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Recruitment and Beyond
We discuss all elements relating to finding the very best talent and retaining your fantastic teams to grow your business.
Recruitment and Beyond
Hayley Raeper People Lead @xDesign: Maintaining Your Culture As You Grow
If you want to know more about maintaining company culture as you scale then be sure to tune into our recent podcast episode – How to maintain company culture as your business grows where we interview XDesign’s People Lead, Hayley Reaper.
XDesign is scaling quickly and growing in different regions throughout the UK. Hiring new staff across a range of specialisms can make it hard to maintain consistency in hiring practices and onboarding, affecting retention. When this happens at pace, it can become even, more challenging.
Join Ewan, Natalie and Hayley as they discuss the ins, outs and learnings from maintaining company culture while growing at scale.
Follow our social channels where we continue these conversations!
Eden Scott LinkedIn
Beyond HR LinkedIn
Hi there and welcome back to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Today we're joined by Hayley Raper from xDesign. Hayley, welcome along. Thank you, thank you both for having me today. Nice to see you. So do you want to tell us, so you're the people lead at xDesign, so do you want to tell us what are the people who do and tell us a little bit about XDesign.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so XDesign is a digital consultancy and delivery partner. So we're using things like innovation, software engineers, product design, cloud experts, all working together in a really cohesive manner to deliver and unleash the potential for our clients, for future clients. So that's the main goal of our business objective there.
SPEAKER_03:And you're the people lead. So how long have you been with X Design and what's your role? What does your role involve?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I joined in January 2022, two years. That's just flown by. I can't believe that, two years ago. And X Design then had about 150 employees. We're closing in now on about the 500 mark. So it puts, I know, it puts a different spin on kind of working at pace. a little bit and scaling businesses. So hopefully I'm quite well-placed to talk to you both today about maintaining culture as you grow. And my role as a people lead is... looking after our team of people partners who are supporting our departments and our people to maintain that culture really and make any changes in the business.
SPEAKER_03:That is some growth. I
SPEAKER_01:know. 150, 500.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. In two years? Yeah. Wow. So what's been the hardest about scaling at that pace? I mean, that is some journey.
SPEAKER_01:Hardest part has probably been the change. Obviously, fundamentally, humans are creatures of habit. We don't like change, do we? We don't cope well with change. So I think that's been a challenge for us as a business for many different reasons. And I think we've learned a lot from the change as well, because xDesign has implemented a lot of change over the past 18 months and some of it back to back. So I think that's been a lot for our people to understand and to bring in for various reasons, like I've said. So that's definitely been a learning for us as well. But as businesses scale, as they do mature, there does need to be change
SPEAKER_02:and
SPEAKER_01:you just have to dive forward through that change and not be afraid of it I think and embrace that to kind of go with it and I think In terms of a people operations team, where I sit is the change of policies, processes. So when I joined, the policies and processes that we had, that we worked on for 100 people, 150 people, they're no longer fit for purpose. They don't work for us as a business anymore. So it's a constantly evolving piece as you grow. So what we've worked on in the past kind of 12, 18 months is realigning and rebranding and updating those types of processes policies and processes within the business to suit the increased amount of employees. But also we're in the space now, are we going to scale to 800 people, for example? Well, we're ensuring now that those policies and processes are going to be fit for purpose for the next part of that scaling journey as well. So
SPEAKER_02:future-proofing, essentially.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. So that's quite an evolving, that's quite, you know, you're always having to look, well, what we've done now, does that still work for us as a business? Yes, brilliant. Is it going to work in six months from now or no it doesn't work right well how are we going to change that to ensure that that works best for X design and our people as well.
SPEAKER_03:How do you go about future proofing I mean is it I mean do you have to set this out and say right well we're planning for 500 we're planning for 700 we're planning what does that policy look like is that the sort of thing you're looking at and I mean, how do you do that? I presume there's not a template or a textbook that says this is how you do it, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. I think it's just all about that prior planning, isn't it? So if this is where the business aims to be in three months, this is where we aim to be in six months, what do we need to do to evolve to get there in those timeframes? And sometimes with X Design, because things change a lot and we grow quickly, sometimes there actually isn't much point in looking 12 months in advance because we could make a plan for 12 months and actually or we've changed so much as a business so we're kind of looking more like three to six to nine months maybe now and planning that way and kind of our overall people strategy for 2024 we're kind of looking at the first half of the year
SPEAKER_03:right
SPEAKER_01:just now and to see what we need to work on and prioritize for this year as well
SPEAKER_03:because people talk about that and say well we've got a three year we've got a five year plan you know this is where we want to be and it like you say, it's really hard to do that because things change and I suppose the economy changes, you know, things change all the time. So you need to be, because presumably then you need to be involved with the strategic planning for the whole organisation. Is that being a, I mean, that's obviously a good thing to have HR at that level to make sure that you're part of those discussions. Is that
SPEAKER_01:happening? Absolutely. And I think, you know, there is a place for the three-year, the five-year plans. That's brilliant. But I think you then have to be aware that those plans might not be the blueprint. That's maybe not going to be exactly how it looks and that's okay. The reason I joined XDesign a couple of years ago is because our people team have a seat at the table. We are really valued within the business. Our chief people officer has been there a long time. She was on the board of directors. HR have that voice. They have that influence and they're really respected as a department, as a function. That's not always the case, unfortunately, in businesses. So that was something that really drew me in because we do have influence over the decisions of our people. Because fundamentally, that's what we're there for. If you want to engage, you want to retain your best talent to do the best work for your clients, you need to... listen to what the department are saying, to what we're advising, and advising on what we believe our key topic should be for that plan as well, and build it all in together, like your people strategy, linking into your overall business strategy and working in tandem in alignment with each other. And it's got
SPEAKER_03:to, hasn't it? I mean, do you get that a lot with some companies that just don't align their people strategy with their wider strategy?
SPEAKER_00:So many, and that's the biggest trick that's missed, isn't it? It's so, so important, and some people maybe just don't know they know they need to do it they don't know maybe how and maybe just need a wee bit of extra help and support but that's it's a game changer if you can make those fit because ultimately that's why you're there yeah absolutely and do
SPEAKER_03:you find that some people you mentioned change there do you find that that's been a challenge for some people is dealing with I mean if you're saying to somebody here's your plan for the year and then halfway through it changes
SPEAKER_01:pivot do
SPEAKER_03:you find that a Is that a challenge for some people to help them through that? Because I think some people are very structured and I appreciate when you're, I mean, 100 people are not a startup anymore, but you guys grew from small company to obviously nearly 500 now. Has that been a challenge for some people to deal with that speed of change?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, myself included. It is a challenge and it's something that you build up and you build up a bit of a resilience to the change as well and you work through it. And I think definitely a learning opportunity for our people team, but for Exdesign as a whole, with the change, you need to communicate well ahead you know of advance of any major company change so I definitely think communication is key you need to bring your people on that journey with you as well when it comes to change so I mean yes communicate but get their input because you know you want to value their opinion as well so do you need workshops focus groups maybe a survey or something so they feel that you've listened to their thoughts on the change as well and maybe they've got some really valid points that us as a people function haven't thought about and I think it's really valid that if you are implementing some change in the business to have some change champions
SPEAKER_02:outside
SPEAKER_01:of the people team that can help engage the rest of the workforce and to champion and drive forward that change as well. I think that's a real key part that, you know, X Design haven't done it perfectly and we've taken a lot of learnings for any change that we're going to implement as a business for 2024 and that was one of them, have the change champions. Change champions,
SPEAKER_03:that's good. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's fascinating. I think that's one of the things we've talked about it quite a bit, is making sure that HR has that seat at the table when you're looking at your strategy going forward. HR is such a vital part of the people side of things because that's how you grow isn't it? I mean do you find that are you getting that sort of feedback from other people are other companies got HR do other companies have HR at the table?
SPEAKER_00:They might say they do but the challenge for me would be do you genuinely have there's no point in just saying it but I would love to know or many companies have came and said how do we get that seat at the table they want it they maybe just don't know how to implement it but how do we get but the challenge is are you actually doing what you say there's no point in saying they have a seat at the table if they don't attend board meetings leadership etc is there an HR person or people person in the leadership team for example if there's not the answer is very clear it's a no but actually how do you implement that and a lot of people want to make it happen maybe just aren't sure how to go about it
SPEAKER_03:Is it that, because obviously everybody recognises the value of their team, but it's just not recognising how important that is in your planning process because it takes time to hire, it takes time to grow. Obviously you guys are growing quickly, but I think, and I'm sure everybody does, you know, if you're a CEO you understand these things, but I think it's maybe just recognising how important this is in your growth. I mean, there's other things that go on, other systems, other parts of your business, but the people part of it is so vital, isn't it? And if you don't have that consultation at the board level, then you're missing a trick.
SPEAKER_01:Who's Bringing the overall voice of your people to those ELT meetings to really get that feeling of the business and how engaged your workforce is.
SPEAKER_03:So if you're growing so quickly, have you got systems or processes or any tools in there that are helping you to do that? Because it's not an easy thing to be
SPEAKER_01:growing at this pace. Lots. I can imagine. Anything to make my life easier, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:We have a lot of great systems that we've implemented. Actually, we implemented a lot back-to-back last year because we knew we were going to scale. So we were like, right, let's make sure that we're set up for success with our systems and our tools. So we implemented Greenhouse. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's kind of a recruitment and hiring. software so that's really helped streamline a lot of our and recruiting and that and the overall candidate experience it keeps everything in one place it's really easy to follow the candidates love it because it helps planning with the interviews and internally our interviewers like it because they've got all of the candidate information this is their CV this is the questions they're going to ask them so that's been a brilliant system we've also obviously got our HRIS system, HiBob which I'd really recommend but also integration is really important there so Greenhouse can integrate with HiBob so you're not having to manually input information which when you're hiring certain amount of people a month that's quite a big task and HiBob is a much more mature system which is why we went for it it's made for larger organisations and that's got quite a key focus on data and analytics as well which obviously as you grow you want to be able to measure your data more maturely as well and we've got an onboarding partner which I realise we're in a fortunate position to have at XDesign but again when you are hiring at this pace it is a full time role having someone as a key stakeholder in that candidate experience. So our onboarding partner looks after all of our candidates from TA handing over all the way through the notice period to join in. So when they join X-Design on day one, they've actually already had many touch points from us before then. And they already feel part of the X-Design family, that culture, obviously why we're here today. So that's been, Daisy is brilliant. She's been invaluable in setting up that onboarding experience and the sessions then when you join the business in your first couple of weeks. So that's been brilliant for X-Design and our overall candidate experience. And lastly, we have... which is an engagement system. So that's where our EMPS, our engagement, our poll surveys go out from. And it's all very well, isn't it, kind of sending out surveys and going, oh, yeah, we've had a 65% return rate. But what are we as a people team then doing with that
SPEAKER_02:data?
SPEAKER_01:So you need to then be analysing it and actually making the change. And when we do make any changes off the back of a survey, we try and link it back to, we heard you from the engagement survey. So our workforce, you know, they can see we're actually doing stuff with that data and making change where appropriate, obviously. It's so
SPEAKER_03:important that, isn't it? I mean, to be able to be seen to making a change, there's no point in asking these questions and then it's great to have that response, 65% or whatever it is, nothing happens. It goes into a black hole somewhere. Nobody makes any changes and nothing. And then you get a reducing reply rate because... What's the point? What's the point? Absolutely. I've never seen
SPEAKER_01:any change. That's really good. That's really
SPEAKER_02:interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And so that's one part of Lattice, as well as we have all of our competency frameworks. So everyone can go in and have a look at how they grow, develop, how they cross-skill within X-Design as well. And managers can then put it on their one-to-one agendas with a part of Lattice to work on any growth areas. It's also where we give and receive feedback as well, fundamentally, more formal feedback. And we're really great at giving feedback at X-Design. Maybe not so much on the construction side, constructive feedback, which is, you know, not everything is great. Like, how do we learn and grow without getting more constructive feedback and development in the feedback as well? So that's quite a key focus for us as a people team this year. Like, how do we get comfortable with the uncomfortable? Having those
SPEAKER_00:difficult conversations. Absolutely. It's a theme absolutely at the moment, which
SPEAKER_03:is, yeah. So that's something you're focusing on is helping people to be a wee bit more constructive with their feedback, not just telling people you've done a good job. Absolutely. Where could you develop? Where could you grow?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Really, right. And that's okay. People want that, actually, as well. Oh, no, absolutely. You hear people go into their appraisals or one-to-ones or catch-ups and go, everything was great, but actually people do want even one thing that they could do better on or what could they go away and work on. It's great knowing that it's great, but actually there's always something and we need to find that if we don't have that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:We actually implemented change, funnily enough, in Q3, Q4 last year. We launched a performance framework which we've named Own Your Own Potential. So it puts the emphasis on the employee rather than the employer or the line manager to own their own potential, go and work at a rate of progression that works for them. It's flexibility, career calibration. and we then have linked that performance to reward, which we've never done before. Controversial. So we have. So how can we now not be telling people where they can improve when their January reviews are linked to their performance? So we have to get better at giving and having those development conversations.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. It's linked to their performance. It's linked to their rewards. You need to understand where it can improve. Absolutely. And you mentioned data there. Are you... maximising your data now. You're really using that data to try and make some of the people decisions you need to.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. It's still a work in progress. Probably most businesses would say the same, but definitely much more of a focus on data and what we do with that data for 2024 as well.
SPEAKER_03:And obviously, I mean, it's a tough market to hire out there. Perhaps not maybe for yourself at the moment. You've gone from 150 to 500. But what sort of roles were challenging for you guys to try and hire? What was the biggest difficulty you found?
SPEAKER_01:So obviously I'm not day-to-day involved in hiring. But I did ask our head of talent acquisition what was the most challenging role or area to hire in at the moment. And they had said sales. So I think... sales is a difficult area to hire in anyway. It's quite a competitive market. But then you add the tech scene, then you add quite a niche skill that we need for our sales team as well. It's a new area. We didn't really have a sales department 12 months ago. So I think that's been one area that has been challenging and we are working on that. We are building it out. We have got great talent within the business, within our sales teams, but I still think, yeah, that's an area of focus for us this year. I think overall, I think Exesign has been quite lucky, quite fortunate with our hiring that candidates want to come and work for us. You know, we... I think you have to work on your culture internally, and then that will organically flow externally as well. You can go onto our website, our careers page, look at our testimonials from our people, look at what we've achieved, look at our community work. We're really active on our social media networks. We're an active participant in the tech scene. So if you look in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, where our offices are in the tech scenes, the tech festivals, X Design is there. we're talking to people as they're walking around and the awards we've won you know we're really vocal about our people awards in particular Great Place to Work so last year we placed fifth in the large category overall in the UK we also placed first for wellbeing so people are drawn to that
SPEAKER_00:they want to come and work for us and it's not just about people applying for a job now they want to know more like you said more than just the job they want to know what the team's like that they're working with what is the culture like if you've not had too many problems, it is tough at the moment, that must be getting out there. Absolutely. Because people have more focus now on what is the culture like? Will we be able to have a laugh and have a joke? And are the people nice? And they want to be seeing all that. So people must be seeing that as well. So not just internally, but externally, they must be seeing that. Because many, many companies at the moment, the struggle is because there's a silence around their culture. What is it? And people are... not seeing that. They're searching for it. And they've got so much to shout about. Companies have so much to shout about things that they do that someone outside can't see but you've obviously got that out and that's great and other companies need to follow that lead. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_03:I'm going to jump back a wee bit, actually. I just wanted to chat about the onboarding you mentioned earlier, the onboarding team you had. That's, again, something we talk to companies quite a bit about, and obviously maybe not everybody has the opportunity to bring on an onboarding team, but it's really interesting to see that you take people and you maintain that communication right from when they apply and when they get offered the job, right through their notice period. That's made a massive difference to kind of getting people over the line and getting them into the organisation, I
SPEAKER_01:take it. And structure, and prior to joining... they've already had some tasks, so they go in and fill some personal information in, they've already had a catch-up with their line manager. They've been copied in on emails with their line manager, maybe their delivery manager, their people partner, who they're obviously going to build relationships with. So they know their key stakeholders before they've actually joined the business. In the sessions that we put in, we have an ex-DNA, we call it. So our culture and our values, progression at X Design, which includes own your own potential, which I've mentioned as well, and competency frameworks. We have a what does our product team do? What does our QA team do? meet a member of the exec team you know sometimes a lot of the feedback can be in businesses that the execs team aren't visible so we try and get a member of the exec team to do a bit of an intro and a Q&A with our candidates as well that's part of their onboarding so on day one it's not scary is it no
SPEAKER_00:yeah a lot of it's about oh first day who is everyone or what's happening actually they've met the person they know they're almost they're ready to go
SPEAKER_01:absolutely
SPEAKER_00:and we
SPEAKER_01:found that's really helped embed people into the business and potentially our culture and our values
SPEAKER_00:you've shown them already before they've seen it externally they've seen it on the journey before starting and then you carry on so many touch points where culture actually it's not just about their first day, it's all that before from your shop window to everything
SPEAKER_03:else. So if you're a smaller company and maybe don't have that, it's something you would still advise is to say, look at that onboarding process, look at how you can do that, implement it. Maybe you don't have a full team, but what does that process look like when they're coming in? And to think about that process before they get over the line on day one, because obviously day one they're coming in, they have made the decision to come in, but they still need that almost, I've signed the contract, I'm ready to come, but I've got a notice period of two months or a month or three months. It's keeping the communication, isn't it? It's keeping in touch with people. Three months is a long time to not have any communication. And
SPEAKER_00:they may have already switched off from where they are, so they're now filling that gap of... You've got
SPEAKER_03:to fill that gap,
SPEAKER_00:haven't you? They've already switched off, potentially, maybe, maybe not, but switched off from there, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:That's
SPEAKER_01:brilliant. Our values as well, we actually have an interview that is just values-based. So we're not measuring their technical competence. It's purely values. Are they going to fit our culture of X design? And if they don't pass that values-based interview, they don't join, regardless of how brilliant they are in the technical aspects. So we know, for the main part, everybody that steps foot into X design on day one fits our culture. And that then just grows and expands our culture as well.
SPEAKER_03:That's really interesting because we've just done a report on the art of the interview and how to structure that and how to ensure that you get the right people. The questions you ask, the process you go through, and the values part of it is so important, isn't it? And it's making sure that the person, technically, obviously very proficient, but they've got to fit in the team as well. It has to be, yeah. And if they don't, that's where your company starts to fall down, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00:So some great tips so far in terms of good things to share, but it must be quite a scary thought in terms of, like, we're at five now. your next hundreds and maintaining that culture is so, so difficult. Do you often think about that? Daily. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How are we going to grow this culture and maintain this culture? Because obviously if we don't, I think culture with engagement, retaining the staff, it's so intertwined. Because if we retain our best talent, they'll do their best work. We'll have a happier workforce. They'll do their best work for the client. We'll then retain our client. We'll get new clients. So I think it's so, so important. So it's definitely on the list, on the agenda all the time. Yeah, definitely. And I think you can always improve, can't you? And I think fundamentally, I think like a values-led culture is really important, that you're not scared to evolve as your business evolves as well. And I think we're really lucky at xDesign, like I've said with the interviewing, that everybody at xDesign has those core values within them. So that makes it a lot easier, of course. And I think we need to ensure that we're a remote-first business. So we need to ensure that everyone feels connected. And I think that's really important. So how do we connect our employees that are sat at home in, I don't know, in Yorkshire somewhere? So that's one of our key kind of pillars of our wellbeing strategy is to ensure we're connected. And that could be with daily stand-ups for the project. That could be things like we've got a donut chat where you get randomly selected with someone. A donut chat? They don't, unfortunately, but maybe I'll bring that. Yeah, exactly. And that's just 15 or 30 minutes that gets added into the calendar at a time that suits both people and that's how you meet other people within the business as well so that really helps the culture and I was sticking with the food theme here but we also give tacos not real tacos I know I'm sorry to disappoint
SPEAKER_03:you
SPEAKER_00:and
SPEAKER_01:that's just a really quick fire way of giving recognition to your colleagues in terms of tacos so you know thanks for doing such a great work on a job on XYZ that's really help me you get a maximum of five tacos a day so you can't just give them out willy nilly like they have to mean something because then you've lost them and at the end of the month we collect all of those tacos and we donate a monetary amount to a charity as well so that's a really nice like they've become a real fundamental piece and why was it a taco and not something else like tacos were well before I joined so I've got no idea but it's become a real core part of our culture at X Design so that's so that's one piece yeah I think as well in terms of transparency we've not really spoken a lot about we've spoken about communication communication from the top that honesty that transparency from our leadership team is so so important and fundamental for our culture as well because we do make mistakes we're human the business you know might make a mistake and it's when we get our most engagement and everyone rallies together is when our CEO comes out and sends a communication and says, listen, this has happened. This maybe wasn't expected. This wasn't what we had planned, but it's okay. And this is how we're going to deal with it as a business. And that's when our engagement scores increase because of the transparency, the honesty that's come from your ELT team, from the person at the top of the business. And mistakes are okay.
SPEAKER_00:Mistakes happen. And a lot of organisations are trying to have this culture of just feel fast. So make a mistake. learn from it, but move on, don't sit and worry about it for, we all make mistakes. And so that's really, that's another thing to think about and have that kind of culture as well. So yeah, it's a scary thought for how you do it next, but also must be quite, how do you ensure that someone sitting in Edinburgh has the same experience as someone in Yorkshire, you said there, in terms of the culture you've tried so hard, your team, to get this culture in, but how do we make sure that it's the same experience for everybody, no matter where they are, where they're working, who they're working with, that it's all the same jazz.
SPEAKER_01:And that's a challenge, isn't it? So you have to ensure that the message is clear. So the messages that we put out, we ensure that the audience is the whole business. So nobody misses that key messaging. So we have a dedicated announcements channel that everybody in the company is in. So when we need to get a clear message across or it's a part of a change, that everybody is getting that same messaging. In terms of as well, like line management, that's obviously probably quite a big part of culture because people don't leave jobs, do they? leave managers they leave managers yeah so we have um we have an xd leaders program which is for all of our leaders all of our line managers within x design which is a 60 hour program but they go back and they go into what does communication as a manager mean at xDesign? What's a difficult conversation? What is wellbeing? And everyone has to go through that same course. So even all of our line managers are getting the same messaging of, because maybe a leader at xDesign is not a leader outside of xDesign. So it's that consistent messaging for our leadership so they can manage and lead their teams in a consistent manner and approach as well. And I think obviously we've mentioned tools, we've mentioned systems, but they have to work remotely as well as in our offices as well we've got offices Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester and London but we can't just have things that work in an office we're a remote first business so we have to ensure there's that consistency of people being able to use the right technology
SPEAKER_00:well or I couldn't have that conversation because they work remotely that's no longer an excuse now it's like well how do we adapt our comms for those remote for office space? What is the style and tactics? But the message is still very much the same, isn't it? Definitely, definitely. So your head must be buzzing with everything that's going on in your day-to-day, but what are you thinking about? What is next for X Design? What are you looking at for 2024? What is your main focus in terms of culture? what's
SPEAKER_01:not our main focus? We've got some work to do on Own Your Own Potential. We're kind of doing it in phases. So phase three this year, we'll be looking at salary benchmarking, like the bigger reward piece of that, the next part now that we've, you know, we've set up the performance, the frameworks, the linking it performance to the salary. And now then what's the benchmarking and the inner workings of that part. We're going to continue to expand on our brilliant communities that we've launched internally as well. So we have a wellbeing community community, accessibility, neurodiversity. These are all things that are really important to our people now. So we actually have a team of people within the business that run those communities to share best practices, have conversations as well, and then communicate out to the wider business. So, you know, I don't know, it's on Monday. My God, yeah, Monday. What day is it today? Losing track of the times. It's actually Brew Monday on Monday because it's meant to be the most depressing day of the year. I don't know when this is going to air,
SPEAKER_00:by the way. They must make people depressed by telling them that today is the most depressing day of the year. Let's just all be depressed because we give it that tagline,
SPEAKER_01:isn't it? So what we've done is, rather than just be like, oh, it's Brew Monday, we've actually set up connection points throughout Monday where you can join some tech who'll gather and go in and have a virtual brew with somebody as well. A blue donut in a virtual brew. Tacos, donuts. Exactly. So it's about having a calendar of events, so your mental health awareness week well we're gonna um our head of people um runs brilliant um cb to learn cbt so can we get someone in to do a bit of an over like cbt for for the team you know as an idea as well so it's things like that as well and we have my experience of um series as well internally where people share their experience of going through something like um balancing their career with motherhood um someone's done one on a chronic illness and how they've worked through it you know so it's all a learning isn't it and it really creates that culture it creates that community spirit as well um so that's probably from a culture point of view and then i think from x design's point of view just we'll continue this year to just keep the people at the forefront of everything that we do at the heart of the business the core of the business um with any with any decision we make and potentially this year try and expand into some other sectors as well in particular the public sector so um you know see if we can you've see what we can do in that field to help potential clients unleash their potential as well. It doesn't stop, does it? Culture. Culture
SPEAKER_00:never sleeps. It doesn't stop. Can I trademark? Absolutely. And from an HR point of view, what changes are coming or what lies ahead for 2024 in terms of the HR landscape and what's happening?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I think flexible working will be a big change this year. Obviously, the law is changing come April. So I think we might see a bit of an increase in flexible working requests. We know how important flexible working is to our people, to future candidates as well. So I think businesses need to ask themselves, are they set up for maybe an influx of requests? Are the processes up to date? Are policies up to date? Are line managers trained on how to deal with requests and these conversations? Can the business allow for flexible working? So I think that's some of the conversations that... leadership and managers need to start having prior to any of those changes in April. I think AI. I mean, hot topic. We've had a good old chat about AI. Yes. Chat GPT. It's not new to us now, but that's going to continue to grow, evolve and expand this year as well. And I think it's great. Don't get me wrong. Like it helps. But there's
SPEAKER_00:a big but with it. Can you hear it coming? There's a big but with it. You know,
SPEAKER_01:if you're struggling to start a process or a policy, it's great for that, isn't it? But it's not the finished piece, is it? There's still work to be done. And I think... Needs to come with a big disclaimer, doesn't it? It does, it does. And also I think people teams, it's a balance, isn't it? Because people speak to people. People like, you know, that's the culture as well. So we can't fully rely on people. AI because we fundamentally still need that human touch that human involvement so it's about striking that right balance between humans and technology and so I think that's going to be an evolving piece this year as well yeah it's a good
SPEAKER_00:one
SPEAKER_01:to keep an eye on yeah definitely and the changes of it it's always getting new versions isn't it and growing and becoming more sophisticated it's scary actually we could do a
SPEAKER_03:podcast every week about the new changes in AI
SPEAKER_00:and what impact it's going to have or maybe AI could do a podcast
SPEAKER_01:yeah absolutely absolutely absolutely Oh, scary. And I think the last thing I see is probably generations. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I think we'll see this year Gen Z. entering the workforce. Are we ready for them? Are we ready for them? Millennials now, millennials and myself as a millennial, will start being in more senior, maybe management positions in companies. They've been in the workforce for a few years now. So is the culture that worked for those older generations going to work for the Gen Zs? We know they've got different wants. They are interested in flexibility. They're interested in what we're giving back to our communities. You know, we were asked in a recent interview, do you have a CSR policy? i'm pretty sure boomers wouldn't have been asked you know asking those sorts of questions
SPEAKER_03:you
SPEAKER_01:know what's your like asking us what's your thoughts on well what's x design's thoughts on sustainability they've got different needs so you
SPEAKER_00:need to be ready for this or you're not you're not going to be able to recruit and retain them because you're right and they're they're the ones walking about with their phone in the right hand hand at all times at all times and needing that instant feedback and as you're have you been having these thoughts about oh my god how do we adapt now our culture for this next yeah it's a
SPEAKER_01:moving piece isn't it um so it's and we you know we're doing a lot of work in the DEIB space just now and our CSR and and charitable work so you know hopefully that generation would also want to come and
SPEAKER_00:work for if you're not doing it they're just simply not going to join you Everything could seem amazing but they're just not going to join you. Great, so lots and lots to think about. So I guess our audience are probably there with our notepad writing lots, but what are your three main takeaways that people can go away to either get some more help and support on or try and implement in their own scaling businesses? What are you looking at as the three top takeaways? Three
SPEAKER_01:top takeaways. I think for me, if you can invest in systems, if you're a business, if you think your business is going to scale, because if those systems will talk and integrate and you can automate a lot of your processes, a lot of the day-to-day admin tasks that will free you, that will free your team up for time where they can concentrate on bigger projects that are going to have much more of an impact on your people. So that would be my first. I think my second is... change is going to come. You can't. I know I keep harping on about change, but no. You can't hide from it. You can't run away from it. So face it. Embrace it. Embrace it. Face it. Just ensure, like I've mentioned. Embrace it. Face it. That's a good one. Just embrace it. Face it. So I just think embrace the change. And just ensure, like I've mentioned, that you've got your change champions, you're communicating it, you're getting your workforce ready for any of that change that's coming. So your prior planning around that as well. And lastly, for me, I think in terms of culture, to get your own culture as an organisation, it's so important that you don't just pick up. and copy and paste from somewhere else and expect that culture to work for your business because it won't. You can take learnings, you can take best practices and look at what other organisations, but you need to create a culture that works for the look, that works for the feel of your business and that can only come from internal. So I think that's just an important thing to note as well. Everyone's culture is going to be unique to them as a business and what they stand for and what their core beliefs are.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's
SPEAKER_03:brilliant. Great. Yeah. Well, listen, thank you very much for your time today, Hayley. And yeah, if there's any questions or anything you'd like to ask, then just drop it in the chat. And thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you both.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, everyone, for listening today. Please get in touch if you want to find out more on today's subject.
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