Episodio 2

Cia: Welcome to Employee Activation, the HR podcast that takes you into the minds of some of the world's brightest workforce strategists to find out how they make both their employees and organisations thrive. I'm Cia Kouparitsas and today's episode is one that is very close to my heart.

It's all about delivering diversity, equity and inclusion programs at scale and how to make sure diversity and inclusion remains a priority year after year, especially in large and highly complex organisations. To help me unpack this discussion is Sophie Ball, who is the Head of Talent in the UK for global defence prime, Northrop Grumman.

Hi Sophie, welcome.

Sophie: Hello. Lovely to be here.

Cia: So good to have you here, Sophie. What I think is really interesting about Northrop Grumman is you are an iconic, huge defence prime working at the cutting edge of technology in the defence domain, which is an area that can be very complex to work in.

You have more than 100,000 employees globally focused on trying to solve some of the most difficult tech challenges in the world and still DE&I is, and has remained something that is really important to you guys and having personally worked with Northrop Grumman for a number of years with WithYouWithMe, I can vouch that you certainly practice what you preach.

So, having the chance to pick your brain, Sophie, is something I'm very excited about and not to mention the fact that you are also an award-winning diversity advocate yourself. And you've been the Head of Talent for about 18 months. But with Northrop Grumman for more than 15 years. Is that right?

Sophie: That's right, yes.

Cia: Beautiful. So, I'm sure you have many different tales and tricks to share with us from that time. And I would love to start by having you tell us a little bit about your HR career at Northrop Grumman, the journey that you've been on from, you know, starting as a young fresh HR professional 15 years ago to where you are now.

Sophie: So yeah, it was just over 15 years ago. I remember I'd been in HR admin for a couple of years and was made redundant. And I had two job offers on the table. One was a company that made packaging boxes, and one was a company I'd never heard of, which was Northrop Grumman. And I googled, and I just thought, well, it's a no brainer.

So, I'd never heard of Northrop Grumman, and many people probably have never heard of Northrop Grumman, but it's an amazing kind of... A company secret that people have never heard of but actually, I started as HR admin and payroll when there was about, it was less than 100 people who worked for Northrop at the time it was very...

Cia: Wow.

Sophie: Yeah, it was very small. We actually did quite a lot of different things back then, more kind of physical products like fingerprints, bomb disposal robots, things like that. And just over the years we've grown. We've grown in what we do. We've acquired bits and bobs. And I moved into kind of more HR business partner, so grew with the company as we grew in numbers and grew in different customer bases and then about. I don't know. About five years ago, I did a secondment in the cyber and intelligence part of the business, which has probably only been really strong probably in the last eight years.

But I did a secondment in the business partner role for C and I several years ago and that was where I was asked to think of some different ways where we can look to bring in different talent. It was kind of given to me like a bit of a pro bono and I just started. Yeah, just talking to some people and some things I'll talk about later on employee resource groups. And that was where really my journey began, if you like, with DE&I initiatives.

Recognising yeah, that there are some different things that we can do and should do to, you know, to bring talent in and not just rely on kind of crossing your fingers and hoping more different types of people, not only join but also thrive here. So yeah, it's been an evolution, I'd say over the last 6-7 years, and then January last year I started in a brand-new role for us which is this Head of Talent.

Which, I love the title. It sounds very cool, but it is very cool because it's not recruitment, it's internal talent. But it's, you know, I'm lucky to continue to still be involved in all the things that come with that. So, it's not just succession planning and, you know, leadership development programs and stuff like that, it is that. But it's a lot more than that as well.
So now I feel very lucky to be in this role.

Cia: That's great Sophie, and I cannot wait to get stuck into learning more about the kinds of initiatives you're doing from the diversity in the workforce, skilling space, because I think that is such an important focus area for many HR professionals at the moment. How can we get the most out of our people and give our people the best opportunity to thrive?

But before we do that, I just want to go back to those early days when you were sort of starting out to build these diversity programs at Northrop Grumman. It sounds like you were an early champion and I'm really curious, how do you get an organisation to come on that journey with you? Because I think so often, we hear about diversity, equity and inclusion as this lovely to have buzzword that a lot of organisations you know as you sort of pointed out say they want to do XYZ, but whether they actually walk the talk is a different thing. How did you build that kind of advocacy and buy in not only at your leadership levels but across the organisation?

Sophie: So, it would be wrong of me to say I started it at Ground Zero. But you know, like I said, I've been here a long time. And you know, when we were just shy of 100 people, I'd never heard of, you know, DE&I, we never intentionally did anything.

So, we're Northrop Grumman in the UK and we're obviously part of the global Northrop Grumman and some very, very smart people a long time ago, obviously saw the value in all of this. So, we're very lucky in the UK where for a long time we've had things like a really hot ethics process. Where there's multiple reporting streams that people can take, anonymously or not, and we report on the data.

One thing I've really seen and learned is it's about people feeling safe and that's the equity and inclusion piece. So having that already long-standing culture of, you know, where we really do our best to make sure people know there's, you know, there's processes, if something isn't right, you can report it. So, I will say that I think that's been incredibly helpful and important to the journey and then they started in the US these things that are called employee resource groups. I know a lot of companies are starting to have them and I can't champion enough how important they are.

So, employee resource groups, they are voluntary employee led groups and they provide an inclusive environment, foster belonging, knowledge sharing, networking, personal professional development and outreach across different areas. So, we've got, you know, lots of employee resource groups. We've got our PrIDA, LGBTQ+ group, we've got our REACH group, which is the race, equality and cultural heritage. We've got our neurodiversity group; we've got our NG women group.

And again, these groups, America have them or other countries have them. We've been slowly growing them in the UK I think, probably the women's group was the first one. And I want to say that was probably about 9 years ago when we first started that group and it's not led by, it's not led by HR. It's not led by, you know, someone in a senior role in the business.

It's a call to action to people in the company to say right, do you want to be in any of these groups? You're gonna have to run these groups. We'll give you some funding. We'll give you a senior leader sponsor, but they need to be led by you. And they are, we’ve got these groups of people dispersed around the business, all different locations. Graduates through to, you know, seniors who are in these groups and the growth of those over the last several years, again has been beyond significant for our DE&I journey because they are groups made-up of, you know, you know like the NG women group has got women but we also encourage men or non-binary, you know, everyone to join.

I'm on the PrIDA board. Board sounds very fancy, just we're the main ones who write the newsletters and do the events and stuff, and I'm an ally. But it's so important these groups because not only is it somewhere where people who are part of that community run the group, if you like, but they've got allies in there and it is truly about educating, showcasing, celebrating.

And I will say I've taken great pleasure the last few years in particular doing everything I can to try and support those groups just because of the kind of areas I touch, what I see. So yeah, you know, I know that element of what we do has been equally incredibly important to our DE&I journey.

Because yeah, you know I only represent one of those groups. It's completely ludicrous of me to think. Well, I could also, you know, I know what's best for our neurodiversity group, and we'll do this. We'll do that. We'll hire this way. We'll do this training program. You know, you need these groups. We want to hear from people in those communities. And then it's the education piece. It's been wonderful to see, having been here so long, the last few years to see our ERGs thrive and really be visible has been everything. And what finally is really, really helped all of this is underpinning all of this is, we've had it for over a year, a DE&I working group, and it's led by somebody in the business who is so inspirational and passionate. She lives and breathes this, and she drives it hard.

She does, you know a lot of working and steering groups right from the ERGs through to our CEO, where we kind of keep policy changes. But from what I said, a lot of it is employee-led. So, it's not been someone sat at the top in an ivory tower going right, we need these groups, you need to sort it out.

It was when I did the secondment like I said, that's when there was a few really intentional initiatives which we've never done before. That's when they all started to take flight. There was a group at the time. They're now called NIOA, but they were called Black Coder at the time where it's a boot camp for black women who are career changers. You sponsor them, you do some events with them, you know, and ultimately, ideally there's some that you interview and hire at the end of it. So, I socialised that with the REACH ERG, got some funding, and we piloted it, and that was another thing that I wanted to talk about today, which is the P word.

So, things like that. You know, if you if you try and present it to the businesses like let's do this forever then and you know it's a bit scarier if you like. And especially when things are quite new as well. It goes one of two ways. It either scares people if you've done it before, or they say, oh actually to be part of this would be quite interesting.

There were some intentional activities like the WithYouWithMe pilot that we did. The groundwork was there, but then presenting to the business as like, you know it's a pilot. We'll hold hands with them and all that kind of good stuff.

Cia: I love it and talk to me 'cause I know obviously you mentioned WithYouWithMe. We've done a lot of work with you guys over the years on helping bring diversity into your organisation. Talk to me about that and how that's worked for you.

Sophie: Yeah. Gosh. Oh, I'm smiling because I'm so glad. I remember I kind of started almost had a visual tree. And it was like right, you know, start down here, could this Squad model which was, you know, work closely WithYouWithMe to, to piggyback off the upskilling Academy if you like that WithYouWithMe deliver, but then also us working with that to make sure the training that they're receiving aligns so that they can jump from the training then into working for us more effectively.

So that kind of concept where they don't just do 12 weeks XY and Z. It's 12 weeks of intentional do XY and make sure they have lots of Z's because there'll be lots of that that they'll have to do kind of approach. And then, yeah, working for 12 months as contractors basically, but using that 12 months as like a 12-month probation. And then at the end of that, they join us permanently if both parties want to and we'd never done anything like this.

And my bread and butter with Northrop Grumman was one particular military program that I looked after for over a decade until it became sunset, so I've been used to working with, you know, veterans very closely for a long time. And when that program came to an end, it felt a bit strange because we didn't, you know, we didn't know who else was a veteran in the business and we didn't really have a specific military project that I was, you know, going to there, I was going to a military base or something to do.

And then so it kind of came at a nice time, this proposal and then with the WithYouWithMe model, where it's not just veterans, it's blue lights, it's their family, it's neurodiverse, cause I'm very passionate, that it's not just about hiring someone. It's about breaking down barriers and then someone earning their place still, but acknowledging that for some, for many, they just can't even get that first door kind of thing.

Cia: And I'm really curious as to your experience there, because you're right, so the model that we've been working with you on is taking individuals who are from diverse backgrounds and maybe not have the opportunity to join an exceptional employer like Northrop Grumman with that career pathway in. So, the training, but then the opportunity to step into an entry-level role.

For many organisations, it can be quite an adjustment internally to be recruiting on a skills-based model like that where you're not necessarily looking for a resume or a degree, but instead looking at what are the skills the individual has learned and what can they bring to our organisation from that diversity perspective which we know is so critical. How was that navigating internally to get people comfortable with looking at hiring in a different way?

Sophie: So again, it didn't take a lot of convincing, and you know, I can't take credit for saying I significantly changed their people's views and thoughts, however it definitely,
I would say, probably was an area that they hadn't considered. So by having a model already there and then presenting it and saying, look, this is another way we can do it, there's all these kind of remedial things that will happen.

So, you know, like I say, we're not just going to hire someone for the sake of it, it's still going to be some, the Capstone projects and we'll still work closely with the team and all that kind of good stuff. I think, well I know, it definitely made it an easier yes.

And kind of being able to see the talent that we've got now it's so humbling. You know, we're so lucky. I think it was seven that completed the scheme and are just part of the family now and they're all thriving, and it's been really wonderful to see all the different experiences we've got Police, we've got Army, someone, I think she was a Solicitor. We've got all sorts of different experiences, and I know I stayed very close to the managers through the 12 months of the Squad members and some of those managers were also managing graduates at the time. That was really interesting.

But one of the challenges I find myself in is, you know, I get so excited about career changers and these kinds of programs, but we do currently have a very rigid – like many – early career cohort scheme, so you know September every year is when you bring in your early career numbers.

Now you have to go to market. You know, almost a year before that to start the campaign, and then it's several months of that early careers campaign to attract and hire and get the contracts out. And this is something that I've established is a challenge for all these wonderful initiatives of reskilling and up training because they're so flexible.

But actually, we're not flexible the way we're made at the moment, which a lot of companies will be. So again, I'm lucky to be in a position where we're actually looking at our whole early career strategy at the moment for 25 and beyond because there is that kind of recognition that there is a lot of skills-based talent out there with potential.

If you literally reserve all of your early career talent space for once a year. Then again, you are restricting them, this kind of talent, to have to either sit and get a job in Tesco or something whilst they wait or go somewhere else.

Cia: Now, Sophie, you mentioned at the start, obviously in your current role, you’re Head of Talent. So, you're looking at your workforce and all of the people in the workforce. Now, we've spoken a lot about bringing diverse talent into the workforce, but I guess more holistically, once you have anyone in your workforce, how do you ensure that there is the same access to opportunity for all individuals and in particular, for people to pursue leadership positions? Because I know that diversity and leadership is a challenge that many organisations are faced with. How do you guys tackle that?

Sophie: So again, we're very lucky there's some clever people in America because this year we've completely scrapped our performance rating model. So, our annual performance rating. And we've moved to a process which is where every quarter we want managers, and they set a task in our system, managers to have meaningful career conversations with each direct report every quarter.

We are shifting to a coaching and feedback model, but the point of moving to these quarterly conversations if you like – which we hope they're happening more regularly than that – but at least they'll be happening every quarter with this new model, is because we want to empower employees to have more air space to be able to share what their aspirations are or just which is where they want to grow, where they see themselves, but also, we're training managers on coaching and feedback to help with that.

Because I've definitely noticed whilst in this role, when it comes to leadership roles, not everybody aspires to them or knows what they are or wants to do it. And because I also look at, I also do STEM in my role as well. And you know, it's terrifying, the deeper you go into like the wise data and how like at the age of 6 girls start talking themselves out of growth because everything's got to be perfect in their world.

So, kind of right down to that early age through to, you know, certain groups of people in the business they could be talking themselves out of future leadership roles. And then this whole aspiration to have more diversity of thought at the boardroom decision-making table, it just gets harder and harder.

So, I'm excited we've moved to these quarterly conversations to create space for the employees and kind of, we also recognise you've got to support the managers to make those conversations effective. And we're also, you know, I'm trying to do a lot in the background to just showcase as much as we can.

I feel like years ago we used to, yeah, we'd nominate people to do stuff. And then that's kind of when I moved into this role, I thought, is that really, you know, the best way to do certain things?

Obviously, there are certain things you have to, but, you know, I'm really glad the last year there's been more early career but future leader kind of training and stuff like that for the first time we've made application-based only, rather than us making assumptions on who we think should do it, because just those little tweaks, I hope when we look back in five years, will have made an impact.

But again, we've got senior leadership team who get it and they're working so hard just to try and break down kind of myths or be more available and be more kind of not in a not in a weird way but like more ‘role modelly’ in a sense where I want. I can see myself doing that, you know, and that kind of thing. So no, it's definitely it's, yeah, it's been my favourite few years with the company, I'd say.

Cia: So interesting, Sophie and I feel like I could talk to you about this stuff all day, but we do have to move on to the final question. And it's one that we ask all of our guests and that is what is your top tip for activating your employees and aligning their aspirations with your organisational goals.

Sophie: So, this might not be the best tip, but it's how I've kind of lived in this role, which is just talking about things. So, you know, I'm a chatter box anyway, but I've talked to people in different roles, different levels, you know, right to the MD, to graduates, just talk to them about ideas and vision and thoughts. When I reflect back actually what I was doing was dip checking.

Well, two things, dip checking like, am I kind of is my brain going the right way? What do they think? Trying to get some thoughts and ideas from them, but also trying to, you know, plant the seeds as well to kind of get them get them excited and also luckily we've got a comms team who every third story I think I've sent them the content for it because yeah we are just really showcasing a lot of things that we're doing and I do truly feel like that has activated something in the workforce.

Cia: Brilliant stuff, Sophie. It is always such a pleasure to talk to you. And just to hear from like-minded people making the world of work a fairer and better place. And it's been so rewarding for the team at WithYouWithMe to be partnering with you guys on this for a number of years as well.

So thank you for all that you do and for sharing your DE&I tips with our audience today and for anyone wanting more information or to connect with Sophie please head to our website that’s withyouwithme.com and search for our Employee Activation podcast so you can access all of the free resources and links to building and implementing effective diversity, equity and inclusion practices in your own workforces. Thank you again, Sophie for joining us and we will see you all next time.