Navigating the New Normal: Keeping Employees Engaged with Charlotte Bidgood

Hey everybody wendy sellers here the hr lady thanks for coming we are here today to talk about the new normal and how to keep employees engaged and i am here today with that amazing guest charlotte bidgood coming in from london england hi charlotte how you doing hi wendy i am great it's friday and the week is almost coming to an end but i'm really pleased to be here Good, me too. Hey, I see on your LinkedIn profile that you have a bunch of initials after your last name, MCIPD.

What the heck does that stand for? So it means I'm a chartered member of the, sorry, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development in the UK. So it means I'm qualified in the trade of human resources. I love it.

I love it. And I love how you have inclusion and inclusive people all over your profile. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being the co-founder of Inclusive People. The world needs more of this, that's for sure.

Hey, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are. Yeah, of course. So I'm a co-founder of a company called Inclusive People, as you said. I, prior to that, have had sort of almost 20 years experience in HR, which is mad to say.

I didn't go to uni. I fell into it after having my daughter quite young at the age of 17 and just worked my way up really so have got qualifications as I've gone through but really experience has been my bag really kind of learning through different businesses worked in telecoms worked in retail and my most recent or sort of last corporate role was as a senior HR director for Activision Blizzard Kings they make Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, video games in essence and then I decided to leave there and set up my own business so inclusive people focuses on inclusion, definitely people, culture, and business change.

I love it. Again, thank you for that. Our world needs more of this. Hey, I want to just jump in and talk about the new normal.

There is no new normal, right? Every single day, it seems like something changes worldwide. I'm in the US, you're in England, and it just seems like the world keeps evolving around us and it's a struggle to keep up. So talking about navigating uncertainty with rapid change impacting all industries from redundancies to AI disruptions, which I love AI, by the way, how can leaders, managers, business owners, HR, how can we provide stability and reassurance to employees while still driving business success?

Yeah, it's a great question. And actually, I have quite live experience, actually. We've been working with a client who has been acquired by a major, major player. And they're a smaller business, been acquired, and their team are going through a lot at the moment.

So we did some listening sessions. So we have like really good firsthand experience of like, how do people feel? And like, what are they experiencing? And I think the biggest thing for this team was, they didn't know what the strategy was, and they didn't know what they should be doing.

And so one of my biggest pieces of advice to leaders is you think people know your strategy, think your team knows. What they should be doing what they should be going after but in times of confusion people lose their way or they think it's just irrelevant are we doing something else so I would say as leaders like repeat repeat repeat your strategy and then create goals for your team that align to that because I read a statistic the other day that says people are 35% more productive if they've got or sorry the business is 35% more productive if their employee goals align to business goals which makes total sense right actually I don't think people do that enough So I would say strategy is really important and being sort of clarifying.

And I would say over communicate. If people think something is going on or something is changing and they don't have an answer or guidance from the leadership team, they'll create their own answer. They'll make things up right so I would say even as a leader if you don't know the answer address it talk to people um have meetings say you know this is what I do know this is what I don't know and this is what I can tell you now tell your teams as much as you can tell them because otherwise they really are going to fill in those gaps themselves and I would say the other thing would be as a leader like be vulnerable and authentic I think as leaders this like everything is looked at the leader to do so make the things happen like carry this do that do this but I think sometimes the leader people appreciate when they go you know what this is a lot in the moment and as a leader this is this is tough I'm going to take us through this but actually it's not an easy time for me either but we're in you know we're in this together I'm here for you but I'm not finding it easy either and I know some people might well say was that a bit of a weakness but you know they're people too like show people that you are a person too as a leader I would say so So they have been my tips for navigating as much as we know at the moment.

Yeah, I love that because it is true. They're human too, and they don't know everything. Employees expect them to know everything. But when things are changing so fast, COVID, anything else going on, just world changes and uncertainty, I would appreciate somebody was claiming to be my leader.

I would appreciate if they say, I'm here to help you, but I don't have the answer. But let's circle back tomorrow and then let's connect every 24 hours so that we can figure out, has anything changed? What are the answers to this? And being vulnerable means like, okay, I think it shows your employees that it's okay to not know.

It's okay that you don't know because I don't know either. We're going to learn together. And then, of course, we can possibly lean on AI a little bit to help us too. But AI is not perfect either, even though it's amazing and one of my favorite things ever right now.

But there are definitely a lot of unknowns there too. You can make it better yourself. So like one of the things we've been doing is pouring more and more of our information around who we are as a company, who are as a brand into AI. So it can generate much, much more relevant things for us.

So make it work for you as best you can, I think. But obviously, because I think it can be a bit of a stumbling block sometimes. Yeah, I was doing a training yesterday with a community. I was volunteering with a community group and most of the people there were HR.

And they were like, oh, I'm afraid of AI. I'm like, nope, we're going to show you how to use ChatGPT. No, I don't know any technology. I said, by the end of this, you're going to be kicking yourself for never using it.

And the woman who said that, and then she's like, oh my God, I'm drooling right now. I can, like even personally, create recipes, you name it, all that stuff. No, it's fun. Yeah.

And we just all have to realize that we're all in this together and technology in the world is changing so much. And so that brings me to my next topic, which is about, you know, generations. I think younger generations, not all, not all people, because everybody's different and personalities are different, but younger generations definitely seem to accept technology and technology changes more than older generations because that's what they know. That's what they grew up with.

But different generations bring unique experiences and expectations to the workplace. So what strategies can leaders, managers, HR, what strategies can they use to engage and support employees across different age groups while still fostering a cohesive team culture? Yeah, definitely. I think there's lots of things.

I mean, I'm going to say it and I'm going to keep saying it, but like business strategy will drive cohesion. Like if people know what they're going after, actually, you know, we want cohesion between multi-generations, different people. So business strategy is still there in this answer right it's really important that people know what they're going after and why they're there but I would say to your point Wendy you know you talk about young generations you know I look at my 21 year old daughter she hates some parts of technology she thinks god like this isn't for me she's doing sociology she's much more like emotionally aware than sort of interested in tech so we've got to be careful like these stereotypes as you said it's not everyone and actually then you've got intersectionality in that that actually sort of not every young person has the same lived experience so what i would say is as a leader.

Treating your teams as individuals and as colleague to colleague treating your teams as individuals because a young person in a business might look at somebody who's been there for 20 years and think oh what do they know about tech but actually they may be an AI fiend and actually like love love learning new things so I would say like just try and judge people on sort of who they are but we do know that some of these stereotypes you know are real they haven't just created themselves so i would say think about how generations can help one another as well you know like gen z's have have often been labeled i'm sorry for any gen z's out there i'm not saying this is right or wrong but often labeled as sort of the snowflake gen or like slightly lazier or they don't have as much sort of drive as you know make millennials did but actually again that's not everybody but let's say you know somebody who's a gen xer or a millennial could be a great mentor for somebody but also like we can reverse that younger people can mentor older people let's say and that kind of thing so like definitely that reverse mentoring and mentoring is a really good thing to sort of look to bring into the organization and then I would say like businesses need to think about their policies as well because you're working with a really broad stretch of generational difference now so thinking about menopause policies for women like are they in place like because you know.

We all have older workers you know older female workers in organizations now who may sort of start going through that so how are we preparing for that have you got flexible work processes in place like are you driving flexibility i might look at some of the gen z's in my team and think gosh there's very little discretionary effort given here or you know they're leaving when they should be leaving and i think oh that's not what i would have done as a millennial but actually like i i've got to respect it like good on them for leaving at the time they should be leaving like give them the respect for doing that but make sure like that you're building flexibility and flexible working into your business to allow for kind of how people want to work where that's possible.

I know it's not possible in every sort of business. So yes, I think policies, clear strategy and bringing generations together and seeing what they can learn from each other would be my answer to that, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. And I also say kudos to you, Gen Z, for putting your foot down and saying, no, you're paying me for these amount of hours.

And that's the hours I'm going to work because I have a life outside of this job. Or even if I don't, I'd like to go, you know, watch TV or whatever it is. I bow down to them, you know, totally. The younger i'm gen x you're millennial you know i definitely i look at younger generations younger than me i'm 50 years old and i'm like oh y'all are you're doing it right you know you're definitely doing it right but you know when we get depending on what generation the leaders are and we expect everybody be exactly like us but then if they were our children we say oh yeah yeah put your foot down but no not if you're my employee exactly so look at them you know think through that lens definitely.

Yeah. It's like, no, we should be treating the employees the same way we're telling our kids to do the same thing. So it's so, so important. And, and the other thing that you just mentioned as well, as you know, it's just, everybody's different.

You know, I say, get to know every single one of your employees as an individual. Don't judge them based on their hairstyle, their age, their race, their sexual orientation, like get to know them as a person. And then you'll figure out how you're going to motivate them to do what you want them to do. I do want to circle back, though, because you've mentioned a few times about business strategy.

Some people might be saying, I don't even know what that is. What do we mean by that? Yeah, I just mean like, you know, every business is there to deliver something, whether that's a product, a service. That's generally what it is, right?

A product or a service generally. And I would say like, you know, how many products do you need to sell? Is your business strategy? you know what level of customer engagement do you want like if it's a video game how long do you want people playing that game for how many sales do you want to make so you know what is the objective of the business and you know how much of that do you need to deliver because and you know then there's lots of other things that wrap around so it could be around sort of you know environmental policies things like that so there's lots of other elements of strategy that might go into it but in essence it's kind of your sales and commercials plans for most businesses and then anything else which is meaningful and important for that business to deliver in a financial aid.

So, yeah, that's what I would say. But teams need to know what that is so that they can then deliver it. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Everybody on the team needs to know. They don't need to know the nitty gritty of every single detail, but they do need to know the high level from the top to the bottom, especially at the bottom, so that they when you're telling them to change direction, they understand. Okay, I know why I'm changing direction today because that client called in an order for XYZ versus, well, every day you tell me to do that. And today you're telling me to do this.

I'm confused. And they get mad at the manager, but it's because the manager probably doesn't know why they're switching directions because they haven't been informed on there's a change in direction, change in strategy today. So it's super important to just explain to everybody what's going on why do we why are we doing it again not everyone's going to understand the entire concept but you know i'm i i find that i'm more surprised the people that i thought wouldn't understand what i'm about to tell them that they actually do and i'm like okay i was judging those people i thought it was going to go over their head and it turns out when i explained that strategy to them or the change in direction today they actually raised their hand and said i have a better idea and yeah and your frontline staff are often the people that know like really know like talk to them because actually they have so much information they know what the customer wants they know where the sticking points are they know where your systems and your processes let like the customer down so yeah like I would say like they often know more than you would ever give them credit for yeah absolutely which brings me to the side of talking just about you know an agile workforce and in learning.

So building a growth mindset from the bottom up, not just from the top down. So you emphasize the importance of learning agility in today's workplace. What practical steps can organizations take to cultivate a culture of continuous learning and adaptability amongst all employees? Yeah, of course.

I've got two stats. I love stats and I'm going to chuck these out there. So I think the first one is, is 70% of roles will see significant change by 2030. So there is a belief that not necessarily disappear, not necessarily change fully, but we'll see a change.

So that's really important. People need to be prepared for that. Like what is going to change and how do they prepare themselves for that? And then the World Economic Forum released a skills report for 2025.

And the first top three were like machine learning, technology, AI. And then four, five and six. So four was creative thinking. Five was flexibility.

And six was curiosity and learning. So actually, like these things are so important. These are the greatest skills that people can have to prepare themselves in the future. Learning, being flexible, being curious.

So these things mean a lot and they're important. And I would say to anybody out there, really think about how are you taking these skills on and developing those. So in terms of sort of creating a growth mindset and creating a culture. I would see actually as a business owner or a leader, if you're not learning and not driving your team to learn, because things are moving so quickly and they're changing so rapidly, your business is actually depreciating in value if you're not learning.

I was talking to just prior to this call I was talking to somebody who owns AI company and they create AI agents going into sort of organizations and he said actually our AI agent will do 10 100 calls with our customers and then it will feed those 100 calls back into itself and learn from them so AI is learning so rapidly and it's not to scare anybody but it's to say like do this like learn learn new things so as a business this is really important that you're not depreciating value by not learning more again leaders should be role modeling that like leaders often go to conferences or they might read articles and that kind of thing share them with your team chuck them out on a slack like say this is an interesting thing and this is what I learned from it like start to share that sort of learning that you're doing maybe as a leader and I think reward it like is this in your performance management process is this part of like you know something that people can be rewarded for learning new things and being curious and having new ideas and bringing them to sort of management.

And I think helping people find good resources often, like, you know, when you say to a team, oh, you should learn things. They go, OK. And they have no idea where to start. We ran like a, it's called a growth grants fund with a team a little while ago.

And we would give anybody about sort of up to £300 to spend on learning or going and doing a course. And so many people, I'd love to, but I had no idea what to do. so I think actually like you know as a business or HR functions recommend go and search out some of these good tools and resources that would be good for your teams and actually just recommend like a few things that people could start by being curious about and celebrate learning so if somebody's learned something new or they failed or they've had a new idea share that at a stand-up as HR like post that on a newsletter or you know send that out to the team and get a leader to talk about it but yeah like celebrate it role model it and help people learn with ease if they don't know where to start would be my recommendation because it's gonna be really necessary and that's not to scare people it's to be excited and see this is a space where you can get curious and have new ideas and innovate because actually that's going to be sort of how the future will look yeah i love it i love that advice thank you so much for this information today charlotte how can people reach out to you.

Yeah, of course. So I'm on LinkedIn as Charlotte Bidgood. So it's B-I-D-G-O-O-D, my surname. And then my website for my company is www.

inclusivepeopleltd.com. So if you want to learn more about what we do as a business, then take a look there. Awesome.

Thanks again for coming today. I appreciate it so much. This has been amazing. It has motivated me on Friday today where I was not motivated at all.

So thank you so much. It was great meeting you. Take care, everybody.