HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
Hosted by Bill Banham, Bob Goodwin, Pauline James, and other HR enthusiasts, the HRchat show publishes interviews with influencers, leaders, analysts, and those in the HR trenches 2-4 times each week.
The show is approaching 1000 episodes and past guests are from organizations including ADP, SAP, Ceridian, IBM, UPS, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, NASA, Gartner, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, McLean & Company, UPS, Microsoft, Shopify, DisruptHR, McKinsey and Co, Virgin Pulse, Salesforce, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.
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Podcast Music Credit"Funky One"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
HRchat Podcast
Building Trauma-Informed Workplaces That Actually Work with Kirsten I’Anson
Navigating workplace anxiety during turbulent times requires leaders who understand both the science behind effective communication and the practical steps needed to create psychological safety. Kirsten I’Anson, Vice President of People and Culture at Community Savings Credit Union, delivers masterful insights on leadership approaches that calm rather than inflame tensions during political and economic instability.
Kirsten advocates for a leadership style that acknowledges societal anxieties while providing confidence through decisive action. Drawing from her experiences during the pandemic, she shares how promoting mental health benefits led to a remarkable 73% increase in usage, creating an environment where employees felt empowered to discuss previously taboo topics. By bringing in clinical counselors and normalizing therapeutic support, Community Savings built a culture that genuinely values mental wellbeing beyond superficial initiatives.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring whether leaders should express political views at work. Kirsten makes a compelling case that organizations with clear social purposes can thoughtfully engage with political issues, provided they've been transparent about their values during recruitment. This approach has allowed Community Savings to attract team members whose personal values align with their mission to unite working people and build a just world.
Perhaps most valuable is Kirsten's discussion of trauma-informed workplaces. With research showing 60-70% of adults have experienced traumatic events, she argues that addressing trauma isn't just compassionate—it's pragmatic business strategy that reduces absenteeism while increasing productivity and workplace pride. Simple changes like renaming "sick days" to "wellness days" have profoundly impacted their culture, creating an environment where employees freely discuss mental health without stigma.
Ready to bring more boldness to your HR practices? Connect with Kirsten on LinkedIn to exchange ideas about innovative approaches to workplace wellbeing and psychological safety. Her practical wisdom proves that thoughtful, values-driven leadership delivers results for both people and organizations during uncertain times.
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Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit hrgazettecom.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and joining me in this episode is Kirsten Ironson, vice President of People and Culture over at Community Savings Credit Union. Kirsten says she is privileged that her work also speaks to her personal passions understanding what makes humans tick, getting deep and meaningful about mental wellness and creating an environment that other people want to be a part of. Kirsten began her career at community savings building their learning initiative community Community Savings University, and has recently been recognised by BC Business for delivering an award-winning wellness programme. Hey, kirsten, how are you doing? Welcome to the show today.
Speaker 3:Hi Bill, I'm very good, thank you. I'm calling from British Columbia, so it's exciting to hear another Brit.
Speaker 2:Yes, both proud Canadians, but, as you can tell, neither of us were born there. Why don't you fill our listeners in? Why don't you take a couple of minutes and tell them a bit about yourself, your background, how you ended up moving over to BC, all about your career? Go ahead.
Speaker 3:I'm currently obviously working in an HR role, but that wasn't my background. I didn't come from a kind of traditional HR or come in through a traditional HR route. After university I spent some time wanting to do good, joining a charity and doing a bit of fundraising, and then I actually went into the world of sales, something that I never wanted to do, never thought I would do, but something that I actually really enjoyed. And I'll tell you, I enjoyed it because of the company, the organisation that I was a part of. I really felt like we were kind of the centre of the universe. I worked for Mars, the confectionery company, and the culture there was so good that I just absolutely loved it.
Speaker 3:But I worked too hard and I thought, right, I need to move country. I'll probably never leave the organisation, otherwise I'm going to do something really extreme. I'm going to move country. And then I thought, right, I'm actually not going to have a career, I'm going to have a job. So I did that for a couple of years. I had what I'd call a job where I was able to do other things like sports in my free time, a bit of volunteering work as well, and then I found myself back in a career and that was one here at Community Savings I was able to draw on what I'd done in learning and development and then that kind of escalated, snowballed into the role that I have here today, and it's another organization where the culture is key to my work and to the people that work at the organization, and that was always very exciting for me and still is today.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Very good. So you moved over to Canada about 13 years ago, I think you mentioned yes. My next question for you then is why is Canada the best country in the world?
Speaker 3:because it will never be the 51st state or started off political. I'm also, you know, a proud Brit and I also really enjoyed my life, enjoyed my life there as well. But Canada is a beautiful country. Um, it, it's a very safe feeling place to be in so many regards. You know, I can walk around at night and, well, I may feel like I'll be attacked by bears, because they genuinely do roam the navy birds, but, um, from a human perspective, it does feel like I'll be attacked by bears because they genuinely do roam the navy bird, but, um, from a human perspective, it does feel like a very safe place to be, a beautiful place to bring up kids.
Speaker 3:Um, you've got, you know, nature is your playground in your backyard. We're, you know, up the road. We've got mountains, local mountains that I can access, them, we can access to go night skiing and then, not too far down the road, there's some, some stunning beaches that we can paddle in as well. So, yeah, really is nature's playground out here? It's, it's a beautiful part of the world I love bc so much.
Speaker 2:You and I were chatting before we hit record today. I was telling you that I was that close to moving there a few years ago, and then life happened and things changed. Um, uh, I enjoy camping and hiking and whatnot. My idea of camping in british columbia was sleeping in a car, though because of those bears that you mentioned, um, I'm too much of a scaredy brit to actually sleeping in a tent I have been laughed at for sleeping in a tent with a can of bear spray.
Speaker 3:Laughed at, ridiculed by canad Canadians. But I've done it and I would do it again you gotta stay safe, okay.
Speaker 2:So we are living in pretty scary times, pretty tumultuous times. There's lots going on. We are recording this episode in early April and it seems like everything's going a bit crazy. The markets seem to be crashing, lots of uncertainty happening and, as part of my homework ahead of our conversation today, I was going over your LinkedIn profile and looking at some of your recent LinkedIn posts, and in one of them you wrote the following a unifying social purpose coupled with strong leadership offers an effective antidote to the anxiety experienced by a workforce amid political and economic instability. I find it fascinating how leaders can inspire, calm and galvanize action simply by understanding the science behind how their words impact others. Firstly, can I say that you are a wordsmith. Their words impact others. Firstly, can I say that you are a wordsmith. Secondly, my question is what did you mean by that, and what role does leadership play in addressing geopolitical tensions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's such an interesting time to be in leadership. It's an interesting time to be in the world and at times it can be a very scary one, and as leaders, we need to recognise that. We feel that and our, as leaders, we need to recognize that we feel that and our teams are certainly going to feel that as well. So let's not ignore it. Ignoring it's not going to make it go away. You know, we know. All the research shows that society skyrockets in time of political tension, like, even like just in the lead up to the elections, and that we also know impacts productivity in the way people feel and operate. Let's not ignore it, let's face into it because, let's be honest, everyone's a little bit frightened or is in the kind of doom scrolling mode of looking at what's happening next, what's going to impact us next, and it can be scary, it really can be. So I would say, firstly, leaders need to be socio-politically astute. So you really need to have a good grasp on what's going on in the world and constantly look at it with a lens on how is that going to impact our teams. You need to address your teams, address them in a way that lets your team know we get the concern as well, but we're not worried. We've been through tumultuous times before. We've handled it before. We're going to do it again. So that's the first thing actually talking about it, addressing it with the team. So we understand that and you know and reference things that you've been through before 've. No, you know, there's no doubt that everyone's gone through some really difficult stuff in their personal lives, in their work life, and just kind of draw on that to give people that sense of, yeah, you're right, we have been through things that felt hugely scary before and we're okay, we came through just fine, um, so so it's that acknowledgement and then also tangible decision making. So you want a leadership team to act quickly, not erratically, but you want to see them galvanize quickly when you've got a problem on the table. So, um, I'm going to quickly hop back to the pandemic. But we knew that anxiety rose throughout our team and globally through society. We had this kind of collective anxiety there and for us that was a really good opportunity for us to talk about our benefits. So that sounds very boring, but actually it's not at all. So we have really decent mental health benefits up to $2,000 a year to spend on mental health professionals and it's all very well having that and we know lots of organisations don't want people to tap into that too much because your premiums go up. But we wanted our premiums to go up because we knew ultimately that would benefit us and our team. So we brought in some registered clinical counsellors. We brought in a few different ones actually to give people a sense of okay, these are the different kind of humans that I may be interacting with and saying you don't just have to use them in in times of what you might consider crisis. You can use them to talk about things that are bugging you. It can be your inability to manage your time, but use those benefits that you've got. You've got someone there to speak to that can support you without judgment. It's not embarrassing to use them. In fact, we would really really like that you used them and for us, we saw a 73% increase in the usage of our mental health coverage during that time. We also had people talking about how enabled they felt to use them, so how empowered they felt to use them, and we had someone talking about trauma that had happened to them in their childhood and how it had resurfaced because of something that happened, you know, politically for her and she actually had to take oh I've said she, she won't mind, she had to take an extended period of time off to look after her mental health and she came back and talked to the whole organization about it and said that she felt very supported by our team in doing that and for us that's so meaningful and that builds confidence, felt very supported by our team in doing that and for us that's so meaningful and that builds confidence in the rest of the team to also use those benefits. So it's those kind of tangible leadership actions that I believe give your team the confidence that we know what we're doing, that we know we'll be OK and that they're going to be supported by us.
Speaker 5:This episode of the HR Chat Podcast is supported by Nebula Academy, a technology industry-focused workforce accelerator that offers learning programs to prepare individuals for successful careers. Our approach is centered around cognitive neuroscience research, combining the latest research and modern learning methods to create informative and psychologically safe learning experiences. Our programs enable individuals to achieve career readiness and immediate impact in their chosen field. So this is a podcast for HR people. Learn more at nebulaacademycom. Thanks, and now back to the HR Chat Show.
Speaker 2:So this is a podcast for HR people. I generally try and keep away from sharing my political views on this pod. Sometimes I'm very tempted it's been the odd comment for me I just want to scream certain things, but that's not my job. Job, I'm picking up from you that you've got certain views. Um follow-up question for you is it okay for leaders to share political views in the workplace sometimes?
Speaker 3:oh, I love that question so much, bill. I think yes, um, but it does depend contextually on your organisation. I wouldn't choose to work for an organisation whose values I didn't believe in. I mean, that feels like it goes without saying, but that's so, so important to us. It's important in the way that we recruit and actually it's been a game changer in the way that we recruit.
Speaker 3:So in our job postings and if you go and have a look on any of ours here at community savings, we'll always talk about our social purpose. We exist to unite working people to build a just world, and we used to say we've changed it. But we used to say this speaks to a core level, read on, and what we're saying is and if it doesn't, then this is not the place for you, you know, and by doing that we've attracted people whose values do align with ours. So all that to say yes, once you do that, you've got the go-ahead to make political. To make political like statements, because you've already announced who you are and where you stand, and we are heavily affiliated with the labour movement over here, with a largely unionised credit union, so we're kind of political by nature. There are obviously some matters that we will have very strong opinions about as individuals that we may be more tactful about in the workplace, but we absolutely are not afraid of making political statements. So, actually, something that we're doing at the moment we're renovating one of our branches. We're a credit union and one of our branches needs an overhaul and we very quickly integrated into our specs that we're going to be prioritizing Canadian workers, companies and Canadian products in the use of the building work that we'll be doing. So our CEO recently talked about that. In fact, on Friday he talked about that and said, yeah, we are, we are, we've got a buy Canadian mandate, the board support it and this is way forward and you you can hear a virtual cheer from the team who really stand behind that as well. So you know, where appropriate and if it aligns with the values of your organisation, absolutely be political Something. We've got coming up this together for a day to come in person and do this DEI workshop, which really, you know, shows our commitment to it. Even though we have no burning fires internally on that topic, we still know that there's always work to be done there and the education on that is just so, so important.
Speaker 3:Before I had actually, you know, finalised all the details. There was a lot of talk of other big institutions and banking institutions who were retracting their DEI initiatives and so I was like, right, I'm I do feel so compelled to make a statement about this. So I did put a simple message on our internal kind of communication platform saying we have, whilst other organisations are retreating from DEI practices, just so, you know, we've got a DEI workshop coming up and lots of our team referenced that and you know there were lots of thumbs up and some really positive comments around that and it felt like the right thing to do at the time. You know it was quite an emotional response for me, but it got a good emotional response from our team.
Speaker 3:And as leaders, we are here to evoke or control emotional responses. Control not in a kind of big brother way, but in a calming way. And you know you kind of referenced what I'd talked about there on LinkedIn and I wrote a bit of an article about it, because there really is a science and a biology behind what we do as leaders. So when we're speaking to a team, we can you know, we can invoke panic, we can invoke fear. We can also invoke calm. You know we can calm people's amygdalas, and when we really break it down like that, I think it's good for leaders to do that. Ok, what is going to calm our team? So, yes, you can say the right things and then you've got to back that up with tangible actions and maneuver into a plan that instills confidence and shows that we've got this. We've got this as a team.
Speaker 2:We know what we're doing next okay, let's talk a bit more about the dei side of things for a moment. Um, just recently actually, I recorded a bunch of conversations with some big hitters around the the rollback. Uh, that's coming out soon, or maybe it's already out by the time this episode is released. Uh, listeners so uh, regular listeners of this show will know that I spend most of my time these days in the uk. Uh, the company's still based in beautiful toronto, canada. Um, one thing that's interesting about being in the uk they don't call it dei, they call it edi and um, the e stands for equality, in the it doesn't stand for equity. Can you let's play devil's advocate here Can you Give me your thoughts on why some people in North America have got an issue with that E, that equity? Why is that so polemic?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, they do, don't they? I'm someone who actually gets a little bit frustrated by the semantics argument there. I think you know, ultimately we're all aiming for the same thing, we're all striving for the same thing and I don't love to waste energy looking at the semantics. I like to spend my energy getting into action. I don't mind if you call it equity or if you want to refer to equality. I understand the difference between the two. I discuss it a lot. Actually, one of my sisters who specializes in EDI I've told you before, but she works for UN women and they do a lot of work around this and maybe I'm not going to be that popular in saying this, but you know, I don't. I don't think any of us should waste our time in worrying about which one is correct, but do the things that we all know are going to make the biggest difference, to make people feel comfortable. We can be good people, you know. Investing in EDI, dei, however you want to call it, don't completely relabel it. It's something I would say, don't you know? You don't want people to think you're embarrassed or don't agree with it. You're making a statement if you do that. But the most important thing is that we're educating, we're getting those conversations and we're bringing psychological safety to the workplace.
Speaker 3:There's a real, real pragmatic element to EDIDI as far as I'm concerned, and that is we. You know, for us here at the Credit Union we serve so many different members who come from so many different cultures, so it just doesn't make sense to have a team that aren't diverse and reflective of the communities that we're serving. So in a way, things have been very easy for us. I mean, we got our act together in 1944, a group of working people who didn't like the way that big banks were treating them and said we're going to do this differently, we're going to look after working people. And so for me and for our team it's been a no-brainer to employ people and recruit for people who really care about the communities that you serve, and so diversity becomes a very natural part of the equation there.
Speaker 3:So for us, I'd say it's not something that we've been. I'd say we've not been that intentional about it, but we have and we haven't. It's happened organically because of the values that we have and because of our social purpose mandate and keeping that at the fore. That said, I still want to invest in it and for a few reasons. I want to invest in DEI initiatives because it is the right thing to do right now. It is, you know, we're making a political statement as well, but there's some foundational parts of EDI that I really feel that experts need to come in and educate us on, and I know there's going to be a lot that I learn as well, and those educators are going to care way more than I do about the semantics and the use of equity rather than equality. You know I'd say equity is a little bit more popular at the moment, and I totally understand why, but I think you know either term, used in the fashion that it was intended, is looking to do the right thing.
Speaker 2:Let's change tack now, although it's kind of related actually to what we were talking about before. Uh, and let's talk about, in trauma, trauma, informed workplaces, kristin, if you don't mind. Um, so I very recently I recorded a mini series with dr bill howard, who's based out of ottawa. Uh writes for the global mail. Um, lots of our canadian listeners listeners will be familiar with dr bill um, and that was focused on a new program that he had called being Crisis Ready. In your opinion, why do trauma-informed workplaces matter and how can companies implement?
Speaker 3:meaningful mental health policies. It matters because trauma is widespread. It's not something that just happens to a few people, and I think this is a preconceived notion that is being dispelled over time. But there's more work to be done there, so I'm going to throw a bit of a stat out there. So the National Institute of Mental Health found 60 to 70% of adults reported having experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives, and there's so much more data that you can have a have a look at see that really, trauma impacts more people than less many. Many people may not know that they are impacted by trauma, but the research shows that it impacts most of us. So there's therefore a likelihood that a significant number of the people in our teams will be impacted as well, and if we don't acknowledge this and educate it, we risk re-traumatising folks, losing trust within our workforce and not having a psychologically safe workplace.
Speaker 3:And again, for those who think that's, you know, warm and fluffy, there's also a very pragmatic reason to ensuring that your workplace is psychologically safe. It's that you're going to get less absenteeism. You're going to increase productivity. You'll also increase the pride and joy that people feel about coming to work and a mandate I was given when I joined was you only have one job to do. It's to make people feel proud to come to work and that's, you know that's a really significant part of it. People feel proud and I talked about that example before. You know, someone felt very proud to be part of a workplace where they knew that we do things like renaming sick days to wellness days or health days so that people can use that for for mental wellness and it's not stigmatized. They don't have to come and tell us why they'll use it.
Speaker 3:When we did this, there were a few people who said all people are going to abuse it. They're honestly a handful of people and our ceo is like no, they're not, they never have done. You know we really trust our workforce and and and it's true they no one's abused it. The numbers haven't skyrocketed. But people will say I'm taking a health day and feel really comfortable in doing so and we've just had so much more dialogue around. You know people's mental health and how they're feeling, and people casually mentioning you know that they're using therapists or or talking about childhood trauma. So yet for me it's not just a nice, warm and fluffy thing to do.
Speaker 2:It really is a pragmatic, very sensible thing to do one of the silver linings from the pandemic was what you just explained there um people feel more comfortable now sharing, sharing their own mental health journeys where they're at, you know.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was like that before. Um, I'm also dyslexic, um, or neuro spicy, as my good friend would say. This is something else which a few years ago people weren't really comfortable talking about, and I just, I just want to celebrate that with you. I don't really have a follow-up question there, I just I just think that's wonderful.
Speaker 3:I'm with you. I want to celebrate that, bill, I love that and in fact, I've tried to insert into my conversations like, oh yeah, and I spoke to my therapist about this and I think, particularly being a Brit who felt like that was something that we couldn't talk about. You know, maybe more an argued less, I know, thankfully, um, it's just such a mark different in in the kind of general dialogue that we have and long may it continue.
Speaker 2:One more question for you before we wrap up for today, and that is how can our listeners connect with you? So is that linkedin? Is that email address? Are you super cool? I'm all over tiktok and instagram and places. And, of course, how can our listeners connect with you? So is that linkedin? Is that email address? Are you super cool? I'm all over tiktok and instagram and places. And, of course, how can they learn more about all the things happening over at community savings credit union?
Speaker 3:ah, thanks for asking, bill. Um, I'm certainly not cool, so I'm not on tiktok. Um, I am on instagram. Um, linkedin is the best way to contact me. I'd love anyone to connect, even if it's just to talk about some of these issues. If you want to talk to me about, you know, exciting ideas on what you've been able to do. Actually, that it's just made me think we we actually brought in first-line responders to do some empathetic listening training, so that's got a really lovely link to some of the trauma-informed care practices that I think could be really exciting in the workplace. So, yeah, get in touch with me. I'd love to hear about your weird and wonderful ideas. I think what you know, boldness is the way forward when it comes to HR practices. So a good element of neuro spicy ideas. Send them my way um and and pragmatic output. So, yeah, I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at k ironson, at commsavingscom or linkedin. It's a great place to contact me excellent.
Speaker 2:Uh, there you go, listeners. So I think what kirsten just did there was she invited you to connect with her and to send her weird and wonderful messages. I think is what she said. So good luck with that, Kirsten. And that just leads me to say let me know how that goes. That just leads me to say for today, thank you very much for being my guest.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for having me, Bill. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 2:And listeners as always. Until next time, happy working pleasure and listeners as always.
Speaker 1:Until next time, happy working. Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HRGazettecom.
