Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I'm your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around
Joanne Lockwood: the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally
Joanne Lockwood: making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: Join me in the future, then. Please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot UK. You catch
Joanne Lockwood: up with all of the previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usual
Joanne Lockwood: places. So plug in the advance, grab a decaf and
Joanne Lockwood: let's get going. Today is
Joanne Lockwood: episode 98 with the title striving
Joanne Lockwood: for fairness, and I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Pamela Permalloo Bass. Pamela
Joanne Lockwood: is the EDI coach and consultant and
Joanne Lockwood: when I asked Pamela to describe her superbass, she said,
Joanne Lockwood: the skill of intently listening with empathy. Hello,
Joanne Lockwood: Pamela. Welcome to the show.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Hi, Jo. Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me and it's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: an absolute privilege to be here this morning,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: particularly at the start of the year. This is one of my first meetings of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the year, so it feels very exciting. So thank you very much.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, as we were saying in the green room before we've gone live that we
Joanne Lockwood: haven't spoken for two or three years, it's been absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic to catch up and have a good natter before we record the
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. Yeah, absolutely. I think we needed more than the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: designated 30 minutes to have a proper catch up. We've had a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: good. Too many years have gone by. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: they have. Anyway, we've caught up now. So, Pavana,
Joanne Lockwood: tell me about striving for fairness. Why is that important to.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Mean? You've known me for a good couple of years now and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I've spent most of my life and my
Pamela Permalloo Bass: working career working in the field of diversity and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: inclusion. We're using the word diversity, equity,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: inclusion more and more now in organisational
Pamela Permalloo Bass: spaces. But 2030 years ago, it
Pamela Permalloo Bass: wasn't language that was used. And I like the word
Pamela Permalloo Bass: fairness because I think it really brings
Pamela Permalloo Bass: out what I've
Pamela Permalloo Bass: always strived to do on a daily basis, both in my work
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and in my personal life. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think over the years, it's been great that more and more
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people and professionals are on board in the DNI
Pamela Permalloo Bass: space. Yeah, fairness is.
Joanne Lockwood: I find sometimes it's a tough word because
Joanne Lockwood: people want fairness and they also want
Joanne Lockwood: meritocracy, but they don't always balance
Joanne Lockwood: the two out fairly oxymoron. I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate. People have their own perception of what fair
Joanne Lockwood: means, don't they? Yeah. And I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's quite a generic piece of language, fairness, because
Pamela Permalloo Bass: depending on your own experiences, whether
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's cultural, societal, social, you'll have a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different perspective of what fairness really means. But I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for me, when we're using fairness in the world we're in right
Pamela Permalloo Bass: now, in the UK, when we're looking at it from a UK perspective,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think we can link it to issues around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: socioeconomic status. We touched on
Pamela Permalloo Bass: privilege as a concept in the green room. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: there's also aspects of fairness
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that really permeate in organisations, particularly
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations that are hierarchical. So I've
Pamela Permalloo Bass: spent about 15 years working in the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: NHS and more recently in substantive roles as a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: DNI director in the NHS with several
Pamela Permalloo Bass: community based organisations. So the hierarchy
Pamela Permalloo Bass: within the NHS and how that plays out
Pamela Permalloo Bass: absolutely will have
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different experiences for different people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in those different roles.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I use the freedom principles.
Joanne Lockwood: For those of you who aren't aware, the freedom principles. Freedom stands for fairness, respect,
Joanne Lockwood: equity or equality, dignity and autonomy.
Joanne Lockwood: So I'm a great believer that fairness
Joanne Lockwood: is utmost, because when we're dealing
Joanne Lockwood: with people, you have to believe in the process, you have to have an
Joanne Lockwood: element of trust. So I need to know that I can trust
Joanne Lockwood: you to treat me fairly, because if I haven't got that trust in
Joanne Lockwood: you, no matter what you say next, I will never believe you or
Joanne Lockwood: I won't have that psychological safety. I won't feel I can bring
Joanne Lockwood: my whole self to work, whatever you mean by that. So fairness is very
Joanne Lockwood: fundamental. I agree with you. Sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: we end up battling each other's concept of fairness, don't we?
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And I think you touched on trust. That too is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: so hugely important in relationships and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: within organisations.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Most of you will know around issues around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: discrimination that organisations affect. And the NHS is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: no different to other organisations.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: When we're thinking about actually who does speak up,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: who is listened to, how are things
Pamela Permalloo Bass: resolved and managed,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: having that trust in, whether it's your line manager
Pamela Permalloo Bass: or whether it's the executive director or your
Pamela Permalloo Bass: CEO, that's really important to know that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: you are going to be listened to and you're going to be treated fairly, you're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not going to be treated differently, you're not going to be treated differently because of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: your role or what you're raising or anything to do
Pamela Permalloo Bass: with a particular characteristic or your experience.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So I think it's all hand in hand, isn't it? All of these
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different. These key values that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, working in organisations such as the NHS, they're huge
Joanne Lockwood: monoliths sometimes and made up of lots of
Joanne Lockwood: disparate departments and different priorities, different
Joanne Lockwood: care needs, different overheads. It must be really difficult to try
Joanne Lockwood: and create change in a way that
Joanne Lockwood: is meaningful because so many
Joanne Lockwood: people have so many different views of what inclusion means.
Joanne Lockwood: I was doing some work with, I think it was Morgan Bay, that area
Joanne Lockwood: there, and they were doing a huge project on sticky
Joanne Lockwood: floor where they recognised that a
Joanne Lockwood: section of the demographic, of their employee base
Joanne Lockwood: were never promoted, they were never getting past entry
Joanne Lockwood: level positions, and the sticky floor was
Joanne Lockwood: holding people back. And you could see quite clearly that
Joanne Lockwood: people who are white escaped
Joanne Lockwood: that lower tier, whereas people who are people of colour,
Joanne Lockwood: low economic, socioeconomic status, even though they're perfectly
Joanne Lockwood: qualified, able to devolve, for whatever reason, they didn't progress
Joanne Lockwood: from the organisation in the same way. So it's about how do we create
Joanne Lockwood: equity in the system to ensure we're amplifying people who
Joanne Lockwood: are stuck or not seen or
Joanne Lockwood: not viewed as capable for whatever reason.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Yeah. I've been working
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in organisations for so long now and I remember when we first
Pamela Permalloo Bass: started looking at issues like that, your example of sticky
Pamela Permalloo Bass: floor issues, there was a lot of emphasis on
Pamela Permalloo Bass: individuals upskilling themselves,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: improving their cvs, getting better at interviews,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: et cetera, et cetera. And over time it
Pamela Permalloo Bass: became more and more clear that it was to do with
Pamela Permalloo Bass: systemic structures within organisations.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And that is still the place where I still sit, sort of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: professionally, in my views
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of fairness and where it should sit,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: absolutely. Individuals play a part,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but they are not key in dismantling
Pamela Permalloo Bass: unfairness within organisations. It has to be an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisational, structural decision
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to actively do things differently.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So the work that I was involved in, in the NHS, when we
Pamela Permalloo Bass: looked at specific data sets, so, for example,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we use a data tool called the Workforce Race
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Equality standard, and there's another data set called the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Workforce Disability standard. And those two standards,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: historically, with regards to data recruitment and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: retention and promotion, they
Pamela Permalloo Bass: have always been the data set across pretty much all
Pamela Permalloo Bass: NHS organisations where there is huge
Pamela Permalloo Bass: disproportionality when we're comparing it to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: white british employees, and even if you break it down
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to white british male employees or white british
Pamela Permalloo Bass: female employees, there's a huge disproportionality. So it's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: a good piece of data set to really
Pamela Permalloo Bass: evidence how unfairness plays out in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations. Yeah. When I was listening
Joanne Lockwood: to the stats that I was a party to the presentation,
Joanne Lockwood: I left the room with more questions and answers. I wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: speak to people who were in those
Joanne Lockwood: demographics where they weren't progressing and say,
Joanne Lockwood: what do you think the problem is? Because I was asking the people who do
Joanne Lockwood: resident support? I said, well, what are the people who are getting stuck field?
Joanne Lockwood: Well, we don't know, we just got the data. I said, well, surely we want
Joanne Lockwood: to get into those examples and say, look,
Joanne Lockwood: so you're in this role. Is there a reason why you
Joanne Lockwood: perceive you haven't progressed? Is it a limiting
Joanne Lockwood: belief impostor syndrome? Is it a lack of drive?
Joanne Lockwood: Or is it just purely that they come to work, do a job, they're happy
Joanne Lockwood: with what they've got, they don't have ambition. So we're trying to create
Joanne Lockwood: systems and fixing systems where we haven't necessarily engaged with the people who
Joanne Lockwood: are affected to ask them why they haven't progressed.
Joanne Lockwood: As you said in the past, we were
Joanne Lockwood: pushing the problem back to them and saying, you need to progress yourself, you need
Joanne Lockwood: to work harder, you seek qualifications. And they obviously weren't.
Joanne Lockwood: So is it a community thing, is it a limiting belief
Joanne Lockwood: thing? Is it just a societal expectation thing? Or is there
Joanne Lockwood: other genuine reasons why people are being pushed down and held back?
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think it's a complicated answer and I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think there are absolutely key themes that will
Pamela Permalloo Bass: just think about NHS organisations specifically. There are key themes
Pamela Permalloo Bass: within NHS organisations as a whole, but then there'll
Pamela Permalloo Bass: be different reasons and specific
Pamela Permalloo Bass: cultural differences within different NHS
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations, whether it's to do with
Pamela Permalloo Bass: geography, the services that they have,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the size of organisations. There's a lot of complex
Pamela Permalloo Bass: structural organisations out there as
Pamela Permalloo Bass: well. Even people who work in the NHS don't necessarily understand the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: architecture. But for everyday people, it's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not something that we really consider. You just think of the NHS as a place
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we go to be treated, to be healed,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: cared for. It's a huge beast and it's incredibly
Pamela Permalloo Bass: complicated. So I think all of those different aspects
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of it gives different
Pamela Permalloo Bass: reasons why unfairness plays out. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think you're absolutely right, Jo, that the more you
Pamela Permalloo Bass: become curious and learn about it,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the more you think actually, hold on, I don't get this. This is just so
Pamela Permalloo Bass: much. There's so much that I want to know here, there's so much to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: unpick, there's far more questions.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And I have spent 15 years asking those questions. And the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: work that I'm doing now as a consultant, I'm working with NHS
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations, going into very sort of specific
Pamela Permalloo Bass: pieces of work with them, which is quite different to the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: type of work I was doing in my substantive role.
Joanne Lockwood: People always say that data tells a story, and I think I'm always frustrated,
Joanne Lockwood: but we never actually hear the story. We hear the headlines, we hear
Joanne Lockwood: the opening chapter, but we never actually dive down. I think that
Joanne Lockwood: was the frustration I felt and I think you're echoing the
Joanne Lockwood: same thing, is that we've got lots of data, we know lots of
Joanne Lockwood: startings of the story, but we don't actually have the real answers.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's the challenge, I think, in most EDI work
Joanne Lockwood: is trying to uncover the story and what are the inequities, what are the
Joanne Lockwood: challenges? And yes, a lot of it is
Joanne Lockwood: systemic and based on historical
Joanne Lockwood: privilege and power structures. But how do we
Joanne Lockwood: break out that cycle is the challenge we all face in this sort
Joanne Lockwood: of EDI sector, if you like.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: One of the things, and you'll probably be in agreement
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that the more we look at our
Pamela Permalloo Bass: society, again, we're looking at talking about
Pamela Permalloo Bass: UK specific societies, our society,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: right now, and look at inequity and how that plays out in our
Pamela Permalloo Bass: society, it absolutely will resemble
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations. So you can't detract from what is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: happening out there right now.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And I think that's hugely important to constantly remember
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that. Yeah, we just look at what's going on
Joanne Lockwood: in the political sphere at the moment where
Joanne Lockwood: the language being used around
Joanne Lockwood: refugees entering our shores,
Joanne Lockwood: fleeing from terror, fleeing for their lives
Joanne Lockwood: in many cases, how the dehumanising language
Joanne Lockwood: used to describe them, and then the government is
Joanne Lockwood: looking to turn the boat around and ship them to
Joanne Lockwood: Rwanda. And I don't want to be guilty
Joanne Lockwood: of having a bias against Rwanda. I don't know the country, I don't know the
Joanne Lockwood: people. I think there's a kind of a political
Joanne Lockwood: demonization of Rwanda as a country, saying it's third world, it can't
Joanne Lockwood: be any good, we're dumping our rubbish somewhere. I
Joanne Lockwood: think that could be disrespectful of a country. So I don't want to get into
Joanne Lockwood: the debate whether Miranda. It's just the language the government's
Joanne Lockwood: using to sort of devalue these people
Joanne Lockwood: and seeing them as not
Joanne Lockwood: worthy of our support
Joanne Lockwood: wing mentality, isn't it? Yeah, no, it absolutely is. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it feels like it's an opportunity to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: sidetrack the conversation, because when we think about actually
Pamela Permalloo Bass: how much money has been spent on the Rwanda deal and the cost
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of that so far and actually how many people have gone to Rwanda, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think the latest figure is there's been more home secretaries that have gone to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Miranda than actual refugees.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So if society
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and the people that were interested in the political
Pamela Permalloo Bass: debate around this were interested in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the cost of this particular exercise,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and if that money was to go into, I don't
Pamela Permalloo Bass: know, housing, into services like the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: NHS, or into know key
Pamela Permalloo Bass: services policing. Actually,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to me, it feels like, firstly, it's a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: complete waste of money, but it also is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: sidetracking from all the other underfunded
Pamela Permalloo Bass: resourcing that's going into the public sector, which
Pamela Permalloo Bass: is so much needed, really, in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: particular, some very key areas in our country.
Joanne Lockwood: It must have a psychological impact on
Joanne Lockwood: people where they're hearing you said, quite rightly,
Joanne Lockwood: what's going on in society is the
Joanne Lockwood: macro, and that impacts the micro, if you like, of the organisation or what's
Joanne Lockwood: going on inside organisations and people's psychology and mental
Joanne Lockwood: health. You're hearing all of this dehumanising language, this
Joanne Lockwood: demonising language, these stereotypes, these biases, the
Joanne Lockwood: xenophobic type remarks that stem from Brexit. We've got
Joanne Lockwood: a population who seem to be leaning, and certainly a
Joanne Lockwood: mainstream media, who lean towards
Joanne Lockwood: stealing jobs from the british, whoever they may
Joanne Lockwood: be, some sort of ethnic sort of
Joanne Lockwood: superiority around white people being denied opportunity. We
Joanne Lockwood: talk here, we're talking about fairness and equity.
Joanne Lockwood: Is the everyday white person feeling
Joanne Lockwood: marginalised and that's why they're fighting
Joanne Lockwood: back, is that kind of thing. What's going on?
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So, again, there's been a lot of work around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: white working class boys, specifically in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: urban areas, and I think that's been going on
Pamela Permalloo Bass: definitely in all of my time in the NHS. Whether
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that's really sort of played out in policy change,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I'm not sure, because my experience is not in education.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So I would like to believe
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that there is work in identified
Pamela Permalloo Bass: areas in my sphere of career. So in the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: NHS, it's definitely been an area, hasn't been a focus,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: which I think absolutely should. I think when the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Equality act came on board, socioeconomic
Pamela Permalloo Bass: was going to be a protected characteristic, but it got thrown out at the last.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think it was literally a couple of months before the act came into
Pamela Permalloo Bass: play. And I think if that was part of the work around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: diversity and inclusion and baked
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in, into the sort of process, we would have absolutely looked
Pamela Permalloo Bass: at white working class boys. And I say
Pamela Permalloo Bass: boys. It's actually a specific group that's been identified
Pamela Permalloo Bass: up to 18 and then post 25. So
Pamela Permalloo Bass: there's quite a lot of research around that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and looking at that and how that plays out into
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations, whether it's around people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: finding it difficult, finding jobs or are in work, and they're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: having the same issues as you've described in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Mez's side around sticky know, we look at ethnicity
Pamela Permalloo Bass: when we tend to look at ethnicity and disability, when we look at
Pamela Permalloo Bass: promotions and again, absolutely missed
Pamela Permalloo Bass: opportunity to not look at white working class
Pamela Permalloo Bass: groups and their journey around career progressions
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in organisations. I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think it's an area that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it feels like it's on the sideline, really. I think people like
Pamela Permalloo Bass: us in this field of work, we're aware of it, but we don't
Pamela Permalloo Bass: get necessarily asked to do that work. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's tough sometimes in the EDI space because by
Joanne Lockwood: amplifying and giving equity to certain
Joanne Lockwood: demographics, it almost feels like sometimes you're pulling other people
Joanne Lockwood: back because that's the perception they have, even though equity is
Joanne Lockwood: all about amplifying and not pulling other people back. So you're trying
Joanne Lockwood: to bring people up to the same level rather than bring people down to your
Joanne Lockwood: level. You always feel like you're losing
Joanne Lockwood: something by somebody else getting more.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And again, organisations will resource different pieces
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of work or there would be different pieces of work that are perceived
Pamela Permalloo Bass: as more important at that one time. So the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: balance has always been when we're looking at
Pamela Permalloo Bass: DNI is looking at all of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the groups. So again, just sort of giving my example of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the NHS, one of the things I always looked at
Pamela Permalloo Bass: when I worked in organisations was the workforce
Pamela Permalloo Bass: demographics. So looking at workforce demographics, looking at, and then I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: looked at the census demographics and seeing how that married up.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And most good organisations tended to marry up
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and be similar to their communities because, you know, if it's similar to the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: community, it will be similar to the patient community. Generally
Pamela Permalloo Bass: speaking, there's huge disparities in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that. Again, it
Pamela Permalloo Bass: opens that space into understanding where the priorities
Pamela Permalloo Bass: are for those organisations if their workforce is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not reflective of their local community.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I was into some housing associations
Joanne Lockwood: probably last year, the year before, where they were really struggling
Joanne Lockwood: to find good people in their hourly
Joanne Lockwood: paid roles of care workers. And
Joanne Lockwood: the analysis they did identified the fact that most of their care
Joanne Lockwood: homes and service provision
Joanne Lockwood: locations tends to be in affluent type
Joanne Lockwood: neighbourhoods and areas. And most of the people they wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: attract to work in those places were
Joanne Lockwood: some many miles away where they lived, and
Joanne Lockwood: the transport links between where people were living in their target
Joanne Lockwood: demographic for people to recruit. The transport links were
Joanne Lockwood: poor or expensive, so people who they wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: attract couldn't actually afford
Joanne Lockwood: time and money to come to work at that
Joanne Lockwood: location when they're being paid minimum wage or
Joanne Lockwood: living wage. So they
Joanne Lockwood: identified the fact they needed to put on a kind of a staff bus, collect
Joanne Lockwood: people in the mornings, bus people in, because that way,
Joanne Lockwood: that equity, if you like, would relieve it. But
Joanne Lockwood: as you're saying there, it's important to look at your demographic
Joanne Lockwood: of your territory, your locale, and then lay on top of
Joanne Lockwood: that, the demographic of your staff and the people you
Joanne Lockwood: serve, and make sure there's an alignment there, otherwise you find this
Joanne Lockwood: disconnect. The people you want
Joanne Lockwood: to work in your organisation can't afford to work
Joanne Lockwood: there because there's no way getting to work every day.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Well, I think that example is a great one because public transport is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: expensive now, so if people are on minimum wage and then they're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: going to have to fork out for the transport cost to get to and from
Pamela Permalloo Bass: work, where if they can get a job much closer
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to where they live. Yeah. These are the sort of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: things that organisations need to consider when they're thinking
Pamela Permalloo Bass: about
Pamela Permalloo Bass: who they want to work in their organisation. There's so many nuances
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and not really understanding those types of things
Pamela Permalloo Bass: with regards to the areas that you're serving.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I just don't think organisations necessarily
Pamela Permalloo Bass: have the chance to really think through all of this first. It tends to be
Pamela Permalloo Bass: something that they'll think about afterwards when they think, oh, well, actually, hold on a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: minute, we can't get anybody, or in that particular
Pamela Permalloo Bass: example, it could be only middle class, affluent people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: are applying for work here, or they're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: volunteering because they don't money. The
Joanne Lockwood: people who you want to apply aren't applying
Joanne Lockwood: because it's too expensive to work there and the people who would be able
Joanne Lockwood: to get there easily wouldn't want a job because it's low paid
Joanne Lockwood: work and they don't see that as something fitful for them.
Joanne Lockwood: Again, getting the data and asking the questions, why aren't these people
Joanne Lockwood: applying and what's the barriers? Because we can also look
Joanne Lockwood: into the nature of people who are in that demographic
Joanne Lockwood: where they are taking hourly paid, low paid work, unskilled or
Joanne Lockwood: partially skilled work. They probably have childcare, they have care responsibilities,
Joanne Lockwood: they have multiple challenges around
Joanne Lockwood: maybe the single parent, maybe they're in a dysfunctional family. There's a whole load of
Joanne Lockwood: issues that going on that whilst they'd love a great job,
Joanne Lockwood: they just physically actually
Joanne Lockwood: can't engage with it because it doesn't work for them.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we need to look at those sort of ways of. We talk about
Joanne Lockwood: equity a lot. How do we bring equity? And not just the recruitment
Joanne Lockwood: process, but also in the employment process and how do we look at those
Joanne Lockwood: challenges? I think also, I'm sure the
Joanne Lockwood: NHS have this view as well, is that we have a social
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility to get people into work and to get
Joanne Lockwood: people into good work, reliable work, and to make people,
Joanne Lockwood: or allow people to be productive in society. So I think all
Joanne Lockwood: organisations, no matter whether if you're in commercial or public sector,
Joanne Lockwood: you have a responsibility to make sure you are providing work for the
Joanne Lockwood: community as well as drive profit for shareholders.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think we touched on
Pamela Permalloo Bass: travel in the green room and your train journey
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and your example of people having to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: physically get to work is something that I don't
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think we spend a huge amount of time really considering. And I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: know in the pandemic when everyone was working at home, there
Pamela Permalloo Bass: were lots of groups of people that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I remember talking to that for some of them it was
Pamela Permalloo Bass: huge benefit working at home. And again, people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: who identified with particular characteristics, so
Pamela Permalloo Bass: women with young children at home, so that flexibility
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of either looking after children or dropping children off at nursery
Pamela Permalloo Bass: or school, particularly when the schools were opened.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So things like this, where it becomes really
Pamela Permalloo Bass: important for working women actually
Pamela Permalloo Bass: commuting and physically getting to work and back,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's an extra layer on someone's day. So if
Pamela Permalloo Bass: they're able to work from home and they've got that capacity to. Do.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Know, if they have to commute into London, which is like, I don't know, we're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: all based in know, it's like an hour and a half, 2
Pamela Permalloo Bass: hours. So why would they do that if they could work from home and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: pretty much do exactly the same as what they're doing
Pamela Permalloo Bass: if they're in? So I think that whole thing around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: commuting and what your workforce looks
Pamela Permalloo Bass: like and how you retain your workforce,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's one step back. How you enable
Pamela Permalloo Bass: diversity within your workforce, but also how you retain your workforce, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think they're all significant questions to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: ask around how we work.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I know there's a real push for people to get back in the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: office, which I've written a couple of different LinkedIn
Pamela Permalloo Bass: posts about that and my view is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that absolutely understand why an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisation would say that and depending on what your role is,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: there will absolutely be reasons. So if you're frontline,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: clinical facing role, most of those are better
Pamela Permalloo Bass: placed physically seeing patients as opposed to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: virtual sessions with patients, although some can
Pamela Permalloo Bass: be virtual. But the majority of time it's better to see people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in person, face to face. But if you're a PA or if
Pamela Permalloo Bass: you're an administrator or trying to think other
Pamela Permalloo Bass: roles, computer based jobs,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: you can do that at home, you don't need to physically be in an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: office. Bit controversial, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: know, but yeah, I think it really
Pamela Permalloo Bass: impacts certain groups.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. My theory is that it's largely
Joanne Lockwood: political. The government or
Joanne Lockwood: the people in power need to put
Joanne Lockwood: money back into the system. So if you've got nobody travelling into the office,
Joanne Lockwood: nobody's commuting, the trains become
Joanne Lockwood: unviable. London underground becomes. Lacks viability, which
Joanne Lockwood: is what we're seeing here. The government's having to prop up tfl by
Joanne Lockwood: billions to keep it afloat because people aren't travelling into London. So
Joanne Lockwood: there's a huge societal pressure to get people back to what
Joanne Lockwood: they were doing, because the entire country's infrastructure was based on
Joanne Lockwood: people travelling around and going to work. If everyone sits at home every
Joanne Lockwood: day, all of the infrastructure, all of the cafes, the coffee shops, the little
Joanne Lockwood: places in the city, they're just not needed anymore. Therefore we
Joanne Lockwood: have unemployment rising because
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's working from home. So the society wasn't ready
Joanne Lockwood: to reengineer its whole viability of
Joanne Lockwood: economic, sort of cash movement, if you like, as a
Joanne Lockwood: result of the pandemic. And I think that's why they tried to put this help
Joanne Lockwood: out, to eat out, whatever the scheme it was, to try and get people eating
Joanne Lockwood: out again, because people backed off of pubs, they backed off the
Joanne Lockwood: cafes, they backed off of restaurants and living at home.
Joanne Lockwood: So I think that's part of it. The government went, oh,
Joanne Lockwood: we've been too keen to push people away,
Joanne Lockwood: and now we've got a huge problem. Now we've got economic
Joanne Lockwood: vacuums in places where people aren't going back. So I think a lot of that
Joanne Lockwood: drives it. We've got business owners who have huge great buildings
Joanne Lockwood: that are empty. If the buildings are empty, you don't need cleaning
Joanne Lockwood: staff, you don't need door stuff, you don't need security. So again, you got a
Joanne Lockwood: whole sector of people not being employed.
Joanne Lockwood: I think that's the driver in some respects. Yeah, no, I do agree with you,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but I do think a lot of these sort of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: economic arguments are so short sighted. There are so many
Pamela Permalloo Bass: other ways of creating.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: We're talking about a capitalist society, and there's so many other ways
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that we all can contribute into society financially.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So it's not just getting on a train. We could go to an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: independent cafe to where we live, or most
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people who work at home, they've
Pamela Permalloo Bass: got into habits to manage their well beings. They
Pamela Permalloo Bass: are out and about and they are doing different. You know, the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: argument, if we really looked into it, which I'm sure no one has
Pamela Permalloo Bass: done, that, I'm sure there are other
Pamela Permalloo Bass: areas where the economy is thriving and might not be
Pamela Permalloo Bass: thriving in the small cafe in London, but there might be thriving in a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: small cafe, independent cafe in.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: It's I think all of this is, and what
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we do find with, and we're talking
Pamela Permalloo Bass: current government, it's very
Pamela Permalloo Bass: short sighted, it's very immediate. There's not much
Pamela Permalloo Bass: consideration into different aspects of decision
Pamela Permalloo Bass: making and obviously we're seeing some of that in the COVID inquiry. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for those of us who worked in the public
Pamela Permalloo Bass: sector during COVID and I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: had the privilege of working in the pandemic,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: were able to see that firsthand some of those poor
Pamela Permalloo Bass: decision making processes. So I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: this is part of it, really. I think the whole push to get
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people back into work. Yes, I think you're right, it is driven
Pamela Permalloo Bass: politically, but I think the economic argument is a poor argument. I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for them it's a very poor.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: There's a lot of lack of thought in that argument.
Joanne Lockwood: I completely agree. And whilst I understand the reasons,
Joanne Lockwood: or what I perceive are the reasons, one
Joanne Lockwood: thing I was saying when there was this push back to go to
Joanne Lockwood: the office and the early arguments were, well, what about the watercolour
Joanne Lockwood: conversations, the mentoring? If you're in early career,
Joanne Lockwood: you lack that sort of experience by mixing with people and the
Joanne Lockwood: osmosis that occurs. I said, I completely get it, but what
Joanne Lockwood: you can't say is the equation, and the
Joanne Lockwood: answer to every equation is you must go back to the office. The equation
Joanne Lockwood: must be what is the most efficient, where's the best way of doing it? Going
Joanne Lockwood: back to the office is one outcome that can deliver that requirement.
Joanne Lockwood: If you start with that being the only outcome, that's what you focus on.
Joanne Lockwood: We step back, we've got the metaverse, we've got AI, we've
Joanne Lockwood: got Zoom, we've got teams, there are far better way of collaborating.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a great believer in that. And the example you had about surgeons,
Joanne Lockwood: we've got surgeons doing laparoscopic
Joanne Lockwood: procedures with robots from the other side of the world controlling
Joanne Lockwood: the operation. Because when they're actually in the
Joanne Lockwood: operator's theatre, and this is my lay appreciation of what I see on
Joanne Lockwood: telly, they are looking at computer screen and they're
Joanne Lockwood: controlling things with robot arms and doing the work. That way
Joanne Lockwood: they don't actually need to be in the same room in the same country, in
Joanne Lockwood: the same time zone. Yeah. So
Joanne Lockwood: if a doctor can do that, dentists can do that, everybody can do that. It's
Joanne Lockwood: just about evolving our communication skills.
Joanne Lockwood: And the other thing I used to say is people say, well, it's about our
Joanne Lockwood: culture. We need our culture, people to come in and feel
Joanne Lockwood: experiences. And I say, well, actually I want my
Joanne Lockwood: culture. Like my pension I can take it with me
Joanne Lockwood: when I go to another organisation. So what I can have is I can build
Joanne Lockwood: my own home life culture around my family, around my community,
Joanne Lockwood: around my own gym and my own coffee shop, and
Joanne Lockwood: I can consume my culture and the way I want it. And
Joanne Lockwood: I can just pick and choose whichever company I want to work for, wherever they
Joanne Lockwood: may be, and I don't have to leave my culture behind. But what you want
Joanne Lockwood: me to do is rip my life out of my family, travel for
Joanne Lockwood: two and a half hours each way, 5 hours a day to experience your
Joanne Lockwood: culture. When I've got a perfectly good one, I could be investing in the home.
Joanne Lockwood: So that's my argument around this culture thing. Let me have it.
Joanne Lockwood: Like my pension, I could take it with me. No, I like that.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I like that analogy.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, but that seems to be the argument. It's like, no, but
Joanne Lockwood: you're a solopreneur. You work from home largely.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm a solopreneur. I largely work from home. It's probably 80,
Joanne Lockwood: 2090. Ten, sometimes 10% in the office, 10%
Joanne Lockwood: in clients. I know I could work perfect productively. And I think it's almost
Joanne Lockwood: insulting to people to say you're not as productive
Joanne Lockwood: remotely. It's an insult, people. I find
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that very insulting. Although I would
Pamela Permalloo Bass: say for you and I, we're at different stages of our careers. So I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for those at the early stages of their careers, I think it's really
Pamela Permalloo Bass: a mid career as well. I say early stages of the mid career. I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's really important to not necessarily be in an office. I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think to be engaging on as many
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different ways as possible to learn from others.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Thinking about that whole mentoring experience and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: how you can see leadership, particularly if you're career driven,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think that's really important to explore as many different
Pamela Permalloo Bass: ways. So if you're just working at home
Pamela Permalloo Bass: mainly, I don't think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that's good. I think do a combo of lots of different things, whether it's an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in person conference a couple of times a year, going to some workshops
Pamela Permalloo Bass: or catch ups with coffees, doesn't
Pamela Permalloo Bass: necessarily mean you have to be in the office every day. But I think having
Pamela Permalloo Bass: a mixture. But yeah, people like us, Joe,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we're sort of well versed at what we should be doing with our work.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So all of these tools we've acquired, haven't we? So we know
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to go and meet somebody in person, or when to attend an
Pamela Permalloo Bass: event or go to something. So again,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: acquiring that skill with our experience, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think we're at a different stage and we can make
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different choices. I completely agree.
Joanne Lockwood: And there are times in my career when I
Joanne Lockwood: needed people around me, I needed to learn, I need to be mentored, I needed
Joanne Lockwood: to pick up stuff and the osmosis was necessary. You're completely right,
Joanne Lockwood: and I'm not negating that need. We also have to remember that I think
Joanne Lockwood: 60% of the workforce, if not more, do
Joanne Lockwood: roles where you have to physically touch something. So
Joanne Lockwood: assembly work, manufacturing, hospitality,
Joanne Lockwood: production lines, all these kind of people, you can't at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment do those remotely, even with computer. There's no.
Joanne Lockwood: Largely not computer controlled remotely. So we have to recognise there is
Joanne Lockwood: an inequity here of the ones who can and the ones who cannot.
Joanne Lockwood: So I think there's also the in it together type mentality,
Joanne Lockwood: whereas if you've got half the office who have to be there for various
Joanne Lockwood: reasons, then it's only fair that everybody should kind of be
Joanne Lockwood: there as well. So altogether. So I didn't get the kind of
Joanne Lockwood: socioeconomic and the need for us as humans
Joanne Lockwood: to get together and collaborate and be together. So I do
Joanne Lockwood: get it. I don't know about you,
Joanne Lockwood: but I hate stereotypes, I hate
Joanne Lockwood: big blanket assumptions and decisions. They'll all
Joanne Lockwood: shout because they'll shout sort of thing, without the
Joanne Lockwood: granularity. And being person centric. And you work at the
Joanne Lockwood: NHS and being person centric is so important because if you start to
Joanne Lockwood: generalise, you make poor decisions, because every person
Joanne Lockwood: is different. And looking at the needs of individuals
Joanne Lockwood: should be a corporate responsibility. Yeah.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think there are so many different sort of work cultures
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that don't take into account all the nuances of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: individuals. So as you were talking, I was
Pamela Permalloo Bass: recalling an example, and it wasn't even that long ago, it was
Pamela Permalloo Bass: probably, I know, six years ago, seven years ago, I was
Pamela Permalloo Bass: working for a company in central London, so, commuting in and out of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: London, and on a Friday night, there was a cocktail bar opposite
Pamela Permalloo Bass: the offices, and that's what they did Friday night
Pamela Permalloo Bass: cocktails, and most people stayed until early
Pamela Permalloo Bass: hours and it was obviously social
Pamela Permalloo Bass: time and it was a given that you go to these cocktails
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and if you didn't, it's, oh, you're not going to cocktails. So again, just.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: That sounds great if you like cocktails, but say you don't drink
Pamela Permalloo Bass: alcohol, are there mocktails there? What about. You don't want to be in those
Pamela Permalloo Bass: types of environments, sort of for religious reasons or cultural
Pamela Permalloo Bass: reasons, nothing there for any
Pamela Permalloo Bass: difference. What about if you've got a family, you need to get back for them
Pamela Permalloo Bass: again. Nothing about the family. What about. I know,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: disability, the public transport that you need to get on,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but at 02:00 in the morning is not running again. Nothing.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Cocktails on a Friday sounds lovely, but actually, when you're thinking
Pamela Permalloo Bass: about, is it right for everybody?
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Probably not. And there are lots of different reasons why it's not right
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for everybody. I gave up drinking, I think,
Joanne Lockwood: 723 days ago, thereabouts. It was
Joanne Lockwood: January a couple of years ago, I gave up. And you suddenly realise
Joanne Lockwood: how much the world is orientated around
Joanne Lockwood: a social that involves alcohol.
Joanne Lockwood: And I found it incredible. We talk about
Joanne Lockwood: privilege, but you don't realise the water you
Joanne Lockwood: swim in until you're not in that water anymore, then you suddenly step out and
Joanne Lockwood: go, wow, hang on a minute. I now see this. And as a non
Joanne Lockwood: drinker, I've now woken up to how much of our society
Joanne Lockwood: revolves around a drink somewhere, even in cultural
Joanne Lockwood: conversations. Let's go for a beer one night. Let's go for a glass of wine.
Joanne Lockwood: Or I don't drink. And they say, well, we can come along and have a
Joanne Lockwood: lemonade. Well, why do I want to go to a pub where everyone's
Joanne Lockwood: drinking and have a lemonade? Why can't we go to Costa or have a
Joanne Lockwood: nice coffee somewhere? Yeah, but we want to go for a drink.
Joanne Lockwood: We don't have to. So it's trying to reorientate.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've walked away from events purely because
Joanne Lockwood: they have a boozy undercurrent to them. I think, well, do I
Joanne Lockwood: want to turn up to this evening where after about half an hour, everyone is
Joanne Lockwood: starting to slur? Everyone started. It gets kind of icky
Joanne Lockwood: in that kind of drunken environment. I think, no, you're
Joanne Lockwood: not funny. It's no fun to be sober.
Joanne Lockwood: So I walk away from things, and that's for personal reasons, not
Joanne Lockwood: religious reasons or any other reasonable health reasons, necessarily. So
Joanne Lockwood: we are excluding people or defining the norm,
Joanne Lockwood: and that's our cultural fit, isn't it? We keep trying to say, you must fit
Joanne Lockwood: into this or you're seen as no fun. Yeah,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I remember this. Cocktails evening. So, Friday, cocktail
Pamela Permalloo Bass: night, gently,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: very gently, sort of questioning.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Is this sort of being inclusive? And are we thinking about everybody
Pamela Permalloo Bass: here? Oh, yeah, we've got know it's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: disability access. And so everything I said there was like a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: so still in a cocktail bar in central London
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Friday night, and all the things that you said around that sort of cultural
Pamela Permalloo Bass: experience, people getting drunk, being in that,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but there might be some flirtations going on with people,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: you just think, actually, do people really want to be in those
Pamela Permalloo Bass: environments? Really? I don't know.
Joanne Lockwood: Apparently some extrovert. Yeah, if you're an extrovert, I'm quite happy
Joanne Lockwood: being an introvert who's happy to go out. But some people do
Joanne Lockwood: thrive on those environments. They want to bounce off like a
Joanne Lockwood: pinball in a pinball machine and have all that social interaction because that's
Joanne Lockwood: where they get their energy. But there's a good 50% of the population
Joanne Lockwood: don't. No, that's it. Because I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: would describe myself as an extrovert, but I thought,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: like, I just don't want to do that type of stuff anymore.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I've got other things that I enjoy doing.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So again, it's allowing for all of that,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: really. But, yeah, I agree, there is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: still very much, when
Pamela Permalloo Bass: you consciously think of alcohol, become more aware that we
Pamela Permalloo Bass: are still very much in an alcohol
Pamela Permalloo Bass: rich society and a lot of it is based around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: drinking. So even gifting. So again, one of the things
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that I gently. I sound like I'm a bit of a misery, really. But
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Christmas time, when people give out gifts to their colleagues
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and they give out bottles of wine or bottles of gin. I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: said, have you thought about doing non alcoholic or something
Pamela Permalloo Bass: different? No. It's nice getting a bottle of wine, isn't
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it? Or a bottle of gin. I said, well, not for everybody,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but, yeah, I think they probably thought I was a bit of a misery, really.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: A party poop. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: I know you can get alcohol free gin, alcohol free beer, alcohol free
Joanne Lockwood: wine. And I don't
Joanne Lockwood: need an alcohol substitute. It's like a
Joanne Lockwood: mocktail. I wouldn't drink that normally.
Joanne Lockwood: You're calling it a mocktail to make it sound like it's
Joanne Lockwood: an alcohol substitute. Why don't you give me a coffee?
Joanne Lockwood: I've also sort of had the same sort of thought around
Joanne Lockwood: veganism or vegetarianism and thinking, do I want to
Joanne Lockwood: consume my plant based food as
Joanne Lockwood: in the soap of a sausage? Why do I have to have a plant based
Joanne Lockwood: food in the soap of a sausage? Why can't I have something that's plant
Joanne Lockwood: based, that's plant based from the ground up? Because you see so
Joanne Lockwood: many times where you go to these functions where the vegan or
Joanne Lockwood: vegetarian option is a poor facsimile of everybody
Joanne Lockwood: else's experience is just mediocre.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I will often go for the vegan or
Joanne Lockwood: vegetarian choice because when it's done right, it's far more
Joanne Lockwood: creative and inspiring than a meat dish sometimes, because people
Joanne Lockwood: have to. Have to work harder on it. And I feel so sorry
Joanne Lockwood: that we're not catering properly for
Joanne Lockwood: celiacs. Other dietary
Joanne Lockwood: requirements. It's always a poor relation and
Joanne Lockwood: it's just so unattractive. I just feel so kind of
Joanne Lockwood: privileged as an eater, if that's an
Joanne Lockwood: omnivore who eats most things. And I just feel so
Joanne Lockwood: disappointed for people who have to have that lib sandwich with a bit of
Joanne Lockwood: cellophane over. That's their gluten free
Joanne Lockwood: option. Yeah,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: no, you're absolutely right. I think they tend
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to be sort of like conference function type things, go to a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: nice restaurant. There are normally good options for non
Pamela Permalloo Bass: meat eaters. Yeah, options. But
Pamela Permalloo Bass: there are options. Good options. I've made a conscious
Joanne Lockwood: decision to minimise my dairy, like cow
Joanne Lockwood: dairy intake. So I tend to use plant based
Joanne Lockwood: oat milk or almond milk or other milk. And
Joanne Lockwood: you ask sometimes and it's becoming better in coffee shops. It's becoming better than it
Joanne Lockwood: ever has. They have the options there. You still got to pay extra for
Joanne Lockwood: it, it's still penalised for it
Joanne Lockwood: and they assume you've got an allergy. No, it's just a preference.
Joanne Lockwood: It's okay, it's a preference. You go to natural trust. They put this little
Joanne Lockwood: sticker on the cup so it doesn't get contaminated of anything. No, it's just a
Joanne Lockwood: preference. Some people are gearing themselves up for it.
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's important that we start to. When we think about EDI,
Joanne Lockwood: we talk about fairness, respect, we talk about inclusion, all these
Joanne Lockwood: things. Actually. It's small details that psychological
Joanne Lockwood: safety, that inclusion. How do I feel? And the
Joanne Lockwood: belongingness. I'm a great believer in belongingness. Walking into a place and you feel it's
Joanne Lockwood: for you. Have they thought about your needs as an individual?
Joanne Lockwood: Not just a broad brush, you'll be okay sort
Joanne Lockwood: of thing, or you'll adapt round us. Actually, we're bending for you
Joanne Lockwood: a little bit here as well. That's what I think a lot of organisations
Joanne Lockwood: miss that nuance between inclusion and belonging.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think there's an attempt, isn't there? There's an absolutely attempt to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: get that. But it's so variable in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations and I think it's variable
Pamela Permalloo Bass: on lots of different levels. So there will be
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations in some areas they're excelling and they're doing
Pamela Permalloo Bass: really well and everyone feels great. There might be other functions or
Pamela Permalloo Bass: departments or even customer facing services
Pamela Permalloo Bass: where it isn't. So it's so variable. There
Pamela Permalloo Bass: still is that lack of consistency. I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think that's probably an area where
Pamela Permalloo Bass: probably needs the most impotence.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Impetus is the consistency in how
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people feel in environments and organisations.
Joanne Lockwood: There's a book or there's a well known
Joanne Lockwood: story based on airlines and it's
Joanne Lockwood: the coffee stain on the tray table. So if you get onto
Joanne Lockwood: an aeroplane, you pull the tray table down, there's a coffee stain, a coffee ring
Joanne Lockwood: on the tray table, what does that say to you? If
Joanne Lockwood: they can't clean the tray, do they service the
Joanne Lockwood: engines, do they do the flight cheque, do they do this? So
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes when you're looking at these small little details think well it's only a coffee
Joanne Lockwood: stain actually it shows the systemic process and thinking of the
Joanne Lockwood: organisation, they don't care about the hygiene level right
Joanne Lockwood: at that beginning. So what does it say about the rest of the process? And
Joanne Lockwood: I think EDI is like that for me. If you're not showing
Joanne Lockwood: equity, creating, focusing on belongingness around
Joanne Lockwood: in a person centric way for everybody, then
Joanne Lockwood: that shows it's tokenistic or you're not
Joanne Lockwood: following through to every detail in your systems. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's that coffee stain on the trade table is the
Joanne Lockwood: indicator of how much you care about people. I think
Joanne Lockwood: that's what I want to see in organisations is that deep,
Joanne Lockwood: really real care about how your experience
Joanne Lockwood: of working here or being a customer or being a service user or being
Joanne Lockwood: whatever it may be. And that's the fairness and inclusion and
Joanne Lockwood: belonging element for me. Yeah.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And I was just thinking about my experience in the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: NHS and the clients that I work with.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think to have that level of detail and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: nuance is absolutely aspirational
Pamela Permalloo Bass: for most organisations because there's so much
Pamela Permalloo Bass: other work to do. Need to make
Pamela Permalloo Bass: sure that. Just think about that airline analogy to make sure
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that the customers, the passengers on the previous flight are
Pamela Permalloo Bass: off the flight. It's that type of stuff that needs to
Pamela Permalloo Bass: happen before we get to the cleaning up bit. There's so
Pamela Permalloo Bass: much other work to do. Oh yeah, no, completely.
Joanne Lockwood: It's interesting when you start thinking about that coffee stain and
Joanne Lockwood: when you look around the world and see it, you walk into a restaurant
Joanne Lockwood: and every free table has got dirty
Joanne Lockwood: trays on it, so they're too busy servicing new people and
Joanne Lockwood: then there's no capacity for them to sit and you've got to try and balance
Joanne Lockwood: your front, your back, your middle. So just observing how operations
Joanne Lockwood: work around, trying to create this balance and I think
Joanne Lockwood: that you get so locked in you become blinkered
Joanne Lockwood: into your focus. You often don't
Joanne Lockwood: step back and sort of look at the other systems as well.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: That part of it is really hard for people when they're in
Pamela Permalloo Bass: organisations to take that step back and see what else is going
Pamela Permalloo Bass: on because you're immersed in what you're doing
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and by no
Pamela Permalloo Bass: reason at all regarding yourself. We
Pamela Permalloo Bass: could use the word unconscious bias or all the other aspects
Pamela Permalloo Bass: of the EDi language. If you're so immersed
Pamela Permalloo Bass: in what you're doing and it's impossible to step away, it's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: very hard for people to really sort of think about where
Pamela Permalloo Bass: else is going on.
Joanne Lockwood: We were chatting just before we went on. I noticed in the show notes that
Joanne Lockwood: you put in, you're a rucker Bregman fan and you mentioned humankind.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm also a fan of his other book, Utopia for realists.
Joanne Lockwood: There's some really great stuff that comes out that the thing that I would remember
Joanne Lockwood: from Utopia for realists is thought about universal basic
Joanne Lockwood: income, Ubi, and how this
Joanne Lockwood: perception that poor people can't be trusted with money,
Joanne Lockwood: that's why they're poor. Actually, when you look at people who
Joanne Lockwood: have less money, they're more diligent and focused on
Joanne Lockwood: budgeting and careful. A person who's
Joanne Lockwood: wealthy will squander more money than someone
Joanne Lockwood: who is not wealthy ever does in their entire life in an hour
Joanne Lockwood: sort of thing. And it was all about this example where if you
Joanne Lockwood: gave people an online basic income, they would
Joanne Lockwood: then allow them to escape the sticky floor which we talked about
Joanne Lockwood: earlier. And then once you elevate yourself up Maslow's triangle,
Joanne Lockwood: you stop having to worry about your house and your food and what's happened
Joanne Lockwood: today. You can think about next week. When you can think about next week, you
Joanne Lockwood: start to think about next month. Once you start planning,
Joanne Lockwood: you then have agency and power over self. Otherwise
Joanne Lockwood: you're just reactive. The whole concept behind his first
Joanne Lockwood: book was really inspiring to me. Yeah. And I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think I'd recommend anyone who
Pamela Permalloo Bass: listens to us on this podcast to read any of his books or even connect
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to them on LinkedIn, because he writes some really interesting
Pamela Permalloo Bass: posts and links history
Pamela Permalloo Bass: to current perspectives of societies. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: he looks at different types of societies across the world, which I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think is hugely fascinating. But yeah, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think that your example about that, the sharing of wealth
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and one of the things he does is I can't remember what the charity is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: called, but it's called like poverty,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: global poverty, something rather I have to find the name of the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: charity, but the expectation is that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: regardless of what you earn, you give x amount of money. And I know there
Pamela Permalloo Bass: are religions, different religions that operate like that as well.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: So there is something about being altruistic, being
Pamela Permalloo Bass: considerate, and actually just giving what you can.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: And so he's 10%
Pamela Permalloo Bass: or 20% of his income is given away and
Pamela Permalloo Bass: that's it. And he'll just live off whatever he
Pamela Permalloo Bass: has.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I think ultimately, one of the things that resonated
Pamela Permalloo Bass: with his writing and my interests was around
Pamela Permalloo Bass: striving for a fair, equal society
Pamela Permalloo Bass: where hierarchy, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think the other. But he talks about utopia, so it absolutely is a
Pamela Permalloo Bass: utopic you where there is no hierarchy, there is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: no socioeconomic groups, there is no
Pamela Permalloo Bass: class, we all have the same, we all have the same money,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: we all live in similar types of accommodation, we're all paying
Pamela Permalloo Bass: similar utility charges.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Ultimately, his quest for the future
Pamela Permalloo Bass: is that's their society.
Joanne Lockwood: But even if we look at utopian Star Trek, there's still
Joanne Lockwood: hierarchy in Star Trek, even though the concept of money
Joanne Lockwood: and poverty has been eradicated, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like, in their utopian 25th century, whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be, it's hard to escape
Joanne Lockwood: hierarchy, but creating a common
Joanne Lockwood: base, and it's not the
Joanne Lockwood: communism view of the world, it's kind of a more
Joanne Lockwood: utopian, statusless view of the world. That's
Joanne Lockwood: true. Rather than we all see
Joanne Lockwood: the failures of communism still being a two tier system
Joanne Lockwood: or multi tier system. I think
Pamela Permalloo Bass: with regards to his book and his perception, I
Pamela Permalloo Bass: think when we look at poverty and how we can
Pamela Permalloo Bass: share out resources, I think that's probably a better way of
Pamela Permalloo Bass: describing it as opposed to eradicating hierarchy, because we're
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not going to eradicate that. This is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: what we're in, and it's absolutely not going to change, but that is that
Pamela Permalloo Bass: distribution of wealth. So I can't remember what the number is,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: but I forgot what the number is. But it's something
Pamela Permalloo Bass: ridiculous, like, I don't know, 50 people
Pamela Permalloo Bass: own the amount of wealth in the whole world. I can't remember. It's probably
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not 50, but it's something. Very minutial, small number.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And so when we think about actually the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: billionaires and where the wealth is distributed,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's that distribution of wealth and how that impacts
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people who are on the breadline who are struggling. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: there are far more people like that than the people who are the
Pamela Permalloo Bass: billionaires and the highly wealthy. So
Pamela Permalloo Bass: it's something around distributing wealth,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not completely so that everyone has exactly the same, because like I said, that's
Pamela Permalloo Bass: not going to happen. We know that. But right now we can absolutely give
Pamela Permalloo Bass: as much as we can, really, for those who have
Pamela Permalloo Bass: got some level of. Additional
Joanne Lockwood: income and that heads back to the
Joanne Lockwood: opening which was striving for fairness. And that's really
Joanne Lockwood: the crux of what you're saying there is trying to create a fair and
Joanne Lockwood: equitable society, and that's something we should all be
Joanne Lockwood: mindful and strifeful. I believe so. And
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I have been living like this for a long time
Pamela Permalloo Bass: and I'll still continue to be like this.
Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. Thanks, Pamela. It's been amazing catching up
Joanne Lockwood: with you again. We've had a great chat now and I hope you, the
Joanne Lockwood: listener that got to the end with us and have enjoyed this,
Joanne Lockwood: have got some inspiration. Take something away from this. So how can people get in
Joanne Lockwood: touch. With so yes, I'm on
Pamela Permalloo Bass: LinkedIn and there is only one of me, so I'm quite easy to find. So
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Pamela Permalyrath. So just find me and you can connect with me.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I do like using LinkedIn. I'm no good at other social media,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: I must admit, so you won't find me anywhere else. So,
Pamela Permalloo Bass: LinkedIn. I've also got a website, and again, I've kept it straightforward.
Pamela Permalloo Bass: It's my name, so Google that you find me straight away. And there is
Pamela Permalloo Bass: also a section on the website where you can email me
Pamela Permalloo Bass: direct. So they're the sort of two routes to get in touch with
Pamela Permalloo Bass: me. Fabulous. And your name will be in the show notes.
Joanne Lockwood: So if you could look it up and spell it. But your surname is
Joanne Lockwood: P-E-R-M-A-L-L-O-O space
Joanne Lockwood: B-A-S-S. Permalloo Bass. You
Joanne Lockwood: say there could be only one bit like the Highlander in the old days, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it?
Pamela Permalloo Bass: Always? Really love meeting you
Pamela Permalloo Bass: people. So if you connect with me, very happy to have a conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: Thank you. For those of you listening, please do
Joanne Lockwood: subscribe to future episodes of the Inclusion Bites Podcast.
Joanne Lockwood: That's B-I-T-E-S. Please share the love, tell your friends, tell your
Joanne Lockwood: family, tell your colleagues. If you're not subscribed, then do click that button
Joanne Lockwood: now and follow us for more updates. Of course, I've got a number
Joanne Lockwood: of other exciting guests lined up and we'll be hitting episode number
Joanne Lockwood: 100 in a couple of weeks time, so I'm sure you'd be equally
Joanne Lockwood: inspired by those people as well. And if you'd like to be a guest yourself,
Joanne Lockwood: I'd love to hear from you, so drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk
Joanne Lockwood: Finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood. It has
Joanne Lockwood: been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you
Joanne Lockwood: next time. Bye.