In this episode, Mark McBride-Wright speaks with Keith Hanlon Smith, the Chief People Officer at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) in the UK. Keith shares his unexpected career journey into HR, sparked by a retail restructuring experience. He reflects on the lessons he learned about adapting leadership styles and understanding employee motivations. A key focus is Keith’s role at RSSB and the organization’s unique position in the rail industry. He explains how RSSB brings together stakeholders to develop safety standards and research, with the goal of ensuring passenger safety and wellbeing. The discussion delves into the importance of both physical and psychological safety.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Hello. Welcome to this episode of the safe leader. With myself, Mark McBride and today’s guest, we have Keith Hanlon Smith, who is the Chief People Officer at the rail safety and Standards Board in the United Kingdom. Keith, lovely to have you with us today. How are you doing?
Keith Hanlon Smith 0:22
I’m doing very well. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, good. All good.
Mark McBride-Wright 0:25
So is this your first time doing a podcast? Or have you done a few before we
Keith Hanlon Smith 0:30
we actually do some podcasts at rssb, so we we really consider about the way that we push our stuff out of the business, and podcasts has proved to be really popular, so I’ve actually done one for rssb. Fantastic,
Mark McBride-Wright 0:45
fantastic. So today we’re going to talk through about your experience as a chief people officer. You know, I love my guests to talk a bit about their career, what you’ve done, how you’ve got to where you’re at. You know, the safe leader is all about the framework of sharing, of acting, of feeling, of empowerment, empowerment. So you know, any nuggets you’ve got along the way where you can shed insight in that I will prompt you with some questions on that area. But I’m all about getting to know people’s diversity story, getting to know people’s difference. And I, you know, some things we can’t see from the surface, from from looking at people and through, through sharing and through storytelling, we get to learn more about our about our peers. And when I was looking at doing some research on you and looking at your background, you know you’ve got a rich history working in HR across quite a diversity of different industries. So have you always been in human resources? You know what first drew you to a career in HR, and how has that journey evolved to where you’re at? Now, sure,
Keith Hanlon Smith 1:55
it’s not a great story, actually, in terms of what first drew me to HR, because I started off in retail. I was 15 years of age. I was a bit too young to be working at that point, but I just want to get out there and start earning. So I got my first job when I was 15, and the organization that I was working with went through a major restructure. I’ve been there for about six or seven years, okay, and and I don’t think they handled the restructure particularly well, and the number of tribunals that came afterwards, and the case law that it set as well, wow, now I actually did okay through through that restructure, and came out the other side of it, and kind of reflected a lot on how it had been handled. And what struck me more than anything else was that that the HR function, or the personnel function, as it was called back then, could have done a lot more to handle that restructure and the change that came with it. Could have done it in a better way and at that point. So by this point, I was 2122 and I was thinking, Well, I can’t stay in retail forever. What am I going to do? And I kind of combined those two things together and said, Well, why don’t I go and work in HR if I think, if I think it could be done better or differently, go do it. So I went back to university part time and studied for my HR qualification, and was lucky enough to land my first HR job just to the point where I qualified.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:23
Wow, that’s fantastic. So that I’m a big believer in making informed decisions for, you know, subsequent, the subsequent course of your life. So that’s still quite young, you know, 21 to be moving it to have had, like, a good six years under your belt of how not to do it. It’s quite a I guess you’ve maybe learned a lot retrospectively, thinking how that was done then and how you wouldn’t do that now, but to have then experienced that firsthand, especially cases that went on to set case law. Do you find yourself reflecting back to that point in your life, in how you how you know Kate, as things come up now and as you’ve evolved through your career quite
Keith Hanlon Smith 4:09
regularly, yeah, and I must say, sort of 21 years of age was quite some years ago, but I still find myself referring back to that time. I think what I learned a lot while I was in that role, I was a young line manager. I had a team of eight people by the time I left there. And 21 years of age, managing a team of eight people is is tricky, yeah, but the thing I learned more than anything else in that role is that you can’t adopt one style of leadership to get the best from all of those people. Yes, you really have to understand what makes them tick and really play to that. So I think it is important that there is a consistency to a leadership approach there. You’re very core, you hold a set of values and beliefs, but that actually you adapt to the team that you are managing and. Really understand them as people and what gets the best from them. And I still find myself referring back to that lesson that I learned all of these years later, definitely within HR practitioners role. I think it’s really important.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:12
So tell me a bit about your role. You know how your roles developed? I saw you did some time at the Carbon Trust, and you know now you’re one of the regulator in a regulated industry in the rail sector. How do you find the differences in the different types of organizations you’ve worked in? Yeah,
Keith Hanlon Smith 5:34
sure, so I would just say the rssp isn’t the regulator. So we don’t want to upset the regulator by pretending that we are, let me
Mark McBride-Wright 5:43
re ask that question. Yes, of course, you’re not. The regulator is the Orr the office of rail and regulations? Yes, right. Okay, got my flow going there? Okay? So.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:06
So Keith, over the years, you’ve worked in a few different types of sectors, one and up to the position that you’re in now, at the head of your profession, essentially in the rssb. Wonder if you could just talk us through the differences in the different types of sectors that you’ve worked in, and I’m particularly keen to hear your experience now of working in a sector which is of quite a large employer of engineers and people in STEM.
Keith Hanlon Smith 6:32
Yeah, sure. So I think I found myself in a pattern, actually, of jobs I’ve not had that many, I wouldn’t say, but I got into a pattern of working for a longer period of time, you know, five or six years in one organization, then making a mistake, and only working there for a year, and then finding another place, and then maybe making another mistake. And I was kind of got into that pattern. I said, Well, what is it about those mistake years that, you know, why did you find shelf in that situation? What I know from those experiences is that I operate far better in organizations that where their people are their true assets. I know it’s cliche to say people are true assets, but actually, if I when I found myself working in organizations where their brand was their key asset, right, that wasn’t the environment that I particularly enjoyed working interesting. So the organizations that I’ve really enjoyed working in have been ones where they really put their people first, over and above anything else. And I think that’s why I’ve been I’ve gone from the different organizations that that I’ve been in. And so I started off in retail, as I already said, then I kind of entered the the corporate commercial world. I was in media for for a period of time, and then recognize the fact that actually I could take my commercial background and go into not for profit, more purpose driven organizations. And I think it’s a really interesting dynamic when commercial people come into not for profit, because they bring something with them that suddenly becomes really interesting in that context. And that the first step of that was to go to the Carbon Trust. Whereas I was there for about five years, and we knew we needed to change the funding model at the Carbon Trust. We grant funded, grant funded, but we recognized that grant funding was going to fall away, yeah, so we needed to commercialize our activities. So it was a really good place for me to be in, yeah, at that time, we also internationalized the business at the same time and took us outside of the UK. So it’s really exciting period of time to be working there, definitely from a people point of view, because we had to take all about that people, those people with us on that journey. And then actually, from there, I’ve moved on to rssb, at the up safety and Standards Board, some overlap, actually purpose driven organization staffed with people who are really passionate about what they do, and around about the same size, actually different funding model, but still an interesting funding model, and definitely an organization that puts its people first. So
Mark McBride-Wright 9:17
how can you tell us a bit more about how the RSS be like the role that it does within the rail sector and the interplay between because it’s not a brand that people may see come front to mind. You know, it’s not a public facing brand in the respect like a train operating company as or Network Rail, you know, who we see everywhere when we’re out and about. So can you just get help our listeners get some understanding of how the sector set up?
Keith Hanlon Smith 9:46
Yeah, sure. Okay, well, I’ll give you my elevator pitch after I told you a little bit about what we do, sure. So we’ve kind of got two aspects. So rssb is the only organized. In the rail industry that brings the whole rail industry together. And the rail industry in the UK is quite fragmented. So you’ve got your train operating companies, network, rail infrastructure managers, supply chain is massive as well. You’ve got freight operating companies. You’ve got your rolling stock owners, known as roscos. You know, there’s a number of different entities within the rail sector. But RSS be being formed after the Ladbroke Grove disaster, back in 2000 we were formed in 2003 we were formed in recognition, really, of the fact that there was one entity that needed to bring all of those players together, okay, to particular set of standards and and to achieve a particular safety level. And so we we do that now through standards development, through our safety work that we do, we do it through research and development. And increasingly, so we’re working in the area of sustainability and and in particular, as data aggregators for the industry as well. So because we reaches right across the industry, we get a lot of data. And we took a decision a couple of years back now to say, right, how do we maximize the value of this data and play it back to industry? So we’re doing a lot of work in that space as well. That’s what we do, kind of on a on a day to day basis, and but I guess my you know, to bring that to life for for people that that may be commuters. And this was described to me. I didn’t make this up. Unfortunately, I’m going to sort of borrow it from someone else. And they said to me, right in describing what we do as an organization. Think about yourself as a commuter. You leave in the morning to get your train, and the things that are on your mind are probably, will it be on time? How much is the ticket going to cost me? Will I get a seat? They’re probably,
Mark McBride-Wright 11:54
yeah, very true, very true.
Keith Hanlon Smith 11:57
So what won’t come to mind, hopefully, is, will I get injured, or will I die on the journey? Yeah, and RSS be really at its core. Purpose exists to make sure you don’t need to worry about safety, on the railing, on the rail network, that that is being looked after on your behalf, and you can worry about those other things instead,
Mark McBride-Wright 12:19
I see very interesting. So with, if we could just go into that a bit further then, in terms of, like, how you define safety and the expanse that it captures, you know, we, we talk, I talk a lot in the book about sort of using that hook that engineers have, or people working in high risk industries, not just engineers, have in the relationship with safety and physical safety, and extending that into the psychological safety at work. You know, it’s not from clients I’ve worked with. It’s there’s still a massive opportunity there to use that as a communication mechanism to then bring sort of equivalent parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. You know, physical safety. So just What? What? How does the RSS be help clients in the real community communicate and understand what safety means?
Keith Hanlon Smith 13:20
Sure, yeah, it’s you know. What I do know, after being with rssb for for about seven or eight years now, is the whole area of safety is incredibly complex across the rail network, and I’m not going to pretend to be a safety expert when it comes to when it comes to the rail industry. We employ some incredibly talented people to understand that side of things, but, but the things I have picked up on is that, you know, from a sort of physical safety point of view, obviously, you know you’re dealing with train stock you’re dealing with, the interface between the train stock and the platform. You’re dealing with, you know, platform journeys and the movement around the stations. And that’s not even going into any of the detail about how trains actually work. They need to be. I’m not going to go anywhere near any of that, because you’re quite right in saying that actually, when it comes to safety, it’s not just about the physical. Side of the safety. It’s about the psychological as well. Yes, and I think we’ve got a fantastic team of human factors experts who really look at the people side of safety in the rail industry, and you know decision making, and you know how job roles lend themselves to safe environments or not, as the case made, they look at things like health and well being and fatigue. So the kind of people aspects of safety in the rain industry are obviously the ones that really catch my attention, and I’m far more interested in. But it’s incredibly wide, wide ranging and very complex.
Mark McBride-Wright 15:04
And that’s that’s encouraging to hear that the RSS be, you have your own in house, human factors team is that, yeah, and so I guess standards development, or taking lessons learned from other sectors and bringing that in is, is, is part of the role as well, absolutely
Keith Hanlon Smith 15:27
right? Yeah, yeah. And they very much play, play a role in that, in the standards development area as well. And I have to say, I mean, we’re just going for a project at the moment of moving offices, so we’re downsizing like a lot of organizations are, and we had as a blank canvas when it came to the office that we chose to go to, and I was regularly tapping my human factors colleagues on the shoulder to say, hey, help us design a space that’s going to get, you know, the very best from the space that we’ve got available from it, from a human point of view about, you know, how we’re creating a space that’s going to be productive and psychologically safe and takes into consideration things like neuro diversity, different working practices and all of those things. So I’m very lucky to have that team in house and available, and I’ve definitely been using using their expertise. That’s
Mark McBride-Wright 16:22
great. That’s that’s so yeah, that that. That’s really encouraging to hear you as an HR leader, tapping into the skill set within that team, within your business. And it must be quite exciting for them to get to apply what they apply on projects outwardly, to turn that on the inside and then look at, well, actually we, we now get a chance to influence the environment of where we’re going to be working. And, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s exciting. So with you, with being a leader in an organization, then how do you if we look at the rssb as an employer, you know, can you give some examples or advice to people who maybe have an aspiration to become on the C suite of an organization? How do you how do you get there? What steps do you take? How do you move around?
Keith Hanlon Smith 17:20
Well, that’s an interesting that’s an interesting question. Actually, we, as part of our internal leadership program that we developed, we agreed that each one of the exco would do a master class, what we call a master class. And I, I got allocated, how do you how do you progress your career? And I remember preparing for that thinking, I don’t really know what insights I think I do sometimes feel like I’ve been just in the right place at the right time when it comes to my career. Now, obviously, if I was kind of reflect on it properly, I’d probably say, Well, no, there was some, you know, there was some input from me on this. It wasn’t completely by chance, but I guess what, what I learned in the early stages of my career. And it may have been a bit of a cheat, but there is that, you know, there’s, there’s a lesson in there, all the same. I started off in HR in in Earl’s Court Exhibition Center, and it was a fascinating place to be. I really enjoyed my time there, actually, but it was my first HR role. I was very junior, and it was quite hierarchical. Was the exhibition center itself, but both in a kind of organizational way, but physically as well. So the CEO was on top floor, that HR was as well. And then there’s kind of, I guess, the kind of lesser important you got, you went physically down floors and basement. Well, the trade that you know, the engineers and and the tradies were now, just so happened. That’s where my dad and my brother worked. And my dad was the chief electrician. My brother was a carpenter in the in the exhibition center, and so during my lunch break, I used to go from the fourth floor down to the basement and go and see my dad and my brother and say, what’s going on down here? You know, what’s what the guys talking about? And because it was predominantly guys back then and and what’s playing on people’s minds. And then I’d go finish my lunch break, go back upstairs and go, Well, I kind of know what we need to be focusing on as a HR team. Now, it’s a bit of a cheat, I admit, but actually, the lesson I took away from that is you don’t have to have relatives working elsewhere in the business to go out and say to people, Hey, what’s on people’s minds. Yeah, really understand what makes people tick. That was a lesson that I learned quite early on. Is HR practitioners really be, need to be connected to the business. Yeah. I really understand, you know, the what we do as an organization, who we are as an organization. You know, what motivates and makes people tick? Sick, all of those things. I mean, having said, I’m, you know, I’m not going to go into the complexities of rail network safety, because don’t really understand it. You can only take that so far, but it’s really important to try and understand as much as you possibly can about the organization. I think that makes you more effective as a HR practitioner.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:19
Absolutely. Yeah. It does. It does. And I guess life is a continual learning loop as well, isn’t it? We’re always developing. So what? What skills are you actively developing right now? Is there anything you’ve got an interest in to that you’re developing doesn’t have to be work related, you know? Is it something on the side, like, What? What? What are you what are you working on?
Keith Hanlon Smith 20:44
It’s funny that you kind of open that question up for me, because I was like, Oh, what am I working on in a work context at the moment on, need to think about that and then opening it up into a non work context. Well, I’ve got a dog. I’ve got a beagle, and beagles. Like, you know that the you are constantly Yes, dealing with them as a project. Yes, we looked
Mark McBride-Wright 21:04
into getting Beagle was one of the breeds that we shortlisted, and then I did the research that you’re alluding to, and yeah, we didn’t proceed with it.
Keith Hanlon Smith 21:14
And don’t get me wrong, I love him to bits, and he’s a true character. He brings me a huge amount of joy, but he will forever be a project in terms of trying to get him to behave better choices. So that’s something that’s going on at the moment, and in a work context. What have we got going on at the moment? We particularly focused on on our well being strategy, internal well being strategy. So obviously, we we look after the well being for our members across the rain industry, but we also have our own well being strategy and And arguably, you know, we should be absolutely first class when it comes to well being within the organization, if we’re then going to take that out, yes, the wider industry. So that is a real, a real focus for us. At the moment, I’m learning a lot we have we’re lucky enough to have some well being specialists that work in the organization, and I’m working closely with them on how we evolve our well being approach. And so that’s a real focus for us. At the moment, we’ve come a long way on Ed and I as well, and that’s been a really enjoyable experience, actually, because it’s something that I’m quite passionate about personally. So there are two real focus areas for me at the moment. And I said the third one is probably around feature capabilities. It’s trying to imagine what it will be, you know, the workplace of the future might look like, and saying, Well, how can we get best prepared for the capabilities that we’re going to need within the organization to bring that to reality? So those are probably the key, three key things that I’m working on at the moment.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:58
Tell us a bit more about your EDI work. You said you found it really enjoyable. What’s brought you joy from it?
Keith Hanlon Smith 23:06
Well, as I say, I mean, my starting point would always be, it’s something that I’m really passionate about. I think that there is something great happening in a lot of organizations at the moment when it comes to Ed and I because what I think we’re seeing is a real shift when I started work 30 odd years ago, if my maths is right, yeah, it probably is. That actually there was very much a culture that you checked your personal life at the door. That was a full on expectation that you arrived at work having checked everything in your personal life at the door. And that was particularly true of certain groups of people as well, you know. So some other groups people had the opportunity to talk a little bit about what was going on outside work. Some people didn’t at all, and the shift that you see from there, then to now, I think is fantastic. Because, you know, the whole, the whole idea of bringing your full self to work is something that, I think it’s great. So something that sparks interest in me, in any case, and I think in the the early stages of our Ed and I journey, we’re starting to see some big, big wins quite early on. And that’s always an exciting place to be, isn’t it, when you can see, yeah, you’re making and so our journey so far, and we’ve taken a kind of four step approach to our Ed and I journey, which was set the right conditions so, you know, signal in all of the right ways that we want people to feel included. We want to recognize people’s differences and different needs and different motivations and celebrate that different those differences. Well, but we want an equal playing field, and we want people to feel that equity, whatever that means to them. So so all of the right conditions was our first kind of step. We then invited external accreditation, that was our next step. So come tell us how we’re doing and how we’re doing against other organizations. Where could we be doing more? Our third step was to ask our people how they thought we were doing, because it’s always an important thing to say we think we’re doing okay on this, but what do you think? Yes. And then our fourth step was to check back on what’s actually happening. So we’ve we’ve set the right conditions, we’ve got external accreditation. We’ve asked our people what they think about it, but what’s actually happening on the ground is it really making a difference? And that’s that fourth step. And and I do like a bit of structure. So that structured approach to an E, D and I journey has just been a really, you know, I’ve really enjoyed being part of that process.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:57
Fantastic. Yeah, and you you learn a lot through doing that. Don’t you always say your people are your best consultants, you know, and the external companies are just there to kind of provide that structure. You know that leaders let you look for or trusted third party coming in to help garner the insights. You know that you need to help make your make your decisions. Do you find there’s ever any reticence or pushback? Or I often find with some clients that we’ve worked with, a lot of the power by virtue of the representation of the sectors that we work with are still predominantly white men, you know, and oftentimes us as a group have felt a bit disconnected to the Ed and I movement in how it’s evolved, you know. So is there any What do you find that? Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Like and what do you have a personal connection to, to EDI in terms of under representation?
Keith Hanlon Smith 27:09
Yeah, so I mean the first part of your question was around pushback and and I can honestly say that the people, the leadership team that I work with 100% bought into the value that Ed and I, programs, initiatives bring into the organization, so that don’t face any pushback from the leadership. And I think that’s an important place to start. Definitely you want your leadership team to really get it. You do sometimes come across pushback, though, and but, but I think I take a step back in those scenarios and go what’s going on for that particular person in this particular scenario. And quite often, I think it comes back to a level of, I’m going to say discomfort, but actually what I mean by that is that or unfamiliarity. I don’t know how to deal with this situation. I’m going to just shut down a little bit Absolutely. So when it comes to resistance, is what, what I think I see, more often than not, is just a shutting down rather than a resistance. It’s I don’t fully understand this situation that’s that’s in front of me, and therefore I don’t want to lean into it, yep, yep. And the second part of your question, and do I feel particularly connected? Well, I do, you know, I’ve already said, you know, this is something, an area that I’m particularly interested in. I There are certain aspects of me as a person that to use a really horrible phrase, ticks, ticks the boxes, right? That is a horrible phrase. I don’t know using that at all, but I think you know what I mean by that. Yeah. And there’s certain aspects of me as a person where I would like to think that I’m a true ally, yeah, you know, so both of those things together means that I’m I’m bought in. If I’m not thinking about my personal experience, then I’m thinking about how I can help somebody who’s had an experience that is quite often similar, yeah. Even if the you know, the characteristics of that person or their their background, or the things that make them different, to me, is not something I’ve first hand experienced
Mark McBride-Wright 29:35
absolute sense, but it does, it does, it does, and it’s, it’s what, what part of the work that I do is to try and encourage those that may visibly look like part of the homogenous group is where we are sharing our stories to be a lighthouse for others to to then have permission to share. Because you know you’re absolutely right with that latter point there you can have. You’ll only ever have your own lived experience, and your lived experience is only ever going to be by definition who you are and the experiences that you put yourself to have, and by nature of how we operate our lives, we actually are surrounded by sameness. Diversity doesn’t actually come into our everyday life usually. So we have to be proactive in acquiring learned experience, which is where that ambition and desire to be curious comes in to push through that zone of discomfort, to then lean in. And I totally get it, people are uncomfortable, and therefore they don’t lean in. So they go from being active to then being passive. And I often find that a leader’s willingness to do that is almost a function of the external political context or social justice movements of the moment, and sometimes that can be the thing that’s then driving strategy or internal decision making. And I think you’re absolutely right. Dei isn’t going anywhere, you know, it’s only going to be here more and more and so in that workplace off the future, you know, we we have to have our eyes on the horizon, like, what? What are the things that the current workforce and the future workforce are going to hold close to heart as a value set, as how we do our work, where we do our work, who we do our work, with ethics. It’s just a whole melting pot of decisions that could take a business in many different directions.
Keith Hanlon Smith 31:49
It can. And I think it’s about, you know, finding, finding the why, you know. And I think one of the things you just mentioned there is ethics, and for certain people that that get it, you know, it isn’t, it’s an ethics issue. It’s like, yeah, we want to do this because it’s the right thing to do. Yeah. But not everybody. You know, for some people, you need to find a different sell Yes. And I think for me, when I talk about diversity, really, the way I would sell it in certain circumstances is, you know, we can come up with an outcome, product, a service, an approach, a strategy, and it will be good because we’re good at what we do. But if, if there is a lack of diverse thinking that’s gone into the development of that, and then it’s going to be good, but it might not be great. So where are the blind spots? You know, if used to get somebody in who’s got a different way of thinking about these things, to come in and add to or critique this, or be involved in the evolution of it and the creation of it in the first place, it might look different. Yeah. So for me, you know, sometimes to say, always, where’s our blind spots, who’s who’s not in the room at the moment, that would make a difference. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 33:06
yeah, the process of doing the engineering, and then the output of the engineering on or the product, the service, on the communities, I totally get that the the aha moment for me when I set up equal engineers was as I’m a safety engineer by background, and so I used to help clients. I didn’t really do much work in the rail sector, actually, but I did work in oil and gas and government services, defense facilities management, and we put so much effort into reducing risk to as low as reasonably practicable, you know, hazards, the likelihood of stuff happening, and then manage residual risk through certain measures and protocols and procedures and what have you. But I was the the suit, the loss of life due to suicide, broken down by occupation by the Office of National Statistics in 2018 showed that construction, manufacturing and process industries had had the highest rate of loss of life due to suicide, and I didn’t believe the data. So we did our own research masculinity in engineering, and we’ve done it twice, and in both data sets, once in 2018 and then once in 2021 we found one in five engineers reporting losing a work colleague to suicide, and one in five reporting suicidal ideation or self harm. And that number went up to one in four in 2021 and that was off nearly 800 respondents. So quite, quite up. You know, sizable number wasn’t a small sample size, and that just really made me sit up, because I’m like, Well, hang on, if the intention of our inclusion belonging programs are, bring in your whole self, be your whole self at one. Work well, clearly we’ve got a disconnect. Otherwise, if we were achieving that, the people who are at the extreme are having these these thoughts would be able to be open and get the right support and advice. And ironically, it’s the male majority group that are in that bucket, you know, as well. And that is the whole point of inclusion and belonging programs is to create cultures where you can be your whole self at work. So I often find we use that term, but it’s a little bit hollow. We don’t really give it meat for what it for, for what it can mean to people who are not part of a minoritized group in their day to day lived experience. You know, we kind of have to carve it out more for for people in order to sell, and you don’t have to say sell, but in order to give the benefits of what the whole point of investing in these things is about Dei, it’s actually good for you as well, not just other groups, you know, because if we do get it right, then maybe these rates will come down, and we’ll have more genuine connectedness between white, straight, cisgendered, heterosexual, label bodied, neurotypical men that represent a lot of the engineering and stem profession, they’ll Feel anchored in something that connects them to it. And yeah, so I find that framing it in that way is might be something that will be effective for your members, or for people who’ve been a bit passive on the shelf or staying quiet, they don’t want to lean into it, but they’re also not being antagonists, and, you know, stopping it, but they just never really felt that personal connection. When you get people feeling a personal connection, you know, things will move faster.
Keith Hanlon Smith 36:54
Yeah, absolutely right. I mean, those numbers are shocking. You know, they really do make you pause for thought about sort of, what’s going wrong, and how can we, how can we change that? Well, it’s
Mark McBride-Wright 37:09
just, you know, you don’t, you don’t want people being physically present but mentally absent when doing high risk maneuvers or driving a train at 120 miles an hour, you know that that’s or operating a crane lifting heavy objects across a construction site, you know? So that, I think that’s the bluntest way to talk about it, in terms of equivalency between a structure that the workforce already understand, because we’ve made a lot of progress in safety and then extending that slightly to then reframe it to talk about the brain as an organ, and giving it the same respect as the rest of the body, which we do in this system over here. But are we doing it over here? You know, I think you’re
Keith Hanlon Smith 37:56
absolutely right, because, you know, it takes a lot, it takes a lot of energy to compartmentalize and demark apply that demarcation between home life and work life, if you feel you must. Yeah, it’s another interesting area. I was having this conversation just yesterday, actually, with one of my well being, one of my well being specialists, and we were talking about the concept of equality or equity, actually, what we were saying is, in our well being journey, it’s going to look different for different people, and we should be very tuned into that, because we can roll out a program of initiatives that is going to really land with some people and not all land with others, and that’s okay. And it does remind me of this conversation we’re having now is, is that, you know, there are some people me included. I said earlier, you know, I started off work where you checked your personal life at the door, and actually, that stays with you for a long time. Of course, I think there’s still people in the workplace now that say I don’t want to bring my full self to work. You know, I’ve been conditioned to have this demarcation between home life and work life, and I’m that sits comfortably with me. So I think there are, you know, different groups on there. I think some people that are coming newly into the workplace, they have an expectation that, actually, those lines are very blurred. Yes, they have an expectation from their employer that that is the way that we’re going to get the best from them. We’ve got some people that are further on in their career say, actually, you know, just leave me be. I’m right as I am. We’ve probably got this whole group of people in the middle that that are saying, Actually, if I now have the opportunity to do something different to what’s been done before, I’m going to, I’m going to really take that opportunity and that that kind of be good for me, definitely.
Mark McBride-Wright 39:52
And I always caveat that when we do our training with, you know, there’s a slide that I use, and. Our sessions. It’s got a nice, you know, the iceberg, iceberg, model biases and expression. You know, you’ve got the tip of the iceberg. That are things you can see on the surface. Then you’ve got the water line. And then beneath the iceberg, you’ve got all this other richness that makes us who we are, things that are beneath our water line that we can’t see, life experiences, you know, accents, where we’ve lived, etc, sexual orientation, disability, mental health, blah, blah, blah, and that water line is an organization consider that for how can consider that a proxy for how inclusive their culture is. And so the more inclusive and more included people feel, the lower that water line will be, and the more likely that people will be to be open about anything going on beneath their water line, any turbulence. But an iceberg has buoyancy. It can move up and down, you know, and that water line can can shift and move. And I always caveat that it’s not about the removal of privacy, and we’re now expecting everyone to be open about everything going on in their life, which is what some Gen, some generations, or some people may feel like they’re now sort of being forced into. And actually they don’t want to. They’ve never had to. We don’t need to. Let’s just keep it the way things as they’ve always been. But it’s very different working in a culture which is, look, we’re here. We’re ready for you if you need us, than one which is, don’t ask, don’t tell. We don’t want to know, get on and do your job. You’re here to work. Park it at the door, type thing. So I think that that’s the kind of shift it’s and that’s where we can get some intergenerational tension sometimes with we now have to, like, blur the lines between everything in our life. But that’s not really the case. It’s but it’s about shifting the mindset and creating that tone as a leader, and through wellness and well being programs that you run, that, you people know, it’s there in the background, and that the organization and leaders will have their back if they ever need to get support or talk to people. And that’s an art form to create. You know, it’s, it’s, it’ll never be perfect, but that, that’s the sort of that’s my, certainly my aspiration for for organizations across engineering, because we don’t have that. We don’t have that as a culture across engineering right now, it’s still playing catch up in quite a lot of senses.
Keith Hanlon Smith 42:36
I think that’s absolutely right. You know, it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, one of the first lessons I learned about people management was that one approach is never going to be right for for everybody that actually, you know, and definitely, sort of in the in the HR world, the real key is to create a culture whereby you recognize the fact that people need different things. And it’s, it’s a bit lazy to take a one approach. You know, one approach is going to solve all of this stuff, just really recognizing that different people need different things at different times, and you need to be able to respond to
Mark McBride-Wright 43:16
that. That a good an example. Um, um, I read a couple of posts on LinkedIn in the last week by Claire Baldwin. Her name is She’s a disability rights activist, and she posted some really interesting stuff about the intersectional experiences of disabled women. And I think you know, when it comes to menopause treatment or breast breast cancer screening or having a family, you know. And I think she, as a disabled woman, was sharing her experience of of her different aspects of her identity, and how they’re affected and how they’re received in those scenarios. And, you know, I am none of those things. And so to let to learn about this frame of to learn about this lived experience on the world has really like expanded my understanding. And so I guess the key is to be creating those moments of opportunity to expand your frame of reference, but then when you have it as the reference point, bring it into your decision making, bringing it into the ways where you create these user journeys for for different wellness programs, and then make it a lived experience, a positive experience for the individuals you know, if they ever need To access anything or they hear about they hear situations or scenarios being spoken about, where they then see their personal, lived experience reflected in the solution or the offer. So so it then just all feels like we’re included. You know, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a, I mean, we’ll. Yeah, I saw a statistic. I can’t remember the number, and I should remember this number, but it’s from a diversity stats agency, and they basically had broken down that of all the like, just the 10 protected characteristics in the Equality Act in the UK, like the number of intersections that each one can have leads to like, you know, I know 1000s and 1000s of permutations of like, different lived experiences. I’m sure people that are good at maths can, like, do that quick matrix or algorithm or whatever the word is, but, you know, we’ll never know everything is the point. So being ambitious to be as well rounded as possible is, is key
Keith Hanlon Smith 45:44
Absolutely. I mean, just from this conversation, I do want to go away and check what the additional protected characteristic is, because I think there’s only nine not 10. Oh,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:53
I thought wrong, nine not 10. There we go.
Keith Hanlon Smith 45:57
I need to know about it.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:58
Well, you know, I guess I’ve sort of added in neurodiversity to my to my like, like, Library of pieces, you know, the that isn’t called out in the Equality Act. So, so yeah, that’s probably where my slip ups.
Keith Hanlon Smith 46:18
Yeah, it’s a really, really important one. And I think you’re right. I was having the conversation just yesterday about sort of, anti discrimination legislation, protected characteristics, and I was saying, Where do we think it might go? Let’s just, you know, hypothesize a bit about what might you know if we, if we look at the history of anti discrimination legislation and where it’s been, where do we think it might go? And, yeah. I mean, I won’t kind of play back that conversation, but it does give you pause for thoughts. Say, Well, what’s next? You know, one of the things that I’m particularly interested in is socio economic background, yes, yeah. And I wonder if at some stage in the future that might, you know, fall into anti discrimination legislation as
Mark McBride-Wright 46:59
well. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? I think, I certainly think with the government that have come into power now, I don’t think there’s any risk of the Equality Act going in a different direction, to a direction it could have gone had the previous government stayed in administration. So who knows, who knows. You know, I actually live in Brooklyn now in New York, so, you know, we’ve got the time of this episode. We’re sort of two weeks away from the presidential election, so it’s going to be really interesting to see the outcome of that, and the impact that has on on work over here and what organizations are doing, because there has been a bit of a quietening down of commitments. Commitments are still there in the background, but vocally externally, you know. So I’ve just feel like it’s all kind of on pause at the moment, what organizations are doing. So, right? Quick fire round questions. Okay, so what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:08
received? I would say that would be from my dad. And my dad always used to say to me, don’t go back.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:17
What’s your proudest achievement in HR, oh,
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:22
I think it will probably be. I’m just going to go with where I am at the moment. I’ve got a fantastic team that I work with, and I’m so proud of them, and the culture and engagement levels across the organization at the moment are the highest they’ve ever been. It feels like a great place to work at the moment, and I’m really pleased about that. What’s
Mark McBride-Wright 48:44
one skill you think every HR professional should have?
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:51
Humility?
Mark McBride-Wright 48:53
Tea or Coffee?
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:55
Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:57
What’s your go to? Productivity? Hack,
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:01
copilot. Do? Pilot,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:04
if you have, if you could have dinner with any HR or business leader past or present. Who would it be?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:11
Lucy Adams from disruptive HR?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:15
What’s your favorite HR technology or tool?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:22
It would be, I don’t know, should I plug our engagement tool that we use at the moment? Yeah, we use peak on quote day, peak on, I can say that probably has made the biggest difference to our employee engagement levels than any other tool I’ve ever used.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:39
What’s one thing you do to unwind after a long day, long dog walk, what’s the most exciting project you’ve ever worked on?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:49
Well, I think that probably would be there’s a few actually that pop into my head, but I will say the first one that popped into my head that was probably the Carbon Trust. I really enjoyed chat. Engine, the that business funding model and the cultural change that came with it, and, yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:07
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
Keith Hanlon Smith 50:13
Well, this is really a tough question. I wish I’d have prepared an answer for that one. I uh,
Keith Hanlon Smith 50:26
don’t go with imposter syndrome. Just set that aside. That would have saved me a lot of worry. I think if I’d given that voice so much time.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:36
Fantastic. Well, Keith, I’ve really enjoyed our chat today. It’s been nice getting to know a bit about you, but about your experience, what you’re doing now, and what you’ve got planned in the future, where if people want to get in touch with you or find out a bit about what you’re doing, how do they get in touch. I’d
Keith Hanlon Smith 51:01
say these is the way is on LinkedIn. So very happy to connect with people. Fab
Mark McBride-Wright 51:08
will put a link to your profile in the show notes then so people can can reach out. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much.
Keith Hanlon Smith 51:18
Really happy to be to be involved. Perfect.
Mark McBride-Wright 51:20
Well, I shall see you soon. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, applause.
E003: Diversity, Safety, and Human Connection
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Hello. Welcome to this episode of the safe leader. With myself, Mark McBride and today’s guest, we have Keith Hanlon Smith, who is the Chief People Officer at the rail safety and Standards Board in the United Kingdom. Keith, lovely to have you with us today. How are you doing?
Keith Hanlon Smith 0:22
I’m doing very well. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, good. All good.
Mark McBride-Wright 0:25
So is this your first time doing a podcast? Or have you done a few before we
Keith Hanlon Smith 0:30
we actually do some podcasts at rssb, so we we really consider about the way that we push our stuff out of the business, and podcasts has proved to be really popular, so I’ve actually done one for rssb. Fantastic,
Mark McBride-Wright 0:45
fantastic. So today we’re going to talk through about your experience as a chief people officer. You know, I love my guests to talk a bit about their career, what you’ve done, how you’ve got to where you’re at. You know, the safe leader is all about the framework of sharing, of acting, of feeling, of empowerment, empowerment. So you know, any nuggets you’ve got along the way where you can shed insight in that I will prompt you with some questions on that area. But I’m all about getting to know people’s diversity story, getting to know people’s difference. And I, you know, some things we can’t see from the surface, from from looking at people and through, through sharing and through storytelling, we get to learn more about our about our peers. And when I was looking at doing some research on you and looking at your background, you know you’ve got a rich history working in HR across quite a diversity of different industries. So have you always been in human resources? You know what first drew you to a career in HR, and how has that journey evolved to where you’re at? Now, sure,
Keith Hanlon Smith 1:55
it’s not a great story, actually, in terms of what first drew me to HR, because I started off in retail. I was 15 years of age. I was a bit too young to be working at that point, but I just want to get out there and start earning. So I got my first job when I was 15, and the organization that I was working with went through a major restructure. I’ve been there for about six or seven years, okay, and and I don’t think they handled the restructure particularly well, and the number of tribunals that came afterwards, and the case law that it set as well, wow, now I actually did okay through through that restructure, and came out the other side of it, and kind of reflected a lot on how it had been handled. And what struck me more than anything else was that that the HR function, or the personnel function, as it was called back then, could have done a lot more to handle that restructure and the change that came with it. Could have done it in a better way and at that point. So by this point, I was 2122 and I was thinking, Well, I can’t stay in retail forever. What am I going to do? And I kind of combined those two things together and said, Well, why don’t I go and work in HR if I think, if I think it could be done better or differently, go do it. So I went back to university part time and studied for my HR qualification, and was lucky enough to land my first HR job just to the point where I qualified.
Mark McBride-Wright 3:23
Wow, that’s fantastic. So that I’m a big believer in making informed decisions for, you know, subsequent, the subsequent course of your life. So that’s still quite young, you know, 21 to be moving it to have had, like, a good six years under your belt of how not to do it. It’s quite a I guess you’ve maybe learned a lot retrospectively, thinking how that was done then and how you wouldn’t do that now, but to have then experienced that firsthand, especially cases that went on to set case law. Do you find yourself reflecting back to that point in your life, in how you how you know Kate, as things come up now and as you’ve evolved through your career quite
Keith Hanlon Smith 4:09
regularly, yeah, and I must say, sort of 21 years of age was quite some years ago, but I still find myself referring back to that time. I think what I learned a lot while I was in that role, I was a young line manager. I had a team of eight people by the time I left there. And 21 years of age, managing a team of eight people is is tricky, yeah, but the thing I learned more than anything else in that role is that you can’t adopt one style of leadership to get the best from all of those people. Yes, you really have to understand what makes them tick and really play to that. So I think it is important that there is a consistency to a leadership approach there. You’re very core, you hold a set of values and beliefs, but that actually you adapt to the team that you are managing and. Really understand them as people and what gets the best from them. And I still find myself referring back to that lesson that I learned all of these years later, definitely within HR practitioners role. I think it’s really important.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:12
So tell me a bit about your role. You know how your roles developed? I saw you did some time at the Carbon Trust, and you know now you’re one of the regulator in a regulated industry in the rail sector. How do you find the differences in the different types of organizations you’ve worked in? Yeah,
Keith Hanlon Smith 5:34
sure, so I would just say the rssp isn’t the regulator. So we don’t want to upset the regulator by pretending that we are, let me
Mark McBride-Wright 5:43
re ask that question. Yes, of course, you’re not. The regulator is the Orr the office of rail and regulations? Yes, right. Okay, got my flow going there? Okay? So.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:06
So Keith, over the years, you’ve worked in a few different types of sectors, one and up to the position that you’re in now, at the head of your profession, essentially in the rssb. Wonder if you could just talk us through the differences in the different types of sectors that you’ve worked in, and I’m particularly keen to hear your experience now of working in a sector which is of quite a large employer of engineers and people in STEM.
Keith Hanlon Smith 6:32
Yeah, sure. So I think I found myself in a pattern, actually, of jobs I’ve not had that many, I wouldn’t say, but I got into a pattern of working for a longer period of time, you know, five or six years in one organization, then making a mistake, and only working there for a year, and then finding another place, and then maybe making another mistake. And I was kind of got into that pattern. I said, Well, what is it about those mistake years that, you know, why did you find shelf in that situation? What I know from those experiences is that I operate far better in organizations that where their people are their true assets. I know it’s cliche to say people are true assets, but actually, if I when I found myself working in organizations where their brand was their key asset, right, that wasn’t the environment that I particularly enjoyed working interesting. So the organizations that I’ve really enjoyed working in have been ones where they really put their people first, over and above anything else. And I think that’s why I’ve been I’ve gone from the different organizations that that I’ve been in. And so I started off in retail, as I already said, then I kind of entered the the corporate commercial world. I was in media for for a period of time, and then recognize the fact that actually I could take my commercial background and go into not for profit, more purpose driven organizations. And I think it’s a really interesting dynamic when commercial people come into not for profit, because they bring something with them that suddenly becomes really interesting in that context. And that the first step of that was to go to the Carbon Trust. Whereas I was there for about five years, and we knew we needed to change the funding model at the Carbon Trust. We grant funded, grant funded, but we recognized that grant funding was going to fall away, yeah, so we needed to commercialize our activities. So it was a really good place for me to be in, yeah, at that time, we also internationalized the business at the same time and took us outside of the UK. So it’s really exciting period of time to be working there, definitely from a people point of view, because we had to take all about that people, those people with us on that journey. And then actually, from there, I’ve moved on to rssb, at the up safety and Standards Board, some overlap, actually purpose driven organization staffed with people who are really passionate about what they do, and around about the same size, actually different funding model, but still an interesting funding model, and definitely an organization that puts its people first. So
Mark McBride-Wright 9:17
how can you tell us a bit more about how the RSS be like the role that it does within the rail sector and the interplay between because it’s not a brand that people may see come front to mind. You know, it’s not a public facing brand in the respect like a train operating company as or Network Rail, you know, who we see everywhere when we’re out and about. So can you just get help our listeners get some understanding of how the sector set up?
Keith Hanlon Smith 9:46
Yeah, sure. Okay, well, I’ll give you my elevator pitch after I told you a little bit about what we do, sure. So we’ve kind of got two aspects. So rssb is the only organized. In the rail industry that brings the whole rail industry together. And the rail industry in the UK is quite fragmented. So you’ve got your train operating companies, network, rail infrastructure managers, supply chain is massive as well. You’ve got freight operating companies. You’ve got your rolling stock owners, known as roscos. You know, there’s a number of different entities within the rail sector. But RSS be being formed after the Ladbroke Grove disaster, back in 2000 we were formed in 2003 we were formed in recognition, really, of the fact that there was one entity that needed to bring all of those players together, okay, to particular set of standards and and to achieve a particular safety level. And so we we do that now through standards development, through our safety work that we do, we do it through research and development. And increasingly, so we’re working in the area of sustainability and and in particular, as data aggregators for the industry as well. So because we reaches right across the industry, we get a lot of data. And we took a decision a couple of years back now to say, right, how do we maximize the value of this data and play it back to industry? So we’re doing a lot of work in that space as well. That’s what we do, kind of on a on a day to day basis, and but I guess my you know, to bring that to life for for people that that may be commuters. And this was described to me. I didn’t make this up. Unfortunately, I’m going to sort of borrow it from someone else. And they said to me, right in describing what we do as an organization. Think about yourself as a commuter. You leave in the morning to get your train, and the things that are on your mind are probably, will it be on time? How much is the ticket going to cost me? Will I get a seat? They’re probably,
Mark McBride-Wright 11:54
yeah, very true, very true.
Keith Hanlon Smith 11:57
So what won’t come to mind, hopefully, is, will I get injured, or will I die on the journey? Yeah, and RSS be really at its core. Purpose exists to make sure you don’t need to worry about safety, on the railing, on the rail network, that that is being looked after on your behalf, and you can worry about those other things instead,
Mark McBride-Wright 12:19
I see very interesting. So with, if we could just go into that a bit further then, in terms of, like, how you define safety and the expanse that it captures, you know, we, we talk, I talk a lot in the book about sort of using that hook that engineers have, or people working in high risk industries, not just engineers, have in the relationship with safety and physical safety, and extending that into the psychological safety at work. You know, it’s not from clients I’ve worked with. It’s there’s still a massive opportunity there to use that as a communication mechanism to then bring sort of equivalent parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. You know, physical safety. So just What? What? How does the RSS be help clients in the real community communicate and understand what safety means?
Keith Hanlon Smith 13:20
Sure, yeah, it’s you know. What I do know, after being with rssb for for about seven or eight years now, is the whole area of safety is incredibly complex across the rail network, and I’m not going to pretend to be a safety expert when it comes to when it comes to the rail industry. We employ some incredibly talented people to understand that side of things, but, but the things I have picked up on is that, you know, from a sort of physical safety point of view, obviously, you know you’re dealing with train stock you’re dealing with, the interface between the train stock and the platform. You’re dealing with, you know, platform journeys and the movement around the stations. And that’s not even going into any of the detail about how trains actually work. They need to be. I’m not going to go anywhere near any of that, because you’re quite right in saying that actually, when it comes to safety, it’s not just about the physical. Side of the safety. It’s about the psychological as well. Yes, and I think we’ve got a fantastic team of human factors experts who really look at the people side of safety in the rail industry, and you know decision making, and you know how job roles lend themselves to safe environments or not, as the case made, they look at things like health and well being and fatigue. So the kind of people aspects of safety in the rain industry are obviously the ones that really catch my attention, and I’m far more interested in. But it’s incredibly wide, wide ranging and very complex.
Mark McBride-Wright 15:04
And that’s that’s encouraging to hear that the RSS be, you have your own in house, human factors team is that, yeah, and so I guess standards development, or taking lessons learned from other sectors and bringing that in is, is, is part of the role as well, absolutely
Keith Hanlon Smith 15:27
right? Yeah, yeah. And they very much play, play a role in that, in the standards development area as well. And I have to say, I mean, we’re just going for a project at the moment of moving offices, so we’re downsizing like a lot of organizations are, and we had as a blank canvas when it came to the office that we chose to go to, and I was regularly tapping my human factors colleagues on the shoulder to say, hey, help us design a space that’s going to get, you know, the very best from the space that we’ve got available from it, from a human point of view about, you know, how we’re creating a space that’s going to be productive and psychologically safe and takes into consideration things like neuro diversity, different working practices and all of those things. So I’m very lucky to have that team in house and available, and I’ve definitely been using using their expertise. That’s
Mark McBride-Wright 16:22
great. That’s that’s so yeah, that that. That’s really encouraging to hear you as an HR leader, tapping into the skill set within that team, within your business. And it must be quite exciting for them to get to apply what they apply on projects outwardly, to turn that on the inside and then look at, well, actually we, we now get a chance to influence the environment of where we’re going to be working. And, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s exciting. So with you, with being a leader in an organization, then how do you if we look at the rssb as an employer, you know, can you give some examples or advice to people who maybe have an aspiration to become on the C suite of an organization? How do you how do you get there? What steps do you take? How do you move around?
Keith Hanlon Smith 17:20
Well, that’s an interesting that’s an interesting question. Actually, we, as part of our internal leadership program that we developed, we agreed that each one of the exco would do a master class, what we call a master class. And I, I got allocated, how do you how do you progress your career? And I remember preparing for that thinking, I don’t really know what insights I think I do sometimes feel like I’ve been just in the right place at the right time when it comes to my career. Now, obviously, if I was kind of reflect on it properly, I’d probably say, Well, no, there was some, you know, there was some input from me on this. It wasn’t completely by chance, but I guess what, what I learned in the early stages of my career. And it may have been a bit of a cheat, but there is that, you know, there’s, there’s a lesson in there, all the same. I started off in HR in in Earl’s Court Exhibition Center, and it was a fascinating place to be. I really enjoyed my time there, actually, but it was my first HR role. I was very junior, and it was quite hierarchical. Was the exhibition center itself, but both in a kind of organizational way, but physically as well. So the CEO was on top floor, that HR was as well. And then there’s kind of, I guess, the kind of lesser important you got, you went physically down floors and basement. Well, the trade that you know, the engineers and and the tradies were now, just so happened. That’s where my dad and my brother worked. And my dad was the chief electrician. My brother was a carpenter in the in the exhibition center, and so during my lunch break, I used to go from the fourth floor down to the basement and go and see my dad and my brother and say, what’s going on down here? You know, what’s what the guys talking about? And because it was predominantly guys back then and and what’s playing on people’s minds. And then I’d go finish my lunch break, go back upstairs and go, Well, I kind of know what we need to be focusing on as a HR team. Now, it’s a bit of a cheat, I admit, but actually, the lesson I took away from that is you don’t have to have relatives working elsewhere in the business to go out and say to people, Hey, what’s on people’s minds. Yeah, really understand what makes people tick. That was a lesson that I learned quite early on. Is HR practitioners really be, need to be connected to the business. Yeah. I really understand, you know, the what we do as an organization, who we are as an organization. You know, what motivates and makes people tick? Sick, all of those things. I mean, having said, I’m, you know, I’m not going to go into the complexities of rail network safety, because don’t really understand it. You can only take that so far, but it’s really important to try and understand as much as you possibly can about the organization. I think that makes you more effective as a HR practitioner.
Mark McBride-Wright 20:19
Absolutely. Yeah. It does. It does. And I guess life is a continual learning loop as well, isn’t it? We’re always developing. So what? What skills are you actively developing right now? Is there anything you’ve got an interest in to that you’re developing doesn’t have to be work related, you know? Is it something on the side, like, What? What? What are you what are you working on?
Keith Hanlon Smith 20:44
It’s funny that you kind of open that question up for me, because I was like, Oh, what am I working on in a work context at the moment on, need to think about that and then opening it up into a non work context. Well, I’ve got a dog. I’ve got a beagle, and beagles. Like, you know that the you are constantly Yes, dealing with them as a project. Yes, we looked
Mark McBride-Wright 21:04
into getting Beagle was one of the breeds that we shortlisted, and then I did the research that you’re alluding to, and yeah, we didn’t proceed with it.
Keith Hanlon Smith 21:14
And don’t get me wrong, I love him to bits, and he’s a true character. He brings me a huge amount of joy, but he will forever be a project in terms of trying to get him to behave better choices. So that’s something that’s going on at the moment, and in a work context. What have we got going on at the moment? We particularly focused on on our well being strategy, internal well being strategy. So obviously, we we look after the well being for our members across the rain industry, but we also have our own well being strategy and And arguably, you know, we should be absolutely first class when it comes to well being within the organization, if we’re then going to take that out, yes, the wider industry. So that is a real, a real focus for us. At the moment, I’m learning a lot we have we’re lucky enough to have some well being specialists that work in the organization, and I’m working closely with them on how we evolve our well being approach. And so that’s a real focus for us. At the moment, we’ve come a long way on Ed and I as well, and that’s been a really enjoyable experience, actually, because it’s something that I’m quite passionate about personally. So there are two real focus areas for me at the moment. And I said the third one is probably around feature capabilities. It’s trying to imagine what it will be, you know, the workplace of the future might look like, and saying, Well, how can we get best prepared for the capabilities that we’re going to need within the organization to bring that to reality? So those are probably the key, three key things that I’m working on at the moment.
Mark McBride-Wright 22:58
Tell us a bit more about your EDI work. You said you found it really enjoyable. What’s brought you joy from it?
Keith Hanlon Smith 23:06
Well, as I say, I mean, my starting point would always be, it’s something that I’m really passionate about. I think that there is something great happening in a lot of organizations at the moment when it comes to Ed and I because what I think we’re seeing is a real shift when I started work 30 odd years ago, if my maths is right, yeah, it probably is. That actually there was very much a culture that you checked your personal life at the door. That was a full on expectation that you arrived at work having checked everything in your personal life at the door. And that was particularly true of certain groups of people as well, you know. So some other groups people had the opportunity to talk a little bit about what was going on outside work. Some people didn’t at all, and the shift that you see from there, then to now, I think is fantastic. Because, you know, the whole, the whole idea of bringing your full self to work is something that, I think it’s great. So something that sparks interest in me, in any case, and I think in the the early stages of our Ed and I journey, we’re starting to see some big, big wins quite early on. And that’s always an exciting place to be, isn’t it, when you can see, yeah, you’re making and so our journey so far, and we’ve taken a kind of four step approach to our Ed and I journey, which was set the right conditions so, you know, signal in all of the right ways that we want people to feel included. We want to recognize people’s differences and different needs and different motivations and celebrate that different those differences. Well, but we want an equal playing field, and we want people to feel that equity, whatever that means to them. So so all of the right conditions was our first kind of step. We then invited external accreditation, that was our next step. So come tell us how we’re doing and how we’re doing against other organizations. Where could we be doing more? Our third step was to ask our people how they thought we were doing, because it’s always an important thing to say we think we’re doing okay on this, but what do you think? Yes. And then our fourth step was to check back on what’s actually happening. So we’ve we’ve set the right conditions, we’ve got external accreditation. We’ve asked our people what they think about it, but what’s actually happening on the ground is it really making a difference? And that’s that fourth step. And and I do like a bit of structure. So that structured approach to an E, D and I journey has just been a really, you know, I’ve really enjoyed being part of that process.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:57
Fantastic. Yeah, and you you learn a lot through doing that. Don’t you always say your people are your best consultants, you know, and the external companies are just there to kind of provide that structure. You know that leaders let you look for or trusted third party coming in to help garner the insights. You know that you need to help make your make your decisions. Do you find there’s ever any reticence or pushback? Or I often find with some clients that we’ve worked with, a lot of the power by virtue of the representation of the sectors that we work with are still predominantly white men, you know, and oftentimes us as a group have felt a bit disconnected to the Ed and I movement in how it’s evolved, you know. So is there any What do you find that? Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Like and what do you have a personal connection to, to EDI in terms of under representation?
Keith Hanlon Smith 27:09
Yeah, so I mean the first part of your question was around pushback and and I can honestly say that the people, the leadership team that I work with 100% bought into the value that Ed and I, programs, initiatives bring into the organization, so that don’t face any pushback from the leadership. And I think that’s an important place to start. Definitely you want your leadership team to really get it. You do sometimes come across pushback, though, and but, but I think I take a step back in those scenarios and go what’s going on for that particular person in this particular scenario. And quite often, I think it comes back to a level of, I’m going to say discomfort, but actually what I mean by that is that or unfamiliarity. I don’t know how to deal with this situation. I’m going to just shut down a little bit Absolutely. So when it comes to resistance, is what, what I think I see, more often than not, is just a shutting down rather than a resistance. It’s I don’t fully understand this situation that’s that’s in front of me, and therefore I don’t want to lean into it, yep, yep. And the second part of your question, and do I feel particularly connected? Well, I do, you know, I’ve already said, you know, this is something, an area that I’m particularly interested in. I There are certain aspects of me as a person that to use a really horrible phrase, ticks, ticks the boxes, right? That is a horrible phrase. I don’t know using that at all, but I think you know what I mean by that. Yeah. And there’s certain aspects of me as a person where I would like to think that I’m a true ally, yeah, you know, so both of those things together means that I’m I’m bought in. If I’m not thinking about my personal experience, then I’m thinking about how I can help somebody who’s had an experience that is quite often similar, yeah. Even if the you know, the characteristics of that person or their their background, or the things that make them different, to me, is not something I’ve first hand experienced
Mark McBride-Wright 29:35
absolute sense, but it does, it does, it does, and it’s, it’s what, what part of the work that I do is to try and encourage those that may visibly look like part of the homogenous group is where we are sharing our stories to be a lighthouse for others to to then have permission to share. Because you know you’re absolutely right with that latter point there you can have. You’ll only ever have your own lived experience, and your lived experience is only ever going to be by definition who you are and the experiences that you put yourself to have, and by nature of how we operate our lives, we actually are surrounded by sameness. Diversity doesn’t actually come into our everyday life usually. So we have to be proactive in acquiring learned experience, which is where that ambition and desire to be curious comes in to push through that zone of discomfort, to then lean in. And I totally get it, people are uncomfortable, and therefore they don’t lean in. So they go from being active to then being passive. And I often find that a leader’s willingness to do that is almost a function of the external political context or social justice movements of the moment, and sometimes that can be the thing that’s then driving strategy or internal decision making. And I think you’re absolutely right. Dei isn’t going anywhere, you know, it’s only going to be here more and more and so in that workplace off the future, you know, we we have to have our eyes on the horizon, like, what? What are the things that the current workforce and the future workforce are going to hold close to heart as a value set, as how we do our work, where we do our work, who we do our work, with ethics. It’s just a whole melting pot of decisions that could take a business in many different directions.
Keith Hanlon Smith 31:49
It can. And I think it’s about, you know, finding, finding the why, you know. And I think one of the things you just mentioned there is ethics, and for certain people that that get it, you know, it isn’t, it’s an ethics issue. It’s like, yeah, we want to do this because it’s the right thing to do. Yeah. But not everybody. You know, for some people, you need to find a different sell Yes. And I think for me, when I talk about diversity, really, the way I would sell it in certain circumstances is, you know, we can come up with an outcome, product, a service, an approach, a strategy, and it will be good because we’re good at what we do. But if, if there is a lack of diverse thinking that’s gone into the development of that, and then it’s going to be good, but it might not be great. So where are the blind spots? You know, if used to get somebody in who’s got a different way of thinking about these things, to come in and add to or critique this, or be involved in the evolution of it and the creation of it in the first place, it might look different. Yeah. So for me, you know, sometimes to say, always, where’s our blind spots, who’s who’s not in the room at the moment, that would make a difference. Yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 33:06
yeah, the process of doing the engineering, and then the output of the engineering on or the product, the service, on the communities, I totally get that the the aha moment for me when I set up equal engineers was as I’m a safety engineer by background, and so I used to help clients. I didn’t really do much work in the rail sector, actually, but I did work in oil and gas and government services, defense facilities management, and we put so much effort into reducing risk to as low as reasonably practicable, you know, hazards, the likelihood of stuff happening, and then manage residual risk through certain measures and protocols and procedures and what have you. But I was the the suit, the loss of life due to suicide, broken down by occupation by the Office of National Statistics in 2018 showed that construction, manufacturing and process industries had had the highest rate of loss of life due to suicide, and I didn’t believe the data. So we did our own research masculinity in engineering, and we’ve done it twice, and in both data sets, once in 2018 and then once in 2021 we found one in five engineers reporting losing a work colleague to suicide, and one in five reporting suicidal ideation or self harm. And that number went up to one in four in 2021 and that was off nearly 800 respondents. So quite, quite up. You know, sizable number wasn’t a small sample size, and that just really made me sit up, because I’m like, Well, hang on, if the intention of our inclusion belonging programs are, bring in your whole self, be your whole self at one. Work well, clearly we’ve got a disconnect. Otherwise, if we were achieving that, the people who are at the extreme are having these these thoughts would be able to be open and get the right support and advice. And ironically, it’s the male majority group that are in that bucket, you know, as well. And that is the whole point of inclusion and belonging programs is to create cultures where you can be your whole self at work. So I often find we use that term, but it’s a little bit hollow. We don’t really give it meat for what it for, for what it can mean to people who are not part of a minoritized group in their day to day lived experience. You know, we kind of have to carve it out more for for people in order to sell, and you don’t have to say sell, but in order to give the benefits of what the whole point of investing in these things is about Dei, it’s actually good for you as well, not just other groups, you know, because if we do get it right, then maybe these rates will come down, and we’ll have more genuine connectedness between white, straight, cisgendered, heterosexual, label bodied, neurotypical men that represent a lot of the engineering and stem profession, they’ll Feel anchored in something that connects them to it. And yeah, so I find that framing it in that way is might be something that will be effective for your members, or for people who’ve been a bit passive on the shelf or staying quiet, they don’t want to lean into it, but they’re also not being antagonists, and, you know, stopping it, but they just never really felt that personal connection. When you get people feeling a personal connection, you know, things will move faster.
Keith Hanlon Smith 36:54
Yeah, absolutely right. I mean, those numbers are shocking. You know, they really do make you pause for thought about sort of, what’s going wrong, and how can we, how can we change that? Well, it’s
Mark McBride-Wright 37:09
just, you know, you don’t, you don’t want people being physically present but mentally absent when doing high risk maneuvers or driving a train at 120 miles an hour, you know that that’s or operating a crane lifting heavy objects across a construction site, you know? So that, I think that’s the bluntest way to talk about it, in terms of equivalency between a structure that the workforce already understand, because we’ve made a lot of progress in safety and then extending that slightly to then reframe it to talk about the brain as an organ, and giving it the same respect as the rest of the body, which we do in this system over here. But are we doing it over here? You know, I think you’re
Keith Hanlon Smith 37:56
absolutely right, because, you know, it takes a lot, it takes a lot of energy to compartmentalize and demark apply that demarcation between home life and work life, if you feel you must. Yeah, it’s another interesting area. I was having this conversation just yesterday, actually, with one of my well being, one of my well being specialists, and we were talking about the concept of equality or equity, actually, what we were saying is, in our well being journey, it’s going to look different for different people, and we should be very tuned into that, because we can roll out a program of initiatives that is going to really land with some people and not all land with others, and that’s okay. And it does remind me of this conversation we’re having now is, is that, you know, there are some people me included. I said earlier, you know, I started off work where you checked your personal life at the door, and actually, that stays with you for a long time. Of course, I think there’s still people in the workplace now that say I don’t want to bring my full self to work. You know, I’ve been conditioned to have this demarcation between home life and work life, and I’m that sits comfortably with me. So I think there are, you know, different groups on there. I think some people that are coming newly into the workplace, they have an expectation that, actually, those lines are very blurred. Yes, they have an expectation from their employer that that is the way that we’re going to get the best from them. We’ve got some people that are further on in their career say, actually, you know, just leave me be. I’m right as I am. We’ve probably got this whole group of people in the middle that that are saying, Actually, if I now have the opportunity to do something different to what’s been done before, I’m going to, I’m going to really take that opportunity and that that kind of be good for me, definitely.
Mark McBride-Wright 39:52
And I always caveat that when we do our training with, you know, there’s a slide that I use, and. Our sessions. It’s got a nice, you know, the iceberg, iceberg, model biases and expression. You know, you’ve got the tip of the iceberg. That are things you can see on the surface. Then you’ve got the water line. And then beneath the iceberg, you’ve got all this other richness that makes us who we are, things that are beneath our water line that we can’t see, life experiences, you know, accents, where we’ve lived, etc, sexual orientation, disability, mental health, blah, blah, blah, and that water line is an organization consider that for how can consider that a proxy for how inclusive their culture is. And so the more inclusive and more included people feel, the lower that water line will be, and the more likely that people will be to be open about anything going on beneath their water line, any turbulence. But an iceberg has buoyancy. It can move up and down, you know, and that water line can can shift and move. And I always caveat that it’s not about the removal of privacy, and we’re now expecting everyone to be open about everything going on in their life, which is what some Gen, some generations, or some people may feel like they’re now sort of being forced into. And actually they don’t want to. They’ve never had to. We don’t need to. Let’s just keep it the way things as they’ve always been. But it’s very different working in a culture which is, look, we’re here. We’re ready for you if you need us, than one which is, don’t ask, don’t tell. We don’t want to know, get on and do your job. You’re here to work. Park it at the door, type thing. So I think that that’s the kind of shift it’s and that’s where we can get some intergenerational tension sometimes with we now have to, like, blur the lines between everything in our life. But that’s not really the case. It’s but it’s about shifting the mindset and creating that tone as a leader, and through wellness and well being programs that you run, that, you people know, it’s there in the background, and that the organization and leaders will have their back if they ever need to get support or talk to people. And that’s an art form to create. You know, it’s, it’s, it’ll never be perfect, but that, that’s the sort of that’s my, certainly my aspiration for for organizations across engineering, because we don’t have that. We don’t have that as a culture across engineering right now, it’s still playing catch up in quite a lot of senses.
Keith Hanlon Smith 42:36
I think that’s absolutely right. You know, it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, one of the first lessons I learned about people management was that one approach is never going to be right for for everybody that actually, you know, and definitely, sort of in the in the HR world, the real key is to create a culture whereby you recognize the fact that people need different things. And it’s, it’s a bit lazy to take a one approach. You know, one approach is going to solve all of this stuff, just really recognizing that different people need different things at different times, and you need to be able to respond to
Mark McBride-Wright 43:16
that. That a good an example. Um, um, I read a couple of posts on LinkedIn in the last week by Claire Baldwin. Her name is She’s a disability rights activist, and she posted some really interesting stuff about the intersectional experiences of disabled women. And I think you know, when it comes to menopause treatment or breast breast cancer screening or having a family, you know. And I think she, as a disabled woman, was sharing her experience of of her different aspects of her identity, and how they’re affected and how they’re received in those scenarios. And, you know, I am none of those things. And so to let to learn about this frame of to learn about this lived experience on the world has really like expanded my understanding. And so I guess the key is to be creating those moments of opportunity to expand your frame of reference, but then when you have it as the reference point, bring it into your decision making, bringing it into the ways where you create these user journeys for for different wellness programs, and then make it a lived experience, a positive experience for the individuals you know, if they ever need To access anything or they hear about they hear situations or scenarios being spoken about, where they then see their personal, lived experience reflected in the solution or the offer. So so it then just all feels like we’re included. You know, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a, I mean, we’ll. Yeah, I saw a statistic. I can’t remember the number, and I should remember this number, but it’s from a diversity stats agency, and they basically had broken down that of all the like, just the 10 protected characteristics in the Equality Act in the UK, like the number of intersections that each one can have leads to like, you know, I know 1000s and 1000s of permutations of like, different lived experiences. I’m sure people that are good at maths can, like, do that quick matrix or algorithm or whatever the word is, but, you know, we’ll never know everything is the point. So being ambitious to be as well rounded as possible is, is key
Keith Hanlon Smith 45:44
Absolutely. I mean, just from this conversation, I do want to go away and check what the additional protected characteristic is, because I think there’s only nine not 10. Oh,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:53
I thought wrong, nine not 10. There we go.
Keith Hanlon Smith 45:57
I need to know about it.
Mark McBride-Wright 45:58
Well, you know, I guess I’ve sort of added in neurodiversity to my to my like, like, Library of pieces, you know, the that isn’t called out in the Equality Act. So, so yeah, that’s probably where my slip ups.
Keith Hanlon Smith 46:18
Yeah, it’s a really, really important one. And I think you’re right. I was having the conversation just yesterday about sort of, anti discrimination legislation, protected characteristics, and I was saying, Where do we think it might go? Let’s just, you know, hypothesize a bit about what might you know if we, if we look at the history of anti discrimination legislation and where it’s been, where do we think it might go? And, yeah. I mean, I won’t kind of play back that conversation, but it does give you pause for thoughts. Say, Well, what’s next? You know, one of the things that I’m particularly interested in is socio economic background, yes, yeah. And I wonder if at some stage in the future that might, you know, fall into anti discrimination legislation as
Mark McBride-Wright 46:59
well. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? I think, I certainly think with the government that have come into power now, I don’t think there’s any risk of the Equality Act going in a different direction, to a direction it could have gone had the previous government stayed in administration. So who knows, who knows. You know, I actually live in Brooklyn now in New York, so, you know, we’ve got the time of this episode. We’re sort of two weeks away from the presidential election, so it’s going to be really interesting to see the outcome of that, and the impact that has on on work over here and what organizations are doing, because there has been a bit of a quietening down of commitments. Commitments are still there in the background, but vocally externally, you know. So I’ve just feel like it’s all kind of on pause at the moment, what organizations are doing. So, right? Quick fire round questions. Okay, so what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:08
received? I would say that would be from my dad. And my dad always used to say to me, don’t go back.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:17
What’s your proudest achievement in HR, oh,
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:22
I think it will probably be. I’m just going to go with where I am at the moment. I’ve got a fantastic team that I work with, and I’m so proud of them, and the culture and engagement levels across the organization at the moment are the highest they’ve ever been. It feels like a great place to work at the moment, and I’m really pleased about that. What’s
Mark McBride-Wright 48:44
one skill you think every HR professional should have?
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:51
Humility?
Mark McBride-Wright 48:53
Tea or Coffee?
Keith Hanlon Smith 48:55
Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon.
Mark McBride-Wright 48:57
What’s your go to? Productivity? Hack,
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:01
copilot. Do? Pilot,
Mark McBride-Wright 49:04
if you have, if you could have dinner with any HR or business leader past or present. Who would it be?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:11
Lucy Adams from disruptive HR?
Mark McBride-Wright 49:15
What’s your favorite HR technology or tool?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:22
It would be, I don’t know, should I plug our engagement tool that we use at the moment? Yeah, we use peak on quote day, peak on, I can say that probably has made the biggest difference to our employee engagement levels than any other tool I’ve ever used.
Mark McBride-Wright 49:39
What’s one thing you do to unwind after a long day, long dog walk, what’s the most exciting project you’ve ever worked on?
Keith Hanlon Smith 49:49
Well, I think that probably would be there’s a few actually that pop into my head, but I will say the first one that popped into my head that was probably the Carbon Trust. I really enjoyed chat. Engine, the that business funding model and the cultural change that came with it, and, yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:07
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
Keith Hanlon Smith 50:13
Well, this is really a tough question. I wish I’d have prepared an answer for that one. I uh,
Keith Hanlon Smith 50:26
don’t go with imposter syndrome. Just set that aside. That would have saved me a lot of worry. I think if I’d given that voice so much time.
Mark McBride-Wright 50:36
Fantastic. Well, Keith, I’ve really enjoyed our chat today. It’s been nice getting to know a bit about you, but about your experience, what you’re doing now, and what you’ve got planned in the future, where if people want to get in touch with you or find out a bit about what you’re doing, how do they get in touch. I’d
Keith Hanlon Smith 51:01
say these is the way is on LinkedIn. So very happy to connect with people. Fab
Mark McBride-Wright 51:08
will put a link to your profile in the show notes then so people can can reach out. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much.
Keith Hanlon Smith 51:18
Really happy to be to be involved. Perfect.
Mark McBride-Wright 51:20
Well, I shall see you soon. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, applause.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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