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The HR Community Podcast: Philippa Prothero, Principal, Nous Group - Building Truly Inclusive Organisations
•Shane O'Neill
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Discover how the landscape of HR is being reshaped by visionary HR practitioners like Philippa Prothero, who joins us to share her unique journey from from organisational psychology to building future of workforce models.
Philippa supports organisations to build future-focused workforce models, applying a strong data-driven approach and incorporating best practice at all points of the employee life cycle.
She brings 20 years’ experience in senior HR leadership and consulting roles and works extensively across the Australian Government. Philippa combines a deep expertise in the science of organisational change with on-the-ground experience in driving transformation in complex organisations.
Provided advice and facilitation on sector-wide workforce planning, change and digital health capability to support the development of the National Digital Health Capability Action Plan
Advised on the implementation of new Health Knowledge Management system in the Department of Defence, including change management, communications and capability development
Developed an implementation strategy to support a public sector program management office to manage the delivery of complex, cross-agency, sector-wide reform
Developing a workforce management and planning tool to support National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) providers to plan and manage their workforce in line with the NDIS Workforce Capability Framework.
Led strategic advisory support to an independent review of hierarchy, workforce classification structures and workforce management practices across the Australian Public Service.
Outside of Nous
Philippa holds a PhD in organisational behaviour from the Australian National University. Her research examined topics of organisational culture, work motivation and job performance with the objective of supporting genuine evidence-based decision-making within organisations.
Philippa serves as a non-executive director on the board of Care Inc, a not-for-profit organisation delivering financial counselling and legal services to low-income consumers and victims of domestic violence. She is also a member of the Australian HR Institute and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
Philippa offers her perspective on the evolving role of HR beyond traditional compliance, taking us through the complexities of integrating Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) into the very fabric of organisational strategies. Her expertise shines as she discusses the challenges and rewards of fostering environments where diverse perspectives are not only welcomed but optimized, and how these efforts can lead to enhanced organisational performance.
As we navigate the shifting paradigms of remote and hybrid work models, Philippa discusses their impact on workplace culture and inclusivity. Listen in as we explore the importance of setting ambitious goals to drive meaningful change, particularly in the realm of diversity and inclusion. Philippa highlights the powerful role data analytics can play in advancing equity, pushing for policy changes that ensure fair remuneration. With insights into the ongoing evolution of HR practices, this conversation is a must-listen for anyone looking to stay ahead in the world of organizational leadership and performance
Enjoying this episode of The HR Community Podcast? Stay tuned for quick insights and updates during this episode, including upcoming HR events, workshops, and resources for 2025, proudly brought to you by Civitas Talent. Your journey to building better teams and thriving in HR starts here. Visit www.civitastalent.com or connect with us on LinkedIn for more. Let’s get back to the conversation!
Welcome to the HR Community Podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill, founder of Sila Tass Talent, the HR and HSE 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. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the HR Community Podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill. I'm the Director of Sympathize Talent. Today we have Philippa Prothero and we'll be diving into a couple of different topics that will really add a lot of value to our HR community. Welcome, pip.
Speaker 2:
Thank you very much. Lovely to be here.
Speaker 1:
That's good. That's good. So, everyone, we had a quick chat beforehand about the market, but, more importantly, we had a good chat about having a bit of a break over Christmas. So right back to you, but it sounds like things have been off to a busy start for you, pip.
Speaker 2:
Yes, absolutely yeah, it's been a. I think we were sort of planning when we were going to get together and talk about this. We were both planning to have a quiet January, but certainly it's a very busy start to the year from our perspective, where in terms of Now's Group, who they are, what they do and obviously a little bit more about your role and how it all sort of comes together.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, sounds great. So Now's Group is a. We're an international management consultancy. We're Australian owned and we have our head office here in Australia. We are about 750 strong and we operate kind of globally Australia, the UK and Canada where our primary offices are. We work broadly across the spectrum of management consulting, but the practice that I lead with a colleague in Toronto is our organisational performance and leadership practice. So that's a part of the business where we really focus on kind of partnering with our clients at the forefront of contemporary people challenges across public sector, private sector, not-for-profit, and it's a really exciting place to be. It's work I really, really love and, yeah, very excited for the chance to come and talk about it today.
Speaker 1:
Amazing. And as well as all that, obviously I've been stalking your background and profile over the last couple of weeks as we were organizing today's podcast. Quite a lot of experience in this field and also a lot of qualifications, education, so maybe for the audience I might get you to sort of take us back where it all begins. So I guess A tell us a little bit about what got you into this overall sort of org performance leadership space and we can take from there.
Speaker 2:
Sounds great. Well, I started my career in psychology. I originally thought I wanted to be a clinician and I realised pretty quickly in the early days of studying psychology that it was a much broader field than clinical practice and actually where my real interest lay was in the world of organisation. So I went from university into a boutique organisational psychology consultancy, which was a really excellent place to start my career. I was working with very, very skilled people with good, strong academic qualifications and a real focus on sort of rigour and evidence-based in the work that we did. And I was on the fence at that time about whether I wanted to go back into an academic path, and that led me to start a PhD in org psych. So I sort of have kind of always kept my foot in academia in some form, but I have a very strong pull into the world of practice. So what does the practical application of the research look like on the ground in organisations? And so after a period of time working in consulting, I wanted to be in a large organisation. So I wanted to.
Speaker 2:
I was at the time spending a lot of time talking to organisations about their kind of their work and their people, but I wanted to get into the organisation actually doing the work, and so I went into sort of leadership roles in HR functions and it was interesting because at the time I was as an org psych, or certainly this was the sort of the in-group, out-group that was happening at the time.
Speaker 2:
We looked down on HR a little bit and thought that org psych was kind of a bit more, a bit more academic, a bit more rigorous um than hr. But I pretty quickly um developed a real love of hr across the whole spectrum. So, um, I now very strongly identify as both an or psych um profession, like as a profession person, and also as a HR practitioner, and so I actually think that's a really lovely combination when you're getting into the world of organisations and things that people need to do. So I did that. So I spent some time working in HR and leadership functions looking at kind of through some organisational transformations how do you shift the culture of an organisation from the inside spent some time in some kind of more complex parts of HR bullying, sexual harassment, a little bit in HR policy in IIER, IIER and then I returned into consulting and I think sort of that time spent both in academia and the time spent in HR has really sort of supported quality in terms of consulting practice as well.
Speaker 1:
Possibly? Yeah, and it's really cool as well that you've been through that transition as well, particularly with the evolution of the HR practice over the years. So you know, I know that historically HR very much compliance heavy and policy heavy, which still plays a major part of the role today, as well as the legislation and the workplace relations, but it's evolved so much, particularly in some of the areas that we're going to touch on, particularly around that overall OPL space. Tell us a little bit about and you can, you know you can play with this a little bit if you want to talk about some of the sectors that you're operating in or holistically across the Nowis group. But in terms of that OPL space, like, what sort of trends are you hearing and seeing? Like, where is the sort of activity? What are organizations looking for?
Speaker 2:
Well, it's interesting. So I guess, if I sort of position to start, where do I focus my practice now? Of my sort of position to start, where do I focus my practice now and I talk to my colleagues a lot about? In the org performance and leadership domain, because we're working on people and workforce. Actually, a lot of the things that we do and the things that we think about are sector agnostic. So I work a lot in Australian government at the moment, so my practice is primarily focused in the public sector. But, having said that, a lot of it is transferable out into, you know, organisations in the private sector or in, you know, in higher ed, in universities, which is also places where NASA as an organisation spends a lot of its time.
Speaker 2:
I guess that the sort of in preparation for this particular discussion, one of the trends I was reflecting on was the sort of increased emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion and the way that that has evolved over time has been really interesting for me, because I started my PhD looking really hard at the idea of kind of recruiting for cultural fit, which at the time back in 2006, which was when I started my PhD, was a really big conversation. So I was spending a lot of time in recruitment. We know that recruitment is a place where there's a lot of really good evidence base behind the kind of decisions that we can make, and that's one of the sort of more mature parts of Org Psych. And so I was doing lots of design of recruitment systems. I was training people in good practice recruitment. I was advising on psychometric testing.
Speaker 2:
So we were looking at, well, what's the reliability and validity underpinning particular psychometric tests? And I would have people saying to me, well, but I just want to know if someone's going to fit in around here. My problem is they come into the workplace and they just don't fit in. And so that was a conversation at the time, kind of how many years ago is that we're looking at? Too many years ago to count, getting close to 20 years ago. And so when I started my PhD, I thought, oh, I'm going to build a test that is going to show whether someone fits in this organisation.
Speaker 2:
It's obviously, you know, I can apply all my good psychometric practice and we can do that and I pretty quickly, once I started to get into the research, worked out that actually the premise that we need people where I think you're going to fit in around here, it is actually a flawed premise. And now, in kind of 2025 and we're focused on EDI and that's a much more live conversation than it was 20 years ago, that seems very obvious. Like, obviously we don't want homogeneity within the workforce. Obviously we don't want everyone to be the same, but at the time when I was kind of starting my PhD, that's what I was thinking. I was like how do I work out how to get kind of the culture running? Obviously you need to bring in people who are going to fit into the culture. So that's been a really sort of interesting trend to watch. I wrote down a few things that I would reflect on out of my PhD, so maybe that's a good place to go from here.
Speaker 2:
Because I think they're still true and I think the sort of lenses that we can apply on them, you know, in a current context, are really interesting. So when I did my PhD, I did a lot of work, I wrote a lot of pieces of paper and I submitted it. But actually if I lived all the way up, I think I probably found sort of three primary things. So the first thing I found was, yes, it really matters if I feel like I fit in in an organisation. There are sort of demonstrable impacts on how engaged I am, how much I'm going to be motivated at work and whether I'm going to stay. But I also found that my ability to judge whether you're going to fit in in the organisation is actually pretty poor. And it doesn't really matter how much I think that I know whether you're going to fit in or not. Like there's actually not very much evidence to support sort of a subjective judgment about whether someone's going to fit in around here, and that's a pretty kind of interesting finding, I think. And that's a pretty kind of interesting finding, I think. I think a lot of the time when we're interviewing people or running recruitment processes, we think that we know, you know, we think that we've got this kind of gut feel sensation and something's going on there. But really when you look at the research it doesn't stack up against the evidence. Probably what we're showing is maybe we're finding something that's real, but maybe it's a Trojan horse of a bias, maybe there's something else going on. It probably says a lot more about me than it does about you in terms of kind of what's actually going on there, what's behind the judgment. And then the final thing that I found which again I thought was really interesting and there was a lot of work to get to this finding was that one of the primary predictors about whether someone is going to eventually feel like they fit in in an organisation is an individual, different factor of adaptability. So it's much less important that I've kind of start and you know, you pick me up and you put me into an organisation as a kind of fixed entity. Me up and you put me into an organisation as a kind of fixed entity. But it's more important to be looking at well, what are the processes by which we're socialising people into organisational cultures? How are we thinking about the things that really matter in terms of the foundation of the culture? And then how are we making space for difference and diversity within that organisation so that people can get a sense of belonging, so that they can get a sense of belonging, so that they can get a sense of fitting in? So I sort of I finished my PhD in 2016, was the primary work, and then it's a year of process before you get to wear your gown and go on stage.
Speaker 2:
And now, in 2025, the kinds of conversations that I'm having with HR practitioners are about well, what's our obligation as an organisation for creating a sense of belonging? How do we sort of genuinely think about the diversity of lived experience across our employees? How do we build inclusive practices within leaders? And just telling people to be inclusive won't make them inclusive. So what are the ways in which we can be thinking about sort of challenging fixed mental models, or challenging mental models about what it means to be successful? How do we have more explicit conversations about the sort of underpinning? You know, norms and practices within an organisation and certainly you know the shifting landscape of EDI over the last little while has been really interesting Lots of work on gender that's much easier to measure. Increasing focus on things like cultural and linguistic diversity, increasing focus on neurodiversity, and so I think that's a really exciting conversation and and one to have sort of been tracking over the years.
Speaker 1:
That's really cool. I really love that and you're so true. Like a lot of this um, I mean, there's so much to unpack right. I mean um, EDI as as a whole um, you know, it's just such a huge broad topic in a sense. But I really like what you talk about, particularly around the belonging side as well, because I do feel a lot of it from a recruitment lens as well, because this is kind of an area where we come in from a recruitment perspective but when we're recruiting for clients, it definitely seems like a lot of the EDIB is driven from an organizational lens and an organizational strategy, Whereas you know you're totally right If an individual is looking at, is this the right business for me, Is this the right culture?
Speaker 1:
There needs to be a lot more assessment and testing and ability to work that out, as opposed to a, you know, standard behavioral style interview process, as what I'm trying to say. The other thing I was really keen to sort of unpack a little bit more, Pip, was you know you talk about how organizations can start having you know or get maybe more consistent with these conversations. Where do you feel like that could potentially start Like? Is that a conversation started for HR to sit down with business leaders. Is that something that the leaders themselves sort of need to go? We need to drive this this year. Where do you sort of start when you were sort of in an organization and really trying to drive changes around that?
Speaker 2:
EDIB, the maturity in an organization, or progress in an organization, actually comes from lots and lots of little changes in behavior. So, and when you're starting, if you're a HR team who's focused on, or maybe kind of tasked with, your EDI strategy, your EDI strategy, what is it that you can do? What are the kind of tangible practices that you can put in place, when actually, what you're trying to change is lots and lots of teeny, tiny interactions? So probably the first thing that I would say is just to acknowledge that that change happens through lots of different levers and that that means that we're empowered from the different places that we sit to have a role in making progress, but also that making progress doesn't sit on the shoulders of a single place, place In recruitment, I think and this is really live like I feel like I'm continue to be challenged, continue to have, you know, things that I take for granted sort of challenge my colleagues in a way that's really, and clients in a way that's really valuable and powerful. But I think we often think about how do we, you know, maybe support our people so they can do better at a recruitment system that we've designed and the kind of next level of maturity is well, let's think about how we design the recruitment system so that it's got more opportunities for people you know, so that we can be thinking about you know, it's not the case that the person from a traditionally marginalised group has to kind of you know. It's not the case that the person from a traditionally marginalized group has to kind of you know, come on board with the mainstream approach. But actually we can be thinking differently about our approaches, and that goes to well. How do we think about and describe the nature of the work? Who are the kinds of people who are going to be attracted to working in this kind of you know, this kind of practice? This will be stuff that you'll be thinking about and working on all the time, I expect. You know, if we write our job description or our advertisement out to market in a way that makes people self-select out, then we're cutting down our population from the very beginning.
Speaker 2:
But once people are in organisations, there's a lot of work that can be done as well. So one of the things that at one point I picked up in inclusion and diversity function inside an organisation. I went and talked to other people. I said what do you do? I don't know how to run this function. Tell me what you've learned. And I remember speaking to an associate at the time who said to me getting people in the door is actually the easiest part of the whole process. Right, it's actually what happens once they're in the door. That is the place where you make or break. Are we creating an environment that allows that difference to come and actually be optimised so that we get the advantage of it?
Speaker 2:
One of the more powerful experiences for me over the last few years has been and it's a real privilege to do this kind of work. So I do a lot of work in leadership, often in kind of facilitating leadership programs, and so where I see real power kind of coming into the room is when people can talk about their lived experience in a way. That kind of is emotionally, it evokes emotion in others so they can kind of declare well, this has been my experience, that thing that you thought was easy was actually really difficult for me for this reason, and that I think I find really, you know, transformative in terms of the way that leaders can then pick up their leadership practice and open their minds to. Well, actually, perhaps I've been doing something inadvertently, with good intentions, that has been creating an environment in which people don't feel as included as they could be.
Speaker 1:
And do you feel as well paper that the um? I guess it's, it's, you know it's. It's still a topic which surprises me, but it's still a topic that is being trialed and tested and investigated. But around the whole, you know, remote, remote and hybrid working model because you know, I feel like there is, on one half, businesses that are very pro. This works. We work hybrid, we work remote. It works. We attract the best people who are right for the job, regardless of their background. We're fully supportive of EDIB. But then on the other side, you know I'm seeing a lot of activity. We need people back into the office. We need to go back to, you know, five days in the office or four days in the office. Do you feel like those kind of activities have a lot to play with EDIB and a lot of that sort of culture, awareness stuff that you're talking about?
Speaker 2:
So I'll declare myself. It was actually in the notes, in the prep notes. It was like which side of the fence are you on? You know, I would definitely lean towards a kind of pro hybrid working approach. I empathize with and appreciate why leaders are getting frustrated and saying, well, I just want everyone back in the office. I understand the kind of logic there, but I think that the thing that excites me is the opportunity to go a bit deeper than that, to say, well, why do we want people in the office? What are the kinds of experiences we want them to be having? And then how do we ensure that when people are in the office, we're optimising that face-to-face time?
Speaker 2:
There is some interesting research and I will declare that I don't know the exact details of kind of where you know, track it all the way back, but I have definitely read this research which says that it looked at homogenous teams versus heterogeneous teams in a kind of virtual environment and versus a face-to-face environment is my understanding of the research and found that homogenous teams face-to-face more effective. Yeah, in a virtual environment we get improved effectiveness for heterogeneous teams and the logic there is when everyone's face-to-face, we're assuming that everyone understands the kind of implicit, unwritten rules by which we're kind of doing business. So we're assuming that everyone knows how things work around here. When we have to move to hybrid, we have to more explicitly have a conversation about how things are going to work. That is my understanding of kind of the logic there, and also in a hybrid environment, we've got more places for people to make their contributions.
Speaker 2:
So the difference between having to speak up in a meeting versus being able to physically put your hand up on a Teams call versus being able to put something in a chat thinking about what you're saying which I understand, you know, certainly if English wasn't your first language then the ability to kind of type your point in a chat versus kind of jumping into a meeting, all of those things kind of open up different ways for people to contribute, and so I think that's exciting, I think if we can think about that in. You know, we know that the wants of the workforce lean more to work from home than they do to being back fully in the office, and so how do we think about kind of the benefits there and making sure that people are really explicit about those benefits?
Speaker 1:
100% and I feel as well again, sort of coming at it from a recruitment lens it's a very simple but highly effective USP for your brand. It's, like you know, we are truly hybrid. So, like we were discussing earlier, you know you'd mentioned how it depends on how you approach your sort of EDIB overall strategy, because that can actually indirectly cancel certain candidates and applications from applying to the role to begin with. And you know, similarly, if you're not advertising, if you're not practicing true hybrids work model and you're not advertising, if you're not um practicing um true hybrids work model and you're not um advertising that you know you're you're essentially losing out on strong talents who have that as their key motivation on their on their wish list, wish list to um to look for a new role. We, we, um.
Speaker 1:
We spoke a little bit earlier as well pip about about new year. Obviously, you're off to a busy start, which is a good sign. Anyone listening, public sector is busy. The question I was going to ask you is and I know it's early days, but like 2025, I mean, given your experience and given what we talked about, where do you see the main challenges for businesses and leaders, when you know we talk about the edib, because I think you know you've talked, you've talked theory, you've talked best practice. Obviously we would love it to be very straightforward and simple, but for some it's not. So what? Where do you see most of the challenges and um, you know what are your sort of thoughts there?
Speaker 2:
I think and I was reflecting on this with a colleague as well recently so some of this is shared thinking, not just my own there's an implementation challenge, and so it's one thing to kind of have an ambition, it's one thing to make a strategy, it's another thing to actually see that strategy come to life through good quality implementation. And so, in part, I think there's some really excellent thinking and there's some really excellent intent that needs to be followed through with kind of action that probably looks like sort of maintained momentum and focus. I do think that we continue to be in an environment where people don't do things that they want to do because they're scared of getting it wrong. And so acknowledging that, accepting that, and then kind of accepting too that in some ways that's not good enough and we need to keep going, if you kind of adopt an approach that you know this is part of our sort of social obligation as well, but also it's an organisational performance imperative. You know there's some really interesting things we don't know what's going to happen with with ai, like we're just at the very starting edge of well, how does that, how does that impact actually like work on the ground and then, and then what's the um? What are the kind of um intended or unintended consequences that might have for um, the different experiences that people have within the workplace? So I think that's think that's a place that we'll come together over the coming kind of, yeah, 18 months, in 18 months' time, we'll be thinking really differently about how AI impacts work and impacts sort of the experience of inclusion within the workplace as well.
Speaker 2:
I would say, kind of interestingly, uh, I think when organizations can set an ambition, um, very, you know, very confidently, and go after it, then then we do see some really substantial change, um, and and so I think that continues to be something that that I reflect on in terms of is it? Is it sort of small and iterative progress or is it actually? I'm going to have a big ambition. You know, I want to fundamentally shift the diversity within my workforce. I want to fundamentally shift the way in which people are kind of feeling included. I think, if you can be further down the end of like I am actually going to go after this with lots of energy, then we see sort of rapid change there. Yeah, I mean, it's like lots of things in HR and psychology, because people don't change over a, you know, over a five, 10 year period, actually, the things that we think about, they do shift and trends shift, but also the practices that we know work are going to continue to be the things that we come back to.
Speaker 1:
Massively. Yeah, and look, I totally agree and I think it's relevant for any sort of goal that you know one wants to set for themselves or for their business, for their career, family. It's owning it and, you know, really believing in it and just going for it and I think, um, that kind of energy will really build up a lot of momentum, um, in the space this year. Um, one last super, super quick thing because I know you need to uh dash through it is, um, I know data analytics is something that we didn't get a whole opportunity to unpack too much, but we talked a little bit about equity at the beginning of the conversation. We sort of started to unpack it a little bit. There was a lot of reports released last year around equity and salaries. You know, do we see potentially, or are we predicting potentially that's going to continue to evolve, not just in terms of salaries but also across a whole stream of categories in EDI for organisations, or what are you sort of thinking?
Speaker 2:
It's a couple of things that I'm thinking about and I don't have the names of the reports directly in front of me, but certainly the one that was published by Two Big Decade Women and I went to their symposium last year when they published those findings and the high-level kind of my high-level understanding of those findings was actually we're starting to go backwards on gender. So whilst we can have a perspective which is gender's, done, we've solved gender. We can get to 50-50 representation in our senior levels. Things are good. The deep kind of analysis of that data says we need to continue to focus on this. There will be kind of big things that will shift.
Speaker 2:
You know, when we think from a sort of workforce perspective, we do find that there's a relationship between the things that drive salary and kind of the populations that may be more dominated by people from sort of marginalised groups. So you know, I think I'm coming back to your question, which is what's going to happen in 2025. I'm not sure. I think that there are some sort of question which is what's going to happen in 2025. I'm not sure I think that there are some sort of big policy levers that are going to, you know, that are going to be important in terms of understanding at a sector level. How much can we push on equitable remuneration? But there's certainly a lot of work to be done. Would be my kind of high level assistant there yeah, great.
Speaker 1:
No, thank you so much and I really appreciate you coming on today, philip, like that was amazing. I think there's, uh, there's a lot we can continue to to unpack, um, and no doubt, um, I'm sure some of our community might be in touch directly to unpack some of those um, but yeah, thank you again.
Speaker 2:
Thanks so much. Lovely to talk to you and if I was to do a shout-out to the community listening to the podcast, we are always looking for excellent people to join us at NowScreep and sort of partner as clients, but also, as you know, people who want to come and work with us. So please, yeah, do get in touch.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much. Amazing Thank you so much. 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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