Luan Hughes

WE DID IT! This week we went live with the final chapter of our I Connect story. Finishing the transformation by moving our 80k UK based colleagues onto #successfactors ECP feels a very fitting end to the journey of implementing a fully integrated HR Payroll system at #bt. This particular leg of the journey has been 16 months of the hardest work, unraveling some of the most complex T&Cs I have seen in a business. We are only 48 hours on from the release of payslips, and whilst nothing is being taken for granted, there has been a small window for an amazing team to step back and realise what they have achieved. This is now the biggest #sap payroll in the UK and 6th biggest in the world. There will undoubtedly be challenges in the weeks to come but everyone who has worked on this programme should feel immense pride and satisfaction. A truly cross-organisation team from #bt, #tcs and #epiuse supported by our partners at #sap demonstrated how even the biggest challenges can be overcome with the right mindset and unfaltering teamwork. It is something everyone involved can look back on with pride. Too many people to mention by name but you will all know who you are, and I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved. The journey doesn’t stop here for #hrtech at BT, this is simply another massive milestone as we now focus in on the next 3 years. But for the next couple of days an opportunity for those who have worked so hard to hopefully catch up on a bit of sleep! #haveasuccessfulday Tracy Edwards Chander Tangri Sudhir Jadhwani Jay Doshi Elaine Bergin Jamie Stenson Ally Miller Will Winfield-Chislett Jessica Keartland Jamal Sheikh Debabrata Pradhan Prangya Mishra Biltu Senapati Krishna Mangipudi Nick Pearce Russell Harper Argha Saha John Blackwell Abinash Sahoo Sandeep D. Dileep Garugu Becky Williams @glen bowker Sue Lee Leigh Mann @aditya pradan Rupalita Patnaik Jyotsna Aarly Samantha Brennan Venkatesh Duvvuri Leila Romane

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TPR have some clear guidance on equality, diversity and inclusion for Pension Boards. Having spent some time talking with Sandisiwe Dhlamini (She/Her), EDI Lead at TPR, and several pension boards, TPRs guidance is practical and effective. Christina Bowyer describes this well in a short video on the subject.

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OUT TODAY – July 2024 Issue of Hr NETWORK Magazine - Professional Development: Great(er) Expectations How often do you ask your colleagues about their professional development expectations? Andy Moore discovers why it’s so important for HR practitioners to listen and then tailor team and career enhancement initiatives that deliver the ‘WOW factor’ in professional development. READ NOW: https://lnkd.in/edKMHbKM

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Never before has the workforce included so many generations. However, this can sometimes be an overlooked aspect of inclusion & diversity. Check out this story where we hear from some of our colleagues across RELX about the importance of intergenerational working: https://lnkd.in/eG5rsJWN #IntergenerationalWorking #Collaboration

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Want to unlock the power of innovation? With Slalom's human-centric approach to tech solutions for manufacturing & logistics leaders, you can drive rapid change & measurable value 🚀 The UK's manufacturing sector supports more than 2.5m jobs and contributes more than £200bn to our economy. Challenges remain across the sector - legacy technology, data silos, inflation, supply chain - but there has never been a better time to dream bigger and innovate at scale. Find out how Slalom and Slalom Build are helping manufacturing companies harness the power of technology and data to transform their businesses: 👉 https://lnkd.in/ejePaaWT 👈 #ImWithSlalom #Manufacturing #Logistics https://slalom.ws/3Wi4p4A

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Really enjoyed today’s Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust Trust Talk, a great way to support staff, provide updates & be held accountable as a member of the board as Acting CDIO with a hybrid audience open to all 10,000 of our staff. It’s testament to our Trust’s commitment to transformation that digital got such a focus, but glad I could contribute to other important topics including equality & diversity, workforce training, ICS collaboration, NHS finances and effective use of NHS estate/flexible working. #NHS #MPFT #MPFTdigital #digital #digitaltransformation

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These workshops help organisations to make the most of their most precious assets - their people #learning #WorkforceDevelopment

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Practical, interactive workshops to support improved workplace practices and people development. Feedback from a delegate on the last workshops was "Very informative and a safe place to talk honestly about issues or ask questions. Really helpful with effective strategies and real-life examples backed-up with data."

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Making Artificial Intelligence work for you... here's a preview of the presentation I gave to business leaders at Sure last week💻 It was a pleasure to spend time on Guernsey (in the sunshine ☀️) presenting to the leadership team at Sure alongside Montgomery (Microsoft), Rajwinder (Ericsson) and Patrick (Indulge) about AI. The talk was to inspire positive thinking + action around AI and creativity, marketing and customer experience. Something that every company should be leaning into right now. If your company is interested in using AI, from the basics of what it is and how it works, through to advanced capabilities and methodology to enhance your marketing, customer experience, and even operational application, please drop me a message. I'd be more than happy to come and present the whole thing / run workshops with you and your team. 📈 Thanks to Alistair Beak and Cyrille Joffre for inviting me to talk, I had a blast. #ai #customerexperience #digitalmarketing

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Reflections from Agile Manchester I had the privilege to sit next to Olina Glindevi ✏️ as sketch noted her way around the conference (whilst I typed notes on my phone, Visuals v Words again!) Her fantastic sketch notes have helped me consolidate my reflections of my experience at Agile Manchester and draw insights from the sessions I attended (I wish there had been time to attend more). The Agile community strongly upholds the Agile Value: Individuals and Interactions Over Processes and Tools. I felt this strongly in Emily Webber keynote, encouraging us all give serendipity and chance to flourish in a hybrid-work environment – proactively seek interactions.  Follow Agile Manifesto principles 5 and 6 and we are already on the right track. Similarly Sharon Dale and Valerie McLean advocated for a human centric approach to unlock value in our working environment from each other. Rob Bowley provided a roadmap for empowering individuals with real and effective autonomy. The practice of retrospection to improve was expertly illustrated by Michael Lloyd and #DysfunctionMapping. I’d love to counter his 6 Killers of Change with my own 5 Enablers of Change, to which I would like to add gamification after Michael’s session. Steph Ashmore reminded us of the importance of the client and their needs whilst giving a practical illustration of the power of cross functional engagement by individuals and teams.   Each session inspired me, watching the speakers / workshoppers present their passion topic, research or proprietary thinking. It got me thinking about the freshness of the thinking and the ideas and how I'd love to collaborate with all these talented people (and more I have met on my conference travels) on The Visual Agile Coach Playbook Vol II (hold that thought …) #Agile #AgileManifesto #VisualAgileCoaching #DiscoverDevelopDo #Coaching

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I had a lovely time at the Midlands Women in Tech event today. There was a fantastic panel of speakers compeered brilliantly by Xpertise's Phil Brindley. The event itself was hosted by Rolls Royce and this was the fabulous sight that greeted me as I approached - I was driving so I snuck this photo off Googlemaps and it really doesn’t do the building justice! Speakers included Rolls Royce CIO Norma Dove-Edwin; Suzanne M., MD at Experian; Kristie Grinnell, a DCX executive who travelled from the States for the event; and Lauren Colbeck, CPO at Adro. A couple of takeaways from me plus one opinion 🫣: -         ALLYSHIP: why is it often the lone woman on the board who is asked to champion the women’s network (see also any other diversity initiative)? How lovely it would be to see our allies doing the heavy lifting too. We saw it in the room today and it was very well received. -         BEING YOURSELF: panel discussions that resonated with me included admissions of being ‘introverts pretending to be extroverts’, of having a cry when a job opportunity didn’t go someone’s way, and the awkwardness of pretending to enjoy golf to fit in (OK, I've never done this - much too sporty!). I took this as tacit permission to be myself from some extremely successful women. -         THE OPINION: there was disagreement on whether imposter syndrome exists and/ or is a women’s issue. I felt that this was semantics. Everyone agreed that operating outside of our comfort zone results in, well, discomfort. In my view, ‘imposter syndrome’ is as good a name for this as any other. And is it a women’s issue? Well, the feeling is a universal one, yes, however anyone operating outside of their ‘norm’ is more likely to experience this. Therefore, women in tech will experience it more often than men in tech... in a work setting. It’s a numbers game. I was also excited to hear a career in tech described as particularly appealing to anyone interested in solving puzzles and getting creative. It’s certainly why I moved into tech: it’s a challenge, it’s creative and it’s endlessly interesting! Thank you for the invite. I’m very glad to have been there. #WomeninTech #womeninSTEM #RollsRoyce #XpertiseRecruitment

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As an HR professional, I fully support the goal of achieving equality of opportunity for all and been a campaigner in my career to reinforce EDI and change attitudes etc. I truly believe that the value of the EDI agenda is more commercial than most would think. The HR function has long championed #EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) initiatives, with varying degrees of success. While some of these initiatives align well with our goal of equal opportunity, others unfortunately fall short or even counteract this aim. It remains essential to combat discriminatory practices that undermine both the ethos of equality and the legal requirements for equal opportunity. Yet, there is an issue that is often overlooked or unspoken within our field. As a man in HR—a rare but existent breed 😎— it is clear to observe that our profession is predominantly female. This raises a critical question: Are we, as HR leaders tasked with promoting #EDI, inadvertently discriminating in our own field? Recent observations of HR leadership teams, which often consist entirely of women, suggest two possible scenarios: either there are lingering biases against men in HR, or the best candidates were simply selected, coincidentally resulting in all-female teams. It is always good to check yourselves particularly when we, as a function, provide advice and guidance on this important topic. This situation echoes a common advisory in HR to managers: avoid the unconscious bias of recruiting people who resemble oneself in background or perspective. In conclusion, gender should not determine effectiveness in HR. What truly matters is our capability to professionally develop and manage employees to achieve organizational objectives, regardless of gender or any other characteristic. #edi #ediinitiatives #diversityandinclusion #hrprofession

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Salesforce World Tour London report: The Salesforce platform has been central to our recent digital improvements, so it was important for some of the St Albans City & District Council transformation team to go to the Salesforce World Tour today to see what’s new. Answer: a lot, not least a very slick demo of how Aston Martin use Salesforce to promote and personalise their cars for individuals https://lnkd.in/eGikr-kX. The scale of the event is quite dizzying, and while we went to a lot of stuff we couldn't do it all. AI was of course central, with the message being that you can trust our version (subtext: not to swear at your residents, or repackage their personal data for other customers). We heard a really good presentation from Eastleigh (James Battle) and North Lincolnshire Councils about how they had used Salesforce to bring their various data sources together to enhance services and reduce the number of different systems they have. There were lots of goodies here that we could use for better services for our residents and businesses, depending on the affordability and value for money for a district council like ours. Well done to our team Billy Senior Monique F. Harry Graham and Charlotte Aspinall for all the hard work, and also for the obligatory pose with the crazy Salesforce-type creatures.

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The diary of Martin Anderson, aged 44 & 3/4… 1979 - Born 👶🏼 <Learned to walk, talk and do a bit of schooling> 1996 - Left school and started my career as an Apprentice Technician at Comcast but, inspired by Richard Branson, my true passion was to start a business (and buy an island 🏝️). 😆 2001 - I met Lesley Wratten. We talked about business from the first moment and shared a passion to become entrepreneurs. ❤️👩🏻‍🤝‍👨🏼 2003 - Lesley & I founded Lemon Contact Centre 🍋 above a garage, with only a pen, paper and a mobile phone. We sleep on the office floor, eat lots of takeaways and dream of bigger things to come. 📝📱🥰 2004 - We win our first contract with a large national brand and gain our first real Lemon employees! 🧑🏼‍💻👩🏽‍💻 2008 - The financial crisis hits, but our varied client base means we weather the storm without too much pain. 🛥️ 🌊 2009 - Our first child is born, so Lemon isn’t our only baby 👶🏼 plus we win a contract with a huge international law firm.🧑🏼‍⚖️ 2010 - Child number 2! 👶🏼 👶🏼 <A blur of juggling babies and business> 2016 - We finally break £1Million in turnover! 💰 📈 2018 - The business now grows exponentially as we hit our stride, wining contract after contract, particularly in engineering and care sectors. 🧰 🩺 2020 - The Covid pandemic sets the business on a rollercoaster, record months followed by losing that big law firm contract 😭🎢 2021 - Pandemic still in effect and we lose our largest client, removing nearly 35% off our turnover 😰 We work hard to restructure the business and manage to mitigate the impact of the Covid losses. ⚖️ 2022 - The commercial restructure continues to pay dividends, having turned things around we now hit a new record turnover following 28% growth. 😆 2023 - Another record turnover year following a further 26% growth! 📈 🏆 2024 - Lesley and I finally tie the knot 🤵🏼‍♂️👰🏻 as the business looks set for another exciting year, which we are proud to say is that led by an experienced and dedicated bunch of Lemon champions. 💛 The most important lesson I have learned in my experience is that you may not be able to control the wind but you can always adjust the sails. 💨⛵️ #contactcentre #customerservice #247service #bpo #customerexperience #callcentre #outofhours #business #entrepreneur #success #outsourcing

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Thanks The CIPD in Scotland for today's lunchtime session looking at neuroinclusion today. The high attendance shows the importance of this topic for employers. Good to hear from Alan Thornburrow, Tom Weaver and Gill Christie, and great to chat with others in the breakout rooms. I'd encourage you to have a look at the CIPD's report on the topic - https://lnkd.in/e4CGjwg3 The report shares several principles for workplaces, just a few below, which are you already doing in your workplace? - Allow individual employees to be masters of their own journey  - Focus on creating an open and supportive culture where people feel comfortable talking about neurodiversity -Understand where you are now and commit to a long-term plan of action and proactively consider neurodiversity in all people management interactions

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We have changed the link so that rather than an automatic download, it will take you to a new page where you can download both elements. Please note, the dashboard is in Power Bi because it gives more functionality than just using a bubble chart in excel, but you can also just create a bubble chart in the excel sheet if that is your preference. I am really keen to get any thoughts or feedback on the tool. Does it work for you? What changes would you make?

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An excellent course, a time to reflect on how we lead, tools to take away.. Last week I had the opportunity to take time away from the day to day and collaborate with some great leaders across the business for three days. #sage #leadership #highperformance

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