In conversation with William Madden

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good afternoon and welcome to cipd
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midwest's
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first podcast we hope our members are
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listening are keeping safe and well
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it is our intention to run a number of
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these podcasts with
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hr leaders in the region to hear their
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thoughts on various challenges and
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opportunities
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in the hr profession and take learnings
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from their experience
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for those who don't know me my name is
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lavinia and i'm the current chairperson
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of cipd midwest
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it is lovely to be joined today posing
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the questions with
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fellow cipd midwest committee member dr
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christine cross
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very well known too many in the region
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in her role
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as head of department work and
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employment studies in kenya business
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university of limerick our cipd
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long-standing partnership with
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university of limerick is
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very much valued our very special guest
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today
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is william madden who has himself in the
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past
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being chairperson of the cipd midwest
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and you certainly set
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a great bar for us all to follow after
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you william so
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thank you for being our first guest
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today
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so before we start asking you questions
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william you're very well known
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and respected hr leader in the region
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but i suppose i would like to share
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um with everyone a little bit about your
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background
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so william has worked in human resources
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for 38 years
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in manufacturing industries covering
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pharmaceuticals
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medical device mining electronics
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and textile industries with companies
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such as roche ireland
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mark sharp and dome minorca sheen
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flextronics hermetica international lm
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ericsson
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and burlington industries originally
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from rathkeel west limerick he is a
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graduate from the university of limerick
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and trinity college and it was lovely to
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hear the
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the sharing of memories there before we
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started the podcast between
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christine and and william but william's
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areas of expertise are site startups
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employee and industrial relations change
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management
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downsizing and most recently was
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involved in a site closure with roche
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ireland
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he is currently establishing himself as
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a human resources consultant
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and workplace mediator after being made
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redundant earlier this year
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so william you're very very welcome
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we're very proud to have you
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um on our first cipd podcast
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and just to i suppose to kick off the
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first question there
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2020 has been a very very challenging
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year for many
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but what are the hr challenges in the
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short term
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that you see with covert 19.
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thank you lavinia and hi christine good
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to meet you and thank you for those kind
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words
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and yes covet i guess in terms of hr
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challenges
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has generated a whole new meaning to
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work
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as i see it mandatory remote working for
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all non-essential workers
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has changed how businesses do their
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day-to-day business
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how they address employees and thrown up
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a lot of new challenges
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um the simple one of how do you stay
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connected with employees
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who are not with you every day i was
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reading some research paper there
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recently by uh jan fitzgerald from
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harmonix
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where did a
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global survey of businesses that hr
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leaders and we're questioning about
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productivity and is it having an impact
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and surprisingly i was delighted to see
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they reported 69
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of companies in ireland were reporting
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that productivity had actually improved
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as a consequence of remote working um
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and while that's good to hear it also
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showed up in the survey
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that over 71 percent of companies
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anticipate
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there'll be a new hybrid form of working
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uh
3:46
for in the future and that's likely to
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take the form of
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split time between home
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[Music]
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working and being in the office whenever
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that happens uh
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short term there is no plan for people
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to go back into work
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and i'm quite seeing in terms of the
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challenges that people are facing in
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terms of how do hr
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ensure that employee well-being is being
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maintained
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while you have people at work it's
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relatively easy to get them together to
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talk to them to see how they're
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they're getting on but while they're
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away from the workplace how do you
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identify
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the stresses they're going through the
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isolation
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the loneliness child care issue
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who's um for you where for a period we
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had uh kids not able to go to school
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uh you have third-level students not
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able to go to college so all of those
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people
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uh within the family network need to be
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looked after
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and pa challenge for hr is ensuring that
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we have that connectivity with people
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um another aspect i think that people
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have to
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look at is what are the trade-offs that
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hr can influence in the business
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uh for employees because you're not at
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work
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you're not going to be uh dealing with
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everything in the same pace you're not
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going to have the same level
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of cooperation among people uh
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and you've got to figure out what's
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really important for employees spending
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your day
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on back-to-back zoom calls it's become a
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reality for a lot of people but is it
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really
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productive is it really good for people
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uh that that's their only interaction
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with people
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and what i'm seeing is that it all tends
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to be
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formalized towards getting the business
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results um
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suggestions for companies in terms of
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trying to deal with some of the
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challenges of that
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is do you create uh time limits and how
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long your zoom calls last
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so that employees have some downtime do
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you create blocks of time where
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people have uninterrupted work time to
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to work on other
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aspects of their job there are some of
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the issues i see
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as always within the hr campus
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communication with employees falls into
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that realm
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and where you don't have the standard
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form of face-to-face meetings
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town hall meetings um and the huge
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amount of business uncertainty out there
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i think it's more important for leaders
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within business
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to stay connected with their employees
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and how do they get that message out to
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them
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that the business is doing okay the
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business is doing well
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the business has challenges because
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those concerns don't go away for
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employees
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and if there's no information coming
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from the
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leadership and hit or not facilitating
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discussion around that
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then i think that the the contract of
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trust with employees
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is under threat and you're not going to
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be getting the best out of your people
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two practical topics that i see for hr
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daily dealing with employees new
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day-to-day now is
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how do you on board new employees
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typically most companies were very slick
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with their
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induction programs moving people across
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different departments meeting with
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everybody
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in the first week or month
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of their time at work now you have
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people that have joined companies
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in the last three to six months that
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have never set foot in the building
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they've never met
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their immediate co-workers face to face
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uh and they're they're trying to deal
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with that reality
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so i think that's that's a significant
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challenge for businesses
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um hopefully when we get back to
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everybody back at work that they'll be
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able to pick up any gaps that are there
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in that
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but i think for a lot of business that
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is a significant challenge
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one one other one that i see is in
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relation to the topic of ongoing
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development and learning
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um a lot of the time
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[Music]
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and when you get people together in the
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room you see the power of the collective
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group
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the thinking of being able to address uh
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different problems in different ways but
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if all of your learning now is done to
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web based or a web or a portal of some
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sort
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and you have a competency test at the
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end that says yes you know what you read
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uh it's very good for read and
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understand but are you really getting
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the benefit out of it
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so i think that that's a significant
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challenge for hr
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in the short to medium term um
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if we all get back into normality in a
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year's time
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yes you might be okay but i think that's
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something that companies have to be very
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cognizant of
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how are they trained
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being people how are they ensuring that
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they're continually learning
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and the companies that do do it well uh
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will excel but it is a challenge for a
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lot of businesses that may not be as
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well resourced
8:23
uh may not have the facility to train
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people through web portals
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or may not be able to connect with them
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as much as they'd like to
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so i think in the short term there's
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some of the challenges that i see
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um the companies that will be successful
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will be the ones that do that
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well and try to pick up some of those
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gaps
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and come with the novel ideas in terms
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of how to address
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issues like that
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but covert is with us for the
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foreseeable future so i think hr is
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going to be central in terms of driving
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some of those changes needed in behavior
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and keeping people connected
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okay so uh william i might uh pick up on
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some of the things that you said there
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um so how does hr continue to remain
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relevant
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in this changed business climate uh
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because of all of the uncertainty that
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employees are facing
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yeah christine thank you for that it's a
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good question um
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and i guess it's back to the
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the same position of what's the value
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proposition for hr in the future
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um because we're all facing rapid change
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in the business
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um that's lavinia rightly said i'm
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working a long time
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in hr i've come through a couple of eras
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and generational changes
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and seeing a lot of the transition but
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i would say today we're in what i call
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the digital age
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and transformation is happening much
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faster it's
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a lot of it is technology based
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companies are driving forward with the
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use of new technologies
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at a scale that we haven't seen before
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um
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and that coupled with uh pandemic which
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is forcing people to work remotely
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i think we're seeing that there's
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changes there for businesses that
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people hadn't anticipated and how do you
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now develop that same relationship with
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your people
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and keep hr relevant um
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and i think it's how you view your
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workforce
10:24
we need to build this is what i'd call a
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sustainable workforce
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um a bit like sustainable energy it's
10:31
not tapping it
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uh for when you need it and turning it
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off it's really how do you make sure
10:35
that you care
10:36
and protect your workforce and that's
10:41
pushed into the future what i've seen i
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guess over my working life
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is this let's call it a continuum of
10:48
where businesses have come from
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um there's probably three phases i'll
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describe
10:53
in that continuum the industrial phase
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let's call it the internet phase and now
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digital phase and hr has transformed
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across those time frames not all
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businesses have moved at the same pace
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uh when i started working hr was
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typically
11:10
in the industrial phase i'll call it
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where your
11:13
key focus of hr would
11:17
have been looking at compliance it was
11:19
dealing with administration design
11:20
looking at programs job design
11:23
and organizations were typically set up
11:25
um with service centers
11:27
and local functions and hr partners did
11:30
locally
11:31
what was right within their geography so
11:34
if you were in ireland you had an irish
11:35
solution and an irish system for dealing
11:37
with
11:38
many of the topics and issues you faced
11:40
and typically you designed it by
11:42
benchmarking with somebody else
11:44
local in the country i would say
11:48
when we move
11:51
moved through to what let me call the
11:53
internet phase and a reminder
11:54
in case people forget how long the
11:56
internet is around only it's not here
11:57
that long
11:58
uh early to mid 80s uh i would say spent
12:01
was
12:01
first regarded as having been created
12:04
but probably didn't
12:05
come into full force until late 80s
12:07
early 90s
12:08
and has revolutionized a lot of what we
12:10
do but a feature of
12:12
hr and how hr was relevant during that
12:15
time phrase was
12:17
the focus was on process excellence and
12:19
standardization
12:20
we were moving away from hr doing the
12:22
work for people to
12:24
self-service um and shared services for
12:27
employees and
12:31
that became the norm for probably 10-15
12:34
years
12:35
uh we were setting up centers of
12:36
excellence we had
12:38
recruitment centers of excellence
12:39
compensation benefit centers of
12:41
excellence
12:41
and a lot of those activities were
12:43
pulled out of the core hr function
12:46
and a lot of specialism started to
12:47
develop so the general hr role
12:50
developed and you typically became
12:52
classified as a
12:54
global business partner within hr
12:57
um but you were following standards now
13:00
that were being set across
13:02
different continents it didn't matter
13:04
whether you were in asia
13:06
whether you're in europe whether you're
13:07
in the u.s you had a standardized
13:10
process
13:10
and that
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became the norm and i would say that
13:16
worked very very well
13:17
but the new phase or next phase that i
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see in terms of how do we deal with the
13:20
digital phase
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and i think what we're going to see the
13:23
focus areas within that
13:26
for employees will be hr will be
13:28
expected
13:29
to have a very very strong employee
13:32
experience
13:33
be able to cater for that a lot of the
13:36
services would have to be personalized
13:37
to the individual
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and i think huge amount of transparency
13:41
will be the expected
13:42
norm for people um you're going to be
13:46
looking at areas
13:50
where you're developing global systems
13:52
with the end user in mind
13:54
and companies are moving through that to
13:56
try and get best in class and try to be
13:59
ahead of the other companies an example
14:01
i think that core activity hr performs
14:03
and has performed over
14:05
the time has been performance management
14:07
there was a time when
14:08
performance management was typically a
14:10
document that was created
14:12
you saw it once a year if you were lucky
14:16
and your manager would sit with you and
14:18
tell you how well you've done against
14:20
your objectives
14:21
that move to where a lot of it through
14:23
the internet phase has gone online
14:25
and it has become
14:30
leaving document uh much more
14:31
interactive and
14:33
probably has improved but now i see in
14:35
the digital age
14:36
where you have an app on your phone uh
14:39
where you have your objectives listed in
14:40
there
14:41
you could have your weekly monthly
14:42
check-ins with your
14:44
immediate manager to update them and to
14:46
update what you're doing
14:48
and companies have moved through that
14:51
some have embraced it
14:52
very much to the fore in terms of the
14:54
leading technology
14:55
and that has helped them excel and those
14:58
type of companies will survive
14:59
and prosper into the future so i think
15:02
in terms of
15:03
trying to go through the different
15:05
phases not every company will move at
15:07
the same pace
15:08
not every company will need to move uh
15:10
in the same direction
15:12
but if you want to be seen as a leader
15:14
in this area
15:15
companies have to embrace the new
15:17
reality of business
15:19
and the pace of change
15:23
and there's those are examples of some
15:25
of the developments i think that people
15:26
can expect to see
15:27
within their life in the next three five
15:30
years and then what comes after that
15:31
knows
15:33
okay so if we take a slightly different
15:35
perspective then william
15:37
and you know we know that a lot of
15:39
businesses are closing as a result of
15:40
the pandemic
15:41
and you know the economic factors
15:44
associated with covet
15:46
so would you see somebody getting a
15:48
notice of redundancy as a signal that
15:51
they should despair about their future
15:53
and then a related question what types
15:55
of opportunities might exist for them
15:59
okay christine thank you um yeah
16:01
redundancy is always
16:03
a difficult topic in any business uh
16:08
whether you're a small corner shop
16:09
local enterprise or a large
16:11
multinational um and when that does
16:13
happen when that announcement is made
16:15
generally what you'll find is there's
16:16
shock uh there can be chaos
16:18
and it does create huge feelings of
16:20
uncertainty and disbelief
16:22
for the employees and i can speak from
16:25
personal experience
16:27
of myself in terms of trying to manage
16:30
site through a transition like that over
16:32
a couple of years
16:34
where we went through a gradual close uh
16:36
it is difficult
16:37
but it's not the end of the world uh
16:40
people have been made redundant
16:42
in the past people will continue to be
16:44
made redundant and i think
16:48
it's about looking at that to say is
16:50
this a time for me to take stock of
16:52
what do i want to do uh do i view it as
16:54
an opportunity and
16:56
i advise anybody is to stop assess where
16:59
you are
16:59
what have you been doing and say okay
17:02
what do i want to do with myself next
17:05
um while you're in a job in a role
17:08
you tend to get caught up in the
17:09
day-to-day activities your focus is
17:12
always internally and you may not give
17:13
the attention to yourself
17:16
yes redundancy is a cold shower in the
17:19
morning to wake
17:22
you up they get your attention uh but
17:24
the effect of that means that you might
17:26
do something very positive for yourself
17:27
and i've seen this with people over my
17:29
career that it can
17:31
give you time to stop and think um set
17:33
out a career direction for yourself
17:36
and say this is what i'd like to do this
17:38
is what i want to do
17:39
um and some of the mistakes i've seen
17:43
people make is they jump too quickly
17:45
they say i have to get a job i'm
17:46
finishing in a month's time i have to
17:47
get a job
17:48
the monday after that without taking the
17:51
time to consider
17:52
what does it really mean for
17:57
and what are the opportunities out there
17:59
fortunately a lot of companies do
18:00
provide
18:01
outplacement services and people should
18:04
i would encourage anybody to use those
18:05
services
18:06
and where does that help you and how
18:08
does it help you
18:09
for a lot of people that are in jobs for
18:11
a good few years you
18:13
lose touch with the jobs market where do
18:15
you start looking for a job
18:16
how do you start looking for one a
18:18
simple question
18:20
that three four years ago what do you
18:23
have in your linkedin profile
18:24
how does that market you most companies
18:27
have moved to in-house recruitment
18:29
so where do their their recruiters find
18:31
people
18:35
typically it's using a facility like
18:37
linkedin so your profile there is going
18:39
to be paramount in terms of helping you
18:40
get a job
18:42
if you have if you're fortunate enough
18:43
to work for a company that does provide
18:45
our placement
18:46
typically it will involve giving advice
18:48
and interviews as well
18:50
getting your cv into shape where you can
18:52
present yourself
18:53
in the best possible light and also
18:56
connect you with other employers
18:57
that are in the region in the midwest
19:00
we're fortunate
19:01
that we have a good number of companies
19:03
that are recruiting
19:06
in my last company with rashford we had
19:08
250 direct employees
19:10
that unfortunately are no longer there
19:13
happy to say that the
19:17
vast majority of those people have
19:18
secured work at a time and
19:20
you have said is that practical is that
19:22
possible but yes the opportunities are
19:24
out there
19:25
but it's about how you as an individual
19:27
decide to prepare yourself
19:29
you look at what's your skill set what
19:31
do you want to do
19:32
is it time to change career and do
19:34
something different is it time to go
19:36
back to education
19:38
and reskill myself do i want to change
19:41
career completely
19:42
do something different change industry
19:44
sector or
19:45
start up my own business and see do i
19:47
want to do that
19:50
but i would say to anybody if you do get
19:52
the
19:55
opportunity uh to use an outplacement
19:58
service
19:58
please take the advantage and use it to
20:00
your advantage because they can help you
20:02
greatly in terms of trying to set
20:03
yourself up
20:04
and get you get you into a better place
20:06
than where you need where you need to be
20:08
um if you do
20:11
find yourself redundant my first advice
20:13
is don't panic
20:16
it's not the first time uh that
20:18
somebody's been married london and it
20:19
certainly won't be the last
20:21
so stop take your time consider what's
20:24
best for you
20:25
um and if it means that you want to
20:28
stop work for a while do that and then
20:30
pick it up when you're ready to go again
20:33
but don't panic i guess i've seen people
20:37
say that they had to get a job and jump
20:40
to the first job that came their way
20:42
within 12 months of leaving i knew one
20:45
employee
20:45
who had five different jobs in 12 months
20:48
that's
20:49
really not advisable um so
20:52
what are you saying to a future
20:53
prospective employer that you're
20:55
dependable
20:56
that you're reliable that you'll stay
20:58
absolutely not
20:59
so for anybody who's facing
21:03
redundancy situation yes it is not an
21:06
easy one
21:06
but don't panic take your time consider
21:09
what your options are
21:10
consider what you want to do as an
21:12
individual and what direction you want
21:13
to go
21:14
in terms of your future career and then
21:16
take it from there
21:20
william that was really insightful um
21:24
for for everybody and if i could kind of
21:26
bring this back
21:27
on a personal level if you don't mind
21:29
for you um
21:31
you've had a fantastic career with 38
21:34
years with
21:34
a a vast amount of experience but
21:38
um we'll have many people hr and members
21:41
out there
21:41
who will be just at the start of their
21:44
career embarking on hr
21:46
so um if you were talking to your 25
21:49
year old self
21:50
um embarking in hr what advice and
21:53
career advice would you give
21:55
to to yourself
21:58
well i guess i'd start with saying hr as
22:00
a career is very rewarding
22:03
um so the choices i made i have no
22:06
regrets about them
22:07
um and you're right lavinia i have
22:09
worked across a variety of industries
22:12
and have had the benefit of spending
22:14
time with some great people
22:16
so
22:20
i guess i'll go back to when i was
22:21
graduating out of college and it was a
22:22
long time ago
22:23
but i did get some advice from a branch
22:26
official of what was the itgwu
22:28
he happened to be a father of a friend
22:29
of mine and he said to me
22:31
you're working in personnel area and i
22:33
said yes that's my plan
22:35
and he said i'll give you one bit of
22:36
advice be firm
22:38
but be fair with the people you interact
22:41
with
22:42
and that stuck with me i would say for
22:44
the first
22:45
five to ten years as i was learning a
22:47
lot
22:49
one other piece of advice i would say to
22:51
people starting out
22:52
identify very early on a good mentor for
22:55
yourself
22:56
somebody who has the experience
23:02
of working in industry if you are an
23:04
industry or whatever business you're in
23:06
and i try and build on the experience
23:09
that they have and the knowledge that
23:10
they have
23:12
use them as a sounding board use them as
23:14
somebody to test ideas with
23:16
and be upfront with them saying i don't
23:20
know
23:22
oh where i'm going i need some help um
23:24
and generally you'll find people are
23:25
very open to doing that
23:27
in relation to how you work yourself i
23:29
think that's advice i would give to
23:30
anybody as well
23:31
in terms of you set your own standards
23:33
on what are your values
23:34
what's important to you how you want to
23:37
behave in terms of ethics
23:42
and my advice would be don't drop on or
23:44
compromise your standards on any of
23:46
those topics
23:48
and i guess the final piece of advice
23:49
i'd give somebody um
23:51
in terms of maintain your integrity in
23:53
everything you say and do
23:56
um you won't get everything right um
23:58
i've made plenty of mistakes over my
24:00
career
24:01
the important thing though is to learn
24:02
from them and to use that experience
24:05
to build and make yourself into a better
24:08
practitioner in whatever area you're in
24:11
and i guess the final piece of advice
24:13
i'd say to people is
24:15
ensure that you're having fun at
24:16
whatever you do
24:21
because if you're not if you're not
24:22
enjoying what you're doing it's probably
24:23
not the right role for you
24:27
well william that is very fair and
24:29
honest advice
24:30
it's certainly um i know anybody
24:33
listening to this podcast
24:34
um i know i'm so delighted that we have
24:37
recorded it
24:38
because i think it's a podcast that we
24:40
could go back and you could listen to a
24:42
number of times
24:42
because you've given so much insight
24:45
there
24:46
and but so much advice and to to help
24:49
and the hr uh profession along their
24:52
journey for 2021
24:54
you mentioned there that uh you know one
24:57
of parts of the advice is that you know
24:58
we don't always get everything right
25:00
what i can tell you what we have gotten
25:03
right
25:04
is to ask you to be our first um
25:07
our first hr leader within the midwest
25:10
to
25:10
to to lead out and to listen to um what
25:13
you have to say
25:14
um for our first podcast of the midwest
25:17
so um
25:18
a little bit of history is is is
25:20
embarking on today so
25:21
we're very delighted that we've gotten
25:23
that one right right william
25:25
um so i suppose uh without further ado i
25:28
think what i would like to just do
25:29
um is to say thank you william we're
25:31
very much appreciative of your time
25:33
today
25:33
um i'd also like to thank to thank uh dr
25:37
christine cross we are very much looking
25:39
forward to our event in january that we
25:41
hold
25:42
um every year so please keep an eye out
25:44
for that
25:45
we're going to be talking about um
25:48
well-being
25:49
for covert and beyond so it'll be very
25:51
relevant for for 2021
25:53
so keep an eye out on your
25:54
communications and
25:57
and as william said you know have fun
25:59
with it and
26:00
stay safe so thank you very much thank
26:02
you william thank you christine
26:04
thanks lavender thank you christine
26:06
thanks lavinia
26:11
you
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