E21 - How Do We Return to Work? Interview With HR Expert and Owner of Stonechat HR Consulting, Becky Neale

Becky Neale is a proven, commercially focused HR leader leading large-scale HR teams for the likes of RWE nPower, Labrokes, and Accolade Wines. Operates as part of senior leadership teams, devises and sets HR strategies aligned to the wider organisational goals, designing culture and values-based programs to support the development and evolution of operating models, associated change management and employee engagement. A hands-on operator who empowers teams and communicates in a natural, down to earth style with the ability to remove complexity in fast-paced commercial organisations. Today, we discuss how we return to work.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews. I'm Nathan Simmonds, Senior Leadership Coach and Trainer for MBM, Making Business Matter, the home of sticky learning. We are the provider of leadership development and soft skills training to the grocery and manufacturer industry. The idea of these interviews is to share great ideas, great concepts and great ways these skills are being used to help you be the best version of you in the work that you do. Welcome to the show.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to today's interview. I have the pleaser of interviewing Becky Neale today. HR Director, expert. I've got a phenomenal bio on here which is worth reading just in itself, and then we're going to get into some serious questions about high performance teams. About the return to work which is so very poignant for right now as we're recording this video, stores opening and people going back to business. But also, other businesses returning their people from home as well. And also looking at employee engagement off the back of that which is why I wanted to have this conversation with Becky and the direction that I'll get to know you went previously just expose so many challenges that are going to come up in the future.

Nathan Simmonds:

So, with a proven commercial focus, HR leader, leading large scale HR teams for the likes of RWE, Empower, Ladbrokes and [inaudible 00:01:28]. Operates as part of a Senior Leadership team, devises and sets HR strategies aligned to wide organizational goals. Big stuff. Designing culture, values based programs. Support the development and evolution of operating models, associated change mangement employee engagement. These are all big things, especially for HR Directors working in a global space.

Nathan Simmonds:

But even though it's big, global, it's also hands on. She's a hands on [inaudible 00:01:54] who empowers her team, communicate in a natural down to earth style. And the best bit about the conversations that I've had with Becky before now is that she takes that complexity and makes it easy for people to understand, especially in fast paced environments. This is why I wanted to share some of this. As I said, it's high performance team, employee engagement. And the elephant in the room, the return to work, which I think even in normal circumstances was an elephant in the room in itself, let alone now as it's environment that we work in and the ecosystem we're working in changes.

Nathan Simmonds:

So Becky, welcome to Sticky Interviews. Thanks for being here, thanks for sharing your team. First question from me which is probably the most important question, why do you do what you do?

Let's here Becky's reason

 

Becky Neale:

Hi, thank you for having me. I guess I just really enjoy working with large teams, leadership teams setting strategy and direction. Really then just drilling down from that in terms of making them operational plans, working with employees, wider groups from the management, the leadership team and where appropriate if you have a union, union in that organization. It's the variety, it's the complexity, and it's really driving them through and seeing results and taking employees on the journey that just really floats by boat, ticks my boxes if you like.

Nathan Simmonds:

I love the fact that you said in that, taking these large ideas, drilling down, linking people to unions, employee safety, psychological safety. [inaudible 00:03:35], when we use all those different elements and actually make them work together. So actually I think that's the first time you've used some of those words in a conversation with me so it's actually refreshing to hear you say them.

Becky Neale:

You can't do it on your own, you have to involve all of those groups. It's the key to success in making these change projects work.

Nathan Simmonds:

And it's exactly that. Because if you try and swing too much to one bias, it creates the bias. So if you have a large organization that has their viewpoint and their way of working, that's not going to fit to everybody in your business. And you have to have the cross sections and the different dynamics so you make sure that actually, you're giving the fairest and most reasonable approach to all the people in your care as an HR lead.

Becky Neale:

Yeah, and ultimately if you don't take your people on the journey with you, whatever change you're trying to make, whatever business goal objective you're trying to achieve, you won't do it. You will come across resistance, you will have people taking different roads and tangents. They all need to be aligned, all need to be adding value and all going in the same direction. You can only do that by involving them, engaging them, communicating and setting the right culture.

Nathan Simmonds:

There was that push pull scenario with the stubborn donkey. You're trying to get the donkey to move forward, you're trying to pull it and it's pulling backwards. Actually you might get somewhere very slowly if you're lucky, but it's going to be a painful, drawn out process.

Becky Neale:

Yeah, and I guess that's why really in changes you need to focus on your early adopters rather than your [inaudible 00:05:09] and those that don't want to join in. Because you can't gear everything to the lowest common denominator in any change that you make, but you do have to factor and consider those in.

Nathan Simmonds:

So when you're setting up that plan, or when you're setting up that change that you're going through, do you formulate a structure of what your early adopters are and then how you then incorporate your laggers, and how you cross the chasm to bring the next group of people in at the same... later on in that journey.

Becky Neale:

Yeah, I think you have to come up with a change management plan. You have to look at all the groups. How are they going to be impacted? How are they going to feel personally about these changes? And work through the different groups the different scenarios and complexities and questions and resistance factors they are all going to bring. You almost need to create the personas for each group. So Dave the bus driver and these are his concerns. Sarah the administrator, these are concerns. Jeff the cleaner, these are his concerns etc, and build out each of the characters, what they stand for, the issues that that grouping will potentially throw at you and the resistance. What they can actually bring to enable and to help. You've got to look at it from lots of different angles to be able to build the plans to take it forward.

Becky Neale:

You just do it in isolation of management team want to implement X, Y and Z and we're going at it, straight down the tracks then it won't land as well.

Nathan Simmonds:

And I haven't heard it put that way, because that's the same as doing a client avatar, doing a customer avatar.

Becky Neale:

Yeah, it is.

Nathan Simmonds:

So when you have your own business and you create your own business, okay, this is my demographic. They are of this age, of this gender. This is what's important to them. Okay, how do we make sure we get the message to that person in the language that they understand. Brilliantly as you put across here is well actually, what are they going to bring to the equation or to the situation that's going to help to move the project forward? What are their strengths? What are they going to enjoy demonstrating that's going to make it work even better, regardless of what the leadership team says they want or what they think is the best thing. How do we get everybody involved in that?

Becky Neale:

Yeah, and if you take your early adopters particularly, they can show others. It's not just that management said this was a great idea, actually it is. Look what's happened in my team, look what's happened here as a result of it. It's working, it's doing the right thing. Yes, these are the teething problems we've found, but we've listened to people, we've asked for opinions and now we're focusing on this. It's almost like jump on the train, come with us. It's actually not that bad. Have a look at what we're achieving, see what we're doing. Come and be part of it.

Becky Neale:

And that's what you hope and you rely on really with your early adopters and people who are really engaged with the changes that you're trying to make.

Nathan Simmonds:

And you build a momentum in that. [crosstalk 00:07:46] mentioned just [Jeff Burch 00:07:47] before we got into this conversation, we've just done the first of our sticky lunches with Jeff. The quote that stands out for me that he shared was, "The change inflicted is a change resisted."

Becky Neale:

Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

Getting those people on board, just creating that snowball effect just so it chugs a little bit further and then goes a bit further and then more people. And you build up that pressure, the positive pressure to enable the thing to happen as a way it happens.

Becky Neale:

Yeah. This isn't just for your large scale change project. This is for any change that you want to make. The more you involve employees, the more you engage with them, the more you listen to them, their ideas,