Episode 104: How HR can be a Partner and a Coach to the Business (Mambu's Chief People Officer, Charlie Johnston)
On this week’s episode of the podcast, I am talking to Charlie Johnston, Chief People Officer at Mambu. Throughout our conversation, Charlie shares his illuminating perspective on how HR can partner effectively with the business and the role of HR in supporting business leaders and their teams.
We also discuss:
The differences between running HR in a large company and a smaller startup environment
The capabilities that HR needs to be successful in the future
How to make sure that HR is always focused on supporting the business strategy
The future for employee experience and how technology will support this
Support for this podcast comes from 365Talents. You can learn more by visiting https://365talents.com.
You can listen to this week’s episode below, or by using your podcast app of choice, just click the corresponding image to get access via the podcast website here.
Interview Transcript
David Green: Today, I am delighted to welcome Charlie Johnston, Chief People Officer at Mambu, to The Digital HR Leaders podcast.
Welcome to the show, Charlie, it is great to have you on. Can you provide listeners with a brief introduction to you and your current role at Mambu?
Charlie Johnston: Fantastic, David, thank you so much for the opportunity to come along here today and talk to you.
Yeah, I am Charlie. I am the Chief People Officer here at Mambu. We are a series E scale up, in the core banking software space, where we offer a cloud-based software solution. And I would like to say, we are disrupting the traditional rules of banking. Right now we are getting close to a thousand employees. We are about 11 years old, we have had phenomenal growth in the last couple of years.
I joined last June, to support Eugene Danilkis, our co-founder and CEO and I do your typical CPO role.
David Green: Which we will definitely dive into a little bit, but you have had quite a journey to get to Mambu and so I would love to hear a little bit about your career history and how you even got into HR in the first place.
Charlie Johnston: Happy to do that. So when I was growing up, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. My Grandfather was this amazing role model for me, he was a businessman in Scotland and he had such great philosophies on life, on leadership, and on organisations and teams. I guess, I got fascinated by just his wisdom and what he had to share with us. He was always like, get into business and be open to what opportunities are.
So I did a business studies degree and part of that degree, you did a placement. I was lucky enough to be put into IBM, as part of an industrial placement. I spent some really quality time there with their personnel department at the time, and learned a lot about all the different kind of roles within the people function. At the end of my assignment there, they basically offered me a placement on their HR leadership program.
I have only worked at IBM, Cisco, and Mambu, and I have been working for 20 plus years, but I would say in my career, both at IBM and Cisco, that I had multiple chapters. There were different roles that I would do. Particularly at IBM, there was this really active involvement in your career and getting you to move around and experience different things. That is what really appealed to me at the beginning of my HR career, but later on I realised I really love this whole business partnering piece, working with a business leader, helping support them and their teams. Through the various roles I had, over the years at IBM, it came to a point where it was like, it is time for me to get out of my comfort zone and do something else. I was actually at the top of my game, I think, at IBM. A lot of people were like, why are you leaving at this point in time? And I was like, just because I feel like it is time for something else.
Cisco came along and there was an opportunity to be the HR Director for the UK. I did that for a few years, then I went on to be the EMEA VP of HR. Then the opportunity came up with Cisco, to go to corporate and take on a global HR leadership role. And I did that back in 2015, myself and my partner, we moved to California. I did that basically from 2015 to 2021 and then last year I had this appetite to get back to Europe, from a personal perspective, but I also wanted to do something different. And again, a lot of people were like, why are you leaving right now? But I just felt that the time was right for me to push myself to go and do something else and I didn't want to do another corporate role in the same way. I knew I wanted to work in a more scale-up type environment. I knew I probably wanted like Series D. I was really looking for some of them that was European headquartered.
I had had some good advice from my mentor, to go for something that is probably 500 plus employees at the stage you join. The most important thing for me when I was looking at the role was, what is the appetite of the leader, to progressive HR? I am not an administrative HR person. I want to come in and transform.
That was the opportunity here at Mambu. Eugene said “look, I know we need to transform our people and culture agenda. I don't quite know what to do. I am needing someone that can help me do that.”
It was just the perfect role for me, at the perfect time.
David Green: I know we are going to delve into that relationship that you have or are forming with the CEO, because that is something that a lot listeners will be interested in. The excitement, the opportunities and maybe some of the challenges of working with a founder CEO.
But obviously you worked at Cisco and IBM, for quite a long time. Well, for most of the 20 years. They are, rightly, recognised as two of the more progressive organisations when it comes to HR, big organisations.
What I would love to understand maybe, what are some of the main differences or even similarities that you have found working in HR in a big global company and HR in a fast growing company like Mambu?
Charlie Johnston: What I think David, is that there is more that is similar, than there is not and I think that is probably my biggest learning as I have come in here. We are trying to hire the best talent. We are trying to get people to collaborate more effectively together. We are trying to put people and culture at the centre of business strategy. We are thinking about whether the organisational structure is going to meet the changing demands of our customers. We are thinking about succession. We are thinking about team dynamics, inclusion and diversity. Getting the right balance of running the business with changing the business as a people function. We are really thinking about how we can maintain that entrepreneurial spirit that has got Mambu to where we are today, but also how do we globalise and scale. How do we make sure we have got those leaders that can lead for us for two to three years, not just today. And of course managing the geopolitical, social, and demographic issues, so responding to everything that is going on in the world. So I would essentially say, 800 people or 30,000 people, it is essentially the same issues we face.
I think the big difference, and everyone told me this but nothing prepared me for it, is the pace. The pace is relentless, it really is. I think our business is doubling in size every 12 to 18 months. The growth within roles, we need people to out pace the company. So you are having to really push yourself, stretch yourself, and really attracting talent that can do that, I think is a major issue for us. We need leaders who are very comfortable with tons of ambiguity, tons of change, tons of uncertainty. I have always worked in organisations where that has been, absolutely, the thing I would say about them too, but here it just feels like there is really significant polarities, contradictions. We need to move fast, but actually we need to just slow down for a second and just think before we make that decision. And plan a bit better. We need to really drive this global piece because we have this big aspiration and we need to not lose sight of who we really are, as a company and what we are doing, in terms of how we are driving sustainability. Those are the things that I think I have struggled with, if I am honest, at times, David. I am like, wow, this is just intense. But that is the growth, that is the moments when I go, this is why you came here, Charlie. This is all about seeing whether you can do this and learning and growing and then building your resilience. That is the part that has been so exciting about it.
David Green: You talked about culture there, obviously Cisco and IBM have well established cultures, but in a company such as Mambu, which is doubling in size every 12 to 18 months, culture has to evolve even faster. I guess everyone owns culture within an organisation, but the chief people officer’s role and the people team's role is very important in culture.
Charlie Johnston: Yeah. Look, the big difference with big organisations like IBM and Cisco, where it's very common that you will meet people who have got 10, 20, 30 years of service, as you come to somewhere like Mambu, where our average length of service right now is 14 months. We have got people who are new to this place and just joined in the last few weeks and we have got people who have been here since it was two employees and it was 10 years ago, and they are all in this together. The culture is, I would say right now, going through a bit of a reset. Where we are really siting here thinking, okay, the leadership that has got us to here is probably not the leadership that is going to take us to where we want to go.
And I think that is a difference and I definitely see that we are having to think very creatively about, what is our leader at Mambu, in this next chapter? How do we get really clear about that and how do we make some really quite difficult decisions.
I think in smaller companies, David, that those decisions are so much more visible. You really see them, you feel them, because of the size and impact of them. And a big part, I think, of our request of our leaders right now, myself included, is this choosing to be courageous, choosing to not just go for the easy option, the comfortable option, even when you think, oh my God, can we take on any more change? Having the ability to push yourself.
I have to be honest, it is one of the things I am loving right now, about the leaders I am working with. I think there is a lot of people who have just operated in this kind of environment and it is like water off a duck's back. They are like, this is what happens, this is where we are going. We are going to see some fallout, but it is okay. I think that is the opportunity for the people function right now, to really be embracing that leadership right now, in this moment, has changed beyond all recognition.
COVID sped up so much. I think the rules of leadership have significantly changed and I think there is a lot of leaders who are hoping that we go back to yesteryear and I genuinely think we are not going back. I certainly don't think employees wants to go back there and I think those leaders of tomorrow, are really recognising that. They are really thinking about, how do we create that kind of leadership with heart? How do we really start to think about trust? How do we start to really get ahead of our people, be there for our people, and be servants to our people? And to me, Cisco or Mambu, that is the opportunity for the HR professionals right now, is to really grasp that evolution of leadership.
David Green: This is the probably generally speaking now, that opportunity for the people teams to set the pace around that, it is never easy, but in some respects, is it easier in a smaller company than it is in big companies? I am just thinking, again I am not talking about IBM specifically, but IBM has 300,000 odd employees, to turn round. The way that leadership, they want people in the office, they want to be able to see them, they don't feel they are productive if they are not there. I am not saying that is what IBM thinks, it is not, but in a smaller company such as Mambu, is that easier to turn around do you think?
Charlie Johnston: I don't know that it actually is David, and I think that is probably one of my surprises.
I think whether it is 300 people, 50,000 people, it is human beings trying to change the way they do things. And I think there is probably a lot more about, in smaller companies, you are just so used to come in together, you are used to off-sites where you would all physically get to the same place. And then this new world, you have got all these new people coming in and you are no longer doing some of these things. So I do think there is similarities and there are some differences, but I think this is, again, I go back to this is the opportunity to really listen. I just literally came off a session with my team, and I have deliberately reframed my “all hands” to “all ears” I am making this point that I really want to listen. I really want to hear your perspectives. Let's use the technology to check in on where you are. Let’s really assess what is happening right now for us. So we actually just used the change curve. We said, where are you using technology in the change curve? Give me your perspective of what is going on and trying to reach out to them and then having someone come in and do some team coaching, and to say, here are some of the things that are probably going on right now. Let's address how we might work together to solve some of these things.
Then also putting people outside of their comfort zone as well, in those moments. This is a great thing about technology, we literally put people into breakouts with people that they didn't know and with other teams, so we got them to get to know each other and think about how they can help each other.
I would say, those same issues of building trust, cross-functional collaboration, moving at pace, they are the same in any company.
I think it really is about, in this moment, how we all just acknowledge that there's stuff going on in the world and this is the opportunity for HR and people teams of today and tomorrow, and sort of getting into that and moving away from transactional work. Because it is really easy to go back to what we know and go and police things and measure things. Let's be honest, David, you know this better than anyone, that work is all going to be done by a machine in the future. The great work, I think, of right now and in the future is this let’s really get amongst what is really going on from a social capital perspective. How do we influence that? How do we drive change? How do you get people connected to the opportunity and how do we work in this fundamentally different way, where we are all challenged as well?
I think there is not a single person, not challenged with everything that is going on in the world. Just as we get through COVID, there is all sorts of stuff going on in Ukraine right now. How does that impact our people?
So, I think there is a lot happening. I think it is not easy and I actually think there is just much more that is similar then there is not.
David Green: Maybe a lesson to leaders is, and it sounds like you are definitely embracing this. More listening, less talking.
Charlie Johnston: And that is hard because I think it is also two way listening, David. I think part of the change we are going through right now, certainly what I see, is as we are maturing and we are scaling and a good mentor of mine talked to me about this idea that, when you start getting to a 500 people business and you are starting to globalise and you are starting to get ready to go public, you start to put in place things that public companies have. And some people just don't like that. They like the chaos, they like the real freedom, the lack of structure, and some people will fall out. We are definitely seeing that right now.
I think there is a bit about, we need to listen and there is also, but we need to have a very adult conversation. Like “this is where we are going. We hear you but some of this stuff, for these reasons, is happening. We want to try and do everything we can to work with you and to make this a great experience for you, but this is the direction of travel”
And let's be honest, if this is not what you want to do, let's have that conversation. And that is okay. Everyone should be able to fulfil their potential, whatever way is important to them.
I think that is the important thing right now, is that those adult to adult conversations are really the listening and having those conversations where you can both hear each other's perspectives. Not hear to respond, but hear to really, deeply, listen and then have this sort of, okay how do we move forward? How do we start a contract what is right for you versus me?
David Green: You said Charlie, that one of the things you found that you particularly enjoyed earlier in your HR career, and obviously carried that through, was the business partnering piece, working directly with the business. Obviously at Mambu, you are working directly with a founder CEO. How is that different to working with the executives you have worked with at bigger companies? And what are some of the best qualities that you have seen in a leader and the role of HR in supporting them?
Charlie Johnston: Yeah. Look, I love my role and I think the business partnering piece of my role is the bit I probably enjoy the most. And I think over the course of my career, I have had the privilege of working with some of the best leaders ever, who have been great for different reasons. Every one of them has had different strengths, brought different energy in different ways, and had different opportunities for growth and as a HR professional, that is part of your challenge. To work out, where am I going to play? How am I going to add value to them? How am I going to compliment them? You have got to be their conscience. You have got to be their coach. You have got to build that sort of relationship of trust. You have got to be able to push them, hold up the mirror, challenge them and you have got to be independent. You play a role, particularly in the CPO role, where the board will ask for your opinion on the performance of your boss. You have got to get that balance right and be objective and authentic.
I always say, I think the CEO role is a lonely role. And that for me is the starting point. You go, okay, all of our roles are tough. How do I add value to those leaders? So it is the same formula, I would say, big company or small company.
Working with a founder CEO, for me was the growth area. I have mostly worked with very experienced executives, who have worked in large global firms.
Eugene has worked predominantly here. This has been his baby for the last 11 years. And what I admire about him, he is a co-founder and so is a couple of others, one is still in the business and one is now outside of the business. But he and they have got this business to recently be valued at 5 billion. We are about to hit one thousand people. There was times and they tell the stories of times when they couldn't pay themselves. They didn't know whether it was going to work. Lots of highs but a number of lows as well. And so I admire his tenacity and ability to adapt.
I know we were talking to this earlier, David, we can have all sorts going on where I am like, wow, how are we going to get through this? He is absolutely, we are going to get through this Charlie. This is the next chapter, we are going for this.
So I just love this partnership that we have and I think what has been really appealing for me is that openness he has got to say, I know we want to do things differently. I don't quite know what I don't know. I need to bring certain new players in around me, to help me step into this next chapter and I am really open to thinking about what we might want to do. So where do you think we can go in the next three to four years? Let's work together on this. The non-negotiable for me, in all of these jobs, is always the leader that I support, is the leader. They are there for a reason. And I think it can be very easy, particularly in a scale-up environment, to start to take things away from that leader and say, oh I will do that for you. I will make it easy for you. What I am always really clear on is, you are the leader, I am here to facilitate, I am here to coach, I am here to support, I am here to tell you how I might do it, but you need to do it. And I think that is the beautiful thing about working with Eugene, he is like yeah, tell me how to do it. Let's work together, let's build this next chapter and he is pushing me.
So David, we had a situation where I thought I was being quite innovative and pushing the boundaries and he was like, I don’t think you are pushing nearly enough, I want us to be out there. Which was like music to my ears. I love to innovate so it is like having someone who is really pioneering going, well that is following what everyone else is doing, I want to be that company that is doing something that no one else is doing. So I am like, right, we are going to go and do that.
So that has been great for me.
I think every leader has brought me something different and that is the growth opportunity and I think that is a major part of what is important about this role. And then I think that integrity of the role you play. I would hope that if you talked to any of the leaders I have supported over the years, they would say, look, Charlie does this in service of supporting me, but he is also not afraid to do the tough things as well, hold up the mirror, challenge me, coach me, support me in a very very supportive way, sort of being in it together. I think that is really critical.
David Green: When we come back in just a moment, Charlie talks about his role as a chief people officer and how he is trying to create an exceptional employee experience at Mambu.
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Welcome back to this episode of The Digital HR Leaders Podcast with Charlie Johnston. Now back to the conversation. And then let’s expand a little bit more about your role as CPO then, you have talked about some of this already. What attracted you to the environment? I think we covered that a little bit. What do you hope to achieve there and maybe what you hope to achieve there in the context of making the future of work count?
Charlie Johnston: Yeah. The opportunity I think for Mambu right now is, we want to make banking better. And our technology is behind the scenes, enabling a lot of the new fintechs and enabling a lot of the traditional banks. And let's be honest, David, banking has got to get better for us all as consumers. It is still not as intuitive as it should be and really focused on us as customers. So that has been the primary goal of the business and what I have been talking to Eugene about is, I believe our secondary goal is not as important as that goal is, being that role model to our customer of employing people in a fundamentally different way. Of basically creating a different employee experience and people looking at us and going okay, wow. They are doing some pretty cool things over there, that maybe others thought you couldn't do. And the great thing is, that is the openness here. Mambu was actually one of the first companies in Europe to think about the four day work week. We were doing that many years ago, we did it first in the summer and started to look at what we could do to expand that. We are in the middle of going, could we do more than that? And I think this is a good example of, what might be beyond the four day work week. It feels like a lot of people are doing that now so what is the next thing beyond that?
I have no idea, we are kind of thinking that through right now.
The thing that excites me about Mambu, I think is this ability to tie the transformation we are going through ourselves, to the business strategy, that kind of idea that we might be over there with customers, modelling it. And then I think for me, it was the thing about culture. I had talked to a number of companies but this one felt different to me. There was something quite unique about it. A] It is very global, we are in 30 countries. There is a lot of diversity. I think there is a real human, heart led, type of culture here. It is a very collaborative culture. I think this company has always really aspired to do some really big things and I think for me as well, as I came in here and talked to people, there was just this opportunity for the function to step up to more than just a transactional function. To be that transformational function, to be the function that is sort of front and centre of the change we are trying to drive. And the other big thing for me was, knowing now what I know about work, was how could I get as close as possible to the headquarters and be back in Europe? And so for me, that was another big thing I was thinking about, when I was looking at roles. Obviously as a European headquartered based firm, that has been a big thing for me because I want to be able to be at the centre, trying to drive the change and I think that is really critical and being close to the leadership team as well. I think I said to you earlier on in this David, I wanted something different. And I remember saying to a couple of recruiters, I am just going to know when I am going to know. And they were like, what does that mean? And I was like, I am going to go with my gut and I am in this wonderful position where I can do that. There was lots of great opportunities but this one, for some reason, just felt like this is going to be hard work and I like that. It was also like, where's is it going to go? I want to be part of that. I want to start trying to shape that.
And that is the beautiful thing about working in a smaller firm, you can really see the impact of who you recruit, the kind of teams you have got, the strategy you have got, you can really start to feel that. So that is probably why I went for this job at this moment in time.
David Green: And great as a chief people officer coming in, coming into a company that is prepared to be innovative and try things, like four day working weeks and aspire to do more different things. Which I guess acts as a great tool to attract, develop and retain talent as well.
Charlie Johnston: Yeah, definitely. And I think we are working through exactly what are the opportunities for us. What do our people want. Listening to them and do real deep listening of what is important to this new company. It does feel like a new company and lots of people who have been there for a long time are saying, we have got people who have grown up with us but this company has shifted, so how do we shift alongside with them, I think is really critical. The important thing in these kind of roles as well, is the balance of the day-to-day, operational with the strategic, visionary and where we want to go. You do have to be much more hands-on in a scale-up environment. You have to be willing to roll your sleeves up. And, again, I think when you come from a big company where you have got well set up, great infrastructure, great technology, great data, you come to something else and you go God, how do we get things done?
But you can see, again, see the opportunity. Let’s go and try some things out and you can do it very quickly as well, which is all the stuff that I am really enjoying.
David Green: Where is another example perhaps, of best practice in one of your previous roles, that maybe you are looking to build on or replicate at Mambu? Or is it something different maybe, that you are looking at doing?
Charlie Johnston: I do think that a lot of the work that was done at Cisco around, what does great team work like? How is leadership evolving? I think that was definitely leading edge at that time and I think a lot of companies are catching up. I think it is so relevant, particularly in this sort of dynamic world, how are teams forming. The fact that there is more agility. That we are using technology. People aren't coming together. So I feel like there is an opportunity to take some of that rich learning from then, which was based on a study we did of the best teams and then replicated that.
I think there is probably something similar we want to do here at Mambu.
And then I think, a lot of the work we did in the last couple of years at Cisco, in driving inclusion and diversity into absolutely everything and really leaving no stone unturned on, what you might challenge, the things you might do differently, to basically drive to that much more equitable workplace. I think there is a lot we are thinking about what can we do here, in this environment as well.
I think, just the whole way you use technology to drive a score card to predict things, to start pushing that into leaders as well, to nudge them to do things. I feel like there is a lot around that, that I 100% am bringing in to this place and saying look, this is our opportunity.
I think for Mambu, the differentiation is really going to be around how we scale, how we attract talent, how we employ talent, our talent brand. It is much harder when you are a much smaller company, how do you build that. So there is a lot we can do that can be quite innovative in that space.
I touched on it earlier, David, but a big piece of work we are doing right now is really getting clear about who we are and actually not making that something that we make up an HR, or someone from some consultant comes in and tells us, but actually going out and listening to our people. What is it like here? What is great? What is holding us back? What is your biggest dream for this place? And actually really, helping co-create that sort of vision of the next two to three years.
So we are right in the middle of that, which I am really excited about as well because I think that is helping us have that north star, for all we do. I have done similar things in the past, but I think this is just such a unique opportunity in this moment.
David Green: Yeah. Otherwise people in HR or a brand agency come in, who is best to tell you what it is like, than the people that are working there.
Charlie Johnston: Yeah. And I think, what we are saying to our people right now, is we have created something, it is 99% created by them, but with some creative license around it, but taking all the words from their discussions. It is incredibly aspirational and people are saying, can we really be that company? And I am like, that is exactly why we are putting this our there. We want to be that company. We want to do things, can we say that? Can we be the that? And we are going to do it, we have got to believe we can do it. So that is the bit that is really exciting.
David Green: For someone listening to this, that is maybe working in senior HR in a big company at the moment and is maybe thinking about their next move. What would be your advice for someone coming from one of those larger organisations, who is looking to move into HR in a smaller organisation, what are some of the benefits and some of the challenges to consider?
Charlie Johnston: I do think that there is a lot that you get from working in a big company, that you shouldn't underestimate. I still think a lot of the learning from my formative years, even at IBM, I use today.
So I am a big advocate for if you can get the opportunity to go onto one of these HR leadership programs, in a big global player, and just learn about an organisation. It is just such a good opportunity because you probably get moved around more and you will learn about best practices and then you can take that to other places.
And I think the big thing is the timing. I would always say think fully before you want to go and do that. And for me personally, I felt like my career path was like, okay, there is probably one job I can do here and that one job probably won't come up anytime soon, so I can sit and wait or I can go and do something else and really push myself. And so that was where I was at.
And I think, just be aware in a scale-up that you are really going to need to roll your sleeves up. There really isn't these millions of people that are sat around and providing loads of support. There is a lot that you have to personally do and it is not maybe as sophisticated.
I think one of the things that I am learning right now is to build an ecosystem. So where once before, I had great mentors and a sort of infrastructure around me to support me within the people team, like peer level support. Even just thinking about that has made me think about, how am I going to get this kind of support because it is lonely. Yes, the CEO will help me from time to time but having that sort of person who has been there, done it, and got the t-shirt.
So getting that mentor externally, building that infrastructure of having people who are doing similar roles to me, around me, who are there to say, God, how are you dealing with us? What are you thinking of here? Has been really important to me. And I think probably one of the big things I would also say for us all to be thinking about, as HR professionals, is always to be thinking about, how does this become a stepping stone to whatever it is you want to do next? And I think it is so easy to say and it is much harder to do, that you might just go, I am going to go for this. But be quite picky. I remember being in one process for a role where I was just like, I just don't see the connection between me and the CEO, and that is so important. It is so important to this role that you are aligned philosophically. And I could feel myself getting lured in for other reasons. I had to be like, no no, this isn't the right thing. That was probably something more traditional and aligned to what people would expect me to do, but I don’t want to do that. If I am building out my portfolio of experiences to potentially, at some point, want to be a consultant. Being able to show you can work in different kinds of environments, at different stages, is an important part for what you need to do. So I think it's about, finding yourself a mentor, find someone who is in a company like the one you might want to go work for and go and really understand what is the job like. I definitely recommend moving around. I think it is interesting because there is a sort of bias if you are in a big company, I have been there in a big company who is trying to recruit, you see someone from a smaller company going, can they come here and operate in this environment? And I think there is a bias the other way. If you are from a big company, can you operate in a smaller company environment? I actually think we have got to break that down and challenge that, as HR professionals, but that probably starts with really thinking about yourself. What may stop you doing that? What might be the things you make up about what it is like over there and what might you get from doing that?
So just having that openness with yourself about what you are willing to do.
David Green: Yes and I think really make a great point there, who is going to be your big stakeholder when you come into any role in any organisation, who is going to be your key stakeholder and can you see yourself working with them or not? And as you did, if you have got any doubts, then maybe that is not the right route for you.
We hope you are enjoying this episode of The Digital HR Leaders Podcast. If you are looking to continue your learning journey, head over to myHR future.com and take a look at the, my HR future academy. It is a learning experience platform, supporting HR professionals to become more data-driven, more business focused, and more experience led.
By taking our short assessment, you will see how you stack up against the HR skills of the future. Then our recommended learning journeys, guide you every step of the way, helping you to close your skills gaps, deepen your knowledge and press play on your career. Now, let's get back to the conversation with Charlie, as he shares his perspective on what skills he thinks HR needs, to be successful in the future.
Really interesting as well, Charlie, at the end there you started breaking it down to almost a skill level. Understanding skills and that it is not necessarily, have they worked in a small company or a big company but more, what are the skills that they have got, that they could bring to a specific role? As a chief people officer now, yourself, what are you focusing on when it comes to building your HR team? And what are the capabilities generally that you think HR needs to be successful in the future?
Charlie Johnston: I think everything right now is about the experience and I think we are so focused quite often, as HR professionals, on our roles, what they are supposed to be all about, and not really talking about outcomes. And that has been around forever, but I think it is really happening right now, that becomes so critical, is what is the experience and what is the impact we are having. So I am always looking for people who really talk in a business like way about what they do, what they have done and the impact on the business, using metrics and data to tell that story.
I am always looking for people who are really technology savvy and who can understand the role that technology plays today in organisations and the way it is going to play tomorrow. Really, non-negotiable, for me, is that really strong consulting capability. So the ability to problem solve, analyse, pull together a compelling story, drive towards action. That is just so important for us to be credible in the boardroom, that kind of capability. And then for me, it is what we have talked about through all of this, the ability to use data and analytics to tell that story and to have that sort of foundation, is just again, non-negotiable.
Then the difference areas here is the whole leadership piece we talked about, we have to walk the talk as HR professionals. We need to be that emotionally and socially intelligent profession. We need to be in control of ourselves, leading ourselves, understanding ourselves, knowing what our strengths are. So having everyone playing to their strengths will create that better environment. Knowing it is all about relationships and it is challenging some of the traditional assumptions about things and knowing it is about the team, so that kind of us first rather than me first mentality.
So when I am looking, I'm really getting under the covers on, who are you? What shaped you? What have you learned about yourself? When did you last make a mistake? How are you on a team? How do you leave a team? How do you grow? What are you going to need from me in this kind of role?
I am really looking for that sort of depth of maturity, or, if it is a more junior role, a willingness to grow and a willingness to learn, that is just so critical as a non-negotiable for me when I am looking to fill my roles.
Now, added to all of that is the ability to deal with tons of ambiguity. And now I am kind of like, do you know what you are walking into here? You are going to experience so much change and so many places where we don't have answers, how are you going to handle that? And so I am just looking for examples of resilience and ability to manage oneself and have a good perspective, and a balanced perspective I think is really important too.
David Green: And a lot of the things you talked about there, business focus, strong consulting skills, experience led, putting the employee at the centre, analytical thinking, problem solving, data-driven. These aren't skills that are typically, although we both know HR professionals who do have those skills, but these are not skills typically associated with HR. There is quite a shift in the focus of the role. I think you talked about being less transaction-based and being more outcome focused, focused on what is the impact on the business. That is quite a change. How do you make sure that HR is closely linked to the business and supports the business goals? As a chief people officer, how do you make sure your business partners in particular, are aligned?
Charlie Johnston: For me, it has always been historically and still is to this day, contracting with those business leaders and their teams around them and really making sure that you are in the thick of all the conversations around the business strategy. And so, where is this business going and then you using your consulting capability to go, okay, that is the direction of travel. What does that mean from a people and culture perspective?
So bringing in those perspectives from outside, bringing in the data and insights, using that consulting capability to play back what you have heard and going well, here is my thoughts on some of the things that we should be focused on.
And then co-creating that because there is nothing worse than, you are in the nice meeting talking about business strategy and you go off, with your people team, to design something in a vacuum. I am always like, the people and culture strategies are owned by the leader that I support. I am here to facilitate and help support it, but you own it and that is what I think is really important.
Then of course, around all of that, you have to have metrics. So you have to go, how are we going to know whether we are being successful? And I think that is part of the challenge in our world, is it can sometimes be nebulous. I think we have got to take a step back. There is so much data available if you have got the right tools to go well that is not acceptable anymore. We really have to hold ourselves accountable.
Then I do think on this employee experience piece, I have this huge debate with people sometimes about, do we call ourselves a profession that is here in service of the business or not? I think we get so wrapped up in this intellectual debate, at the end of the day, we exist to support the business and we are here in service of the business, and I truly believe that. So we have to deliver the experiences that the business values, we need to hear their voice. We need to respond and listen to what they are thinking about, what we are doing. And, this is the balance piece, we have to also be okay. Part of what we do in service of the business is hold up the mirror. That is less tangible. I will often say to business leaders, tell me about your relationship with your business partner, all these great things... When did they last challenge you? That is important, but that sort of voice of reason, bringing value, challenging the system, challenging the status quo, I think is going to be part of how we hold ourselves accountable. I am not really sure how we measure that other than just watching that in action, David, and asking the questions and quantifying it through that. But I think in the future, that is the kind of thing technology will be able to help us understand, probably better, how we are all performing in that regard.
David Green: Maybe at Mambu or maybe at Cisco I guess, where have you seen a really good example of a program that has really helped drive the employee experience, that maybe has been co-created with employees?
Charlie Johnston: I think quite often, the listening that we want to do, we do, but we have maybe done less pervasively and actually potentially put your employees in the driving seat of the design.
What I have seen be very successful in the past, ok, blank sheet of paper. Tell us what you would do, how you would do this? To a bunch of random employees and really try and get to the bottom of what it is they really want. Because quite often people say they don’t like the reward strategy, okay, if you could design it, how would it be? What would it be?
So we are just doing that right now with a team here at Mambu, where there are these issues about our reward strategy. The conversation I had with the leader about it was, let's give them a pot of money and let them work out how they are going to distribute that at the end of the year. Is that a team thing? What are the goals? Let's just empower them with that money, we will just say we want to do X, Y, Z from a business perspective, you just work out how you are going to do that.
If that is a fair share to everyone, you can do that. If it is a different approach, you can do that.
It is funny to watch because we have done it and the employees are like, can you tell us? And it is like no, we are trying something new here.
So then thought ok well myself and the team, we will go produce something. I'm like, no, we are not going to do that, that is what we have done in the past and they don't like it. So let's really give them the chance, let’s pilot some things. So I have seen that be very successful, where you just trust people to be grown up and give them the tools to do it. And actually what I think we are finding out, we are in the middle of it right now, I think the solution that they are probably going to come up with is very similar to the one that we were thinking we were going to have. So it is like okay, now they have built it, maybe they will buy into it more. We will see what happens.
I think the opportunity that I have seen, particularly in the leadership space, I remember challenging a leader that I worked with for a long time, on doing something different in this whole emotional and social intelligence space. And she wanted data. She said, I want to see the data. What is this? And she wanted a business game. And I remember on this massive battle with her about, let's try something new. Let's just try something different and I have heard this great feedback about this particular leadership intervention with horses and going to an equestrian centre to do it. Now, this was a very senior leader in the company and they were pushing back. I didn’t have the data, I just had all this anecdotal evidence. I could see a couple of teams that had gone through this leadership intervention and there were definitely data around engagement. Anyway, we tried it. She came out of it and we had this amazing experience and I think everyone, myself included, best leadership development I have ever done. And she said after 40 plus years in the business, that was the best leadership development, I am glad you pushed me to do that.
It was one of those moments where I nearly gave up and I nearly went for the traditional route because I was like, why am I pushing this so hard? I didn’t even know if it was going to work, so I was also not quite sure myself. I think that is where right now, we as professionals are, back to this point I keep iterating, David, challenge yourself. In all of these things that we are doing right now, why are we doing that? Could we do some different and let's try it.
So I think the pilot piece to me, is a key thing for an HR professional, because you will get so much resistance when you try and do it at scale. Try it, see what happens and then try and launch globally.
David Green: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense.
Perfect lead into the last question, actually, Charlie. This one, we are asking everyone on the series. What is the role of technology in supporting employee experience?
Charlie Johnston: That to me is absolutely at the heart of it all. This is again, where the scale-up piece has been interesting for me. We were just about to implement a new ETS technology that we will have probably done and implemented in one to two months. That speed to adoption and implementation, is just at a rate that I have never seen. What I see here, right now, is all these disruptors, a bit like ourselves in our market, coming in with our point products. And I think what is going to be really important for HR people is to not just buy things for the sake of buying things and launch them, but to really take a step back and go, okay, what are you trying to do here? What is the overarching goal? And what is the architecture of things? But if you are not embracing technology I genuinely feel like you are going to do yourself out of a job very shortly, in this world and our profession, because I think it is changing everything. That idea of what Netflix did to the movie industry, that is happening right now, in our business. And I think it is like, okay, embrace it. Seize the opportunity, move yourself up the stack in terms of where you are adding value, and then be okay with this automation and digitisation that is going on.
Think about that experience that we love when we buy from Amazon, because it is just so simple, it is so intuitive, it makes our life so easy. And we are all still going, oh God, it just arrived. I just put that in my cart just a few hours ago and it is here. That experience, I think, is more and more expected, particularly the hybrid workplace, where people are going from Amazon to whatever they are doing transactionally with their employer and then expecting it to be a similar level of experience.
So I think we have got to start to embrace that. It is not easy. It is easy to say but it is much harder to do, but I think that is just a huge opportunity for our function.
David Green: And I guess it is also that scale that you talked about and that personalisation as well. Let's collect the right data, if we collect the right data, we can personalise it for employees as well.
Charlie Johnston: Absolutely.
David Green: Charlie, it has been a great discussion. I have really enjoyed listening to you and hearing your story and the work that you are doing at Mambu. Thanks for being a guest. How can listeners stay in touch with you, follow you on social media, if you do social media and find out more about Mambu?
Charlie Johnston: Yeah, absolutely follow me on social media. Reach out through social media. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It is great to just spend a bit of time reflecting on what has been going on in this last seven or eight months. It's been pretty intense, but really rewarding.
David Green: I would love to hear more, maybe in a year or two’s time, on the progress. It has been fantastic to listen to you Charlie. Thank you very much.
Charlie Johnston: Thanks, David. Have a good one.