Peer-to-Peer... with Jenny Shiers

In our latest Peer-to-Peer podcast, Julia speaks with Jenny Shiers, Chief People Officer at Unily, about crafting truly personalised employee experiences, reducing digital friction to unlock focus, and creating the organisational velocity needed to pivot quickly and deliver on strategy.

Transcript

Peer-to-Peer podcast with Jenny Shiers

Julia Paulding: 

Hello, you're listening to Peer-to-Peer. I'm Julia Paulding, Chief People Officer at Lewis Silkin. In this podcast, I sit down with senior leaders responsible for people and culture to explore how workplaces are keeping pace with the changing world of work, where we think it's all heading and what we can learn along the way. 

Today, I'm talking to Jenny Shiers, Chief People Officer at Unily. Unily is an award-winning employee experience platform that works with some of the world's largest enterprises to help move them faster and align their people. 

Jenny, it's wonderful to have you with us today. How are you? 

Jenny Shiers:

I'm very well, Julia, thank you. Thanks very much for having me. 

Julia Paulding: 

Absolute pleasure, I'm genuinely excited about our conversation today. We'll be delving deep into the heart of what makes organisations thrive - exploring how exceptional employee experiences can transform workplaces and also examining “organisational velocity” which you describe as the speed and adaptability with which businesses respond to change. I'm really looking forward to exploring all of this with you. 

But before we dive in, I'd love to hear more about your career journey. You started out as an employment lawyer, which is such an interesting foundation. What prompted the shift into HR, and how do you think your legal background has shaped your approach as a people leader?

Jenny Shiers: 

Well, that's a tricky question to get started with but yes, I started out life as an employment lawyer doing the same journey as lots of people - law degree, training contract, then worked for almost 10 years as an employment lawyer in the City. I worked with lots of tech companies during that time, and really enjoyed the environment, the pace. I did a couple of secondments too and really enjoyed the interactions and culture at those sorts of organisations. Of course, my main client group were HR professionals, so I really felt I built an affinity with the profession as well. When I eventually moved in-house to Salesforce, which was back in 2011, I really enjoyed the opportunity to be much more part of a business - it felt like a much more commercial role than being in private practice, you're really part of the decision-making team rather than being brought in when things go wrong as an employment lawyer. During my career there, I really enjoyed that and then after I was returning from my second maternity leave, after having had my daughter in 2017, I took the opportunity of a lateral move into the Salesforce HR team. I really enjoyed it and felt maybe I should have been doing it for a lot longer than I was. The rest, as they say, is history. I’ve really enjoyed the transition away from law and much more into the light side - as I like to call them - of HR. 

Julia Paulding: 

We always find our path, don't we? I always believe that, we gravitate to the things that really suit us, don't we? 

Jenny Shiers: 

That's right.

Julia Paulding: 

Thank you so much for sharing that. Turning our attention to Unily and your work as Chief People Officer there, I'd love for our listeners to get a sense of what Unily does and what your role as Chief People Officer looks like day-to-day.

Jenny Shiers: 

Sure, as you said earlier, Unily is an employee experience platform. Essentially, as an organisation, we provide technology that allows some of the world's biggest and most recognisable brands to reimagine the way that they communicate with their employees, how they drive collaboration and knowledge sharing through their workforces. Unily as an organisation has spent around the last 20 years developing this platform that essentially acts as the digital front door for employees in the companies that work with us, so that folks can access everything that they need to be productive in their roles and feel connected to their company's mission, values and purpose. Essentially, it's an all-encompassing solution that solves lots of the challenges that modern businesses face where change and disruption seem to be constant, certainly at the moment. 

So that's what Unily does. In terms of my role as Chief People Officer, I’m part of a team looking after all of our employees - of course, I also have an employee engagement manager who looks after our instance of Unily that we run in-house. We definitely drink our own champagne and use the product as best we can ourselves. Then obviously business partnering, recruitment and talent development, as you would expect in a sort of people function, looking after all those things. Interestingly, I also run the legal team, which I think given my background made the most sense in our organisation, but it's been really nice for me to be able to do that too.

TOP OF MIND ISSUES ON THE HR AGENDA 

Julia Paulding: 

Amazing. So, it's a really wide-ranging remit. Are there any particular challenges or opportunities that you're especially focused on at the moment? What's sitting at the top of your agenda right now, would you say? 

Jenny Shiers: 

Well, I wish it was only one thing sitting at the top of my agenda, there's a few things. Like many organisations, we're also figuring out how best we can use AI. Obviously, we're thinking about that from a product standpoint and getting really excited about the future of our products in relation to AI. In addition, in-house, we're looking at how we can utilise that new technology in the best ways, making sure that our employees are able to free up their time to focus on the more value add activities that they can do in their roles - that's definitely top of mind.

I'm always thinking about high performance culture, so how we can build that culture of success so that our employees are really focused on doing their best work, feeling as if they're building a great career with us at Unily. Also, of course, that has a huge impact for us as an organisation in terms of our return on investment as we think about our investment in talent too. 

Julia Paulding: 

Thanks so much, Jenny. That really strikes a chord with me and I'm sure it's top of mind for many of our listeners too. AI particularly and that adoption is an ongoing journey, isn't it, which I think we'll be on for a bit longer as organisations. 

Jenny Shiers: 

I think so too. 

DRIVING GREAT EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE: PERSONALISATION AND REDUCING DIGITAL FRICTION

Julia Paulding: 

So, let's get into the heart of today's conversation and talk about employee experience and how important we know that that is to organisational success. You have a unique position at Unily, where you're both helping clients deliver great experiences and also leading on it internally as Chief People Officer. In your view, because I think you're really well placed to answer this for us, what's the difference between a good employee experience and a truly great one? 

Jenny Shiers: 

I think there's a lot to this. For me, one of the huge differentiators is your ability as an employer to personalise employee experience. A good employee experience might be giving everyone consistent messages about your mission and where you're going as a company or enablement, for example. A truly exceptional employee experience will get personalisation right and recognise that one size doesn't fit all and that that really can focus on an employee's role, where they're based in the world, their seniority, for example, all of those things when taken into account can really make the employee experience differentiated.

Ensuring that you're providing flexibility and personalisation. Accommodating individual needs is super important and making sure that you provide employees with information, enablement or whatever it might be at a moment and in a format which is relevant to them and to their role and then using that as the best way to drive employee engagement and experience.

One of the big things that Unily has been really focused on is the ability to reduce what we call digital friction. So, last year we commissioned a report, which really highlighted the fact that employees are overwhelmed at the moment with all of the digital noise that they encounter on a day-to-day basis - whether it's notifications, apps and tools that they have to use - it's overwhelming and it leads to stress and that has a negative impact undoubtedly on a business's bottom line. We found that, for example, nearly 6 in 10 employees report that digital tools add to their stress, and actually 71% for managers because they have even more coming at them potentially. There's a huge appetite for more control from employees on how and where they receive their notifications - so that's 67% for normal employees and then 83% of managers wish that they could have more control over what they receive and how they receive it. 

Being able to really think about that digital friction, that distraction, because people are being distracted very often in the day, and also how those messages land can really make a big difference in terms of an employee's day-to-day experience and the job of being an employee, right? Being an employee should be just about coming in and getting on with your work, not being pulled in hundred different directions. Unily is thinking about how we can become that digital front door for employees to provide a single point of access to everything that they need and reducing that feeling of overwhelm and stress too. 

Julia Paulding: 

Thank you, that really does resonate with me because it's not just a question of how you're getting the information and the notifications, it's also the when as well. There are so many options now of when you can work, how you can work and even remembering where you're going, which tool to actually use. And absolutely, it rings true about the extra managerial burden of navigating all of this.

If we go back to the importance that you've just talked about of personalising employee experience, because that's definitely something I'm seeing more and more actually, it's not going away. What do you think is actually driving this change and this increased need for personalisation?

Jenny Shiers: 

Well, I think employees are used to personalisation when we engage with technology outside of the workplace. We know things which are relevant to us are pushed to us all the time or that we think technologies that we use, believe that we're interested in. I don't think it should be any different for employees at work - you want to be able to ensure that you're not draining focus and productivity from your employees by forcing them to trawl through information to find what it is they need to do their role. And so, with the technologies that we have available to us today, hopefully for most employers, it's much more possible to ensure that content is delivered at a point when it is relevant and that the content itself is relevant to the person receiving it. I think if we can get that personalisation piece right, it's really impactful.

EVOLVING ROLE OF LINE MANAGERS

Julia Paulding: 

I agree. That's the dream, isn't it, receiving or seeing the content that's really relevant for you but still having those firm-wide messages that are also relevant. 

Is getting this right helping our line managers create these individual experiences for our employees? Because we know that the role of the line manager in making sure that employees have a great experience is really critical and it's becoming even more so in today's changing times.

Jenny Shiers: 

Yes, absolutely. I think making it easier for line managers to be part of that journey is really important. Of course, we know that line managers are super critical from an engagement standpoint. People don't leave companies; they tend to leave bad managers. Being able to help those first line managers have a hand in what that content is, what those messages are, how that engagement with their teams works is really impactful as well. 

Julia Paulding: 

The role of the line manager and the evolving role of the line manager is something that comes up in all of our podcasts and in general conversations when you talk to your peers in other organisations, how would you see the role of that frontline manager evolving even further? Can you see a trend that it's evolving even further, do you think?

Jenny Shiers: 

I think the importance of the first line manager, you're right that we talk about it a lot in HR and I think that’s because it can't be underestimated. One of the critical things that you can do as an organisation - and it's certainly something that we're focused on at Unily - is upskilling those first line managers and really recognising that management is a job and a skillset of itself. 

It impacts retention massively if you've got really effective managers, it impacts performance massively and of course then your bottom line as well. One of the things that we're able to do for our customers at Unily is help them use the product to engage and enable those frontline managers by helping them to upskill through the platform and also targeting communications to them as managers, because one of the most effective ways that you can communicate with your employees as a whole is to double down messaging to your leadership and your management layers so that they're bought in, they understand it, they've got the FAQs to hand and they're able to really answer any questions or concerns that come up from everyone else. 

ORGANISATIONAL VELOCITY

Julia Paulding: 

So, let's turn our attention now to the broader organisational landscape. You've spoken before about this fascinating concept of “organisational velocity” and its importance in enabling organisations to pivot quickly and adapt to a changing environment to accelerate business success. Could you explain what you mean by this idea of “organisational velocity”? 

Jenny Shiers: 

Yeah, sure. At times of uncertainty or volatility, we notice that large companies, especially complex multinational companies, can struggle to get their workforce to shape shift quickly enough. We've talked about digital friction but a lack of collaboration or silos within organisations can also really impact the speed of decision making and that can have a negative business impact if you're not able to pivot quickly enough. We saw it during Covid, for example, when some companies were able to very quickly move into their new reality and get things working well, others really struggled and it slowed them down. So, organisational velocity refers to the ability to remove that friction, to break down those silos and to help organisations pivot much more quickly, so that you can get your workforce to understand your strategy, which is ultimately what you need them to get and then act on it at real speed. 

Julia Paulding: 

I love this concept and I think that our audience will really connect with it too. Could you break down some of the key components that helped to build organisational velocity and agility?

Jenny Shiers: 

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, one of the things I mentioned a few minutes ago was breaking down silos within an organisation and that can be one of the main blockers to getting your employees behind a shift in strategy quickly. If you're able to communicate clearly what that strategy is, but then also put in the required steps to get your company there and communicate that quickly and effectively, that can really work very quickly to break down those silos that companies might be experiencing when they try to do a big organisational shift like that. 

Julia Paulding: 

I totally agree. It's really important to build that collective commitment and difficult as well, isn't it? Because we need to maintain momentum for change but also ensure that everyone's pulling in the same direction.

Jenny Shiers: 

That's right. 

Julia Paulding: 

Yes, it really does resonate. 

Jenny Shiers: 

Yes, and actually one of the things that we've done using our own platform has been to reimagine our beginning of the year goal setting process. We introduced something called Compass where at the organisational level at the beginning of the year, we set out the year's goals and we set out what we essentially need to do to get there. Then, we not only publish that and get feedback from all employees, but we cascade it down through the organisation so that every single employee in the company will eventually have their own Compass, which relates back to the company’s. We also publish these on everyone's profile, so if you're working with a new employee for the first time in the company, you can look at their Compass, figure out what their priorities are for the year and how they'll measure their own success. What we found is that that's been a super effective way to break down some of those silos and drive collaboration because we have a much better idea now of what things other teams are working on.

LEADING WITH STRATEGY 

Julia Paulding: 

That's really inspiring. Sadly, we're coming to the end of our podcast but I wanted to ask you about one of the main challenges I hear from organisations at the moment and that is a tension between long-term strategic planning and the need to do that, but also the need to react quickly to immediate events or changes which takes up lot of resources and organisational focus. We know that's especially true now given the increasingly complex and rapidly evolving regulatory landscape. A front of mind example right now, of course, is the  Employment Rights Act, which is a particularly pressing issue for many employers. 

Given your background as an employment lawyer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how organisations and people leaders can navigate this challenge.

Jenny Shiers: 

It's a tricky question but I think from my perspective, sitting here now in my current role - not as an employment lawyer but as a Chief People Officer - I think strategy always has to come first. You have to figure out what's the right thing for the business and where you're going. Once you’ve figured that out and you're really thinking about your operational steps to get there, that's when you can start to think about regulatory challenges or anything else that you might need to take into account to figure out if you can do what you need to do. 

I think it's a mistake to sort of work on from the restrictions that might be placed on employers through new legislation for example. Really think about what the strategy should be, where the business needs to go, and then work back from that to do it in the best possible way, making sure that you're being compliant and doing all the right things as an employer. 

Julia Paulding: 

So, the strategic perspective coming first and foremost before the other bits that go to make that happen. 

Jenny Shiers: 

I think it has to.

THE EMERGING TRENDS PEOPLE LEADERS SHOULD BE PRIORITISING

Julia Paulding: 

Jenny, it's been fantastic having you here to share your insights and experiences. I really do appreciate your time, and I know our audience does too. Before I let you go, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask all of our guests: if you could pick one emerging trend people leaders should be paying more attention to, what would it be and what should we be doing about it now? 

Jenny Shiers: 

Well, you saved the hardest question for last. I think it's really incumbent on all of us to be thinking about innovation. This is top of mind at the moment because of AI - and I don't want to limit this just to AI - but I feel it's important that we focus on the fact that innovation has to apply to all parts of our businesses, not just to tech and product for example. Because I think as the world is changing rapidly, we've spoken about the need for organisations to pivot quickly and make fast decisions, but I think we all have to keep challenging ourselves as leaders to think about what innovation might look like for our own teams and our own departments. So, I think if there's a way for us to keep that top of mind as well as getting through the day-to-day, that's a good tip from me.

Julia Paulding: 

And what a great way to end our conversation, which was such a great conversation. Thank you very much for joining me today, Jenny. 

Jenny Shiers: 

Thanks for having me. 

Julia Paulding: 

A huge thanks for tuning into the Future of Work Hub’s Peer-to-Peer. If you enjoyed today's chat, hit subscribe on your favourite platform. And if you're a senior people leader with thoughts on the future of work, we'd love to hear from you. Until next time, goodbye!