Strategic HR Matthew Taylor in conversation with...
Matthew Taylor
in conversation with...
Ann Pickering
JENNY ROPER listens in as the RSA chief executive and
O2 CHRO discuss pressing employment and social issues
was a manager’s dining room… If you
look at modern progressive
organisations now it is much more of a
partnership. Your employees need to
understand what your business is; you
need to make sure that they’re engaged
and happy.
MT: One of the things that’s interesting
to me is that HR occupies somewhere
on a spectrum of being friends of
management or friends of the staff. And
I’ve come to realise that’s a really
important question. There isn’t a right
answer of course.
AP: My role as a leader of the company
is to ensure it’s successful. So my
allegiance will lie with the shareholder:
our Spanish parent company. But I have
a duty of care, along with my colleagues,
to the 6,500 people we employ. I don’t
see it as one or the other… I think if you
start deciding which side of the line you
sit on you’re in big trouble.
MT: Do you think there is a
commonality to work satisfaction?
Or are there fundamental differences
in people’s attitudes, expectations
and aspirations?
AP: There might be different
aspirations but I think fundamentally
people want the same things out of a
role. They want to be reasonably well
paid, to be in control… I don’t segment
the way I talk to employees. The
messages we send go to everyone.
MT: But I think sometimes there’s a
danger of a kind of tyranny of saying
‘this is how you ought to feel about
work’. Some people don’t want
autonomy. What matters is getting a
wage. And there’s lots of evidence that
most people value being part of a team.
AP: Yes, and you need those sorts of
people. You’ve also got people who say
‘I want to be the next CEO’. There’s
definitely room for all. If everyone
wanted to be CEO we’d have a problem.
MT: I know the engagement levels
you’re achieving are really high. But
also what’s interesting is what’s
underneath the top line – how the
different parts of the organisation are
working, the different cultures. So you
use your engagement tool presumably
not just as a mirror on how well you’re
doing but also as a tool for change?
AP: So we have people champions in
different parts of the business and they
go out and dig under the surface to ask:
what does this mean? Then as a board
we’ll sit down and put in various plans.
MT: One of the things I said in my
report the Taylor Review into modern
working practices was that it would be
good practice for employers to all be
encouraged to publish engagement
statistics – not in great granularity
because that’s not fair on individual
managers. And also to use robust
research methodologies. Do you think
that would be a good idea, so someone
For the last in our three-part series
with chief exec of the RSA and our
second HR Most Influential Thinker
2018 Matthew Taylor, it seemed only
fitting to put him in conversation with
2018’s Most Influential Practitioner
Ann Pickering, CHRO and chief of
staff at O2. Aside from Pickering
accidentally insulting West Brom, we
think it went rather well…
Matthew Taylor (MT):
Presumably part of your journey in HR
Ann has been to become very much
core to the business?
Ann Pickering (AP): I say to
my team you can’t be a good HR
professional unless you understand
your business. About 18 months ago
my boss asked me to do a chief of staff
role as well. That’s been the icing on the
cake because I’m getting involved in a
lot of stuff that bears no relation to HR.
MT: So will your next role be running
an entire organisation?
AP: I think next would be a chief of
staff role in totality, leaving HR behind.
But the next role is interesting because
working for O2 is like playing for
Liverpool. So I don’t think I could do
another job in the corporate world
because that would be like playing for
West Brom.
MT: You do know I support
West Brom don’t you? Anyway…
on your career journey where have your
ideas changed?
AP: When I started my career in
M&S it was a very paternalistic
organisation, it was very formal; there
Pickering and
Taylor discussed
HR’s role in
business,
engagement,
and the
ever-shifting D&I
agenda, among
other things
32 HR June 2019 hrmagazine.co.uk
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