---
title: "Driving the message that inclusion is a cold-nosed business priority"
episode: 34
date: 2021-04-08
guest: "Neil Carberry"
canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/34-driving-the-message-that-inclusion-is-a-cold-nosed-business
audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-034/audio.mp3
---

# Driving the message that inclusion is a cold-nosed business priority

Joanne Lockwood is joined by Neil Carberry to explore why inclusion should be treated as a hard-edged business priority rather than a “nice to have” HR initiative. They discuss how business performance, productivity, and reputation link to employees being able to bring their whole selves to work, and why leadership accountability matters more than statements or statistics. Neil shares practical reflections on what shifts behaviour: rewarding the right actions, challenging non-diverse shortlists, and building inclusion into line management and recruitment decisions. The conversation also looks at post-pandemic working, including flexible and hybrid work as an inclusion tool, and what leaders need to do to listen to different workforce experiences rather than defaulting back to old norms. They touch on allyship and responsibility in the wake of events such as Black Lives Matter and Sarah Everard, as well as structural barriers in senior leadership pipelines and board appointments. Finally, Neil outlines how the REC is encouraging higher standards in recruitment and advising clients to widen talent pools, challenge unnecessary requirements, and translate inclusion data into sustained action during the economic recovery.

## Chapters

- 00:00 — Long-term success requires prioritising broader societal interests.
- 09:24 — Changing leadership: From impersonal to authentic approach.
- 11:05 — Leaders should actively challenge systemic issues actively.
- 19:47 — Promoting inclusion by understanding diverse experiences.
- 25:02 — Balancing profits, employment, and post-pandemic adaptation.
- 30:12 — Progress in diversity improves risk management effectiveness.
- 36:19 — Acknowledging inclusion requires effort and participation.
- 39:29 — Progress on diversity often overlooks broader inclusivity.
- 44:23 — Diverse hiring hindered by outdated and unnecessary requirements.
- 50:28 — Challenge assumptions; more time, better planning needed.
- 57:41 — REC: Representing industry, growing members, ensuring standards.
- 01:01:35 — Inclusive economic transition essential for sustainable growth.

## Key takeaways

- The optimism around the British economy, high savings rates, and predictions for a substantial economic bounce.
- The importance of an inclusive economic transition, particularly for young people and those in declining industries.
- How companies can seize the recovery moment to drive long-term strategic changes rather than relying on traditional methods.
- The significance of re-evaluating recruitment processes to challenge assumptions and foster diversity.
- The call for leaders to reward and challenge the right behaviours within their organisations and to listen more actively to their teams.
- The role of flexible working as a tool for inclusion and its potential impact on productivity and disability employment rates.
- The ongoing efforts to achieve broader diversity in boardrooms and the necessity of inclusive approaches in corporate governance and succession planning.

## FAQs

### What is the overall economic outlook for the UK, according to Neil Carberry?

Neil Carberry is optimistic about the British economy, predicting a significant economic bounce later in the year as uncertainty fades, despite concerns about future inflation as cash reserves begin to circulate through the system.

### Why are savings rates and cash reserves significant in the current economic discussion?

UK savings rates last year peaked to levels not seen since WWII, and many companies hold significant cash reserves. This situation suggests a potential for robust economic recovery and increased financial activities as the pandemic uncertainty diminishes.

### How does Neil Carberry suggest businesses utilise the economic recovery period?

Carberry calls for strategic, long-term changes rather than merely enjoying a quick recovery. He stresses the importance of an inclusive economic transition, addressing the challenges faced by young people and those in declining industries.

### What does Neil Carberry say about time management and business assumptions?

He suggests that we often have more time than we think and should challenge our assumptions about time constraints. By planning and starting tasks earlier, we can alleviate perceived time pressures and foster better outcomes.

### How does diversity influence recruitment processes, according to Neil Carberry?

Carberry highlights the importance of diversity in recruitment, illustrating with an example where a board halted a process due to lack of diversity, ultimately leading to more inclusive and effective appointments.

### What are Neil Carberry's views on leadership and company culture?

Carberry emphasises that leaders should set company directions by what they reward and challenge. Cultural changes take time, and leaders should be patient, prepared to make mistakes, and willing to learn from them through inclusive feedback.

## Transcript

Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's s S-E-E Change Happen dot co dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on Itunes, Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode 34 with the title driving the message that inclusion is a cold nose business priority. And I have the absolute honor and privilege to be joined by a great friend, Neil Carberry. Neil describes himself as someone who is on a crusade for better workplaces and great work. When I asked Neil to describe his superpower, he said he can play the steel drum. I'm sure we'll find out more about that in a minute. So hello, Neil. Welcome to the show. Hello, Joanne. It's a real pleasure to

Neil Carberry: join you. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. Really

Joanne Lockwood: well. Lockwood. You can almost feel the end of lockdown coming. The vaccines all fall under way. So I think we're in a positive place in the world right now. Yeah. I have to admit that, I my main

Neil Carberry: emotion last week was envy because my partner teaches in a college. And so they went back to work, and, my kids are back in school. And I'm still stuck in the room I've been in since since a year ago from this recording when we, when we moved out of the office. But it's not long to go now. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah. Well, I'm jabbed up. I've had my

Joanne Lockwood: AZ. I I have my, 24 hour of, feeling really, really lousy afterwards, I think which many people have. Popped up by paracetamol and a couple of hot cups of coffee and Netflix. I was fine 24 hours later. So yeah, it's I think I feel well on my way and hopefully the nation will get going soon. Absolutely.

Neil Carberry: Absolutely. So Neil, tell me,

Joanne Lockwood: why do you believe that inclusion should or is a cold nose business priority? What do we need to do to keep driving that home?

Neil Carberry: So cards on table. Right? I work for a business organization, and it's the second business organization I've worked for. I'm a capitalist. I'm a cold nosed and proud of it. And, you know, often, when you talk about inclusion, priorities of inclusion and diversity have have sometimes been seen as of the political left in some way associated with, with, different forms of economic organization. I think if you look at our society, I think what all businesses need to understand is that we operate. Your business and society are not separate, they operate together. And business in many ways has a, a license to operate from the society in which it exists. So from a from a a business leader's perspective, you have to reflect and serve the society in which you operate. So that reason number 1 is that your custom base, your employee bay base is more, is more diverse than ever. Reason number 2 is we know that people perform at work when they are able to bring them their whole selves there. So why would we choose in a cold hearted not cold hearted, cold nosed, business perspective to put people in situations where they are less productive than they might otherwise be. All of that speaks to a different form of capitalism. And I I think that we will see over the course of the recovery from the pandemic, this concept of responsible capitalism become more and more common currency. I think you're beginning to see it. And that's a space in which businesses are able to articulate their purpose, more able to clearly set out why their success is beneficial, not only for their shareholder, but also for the wider society they serve. And that actually, their shareholder interest is in serving that wider society well because that's where the longevity and the long termism of, business success comes from. So if you think about businesses right now, whether it's inclusion or it's climate impact or it's recovery from, from the pandemic, You know, the kind of commitment you've mentioned having, the AZ vaccine, the kind of commitment AZ made in terms of how that would be supplied at cost around the world. I think these are things which are redolent of a business community that needs to think more about the long term to remain competitive. And as you think about the long term to remain competitive a bit more, you set people and your people policies in a business in a different light. And I'm, you know, I have a habit of standing up in front of HR directors. I worked with big company HR directors for 15 years at the CBI. Standing up in front of big company HR directors and say, if people are your greatest assets, why do you hire them like you buy paper clips? Why do you manage them? Frankly, sometimes, like you manage your paper clips. I mean, I I I do not like, the phrase the the term human capital at all because you, you know, the Isle original founding declarations of the International Labour Organization are pretty clear that labor is not a commodity. People need to be managed in a different way. I come from a school of employee relations rather than human resources. Thinking about people coming to work from very different backgrounds with different things to achieve and the art is aligning what they want to achieve with what you want to achieve. That is fundamentally an inclusion message. It's a mainstream inclusion message. It's not about an individual strand. But I do think that unless companies are thinking that way, they will progressively be less relevant. And it applies just as much to any member of the workforce as it does to anyone who's protected by one of the characteristics set out in the Equality Act. So for me, inclusion is is a critical business priority going forward. And the the main message that I share with business leaders that I talk to is don't leave it to your HR director. It's gotta be about how you do business, about how the line behaves. Now Antonio Hootersario at Lloyd's said that he started seeing a real difference in the hiring that they were doing when he stopped saying he wanted diverse and started throwing shortlist without diversity back at the managers who put them up to him. And I think that piece around, this is a business priority. We need to behave like it's a business priority is a big message. We've set out just recently, at the REC where I work, the impact of doing recruitment well and in inclusive ways on productivity as well as an opportunity for individual people, through our new recruitment for recovery campaign. And I think we need you talk we talked in the intro about a crusade. I think this piece around good work and fulfilling work and productivity is not just about being nice to the employees, although that is an important byproduct. It's actually about having workplaces that are fundamentally productive because people are comfortable there to work in the ways that, are most effective for them and are bringing them their whole selves. You know? Yeah. I I've been privileged, for instance, to work with a lot of, truly talented gay colleagues over the years. And they have all been very clear with me that the day they didn't have to spend Monday morning worrying about, not slipping up on what they said about what they did at the weekend was liberating in more than just personal emotional sense. Yeah. I I I

Joanne Lockwood: so much of what you're saying there is resonating with me completely. We know these facts. I mean, McKinsey have published these stats. You've only got a Google DNI stats and we all know that businesses are 19% more of this, 30% more of that. So this data has been around for many, many years now, and it's kind of a every DNI person chants these these statistics. But we're we're all well aware that the facts don't change people. You know, we know if we drive too far fast on the motorway, we shouldn't do that. But we all think we can get away with 75, 80, or a100. We know that red meat, we know that wine, we know that beer, we know that smoking isn't good for us yet. We still persist in doing these things even though we know the facts aren't changing. So what do you think what businesses and organizations can do to start moving from these stats and making it so that they really get their own ROI return on inclusion? What how do they wake up or become woke if you like?

Neil Carberry: Oh, there there's a politically loaded term all of a all of a sudden, isn't it isn't it woke? I look. I think that there are a couple of things that are on my mind right now. One is, I think, being more cognizant of where you are now, which I think is very is very frightening for a lot of business leaders because it involves admitting that things might not be perfect, or might even not be good and stepping into a territory where you are fundamentally uncomfortable. I think one of the great things about being quite short term and looking at the sales figures and driving the short term performance of a business is that you always know where you stand because the numbers don't lie. The longer term stuff is more difficult because it rests on belief, purpose, direction, strategy, and a a real sense that you're putting more of your self into it. So I think the thing that is changing is our understanding of leadership in businesses. I think they're kinda alpha very kind of numbers focused, almost impersonal leadership style that has dominated, our thinking for maybe the last 20 or 30 years. I think there's a it is being gradually placed by a much more authentic approach. And that authentic approach is not unconcerned by the short term performance of the business. But I think it does allow for people to, act with more humanity. And as they act with more humanity in what they are doing, I think the big question that we ask ourselves, and you and I have discussed this before the recording, is how do we not just not be part of the problem as a leader, but how do we actively use our influence to make the problem go away? And that's difficult for corporates because, culture in any business is is difficult to to manage, but leaders are better equipped to manage it than most. And if so if you think about the debate after the Black Lives Matter, protest began following the killing of George Floyd last year. There was a big debate about how corporates can be not just not racist, but actively anti racist. And I think a lot of those same themes flow through to a lot of what many of us were feeling, you know, in with the recent news about Sarah Everock, which is it's not just enough you know, I I speak as a as a middle aged man. It's not just enough to be one of the good guys. It's actually more about how do we actively challenge the environments that allow harassment of, women to happen. And I think those things, in lots of companies, even up until quite recently, would have felt quite, and inverted commas, right on, would have felt like, yeah. No. No. We're here to do our Jo, and our job is this. And I think the real art for people who care about this in corporate is to make the link to corporate reputation, which we know can be trashed in a second these days if something goes wrong, is to make the link to the what I said earlier about making sure that people can bring their whole selves to work. And it's to make the link to the fact that no one loses when we do this. Because I think that's the that's the thing that I I think often doesn't quite cut through. You know, flexible working is a great example of this. I'm a working dad. The flexible working revolution was brought about in its original in its in its beginnings. It was being done, in inverted commas, for working moms? Well, maybe. But, actually, flexible working benefits everybody in the workforce if you get the structure right. And companies need to kind of think about how they do it and how they do it well and fairly. But that level of inclusion, because I think flexible working is a tool for inclusion of people who might not otherwise be working into the workforce, benefits everybody. Classic case post pandemic. We've now proved that everybody can work from home for a year, in lots of office based jobs. If this isn't transformational transformational for, Britain's disability employment rate, that will be shambolic. I mean, our disability if you look at our employment rates, our disability employment rate is actually much the worst. And a lot of it is about access to the workplace even though there are some pretty good government schemes to support, access to work out there. This should be a moment for us to say, well, here's an a new route to opening up disability employment. It's a whole slew of things there, I think, where if we get our people planning into our business planning and don't approach it as though we're thinking about human capital, we can open up some productivity upside. As I mentioned earlier, our recruitment and recovery reports are really clear that doing recruitment well opens up £7,700,000,000 of, productivity upside every year as people start more engaged. Yeah. This isn't new stuff. I mean, Nita Clark and David McLeod were doing all that work about employee engagement, and its and its benefits well over a decade ago. And as you said, Joanne, the, it's about how we get cut through. I think cut through only comes at the center. And this moment of leadership change that's been driven by the pandemic is a huge opportunity. Yeah.

Joanne Lockwood: Completely. I've got so many thoughts coming out of what you've just said there. Going back to almost at the beginning of what you're saying there, the the term woke, you're right, it has been kind of hijacked as a kind of a political statement. And someone drew attention the other day, the the opposite of awake or woke is asleep. So you're quite right when you're saying that what's happening is many businesses, if they're not careful, will be asleep on the watch. They won't realize that they're no longer becoming relevant. They their their reputation will suffer. So rather than seeing woke as being this political statement, think of it as being awakened or woken up to the idea that your business needs to have someone at the helm, not in their course, the trajectory, the velocity of how you're gonna get somewhere that includes their people and really engage with their people. And I think I see too many organizations still thinking about going straight back into the office. You know, as soon as whatever date it is, 12th April, where technically I think you can go back to the office straight away, I see many people just saying, well, I've been told we have to go back now. And there's been no consultation. A lot of a lot of business leaders in many companies are just saying, we've decided. Yeah. We've not consulted. We've not done our employee engagement survey. We've not done the pulse test. What do people think about this? I think they're missing a trick because there's a lot of anxiety out there because the workplace isn't gonna be the same. We may still have to commute with masks on. We may still have to Joanne space space everywhere. We might have to have plastic screens between desks, social distance in the office, not making each other cups of coffee for a while. All these kind of guidelines are gonna come out. So when we go back to the office, it won't be the same. We'll be sitting on buses or trains or transport feeling kind of vulnerable. Jo I don't think many employers are really thinking about this this human personal centric anxieties that are still going on. We've chucked everybody to home, said right now we need to get more back. I want to go back. We need to go back. So do you see that that divide happening? Some great companies really engaging, some not? Funnily enough,

Neil Carberry: one of the calls I had earlier today before we jumped on, the pod, Joanne, was with a group of large companies in London and a group that KPMG has pulled together that I sit on thinking about the future of the London economy, which of course is fundamentally, bound up with, that question of how do we work. My take on that would be this. Different groups of the workforce will have different priorities. By and large, I think senior execs want to go back. By and large, I think younger workers want to go back as well. I mean, we've all done the call with someone who's sitting on their bed or using the ironing board as a desk. And that that's a challenge as is the kinda health and safety responsibilities that employers have for people who are working at home in in less than perfect, situations. After all, you know, we all started this a year ago, thinking 4, 8, 12 weeks. The the health and safety concerns are a bit different when you've been doing it for a year, and it's no longer really an emergency, measure. But in the middle, you've got a bunch of people who might not want to come into the office, as much. And that's a real challenge because it's not just about how do we accommodate people's needs or how do we make everyone work the same. It's about how do we balance the 2. You know, young workers want to come into the workplace because maybe they're living in a, a house share. They actually need to be in the work workplace. We've all advanced our career by being in the right place at the right time and getting the right advice from a colleague, who was who was around. Equally, that colleague might want to be at home a bit more. There's a whole framing of how people engage and that that we need to get right. And the parallel and this maybe is where those who are trying to drive an inclusion agenda, and I always have. You know, the reason I can play the steel drum is I went to a really right on state comprehensive in the eighties. And our music program was a little different to the one that, that maybe you would have got at one of England's great public schools. But the my driver's always been social and economic inclusion. You know, I'm from a working class background. I, you know, I I I worry about how we make sure people make pathways through, into career and people's people's, potential can be fulfilled. And I think when you think about that or any other form of inclusion that might fire up someone who's listening to, listening today, What have we learned about other people's experiences that aren't our own experiences? We listen, don't we? You know, I've spent a lot of time listening to my senior female colleagues at the REC over the last week about how the REC should Joanne, the the kind of stuff that's tumbled out the Sarah Everard case. We've got 2 ears and one mouth. I think increasingly, leaders are appreciating you should use them in that ratio. So when it comes to opening up the office like you, suggested, Joanne, or indeed any kind of initiative in this space, you you wouldn't you wouldn't go and, play football on just a random field. You'd want it the grass to be cut and you'd want to feel that the you'd want the goals in place and all of that. And there's something there in making sure that the action bias that many leaders have, this is an issue. We need to do something. This is something, so let's do it. Doesn't drive us off down the wrong path and all this stuff.

Joanne Lockwood: Did you think leaders have learned a lot over the last year around well-being? You know, we we use the old phrase here, same storm, different bows, but, you know, well used over the last year. Each of these leaders have often been in their own boat and and and have realized their own mental health, their own family needs. Even if they're in a position of privilege, they've been touched in some way. And the impression I get is that everybody has become awakened to this need that maybe we didn't have a year ago. But what really worries me still is that we're gonna revert to all habits and there'll be this momentum to try and this has been a blip. Let's go back to as we were. And I also think there's there's a divide between some of the larger organizations, the organizations that have the infrastructure, the DNI, the momentum versus maybe the midsize or small organizations that don't have the budget sort of resources, the workplace workplace planning in place. And we'll end up seeing 2 tier, employee experience if we're not careful. So,

Neil Carberry: I mean, I I'm less concerned actually on the size piece because I do think as you get smaller, you get more personal involvement from leaders. And I think that that adds to the humanity of the of the response. I think in many ways, it's more difficult for big firms to deliver consistency of experience. And in particular, thinking about how you support your first line managers to do what they know is right, but they might find sometimes the signals are pointing them in the opposite direction. So there's no I I think it's fair to say it's challenging in every size of businesses, and the challenges change. Capacity is clearly always an issue at the small end. For me, I think there is something in leaders having seen inside people's lives over the last year in a way that they haven't previously. You know? I talked to my team from from my house, and they're all in their houses. I think we've been powerfully aware as leaders in businesses of people's mental health more broadly and the bleed across from things that are happening in their home lives to their work life as well as, as well as, vice versa. So there's a whole kind of potential moment of reset there. You're right, though. The risk is we just flick a switch and try to go back. Now let me be you know, I talked about being cold nosed earlier. We do need to go back to a certain extent. The economy is still quite significantly smaller than it was in February 2020. We need to recover that quickly. Not because, you know, the corporates need massive profits, but because those profits need to fund people's pensions, and we need people to be employed, and we need to be able to fund pay rises and all of the the kind of the good things that business does week to week and month to month for for people all over the country. But we've got choices in how we normalize and how we go back. And so that process and it's probably the biggest challenge leaders have, which is what is normal once the pandemic is over? And it's clearly not what we've been doing for the last year, but it's probably also not what we were doing before. And that's difficult, especially in a position where people are tired. Everyone is tired after the after this, last period. So the really good leaders that I observe are carving out space to think about what the normalized business that they are building would look like. And that's difficult because some of the edges are fuzzy. We don't know what the appetite for returning to commuting to major cities will be. My bet is that it will actually be quite high. But we do know that, yeah, that that there will be a challenge with sectors like retail, which have changed fundamentally forever through this, through this period. So I think the the if you're interested in driving a more inclusive economy, and I think that's where, you know, where my, kind of agency is on inclusion. The advantage is actually how blank the canvas might be now because we have to rebuild back. And I find myself sort of saying to inclusion and diversity, professionals, this is the moment because the canvas is blank. And, on the other hand saying to business leaders, let the canvas be blank. Don't, you know, don't be the leader that you described, Joanne, who's saying right where I just want everything back to normal as quickly as possible. Because that may very well be helpful in the short run, but you might miss the big change that's going on. You know, I've always liked the, the the Henry Ford thing about if I'd asked the customer, I'd have given him a faster horse. The, you know, the the issue that should be on leaders' minds right now is, how has this fundamentally changed the market I serve, and how does my business have to change to reflect that? And I think more often than not, when you answer those questions, one aspect of it is the human connection that you have with customers and the value that's demonstrated for you by the people you engage in your business. And if those two things are true, then that forces the inclusion and diversity debate much more center stage.

Joanne Lockwood: Do you think then that we have the skill set in the leadership of our businesses? And we talked earlier about the the glorification of the alpha type personality, the go getter, the impersonal style and that makes a lot of the top level positions in many businesses. And, you know, we can I'm sure we can have a conversation about meritocracy for hours and call out the BS of that sometimes. But do we see an evolution of what is just seen as meritocratic, if you like? Are we starting to see that this alpha in personal style is a is a bygone person? Are we are we seeing the rise of more empathic, empathetic, compassionate leaders and how much our business have or how much business is invested in in building that leadership team over the last year to 18 months to put them in a better place to handle this new world that we're looking at? So I'm definitely seeing a change. You know, I probably

Neil Carberry: first came face to face with the leadership of British business in 15 years ago at the CBI. And I think that there is a difference. And, you know, I always when I think about new style leadership, I always recall the memory of Dame Helen Alexander, who was, one of the presidents of CBI during my time there. And, Helen taught me a lot about this, about how you can lead a business and be yourself and, be, you know, cold nosed and focused on the performance of the business, but also human. She but she once said to me, Neil, never take a meeting before 9 or after 5. It sets a precedent you don't want to set. Now for a major British business leader to say things like that to, to more junior members of staff is a sense of kind of positioning and putting signposts up for for for people. It'll take a long while to change, I think. But I'm definitely seeing that, you know, in particular we've we've made some big progress on, gender diversity in our boardrooms over the last, few years. There's more to come on that and on other forms of diversity. But I think that wider picture is, is starting to feed to to through to how we think about risks and risk management in our businesses. There's some work I'm working, supporting, with a leadership group I'm involved with at the moment looking at how different governance structures reacted to what happened last March April. And it's pretty clear that those who'd already thought about all this stuff, about how are we appreciating the kind of risks that we can't see easily, about how are we, managing our interactions with people more broadly about how are we tackling challenges on inclusion, where by and large businesses responded more nimbly to the onset of the pandemic and are probably better positioned for for recovery. So I think both, you're seeing a different kind of tenor from some leaders in the business community, and you're starting to see evidence through this period that doing it slightly differently pays off. My, my kind of core thinking about about this has often been shaped by, experience where you see people demonstrate the ability to not think they have the answer the minute the problem appears. And that requires the ability to say, what are my prejudices with regards to this problem? What are the questions I'm not asking myself? And who can I get to help me understand what those questions are? And I think that's a that's a a governance function, but it's also a leadership function in businesses. And businesses who are doing that well are the ones that are starting to reap the benefits of this. My worry is how we train our managers. So I'm I'm gonna get my soapbox here. So sorry, Joanne. This will take this will take I'll I'll try and do it in 90 seconds. We we made some changes to corporate governance in the United Kingdom in the 19 nineties. They were very sensible at the time because what they did was they slimmed down the number of executive directors on board, replaced them with nonexecutive directors, gave greater independence of governance, gave shareholders greater, security that the company was being run well. But what they did was they reduced the number of executive directors on boards to 2, the chief executive and the finance director, Which pretty much means that to be a chief executive, you have to have been the finance director beforehand. And to be a finance director, you have to be an accountant. I love accountants. I think they do fantastic work. I'm not sure, by and large, they are the most skilled profession when it comes to, you know, the pathway that they take is not people led. It run alongside that the, MBA curriculum, which has become kind of the currency with quali with, with the qualification with currency for trainee managers. Show me the bits of that that are about employee relations. Get your magnifying glass out. And that's the challenge for me, which is we we still train our managers to be really good at stuff they need to be good at. You gotta be good at numbers. You gotta be able to drive the numbers. That is essential. You don't get a pass to the game if they're not if you're not. But, actually, the people stuff is not hugely kind of it's not hugely there in our business schools in the way it could be. So there's a whole slew of how we educate our managers and the path that people take to leadership that if we're going to bust through this, needs to change in some way. That I'll get off my soapbox there.

Joanne Lockwood: Oh, excellent. No. I completely agree. And I'm I'm passionate that many inclusion, belonging, people, culture initiatives can only be driven effectively by a different style of leadership and it is around just being connecting, compassion. And I'm not saying not being cold nose and businesslike, but I'm also saying that has to have a edge to it all the time. How does that make people feel? What's the impact of that decision? So I'm a great believer in that. We started earlier talking about, you mentioned George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and at the time there was a almost like a pushback around all lives matter, white lives matter, and what about me, what about me as well. And we're kind of seeing that now, you know, after Sarah Everard was murdered, that we're now seeing, you know, the rise of of of many women and and their allies standing up and saying, hey, hon, it may not be all men, but actually it's most, if not all women have this story. But we still see not all men as a hashtag, it's trending and are white people, are men comfortable being uncomfortable talking about this this stuff? Or and or there's still this fear of getting it wrong right here?

Neil Carberry: That's a really good question. And I'm only one white man. But my sense is that it's the transition from not having to think about it to having to think about it That's critical. I've heard a few people over the last week or 2 talking about, I used to think that, but now I've thought this. And particularly around the the Sarah Everard piece. And there's a that sense of being uncomfortable about the position other people are in requires time and effort and thought. If you haven't had to think about it, actually, there's a there there's a gift that we, and I say we on behalf of my trade union of white men, slightly presumptuously, can give to thinking about inclusion, which is to acknowledge that this requires our thought and participation as well. Comes back to what I said earlier about not be not just being one of the good guys when it comes to, how, how we treat women in our society, not just not being a racist. It's act it's about actively how do we promote a society that works for all of us and the the payoff. And this is where I I think we have to really hammer this point. And and and, you know, I do lots of lots of things in my career with ACAS on the advisory side right down to I've got I've got an, an under 10 boys sports team that I that I coached on Sunday morning. That's the highlight of my upcoming time. We've come the 4th April. I'm allowed to get back to that on a Sunday morning, which is good. It's about how we challenge things when we see them in the spaces that only we share. I think there's definitely something in terms of, you know, what do you say to your mate who expresses with you one way or the other when there aren't any women around? There are no black people around. That that I think is really important. And, yes, I think it is a big challenge to to get people to realize that we have a role in this. But I think that's better than the alternative, which is to feel that these movements aren't about the whole of society. Of course, these movements are about the whole of society, but it's a bit like the kind of it's a bit like the kinda hashtag all lives matter thing. Of course, all lives matter. We all know that, but it's black people who are who are having the experiences we need to challenge. And I think, having more allies who are willing to say that is critically important. And I think particularly in spaces which are quite traditionalist in Outlook, and I think businesses can fall into that class. And I'm one of my kind of, when I'm feeling cynical, one of the things I'll say about the progress we've made on boardroom gender diversity in the UK is that it's fantastic, but I'm not sure that the wives, daughters, and sisters of the same families where the fathers, brothers, and sons have been on board for the last 250 years now making it onto boards is as much progress as we would like. And and what I mean by that is at the our ability to challenge the idea that there isn't one best way for everything to be is important. I remember talking to the HR director of Joanne 4 years ago and she said the thing that opened her eyes was, feeling really chuffed about the diversity break breakdown of, of of the Joanne 4 staff. And she was talking to, an Afro Caribbean, colleague about this, and he turned to her and said, yeah. But we all read The Guardian, don't we? And and, of course, the point cuts through, which is, you know, it's quite easy to think that there's the best way of doing things. And, culturally, it's actually quite easy for, for women from those families where where the men have been at the top end of business for years to make the cultural switch into, to into boardrooms. It's a lot more difficult if you are from a fundamentally different background, if you've, you, you're coming from a position where you're trans, where you're challenging the way the world is a lot more fundamentally from the point of view of people's starting points. And I think we're talk we need to talk a lot more about good way several good ways of doing things and a more permissive cultural regime in our companies, than just allowing people to be in the spaces that, these spaces that previously they weren't in and that being okay. I mean, you you mentioned earlier about

Joanne Lockwood: slimming down the change of the way the board governance works. You know, the the 2, the chief exec, the CFO and everybody else being kind of a Ned or a Sid, however you describe. That really, let's put it out there, is kind of an old boys network. In order to get to CFO, the chances are you would have come through years of growth as a management accountant or financial accountant or whatever in the accounting role. And and that pathway often excludes women or minority groups because they don't have access to that social capital or or the the opportunities to engage in those roles. Therefore, becoming a chief exec narrows the field. And also because they've not held maybe a senior or a board role in an organization their their NED portfolio is kind of limited as well because I've sat on advisory committees and recruitment panels for for NED appointments and looking at their terms of reference is often, well, we want someone who's had this governance role in a similar organization, this person who's got a risk background, this person who's got a CFO background. And that really does limit the type of people we're gonna get to who are actually getting more of the same. And it takes a brave decision, it shouldn't be brave, but it is a brave decision sometimes to say, well, actually, we're looking for the capability, the lived experience and we can train this person, we can actually put them on a board induction program and look at, maybe they've never been a net or never been held in a position where we could teach them about a set of accounts, maybe we can see teach them about various processes, governance structure. But what we need is your lived experience. We want to see someone who is in their mid-20s, maybe female, maybe Black, bringing that perspective of their customer or their their community into the into the boardroom. I I still see that there's a huge way to go there, isn't there? Yeah. Look.

Neil Carberry: Absolutely. And I think, yeah, I'll give you an example. We've been doing some work with, the primary suppliers into the CCS, the the, the, government commercial services, recruitment, recruitment frameworks recently. Based on the fact that government felt it wasn't making enough progress on, diversity in its recruitment process. And there was a bit of a bit of people pointing at each other here. You know, it's it's the recruiters. They don't give us the diverse lists. Well, yes. But let's should we take a quick look at what you the brief you've given us? You know, government, for an as an example, government, for instance, is really interested in people who have backgrounds in certain consultancies. And while those consultancies might be performing better now on diversity, 10 years ago, they weren't. So if you're looking at people who who were in those businesses 10 years ago, you're already skewing the the the pitch. Another thing would be even if you just write in this person must be security cleared. Well, why do they have to be security cleared to get the job? Surely, you security clear them after they get the Jo, and shall we have a look at the demographics of the group of people who are security cleared? So there's a there's a bay I I I feel very strongly there's a big role for our members at the REC, for recruiters, to be having much more, in-depth discussions with their, with their clients about what do you really mean? When I was on I was the CBI rep on the Parker review committee on, I think diversity on boards. And the big decision we made was there were enough candidates out there to make significant progress on, on, appointments to boards from British minority ethnic groups. They just weren't where average British companies were looking at the time because they weren't in within the network you refer to, Joanne. So some of this comes back to, at the risk of talking my own book, the nature of how we recruit and appoint and how we do that as an as a professional, service, not as a process. Because we know that we know that technology will change recruitment and we should use technology. But we also know that we have to use technology well to make sure it's positive, not negative on inclusion. And actually, the skill for recruiters is going to be advising clients on workforce planning. Part of which is effective diversity and inclusion in their processes. And that means we are going to have to get better as an industry. And I was I've talked to several, chief execs of REC members just this week who are telling me the story, which is saying, no. No. That's not how you want to do it. We want you should be doing it like that. You know, one of the, one of the taglines I've been using for our recruitment and recovery campaign is no chief executive would go to the high court without the best lawyers. Yeah. If they genuinely believe that, in inverted commas, people are our greatest asset, and all the survey data says that beside product product quality, that is the thing that business leaders think, then go and get them with genuine professional advice and fishing in the widest pool possible. You know, you said yourself at the at the top of the pod, Joanne, that the data is pretty clear on this. It's actually the translation of that data into action that matters. And I think there's a huge role for recruiters in in starting to change that perception and being willing to look at a job description and go back to clients and say, do you really mean that? Do you really need that? Why why this and not that? I think that process is increasingly where recruiters will deliver the value that they deliver to clients.

Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, certainly the top end if you if you really are trying to create genuine diversity of of mix of people on boards. Well, I I've read some some Ned role profiles, personality profiles that people are looking for, and I look at them and think, wow, that's too aspirational. That's that's that doesn't sound like anything I could do. You know, you must have risk analysis skills. Not all these come from, you know, the basic governance structure you would have. And so I say sometimes we're over expecting somebody who is embarking on their 1st net role or their 1st board position to have a lot of these skills. I think we end up putting a lot of people off and you mentioned sort of widening the net. I think in some cases, what we actually need to do without getting caught up in too many metaphors is is change the pond, go somewhere different and and fish or spearfish or target people. A phrase I love is if a hard to reach people reach harder. And I think often what we do is we give up too quickly or we're board is under such pressure to fill that vacancy. The chairs on a rotation design, they've done their 9 years or their 6 years. They have to resign this year. And then, wait. In order to meet that AGM, we must have appointed by here. We must have yeah. And then, oh, actually, we should have started 2 months ago. So we don't always have the time to look and hunt and and target people who are nontraditional, because of the the priorities. But, you know, you go out to the same search firms, you engage the same people and the the candidate profile, the recruitment marketing you're doing tend to be very bland and similar and not unique. So I think we we keep doing the same things, you know, and getting the same results. And sometimes you gotta say, well, actually, maybe we don't go to the same search firms. We go to maybe BAME specialists or or or diverse board specialists, maybe they're not specialists in board positions, but maybe they they have hired in senior roles and have a track record. I think that's the problem. We we we keep not planning ahead, you know, workforce planning, board succession planning, these kind of things, and actually seeing what what is the profile of the person that is gonna add something, not just their the pure governance side, but it's that lived experience. I think that's the challenge I see is people not having enough time to make those those long game decisions. They're they're too rushed into it. So what do you think of that? My observation would be that we always

Neil Carberry: have more time than we think we have. So one of the one of the questions that, we should ask ourselves are are, you know, what assumptions are we making that actually we could challenge? I was recently involved in the appointment of, some nonexecs to a board where, the chair rightly took the decision to stop the process because they didn't like the diversity of the of the long list, we went round again and made much better appointments, which, yes, absolutely, met the, inclusion goals that the chair had, but actually appointed better directors as well. And, you know, this fallacy that these two things, are in any way in opportune, opposition to each other, really does need to be challenged. I think you come you come right back to what I said earlier about Antonio Horta or Sario at law at Lloyd's. It's when you change the rules of the game that people change behavior. So, it is about kind of are you really under as much time pressure as as you think you are? And if you are, then the answer is to start earlier and to plan better. Jo there's a whole yeah. We are at risk of kind of massively mixed sets of metaphors, but, you know, I I I'm following we started, so I'm gonna finish. You know, it's it's it's about what, you know, what's in our toolbox because we probably have a bit more than we appreciate. It's I suppose it's the it's the HR professionals version of the candidate who's sitting there going, I can't do any of that. Why would I apply? A a thought on which as we as we run past it. One of the things I used to do when I was a recruiter, when people saw job descriptions that they, thought were, beyond them, is I used to say to them, you know, go and have a look at the job description that Boots puts in its window for Christmas stuff. This was the late nineties, so I'm not having a pop up, at Boots today. But they used to have this Christmas stuff thing that went up in August, September time. And I used to read it occasionally when I was gonna get a toothpaste or whatever. And you'd think they were looking for someone to work on the Manhattan Project rather than be a Christmas, a temporary member member staff staff at Boots. And, of course, what that does is it rewards a certain type of confidence. And you ask, well, where does that confidence come from? It comes from those who are culturally comfortable in the, in the environment that you have now. You know, Canter's prosocial reproduction is alive and well and, and with us. So challenging our processes on, what we ask people for and appreciating that candidates will have different confidence levels in in the environment they work in. Those two things, are absolutely critical and can only be driven by leaders who are willing to change the rules from what went before.

Joanne Lockwood: I think it's quite profound. I think that I I agree that that that's the, again, one of the other things I hear from people is not knowing where to start, you know, DNI, whatever it may be, culture change, where do we start, how do we how do we embark on this. And that that Joanne be a real challenge if you haven't got a playbook, you haven't got a DNI team, you've done none of this, You you got this fear of getting it wrong, you don't know how to communicate with your staff, maybe you haven't got the inclusive leadership sorted out in your organization. So not knowing where to start. And I think everything you're talking about that you just said is is is not I was gonna say idealistic. It shouldn't be idealistic. It should be realistic. It should be realistic. It should be something that people aspire to. But, really, how do people know where to start with this? When people say that to you, what what do you push back with?

Neil Carberry: I think there are a couple of things. The role of leaders is not to make every decision in the business. It's to put up signposts. So always think about what you're rewarding and what you're challenging. Just make sure that what you're rewarding is pushing you in the right direction. I I think the biggest misnomer on this is people thinking we have to, you know, we have to make this front and center, and we have to have it all fixed in 6 months. It's fundamental and cultural. You are not going to, to fix it in 6 months. It's gonna take years years years. I, you know, I like the kind of the Joel Grimond quote about, you know, always going towards the sound of gunfire. And I I think that's the way leaders should approach this, which is just because it's big and difficult and you're not gonna fix it in 6 months or a year, doesn't mean you can't do your bit on getting getting on the path towards where the gunfire is. So it's about the same post you put up. It's about what you reward. It's about having a plan and and making sure that you follow through on it. And you mentioned fear of getting it wrong. I think the biggest single thing that stays, leaders' hands we talked about confidence in the corporate environment and how how that pays, the events. We talked about kind of, yeah, the role of white men in, as allies earlier. I think the challenge is that doing things the same, lots of leaders have confidence over. I people are terribly, terribly concerned about putting a foot wrong, the wrong phraseology, the wrong initiative. I think you almost have to accept that occasionally you will get things wrong, but that if you're acting with good intentions and you've done your listening upfront, so you've done enough of the path finding that you need to do to understand where people with lived experience are coming from, then when you do get something a little bit wrong, you usually get forgiven for it because which of us hasn't made a mistake?

Joanne Lockwood: So your role at the moment is you're you're you're the chief exec of the REC, which is a, a membership organization representing recruitment organizations, agency RPO. So, what are you as a body pushing forward with your members? What's your advice you're giving right now to your members? So the REC is trade

Neil Carberry: association professional body, 10,000, individual members and 3,000 company members, very focused on three things. 1, representing the industry to the world outside the industry, which we talked a little bit about earlier about the difference we can make for clients and then, obviously, there's government relations there as well. 2, helping members understand how their businesses can grow. So there's an angle there around productivity, and and actually diversity within the industry itself on our own staff. And then thirdly, on standards of doing well, you know, we want people to actually choose an REC member and increasingly, you know, supply chain transparency is not gonna go away as a as an issue of concern to clients. And increasingly, we will see how are you helping us make a difference on our social commitments and our economic commitments to inclusion in what we do come through the ask from the client side. And, actually, we should be actively encouraging clients to go down that path as many REC members are and we do through our good recruitment collective. So the REC's job is basically to help, recruiters find their way through that. And some of that's about, a helping them to win business on, professional services basis through through the standards of their compliance and their initiatives on diversity inclusion. Some of it's about giving recognition to the work that they're doing, And some of it's just about really top notch advice on what they might be able to do. And all of that is, is right at the heart of, I think, the good that we see recruiters doing for for the UK and the recovery. So you expect to see quite a lot actually through the second and third quarter of 2021 from the REC talking about inclusion as part of the recovery plan that recruiters can deliver. But also kinda looking into the mirror a little bit and saying, well, how can we as an industry up our game? So, quite a bit to come over the next few months and and certainly right at the heart of my agenda as chief exec.

Joanne Lockwood: So one final leading question. So if you've got a crystal ball, I mean, I appreciate if you had a crystal ball this time last year, you wouldn't have seen what happened. But what what do you think is going to be the big the big key element of the business in the next 12 months? Obviously we've got the lockdown coming out of Lockwood, coexisting, So what's your what's your kind of your gotcha? What should we be looking out for?

Neil Carberry: Follow the money with business is usually the the 2. I'm a massive optimism, well of optimism about the British economy. So I'm I'm more in the Andy Haldane camp if you're following the Bank of England than anything else. Savings rates in the UK, peaked last year at a rate not seen since the second World War. Many companies are sitting on, cash as well. As uncertainty goes away, we can expect a pretty big economic bounce through the, through the rest of this year. A bit more worried further out once that cash what washes through the system about inflation and so forth, but I think I I expect the recovery to be quite quick. The exam question is, what are we gonna do with that recovery? Are we just gonna try and service the demand in the same old ways, or we're gonna do some things that are fundamentally different, whether that's how we, deliver digitally, whether it's how we, deliver in person, you know, with the question of where we work that we discussed. Critically, how do we manage that economic transition so that it's inclusive? Whether that's our young people who are facing the toughest labor market for young people that we've seen in a generation or whether it's many people who are struggling to transition out of, of industries that are shrinking and are in secular rather than cyclical decline or whether it's stepping up our game on inclusion. I think there's a huge challenge there to business on are we just going to enjoy a cyclical fast recovery or are we gonna ride that wave? And as we ride that wave, do some big long term strategic change. I think this it's really interesting to see the amount of debate that's out there about better business. Now you look at the work Julian Rich has been doing for Richard Sounds, as part of that. I do think that there's a bit of a moment here that we can grab hold of and I think the exam question for British business is, yeah, how are we really going to make this a moment where, business shows how it can drive a better outcome for people across Britain in the decade to come. Thank you, Neil. There's so

Joanne Lockwood: much we've covered over the last hour, to take inspiration from. How can our listeners get in touch with you if they wanna be presume if you're happy to connect or can they find out more about the REC?

Neil Carberry: Absolutely. If you want to find out more about the REC and the work we're doing, it's https://rec.uk.com, on, the Internet, or you can always hit me up on Twitter. I'm @recneil. Fantastic.

Joanne Lockwood: Well, a huge thank you and I appreciate your time today. That's been extremely interesting and I've certainly got a lot out of this. A huge thank you to you the listener for tuning in, listening in this far. If you're new to the show then please do subscribe to keep updates on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast, that's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, please do share. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up over the next few weeks months that you'll I'm sure you'll be equally inspired by. So also, if you'd like to be a guest, then please do let me know. I welcome any feedback and suggestions you might have for future shows how I can improve to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. And finally, it just remains for me to say thank you. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.