April 3, 2025 • 35 mins
In episode 194, Coffey talks with Lucy Adams about transforming people practices to meet modern business needs.
They discuss how traditional HR processes focus on conformity rather than flexibility; the tendency to design policies around the lowest common denominator rather than individual needs; regulation burdens in the UK versus the US; opportunities to reframe DEI initiatives to be more effective and inclusive; the challenges of the hybrid workplace model; the importance of carefully selecting managers who actually want to lead people; the impact of AI on HR functions and employee roles.
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If you are an HRCI or SHRM-certified professional, this episode of Good Morning, HR has been pre-approved for half a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information for this episode, visit https://goodmorninghr.com.
About our Guest:
Lucy Adams was the BBC’s HR Director during one of its most turbulent periods. Responsible for all aspects of employee relations, reward, training and development, she reduced the BBC management by over 30%, saving the organisation £25m a year. In her five year tenure Lucy saw four Directors General come and go, oversaw the move to Manchester site and coped with numerous, very public crises including executive pay-offs and the Savile scandal. This alongside the everyday work of talent retention, development and remuneration, HR policy, and the challenges of delivering multiple changes in a publicly-funded organisation working in a highly commercial, fast-moving sector with over 20,000 employees.
Prior to working at the BBC, Lucy was Group HR Director at Serco, the government services business, and at the law firm Eversheds.
For the last 10 years Lucy has been the CEO of Disruptive HR with the mission of 'changing people practices for good'. Lucy challenges business leaders and HR professionals to reappraise their approaches and to consider how relevant and productive they are in a disrupted world. She offers new ideas and practical innovative approaches that the more progressive companies are already adopting. Combining her strategic HR expertise with practical implementation, she advocates for an innovative yet grounded approach which aims to put the “human” back into Human Resources.
Lucy is not just a business leader and hugely popular keynote speaker, but also a well-known author of the bestseller “HR Disrupted” a book packed with practical ways to innovate your approach to leading people in a disrupted world. Her latest book bestseller “The HR ChangeToolkit” provides the complete guide to making it happen.
Lucy Adams can be reached at
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucykadams
https://www.facebook.com/hrdisruptive
https://www.instagram.com/disruptive_hr
About Mike Coffey:
Mike Coffey is an entrepreneur, licensed private investigator, business strategist, HR consultant, and registered yoga teacher.
In 1999, he founded Imperative, a background investigations and due diligence firm helping risk-averse clients make well-informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.
Imperative delivers in-depth employment background investigations, know-your-customer and anti-money laundering compliance, and due diligence investigations to
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucy Adams (00:00):
I still speak to so many HR people who are pretty
much doing things the way theydid in the nineteen nineties.
And and in part because I thinka lot of the leaders that
they're working with are stillthe same leaders from the
nineteen nineties. So it willchange, but it's wonderful when
you see HR teams who are outthere leading the way,
(00:21):
challenging things, doing thingsin very different ways,
experimenting and piloting, andhaving the confidence to to
really push back on theseestablished norms and these
established wisdom that we'velived with for for two, you
know, twenty, thirty, forty, youknow, years.
Mike Coffey (00:41):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. Please follow
Rate and review Good Morning HRwherever you get your podcast.
(01:02):
You can also find us onFacebook, Instagram, YouTube, or
at goodmorninghr.com.
I'm joined today by Lucy Adams.Lucy is the CEO at Disruptive
HR, a UK based consultancyhelping business leaders
understand the latest trends inpeople leadership and apply them
in practical ways to makepositive things happen in their
(01:25):
organizations. Before startingdisruptive HR over a decade ago,
Lucy was the HR director at theBBC during one of its most
turbulent periods. Her careeralso includes time in government
services and the legal field.Lucy is a popular keynote
speaker and author of HRdisrupted.
Her latest book, the HR changetoolkit, your complete guide to
(01:49):
making it happen is available onAmazon and I will share the link
in the show notes. Welcome togood morning HR, Lucy.
Lucy Adams (01:57):
Oh, thank you so much for inviting me.
Mike Coffey (02:00):
So, your first book was HR disruptive Disrupted and
your second book is the HRChange Toolkit. So, is how
organizations identify, attract,develop, incentivize and
mobilize employees that broken?
Lucy Adams (02:15):
Broken is a very strong word. Right? But I do
think that and and I by the way,everything I criticize in my
book about the HR profession, Ihave done. There's no I agree.
Ground here.
Okay? But I do think that HR hasbeen driven by a number of
assumptions that has not helpedits credibility. I think it's
(02:40):
led to it not having the impactthat it could have had. And I
believe that HR is still, know,ten years on since setting up
disruptive HR. I think it'sstill in need of a good
overhaul.
And yeah, so that's what thebooks aim to do is to not just
(03:01):
make the case that it needs agood overhaul, but to also give
HR leaders and practitioners thekind of tools to do it.
Mike Coffey (03:09):
What do you think, you talk about overhaul and how
much of that is systems,procedures, priorities, those
kind of things versus the actualpeople sitting in the HR offices
and their skills andcompetencies?
Lucy Adams (03:27):
Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll come to the HR profession
and the people that are in it ina little while. But but first of
all, think because I think it'sboth. But I think your first
point is that a lot of whatwe've done and what we continue
to do in HR is driven by theneed to ensure conformity when
(03:47):
actually what we need to betrying to do is to customize and
personalize if we're gonna havereal relevance and impact. I
think it's driven by a desire tocompensate for poor managers.
And so we put in place processand policy to try and protect
the poor employees from thesepoor managers. I think a lot of
(04:07):
it is trying to also protect theorganization from the rogue
employees, the tiny percentageof rogue employees who are going
to behave badly. But so much ofwhat we do in HR, our policies,
rules and so on are determinedby that lowest common
denominator. And I also thinkthat a lot of our processes in
HR have been driven by a need toensure compliance, to tick off
(04:33):
that particular box rather thanreally thinking about how human
beings lead sorry, how humanbeings learn, feel motivated,
can perform better, can embracechange. Weirdly for a people
function, we haven't deployedour superpower of knowing people
very well.
(04:54):
What we've tended to do is to gofor process rather than really
designing around human beings.And we can talk about examples
of each of those if you want to.I think in terms of the HR
profession, every HR person I'vemet and I meet thousands every
year works really hard, cares ahuge amount. But I think we've
(05:16):
also suffer from perhaps a adegree of lack of confidence, a
sense of perhaps slight slightlyvictimized about, you know, why
does nobody listen to me? And Ithink there's a, yeah, that kind
of lack of confidence reallyundermines our ability to get
stuff done.
Mike Coffey (05:35):
I think that's a giant issue as I like you, I I
speak at a lot of conferences. Ialso for for SHRM, the the, you
know, the predominantly nowworldwide but predominantly US
HR association. I'm statedirector elect and so I'm
talking to HR leaders all thetime and in my own business. And
(05:57):
so and I I think that that ideathat either HR has to be the
police or they've gotta be thatstrictly transactional
department. And neither of thoseare very strategic.
Lucy Adams (06:12):
No.
Mike Coffey (06:12):
And and you spend and we do as an organization
respond to one bad actoremployee by building up bulwarks
around preventing this thingfrom ever happening again.
Lucy Adams (06:28):
Exactly. I was talking to a client the other
day and they were saying thatthey had this great approach at
work where you could bring yourdog to work. And then one day, a
dog came in with fleas andimmediately, it's like, HR, we
want a policy for dogs withfleas. And it just ripped the
soul out of the whole approach.Nobody was gonna bring their
dogs in after that.
(06:49):
And I think, you know, it's thatclassic thing of where we design
around that lowest commondenominator. It doesn't do us
any favors.
Mike Coffey (06:55):
Right. So you're in The UK and and you mentioned
compliance. I mean, we in The UScomplain quite a bit about, you
know, the compliance burden fromthe federal government, from the
state government and even insome jurisdictions, the local
cities. But I think y'all,everything I've ever heard is
(07:16):
that y'all make us look likeamateurs when it comes to
regulations in the employmentand labor area. So, what does it
look like there?
How What does that burden looklike on a business when it comes
to regulation in The UK?
Lucy Adams (07:33):
So, I mean, we can perhaps talk about this as well,
Mike. You know, just like you,we have a new administration in
power, which is bringing aroundsome interesting changes. You've
moved to Republican. We've movedto, what we call labor here in
the in The UK. And, of course,labor is the the so called kind
of party of the employee ratherthan perhaps the bosses.
Mike Coffey (07:56):
More like our traditional Democrat.
Lucy Adams (07:58):
Exactly. So
Mike Coffey (07:59):
Although, I can tell you the Trump
administration is really talkingto labor and they're speaking
the language of labor.
Lucy Adams (08:05):
Exactly. Exactly. So lines are blurred now, aren't
they? Mhmm. But certainly, thethe labor government, when they
came to power last summer, weretalking about doing a huge
amount around increasing thelevel of protection for
employees.
And as with as ever with thesekind of government policy driven
approaches, they can be a littlebit clumsy and they can miss the
(08:29):
nuance and they can actually setback progress. So classic
example would be probation. Wewere seeing real inroads into
getting rid of that sword ofDamocles hanging over employees,
moving to a much more agileapproach, you know, kind of the
odd check-in, but making it muchmore around, you know, sort of
(08:50):
dropping the probationaryperiod. Well, the legislation
that's likely to come in isgoing to make that impossible
because of rights being extendedso that you get basically rights
from day one. So the need fororganizations to have that
rigorous probationary period isgoing to be intensified, which I
(09:11):
think is a real shame.
So I think here, we have notonly the government legislation,
but I think, you know, what whatI see is certain industries
really struggling under certainadditional regulatory
requirements, so financialservices, education, health. A
lot of HR people I meet in thosesectors, they desperately want
(09:34):
to be more progressive. Theywant to, for example, drop what
we know doesn't actually workwith the annual appraisals and
ratings and guided distributionand all of that paraphernalia,
which as we know doesn't driveperformance or enhance
motivation. They want to drop itbut their sector regulator
(09:55):
insists on it or at leastinsists on the evidence of a
rating of some description. Ithink sometimes both at a
government sectoral level, Ithink that can be quite
prohibitive for some HR peoplewho do want to be more
progressive and more agile andmore reflective of the world
that we live in today.
Mike Coffey (10:16):
Well, and just the more layers of regulation you
have, the more admin clericalcomes with that, right? Yeah. So
if an organization doesn't wantto staff both a whole pool of
people to do the paperwork andmake sure the data's done
whether it's, you know, actualphysical paper or it's in the
(10:38):
computer system someplace andanother group to make employees
feel as though they belong tothe in the organization that the
organization hears and caresabout them and that they're, you
know, that they they've got afuture and they this is some
place they want to work. Thoseare two very different roles.
(10:59):
Yeah.
And organizations are going todefault first to not getting in
trouble with the government,right? Not opening them up
themselves up for a lawsuit forfailure to file the right
documents or whatever. And soand we have that same issue in
The US and so to a slightlylesser degree, think, but
there's still mean, the theTrump administration, one of the
(11:20):
first things the president didon his first day was get rid of
our affirmative actionrequirements for federal
contractors and everybody saidit was the, you know, the sky is
falling. But I've been in HR forthirty years and I've done
affirmative action plans backtwenty five plus years ago for a
large employer And I can tellyou, they didn't drive behavior.
(11:44):
That was it was just a documentyou had to turn in.
It didn't change how yourecruited. It didn't really
change how you incentivized, howyou grew employees, the
opportunities people had. And,you know, in the here in the,
you know, twenty twenties,employers by and large aren't
looking to actively discriminateagainst people. I mean, saying
(12:06):
that they don't and not sayingthat they don't have biases they
don't recognize or that theirtheir systems don't operate as
optimally for bringing the besttalent in, but that all that
paperwork that they were doingand all the money they were
spending on software andconsultants to get those things
done probably wasn't achievingany of the end goals and it was
a distraction for theorganization. So, you know,
that's kind of the ongoingbalance, you know, how do we
(12:29):
make, you know, definitely thegovernment needs to make sure
that people are paid fairly,that, you know, that a certain
level of of benefit is therebecause otherwise that's gonna
those benefits are gonna go offto the public to pay and those
kinds of things.
So there's a, you know, there'scertainly balance but too often
we set a government policy inplace and we set corporate
(12:51):
policies in place and they go onforever without being
reexamined. And so, definitelyin in organizations you see it,
you know, this is how we'vealways done it. Or you see HR
professionals. I talk to peopleat conferences and say, well,
well, you can't do that. And I'mlike, well, you can.
There's nothing in the law thatsays you can't. Why can't you?
And, oh, well, no place I'veever done every place I've ever
(13:12):
done said you can't do that. Andthat's just something, you know,
something they want to do thatwould be beneficial, but it's
been handed from generation togeneration and nobody stopped to
say, why can't we do this?
Lucy Adams (13:24):
I think, I mean you raised the issue of diversity
and inclusion and I think it'sabsolutely fascinating what's
going on at the moment becauseyou know, there's clearly all
this outcry from the DEIcommunity and one could regard
some of the decisions from someof the corporate bosses as sort
of opportunistic and cynical,you know, in terms of
(13:44):
immediately rolling back oncertain DEI commitments. But I
agree
Mike Coffey (13:47):
with opportunistic and cynical when they ran into
them in 2020. Right? Yeah. Yeah.With no real intent to to make
much change.
Yeah.
Lucy Adams (13:55):
Yeah. So, I mean, I but I I actually think this is a
a really important opportunityfor a reset around DEI because,
like you, I feel that many ofthe approaches that we've taken
have not worked. You know,unconscious bias training,
billions spent on it and yet
Mike Coffey (14:12):
we know to support it. Right?
Lucy Adams (14:14):
Well, you know, I mean, I was reading, something
from London School of Economicsthat was written in 2021, which
talked about, you know, a longterm research project, which had
looked at the impact ofunconscious bias training in
certain organizations. And inalmost every case, the stats had
gone backwards because humannature if you say to a you say
to a manager, it's not yourfault. You know, it's an
(14:37):
unconscious bias. And you don'tfollow it up with anything which
challenges those biases in themoment where they're making
those decisions using nudgetechniques and so on, then
nothing changes. Think it'swhilst on the one hand, we can
decry the actions of certainleaders, I do think we need to
(14:57):
be honest and acknowledge as aprofession that DEI has not
delivered.
And it's because I think we'vemade it in some ways very
alienating for people. Soironic, isn't it? That we've
actually made it very exclusive.We created our own language
around it. We've made itcompliance focused, which as we
know doesn't change behavioreither.
(15:18):
We've had programs which look tofix the difference of, you know,
sort of training people up to beas good as the people in power
as opposed to really looking atwhat does it mean to be an
inclusive workplace. I thinkthere are some great examples of
that changing, but there's alsobeen a lot of the kind of, you
know, we'll tackle it withmandatory training and process.
(15:40):
And and we know that thatdoesn't change someone's
beliefs, their their views,their attitudes, and their
behavior. So we've got to getsmarter about this stuff.
Mike Coffey (15:50):
Even before all of this exploded in 2020, Harvard
Business Review had severalstudies that in authors who
wrote about how this kindchanging hearts and minds
doesn't work. That it's gotta besystems in place to mitigate
that bias and all of that. Andso and I think it was 2021 or
2022, was invited to give apresentation, a DEI type
(16:12):
presentation to a group. And Ithought, okay. Well, let me sit
down and do this.
And what I ended up doing washow to, you know, creating, you
know, a presentation around howto mitigate bias in employment
selection process. And that, youknow, that's a business case.
How do I get as wide a fullyqualified applicant pool as I
(16:34):
can? I mean, I want as manyqualified applicants coming in
the door. And then I want aprocess in place where my hiring
managers biases, whether theyrecognize them or not, are
really minimized.
And so that we get reallycompetent people and we're
really evaluating how somebodyis truly going to perform in the
(16:55):
role that we need and howthey're gonna operate in our
environment and our culturebecause, you know, you know,
going from a, you know, a verybuttoned down, you know, black
black shoe, white shirtenvironment to a really loosey
goosey environment where youthrived in one, you may not
(17:16):
thrive in the other. We gottafigure those things out for the
sake of the candidate as muchfor as for us. But those
figuring out all those, how dowe really mitigate all of this
stuff so that we get a fullyqualified candidate on board as
quickly as possible for theprice that we're willing to pay
for that role. That's whatthat's what diversity is, right?
(17:36):
And then we gotta get them on onboard and make sure that we
treat their they're treatedfairly, but that they feel like
they belong and they're part ofthe organization.
Yeah. And so I I, you know, it'sgonna be interesting. And the
other problem you talked aboutthe term diversity, what does it
even mean? DEI doesn't means youask eight practitioners and
they're gonna give you eightdifferent answers. I've had
(17:57):
several as guests on thispodcast trying to figure out
what are they really talkingabout and some are just talking
about the things I'm talkingabout.
Yeah. And that's not even, youknow, those aren't the DEI
programs that are illegal orthat anybody's complaining about
except that they have thatlabeled DEI. Yeah. But then when
you start talking about quotasor quasi quotas or telling
(18:18):
hiring managers you've got theseexpectations that they that
their organization's gonna looklike this, that violates in The
US our our title sevenAbsolutely. You know.
And so you can't do that, butthere were people out there out
front because the popularzeitgeist was that's what you
can that's what we should bedoing. People were doing it.
Yeah. And and so getting awayfrom the term DEI, I think, a
(18:42):
positive thing for the idea ofhaving fairer workplaces.
Whatever we call it, we justneed to have those processes in
place where we're we're reallyhiring competent and fair.
Lucy Adams (18:52):
Yeah. Or we're using technology to kind of take the
human being out of the equationaltogether, know, using AI and
the hiring or talent managementprocesses. We're seeing that
more and more, aren't we? And Ithink that's a real positive. Of
course, there are potentialissues with AI and ensuring that
the bias isn't hardwired intoit.
But equally, I think judicioususe of that to ensure that
(19:14):
you're not purely relying on ona line manager's judgment can be
helpful. And definitely, we'reseeing some good results there.
And I really do like the the wayin which certain companies I was
looking at something at atAtlassian. And just by very
simply changing the language. Soinstead of talking about
(19:36):
diversity and inclusion, theyjust talked about, you know, how
can we build better balancedteams?
And, you know, it just strippedaway this sense of this is an
area that isn't for me or Idon't wanna say the wrong thing.
I might get it, you know, Imight get into trouble if I get
it wrong. And so I think justmaking the whole arena a much
more welcoming place to have aconversation because that's
(19:59):
what's gonna lead to change,isn't it? It's people having
open and honest conversationswithout fear that they're gonna
end up in some kind of tribunal.
Mike Coffey (20:09):
And let's take a quick break. Good morning HR is
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(20:30):
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imperativeinfo.com. And now backto my conversation with Lucy
(20:55):
Adams. So we're two decades intothe twenty first century.
Business has changed soradically.
I started my consulting practicein '97, I started the background
screening company in '99, and Ithink back to the way I did
things and the kind of advice Ieven gave clients then, it's so
(21:19):
different than it is, you know,here twenty six, twenty eight
years later. HR though and how,not even just HR, the
department, but how we managepeople doesn't seem to have
changed, hasn't kept And some ofthat again is, you know, the gig
economy has become a thing butfederal law here in The US
hasn't caught up with that.Yeah. Fact, in some cases it's
pushing against that.
Lucy Adams (21:40):
Yeah.
Mike Coffey (21:40):
And some groups are opposed to that, even though
that's, you know, there areindividuals who want to engage
in work contracts that way. Whatdo you think the big shifts that
organizations need to make tochange their people leadership
practices to catch up with themodern economy?
Lucy Adams (21:56):
Yeah. I think you've highlighted one which I think is
fascinating. I was reflecting onthis the other day with my co
founder about the side gig,which of course we saw
proliferate during COVID, buthas always been around. I mean,
you know, when I started in HR,if you had an employee that had
(22:16):
something on the side, it couldbe they worked for a charity or
it could be that they weretrying to set up their own
business. It was seen that theyhad to ask permission and it was
kind of seen as an indulgence ora lack of commitment to the main
employer.
Whereas, you know, of course, weknow that actually if we're able
to embrace this, and we see thiswith companies like HubSpot,
(22:39):
Nestle, Warner Music, it's likeembrace the side gig because
actually it provides a fantasticoutlet for developing your
people without necessarily beingable to provide that
opportunities internally ifyou've got a flat structure, but
they can be developing all sortsof skills. So we're seeing a
(23:01):
kind of a real change in thisrecognition. So not just the the
freelance or the gig economy,but this idea that actually
people will have more than one.They'll, like, can have their
main employer, but also havethis side gig on the side. I
think the whole hybrid piece hasbeen absolutely fascinating.
Of course, we saw this completeembracing of hybrid because
(23:22):
there was no alternative formany during the pandemic, but
now we're seeing a rollback onthat. I think it's a shame
because you know, ultimately,the kind of going to work is
largely an you know, a place ofwork is largely an industrial
model. And I think it's gonnatake a long time to really
understand how to make it work.So again, I think HR, we kind of
(23:46):
messed it up. We went with thetwo days out, three days in,
which is such a kind of archaicway of approaching it.
It's this kind of sense of,right, we'll just make it easier
for managers so they don't haveto have an adult conversation
with a member of their teamabout what works for them. Not
every employer, definitely, butcertainly this kind of three
(24:07):
days in the office, two days outis just really a kind of 1980s
style approach to embracingsomething that could be amazing
and could really significantlyenhance not just the experience
of people at work, but also thetalent pool from which we can
draw on. I think we're going tohave to get smarter and and wise
(24:31):
up to the fact that, you know, amulti generational workforce is
not just kind of one or twogenerations, but but several
generations, you know, so thekind of the the aging workforce.
And I think we've really got ourheads around that and what that
actually looks like and trulyembracing that. Obviously,
(24:51):
digital, you know, I think thatwe've largely used digital
within HR to automatetransactional processes to speed
up efficiency.
But I think we're beginning tosee now HR teams getting their
heads around the fact that AIcan be used to be much more
creative rather than it justkind of automating and speeding
(25:13):
things up. So I think we'regradually seeing changes but
you're absolutely right. I thinkequally I still speak to so many
HR people who are pretty muchdoing things the way they did in
the nineteen nineties. And inpart because I think a lot of
the leaders that they're workingwith are still the same leaders
from the nineteen nineties. Soit will change but it's
(25:36):
wonderful when you see HR teamswho are out there leading the
way, challenging things, doingthings in very different ways,
experimenting and piloting, andhaving the confidence to to
really push back on theseestablished norms and these
established wisdom that we'velived with for for two, you
know, twenty, thirty, forty, youknow, years.
Mike Coffey (25:58):
And a couple times now, you've mentioned managers,
and it is an HR drinking gamehere, a good morning HR drinking
game because it comes up inalmost every episode that our,
you know, we have we have peoplewho are very competent in a
certain role. And so, let's takeour most effective person in
(26:20):
that role, take them out of thatjob and put them in a job that
they're not prepared for, thatwe haven't trained them for and
we're really not gonna invest alot of time and money in
training them for and make themand call them a manager.
Lucy Adams (26:30):
Yeah.
Mike Coffey (26:31):
And and so and then we get upset when when they, you
know, when the org the teamdoesn't perform as well or they,
you know, they don't, you know,they don't manage the way that
would be the best way to bringthe best out in other people.
But people don't inherently knowhow to do that and and that's
another reason that HR, as yousaid earlier, has to be the the
(26:54):
cop on the beat sometimes andand, you know, managers hate
that. Nobody wants somebodylooking over their shoulder.
They would rather have theskills than be competent. Now,
there are gonna be some managersand leaders who just think they
have this unique insight intothe human soul and you're never
gonna talk them out of of ofbehaving the way they do.
But most of them wanna beeffective. Most of them want to
(27:16):
learn and they they want thevery best for their team and
they wanna get the best out oftheir team. You know, need to
spend a lot more time onmanagement training, leadership
training and even interpersonalstuff helping employees
understand how to deal with eachother, how to manage conflict
inside of their own teams andthings like that. And, you know,
(27:36):
if we're ever gonna get to thisthis, you know, nirvana of, you
know, self directed teams thatwe've been talking about for
twenty years, teams have to beable to learn how to work
together and whoever the nominalleader is, is gonna have to have
the skills to incentivize thatkind of behavior.
Lucy Adams (27:52):
You know, when I got my first group HR director role,
I went and spoke to a load ofvery experienced HR directors,
CPOs as they call them now. AndI've forgotten all the great
advice I was given, but therewas one bit of advice that
really stood out and still Ikind of bear with me. He went,
(28:13):
Lucy, you've really only got onejob. Get good managers in and
bad managers out. And I rememberthinking at the time that's so
simplistic and I'm sure it'smuch more complicated than that.
Of course it is, but there issomething to that advice because
I think if we spent as much timetrying to make sure that the
people we put into peopleleadership roles, not just that
(28:36):
they had the attitudes and youknow, the potential skills, but
they want to actually leadpeople. You know, I've come
across so many managers whetherit be at the BBC who were as you
say brilliant journalists orbrilliant TV execs or brilliant
technicians who wantedpromotion, who wanted to
progress, wanted more money, allcompletely valid ambitions but
(29:01):
they didn't really want tomanage other human beings. And
if you haven't got that, atleast that little kernel of
desire, it's just an uphillbattle. Some might get there but
many of them don't. And so Ithink if we spent half as much
time trying to focus on makingsure that we by and large only
put people into those peopleleadership roles who at least
(29:22):
wanted to do it, then at leastyou're working with something.
And we've talked for years,haven't we, about alternative
career paths. We still reallyhaven't seen that. The ability
to be a single contributor andprogress in the organization to
the highest levels, we stillhaven't really got our heads
around that, at least not inmost organizations, I don't
(29:43):
think.
Mike Coffey (29:44):
And you mentioned AI and as soon when ChatGPT and
Claude.AI were the first two bigones that came out, I I jumped
on them because I'm I'm, youknow, I'm just curious and have
sometimes too much free time andstarted telling people about
what I was doing and quicklyended up doing several
(30:05):
conference presentations aroundhow HR could use AI and the
things they have to think aboutand be cautious about. And at
some of these conferences, I'vehad more senior HR leaders come
up and say, what you're talkingabout is going to mean that I
have a smaller HR team. And I'mlike, very well it may. You may
(30:28):
only need one HR rep to do thejob of three. But if goal is to
make the organization effectiveand to deliver service
effectively and efficiently andstill be a competitive
organization in five years,you're going to have to adopt
this.
That doesn't mean two peoplelose their jobs. That means that
(30:49):
you free people up someplaceelse in the organization and I
think an organization ought tobend over backwards to to keep
every single employee who'sproductive, maybe not in the
same role, but help them find arole in the organization, cross
train them, do whatever you needto do to get them in there
because they're alreadycommitted to the organization.
When they see you do that,they're gonna be even more
committed. But there aremanagers who still manage their
(31:13):
value or, you know, measuretheir value according to how
many people, how many seats dothey have, how many people, you
know, report to them. And I fearis gonna be the biggest
challenge to really implementingAI in a lot of organizations.
Lucy Adams (31:31):
I think you're right. And I think again, we
have a role here not just withinmaking sure that we embrace AI
within our own teams, buthelping managers and employees
think through the consequencesfor them. Making it safe for
them to play and experiment andtry it out, making sure that the
issues around ethics andtransparency are addressed. As
(31:55):
you say, encouraging, employeesto recognize that it's probably
not in the whole of their jobthat will disappear, but almost
certainly a large part or achunk of their job is gonna
disappear. What does that meanwhere they need to be focusing
on their skills?
We had this at the BBC wherejournalists It used to be that
they would literally just go outand report the story and they
(32:18):
would have a team of peoplearound them. And they were
usually guys, a sound guy, acameraman guy. They would then
take the tape back to the editsuite and give it to a
professional editor. Know, thesedays they're self shooting and
then they're going into aStarbucks. And so you're helping
those journalists, these highlyskilled people recognize that it
(32:41):
wasn't enough just to be askilled journalist.
They also needed to becomfortable with social media
and digital and editingpackages. And some of them made
it and some of them didn't.Know? The dinosaurs were was but
there's there's there's alwaysbeen those, hasn't they? And
there's only so much we can do.
In the end, they're grown upsand it and it's their career.
But I do think we're, you know,being really clear and engaging
(33:03):
and involving people as much aspossible, I think is a key role
for us.
Mike Coffey (33:07):
Yeah. I mean, we don't we can't as a society, we
can't afford to have ageneration of workers age out
early because they can't keepup. But at the same time, the
organizations need efficientpeople who can use the latest
tools because we've got tocompete and
Lucy Adams (33:24):
Exactly.
Mike Coffey (33:24):
I mean, that's what we're, you know, we're seeing in
The US. We're competing globallyagainst other companies,
countries who who quite honestlydon't have the labor laws we
have and the restrictions wehave. And so we've got to
compete within our guidelinesand still be competitive. That
means we've got to be able toleverage technology. We've to
lever best practices about howwe bring our people in, how we
(33:44):
encourage them and incentivizethem.
But hey, that's, this went, thisflew by, Lucy. I just love
talking to you. That's all thetime we have. Thank you for
Lucy Adams (33:52):
joining Oh, it's a shame. It's been such a
pleasure. Thank you so much forinviting me.
Mike Coffey (33:56):
And we will again have links to both of Lucy's
books in the show notes andyou'll find all her contact
information there as well. Andthank you for listening. As we
close, I wanna give a specialshout out to Lindsay Pascal.
She's rocking the peopleadvisory at over at And if you
(34:16):
enjoyed this episode, pleasewrite us a review on Apple
Podcast, YouTube, or whereveryou're listening. Also, find us
on your favorite social mediaplatform and share this episode.
It helps us reach morelisteners. And you can find all
our links and all our pastepisodes at goodmorninghr.com.
Special thanks to Rob Upchurch,our technical producer, and to
(34:38):
Imperative's marketingcoordinator Mary Anne Hernandez
who keeps the trains running ontime. And I'm Mike Coffey as
always. Don't hesitate to reachout if I can be of service to
you personally orprofessionally.
I'll see you next week, anduntil then, be well, do good,
and keep your chin up.
I still speak to so many HR people who are pretty
much doing things the way theydid in the nineteen nineties.
And and in part because I thinka lot of the leaders that
they're working with are stillthe same leaders from the
nineteen nineties. So it willchange, but it's wonderful when
you see HR teams who are outthere leading the way,
(00:21):
challenging things, doing thingsin very different ways,
experimenting and piloting, andhaving the confidence to to
really push back on theseestablished norms and these
established wisdom that we'velived with for for two, you
know, twenty, thirty, forty, youknow, years.
Mike Coffey (00:41):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. Please follow
Rate and review Good Morning HRwherever you get your podcast.
(01:02):
You can also find us onFacebook, Instagram, YouTube, or
at goodmorninghr.com.
I'm joined today by Lucy Adams.Lucy is the CEO at Disruptive
HR, a UK based consultancyhelping business leaders
understand the latest trends inpeople leadership and apply them
in practical ways to makepositive things happen in their
(01:25):
organizations. Before startingdisruptive HR over a decade ago,
Lucy was the HR director at theBBC during one of its most
turbulent periods. Her careeralso includes time in government
services and the legal field.Lucy is a popular keynote
speaker and author of HRdisrupted.
Her latest book, the HR changetoolkit, your complete guide to
(01:49):
making it happen is available onAmazon and I will share the link
in the show notes. Welcome togood morning HR, Lucy.
Lucy Adams (01:57):
Oh, thank you so much for inviting me.
Mike Coffey (02:00):
So, your first book was HR disruptive Disrupted and
your second book is the HRChange Toolkit. So, is how
organizations identify, attract,develop, incentivize and
mobilize employees that broken?
Lucy Adams (02:15):
Broken is a very strong word. Right? But I do
think that and and I by the way,everything I criticize in my
book about the HR profession, Ihave done. There's no I agree.
Ground here.
Okay? But I do think that HR hasbeen driven by a number of
assumptions that has not helpedits credibility. I think it's
(02:40):
led to it not having the impactthat it could have had. And I
believe that HR is still, know,ten years on since setting up
disruptive HR. I think it'sstill in need of a good
overhaul.
And yeah, so that's what thebooks aim to do is to not just
(03:01):
make the case that it needs agood overhaul, but to also give
HR leaders and practitioners thekind of tools to do it.
Mike Coffey (03:09):
What do you think, you talk about overhaul and how
much of that is systems,procedures, priorities, those
kind of things versus the actualpeople sitting in the HR offices
and their skills andcompetencies?
Lucy Adams (03:27):
Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll come to the HR profession
and the people that are in it ina little while. But but first of
all, think because I think it'sboth. But I think your first
point is that a lot of whatwe've done and what we continue
to do in HR is driven by theneed to ensure conformity when
(03:47):
actually what we need to betrying to do is to customize and
personalize if we're gonna havereal relevance and impact. I
think it's driven by a desire tocompensate for poor managers.
And so we put in place processand policy to try and protect
the poor employees from thesepoor managers. I think a lot of
(04:07):
it is trying to also protect theorganization from the rogue
employees, the tiny percentageof rogue employees who are going
to behave badly. But so much ofwhat we do in HR, our policies,
rules and so on are determinedby that lowest common
denominator. And I also thinkthat a lot of our processes in
HR have been driven by a need toensure compliance, to tick off
(04:33):
that particular box rather thanreally thinking about how human
beings lead sorry, how humanbeings learn, feel motivated,
can perform better, can embracechange. Weirdly for a people
function, we haven't deployedour superpower of knowing people
very well.
(04:54):
What we've tended to do is to gofor process rather than really
designing around human beings.And we can talk about examples
of each of those if you want to.I think in terms of the HR
profession, every HR person I'vemet and I meet thousands every
year works really hard, cares ahuge amount. But I think we've
(05:16):
also suffer from perhaps a adegree of lack of confidence, a
sense of perhaps slight slightlyvictimized about, you know, why
does nobody listen to me? And Ithink there's a, yeah, that kind
of lack of confidence reallyundermines our ability to get
stuff done.
Mike Coffey (05:35):
I think that's a giant issue as I like you, I I
speak at a lot of conferences. Ialso for for SHRM, the the, you
know, the predominantly nowworldwide but predominantly US
HR association. I'm statedirector elect and so I'm
talking to HR leaders all thetime and in my own business. And
(05:57):
so and I I think that that ideathat either HR has to be the
police or they've gotta be thatstrictly transactional
department. And neither of thoseare very strategic.
Lucy Adams (06:12):
No.
Mike Coffey (06:12):
And and you spend and we do as an organization
respond to one bad actoremployee by building up bulwarks
around preventing this thingfrom ever happening again.
Lucy Adams (06:28):
Exactly. I was talking to a client the other
day and they were saying thatthey had this great approach at
work where you could bring yourdog to work. And then one day, a
dog came in with fleas andimmediately, it's like, HR, we
want a policy for dogs withfleas. And it just ripped the
soul out of the whole approach.Nobody was gonna bring their
dogs in after that.
(06:49):
And I think, you know, it's thatclassic thing of where we design
around that lowest commondenominator. It doesn't do us
any favors.
Mike Coffey (06:55):
Right. So you're in The UK and and you mentioned
compliance. I mean, we in The UScomplain quite a bit about, you
know, the compliance burden fromthe federal government, from the
state government and even insome jurisdictions, the local
cities. But I think y'all,everything I've ever heard is
(07:16):
that y'all make us look likeamateurs when it comes to
regulations in the employmentand labor area. So, what does it
look like there?
How What does that burden looklike on a business when it comes
to regulation in The UK?
Lucy Adams (07:33):
So, I mean, we can perhaps talk about this as well,
Mike. You know, just like you,we have a new administration in
power, which is bringing aroundsome interesting changes. You've
moved to Republican. We've movedto, what we call labor here in
the in The UK. And, of course,labor is the the so called kind
of party of the employee ratherthan perhaps the bosses.
Mike Coffey (07:56):
More like our traditional Democrat.
Lucy Adams (07:58):
Exactly. So
Mike Coffey (07:59):
Although, I can tell you the Trump
administration is really talkingto labor and they're speaking
the language of labor.
Lucy Adams (08:05):
Exactly. Exactly. So lines are blurred now, aren't
they? Mhmm. But certainly, thethe labor government, when they
came to power last summer, weretalking about doing a huge
amount around increasing thelevel of protection for
employees.
And as with as ever with thesekind of government policy driven
approaches, they can be a littlebit clumsy and they can miss the
(08:29):
nuance and they can actually setback progress. So classic
example would be probation. Wewere seeing real inroads into
getting rid of that sword ofDamocles hanging over employees,
moving to a much more agileapproach, you know, kind of the
odd check-in, but making it muchmore around, you know, sort of
(08:50):
dropping the probationaryperiod. Well, the legislation
that's likely to come in isgoing to make that impossible
because of rights being extendedso that you get basically rights
from day one. So the need fororganizations to have that
rigorous probationary period isgoing to be intensified, which I
(09:11):
think is a real shame.
So I think here, we have notonly the government legislation,
but I think, you know, what whatI see is certain industries
really struggling under certainadditional regulatory
requirements, so financialservices, education, health. A
lot of HR people I meet in thosesectors, they desperately want
(09:34):
to be more progressive. Theywant to, for example, drop what
we know doesn't actually workwith the annual appraisals and
ratings and guided distributionand all of that paraphernalia,
which as we know doesn't driveperformance or enhance
motivation. They want to drop itbut their sector regulator
(09:55):
insists on it or at leastinsists on the evidence of a
rating of some description. Ithink sometimes both at a
government sectoral level, Ithink that can be quite
prohibitive for some HR peoplewho do want to be more
progressive and more agile andmore reflective of the world
that we live in today.
Mike Coffey (10:16):
Well, and just the more layers of regulation you
have, the more admin clericalcomes with that, right? Yeah. So
if an organization doesn't wantto staff both a whole pool of
people to do the paperwork andmake sure the data's done
whether it's, you know, actualphysical paper or it's in the
(10:38):
computer system someplace andanother group to make employees
feel as though they belong tothe in the organization that the
organization hears and caresabout them and that they're, you
know, that they they've got afuture and they this is some
place they want to work. Thoseare two very different roles.
(10:59):
Yeah.
And organizations are going todefault first to not getting in
trouble with the government,right? Not opening them up
themselves up for a lawsuit forfailure to file the right
documents or whatever. And soand we have that same issue in
The US and so to a slightlylesser degree, think, but
there's still mean, the theTrump administration, one of the
(11:20):
first things the president didon his first day was get rid of
our affirmative actionrequirements for federal
contractors and everybody saidit was the, you know, the sky is
falling. But I've been in HR forthirty years and I've done
affirmative action plans backtwenty five plus years ago for a
large employer And I can tellyou, they didn't drive behavior.
(11:44):
That was it was just a documentyou had to turn in.
It didn't change how yourecruited. It didn't really
change how you incentivized, howyou grew employees, the
opportunities people had. And,you know, in the here in the,
you know, twenty twenties,employers by and large aren't
looking to actively discriminateagainst people. I mean, saying
(12:06):
that they don't and not sayingthat they don't have biases they
don't recognize or that theirtheir systems don't operate as
optimally for bringing the besttalent in, but that all that
paperwork that they were doingand all the money they were
spending on software andconsultants to get those things
done probably wasn't achievingany of the end goals and it was
a distraction for theorganization. So, you know,
that's kind of the ongoingbalance, you know, how do we
(12:29):
make, you know, definitely thegovernment needs to make sure
that people are paid fairly,that, you know, that a certain
level of of benefit is therebecause otherwise that's gonna
those benefits are gonna go offto the public to pay and those
kinds of things.
So there's a, you know, there'scertainly balance but too often
we set a government policy inplace and we set corporate
(12:51):
policies in place and they go onforever without being
reexamined. And so, definitelyin in organizations you see it,
you know, this is how we'vealways done it. Or you see HR
professionals. I talk to peopleat conferences and say, well,
well, you can't do that. And I'mlike, well, you can.
There's nothing in the law thatsays you can't. Why can't you?
And, oh, well, no place I'veever done every place I've ever
(13:12):
done said you can't do that. Andthat's just something, you know,
something they want to do thatwould be beneficial, but it's
been handed from generation togeneration and nobody stopped to
say, why can't we do this?
Lucy Adams (13:24):
I think, I mean you raised the issue of diversity
and inclusion and I think it'sabsolutely fascinating what's
going on at the moment becauseyou know, there's clearly all
this outcry from the DEIcommunity and one could regard
some of the decisions from someof the corporate bosses as sort
of opportunistic and cynical,you know, in terms of
(13:44):
immediately rolling back oncertain DEI commitments. But I
agree
Mike Coffey (13:47):
with opportunistic and cynical when they ran into
them in 2020. Right? Yeah. Yeah.With no real intent to to make
much change.
Yeah.
Lucy Adams (13:55):
Yeah. So, I mean, I but I I actually think this is a
a really important opportunityfor a reset around DEI because,
like you, I feel that many ofthe approaches that we've taken
have not worked. You know,unconscious bias training,
billions spent on it and yet
Mike Coffey (14:12):
we know to support it. Right?
Lucy Adams (14:14):
Well, you know, I mean, I was reading, something
from London School of Economicsthat was written in 2021, which
talked about, you know, a longterm research project, which had
looked at the impact ofunconscious bias training in
certain organizations. And inalmost every case, the stats had
gone backwards because humannature if you say to a you say
to a manager, it's not yourfault. You know, it's an
(14:37):
unconscious bias. And you don'tfollow it up with anything which
challenges those biases in themoment where they're making
those decisions using nudgetechniques and so on, then
nothing changes. Think it'swhilst on the one hand, we can
decry the actions of certainleaders, I do think we need to
(14:57):
be honest and acknowledge as aprofession that DEI has not
delivered.
And it's because I think we'vemade it in some ways very
alienating for people. Soironic, isn't it? That we've
actually made it very exclusive.We created our own language
around it. We've made itcompliance focused, which as we
know doesn't change behavioreither.
(15:18):
We've had programs which look tofix the difference of, you know,
sort of training people up to beas good as the people in power
as opposed to really looking atwhat does it mean to be an
inclusive workplace. I thinkthere are some great examples of
that changing, but there's alsobeen a lot of the kind of, you
know, we'll tackle it withmandatory training and process.
(15:40):
And and we know that thatdoesn't change someone's
beliefs, their their views,their attitudes, and their
behavior. So we've got to getsmarter about this stuff.
Mike Coffey (15:50):
Even before all of this exploded in 2020, Harvard
Business Review had severalstudies that in authors who
wrote about how this kindchanging hearts and minds
doesn't work. That it's gotta besystems in place to mitigate
that bias and all of that. Andso and I think it was 2021 or
2022, was invited to give apresentation, a DEI type
(16:12):
presentation to a group. And Ithought, okay. Well, let me sit
down and do this.
And what I ended up doing washow to, you know, creating, you
know, a presentation around howto mitigate bias in employment
selection process. And that, youknow, that's a business case.
How do I get as wide a fullyqualified applicant pool as I
(16:34):
can? I mean, I want as manyqualified applicants coming in
the door. And then I want aprocess in place where my hiring
managers biases, whether theyrecognize them or not, are
really minimized.
And so that we get reallycompetent people and we're
really evaluating how somebodyis truly going to perform in the
(16:55):
role that we need and howthey're gonna operate in our
environment and our culturebecause, you know, you know,
going from a, you know, a verybuttoned down, you know, black
black shoe, white shirtenvironment to a really loosey
goosey environment where youthrived in one, you may not
(17:16):
thrive in the other. We gottafigure those things out for the
sake of the candidate as muchfor as for us. But those
figuring out all those, how dowe really mitigate all of this
stuff so that we get a fullyqualified candidate on board as
quickly as possible for theprice that we're willing to pay
for that role. That's whatthat's what diversity is, right?
(17:36):
And then we gotta get them on onboard and make sure that we
treat their they're treatedfairly, but that they feel like
they belong and they're part ofthe organization.
Yeah. And so I I, you know, it'sgonna be interesting. And the
other problem you talked aboutthe term diversity, what does it
even mean? DEI doesn't means youask eight practitioners and
they're gonna give you eightdifferent answers. I've had
(17:57):
several as guests on thispodcast trying to figure out
what are they really talkingabout and some are just talking
about the things I'm talkingabout.
Yeah. And that's not even, youknow, those aren't the DEI
programs that are illegal orthat anybody's complaining about
except that they have thatlabeled DEI. Yeah. But then when
you start talking about quotasor quasi quotas or telling
(18:18):
hiring managers you've got theseexpectations that they that
their organization's gonna looklike this, that violates in The
US our our title sevenAbsolutely. You know.
And so you can't do that, butthere were people out there out
front because the popularzeitgeist was that's what you
can that's what we should bedoing. People were doing it.
Yeah. And and so getting awayfrom the term DEI, I think, a
(18:42):
positive thing for the idea ofhaving fairer workplaces.
Whatever we call it, we justneed to have those processes in
place where we're we're reallyhiring competent and fair.
Lucy Adams (18:52):
Yeah. Or we're using technology to kind of take the
human being out of the equationaltogether, know, using AI and
the hiring or talent managementprocesses. We're seeing that
more and more, aren't we? And Ithink that's a real positive. Of
course, there are potentialissues with AI and ensuring that
the bias isn't hardwired intoit.
But equally, I think judicioususe of that to ensure that
(19:14):
you're not purely relying on ona line manager's judgment can be
helpful. And definitely, we'reseeing some good results there.
And I really do like the the wayin which certain companies I was
looking at something at atAtlassian. And just by very
simply changing the language. Soinstead of talking about
(19:36):
diversity and inclusion, theyjust talked about, you know, how
can we build better balancedteams?
And, you know, it just strippedaway this sense of this is an
area that isn't for me or Idon't wanna say the wrong thing.
I might get it, you know, Imight get into trouble if I get
it wrong. And so I think justmaking the whole arena a much
more welcoming place to have aconversation because that's
(19:59):
what's gonna lead to change,isn't it? It's people having
open and honest conversationswithout fear that they're gonna
end up in some kind of tribunal.
Mike Coffey (20:09):
And let's take a quick break. Good morning HR is
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To obtain the recertificationinformation, visit
(20:30):
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imperativeinfo.com. And now backto my conversation with Lucy
(20:55):
Adams. So we're two decades intothe twenty first century.
Business has changed soradically.
I started my consulting practicein '97, I started the background
screening company in '99, and Ithink back to the way I did
things and the kind of advice Ieven gave clients then, it's so
(21:19):
different than it is, you know,here twenty six, twenty eight
years later. HR though and how,not even just HR, the
department, but how we managepeople doesn't seem to have
changed, hasn't kept And some ofthat again is, you know, the gig
economy has become a thing butfederal law here in The US
hasn't caught up with that.Yeah. Fact, in some cases it's
pushing against that.
Lucy Adams (21:40):
Yeah.
Mike Coffey (21:40):
And some groups are opposed to that, even though
that's, you know, there areindividuals who want to engage
in work contracts that way. Whatdo you think the big shifts that
organizations need to make tochange their people leadership
practices to catch up with themodern economy?
Lucy Adams (21:56):
Yeah. I think you've highlighted one which I think is
fascinating. I was reflecting onthis the other day with my co
founder about the side gig,which of course we saw
proliferate during COVID, buthas always been around. I mean,
you know, when I started in HR,if you had an employee that had
(22:16):
something on the side, it couldbe they worked for a charity or
it could be that they weretrying to set up their own
business. It was seen that theyhad to ask permission and it was
kind of seen as an indulgence ora lack of commitment to the main
employer.
Whereas, you know, of course, weknow that actually if we're able
to embrace this, and we see thiswith companies like HubSpot,
(22:39):
Nestle, Warner Music, it's likeembrace the side gig because
actually it provides a fantasticoutlet for developing your
people without necessarily beingable to provide that
opportunities internally ifyou've got a flat structure, but
they can be developing all sortsof skills. So we're seeing a
(23:01):
kind of a real change in thisrecognition. So not just the the
freelance or the gig economy,but this idea that actually
people will have more than one.They'll, like, can have their
main employer, but also havethis side gig on the side. I
think the whole hybrid piece hasbeen absolutely fascinating.
Of course, we saw this completeembracing of hybrid because
(23:22):
there was no alternative formany during the pandemic, but
now we're seeing a rollback onthat. I think it's a shame
because you know, ultimately,the kind of going to work is
largely an you know, a place ofwork is largely an industrial
model. And I think it's gonnatake a long time to really
understand how to make it work.So again, I think HR, we kind of
(23:46):
messed it up. We went with thetwo days out, three days in,
which is such a kind of archaicway of approaching it.
It's this kind of sense of,right, we'll just make it easier
for managers so they don't haveto have an adult conversation
with a member of their teamabout what works for them. Not
every employer, definitely, butcertainly this kind of three
(24:07):
days in the office, two days outis just really a kind of 1980s
style approach to embracingsomething that could be amazing
and could really significantlyenhance not just the experience
of people at work, but also thetalent pool from which we can
draw on. I think we're going tohave to get smarter and and wise
(24:31):
up to the fact that, you know, amulti generational workforce is
not just kind of one or twogenerations, but but several
generations, you know, so thekind of the the aging workforce.
And I think we've really got ourheads around that and what that
actually looks like and trulyembracing that. Obviously,
(24:51):
digital, you know, I think thatwe've largely used digital
within HR to automatetransactional processes to speed
up efficiency.
But I think we're beginning tosee now HR teams getting their
heads around the fact that AIcan be used to be much more
creative rather than it justkind of automating and speeding
(25:13):
things up. So I think we'regradually seeing changes but
you're absolutely right. I thinkequally I still speak to so many
HR people who are pretty muchdoing things the way they did in
the nineteen nineties. And inpart because I think a lot of
the leaders that they're workingwith are still the same leaders
from the nineteen nineties. Soit will change but it's
(25:36):
wonderful when you see HR teamswho are out there leading the
way, challenging things, doingthings in very different ways,
experimenting and piloting, andhaving the confidence to to
really push back on theseestablished norms and these
established wisdom that we'velived with for for two, you
know, twenty, thirty, forty, youknow, years.
Mike Coffey (25:58):
And a couple times now, you've mentioned managers,
and it is an HR drinking gamehere, a good morning HR drinking
game because it comes up inalmost every episode that our,
you know, we have we have peoplewho are very competent in a
certain role. And so, let's takeour most effective person in
(26:20):
that role, take them out of thatjob and put them in a job that
they're not prepared for, thatwe haven't trained them for and
we're really not gonna invest alot of time and money in
training them for and make themand call them a manager.
Lucy Adams (26:30):
Yeah.
Mike Coffey (26:31):
And and so and then we get upset when when they, you
know, when the org the teamdoesn't perform as well or they,
you know, they don't, you know,they don't manage the way that
would be the best way to bringthe best out in other people.
But people don't inherently knowhow to do that and and that's
another reason that HR, as yousaid earlier, has to be the the
(26:54):
cop on the beat sometimes andand, you know, managers hate
that. Nobody wants somebodylooking over their shoulder.
They would rather have theskills than be competent. Now,
there are gonna be some managersand leaders who just think they
have this unique insight intothe human soul and you're never
gonna talk them out of of ofbehaving the way they do.
But most of them wanna beeffective. Most of them want to
(27:16):
learn and they they want thevery best for their team and
they wanna get the best out oftheir team. You know, need to
spend a lot more time onmanagement training, leadership
training and even interpersonalstuff helping employees
understand how to deal with eachother, how to manage conflict
inside of their own teams andthings like that. And, you know,
(27:36):
if we're ever gonna get to thisthis, you know, nirvana of, you
know, self directed teams thatwe've been talking about for
twenty years, teams have to beable to learn how to work
together and whoever the nominalleader is, is gonna have to have
the skills to incentivize thatkind of behavior.
Lucy Adams (27:52):
You know, when I got my first group HR director role,
I went and spoke to a load ofvery experienced HR directors,
CPOs as they call them now. AndI've forgotten all the great
advice I was given, but therewas one bit of advice that
really stood out and still Ikind of bear with me. He went,
(28:13):
Lucy, you've really only got onejob. Get good managers in and
bad managers out. And I rememberthinking at the time that's so
simplistic and I'm sure it'smuch more complicated than that.
Of course it is, but there issomething to that advice because
I think if we spent as much timetrying to make sure that the
people we put into peopleleadership roles, not just that
(28:36):
they had the attitudes and youknow, the potential skills, but
they want to actually leadpeople. You know, I've come
across so many managers whetherit be at the BBC who were as you
say brilliant journalists orbrilliant TV execs or brilliant
technicians who wantedpromotion, who wanted to
progress, wanted more money, allcompletely valid ambitions but
(29:01):
they didn't really want tomanage other human beings. And
if you haven't got that, atleast that little kernel of
desire, it's just an uphillbattle. Some might get there but
many of them don't. And so Ithink if we spent half as much
time trying to focus on makingsure that we by and large only
put people into those peopleleadership roles who at least
(29:22):
wanted to do it, then at leastyou're working with something.
And we've talked for years,haven't we, about alternative
career paths. We still reallyhaven't seen that. The ability
to be a single contributor andprogress in the organization to
the highest levels, we stillhaven't really got our heads
around that, at least not inmost organizations, I don't
(29:43):
think.
Mike Coffey (29:44):
And you mentioned AI and as soon when ChatGPT and
Claude.AI were the first two bigones that came out, I I jumped
on them because I'm I'm, youknow, I'm just curious and have
sometimes too much free time andstarted telling people about
what I was doing and quicklyended up doing several
(30:05):
conference presentations aroundhow HR could use AI and the
things they have to think aboutand be cautious about. And at
some of these conferences, I'vehad more senior HR leaders come
up and say, what you're talkingabout is going to mean that I
have a smaller HR team. And I'mlike, very well it may. You may
(30:28):
only need one HR rep to do thejob of three. But if goal is to
make the organization effectiveand to deliver service
effectively and efficiently andstill be a competitive
organization in five years,you're going to have to adopt
this.
That doesn't mean two peoplelose their jobs. That means that
(30:49):
you free people up someplaceelse in the organization and I
think an organization ought tobend over backwards to to keep
every single employee who'sproductive, maybe not in the
same role, but help them find arole in the organization, cross
train them, do whatever you needto do to get them in there
because they're alreadycommitted to the organization.
When they see you do that,they're gonna be even more
committed. But there aremanagers who still manage their
(31:13):
value or, you know, measuretheir value according to how
many people, how many seats dothey have, how many people, you
know, report to them. And I fearis gonna be the biggest
challenge to really implementingAI in a lot of organizations.
Lucy Adams (31:31):
I think you're right. And I think again, we
have a role here not just withinmaking sure that we embrace AI
within our own teams, buthelping managers and employees
think through the consequencesfor them. Making it safe for
them to play and experiment andtry it out, making sure that the
issues around ethics andtransparency are addressed. As
(31:55):
you say, encouraging, employeesto recognize that it's probably
not in the whole of their jobthat will disappear, but almost
certainly a large part or achunk of their job is gonna
disappear. What does that meanwhere they need to be focusing
on their skills?
We had this at the BBC wherejournalists It used to be that
they would literally just go outand report the story and they
(32:18):
would have a team of peoplearound them. And they were
usually guys, a sound guy, acameraman guy. They would then
take the tape back to the editsuite and give it to a
professional editor. Know, thesedays they're self shooting and
then they're going into aStarbucks. And so you're helping
those journalists, these highlyskilled people recognize that it
(32:41):
wasn't enough just to be askilled journalist.
They also needed to becomfortable with social media
and digital and editingpackages. And some of them made
it and some of them didn't.Know? The dinosaurs were was but
there's there's there's alwaysbeen those, hasn't they? And
there's only so much we can do.
In the end, they're grown upsand it and it's their career.
But I do think we're, you know,being really clear and engaging
(33:03):
and involving people as much aspossible, I think is a key role
for us.
Mike Coffey (33:07):
Yeah. I mean, we don't we can't as a society, we
can't afford to have ageneration of workers age out
early because they can't keepup. But at the same time, the
organizations need efficientpeople who can use the latest
tools because we've got tocompete and
Lucy Adams (33:24):
Exactly.
Mike Coffey (33:24):
I mean, that's what we're, you know, we're seeing in
The US. We're competing globallyagainst other companies,
countries who who quite honestlydon't have the labor laws we
have and the restrictions wehave. And so we've got to
compete within our guidelinesand still be competitive. That
means we've got to be able toleverage technology. We've to
lever best practices about howwe bring our people in, how we
(33:44):
encourage them and incentivizethem.
But hey, that's, this went, thisflew by, Lucy. I just love
talking to you. That's all thetime we have. Thank you for
Lucy Adams (33:52):
joining Oh, it's a shame. It's been such a
pleasure. Thank you so much forinviting me.
Mike Coffey (33:56):
And we will again have links to both of Lucy's
books in the show notes andyou'll find all her contact
information there as well. Andthank you for listening. As we
close, I wanna give a specialshout out to Lindsay Pascal.
She's rocking the peopleadvisory at over at And if you
(34:16):
enjoyed this episode, pleasewrite us a review on Apple
Podcast, YouTube, or whereveryou're listening. Also, find us
on your favorite social mediaplatform and share this episode.
It helps us reach morelisteners. And you can find all
our links and all our pastepisodes at goodmorninghr.com.
Special thanks to Rob Upchurch,our technical producer, and to
(34:38):
Imperative's marketingcoordinator Mary Anne Hernandez
who keeps the trains running ontime. And I'm Mike Coffey as
always. Don't hesitate to reachout if I can be of service to
you personally orprofessionally.
I'll see you next week, anduntil then, be well, do good,
and keep your chin up.
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