DisruptHR Birmingham and The HR Shockwave with Sara Andrews

What happens when engineering principles meet people strategy? Sara Andrews, Chief People Officer at Ecovyst, brings this powerful combination to the HRchat Show, revealing how her background as an engineer transformed her approach to human resources leadership.

Looking toward her upcoming presentation "HR as a Shockwave: From Compliance to Competitive Edge" at DisruptHR Birmingham, Sara previews how trust, talent frameworks, and culture serve as driving forces for organizational transformation. She also offers practical insights on balancing legacy practices with innovation, adapting strategies across different business environments, and leveraging AI for talent attraction, workforce planning, and personalized development.

Sarah also shares her journey of recognizing that truly effective HR requires building "strong, capable, competent and coherent teams" that directly impact business outcomes. Rather than viewing HR as a support function, she positions it as a strategic driver of enterprise value. Her refreshing perspective cuts through typical HR rhetoric to focus on measurable results: "My entry into HR was always about making a difference, having an HR function that created value and initiatives that really spoke to the bottom line."

While acknowledging HR's progress in gaining organizational influence, Sarah candidly assesses our current reality: "I think we have a seat at the top table. I'm not quite sure that our voice is as clearly heard as it should be." She outlines how HR professionals must develop skills to demonstrate how people management directly connects to growth, revenue, and DEI. This represents the evolving frontier for HR leadership – moving beyond presence to genuine influence.

Ready to transform your HR function from a support role to a competitive advantage? Listen now to discover how engineering principles can revolutionize your people strategy and drive measurable business impact.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Sarah Williams, Chief People Officer
• 3:20 From Engineering to HR Leadership
• 6:20 HR's Voice at the Top Table
• 9:30 Preview: HR as a Shockwave Talk
• 12:50 Tailoring People Strategy Across Organizations
• 14:30 Leveraging AI in HR for Impact

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit.

Speaker 2: 0:23

HRGazettecom. Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Badham, and joining me on the show today is Sarah Williams, chief People Officer over at EcoVist. Sarah is an accomplished HR leader and trusted board advisor with experience shaping people and culture strategies across private equity, venture capital and publicly listed businesses, and trusted board advisor with experience shaping people and culture strategies across private equity, venture capital and publicly listed businesses. Hey, sarah, how are you doing today? Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3: 0:53

Thank you, bill, lovely to be here and thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 2: 0:57

And what I should just add there before we go any further, is Sarah is one of our latest victims sorry, I meant one of our latest speakers for the Disrupt series. Sarah is going to be on stage in Birmingham on September 11th and we're going to talk about that as part of the conversation today. But to begin with, sarah, what first drew you into the people and culture space and what keeps you passionate about this work today?

Speaker 3: 1:27

So I started my career a long time ago as an engineer and spent many years working my way through an engineering career and really kind of recognised during that phase of my working life how important it was to build strong, capable, competent and coherent teams, and an opportunity arose for me to take a step out of engineering and into human resources delivering projects and programs.

Speaker 3: 1:58

So my entry into HR was always about making a difference, having a HR function that created value and created initiatives, programs and opportunities that really spoke to the bottom line of the business. And so I've really built on that throughout my senior career in HR, using all of those engineering fundamentals, but primarily looking at HR functions and how they can create value, make a difference and be transformative in the workplace. I think it's a great time to be in a HR function at the moment because we're finding ourselves more and more at the center of business, at the center of strategy, at the center of organizational change, and I think we're really starting to make our presence felt and be a voice for shaping workplaces in the future.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat Podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now back to the conversation.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Love it, thank you very much. So just briefly a follow-up on that then. Uh, I think, as we record this, we've released something like 850 episodes. Love it, thank you very much. So just briefly a follow up on that then. I think, as we record this, we've released something like 850 episodes for this show. Ok, and for many, many years, the conversation was around getting a voice at the top table for HR leaders.

Speaker 3: 3:43

Do you feel like we're there now? I think we have a seat at the top table. I'm not quite sure that our voice is as clearly heard as it should be, and I think we have still got a lot of work to do in that space, in demonstrating how people are a business and everything around. The management of people directly aligns to growth. It aligns to value, to revenue, to EBITDA, and is the driver of the change that organizations are working through in an ever-changing landscape globally, and so I think we've made great progress. I think we're on the right path. I think we're recognising the skills shift that's needed to have the influence, the gravitas and the skills and tools to be able to be effective in a boardroom, but I think there's still some room to move.

Speaker 2: 4:39

OK, so a work in progress. So a work in progress, ok. Now, as I mentioned earlier, you will be taking to the stage at Disrupt HR Birmingham on September 11th. I'll be. I'll be on stage as well as one of the co-hosts, along with Jamie Keeling, so you can expect a couple of bad dad jokes from me. Can you take a couple of minutes now and share a little bit about your talk and some of the hoped for learning outcomes?

Speaker 3: 5:07

Yeah, so my talk has a working title of HR as a shockwave from compliance to competitive edge, and I think that's the bit that I'm most passionate about in the world of HR is the levers that we have to pull, being at the center of an organization.

Speaker 3: 5:29

If we can really understand business strategy, we can understand financials and commercials and we can apply a people strategy to the outcomes of a business. And I think, as the world is becoming more and more literate with AI and how that can help some of our more transactional processes, it's causing a shift within functions that we really need to reskill some of our teams to be able to drive the value piece even more than we have over kind of the last few years, even more than we have over kind of the last few years. And so my talk is really going to be about HR as a driver of enterprise value, using trust, which I think is incredibly important, talent frameworks and some of the tools that we have in that space and, most importantly, culture as a driving force to make some of the transformational shifts that our business need us to to help drive forward. So I'm excited to be there, looking forward to the 11th and a really fast paced delivery of HR as a shockwave.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Sounds great. It is fast paced. I'm sure Verity and Jamie and the team have given you the lowdown on the format. It's quite a unique format. It's five minutes, 20 slides and we're mean and we automate the slides every 15 seconds. Have you ever done anything like that before? What excites you about that?

Speaker 3: 6:59

What, maybe pace? I think I come from a background of managing change and so stripping things back to the core message and being really punchy in getting your message across in an impactful, succinct and timely way just cuts out all of the fluff. It's straight to the point. I think it makes it much more engaging for the audience and it's scary in equal measure, because there is no time to find your way around a slide. You have got to absolutely believe in what you're saying to be able to deliver five minutes slides. It flips every 15, 15 seconds. So I don't think you can do it unless you believe passionately in what you're uh, in what you're delivering well, I'm excited to see your talk.

Speaker 2: 7:55

I think it'll be grand and worst case scenario and it all goes wrong.

Speaker 3: 7:58

It's only five minutes, then you'll be off again I'll fill it with mum jokes there we go so.

Speaker 2: 8:07

So you've led people, culture, strategies across very different environments p backed, vc backed and publicly listed companies, of course. How has that variety shaped your approach as a chief people officer?

Speaker 3: 8:20

so I think one of the things that I've learned along the journey um and it's been it, as you say, in very different organizations, but also in lots of different sectors as well you know, from um, from automotive to aerospace, to financial services, to to health care and now back into back into industry I think the one thing I've learned along the way is no two organizations are the same and your people strategy has to be relevant and rooted in the organization that you're working with and completely aligned to the business strategy of that organization as well.

Speaker 3: 9:03

So I think you have to take the business outcomes that you're trying to achieve and then work with your leadership colleagues to reverse, engineer that back into a people strategy, so that you have got an absolute golden thread that links business outcomes into people activities, so that you can measure it, you can report it and you can demonstrate with data and analytics whether the measures that you have put into place are actually having the impact and the effect that you want them to have. I think you can use frameworks and principles that are common across the world of human resource and people management, but the way in which you apply them, adapt them and fit them into an organization really has to fit the culture of the business and the maturity of the business, and understanding that first will, of course, make you know your strategy so much more impactful, um, and it will enable change to happen. Um, that little bit, that little bit easier just side note.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Um, before we hit record today, listeners, uh, sarah shared with me that she's still currently in the netherlands and you spoke about culture just a moment ago. I'm interested. This wasn't one of the questions I was going to ask you, but, given where you are today, can you point to any cultural differences from working in office in the Netherlands compared to working in the UK?

Speaker 3: 10:33

Yeah, I think the Netherlands has quite a different business culture and it has quite a different social culture. I think you know, whenever we talk about business cultures, they stem from social cultures and in the Netherlands, of course, it's a very equitable, very fair culture. They really value their health and their well-being. They are very diligent and very articulate. Articulate, they have a natural curiosity and, you know, out of genuine interest, often really want to know the reason why, and so I found that sort of working in the Netherlands. If you respect all of those facets of the things that are important to them socially, you know you'll succeed in business. I think, like most organizations, starting from the point of building trust is always important.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Okay, brilliant. That was not a question that I was going to pose, but you knocked that one out of the ballpark. Good work, sarah. Tell me when it comes to advocating for cultural change at scale, because you've certainly done that in your career? How do you balance respecting legacy practices with introducing new ways of working?

Speaker 3: 11:51

to where it's got to without having done good work along the way. So I don't think any seasoned chief people officer, chief HR officer, would bowl into an organisation and rip it all up and start again. That's absolutely a recipe for disaster. But respecting the fact that the business is going on a journey, it hasn't reached its destination and arguably there isn't an organisation hasn't reached its destination, um, and arguably there isn't an organization that has reached its destination, um, respecting what's gone before and building on that is usually the better approach, um, and there'll be good work that's been done that absolutely conforms some of the foundations and some of the building blocks of the things that you want to evolve going forward. So I think going into a new organization, take the good things that are already there and position the future around a future-focused, future-facing, continuous improvement agenda that builds on everything that's gone before and respects the work that's gone in, you know, by the teams that you'll be leading, is a much better way of shaping a strategy.

Speaker 2: 13:14

Regular listeners of this show will know that I like to joke that we can't record an episode these days without talking about AI. So here we go. I do apologize, but you know it's on everybody's minds at the moment. When it comes to digitization and process optimization, they are key themes in your career. Where do you see the biggest opportunities right now for HR to leverage AI and tech for more impact?

Speaker 3: 13:42

I think there's definitely some natural places where going digital AI, machine learning and everything that that world of automation has to offer us has some natural synergy, certainly in the world of talent attraction.

Speaker 3: 14:00

That's not to say that we don't need face-to-face contact and that we don't need to go through some proper interview processes, but certainly helping to search and shape our talent attraction approach definitely has a spot there.

Speaker 3: 14:19

I think AI is also starting to be really strong in the world of workforce planning, and that's typically an area where the majority of HR teams that I've connected with have struggled, and so finding technologies that really can help us not just report on what's been but help us predict insights about our people data so that we can make forward facing decisions and we can lean in to analytics and insights that are leading rather than lagging.

Speaker 3: 14:53

So I think workforce planning is a huge space that existing technologies haven't quite been able to nail, but I do think AI gives us a different lever to be able to do something in that space. And then I think the third bit for me is around development and personalizing development so that we take a step away from one size fits all or standard programs that all employees go through and we can use AI to generate much more bespoke development plans that are relevant, meaningful but aligned to business performance, aligned to competencies, aligned to developing known skills gaps, takes us away from the generic and into the specific, but allows us to align it all to business value in a much, much better way. So talent attraction, workforce planning, individual development that's much more personalized is is where I'm certainly focused okay, very good.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Personally, I've recently read a lot of not all of it, but a lot of the um ai 2027 reports and, uh, that's terrifying, but that's a conversation for another day. Uh, we are pretty much out of time before we wrap up for this conversation for today. How can our listeners connect with you? Is that linkedin? You want to share your email address?

Speaker 3: 16:16

are you super cool and all over tiktok and Instagram and places, tell us more uh, I'm pretty much LinkedIn, so, um, I tend to keep all business stuff on the LinkedIn platform. Feel free, um to to drop me a message or respond to a post, or um, yeah, uh, connect. Connect with me via via LinkedIn. It would be great, great to hear off people and great to answer any questions. Um around the things we've talked about today excellent.

Speaker 2: 16:38

well, that just leaves me to say, sarah, I'm looking forward to meeting you in person on September, the 11th, but for now, thank you very much for being my guest.

Speaker 3: 16:46

Thank you very much for having me, Bill. I'll see you on the 11th.

Speaker 2: 16:49

And listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.