Workplace Wellness - with Flick Wileman, Reckitt

Welcome back to this season of SheepDip - themed Workplace Wellness.

With a different expert on each show, you will be inspired by their insights and walk away with practical advice on how to create a healthy, sustainable culture for teams to thrive.

Our second guest is Flick Wileman, Global Wellbeing & Engagement Lead at Reckitt, which pursues a cleaner, healthier world through brands such as as Dettol, Vanish and Nurofen.

Hear Flick's incredible journey from a fascinating, and different, childhood, through quitting university after 6 months to a senior global role at a household name company employing over 40,000 people.

Flick's passion for equality, diversity and inclusion comes through loud and clear throughout the interview and she shares truly practical advice on steps to take for your teams' wellbeing. 

Purpose is central to all of Flick's strategies.  And, it all starts, every time, with WHY.

She may have left her first degree course within the first year, but she is now somehow studying, in her own time and through self investment, a BSc in Business Psychology.  She runs to feed her body and mind, since she listens to a podcast whilst doing so. 

🎧 Here are some of Flick's go-to podcasts:
 
Diary of a CEO - Steve Bartlett
Jake Humphrey - The High Performance Podcast
Dr Amanda Potter - The Chief Psychology Officer
 
📚 And the books which have had a major impact on Flick's life:

Start with Why - Simon Sinek
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffers
How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Growth Mindset - Carol Dweck

Questions?  We love 'em!  Simply message us through any of our social channels or email caroline@raisingthebaa.com and we'll ensure it is answered in a future episode or privately by one of our guest experts whichever is most suitable.

Enjoy - and thank ewe for listening 😊🎧

Connect with the speakers via LinkedIn:
Flick Wileman, Global Wellbeing & Engagement Lead at Reckitt
Caroline Palmer - Top Dog and co-founder, Raising the Baa
Chris Farnsworth - Head Shepherd and co-founder, Raising the Baa & author of 'Sheep Shepherd Dog - Building a Magnificent Team Around You'

What are your main team challenges and desires? Maybe we can help?
Book in a 15-minute Exploratory Call now and let's see.

Transcript

Caroline (00:05):

Hello and welcome to Sheep Dip, the podcast from Raising the Baa global leaders in team building with sheep. This season is themed workplace wellness. It's an extremely broad topic, and with our expert guests, we'll be embracing as many aspects as possible, which will help to build a healthy and sustainable culture for teams to thrive at work. Expect to hear shepherding analogies from Chris Farnsworth, our Head Shepherd, who co-founded the business with myself, Caroline Palmer. Enjoy the show.

Caroline (00:43):

Today, we are delighted to have the lovely Flick Wileman with us, who is the, got a lovely long title here. Global Wellbeing and Employee Engagement Lead at Reckitt, as in Reckitt Benckiser, so I hope you don't mind. Even before we start about you, would you mind just telling us a little bit about Reckitt as a company, what they do, which area they're in?

Flick (01:07):

Yes. So we are now Reckitt. Most people will know us as Reckitt Benckiser, but we are now Reckitt. We make big products such as Dettol, Gaviscon, Nurofen, Vanish, lots, lots more that I'm sure you'd know, walking down the aisles in the supermarket. And we've got comparable products in about 66 other countries. So if you're in America, you might know 'Lis-sol' or Lysol, that's also a Reckitt product, but yes, many, many consumer goods products that you would see on your weekly shop.

Caroline (01:39):

So I guess the umbrella is what? Health and cleaning, cleanliness, how would you describe it?

Flick (01:47):

Yes, so we are health, hygiene and nutrition. So our nutrition business is only present in certain countries, but we do make some specialist products like Nutramigen, which is an infants nutrition product for children who have allergies against cow's milk, for example. But primarily we are known for our health and hygiene products. So, health category, you probably know again, Nurofen, Lemsip, Strepsils, Gaviscon, those are our core products. And again, hygiene, you'd know things like Airwick, Vanish, Calgon, et cetera. So,  yeah, but we operate under health, hygiene, nutrition.

Caroline (02:22):

And a very long established company as well, isn't it? I was reading a little bit about the history being 1700s or something it was formed, wasn't it?

Flick (02:30):

Yes, absolutely. The Heritage is really quite wonderful. And if you go to our whole site up north, we've still got parts of the original Reckitt family building. And we do actually have a road named after us and a couple of rooms where we have some of the old items that were owned by the Reckitt family. It's a long and really interesting heritage.

Caroline (02:54):

Wow, amazing. Gosh. So, how long have you been there?

Flick (03:00):

So I am approaching three and a half years now. I joined in September 2019. Some might say it was a very convenient time to join because of course in the March we went into global lockdown. And certainly at Reckitt it was a very interesting time because our product Dettol was actually acknowledged as being almost a hundred percent effective at killing the Covid germ. So we went into a very different type of environment, which was super, super, super busy. High drive on hiring, just to keep up with the supply and demand, but we took our role in that very, very seriously. You know, we were supporting the frontline quite a lot. We were making a lot of charitable donations. It was a great time to join because there was so much going on and being a part of that was really awesome.

Caroline (03:52):

Yes. And who would ever have imagined it, as you say, when you joined in September, 2019?

Chris (03:59):

It's a bit like lambing, isn't it? You get the staff in and suddenly it's all flat out, you know, trying to get everything done, which is brilliant. I love that time. You know, it's sort of like no time, just get on.

Caroline (04:11):

I guess the difference is that you knew when it was coming!

Chris (04:13):

Yes, I'm glad, that's for sure.

Flick (04:16):

I think consumer generally is quite seasonal. Obviously we do have peaks in our seasons, particularly with medicines. We have a winter med season and that tends to be around sort of September, October as people go into the winter season. So I'm sure it's very similar to lambing in that respect.

Caroline (04:33):

What was your background and how did you come to be in this area of wellbeing and employee engagement?

Flick (04:39):

So my background is quite eclectic, if I'm honest. I don't know whether you'd call it a squiggly career because I'm not sure it quite meets that criteria, but it's quite eclectic. So, I grew up in Central Central London, as central as you can be, so just off of Oxford Street. And my mum was a successful publican and her pubs were like the centre of the community, and they were very old school British pubs, as I'm sure you can picture. But she was also very active in charity work. So she really set a precedent for me growing up as sort of a diversity and inclusion ally and used her business and her social status for good in that respect. So virtually all of my mum's live in staff were gay and many of them were mixed race or black.

(05:24):

And this was during a time when prejudice was really rife and she was their surrogate mother, and they were my surrogate family, and we were a really diverse family and we sort of just accepted one another unquestionably. So from that perspective, bizarrely I would describe myself as quite sheltered, which probably doesn't sound much like the environment I've just described. But, you know, growing up in pubs and running around pride parties at the age of eight and various other things, to some that might sound less sheltered, but actually for me it was the opposite. So because of all of those experiences, it meant that I'd actually been incredibly protected because it was all very accepting. And so it didn't matter what gender, sexuality, or race you were. And that's why I believe this desire and this drive to make the workplace a better place for everyone exists in me, because I've come from a place where everyone can sort of bring their full selves every day and live better lives.

(06:24):

So in terms of my work journey,  I started off in sales and agency recruitment and I did that for about 10 years in total before I started thinking where do I really want to be? And what really gets me up in the morning and what gives me energy? And it was exactly that, you know, I wanted to know that I was doing good in the world and, you know, living authentically because I felt that that was what was authentic to me. And so I made the transition into internal talent acquisition and I did that for just over three years, building teams, quite large teams, and coaching and developing them. And then just recently moved across in January to this new role. So here we are.

Caroline (07:02):

Wow. You're right, it is quite an eclectic journey, isn't it? I alluded to it a little earlier, there's another part to your title that says you're European Lead on Women at Reckitt. Just tell us briefly a little bit about that please.

Flick (07:15):

So Women at Reckitt is an employee resource group. It is a community of women and allies who are all motivated to make a change or a movement towards gender equity in the workplace. So I moved into that role coming up to two years ago now. And most of these employee resource groups were set up with a real goal or purpose in mind. And Women at Reckitt's goal is to get to 50:50 equality in gender representation at the senior management level by 2030. We're about 170 people in the E R G now, so it's quite substantial. And again, you know, I grew up in an environment where my mum was very much the breadwinner. She was out working all hours of the day. My sister was very similar, so she left at school at the age of 16 and has now progressed to be very senior within financial services.

(08:14):

So I've come from a background of strong women. And it was something that I felt very, very passionately about and it really, again, spoke to my why.  So when I was given the opportunity, I jumped at it and we've done some amazing things in a really short space of time. Things like we've managed to get free period products into all of the toilets at Reckitt and various other sort of policy changes that really and truly impact people's lives on a day-to-day basis. So really exciting and awesome stuff.

Caroline (08:46):

Fantastic. What is the ratio at the moment? You said your goal for 2030. What's the ratio at the moment?

Flick (08:50):

That's a good question. It obviously varies depending on region and senior management team. To be honest, at the middle management level, we have a really, really equal split. And our gender balance generally is very split. So we're about 50:50, particularly in countries like the UK. And actually in the UK we might be slightly at the middle management level, slightly in favour of women actually. So we might be at sort of 55:45. Globally we have got a lot of work to do, so I think at the moment, particularly at the senior leadership level, so the GEC level, we have probably about an 80:20 or maybe even a 70:30 split. So we've got some work to do. But look, I think every company does, there are things we do very, very well and there are areas for improvement. And I think for us that's one area over the next few years for sure.

Chris (09:36):

The very interesting point is that when we run the events, the best teams are for sure male and female, you know, they're the ones which can come up with an idea.

Caroline (09:47):

You mean with a fairly even mix?

Chris (09:48):

Yeah, with an even mix. The all male team or the all female team are definitely flawed and you ignore the other half at your peril. If you don't listen, if you don't engage, if you don't do all these things, you are a lot weaker because of it. Whether it's male or female, you know, if you don't listen to each other. We both have our strengths.

Flick (10:12):

Absolutely. Obviously a lot of internal value to it. But I think also just simply when you are a, and I'm not just speaking for us, I'm speaking for any company that falls into this category, but when you are a consumer goods business and your products are, you know, male, female across all age spectrums or even individuals who are, or represent non-binary or you know, whatever their gender, sexuality, religion or race or ethnicity might be, they're all our customers. So actually to not have a diverse representation around the table making decisions about a product cuts you off at the knees really. So it's super, super important I think particularly when you have an eclectic customer base for sure.

Chris (10:53):

I think it's a little bit higher than the knees.

Flick (10:57):

No, you're right.

Caroline (10:59):

It's a good expression though. Global wellbeing, it's very global. It is a very, very broad topic. Is there a particular area that you feel particularly passionate about?

Flick (11:10):

So look, I think to start with the why. Because I think that's really important always. So I touched on the fact that this is really ingrained into me, but I've also, from an employee experience perspective, I've had some really and truly awful experiences in my time as an employee. Not at Reckitt, I have to caveat that, not at Reckitt, but historically I have. And I think sales in particular can be a really tough gig and it can be a very dog eat dog world. So it can be very political and it can be difficult to know who to trust at times. And I found that really hard. So I'm very much a say it as you see it kind of person. And I feel really strongly about authenticity and being honest with people. And no matter how hard those conversations might be upfront, I'm really passionate about being open and honest and transparent with people.

(11:58):

You know, I've had situations where as a manager people resigned to me and I said, look, if this is the right thing for your family and for you, you know, do it. And I wholeheartedly support you in that. And I think particular organisations I've worked with in the past didn't necessarily value that type of approach. So not only did I see and experience how not having that optimal employee experience can impact people firsthand, but I also experienced it myself and particularly struggled with that. So what I'm really, really passionate about is the why and how you communicate that to people, because I genuinely believe that often, yes, the what does matter and ultimately, you know, if you qualified in something and you want to work in that area, the what of what you're doing is important, but what is more important and generally what people stay for and what people get motivated and engaged over is the why.

(12:50):

So there's actually studies that show that people are most engaged when they understand what their contribution is to a wider purpose or a vision and how they play a role in getting to that purpose or vision. And so at the base level their why might actually be that, you know, their family for example, or that they're paid more where they are than they would be elsewhere. But ultimately it doesn't matter what the why is, it's about communicating that why to employees. So for me that's very much about not just the solutions we offer. So when people think of wellbeing or wellness or whatever you want to call it within an organisation, they think of do we offer mental health support or do we offer reduced discounted gym memberships? But actually for me, it's very much about not just the solutions because they are important, but it's actually about how you communicate with people and how you communicate the right message and the why to people so that they understand the purpose of what you are attempting to do.

(13:52):

I very much enjoy building communications, so making them exciting, making them engaging, making them link with a wider organisational vision and purpose and how that all holistically fits together so that when people see what you're offering, it makes sense in the context of the organisation. And it's not just like you are planting a calendar of events or some solutions over the top of a business, they're actually integrating and make sense within the organisation. For those who don't do this job, that might sound a little bit confusing. So I hope I've explained it well enough. But what I'm really passionate about is the why and communicating that message.

Chris (14:30):

So you mean they don't just do it for the money, so 90% of people come in to work not because they're going to get paid at the end of the month.

Flick (14:40):

Absolutely. I mean, look, that's a hygiene factor. So if you stopped paying people quite quickly, of course they would resign because salary is a hygiene factor, right? People come in and have to earn a certain amount of money to afford to live and support their family. So of course again, they would leave if you didn't pay them, but 90% of people who are highly engaged and show high engagement scores on engagement surveys aren't doing it because they're paid money. They're doing it because of other factors such as understanding their why and purpose and how that fits into the broader organisational vision and purpose. Things like development. So how are you developing me? How are you making me a better person? How are you equipping me with skills? How are you helping me to understand myself better? But also how are you thinking about me and how are you making me feel? Those are much more integral questions when it comes to engagement for people.

Chris (15:34):

You've just described most farmers, they definitely don't go for money! It's about purpose, the learning, all those things, trying to double guess what mother nature's going to do that is, and we certainly don't do it for the money.

Flick (15:47):

Absolutely.

Caroline (15:48):

It is purpose isn't it. I'm seeing a lot more research around, certainly the younger generations setting out in their careers. One of the big questions that they're asking is about, you know, the purpose of the organisation as a whole, isn't it? And wanting to be a part of that, as you say. Rather than it just being a money-driven thing. I think it's healthy actually. I think it's healthy because to my mind, that would mean that they are going to be far more enthralled, engaged in what they're doing.

Flick (16:22):

Yes. And I think, look, we use the term cultural fit quite broadly in organisations and it's not necessarily something organisations tangiblise or verbalise very well, but actually cultural fit is how do you as an employee buy into the vision and purpose of the organisation and how do you live and breathe the behaviours or the leadership behaviours of that organisation. And so actually when you join a business and you leave because it's not the right cultural fit, that's a good thing to do. We should encourage people to do that because you need to wake up every morning and feel that you are going to, say, feed into a vision or a purpose. And if you don't believe in it and you simply don't acknowledge it or get excited by it, then you should go and work somewhere else.

Chris (17:05):

I always think back to, you know, how do you create that or is it inbuilt? Because in our family, my sister is, or was, a ballerina, but it was a childhood dream. My childhood dream was to be in either a vet or in agriculture or horticulture or something along that line. My oldest sister, she just got bamboozled, I felt, into banking but her real passion was sailing. Now that seems a real funny mix, but actually they had a sailing club in the bank. But what my point is, is how do you channel, does everybody have a childhood dream and are we all wired that way or do you just get sort of more bamboozled into it and you just enjoy doing it? Is there that passion, what turns my boat on doesn't necessarily turn somebody else's boat on? Is that from the word go or can it be developed?

Flick (18:10):

So, I touched on the why before and for those who have read Simon Sinek, Start with Why, you may be familiar with the fact that there are a lot of coaches out there now who do why discovery for people. So they will actually delve into what is the real why underpinning what you are doing. Because ultimately what you are doing, people don't buy into what you do, they buy into why you do it ultimately. So there are coaches out there, as I say, who will delve into that and really help you to identify what your why is. Now your why is something that is intrinsically built up in you from childhood through to early adulthood. And actually often by the time you get to the working world, it's already ingrained in you. So a) yes, it is very, very different for everyone and things will feed into that like the parenting style of your parents or the school you went to or the friend you made when you were a child.

(19:04):

But ultimately, yes, it is ingrained. Now some people will, depending on what that is, I think a why is very different to a passion. So I should also say that, so something like dancing for example, you may just enjoy doing that as a hobby and not necessarily see it as a career path. But for those who have a real intrinsic why, I think personally I believe it's inbuilt. It's not something that necessarily you can change. What you can change is the what or the how. You can't necessarily change the why. So what I mean by that is my why is actually to protect us from injustice so that we can be the best version of ourselves. Now that for me is because, the protectors from injustice is really important to me because, it's all about the diversity and the hygiene factor of removing obstacles from people so that they can pursue what they want to pursue. And now I can put that into many different environments or many different whats, I could go and be a Barrister and I could argue that I'm still pursuing the same why just in a very different environment. Your why doesn't change, but you can influence people's what and how.

Caroline (20:10):

This is about, as you say, it's your DNA at the end of the day, isn't it? Your wires, almost your DNA, you might not even know what it is and it takes time to discover it. And as you say, there are coaches that can help you find it, which is interesting. No, fascinating.

Caroline (20:28):

If you're enjoying listening to this show, we'd really appreciate your following and rating Sheep Dip wherever you tune in to podcasts. And if you've got a burning question arising from this show or there's a topic that you'd like us to cover, simply email me Caroline@RaisingtheBaa.com or send a message through any of our social channels.

Caroline (20:46):

For people listening to this podcast, we'd love to be able to share some practical steps in a particular area of wellbeing. And I know we've focused on the why. It might be that that is something because if you feel that is the area that can really help from a wellbeing perspective, because it starts with you yourself, doesn't it, not the organisation necessarily. Are there some practical steps that you would suggest that people could do either for themselves or perhaps leaders could do for their teams?

Flick (21:17):

Yes, absolutely. So look, it is wellbeing and engagement area is, it's not rocket science is the first thing I would say. You know, there is nothing that I'm doing or Reckitt are doing that is particularly different to most other organisations. I think the real art here is consistency, clarity and doing it well. So giving people clarity, being consistent with it and sticking to it and doing it well. And actually there is an art to that, particularly when you're in a large organisation because it's about communicating with the masses but making sure that when people read something it feels like it's very personal. So it is an art. Now the way that I would go about doing that in any size organisation, to be honest, is rather than just jumping in headfirst and starting to build solutions, is really sitting back and looking holistically and mapping first.

(22:10):

So looking at what is that employee experience journey? And that's right from, it's not just from day one within an organisation, it's actually much earlier than that. So it's about, you know, even when people are applying for roles or looking for roles, how does your branding look? How does your language look? When people are applying through a website for a job, how easy is it to apply? What kinds of data or questions are you asking them for? All of these things all feed into an overall experience. And whether or not somebody becomes an employee, obviously prior to that, that's an employer brand, but once they become an employee it actually becomes part of the employee experience journey. So it's mapping out the entire journey and then I like to call it the living in the moment approach. So once you've mapped it out, looking at each of those moments and going, right, if I'm going to live in this moment as an employee, how would I want to feel?

(23:04):

What kinds of questions would I be asking myself as an employee? Would I'd be asking myself again, what kinds of development opportunities are you giving me? How do I find those development opportunities or how are you making me feel in this moment? How are you supporting my family? How are you giving me the best tools to be able to support my own wellbeing? So all of these kinds of questions they'll be asking themselves and it's about preempting those questions and then it's about building solutions that again, explain why you are doing it, but also so that when people read it they go, yes, absolutely that makes sense and I can apply that to me. And look, whilst it is a very personal thing, most people will be asking themselves the same questions. So that's how you make it feel personal, right? Is about understanding the questions and answering the questions rather than just blanket approaching everything or applying everything. So my advice would be, as I say, to take a step back, map it out first, building a strategy, build a plan, you know, don't just implement a solution because you think it's the right thing to do because every organisation is offering gym discounts or whatever it might be. It's about really understanding the why of what you're doing and communicating that to people.

Chris (24:12):

So when you have youngsters out there, I want to show them what a healthy sheep, a healthy animal, is all about and what to look for. When they get older, it's harder to knock off the prejudice that they've already got.

(24:27):

Do you see what I'm saying? Is that the same in the workplace when you get somebody: they're young, you can form them into having good, logical thoughts and aspirations and everything else like that. Whereas the older person possibly has got more entrenched ideas?

Flick (24:46):

I certainly can't blanket apply it because I think every individual situation is very different. I mean look, arguably we learn through conditioning and experience. So if you were to look at it as a general rule of thumb, those with more experience are more conditioned and therefore probably more set in their beliefs for example, than perhaps somebody who has less experience. But I do genuinely believe that people and organisations should be hiring for behaviours and for cultural fit rather than for skills. Because you can teach most people skills, right? 99% of skills you can teach. And it's just about having the time and resources to invest into upskilling people. What you can't necessarily teach are, or certainly quickly, are behaviours because those are things that again are, you know, they come after a lot of conditioning and a lot of experience.

(25:41):

So if you hire people for behaviours and approach and their belief in your leadership values and the purpose and vision of the organisation; certainly one of ours is, you know, seeking out new opportunities for example, you need to show and be able to prove that you don't just accept that what you do is the best way or the best approach. You always go out and constantly try to find a better way of doing something. So I would say to all organisations that when people are coming in, those are the kinds of things that you should be testing and making it clear what your organisational vision is. You know, we are an organisation that constantly likes to do it a better way. You know, we don't want to rest on our laurels and assume that the way we're doing things is best. So we're constantly looking to innovate and try new things. How do you feel about that? Or can you give me an example of when you've done that before? So I think whatever age or whatever experience level, there will be some individuals who approach things in a different way to others. So it's just about testing the right behaviours is my thoughts on it.

Chris (26:42):

But that's where you come back to the male and female listening to each other. But certainly in the farming world a lot of tradition can definitely hold you back.

Flick (26:51):

Absolutely, yes. Look, tradition can be a great thing, you know, I'm a real patriot and I love the pomp and circumstance of the rest for sure, but tradition can also be an assassin of innovation and change, right? So it's about acknowledging which ones are beneficial and acknowledging which traditions are holding you back. Because there's always now I think, going to be a better way of doing something or a quicker way of doing something. So, yes, it's just having the awareness, self-awareness or team awareness of what is and is not beneficial for you from a traditional perspective. Because again, when you get to look at it from a team and on an organisational level, you'll see that often teams or businesses are doing things just because that's the way they've always done it. And actually if you say, why are you doing that? Or why are you doing it in that way, they can't actually verbalise why they're doing it.

(27:44):

And there was a really interesting study actually with a room of people where they brought everybody into a room and told everybody, when the bell rings, we want you to stand up. And so the room of people, every time the bell rang stood up and for a period of a few hours they were taking certain people out and bringing new people in and replacing them and they didn't re brief the new people coming into the room of what the experiment was. But every time the bell rang and the people stood up, they started doing it too and they just started doing it because it was what everybody else did. So it just shows you that actually, often when it's just because it's the way people have done it before, they will just do it without even questioning why they're doing it. And again, that's a start with the why, right? I think most organisations could do a really good service to themselves by sitting there and saying, what is the why of what we're doing? Why are we doing it this way and how could we do it better?

Chris (28:36):

I mean, I so think that's so true at lambing time. Traditionally what you do is take this animal, which can stick any amount of weather, any amount of conditions, and what do you do? You put it inside the shed, and then when it has this fragile baby, which is vulnerable, diseased, and you know, it's got to cope with everything else like that, where do you put it? You put it outside the shed in all the weather with all the elements. So you're sort of going, why are we doing this? This doesn't sound sensible to me, but it then is overlaid with actually it's easier to manage people inside a shed than it is them running around a field.

Flick (29:12):

Interesting.

Chris (29:13):

Look at the real why, why do we put sheep inside a shed? It's bananas, but actually what we should do is lamb them outside and rush them into the shed to then be in the maternity unit and keep them there healthy and safe and away from any predators, et cetera, et cetera, until they're really strong and then they can go out. But the logistics are quite hard to do.

Flick (29:39):

Very interesting.

Caroline (29:40):

You were just talking there about the teams and how their behaviours can change and perhaps leaders could sit down and even just talk in a team basis rather than just a massive organisation, which might be slightly easier, I'm guessing, and they can discuss, you know, why they're doing what they're doing, et cetera. In Reckitt, have you got a hybrid working model now? Have you got teams that are sort of dispersed now or are they all back in the office? How's it working for you?

Flick (30:05):

Uh, we are hybrid, so we are actually not necessarily telling people how many days they should come in. What we are doing is we are or we have implemented a four Cs model. So that's create, connect, collaborate and coach. So if you are doing any one of those four things, we have said that it's much better to do those things face-to-face than it is doing it virtually. So I would ask that when employees are doing those activities, they do it face-to-face. So generally speaking it equates to about one or two days a week. And obviously there are also going to be areas of our organisation where hybrid working just is not possible. So we are a consumer goods business and we rely on people being in the factories to manufacture those products because without them we can't, we don't have anything to sell.

(30:50):

So where we can, we allow people flexibility of working, obviously again, there are areas we can't necessarily do that. But on the whole, I think that certainly since we've started to see people coming back in, we've definitely seen the positive effects of that for sure. And that's the reason why we chose those four activities because particularly connect, I mean I'm a very sociable person. I'm super extroverted and I actually get a lot of energy just from being in the office, being around my colleagues, engaging with colleagues, chatting with colleagues does sometimes mean that I don't get as much work done. But I do like being in and actually just engaging with people and seeing them face to face. So yes, look, I think on the whole hybrid working is exactly the right approach because again, total opposite to me, but some individuals may be on the introversion spectrum and actually may prefer to work on their own or in a quiet place. So giving people the option to do both I think is absolutely the right thing to do.

Caroline (31:48):

Has the physical makeup of any of your offices changed to adapt to this model at all? So maybe separating spaces for people to work quietly or maybe opening up areas that once upon a time were little sort of silos as it were.

Flick (32:03):

We've actually refurbished most of our offices, most of them since we implemented this hybrid working model. So in our global head office, we've just done a total refurb and done exactly that. So we've created more one-to-one or group meeting room space so that individuals can book rooms if they need sort of time on their own or private meeting space. We've also opened up a very, very large atrium that's got sort of breakout areas. So really informal spaces, areas where you can just connect your laptop to a TV randomly if you want to have a team connect, but sort of share information. So yes, absolutely.

(32:39):

We've made the offices somewhere that people want to be, because again, starting with the why, if you're asking people to come back in, and saying to people, we want you in a certain amount of times per week, which we are not necessarily doing, but organisations are, if you are doing that, you need to give people a reason to come in because ultimately they've just worked for two years from home and done it in most cases very successfully. For those who aren't all that keen to come back in, they'll be saying, well why, why would I come back in to an office that, you know, there isn't much going on and it's not a particularly nice place to be. They need the why. So yes, we've definitely done that.

Caroline (33:15):

Clearly as you've said a few times, you are somebody who does feed off other people and likes to be together. But as a whole bearing in mind, obviously there are a whole mixture of people, do you feel it's really important for companies to maybe invest in getting their people together in whatever form that takes? I mean, clearly, something that we do is get them outdoors so away from not just what might be their office, whether that's home or or in the office, but just in a completely and utterly different environment. Do you still see the benefits in doing that sort of thing?

Flick (33:44):

Absolutely. In fact, I would say it's business critical. So one of the offices have just recently done what I've just spoken about, so mapped out the employee journey and there are different stages as we talked about of the journey right from application stage right through to when you leave an organisation and even then, to be honest, the employee journey still continues, but for the purpose of this point, so one of the questions that you ask yourself when you are in those moments is, how am I connecting with my colleagues? So as humans, we have an ingrained need for human connection and whether you get that through your family or not, or you have friends outside of work or not, you are at work generally speaking between 10 and 12 hours a day or 8 and 12 hours a day depending on how long you work. So actually connecting with your colleagues is proven through studies to be a really integral part of employee engagement. So what we can't do at an organisational level is organise organisation-wide events because it doesn't work. But there is the role of the middle managers and the leaders within regional businesses to ensure that their teams are connecting because it's absolutely business critical to engagement.

Caroline (34:55):

I just have to ask because you are in the midst of something else that our listeners don't know about you. Not only do you have this huge role at Reckitt, but you also are in the middle of a business psychology degree. So congratulations on that. I think you're about two thirds of the way through. Are there any, and I'm sure you could talk about that a lot, but I just thought it might be helpful if you think there is, you've mentioned one book already, the the fantastic Simon Sinek resource, but are there any other, i don't know, resources, podcasts, books that you'd recommend to people if they have got an interest in so? Maybe leaders who've got small teams that are thinking, how can I get my head around this. Is there anything you'd recommend for them?

Flick (35:32):

Oh my gosh, so many. So I've obviously been as you know, been running recently and I listen to a podcast every day when I'm running. So I try to get through at least one a day, if not more. So I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I would absolutely highly recommend Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO, for those who haven't listened to that, they've got really eclectic guests, so there's something for everyone. But what's really brilliant about Steve Bartlett is he's absolutely fascinated by neuroscience and cognitive psychology. So a lot of what he asks his guests about and what he talks about is really about the behaviours and the why and really getting to the bottom of things and understanding them. So for anybody who's interested in that it's an absolute must for me. There's also Jake Humphrey, the high performance podcast, why people do what they do, how you get people to the maximum performance level by looking at lots of different levers, that's brilliant.

(36:27):

And also Dr. Amanda Potter, the chief psychology office, and she looks at the human elements of organisations, so people, and looking at things again like motivation, how do you get people to high levels of performance? So those are the podcasts I would recommend. In terms of books, again, Simon Sinek, Start with Why. I would recommend it to everyone for everything because it's awesome. I also think day-to-day life, Susan Jeffers Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, is fantastic. So that changed my life. I ended up doing a sky dive after that and various other things. So definitely those, but for a particular interest in employee experience, I would also recommend Carol Dweck Growth Mindset, or mindsets. So she talks a lot about how you remove sort of the fear of failure and how you remove concerns about low performance in order to reach high performance. So definitely would recommend that. And then finally Dale Carnegie. So How to Win Friends and Influence People I think is really important because that's all about how you change people's perceptions or influence people in a certain direction. And I think when you are particularly in a function like this where everybody has sort of competing whys and competing motivations, it's how you align people and how you influence things in a particular direction. So those would be my recommendations.

Caroline (37:50):

Brilliant. Wow. Actually I've heard of all of them, which I'm quite chuffed about, even the Carol Dweck. Fantastic. Well that's been really, really insightful. Thank you so much, Flick. Now we do have, just before you go three real quick fire questions. Really nothing to do with what we've just been talking about. It's a bit of fun to end with. Okay. So what was your favourite subject at school?

Flick (38:10):

English.

Caroline (38:11):

And why was that?

Flick (38:11):

I just loved writing essays.

Chris (38:14):

If you had a piece of land, big acreage, what would you do with it?

Flick (38:19):

My husband and I have actually talked about this a lot, and we would build an animal shelter and take in stray animals.

Caroline (38:28):

And the final one, what's your bucket list country? The one country you'd really like to go to, you haven't been already.

Flick (38:33):

South Africa. The meat is really good and the wine is really cheap and that just sounds like an absolute dream.

Caroline (38:39):

Thank you so much for your time today. It's been really insightful conversation. I really appreciate it. Have a brilliant day.

Flick (38:46):

Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Caroline (38:48):

Thank you for listening today. What was your biggest takeaway or insight? Lets us know on any of our social channels. We'd really love to know. Till next time, have a baa-rilliant week.