How Listening Drives Inclusive Leadership at Bupa

What does it take to lead with inclusion in a complex, global organisation?

In this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast, Toby Mildon speaks with Rebecca Pearson, Chief Sustainability and People Officer at Bupa, about her incredible 31-year journey from frontline employee to executive leader. Rebecca shares how active listening, employee-led initiatives, and a values-driven culture underpin Bupa’s inclusive approach to leadership.

You’ll hear practical insights into how inclusion is embedded into the DNA of the organisation—not as a “nice to have” but as a core business priority. From frontline feedback leading to immediate policy changes, to the power of employee advisory boards, Rebecca offers invaluable lessons for Chief People Officers navigating today’s polarised and pressurised environments.

Key takeaways:

• Why inclusion must be embedded in day-to-day leadership, not treated as a side project.
• How active listening leads to real, meaningful change.
• The role of psychological safety in building trust and performance.
• Why Bupa’s approach to diversity goes beyond metrics to everyday connection.
• How aligning sustainability and people strategy creates long-term inclusive growth.

Guest Highlights:
Rebecca Pearson, Chief Sustainability and People Officer, Bupa
Rebecca's LinkedIn Profile
Bupa's Everyone's Welcome Website

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon. Future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace. Hey there. Thanks ever so much for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon, and today I'm joined by Rebecca Pearson. And Rebecca is the Chief Sustainability and People Officer over at Bupa. And Rebecca, it's lovely to see you. Thanks for joining us today. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invitation. So, Rebecca, can you just tell us a bit more about who you are and what you do for Bupa? Yeah, of course I can. So, my current role, as you said at the start of the podcast, is Chief Sustainability and People Officer. In October of this year, I passed my 31st year with Bupa as an organization. And I'm sure many of the listeners will recognise our brand, but obviously Bupa is a global healthcare organization. And in the UK, we operates a network of health clinics, hospitals. We have a UK-based insurance business. We have a global insurance business. We have a really large network of dental practices and care homes. So we're quite broad in the things that we do in the health space. I joined Bupa, as I say, 31 years ago. I joined for a summer job, believe it or not. So initially, I joined for six weeks, and that was when I was 18. I'd just finished in college and I was deciding what I wanted to do next. But very quickly fell in love with our organization and what we do, and our purpose. And I've had a really exciting career and journey with Bupa in the 31 years that followed. So, yeah, that's me. Cool. Yeah, like you say, I mean, you have an amazing career because you started at Bupa on the front line, and now you are part of the UK exec team. So how has your journey over the years shaped how you lead people? That's a brilliant question. And so the truth is really for me, at the start of my career, I became really intrigued by leadership, primarily by watching the impact that leaders had on people and their ability to do brilliant work. And for the vast majority of the time, I saw like exceptional leaders who were really understood their people, were listening, were providing support and guidance, were helping people to be the best version of themselves, and to acquire new skills and to build their careers with Bupa, if that's what they wanted to do. But I also saw in my early days, I suppose my period of curiosity, let's call it, as I was exploring what it was that I wanted to do. I also saw a couple of instances where leadership had the opposite impact on someone. So, where a leader that kind of isn't engaged and isn't actively listening doesn't get the very best out of someone. So I became intrigued really, in the impact of leadership and decided that that was the career journey that I would go on. So my first leadership role was a service team manager, as we called it then. So I went from being a frontline employee to a first-line manager, and I absolutely loved that job. I love the impact that we can have on people and how people, when they feel good about what they do and they're really connected to their work and to the organization, can make extraordinary things happen for customers and for the business. So that's where it all began. And I've had lots of wonderful opportunities between now and then, always in the leadership space, in lots of different parts of the Bupa business in the UK, to kind of build and expand my leadership capabilities, if you like. So, yeah, that's where it all began. And when you were going through your leadership journey, when did inclusivity first become important to you? Like what was that kind of realisation moment for you? I think, for me, it started really with listening to people and really understanding how unique we all are and how important it is for people to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, to be involved. It was the realisation, I think, in the first instance, of listening and really wanting to support people and actually, seeing firsthand in organizations where we really embraced diversity, just how rich our teams can be and how different perspectives bring a richness to the conversation that you're having. And I think, for me, inclusion shows up in the everyday moments in our organization. It's in how we listen. It's the different perspectives. It's how safe people feel to have those conversations. And I guess how we make space for everyone to sort of bring their whole self, like their true self into work. Definitely. I do a lot of work with chief people officers like yourself and ExCo committees. And one thing I'm hearing a lot from leaders is that inclusion feels like it's got harder recently. There's a lot of polarisation, there's a lot of things happening in society. You know, organisational budgets are being squeezed because of difficult economic times at the moment. But what do you think is still going strong at Bupa? Because you do have a great culture and you've got really strong values, but yeah, what's going strong for you? So I think, it's fair to say that inclusion has become harder, and that's because the world is more polarised and pressure is higher and, people... There's lots more for people to do. But I think for us in our organization, what's kept it strong here is that we don't treat inclusion as a side program. You know, it exists in the DNA of our organization. It's built into how we lead, it's built into how we make decisions. So, practical example of that is, we're really proud we have an employee advisory committee. So this is a group of brilliant colleagues, really diverse backgrounds, working at lots of different levels, who are working alongside our UK executive team to not only bring topics that they think need to be on our radar that maybe haven't been, but equally they help us to shape decision-making, and they give us a forum to be able to talk to them about the things that are on our mind and whether they agree they'd be a priority, how we would sort of execute that change. So, we always take that opportunity to have a two-way conversation to make sure that our people are heard, their voices are heard. They're part of the decisions that we take. And we are really, really intentional about that and have... One of my personal passions, Toby, in leadership is this whole concept of listening and people being heard, and actually standing back, creating the time and the space, and the psychological safety for people to really believe that we can have those conversations and we can work through the challenges together. And there's lots of places on a day-to-day basis where it's just part of who we are, we operate. We now have 12 inclusion and diversity communities in our Bupa network. So every single day, those teams channels are really busy, they're active, colleagues are connecting, they're problem-solving together, they're helping and supporting each other. You know, they're raising things with us where they need help and support. So, in a world where things generally could easily be harder, I think more than ever we're really trying to lean in and do even more. And as I say, this isn't something that's side-of-desk for us. It is a fundamental part of our organization, and it means a lot to me. You know, I take this responsibility really, really seriously. And when we get feedback, we don't just talk about it, we act on it. We've had lots of different training interventions that we've put in place to support inclusion, to improve people's ability to be seen and heard, and to get help to build their careers, if that's what they want to do. So it's being honest, even in like the tough moments. It's just that steadfast commitment, I think, that really sustains it in our organization. You've mentioned that listening is really critical, and I would agree with you on that. When I work with clients, that ability to really listen well and empathise builds the trust and the psychological safety that we need, and that's the foundation of high-performing teams. If you were to sit down with a manager within Bupa who's on the front line, maybe they're leading a small team themselves, what would your advice be to them in terms of what really good listening looks like as a manager for them day-to-day? I would say to them that real listening is an active activity. So it's not passive. It's not just something we say, and it isn't in any way tokenistic. So it's about creating the time and the space to just stand back, ask the prompting questions, and allow the person the time and the space to talk about how it is for them. You know, how can we stand in, in their perspective? What is their lived experience? And what does that feel like on a day-to-day basis? You know, how do those things manifest themselves? Because I think it's really easy as leaders to kind of hear about a problem and immediately jump to a judgment or a conclusion about what that problem is and what the solution is. But, you know, often that's not our job to do. Our job is to listen, to understand, to take action and to do that in the spirit of togetherness. Because quite often, for us, it isn't just about the listening. We listen to co-create, and then we find solutions. And then I'm always really keen to hear from our people like how they think the solution has been implemented. Is it having the desired effect? Is it working? So it's always that. And, you know, Toby, I think as leaders often these are really busy jobs. So actually creating time and space can feel a bit counter-intuitive. But I cannot tell you the number of occasions in my career where active listening has helped me to find, like, a real gem of an idea or a solution to a problem that I've previously been unable to solve. And it was there in the hearts and minds of our people all the time. So, it is like true listening, being in the moment, concentrating, like no other distractions, asking probing questions, and making that person feel that their point of view is valued and that they can make a really special contribution. And sometimes, the answer to the problem is tricky. Sometimes it's not always possible to solve those things. But at the very least, people want to feel heard and to understand maybe why the solution is difficult or why it can't be achieved. It can't be achieved right now. And I guess to bring that to life in a Bupa context. We have so many mechanisms for listening. I was with our exec team last week. We ran 16 different sessions listening to different topics that our employees had nominated. We run a biannual people pulse check-in survey. And this time alone, just across our UK businesses, we had 60,000 pieces of verbatim feedback... Wow. Which is a brilliant opportunity to listen and act. So, yeah, apologies. I'm quite passionate about listening but I think it's such an unlock for culture and inclusion. I really do. I'm glad you've laid that out for us, because I use the LEAP model, which is about listening, exploring, acknowledging and proposing. So this is a... I find it really useful in terms of having those empathic conversations because the listening stands for really active listening, like you say, but not just listening to the words that people are saying, but how they're saying it, what their body language is doing or even what people are not saying is really important. And then the exploring is all about asking those open-ended, coaching-like questions. So rather than jumping to conclusions or making assumptions or presumptions about what somebody's experiencing, you say things like, "Well, tell me more about that experience," or, "Describe to me how you're feeling about that situation," or, "Explain to me what what's going on for you." And then the acknowledging is all about making sure that the person feels like they've been heard and you're validating their experience. And then finally, the propose, with permission, that's the key word here, is where you say, "Thanks for sharing that with me. From what I've heard, I think these might be some solutions." But sometimes people don't want solutions, they just want to be able to be heard and get things off their chest. Yeah, totally agree. So, are you able to share a time with us when listening has really helped you make a quick change that mattered to people at Bupa? Yeah, definitely. I can... The hardest thing will be choosing just maybe one or two, to be honest, Toby, because we've been really active in this space. But the one I'll share, which is front of mind, because I actually spoke to an employee about it only last week at one of the listening sessions. So we were doing some listening in the summer, and we heard a theme from our people around a policy that we have for secondments. So this is where someone is moving from one part of the business to another for a defined period of time. So it's not a permanent move, and sometimes it's a promotion and sometimes it's a sideways move. And we do that. We're really active in what we call our connected careers space. So we love people to move around the Bupa world and use their transferable skills. It's really important to us. But what we heard in that feedback is that sometimes in some instances, the way that we were recognising and rewarding those moves, it just didn't feel really great to our people. So, you know, perhaps if we'd made an external hire, the external hire might have come into the organization on a certain salary, and we weren't necessarily matching that internally for our secondment. And the listening there was really, really important because we got, like, a couple of really tangible examples from employees about exactly how it had been for them, and more importantly, what it felt like and some of the messages that they felt it gave them, which obviously were unintentional in terms of how the policy was designed. And it was brilliant because we were very quickly able to get together to set up a listening group of employees to help us to manage the change. And we adapted the policy, we made the change, and we created a set of circumstances where our internal talent would not be disadvantaged in any way, versus an external market hire, which was fab... And the really good thing about this was, I saw an employee last week who stopped me and said, "Rebecca, I just need to let you know that I've started a secondment, a new secondment, in a different area of the business. And I wouldn't have been able to do that before, but this change of policy meant that was a really attractive career opportunity for me." And I just went for it. So, A, thank you for listening... Thank you for bearing us all in mind, and thank you for helping me make that move." So, as a leader, that's such a rewarding place to be, where you know that the listening drove a change, and the change has had impact. So we feel really proud when that happens. And I would probably share really quickly. Another example is, one of my personal passions is, I want as many of my Bupa colleagues who really love working for Bupa and love what they do. So our internal strapline is'Love Working Here,' which is the spirit of all of those things. And for the first time this year, again on the back of listening activity, we've developed a cross-market unit, so consistent across all our business units approach to how we achieve 'Love Working Here.' So we have a market unit 'Love Working Here' plan, and that's all centered really around collaboration and connection, which are the big themes that our people say, you know, they'd love to see more progress in. And that, again, has only happened because we did the listening and we got close to what mattered most to our people. So, yeah, it's a really rewarding job when you have the opportunity to listen and make change. Now, obviously, Bupa is a global business, and you're working across lots of different countries and lots of different cultures. So how do you make inclusivity meaningful for everybody, wherever they're working? Gosh, where to start with this? So, I think the first thing that I would say is we are incredibly proud of who we are as an organization and really firmly believe that the strength of our organization is driven from how diverse we are. So, in wanting to make connections, a lot of that is around, A, establishing an awareness of what our different businesses do, the markets that we work in, what our teams look like, the brilliant broad range of diversity that exists in those teams. And starting to talk as well, within our teams and to one another, about how different cultures, for example, how things are in those teams. So, like a really practical example, in our UK care homes business, we have a really, really diverse workforce, and we've done lots of work in those teams. So one care home I was in recently, they had a map of the world, and I think they'd mapped that their colleagues were made up of. There were 52 different countries, where colleagues were from originally. And then we'd started to talk about what the cultures were, what people's favourite food was, what traditional dress looked like, what customs and practices were. And our people like love to learn about new cultures that they've maybe not had an experience of before, and like really enjoyed sort of enjoying each other's favourite meals and snacks and different things. It's a really, really practical example, but it's a way that we can create connection and bring together these teams to really feel the benefit of diversity, of different perspectives. And we try a lot of the time, you know, we have lots of internal conversations when we are facing into business challenges, and we try to have groups supporting those debates that are as inclusive as they can possibly be. So we get a really broad range of perspectives. And I think when you run sessions like that, and the emphasis is on listening, it's a brilliant opportunity for people to just stand in somebody else's shoes just for a little while and understand a different perspective. And I think that's really, really powerful. So it's who we are. We are really proud of the diversity that makes up our business and we look for every opportunity really to be able to share the benefits of that and support one another within our broader team. That's really cool. So, I did a webinar recently with one of my associates, Dr. Christopher Owen, and we talked about the difference between the cliched "we are a family here" versus building a community at work. What are your thoughts on this concept, and how are you starting to create or how have you created a culture of caring at Bupa? Yeah, caring first and foremost, we have three values that are consistent across our business globally, and caring is one of those. And obviously, at the core of our business operations is caring because we're a healthcare organization and much of our day job is caring for others. So, I think, it's quite easy probably to default to using the reference or the term of family because, lots of connotations for people about togetherness and warmth and kind of being one. But obviously, that isn't true in every situation and in every context. So, I think for us, it's more around that broader sense of community. But that said, our culture is really warm. We do really care about each other. We care about our people. We care about the work that we do. You know, we care about the impact that we are having on the world, as part of our sustainability strategy. We want to actively make a better world. We want to make a contribution in the communities where our people live and where we do work. So, we're really active through the Bupa Foundation in supporting... One example, lots and lots of work happening at the moment in inclusive sports. Lots of work on a smaller scale happening in individual projects in our communities that often are nominated by our employees. So it might be a vegetable garden in a local primary school, for example, where one of our employees is a member of the community. So, we care. We care very much about our people, our customers, our impact, and we work hard to look after the world and one another, genuinely, as much as we can. And you might hear the odd reference to family, but it's meant in the most positive of spirit. But really, we are a global community, and I think I love working here. Plan is a brilliant example of that because a business priority within that is connection. Looking for every opportunity to create and establish connections that are positive and impactful for our people. That's cool. See, I really like how your job title is Chief Sustainability and People Officer because I haven't seen that very much where you've got sustainability and people officer together. And I think going on to my next question, which is around what inclusive growth means to you. I think that's important because for a lot of organizations, having an inclusive culture helps with the sustainability of an organization. Being relevant to your customers, de-risking the business as well. So, creating that safety for people to be able to speak up and identify and eliminate issues before they become a big problem. So, with that in mind, what does inclusive growth mean for you? So, from my perspective, I think probably the place to start in answering that question is, like, your work in this space is never done. You're only ever really beginning. And all of the time, like, particularly in the world outside of our organization, there are lots of challenges in this space. There are lots of obstacles to overcome. There are ways in which communities are experiencing polarisation, perhaps in a way that they hadn't done before. But I think for us, it's about concentrating on the things that we can tangibly impact within our organization. So, as I say, inclusion for us is not something that is good to do but sits on the side of our desk. It is an inherent part of our culture. And our job is to continuously look for opportunities where we can be even more inclusive. And there's so much to go at. There are so many more opportunities. I think you have to keep the conversation very active. We have to be committed, both in terms of our resources, our mindset, our passion, to want to continually be better in this space, to want to carry on growing, to sort of push the boundaries, to be much more tomorrow than we are today. And back to the listening point, it's our people, I think, that will be the magic for us in going on that journey, because they will give us, they will keep giving us the ideas, the opportunities. They'll help us to understand where we're making good progress and maybe there's more to do. So it's.... Yeah, apologies for coming back to the listening piece, but I do categorically think that that's where it starts. And it's about long-term commitment to this space, and I think we've categorically have that. If you and I were to catch up in three years' time and you are feeling so pleased and happy and proud with how even more inclusive Bupa had become, what is it that would be making you feel really happy and pleased and proud? I think the... So the diversity in our teams would have grown like significantly. So, I think we'd be able to share a brilliant data set that says, like, look at how diverse our teams are. Look at how easy people are finding it to build their careers within Bupa. Look at some of perhaps the barriers that people have experienced in the past, don't exist to the same extent anymore. We're making progress, and people are cutting through. Our listening arm will be even stronger than it is today. So we'll be in just a very natural rhythm where listening remains core to the culture. And I think our engagement statistics would support that people do love working at Bupa and that they truly believe they can be themselves, the truest version of themselves, and that they can do that with confidence, with psychological safety, feel really comfortable to be them and know that who they are, is making a positive contribution to our business's success. And, yeah, it's just a really great place to be where... I think, the test on these things is always how people describe what they do in the organization they work for outside of work. And I think, I would love to think our people would be really positive promoters... Brilliant. Of Bupa to their friends and family outside of work. So, yeah, lots and lots of ambitions, Toby. That's brilliant. So, just moving on to my final question, if you were to sit down with a fellow Chief People Officer, what is one action that you would suggest to them after they've heard this conversation today? I would say, like, together, let's keep leaning in. You know, let's push harder, let's do more within our own organizations. Let's not be distracted by factors outside that are not in support of the goals that we have. I think now more than ever is the time to really lean in. And as professionals, let's work together, let's share ideas, let's share resources. Let's keep building these brilliant teams that mean people will do amazing work in the organization that they're part of, where customers will be positively impacted. Where the profile of our teams looks like the customers that we're serving. So we truly are aligned, and we understand what our customers want and need. I keep listening. Just keep listening. Yeah. Well, Rebecca, thanks ever so much for joining me today. It's been really lovely to sit down with you and get your insights based on your experience. It sounds like Bupa is doing some amazing work and creating a really positive culture for people to work in. So thanks for sharing what you're doing, and hopefully, it's going to provide some real inspiration to the person listening to us right now. Oh, I hope so. Thank you for the invitation. It's been a pleasure to chat with you. You're welcome. You're welcome. And thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast with Rebecca and myself. Hopefully, you've taken away some really interesting things that you can start to apply to your own organization, particularly around the power of listening, and listening deeply and listening properly, and how that can really create that trust and psychological safety that teams really need. And that's the foundation to building high-performing teams. And some of the practical ways that Bupa has managed to actually do that, either through conversations that managers and leaders have with colleagues or through some of the other mechanisms like listening forums and pulse surveys, and things like that, to get insights into how your employees experience the workplace. So, thanks for tuning in, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode, which will be coming out very soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildon.co.uk.