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Inspire Club EP #24 - Nick Court
7 Plays2 years ago
In this episode we talk with Nick Court, CEO of The People Experience Hub.
Nick Court has a wealth of experience in the fields of people analytics, reward, HR systems, employee engagement, employee relations, employee experience, and employee benefits. In 2019, they became the CEO of The People Experience Hub, an organization that allows companies to track how their employees feel at each stage of the employee journey. From 2015 to 2019, they were the Founder of Cloud9 People, a multi-award winning professional people services consultancy.
From 2017 to 2018, they were a Reward, HR systems and People Analytics Consultant at Travis Perkins plc, a People Analytics Consultant at Kier Group, a Reward and Analytics Consultant at Fuller, Smith & Turner, and an Advisory Board Member at Healthia. From 2016 to 2017, they were a Reward, Culture, Engagement and Analytics Consultant at Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland Ltd, an HR Systems and People Analytics Consultant at wagamama, a Reward and Data Consultant at Dr. Martens plc, and a Global Reward Consultant at Thomas Cook Group plc.
We hope you enjoy it.
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Transcript
Welcome Back & Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inspire Club.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Spy Club. This is actually take three of this introduction because we've had our pause between season one and season two. Really excited to be back and especially with my first guest I've had in quite a while.
00:00:30
Speaker
So without further ado, I'd love to introduce you and welcome Nick Court, CEO of the People Experience Hub, to the podcast. Hello, Nick, how are you? Hi, Matt, I'm really well, thank you. Good, good.
B Corp Certification: A Milestone
00:00:46
Speaker
Some amazing news, I think you got at the end of 2021. You were going for B Corp and have you got a status update on that? We have, yeah. So we achieved our B Corp certification. So we got that just at the end of
00:01:01
Speaker
2021 and it's a huge achievement for us. I guess our big thing is we can't be driving purpose in the workplace and not be driving purpose in society and the geographies that we're operating in and the world we're at. So for us it's about really having that kind of end-to-end, you know, what we do with people in workplace and what we do with
00:01:30
Speaker
the world in which we operate validated with this certification. Well congratulations. As you'll come to understand on this podcast, Nick's one of those great people in the world. A kindred spirit shares my passion and purpose to strive experiences in the workplace positive experiences and just make the world a better place in general.
00:01:55
Speaker
recommend highly going and checking out all the content that they produce. Only in the past 12 months I've learnt a lot more about myself and what we should be thinking about when putting together strategies for other people experienced from that content, especially stuff around colour blindness, stuff maybe I don't necessarily agree with around employee net promoter but
00:02:21
Speaker
of Viva de France and all that kind of stuff but that's about me.
Naomi's Story: Commitment & Culture
00:02:25
Speaker
I would recommend going look at that content but let's get back to Nick and the first question, the only rule of inspire club Nick, we need you to share a story of somebody that's inspired you along the way in the workplace. Okay I mean it's I guess I guess from my perspective who's thinking about this you know I looked back
00:02:48
Speaker
got to the age when I've got many years of being in the workplace behind me. But, you know, I think going through a pandemic and going through all of that with people, with different people, there's so many great stories out there. And, you know, I think if I'm honest about being inspired, it's probably Naomi, who is our head of sales and marketing. So, you know, if I think about 2020, you know, 2020 was our big, big year. It was our big year one ahead of us.
00:03:18
Speaker
and looking at that year we didn't anticipate a lockdown and a pandemic you know we went into this everything in front of us and then in March obviously we went into lockdown and we didn't know what we were going to do as a business you know and we were confident but we had uncertainty in front of us and we had to like every business we had to do stuff differently we had to drive revenue from
00:03:46
Speaker
you know, different places. And, you know, they got to a point when I sat down with Naomi and said, what do you want? What do you need? Because what I'm struggling to give you is certainty. And I'd actually gone out and spoken to a few companies that we've worked with in the past, a couple of them spoke with Naomi. And actually, we ended up in a situation where
00:04:12
Speaker
Naomi could have taken a role with another organization and assured her certainty, actually certainty of income, certainty of job security. She had a weekend think about it and she came back and she said I don't want to do that. If I need to go and stack shelves in Tesco, I'll go and stack shelves in Tesco. You know if I need to
00:04:37
Speaker
uh go and get a job as a delivery driver i'll go and get a job as a delivery driver whatever i need to do i will do to make sure that i'm still part of this business because i believe in it and i believe in our purpose and i believe in what we're going to do you know and actually whilst you know it's it's not jumping in a canal and saving a dog it's it's something that i sit there and i reflect on a lot i think about this a lot you know which is around
00:05:05
Speaker
when you're creating a company and when you're creating a culture in that company you know it's tested probably at the worst times for that company you know and to have developed you know a company, company culture, relationships within that company where that is the outcome that's what people are saying that I would you know I'd rather take a personal sacrifice to stay because I believe in this
00:05:35
Speaker
I can't not find that inspiring you know in terms of when I get up in the morning if I'm struggling that's the story I think about and you know it keeps me going. Well I can see why that's an incredible story and a testament to the culture like you say that you're building and
00:05:58
Speaker
Naomi's amazing. A great person to still be there. Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to tagging Naomi onto this podcast when it goes live. So congratulations on inspiring Nick on a daily basis. And I think you've really inspired a few other people right now as well. Fantastic story. Thank you for sharing that.
Core Values & Workplace Priorities
00:06:21
Speaker
Back to you and
00:06:23
Speaker
other than the story of Naomi here each morning, what's your why? What drives you on a daily basis? I think it's, and I think this has always been my why, if I'm honest, ever since I was a kid. And it is one of our company values, which is do the right thing. And, you know, I kind of see a lot of stuff out in the world where people are focused on being kind or, you know,
00:06:54
Speaker
focused on helping others or whatever it is and I think you know what people are trying to do is badge something and actually for me there's got to be something that's a bit more broader than that you know which is do for me it's do the right thing you know so I've got to
00:07:10
Speaker
be able to get up in the morning and know that the work that I'm going to do and the way that I'm going to behave and the way that I will treat people, the way that I will consider people is about doing the right thing. So my purpose really comes from that. It's a core for me, a moral core.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's fantastic and especially as they work both in and outside of work. That's the do the right thing. I think there's a great Spike Lee film as well, that one. So what's the major workplace priority for you right now? Or for the world of work, in your opinion? I think it's an interesting question, isn't it? Because priorities will vary depending on where people are right now.
00:07:58
Speaker
But I think if I think about kind of shrinking that down to our world and what we're doing with clients and what people we're working with, I think if I'm honest it's about, there's something about critical thinking and there's something about moving away from almost an outcome culture that we've gotten ourselves into in the past. So I think moving away from outcome orientated problem solving
00:08:24
Speaker
and going and actually finding cause problems where they are and tackling those is starting to appear as a bit of a theme in what we're seeing you know well-being is absolutely important and putting in well-being initiatives is key you know if you didn't care about the well-being of your people then you know it's not about being strategic it's about being us
00:08:51
Speaker
But ultimately, if you're causing well-being issues with your people through something you're doing at work, implementing a well-being initiative is just a sticky plaster. So I think people are looking for that downstream impact to tackle rather than that outcome problem. I think that's kind of where I think people are going now. I'm just thinking about do the right thing and then your answer to this as well.
00:09:21
Speaker
Obviously you've created your own business and we hear the culture is very strong within the first story. So often people with that same principle of do the right thing, it's made it be almost impossible to do in some of the organisations that they work for.
00:09:41
Speaker
Any advice? If that's how you feel and you're not able to do that in the company you work for, is it just to leave or go find a company that allows you to behave in that way?
Value Alignment in Careers
00:09:55
Speaker
I think life's probably a bit more complex than that. Not everyone will have those choices to just leave an organization because it doesn't let them
00:10:08
Speaker
do the right thing or whatever their value set is. In terms of general advice, for me it's always been about, there has to be a line that you won't cross. So if you're in an organisation where you're crossing that line, it's probably better for you to go and work that out, work out how you're going to leave and set yourself that goal. If you're not going to change that organisation from the inside, be that from
00:10:37
Speaker
you know you've inherited something that you're not going to change or that you're in an organization where you know the prevailing value set is different to your own and you're not going to influence that then then probably leave and try and work that one out because that's a value set you can't cross absolutely and we hear a lot about it and we do see it but do you think over the past 18 months there has been a real shift in people looking for organizations that
00:11:07
Speaker
mirror their values set. That is becoming more critical and that organisations are trying to communicate their own values more to attract better people. 100% I think it's, you know, people
00:11:25
Speaker
people look at the world with a critical eye, people look at the world with more knowledge than they've ever had, more access to knowledge than they've ever had, you know, be that through, you know, social care or, you know, broader global issues, initiatives that they want to see tackled, you know, it could be carrier bags, it could be emissions, it could be how you treat your people. I think people are now
00:11:52
Speaker
demanding more and wanting to know that where they're going has an alignment where they can. But I also think we need to recognise that that is a privileged place to be. So if you are an individual who is able to work for an organisation that matches your values and you are able to make choices where
00:12:16
Speaker
you can choose not to work for that organisation, either wait for the right role to come or take a different role for a while. That's a privileged position, there's many many people in the world that we live in who don't have that choice on a daily basis and where they work is going to be down to where they live, the qualifications that they have, the skills that they have and I think
00:12:45
Speaker
I think what we need to make sure we do is build companies and cultures and expectations of companies for everybody. Every level in society should have the same type of company culture. And we play a part of that as consumers buying from companies.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I've suddenly got into Brewdog quite recently and then everything that happened at Brewdog happened and I've avoided that beer since then. I need to look into it a bit more, but I've just sought allegiances in my beer drinking because of what came out of there.
00:13:33
Speaker
I really agree with everything you've just said and yeah there's a lot to reflect upon there actually Nick. You've got my wine racing ready. This is my favorite question of the Inspire Club podcast. What's the best advice you've ever been given and if you want to share who gave it to you we'd love to know.
Integrity & Professional Life
00:13:55
Speaker
The best advice I was ever given was you've got to be able to sleep at night.
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah you do, 100%. So I'd probably dial that back through a few steps and say my my granddad once gave me some advice which is
00:14:14
Speaker
make sure that you spend money on the bed you sleep in and the shoes you wear because you'll spend eight hours in one and eight hours in the other. So you might as well make them comfortable at least. But this was from an old boss of mine who was the head of industrial relations at Tesco, a guy called Angus. And I remember talking to him about a few challenges that I was having. And he said, ultimately, you have to be able to sleep at night.
00:14:44
Speaker
you know you've got to go get a bit have a clear conscience you've got to know that what you're doing is it's do the right thing by another name and maybe a downstream impact of if you feel you're not doing the right thing keeping you awake at night absolutely and great advice by your grandfather as well i've just i've got i've just renovated a house as people know through this podcast and
00:15:09
Speaker
I've got which magazine to try and find the best value mattress there is out there. And money well spent in the first two weeks of lying on it. So you do have to sleep at night. Shoes on the other hand, I need definitely to invest in a good pair of them. I'm stuck in my home office right now because we've been in another kind of limiting lockdown in the UK. I'll help you out there. So Cole Hahn, C-O-L-E-H-A-A-N.
00:15:39
Speaker
the most comfortable shoes you could ever own. Thank you. If we ever do events again, I do need some nice comfy shoes having been on for about 15 hours of standing around all day. OK, cool. Thank you so much. Carl Hahn. So leading on from having to be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience, one of the other reasons people are unable to sleep is stress levels.
Stress Management Techniques
00:16:04
Speaker
And do you have any tips of beating stress?
00:16:09
Speaker
I think it's, well, for me, for me, I know when I'm stressed, I need to know that I've got people that I can talk to, I have confidants, mentors, that there are people that I can comfortably have a conversation with about how I'm feeling without it either being too much of a burden for them to hear that or
00:16:34
Speaker
that I feel uncomfortable in telling them that and I'm lucky to know people and work with people who are there that can you know listen to me around this stuff but also I guess for me beating stress is about taking myself away from that situation you know I often hear people talk about you know going for a run or going for I can't do that you know I take my brain with me when I do that stuff so
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, so for me, if I really want to switch my brain from one state to another state, I have to do something that requires all of my brain to do it. So I'm either pick up a guitar, play the guitar for a bit, or drawing pictures. I do a lot of digital stuff these days, something that requires my focus and attention, where I can't actually think about something else. Reading a book, yeah.
00:17:29
Speaker
And I think there's also something about stress. There's recognizing, or for me certainly, there's recognizing a point when I'm getting stressed and I need to go and play that guitar versus I'm actually at a peak. I'm in a place where my stress level, if I go and pick up that guitar, I'm probably going to break it. And I need to bring myself. Yeah, that's it. And I think there's a few things where
00:17:57
Speaker
you know, a few mindfulness approaches, breathing exercises that can just actually bring you back down. And, you know, and sometimes I'm lucky that, you know, Rob Robson, my, my business partner is, is always on the end of the phone for me to have you got a minute, Rob. Yeah. So yeah, I agree again.
00:18:20
Speaker
some place where I can zone out is actually washing the dishes and I go to like a very tranquil place there, it's almost a sense, it's like a mindfulness tip really, although we've just bought a dishwasher for the first time and I'm still washing the dishes because it's where I just go and chill out and listen to some music. But I think it's a good point knowing
00:18:44
Speaker
knowing before you get to that peak as well, trying to identify that. But you're making me want to ask one of our most important questions as well. I'll hold off for now. What's one of your go-to productivity tricks?
Productivity: A Personal Take
00:19:00
Speaker
I don't have one. You don't have one? No.
00:19:06
Speaker
Well, you're going to speak to the team. I don't have to do lists. I've tried Microsoft Planner. I've tried Microsoft Project. I've pretty much tried anything. If I need to do something, I need to do it immediately. If you want me to do something, come and sit down with me and get me to do it immediately. If you tell me that something isn't important and it can be done at the end of the month and it'll be done on the Friday at the end of the month,
00:19:33
Speaker
and fairly chaotic and so not not a cup of coffee having looked at your social media it's not no no that's not coffee coffee's fuel for life but in terms of in in terms of productivity it is a you know genuinely um you know if i'm this would be completely honest okay like the majority of stuff that i do
00:19:58
Speaker
every single day in my life I'm lucky that I don't have massive timelines on it. I work with people that do have timelines on it so the best productivity thing that I can do is actually not get in the way of other people doing their best and then
00:20:18
Speaker
You know, and I am a, you know, if you want me to do something and you want me to do it quickly, tell me you need it in the next 20 minutes and I will bash out that work for you, no problems at all. Fantastic. Okay. Thank you very much again for your honesty. So some quick questions.
Rapid-Fire Personal Insights
00:20:36
Speaker
If you're a teacher, what would you teach? Art or art history. Fantastic. Early bird or night owl?
00:20:45
Speaker
Both, the bit in the middle was a bugger. Great answer. Okay, so favourite album and obviously we're not going to hold you to any of this because it's very hard to answer on any particular day what your favourite album is and what song, which we're going to add to our Spotify list, what song do you put on to fire you up if you need to do something in 20 minutes time?
00:21:11
Speaker
Oh, favourite album. I've got so many favourite albums. So the album I'm listening to at the moment is Outlaw by a band called Volbeat. And it is probably up there. It's probably up there in a top few albums. And in terms of a song that fires me up, there's an awesome song on that album called Lola Montez.
00:21:36
Speaker
so you turn Lola Montez by Volby up high and learn the lyrics sing along to it and I'm you can't feel down yeah you're gonna feel up and pumped and ready to go it's car karaoke classic
00:21:52
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, first thing I'm doing after this podcast is looking up Volbi to Lola Montez. I'm just going to add one to our list right now because I've been listening to it a lot. It's The People by The Music, which is just an incredibly upbeat song that always gets me going. And I think it's worthy of our playlist for those who haven't listened to it. It's an English band and you all love it. Check it out. Funniest thing that's happened to you of late.
The Onion Explosion: A Humorous Story
00:22:22
Speaker
Um, I had an onion explosion. Okay. I need to know more. So I, I'd, I'd, I'd had a few glasses of wine and decided that I needed to order a curry. Um, I ordered a curry and you know, when you order a curry, like deliver to your house, you get what you like, you pop a Dom's and everything, but then they deliver the onions and tomato chopped up stuff in a cat in like a little bag. Um, I went to open the bag.
00:22:52
Speaker
and it literally just went everywhere like the bag split it went up in the air and we got Christmas decorations it was in the tinsel it was like there was a table decoration it was in that it was all over the floor it was all over me
00:23:05
Speaker
I mean, I found it funny. Yeah, I'll show my other half less though, and we're still finding bits of onion. I was going to say, that'll be in the decks when you put them away, and next year you'll be taking out the decks and they'll be onion in there. So, that would be fantastic. If there's a house or a chore you want to avoid, which one would it be? Oh, putting out the food bin. Oh, okay. Yeah, he or that one. Putting stuff in the food bin. Yeah. So, favourite film?
00:23:34
Speaker
I can't do a favourite film, I'll do some favourite films. Favourite films are Blade Runner, Jaws, Halloween, Creature from the Black Lagoon and Donnie Darko. Oh wow, okay. My wife will love you for saying Donnie Darko, she made me watch it for the first time the other day and it's an amazing film. And Blade Runner, what an absolute classic.
00:24:02
Speaker
What did you think of the the reboot to 2049 one? Oh, I loved it. I thought it was amazing. It's great, wasn't it? Really good. Villeneuve was fantastic. Yeah, really, really good. And now when I watch that, I'll be watching that tonight. Very Christmassy. And do you know what, they got the vibe of the original Blade Runner.
00:24:21
Speaker
you know and as a sequel they just followed it on it made sense there was nothing where you sat and went what yeah you know it's it's credit credit to both films and the music as well the scoring that was awesome yeah a couple last questions then let's do something you've done but never will never do again
00:24:46
Speaker
I don't want to sound soapboxy but eat meat.
Future Guests & Workplace Culture
00:24:53
Speaker
So I've done that and I'll never do it again. That works. My dad said oysters. For 40 different reasons. If you'd recommend anybody for us to go talk to on a future episode of this podcast, who do you think we should go have a chat with?
00:25:14
Speaker
I'm going to pick a selection actually. So I think we hear a lot of HR people in this space. We hear a lot of people that are either in this business, in the business of workplace or HR. And actually, it's operational people that are delivering this every single day. If you're talking about organizational culture, then so much of organizational culture is in the hands of first line managers, second line managers.
00:25:45
Speaker
And actually what I'd be really interested to hear on a podcast about inspiring workplaces is what are the barriers that stops an operational person delivering the best culture that they could deliver? So I think it's probably an operational person. I think it's probably a shift manager or a grocery manager from Sainsbury's, someone like that that is dealing with so many facets.
00:26:12
Speaker
that, you know, the HR stuff is, it's almost like it's known. Yeah, no, it's, it's a good, it's a good point. In our previous iteration of the podcast, we spoke to people from a car down in the warehouse and
00:26:29
Speaker
exactly to your point and we're discussing those things, we should have guests. I guess the other two groups I'm always really interested in is workplace specialists, so there's a guy called Will Easton who specialises in workplace, Liz Kentish as well, who specialises in facilities management, both have
00:26:53
Speaker
of working areas that have such an impact on the experience people will have in work and makes such a difference to someone having a good day, a bad day or a great day. I'm fascinated to hear from them. And I think the other group I'd love to hear from is trade union officials. I'm an ex trade union guy. I was doing that when I was at Tesco.
00:27:21
Speaker
The trade union gets a bad rep sometimes, but there's a lot of people out there in trade unions and what they're doing is they're striving to create better cultures, better terms and conditions for employees, better legislation. Their goals ultimately are the same goals that many people in HR workplace and organizations have.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah, almost to your point, I have to try to create those workplaces for everyone, not just the privileged few. Yeah, no, fantastic. So we'll set that as a task and get to it. And for now, I just want to say thank you so much for being a guest, for sharing, for having some wonderful advice. And
00:28:01
Speaker
I think we should all just try and do the right thing. I think that's a great mantra to live life by. So thank you very much, Nick. Thank you for having me. It's been a joy.
00:28:10
Speaker
Awesome, and thank you for listening. We're back, looking forward to some amazing guests, just like Nick, throughout the rest of 2022. Lots coming from us, both from a community perspective, events, content, and we want you to be as involved as much as possible. So here's to a fantastic year, and thanks for listening, and thanks for doing what you do on a daily basis. Take care, bye bye.