Links:

'Reclaim Time to Read' 2022 reading challenge:  https://www.helenbeedham.com/2022-reading-challenge

Helen's business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing

Book into my new programme Time for the things that matter. Programme starts 21st June 2022.

Ben on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benphiggins/

City  HR Association: https://cityhr.co.uk/

Richard Branson's autobiography: Finding My Virginity

Transcript:

Helen: This week, I'm talking with Ben Higgins, who is Managing Director and UK Head of Human Resources at Societe Generale, one of Europe's leading financial services groups, which he joined in 2005. SG has over 130,000 employees supporting 30 million clients in over 60 countries. Ben sits on the UK Executive Committee and is a member of the global HR Executive Committee. Before joining SG, Ben was an HR Business Partner for Allianz Dresdner Asset Management and alongside his day job, he is Chair and Board Director of the City HR Association, the professional body for human resources experts working for the UK financial services sector. He's also the Chair and Trustee of the SG UK foundation, a corporate charity focused on education and employability. Ben is married with two daughters and is passionate about being an active father. His other interests include spending as much time as he can in France, wandering around local markets, visiting vineyards and sampling new restaurants, as well as clay pigeon shooting and cycling.  Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant Ben!

Ben: Thank you very much for having me Helen, it's great to be here.

Helen: And when you say cycling, is that a few laps around the local park with your daughters or something more intrepid?

Ben: It's a very good question, actually. Because I've had a few incidents on two wheeled vehicles of late. So more cycling and within the countryside, but then I also, with part of a midlife crisis, bought myself a trials bike which is one of those bikes without a saddle - and if some people know Dougie Lampkin who's an incredible trial cyclist, it's where you're going in woods and going up and down very steep and sloping ravines and so on - and fell off at the end of last year and damaged my shoulder rather badly. So I think I'm going to be a more sedate cyclist, certainly for the short term.

Helen: Oh, wow. That's interesting. Nothing ventured, nothing gained though.

Ben: Precisely, precisely.

Helen: So you've obviously had some adventures there. And I've given our listeners a feel for your professional career and the roles you've had and the roles you're in now. Can you tell us something about yourself that might surprise our listeners?

Ben: Yeah. Actually Helen, the bit I was going to surprise the listeners with was, was about the cycle accident and the midlife crisis, because actually as an individual, I'm quite risk averse. And therefore it was a bit of a shock, even to me, that I decided to take up something which is very risky and involves a lot of safety equipment and so on, but it didn't quite play out as I expected it to.

Helen: So did that put you off or did it whet your appetite to try something different?

Ben: I guess I was actually quite proud of myself for doing something which was outside of my normal self, really. But it's put me off short-term just because for the last five months I've been having intensive physio and being gradually able to move my shoulder again and having had lots of scans and visits to the hospital and so on. But I don't think it has put me off, I think it's made me realize that life is short and you need to experiment, try different things and it's something that actually I don't regret whatsoever.

Helen: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to hear about the injury and how long it's taken to recover from that. That sounds a pretty significant part of your life for the last few months and good to know you're on the mend, but interesting to hear that you don't regret it and actually, something to reflect on and encourage you to try other stuff, perhaps instead.

And when you think about your career, how did you get into the role you're in today? Can you give us a quick feel for how your progression has happened, your career path has happened?

Ben: Yeah. So I started out in the city in the year 2000. So what's that now it's 22 years ago. And I've always been in HR and always in financial services and I'm very proud of the fact that I actually started at the bottom. So I started as an HR administrator doing the very, very basic stuff that people in those jobs know is on your to-do list. So headcount reporting, looking at benefits administration, the very basics, all the photocopying and all that sort of stuff. But by then gradually moving my career forwards from then on and trying working in different teams. It gives you a real appreciation for what happens in the background with the lifecycle of HR.

I would bucket my career into three parts. The first is HR business partnering. So the natural progression from being an HR administrator is to go on to the advisory side and being business focused. So I did that for quite a few years; I think I ended up doing that for about 10 years in total. And then I made a very deliberate move with my career, and SG was fantastic to support me in that, which was to move into the sphere of compensation just as the UK regulator had a real renewed focus on remuneration within financial services. I did that for a couple of years, and then I started to move into management positions. And then approximately six years ago, ended up in this role where I'm heading up HR for the UK platform of SG which is a role that combines two things I'm absolutely passionate about.

The first is HR and being the point person for everything to do with people, and the expertise around people, and secondly leadership. And I'm really very, very passionate about leadership, being an authentic leader and everything to do with that. So, hence the reason why I'm delighted to be with you today.

Helen: Thank you, and that's really interesting to hear that you started in the HR generalist and analyst role and I'm sure people earlier in their careers listening to that will find that really helpful to hear how you made it up to the role you're in today. Would you say there's a classic or required career path to get to a Head of HR/ Director of HR position? Or are there lots of different routes you can take? Are there some boxes you just have to tick along the way?

Ben: I think that's changed actually over the years, because I think if we were having this conversation 10 or so years ago, I think one of the classic routes was to go through the CIPD and to be a qualified HR professional. I see more and more people actually moving from the business into HR and actually from HR into the business.

So I think the routes are changing, but clearly there is a more classical route being about someone who has had some degree of education, whether it be HR or psychology or something related to the way that people's minds work and how relationships are forged or organizations are designed and so on.

But I quite like the way actually that you've got people now moving laterally into HR then out of HR, I think it really means that as a profession, you can see what we do from different lenses. And I think actually for those people who do that sort of career and have a sort of zigzag approach, if you like, it can be actually very good for our profession.

Helen: Yes, and that's really interesting to hear because I'm hearing and seeing other organizations broadening out their criteria for getting into certain roles or for promotion and thinking much more broadly and welcoming people with perhaps a wider range of backgrounds or experiences or previous roles and not being quite so hung up on 'you need to have done X amount of time in this role, or have studied, you know, got these particular qualifications. So less emphasis on time spent in certain roles beforehand and much more open-mindedness. Is that something you see generally?

Ben: Yeah, I think it's a very good point. I would say for me, it's the combination of having leadership because at the end of the day, you're pulling together a team of experts to have impact on the people of an organization. But for me, it's also about having a genuine, authentic interest in the subject matter. And that can come from all sorts of backgrounds, but I think people who really understand the value that we can add to an organization and then lead a team to achieve those goals, I think is a great combination.

Helen: Yeah. And so given the many different hats you're currently wearing, how do you organize your time at work? Is it something you've mastered? Are you quite fluid about it? Are you very structured about it? How do you keep on top of your responsibilities but also find time for those things that you are really passionate about, both in your day job and in other commitments that you're involved in?

Ben: It's a huge balancing act, I would say. And you're quite right. So you've got my job, you've got the the charity, you've got City HR, and then you've got for me what's the priority above all of those, which is my personal life and my family. I guess I should preface this by saying that it's my decision, it's a voluntary decision to chair the charity and chair City HR. But I think for me, there's two things I would say about this. First of all is, and maybe it's a cliche, but I really do feel this, with the charity it's about giving back. It's about using the expertise I've got, the passion I've got for the community, for social mobility, to do something which is on top of the day job, which just makes me feel good. And actually I think that can apply to City HR as well. We support over 180 different organizations working in and around financial services and actually to be able to link people together, provide networking opportunities and so on, feels good.

Now coming back to your question, how do I manage my time? I think it's about compartmentalizing sometimes these responsibilities and finding dedicated time for each of them within the day. But also I think it's about being super rigorous and disciplined particularly when at the end of the day, or for me where I'm particularly disciplined is on holiday. And for the past four or five years, whenever I'm on holiday, whenever I take a day off, I do not look at my emails. And I actually had the fortune of having a month off last year when there was a lot going on at work. I didn't look at my emails once and I'm pretty proud of that actually, because I think one bit is it shows to my family that, Daddy's now off work, but also it empowers your teams. And I have a fantastic team that I work with and for them to then be given the autonomy and the accountability to take decisions, to contact me if they need to, but to let them work on what needs to be worked on, I think it shows also good leadership to be able to do that.

Helen: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and that's just amazing to hear that you do it so definitively, and I'm really impressed by that. And I also love your point about actually how it can empower your team. So I'm just back as you know, from three weeks holiday in Australia and I was casually reading some of the local papers when I was out there. And I read an interview by, I think it was either the head of Google in Australia or the head of HR in Australia for Google, who was talking about returning from a year's maternity leave and she did the same. She totally disengaged from her role, I'm pretty sure it's the CEO, and she talked about what a phenomenal opportunity that was to develop members of her team and how we don't think of switching off enough in that way, in the benefits. We tend to just think about I'm a bit indispensable, I need to keep checking back in, or people will need me to be in touch. But actually we're missing the trick, which is with a good deal of conversation and preparation beforehand - and she talked quite a lot about how she approached it, she set two of her senior team members up to job share her responsibilities while she was away and she was very specific about what she delegated to whom and made sure they felt ready to take on that task for a secondment period effectively - and she said that the growth in the team and in the individuals as a result was just fantastic. And so she was really encouraging us to see that as an opportunity, and it sounds like you see the benefits as well, when you switch off as a leader.

Ben: Yeah, I think it's a win-win. I think you're right with your comment, by the way, preparation is everything. And I remember the run-up to that holiday - and yes, it's pretty unusual to take a month off - w as very tough because you're trying to make sure that you've got the right handover and people feel that they've got the tools they need while you're away, but also they know that they've got the support if it's needed whilst I am out of the country.

But I do think if you have a good team you've got to be able to trust them to deliver. Plus there is something that I think has been said for a long time now which is when you're a leader. I think one of your first responsibilities, when you move into that sort of role, is to start thinking about your succession very early on, around who are the people who could potentially take over from you in the future and again, to give them the responsibility. Because personally I've been in my role for six years now and of course, one of the key ingredients to feeling good about the role that I'm doing is that I want to be challenged, which means that gradually I need to be able to delegate and give people the responsibility for tasks that I might've done two or three years ago to enable me to still grow and to feel that there's more that I can learn on.

So I genuinely believe it's a win-win I, I'm not sure whether my colleagues, when the going got tough and they had their own jobs to do plus a bit of what I normally had to do, would have thanked me all the time for that responsibility. But I think that it's far better to do that than be someone who is on holiday, but not on holiday; not in the office, but somewhere in the background, and I don't think that's a particularly healthy way of working.

Helen: No, and I agree and I think you're so right about how, what you do as a leader sends very strong signals to the rest of the team about what's the normal way of doing things or what's sanctioned or expected. And there is this issue that's very prevalent at the moment where people simply aren't switching off and they're doing a low level of work. They might not be at their desks working on a task, but they're checking emails, they're responding, they're thinking about stuff. They're effectively being at their employer's disposal during the evenings and weekends and on holidays. So then that whole definition of working time is starting to become quite a complex issue, and I'm hearing quite a few organizations start to focus on this and really talk about when is working time, when isn't working time. And interestingly, I think it was Arup who have recently redefined their working week to be a seven day week. People don't work seven days a week, but working at weekends is an option if that works better for you. So some quite different approaches being taken. And I think it's for every organization to figure out what's going to work for them.

So talking about your team and recognizing that many teams are back in the office a few days a week at least, how do you coach your team and help them to make the best use of their time at work and to work healthily and productively? Are there particular conversations you've been having with them?

Ben: Yeah and let's be honest, these conversations have been going on for a long time. And in fact, SG had implemented hybrid working before the pandemic took hold. So for us transitioning into the pandemic way of more pronounced hybrid working was actually quite a natural process, but of course we're almost still in an experimentation type mode.

When I say we, I'm not just talking about my organization, I'm talking about everyone who is working in a hybrid setup. We're all testing and trying different things. I think for me, the most important thing is that when people are in the office, they make best use of that time to reconnect with each other or connect with each other, meet candidates meet employees, spend time with people at the infancy of their career where they really are soaking up information not necessarily by sitting down learning a new task, for example, but just by listening to what's going on in an office.

One of the messages that we're sending is to really better understand the role of how best should we be working when we're in the office versus when we're at home. And of course, every day you read on Linked In and various other outlets different views of successful business people on whether people should be working from home full-time or working from the office full-time and hence my comment that we're in this big experiment, and at some point, things will settle down into more of what is the new normal. But I actually quite like this phase at the moment, because we're learning so much, we're looking at the data, we're getting feedback of what's working and what isn't working and that sort of transformation and that change I find very exciting on this topic, because it links with HR but also it links with corporate real estate. It's not only why you're coming to the office, but what's the setup of an office to enable you to have those team conversations, to meet with people, to spend time with people at the infancy of their careers and so on. I think the whole thing is hugely interesting.

Helen: I agree. And lovely to hear that you're approaching it in a very experimental mode and I agree, we are in still in a big experiment. I think a few organizations might have been very definitive about how they want people to come back to work and said, 'well, this is the way we're going to do it forever'. And I think those organizations are missing a trick actually, because I think the longer we can stay curious and trial a few different things, the more successful we are going to be in finding out and settling on the ways of working that are going to work best for different groups of people in different parts of the business. I think there's a bit of a risk of closing things down too early.

So are you giving teams a lot of freedom and autonomy to figure that out at team level or individual level, or have you approached this with some organization-wide principles? Quite interested to hear a little bit more about that.

Ben: Yeah, it's principle-based so what's clear is that when we first started looking at this, there are two approaches. One approach is to have a purpose approach to hybrid working, the second is to be more prescriptive. And in fact, when we were looking at this, some of those people we expected to want a sort of purpose-led were saying yes, but how many days do you want me in the office? What's the expectation? So they were coming to us asking for that clarity. So where we've been clear is what the minimum expectation is of being in the office. And that varies depending on the sorts of job that you're doing. So typically on the support side, it's typically a minimum of two days a week in the office, but then there are people on the client facing side that are doing four and five days a week in the office.

But as I said, the reason why I described it as being an experiment is because I think it is just that. Some firms, I know some competitors in the marketplace, they're only just getting to grips with how they launch this to their teams and others have been doing it for a while. And, as I said, I read articles whereby they're changing their approach and so on.So I think for me, to take decisions on whether it's successful now I think is tricky because we've got to look at engagement. We've got to look at productivity. We've got to look at retention; and of course, we've got to take into account that different people want something different out of work. There's no one successful route here. So that's why I think it's something that we're going to be looking at for the medium to long-term. I think it's a debate that's going to be staying on the table for a while and at some point we will pick up what's successful in other firms; where we can export success potentially within our own group; but also within the industry and see where we come out.

Helen: Yeah. I can understand that you want to be taking a little bit of time to gather some perhaps more lagging data and indicators over the next few months to see how these new working arrangements are really bedding in and how they're affecting people's productivity and their wellbeing and their levels of motivation and engagement. You do need a period of time to track changes in your measurement, I imagine.

Ben: Yeah. And I think that, you know, we, we have four values as an organization. One of those is team spirit. And when we do our annual engagement survey, when we do other pulse surveys during the year, it's something that we always excel at, this team spirit. But of course, traditionally, that was because of people coming together, formally and informally to work with each other, to innovate, to create, to discuss et cetera. And that has been blown into the air as to how does this work when we want to be competitive and in offering a set up which works versus the market, but also comes back to our roots of what sort of organization are we. And that we want to be an organization whereby you can still get that team spirit in your office, you can still innovate and create and have those ad hoc conversations, which when I'm in the office, it's those that aren't planned that are the ones where you come out with those nuggets of information that are so valuable that we need to bear in mind. It's a big medley of different factors that we need to be taking into account.

Helen: Yeah. And also it's when you're in the office and you have those spontaneous conversations that might not light a light bulb or lead to a new development, but actually just make you feel like you've had a really good day. It can be a really short conversation that completely changes your mood and fires you up about something or builds a really good connection with someone perhaps you didn't know so well. Certainly, for me, those are the things I'm really enjoying when I'm back face-to-face with people again. Are you hearing that from people?

Ben: Yeah and I'm experiencing that myself. And I think the other part I would add to what you just said is body language. You cannot pick up on body language when you're in an environment where you're looking at someone on a camera. And I think when you're in a room with someone and you can delve deeper, you can really find out... you mentioned earlier about wellbeing. It's something I'm really passionate about, about getting the best out of people is to really understand them and have proximity with your teams. You can do a certain amount of that on camera, of course you can. But I think really seeing someone in the flesh, eye to eye and really being able to then delve deeper, if you're not feeling that they're in the right zone or indeed that they're in a great place. I think being in the office, there's no substitute to that.

Helen: Yes, there's so many more cues you can be paying attention to and be thinking about. And in our very busy, always on, high-speed world of work one of the things you mentioned earlier that you're very passionate about is, is leadership. What's your view on how leaders really need to be spending their time now compared to say five, 10, 20 years ago? What's the most important thing a leader can do or things they can do to make a real impact and not just support people in their organization, but help everybody know what needs to be done and how best to do it?

Ben: It's a big question.

Helen: Yeah. I realize that we could probably have a whole podcast, another podcast on that!

Ben: It's a really big question. I think what I would say in response to that is, as I see it - and I've felt this myself when I see other leaders and I think yup, that's a great point that I can then integrate at some point in the way that I approach my own leadership style. I think proximity to teams and listening to teams - properly listening to teams - to really identify what's going on on the floor, where are the issues, where are things going really well that you can capitalize on, leverage within an organization and so on. So I would say sort of proximity and using EQ. And I think EQ is far underrated within leadership. So I think that's the first part I would say; the second part is, and I know there's a lot more recently being written about this, which is authentic leadership: having that tone from the top; setting an example; and as I said, one of those for me is look, when I turn off, I turn off and that's okay to do that. And I think that even in a time whereby - and I know that we see this with generational diversity - that people are taking more responsibility for their careers and have a stronger voice and advocacy and so on. I still think it's important for a leader to sometimes subtly permission to be able to behave in certain ways and act in certain ways. I also think you need to have people who are able to be courageous, pick up on behaviours that are not quite right, or having conversations with people at the earliest juncture to make sure that we identify issues, or in fact, we identify where people are true talents in an organization that we need to push them through.

So I think if you were to take all the comments, I've just said, I think it's someone who has that authenticity but is someone really in touch with the people and it's not just about sitting in a corner office, occasionally coming out and rallying the troops, I think it's having that constant feedback, that contact, that proximity with teams that means so much. And actually, if you listen to the feedback that we have of teams, that's what they want. They want to know their managers are there for them w henever they need them. I think that's what I'm seeing certainly, and I see it in myself; if I look at the way I've developed as a leader over time, I feel that that's something that it's a real critical success factor.

Helen: Thank you. That's really interesting to hear that take and I love the things you've described about what's important in the role, And how, what strikes me about that it's not so much about being the expert, perhaps technically, or making all the decisions, it's actually about being out there, talking, asking and listening to people.

And is there a resource, a book or a podcast or a talk or anything that has particularly resonated for you recently or been helpful to you as you've progressed in your career or perhaps a piece of work you're working on at the moment that listeners might find helpful?

Ben: Yeah. I've got two things I would raise. The first is maybe a little bit old fashioned but I love doing this, which is I read the Sunday Times every Sunday, funnily enough, I read it pretty much cover to cover because I think it's a great way of catching up on the week and finding out what's happening in all sorts of different parts of life in the world. But there's one bit that I really enjoy, which is a five minute read in the business section. There's an interview w ith a business person every week and what I like about it is it talks about the challenges of their current role or their current mission, but it also goes through a little bit about their life. And this is something I'm really very interested in, is the person behind the role and understanding a little bit more about them, what makes them tick and so on? And that's something that I really would thoroughly recommend.

The second point, again and it relates to the fact that I'm very interested in the psychology of people and their values and how that then transcends into what they do for a job. Autobiographies for me, I love reading autobiographies and the one that sticks in my mind was the first one I read and I read it because he's a hero of mine and that is Richard Branson. But since then I've read a number of autobiographies. And again, it's because I like to understand what happened in their childhood.  What was it in their life that made them the success that they are, or interestingly, how did they then face and overcome obstacles, I think is fascinating. So I guess those would be the slightly different clearly; one's a five-minute read and one's something you need to read over quite a few evenings, but those are two that I feel pretty passionate about.

Helen: Brilliant. Thank you. Well, I'll put a link to the Richard Branson book in the show notes for people listening and I'm deeply impressed that you get through all the Sunday papers. I'm afraid that's an art I have lost. And actually you're reminding me of how much I miss it. And how can listeners connect with you after the podcast, if they want to get in touch professionally?

Ben: Yeah, I'd be delighted if listeners were to do that. So LinkedIn is my go-to on the professional side and I'll be very interested to hear from listeners on their experiences.

Helen: Great and I'll pop a link to the City HR network as well, if that's alright?

Ben: Yes please, that would be fantastic.

Helen: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today about your career and about the role you have at the moment and the things you're focusing on in your organization. It's been fantastic hearing your reflections. Thank you so much.

Ben: It's been a real pleasure. Thank you very much for the invite.