Joanne Lockwood: Hello everyone, my name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host
Joanne Lockwood: for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I
Joanne Lockwood: have interviewed a number of amazing people that simply had a
Joanne Lockwood: conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging
Joanne Lockwood: and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
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Joanne Lockwood: line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehapen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happan dot Co dot Uk. You can
Joanne Lockwood: catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places.
Joanne Lockwood: So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf
Joanne Lockwood: and let's get going.
Joanne Lockwood: Today is episode 93 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title engineering inclusive excellence
Joanne Lockwood: and I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Claire
Joanne Lockwood: Angliss. Claire is a leader of learning for
Joanne Lockwood: large engineering organisation and is also the
Joanne Lockwood: owner of her own inclusive coaching business. When I
Joanne Lockwood: asked Claire to describe her superpower, she said she is
Joanne Lockwood: honest and delivers clear talk backed up
Joanne Lockwood: with action. Wow. Hey, Claire, welcome to the
Joanne Lockwood: show. Hi Jo. So nice of you to invite me
Claire Angliss: to talk today. Absolute pleasure. We've
Joanne Lockwood: worked together in the past and it was an honour to invite you along
Joanne Lockwood: and even more of an honour for you to accept. Thank you. So,
Joanne Lockwood: Claire, engineering inclusive
Joanne Lockwood: excellence, tell me why we chose that as a title.
Claire Angliss: Well, Jo, as you know, I'm the head of learning for Thales in the
Claire Angliss: UK and we've been looking at engineering excellence
Claire Angliss: within our business and leadership for a long period of time
Claire Angliss: now. And when I talk about engineering excellence, I'm really talking
Claire Angliss: about a place where everyone feels valued and that they can
Claire Angliss: contribute their best. So all of that
Claire Angliss: head in for any engineering organisation, in delivery for the
Claire Angliss: customer, of course. But a place where people can achieve
Claire Angliss: and thrive and feel that they belong, feel that they're
Claire Angliss: trusted, feel that they can contribute and be their
Claire Angliss: most authentic selves, that they feel they want to be at work.
Joanne Lockwood: That's easier said than done, isn't it? I mean, we hear this buzword, bring
Joanne Lockwood: your whole self to work. And I always say, well, that's easy to you,
Joanne Lockwood: easy for you, because the further you are from the bell curve of
Joanne Lockwood: normality, the harder it is to bring that whole self, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? That's why I chose my words really carefully there, Jo, because
Claire Angliss: I said that you choose to do. Because I think
Claire Angliss: I had a conversation and I'm trying to remember where it was. It
Claire Angliss: was a couple of years ago now, at a learning conference I was
Claire Angliss: at and I was listening to a speaker there who was talking about bringing your
Claire Angliss: whole self to work. And I was thinking, the same as you. That's really easy
Claire Angliss: if your whole self is something that's well accepted
Claire Angliss: or very, I guess, the norm of where
Claire Angliss: you work. And they were talking about
Claire Angliss: a really senior leader in a large, organised, complex
Claire Angliss: organisation and saying that they'd been talking about how
Claire Angliss: you were your most authentic self at work. And he had
Claire Angliss: been sharing that he couldn't possibly be that.
Claire Angliss: And the reason was that his extracurricular activity
Claire Angliss: was one that maybe others wouldn't understand
Claire Angliss: and wouldn't accept. And being a very senior
Claire Angliss: leader, he decided that he wouldn't share
Claire Angliss: that. His choice of
Claire Angliss: extracurricular was to be naked in the woods with other people
Claire Angliss: that like natureism and love to be outdoors naked in
Claire Angliss: the woods. So he made a decision not to share what his extracurricular kind
Claire Angliss: of hobies were outside of work. And I guess that's where
Claire Angliss: I share my words really carefully. It's of what you
Claire Angliss: choose, of what is comfortable. And I would have loved to get to a
Claire Angliss: place, Jo, as you know, where we could really be our most
Claire Angliss: authentic selves. But it's always about what you choose to share about
Claire Angliss: you, because there will always things about everybody we choose not
Claire Angliss: to. So I think that's important, that as
Claire Angliss: HR and learning leaders, we're really understanding that you can't
Claire Angliss: possibly be asking that of everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: No. And picking up on that particular example,
Joanne Lockwood: the natureism, this person's sort of
Joanne Lockwood: weekend community and hobby, or their lifestyle,
Joanne Lockwood: whichever makes them happy. It's coming in to
Joanne Lockwood: work on a Monday morning or having taken some time off.
Joanne Lockwood: So what did you get up to? And then immediately this person's having to cover,
Joanne Lockwood: mask, hide what they've done,
Joanne Lockwood: sanitise their response. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: a huge cognitive load for people to have to process it.
Joanne Lockwood: You say they choose to share that or not. By choosing
Joanne Lockwood: not to share it, they choose to create
Joanne Lockwood: a story and a myth, which is even harder sometimes to maintain.
Claire Angliss: I think that's absolutely right. I guess what I
Claire Angliss: see as our kind of role to play is to help people to be
Claire Angliss: able to share the things that they feel they'd like to and that
Claire Angliss: they can balance with. This is something that's
Claire Angliss: really important to me, and I don't want to mask this.
Claire Angliss: It causes me more distress if I do to.
Claire Angliss: Actually, I'm a senior financial controller in a large organisation
Claire Angliss: and this is what I choose to do at my weekends and actually
Claire Angliss: the outlying kind of balance in what would happen if I
Claire Angliss: did choose that. And actually it's private to me, I don't really
Claire Angliss: want to. I guess that's where I'm coming from. It's
Claire Angliss: more. If you choose not to share that because
Claire Angliss: for you, it's just not something you feel comfortable sharing, then I'm
Claire Angliss: okay with that. But what I don't want is for people clearly to be
Claire Angliss: not sharing things that then causes them pain not to share.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I completely agree. And the pressure to out yourself on
Joanne Lockwood: everything, if you like, can't be there either. And just
Joanne Lockwood: because someone maybe is gay, bi,
Joanne Lockwood: lesbian, it doesn't need to bring that to work. If you're
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable saying, actually, it's none of your business who I sleep with, who I have
Joanne Lockwood: relationships with. I don't feel the need. I'm not hiding myself, I'm just
Joanne Lockwood: choosing not to share that. It doesn't matter to me. Yeah. And some
Claire Angliss: folk, it's a big part of who they are and it's what they want to
Claire Angliss: share. I guess it's like any of us. There are things that I
Claire Angliss: might choose to share. When I was going through a divorce, did I choose
Claire Angliss: to share that at work? Not with everybody. With the people that I
Claire Angliss: felt needed to know to support me, but not with everybody.
Claire Angliss: And that was testament. When I changed my name from Mortimer to
Claire Angliss: Anglis back to my maiden name, the amount of people that congratulated me on
Claire Angliss: getting married, there was far more awkward conversations
Claire Angliss: about congratulations on being married than there was probably
Claire Angliss: that if I'd have had the conversation that I was divorced,
Claire Angliss: but I just felt it was no one else's business and I didn't really need
Claire Angliss: to. So when people push for people to share everything,
Claire Angliss: but it's a really inclusive space and you can share whatever you want to
Claire Angliss: share your truth, I think that is always with
Claire Angliss: choice, and that should be made really clear that it's not
Claire Angliss: an expectation that you do that, but if it's right for you,
Claire Angliss: then you can. Yeah. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think the key thing really is you should have an ultimate expectation
Joanne Lockwood: if you do decide to share something, people go,
Joanne Lockwood: wow, excellent. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you for trusting me.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's the kind of the reaction. It's not sort of like, oh, oMg. Or
Joanne Lockwood: sort of run for the hills. It's kind of a, yeah, okay,
Joanne Lockwood: actually, so and so down the corridor, it has a similar
Joanne Lockwood: lifestyle, have a chat with them and suddenly there's a network built up and you
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly feel fine that other people can share that as well.
Joanne Lockwood: And obviously went through the same thing obviously went through
Joanne Lockwood: the same thing seven or eight years ago. Where you end up building up this
Joanne Lockwood: huge backstory about everything. And
Joanne Lockwood: wherever the old adage is, it's always easier to tell the truth because you never
Joanne Lockwood: have to remember what the lie was or what the fabrication was. And
Joanne Lockwood: I found myself going away for weekends and my social
Joanne Lockwood: engagements, and people would say, what'd you do last night? I said, well, I
Joanne Lockwood: went for a stag weekend, which at the time wasn't technically a
Joanne Lockwood: lie. It wasn't technically a truth. It was kind of an easy way of saying
Joanne Lockwood: I went away with a load of people to Blackpool for a bit of a
Joanne Lockwood: stag weekend. The fact it was a load of trans women having
Joanne Lockwood: a weekend away, trying to explore themselves and have some time out,
Joanne Lockwood: you end up making the story up and then you finally
Joanne Lockwood: do share something and it becomes people then feel
Joanne Lockwood: a bit lied to if you're not careful. You've been deceiving me, you've been telling
Joanne Lockwood: me this all this time. So, yeah, it's that really fine line
Joanne Lockwood: between lying to people about what you're doing and choosing not to share, hasn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? And I found that was a real awkwardness where people said, oh, you've been
Joanne Lockwood: lying. I guess we do that though, Jo, don't we? To protect people somewhat
Claire Angliss: as well, because people tend to want to help. So if
Claire Angliss: you tell someone something, they then tend to feel like there's
Claire Angliss: something they should do about it. And I think that goes back to your point,
Claire Angliss: how to react when someone shares something like that with you. Because if you'd have
Claire Angliss: shared your truth, I wonder how many people would have wanted to help or
Claire Angliss: support or talk about what you were going through that
Claire Angliss: were totally unequipped to do so. That would
Claire Angliss: have been actually of hindrance at that moment in your life,
Claire Angliss: rather than help, potentially, but actually,
Claire Angliss: how we respond to someone when they share their truth with
Claire Angliss: us, or are open about who and what they
Claire Angliss: choose to do. I guess it's a case of us not feeling
Claire Angliss: like we need to help support, fix or do
Claire Angliss: something with that person and just say, thank you for sharing that. Is there any
Claire Angliss: support, like, from me, maybe is a good question, rather.
Claire Angliss: Oh, that sounds really interesting. Tell me more.
Claire Angliss: I really didn't know. I'm so sorry, Jo. You're going through all this because
Claire Angliss: actually that wasn't how you were feeling.
Joanne Lockwood: It's interesting, you mentioned a couple of things there. So you mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: that our human need to fix and
Joanne Lockwood: the sympathy and the, oh, you're brave,
Joanne Lockwood: or you're so courageous.
Joanne Lockwood: Everyone's obviously well meaning, but they're not actually
Joanne Lockwood: responding to you. They're responding about themselves, aren't they? It's all about
Joanne Lockwood: them. Oh, you're so. It means I couldn't do
Joanne Lockwood: so. You're courageous means, oh, wow, that scares
Joanne Lockwood: me. And then this listening to fix, isn't it sort
Joanne Lockwood: of like, let me help you. Let me solve your problem, because you're obviously not
Joanne Lockwood: intelligent enough to fix your own problem. You need my suggestion to fix it for
Joanne Lockwood: you. And I can say something and they're going to go, wow, Jo, I could
Joanne Lockwood: have done that without you. How amazing. Yeah, I agree,
Claire Angliss: Jo. Yeah. I was chatting to someone on a podcast
Joanne Lockwood: this episode last week, Greg, and it's coming out a couple
Joanne Lockwood: weeks time. And he was saying that when he was going through a really dark
Joanne Lockwood: time and contemplated suicide at some
Joanne Lockwood: point, and when he was telling people about it, he said it was really hard
Joanne Lockwood: to find people who would just say, thank you for sharing
Joanne Lockwood: that. Do you want to talk about it more? Do you want to explore it?
Joanne Lockwood: Rather than the natural reaction is what can I do to help? Or what can
Joanne Lockwood: I do to fix it? Actually, just listening to me, let me understand
Joanne Lockwood: why I'm in this dark place. Give me space to
Joanne Lockwood: speak, is what it is. And it's really hard to
Joanne Lockwood: not chip in with an answer than that. And I think that's the challenge.
Claire Angliss: Yeah, that kind of takes us as well. Sorry, Jay. That
Claire Angliss: takes us to this kind of leadership piece as well, because that's
Claire Angliss: about that connection being based upon, I guess,
Claire Angliss: love, rather than a need to lead or fix or
Claire Angliss: nurture. And that's around that genuine kind of empathy,
Claire Angliss: compassion, genuine care. And I'm not suggesting that someone that
Claire Angliss: offers support isn't offering that care, but
Claire Angliss: actually, when you really think about what someone else needs rather than what you
Claire Angliss: need in that moment, quite often it is someone
Claire Angliss: just wants to talk and share what's going on for them,
Claire Angliss: or they're just telling you because you asked a question, right? If someone says, what
Claire Angliss: did you do at the weekend? And you said, well, as you said, Jo, I
Claire Angliss: was with a group of friends, and it was a group of trans women
Claire Angliss: exploring and taking some time out together,
Claire Angliss: I guess you wanted to share that if you felt
Claire Angliss: that with me, you could share that. And
Claire Angliss: that sounds like an interesting weekend. Did you have a good time?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, exactly. And it was. But I think you're
Joanne Lockwood: right. I wasn't comfortable enough in my own skin
Joanne Lockwood: or where I was heading in my life.
Joanne Lockwood: So that
Joanne Lockwood: private weekend wasn't necessarily something that was worth
Joanne Lockwood: sharing at that point, because I didn't know what it meant. I had no
Joanne Lockwood: context. If someone asked me a question about it, I couldn't answer any
Joanne Lockwood: question about it. Just was. So you're right, I
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't hiding myself specifically, it was just nothing I wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: share. So you mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: earlier the concept of allowing people to thrive and
Joanne Lockwood: belong, and I'm a great believer in those two words.
Joanne Lockwood: Firstly, thrive. I should succeed or fail based on my
Joanne Lockwood: own merits. And the environment around me allows me to
Joanne Lockwood: succeed or fail on my own merits or gives me a
Joanne Lockwood: comfort, blank insecurity to be able to work around that. So the work
Joanne Lockwood: you do in your organisation at the moment, you really
Joanne Lockwood: are focused on creating those environments, aren't you? Yeah, we really are.
Claire Angliss: I think things started. We've always been really
Claire Angliss: passionate about inclusion and I think the
Claire Angliss: beginning, like most organisations, we probably were talking about
Claire Angliss: diversity at that. Know, if we rewind
Claire Angliss: years back, we were definitely talking about having diverse
Claire Angliss: communities rather than inclusion. And I know that we've spoken
Claire Angliss: before about this, Jo, but I think one of the things that really
Claire Angliss: hit a lot of organisations potentially through the
Claire Angliss: lockdown was the whole ed I kind
Claire Angliss: of topic and became very
Claire Angliss: commercial. There were lots of people popping up all over the place that claimed to
Claire Angliss: be ed I experts and lots of folk that
Claire Angliss: have some lived experiences that wanted to be involved in the
Claire Angliss: conversations with corporates. And I think at Thales
Claire Angliss: we were really curious about, well, what does that really look like
Claire Angliss: for us and why would we be doing this? And one of the
Claire Angliss: things that I became quite
Claire Angliss: curious about was figuring out how you talk about Ed I in a
Claire Angliss: business context. So how do you talk
Claire Angliss: about the real kind of
Claire Angliss: sensitive topics rather than just
Claire Angliss: the real obvious ones? So we
Claire Angliss: have measurements against gender
Claire Angliss: and there are some complexities in our
Claire Angliss: organisation because we're a global organisation as
Claire Angliss: to data that we can kind of
Claire Angliss: select and collect, Jo.
Claire Angliss: But ultimately we had some gender
Claire Angliss: targets, but beyond that there was little else. And I know that
Claire Angliss: across the UK business we're really passionate about the
Claire Angliss: topic of inclusion being beyond gender.
Claire Angliss: So we started to think about, well, what does that mean?
Claire Angliss: And I think one of the things that a lot of
Claire Angliss: organisations are struggling with is to create a
Claire Angliss: business conversation around Ed and I,
Claire Angliss: not a conversation around it would be really great if we had diverse
Claire Angliss: communities because, yeah, that would be really great. But
Claire Angliss: folks struggle to put then measurements around that and what's
Claire Angliss: ethically right to measure. How would we measure
Claire Angliss: then? Would we need everyone to disclose? Would we need to
Claire Angliss: have the conversations, Jo, that you and I have just been talking about, would we
Claire Angliss: need everyone to share? Would they feel safe in doing that? What comes
Claire Angliss: first? Do we create a if environment for everyone to share
Claire Angliss: and then we need disclosure and then we can do this and that stops
Claire Angliss: people having the right conversation. So
Claire Angliss: I definitely think the maturity at Thales has been
Claire Angliss: around how we talk in our organisation, around
Claire Angliss: the importance of Ed and I and why
Claire Angliss: it's important to us as a business, not just as an
Claire Angliss: HR topic or as a diversity topic.
Claire Angliss: So, yeah, we've been really passionate and been
Claire Angliss: gaining a lot of momentum over the last couple of years, actually,
Claire Angliss: as an example, in bringing in people like yourself, Jo, to talk to our
Claire Angliss: leadership community, to help them to relate and understand
Claire Angliss: to what inclusion really looks and feels like from a leadership
Claire Angliss: perspective. I'm listening to what you're saying there about the focus,
Joanne Lockwood: maybe over the last two years, around the COVID period, if you like, a
Joanne Lockwood: lot of people talking around diversity, and I think
Joanne Lockwood: it started off the Equality act, the Racial Relations Act,
Joanne Lockwood: Discrimination act. It was all focused on characteristics, all focused on
Joanne Lockwood: providing support, workplace adjustments, a pay gap
Joanne Lockwood: analysis, focus on gender, focus on
Joanne Lockwood: race, disability, with a bit of LGBTQ plus thrown
Joanne Lockwood: in the background. And we're all focusing on single
Joanne Lockwood: strand initiatives, how to employ more women or how
Joanne Lockwood: to increase our ethnic diversity, or whatever it may be,
Joanne Lockwood: without actually putting the structures in place around the belongingness,
Joanne Lockwood: the welcomingness, the culture. And I always
Joanne Lockwood: get frustrated when I'm talking to people about their hiring needs.
Joanne Lockwood: Oh, we want to hire more diverse people, I say, okay, define
Joanne Lockwood: what you mean by more diverse people. Do you mean people not like you? What
Joanne Lockwood: do you mean by more diverse? So do you mean more women, more black
Joanne Lockwood: people, more women of colour, more queer women, more lesbian women? What do you
Joanne Lockwood: mean by that? Okay,
Joanne Lockwood: unless you could be specific about what you're trying to achieve.
Joanne Lockwood: Just by saying we want to hire more diverse people doesn't mean anything. It's not
Joanne Lockwood: a quantifiable, it's a broader cohort or broader diversity
Joanne Lockwood: of people in the funnel. But what do you mean? What's your objective?
Joanne Lockwood: And I agree what you're saying there about the business benefit or the business
Joanne Lockwood: objective, without overshadowing the people element. It's kind of
Joanne Lockwood: got hand in hand, isn't it? But very often people don't have
Joanne Lockwood: a trajectory. I talk about trajectory rather than a target or a
Joanne Lockwood: quota. It's a statement of intense, statement of direction. Bit like the World Economic
Joanne Lockwood: Forum talking about 70 or 80 years for gender
Joanne Lockwood: equity in the western world. What the steps to get
Joanne Lockwood: there because we're not achieving them. So it's more about the steps to get somewhere
Joanne Lockwood: than it is around the actual target, as long as we're showing those
Joanne Lockwood: steps incremental and making a difference.
Claire Angliss: And I also think that Jo, that businesses are waiting
Claire Angliss: for it to be perfect before they take action. So they're
Claire Angliss: tentatively saying we want it to be a diverse
Claire Angliss: business, but they're really worried about
Claire Angliss: exposing themselves to not be perfect. So we're not
Claire Angliss: perfect at Thales, we know that. Can we do
Claire Angliss: more to make our culture more inclusive? Absolutely. Of course we can and we will
Claire Angliss: continue to do so. Do we have a
Claire Angliss: diverse group of talent in our business right now? We
Claire Angliss: do, but not where we would like it to be. And when you say,
Claire Angliss: well, where is that? Well that's a place where
Claire Angliss: I sit around a board table and I see and feel
Claire Angliss: difference in the room and there's a collective intelligence of
Claire Angliss: difference. And that therefore means I'm not talking
Claire Angliss: about gender or race and ethnicity. It's a
Claire Angliss: lot more than that. It's about neurodivergence, it's about all of those
Claire Angliss: topics and differences. And
Claire Angliss: therefore I think you can't really have a
Claire Angliss: strategy that's one dimensional. So you can't say,
Claire Angliss: okay, this year we're going to be focused on ethnicity, or this year
Claire Angliss: we're going to be focused on this. Totalis
Claire Angliss: Veterans is a really important
Claire Angliss: pool of people that we want to be included in our
Claire Angliss: workforce. So there's
Claire Angliss: various different pools of people that we want to be attractive to. And I think
Claire Angliss: it's that intersectionality and understanding where all of the
Claire Angliss: crossovers lie. And that's if we can create
Claire Angliss: a safe, trusting, psychologically
Claire Angliss: safe environment for people to work in, then
Claire Angliss: if we talk about that, if we share outside of the
Claire Angliss: organisation and inside of the organisation what we're doing to
Claire Angliss: get to that place, then we will naturally
Claire Angliss: start to attract talent from all
Claire Angliss: different organisations that are not doing that, that are not
Claire Angliss: being overtly explicit in what
Claire Angliss: they're doing. So we've recently launched a number of new policies
Claire Angliss: that support people in our environment, to leaders to
Claire Angliss: have the right conversations and employees to have the right conversations.
Claire Angliss: And we've won awards for those and we're really proud of that
Claire Angliss: because does a policy change a culture? No, of course
Claire Angliss: not. But it does mean for somebody in the business that
Claire Angliss: might be, let's say, transitioning, that they
Claire Angliss: can find that policy and say, what are my rights here? What
Claire Angliss: should I expect this to feel like at work? And I know that's
Claire Angliss: a topic that you and your wife have spoken at Tulis about.
Claire Angliss: And that's really helped us to scope out
Claire Angliss: what our thoughts are as a business and how we support people, because that's really
Claire Angliss: important as leaders and as a business, we understand how we should do
Claire Angliss: that. Right. So you need the policies, but you also need to then talk
Claire Angliss: about that and say, we have these new policies, and
Claire Angliss: this is what we expect of our leaders when someone in their team
Claire Angliss: is talking to them about transitioning. Here you go. This is what we expect
Claire Angliss: from you. And we're really clear that we measure that and we look at it
Claire Angliss: from both sides. The experience of the employee and the experience of the leader.
Claire Angliss: I think, Jo, that does help for people to
Claire Angliss: understand what the culture should feel like and whether or not it would be a
Claire Angliss: safe place to have that level of open conversation and
Claire Angliss: disclosure that they might need to have.
Joanne Lockwood: People generally get it. Let me
Joanne Lockwood: explain what I mean by that. So do they understand why it
Joanne Lockwood: matters, all the things we talk about, Edi,
Joanne Lockwood: HR, positive experiences. Do you think people truly
Joanne Lockwood: get the why, or are they just maybe latching
Joanne Lockwood: on to wokism and politically correctness and we can't say anything
Joanne Lockwood: these days? The average layperson is going, this is
Joanne Lockwood: just too complicated today. Yeah, I think that's
Claire Angliss: a really good point. I don't think they do get it. So in the
Claire Angliss: communities that I kind of am part
Claire Angliss: of, like, say, learning communities, HR communities,
Claire Angliss: I would say that probably about
Claire Angliss: 70% of people still don't get
Claire Angliss: it. And I think in
Claire Angliss: a business it's even less so. I'm really
Claire Angliss: clear when I'm talking about Ed and I that what I'm
Claire Angliss: talking about is this collective intelligence notion.
Claire Angliss: So that we've got. Let's take a problem. Let's take an
Claire Angliss: example in a business. So you've got a problem, you're trying to solve a problem.
Claire Angliss: Who would you best select to be around the table to solve the problem?
Claire Angliss: Now, of course, if it's a technical issue, you've got
Claire Angliss: the technical dimension of the people that will have the knowledge
Claire Angliss: of that technical capability. But other than that,
Claire Angliss: the same people from the same backgrounds, with the same lived
Claire Angliss: experiences, with the same tenure of service, with the same
Claire Angliss: sexuality, with all of those characteristics of the
Claire Angliss: same, are they going to come up with different solutions? Probably not.
Claire Angliss: But then if we start to think, okay, well, let's think about who else we
Claire Angliss: might invite into this. Maybe we bring a graduate in or an apprentice
Claire Angliss: that's not been in the organisation for a long period of time. So
Claire Angliss: therefore they don't know what the rules are. And there's some real benefit in being
Claire Angliss: a novice. So let's bring them into the conversation. Let's bring Jo
Claire Angliss: in who might have a completely different Lyft experience to us,
Claire Angliss: who might be used to thinking differently and might be used
Claire Angliss: to having to navigate change and complexity
Claire Angliss: and difficulty in an organisation. She might have a
Claire Angliss: completely different view on this. So if you start to
Claire Angliss: think about who you've got around your table for problem solving, if they all look,
Claire Angliss: feel and smell the same, you're quite likely to get a
Claire Angliss: very similar answer to your problem. But if it's a different set
Claire Angliss: of folk, then actually who knows how you might end up
Claire Angliss: solving that problem? And that takes you then to innovation, right? So the
Claire Angliss: importance of innovation in business is huge. So why would you choose to
Claire Angliss: have people that are all the same in your
Claire Angliss: organisation? So when you kind of explain it like that to
Claire Angliss: people, most people then go, oh yeah,
Claire Angliss: that makes real sense. So we're not doing this because we
Claire Angliss: want x amount of females in our business, or we want x
Claire Angliss: amount of veterans, or we want to include trans people in our
Claire Angliss: organisation. What we're saying is we want better problem solving
Claire Angliss: and innovation. I get it now, of course, why would we not
Claire Angliss: want people that think differently? So they're neurodivergent people that
Claire Angliss: have had different lived experiences. And I think that helps people to
Claire Angliss: understand why Ed and I is so important.
Claire Angliss: Inclusion is so important in organisations and
Claire Angliss: businesses. But I don't think they get it yet, Jo.
Joanne Lockwood: No. And do people actually,
Joanne Lockwood: we use the word get. Do they get it how difficult it is
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes to be a person of
Joanne Lockwood: uniqueness, whatever that may mean to that person walking to
Joanne Lockwood: a room of difference or the norm, if you like.
Joanne Lockwood: So being the first black woman in senior
Joanne Lockwood: leadership, being the first openly gay
Joanne Lockwood: man in a role or something, just looking
Joanne Lockwood: at tv culture, we look at what goes on, strictly come dancing
Joanne Lockwood: and the pushback around same sex couples and
Joanne Lockwood: different presentations, and we see this all over the place
Joanne Lockwood: where somebody has to break the ground,
Joanne Lockwood: somebody has to walk that path first. And that's not for
Joanne Lockwood: everybody. Not everybody is a groundbreaker or a path
Joanne Lockwood: clearer. So that's a real challenge where
Joanne Lockwood: you are in a monoculture, for want of a better way of
Joanne Lockwood: describing it, or a limited culture, to try and expand that culture
Joanne Lockwood: and allow people to bring their whole self to work or have psychological safety in
Joanne Lockwood: their environment without people being tokenized. It's
Joanne Lockwood: a real challenge to grow that demographic, isn't it? It
Claire Angliss: really is. And that's why I truly believe it's not up
Claire Angliss: to those communities to make the difference. So is it up
Claire Angliss: to. I've been growing our
Claire Angliss: internal Thales black female leaders
Claire Angliss: for a number of years. And is it up to
Claire Angliss: them to drive the agenda for black women in our organisation? No,
Claire Angliss: it's not up to them. It's up to everybody. And that's why
Claire Angliss: leadership and leadership development is so
Claire Angliss: integral for businesses in this space, because it's the space
Claire Angliss: that the leaders create in the organisation for people
Claire Angliss: to feel they can belong. So it's not up to
Claire Angliss: a new female black leader to walk into a room and change the
Claire Angliss: demographic in that room and change the way that they're seen. It's up to the
Claire Angliss: people in the room to do that. They have a part to play. Of course
Claire Angliss: they do, but it's up to all of us.
Claire Angliss: Go back to your initial question. Do I think that people understand
Claire Angliss: that? No, not wholly. We've definitely been having that
Claire Angliss: conversation. And as part of the leadership
Claire Angliss: programmes at Thales, we have collective
Claire Angliss: intelligence as modules within the leadership
Claire Angliss: development and we also run events, live events, Jo, like you were
Claire Angliss: part of for Thales, where we talk about that and we
Claire Angliss: openly talk about the challenges with leaders and how we expect
Claire Angliss: people to lead in our organisation. And I think it's up to
Claire Angliss: organisations to get firmer on that and measure it and make sure that the leaders
Claire Angliss: are creating that space and making
Claire Angliss: that change. But it's certainly not up to the individuals
Claire Angliss: solely to be groundbreakers. I wouldn't be expecting
Claire Angliss: somebody to do that. I think there's a fatigue in that.
Claire Angliss: That is an interesting kind of discussion, Jo,
Claire Angliss: which is how often can you walk in a room and have
Claire Angliss: that conversation? And how often should you have
Claire Angliss: to without then me being the person that
Claire Angliss: raises that as a topic rather than
Claire Angliss: you, even if you're in the room.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm involved with an organisation and
Joanne Lockwood: we have a low representation of people of
Joanne Lockwood: colour across our organisation,
Joanne Lockwood: and that inevitably means we have a lack
Joanne Lockwood: of. Just put it in business context, a lack of talent pipeline. So we
Joanne Lockwood: don't have the level of people coming through
Joanne Lockwood: with their professional skills, we don't have the level of people coming
Joanne Lockwood: through who want to take on leadership or influencer
Joanne Lockwood: roles or people who want to come and win
Joanne Lockwood: awards or be seen on speaking about certain
Joanne Lockwood: topics. So when you look at it through the optics
Joanne Lockwood: of race or colour, then you look at
Joanne Lockwood: it as a very white heavy organisation.
Joanne Lockwood: Gender balance is pretty good, but it's very white.
Joanne Lockwood: And the problem I'm facing is how do we create
Joanne Lockwood: an organisation where people do want to join,
Joanne Lockwood: or they're put off at the very early stages by looking
Joanne Lockwood: at going, oh, this is a very white organisation full of
Joanne Lockwood: old people. It's not for me.
Joanne Lockwood: How do we break that first ground and get a footing or
Joanne Lockwood: an advanced party of people who go, actually, we believe
Joanne Lockwood: you, that you want to make change. We believe you're not trying to tokenize
Joanne Lockwood: us, we believe you're trying to give us chance. So you need a
Joanne Lockwood: very, I would say, a type of
Joanne Lockwood: person who's willing to be that groundbreaker, provide
Joanne Lockwood: their support. And that's the real challenge I'm facing. And I'm just interested to hear
Joanne Lockwood: your thoughts on that in your own organisation. Yeah.
Claire Angliss: So I think it is a challenge, but I think it's
Claire Angliss: one that requires follow through, Jo. So I
Claire Angliss: think it's great to have the attraction campaigns and reaching out
Claire Angliss: to different groups. So in your
Claire Angliss: example, to groups of people of colour, but
Claire Angliss: then you've got to demonstrate that actually, when they join the organisation,
Claire Angliss: that's not it. So then you need the right level of development
Claire Angliss: programmes. You need to show that you do talent reviews that are
Claire Angliss: very specifically focused on colour, maybe, or
Claire Angliss: ethnicity. Then you need to demonstrate that you have
Claire Angliss: the right level of partnerships and that there are people
Claire Angliss: within the senior leadership team that are willing
Claire Angliss: to sponsor and to grow the talent
Claire Angliss: within that kind of pipeline.
Claire Angliss: So I don't think it's a one hit wonder, and I don't think
Claire Angliss: the other part of it is nobody would want to be the spokesperson for
Claire Angliss: an organisation where they felt that was the case and
Claire Angliss: that there were targets placed upon. Let's talk about it from
Claire Angliss: a female perspective. I don't want to work in an organisation that says,
Claire Angliss: well, we wanted 30% of our senior leaders
Claire Angliss: to be women, so therefore we're going to promote Claire because we need
Claire Angliss: another woman and she seems to be the right person from the talent review we've
Claire Angliss: done. So I get the job not through merit, but because I
Claire Angliss: was a woman. And then if we were to look and say, well,
Claire Angliss: if there are no development programmes, then for me to go on. So once I
Claire Angliss: get that role, you don't really want me there, because you're not supporting me to
Claire Angliss: grow and develop, but you want me to do all of your campaigns
Claire Angliss: on LinkedIn and you want me to do. So. If you have an organisation
Claire Angliss: where someone feels like that, why the hell would they want to stay and why
Claire Angliss: would they want to join? The first thing they're going to do is look for
Claire Angliss: other people in the organisation that either look like them or that are
Claire Angliss: from other marginalised groups so that they can see what
Claire Angliss: the business really is doing. So
Claire Angliss: I don't ask our female
Claire Angliss: black leaders to have their photographs taken
Claire Angliss: altogether and do big ad campaigns for
Claire Angliss: attraction. Why don't I? Because they would be the
Claire Angliss: same group of women that have their pictures taken for everything else. Because
Claire Angliss: we don't have a swell of women that can do that. It would be
Claire Angliss: inauthentic and it would be the wrong thing to do. Do we
Claire Angliss: want to grow our talent from that port? Absolutely. We're
Claire Angliss: really passionate, but we want to do that because people want to join. They feel
Claire Angliss: that they'll be promoted and
Claire Angliss: supported and developed. So I've worked on looking at
Claire Angliss: all of the right talent reviews with my talent colleagues and
Claire Angliss: we've looked at the right selection process to make them accessible. We've
Claire Angliss: looked at our early careers programmes to make sure that we've got young
Claire Angliss: black talent coming through our early careers programmes. We looked at executive
Claire Angliss: development so that people can see, when you get to a certain level,
Claire Angliss: do we want you to progress? Absolutely. As a business.
Claire Angliss: We've also spoken about on our gender pay gap
Claire Angliss: release. We also released our ethnicity pay gap. We don't have to
Claire Angliss: report on that, but we want it to be really clear that this is
Claire Angliss: an area we're really passionate about and we can measure it. So we
Claire Angliss: have, and we've shared that and we shared that ahead of having
Claire Angliss: to, because it's really important to us that we attract ethnic
Claire Angliss: talent. So I think it's just really important, Jo, that
Claire Angliss: it's not looked at as an attraction campaign, it's looked at as
Claire Angliss: a holistic business opportunity. Rather
Claire Angliss: know we need to attract more black talent into our pipeline.
Claire Angliss: So therefore we need to recruit from a certain pool or get a
Claire Angliss: certain recruiter to help us and give them some targets. It's so
Claire Angliss: much more complex. And if we talk to people that are joining our
Claire Angliss: organisations, they are looking at all of those things.
Claire Angliss: They're not looking at, will I get the right level and will I get the
Claire Angliss: right pay? They're looking at will you develop me? Are there other people that you
Claire Angliss: can demonstrate you do that with? What else is there
Claire Angliss: and available? Who are the people that interview me? What did they look like? Were
Claire Angliss: they like me? Did they talk about your
Claire Angliss: psychological safety or did they talk about your ethnicity?
Claire Angliss: Challenges in the business? If I raised it, did they
Claire Angliss: want to talk about it when I raised it? So I think that's the other
Claire Angliss: thing is to be really prepared that if you're going
Claire Angliss: to interview a
Claire Angliss: black woman to join your organisation, she may well ask you what you're going to
Claire Angliss: do to help and support her and what you're doing for others and be expectant
Claire Angliss: of that, because people want to be
Claire Angliss: champions and these are the days where people can ask those questions
Claire Angliss: in interviews. So I think we have to be really prepared that
Claire Angliss: we can tell a great story of what inclusion
Claire Angliss: really feels like for a candidate. If you're interviewing.
Claire Angliss: I've ranted loads there, Jo, but I hope you can
Claire Angliss: about that. No, I completely concur. I do.
Joanne Lockwood: And I picked up on a word you said quite early on in that was
Joanne Lockwood: the word merit. It's this whole
Joanne Lockwood: perceived. I'm going to use the BS word, the BS word
Joanne Lockwood: of meritocracy sometimes, where it's perceived to
Joanne Lockwood: be a meritocratic process, but often it's not
Joanne Lockwood: always. And I'm sure as an organisation such as yourself, you must have been working
Joanne Lockwood: on. When you talk about the talent development and the talent identification sort
Joanne Lockwood: of process you do, you are focusing on merit
Joanne Lockwood: in there. But many organisations, who defines who's the best
Joanne Lockwood: person for the job? Often the incumbent
Joanne Lockwood: or the person who's running the team that they've always run, it's
Joanne Lockwood: not often done sort of through a peer review or a
Joanne Lockwood: wider review. And then merit, if you like, is subjective
Joanne Lockwood: and that's the danger sometimes, yeah, absolutely.
Claire Angliss: And that bias creeps in, doesn't it?
Claire Angliss: I think this is where having a really good, robust
Claire Angliss: talent process helps organisations to ensure that
Claire Angliss: the right person is selected for the role. And
Claire Angliss: do we always get it right? I'm sure we don't. I
Claire Angliss: wouldn't ever profess to be perfect at this, but I
Claire Angliss: do think if you have, as we've been saying,
Claire Angliss: a collectively different group of people running
Claire Angliss: those talent reviews, you get different, diverse thoughts
Claire Angliss: on the individuals that you're talking about. So if it's run
Claire Angliss: by senior leaders that might have limited access to those
Claire Angliss: people on a daily, weekly basis, then you're
Claire Angliss: likely to only get what the person has chosen or the person who
Claire Angliss: leads that person has chosen to share about them. If you've then got maybe a
Claire Angliss: customer, or if you've got someone that regularly
Claire Angliss: has interaction with that person, that brings another view.
Claire Angliss: I remember being in talent reviews, not at Thales, I would
Claire Angliss: say, but with other organisations where people will,
Claire Angliss: you know, I haven't really heard much from them this year.
Claire Angliss: They haven't really been doing anything extracurricular they've been
Claire Angliss: quite quiet. I would expect them to have been running this, this and this.
Claire Angliss: And you think, well, wait a minute, they've been on a major programme and
Claire Angliss: been deploying resources all over the place or been leading
Claire Angliss: projects that might not have been on the agenda of the
Claire Angliss: senior leaders or kind of on their radar, but
Claire Angliss: they've been actually delivering for our customers really
Claire Angliss: well. And that might not have been seen, but it's definitely
Claire Angliss: happened. So having the voice of the customer as well in things like your talent
Claire Angliss: reviews is really important.
Joanne Lockwood: You mentioned that the organisation has a
Joanne Lockwood: 30% target, et cetera, et cetera, and you find yourself
Joanne Lockwood: sucked into that target and positioned because you're a
Joanne Lockwood: woman, to hit that 30% target.
Joanne Lockwood: Some of it's got to be psychological from your perspective. I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: just using you as a hypothetical. You not. So you specifically
Joanne Lockwood: where you feel that you are past the target, where
Joanne Lockwood: is there an imposter syndrome there that you don't believe you have the merit
Joanne Lockwood: to succeed without the target? Is there a kind of a chicken and egg there?
Claire Angliss: Yeah, first of all, that was an example. So there are no 30.
Claire Angliss: In my coaching business, I talk to. Actually, quite
Claire Angliss: a lot of women that I talk to will
Claire Angliss: feel like others believe that
Claire Angliss: they are in a role because of their gender and from an
Claire Angliss: ethnicity perspective, definitely, and actually a disability
Claire Angliss: perspective. When I've been coaching people with disability as well, they
Claire Angliss: have all spoken about feeling
Claire Angliss: a little bit of that impostor syndrome. So maybe
Claire Angliss: I wasn't the best person, but I happens to be
Claire Angliss: the person that looks like me or
Claire Angliss: that has a disability. So that's probably the reason why
Claire Angliss: I'm here. And that's really tough
Claire Angliss: on people, and it really lays heavy,
Claire Angliss: and I think we need to be really
Claire Angliss: cognizant of that when we are talking to people about
Claire Angliss: promotion and inclusion in our business,
Claire Angliss: but also not. And not only for them,
Claire Angliss: but for everybody around them, because there
Claire Angliss: is also clearly a message to
Claire Angliss: others that might be part of a norm group. So
Claire Angliss: in industry and in engineering, that might be kind
Claire Angliss: of middle aged white male. There
Claire Angliss: is a message, isn't there? If we're talking lots around inclusion,
Claire Angliss: there's a message that by inclusion, we mean
Claire Angliss: women, we mean black people, we mean transgender, we
Claire Angliss: mean neurodivergent, we don't mean you. And when I talk
Claire Angliss: about inclusion, I am talking about everybody. So
Claire Angliss: when we talk about inclusion, what we should remember is that the
Claire Angliss: messages need to be heard by everybody, that we
Claire Angliss: want you all included. We're not excluding
Claire Angliss: for the need of inclusion. So,
Claire Angliss: yes, I think that weight lays heavy, but it also weighs heavy on
Claire Angliss: others. So when someone gets a promotion and others tell a story
Claire Angliss: to themselves, well, that promotion was given to that person because she's a woman.
Claire Angliss: That can be really hard for that person, because if that's
Claire Angliss: truly what they feel at the time, they also have to work through that.
Claire Angliss: Why do I feel that? Who gave me those messages? What's the story I've told
Claire Angliss: myself? How am I now going to report to that person as a white male
Claire Angliss: when I believe the only reason they were promoted was that they're a female? When
Claire Angliss: I went for the job and I didn't get it, but she got it because
Claire Angliss: she's a woman. So there's also the whole fallout
Claire Angliss: of inclusion, that people that don't feel
Claire Angliss: that inclusion is part of what the business is doing for them as
Claire Angliss: well. So does that play into the
Joanne Lockwood: myth, if you want, or the misconception that hiring for diversity is hiring
Joanne Lockwood: second best because you must be second best because you're a
Joanne Lockwood: diverse candidate, wherever that may mean. Is that a
Joanne Lockwood: pervasive thinking? Maybe amongst the majority? Yeah,
Claire Angliss: I don't know if it's amongst the majority, but certainly people that I coach that
Claire Angliss: talk about impostor syndrome, I definitely think
Claire Angliss: they all would say there was probably a better candidate.
Claire Angliss: That doesn't actually end up being true, by the way. So when you get
Claire Angliss: to the real crux of the challenge, it really isn't about the fact that
Claire Angliss: there was someone better. And I absolutely know, in any
Claire Angliss: organisation I have worked with, definitely in
Claire Angliss: Thales and in any other organisation, I speak to leaders.
Claire Angliss: Nobody, nobody is making decisions
Claire Angliss: based upon gender, ethnicity,
Claire Angliss: sexuality. No one's saying we need that candidate
Claire Angliss: because everyone is hiring on merit.
Claire Angliss: Everyone's hiring the best person for the job. Do
Claire Angliss: they want to see a diverse pool of people? Absolutely.
Claire Angliss: Will they go out of their way to find them, put targets
Claire Angliss: on recruiters, all of those things? Yeah. And they should, because
Claire Angliss: without that, sometimes you don't get to see everybody. Are
Claire Angliss: they hiring the best person for the job? Always,
Claire Angliss: as far as I have seen, I don't think I have met anyone that
Claire Angliss: has openly said to me, oh, yeah, we gave it to
Claire Angliss: that person and because they're black or we gave it to that person, do I
Claire Angliss: think it goes on? Maybe, but not in the organisations that I have
Claire Angliss: worked with or spoken to. Has anybody ever said, well,
Claire Angliss: we're absolutely not going to give it to anybody that's male, because this
Claire Angliss: person needs to be a female? I think there are times
Claire Angliss: where you might want to make that decision because you
Claire Angliss: want the diversity on a board, for example. So you might want
Claire Angliss: to deliberately say, we are wanting to
Claire Angliss: attract a female into this role because we know
Claire Angliss: that we're missing that. And I think that's okay to do that if
Claire Angliss: the person has the qualifications to do the job, but not if they
Claire Angliss: don't. So, positive action versus positive
Joanne Lockwood: discrimination. So we're saying legitimate means,
Joanne Lockwood: but again, does that. I'm going to come back to the meritocracy
Joanne Lockwood: thing. If we're setting out the role
Joanne Lockwood: profile, the job description, the success criteria, in a
Joanne Lockwood: certain way, then only someone who's done this role for ten
Joanne Lockwood: years in a similar sort of company, with a similar sort of team and a
Joanne Lockwood: similar sort of product range could ever succeed. And typically, that person
Joanne Lockwood: isn't black or isn't a woman. Therefore, the talent
Joanne Lockwood: pipeline of the candidate pool is narrowing itself down because the
Joanne Lockwood: requirement spec is so defined. So how do
Joanne Lockwood: we hire for capability and growth, rather
Joanne Lockwood: than just hire for. Done it before?
Claire Angliss: Well, we've just done something similar, actually. A colleague of mine,
Claire Angliss: Kirsten, has been running a programme called Code First Girls,
Claire Angliss: and we've been partnering with Code first girls, which have given us
Claire Angliss: some amazing talent. And that's around looking for people that
Claire Angliss: are looking to reskill to come into engineering, not necessarily
Claire Angliss: been engineers. So the background, Jo, is that they might not necessarily have ever been
Claire Angliss: in engineering, but we're going to take them on and train them to be engineers
Claire Angliss: in software. So if we'd have written a job
Claire Angliss: spec, as we would do for that role, you would
Claire Angliss: expect a level of understanding. So this is
Claire Angliss: really about the organisation saying, at what point and
Claire Angliss: where in our business does
Claire Angliss: experience or qualification not
Claire Angliss: necessarily matter, where we can train people ourselves
Claire Angliss: to have the skills and capability that they're going to need to deliver for
Claire Angliss: us. And I think that's what starts to make businesses different and
Claire Angliss: accessible. So by bringing in
Claire Angliss: that cohort, what we're saying is we're really open to
Claire Angliss: talk to people that might not have the right background.
Claire Angliss: And there are some roles where you can do that, and
Claire Angliss: there are also some roles where you know that talent
Claire Angliss: really exists. So 50%
Claire Angliss: of the roles at Talus last year were non engineering roles. So whatever
Claire Angliss: story talis would have told themselves about the talent
Claire Angliss: pool, as far as diversity
Claire Angliss: was concerned about engineering, it's only 50% true.
Claire Angliss: So we know that and we say, okay, so in that
Claire Angliss: pool, we accept that it's going to be more of a challenge to get the
Claire Angliss: diversity that we're looking for. So therefore we might need to be more
Claire Angliss: specific. But in this 50% of the roles, that's not
Claire Angliss: true. So what are we going to do in those roles to make them more
Claire Angliss: accessible? So I think there are some roles, Jo, you can really do that in
Claire Angliss: and you can remove the barriers. You need a really great
Claire Angliss: talent acquisition team, you need people in the organisation to be
Claire Angliss: challenging and it's really hard for
Claire Angliss: specialists in their discipline. So, for example, a
Claire Angliss: safety engineer to accept that
Claire Angliss: somebody might not need x amount of years experience, if that's
Claire Angliss: what they've been used to. And you need people
Claire Angliss: to be able to ask the right questions and challenge
Claire Angliss: people in the organisation to say, why is that
Claire Angliss: so? And what background might they, might they come
Claire Angliss: from? If they weren't from a defence background, for
Claire Angliss: example, what other background would be okay?
Claire Angliss: And slowly you start to see change.
Claire Angliss: None of this happens overnight. I think you've probably
Claire Angliss: seen that. And slowly, slowly start to see
Claire Angliss: people say, oh, that really worked well. That worked
Claire Angliss: well. We worked with the prince's
Claire Angliss: trust good number of years ago now it must have been about six
Claire Angliss: years ago to bring in young people that were not in
Claire Angliss: education or employment. And the reaction in
Claire Angliss: the business at the time was really mixed. Lots
Claire Angliss: of people were super excited and some were really worried.
Claire Angliss: What sort of person would I get in my team? Am I the right kind
Claire Angliss: of leader? Would I be able to offer the right level of support? All
Claire Angliss: of them were well meant, well positioned,
Claire Angliss: like we spoke about very first on wanting to help and support people.
Claire Angliss: The reality, of course, of the people that joined us were that they were really
Claire Angliss: capable, great people, and a lot of them are still in our organisation
Claire Angliss: and they've been promoted and they've mobilised and they're recognised
Claire Angliss: as talent. So I think it's a
Claire Angliss: long winded answer, Jo, but I think there's loads you can
Claire Angliss: do to break that down. I think the first thing you need is to start
Claire Angliss: asking yourself the questions. Why? Why is that important?
Joanne Lockwood: Obviously the same with people who have been in the care
Joanne Lockwood: system all their lives, had an
Joanne Lockwood: extremely unsupported
Joanne Lockwood: background, people who have left the criminal justice system for whatever
Joanne Lockwood: reason, there's an instant stigma and employers are
Joanne Lockwood: very reluctant to give people a chance.
Joanne Lockwood: What if they're risky? What if they're not?
Joanne Lockwood: There's a default. And I think, as you say, it's about getting the
Joanne Lockwood: hiring teams to start cutting through the
Joanne Lockwood: myths, misconceptions, the biases, the beliefs they
Joanne Lockwood: have and then start looking into the humanity of the person and say, okay, what's
Joanne Lockwood: this person's capability? What are their core values? Okay, they've had a tough
Joanne Lockwood: life and they may have done things they're not proud of when they look back
Joanne Lockwood: on it, but actually,
Joanne Lockwood: I hate to say, victim of circumstances, not the way where they were
Joanne Lockwood: evolved in the circumstantial upbringing which led them down
Joanne Lockwood: a path, and that could happen to anybody. So it's looking at that
Joanne Lockwood: person's real core drivers and steering them away from
Joanne Lockwood: that life and saying, actually, if you give someone a different opportunity, they make different
Joanne Lockwood: choices. Absolutely. I would add though, Jo, it's
Claire Angliss: not just the recruiting part of your organisation, it's
Claire Angliss: absolutely everyone. So if you're an assessor on
Claire Angliss: an early careers programme, if you're an assessor in an interview, even if you're
Claire Angliss: not part of the talent acquisition team, it's everybody's role to
Claire Angliss: say, actually, I think that this person has more to
Claire Angliss: offer. I think interviewers forget quite quickly
Claire Angliss: that the skill is also part of the interviewer to get
Claire Angliss: the right answers from the interviewee. So if you're feeling like that
Claire Angliss: person's not got the experience, if you feel like that person's not being able to
Claire Angliss: give you the right examples to your competency based questions, it's part of your role
Claire Angliss: as the interviewer to try and help them to do so as well,
Claire Angliss: so they can be their best. But it is also,
Claire Angliss: if I'm sat having a coffee with a colleague and they're talking about a role
Claire Angliss: that they're recruiting for as a leader in our business, and they
Claire Angliss: turn around and say, well, I'm just not getting the right level of experience, I
Claire Angliss: will also challenge and say, well, what is the right level of
Claire Angliss: experience and why is that? And what else could it be? And where
Claire Angliss: else could you look? And who else could you ask? And what if they had
Claire Angliss: only 60% and you needed to develop the rest, how
Claire Angliss: would you do that? And it's my job to do that, not
Claire Angliss: as a head of learning, but as a colleague and appear to my friends
Claire Angliss: and colleagues at work. It's not just the role of the talent
Claire Angliss: acquisition team of every single person in the business. We should all be asking those
Claire Angliss: questions of each other and saying, who else did you see? Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's being open to be challenging people as to
Joanne Lockwood: why people weren't selected, as opposed to just challenging people of the people
Joanne Lockwood: who were selected. It's asking people why. So
Joanne Lockwood: what didn't you see in them? Yeah, what was the
Joanne Lockwood: rejection criteria? And I think we're
Joanne Lockwood: busy people. We got huge, great short lists and long
Joanne Lockwood: lists to go through and we tend to give people not enough time to see
Joanne Lockwood: into the heart of them. And I think what we often do is look superficially
Joanne Lockwood: and sometimes we got the best person for the job. Great, we've moved
Joanne Lockwood: on. But what about our corporate responsibility, social responsibility to
Joanne Lockwood: get people back into employment, to help looking at
Joanne Lockwood: the environment out there, our cultures and our society out there
Joanne Lockwood: and being a great employer for everybody, not just a great employer
Joanne Lockwood: for the typical incumbent, if you like. And
Joanne Lockwood: that's a big challenge. And that goes all the way back to that first part
Claire Angliss: of our conversation around it being a psychologically safe place for people
Claire Angliss: to be able to speak their truth. And if we're able to do
Claire Angliss: that and we're okay with who we are and we can be all right with
Claire Angliss: how someone else is and kind of lead from that place of love,
Claire Angliss: then you can openly how you feel about something
Claire Angliss: and say I appreciate you may have already selected the person.
Claire Angliss: Did you see anyone of colour on your list or have you
Claire Angliss: spoken to jo? I know she was really interested in that role. Is there a
Claire Angliss: reason you might not have spoken to her about it? And doing
Claire Angliss: so from a place of love and care rather than critique?
Claire Angliss: I think having places, it sounds very idealistic,
Claire Angliss: but having an environment where people feel more able
Claire Angliss: to have that level of conversation is where I think
Claire Angliss: heads of learning, HR strategists, that's the kind
Claire Angliss: of focus for us. It's helping the organisation to
Claire Angliss: get to that space. Because then imagine a place where people could speak their
Claire Angliss: truth when things weren't going to plan on a
Claire Angliss: project and someone could actually fess up and say,
Claire Angliss: this isn't quite going to plan, boss. Rather than
Claire Angliss: hiding it and worrying about it and trying to fix it in silos,
Claire Angliss: we would be able to talk more openly. And certainly talis,
Claire Angliss: that's something we've been really focused on over the last couple of years,
Claire Angliss: really trying to help people to be able to talk more
Claire Angliss: openly and everything we're doing is to get us to a
Claire Angliss: place where that is more possible for everybody.
Joanne Lockwood: I think by doing that you create
Joanne Lockwood: in your talent, attraction, recruitment, marketing, your employer value
Joanne Lockwood: proposition, your employer branding, all the stuff you're putting out there,
Joanne Lockwood: you start to create an authentic truth about you are a place
Joanne Lockwood: that is welcoming, psychologically safe. Because
Joanne Lockwood: we know that people from marginalised minority backgrounds,
Joanne Lockwood: underrepresented backgrounds, voiceless backgrounds, tend to have a high level of
Joanne Lockwood: imposter syndrome or limiting belief. I could never work for there, they'd never
Joanne Lockwood: accept person like me. So you've got to tell these stories. That breaks down
Joanne Lockwood: that apprehension about the initial stepping into the funnel, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. Absolutely. And that's why we've been at
Claire Angliss: all different events as well, trying to make
Claire Angliss: sure that we're reaching out to lots of different communities. So
Claire Angliss: we genuinely want to see you rather than this is a
Claire Angliss: campaign that we're doing to widen our diverse pool.
Claire Angliss: So you're right. It's about storytelling. It's about us telling our
Claire Angliss: stories and our employees telling our stories and making
Claire Angliss: sure that people really understand what the motivation is
Claire Angliss: and being truthful, Jo, that we don't have it
Claire Angliss: 100% right. And I know that if there are people at
Claire Angliss: Talus listening to this podcast, which I hope they do, there will be
Claire Angliss: critique. People will say, well, it's not like that all the time. And there are
Claire Angliss: pockets of places where it isn't like that maybe
Claire Angliss: at all for some individuals, but the
Claire Angliss: intention and the clear target
Claire Angliss: is to get to a place where we are able to do that.
Claire Angliss: And all of the intention is good to get us to that space.
Claire Angliss: Yeah. It's about finding that North Star, painting the picture,
Joanne Lockwood: creating an aspirational journey of what fantastic looks
Joanne Lockwood: like, and then trying to inspire people to join you on that journey in
Joanne Lockwood: a scale and a velocity that works for everybody, really, isn't it?
Claire Angliss: Absolutely. And that's where then you hope that
Claire Angliss: your internal colleagues are listening to that and
Claire Angliss: saying, great, I want to be part of this place. I want to stay. I
Claire Angliss: want to grow, I want to bring others in. And then you hope that the
Claire Angliss: talent that's looking around thinking, I'm looking for a new
Claire Angliss: opportunity, start noticing you more and wanting to
Claire Angliss: join your business and the talent that, by the way, are working for your
Claire Angliss: competitors that maybe feel that their business isn't being
Claire Angliss: quite so transparent, that their business isn't talking about topics
Claire Angliss: and being honest about where they are and what they want to do and where
Claire Angliss: they want to get to say, well, why isn't my business doing
Claire Angliss: that? I'm either going to go and have a conversation with them and say, hang
Claire Angliss: on a minute, this business over here are doing it. Why aren't
Claire Angliss: you? And we get a lot of that. We were at the UK black business
Claire Angliss: show this year, and there were a lot of people that
Claire Angliss: came to our stand to talk to us that were surprised, first of all, to
Claire Angliss: see Thales there, delighted to see Thales there, and then
Claire Angliss: saying, well, my employer's not here and you
Claire Angliss: are. I don't understand that I need to talk to them about why they're not
Claire Angliss: here. And that wasn't a gimmick for us, that was a genuine
Claire Angliss: reach out talent. We genuinely want talent.
Claire Angliss: And actually what we can do in that process is also
Claire Angliss: help individuals go back to their businesses and ask those
Claire Angliss: questions. And maybe their businesses also start
Claire Angliss: going to these events, also start reaching out for talent. What we do is
Claire Angliss: create a swell.
Claire Angliss: I think it's really important that it's not just for our own businesses we're doing
Claire Angliss: this. It's for the economy in the UK,
Claire Angliss: it's for all of the social impact that you spoke about, Jo, and it's
Claire Angliss: about our society being able to realise
Claire Angliss: its full potential. So it's not just about. It's not
Claire Angliss: all about Tyre. And I think we have to recognise that
Joanne Lockwood: communities talk to each other. If you talk about the veterans community, there's
Joanne Lockwood: a strong veterans community, they will talk to each other and go, oh, I got
Joanne Lockwood: a job at Talus. It's an absolutely amazing place. You just see their talent pipeline,
Joanne Lockwood: the development prospects, their stats, especially if you're a young
Joanne Lockwood: black woman exiting the Royal Navy as an engineer on a ship
Joanne Lockwood: or something, you're going to go, wow, I found a belongingness
Joanne Lockwood: here. And that's the story you want to paint, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: The belongingness is, for me, one of the measures is you want to
Joanne Lockwood: evangelise about your role to other people and share the love and
Joanne Lockwood: bring other people. Why wouldn't you want to recommend the organisation if you love it
Joanne Lockwood: so much, if you want to keep it a secret? So I think that's the
Joanne Lockwood: magic source we want to try and find, isn't it?
Claire Angliss: I totally believe so, yeah. It's been
Joanne Lockwood: a fantastic conversation. We chatted for about half
Joanne Lockwood: an hour before we went live and I'm sure we could keep chatting forever and
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure we will catch up again soon, have a chat. So how do people
Joanne Lockwood: get hold of you and how can you help others in the industry?
Claire Angliss: I'm really happy to receive any LinkedIn messages from anyone that's
Claire Angliss: interested in talking about this topic further or if you want to
Claire Angliss: link in with me to talk about what Thales are doing. If you're a Thales
Claire Angliss: employee and want to link in, that's great. If you're
Claire Angliss: not equally happy for anyone to get in touch and talk
Claire Angliss: more on this topic. So search you on LinkedIn.
Joanne Lockwood: Claire. C-L-A-I-R-E. Anglis
Joanne Lockwood: A-N-G-L-I-S-S. So just search you on LinkedIn. Is that okay,
Joanne Lockwood: brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. And
Joanne Lockwood: thank you to you, the listener, for tuning in again to the end.
Joanne Lockwood: I really appreciate your time and your attention. Please do subscribe if
Joanne Lockwood: you're not already subscribed, to future episodes of the Inclusion Bites
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. That's bits. Please tell your colleagues, your friends,
Joanne Lockwood: please share the links. I have a number of exciting guests lined up
Joanne Lockwood: that I'm sure you'd be equally inspired by over the next few weeks and months.
Joanne Lockwood: And of course, if you'd like to be a guest yourself, please drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk If you've got
Joanne Lockwood: any other suggestions on how we can improve, that will also be welcome. So,
Joanne Lockwood: finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been an
Joanne Lockwood: absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Take care. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye.