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
The HR Community Podcast: Sarah Novelli, BGIS Executive Director HR, Pioneering Data-Driven Strategies and Inclusive Leadership
Join us as Sarah Novelli shares her journey and insights into data-driven HR practices that enhance organizational effectiveness and employee engagement. With a focus on analytics, leadership, and flexibility, Sarah discusses strategies that drive results and foster a diverse workplace.
• Sarah's unexpected path into HR
• The impact of data analytics on HR decision-making
• Aligning HR strategies with organizational goals
• The importance of clean data for reporting accuracy
• Challenges of managing a dispersed workforce
• Creating flexibility in work models to retain talent
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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. On today's episode, I'm joined with Sarah Novelli. Sarah is the Executive Director at Brookfield Global Integrated Services. Executive Director for HR. Welcome, sarah. Thanks for having me. Thanks for jumping on, sarah, really keen to unpack some of the conversation that we were talking about over the last couple of weeks. Before we do, actually, I might hand the mic back to you to maybe give us and the listeners a little bit of an overview as to who is Sarah Novelli. Tell us a little bit about your role and, uh, bgis, sure?
Speaker 2:um. So I started my hr journey out about 15 years ago. Um, in basic hr administrative roles, was very fortunate at the time to have a great leader in the organization I worked at named charmaine higgins, who, um, let me work for her as a hr advisor and then as a hr business partner. Um and I was there for about seven years before I came over to BJS, where I started out as a HR business partner, moved into a HR manager role and then I was very fortunate, when I was about six months pregnant, our CEO asked me to step into the executive director role here.
Speaker 2:So BJS, we are a property and facilities management organisation. So there's around 12,000 employees globally and we take care of properties and facilities for Qantas, virgin, optus, telstra, the Department of Defence, the Department of Justice, so organisations that sort of have their own specialties. We take care of all of their facilities. So our employees could range from anything from facilities managers, sustainability engineers, trades people, cleaners, so a pretty diverse workforce and we're sort of heading up to that 3,000 headcount mark in our APAC business.
Speaker 1:This year Huge. And Sarah, if I was to sort of take everyone back, was HR always on the cards for you? Was that always going to be the career choice?
Speaker 2:No, not at all. It was an accident. I actually started out after school, starting psychology, and then I decided that I wanted money, so I just got a job as an admin. But in my company I was sort of outside the door of the HR team and I remember hearing them. We were a services organisation that I was working in and they were talking about these things around. You know, people being the organisation's competitive advantage. We didn't sell products, so our people were the key to everything and I remember just my ears pricking up and I asked them if they had any admin or anything I could do to help them out. And, yeah, I was very fortunate. They gave me opportunities to sort of shadow them and when a role came up, they gave me an opportunity to move into that. So it was an accident, but once it was deliberate it was very deliberate.
Speaker 1:Amazing. And was it always sort of more global brands, international brands, that you'd worked at from a HR perspective?
Speaker 2:No, bjs we're a global business. Now Ventia was very much Australia and New Zealand, but the benefit that we have of that global focus I guess at BJS is I am the executive director across the APAC region, but there's other executive directors who work across Canada, the United States, europe, the UK. So it's been good because I suppose, just understanding globally region, but, um, there's other executive directors, um, who work across canada, the united states, europe, the uk, so, um, it's been good because I suppose, just understanding globally, there's definitely differences across those regions, but then being able to share um, share findings or initiatives, that's a that's a huge benefit to us it sounds like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you mentioned it as well, sarah your region across apac. So I'm assuming you would have a dispersed people and culture team across that region as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we do. We've got sort of all spread across Australia and then a couple of resources in New Zealand.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's great, that's great. I was doing a little bit of research in my own sort of stalking across social media, sarah, so tell us a little bit about the HRD Australia hot list. I was really interested in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was very fortunate to be announced on that hot list last year. It's very awkward but, yeah, I was very fortunate. A lot of the work that I think probably got there was we do a lot of work around data analytics, people insights. That's really shaped the way that we work and our team works here and we've dedicated resources in the team. We look at people analytics and insights and I think you know, know, maybe some of the examples of initiatives, programs, um, uh, that we've rolled out across bjs because of those insights. That was it was very lucky to be included on that list fantastic.
Speaker 1:No, it's a great, great achievement. Tell us a little bit about the, the people and and data and the insight, because I know you're super passionate about it and a huge advocate for it. So I mean firstly, um, why data analytics? Why is that sort of top on your priority list?
Speaker 2:I think so I work. I haven't really historically worked in teams that are huge on the data analytics, but in um in 2019, bjs had a new ceo come in, donna nelson, very, very woman. And in our industry, I guess, data is king. We use it for everything, whether it's monitoring our field staff or building performance, and so I would sometimes, you know, talk to her about what was going on in the business. You know we've increased turnover or we have higher time to fill times and she never really would just accept that comment.
Speaker 2:It was sort of like oh, where is that turnover occurring and are we seeing that? It's, you know, a specific age bracket or is there a certain point in the tenure? So it's sort of one of those. What interests my boss interests me. It was just the realisation that we actually had to start building up our people reporting and start looking at trends and correlations, and what that now means is we are a very data-driven team. We don't come up with initiatives or programs because we feel like it would work. We need data backing the decision for that.
Speaker 1:It means that when we're resourcing for our team, you know we know that in Q3, as an example, our the number of hires that we do goes up 23 percent for the last three years.
Speaker 2:We know q3 is our hiring period, so we know that we can resource our team appropriately around that period. If we're introducing um, you know, apprenticeship programs, we'll actually have a look and say, okay, well, across the trades workforce, where are we seeing um the hardest, uh, longest time to fill, or the hardest roles to fill? Let's actually target apprentices in that particular um trade field. So it just means that it takes a lot of the guesswork out of of what our, what our strategy is and we actually, you know, do a lot of reporting back to the business as well to demonstrate that our programs have a return on investment and there is a shift in the needle that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And when you start to talk about it there I think about some of the conversations that we have in our hr and talent leadership workshops and sort of wider community and um, I guess one of the biggest challenges, um I've heard from other leaders is, where do you start? Because you're obviously at a point now where you can go. Here's a return on investment, here's a success journey for us at BGIS. But I guess if you're coming in to this and you're looking at more of a blank canvas, sarah, like where does one start with sort of best practice data analytics, particularly from that HR strategy perspective, well, I can really take a step further back.
Speaker 2:Even before we start designing our HR strategy, it's really important for me to understand what's the organisational strategy. So, talking with each of the executives and understanding what is it that you need to achieve this year, next year, once we understand their goals, their goals, our stakeholders goals, we design two-year pnc or people and culture strategies around those um, and that means that some years we've got really significant targets, like we have a division, we work, we do a lot of work with the department of defense and we know that one of the um.
Speaker 2:One of the things the department of defense are really passionate about is the private sector engaging veterans, so that people who have been in the Defence Force their whole lives, you know, can integrate into different roles and transfer the skills that they've got through the Defence Force into the private sector.
Speaker 2:So we knew that one of the objectives that our Director of Defence had was that we needed to increase the number of veteran recruits that we had in the business 10% year on year. What that means, though, is that we actually have to start out by going well, do we have the data? Do we even know who is in the business with either a veteran or a spouse of a veteran? And then saying, okay, well, we know that, you know we only have over 3,000 employees. We've only got 20 people. We know that we need to increase that to X. So, really, it was just a matter of where do we actually start with our baseline data, and then, what initiatives do we need to put into place to try and shift it to where we need to get to? I mean, it's very much a matter of you know what is our organisational turnover goal?
Speaker 2:What do we think is an appropriate time to fill? What should our vacancy rates look like? If we know that we are contract, that's going to require technical skills? Um, do we actually have enough bench strength in the organization for us to be able to deliver those to the client? So a lot of it really just links back to you really need to understand the business that you're in and you really need to understand your stakeholders and what their goals are. Um, and it's building it up from there. I also think it's really important that I point out I'm not good, necessarily, at building dashboards that's not my thing but I'm also a believer that I will never, ever be the smartest person in any room I go to and I'm fine with that, but I make sure that I hire the smartest people in those industries.
Speaker 2:So our lead when it comes to data and analytics. He doesn't come from a HR background, he comes from an operational reporting background. The things he can do in Power BI and in different you know reporting platforms is just phenomenal.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and you touched on something there that I think is so relevant Again, another sort of turning top that we talk about in a lot of our community and workshop is around HR needing to be and become digital natives, and you know, I think that could be viewed and unpacked in so many different ways. I mean, in your example, it sounds like you acknowledge the fact that the Power BI and the technical reporting probably isn't your strong point, so you invested in hiring someone in to manage that, which is great. What other sort of I I mean observations or even challenges, um, that you maybe had to approach and sort of work around throughout that journey. Is there any other sort of things that you can recall through that journey, sarah, that maybe you thought, ah, um, if I could go back, that would be something that I would have done a little bit different my biggest thing is when you're starting out.
Speaker 2:Reporting is only as good as your data, so clean data is really really important. I also think there was an area and I think it might have been when we were initially doing some reporting we decided that we had such great traction. Now we're going to start reporting on L&D and ROI in L&D programs and I think we got a little bit too far ahead of ourselves and because the data I wouldn't necessarily say was as clean as it needed to be, we released one or two reports. Then we had a lot of managers come back and go look, I've looked at my report for my division. This doesn't actually look right. And they were correct. The information was not correct.
Speaker 2:I would really caution people from getting too far ahead of yourself or rushing through the process, because you need to be able to demonstrate integrity in your reporting and it really only took that one sort of error in that one or two reports for the next lot of reports that we sent through people to question whether or not the data was correct or not, and just even hearing that narrative of, well, you know, this looks right, but you know, given the last report was incorrect, I just I think the most important thing is um clean data and make sure that you've really validated the accuracy of your reporting, because it's pretty hard to unwind when you've presented something as a fact when it could be proved not to be yeah, yeah, that's really interesting and a great point as well.
Speaker 1:Um, you mentioned lnd and I was actually going to ask you a little bit about some of the other, I guess trends and focus areas across HR and talent that we're seeing. I know EDI and belonging is a big one, I know retention is a big one, engagement and capability development they're all pretty big. Do you feel like a lot of the work that you've been doing in the data analytics space links to a lot of those areas as well, with the same sort of outcome that you mentioned, that ability to, once you have the data, it's not guess work and then you can start to really put in into practice like real strategic ways of approaching those different areas?
Speaker 2:I think that's a great question.
Speaker 2:We were doing things like reporting to understand well how many people actually internally progress through the organisation and we've got a grading level for one being an entry-level role, six sort of being an executive role.
Speaker 2:So we wanted to understand where in our data do we actually see the majority of people either move up to the next level or, alternatively, they're actually leaving to go externally because they're not moving up in the organisation.
Speaker 2:And that actually led to a really interesting final quarterly meetings with the executive team where we just spend a dedicated amount of time going through the people data, spend a dedicated amount of time going through the people data. It led to a really interesting conversation, which was we need to have a capability framework and a training matrix that allows everybody in the organization to be in a position where they can move up to that next level. What that actually allowed us to do was pivot our hiring strategy so that we could go okay. Well, if entry-level roles for the majority of entry-level roles, unless they're technical, well you know, there's safety requirements the majority of them actually are pure entry level there's no reason why we can't use our entry level hiring to look at um d and I or minority groups, whether that's people you know, like I mentioned before, um veterans or um people who maybe have recognized qualifications overseas who haven't been able to get those qualifications recognised here, people with disabilities, you know, returning mothers.
Speaker 2:So I've found that, you know, it's our hiring approach, which is we really try and hire at the entry level and promote through the rest of the organisation. That's been very successful for us and we've seen our turnover reduce by about 8% over the past 12 months. We're seeing more people who are looking to be considered for other roles in the organisation. I think they all tie in together though, because, you know, the data reporting showed us that we needed to have a stronger capability framework which would allow that, and then, once we had that, we realised that that opens us up for opportunities to hire much more diverse groups into our organisation at the entry level. So for me, they're all very much interconnected.
Speaker 1:Knowing your business and this is something we kind of talked a little bit about previously as well is you talk about the different levels obviously in the business and really trying to retain and develop the workforce that you currently have? You've got quite a large workforce who are client-facing, they're working externally, you know, with different clients and contracts and stuff. Did you find that was maybe a challenge or a gap that you were maybe not tapping into when it came to capability development, or was that sort of a key focus area as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no huge challenge. When you have a dispersed workforce and particularly a lot of our people actually aren't desk-based. I think it's something like 74% of BJS's workforce. They're physically out, they're not in front of computers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow so that does make it a little bit difficult because myself and my team we are in desk-based roles. We are assuming everybody's reading emails and updates the same way that we do. But what that actually led to were discussions around our leadership capability, because that meant that our leaders we were very much reliant on them to be the representatives for business when it came to their teams. Um, and it's similar I mean it sort of happened similar timing actually to when remote working became more mainstream. We realised there was this capability I'm sorry, I wouldn't say capability gap, but there was a gap with our leadership where we needed to make sure that they had very clear and strong communications from the business that they could share with their team. They knew where to find the resources to support their team. They knew where to go for support functions if they couldn't locate those resources.
Speaker 2:It's a challenge though that it's. It's not easy, and I mean if anyone has any tips that they're happy to reach out to me with, like, I'll take them, because I think I love the idea of just having all of my employees in one building, um and holding a town hall and being able to communicate all the key messages, but just, it is something that we're still working on, but what I would probably just say is that the role of the leaders, that was something that we actually had to really look at, and we had to really make sure they had the skills and the training to be, I guess, our champions on the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% yeah, and I mean building out from that as well, I'd imagine that your team, without sort of putting words in your mouth, your team, are very much driven to be present and to be embedded in the business groups Because I mean, would you say, hr have a huge role to play maybe in that ability to get those leaders and workers externally to be across your different programs, your systems. And I guess it's yeah, it's about sort of HR being so embedded that they're aware, even though they've maybe not seen your office or met with you, you that you're HR and you're there to support them in whatever areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think too. I mean we've got our HR business partnering team. They are divisional, so our trades workforce, as an example, have got a dedicated person that they can go to and they just love him, they just think he's incredible. And you know, I know like our defence division have the same thing. So it's really those HR resources being so integrated in to that business and I think it goes a level beyond understanding, not just about what's in our industry, not just about what's our people's strategy or what's your divisional strategy. A lot of the time they're serving external clients like I said Defence or Qantas or Optus.
Speaker 2:It's actually then the business partners understanding what's a defence, what's important to them, or our Department of Justice. I mean, I know that the Department of Justice something which is quite important to them is the reduction of recidivism, which is people have been incarcerated and reintegrating them in, so we know that that's a that's a real key um focus area for them. It's important that my hr team and then working with the leaders to say, well, where is it that we can support and close these gaps, because if it's important to your client and it's important to us as well, so I think it's sort of the hr business partners really understanding beyond the organization and just having a real commercial understanding of you know it we need to be achieving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and I know you touched on a little bit earlier as well with the fact that majority of your workforce are pretty much external, they're working on site, and we're in this world right now where there's still a lot of debate and discussion around what's the best model. Is it working on site? Is it hybrid working? Is it flexibility? I was going to ask you a little bit about that because I know it's something that's close to home. When you talk about flexibility and hybrid working and being in the position being in that leadership position you're in being a mum, so maybe tell us a little bit about that as well, sarah.
Speaker 2:I have a. I mean I mentioned before I was six months pregnant when I was asked about this role, so I did return to work fairly early after my daughter was born and that didn't come without challenges, I mean. Things like I mean this is too much information, but you know, having to breastfeed in the office, things like I mean this is too much information, but having to breastfeed in the office wasn't always that easy. And juggling all the fun stuff that comes with new babies.
Speaker 2:I think for me, getting that firsthand experience of why the hybrid working was so important and being able to talk to it and really make sure that we shaped our policies based off anyone's circumstance We've got people in our organisation who have got elderly parents that they care about you know even, I guess, people who have got you know other things going on in their lives that they need that flexibility for just really making sure that we could, whilst we have frameworks in place, to try and make sure that we've got, you know, routine, People need to be on site, Jobs need to be performed, but allowing people to be able to, you know, have flexibility where they need it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I wouldn't have been in the role that I'm in today if I didn't have that flexibility, and I am eternally grateful that you know these conversations were even had with me at that point in my life, but I feel that it's probably one of the most important things that organisations can do is, if you're in a position where you can't afford someone that flexibility, you could lose out on incredible talent.
Speaker 2:If you don't do that and I mean something that I mean I know we have spoken about it, but I'm quite passionate about is there is a huge crisis in childcare at the moment in Australia, where the early childcare sector is seeing more turnover than ever before and for every vacancy in childcare, between one and six and 12 families are impacted. I'm sure people have all heard about people who are on waitlists for childcare and unfortunately, the reality is, if you're on a waitlist, you probably can't work full time or you do need a little bit more flexibility. So I think it's important, where organisations are in a position to try and afford that, that they should, because there's a lot of people out there who want to work and are fantastic workers and circumstances beyond their control means that maybe they can't do a typical nine to five on site.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love the chat um before the podcast as well, when we first connected a couple of weeks ago on this because, um, I do feel like sometimes, um, there is a bit of an assumption, particularly um, and I mean in in hr. I'm blessed by speaking to so many hr leaders, but I feel like sometimes there's an assumption that because you're the mum that you're going to need, you know, extensive time away from work and companies are already working on a plan B instead of actually looking at okay, how can we make this work? Do you want to come back earlier? What do we need to do as an organisation to make this work and then start to think about that on a larger scale as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I mean I think that the last few years there has been huge progress in this space and I think, more than ever you're seeing I mean that comment that you made yeah, we are seeing a lot more men say well, you know what?
Speaker 1:my wife wants to go back to work and I want to be the person who stays at home.
Speaker 2:I think it is just a matter of you know. It is probably almost entirely completely unintentional, but when people hear about somebody who's pregnant or going on maternity leave, a lot of people already have an idea in their head of what they think that might look like and not even ask the question of what are your plans, what do you want to do? And I think it just starts with something as small as just asking somebody what their intention is. Because when I was pregnant, I, you know, not that I didn't want to have to take the time off, but, um, I don't know, my personal circumstances were a little bit different, where I, you know, wanted to be back at work. So having a ceo say, well, what do you want to do, do you? It sort of made me think like, okay, well, maybe I don't actually have to do what I have in my head, maybe I could consider other options.
Speaker 1:And that was a really powerful, like a really really powerful um thing that happened to me yeah, and I agree with that as well, and I think and this isn't just, you know, focus on this topic, I think, just in general, I think often we think of it as a one size fix all and I agree with you. I think there's been amazing work done in this space over the last couple of years and I know you know myself, even in my own circles organisations have definitely invested more in paternity leave and flexibility and support and stuff paternity leave and flexibility and support and stuff. But, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:I think some of our listeners are surely nodding their heads, or I'd love to actually hear from some of our listeners once we go live with the podcast if they've had similar situations, because I feel like, yeah, it's definitely a conversation that's worth having in your business and I mean it's great that your CEO took the lead with that. I think more should because, like you say, once you start that conversation and ask the right questions, you might find out that someone's actually keen to get back, has the support to get back to work a lot earlier and work a bit more flexible than needed, which means they don't need to take a significant gap in their in their career um, not that that should matter either for um, for their own progression, but yeah, it's an interesting one I think it's fantastic to see the progress.
Speaker 2:I just think that it's something that hopefully we just keep getting better at and eventually, when my daughter's in the workforce, it won't even be whatever they think yeah, I know, I hear you.
Speaker 1:I hear that sounds like a very scary thought. What's what's ahead? I mean with uh, even with the conversations around uh, gen ai and robotics and and all this other stuff that we're only sort of at the uh not, not even, not even past the top layer yet. So it's, it's all uh, it's all very interesting but, um, I'm on my own time. I will let you get on with your super busy day and weeks there. I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast. That was so insightful. I loved unpacking the data analytics stuff a lot more because I think it's such a crucial part of any business, particularly in a business where your CEO is on board. Your CEO is leaning into the HR team to really drive it forward. I think that's such a great case study and kudos to you for everything that you've done.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh good, no worries at all, thank you. 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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