Episode 1: Inclusion & Culture

Jo Heath:

[00:00:06 - 00:00:30]

Okay, so delighted to have you all here as part of our first podcast series, High Beams. Designed to support leaders, D and I professionals, talent professionals and HR professionals in navigating some of the complexities around inclusion. All of our podcast sessions have been designed to focus on providing practical advice and guidance. So I'd like to kick off by some introductions. First, I'd like to introduce Jo Sweetland.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:00:30 - 00:00:37]

Hi, I'm Jo Sweetland. I'm the Managing Director, Director of the executive search business here at Green Park. Fifth one into the business when we started 17 years ago.

Jo Heath:

[00:00:37 - 00:01:00]

Thank you very much, Jo. I'll introduce myself very briefly. I'm Jo Heath, Managing Partner of the consultancy side of the business. My role is specialising in conducting inclusion audits, delivering learning, development and becoming a strategic D and I partner to our clients. So we have two wonderful guests with us today. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself, if I may. And firstly I'm going to go to Harvey Francis. Hi, Harvey, welcome.

Harvey Francis:

[00:01:00 - 00:01:10]

Hi Joe. Harvey Francis, Executive Vice President at Skanska the uk. Also Chief People Officer. I also look after communication strategy and planning and customer experience.

Jo Heath:

[00:01:10 - 00:01:13]

Thank you very much, Harvey. And now to Mark. Mark Lomas.

Mark Lomas:

[00:01:13 - 00:01:37]

Hi. So I'm Mark Lomas. I'm Head of Culture at Lloyds. My role covers everything. Diversity, well being, leadership capability and employee engagement internally and externally. Oversight of the Lloyd's market around principle 13, which is diversity, non financial misconduct and also market engagement around diversity and inclusion, of which dive in the International DNI Fe Festival is probably the best example.

Jo Heath:

[00:01:37 - 00:02:18]

Thank you both. It's great to have your expert opinion in the room with us. So I'm going to kick off with a range of questions and get your opinion and view and Jo and I will share that task. And I guess the first question is very much connected to what we hear as an organisation through our culture and inclusion audit work. And that is that in some organisations there can be a disconnect between the external brand messaging and the true lived experience of the employees within that organisation. So to kick off on our first question, I'll go to Mark first, if I may. How do we really ensure that an organization has an authentic approach to this which is not seen as tokenistic or just part of a PR campaign?

Mark Lomas:

[00:02:18 - 00:03:19]

Yeah, it's a great question and actually it's a pretty big challenge for many organizations. You know, as you externally want to promote your best face of the organization, you have to make sure the reality and the rhetoric don't get too far apart. So for me, one of the ways I've found it to be most successful in building that organizational culture is through the organizational values and making sure they're not just something on the wall. So those values are then embedded into your recruitment practice, into your performance management, how you reward leaders, how you recognize people through values, rewards or recognition schemes, and also leadership accountability for a involvement in the activities which set the cultural tone and the behavioral tone for the organization, and also for things like D and I and engagement metrics. I think the organizations that are most success closing the gap between kind of the branding and the lived experience are those where, you know, you can call it embedded, you can call it systemized, but those are the organizations that I feel are the most successful.

Jo Heath:

[00:03:19 - 00:03:43]

Thank you, Mark. And maybe I go to you now, Harvey. I guess it's a challenge, isn't it? Because as Mark suggested, you want to make sure that you promote the great work that you're doing externally. But to get that timing right is key because if it doesn't match that lived experience, I'm sure you're called out on that by your employees. So how would you add to that question in terms of truly showing authentic step forward in this space and not coming across in any way tokenistic?

Harvey Francis:

[00:03:43 - 00:04:31]

I mean, I agree with the points that Mark made, particularly about culture and the need to have culture and values at kind of the heart of everything you do. I think the other thing, you have to be clear on why. And I think leaders need to be clear on why this is important. I think we saw after the Black Lives Matter, a lot of companies, a lot of CEOs, made big statements, sweeping statements, big commitments. My question would be how many of those actually hardwired anything into their organizations and are still talking about them? We have, because we do believe it's important. For me, it begins and ends in leadership. Leadership has to be committed to it and it has to be very clear why. And you have to line up all the things hardwired into your culture that Mark was talking about in terms of how you promote who you promote, who you hire, how you deal with underperformance, not just in terms of delivery performance, but actually probably more importantly, behavioral performance, and really set the expectation from the top and be prepared to have consequences in place as well as rewards.

Jo Heath:

[00:04:32 - 00:05:04]

I want to touch upon the consequence piece in a moment because I think that's really important. You talked about the importance of leaders being behind this, being in inclusive role models. There's a commitment that we can often see from leaders so they can speak publicly about it. They can endorse some of the initiatives. But how do we really drive accountable and inclusive leadership? Because that's the next step, isn't it? So could you share a little bit more about what you may have done in your organisation to encourage true accountability, so that leaders, you know, they're taking this really seriously and they don't perceive it to be just a HR responsibility.

Harvey Francis:

[00:05:04 - 00:06:11]

So we've done a lot of work with the board, with the exec team and the senior management team in terms of trying to build understanding, because that's where it all starts. I don't think it's possible to go in and just say, this is what we want to happen, when for a lot of people there's a lot of fear, because this is not, for a lot of leaders, a very natural space. It's also a space, I think, that's changing, moving quite fast. We've done a lot of work on education, so providing lots of time for people to talk. We brought people from some of our underrepresented groups in to share their lived experiences. We did a very wide survey looking at how different groups of people in Skanska interact with the culture and a big report out then to the exec team and to the senior management team. So trying to create a lot of time and space for people to explore, for people to ask questions and then for people to start to think about what that means for them in terms of their recruitment, what they do, what they talk about at their town hall meetings, those kind of things. Because that's the only way you're going to make it authentic is if they care. I actually don't think you can be authentic in this space if you don't understand, if you're not listening and also if you haven't worked out where your passionate hook is. I don't think this is possible to do this. Think about it as a head issue needs to be a heart issue. You need to kind of work out what your connection to it is and why it's important to you.

Jo Heath:

[00:06:11 - 00:06:34]

So we're going to cover the real value of inclusion in a moment. But if I could just come to you now, Mark Harvey mentioned about there's a fear and also you mentioned around kind of consequence for no action. So in what ways or in what type of mechanisms can you build that accountability At Lloyd's? Are there any kind of leadership scorecards or KPIs set? And more importantly, is there a consequence for no action?

Mark Lomas:

[00:06:35 - 00:07:57]

So the very quick answer is yes, and I'm a Big fan of accountability. So for our senior management, we have individual KPIs and a group scorecard. On the group scorecard, 20% of that scorecard is allocated to culture. Culture is also one of the four strategic pillars of the Lloyd's strategy. So there's a direct link between the business strategy and what leaders are held accountable for. And those culture metrics include, like our 1 in 3 hiring ambition for ethnically diverse groups. They include representation of women in leadership. They include broader things like employee engagement scores, how and where leaders show allyship and aligned to that. Like Harvey said, there's a good deal of education that goes into it, but there's also a good deal of planning in making it easy for our leaders. So this year, you know, January, all leaders get into their diaries, what are the events, the things they can take part in for the entire year, and so they can choose the things which align to their passions most easily, the things that their staff are interested in. And we all know the leaders are. Are busy, but you make time for what's important to you. It's aligned to the company strategy, it's aligned to the senior leadership scorecard. And everybody loses if individuals don't do their part. So it becomes a team game, and people are willing to hold each other to account because it's a group senior management scorecard. And 20% of that is worth culture. So we find that drives a good deal of accountability.

Jo Heath:

[00:07:57 - 00:08:40]

I think it's great that you've given some examples that they can lean into, because what we hear a lot is leaders want to be more accountable, but they just don't know what strategies to deploy. So giving them ways in which they can contribute is great. I just want to come back to the point that some of that scorecard is related to more data and representation. So helping meet some of the published targets and what we hear time and time again is having targets is great. It's the guiding star. What gets measured gets done. But there is a risk of driving the wrong behavior. So positive discrimination, not positive action. With those metrics and the fact that leaders are accountable for those, how do you ensure that there is still a fair and objective process and we don't start to drive wrong behavior how you've used Mark.

Mark Lomas:

[00:08:40 - 00:09:41]

Good question. So, first of all, it's not particularly complicated to make sure that decisions aren't being made in the wrong way. So every single manager that recruits at Lloyds has to be accredited to recruit, and that includes particular safeguards around inclusive recruitment. We have a very structured recruitment process with Values built into it, scoring, et cetera. We have audit samples. The other thing we have is data. So, you know, we can look at the recruitment data at each stage of the process and we can clearly see that although our targets and the work we're doing is having a good impact, it's certainly not swinging the pendulum so far that you would say, oh, no, decisions are being taken in the wrong way. So although that is a fear, I think that fear is somewhat misplaced. You know, if we look across the world of recruitment, there are probably far more appointments made on FIT Network and confidence than there are for diverse groups based on targets or metrics. So I don't personally feel like that's too much of a risk.

Jo Heath:

[00:09:41 - 00:09:50]

Yeah, I agree. And having that data means you would identify any disparities straight away, wouldn't you? Which is great. Okay, I'm going to hand over to Jo now.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:09:50 - 00:10:03]

Yeah. I think in terms of some of the things you've both said about examples of where you've seen good inclusive leadership within your organisations, what about outside of your organisations? You know, what examples have you seen that you could be advising organisations about?

Harvey Francis:

[00:10:04 - 00:10:47]

Certainly we've been impressed at the work where Mark used to be High Speed too, in terms of the leadership that Mark Thurston took of the D and I agenda, the proactivity of high speed 2 in terms of working with its supply chain partners, there's some very, very good, practical things. So one of the things that we've actually taken borrowed with pride or stolen with Pride from High Speed 2 is the concept of safe conversations. One of my responsibilities, I'm the exec sponsor for our 1 origins, nationalities and ethnicities Network. And what that is is just creating an online for an hour, an online teams call that anybody can drop into to talk about difficult type issues in a safe space, allow people to have their say and allow people to explore. High Speed 2 joined us for the first and helped us with the facil and now we've taken the stabilizers off and doing it for ourselves. So there's some very tangible things. So I think HS2 is a really.

Mark Lomas:

[00:10:47 - 00:11:59]

Good example, I think, from the insurance sector. Dom Christensen, who's chairman of Aon, I think, is a great example. Aon's a really big player in the sector. Chairman, obviously, is a big, meaty role and yet he dedicates a significant amount of time to championing inclusion and that includes being very open about what he wants to learn more about. As chair of kind of the inclusion at Lloyd's Engagement and Consultation Forum across the market. So that's a good example. Another one for me and have to declare my bias here as a Liverpool fan. And I know he's leaving, so I've been crying into my cornflakes all week is Jurgen Klopp and why? The ability to kind of establish a vision that people can buy into. And then I think in his first interviews he talked about turning people from doubters into believers and really great inclusive leaders doing exactly that. They turn their teams into believers not because of some kind of festival of congratulations at every meeting, but by taking on that incremental improvement, listening to every voice, making sure that criticisms and critiques are as important as the wins. And so for me, those are two examples of leaders. Kind of different approaches, different industries, but two approaches to really good inclusive leadership.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:11:59 - 00:12:18]

So you would have been very happy with the score last night then, Mark? Oh, yes, good. So looking at this from a wider context and looking at organisations, you know, how do you ensure organisations are truly inclusive and get that kind of wider buy in, rather than just having a couple of individuals who are inclusive?

Harvey Francis:

[00:12:18 - 00:14:01]

The first thing I think is to recognise that this takes a long time. What we constantly see in our organisation is a real impatience. Not so much from the leadership team, but certainly from our black and Asian and other minority communities that we've been talking about this for a year and now we want to see hard action. And my view is always, you know, what we're trying to do is unwrite hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of the way things have always been. And companies like ours don't change overnight, but how they do change is through leadership focus. So our new CEO, Katie Dowding, you know, she's now started to talk about if it's not inclusive, it's not acceptable. So when she goes out on site visit, she talks about it. We've made considerable investment in our Catalyst program, which came out of the back of our lived experience work that we did to identify what the blockers and what the issues were and what our underrepresented groups were really experiencing versus their white male counterparts. Because construction is still an industry that's largely white and male. So what we've been trying to do is to support, particularly our site leaders, to understand the shadow that they cast, to understand the things that are either done purposefully or unpurposefully in terms of inappropriate banter, inappropriate jokes, either initiating them or laughing at them. And that sense that culture is the worst behaviours that the leader is prepared to accept. You know, we say with safety, don't walk by. Well, actually what we're saying with this is if it's inappropriate and non inclusive, again, it's not acceptable. So don't walk by. And we've been doing a lot of work in trying to upskill people on active bystanders. So not sheep dipping people. I think the days of sheep dip courses are long done. This is about discussion, helping people understand where they sit with these issues and giving them practical tools and tips and techniques in terms, if you see this, here's the practical way that you can deal with it. It doesn't mean calling out in the moment. There's lots of other ways to deal with these things. And that seems to be starting to take effect now.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:14:01 - 00:14:03]

Makes a lot of sense. And what about for you, Mark?

Mark Lomas:

[00:14:03 - 00:16:05]

I completely agree with what Harvey said. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. And I think you have to be really deliberate about changing how an organ feels in terms of inclusion. And you can measure it in a number of ways, but people start to feel the difference when it's embedded in all your practices. So you know, when they go through their annual performance appraisal, they can feel the difference there because, you know, maybe you're transparent about your performance curves and how disproportionality is being improved talent and succession. They start to see it through those kind of informal project opportunities. There are opportunities to discuss things so the culture becomes more open. But it's, it does require you to build a degree of trust. And I think that is very important. I'm a big fan of data LED evidence and the first thing that you have to do is make sure you have the data. People don't give you that data if they don't trust you. And so making sure that when you've made a change for the positive, you tell people about it. We asked you for this, you gave us this data, we made this change. Tell us how it's going. I think that's a big part of it. Where I think some organizations sometimes go wrong is a mistake. Dissent for a disciplinary issue issue. You don't have to agree with absolutely everything the organization is doing from a diversity or inclusion point of view. In fact, if you disagree or you've got some different thoughts, it's really important to hear that. But you also have to understand where the business is going and why it's important to the business plan, the strategy, etc. So not everyone will agree on everything. And that's perfectly okay. I think if you stamp down on all dissenting voices, you're then Steering kind of away from a really good metric of inclusion, which is how free people feel to speak up and share an opinion. Now, by dissent, I'm not talking about being disrespectful or any of the isms or ists, but there has to be a safe space, and it has to be accepted and encouraged to have debate or dissent. So for me, there are two parts of the coin. You can't encourage people to be inclusive and then tell them they're required to agree with absolutely everything.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:16:05 - 00:16:18]

I think we hear a lot from organizations now in terms of psychological safety and that trust element, in terms of. Of getting people to feel like they're working together for the organization as well, from an inclusion aspect. So really good to hear this.

Harvey Francis:

[00:16:18 - 00:17:29]

I think we're still trying to work it out, though. I don't think any of this has been cracked. And if I think about the concept of we want you to bring your whole self to work, what happens if you hold racist or bigoted beliefs? Is that okay to bring those to work? So I think some of the language that we use around this space, we just need to be more mindful and deliberate. We've had a couple of situations where people have posted on company intranet in response to things. Particularly, I think it was when people from the company participated in pride. And there was one comment that was just inappropriate. And there was another comment which actually a number of us looked at and said, kind of not quite sure what the intent here was. So to your point, rather than trying to censor people or censor them, actually, let's go have the conversation to find out why somebody wrote it, what's going on, how can we help? So, you know, my belief is a lot of the issues that we've got are based on ignorance or they're based on vacuums that have been filled through the education process, through parentage, through the media. And that's how a lot of these views probably are unfounded, but they get formed at a very early age and tend to kind of get built on. So what we're trying to do is encourage people to explore and to question and think for themselves. So if I do believe that, why do I believe it? And actually try to give materials and the opportunity for discussion to say, how else might you look at this? Rather than just saying, as Mark said, you're wrong. We don't want those kind of things here.

Jo Heath:

[00:17:29 - 00:19:44]

Yeah, Harvey, I think that's a really good point around that balance that we need to strike around freedom of speech and empowering people to Speak up. Which is the culture we want to create but actually managing where perhaps diversity might collide. And lots of examples, but one that comes to mind is perhaps if I have a very strong religion or belief and it doesn't necessarily adhere to those in my team that have a different sexual orientation. So we have these moments where our own diversity collides. Your point around bringing your whole self or sense of belonging, you could feel at odds with some of that. So that can be really difficult for managers to work through. Okay, I just want to do a really quick summary around some of the things that you shared there because I think that was really interesting around how do we create a transparent, psychologically safe and trusted environment? And that's really, really hard. Using data and insight was a principle that you mentioned, Mark, to make informed decisions. We want to embed all of this in the talent journey. So not just an extra job for a leader to do, but making it part of the talent journey of employees. And the final point, culture change takes time. So there's some good summary and takeaways. There's. I want to move on to another point and to get your views on how you see this working in your own organisation. So when we work with organisations at the moment and we look at their employees view around the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion, they tend to fall into three camps and I'm generalising a little bit, so forgive me. So those that have a mindset that's really DEI curious, they get it, they want to do more, they're very committed. Those in the middle camp, I guess, which is de I with will but limited skill, so willing, wanted to do more. But actually the lack of education and understanding, understanding of the subject means they don't really engage because they don't feel credible or they don't have the right terminology. And there's different strategies to deal with those mindsets. But then the third mindset is those that are denied defensive or skeptical. They think we've gone too far. Now why do we need to do this? We're a meritocracy and we still know there's a large percentage of people that feel that way and we need to work with those and find ways in which they don't derail our broader efforts. So my question, I'll go first to Mark, please is have you seen that sort of to skeptical mindset, largely driven by media and other things playing out in your organization and if so, what's your strategies to manage that?

Mark Lomas:

[00:19:44 - 00:22:45]

Yeah, I think Lloyds has been at this a long time so we don't see it a lot, but we did some very in depth work on the history of Lloyd's and transatlantic slavery. You know, Lloyd's is a marketplace. It's not just Lloyds Corporation. There are a number of companies that work within the marketplace and certainly, you know, there were those. Why would you go and dig all this up hundreds of years ago? Why does it matter? I think, you know, you have to be able to step into those conversations, not try and shut them down, but just be very clear about why it's important. And I think in terms of Lloyds, Lloyds has a history that goes back 388 years, much of which you can be quite proud about. But there are some episodes which when you look at it through the modern day landscape, you wouldn't be so proud about. But it's very important that those aren't sort of washed away. And as we then go and try to engage and bring in more diverse talent into the market, not only London, London, but globally, these are questions that, you know, when I go and I'm interfacing with kids in diverse communities, they bring up the subject and so just pretending it didn't happen or being opaque about it, that's not a realistic strategy to attract the talent globally that we want in the future. And so I do believe in stepping into the conversation. However, I'm also don't buy into the meritocracy myth at all. And this is where transparency helps. When people can see the outcomes of recruitment, talent, performance, etc. They can see how the consistent patterns play out. If you believe that we live in a meritocracy, then the only logical outcome of thinking about diversity is a pity model where people need help. That's the only logical outcome of thinking about. We live in a meritocracy now and there's no kind of data that supports that. Once you let go of that and you understand that human beings are flawed, they operate on emotion and bias and the brain is a huge pattern matching machine and we're just doing our best, then you accept that the way things have been done doesn't dictate the way things should be done and you need to make adjustments for that fact. And then I'm also a big believer in treating people like adults. And by that I mean you have a choice. We have set out a business strategy, we've set out a culture strategy, we've set out kind of expectations around behaviors, around values, around diversity, around the ability to speak up. But if that doesn't suit you as an individual, then you have a choice. And that choice is you can speak up, you can have a conversation, or you can choose to work for another employer. And it's extremely important that people have that choice. And you treat people like adults. Neither am I in the business of changing ideology. My job is to make sure when you walk through the doors of Lloyd's, you are in an inclusive environment that enables you to perform at your highest. My job cannot be and will never be to change wider society. I don't delude myself that I have that level of influence.

Jo Heath:

[00:22:45 - 00:23:30]

I'm sure you do, Mark. Thank you for that, Harvey. If I could just build on that. I mean, great examples there in terms of challenging that feeling of we're a meritocracy when we actually know data doesn't always support that. Another area of skepticism and perhaps backlash is when an organisation embarks on positive action campaigns, such as female development programs or ethnic minority development programs. So I think we all in this room understand the importance of having these development programs and I think we all agree what they're there for, but they can cause some backlash or skepticism from other groups that feel that that's a club for somebody, not like me. So, you know, we talk about white male backlash, for example. Have you experienced any of that in your own organisation? And what have been your mess messages to offset some of that commentary, if there has been any negativity?

Harvey Francis:

[00:23:31 - 00:25:36]

So I think we have in the past, but it's changing. And I think the reason it's changing is because we've explained the why. So we've been talking a lot over the last three years, not just about inclusion, but about equity. So the fact that not everybody starts from the same place. So I've agreed with your points, Mark, around meritocracy, but I have a slightly more optimistic view about how we might shift a little bit more towards it. So we were thinking about why the pools for certain roles are so skewed towards white males. And actually, if you go back over the last probably 10 or 15 years, the majority of people that we have do an awful lot of internal development around leadership and around management as people come up through. But the majority of people who've benefited of that, because we've had a largely male and white population, is white males. So therefore, in terms of the development paths that they've been on, I would say have equipped them much better to show up on those bigger programs, Amazon for those bigger roles on the slate for recruitment. So what we've also noticed as we've started to Try and take a more active role in terms of balancing the people who come on those development programs to make sure that we've got a good gender balance and a good ethnicity balance is that particularly people from black and ethnic backgrounds and females, they come with a much higher degree of imposter syndrome and lack of self confidence. So what we've done is we've actually bolted a module at the beginning now on the grounds of equity to make sure that then they go into the main leadership program. But what they've had is something that's designed to try and quell and we work with those communities to say what are the specific things that you're struggling with that would help free your mind? That when you showed up for these programs you kind of felt able to take your place with everybody else. So we're at the very early stages of this. We've run the first cohort. We've had great response, but primarily because we've co created it with the people that it's aimed for. Rather than going away and coming up with something and saying ta da, there it is, and then people saying, well that's interesting but they're. That doesn't tackle the issue. But again, we're just at the very start, I think we'll probably go through a number of these iterations until we really get it right. And if anybody challenges it and we don't hear it much because there's a much wider narrative around inclusion in the organisation and about equity. The fact that if someone's starting from further behind, the fair and right thing to do is to help them close the gap. So as when they do show up, they show up in the same way that on the level playing field.

Jo Heath:

[00:25:36 - 00:26:05]

And you've leveled that playing field. One last point to Mark perhaps on that is you mentioned, Harvey, that some people come with imposter syndrome or confidence issues largely I believe, because there's limited role models and that can affect people's aspirations. But some of these programs receive negativity because it feels like the person needs to be fixed when we all know it's actually the organisation or a combination. So how do you manage that, Mark, with some of the programmes at Lloyds, that there is a balance between self development but also organisational responsibility.

Mark Lomas:

[00:26:06 - 00:28:14]

It's a great point. And Lloyds has well established programs for women and ethnically diverse groups which work fantastic. However, you know, if I was designing something from a blank sheet of paper, I wouldn't do it that way and I refused to do it that way. At HS2 I think all methods work fine if you adjust for it. My preferred method was designing something and targeting the talent and making sure it was proportionate. Now when you have a blank piece of paper, that's nice and easy to do. When you're dealing with kind of historical patterns, that's much more difficult. And therefore, we do have kind of accelerated, advanced programs for women, ethnically diverse people. And Harvey's kind of hit on it here. I think the trap is running development programs and then not having the opportunities for people that go through them and the ability to compete effectively or what you're doing is you're raising expectation and there's nowhere to go. And so this is why I think one of the mistakes I see organizations make a load of times is they have these high potential programs or leadership programs or this, that and the other, but they've not done the math. So they've put 40 people through the program and they have five development opportunities or five promotion opportunities. That's great for five people. But then you've got 35 people who are sitting there thinking, well, you've just wasted my time. So I do think organizations have to be careful and considered in that planning. And that's why proper talent and succession processes with a good eye on diversity, will link to what you know, or your upcoming pipeline or upcoming pipeline of secondments or projects, even if there aren't permanent roles, are extremely important. So Lloyds has accelerated advance for ethnically diverse groups and women. And we're quite comfortable that people that go through that program move into larger roles in the market. Now, essentially we're exporting talent and diversity into the wider Lloyds market, which is fine. Plus, Lloyds is not a big organization. So what are there 30 people in senior leadership? But that's a deliberate choice for us. And I think that kind of lining up around your planning, your talent, your succession, your promotions, your secondment opportunities, project opportunities is very important. So you don't build a cohort of people who have lots of skill ready for the next role, and then you disappoint them.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:28:14 - 00:28:37]

I want to move on to talking about the connection between commerciality and inclusion. And increasingly we hear a lot of businesses talking about the link between inclusive environments and commercial benefit. How do you feel in terms of how a business can use inclusivity as an organization to advance their commercial benefit?

Mark Lomas:

[00:28:37 - 00:29:35]

The best kind of answer I can give you is that Lloyds is 388 years old. Most businesses don't survive past five years to survive that long. What's at the Heart of that innovation, you've got to change as society change as and therefore diversity is a really key part of that. The first kind of automotive insurance, cyber insurance, political risk, I mean, you name it, you don't get that without that kind of inside out exchange. And so diversity is really important in terms of innovation for us. And then if we think about Lloyd's as a global market, that diversity is just a commercial reality, we link to that. I firmly believe an inclusive environment enables high performance and that's why our culture strategy specifically talks about that. These aren't two things which are mutually exclusive. So in those ways I really do think inclusion, diversity is a real power of commercial gain, if you get it right.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:29:35 - 00:29:45]

Absolutely. And that's the key really, isn't it? We think about it. And what about for you, Harvey, from a Skanska perspective? How have you seen that linkage to a commercial benefit for the organisation?

Harvey Francis:

[00:29:46 - 00:31:07]

I think it's early days, but I agree completely with what Mark was saying in terms around the innovation bit. But there's also the piece, the difference between diversity and inclusion. So I think from an inclusion perspective, if someone comes to work and they're not feeling very comfortable, they're having to hide the fact that actually, you know, they were out with their female partner over the weekend and someone says, you know, what did you and your boyfriend do over the weekend? You know the concept of code switching where someone's always happy to think about who's asking me the question, what might be behind the question and how do I not give too much way. The very fact that the brain is having to do that means that there's time taken away from the things that they could be productive. So there is a very, on one level, clear and simple argument for increased productivity if people can be themselves and not having to worry about all of those things. I think there's also a customer piece as well. You know, over half of our work comes from the public sector and if I think about our customers that we work with, they are both ethnically diverse and gender diverse. And I think if you're going to put a bidding team up with a diverse customer team, team, the last thing that that team probably wants to see is an all white middle aged team because I think it speaks volumes about the organization. So again, you lack the diversity, you lack the creativity, you lack that kind of wealth of good ideas. So I think it operates on a number of levels. There's all studies done, the McKinsey studies and all those things, and people don't listen to Them. I think if people were going to swallow the studies, they'd have swallowed them by now. So I think it's time for a different way of looking at some of these things, because some of the old things that we used to kind of hang our hat off, they just don't work anymore. It's time for something new.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:31:07 - 00:31:17]

And I think, once again, what you said and what I took from that, Harvey, is by having an inclusive environment, people can be themselves, so they're not distracted, so they can perform at the best that they can for the business.

Harvey Francis:

[00:31:18 - 00:31:30]

And in our industry, they can also be safer because, again, if you've got people on site doing, you know, very kind of physical construction tasks, you want them to be absolutely in the moment, not thinking about giving bits of themselves away. It's very simple, really, when you think about it.

Jo Heath:

[00:31:30 - 00:32:17]

Yeah, great examples. I mean, we know covering or whatever other term you might want to use does have a dip on people's performance and their sense of belonging. So it makes complete sense. They're not as productive and as conscious of health and safety. So great examples there. So I want to sort of do a bit of a summary question, really, to wrap some of this great practice art. When we think about building inclusive cultures and environments, can you think of some sort of top tip examples, really? And I'd really like us to think broadly, whether it's around behaviors or processes or policies. So we hear lots of stuff, you know, like new menopause approach or flexible bank holidays to be able to be used for other purposes. So hybrid working, whatever it might be. But have you got any real kind of nuggets of stuff that you think signals real positive inclusivity to the workforce?

Harvey Francis:

[00:32:17 - 00:32:43]

Don't rely on your policies. Good leadership will trump policies every time. I've seen organisations with policies up to their hilt that nobody reads, nobody knows are there, and worse, nobody actually takes any action on. So I think it's about being clear about the organisation expectations. The stuff that we talked about earlier in the conversation about culture and values, having rewards, showcasing those kind of things, bringing stories up to give people confidence, but being very clear from an expectation perspective, what it means to work in your organisation starts with leadership.

Jo Heath:

[00:32:44 - 00:32:53]

Yeah, thank you, Mark. We've spoken a little bit about kind of the behaviours and some of the embedding into the talent processes. Have you got any nuggets for us in terms of really signaling that message?

Mark Lomas:

[00:32:54 - 00:34:05]

I'm a big fan of kind of nudge psychology, you know, your little messages that appear on your plasma screens or your Computer startups that just start conversations. One of the things I really enjoyed about my time at HS2, with every big meeting, we used to start it with a values moment, which is a two minute story related to one of the values that was either something that you'd seen inside the organization or external. And I think the beauty of it was A, it's dead simple, B, anybody, any level could do it. Three, it was absolutely free. And great values moments because there were some absolutely brilliant ones during my time used to just spread like wildfire. Oh, I heard you did a brilliant values moment. Will you come and do it at our team meeting, et cetera, et cetera. And it was a way of just reinforcing the values without it being a big corporate announcement, without it being kind of mandatory training. It's that little bit of nudge on the valleys that meant kind of everybody was talking about them every day in a very natural way. And I think for me that was one of the best kind of free interventions I've seen to get people kind of buzzing about the organizational values.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:34:05 - 00:34:09]

I think we might have to steal that one actually, Mark. So really, really positive.

Jo Heath:

[00:34:09 - 00:34:10]

Yeah, great example.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:34:10 - 00:34:29]

So I think, you know, in terms of, of this discussion today, and it's been really, really interesting to hear both your viewpoints to look at the takeouts for organisations that are about to embark on this journey of inclusion. What would you say are the three do's and also the three don'ts that you would be advising organisations to take?

Harvey Francis:

[00:34:30 - 00:35:25]

Yeah, so I think the first thing is make sure your leaders are committed. If they're not committed, my advice would be don't do it or find a different way to do it. But people see through. We talked about tokenism earlier. People see through very clearly whether a leader is committed to it through what they say and what they do. The second one is if you're going to start on a journey like this, you have to recognise you're in it for the long haul. There's no quick fixes, there's no shortcuts, there's just hard yards and people will be lots very frustrated on the way. I remember when these comments appear on the Internet, I've had members from our Pride network come and say to me, but this is terrible, we've done all of these things and yet still we get this. And my view is always, yeah, we must expect this because again, we're dealing with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of prejudice and bigotry and all those things and it takes time, you know, for people to kind of work out where they stand. And the other one is to be clear on your why. Because if you're clear on the why, how it links the culture, values, people will help make sense of it. I think rather than just think it's a flavour of the month or something that leadership would have forgotten about in six months time.

Jo Sweetland:

[00:35:25 - 00:35:27]

Thank you, Harvey. Mark.

Mark Lomas:

[00:35:27 - 00:36:13]

Yeah, I feel like I'm gonna be stealing Harvey's greatest hits here. In terms of the. Dude. Yeah. Understand what is a priority for your business and align your efforts there. Be realistic with your goals, which may mean collecting data first in order to understand your starting position and engage staff to understand kind of what's meaningful to them. And then be willing to hold leaders accountable. In terms of don'ts, I'd say don't let the rhetoric become divorced from the reality of actual employee experience. So give yourself a kind of gut check on that. Don't embark on a lot of activity that isn't aligned to your business strategy. Like Harvey said, if the why doesn't make sense, it falls apart really quickly. And I think my key don't. Don't be fooled into thinking lots of events and talking is enough. It really isn't.

Harvey Francis:

[00:36:13 - 00:37:02]

I didn't do my don'ts, did I? My don'ts would be don't leave it to the HR function. The HR function has a clear role to play in helping set it out, facilitating and making it happen. But without leadership commitment, it will wither on the vine very quickly. Quickly. Don't be tempted to expect quick results. But also with that, and Mark and I probably have a slightly different view of this is I keep talking about this is a problem like nothing else. And therefore you have to have an approach like nothing else. And that's not to overburden it with KPIs. I think that not everything that can be measured is important and not everything that's important can be measured. You talked about sometimes going and testing the rhetoric. I think that we have to tread very carefully because, you know, the metrics might tell you one thing, but the reality in terms of what's happening in your organization, you can only find by good old fashioned method management. By walking about, there is no substitute for that. And my other don't is don't start if you're not prepared to keep at it. So a lot of my don'ts actually are kind of the flip sides of my do's.

Jo Heath:

[00:37:02 - 00:37:12]

Yeah, really great. Some amazing takeaways there. So thank you very much for your time and for your really meaningful contribution today. I hope all of our listeners find this helpful.