Interview with Tom O’Byrne, Chief Executive of Great Place to Work®.
Following on from a very revealing interview with Paul Blanchard, the Chief Executive of Commonwealth Games England last month, the next leader to give comment on the subject of performance culture is Tom O’Byrne, CEO of Great Place To Work®, the organisation behind the prestigious ‘Best Workplaces’ Awards’ and publisher of ‘Great Workplaces’ magazine as seen in the Sunday Telegraph and Guardian newspapers. It’s fair to say they know a thing or two about leadership.
Rob: Thanks very much for talking with me Tom. I know our readers will find this a fascinating insight given the broad view that you guys will have on the subject of performance culture, but would you mind just firstly taking a minute to explain your background and how you ended up as CEO at Great Place to Work?
Tom: My background is predominantly commercial with particular experience in HR, sales and training at national and international level. I was actually working for Great Place to Work as a consultant some years ago and was bowled over by the organisation and its mission – to improve society by helping organisations improve their workplace and the working life for employees. When the opportunity came up to become a part owner and CEO of the business, I jumped at it.
Rob: Ok thanks. So what actually is a ‘great workplace’?
Tom: A great workplace is something everyone will instinctively recognise at one level – a great working environment with like-minded people; somewhere where you can demonstrate your talents, make a difference and be recognised for what you do and the value you add. It’s a place where people enjoy coming to work, are proud of who they work for and what they do, where they trust the leadership and enjoy working with their colleagues. For employers, that means a workplace full of talented people working together to deliver the organisation’s business goals. A great workplace is also a great competitive advantage. It is relatively easy for competitors to replicate technology and products, but not a winning culture.
Rob: One thing that is very clear from your company’s work is the value you place on ‘Trust’ in an organisation. How do you feel this is actually correlated to performance and is this something that can actually be measured?
Tom: Yes, trust is critical as it is the key driver of engagement. Our research over 30 years or so across the globe has shown this to be true and it is interesting to see there is so much more written about it now. Trust can certainly be measured – we do this in our employee surveys, which are the most widely used in the world – and it can be correlated to performance. Our research shows that the average UK organisation has trust levels of just 55%, whereas organisations like our Best Workplaces have trust levels of 85%. They are also more profitable. Independent research on our data over 25 years shows that our Best Workplaces – not just in the UK but across the globe – outperform the market by an average of 2-3% a year. Our clients certainly believe that trust leads to superior returns. As well as formal research, we have many examples of how clients’ focus on building and maintaining trust in their organisations is resulting in increased turnover and profits. Clients like Twining’s tell us that the five years they’ve been working with us have been the most successful in their history – and they’ve been in business for over 300 years!
Rob: Through my work and through talking to the other contributors in this blog series, it feels as though the organisations which are failing to achieve performance as a culture, might be doing so because they’re simply seeing performance as a measure of executing a commercial target rather than a conscious choice of collective thinking. How much do the semantics play a part here?
Tom: I think semantics are incredibly important – we’re talking communication and words are vital. Yes, leaders are charged with targets and their primary objective is to achieve them through the organisation, the people who work there – and let’s not forget that you can have the most innovative product in the world, the best prices, distribution, etc. etc. but the common denominator behind them is people. Without the right people these strengths, which may be seen as your competitive advantage, are not sustainable. Performance is important but without the people element – everyone working together to achieve a common goal which is understood and supported – the performance will suffer. We talk about ‘performance through people’. This can shift the mind set or culture from one of focusing on targets and profits to performance through people which drives those profits.
Rob: I talk to lots of clients who cite their cultural successes on their ability to communicate effectively with all areas of the business, but then there are others who seem to talk lots about performance but just can’t seem to get their people on board with the vision no matter much they talk about it. How do you think employers can make their communication more impactful, get their people on the bus and ultimately make the leap from intention to action?
Tom: Yes, communication is always important and often the one area we find organisations don’t always get right – they think they are but somehow the messages aren’t hitting home. Sometimes it starts right at the recruitment stage – you need to make sure you take on board people who share your organisation’s values so there’s a good fit with the culture. You then need to share with them the organisation’s purpose, its mission and vision, and how each person’s role fits into that – i.e. it’s not just a job, but what people do has meaning, it’s part of something big, however humble or relatively mundane that job is. For example, one IT client said some employees were cynical about this, as they just saw themselves as data programmers. But when they were made to see that the code they were writing actually helped saved lives (they were programming software for medical electronics) they began to see what they did in a different light, and it made them very proud. So tell a story – where the business has come from, where it’s going, why, and how everyone has a key role to play in that. That way you are more likely to get people’s buy in. And empower them to get involved, make a difference, take action – after all often they will be closer to the solutions than you. The more people feel empowered about the business and the things that affect them and their jobs, the more commitment you’ll get. Taking action can sometimes be the hardest part – there’s always the question of accountability, failure even – but ultimately everything should be geared to what action the business is going to take – at individual, team or broader level. And people should be empowered to take action without fear of retribution if things go wrong. If you energise and motivate people sufficiently so they understand the what and the why, they’ll more likely want to take action.
Rob: I read an interesting article by your Head of Research recently entitled ‘Sack the HR department’ where he talks about how HR can actually be the source of disengagement in some organisations. In striving to create a culture of performance, how can leaders get the best out of HR teams to support them in what they’re trying to achieve?
Tom: Maybe the question should be how can HR support the leaders in what they’re trying to achieve! The question of the role of HR is a perennial and often contentious one. When it comes to engagement, or achieving business objectives through people, this is increasingly seen as a business initiative, not HR. HR plays a critical role as it is responsible for the people part of an organisation’s business strategy. If you’ve got the leaders on board pushing HR to deliver, then you’ve achieved the most important aspect – leadership buy-in and commitment. Leaders need to treat the HR function as the key strategic role it is, not as a process operator and support HR by reinforcing their strategic role. Leaders need to create the kind of culture where it’s not just HR but everyone is empowered to get involved and make a difference – e.g. contribute ideas, be innovative, try new things and not be afraid of failures or mistakes.
Rob: I’ve taken the time to talk to leaders from a range of different backgrounds in this blog series, from sports, military and commercial and the reason I’ve done so is specifically to try to understand whether the issues faced by leaders are fundamentally the same and to look at the question of creating a performance culture through as broad a lens as possible. Through your work at GPTW are there any helpful ‘take-aways’ that can apply to leaders from all walks of life?
Tom: Our research over the years and across the globe has shown that regardless of size, sector, country or culture, the qualities leaders need are pretty similar. First and foremost they need to be honest, open and trustworthy, and show trust in others. They need to lead by example and role model the values and behaviours they expect from their people – people who should know what is expected of them as ideally they would have been recruited on the basis of shared values. They need to be willing and able to listen, take on board feedback and act on it where they can. They need to empower people to get on with the job they’ve been tasked to do and not be afraid of people failing or making genuine mistakes as that is the way people learn and things move forward. And most importantly, they need to deliver on their commitments – don’t say something or make promises and not do it, unless there are exceptional, compelling reasons. And if that’s the case, communicate the reasons why.
Rob: Thank you Tom. A very revealing insight from a leader whose business is all about helping other organisations create a culture of performance through engagement. For more information about Great Place To Work® you can visit their website at – www.greatplacetowork.co.uk recruiting the right people in order to achieve a foundation of a culture that is built on attitudes of performance. He said…
“Sometimes it starts right at the recruitment stage – you need to make sure you take on board people who share your organisation’s values so there’s a good fit with the culture.”
Supporting clients to achieve a values-driven recruitment strategy is something we’re really passionate about. Tom isn’t the first leader I’ve interviewed to talk about the importance of recruiting the right people to achieve the foundation of a culture that is built on attitudes of performance. In Part One of this series, the Chief Executive of Commonwealth Games England described how empowering leadership is essential.
In Part Three of the series, we talk to Rear Admiral Alex Burton, Commander of UK Maritime Forces in the Royal Navy about his leadership and how the navy manages to achieve a culture of performance. To read this final part to the series, follow our social media channels….
