run, but
Neil Carberry: you might miss the big change that's going on. You know, I've
Neil Carberry: always liked the, the the Henry Ford thing about if I'd asked the
Neil Carberry: customer, I'd have given him a faster horse.
Neil Carberry: The, you know, the the issue that should be
Neil Carberry: on leaders' minds right now is, how has this
Neil Carberry: fundamentally changed the market I serve, and how does my business have to
Neil Carberry: change to reflect that? And I think more often than not, when you answer
Neil Carberry: those questions, one aspect of
Neil Carberry: it is the human connection
Neil Carberry: that you have with customers and the value that's demonstrated
Neil Carberry: for you by the people you engage in your business. And if those two things
Neil Carberry: are true, then that forces the inclusion and diversity
Neil Carberry: debate much more center stage.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think then that we have the skill set
Joanne Lockwood: in the leadership of our businesses? And we talked
Joanne Lockwood: earlier about the the glorification of the
Joanne Lockwood: alpha type personality, the go getter, the
Joanne Lockwood: impersonal style and that makes a lot of the top level positions in many
Joanne Lockwood: businesses. And, you know, we can I'm sure we can have a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: about meritocracy for hours and call out the BS of that sometimes.
Joanne Lockwood: But do we see an evolution of what
Joanne Lockwood: is just seen as meritocratic, if you like?
Joanne Lockwood: Are we starting to see that this alpha in personal style
Joanne Lockwood: is a is a bygone
Joanne Lockwood: person? Are we are we seeing the rise of more empathic,
Joanne Lockwood: empathetic, compassionate leaders and how much our
Joanne Lockwood: business have or how much business is invested in in building that
Joanne Lockwood: leadership team over the last year to 18 months to
Joanne Lockwood: put them in a better place to handle this new world that we're looking
Joanne Lockwood: at? So I'm definitely seeing a change. You know, I probably
Neil Carberry: first came face to face with the leadership of British
Neil Carberry: business in 15 years ago at the CBI.
Neil Carberry: And I think that there is a difference. And, you know, I always when I
Neil Carberry: think about new style leadership, I always recall the memory of
Neil Carberry: Dame Helen Alexander, who was, one of the presidents of
Neil Carberry: CBI during my time there. And, Helen taught me a lot about
Neil Carberry: this, about how you can lead a business and be yourself
Neil Carberry: and, be, you know, cold nosed
Neil Carberry: and focused on the performance of the business, but also
Neil Carberry: human. She but she once said to me, Neil, never take a meeting before 9
Neil Carberry: or after 5. It sets a precedent you don't want to set. Now for
Neil Carberry: a major British business leader to say things like that to,
Neil Carberry: to more junior members of staff is a sense of kind
Neil Carberry: of positioning and putting signposts up for for for
Neil Carberry: people. It'll take a long while to change, I think. But I'm
Neil Carberry: definitely seeing that, you know, in particular
Neil Carberry: we've we've made some big progress on, gender diversity in our boardrooms
Neil Carberry: over the last, few years. There's more to come
Neil Carberry: on that and on other forms of diversity.
Neil Carberry: But I think that
Neil Carberry: wider picture is,
Neil Carberry: is starting to feed to to through to how we think about risks and risk
Neil Carberry: management in our businesses. There's some work I'm working,
Neil Carberry: supporting, with a leadership group I'm involved with at the moment
Neil Carberry: looking at how different governance structures
Neil Carberry: reacted to what happened last March April. And it's pretty clear
Neil Carberry: that those who'd already thought about all this stuff,
Neil Carberry: about how are we appreciating
Neil Carberry: the kind of risks that we can't see easily, about how are
Neil Carberry: we, managing our interactions with
Neil Carberry: people more broadly about how are
Neil Carberry: we tackling challenges on inclusion, where by and large
Neil Carberry: businesses responded more nimbly
Neil Carberry: to the onset of the pandemic and are probably better positioned
Neil Carberry: for for recovery. So I think both, you're seeing a
Neil Carberry: different kind of tenor from some leaders in the business community,
Neil Carberry: and you're starting to see evidence through this period that doing it
Neil Carberry: slightly differently pays off. My,
Neil Carberry: my kind of core
Neil Carberry: thinking about about this has often been shaped
Neil Carberry: by, experience
Neil Carberry: where you see people demonstrate
Neil Carberry: the ability to not think they have the answer
Neil Carberry: the minute the problem appears.
Neil Carberry: And that requires the ability to say,
Neil Carberry: what are my prejudices with regards to this problem?
Neil Carberry: What are the questions I'm not asking myself? And who can
Neil Carberry: I get to help me understand what those questions are? And I think
Neil Carberry: that's a that's a a governance function, but it's also a leadership
Neil Carberry: function in businesses. And businesses who are doing that well are
Neil Carberry: the ones that are starting to reap the
Neil Carberry: benefits of this. My worry
Neil Carberry: is how we train our managers. So I'm I'm gonna get
Neil Carberry: my soapbox here. So sorry, Joanne. This will take this will take I'll I'll try
Neil Carberry: and do it in 90 seconds. We
Neil Carberry: we made some changes to corporate governance in the United Kingdom
Neil Carberry: in the 19 nineties. They were very sensible at the
Neil Carberry: time because what they did was they slimmed down the number of executive directors on
Neil Carberry: board, replaced them with nonexecutive directors, gave greater independence of
Neil Carberry: governance, gave shareholders greater, security that the
Neil Carberry: company was being run well. But what they did was
Neil Carberry: they reduced the number of executive directors on boards to 2, the
Neil Carberry: chief executive and the finance director, Which pretty
Neil Carberry: much means that to be a chief executive, you have to have been the finance
Neil Carberry: director beforehand. And to be a finance director, you have to be an
Neil Carberry: accountant. I love
Neil Carberry: accountants. I think they do fantastic work.
Neil Carberry: I'm not sure, by and large,
Neil Carberry: they are the most skilled
Neil Carberry: profession when it comes to,
Neil Carberry: you know, the pathway that they take is not people led.
Neil Carberry: It run alongside that the,
Neil Carberry: MBA curriculum, which has become kind of
Neil Carberry: the currency with quali with, with
Neil Carberry: the qualification with currency for trainee managers.
Neil Carberry: Show me the bits of that that are about employee relations.
Neil Carberry: Get your magnifying glass out. And that's the
Neil Carberry: challenge for me, which is we we still train our managers
Neil Carberry: to be really good at stuff they need to be good at. You gotta be
Neil Carberry: good at numbers. You gotta be able to drive the numbers. That is essential. You
Neil Carberry: don't get a pass to the game if they're not if you're not. But, actually,
Neil Carberry: the people stuff is not hugely kind
Neil Carberry: of it's not hugely there in our business schools in the way
Neil Carberry: it could be. So there's a whole slew of how we educate our managers
Neil Carberry: and the path that people take to leadership that
Neil Carberry: if we're going to bust through this, needs to change in
Neil Carberry: some way. That I'll get off my soapbox there.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, excellent. No. I completely agree. And I'm I'm
Joanne Lockwood: passionate that many inclusion, belonging,
Joanne Lockwood: people, culture initiatives can only be
Joanne Lockwood: driven effectively by a different style of leadership and it
Joanne Lockwood: is around just being connecting, compassion. And I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: saying not being cold nose and businesslike, but I'm also saying that has
Joanne Lockwood: to have a edge to it all the time. How does
Joanne Lockwood: that make people feel? What's the impact of that decision? So I'm a
Joanne Lockwood: great believer in that. We started earlier talking about,
Joanne Lockwood: you mentioned George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and at the time
Joanne Lockwood: there was a almost like a pushback around all lives
Joanne Lockwood: matter, white lives matter, and what about me, what about me as well.
Joanne Lockwood: And we're kind of seeing that now, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: after Sarah Everard was murdered, that
Joanne Lockwood: we're now seeing, you know, the rise of of of many women
Joanne Lockwood: and and their allies standing up and saying, hey, hon, it may not be all
Joanne Lockwood: men, but actually it's most, if not all women have this
Joanne Lockwood: story. But we still see not all men as a
Joanne Lockwood: hashtag, it's trending and are
Joanne Lockwood: white people, are men comfortable
Joanne Lockwood: being uncomfortable talking about this this stuff? Or and or
Joanne Lockwood: there's still this fear of getting it wrong right here?
Neil Carberry: That's a really good question.
Neil Carberry: And I'm only one white man. But my
Neil Carberry: sense is that
Neil Carberry: it's the transition from not having to
Neil Carberry: think about it to having to think about it That's
Neil Carberry: critical. I've heard a few people over
Neil Carberry: the last week or 2 talking
Neil Carberry: about, I used to think that, but now I've thought
Neil Carberry: this. And particularly around the the Sarah Everard
Neil Carberry: piece. And
Neil Carberry: there's a
Neil Carberry: that sense of being uncomfortable about the position
Neil Carberry: other people are in requires time and effort and
Neil Carberry: thought. If you haven't had to think about it,
Neil Carberry: actually, there's a there there's a gift that we, and
Neil Carberry: I say we on behalf of my trade union of white men,
Neil Carberry: slightly presumptuously, can give
Neil Carberry: to thinking about inclusion, which is to acknowledge
Neil Carberry: that this requires our thought and
Neil Carberry: participation as well. Comes back to what I said earlier about not be not just
Neil Carberry: being one of the good guys when it comes
Neil Carberry: to, how, how we treat
Neil Carberry: women in our society, not just not being a racist.
Neil Carberry: It's act it's about actively how do we promote a society that
Neil Carberry: works for all of us and the the payoff. And this is where I I
Neil Carberry: think we have to really hammer this point. And and and, you know, I do
Neil Carberry: lots of lots of things in my career
Neil Carberry: with ACAS on the advisory side right down to I've got I've got an,
Neil Carberry: an under 10 boys sports team that I that I coached on Sunday morning. That's
Neil Carberry: the highlight of my upcoming time. We've come the 4th April. I'm allowed to get
Neil Carberry: back to that on a Sunday morning, which is good. It's
Neil Carberry: about how we challenge things when we see them in the spaces that
Neil Carberry: only we share. I think there's definitely something
Neil Carberry: in terms of, you know, what do you say to your mate who expresses with
Neil Carberry: you one way or the other when there aren't any women around? There are no
Neil Carberry: black people around. That that I think is
Neil Carberry: really important. And, yes, I think it is a big
Neil Carberry: challenge to to get people to realize that we have a role in
Neil Carberry: this. But I think that's better
Neil Carberry: than the alternative, which is to feel that these movements aren't
Neil Carberry: about the whole of society. Of course, these movements are about the whole of society,
Neil Carberry: but it's a bit like the kind of it's a bit like the kinda
Neil Carberry: hashtag all lives matter thing. Of course, all lives matter. We all know that, but
Neil Carberry: it's black people who are who are having the experiences we need to challenge.
Neil Carberry: And I think, having more
Neil Carberry: allies who are willing to say that
Neil Carberry: is critically important. And I think particularly in
Neil Carberry: spaces which are quite
Neil Carberry: traditionalist in Outlook, and I think businesses
Neil Carberry: can fall into that class. And I'm one
Neil Carberry: of my kind of, when I'm feeling cynical, one of the
Neil Carberry: things I'll say about the progress we've made on boardroom
Neil Carberry: gender diversity in the UK is that it's
Neil Carberry: fantastic, but I'm not sure that
Neil Carberry: the wives, daughters, and sisters of the same
Neil Carberry: families where the fathers, brothers, and sons have been on board for the last
Neil Carberry: 250 years now making it onto boards is as much
Neil Carberry: progress as we would like. And and what I mean by
Neil Carberry: that is
Neil Carberry: at the our ability to challenge
Neil Carberry: the idea that there isn't one best way for everything to be is
Neil Carberry: important. I remember talking to the HR director of Joanne
Neil Carberry: 4 years ago and she said the thing that opened her eyes
Neil Carberry: was, feeling really chuffed about
Neil Carberry: the diversity break breakdown of, of
Neil Carberry: of the Joanne 4 staff. And she was talking to,
Neil Carberry: an Afro Caribbean, colleague about this, and he turned to her and
Neil Carberry: said, yeah. But we all read The Guardian, don't we? And and, of
Neil Carberry: course, the point cuts through, which is, you know, it's
Neil Carberry: quite easy to think that there's
Neil Carberry: the best way of doing things. And, culturally,
Neil Carberry: it's actually quite easy for,
Neil Carberry: for women from those families where where the men have been at the top
Neil Carberry: end of business for years to make the cultural switch
Neil Carberry: into, to into boardrooms. It's a lot more difficult
Neil Carberry: if you are from a fundamentally different
Neil Carberry: background, if you've,
Neil Carberry: you, you're coming from a position where you're trans,
Neil Carberry: where you're challenging the way the world is
Neil Carberry: a lot more fundamentally from the point of view of people's
Neil Carberry: starting points. And I think we're talk we need
Neil Carberry: to talk a lot more about good way several good ways of doing things
Neil Carberry: and a more permissive cultural regime in our companies,
Neil Carberry: than just allowing people to be in the spaces
Neil Carberry: that, these spaces that previously they weren't in and that being
Neil Carberry: okay. I mean, you you mentioned earlier about
Joanne Lockwood: slimming down the change of the way the board governance works. You know, the the
Joanne Lockwood: 2, the chief exec, the CFO and
Joanne Lockwood: everybody else being kind of a Ned or a Sid, however you describe.
Joanne Lockwood: That really, let's put it out there, is
Joanne Lockwood: kind of an old boys network. In order to get to CFO, the chances are
Joanne Lockwood: you would have come through years of growth as a
Joanne Lockwood: management accountant or financial accountant or whatever in the accounting role. And
Joanne Lockwood: and that pathway often excludes women or minority
Joanne Lockwood: groups because they don't have access to that social capital or or
Joanne Lockwood: the the opportunities to engage in those roles. Therefore, becoming a
Joanne Lockwood: chief exec narrows the field. And also because they've not
Joanne Lockwood: held maybe a senior or a board role in an organization
Joanne Lockwood: their their NED portfolio is kind of limited as well because I've
Joanne Lockwood: sat on advisory committees and recruitment panels for for NED
Joanne Lockwood: appointments and looking at their terms of reference is often,
Joanne Lockwood: well, we want someone who's had this governance role in a similar organization, this
Joanne Lockwood: person who's got a risk background, this person who's got a CFO background.
Joanne Lockwood: And that really does limit the type of people we're gonna get to who are
Joanne Lockwood: actually getting more of the same. And it takes a
Joanne Lockwood: brave decision, it shouldn't be brave, but it is a brave decision sometimes to say,
Joanne Lockwood: well, actually, we're looking for the capability, the lived experience and we
Joanne Lockwood: can train this person, we can actually put them on a board induction program
Joanne Lockwood: and look at, maybe they've never been a net or never been held in
Joanne Lockwood: a position where we could teach them about a set of accounts, maybe we can
Joanne Lockwood: see teach them about various processes, governance structure. But
Joanne Lockwood: what we need is your lived experience. We want to see someone who is in
Joanne Lockwood: their mid-20s, maybe female, maybe Black, bringing
Joanne Lockwood: that perspective of their customer or their their
Joanne Lockwood: community into the into the boardroom. I I still see
Joanne Lockwood: that there's a huge way to go there, isn't there? Yeah. Look.
Neil Carberry: Absolutely. And I think, yeah, I'll give you an
Neil Carberry: example. We've been doing some work with, the
Neil Carberry: primary suppliers into the CCS, the the,
Neil Carberry: the, government commercial services, recruitment,
Neil Carberry: recruitment frameworks recently. Based on the
Neil Carberry: fact that government felt it wasn't making enough progress
Neil Carberry: on, diversity in its recruitment
Neil Carberry: process. And there was a bit of a bit of
Neil Carberry: people pointing at each other here. You know, it's it's the recruiters. They don't give
Neil Carberry: us the diverse lists. Well, yes.
Neil Carberry: But let's should we take a quick look at what you the brief you've
Neil Carberry: given us? You know, government, for an as an example, government, for instance,
Neil Carberry: is really interested in people who have backgrounds in certain
Neil Carberry: consultancies. And while those consultancies might be performing better now
Neil Carberry: on diversity, 10 years ago, they weren't. So if you're looking at
Neil Carberry: people who who were in those businesses 10 years ago, you're already
Neil Carberry: skewing the the the pitch. Another thing would be
Neil Carberry: even if you just write in this person must be security cleared.
Neil Carberry: Well, why do they have to be security cleared to get the job? Surely, you
Neil Carberry: security clear them after they get the Jo, and shall we have a look at
Neil Carberry: the demographics of the group of people who are security cleared?
Neil Carberry: So there's a there's a bay I I I feel very
Neil Carberry: strongly there's a big role for our members at the REC, for
Neil Carberry: recruiters, to be having much
Neil Carberry: more, in-depth discussions with
Neil Carberry: their, with their clients about what do you really
Neil Carberry: mean? When I was on I was the CBI rep on the Parker review
Neil Carberry: committee on, I think diversity on boards. And the big
Neil Carberry: decision we made was there were enough candidates out there
Neil Carberry: to make significant progress on,
Neil Carberry: on, appointments to boards from British
Neil Carberry: minority ethnic groups. They just weren't where
Neil Carberry: average British companies were looking at the time because they weren't in
Neil Carberry: within the network you refer to, Joanne. So some of
Neil Carberry: this comes back to, at the risk of talking
Neil Carberry: my own book, the nature of how we recruit and
Neil Carberry: appoint and how we do
Neil Carberry: that as an as a
Neil Carberry: professional, service,
Neil Carberry: not as a process. Because we know
Neil Carberry: that we know that technology will change recruitment and we should use
Neil Carberry: technology. But we also know that we have to use technology
Neil Carberry: well to make sure it's positive, not negative on inclusion.
Neil Carberry: And actually, the skill for recruiters is going to be advising
Neil Carberry: clients on workforce planning. Part of which is effective
Neil Carberry: diversity and inclusion in their processes. And
Neil Carberry: that means we are going to have to get better as an industry. And I
Neil Carberry: was I've talked to several, chief
Neil Carberry: execs of REC members just this week who are telling me the story, which is
Neil Carberry: saying, no. No. That's not how you want to do it. We want
Neil Carberry: you should be doing it like that. You know, one of the,
Neil Carberry: one of the taglines I've been using for our recruitment and recovery
Neil Carberry: campaign is no chief executive would go to the high court without the
Neil Carberry: best lawyers. Yeah. If they genuinely believe
Neil Carberry: that, in inverted commas, people are our greatest asset, and
Neil Carberry: all the survey data says that beside product product quality, that
Neil Carberry: is the thing that business leaders think, then
Neil Carberry: go and get them with genuine professional advice and fishing in the
Neil Carberry: widest pool possible. You know, you said yourself at
Neil Carberry: the at the top of the pod, Joanne, that the data
Neil Carberry: is pretty clear on this. It's actually the translation of that data into action that
Neil Carberry: matters. And I think there's a huge role for recruiters in in starting
Neil Carberry: to change that perception and being willing to look at
Neil Carberry: a job description and go back to clients and say, do you really mean that?
Neil Carberry: Do you really need that? Why why
Neil Carberry: this and not that? I think that process is increasingly where
Neil Carberry: recruiters will deliver the value that they deliver to clients.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, certainly the top end if you if you really are trying to
Joanne Lockwood: create genuine diversity of of mix
Joanne Lockwood: of people on boards. Well, I I've read some some
Joanne Lockwood: Ned role profiles, personality profiles that people are
Joanne Lockwood: looking for, and I look at them and think, wow, that's
Joanne Lockwood: too aspirational. That's that's that doesn't sound like anything I could do. You know, you
Joanne Lockwood: must have risk analysis skills. Not all these come from, you know, the basic
Joanne Lockwood: governance structure you would have. And so I say
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes we're over expecting somebody who is embarking on their
Joanne Lockwood: 1st net role or their 1st board position to have a lot of these skills.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we end up putting a lot of people off and you mentioned sort
Joanne Lockwood: of widening the net. I think in some cases, what we actually need to do
Joanne Lockwood: without getting caught up in too many metaphors is is change the pond, go
Joanne Lockwood: somewhere different and and fish or spearfish or target
Joanne Lockwood: people. A phrase I love is if a hard to reach
Joanne Lockwood: people reach harder. And I think often what we do is we give up too
Joanne Lockwood: quickly or we're board is under
Joanne Lockwood: such pressure to fill that vacancy. The chairs on a
Joanne Lockwood: rotation design, they've done their 9 years or their 6 years. They have to resign
Joanne Lockwood: this year. And then, wait. In order to meet that AGM, we must have
Joanne Lockwood: appointed by here. We must have yeah. And then, oh, actually, we should have started
Joanne Lockwood: 2 months ago. So we don't always have the time
Joanne Lockwood: to look and hunt and and target people who
Joanne Lockwood: are nontraditional, because of the
Joanne Lockwood: the priorities. But, you know, you go out to the same search firms, you engage
Joanne Lockwood: the same people and the the candidate profile, the recruitment
Joanne Lockwood: marketing you're doing tend to be very bland and similar and
Joanne Lockwood: not unique. So I think we we keep doing the same things, you know, and
Joanne Lockwood: getting the same results. And sometimes you gotta say, well, actually, maybe we don't go
Joanne Lockwood: to the same search firms. We go to maybe
Joanne Lockwood: BAME specialists or or or diverse board specialists,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe they're not specialists in board positions, but maybe they
Joanne Lockwood: they have hired in senior roles and have a track record.
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's the problem. We we we keep not planning ahead, you know,
Joanne Lockwood: workforce planning, board succession planning, these kind of things, and actually
Joanne Lockwood: seeing what what is the profile of the
Joanne Lockwood: person that is gonna add something, not just their the
Joanne Lockwood: pure governance side, but it's that lived experience. I think that's the challenge I see
Joanne Lockwood: is people not having enough time to make
Joanne Lockwood: those those long game decisions. They're they're too rushed into
Joanne Lockwood: it. So what do you think of that? My observation would be that we always
Neil Carberry: have more time than we think we have. So one of the one of the
Neil Carberry: questions that, we should ask ourselves are
Neil Carberry: are, you know, what assumptions are we making that actually we could
Neil Carberry: challenge? I was recently involved in the appointment
Neil Carberry: of, some nonexecs to a board where,
Neil Carberry: the chair rightly took the decision to stop the process because
Neil Carberry: they didn't like the diversity of the of the long list,
Neil Carberry: we went round again and made much better
Neil Carberry: appointments, which, yes, absolutely,
Neil Carberry: met the, inclusion goals that the chair
Neil Carberry: had, but actually appointed better directors as well.
Neil Carberry: And, you know, this fallacy that these two things,
Neil Carberry: are in any way in opportune, opposition
Neil Carberry: to each other, really does need to be challenged. I think you come you come
Neil Carberry: right back to what I said earlier about Antonio Horta or Sario at law
Neil Carberry: at Lloyd's. It's when you change the rules of the game
Neil Carberry: that people change behavior. So,
Neil Carberry: it is about kind of are you really under as much time
Neil Carberry: pressure as as you think you are? And if you are,
Neil Carberry: then the answer is to start earlier and to plan better.
Neil Carberry: Jo there's a whole
Neil Carberry: yeah. We are at risk of kind of massively
Neil Carberry: mixed sets of metaphors, but, you know, I I I'm following
Neil Carberry: we started, so I'm gonna finish. You know, it's it's it's about what, you know,
Neil Carberry: what's in our toolbox because we probably have a bit more than
Neil Carberry: we appreciate. It's I suppose it's the it's the
Neil Carberry: HR professionals version of the candidate who's sitting there
Neil Carberry: going, I can't do any of that. Why would I apply?
Neil Carberry: A a thought on which as we as we run past it. One of the
Neil Carberry: things I used to do when I was a recruiter, when people saw job
Neil Carberry: descriptions that they, thought were,
Neil Carberry: beyond them, is I used to say to them, you know, go and have a
Neil Carberry: look at the job description that Boots puts in
Neil Carberry: its window for Christmas stuff. This was the late nineties, so I'm not having
Neil Carberry: a pop up, at Boots today. But they used to have this
Neil Carberry: Christmas stuff thing that went up in August, September
Neil Carberry: time. And I used to read it occasionally when I was gonna get a toothpaste
Neil Carberry: or whatever. And you'd think they were looking for someone to work on the
Neil Carberry: Manhattan Project rather than be a
Neil Carberry: Christmas, a temporary member member
Neil Carberry: staff staff at Boots. And, of course, what that
Neil Carberry: does is it rewards a certain type of confidence.
Neil Carberry: And you ask, well, where does that confidence come from? It comes from those who
Neil Carberry: are culturally comfortable in the, in the environment that you have now.
Neil Carberry: You know, Canter's prosocial reproduction is alive and well
Neil Carberry: and, and with us. So
Neil Carberry: challenging our processes on,
Neil Carberry: what we ask people for and
Neil Carberry: appreciating that candidates will have different confidence levels
Neil Carberry: in in the environment they work in. Those
Neil Carberry: two things, are absolutely critical
Neil Carberry: and can only be driven by leaders who
Neil Carberry: are willing to change the rules from what went before.
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's quite profound. I think that I I agree that
Joanne Lockwood: that that's the, again, one of the other things I hear from
Joanne Lockwood: people is not knowing where to start, you know, DNI, whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: culture change, where do we start, how do we how do we embark on this.
Joanne Lockwood: And that that Joanne be a real challenge if you haven't got a playbook,
Joanne Lockwood: you haven't got a DNI team, you've done none of this, You you got this
Joanne Lockwood: fear of getting it wrong, you don't know how to communicate with your staff, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: you haven't got the inclusive leadership sorted out in your organization. So not knowing where
Joanne Lockwood: to start. And I think everything you're talking about that you just said
Joanne Lockwood: is is is not I was gonna say idealistic. It shouldn't be idealistic. It should
Joanne Lockwood: be realistic. It should be realistic. It should be something that people aspire to.
Joanne Lockwood: But, really, how do people know where to start with this?
Joanne Lockwood: When people say that to you, what what do you push back with?
Neil Carberry: I think there are a couple of things. The role of leaders is not to
Neil Carberry: make every decision in the business. It's to put up signposts. So
Neil Carberry: always think about what you're rewarding and what you're challenging.
Neil Carberry: Just make sure that what you're rewarding is pushing you in the right
Neil Carberry: direction. I I think the biggest misnomer
Neil Carberry: on this is people thinking
Neil Carberry: we have to, you know, we have to make this front and center, and we
Neil Carberry: have to have it all fixed in 6 months. It's fundamental
Neil Carberry: and cultural. You are not going to, to fix it
Neil Carberry: in 6 months. It's gonna take years years years.
Neil Carberry: I, you know, I like the kind of the Joel Grimond quote
Neil Carberry: about, you know, always going towards the sound of gunfire. And
Neil Carberry: I I think that's the way leaders should approach this, which is
Neil Carberry: just because it's big and difficult and you're not gonna fix it
Neil Carberry: in 6 months or a year, doesn't mean you can't do your bit
Neil Carberry: on getting getting on the path towards where the gunfire is.
Neil Carberry: So it's about the same post you put up. It's about what you reward. It's
Neil Carberry: about having a plan and and making sure that you
Neil Carberry: follow through on it. And you
Neil Carberry: mentioned fear of getting it wrong. I think the
Neil Carberry: biggest single thing that stays,
Neil Carberry: leaders' hands we talked about confidence in the corporate environment and
Neil Carberry: how how that pays, the
Neil Carberry: events. We talked about kind of,
Neil Carberry: yeah, the role of white men in,
Neil Carberry: as allies earlier. I think the challenge is
Neil Carberry: that doing things the same, lots
Neil Carberry: of leaders have confidence over. I people
Neil Carberry: are terribly, terribly concerned
Neil Carberry: about putting a foot wrong, the wrong phraseology,
Neil Carberry: the wrong initiative. I
Neil Carberry: think you almost have to accept that occasionally you will get things wrong,
Neil Carberry: but that if you're acting with good intentions
Neil Carberry: and you've done your listening upfront, so you've done
Neil Carberry: enough of the path finding that you need to do to understand where people with
Neil Carberry: lived experience are coming from, then when you do get
Neil Carberry: something a little bit wrong, you usually get forgiven for it because which
Neil Carberry: of us hasn't made a mistake?
Joanne Lockwood: So your role at the moment is you're you're you're the chief exec of the
Joanne Lockwood: REC, which is a, a membership organization
Joanne Lockwood: representing recruitment organizations, agency RPO.
Joanne Lockwood: So, what are you as a body pushing
Joanne Lockwood: forward with your members? What's your advice you're giving
Joanne Lockwood: right now to your members? So the REC is trade
Neil Carberry: association professional body, 10,000, individual members
Neil Carberry: and 3,000 company members, very
Neil Carberry: focused on three things. 1,
Neil Carberry: representing the industry to the world outside the industry,
Neil Carberry: which we talked a little bit about earlier about the difference we can make for
Neil Carberry: clients and then, obviously, there's government relations there as well.
Neil Carberry: 2, helping members understand how their businesses can grow. So there's an angle
Neil Carberry: there around productivity, and and
Neil Carberry: actually diversity within the industry itself on our own staff.
Neil Carberry: And then thirdly, on standards of doing well, you know, we want people
Neil Carberry: to actually choose an REC member and increasingly,
Neil Carberry: you know, supply chain transparency is not gonna go away as a as an issue
Neil Carberry: of concern to clients. And increasingly,
Neil Carberry: we will see how are you helping us
Neil Carberry: make a difference on our social commitments and our
Neil Carberry: economic commitments to inclusion in what we do
Neil Carberry: come through the ask from the client side. And, actually, we should be
Neil Carberry: actively encouraging clients to go down that path as many
Neil Carberry: REC members are and we do through our good recruitment collective. So
Neil Carberry: the REC's job is basically to help,
Neil Carberry: recruiters find their way through that. And some of that's
Neil Carberry: about, a helping
Neil Carberry: them to win business on, professional
Neil Carberry: services basis through through the
Neil Carberry: standards of their compliance and their initiatives on diversity
Neil Carberry: inclusion. Some of it's about giving recognition to the work that they're doing,
Neil Carberry: And some of it's just about really top notch advice on what they might be
Neil Carberry: able to do. And all of that is,
Neil Carberry: is right at the heart of, I think, the good that we
Neil Carberry: see recruiters doing for for the UK and the recovery. So you
Neil Carberry: expect to see quite a lot actually through the second and
Neil Carberry: third quarter of 2021 from the REC
Neil Carberry: talking about inclusion as part of
Neil Carberry: the recovery plan that recruiters can deliver. But
Neil Carberry: also kinda looking into the mirror a little bit and saying, well, how can we
Neil Carberry: as an industry up our game? So, quite a bit to come
Neil Carberry: over the next few months and and certainly right at the heart of my agenda
Neil Carberry: as chief exec.
Joanne Lockwood: So one final leading question. So if you've got a crystal ball, I mean, I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate if you had a crystal ball this time last year, you wouldn't have seen
Joanne Lockwood: what happened. But what what do you think is going to be the big the
Joanne Lockwood: big key element of the business in the next 12 months? Obviously
Joanne Lockwood: we've got the lockdown coming out of Lockwood, coexisting, So what's your
Joanne Lockwood: what's your kind of your gotcha? What should we be looking out for?
Neil Carberry: Follow the money with business is usually the the 2. I'm a
Neil Carberry: massive optimism, well of optimism about the
Neil Carberry: British economy. So I'm I'm more in the Andy Haldane camp if you're following the
Neil Carberry: Bank of England than anything else. Savings rates in the
Neil Carberry: UK, peaked last year at a rate not seen since the
Neil Carberry: second World War. Many companies are sitting on,
Neil Carberry: cash as well. As uncertainty goes away, we can expect a
Neil Carberry: pretty big economic bounce through the,
Neil Carberry: through the rest of this year. A bit more worried further out once that cash
Neil Carberry: what washes through the system about inflation and so forth, but I think I I
Neil Carberry: expect the recovery to be quite quick. The exam question
Neil Carberry: is, what are we gonna do with that recovery? Are we just gonna try and
Neil Carberry: service the demand in the same old ways,
Neil Carberry: or we're gonna do some things that are fundamentally different, whether that's how
Neil Carberry: we, deliver digitally,
Neil Carberry: whether it's how we,
Neil Carberry: deliver in person, you know, with the question of where we work
Neil Carberry: that we discussed. Critically,
Neil Carberry: how do we manage that economic transition so that it's inclusive?
Neil Carberry: Whether that's our young people who are facing the toughest labor market
Neil Carberry: for young people that we've seen in a generation or
Neil Carberry: whether it's many people who are
Neil Carberry: struggling to transition out of, of
Neil Carberry: industries that are shrinking and are in secular rather than cyclical decline
Neil Carberry: or whether it's stepping up our game on inclusion. I think there's a huge
Neil Carberry: challenge there to business on
Neil Carberry: are we just going to enjoy a cyclical
Neil Carberry: fast recovery or are we gonna ride that
Neil Carberry: wave? And as we ride that wave, do some big long term strategic change.
Neil Carberry: I think this it's really interesting to see the amount of debate that's
Neil Carberry: out there about better business. Now you look at the work Julian Rich has been
Neil Carberry: doing for Richard Sounds, as part of
Neil Carberry: that. I do think that there's a bit of a moment here that we
Neil Carberry: can grab hold of and I think the exam question for British business
Neil Carberry: is, yeah, how are we really going to make this
Neil Carberry: a moment where, business shows
Neil Carberry: how it can drive a better outcome for people across Britain in the decade to
Neil Carberry: come. Thank you, Neil. There's so
Joanne Lockwood: much we've covered over the last hour, to take inspiration
Joanne Lockwood: from. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they wanna be presume
Joanne Lockwood: if you're happy to connect or can they find out more about the REC?
Neil Carberry: Absolutely. If you want to find out more about the REC and the work we're
Neil Carberry: doing, it's https://rec.uk.com, on, the
Neil Carberry: Internet, or you can always hit me up on Twitter. I'm @recneil. Fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, a huge thank you and
Joanne Lockwood: I appreciate your time today. That's been extremely interesting and I've certainly got
Joanne Lockwood: a lot out of this. A huge thank you to you the listener for
Joanne Lockwood: tuning in, listening in this far. If you're
Joanne Lockwood: new to the show then please do subscribe to keep updates on future episodes
Joanne Lockwood: of the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's B-I-T-E-S. Tell
Joanne Lockwood: your friends, tell your colleagues, please do share. I've
Joanne Lockwood: got a number of other exciting guests lined up over the next few
Joanne Lockwood: weeks months that you'll I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by. So also, if
Joanne Lockwood: you'd like to be a guest, then please do let me know. I welcome any
Joanne Lockwood: feedback and suggestions you might have for future shows how I can improve to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And finally,
Joanne Lockwood: it just remains for me to say thank you. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and
Joanne Lockwood: it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye.