Leading through crisis

hi everyone gonna get started I hope everyone is well this afternoon or if
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you're watching this on demand whenever you happened to be watching it I hope you're well my name is Katie Jacobs I work with HR
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leaders at the CI PD and I've been hosting our coronavirus webinar series and we've got a special bonus session
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this afternoon where we're going to be talking to two really influential HR leaders about the bigger picture of the
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coronavirus crisis what does it mean for how we're going to work in future how we're gonna think about work and how the
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people profession itself will operate and be seen within organizations and more widely we're also going to talk
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about the impact of this crisis on one of the UK's biggest employers for civil service we're going to look at how HR
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has stepped up to deliver organizational leadership at this really challenging time the CIPD in civil service HR work
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closely in partnership to up skilled support and professionalize government based HR practitioners so joining me and
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all of you this afternoon I'm delighted that we've got recoupment Neal and Peter cheese thanks guys
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I'll just do a quick introduction as chief people officer for the UK government Rupert has one of the biggest
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HR jobs in the country responsible for the delivery of people strategy across the civil service he provides leadership
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on the full range of people issues so that includes things like talent capability inclusion leadership culture
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and he's also director general the government shared services and I'm sure that you all know our CIPD CEO Peter
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cheese Peter is a highly respected writer and thinker on subjects like the development of HR and the people
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profession the future of work and issues of leadership culture organization people and skills and obviously he's
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been thinking a lot about the impact that coronavirus is having on the profession and the world of work more
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widely so thanks both for coming along this afternoon and before we get into what I'm sure is gonna be a really
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really fascinating conversation I'm just gonna do the very quick housekeeping notes so first things first the session
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is being recorded it will be available on demand and you'll find it on the webinar section of the CIPD website and you can
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also access all our previous webinars there and sign up for future sessions secondly if you want to submit questions
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and we'd really love to make this session interactive um can I ask you to use the Q&A box instead of the chat box
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feel free to chat to each other in the chat box if you want to ask any specific questions it will be much easier for me
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to pick them up by Q&A um we're gonna run in a session informally so that
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means there aren't any slides do submit your questions at any time you want and I'll pick them up and I'll try and feed
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them in at an appropriate point and finally a quick reminder that the CI PD is continually updating our resources to
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support the people profession and that you can find everything on our coronavirus hub and we're updating it every day because things keep changing
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every day so we're trying our best to be agile and fast and support you all because we know you're working
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incredibly hard to support your people in your organization's so let's get started
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Rupert I'm gonna ask you first could you just explain a little bit of the context but your role and kind of the people
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function within civil service sure thanks Katie and thanks for having me so
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just to explain a bit about the silh service first of all and then how HR
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supports the civil service as one of its functions so the civil service is really
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I think best seen as a sector or a sub sector of the UK public service it's
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made up of multiple organizations let's say about 40 large employers of various
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sizes some of them enormous organizations like DWP and HMRC's and the largest in the UK some much smaller
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of a few hundred or fewer people so we've really got in a sense a microcosm
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of all the different work contexts that we have in the UK economy whether it's
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you know somewhat a retail environment if you think about job centers call
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centres offices labs and workshops factories etc across that whole spectrum
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now that represents around three hundred and forty-five thousand full-time staff
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and around 102 thousand part-time staff and spread out over the over cut over
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the country the the way the way the
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civil service works as a sector is that it's pretty federal so I'm one of a
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number of functional leaders responsible for if you imagine there's a one axis is
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the department the people are employed by and then people also have a professional functional identity that
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sits alongside that now when it comes to what we've experienced with Co bid we
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were actually I don't quite use a word fortunate but we had some some level of
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rehearsal for this because we've been preparing for about three years for various configurations of the UK leaving
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the European Union some of those in a no deal scenario and that had really helped
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all the functions but particular HR think about how to move people around government swiftly and so it allowed us
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really very quickly to put resources into the department Health and Social Care DHS C and then to move people for
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example to deal with some of the big efforts that have been underway whether it's supporting Universal Credit
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benefits through DWP or moving or
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setting up the furlough scheme at about um I'll see two big things have happened during this period as well as there in a
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sense there's a there's a health and social care front decoded and there's a economic front - coded and both need to
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be supported and under-resourced and we've learnt a lot about ourselves
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through that process we already had a sense of thinking about different departments and concepts of operations
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to use a term the military use can you work call centers on a distributed basis
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for people remote working do you need to get people in to meet people physically all of those things and I think what we
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found is we've actually been really pleased to see that in a sense in six
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weeks we've compressed what might have taken about six plus years to do in terms of remote working and the cultural
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change so and this might be interesting benchmark for people to think about their own organizations but I'm still
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that's done by this percentage seventy six point four percent of the civil service workforce is working from home
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and sixteen point two percent are still
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working in their frontline roles and there's a small number we divided up the workforce into those who could start
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working from home immediately or very quickly that's that 76.4% now and then
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there are some people who we recognized just had to be in there in their posts
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and we need to make sure that was done the best way and then there are people to other categories people who didn't
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have the equipment so we need to get that to them quickly and that was a quite a logistical exercise which we
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learned a lot about and it's also taught us a lot about what we call interoperability the need there's more
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that we need to be able to do to be able to move people and work around the government of state between different
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call centers etc and then there was a category of people who couldn't work from home because they were in flat shares or they were well-being issues
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other things and we need to make sure that they were accommodated as well so the civil service has been working
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through all this time as many employers have and we've been sort of learning a lot through that there's been a lot of
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join up between the functions between the technology function the security function as well as HR and the estates
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and that's actually a bit of a theme which may we could pick up in our conversation Peter later which is you
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know this is really about the the integration which I know you now have talked about before of the enabling
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activities whether it's where you're located in the workplace the technology the operations how you want to serve the
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customer and that's just been a very giving us very rich insights about this
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now the other characteristic about this for us is that and you know although we
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can talk in in the generality that the lived experience for colleagues can be
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very very different and and one of my favorite conversations about this was
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with a colleague who said you know if you think about it I mean I think myers-briggs is interesting as a bit of
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there's a cartoon level quite helpful metaphor you know if you're an eye you
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know in a world which is dominated by extrovert right-handed males disgust
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then the this static were interesting this is actually perhaps a bit more of
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an environment that introverts feel happier in I just get that as an examples that was a that was a point that was made to me by one of my
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colleagues and I think that's interesting as we look at the technology as we look at the way to some extent
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interacting like this is is actually quite leveling its leveling and quite
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non hierarchical I think compared to some other modes but it raises other issues are people actually being heard
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how we doing how we doing that so people know that with the CIPD we've been very
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committed to acyl inclusion agenda and we've got some material which will be releasing Katie for other people to use
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and we've called a little bit of inclusion first but we've produced on that is on remote working and how to
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lead with a team that's distributed because it does require different skills
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and like everything that we deal with it requires it requires practice we've been
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very pleased to see from the pulse surveys we've done that people feel broadly supported by their line managers
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by their teams and I think that's a really interesting question for me about how this has made things both help
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people to share and be more authentic maybe you know you see the rooms in which we live and also to some extent
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more intimate and I think that's fascinating are we actually going to go back to physical sort of face-to-face
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presence physical presence and find that you know the two meter distancing that
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will be in place and other things is actually going to feel a bit less
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intimate and friendly than the environments that when in this type of in this type of call
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we've we've actually had we're now on after several weeks we're now on version 9 of our guidance
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for remote working been working very closely with our trade union partners
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with departments with all of the other functions to produce that we meet as an HR function twice a week three times a
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week and we have called all the reps entities from all departments that's been very helpful for us and now we're
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moving into the guidance on getting back into back into the workplace and what
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that means and again people are going to be going back into many different contexts and most people actually will
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probably for time being continue to work so really fascinating time for us and
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just to finish Katie on the broader context and maybe segue into our conversation there's a a sense for me
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that for government in the period between 2010 and 2020 we've had sort of
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three phases a phase where we set up a functions between 2010 and 2015 a period
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when they were being embedded between 2015 and 2020 and and that period was
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dramatically accelerated by all the work that be done around here exit and now we
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are in the next phase which is accelerated by what we're learning through the coded experience and how we
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respond to this new way of working now what's interesting is that when we were
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talking about what we would need to focus on in the next phase of civil service workforce thinking it was around
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greater collaboration smarter use of technology looking at a workforce that
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was much more distributed around the UK at all levels senior and junior levels and lower behold that's you know
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technology and location and that's what's being accelerated at this time so
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it's it's very exciting we're really happy to share with people and a great
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segue into this important conversation about what happens next thank you so much I really like the
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point that I'm hearing a lot in my conversation with HR leaders that it's kind of sped up digit
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transformation and put it on steroids and you did 10 years worth and stuff in a few weeks and it was exhausting and it
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involved so much kind of inter silo collaboration between kind of IT and
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facilities and HR but it's um we could really hold on to it and it could make a really really profound difference in the
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way we work in future and Peter could you offer some opening kind of reflections on how this has been for the
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profession mmm I'd like over the last I'm losing track of time and it's all nothing into ten weeks yeah it all sort
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of blares into each other days and we extend a bit and I thank you a lots of fabulous of observations and reflections
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and many many common themes of course that we're hearing across all kinds and shapes of organizations and yeah but
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what would consist me hearing is that HR itself is very much at the center of the
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organizational response and HR leaders saying an HR people at all levels saying they've literally never worked harder
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and there was an interesting article in The Economist a couple of weeks ago that compared the global financial crisis to
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this crisis and so the global financial crisis shown a massive spotlight on the CFO if you will and this one has shown a
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map since Pollock and the CHR and I think it's because this crisis is fundamentally a crisis a human crisis
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and and it's something that therefore has made us all reflect whether business
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leaders and everybody else I think so much more on what I even think of as humanity at work and people at work and
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important to people and all the points you made wee bit about how this has encouraged us to connect in different
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ways not least because we're staring into each other's living rooms and things like that and how much more we've
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had to think about our connection our support our people how much more mental health has become a very very central
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agenda and well being a very central agenda so that's something which i think is really positive and encouraging we
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are hearing very consistently from HR people and business leaders that this is
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putting people front and center the business agenda and all the way up into ideas like purpose and meaning and and
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even if we may get on to it sort of bigger ideas of corporate governance and things of that nature so those are those
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are the encouraging things and as you said the obvious dimensions that are emerging are but I think I was the shift of
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paradigms of work which we have had for a hundred years or more almost since the
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Industrial Revolution the idea of work being something you broadly do 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday you go to work you
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work and you come back and it's been incredibly hard to break those paradigms and as we've recent years taught more
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and more about technology and enabling different ways of working remote working trying to encourage our time working and
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so which is so important for several reasons one you touched on which is inclusion because the more you do those things the more you create inclusion and
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opportunity for people all walks of life to participate and work um but it's also
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vital to us stress in our mental well-being because again if you look at the paradigms of work with all the
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technology we found in recent years it it has not seemed to have either improved the challenges of presenteeism
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or stress at work and indeed both of those have been steadily climbing and we've seen all the evidence for that and
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so what really strikes me about this and does that give your thought about the
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crisis forming a catalyst and accelerating change in organizations as I think we're going to see that much
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more broad across the whole economy because the reality of semi of these things the presenteeism of engagement
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the diversity of inclusion of flexible working things of that nature we have talked about those for a long time and
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yet if you actually look at the day to the the amount that the needle has moved on many of those themes over the last
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five or ten years has been far too little and now here we are in this situation none of we couldn't have
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addicted it I mean we may talk about the extent which was a white versus a Black Swan but but nonetheless it's called so
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much of us by surprise we've had to adapt very quickly and we've learned a great deal from it already and it seems
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inconceivable to me that we would get back to some of the things that have we've worked in the past and there even
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if we take that example of yours and whose incredible statistic seventy four percent of the public's active working
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from home I think across the economy close on 60 percent and it's we need to
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learn from this and say these are our different ways of working which could be very very good for people I don't think
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it's any evidence that productivity is dropped of course it hasn't sunset Constance's but those role paradigms as
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well old beliefs that people from working from home weren't really working from home they were shirking from home
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they weren't really productive and and yet I can I'm sure you find it I certainly find it I think I'm more
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productive arguably nothing I ever was before not least of which because we can jump from meeting like this to the next
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meeting we don't have to travel and all the sudden thing hmm so there are lots of other dynamics at play at this point
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in time but you know I'm a glass-half-full kind of person I think and and to go back to old adages like I
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think Winston Churchill said it didn't you said don't let a good crisis go to waste and I think this is the sort of
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opportunity that we can see for our profession for organizations everywhere most important for people right across
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all spectrums of society and across the economy and I think we've got to help lead for those kind of positive outcomes
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as well thank you Peter and I'm gonna go actually straight on to a question that's coming because it picks up really
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well on so many of you were talking about so somebody's asked about do you believe we've passed into a new world
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where they'll be genuine 5x ability for people about where and how and even when
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they work and I know there's been a lot of conversations going on about will we be going back to normal obviously not in
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the short term but how do we kind of hold on to a lot of the more positive aspects of flexibility and Ruppert have
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you got any reflections and perhaps any practical pointers and what you're doing to hold on to some of those yeah it's it's no but thanks Kate it's a great
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it's a great question so the phrase which so it's entering the way new
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phases and eras produce phrases that captures concepts you weren't thinking
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about for so interoperability is one that we talked about it's not icky snappy but it gets the sense of
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everything need to work in in a sort of integrated way but a catchy phrase is
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one that's been used in the conversations that we've been having at
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the senior level of the soul service and the Director General's thinking of actually about civil service transformation and it's I would say
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there is a strong consensus that we don't want to have a snap back so that's
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what we're guarding against how do we you know we know we know the kurt lewin you know you sort of you unfreeze change
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and refreeze and we just need to make sure it does not snap back and I'm
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actually real like Peter I'm a golf's awful person I don't think it will or can snap back partly because we're going
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to need to be very vigilant about what happens when when we move into the next phase you know which of the four red in
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a state so we're going to be in you know we need to think about that and I think about other other changes that have
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happened you know I don't know whether it's too crude a parallel to make but
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you know the you know the world changed a lot after 9/11 with we thought about security in a different way we thought
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about security a different way during the 70s and 80s with domestic terrorism
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then and it's that type of thing which I think drives Drive drives this response
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so I think it will I think we have we just we can't afford for it not for it
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not to stick actually and and that then raises some interesting questions about how do you how do you make sure that
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happens well clearly what leaders do is hugely important I think it's also
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important to to recognize that people will have just very different
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experiences and we should try and so so maybe it also moves towards the individualization of the employee
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experience which impede or not talked about before but you know the mass customization if you like of the
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employee offer how do you how do you make how do you allow people to have to work and and live the way they want to
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in in this little service we yeah that's one of our USPS that we can do and we're
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very very keen on doing that personal observation about it is ironically I
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think I'm like Peter I'm probably more productive because of the lack of downtime I'm actually much more
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disciplined about my hours and when I work and when I work at the weekend and
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other things I'm finding that it's helpful to be more compartmentalize than
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perhaps I was previously and the sort of self-generated presenteeism
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I'm just Lisa pressing it personally I
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really do i redo to the the fact that you you've been given permission by the
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prime minister to go out and have one hours exercise and now more is you know you you make use of it normally went
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really long walks and now I'm getting a day and Peter in terms of kind of
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capturing that not more flexible way of approaching work how can we ensure that we don't have snap back will be rather
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kind of bounce forward I guess yeah I love these expressions snap back is one pivots another and are you still on mute
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is probably not yeah it's a really important point I think first and
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foremost it's about what we said before if we really understand what we've learned from this and we made that into
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our thinking about our operating models like cultures and everything else we would absolutely understand that they're
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keeping these more flexible ways of working it's absolutely inherent to that I'm sure you've done this ripping across
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civil servants as well we've been asking many questions about organisation about how do they feel about this but what
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would they want to do and something like 60% class say actually they very happy
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when of course you've got those segments as you describe who find this very hard for all sorts of reasons we have to
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acknowledge those people as well but the majority most cases say you know
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what yes this is working pretty well which is not to say you know we saw an announced and early from Twitter so and there so I'm gonna make it a permanent
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thing of working from and I think the answer is that it's a blender you give people Choice and that's the absolute
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essence that you give people Choice so that idea as you said with mass customization and which is after all
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what you know the younger generations are coming up in the world and expecting anyway in all sorts of things to have
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they interact so so thinking it's keeping true to those sorts of ideas and recognizing the value of choice and how
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it helps people to be productive because it supporting well-being it's supporting inclusion and well there's other ideas
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but I think the danger signs also there I mean we know that you have this is a
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steady encouragement of returning to workplaces it's going to test because there many businesses are finding extremely
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hard they need people at work or in the workplaces to operate at all so they're going to be putting pressure on their
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people to come back and whilst we can talk in the context of organizations like public sector which is
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predominantly and very people driven it it's a knowledge-based economy and so
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forth obviously in instead of things like manufacturing or hospitality services we need people aware that's
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where the challenge is going to be greater and it's not you know I think the real innovation will come when we
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even think of environments like that where we can shift and flex working patterns so it may be still going to be
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there but you can flex your working pans much more and we don't have to be so much in these rigid paradigms of work
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but that's what I think the test will come and of course we as we've been talking us a lot over the last several
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days with with communities about you know the programs of returning to work workplaces and the guidances we have to
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put in place and then the great worry so but what's all the legal support for this well of course one of the first
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questions that people ask all the time is can I force in quotes or can I be
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forced to go back to work and the answer's no you can't but it doesn't mean to say there won't be a lot of
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tensions between organizations and leaders who are driven by the need for their business to keep going and
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kneading play people aware but as I think as we're both agreeing and as we've always taught I mean that yeah I
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did keeping true to these principles and what we've learned from that and the humanity at work and why these things
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are beneficial I think has to be our guiding light and I think that brings us really nicely onto a question that's
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come in saying that as well as seizing the opportunities and the positives of how we've adapted to ways of working and
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there are some I think inequality risks have been identified and I think what
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you were just touching on preaching about difference between who can work from home and who can't and do I review
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of any thoughts on how we can mitigate those ribbit well we've been having very
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very good conversations useful conversations with our staff networks about this and
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I think this is one of the really big issues for us nationally as we come out
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of this you know what does it mean for ya particular demographics what does it
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mean for people who are over 70 what does it mean for people from some groups who might have been affected more more
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dramatically and including people doing certain types of job so it's a we're very alert when I come back to it saying
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it's the my sort of health warning on everything I put out on this in in my
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internal conversations with still the civil service leadership is but individual experiences vary widely and
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and that's I think that that's that's the key back back to what Peters been saying about about individualized
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individualization and you know we're gonna have to look at that stuff really really carefully and will it actually be
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you know will it actually act as a catalyst is another glass half-full point to ask about those issues in in
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other in other contexts not just in the context of kovat and recognize the needs
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of those those groups one thing I did want to say Peter is that a few things
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that have happened that I think of really interesting in the public sector which are interesting from a sort of
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policy perspective one is what's what's happened on homelessness and how that's
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been looked at differently and the fact
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that GP appointments are being done virtually that large chunks of education are being delivered virtually these are
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really again you know these are things that would take decades to look at in a different context and are throwing open
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an up all sorts of interesting questions about what we do when we're out of this
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particular stage of the response but you know great great question it is a really
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really important question and as I thought your communities of D&I leads I
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thought one of the big civil service communities you know recently about this and there is this genuine concern
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because if we took an example like returning to a place of work and
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recognising that yeah but that could be if we're not we don't look at it to an inclusion lens we might I mean obviously
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example might be well we'll take people it's easiest to return so for example people with mobility issues or whatever
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order to bring back so I would it be quite easy to sort of forget them but but there's also some other very maybe
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I'll give you slightly more subtle ones and less sort of visible perhaps of the normal lenses that II and I like this
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debate that's emerging about well of course many people who have who need to work in a workplace could not so easily
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work from home so your middle managers your white-collar staff to use your vernacular much more likely to work from
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home then your so-called blue collar style so so how do you make that affair how do you balance it and as I said
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before I think in any workplace in any circumstance you can still find ways to provide flexibility and we just need to
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be a bit more creative and inventive so I think the the truth on the DNI one is yes I think there is a danger it begins
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to get a bit lost and all the debate about you know just logistics and practicalities of returns to work basis
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or whatever and so the most important thing I think of all of the in that regard is that we keep that lens on and
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we as HR professionals to keep that lens I think we've done a lot in recent years to understand the diversity of our
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communities and we must keep doing that now so that whenever we look at any shifts in working patterns and the like
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we are applying that DNI lens to it to be sure that were being fair and and as
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usually drooper to obviously the other way is we just keep this open communication open channels we're
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sharing it when learning from our people all those other things which we know anyway good practice and in this context
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become ever more important thank you and we put a couple of specific ones about
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civil service HR so I'm gonna put them back together last about do you think
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this will generate a rethink on what needs to be face to face based HR service within the civil service and
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somebody else has asked what would HR in the civil service need to do differently to ensure we move forward from this
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rather than snapping back yes so two very good questions so I think the first
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the first thing is that the approach that I'm taking and putting
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out as the assumption is that there is actually no HR process that which HR
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professionals you know three and a thousand other civil service do that cannot be done virtually all remotely
31:23
and that should be the default and that
31:28
we've had a bit here we put that in place now I take the photogate example we have
31:33
accelerated development programs and we have some particular so they develop programs for some particular
31:39
demographics protected groups and most
31:44
people were sort of fine to go with that some people were a bit reluctant but I think when people had experienced it
31:50
they actually were very confident in us doing it that way so that's the that's the default that doesn't mean that there
31:56
won't ever be residential training for example or you won't have to have face-to-face interactions but you know I
32:04
did my first big you know two days of interviews for a post an HR director
32:11
summer in government and that was done you know completely online through zoom
32:16
and was was fine so that's why I think that said generally this is the future
32:23
for that and I suspect other functions will find the same will find the same thing the
32:31
what do we need to do to make sure we avoid the snapback what we need to keep
32:36
doing that ourselves and I think we need to be in a sense surfacing all the
32:41
issues that we've been talking about on this call so that leaders and others understand why we mustn't snap back and
32:49
just keep communicating I like Peter
32:54
your analogy with the you know 2008 at the CFO's time and this being the the a
33:02
general functions time you know I think what's come out to me not just in the civil service but looking across all of
33:08
the UK's HR community and actually talking to counterparts in the Republic
33:14
of Ireland and other places as well you know there is a professional body of knowledge in capability
33:20
associated with HR which is being leveraged now the return on that
33:26
investment is happening now and we just need to keep need to keep doing it Peter
33:35
somebody's asked as a how would you advise an HR professional to encourage
33:40
leaders to allow working from home to continue so to kind of have a move forward how can we influence hmm yeah I
33:49
love that word influence because a lot of what we have to do is influence and indeed it's one of those skill sets that
33:55
we put at the heart of the professional sort of skills things our ability to influence I think you know the reality
34:01
is as we recognize there is a spectrum of people there there are business leaders who totally get this understand
34:07
why it's important all the rest but there are the other end of the spectrum the doubters and the cynics and we know
34:12
they exist as well I think you know the first thing is as much evidence as possible so you do these surveys if you
34:18
wear false and you ask them how do you like working from home do you feel more productive is it you better connected or
34:24
whatever all those sorts of questions then you use that as part of your evidential base to support the argument with the you know perhaps the most
34:31
skeptical the business leaders that thinks that we need to move back or you said Rupert a snapback um but I do think
34:39
as I said at the very heart of this debate now is about this whole notion of
34:44
people and well-being and I have long been an advocate of the view but one of the most important outcomes for any
34:50
business and indeed society more broadly should be well-being and if we go back
34:55
to and I meant and some of you will have heard me talk about before I mean that the history of the CRPD itself which has
35:01
its antecedents in what was known as the welfare workers Association 100 years ago and they did what he said on the tin
35:08
they worried about people's welfare and I think we forgot a lot of that and the intervening years it's definitely come
35:13
back strongly in recent years it's now being accelerated by by this so the
35:19
other point over there for megwin influence and business leaders is the need for transparency and I'm a very
35:25
strong applicant having for a while that we have to shift corporate governance we have got to get you know the ABS
35:32
the essence of what a responsible businesses organization is built much more strongly into our corporate
35:37
governance now for public sale to a private sector companies yeah and the the new regulations or the updated
35:43
regulations around the company Act which is requiring directors to show that they
35:49
are understanding the short and long term impacts of their business and what they're doing to all of their stakeholders being more transparent on
35:56
what and how we treat our people so there are those sorts of pressures as well that are coming in on businesses
36:02
everywhere to say you've got to step up to this you've got to show that what you're doing is right and you have to do
36:08
that anyway because of some of the increased attention coming from regulators on it on corporate governance
36:13
but finally linked to that thought instead that we are all under scrutiny
36:18
now in ways we've never been before as business leaders as HR leaders because there is a very high expectation that we
36:25
are going to do the right thing so it's a very low tolerance now for anything that's excluding or not treating people
36:32
fairly because we all see this is a very human crisis so I think it's those external things we need to draw on as
36:38
well to influence a business leave in its thinking or organizationally just thinking to say this is a moment we're
36:45
going to be under screaming we've gotta share that doing the right thing delivers the right result and we're going to be held to account for that
36:51
across all of our stakeholders not least our own people and their own employees thank you not saying to advocate because
36:59
yeah I just wanted to raise one one thing and agreeing actually what Peter said and how we how we think about just
37:08
taking a step back and how we think about what is happening now so this is a pandemic and Peter and I were sort of
37:14
joke about it before I was out for my constitutional and heard someone saying oh this is a Black Swan event it is not
37:21
a Black Swan event right it's a White Swan this has been we knew this was going to happen at some point I mean
37:27
there are many people on this call that would have been having conversation about pandemic readiness SARS swine flu
37:33
all those things my grandmother and her nurse both caught flu in 1918
37:40
she was 12 her nurse died what happened with that flu in 1918 it were
37:46
first of all the second wave was worse than the first and it hit young people this isn't this is a this is a disease
37:51
which is disproportionately affecting old people that affected disproportionately younger people and you know one of our jobs you know we
37:59
talk about HR being strategic and strategic influence and business partners we need to be ready for these
38:05
types of big externalities that have an impact on the organization's we're supporting and also the the the risk of
38:15
congruent events now we had a we had a very interesting exercise within cell
38:21
service when it's a jar which I would encourage every HR team to do whatever
38:26
their organization which is we said we need to look at all the things that could happen at the same time and
38:33
actually one of the things we had was we might be leaving the European Union and there might be a pandemic and there
38:39
might be X number other things and it's a really good exercise and I would say
38:45
when you then go to your and there won't be a better time as we're coming out of this to go to leadership teams and say
38:51
oK we've looked at this and this is what we need to do to prepare our business
38:57
continuity plans to be thinking about that so I'd encourage everybody to look at what's expected of us as HR
39:05
professionals and our business continuity plans make constructive suggestions about how we can make our
39:10
organizations more resilient and tougher
39:15
to final things on that a very interesting description I was reading in one article about what what have we
39:22
learned about the NHS through this period the NHS and there'll be many people on this call but a call by
39:27
talking about the maze so but the NHS is proved that it is tough it's a tough
39:32
organisation that's been very resilient it's been hard it's been you know people
39:37
have an incredibly professional but boy is it tough and as a good thing as a virtue and you've got the so we've
39:45
learnt that Nicholas Taleb who wrote the Black Swan and fooled by randomness in great books
39:52
every HR professional should read talks about this concept of organisations being anti fragile tough organizations
40:00
and part of our job is to keep up keep the engine running keep people in our
40:07
organization safe exercise the duty of care and make sure they are as as tough as possible and it's a really good
40:15
opportunity for us today job fresh doesn't stick step back and think about how we'll do that going forward for when the next thing happens because there
40:21
will be a next thing is a really great
40:30
question so when I ask it so somebody's asked about how do we ensure as a
40:35
profession that we're not defined as rescue and response as they put it and rather that we strategically Drive the
40:42
future people agenda in a leader full way which I think you answered really great well just now a group at UM future
40:48
could you pick up on that as well as your next point yeah isn't it because I
40:53
think your point a bit about resilience is so important and we do have a very
40:58
fundamental role I think we've all seen that because when you when you were describing it before that and quite
41:04
thought about in this context but all the work they've been done on the project yellow hammer in the Braxley stuff had actually prepared the silver
41:11
service for this kind of eventualities ways that we probably wouldn't have imagined before and what we have seen
41:17
across many many sectors an economy it's because of the drives to efficiency and all these other things that the
41:22
resilience in our supply chain systems an example is minimal because of no buffer stops anywhere it's all just in
41:29
time too much short-term thinking in businesses where they're not investing in the longer term and resilience of
41:35
infrastructure and things that allow and then when it comes to people in resilience and this is where hraah
41:40
become so important there are lots of different things think about and I would start with one which is not always
41:45
talked about but is the notion of trust because again something we've learnt a lot through this crisis is that we have
41:52
had to trust our people to get on and do stuff and a lot of the innovation that
41:58
we've all seen in our organisations is because we have yes in some cases for the first time
42:03
properly empowered we have properly trusted people to get on and do what they needed to do they have to adapt
42:09
rapidly with their teams very different circumstances so I think Trust is an absolutely critical element of any
42:17
businesses or any organizations ability to respond then you trust you people you people trust the leadership and and that
42:25
is a fragile commodity and then of course you've got all of those other things that you would naturally think about the more strategic response of
42:31
resilience which is understanding your operating models contingency planning your ability as you said reboot your
42:38
ability to be able to reconfigure the organization quickly move resources around bounce you workloads things of
42:45
that nature which to be honest again because we've had such a drive in the private sector those efficiencies and
42:50
always I think just not very good at and then finally it is that ability to understand yeah sort of slightly broader
42:58
level in order to be able to redeploy people quickly through crisis what are the skills and capabilities people have
43:04
and that I think is another really interesting things going to come out all of this we we've had too much arguably
43:10
lots of specialization lots of specialist skills in the growing future of work jobs pointing more and more - laughs what we are seeing now and some
43:17
of the really exciting innovations as happen across businesses where we know that across different sectors you got
43:23
what would be classically described as a v-shape recovering you ship recovery or an l-shape recovery so if you take
43:28
Airlines and what they've been doing for example with retailers saying well we can't employ all of our people but you
43:35
know what they've got great customer service' skills which we brilliant to support where there is increased amount so in retail isn't that points to
43:42
something different about our understanding of skills underpinning of what you might regard as the core or
43:47
transferable skills that we need to be calling out much more so I think those are part of a strategic response as well
43:53
but so I would say that I'm in between those two ideas that we need to be able to understand the short-term impacts of
43:59
resilience but also the strategic way of thinking about organizations to make sure that we are resilient for these
44:04
future events thank you I'm picking up the point about their function I'm gonna
44:10
run a few questions together we've had quite a few have you got any reply Shinzon how the HR function itself will
44:17
need to transform in terms of the skills and perhaps functionally how we're set
44:22
up and somebody else has also asked about do you think there'll be any emergent roles to come out of this so
44:28
new HR job titles type thing so I'd say I think almost certainly yes I'm not
44:36
sure what they are and I think that I think what can I say
44:41
I think that it's this is just reinforced the fact that there is a lot
44:46
of stuff happening at the interface between service design workplace design
44:55
technology and the human people element and that and I think this just shows
45:00
that as HR professionals and I've talked about other places you know the the HR
45:05
profession of 2030 could be much more
45:11
multidisciplinary professional we might be sharing it with some other professions as well so I think that's that that's definitely a theme you know
45:17
what do we expect from the HR business partner as if you like curator of the
45:23
employee experience on behalf of the organization that that's I think something we're definitely seeing and I
45:28
think there's a lot around around data and analysis and around what it means I
45:35
mean the appetite yeah we've spent a lot
45:41
of time if I'm gonna make it slightly slightly facetious remarks but we've had a lot of years and years of people
45:48
complaining about HR policies and an area even their existence and now are we
45:54
discovering a massive appetite to be told what to do and so part of our trick
46:01
is not to respond to that but actually to help people you know trust your good
46:08
judgment will help you will give you advice will influence you but really this is for you to decide and will and
46:14
will help you rather than go to sort of rigid rigid guidance they're very but I
46:21
know lots of there'll be lots of interesting roles and I hope that people will move well they'll be much more
46:27
fluid movement into other play is like facilities technology etc do you
46:35
think on how it's gonna change our profession yeah I'm interested as to reflection first one that rules and
46:40
policies one lipid yeah you're right and I've long advocated the view which over a bit of a bump out of our policies
46:45
because that has driven too much of our thinking in the past and actually doesn't influence all right David we have a classic case now going on there
46:52
me with all these returns to workplaces guidelines and people expecting a manual to tell them exactly what to do in every
46:58
circumstance and you can't and so much of this is about human behavior and unfortunate what makes it difficult is a
47:04
lot of these distancing things are very unnatural to us so you have to trust you
47:11
got to get people understanding principles their individual responsibility which is another thing rules tend to work again we've just got
47:18
ton of rules and just a bang rules especially yeah but what's my personal accountability for this so I think you've got those things but as you said
47:24
more broadly I mean yeah interesting thought about what you job titles my I'm hurt yeah well we have achieved crisis
47:30
officer or something I don't know but but I agree with the general point super there that I think at the heart of it
47:36
will be a strengthening of these more strategic areas if you well an organization science job design things
47:43
of that nature the whole employee journey X employee experience thing and those will become strength and
47:48
management to change which is of course linked to crisis response also will be really strengthened but at this point in
47:56
time in it and who knows in things will emerge of course but I think as we've reflected we can't we've look back in
48:01
our profession and look to the areas of development and I think it still holds us in good stead we've talked so much in
48:07
recent years about grounding us out on the right behaviors the right core knowledge which range from things like
48:14
influencing skills and ethical judgment all the data and analytics that you talked about links to business and
48:19
business understanding cross-functional working all those sorts of ideas so I think that a lot of the foundations are
48:26
there but it's it's going to be a harder push and indeed a pull from the
48:31
organizations that we support to build our capabilities and a lot of these areas and I think particularly what you
48:37
might bound in some of this more strategic äôt organization design operating miles job design star
48:43
Plus underpinned by good analytics and understanding and then as I say this broader idea of our role in nature which
48:50
i think is a really important one has been the real advocates champion supporters of how you manage change and
48:57
all the cultural dynamics and sit behind that and those are things which I think will get strengthened as well and I want
49:04
to ask a nice question about change management um obviously you reflected really early on in this conversation
49:10
report that we were able to make really big change really quickly so do you think that there any practical lessons
49:15
we can take from this and how we manage large-scale change of pace given it proved that it can be done yeah so well
49:23
I'm still really thinking about this and I'd be grateful for any suggestions I think I my immediate reaction is to say
49:33
don't take for granted that opportunities like this will occur very often and and I think we've been very I
49:40
can fortunate seems the wrong word to use but circumstances have conspired in
49:46
the context of the public service to go through you exit readiness and then this
49:51
and we've been able to ride that so so the main thing is know when and they'll be micro examples of this but know when
49:58
there is a chip when there is an appetite and and drive through the
50:03
through the gap to make a change now I would say there is something which is
50:10
quite notable for me which is sometimes the door to the door to push through
50:17
change in a culture is wide open and people still feel that the doors shut
50:23
and so I would it's made me think that there are probably many more occasions when we could be pushing things through
50:30
and pushing it open doors that perhaps we then perhaps we think and I'll
50:38
definitely be definitely be reflecting on that how we can encourage leaders new
50:49
ways of working and change and uncertainty yeah a great point I mean just on the change when I mean change
50:55
happens top-down and bottom-up and I think an awful lot of chase any big change we've thought about in the past rather too
51:01
much as top-down here we got a structured old programs I gotta tell everyone to do we're gonna communicate in the hell out of in all the rest of it
51:07
and the sort of ten steps of what we're all supposed to do you know a lot of what we've seen again what we've learned
51:13
in this crisis is a lot of fantastic change can happen bottom-up as well which doesn't mean say you've got to keep those two things somewhat aligned
51:19
of course but there is no doubt that I releasing the innovation of our
51:25
organizations and trusting and empowering people more it is the the real essence of so much effective change
51:32
and I've often reflected on models and there probably are people on the call from say the MRD but the way the
51:39
military its thought about this many years it's mission command mission objective ideas I got clarity and what
51:44
I'm doing I've trained my people in cleaning my managers down to the lowest level of management as to how they are
51:50
supposed to act and what they would call situational leadership so I've trained them and I trained them properly on
51:56
these sorts of things and then I empowered them within that framework to do the right thing in the right context
52:02
and take action into the helped change to happen and I think those are sort of dynamics have changed we haven't always
52:08
well understood and if I'm really honest it comes back to this trust idea that we taught about trust but trust like it any
52:14
goes that way that I you're supposed to trust me as your your my team member or whatever versus the other way which is
52:22
also what do but do I trust you and the more rules we write all the other things we've done tells people they're not
52:27
being trusted so I think that's a very important dynamic um and then I put on the second question leaders yes about
52:35
leaders well absolutely absolutely and again we've all learned I've learned I'm
52:41
sure Rubin has we've all learnt as leaders to do this about communication about sharing about and if I take a
52:47
simple adage again from the past that often leaders thought that their job and said well I've seen this before
52:52
and this is what we've gotta go and do but I've never believed in that view because the world is changing so for us
52:57
and certainly in this context if it told us anything it's taught us more humility as leaders and I think that is one of
53:04
the real learnings for leaders going forwards is we don't know everything and from the idea of humility
53:09
so you got to reach out you got to connect you've got to engage you've got to listen you've got to learn those attributes of great leadership that
53:16
we've talked about for a long time and again I think that this crisis can help to reinforce those ideas and then link
53:23
it as I said to that idea of trust so if the humility comes that idea that I have got to trust and I've got to empower and
53:30
I think those are very broad messages for leadership that I think of again got very reinforced to those biases there's
53:37
lovely I'm I've lost it in the comments now that's somebody put a nice some comment or a question about do you think
53:42
this is making us bring our whole selves to see - chairs from I'm gonna again
53:56
blend a few questions together so we've had a few about um the embracing change is really positive but not all changes
54:02
are positive how do you think we can look after people who are finding some
54:08
of this remote working quite detrimental to their mental health so feelings of isolation and I'm going to tag onto that
54:13
how do we help people deal with them with grief because this is an incredibly kind of human health crisis and I'm Reed
54:20
but what you doing in the civil service to help with these so a couple a couple
54:26
a couple of thoughts on that so I again the individual experience is going to be
54:32
very it's gonna be it's going to be so different and it's very easy I'm
54:39
speaking personally to forget so we noticed something early on in this process which was that there was a the
54:48
people who'd be dealing with this from day one so for me my introduction to this was the Cabinet Office 70 Whitehall
54:55
ground floor cafeteria coffee place sitting with the opponent sector from
55:01
DHS C and the chief medical officer in there saying this was like in January
55:06
this this thing is coming look what we do we need these people like now that's
55:14
quite small us that's not my first encounter with it and of course we went and provided the people I needed and
55:19
that's that start us on on the route and but we noticed that those of us they were sort of in the
55:26
inner ring and then we were in the next ring of people who were aware of what was coming and there was a period of
55:31
people not really getting what was coming just as we hadn't initially and and then that the dangerous thing was
55:38
when you have people who are in those two groups in the same room and they had sort of internalized this and other
55:44
people who hadn't yet internalized it and that that's that may be very
55:49
thoughtful about how we deal with some other things like that so how we have we absorbed the change I mean I'm not a
55:54
huge fan of kubler-ross grief curve but it has a place and that was you know an example of it people were further along
56:00
the curve with this and so we always need to think that there are people who
56:06
are at different points on the curve and and there are people for whom the experience of working from home or not
56:15
being in the office is going to be isolating the impact on people with
56:20
different neuro types is relevant as well you know all of those things need to be considered and really that comes
56:26
back to good line managers and good colleagues being supportive and you know
56:34
you should know which of your people in your teams might be in that category and what they might need and the check-in so
56:41
I'd be really pleased to see you know the virtual check-ins perhaps people are check-in more with their teams and they
56:47
would have done if they were physically present and that's been really that's been a really important thing and so and
56:54
that comes back maybe to a general thing you know ultimately human resources you
57:02
know I'm actually quite a fan of human resources as a title because the human bit is so important the humanity is so
57:09
important and our job is to be you know structured organized application of
57:16
humanity and humane principles in the workplace and all those things need to
57:21
need to be taken into account I I feel very strongly about this which is
57:27
probably why I'm not being very articulate about it but it's gonna have
57:33
to bring this to a close I'm just going to ask one more question and put it to both of you and so somebody's asked do you have any
57:40
advice for HR professionals themselves who are feeling overwhelmed at the huge asks ahead and I know that's something
57:46
we're hearing from so many of the membership that people are just exhausted and you know there's still so
57:51
much more to come and while you answer that they also ask if you could offer maybe a personal reflection on what's
57:56
kind of helped you in terms of self-care because you're in both in really big roles managing teams big organizations
58:02
so how are you looking after yourself and I'm Pete Rock with that to you first yeah I mean first of all recognize and
58:08
acknowledging as we both said that age has been so much at the center so yeah we shouldn't forget ourselves and
58:14
actually it has some other parallels because I've often said and some we may heard me say it that that age has been
58:21
too much of the Cobblers children and we haven't invested enough in ourselves and that's one of the reasons why I'm hugely
58:26
proud that relationship that we have with you Roopa and silver service HR because that is putting back into the
58:31
profession to grow our capabilities collectively and that absolutely applies to birthing as well so we need to look
58:38
after ourselves and from the cipa perspective we've been doing a lot to support that I filled everything
58:43
everyone said it's much more on the agenda but specifically to provide help lines and support help lines wellbeing
58:49
outlines to our own professional membership so we must look after ourselves in that regard and take on board what we're also trying to
58:55
encourage others to do and then finally very quickly for myself yeah I I'm slightly worried two perspectives one is
59:03
I'm definitely physics I'm exercising quite a lot more but I'm probably also drinking a bit more so I'm sorry we're
59:09
going to come out as a rather fit alcoholic but and but the other thing that to be serious is really really
59:15
important that it sustain me so much is my family connection and I've recognized how lucky I am the fact I've got my
59:22
three adult daughters are all in their twenties they're all back at home which is had set their stresses and strains
59:27
but it has been absolutely amazing to provide that support for me so I can
59:32
switch off I can go spend time with them me my family can actually do all sorts of crazy stuff together and that has
59:38
been really really good for my mental well-being and and and finally to your point but about switching off and
59:44
switching yeah that ability to make sure just all become a seamless blur of work and that opportunity
59:51
disconnect spent time and family has been an absolute blessing and I think
59:56
we're closer as a family for it as well thank you and advice that kind of HR
1:00:01
professionals also reflections from you personally yeah pull them together and raise the record what Peter said I think
1:00:09
you're nurture and value human connections and one of the connections
1:00:16
that everyone on this call has is we are all members of a professional community I think we're very fortunate thanks to
1:00:24
Peter and Katie and all your colleagues that we are there's there's a good
1:00:29
support and infrastructure there with CIPD so there'll be people in your organization that you should be
1:00:34
connecting with and sharing with and and
1:00:40
connecting and connecting with friends friends and family as well accepting that it's been this is a particularly
1:00:47
challenging time because of separation and distancing but one which probably
1:00:53
sort of throws that into its value into sharper relief I'd also say a question
1:01:00
that Peter and I have talked about and and I think we we do want to sort of try and build up as a profession we're
1:01:07
looking at it in the civil service we don't know quite what it looks like but the idea of finding more opportunities that people have channels for reflective
1:01:13
discussion with their peers and to sort of we carry a lot of load in these jobs
1:01:20
compared to some other professions people earlier in their careers are exposed to bigger issues maybe and
1:01:29
that's something I think we really want to try and we should find ways to recognize and support but human
1:01:35
connection that's the thing that's a really really fabulous place to end I think probably gone on longer and I'm
1:01:42
really sorry I didn't get to everybody's questions but I tried to combine and be clever about I think many of them as
1:01:48
possible this webinar will be available to watch on demand and hopefully from
1:01:54
this afternoon or not tune in tomorrow morning so please do feel free watch it again share it far and wide thank you so much
1:02:01
Rupert thank you Peter for giving up your time I see the chaplet people thought that was very great session so thank you very much
1:02:08
taking part and thanks everybody for watching and we will see you next time thank you thanks everyone thanks Peter
1:02:13
thank you thank you bye all right
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