The HR Community Podcast
Subscibe here: https://www.youtube.com/@civitastalent_HRrecruitment
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
The HR Community Podcast: Meredith Crowe, Senior VP - Global People & Culture at Telix Pharmaceuticals, The Pros and Cons of any business
Transitioning from a graphic designer to a top HR executive, Meredith Crowe's journey is nothing short of inspiring. As the Senior Vice President of Global People and Culture at Telix Pharmaceuticals, she brings a wealth of experience and insight into the challenges and triumphs of high-growth business environments. From the pivotal milestone of Telix breaking into the ASX 100 to her personal battles with burnout, Meredith's story is a testament to resilience and adaptability. Discover how she turned past challenges into a successful career in people management, offering valuable lessons on self-awareness and the importance of setting boundaries.
We discuss all things 'High Growth' and how is compares to other work environments however, Meredith acknowledges that there are pros and cons to every industry and organisation.
Tune in to get a sense of life in a high growth HR leadership position in one of the fastest growing industries globally, healthtech.
Meredith also delves into the intricacies of leading a company through rapid expansion, highlighting the need for a growth mindset and proactive leadership.
She discusses the excitement and hurdles of high-growth settings, emphasising the significance of honest communication, risk-taking, and adaptability. From the decision-making process in a publicly listed company to balancing speed and customization, Meredith provides a fascinating glimpse into the dynamic world of business growth. Join us for an engaging discussion that offers a deeper understanding of thriving in fast-paced environments and making impactful decisions that shape the future.
Welcome to the HR Community Podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill, founder of Sila Tiles 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. Good morning everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the HR Community Podcast. This morning I'm joined here with Meredith Crowe. Meredith is the Senior Vice President, global People and Culture for Tech Pharmaceuticals. Good morning, meredith.
Speaker 2:Good morning, Shane. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1:No problem at all. We were just having a sort of off-the-record chat about how hectic we all are and it's a really good time to jump on the podcast with you and flesh out a couple of HR insights and trades. But before I do, tell us a little bit about yourself, meredith, who you are, tell us a bit about your role and organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So, meredith, I am a New Zealander, or a Kiwi by background, in case you can't tell by my accent. We're gonna have some accent fun, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah, we might get the subtitles going yeah, exactly, um, and so, yeah, I work for Tealix Pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 2:We're a radio nuclear drug development company, um we IPO'd in 2017, so have had a you know a bit of a run at the at the commercial side now, and Telex actually cracked the ASX 100 this week so pretty big week for us.
Speaker 2:We're a bit of celebration internally. We're feeling very excited about that and very proud of the team and all the work that's gone in. So yeah, really, really interesting time to be with Telex and be in the business. I'm surprised, with Telex I was working at the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne as well, so I've spent my sort of actually our career in health or oncology, you know sort of adjacent industries, which has been very, very interesting.
Speaker 2:You know, working with very highly technical, highly sort of cutting-edge kind of disciplines and people has been really interesting and you know that difference between sort of public sector and, you know, private or publicly listed company has been, you know, super interesting as well. I feel really lucky to have the experience that I've been able to have across, yeah, similar industry but different kinds of businesses and organisations, even though we're all kind of pulling in the same direction towards, you know, better, longer, healthier lives for people, you know, with rare disease and cancers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so amazing, and I guess before that, if we were to kind of track back like where did it all begin with your HR journey?
Speaker 2:Well, look, I mean, I think I've listened to a few episodes of the podcast Shane and I think, like most people who really hit their stride in pnc, or many people who hit their stride in a pnc career, didn't start in pnc you know they started in a different sort of role or a different, a different discipline, and so, for me, I'm actually a graphic designer by trade.
Speaker 2:I've got a media design degree and a master's in design and thinking, which I got in Wellington, and so I moved to Melbourne and was working in a sort of small design agency and I sort of made a move pretty quickly from being a hands-on designer to doing studio management and account management, like I sort of early on realised I was better with people than Photoshop, so sort of had started to, you know, make that move. And the business that I was working for went through a period of change and, as a sort of a baby staff member, like I sort of didn't, I didn't know how to manage that myself. Like I didn't know how to set boundaries and kind of, you know, manage myself through that change and communicate properly with my leaders about the change and what I needed and what I was experiencing. And I went from really loving that job to really just not being able to cope with it in about a six month period. And I, yeah, I went on holiday.
Speaker 2:I went back to New Zealand for a week, um, and spent some time with friends and family and that sort of stuff. And every time somebody asked me how my job was you, you know, this was a role that I'd been like raving about up until six months ago I just like I just kind of, I just kind of shut down, like I panicked, you know, I didn't know how to talk about it, I didn't know how to say I don't know what's going on, I'm not, I can't, like you know, and over that week I sort of realized that like I wasn't okay, like I'd actually sort of crashed, you know, out of this job that I that I'd loved, and so I went back.
Speaker 2:when I got back to Melbourne, I resigned that Monday um, and I didn't have a plan. I didn't have anywhere to go. I had about a thousand bucks in the bank, I think like it was a bit of a, but I just like I've just completely burnt out of that role in that career and so like it's. That was a really formative experience and I, you know, I think it's easy to look back on those like really difficult things, and say I'm really glad that happened.
Speaker 2:You know it's easy to look back and say that, but I am really glad that happened, because what happened then is I, you know, one of the benefits of working in that business was that we worked for these very large clients with these big you know, big titles and big structures and big sort of corporate structures, and coming through little old design school in New Zealand I didn't even know that some of these jobs existed.
Speaker 2:You know I worked with somebody who had a job that was like brand well, sorry, like board of management, experience manager or something like that. And I still can't quite believe that that's a job, to be honest but you know these people have these jobs that I just never heard of, and so, coming out of that experience, I decided I wanted to work in a central service in a large company so that I could watch a whole lot of people do their jobs, yeah, and figure out which one I wanted you know effectively.
Speaker 1:And at the time at the time.
Speaker 2:For me, that meant either HR or finance or IT. You know, those were the central service roles that I knew existed, and that's how I got into HR. I applied for a three-month HR admin cover contract and away we went, you know, and I just I really took to it Like I'm a people geek, like I 100, and like I listen to podcasts about group dynamics and my weekends like I just I find it so interesting the way that groups come together and perform. You know what? What makes a group greater than the sum?
Speaker 2:of its parts and and what makes a group less than the sum of its parts, like what's going wrong when, individually, people could actually do more than they're able to do together. You know like those kinds of questions about how we get teams and units working and then how that all feeds up in those bigger, larger structures that we've got.
Speaker 2:I find that so interesting, yeah, so I took to it like a real duck to water. And here we are. I mean I've been at Telex coming up it'll be three years in October and I've spent a couple of years in the SVP role now and it's just like it's such interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, you know. I just yeah, I love it. Do you know, what's really cool actually is, you know, as we talk about it, when you started your sort of story and your background and you were talking through the challenges, I guess, with that first initial role. But then, you know, as we started to talk about the HR, it's like your whole eyes lit up and you could really just hear the. It's easy having a passion, but that's, it's really cool. It's really cool to feel that kind of energy and passion and, um, uh, and you know for what? For what you do.
Speaker 1:Um, if I was to like talk a little bit about that feeling where you were like oh, I'm not sure this is for me like, like, what were the? If you can remember what were the kind of initial signs? Because it's really interesting, like I talk to people being in recruitment on a daily basis and you know I have these conversations with people and some people they want to move for different reasons, whether it's money, motivation, whether it's, you know, location or whatever the case to advance their career, but some people just don't want to be where they are. What's, what were the kind of triggers for you, or the signs? Can you recall?
Speaker 2:look, I think it was a bit. It was tough, because it's not that I didn't want to be there like I yeah.
Speaker 1:I really did you know?
Speaker 2:I just I loved it. I loved the work, I loved the people, but the the role design and the org design and my own ability to manage that transition and communicate about what. I needed in the change. Just it wasn't there, like I was. I was a baby. I was 25, like I couldn't yeah. I couldn't, and and but I also had this deep desire to be good at it and to be what people wanted me to be and, to you know, to really deliver. And I, I burnt out like.
Speaker 1:I just and.
Speaker 2:I knew that I had because I, you know, I used to go home on a Friday night. You know huge hours, huge stuff, whatever that I mean. The design industry is a pretty like rock star industry, like it's that has high expectations of you know, people's commitment, um, which is fine. Like you know, I'm not I'm not, certainly not, uh, not shy about hard work, but I would go home on a friday night and I'd wake up on a saturday morning feeling good you know, saturday morning oh, sleeping, beautiful cup of coffee.
Speaker 2:You know, a whole weekend he kidded me and then, as the weekend went on, by the time it got to sunday afternoon, like I was sick to my stomach like oh yeah I was like that sort of anticipation and anxiety about the week coming. I was like like I just knew it was going to be a shit fight.
Speaker 1:I don't know whether I'm allowed to say shit, fight on your podcast, whatever you want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I just I knew, but again I like, and I don't, I don't want to. I don't blame the business, that's the other thing. It's not anybody's fault, it was just a perfect storm.
Speaker 2:It was like my desire to be everything that I could possibly be. I didn't know how to set my own boundaries. At that time I didn't have anyone. The other thing about small companies, I think, is that there's quite big jumps between seniority, like quite often you do have a baby employee reporting to a very senior employee, which sounds like a cool opportunity, but actually structurally and from a learning perspective, that's incredibly hard. And so like I didn't have anybody that I could model off to really know what was reasonable and know how to set those boundaries and do that properly, and I just like, I just couldn't and I couldn't communicate.
Speaker 2:You know FunSites 2020 and I work in people now. So I look at this kind of stuff and I know what these problems are and I know how to talk about job design and you know change management and you know all that sort of stuff. Like I know how to talk about that now At change, change management, and you know all that sort of stuff. Like I know how to talk about that now. At the time I it was an identity crisis I was like maybe I can't do this, maybe I'm not good enough for this, but I think those those signs in my body around feeling very anxious and feeling very worried, but also, you know, having conversations with people who loved me yeah, who were?
Speaker 1:looking at me and going where where are you like what's going on?
Speaker 2:like you're usually this sort of like gritty, determined bouncy person like where, where is your energy now? Yeah and and being open about that with people who I trusted like I needed that sort of. I needed them to hold up the mirror as well and say whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, and this is, this is a decade ago now, you know, but it's still I can still feel.
Speaker 2:I can feel what it felt like to be that person and feel like my whole world was crumbling. We had gone to design school. That's what I wanted to be. I was getting ready and in the studio and kind of, you know, trying to be, you know, an up-and-comer in that industry and I just I just couldn't like this.
Speaker 2:The whole environment and where I was at at the time I couldn't sustain it and I'm, you know, like I said, I think it's easy to look back on things and say I'm really glad that happened, yeah, but I am really glad it happened because I very much, you know. I mean, I have a big job now, you know, and I work incredibly hard and I still have that thing where I absolutely do not want to let people down. I want to do things as well as I can for the people who rely on me to try and do that, but I also know what it feels like to burn out, and so I know that that's not what's happening to me.
Speaker 1:So even when I've had a, huge week.
Speaker 2:I can sit down and I can get in, you know, get in touch with the body and be like, how do you feel? And I still feel engaged yeah passionate and excited and determined. You know, tired for sure yeah it's sort of like wow, my, I've used all my brain this week.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not making any good decisions. It's a different tiredness, yeah, yeah and so like.
Speaker 2:So I'm grateful for the experience of having really crashed out of something that I really wanted. You know, because I know what that feels like now and I know even when I've had a huge week in people, that's not where I am yeah, I'm not yeah. I'm not in that zone. So, yeah, look it's, uh it's. I mean formative, I think it's been a. It was a really formative experience and yeah and really, really important.
Speaker 1:Very unpleasant, but really important and something I'm sure a lot of listeners can can relate to. I mean, I know I can relate myself. But, um, I know that everyone's really keen to hear about current role and a little bit about your journey there. And when we first caught up, if you recall, we started to talk about current role and a little bit about your journey there. And when we first caught up, if you recall, we started to talk about the um topic of high growth, and high growth was something that is thrown at me by a lot of organizations when it comes to recruitment. Well, especially, um, you know, maybe post uh, post covid, when there was a lot of growth.
Speaker 1:Now it's. There's a lot of industries that are kind of tightening the bells a bit. But tell us about your journey with high growth, because I feel like high growth, from a people and culture perspective, can mean a million different things for many different people and there's obviously the growth and the scale of the workforce and the business. But you took it to another level because there was IPO, there was listing, there was ASX. So talk to us a little bit about that and your journey kind of scaling the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Look, it is interesting. There is sort of people growth and there's financial growth and then there's business growth, as you say, and depending how geeky ASX you know release geeky your listeners are, they may or may not know that we did actually withdraw the IPO process.
Speaker 2:So there's a whole bunch of press releases out there about why Telex made that decision, if anybody's interested in that. And certainly you know like, but you've got to be I mean speaking of growth right, you, you do have to, you do have to take some risks, yeah, and you do have to be. You do. If you're not making mistakes and you're not having things not quite go the way you thought they were going to, then you actually you're not trying hard enough. And me, I talk to my team about that quite a lot because I think the people stuff in a high growth environment is is tricky because people have different expectations.
Speaker 2:You know, as we're coming in from a larger company, as they're coming in from a smaller company, you know they come in and systems and structures are set up in a way that is hopefully appropriate for the size that we are now. But they're going to change and you know I've experienced a huge number of changes in processes and systems and sign-offs and biopsies, and you know there's heaps of things that are trying to keep pace at the right pace, you know, for where the business is and so that change and that change openness in the workforce is incredibly important, and so when we are bringing in talent and we bring in huge, huge volumes of talent- uh, yeah, and we do a lot of that we do a lot of that internally, um, because you know we certainly work with agency partners where we need to, you know where we're looking for something really specific, or there might be a different.
Speaker 2:You know, there might be something that we need that support on, but we we do most like vast majority of our own. Yeah, wow, talent acquisition work, because you know when you're, when you're deciding to join a company, especially a you know well, not especially any company it's like. It's like dating right, like you're sort of sitting across the table from someone and you're like oh do. I do, I like this. Is this okay? Like, do we have a good?
Speaker 1:vibe.
Speaker 2:Like, how's this going? You know, like both parties need to be able to make a really good decision about that. And so for me, my team being in the business, working in the business, they know what it's like working in the business and so they can have a really honest and a really like a frank conversation with somebody. Because, like, I don't think there's anything to be gained from tricking people yeah, joining, you know, and not that anybody does that on purpose but what happens is that people get excited. You know hiring managers get excited and they're like, yeah, this is amazing. Like you know they get, they get excited about that chase, you know, trying to bring in, you know, the talent that they want and nobody, I don't think, oversells it on purpose.
Speaker 2:But, like, you do need to ground, you know, ground people's expectations in what it really is going to be like, and so, like, when we're talking about growth, you know we do. One of the big risks with people growth especially, I think this is business, business knowledge and business continuity, because if you've got a whole team who are new or, like you know, you've grown a team from two people to eight people in six months, right, six of those people are sort of looking at each other and going do you know how this is meant to go?
Speaker 2:And in a highly regulated, highly technical, highly complex business like ours, that sort of business history and that understanding of all the little slices that need to come together is really, really important. And so for us we think, you know, bringing in somebody and having them go oh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be and heading out the door again.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I know the math around what that quote unquote costs the business but that really costs us because we're growing, growing, growing our average tenure. We're trying to keep that up and get it higher right, not bring it down. And so when we do make a wrong call it's actually the business continuity and the business loss and the relationship continuity and that connectedness, you know that takes the biggest hit. And in the environment where that's changing all the time, those, those hits, you know that takes the biggest hit. And in the environment where that's changing all the time, those hits, you know, to people's relationships and people's resourcing can have quite a big impact on the culture of how people feel about what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:So, from a people perspective, like I think, how you make a call about who you bring in is incredibly important. I mean, the flip side of that is it is also good to take risks on people.
Speaker 2:You know and I've said this over again in my business like a learning orientation a growth mindset is the biggest factor of long-term success in our business Because it's growing so fast you've got to keep up. Like. If you're not going to learn, at least at the rate that the business is learning, you know, then it's not going to be a good time after six months, 12 months 18 months or whenever that happens, and so we're really looking for people who are change forward, manage ambiguity, manage complexity, and who are going to come on that growth journey with the business as well.
Speaker 1:100% yeah, and you talk about the journey there and I jump on that because I'm sure and certain you've had conversations with people and maybe some of them are with the business some of them decided not to but where you're having that conversation around the journey and I know people get excited about startup and scale up and this business is growing. It'd be so cool to be part of that journey, but then that journey has a lot of challenges and speed bumps along the way as well. Um, have you encountered much of that? Just, I guess, in terms of managing people's expectations and really sort of giving them the, the bigger picture warts and all like this is actually the reality of of that growth.
Speaker 2:but there's light at the end of the tunnel, but, uh, very, very dark right now well, I mean, I think you've got to be on, you've got to be on board for that. Right, there's pros and cons of any culture, like and I think I've got a real advantage in being able to look at that um, coming from public sector, which has pros and cons in terms of working in the public sector, right, like very stable, high job security. You know heaps of good stuff, like really purpose-driven organizations. You're surrounded by other people who are, you know, really purpose-driven like you don't. You know, working in the public sector was a beautiful experience. Right, there are pros and cons to every kind of business and every kind of culture and so, like, like, working in a high growth company is exciting.
Speaker 2:But it's not for everybody like it's one of those things that kind of sounds glamorous until you do it right, like being a manager, managing people sounds glamorous until you do it. Yeah, traveling for work sounds glamorous and then you realize it's like 5 am flights and hotel meals for one and being horribly jet lagged for two or three days a quarter. You know like it's working in a high growth business is one of those things that sounds glamorous until you do it. And really, what it? What it is and what it means is that you are going to be changing and trying and failing and competing for attention within the business you're going to be competing for.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean scaling businesses tend to have more money than time. Yeah, right, and so it's not budget that you're angling for. It's attention. Like you need people to do the things that you need them to engage in your processes and your change processes and you need somebody to fill in this form and do their performance review and fill in a survey about something you know and that's just on the people side Like you know, if you think about what my business is trying to get everybody to engage in, you know like it's a different kind of challenge and it is heaps of fun.
Speaker 2:And if you're the kind of person who you know can cope with pretty high levels of ambiguity and just kind of make a decision and not worry too much if that was the wrong one and just kind of keep moving, you know, not be attached to something because it's how you've done it. Not be attached to something because you put a lot of energy into building it. You know, if you're somebody who's willing just to bounce along and change and keep it moving and get the best of it and dive deep where it matters and not worry where it doesn't, you know you have to be one of those people who's not going to sweat the small stuff yeah, 100% and who is comfortable with those fluctuations in workload as different things happen.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we have big weeks, sometimes we have smaller weeks. You also have to be somebody with a pretty strong, I think, personal resilience, somebody who can manage their own boundaries and their own time and say this is, I'm comfortable with this, I'm not comfortable with this. You know, um and like I try. You know we talk about like also, the global business adds another layer of complexity around times of loans and meetings and trying to get things done, and you know I always feel a lot of pressure as the end of my day comes up because I'm like anything that I don't get off to the US or to Europe now they are going to be waiting a whole nother day. Like it's not. It's not a difference between sending something at 4 30 pm and 9 am. It's like I don't send it by the time I sign off.
Speaker 1:It's it's 24 hours before they actually are able to move forward with it, and so that that kind of 24 you know, 24 hour pressure.
Speaker 2:You've got to be somebody who can be like that's fine, I've got my boundaries, I've got my priorities, and do that in a way that still builds relationships and builds the people's side. So yeah, it's complex and gritty and interesting, but you know, I totally every now and then you know, if somebody hits an interview with me, it means that they've gone through all the stuff about cv and you know, blah, blah, blah, we've, we've decided that they're qualified. Right, if you hit, if you hit me in an interview phase, it's because we're talking about this stuff like we're saying are?
Speaker 2:are you the kind of person who is going to thrive in this environment, because there's no kindness in bringing somebody in who's not going to have a good time I I really, I really would hate to do that to somebody yeah and in the same way, there's no kindness in trying to keep somebody who's not thriving, and you know that's the other side of it is making sure that we do have the right, um, right things in place, the right methods in place, the right trust in place, that if somebody wants to come and say I think I've done my time, we can say thank you so much, you know, and and we can explore what else might be possible. Like one of the best case scenarios is, um and this happens a little bit where somebody might come and say, look, when I joined I didn't have to manage people and now I've got eight and I actually don't like it. And can I gonna do, can I do something else? And I'm like, yes, you can.
Speaker 2:You know, like that's best case scenario is that somebody can proactively say I'm actually not enjoying this part anymore, but let's find that you know one of the benefits of growth is that there are. There are other things that people might be able to, might be able to Another seed on the bus, yeah absolutely, and so where people have that sort of maturity and that humility actually to say I don't love this part. You know, it's again something that sounds glamorous but it's not suiting me.
Speaker 2:You know, then quite often we can find something else. You know another way for them to contribute, and then everybody's, you know, everybody's better off, everybody's better off. So yeah, look it's um. I think the way that you treat people all the way through that process, the autonomy and the authority that they feel that they have to be part of the design of how this goes, is really important, because I am never going to keep up with all the change. Yeah, like you know, for me to keep people's position descriptions up to date, I would probably have to hire two people and sit them there and have them do that and only that, because things change so fast and it's all interconnected and it's all incredibly complex, and so I need people to feel like they have the authority and the opportunity. You know, if somebody's position description is really important to them, they can update it and send it to me or send it to the regional director of PNC and say I think this is what I'm doing. Now I've changed this with my manager. Can you file this please?
Speaker 2:You know, people have to take ownership of some of their stuff, because the thing about a scaling business is nobody is doing that for you. There's no time. There's no time for that. We're trying to move as fast as we possibly can without tripping over ourselves, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, we're just going to have time for that sort of like little things like that and even as you're describing all those different things, you know, if we call them characteristics maybe, but as you describe all these different characteristics from the growth mindset to that ability to be resilient and you know, fail fast, fail forward, fail, often, just get back up like that, that paints a picture to me of an entrepreneur which is really interesting.
Speaker 1:And now that I'm maybe thinking out loud, it's in in in a lot of startups and scale up businesses. Sometimes we look at the, the founders and the directors, as the entrepreneurs, but but really it's everyone in the business like, and if you've got that entrepreneurial mindset doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to go out and and want to start a business, but you've got that mindset and ability to work through the, the different um puzzles and speed bumps and be agile, have that core mindset. So you're sort of touching a lot of those characteristics as well, regardless of where you sit in the business, whether it's sales, marketing people, et cetera. So no, that's really cool, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think about it very consciously because I think I have to be able to explain this to people.
Speaker 2:Like, if I'm really helping people make a good decision for themselves, then I have to be able to explain this to people. Like, if I'm really helping people make a good decision for themselves, then I have to be able to give them a real picture, right of whether you want to come and be part of this rocket ship. But I was thinking about it because when I took on the SVP role, I was thinking about the learning that I would need to do. And, man, I am still learning and I know I'm still learning and it's actually it's a delight, because every quarter, like if I've got a project that runs for more than three to six months, right, like let's say, we're doing something and we're reviewing something, and it's round the go, by the time I get three or six months into that project, I'm thinking if I was starting that now, I would be changing these things. And so that's how I know that I'm still massively on that learning curve, because even three months ago, meredith, six months ago, meredith, I'm like man, I know heaps more than she knew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm sort of keeping on top of that just for myself and to be like you know, am I still growing? Like, where are these areas that I'm expanding? Because the it's a real responsibility to be as much as we possibly can to enable the business to be able to continue to reach its potential as well but the two big things that I was thinking about, um, when I transitioned into the, into the global role, um.
Speaker 2:The first one is, like there are two things I had to learn leaving the public sector in particular. The first one is how to spend money, because in the public sector, there, is no money.
Speaker 2:You have to go through like 12 committees to get any money. And so what I learned working in the public sector is that I could do anything that I wanted to do, as long as I could do it for free. And so I got very, very used to doing my own stuff and designing my own stuff and putting together my own workshops and rolling them out, you know, without sort of doing, without relying on a IP you know that somebody else had or whatever so I got very, very used to doing that sort of build, build, build, build. What I had to learn coming into a growth organization, and particularly a, you know, publicly listed company, is like sometimes you're better off to buy what you're doing rather than build it yeah, so you've got to think about a balance of those things like is it the right, is it right to build or is it right to buy, because buying is faster but building is bespoke?
Speaker 2:yeah, so like you've got to decide what's right to insource versus outsource for your own practices. So that's been super interesting to me, still on that journey, for sure. And then the second one. The second one was about sort of like I thought that I could manage ambiguity when I was at PMAC, like I thought that that was a skill of mine. But the difference is that when you're in the public sector, like the end goal was very clear, like what you are going for is there, it's planned, there's a you know 20-year strategy down from the government, there's a 15-year strategy down from the health department and it, you know, cascades down into the hospitals and you basically, like the road's laid out. The question is how fast can you get there and how much pain are you going to create for people along the way? So you want to try and do it fast and smooth, not painfully and slow and bumpy, right, but in the private sector, in the public listed sector, there's no pathway like you could. You could decide you can't do everything you know so you could decide right.
Speaker 2:Talent acquisition is the activity that we're going to rock for the next 24 months.
Speaker 2:50% of my brain needs to go into thinking about how to really make that a gold standard set of activity for the business. Or I could say the medium-term strength of our workforce is going to be diversity. I'm going to put 40% of my brain into how to make sure that we are building structures and systems and building a market presence and building a brand proposition from an employment perspective that really makes sure that we are building structures and systems and building a market presence and building a brand proposition from an employment perspective that really make sure that we are attracting and retaining and creating value for and from the most diverse kind of thinking and people that we can get Right. Or I could say we're going to be a learning institution first, we're going to set up a Telex University and we're going to you know, blah blah. So there's no single path in this kind of business. You have to decide, you have to talk with people, you have to consult. I've got to present to my executive team, I've got to present to my board.
Speaker 2:But it comes from the decision-making that we make. But it comes from the decision-making that we make, not somebody that's decided what the 2025 health strategy is going to be right. So, like it's different in that if you're waiting to be told, you're already behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, and I think that's back to that sort of entrepreneurial thing that you said, Shane, Like it's like. You know, if you're going to sit there and wait for somebody to tell you what to do, then I think you're already probably behind the eight ball in this yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, great analogy.
Speaker 1:I love it. Um and um. Look, I can imagine that anyone listening to this is getting that the same energy and passion through as I am, like it's amazing. No, it's really cool to hear it.
Speaker 2:I get really excited about it, Like you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is cool.
Speaker 2:I just I feel, yeah, I feel incredibly lucky and incredibly grateful that I really do. I really do derive deep meaning from the work that I get to do. Like I find it, I love my people, I love my team. I don't mean to love people in the workplace, you know, there's a actually I don't know, but like it all comes together to feel incredibly important and worthwhile and I derive it, yeah, deep, deep satisfaction from getting to do the work that we get to do.
Speaker 1:Amazing. No, that was amazing, honestly was, and I know you've got a busy day ahead so I will wrap it up there, but thank you so much again for jumping on, meredith. It's been so cool to not just hear about the Telex journey but obviously your journey as well and that journey over the last decade and where you were and that kind of high growth type environment. So for anyone listening that doesn't know what high growth is or has has has questions on high growth, that's high growth yeah, come and talk to me, because I mean, I guess it's not obvious, I could talk about it all day love it, love it, no.
Speaker 1:All good. Thank you again and we'll talk soon. Thanks, shane. 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 organization looking to secure brand new talent for your team, please get in touch with us today. Thank you.
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