Welcome to reimagining HR with Trina Sunday, the rule breaking podcast
Trina Sunday: In this episode, I speak with Michelle Redfern to get some executive insights on the CEO’s perspective on HR. It’s time to put my big girl pants on and see how we can level up. Welcome to reimagining HR with Trina Sunday, the rule breaking podcast where we challenge our thinking and our current people practises. This podcast is for time poor HR teams and business leaders who are feeling the burn, lacking laughs and and not feeling the love. I’m trainer, your host, and I’m here to cut through the B’s, explore different ways of thinking and create high impact HR functions because happier, healthier organisations are better for our people and our bottom line. So if you are keen to flip traditional HR on its head, hit the follow or subscribe button. So you’re the first to know when new episodes drop. I’m here to help and also to shake things up. So let’s get started.
Michelle Redfern is a trusted advisor to board, CEO’s
Welcome. I’m joined today by Michelle Redfern. She’s absolutely fearless in her pursuit of what sets her soul on fire, which is closing the global leadership gender gap in business and sport. She’s a trusted advisor to board, CEO’s and leaders worldwide who are serious about creating diverse, equitable and inclusive workplaces where women and other underrepresented people can reach their full potential. How good is that? And it’s in that trusted advisor to board, CEO’s and leaders that Michelle’s got some really unique executive insights into perceptions of HR from the outside. So let’s dive in. Welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Redfern: Hello, Trina. Very nice to be here.
Trina Sunday: I am super keen to have this conversation. We’ve known each other now for quite a while. Colleagues now less to be friends. Well, from my side, not sure about your side, but I think if we could start, maybe you could set the scene for us a little bit, just in terms of expanding, I guess, on what your exposure to CEO’s and execs and boards has been to give us some context around where your insights come from.
Michelle Redfern: Yeah, so my exposure really has been my own career. So up until 20, sort of 1516, when I started my business, my experience as an operational and executive leader was leading small and large and medium sized teams for a bunch of different organisations and having exposure to the HR world through my HR business partners, through the chief people officer, which really wasn’t on the term back then, but the chief people officer, the HR director, that’s been my exposure. And I guess certainly as I became a people leader, particularly a senior, and executive people leader, I always had an appointed HR business partner and I had some great HR business partners and I had some not so great HR business partners and I also had colleagues who had very formed views about the role of HR in the business, which I found interesting at the time. And I’ve used those insights to inform the way I do work, the way I do my business now and then post my executive career. Of course, in my own business, a great many of my clients are, HR directors, chief people, officers who are coming to me both from my own network and referrals from my network, which is awesome to say. Can you give us some help, Michelle? Because we need to get some stuff moving on. Insert business problem here, whether it’s closing the gender gap, the DEI, strategy, whatever it may be. So, yeah, so that’s where my perspectives have come from.
Trina Sunday: And so you’ve had a lot of interactions, obviously in terms of, from a HR function, and we’ll get to it in our chat in terms of kind of where you have some views around HR revolution and what needs to happen. But you’re also doing a lot of work with business leaders and CEO’s and boards who also have formed opinions about HR. Right. And so part of what I always try to learn is getting insights from people that don’t work in the HR space because that’s where you have an opportunity to lean in. So I’m trying to put my big girl pants on, be mindful of my defensiveness in terms of a conversation and going into bat for my colleagues. I think the reality is trying to actually understand what people are saying about us to know where we need to shift the needle. Right.
Where do you see leadership generally across boards, executive teams and business leaders
But before we kind of get stuck into the HR, I’m curious to know on the other side though, how are you viewing the calibre of organisational leaders right now? Like where do you see leadership generally across boards, executive teams, business leaders, people leaders. Like, where do you think we are in the leadership landscape?
Michelle Redfern: Well, I can give the strategist’s answer, which is, that depends and it really does depend on which lens you want to apply to that. Trina. And my other standard answer is highly variable and there is no one way to do leadership. there’s about a million or more versions of the leadership out there, right?
Michelle Redfern: My own version is a great leader is someone who can effectively lead themselves, others and organisations to reach their full potential. And that takes a lot of really considered, developed and intentional skills, characteristics, attributes to be that person in general and through the lens that I would typically apply, which is, are we helping every human reach their full potential? In an organisation, leadership is variable and it’s pretty average, actually. There are some really great leaders out there, there’s some really shitty leaders, and there’s a bunch in the middle who are trying the best that they can possibly try, often under increasing pressure to do a whole bunch with not a lot so highly variable is the short answer.
Michelle: How do you see the HR profession right now
Trina Sunday: I think that really relates though, to if someone asked me a question of how do you see the HR profession right now? Trina? I think it’s the same. So I think we have the same context that sits around, again, depends on your industry, depends on your landscape that you’re working in. But we have exceptional practitioners, leaders in their own right, change agents, that are absolutely shaking things up with confidence, clarity and purpose. And then we’ve got some who are, probably a bit out of their depth and like lots of leadership roles. I think we have had a pocket of people being promoted probably above their expertise. And I know you had a chat recently around accidental managers, so we can touch on that in a moment. And then you’ve got a whole bunch of people who are doing the best they can, as you say, with what they have. And I feel like we have under invested in HR to the same degree that we have under invested in our people leaders and not given a really strong capability investment to make sure that we’re actually purposeful, having an impact, and focusing on the things we need to focus on.
Michelle Redfern: Right.
Trina Sunday: So I see huge parallels there, most definitely.
Michelle Redfern: And the other thing with HR, is that’s a catch all phrase for a whole bunch of different functions, too. And there are deeply technical areas of HR. My exposure, certainly early and mid parts of my career, of course, were to the generalist HR person, maybe payroll, those kinds of things. Later on, particularly as I became a hiring manager, it was the recruitment or the talent and sourcing function. And then certainly later on, starting to look at the analytics and the strategic and of course, the industrial relations side, very relevant to the Australian landscape, workplace landscape. So, saying HR, that’s a catch all phrase. And I think where I see the parallels is where people, leaders in the business have the most interaction with HR, which is those people who are going to help them create great workplaces, help them craft great strategies, and then help them implement it. And I guess the perception is that sometimes we just bring HR in to help us stay out of jail or keep us out of trouble, or, oh, hello, here comes the fun police kind of thing. I once had someone say to me when I worked for a very large bank, well, Michelle, you’ve always got to have risk and HR in the room because otherwise you get into trouble. I go, wow. It’s a pretty negative way of looking at things because I see your risk partner in big organisations, your HR business partner, and your finance business partner, they should be your best buds as a strategic leader because they are seriously going to help you be great and make great decisions if they’re in tune. But if you’re treating them like, oh, shit, I just have to have them here. Well, we’re not getting the greatest bang for our buck out of those functions.
Trina Sunday: And I think it’s interesting because I don’t really know any other profession where we do expect so much of one person potentially because of the misunderstanding or the misperception around HR and generalist HR versus specialism and what’s brought to the table. But even generalist HR is a superpower if done well through strategic partnering and being able to understand the risks of all the moving parts like that is, that is a craft in its own right. But when I speak with CEO’s sometimes, and some of them are mutual connections of ours that you might have introduced me to, or there’s others that are in the same sphere generally in terms of our work. But some of those CEO’s, when they describe and when I’ve talked to them in my research around what makes great HR or how’s your experience with your HR function? where could they level up? It’s really interesting because those who have said to me that my HR function is fantastic. Have focused more on the administrative aspects of what HR does. And there’s a language that came through in lots of that research and some of those chats around, they’re phenomenal. They do what I ask them to do.
Trina Sunday: they just get stuff done, they make the things that I want to happen happen. And me sitting there kind of tuned in culturally as well and to behavioural kind of sciences, I’m sitting there going, so you’re happy with them because they’re people pleasers and they’re doing what you like. For some that were super happy that they were not arriving in the challenge of debate or problem solving or some of the solution stuff. So it’s quite interesting. And then when I look at where we really want to lean in in terms of culture change or looking at appropriateness of behaviour or diversity, equity and inclusion, which obviously for you as a leader in that space. There’s less understanding, I think, around what HR brings to the table in those areas of specialty.
Michelle Redfern: Well, I couldn’t agree more.
I see an underutilisation of HR function in that strategic capacity
And I guess there’s two analogies that I bring to that for your listeners, is when you’re ill, you go to a general practitioner who’s got a lot of everything. Yes, some of them have some specialties, but they are general in nature. And when the illness problem or whatever needs a deeper dive, you’re referred to a specialist who’s going to help you with whatever that is going on. Just like when you think, oh, I need a person in technology. So I’m not going to go to the people who are responsible for developing code for our artificial intelligence engine to get my laptop fixed because it keeps having the blue circle of death on it. They’re going to go, I don’t know how to do that. I code right. So you’re going to go to your it help desk again, who’s got the ability to triage and look generally across some problem solving. Okay, now we need a deeper dive. HR is the same, so we have, you’re right, those generalists who are able to triage. But I also think there’s a real opportunity, not just to problem solve, so not just to look in the rear view mirror, but to be looking out through the windscreen to say, where are we heading? What do we need to be focusing on? Or, what are the forces that are going to help us or hinder us achieving our business goals that relate to people and all of the things around people. So I see a great opportunity and certainly have had experience where HR business partners have been a strategic partner of mine in my business who’ve been able to say, hey, I’m bringing some insights here that we need to take a look at and say, are we prepared? Which, of course, is strategy. We need to say, where are we heading? How are we going to get there? What’s going to be in the way? What do we do about that? What’s going to help us and how do we leverage it? And this is where I see, broadly speaking, an underutilisation of the HR function in that strategic capacity.
Trina Sunday: And when exec and boards are sitting around having their strategic conversations, let’s roll with that. That’s what they’re doing most of the time. Let’s go with that.
When HR’s not in the room, have you been in conversations with execs
When HR’s not in the room, have you been in the room for conversations with execs and boards when you’re trying to drive a strategy for them and with them. And HR is not in the room. Talk to me through what you hear. I’m ready to embrace it. I would love to know your insights into what some of the conversation is when you’re not there. Because for me, that’s what stands up as the most telling to be able to lean into.
Michelle Redfern: So I’ve been fortunate enough to be on a number of boards and look, I am always, given who I am and where I’ve come from, going to bring that lens around people equity, etcetera, anyway. But when HR is not in the room, what I see is that people may not be put first and in fact, they may be a I will get to the people agenda item if we can get to it, if there’s time, because we’ve actually got some pretty big fish to fry here. Insert business problem or opportunity, one, two, three or four. So the behaviour that I see, Trina, is that if there’s not a person who’s flying the people flag in and around those tables, people are unlikely to be prioritised. So it’s likely to be, we’ll get to it if we can. Nice to have, not must have. So that’s a very general observation. I also see decisions being made in general to say, well, actually, we better get HR to run their eyes over that after we’ve made the decision to make sure that we’re okay. And those are, again, it’s a rear view mirror kind of thing, rather than helping shape. And I also see it as a fairly ineffective use of time because it’s double handling. And I suppose the other thing that I hear and see at all levels of business is the one about the fund police. Oh well, we can’t do that because of course, hey, Daryl, come down on us like a tonne of bricks. Nothing really. We don’t have a code of conduct, we don’t have equal employment opportunities, and we don’t have a respect statement. Just got off a meeting with a DNI
Michelle Redfern: council that I’m a member of and talked about the importance of respect in an organisation, and it’s been led by the CEO. So if we don’t have that mindset that our HR people are part of the strategic planning as well as the implementation of, it’s often an afterthought, keeping us out of trouble. Crumbs. Well, we better not do that or we will be in trouble. So those are the things that I’ve seen, generally speaking, and I think it.
Trina Sunday: Comes up a lot and there’s a lot to unpack in that. Right. Firstly, some of the HR people I’ve hung out with are some of the funnest people I’ve ever had in my life. So it’s quite interesting.
Michelle Redfern: Same.
Trina Sunday: So it’s so interesting that the brand can be so different from what’s in the middle. And part of my personal opinion for that is that there is a different account often that HR are held to in terms of whether this is right or wrong, in terms of behaviour and how we can or can’t show up, and that we have to be this blessed example of like sainthood or something. And so there’s, in different audiences, there’s probably a tapering down, right. And that’s probably where I’ve shown up a bit as the non corporate. And I even did a CEO interview last week and I turned up in jeans. And I know when they bring all of those photos and images together of all of the CEO’s, I guarantee I’ll be the only one in jeans. But it was kind of like, there’s a relatability, I think, that gets lost where the further we go into a hard process because HR gets involved in some hard things around discipline or performance management or things which often managers are just not taking accountability for. But like, in those spaces, if behaviourally we do the wrong thing at the Christmas party, there’s no grace, right? Like, there’s things that I’ve seen in my early career where it was kind of like I was in one organisation and let’s just say the behaviour of the CEO after probably, I’d say about ten wines was far more inappropriate than the joke I heard a HR person tell. And I can tell you where there was recourse and where there was not. And it’s just interesting. But I think we also kind of come to that space where it’s. Then it’s why HR people bang on so much around having a seat at the table, right. Because we know that you need the people’s insights in the decision making to have informed decisions that are going to work for the business. But part of the challenge is getting a seat at the table or being involved in those business conversations early. We have to contribute to a business conversation. So it’s about bringing the business agenda to the table. Right. And it’s one of the things that really resonated when I read your book, the leadership compass. Right. And you’ve done a lot of work in this space. But there’s so many parallels that I’ve seen in that as well, around the fact that, while it’s written as the ultimate guide for women in terms of reaching their full potential, I think around the fact that the bulk and the majority of leaders in the people culture HR space, are also women. Unless you’ve come up in a very masculine organisation that insists that ir, er, people are your chief people officer.
You say business leaders need to be more strategic in your leadership compass
But I’m keen to hear from you how you explain kind of what you’ve unpacked in the leadership compass, because I think there’s some of the business aspects that are in there I think are probably addressed in terms of some of your takeaways.
Michelle Redfern: So I guess at the core of this is what you said around the business conversations and the perceptions that I have either heard expressed or come out in the behaviour have been around. Well, h I don’t get my business. I don’t understand what it’s like for me to run this business. And I actually did two polls on LinkedIn a while back now. One was, hey, HR people, what do you want your business leaders to do more of? And the overwhelming response was please invest. Invest in people leader training, that was overwhelmingly the number one when I asked, hey executives, what would you like your HR department to do more of? Overwhelmingly the response was, be more strategic. Now, I have a bit of a problem with being more strategic because it’s one of those bits of bullshit advice that women often get. You’ve just got to be more strategic. And I go, well, what does that really mean? Which is why in the book I wanted to be very practical and say, when you hear this, this is what you’ve got to do. So what does it mean to be more strategic? How do I overcome that perception that I don’t get the business? I’ve just got my little HR patch and that’s all I’m worrying about. I got to know the business, which means I’ve got to know how we make money, how we make profit, who our customers are, and then how my function fits into the organisation meeting its strategic and financial goals and using the HR business partners.
Michelle Redfern: The best HR business partners that I’ve had have been the ones who really get my business. They’ve spent time in the business. So they know not just the people, but they know the widgets that we happen to be making. Whatever the widgets are, they know the customers because those are all forces that are going to impact the people being successful in terms of and then the organisation being successful. So for HR people, having a really good command of and being known as having a good command of business intelligence. So business strategic and financial acumen, yes, you’ve got your domain expertise, obviously, and that’s super important. And again, if I want to use the analogy of the IT folks, we often have, particularly in bigger businesses, we have the glue people who are able to translate the hardcore IT language, the hardcore business language and bring the two parties together. And when I’ve had HR business partners who’ve been able to do that, that’s been brilliant. And it does mean those skills are super important for HR, BP’s or the HR community to know how our business runs and what’s my role in making it successful. So it’s an enablement role, but it has to go beyond pure domain expertise.
Trina Sunday: So I do a lot of work with HR leaders and I have coaching clients in terms of how we level up. And I do that one on one. I do it in groups and it looks quite different depending on the objectives and what people are trying to get out of it. But I will often have quite senior HR people say, I’m all over it. I’ve got such good business acumen. I know how to read the numbers. I know what the p and l is like. I know that if I come up with solution x, I can save the business $2 million a year. Awesome. But it is the connection between the why. Right. So what you’re talking about in the acumen is that space of it’s not just then saving the money to reprioritize it back into the people agenda and people space where there’s a boldness that I find where people actually do have the Business acumen is when they talk to me around the fact that so I figured out I could save the Business $2 million. I took that kind of back into the Business conversation to say, hey, there’s a $2 million saving here. What do we need to do across the business to maximise where we’re heading with revenue to whatever we’re trying to do with market share, whatever we’re trying to do in terms of the customer, the customer base or introduction of new products, like where do we need to best invest this money? That to me is where you see a separation, but it’s also when you go into a high performing team space, right where your primary team is your peers and not your functional team that you’re leading underneath you, which is a massive shift in mindset for leaders. And so I do challenge HR around the fact that we say we’re strategic because we’d like, even if we’re in the strategic planning session, I would say, because I facilitate a lot of that work as well. They’re not always as strategic as the word might. Chopping the word into a sentence doesn’t make it strategic, necessarily. And so I think there’s a lot of learning to happen across all leadership around business acumen, strategic acumen, financial acumen. But I think for HR especially, it’s a space that we haven’t leaned into and immersed ourselves in enough. And there will be that hamster wheel, though, right, where it’s like we’re too busy to be able to immerse ourselves in the business. It’s like, well, you’ve got to find the time. We’re too busy networking. You’ve got to see the strategic advantage of building productive, proactive relationships before you need them, but not with an expectation you’re going to get something out of it.
Michelle Redfern: It’s like, absolutely.
Trina Sunday: How can you give, how can you serve? And then that comes back to you. But I think what you talk about there that’s missing often for women is probably what’s stopping the advancement from a HR perspective as well. It’s why we don’t see many hros become CEO’s. There’s not many. That trajectory is coming more out of chief operations officers or CFO’s.
Michelle Redfern: Yep.
Trina Sunday: Because it’s a numbers game. And part of the uncomfortable conversation I have with HR sometimes is if you can’t talk about the profit and how you’re going to make business money, then a lot of the time that’s where the business value add stops. But they’re a challenge. Right, because there’s been such a lack of investment. And this is where HR then comes up with, invest more in your people leaders, I dare say, so that they can actually manage what they’re meant to manage and we can get on with other stuff. But, technologically we haven’t invested, we’re not capitalising on digitization. So we’re still in an administrative vortex. And especially with AI, if we embrace that a little bit and look at how we are going to be the value add to make sure it’s ethical, there’s a lot in that space, but I think it’s holding back the careers of HR generally, not just women, but the fact that HR are not seen to have that strategic business financial acumen that you’ve called out as being missing.
Michelle Redfern: Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think that the key point there, Trina, is. Yeah, yeah, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. But, who knows? You’ve got it? How are you demonstrating you’ve got it? And you demonstrate it through your everyday actions, your recommendations, your decisions. And you’re right, being ambitious for the business, because ambition is an awesome word that I want HR practitioners and women to embrace. Being ambitious for the business says, you know what? I can find that $2 million saving. I could recommend that I get a new HR management information system because I really like one. I’d love a new toy. Or I could say, you know what, I reckon we need to plough it into an acquisition because we know there is a company coming up that’s really going to add to our growth trajectory. And you know what, I’d be really happy to help with the integration because I’ve got some expertise in that. That’s the demonstration of, sure, there’s going to be times where we go, you know what, we need the money, man. Give me the money for it because I’ve got an old Excel spreadsheet that’s held together with a bit of spit, sticky tape and a couple of bits of string. I’d really like something a bit more up to date. That’s a necessity. And we’re going to, we need to stay out of compliance trouble, so we need to do that. But you know what, there’s some other ways. So having it is one thing and that’s why I say having the skills that gets you to the table, maybe demonstrating it. Are you known as an HR leader with really well honed business intelligence? Are you the HR leader that I’m going to come to and say, please come with me because I need to transform the business and I cannot do it without you because you’re going to help me put a whole bunch of different lenses over things. So that’s really important.
Learning the skills of networking is super important for any organisation
So learning the skills, you hit on one of my favourites, which is networking, learning the skills. So, how am I talking about the value that my function brings to this organisation? Yes, I’m doing it with my networking. And no, that doesn’t mean turning up at every wine and cheese event that’s going on. It means networking across your company, networking across your industry, having those informational interviews and gleaning information from your stakeholders that, aha. This is what I’m hearing. This is how we can dial it up or dial it down. Here’s the solution. So super important. Super important.
Trina says HR uses busyness as an asset when networking
That’s the question I’d like your listeners to ponder on. I am known as a high performing HR leader with exceptional Bq skills.
Trina Sunday: I think BQ is just a great concept to be leaning to.
Michelle Redfern: Absolutely.
Trina Sunday: and if not, why not? And because of it, I think that we use our busyness as an.
Michelle Redfern: Excuse and then Trina, HR doesn’t have a monopoly on that. No, I talk to busy women a lot every day and I go, please, I’m allergic to that word. And I do have an allergic reaction to the word busy. Because you know what, there might be the saying, I’ll give the job to a busy person. But when you see someone who’s busy, you’re thinking under the pump, out of control. Well, I won’t get her to do anything because she’s clearly under the pump and out of control. So stop with the busy.
Trina Sunday: And this is the perception, right. It’s the same with networking. It’s like how you’ve been, oh, busy. It’s not a feeling word, right. And it’s something I personally like: pot, kettle, black, like I’m working on that because busy has been a response for me that I feel is programmed into my vocabulary. And so I’m actively trying to work on it. But I think we have a reputation for kind of positioning ourselves as the firefighters, right? That’s the language. We’re fighting fires all the time. We’re fighting. But it’s like, and I’ve had this conversation previously where it’s like, but even firefighters are not out fighting fires all the time. So it’s actually looking at the prevention, looking at the proactive burn offs, looking at the maintenance of equipment, like getting ahead of the game, right? Like there’s the forecasting as you talk about that forward thinking. But there’s also, when I think about what we’re talking about here, I feel like their manager’s mindset. So when you say, oh, she’s busy, I won’t give her that thing. I think that’s where we need to be mindful. And then when I think about the networking, I think there has to be a shift around that networking for something for me, right? And I think this is where I see it as an extension of allyship in action almost as well, where we can use this as a skill and a superpower in how we build relationships across lots of different spheres for different reasons and different opportunities to influence. But it is about being strategic about those networks. So it is about knowing that ICT are going to be your besties. If you want to drive digitisation in your HR people landscape, the CFO is fundamentally one of the most critical people, because you know that they’re going to get listened to around the table. And in terms of when I look at marketing and when I look at the synergies, if we had a kind of external brand and employer brand in alignment and working in parallel, because often our employees are customers, what does that look like? So there’s lots of opportunity there, right? But I think to your point, when you talk about, do people know that you have BQ, that you have the business skills, the business intelligence? I was just thinking and reflecting on the kind of those principles of persuasion that Robert Cialdini, I’ve probably just butchered his name. Thank you, Australia, for butchering accents and languages. But, I think about that advocacy and the credibility and the fact that often you want others to advocate for you and your skills and your competence, not just for you to be saying it about yourself. Right. And I think that’s where, if you’re not in the room at the time, if you have strategically networked and more people know what you bring to the table, they know how intelligent you are in terms of the conversations and where you have opportunities to add value. If other people are talking about you around the table, it actually has more impact than if you talk to yourself, right?
Michelle Redfern: Oh, absolutely. And this is the definition of your brand, what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And of course, sponsorship, because, there’s this, you got to get a sponsor. It’s a bit of an amorphous kind of concept, but it’s like, I want people to be my ally. Not just my ally, active ally. I want someone to be in a room proactively talking about Trina Sunday and the way that she’s transforming HR. That means I’ve got to know who you are, I got to know what you bring, I got to know how you show up. What can I trust you for? What can I depend on you for, Trina? And so we’ve got to be able to, number one, express that to our trusted mentors, people in the network, etcetera. And there’s a little bit of. I think you hit the nail on the head. You’re often networking, and generosity and reciprocity are a part of that. And we’re often networking not with the view of an immediate return on that networking investment, but knowing somewhere down the track there’s something going on. But part of that is also being able to demonstrate your accomplishments. And that’s not necessarily saying, here’s my laundry list of honours and awards I’ve got. You could do that if you want, but it’s not what I’m talking about. It is about Trina showing up prepared. Prepared to help me design my strategy, implement it. She’s got really good cost saving ideas. She’s also contributed to growth. I can trust Trina to turn up and help me grow my business, help me move my business forward, because then that person’s going to be in that room going, well, we can’t do the work without Trina. Why isn’t she in this room here helping us shape our strategy? So it’s the short game as well as the long game. And I suppose what I’m trying to say here is what we do as HR practitioners. I want you to talk about the value that you bring to the organisation in every possible way that you can. And as I said, it’s about demonstrating it by making great suggestions. And I’ve got to say, sometimes you have to shoehorn your way into meetings, into forums, and just say, I need to be here. I’ve got great ideas. Here’s what they are. And then also ask allies to be active allies for you, Michelle. I’m being you now, Michelle. I need to be in that meeting with that board next week. Get me in there. Of course. I didn’t realise you weren’t invited. I’m not invited, right? Leave it with me, people. I’m bringing Trina with me because we cannot make these decisions without her. Why am I doing that? Why am I putting my social and political capital on the line for you? Because I trust you. Because I know you. I respect you and the work that you do. So we’ve really got to activate these networks and activate these allies within the business. And we do that through great work. And we also do it by demonstrating often our great work.
You need to be clear on what your superpowers are, Michelle says
Trina Sunday: Yeah. And I think an extension of that is what you touched on earlier as well, though, about being clear on what that is. And so, yes, something I talk with clients about is you need to know what your superpowers are that you want people to know about. You need to know what it is that you bring and the problems that you can solve. And you need for people to know personally, kind of why it fires you up or why it lights you up in terms of kind of why you’re passionate about being in the room for that conversation. Like, when people have a clear and compelling understanding around what you bring, who you are and why you want to show up, then it’s not left for confusion. Right. We say confused buyers never buy. It’s the same in networking. Like, if I go to networking things sometimes and I have people say, oh, Trina, I’d really like to talk with you. And the trainer in me is just kind of like, why?
Michelle Redfern: Yeah.
Trina Sunday: And there’s literally crickets. I’m not that rude when I say it, but it’s kind of like when I go back to people and say, talk to me about what it is that you want us to talk about or how you think. And there’s just. And sometimes from a business perspective, that can just be. Sometimes people don’t know what it is they need, but they know that they need you.
Michelle Redfern: Yep.
Trina Sunday: That’s a flattering place in business to be, but that’s where I work with my clients on that, though. like, you’ve got to be clear in what the narrative is that you want it to be, because you have a brand, whether you like it or not, and you either take control of it or you don’t. And that requires deliberate intention.
Michelle Redfern: I feel like you just espouse my be your own CEO workshop because that’s exactly, exactly what I say is you’ve got a brand, whether you like it or not. Take control of it and you can rewire it, you can transform your brand. So if you know that people have got this impression of you and your function right now and you don’t like that, well, number one, work out what it is because some people might not even know. And that’s the first thing. How am I perceived by the most important stakeholders in my business? Go and find out, then. Do I like that or not? Maybe not. What am I going to do about it? Have a plan. And that’s a strategy, right? Have a plan. So what am I going to do? Every forum I go to, I’m going to make sure I have one value add statement to make now, people. M well, how am I going to do that, Michelle? By being prepared, by knowing how the business runs. Prepare for that meeting. Know who’s going to be in the meeting, know what the agenda is going to be. Know exactly where you’re going to make a statement and add value to it. Oh, how will I know that? Stop being bloody busy and spend some time preparing. Bright preparation prevents piss ball performance. Hello. That’s what we’ve got to do. This is the really simple, actionable stuff that HR practitioners, no matter what their career stage is, can take. Prepare for every forum you’re going into so that you can be not just a passive onlooker but a strategic contributor to the outcomes that are desired from that forum.
Trina Sunday: Absolutely. And I think from a brand perspective, I also am reflecting, as you talk there, on the fact that a lot of the time, people only know you in the context they know you and what the work you’re doing right now. And I’ve done this myself in terms of my rebrand and journey. Right. There’ll be listeners or people that have worked with me that might be listening to this episode and say, that’s not how Trina was showing up when she was an in-house HR at that time. That would be true in early career.
Michelle Redfern: Right.
Trina Sunday: But there’s a growth and learning that happens from there’s people that are listening and that have been reaching out to me, that worked with me when I was in my twenties. I’m like, I’m in my mid forties. Like, I’m going into my late forties. Like, there’s a lot of runs on the board here. Like, there’s a lot of work that’s been done. But it’s interesting that people hang on to that view of you that they had at that time that they knew you.
Michelle Redfern: This is really interesting because we’ve just recorded an episode about being frozen in time.
Trina Sunday: Oh, have you?
Michelle Redfern: That? This is really spooky.
Trina Sunday: We are so connected and you’re so right.
Michelle Redfern: And I said, oh, I was a. My first management gig, I was 22 years old. I thought I was a bloody rock star. And I made a retrospective apology to those people today.
Trina Sunday: I did too.
Michelle Redfern: One of my earlier podcasts. I’m so sorry. I thought I was amazing. I was really quite shit. But you know what? There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, Trina. And humans evolve. We all evolve and grow and develop. So again, I think this is a really good point for your listeners. What’s the file that people have on you in their head? And if it’s from ten years ago, as ten years ago, Michelle or Trina, that’s not today, update their filing system. Hey, did you know boom Boom Boom. It’s so important that we remain relevant, contemporary, and this is where we use the tools available to you. If you were looking at a pure branding marketing thing, you’d be saying, right. What would be my strategy? I’ve got to make sure that I’m seen in the markets that I’m playing in by my potential buyers, really clearly for the value that I add. So I’ve got to show up where they are, use LinkedIn, use your internal forums, as I said, go to every forum prepared to demonstrate your expertise and the way you move the business forward.
Don says it’s important to understand what people’s perceptions of HR are
Trina Sunday: Yeah, I think it’s really poignant as well, what you say about understanding what the perceptions are, and you touched on someone from inside the boardroom. And I know I listen to your lead to soar podcast, and you did one recently around recruiting in the HR revolution for the modern executive. And I was triggered and put some things on LinkedIn around the fact, because there were comments about HR being mean girls. And I think there’s an element of this where we have to lean in, though, right? It’s like, what is that perception? And what is that thing that happened that time that has absolutely dominated someone’s perception of you? And I can guarantee if you reflect on it, it’ll be something where you made that person feel something, most of the time not positive. So, for example, where we have our internal clients that love us in HR, it’s because we’ve made them feel supported. We’ve set them up for success. We’ve made things feel more effortless. We have helped them solve problems. We have made them feel more comfortable in terms of, and more equipped in terms of what they needed to do. So they felt we’ve given them confidence, feeling words, right? Where we have this perception brand of not being a positive or a partner in the business, it’s the frustration, it’s the roadblock, it’s the bum police, because we made people feel like they couldn’t, be in the moment the way that they were being in the moment, or that that police connotation. It’s because we made them feel constrained. We were the ones that were stopping or thwarting progress. And so I think it’s trying to figure out what are the things we do that make people feel that. And then you look at how you reposition it. But as you say, I like the filing idea of knowing, taking stock of if one of my strategic allies I need to build in the business is a CFO. And I know I had this thing a year ago with the CFO where we had a big disagreement about how to do x. You need to acknowledge that to know, well, how are you going to shift that impression?
Michelle Redfern: Yeah. And that is all very valid, and that is very good advice. It is putting the onus all on HR, though. And I actually want to put a bit of the onus back on management, back on the CEO and their team as well, because all too often I see the non HR business leaders making the bullets and expecting HR to fire them. I’ve got a notable one at the moment in one of my client organisations, which I’m really unimpressed about. And it’s like, it’s a little bit like I want to be the good time leader. Oh. But of course, HR told me I can’t do that, have the gumption to say, we’ve got to make some business decisions here and we’re going to make them, and I’m not going to default to, well, of course HR made me say that. That’s bullshit. And that’s not collegiate, it’s not ethical, and it does the HR team a disservice. And it’s a gross, gross abuse of power as far as I’m concerned. So my call to action here for leaders is don’t always use the HR function as yours, can you go and do the shitty stuff for us, please? Because you know what? Being a leader is not a popularity contest. And if you try to please all of the people all the time, we know how that ends up. You can be a decisive, inclusive, amazing leader and still have to do hardship. And you shouldn’t always give that hard shit to HR to do, because that’s just not fair. I understand, particularly from an IR and an ER perspective that we have, particularly in Australia, we’ve got a bunch of. We’ve got a heavily regulated industrial relationship system. It’s complicated, no news to any of you. So we need absolute expertise there. And we do need to make sure that we are lawful in the way that we run our businesses. But compliance is just one bit, right. Don’t make everything about compliance. We’ve got hard things to do. Take ownership for it. Don’t make it HR’s problem. And that includes your performance conversations. Have them early, not later. Oh, my God.
Trina Sunday: That’s a whole other podcast. Sorry.
Michelle Redfern: Yeah.
Trina Sunday: But I think that the core of that, though, is where. And it’s why I did start the conversation by exploring with you where you saw leaders. And it’s why I started that conversation there, because I think that that’s the reality in the backdrop that HR are trying to navigate. Right. We are no different to anyone else trying to navigate a toxic culture. And so if we have a blame oriented or an avoidant culture, or there’s inertia and no decisions get made, or there’s scapegoating, that happens. HR wielding the axe on behalf of a gutless leader. HR are having to morph to survive in that environment as well. And then when we have leaders who are contributing to that culture, then it’s a difficult space to be in. So I think you’re absolutely right. It’s not for HR to do all the heavy lifting. But I think we can’t just leave it to others to fix it, though. So I think we’re not necessarily the ones that are broken, similar to what we talked about with gender equity. It’s the system that’s broken. And I would agree that from a culture and leaders stepping up, I agree that that’s where we’ve got the balance wrong. But I think if we leave it all to someone else, nothing’s going to change. And that’s where I don’t think we’ve had enough deliberate intent to change things for the better for ourselves.
Michelle: I really want to see the business be reimagined
Loving this chat. Michelle, one final question for you, if I may. What does reimagining HR look like to you?
Michelle Redfern: Well, I see, reimagining HR for me kind of captures what you just said. And I actually had a very well formed answer and now I’ve changed my mind. What I’m going to say, I really want to see the business be reimagined, not just HR. And I think that there’s such an opportunity for us as business leaders to be so much better and to move from, in some workplaces, early 19th century mindsets and practises. I want to watch people walk in the door, I want to see them blah, blah. I want to see the entire business transform to say, you know what, how do we help people, teams and the organisation reach its full potential? We’ve all got a role in that. So how does HR transform? I think there’s a lot of letting go of perhaps the stuff that gave us a bit of comfort in years gone by, the transactional, compliance driven stuff, because you know what’s going to get automated. Anyway, I’m sorry, but what you’re doing today, there’s going to be some kind of computer doing it in the short term. So I’d like to see HR leaders go, how can I help with the entire business transform? And that’s a hard question to answer. So do I know what the immediate steps are? Absolutely not, because our velocity of change has never been so rapid and it’s not slowing down. So, business, unless you’re running a warehouse full of robots, we’ve got people to manage and people are messy and complicated and flawed and unreal and annoying and fabulous and every other describing word that you can possibly find. And as a bunch of leaders, HR business leaders, people leaders, whatever we want to call ourselves, we all need to work together on making workplaces work. And I’d like to see HR be really bold about having those conversations. Now, there’s going to be a whole bunch of things that need to go with it including coming back to your very first question, how’s leadership? Highly variable. We’re going to narrow that variability and I think HR has got a really big role to play in advocating for that, not doing it, because this is half the problem as well, Trina. The demands on people eaters are so high now that I think the HR business partners are picking up a lot of that slack and that’s why they’re so busy. So that’s what I’d like to see. I’d like to see the entire business transform and HR be a part of that transformation.
Reimagine HR looks at how we show up for our people
Trina Sunday: Love it. Thanks, Michelle. Appreciate your time. Chat soon. Thanks, Rena, thanks for tuning in and leaning in to this week’s episode as we look to reimagine how we show up for our people, organisations and community. Reach out to us via our website at reimaginehr.com.au with your HR horror stories or suggestions of people you’d love to hear from or topics you want to explore.
It’s all about people, purpose and impact and we are here for all of it.
Until next time, take care, team.
