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, 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
DisruptHR Birmingham, Culture, and Heroism with Shakil Butt
Shakil Butt never planned to leave his comfortable 20-year finance career for HR leadership. What began as a three-month interim assignment transformed into a passionate pursuit that would redefine his understanding of strategic people management and earn him recognition as one of the UK's most influential HR leaders.
Bringing his finance background to HR gave Shakil a unique advantage. "Every single decision I'd ever made as a finance person had a people implication," he reflects, highlighting the critical intersection between financial decisions and human capital. This perspective helps him bridge the persistent gap between HR's traditional focus on people and the data-driven approach that commands attention in the boardroom.
Shakil, a speaker at next month's DisruptHR Birmingham Summit, challenges HR professionals to move beyond trendy but superficial initiatives like "Fresh Fruit Fridays" by focusing on measurable impact. "What's the problem you're trying to fix? What's the opportunity you're trying to take advantage of?" Without answers to these fundamental questions, HR initiatives lack strategic value. His approach transforms HR from what he calls "the poor cousin to finance" into a vital strategic function with demonstrable business impact.
When discussing organizational culture and equity initiatives with HRchat show host Bill Banham, Shakil offers a critique of "performative EDI" – actions taken for show rather than substance. "Culture is exactly what you allow to happen in the absence of any real thought," he notes, emphasizing that meaningful cultural change requires intentional leadership rather than disconnected programs. True equity work means addressing systemic issues throughout the employee lifecycle with clear metrics and ownership, not simply creating employee resource groups or celebrating diversity events without purpose.
Drawing inspiration from his love of sci-fi and fantasy, Shakil envisions HR professionals as potential organizational heroes who have the courage to "do the right thing" even when difficult. His message resonates with HR practitioners seeking to elevate their impact: embrace data without losing humanity, lead with purpose rather than trends, and have the bravery to champion meaningful change.
Connect with Shakil on LinkedIn
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Speaker 2:Shaquille Butt, it's my absolute pleasure and honor to welcome you to the HR Chat Show. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm very well. Thank you, bill, and the pleasure is all mine.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. So, as we like to do on this show, let's start by getting to know you a little bit before we get into the hard-hitting stuff. Let's start with your journey. You began in finance and made the transition to HR back in 2009, when you were about 10, I guess. What motivated that shift and how has your finance background helped shape your approach to people management?
Speaker 3:It's a very good question, bill, and it's one I never planned. It wasn't a career journey or transition that I ever planned. It wasn't a midlife crisis that I was going through. It was purely by accident. The organization was going through a restructure.
Speaker 3:I've been in finance for 20 years, and we were searching for a HR director, and I was asked could I be the interim HR director for three months? And I thought three months was, you know okay, why not? I was. I was fairly comfortable and and if I'm being very honest, not learning anymore quite stagnant, been doing the same thing for a very long period of time. I'd gone through a number of audits and a number of finance. You know software changes, you know policy rewrites, teams so I thought, yeah, this sounds like, uh, it could be interesting. Um, did it for three months. Three months became six, six became nine, nine became eighteen, and I started really enjoying it.
Speaker 3:At the 18th month point, I was asked to go back to university, which I kicked and screamed about at the time. To go, and actually, you know, foreign. To be the incumbent HR director. I had to actually get qualified. To be credible is what the organization believed.
Speaker 3:Best thing I ever did, though, because they actually taught me what I already know about hr from finance. I thought I knew what hr was. My view, my understanding, was very transactional. It was very limited. Um. It was very process driven, wasn't very strategic, it wasn't very much thinking about what hr could be.
Speaker 3:Going to university was great because I was taught by lecturers. You know people like Perry Timms was my lecturer at the time, which was fantastic. As you know probably already, he's one of the leading thinkers in this space. So I was quite fortunate. I was actually given a very different kind of mindset at uni. It wasn't about taking what was already out there and running with that, but actually thinking what could be done differently. So that's how I ended up in HR. Um loved it ever since. Not look back, although my wife has on occasion said what about going back to finance? It is more secure, there is more money there, but I'm much happier where I am. Um, in terms of the uh, the, the second part of your question, what was it again? Just remind me uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was interested to know how has your finance background shaped your approach to people management?
Speaker 3:being in finance, it is always around looking at the numbers and the metrics and data. And when I moved into the hr space I realized the team I entered doing what wasn't pretty much standard for the industry, you know wasn't doing anything particularly great, for the organization had a very bad reputation, well regarded, and it was because we weren't actually thinking about how we aligned with the organisational strategy. What was the organisation trying to do? How would we be measuring that? How could we evidence the budget that we were asking for? Very often, when I was on the other side of the table in finance, if a function any function, not just HR would come in front of me and not be able to justify what they're doing, what difference it would make, how the organization would benefit from their activities, then I'd be cutting their budgets left, right and center. So I do think that's helped me with my role within HR to actually think more strategically, to think about impact, and I'll come back to that perhaps later on.
Speaker 2:So that's really interesting because we we interview a lot of CHROs on this show and it seems like increasingly, data leads everything that senior HR leadership is doing. Lots of reasons why positive. There are some negatives with that as well. In my opinion.
Speaker 2:Push, push back that I sometimes hear when I'm attending events such as CIPD or SHERM or HR tech and others is you've still got to. You've still got to recognize that people are people, we're human beings. We've got to be able to communicate and mentor each other and support each other. And if, if it's someone who's coming from a data or finance background and they go straight into a CHRO role when they're more interested in that cold hard data, maybe that's being lost a little bit. What you just said there a moment ago about how you went back to university and that gave you a new appreciation of that humanistic aspect from people like our friend Perry Timms, Would you recommend that for others? So for others coming into that kind of a role, who are very money and data focused because that's their background, is it very much worth them taking a step back and saying you know what? I need a bigger picture here.
Speaker 3:No, absolutely so. I'll share this with you, bill. When I was in finance, I was trained to believe we were the most important function, and to an extent, that's partially true, because we see all the money coming in, we see all the money going out. We know things that a lot of the other perhaps parts of the organisation, won't appreciate. However, it's only one slice or one lens to look through, and when I moved into the HR space, I actually realised every single decision I'd ever made as a finance person had a people implication.
Speaker 3:And if you're not thinking about both, then you're not really acting strategically, you're acting very short term and most and again it took me time to understand and realize this most CEOs, most senior leaders come in. They give, they give them a three-year term, a five-year term. They want to show impact, they want to show results, so they turn to the you know, the finance person. I cut costs, how can I raise revenue? And it's more than just that. And if you're only thinking short-term, you're not being strategic. And if that's the mandate we're giving our leaders, then of course they're going to act short-term. But actually to be strategic, you need to be thinking about the people implications of people. Ultimately, who would support you? Not the numbers.
Speaker 2: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. You have, of course, been repeatedly recognized as one of the UK's HR most influential. In your view, Shaquille, what makes HR leadership influential in today's business world? Is it influential in today's business world? Are HR leaders actually getting a seat at the top, being listened to? Give us your take.
Speaker 3:I think we're still struggling. If I'm being honest, the the advantage I had as a finance professional was that my voice was a given in the boardroom, and that was perhaps the biggest culture shock to me when I shifted to HR. It wasn't automatic, it wasn't a given. I wasn't the person that got referred to straight away but to make my case, I said you know again, I don't know. You know, I know and understand why HR professionals don't like data. Because we don't. We didn't come into the space to deal with numbers, came to the space to do with people and culture, but without the numbers. Unless you, unless you marry the two and become more comfortable with the numbers, you're just saying I think I, you know, I think this is a good idea. You know, fresh fruit on Fridays, I mean, mean some of those things I used to come across. I'll be like but why, what? Why fresh fruit? Why? Why Fridays? You know what? What? Well-being Wednesdays? But what's the problem? What is the problem you're trying to fix? And if you're not answering that question, what's the opportunity that you're trying to take advantage of? What's the problem you're trying to resolve? If you haven't got the answer to those two questions, you've got nothing. So if it is around sickness absence, then what are the problem you're trying to resolve? If you haven't got the answer to those two questions, you've got nothing. So if it is around sickness absence, then what are the rates of sickness absence? What does that cost the business in real terms? What is the lost opportunity? What does that cost the organization? Those are your business case arguments for actually then saying this is why we need to invest in X, y or Z, whatever that issue is. But unless you can show why you're asking for investment, unless you're showing why you're adding value and why the senior leader should listen to you, you are going to be sat in the room. You know, as the, as the poor cousin to finance, and we have an advantage. Finance we do, unfortunately, but I think it's shifting. So finance has a. You know, there, as you know, there's a statutory requirement to have you know, um, you know a set of accounts which are compliant with accounting standards. We don't have that for a. You know for, uh, you know hr professionals, but it is shifting. We are seeing you know again, um, you know, with the introduction of the gender pay gap and other potential pay gaps coming on board, um, we are getting more and more visibility because of, you know, legal requirements.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure saying that it's a shame that we have to rely on legislation to make us more important in the in the workplace. But there is that shift and it's happening and we can either get on. You know, I used to argue with. You know, not argue, sorry, it's the wrong word. I used to say to Peter Cheese when I was on the board of the CIPD look, if HR professionals don't get on board with numbers, then once the finance, finance professionals realise what is required, you know, from a statutory perspective, they'll take ownership and we'll actually get squeezed even further. They'll look after the gender pay gap, they'll look after the number part of our role. We should be very clear about who our people are, how many people we have, what are their added values, what are the demographics and how that all plays into the data that we then need to use to make business case arguments in front of other senior leaders.
Speaker 4:Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes things up, it makes you think differently and it leaves you inspired. That event is Disrupt HR. The format is 14 speakers, 5 minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a CEO, a technologist or a community leader and you've got something to say about talent, culture or technology, disrupt is the place. It's coming soon to a city near you. Learn more at disrupthrco. Learn more at disrupthrco.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, thank you very much. And for our audience outside of the UK, peter Chees is the CEO of the CIPD, which is the biggest association for HR and L&D professionals in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Okay, let's continue through Shaquille. Much of your consultancy work today focuses on organisational culture, of course, but what do you believe are the essential ingredients for creating a healthy and inclusive workplace culture? There are so many dimensions to this. I'm just going to throw a couple of extra ones at you. In the last few years, lots of people have gone hybrid or remote, and that adds complicating factors to it. Give us your take.
Speaker 3:I think culture is an interesting issue because I think there was a. We have come a long way in terms of as a HR profession. We used to talk about human resources. We now talk about people and culture, and that's where the conversation needs to be. So that's a positive thing, but the reality is, as you know, bill, if you don't look after culture, it will happen by default. You'll have a culture, whether you take ownership of it or not. So it makes sense to actually have cultures which are designed and are actually intentional, and that's where the leadership role comes in.
Speaker 3:Culture is exactly what you allow to happen in the absence of any real thought. So if leadership actually take ownership of culture and it's not about writing more policies, it's actually about what people see happening in the workplace and again, this, you know, this thing with leadership is often, you know, leaders get focused on the tasks and activities rather than thinking about what kind of, what kind of organization do we want to be? What do we really aspire to be? What really is our vision? What is our? What are our values?
Speaker 3:And once you start focusing around values and again, when my dissertation was actually on values, when I did my masters um it was becoming very clear to me that actually there's always different values going on in organizations. There's the values that they ascribe, that they claim to aspire to. There's the values that get actually get translated in practice. There's the values that the organization's staff hope and wish and dream that the organization would aspire to, and the actual values are somewhere in between. So taking ownership of the values will help to create the culture that you want to actually, you know, be known for as an organization, and that sometimes doesn't mean chasing money, you know, chasing revenue or, you know, following industry and trends it's actually doing sometimes, you know doing the right thing, and that's always the hardest thing to do.
Speaker 5:You improve your employee value proposition, from exclusive deals and discounts to help your people stretch their salaries to effective reward and recognition programs and a comprehensive health and well-being offering. We pride ourselves on our friendly and collaborative way of working, putting the interest of our clients at the heart of everything. We do learn more at my staff shopcom, thanks, and now back to the HR chat show.
Speaker 2:You were involved, of course, in designing the CIPD level two certificate in EDI or, for our North American listeners, dei, not quite the same thing. Often people in the UK think the E stands for equality instead of equity, whereas it's certainly equity in the US, although that's seen a big pushback recently. Anyway, you were involved in designing that certificate and have contributed to the CIPD's EDI program. Where do most organizations get EDI wrong, shaquille, and how can the course correct?
Speaker 3:okay. So it's interesting. You mentioned EDI as being E being equity in US and equality in the UK. I actually think it should be equity, and my new forthcoming book is actually talking about equity rather than equality. We do have a hang-up around the term equality, and that's from the equality at 2010. So a lot of organisations talk about equality, but actually equity is far more greater as a concept, because it's about fairness. It's about treating everybody like people rather than treating everybody the same, uh, which is what you know, um, as if everybody can be treated the same, because that's not the case. We're all individual human beings. We all have different needs, we all have different challenges and weaknesses and you know, and things and obstacles that we have to overcome. But in terms of the um, the edi space, I think where we go wrong and uh, there's a quite a few chapters in my book about this is actually doing what I call performative EDI, so doing the things that are known to be in this space. So, for example, you're doing mentoring great. You're doing a parade fantastic. You've got a bus kitted out to be on a celebration day. You're recognizing national events and national weeks fantastic, so what? You've got an employee resource group, so what? It doesn't answer the question why? Why are you doing that? What's the problem?
Speaker 3:Again, you're trying to solve and often organizations will do what they see other organizations doing and they will say we've got an employee resource group, that's great. My question is okay, how impactful are they? Do they have a voice? Are they just a moan and groan session? Do they just talk to each other and complain about the same things until they become cynical, deflated and actually become part of the problem? Do we see them? As you know, now we have an employee resource group. They can advise us on the issues in the organisation. No, they can't. Actually, they can help, but they're not the solution. They're suffering from the things that the organisation has know whether it's discrimination, racism, you know homophobia, whatever the issue is. They're suffering from that and you're asking the people who are suffering to fix the problem that they never created. They can be part of the solution, but they're not the solution.
Speaker 3:And very often these individual edi initiatives, they stand alone. They're not connected, they're not, they're not strategic. You know they, they might run. You know my EDI project might run in three months and then that's it, or it's on the strength of the EDI lead. You have a charismatic EDI lead in the role. All things are going great until that person leaves and then everything collapses.
Speaker 3:Edi has to be or DEI, to use the American term has to be something which is more strategic, has to be thought about long term, has to be owned by the leadership team and it comes back down to and I think there's a real shift. I know across the in the States there's that shift. Edi hasn't really gone away or DEI hasn't gone away really. It's actually taking back that wider ownership of culture. How do you want our people to feel in the organization? That's everyone. There's a reason why some parts of organizations have felt alienated because the focus has been on X or Y or Z. There's been a compliance approach to EDI, enforcing pronouns on people. Not everybody wants to have a pronoun pronounced on them If it is about horses for courses, treat people like individuals, allow them to be the best versions of themselves, and that's for everyone, not just you know pockets of parts of the organization or what is trending and what is right now you know in the news and capturing headlines. That's where I think we've gone wrong with edi interesting.
Speaker 2:I would like to take you to issue on that, but I do not have enough time because there's so many other things I want to get through with you, so I'm just going to get you back on the show to explore that a bit more. Um, you've got a book which I believe is currently available online and it soon will be in the shelves as well, and it's called edi experience. Uh, what can readers expect from it and what gaps do you hope it fills, beyond what you've shared so far in the current diversity and inclusion literature?
Speaker 3:I wrote the book with the intent to write it for professionals coming into this space. That was the original scope that was given to me back in October and obviously there's been a lot of things that have happened since October. And I think that's even more relevant now than before because, even though you might argue this is the wrong time to write and release a book on EDI, when this needs to be a push away from it, because I recognize the fact that actually the the activities or the work that needs to be done still is now going to have to be owned by somebody in organizations when they're trying to design their cultures. So I wrote the book with myself in mind, trying to think about what would, what would I need to have known five years ago when I, before I, came to this space, what would have helped me? And I recognized actually there was a lot I didn't know and there's a lot that actually a lot of hr practitioners wouldn't know. A lot of edi leads I meet actually don't know so often I will meet edi leads who are well-intentioned, very passionate about a particular strand of diversity. They might be from that strand of diversity in the South, they might be black, they might be Asian, they might be female, might be gay, and they will promote a particular and again they'll have their own biases, obviously because they are from that particular diverse group themselves, and they will promote a certain level of thinking in the organization and ideas in the organization and not realize actually alienating others as they as they do so, um, but they actually haven't understood what edi really involves and all they're doing really is they've been given a platform, they're given an opportunity and they'll do exactly all those same edi initiatives that I've seen organizations do, but they're not thinking about impact, they're not very clear about why they're not actually, you know, making a business case argument for why they are needed in the organization.
Speaker 3:What's going on? You know I I'd want to design the metrics. You know, where do we have a problem with attraction? Is there a problem with retention? Is there a problem with promotion? You know I don't want to look across that employee life cycle to understand what's going wrong. And where are there high number of cases of employee relation cases, disciplinaries or grievances taking place? Are we, do we have any data from exit interviews? What's the actual problem we're trying to solve? If you're not answering that question, then actually all you're doing is performative, edi. You're going to get critique and you're going to get, you know, feel disinvalued. And it's not that people aren't buying into the concept of fairness and equity, it's just that you haven't been the best champion and advocate for the thing that you're meant to be championing and advocating for.
Speaker 2:I really feel like there are a lot of people who haven't bought into the concept of equity If it's talking about levelling up almost I've heard this term before reverse discrimination when it comes to equity. Now, these are not views that I share. I just think that, um, it's a polemic term and, again, I would love to get you back on the show and talk to you more about this in the future. But we've only got a couple of minutes before we've got to wrap up and there are a couple of things that I would uh just to quickly talk to you about, shaquille, as someone who's judged very prestigious hr awards. So, for example, you and I uh met at the Culture Pioneer Awards last year, last November in London, and and you've led, of course, award-winning teams in 60 seconds or less, without conscious of time. What distinguishes, in your mind, an award-worthy HR initiative from the rest?
Speaker 3:Don't focus on the what, don't focus on the how. Focus more on the clarity around the why, the impact and the measures Show us why this should be an award-winning entry. What makes it different from everybody else? And if it's the same as everybody else, it's not award-winning. It's that simple.
Speaker 2:All right, you didn't need 60 seconds at all. Very good, very good. All right, then let's use the remaining time that we've got today to talk a little bit tongue-in-cheek about something that, uh, I love and, uh, this is an audio podcast, but, um, your background suggests that you love it too. That's sci-fi and adventure and fantasy. You shared with me ahead of the interview that you are a self-professed sci-fi and fantasy nerd. Nothing wrong with that me too. Uh, you love marvel star wars doctor, who I'd throw in there? I'm a big fan of battlestar galactica and star trek and things as well. Are there any lessons that hr can learn from these worlds of imagination and storytelling?
Speaker 3:I actually did a lightning talk at cipd where it was about talking about the, the value and the lessons we can get from heroes. And again, whilst they might be fantasy and imaginary, hr have the potential to be heroes too. And again it's about my consultant is called HR Hero for Hire and it was deliberately a play on words not to sound arrogant. I don't believe myself to be a HR hero, but I do believe HR can be heroic and HR should be able to be brave, to be able to stand up, to do the right thing, which isn't always easy, not to be compliant or to be seen as extensions of management. Doing the right thing is never easy. It's always the right thing to do.
Speaker 3:As you know, being brave also means embracing technology, which you know. Having this fear of ai, having a fear of using, you know, software it's not going to help you go forward and present yourself as a serious professional and embracing change, because that's the one thing that's guaranteed. You know, too many hr practitioners are still stuck on old models of hr. There's new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things, and they're going to keep on evolving.
Speaker 2:So either get on board or get out of the way love it and I think that's a great place to wrap up for today. Other than, how can folks connect with you, shakil?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm on linkedin. I'm on twitter, less so nowadays. What experts it's called? Uh, more on linkedin, uh, linkedin's, where I tend to do most of my um posts. I've written about 180 plus articles, or, contrary to 180 plus articles, I'm always posting on linkedin, so look out for me. There. You'll find more of some of these crazy ideas that I'd like to share with the world well, that just leaves me to say for today shaquille butts you, absolute superstar.
Speaker 2:Hr. Royalty, can't believe I hadn't enjoyed the show before. I'm definitely going to chase you up and get you on again soon.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for being my guest you're very welcome, bill, and we'll stay in touch. Take care, mate.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye, thank you 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.
