The HR Community Podcast
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Civitas Talent is excited to bring you a series of podcasts dedicated to the HR community. This is a space where you can learn best-practice solutions from HR community leaders, with host Shane O'Neill.
Whether you’re a CEO, HR executive or operating across the wider HR sector - this podcast is for you!
The HR Community Podcast
HR Community Podcast: Unlocking the Secrets to Fostering an Inclusive Workplace with Francine Ben and Balestrieri
Ever wondered why inclusivity in the workplace is so vital? What if there was a way to transform your organisational culture to be a place where every individual feels valued? Join us as we unravel the secrets to fostering an inclusive workplace with our special guests, Francine and Ben Balestrieri, founders of We- People Considered Together.
Our first duo on the Podcasting, Francine brings a strong and in-depth career of insights from senior HR and OD positions with large global FMCG brands like Diageo and Blackmores. Ben, being a senior leader in FMCG with brands like Diageo having a similar but also different view and approach.
WE - People Considered Together, are a purpose led consultancy to support organisations create and foster a more inclusive and authentic workplace for people. "We believe that every individual should be able to bring their authentic selves to work. We understand that covering or hiding certain aspects of your identity can be exhausting and detrimental to your well-being"
Shifting gears, we explore the intricate realms of inclusive leadership and well-being in the workplace. We dig deep into the power of curiosity in unlocking change and creating influence. We delve into the importance of considering different perspectives and the power of storytelling in fostering mutual understanding. You'll hear Ben and Francine's take on the relationship between efficiency and well-being in today's economic climate. Our insightful chat wraps up with a focus on the critical issue of burnout, exploring its root causes, preventative measures, the importance of efficient meetings, and the role of technology and training in fostering an inclusive environment. So, plug in your earphones and buckle up for a thought-provoking ride into the realm of inclusive workplaces.
Welcome to the HR community podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill, founder of Silitas Talent, the HR and HSC recruitment community. Each episode, we will host HR leaders and discuss their journey and discover best practice HR solutions across the HR industry. Whether you're a CEO, hr executive or operating across the wider HR space, this podcast is for you. Please like and subscribe, and don't forget to comment and share your views. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the HR community podcast. I'm joined this morning with Ben and Francine Dallastriri. Both Ben and Francine are co-founders of we People Considered Together. Good morning.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:No problem at all. Good to have you both Over to you both. Actually, I don't know if you prefer Ben and Francine or Francine and Ben. I will give our guests the heads up. It's a bit of a milestone for us this morning because this is our first duo on the podcast. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us as your first duo.
Speaker 2:That's great Over to you guys. Tell us a little bit about your individual backgrounds. We can get involved into your industry backgrounds. Finally, I'd love to hear a bit more of how it all came together. Who is we and what's the vision? Since it's Francine and Ben, I'll go first.
Speaker 3:I have 25 years too many to talk about experiencing genderless HR. That's been through various industries In recent times. I've become really attached to the organisational development and the forwarding of the DI strategy leadership development and culture transformation. I've had a lot to do with change management through the project work. All aspects of genderless HR have brought me to this point. A lot of experience and personal experience and professional experience has brought me to the point where we've created and all different backgrounds in terms of industry. I've worked with the public and too many to talk about, but most recently FMCG and CPG has been the big ones.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. How about you Ben?
Speaker 4:Yes, my career has been mainly in sales and marketing. I grew up in sales in media companies. I started my career building newspaper advertising space, then I progressed through to marketing, from media into FMCG, where I've spent most of my career. I'm fortunate at a young age that I've led teams, and leadership has been a huge part of who I am as a business person. I was lucky at a tender age to take on my first team. I've had teams since then.
Speaker 4:One of the things that leads us to a way for me personally, is around inclusive leadership. Francine's done a tremendous job of educating me and opening my eyes to the power of inclusive leadership. Seeing that in action has sparked me, not only on the individuals in my team, but also the performance and the culture that it brings. We've been talking for years around we and the role that it could play. I'm starting something in this space.
Speaker 4:At the heart of it, we saw this stat and it was 63% of people feel like they need to cover some aspect of their personality when they come to work. You just think about that and just go. That's not okay. At the heart of we and what we're trying to create is we exist simply so you can be you. That's our mission and our purpose is really to create workplaces where you can turn up and be yourself. It's really sad that that's not the case across so many organizations. So many people we talk to tell us these stories about the experiences that have lived through organizations. It really spurs our passion in this space to create positive change. We created we and four months later, here we are starting our journey.
Speaker 2:Very exciting and I guess, when it comes to and we'll sort of chat about some of these elements today from a recruitment perspective, which is sort of where I would look at is there's so much demand for talent still and there's certainly been in recent years is this huge shift in organizations have sort of had to pivot and move to attract the best talent? But also from a candidate perspective and we talk about this all the time with applicants for some of our roles Is that true vision and purpose and connection to what they're doing in their role, what they're doing in their industry, which I think is really important and I kind of relates back to what you were talking about, ben, with that sort of identity and personality that people sometimes feel they need to create, to adjust and to connect with the business.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting, shane, I'd love to pick your brain about it, but we recently wrote a sort of a weeks article and blogs around the fact that recruitment I get there's so much pressure on recruitment to bring in the diverse talent into your point and people are looking for that and organisations say we really want diverse talent because we know that it brings performance and innovation and there's been lots of studies on that. It can increase all those things. So we know it's good for business, we know it's good for employee experience and engagement, but what happens is we rely on the recruiters to bring in the diverse talent and then they come into the organisation and then they find themselves in an organisation that perhaps Ben doesn't support it. So it's not in their DNA, it's not in their ways of working, it's not in the way that they do their onboarding or in the way that they do their remuneration or training or leadership development. So then what you end up doing is spending so much time on the recruitment piece and they don't stay. So I think you just made the point.
Speaker 3:The other thing is there's been a lot of investment over 2020 and 2021 and then 2022. It's fallen off a little bit within the economic downturn organisations. It's a little bit of a nice to have, so they stop spending on it and then cutting back on it, and then what happens, as you would know, is then the talent market is still, as you said, still the war on talent. We still need to look at those things. And they're looking at organisations and say, well, if you don't have that as part of your purpose, as part of your priority, is that somewhere I want to work Because, as we know, it trickles down into all the ways of working and do I want to be part of that organisation and do I make the choice of that organisation into that one? So it's really an interesting point that you made.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess with that as well, and I'd love to pick both your brains on this. One is for an organisation, like for our business leaders, for our senior executives and HR leaders that are listening in. What are the sort of questions or assessments they need to start looking at with their current organisation? We've talked a little bit, as you notice, francine, with the recruitment. So clearly, organisations have looked at okay, how do we track these people? What do we need to offer these people? But then, once you get into the organisation, what's the commitment there? What do you start to need to look at as an organisation to make sure that you're actually ticking all the boxes that you initially set the expectation from the recruitment process?
Speaker 4:It's such a fascinating question because it's so big and overwhelming. I think that's what we're talking about when we talk to a lot of organisations is around just where do I start? And it is complex, this space. We're talking about individual humans at the heart of what we're doing, and there are so many factors that surround those people and how you create that experience for them through the organisation is hard, and it's really interesting to talk to varying degrees of people and their level of understanding in this space as well.
Speaker 4:So what we try and do is we try and break it down into chunks and look at what we call hubs where EIB comes to life. So talent, for instance, is one of the hubs operations. So looking at your policies and making sure that they're all set up for success through to leadership we know leadership is a massive role in embedding this through the organisation and actually living it. The employee experience, end to end, from onboarding to offboarding. That experience looks like, and then also remuneration and benefits and making sure that that's lining up as well. So we break it down through those chunks. We've got a set of assessment criteria to help organisations identify certain aspects of where they're doing really well or for them to accelerate in certain spaces.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I was just going to say on that one.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people rely on a survey that maybe gets run once a year, maybe once every three years, and they go OK, this is our demographics and this is how people feel. We'll just show that for a little while. So my action plan on a little bit that to Ben's point, it's like getting the baseline right and then it's all the action planning through all those hubs. It's all the action planning through those policies, the commitments, even the leadership outside of inclusive leadership. What's your pipeline of talent as well, and how are you really leaning into ensuring that your pipeline looks different, not just through gender? And this is where I think we need to get to the next level of discussing.
Speaker 3:GIB to go it's not also the way we approach. It is not through the lens of you have to have specific targets. It's about how do you become as inclusive as possible so that you are reflecting your community, not just through what we would describe as the demographics that most people would understand in this thing. So the cognitive diversity needs to be taken into account, as well as people from different backgrounds and when, I say that I don't necessarily mean we need to look for different ethnicities.
Speaker 3:it's around what's your work experience been and how can we look at things through a different lens. So it is really about being able to take what Ben said there complex kind of world where people go oh I can't keep all those boxes and I can't do all those things, and how do I manage that and make people feel like they're included and they belong? And my engagement survey is great, and then my experience is great, so it becomes this big thing. So how our measurement tools are able to break that down for you. So you've got a really clear baseline through all those parts that Ben was talking about.
Speaker 2:Fantastic and it's really interesting as well and I know we spoke about this previously with regards to, I guess, the beliefs and the understanding and the vision of the business leader, the board, the CEOs, and actually what's happening on the ground or what message is delivered. And, francine, I'm sure you can agree that influencing with something within HR that we've really tried to master and it's proven, particularly across the wider people and culture life cycle that ability to influence our stakeholders, that ability to influence our executives. But then there's the influencing, but there's also the aspect that you talked about before, ben, with actually understanding the reasons behind your CEO, your business leaders, understanding or vision or views on the types of stuff that you mentioned, so the DEI and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, look, I think it all comes back to our lived experiences right.
Speaker 4:I think a lot of CEOs get the bad end of the stick. They get this label of pale, stale, male, no-transcript. But I think that's probably not fair at times and I'm helpful. What is helpful is understanding their experiences and why they believe what they believe. So if we look at a lot of CEOs at the moment with a real focus on employees back in the office, understanding why is that so important? What are the beliefs that you're holding and why do you have those beliefs? What shape those? It might come from their careers. We're spending the office and they believe that that's all they know and that's the weight of productivity. So it's then through education and knowledge that we're able to change and shape beliefs. And I think about my personal journey on inclusive leadership. Being open to that conversation and learning through that journey has really transformed how I lead teams. I think you've got to be young.
Speaker 4:I certainly had beliefs that were challenged through that process. From just my lived experiences, and as you open yourself up to conversation and dialogue in this space, it's the knowledge that then helps transform that into different actions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and we talked about an example before. We jumped on here today with a certain organization and one of the new leaders was really a huge advocate for hybrid working and was really trying to look at their people and cultural leaders supporting him to drive it. But then the managing director, the owner of the business, was not totally on board. And you made a good point, ben, and sort of related to what you just discussed, as to know that kind of lived experience In an example like that or if you're a listener listening today and you're in a similar situation of that where maybe not everyone's on board with the whole hybrid working flexibility piece. So those are sort of questions, maybe that you could start to probe your business leader on, your CEO or whoever may not be totally on board with the hybrid working.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to jump in here and say this is where sometimes Ben and I work really well together. It's singing to my gang because I want to tell people all the time this is really important because, and then I give them all the reasons why this is important and then I throw out all the stats and what other organisations are doing. But I actually think that's really important to be honest external facts, internal facts how many people are you turning over or come through the recruitment process and then turn away because what's your turnover stats? What's your engagement stats? I think those things are incredibly important, but what the research shows is that HR driving this alone will not change the game, because often it's HR and it's these marginalised employees that are really believing that change will come if they get really involved and that because it affects them so oftentimes it's this community that is driving them.
Speaker 3:To Ben's point. It's the changing of the leadership and being able to coach them and ask them the right questions, aligned with all that feedback or aligned with that survey data. But it has to come through the people as well. So we have to have these other lived experiences that say the alternative is that we listen to one perspective at the top and we go down that road and then we end up with the same results of the recruitment, the turnover, etc. And Ben's got to really clear you on this as well.
Speaker 4:No, I think both are important, but for me, curiosity is the unlock here, and I think if you're looking for tools around, how do you create change and influence, curiosity is the number one thing for me that helps change perspectives, and I think questions are really powerful, and I think questions like help me understand why you think that way, and exploring and spending time understanding their perspective will give you insights to be able to help to offer different perspectives. And I often think, as a marketer, storytelling is so powerful and you could look at the same issue through five different perspectives and get five stories, and I think storytelling becomes then a really powerful way of people sharing their stories and their experiences on potentially the same topic and through that we then get a collective full picture and understanding of how they're feeling. No one's right or wrong. It's their beliefs and their experiences that have shaped what they have. But it's through that conversation, that storytelling and that experience that together we can then come and kind of agree or find the right pathway forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think it's really important too that we also look down the lens of we're not all homogenous groups. So when we talk about females, females don't all have the same experience. I have a very different experience to somebody who's come from a different socioeconomic status or a different ethnicity, and so I think it's really important that we this is inclusive leadership pays. But when we're making decisions around what's right, around hybrid working again, this is where it becomes really hard for people to comprehend, because we say we can't. We can't fix everybody's world, and so Francine's world is going to be different to Shane's world, ben's world, and I might have small kids, or I might have sick parents or I might have I just might want to go to my yoga class at lunchtime every day, and we're all going to have a different need for a hybrid sex DEI.
Speaker 3:So it's really just around breaking down. Again. We have to look at it through a different lens. As Ben said, get the curiosity piece, get the facts, get the stats and put it together in a storytelling, but make sure you're asking those five different people about their experience, because the CEO shouldn't get blamed, but they shouldn't be curious to get you know in the other way that we've been saying we should be curious about the CEO, ceos and boards and leadership, and even curious about what it means for the employees and their experiences as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and looking at some of the areas that we touched on as well, with regards to the economic climate and the demand, I think we all agree we're all super, super busy at the moment. So does that demand within our businesses at the moment, within the operations and in the front line, regardless of what industry you're in. So then there's this sort of shift with the economic climate that's been happening for quite some time now and you know we can see there's mass redundancies happening, companies are cutting costs. You both touched on something quite interesting which I'd love to probably a little further, and it's that sort of relationship between efficiency and then also well-being in the workplace, and I guess now is probably more relevant than ever because the demands, the workload and maybe even that fear you know, if I can put in 120% here, am I the next person that's going to be identified in the company restructure? So yeah, tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:This is a topic very close to my heart because I have been on the well-being journey for quite some time. What we used to do 10 years ago was fruit bowls and fitness first memberships, etc. We've evolved that Today's world all the points that you just made are really spot on.
Speaker 3:Companies need to have a look at how far are we stretching our resources, because actually the number one reason people don't feel well is when an organisation has burnout. It's this constant meeting culture that we have. We have to find ways to address the burnout, address the fact we're working with less resources without people just as much. Then we end up with unproductive people, people that will not give more than they have to, and unwell people. That's a recipe for productive and performance success as well.
Speaker 4:I think the one thing on this for me is, once you hit burnout, coming back from that is incredibly hard. I think as leaders, we've got to recognise it before that point happens. I think it's how you're connecting with your team. In conversation, I really regularly check in on their well-being. Yes, we've got big jobs, we've got big things to deliver. That's the way of the world. Are you having human conversations as a leader with your team to check in on their well-being, what's happening outside of the workplace, being empathetic to that and finding solutions to avoid burnout? I think it's often what we do is we look at they're burnt out. Now we need a solution to solve that. We could have, in the first place, actually prevented it through really great leadership Getting back to the root causes of that change.
Speaker 3:They really understand what the root causes is to burnout. As I said, this meeting culture is crept in through the pandemic. We end up in meetings all day. Have we got agendas? Have we got outcomes? Have we got the right people in the room? Do I need to be in this meeting or could it be an email? Just simple things like that.
Speaker 3:I know that this organisation is going to the extent of going no meetings on certain days. Does that help? Does half-day no meetings help? There's just got to be some shifts that we make around getting the most out of people that we have in a way that's productive for the business that's looking after. As we've been talking about the well-being Because actually every time we spend an hour in a meeting, the cost of that meeting to the business should be taken into account from the performance of the organisation. There's a dollar figure there as well as a well-being figure that when people aren't well, that becomes another dollar figure that has to be taken into account. Getting back to the root cause and the understanding of what's causing it, I think, is the key in this productivity and efficiency conversation.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I know you're a huge advocate for well-being and fan-scenes. I totally agree with what both of you were saying. But in particular, you're touching something there which I found funny because a long time ago or many years ago, we would have our and I read many articles on it our avoid burnout top five tips. Go for a walk around the park, take some deep breaths which are all quite valid when you're there in the moment, but I wouldn't exactly call them preventative solutions long-term, especially if you're looking at an overall workforce. Do you see organisations or at least some organisations have taken a better approach to it and what might be some of the ideas that some of those organisations or leaders are doing or implementing or approaching well-being that others could learn from?
Speaker 3:I think Ben can talk to this one about our blogs this week.
Speaker 4:Look, I think there's lots of things that organisations can be doing right. I think it's got to again come back to being great in your DNA. You can't just do a hit and run, you can't just send out tips. But I think it comes back for me at the heart of this inclusive leadership ride being connected with your people around what's going on for them. Often, as leaders, we play the role of a coach when we look at coaching our people. There's four phases to coaching that we look at there's the challenger, there's the expert face that you play, there's the counsellor and the supporter. I think at times we want performance and we want to have these conversations with our people when actually they just need a supporter. They might just need someone to listen, to ask the question are you okay? Are you really okay and really understanding what's going on? I think there's a really big role for leaders, but again then supported by other things Introducing mindfulness tools.
Speaker 4:There's great things around having well-being weeks and all that stuff set up but again it's finding the balance, this tightrope to those things as well. We're going to put a well-being week in for the entire organisation and soak all the hours out of their week, and now they're asking them to deliver equally as much.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of research saying recently you've probably read, but it's basically saying don't add. If you've got a good well-being program and benefits, don't keep adding to it, because at Ben's point then you're just adding programs for program's sake. There's a lot of research to say how much of that. People are wasting a lot of money on the program. So actually I still come back to those things that are important. They've got to be leveled out with those root causes of the day-to-day hybrid, flexible experiences that people have to be able to balance their work and their life and integrate those things.
Speaker 3:But also that piece around the efficiency and do I have the tools to do my job? Do I have the training to do my job? Because if I don't have those basic things, that's one of the highest things that will correlate with me feeling like I'm not doing a good job, like I don't want to be at this organisation anymore, and I don't feel well because I'm starting to stress, my anxiety levels go up. So we've got to get the technology, the training, the efficiency right. Otherwise any other programs doesn't matter what you do. You've got to get the basics right.
Speaker 2:It's so true. I've worked in organisations that I'm sure you both have too, where sometimes someone's in the office for 15, 16 hours and many, many years ago they would get a pat on the back. Now it's sort of like why? Why are you still there? Are you not fully supported? Do you not have the efficiency to do what you need to do within the business hours, whether you're in their office or at home, of course? But I think it's a really interesting and transforming topic that just seems to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I truly feel like we might need to jump on again and do a part too, because I'm mindful of both of your times on this. Just a couple of quick questions before both of you clock off for today's podcast. I'd like to hear both your opinions on some of these, but they are fairly short-sharp sort of questions. In terms of the first one, most influential person.
Speaker 4:I'll go first on that. I think Joe Rogan might be one of the most influential people. I think he's a very interesting interviewer that looks at a lot of diverse people and perspectives. I was listening to a podcast around censorship and what's going on in the world at the moment. His following is so big that he's one of the few people that can have people on to truly express their feelings, rightly or wrongly. I think he's one of the most influential.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, how about you, francine?
Speaker 3:It's a really hard question. Thanks for putting me on the spot on that one. So look, just as top of mind, because of the topic that we're talking about, I then the previous CEO of Diageo.
Speaker 3:I always thought about him as being somebody that I looked to for inspiration, and he would always talk around, so, with 40,000 employees, he would always talk about people in the same breath as he would talk about the commercials with the organization, and so for me, I love talking about him because I see that as being somebody who was really accessible to the people and really able to talk about the successes of the organization and how the people play a massive part in that, and he believed in that, and so I find him so inspirational because I like to tell people that story that we can get to the highest, the high, and he would think it was nice, as been recently, but he's this amazing. He was this amazing human and having a big responsibility and he should be somebody that most of you look up to for that reason, and so for me, because of this topic I think he was. He's been part of my inspiration as well for trying to build compassion in organizations around the people experience.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's really cool. Best lesson learned and we can start with you again, Ben, if we want to go in turns.
Speaker 4:I learned one recently actually on inclusion leadership, and it was around. You're not always going to get it right and recently I got it wrong and you know it's really. It was really hard on me as an inclusive leader in the standard that I hold myself to, but it's kind of you know this lesson around when you get it wrong, what do you do with it, facing into it and owning it and you know putting your hand up to say, actually I did get that wrong and I'm sorry, and here you know finding out how you could do things differently as a result of that and learning that lesson and growing as a leader. So I think, kind of learning from your mistakes, having that freedom to fail, but then, but then equally learn.
Speaker 2:Love that. How about you, Francine?
Speaker 3:You know, I think you lessons learned are things that build your resilience, that build your experience and build your knowledge over time. So I think, goodness, if I went back to every lesson learned, be would be here for a long time, but I think recently it really and I mentioned this before but you know, really asking more questions and sometimes not having to be the expert, but you know, as Ben was talking about, for instance, coaching, you know you don't always need to know it all and sometimes just continuing to ask the questions and being coaching most moments is better than talking too much and actually having to be the expert in the ring, because oftentimes you're not going to get the traction.
Speaker 3:So still, learning that, but it's a skill that should be learned by all of us, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, curiosity, yeah, absolutely. And Ben, who do you inspire?
Speaker 4:Oh look, I hope I inspire in some way everyone that I come into contact with. You know my purpose in life is to dream big, challenge the impossible, unlock possibilities and others. So you know I strive to give more than I can take in every relationship that I have, whether I get that right or wrong all the time. Definitely my aim. So you know, if I can, you know, have a conversation with someone and change them positively in some way or unlock something in them, then that gives me huge energy. So you know that's what I strive for.
Speaker 2:What about that? About your friend? Seeing who do you inspire?
Speaker 3:Well, coming back to my purpose as well, you know it really is around helping organisations become more compassionate, and that does mean through people lens, so that they become successful from a performance lens.
Speaker 3:So for me, I've gone into a few organisations and, you know, set up a lot of strategy around this space and so when I get people to come to me and say thank you so much, you know you've made me a more inclusive leader, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:You know, in terms of the flexibility agenda has changed my world and this is a real that just those people that will come up and say thank you, and I don't need the things, I just need to see it change in the organisations. And for me, one of you know, a team member, just recently said to me no one's talking to another leader in the organisation, said her daughter was sick, so not my team member, the other one and she said I found it really hard, I couldn't take a day off, and you know my latest funny about that. And my team said, wow, that must be really hard because my leader, you know is is really flexible around that space, really is understands that space, and so if my, my child, is sick, that's okay, I can work from home. There's no, never any question around it, and I think that kind of feedback makes makes everything I do worth it. So that's it. By the chunk by chunk, we will get there and we will make organisations more inclusive and passionate.
Speaker 2:I love that Amazing, and that is a wrap. Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you so much for your time, Ben and Francine Francine and Ben and the some of the insights in the content. There there's some of the hottest present topics across HR, so I'm so glad we had a chance to sort of probe a little bit. But, like I say, I think we might need a part two, but it's definitely got me thinking. I'm sure a lot of people listening are starting to have a hard moment or start to think about how they're going to approach it with their business and their team and their leaders over the next couple of weeks and months. But thank you so much, both of you. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the HR community podcast. Remember to like and subscribe and share your views and comments below. This podcast was brought to you by Civitas Talent, the HR and HSC recruitment community. Whether you're a candidate looking for a new role or organisation looking to secure brand new talent for your team, please get in touch with us today, thank you.
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