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Transcript:

Helen: This week in the podcasting studio, I'm delighted to welcome my guest, Kevin Hogarth. Kevin has over 30 years of executive HR experience across healthcare, financial services, and professional services. He has worked for Boots, Abbey National, Capital One, Freshfields, Norton Rose Fulbright, EY, and most recently for KPMG as their UK Chief People Officer.He also has over 10 years non executive experience through his work with the national charity Scope, Nottingham Trent University, and two multi academy trusts. Kevin now runs his own advisory and consulting business, and he has received various awards recognizing his passion and commitment to creating diverse workforces and inclusive work cultures from HR Magazine's Most Influential UK HR Practitioners to being named as an INvolve Heroes Women Role Model and a Top 50 Ally Executive in the OUTstanding LGBT+ Role Models list. Kevin has also served as a steering group member for the Government sponsored Hampton-Alexander FTSE Women Leaders Review.He holds an honours degree in politics and is a fellow of the CIPD. He lives in Ealing with his wife Shami.

Welcome to The Business Of Being Brilliant Kevin!

Kevin: Thanks Helen. Thank you very much for the invitation to join you in this conversation.

Helen: I'm really glad you can join us and that was a really impressive bio I just read out there. I can't wait to chat a bit more about it with you and hear about how that career path evolved over time, et cetera and the things that you're focusing on, particularly now.

But a nice gentle question to ease us into the conversation, something I often ask my guests is when you're not busy doing all that work stuff, what is a favourite way to spend your time?

Kevin: Well, I live with my wife Shami. We both love good food and good wine so you'll often see us in the local restaurants or, you know, maybe out for a posh meal in central London. Also I'm a very keen supporter of Newcastle United Football Club. So also particularly given the success that we've been having this this season, you'll often see me either at home sat in front of Sky Sports or in a pub somewhere watching Newcastle's latest victory. It's not often I've been able to say that!

Helen: So you're making the most of it.

Kevin: Absolutely, while it lasts.

Helen: That's great. Lots of dinners out to celebrate their progress. So yeah. Oh, well, I have to admit, I'm not up to speed on the football teams and, and how well they're doing, but great to hear you've had such a positive year so far and something to celebrate. Fantastic.

And in reading out your bio, I gave people a very quick feel for your career, the kind of very senior HR roles you've held, and also how more recently you've been diversifying your work into more charitable organisations, educational sphere, et cetera. Could you just tell us a little bit about how that career path evolved and I guess how you made the decisions to move from one industry to another? Was there a common thread throughout that you knew you were always looking for? Just really interested to hear that story from your perspective.

Kevin: Yeah, well, I'm one of those very lucky people, Helen, who fell into something that they both enjoyed and found out that they were quite good at. So I wasn't one of those people who took a long time to sort of figure out what the right career pathway was.

I was interested in politics, I did a politics degree, lots of reform of trade unions while I was at university, found out that it was the personnel department, as it was called then, had all the dealings with trade unions. I thought that might be quite interesting to pursue that. So I researched that and, and applied for jobs as you did in those days to big companies through the milk round.

And I was very fortunate at the time of quite high graduate unemployment, but I got a job offer from Boots at their head office in Nottingham. And I really loved the work that I was doing, as I say, just really fortunate to without having known very much about and nobody in my family who's in HR.

So I, I just thought I really am enjoying this work, but from a very early age, I always thought that I wanted to get lots of different types of experiences. That motivated me and I spent five years at Boots, which is a reasonable period of time. But  I was known for agitating for a move to a new department to get some different experience and I wanted to get my first managerial job where I'd be managing other people. So I was always on the lookout for getting different experiences and new experiences and building my skillset. And Boots was the sort of organization then that if you stayed too long, you stayed for a very, very long time. I knew people who had 30 and 40 year careers at Boots. I knew that isn't what I wanted. I wanted to get some different experiences.

And it was at the time again of a lot of change in financial services so that was a sector that interested me and I got an opportunity to move into financial services. And through that early part of my career, I was always keen to move sector and do something different. So from financial services, I went into professional services and and then actually back into financial services, a different type of organization. It was Capital One, it was an American owned business., It was quite young in terms of it had only IPO'd a few years before I had joined and so at a very different stage of its development.

From Capital One, I went into the legal sector again, you know, very, very different. Capital One was a very sophisticated organization; I learned an enormous amount about what really great HR practice was. Whereas when I went to the legal sector, they were a few years behind the corporate sector and their approach to people.

So all the time I've really been looking for something new, something different where I can continue to learn.

Helen: Yes and it was very clear, listening to you talk about that, how the one thing you were very certain about is that you didn't want to do the same thing for a very long time and I always remember a very wise colleague early in my consulting day saying 'you don't have a strategy if you don't know what you're not going to be doing' which has always stuck in my mind. And the fact that you were always on the lookout and as you say, agitating, you know, what can I do next? When can I get into this kind of role? And I'm curious to know, did you find it difficult to step sideways across different industries,? Because very easy for us to perhaps think, Oh, I'm not really going to have a great chance to get into that role because I don't have that industry experience. So when you think about the need for certain technical versus industry experience, did the lack of industry experience not matter so much when you were moving between roles?

Kevin: Certainly not in the earlier stages of my career and I think HR is a profession where actually the skills are more portable than they are in many other areas. And so I found it relatively easy to make that shift into financial services and then a shift into professional services, accounting and then again, later in my career, shifting into the legal sector.

But I, I guess there has been, really post my days at Boots, in financial services and professional services I think probably one unifying aspect of the work that I've done is that talent has been so critical to the overall business strategy. That without very high quality talent, the business was going to be unable to achieve its aspirations.

And that's true in financial services and in professional services. So many of the themes that guided the work that I was doing at EY were relevant when I went to Capital One and then they were relevant again when I went to Freshfields, even though the context was slightly different.

That central importance of talent has probably been , to use a phrase, a golden thread through my career.

Helen: Yes, I was thinking that actually you may be applying the same expertise, but every time it's a different context, different organisational setup, different organisational maturity and different ambitions. So it's the same and it's not the same at all.

Kevin: Well, I think that's right. And I think in moving from one sector to another and from one organization to another, yes, of course, you do have a body of professional experience, but you do have to take some time to really understand the context in which you're going into and there's no way I could have applied everything that I did at Capital One into Freshfields. Freshfields was an organisation that wasn't ready for some of those things. So you have to think quite deeply about the context that you're in and things like organisational maturity, the culture of the organisation, its appetite for change... all of those things influence the approach that you have to take. Although you do have to have some idea about what you think good looks like. And there's some universality there: some aspects of what good performance management looks like - that really isn't based on which sector you're in, it isn't really based on that much around organisational maturity. There's some pretty fundamental things that you need to really get embedded. But that organisational context is an important part of your mindset as you go into a new organization.

Helen: Yes and I guess those skill sets you just described and that expertise is also what you really need to step into non executive roles and into board roles, which I know you've been doing in other sectors like education as well. Can you say a little bit about making that transition from perhaps a senior management/leadership role into a more board

Kevin: It is a bit of a transition because when you're in a senior executive role you're used to, you know, when you say something that usually things start to happen. You talk to your team about what needs to happen and they go away and start to do things .When you're a non exec that doesn't always happen; your advice can be listened to, or it can be ignored and you have to get used to that. It's a different type of role that you're performing.

I was very fortunate, the opportunity to get involved in non exec work came along while I was at Capital One through connections from the chief executive with Scope and then with Nottingham Trent University, and they were looking for somebody to work with them.

 And I've thoroughly enjoyed that. It's a different way of applying your skills. It's a way of giving back to the organisations that I've worked for. But also I've learned an enormous amount Helen, I would say particularly around what good governance looks like because I've seen both good and bad governance in the organisations that I've worked in as a non exec.

And if I take the university, for example, it's probably. The best governed organization that I've ever been associated with and I would often take back things that were being done in the way in which the board and the board committees were running at Nottingham Trent University into the organization in which I was working and saying, actually, I think we could do that, we could do that better. It's certainly where I learned I think what being a non executive really is all is all about. So hugely, hugely valuable in terms of my continuing skill set.

But also I think I've always had an eye to what's coming next, and I guess I was relatively young to start getting involved in non exec work, I was probably in my early 40s, I guess, something like that. But I knew that at some point I'd want to do what I'm doing now, which is, you know, to do independent work and non executive work.

So I was preparing for that and wanted to build a network and build my skills and my exposure and have that on my CV, quite frankly, you know, to have something on my CV that would demonstrate that I knew what it was like to be a non executive, albeit in the voluntary sector or in the third sector. And I've never regretted doing that.

Helen: Yeah. And listening to that makes me think, maybe getting into board roles and non exec roles is a bit like pensions in that for a lot of us it's probably not something we think enough about until it's really time to be absolutely thinking about it a lot. And in fact, the more we can think about and prepare for it earlier, the much better placed we are when that time in our careers or life comes around. It's so easy to not think about pensions in your twenties, thirties, because you know, older age feels such a long way off. And I guess it might be similar in some ways for people who are early on, mid into their career, thinking, Oh, well, you know, I'm a few career moves away or a few working years away from thinking about applying for board roles.

But actually, I'm going to guess you're going to say there are things people can start to do quite early in their careers to position them to make some of those options more likely?

Kevin: You're spot on Helen, I think that's absolutely right. My experience of working with professionals as they come towards the end of their first career, because many of us of course now through our hundred year life, are going to have, you know, two or three ...

Helen: ten!

Kevin: ...careers you know, or however many, that's right. And I think that's right. I think busy professionals tend to leave it too late. And I understand that, they're very committed to their professional careers, particularly when I'm talking about law firm partners and big four partners, they've got demanding clients that want their time and attention, want things turned around very quickly.

They probably also got family commitments, young family. I did when I was in my early forties and starting, so there's lots of competition for your time. But certainly if you leave it too late then particularly finding paid non executive work is really quite hard if you haven't got any board experience. And I think one of the ways around that is to start to get experience in the third sector, unpaid work arts organisations, charities in education as I've been. There's no shortage of organisations that are looking for people to come and help them on a voluntary basis.

And I do think actually it's very important that we do get younger people on boards. It's not an uncommon experience to be sat around a board that has actually quite good diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity, et cetera, but we're all the same age. We're all in our fifties and we have a particular viewpoint of our generation, and it would be great to have some people in their forties or even in their thirties who are adding different perspectives to the discussions that we're having around the board table.

So I would absolutely encourage people at a really relatively early stage of their careers. There are opportunities for them and I'd encourage them to explore them and and take them.

Helen: Yeah. So even if it's just an interest in their home lives, you know, helping to run a, I don't know, local rugby club or whatever, you know, all of those management governance related opportunities are going to be relevant at some point.

Kevin: And it's a way of perhaps following a passion. You may have a passion around the arts but that's something which you no longer have very much time for in your life. You may have played in an orchestra when you were younger, or maybe you were involved in the theatre when you were younger and that's just got squeezed out of your life now because of all the other competing demands. You can combine that passion for the arts by sitting on the board of an arts organization and it's tremendously fulfilling and stimulating.

Helen: Yes. And I love this idea, linked to what you were saying about we have different careers over our much longer working lives, there might be something that is more of a hobby for us now in the current chapter of our careers or our lives, but because we care a lot about it, we do stick at it. But actually that might .Become much more central to our working lives in a later career stage So it's nice to almost look ahead see almost like different lanes on a ,motorway and think okay I'm motoring down this lane, but I might switch into that lane later on.

Yeah, and you talked a bit about how when we're in busy professional demanding roles, there's a lot of demands on our time and there might be so many things we'd love to do, but we have to really prioritize just to keep our heads above water and not burn out.

And so there are some things we may want to say, we may have to say no to, because it's maybe the great opportunity or really interesting initiative that's come up, but it's just not the right time. Over the course of your career and today, how do you decide what to invest your time in? What to say yes or no to? So do you actively curate your different working experiences or is it a bit more ad hoc?

Kevin: No, I think I do, but I find it very hard because I'm just naturally very curious and enthusiastic about most things. So, particularly when something new comes along, that's the sort of thing that I like. Oh, it's new. Right. Okay. It's new and it's novel. That's what gets me interested.

And so, I find that very difficult, I have to say. I think the way that I've kind of reconciled myself to saying no, is that it's not fair on those things that I'm already doing to take on something else. And I'm certainly finding that now, with the work that I'm doing with the multi academy trusts . I have got some more time that I can give to non executive work, but not so much that I want it to impinge on the quality of contribution I can make to the two multi academy trusts that I'm already a board member at and a trustee at.

So I have to think about the commitments that I've already made and doing those to the best of my ability. And that actually that will be compromised by doing something else. Creating space, I mean, a lot of my colleagues would say, 'I just don't have time for that sort of stuff Kevin'. We're all able to make choices. We do have agency and therefore those choices are around what you do, what you delegate to your team and what you ask colleagues to do rather than you do.

And so, I have, I think, been pretty focused on getting a good team around me. Lots of people will say that, of course they do. But I think I am also somebody who is quite naturally trusting and therefore having built that team, I will trust them to get on with things and I don't feel the need to get deeply involved in everything that they're doing, which creates some space for me.

I have seen others who have different styles and who do feel a need to be involved in much more of the detail than I felt I needed to be. Now, of course, occasionally something would happen and I would think, I wish I'd been a bit closer to that and maybe my bosses felt that I should have been a bit closer to that, but overall, I think I've probably gained more through my career from taking that trusting approach, that empowering approach than I would have done if I'd have had an alternative style of really micromanaging, because it has created capacity for me to do other things like the non executive work that I've been doing for quite a long time now.

Helen: Yes. Yeah. That's really interesting to hear and what you say about when a really interesting opportunity comes along - and I like the fact that you notice what it is that gets your attention, it's, Oh, it's something new and really appealing - then that's like, Ooh, I might be interested in that. But actually the question you ask yourself is not, do I want to do it? But do I want to do it well? And what's the impact of me doing this on everything else? And I think, for people that enjoy their work lives, enjoy doing a good job, get a real sense of fulfillment from being competent and making an impact, it does boil down to that. We don't want to do a half hearted job or let people down or do a job where we think I really wasn't able to put my best effort into that. So that's a great reminder about what to think about when interesting looking opportunities, enticing opportunities come our way.

And what you're saying about don't get too deeply involved, or at least that's a strategy that's worked for you, I think that is something that's quite hard if you've been used to doing something very competently. And a lot of people would say that they get comfort from knowing the detail that their team is up to, but the very hard thing is to step back and manage by outcomes.

Kevin: Think it is, it is, it is, and I think the other point of realization that I had when I started managing people is that there is more than one route to a successful outcome. And often I'd be reviewing the work that somebody in the team was doing. And I would think to myself, I wouldn't quite have done it that way.

But the question is, are they on path to get done what needs to be done? The fact that they've not done it the same way as you would have done it may not necessarily be that important and lawyers are great at drafting things. And so it's very rare to send something to a lawyer that doesn't come back with red lines all the way through it.

 But I was always very conscious when I had people drafting things for me, that unless it really needed changing, just because it wasn't quite the words that I would have used, you know, is it an effective piece of communication? Does it get the message across? Well, don't spend another 20 minutes redrafting it for what would be a marginal gain, if any gain, it's just because it's my preference, it's my style. Don't, don't do that.

Helen: Yeah, I think that's an example that really resonates, certainly for me, having had that experience in the past and I'm sure for other people listening so that's a great reminder. And I know you've talked a bit about encouraging different talent and as you were just saying, then, appreciating that people can do things in a different way to you, but still do them very well and very competently.

And I know you're, as I read out in your bio, a huge advocate for greater diversity and creating more inclusive cultures and organisations. And something that you pay particular attention to is around increasing social mobility in organisations. Could you say a little bit more about that, about what you see organisations doing well in this area and maybe what some of the more pressing challenges still are?

Kevin: Yeah, well, it's slightly the poor relation of the diversity, equity and inclusion arena, I think but actually for me, it's probably the most important of all of them because a lot of research shows that your social class will have far more bearing on your life chances than either your gender, your ethnicity, your sexuality or your degree of physical capability. And I'm originally from the Northeast and the first generation to go to university; my parents did both end up getting professional qualifications, but they did that while working.

And it's just part of the way that I am wired is that, I want life to be a bit fairer for people and for people with talent to come through regardless of their backgrounds. And I have to say, I was incredibly privileged in my time working at KPMG to work on a number of their social mobility projects.

The key for me that I saw at KPMG, which differentiates them from many other organisations, is the quality of the data that they have. They've been collecting data about people's socioeconomic backgrounds since 2016. Many organisations don't capture that information at all currently, and those who do capture it, have only been capturing it for a few years. But I think it's so important because without data, how do you know what's going on? So, at KPMG, we were able to do studies about progression rates of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and that's the way in which we were able to determine that that was the factor that was influencing people's rate of progression more than anything else.

Helen: Wow.

Kevin: That's not to say that gender, ethnicity, et cetera, don't have an influence. Of course they do. But social background was the dominant one. So definitely gathering data. And then applying all of the great things that organisations already do in the DE& I space of setting targets; measuring progression and promotion rates; looking at what's happening with pay, what's happening with bonuses; developing interventions; looking at employee resource groups. So, at KPMG, we set up a social mobility network for people who are interested in that.

And having set targets, then reporting on a regular basis about progress to those targets. I think recruitment is clearly critical, particularly for professional organisations where many people who are in lower socioeconomic groups just don't ever think about the fact that a career at an investment bank or a law firm or a big four accountancy firm or consultancy is a sort of career that people like they could ever aspire to do.

So I do think that outreach particularly at schools as those attitudes are forming about what people might do with the rest of their lives, particularly in social mobility cold spots. And, they are a thing; there's data that shows where their social mobility cold spots are.

So outreach into those communities, work experience programmes that can be offered. And then continuing that into recruitment and making sure that the recruitment programmes have outreach into those areas.

I could talk about this for a very, very long time, it's a real passion of mine Helen, but I think the main thing for me is to say to organisations, put it on the same footing as all of the other characteristics that you're currently working on in terms of creating a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive culture.

Helen: Yes. And listening to you describe all those different aspects of improving social mobility in the workplace, I'm struck by the breadth of the work that needs to happen around it? And how it's not just a 'we'll do this a couple of times a year' it's actually taking a very systemic look at it, at this question.

And as you say, the first challenge is to get really good data and then to use that data really well, but it's not single faceted, you need a multifaceted approach if you're really going to shift the dial a bit and make it a much more socially inclusive organization.

Kevin: That's absolutely right, as with all aspects of increasing diversity and building inclusive cultures, there is no silver bullet unfortunately. And so it is about moving the organisation, the systems in the organisation, forward in many different ways and many different interventions are required to make the progress that we need to make.

The good thing is that what tends to happen is that in making progress with regards to social mobility, we will make progress in other areas as well because actually creating greater diversity and more inclusivity benefits all people who are underrepresented in the organisation.

So it's not a one or the other. These are all areas that organisations need to be need to be focused on.

Helen: Yeah, that's a great reminder that we're not focusing exclusively on certain demographics or certain employees, but actually trying to create an environment that, that works for everyone, that's much better for everyone. It's been so interesting listening to that and I know that this is an area that you're continuing to focus on.

 Can you let people know who have found the conversation really interesting, how they can perhaps connect with you professionally or follow some of these topics that you are working in and advising clients on? What's the best way for them to do that?

Kevin: They'll all find me on social media, particularly on LinkedIn. So I will regularly be commenting particularly on areas around diversity, equity and inclusion. I'm now quite a regular speaker and panel member at various events.

I'm certainly very happy for people to approach me directly through LinkedIn. Remarkably some of the best contacts that I've made since I've gone out on this new phase of my career, this independent phase of my career ,have actually been with people who I've never met before.

And so my network is fantastic. I'm very fortunate having a great network and people in my network have been incredibly generous with their time. But some of the most interesting things that I'm doing have come from people who are entirely new to my network and have just approached me or I've approached them without already knowing them. So I certainly would encourage people to reach out to me.

Helen: Fantastic. Thank you. And your business is called Assentar?

Kevin: Assentar that's right. So that's the name of the business, but you'll find me just as Kevin Hogarth on LinkedIn.

Helen: Wonderful. That's a very generous invitation so if you're listening and you're thinking we need a fantastic wise speaker for an upcoming event or industry event, then do reach out to Kevin and get connected.

Kevin, thank you so much for giving your time today to talk on the podcast and to share all the different experiences you've had and some of your reflections about what's really helped open up career opportunities for you throughout different stages of your career and how you've weighed up those difficult decisions about what do I invest my time in and how is that going to be rewarding in different ways for me? And what do I say no to, which is a conundrum we all face every day. So thank you so much for being a brilliant guest!

Kevin: Thank you so much for the invitation. I've really enjoyed the conversation, Helen. Thank you.