Pernille Hippe Brun: 0:04

Welcome to Work in Progress, a podcast series where I pick the brain of thought leaders within the field of people and culture. My name is Pernille Brom and in these talks we explore the latest trends shaping the future of work and the evolving landscape of modern organizations. Today, I'm speaking with Maiken Jol Heskia and Louise Nielsen, who started a movement with the purpose of rethinking HR. All right, louise and Maiken, this is very exciting because it's my first time having two people as guests in this podcast ever. So it's a first for me. And the topic we're going to talk about is kind of to rethink HR, and I know you've started a movement with that headline exact headline but before we dig into that topic, let us know who are you and why don't we start with you, louise?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 1:01

Ye ah, well, my name is Louise, of course, course, and I've going back. I've worked my entire career with with people. That's been kind of the red thread throughout my career. I started as a nutrition consultant many years ago, working with the, with people development, in a more individual level, and then I became a manager a and worked with the leadership development and worked with, of course, my team on a more team-based level. And later I got the opportunity to take on some more strategic roles, working with the development on a more organizational level.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 1:40

And today I work in European Life Care Group, which is a company providing vaccination in different countries, both travel vaccination and influenza vaccination, and my current role is I'm the L&D manager on a global level.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 2:05

So I'm responsible for learning and development and for engagement and well-being across the organization. And also I have some roles in the Danish part, where I'm responsible for most of the Danish palette, the HR palette in Denmark as well, and I'm very occupied in looking at people and how can we get people and results and companies, organizations to meet and to be each other's not opposites, but kind of together? Yeah, exactly, I'm very much into looking at that. So, yeah, that's it, and it's a very interesting company I'm with now, because when I started we didn't have an HR department, so we built it all up from scratch. So, yeah, so that's been kind of a journey. One of the things that make it interesting is that we have obviously we operate in different countries, but we also have kind of a big seasonal fluctuation of employees because we have the vaccination of the flu every year. So once a year for three or four months we double in size, sometimes even more. So yeah, it's kind of big, but we are about a thousand employees.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 3:19

Wow, and so up until around 500, they didn't care to add HR.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 3:24

No, I think they have some external HR. But yeah, then my manager, our CHRO at the time. She started in January and I started in yeah, I think actually I had the three years anniversary yesterday, so I started a little bit after her and then we just the HR systems and the procedures and everything we had to build up from scratch, nice.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 3:47

Wow Interesting. We could host a whole episode just on that journey Right. And Maiken who are you?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 3:53

Oh yeah, who am I? I think I'll start with where I am now. Yes, and backtracking a bit to the fog of the years, the years. Currently, I have one neck in a company where we have bed and breakfast, we have retreats and we have a lot of companies coming for one or two days working with the team. That's like a total new part of my life, where I have started, together with my husband, this place for well. We will actually love to become the regenerative place for teams going on strategic work and team days, and so Wow, and what led you to that place?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 4:48

Yeah, that's a long story. Yeah, I think first of all it was the circumstances of having tried so many things within our professional life and feeling that we really needed to challenge ourselves in a new part. But also I have been with big corporates for many years, like the bank, nordea, and I've been in Telco in Denmark. We have the TDC Group, which is the biggest Telco company in Denmark. In Denmark, we have the TDC Group, which is the biggest tailwind company in Denmark. So I've been with the big companies within HR development and some years back I just had enough. I had burned downs quite a few times and every time when I rose back on my feet I was like I'm never going to end up here again and I think I realized it's not me, it's not necessarily my manager Sometimes it was but it was the structures.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 5:58

It was the structures.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 5:59

The structures, that how we work today, how everything is organized in the organization and I was being HR part of that Keeping that system of performance more faster, less people kind of thinking Okay.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 6:29

So it was a drawback from that into where you actually are today.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 6:35

Yeah, I think so, because I quit my corporate job.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 6:42

And then, how did you two meet?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 6:48

corporate job. And then how did you two meet? Well, yeah, I saw a post Maiken did on LinkedIn talking about HR well-being and what do we do when HR is not thriving, and I felt immediately that it was something that I wanted to be a part of. She had a comment in one of her postings saying would someone like to get together and talk about well-being in HR? And of course, I was immediately interested because that's one of the things that I've been really thinking about the past couple of years. I've seen HR colleagues have burned down and having just not even that bad, but just having issues and having nowhere to go with those issues. Maybe they have issues with their manager, and if that's the CHRO, where do we turn? Because there's not an HR for HR. So that's yeah. And then we managed to establish quite a big group of people and then we met up at Mike's beautiful place a bed and breakfast and assembled a group of people.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 7:48

And then we met up at Martin's beautiful place, a bed and breakfast and and assembled a group of people or just the two of you in the beginning to talk about what this group should be.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 7:52

All about was it just a whole group, a whole group yeah, and if you would allow me to maybe read aloud what you say when you talk about the group at LinkedIn, it says this group is for everyone who works in or with HR and who wants to be a part of movement that focuses on the often overlooked dilemmas and well-being issues that are implicitly a part of working in or with HR.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 8:15

We call the movement and the group HR Rethought because we want to start a wave of reflection and rethinking. What is HR really? How do we understand our own role and how can we create a more sustainable HR practice? We want to articulate and challenge the narratives that shape the perspective or the perception of HR, both from within the field and from the outside. At the same time, we want to shed light on the dilemmas and well-being challenges that many HR face and which often do not get the attention they deserve. We must find solutions for what to do when HR itself is not thriving. In short, hr rethought is a movement toward a more sustainable HR practice. Did you formulate this yourself or was that the whole group who made this text come together?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 9:07

I think it was based on the discussions we had in the group. Why are we here? What is important and what do we want to actually accomplish? What is our goal? Not just looking at the problems, but also looking at what solutions would we like to get to? And I think, for my part at least, it was really an experience meeting up with people thinking in solutions very fast, but we're not enough. So what do we do? How can we spread this? And, seeing from just one post I made about it, there were so many comments, so many sharings about the post, so it was very easy to take the steps in. We need to formulate this in some kind of what do we want to do? And it's not just rethinking, because you can rethink and make a less good organization out of it, right. So we have some cornerstones in it. It's very important. It has to be for the better, a better work life.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 10:23

Yeah, yeah. And it started out that we were only supposed to, not only, but the headline was talking about HR not thriving and what do we do? But as we got to talk more and more, we realized that there are so many aspects of HR not thriving. It can be, of course, it can be someone having a bad relationship with their manager or with the CEO or someone like that, but it's also the narratives that lies within HR. It's also the mandate that we have or do not have. So there's so many aspects in HR not thriving and that's why we thought we need to do something bigger than just a little network group. We need to make a movement. We need to do something better, something bigger.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 11:07

Yes, and we have more than 800 now.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 11:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow, it's impressive.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 11:13

So it is a movement.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 11:14

Yeah, the first 24 hours we were 150. Then three days in we were 350. And now was it the 1st of June, we started. Now we're more than 800.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 11:24

Yeah, that's incredible and what do you think sparks this interest? I think that's really a question that I've been thinking about. So why is it so many are drawn into this question about what is HR and also thriving in HR this question about what is HR and also thriving in HR and today on my way in here, I came to think about when I was doing my thesis. I was working as HR manager, doing my thesis at the same time, and there I looked into so how has HR developed, starting out as the place where you got your contract and then a contract and maybe also some of your rights or salary. The wages were created in that department, so kind of okay, is it a part of their CFO responsibility or is it something else? So it sort of just came out of the policy kind of department right and grew into oh, we need also someone to speak the employee's mind and help employees.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 12:40

And then it took another step. It was like, ah, that's not good enough and I also want to be into the business. So HR moved into the leadership teams, becoming more and more the tool for leadership. I think what never happened was that HR really was there for some specific thing, a specific need on its own. It's also always supporting something and I think next step would be if HR can be someone who looks into the future and develop the organization towards that future with the people. So we have been supporting business for the business, for the profit. We haven't developed the business for the people itself.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 13:33

And is it kind of like now HR is suffering due to that history or legacy or whatever, in terms of you know positioning oneself but also being at peace with oneself at that new position perhaps?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 13:49

I think HR never took the stand of. Am I a support function or am I really someone with a mandate on the same level as the rest of the directors around the table?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 14:02

Yeah, and I think it's also sometimes difficult to talk about HR because that's at least what I've seen. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn, posting once or twice a week and a lot of the time about HR. So I've engaged in a lot of conversation on LinkedIn, but also outside, and what I realized is that sometimes we talk about two different things. We talk from very different perspectives because everyone has an opinion about HR, everyone has feelings about HR, everyone has some sort of experience about HR and it's very different because it depends on HR.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 14:40

How HR are being practiced in organization depends a lot about the culture in the company, but also the maturity in the company. So sometimes we just talk from different perspectives and it makes it difficult to talk about the same thing because sometimes at some organizations there are not a lot of majority within HR, so it's just a function, doing salary and contracts and more administrative tasks. And if a person from that department talks to a person where as myself I come from a place where we have a lot of mandate in HR, we are part of the top management, so we are a lot different than just administrative tasks. So it makes it a little bit difficult to talk about the same thing when we have such different perspectives, of course, yeah, it's, whether you are speaking from the same level or perspective.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 15:33

Yes, exactly, and personally, what led the both of you to kind of be interested in starting this movement based on your own experiences? What was it in your own background or experiences that led you to think now is the time to start this movement?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 15:52

Yeah, as I mentioned, I saw Maiden's post and was drawn to it because it spoke to my own feelings about HR, because I've seen and also experienced myself to struggle a little bit in HR. I've seen and also experienced myself to struggle a little bit in HR. Also, one of the other narratives is do we work for the results or for the people? But it's kind of it goes together, it has to go together. So I think the well-being in HR was something that I've found very much interesting to talk about and really wanted a solution to.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 16:22

And when we broadened it a little bit out to be more than just well-being in HR but also rethinking HR, I think I can feel a little bit of resistance in myself because there's a lot of movements going on with recruitment and some say, oh, we need to quit all of the activities in the HR annual wheel and we just need to burn the HR annual wheel and start all over, and I can feel a little bit of resistance towards that.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 16:49

So usually when I feel resistance, I think it's interesting and I want to dig a little bit deeper into it because I think sometimes we have the tendency to just say we just need to burn it all, we can't really use it. But what I think we need to do is to use the same initiatives that we have. It could be performance management dialogues and could be the way we recruit. But how do we do it and why do we do it? To work kind of sometimes in HR, especially in the organizations that might not have a very high level of majority. We work more from inside HR and out to the organization, and we need to work from the organization and in. So we need to look at what are the needs in the organization and work with that, because that's where we get the results, yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 17:37

So your advice would kind of be to look at what is it we have, but how do we then implement it and use it and how is it also received in the other ends, rather than ditching it all and starting all over, necessarily, and maybe we need to ditch some of it, but we at least need to talk about what value does it create?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 17:57

Because it needs to create value when it's being used in the business yeah, being used in the business.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 18:02

Yeah, you kind of took the perspective of getting out to look at it from the outside. You're still in it, kind of.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 18:14

Does that give you another perspective? There was another step, though. Yeah, because I came out of the big corporate and into a small organization where I was asked to help the transformation from classical hierarchy to a totally flat co-leading organization. That was clever.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 18:32

That was clever. Yeah, the company clever.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 18:36

And that was actually the first time where all the thoughts I had during the years where I struggled with HR and I always struggled with HR because there were so many things in the way what we are supposed to support I thought was not human friendly. So every time I had a new assignment I had to try to put the best I could into it, notching in a little bit of humanity, so to say, in Clever. I got for the first time more or less freedom to translate HR into a totally new way of doing it. So I couldn't just say okay, so usually we would do this or that. When I was head of talent and leadership development, I was trying to do something new and I could see from my old colleagues who had been there for ages they were like yeah, yeah, I've done that, try that it doesn't work.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 19:46

I could look at it and say, okay, this is what we usually do, so that's not what we are going to do. So I did toss everything away. I did burn all of it or not me, we did. I was the first one in the people team but recruited into it. So every time we took a classical HR process or concept, we looked at it to see what not to do.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 20:18

Yeah.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 20:19

Okay, interesting.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 20:21

And is that something you would advise others to do? Yeah, definitely.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 20:25

Yeah, definitely.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 20:28

So is it kind of like possible for everybody to then end up organizing themselves the same way as, for instance, clever does, or is it okay to stay in a more hierarchical structure and still be able to rethink HR? Yeah?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 20:43

Today, besides having our little place down there out of Copenhagen, here I do a lot of leadership developments with teams and I don't think we need to take all leaders out of the equation. You can use the leadership, but you have to have a new position. So what we do, when I work with teams or organizations, I start saying, okay, we have to put ourselves in a new position. So we go from what you could say being a chief into a shepherd. So you don't stand in front, you don't point towards the future as the leader, with your back to your organization. You have to go behind the organization and be the shepherd, leading it safely towards the shared purpose.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 21:48

It's kind of interesting when you think about the concept of followership right, yeah, it's almost because what was meant when that movement started? A followership? It was literally to gather people behind you.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 21:59

Exactly.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 22:00

There was no new thinking in that, no but what they thought about was very much that you had to earn your position as a leader. So it was a movement away from the top down.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 22:11

but the image or the picture, Maybe still top down, but more you could choose to follow Exactly.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 22:20

Just the whole concept that people actually would choose maybe not to follow you.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 22:27

I mean I wouldn't take all the managers out of the organizations, not at all. That's not where I am now. I would take the tools, the tricks, the processes from the co-leading organizations and implement some of the thinking, some of the routines. Some of the thinking, some of the routines, some of the ways of putting your decisions out, from the leader to the specialist and not only the task, because that's what I see many leaders. Okay, I'm very good at distributing power. No, you're good at distributing the task. The hands has to do something, but you don't give the decision power.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 23:13

They still have to run back to you to ask permission and is that kind of what you try to do at your company?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 23:19

yeah, to kind of do it in the small, because I'm obviously still very much in the middle of all of the things that Maiken left. But I think I maybe have a different approach. I'm trying to kind of change it from within, whereas you step a little bit out of it. But I think it's a very important point that it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone to do co-leadership or to even. We talked a little bit about also when we met that. Should we call it HR? Should we call it people and culture? That's also a very interesting debate.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 23:49

I made a post a few weeks ago about it and it also kind of exploded. I don't know how many. I made a list of all of the suggestions. And what can you call it when you're not allowed to call it HR? And back to talking about where I feel a little bit of resistance.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 24:04

The name is where I feel a little bit of resistance, because I think we are the human resources of the organization. We are human resources that should be treated well, should be motivated, should be engaged, but we are, when all comes to all, we are there for the business. So we are the human resources. But again, it's also very different from organization to organization, the maturity of the organization, will it make sense? I actually wrote with a guy this morning and he has a lot of explanation about why they change to people and culture and I said that makes completely sense because you actually ditched the entire HR wheel and you did something completely new. It makes sense, with a new name, to mark that.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 24:45

But from my point of view, I've been in organizations where the way we did HR are the way that we do people and culture. Right now we do look at all of the same aspects. So for me, no point in changing names. But I don't feel very strongly about one or the other. It's just. I want to have a discussion because I think it's important that we don't just change the name because everyone else does it and because it's a fashion thing, because what really would be the worst thing was changing the name, but only the name and not doing anything new. Because sometimes we also need to look a little bit outside of HR and see how do employees, how do all the people that we are really there for, that we're supposed to engage, how do they look at us? And sometimes I think a lot of them think it's kind of like what do they call it? New wine and new bottles.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 25:42

And I think it's kind of an internal discussion that doesn't really. They don't really bother everyone outside HR. They don't really care. They call HR, they call people and culture. They care about the support they get. They care about how the impact that we have on the business. So yeah, but I think it's a very interesting talk, but that's one of the places where I say I think it's fine to just be called still HR.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 26:08

We also had the discussion when we started this movement should we change the name? But I think we just concluded. Everybody knows what we mean when we say HR, and that way we actually also have everybody invited Correct. That way we actually also have everybody invited Correct. And whatever you call it anywhere, it doesn't really matter because it's the content that we need to look at and then it might develop. I mean, right now I would call it a human rescue, to be honest, human rescue.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 26:37

Yeah, and I got a lot of suggestions. I have a whole list Human relations, people, human generation resources, people and purpose, the personal department, people and business, and I could go on and on, but. And the need to rename, to rebrand the, the department that in some places are seen only as administrative. But but still we need to be careful not to again.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 27:12

I still, I want to stay in the hr name and work out from from there instead and it gives you a common ground to speak from, like you said, and then we can build on that. So you said human rescue. Why is that?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 27:29

Well, I think looking at the numbers on people burning out would just be one way to actually to say, okay, we need to rescue people. We need to look into why are so many people burning out these days and the number is not decreasing? There are so many reasons for that, but one main reason, I would believe, is that the structures we have. They are old. They are from the time we developed engines. So yeah, let's rescue the people.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 28:10

And where do we start? So if it's about systems, like you said in the beginning, that it wasn't you, it wasn't necessarily you the manager, but more the system itself where would you start? What part of the system would you change first?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 28:24

if you can and could, when I talk to leaders, they're okay, can you help us starting taking the first step on this path? Where should we start? And I haven't found one step, which should be the first Because, as you also say, say, it's about the maturity. So how mature is the organization? And next week I'm going to start up with a new company where I will give the first little push towards not co-leading. But they reached out and asked can you come and help us? And I said what is your problem? What is it that you need?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 29:09

We just missed the old days where we were engaged and had fun and people stayed after hours and we had a beer together and it's like, okay, and so how is it now? And it's just too many has to go back to the CEO to ask permission and they cannot decide for themselves and the engagement is not there. I was like okay, so it's not. You want to be co-leading and flat and take out all the managers? No, no, no, we just want to have fun, yeah, being alive. And and I think they reached out to me because I've been working with a regenerative leadership as a consultant for the last couple of years and they have heard about a regenerative leadership should be something about a life having fun setting free and they are in a creative business, so I think it's one step for them is to okay.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 30:09

So we are going to train how to make decisions out there Interesting, not letting everything roll back to the CEO. But how do you, as a CEO, let go, or as a manager or partner in the organization, how do you let go and still have the confidentiality and feeling safe about it? And feeling safe about it? And there are good, really good ways of doing that if you look to the sociocratic thinking. So that's what we're going to start with. So that's very interesting.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 30:53

So it's about looking at the current state of the organization what is it they say that's not working, and then looking at what is it that you maybe need to replace and what you need to ditch, maybe, but also what can you build on and make different within the same structures. So here it's not so much about changing the structures, but more it is also the structures.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 31:18

So we we're gonna start working with how how is the meeting structure? Yeah, how do we have meetings? And I asked them describe a meeting and it was like, yeah, well, some come on time, some stay, come a little late, and many are working, also doing something on their phone or on their laptop while we're having a meeting. It's always the same people speaking and some are not saying anything. Okay, so let's try something new. So it is about new things and I was very inspired with your last podcast with Ed Lay.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 31:53

Ed Lay exactly.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 31:55

Where he said he starts with the question instead of telling people I start with the how can we do a new habit? So we start the meeting structure. It's very specific meeting structure and people they get the feeling of it and when they have tried it, just a little bit like, ah, that's really nice because now, with the structure, with the facilitation of the meeting, they could relax because they was not eager to get the word, because they knew, as I was facilitating, they will get their time. So they relaxed, they started listening, they started getting ideas and no interruptions and no hacking of the meeting. And then, okay, we want more of that. Yeah, so that's where we're gonna stop of course.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 32:49

Okay, interesting and where? Where have you looked to when in terms of looking at changing some procedures or systems in order to make it more life-giving? What? What you offer as hr?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 33:03

yeah, I think when you come from the place where I come from, where we had to build everything up from scratch and there was nothing, so people didn't know what to expect from HR. So we had to, of course, look at the business need, but we also had to just throw something out there and see how does that work and then follow up and keep evaluating all the time, often evaluating the business needs and our initiatives. And, for instance, we had performance and development dialogues. We had that in our headquarter, we had that in our clinics. We had the two times a year and I could just see that I really had to pull up the managers every time. We had to do it the second time.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 33:44

The first time was fine, but then we had one in the summer as well and it was really hard getting them to respond and getting them to do it. So I was like, okay, maybe we should just do it only once. And they were like, yeah, we should only do it once. And then I turned to the managers for our clinics and I said I was very excited because I was going to announce to them that I would let them only do it once a year. And as we talked through the meeting I could just hear that it wasn't really creating value to have those conversations and I was like why are we even doing it? Should we just remove it completely and then find another way to talk development with our employees? So that's kind of one of the examples of starting out Like this is the optimal, this is what we want to do, but then realizing along the way that we need to do some adjustments and sometimes need to just remove it and start all over again.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 34:36

So are you now at a state where you actually don't know what to do in terms of when it comes to development conversations?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 34:43

No, we know what to do, because I think when we remove something we need to put something else instead. We can't just remove it. So I talk to them instead about having they have one-on-one dialogues with their employees to kind of incorporate the talk a little bit more into the one-on-ones that they have with their employees. Instead of doing a heavy process with a system with forms, you need to fill out doing it a little bit more light, at least for that employee group. So it's kind of keep looking at how does this work, and what works now might not work in six months. So it kind of also underlined the importance of being close to the business in Asia.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 35:22

Yeah, and it sounds like a lot of listening and a lot of feedback and a willingness to pivot if it turns out that yeah, exactly you need to put away your pride saying I built up this process from scratch.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 35:33

I think it's a very good on paper process, but in reality it doesn't really work the way I intended it to. So yeah, sometimes you need to swallow your pride a little bit as well.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 35:42

I think it's spot on when you say that when you take something away, you have to put something instead, and especially when you think about what you do is out of habit. If you take that away and you don't put something new in, then yeah. What I aim to do, at least with this rethinking HR, is not to take away HR, but to rethink and replace.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 36:15

Maybe we should replace HR also, but the replacing of habits, and it sounds like an emergent thing.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 36:26

You know it's evolving, it's constantly alive, yeah but people are evolving and organizations are evolving, so we need to keep up the beat all the time. Keep our feet. So what does?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 36:39

a sustainable HR practice. Look like for you.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 36:46

I had this picture in my head when I was thinking about what is a sustainable HR and honestly, I kind of feel that we are trying to fill the bucket with water with this. You. I mean that's not ever going to happen. We are not ever going to fill up the bucket with water with the shoe. I mean that's not ever going to happen. We're not ever going to fill up the bucket with the shoe. So I would say that we have to throw away that shoe and find something new. And then we're back to the structures. If we want to make sustainable HR, we have to find the core of why we are here, and that's people. And until now, and still in many organizations, people is secondary to profit. So sustainable HR will never happen as long as profit goes before people.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 37:41

Yeah, and that's also one of the narratives that you have to choose between results, these kind of the hard parts of the business and the people. They are just the soft part of the people.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 37:53

The flesh and the bone.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 37:54

Yeah, exactly, and it doesn't really work like that. If you focus on the people, the results will come, and I think that's also kind of a movement going on, but sometimes there is a little bit setback and then. But yeah, I think it's, as long as we focus on the people, then we will get. We will get the results.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 38:12

We will not get the results if we don't focus on the people and we have heard that over and over for I mean 20, 30 years, but we have kept on doing the same. So we rethink, we think we rethink things, but it's actually just the same we continue to do. I remember what is that? Eight years ago or something, I was to develop a new process for performance management. So at that time everyone was talking about how expensive performance management setup is for business, time consuming, new systems and all that, but nobody really found out what to put instead.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 38:56

And I saw one organization, really big, worldwide organization. They had found a new way. So instead of putting a number on people, saying, okay, I rate you on a scale of one to five, they made a slider. What the heck? Are people stupid enough to think that a slider is not a number? It's a visible number. So I think we have been trying to rethink it, but we haven't. We have built on the same skeleton for all these years, and that's what I mean about the system. We have to take some of the system down, build a new system.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 39:35

And what's wrong with giving people numbers?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 39:38

Well, the assumption is that we should do it without numbers, but you cannot put a slider in instead, no, and for my part, well, I did believe that it would be better not to work with the numbers. Why? Honestly, maybe because I was out of a tradition. I've been to a school where we never got rated by numbers. I never had one number rating me in my entire life before I had to go to the university. That's when I started having numbers on my performance. What I had was teachers who knew me and had a talk with me and wrote down. I see that you could evolve here or practice there, and you're really good at that. So keep on the good work. And that's a conversation. That's what we should have with our employees Instead of having the big systems one or twice a year. Have the conversation, feel people, help people, ask people. Where do you want to be? Okay, how can I help you go there?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 40:53

Do you use numbers? We use numbers, yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 40:56

And how does that play out? Yeah, but.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 40:58

I think it works fine. We educate both our managers and our employees on what the numbers mean, and we really educate our managers as well in delivering the numbers. So, yeah, we use the numbers, but again, everything has sometimes to be taken up to re-evaluation. But yeah, at some point we are very traditional with how we're doing things, especially in performance management.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 41:29

It is a very traditional way of doing things, and has anyone rebelled against it or said that this doesn't work for me?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 41:38

No, no and I also think that sometimes we need to call things what they are and we need to have a clear vision of what am I? How am I doing here? Uh, okay, it's on a scale from one to five. I'm a three, that's fine, but if I'm a two or one, then I need to really do something. I think sometimes it also it's also good. Back to the the talk about the name, people and culture. We're trying to hide that we actually are the human resources of the organization. That could feel a little bit like we're trying to hide that we actually are the human resources of the organization. That can feel a little bit like we're trying to hide what we're doing by calling it a different name. But again, ask me six months from now, maybe I will say we ditched the numbers. We're doing it in a completely different way. Again, it's also again back to the majority of the organization and the HR function. Yes, it's also again back to the majority of the organization and the HR function, yeah, yes.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 42:26

And then I think when, if I was asked that question about what does a number do to you? It's very much about being assessed. You know you are assessed in a system and that you can fail kind of like this Fail as a human being. Exactly Kind of like this fear as a human being, exactly I think also you look into.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 42:47

I mean working with ratings for so many years in all organizations. I think I've made a performance management setup for three times or so. I've also been at the review sessions with the managers looking at the entire next liners and one manager saw that Peter was really good and the next year the manager had moved out or was fired or whatever. And the new manager saw well, I don't like Peter, I like Karsten better.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 43:19

So it's a subjective assessment but again, I think it's back to how we're using it. Also, I think it's very big on LinkedIn to kind of throw every HR activity in the HR wheel under the bus, sometimes talking about how do we use performance and development dialogues, how do we use CVs in applications, and it's about how you use it. It's not always about what you do, but it's about how we use it and I think that's important how we talk about it in the organization.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 43:56

And maybe even further, taking a step even further back, asking why are we?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 44:00

doing this.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 44:03

Yes, and if we can answer that we're doing it to know who are our talents and who should we say goodbye to, then you're rating people still on very subjective matters. But be honest about that. I would love to see that go. I would love to see that go, but if the world is not ready for it, well, it may take some time before we can develop people without a number, but I think it's going to come, but I've also seen it.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 44:37

Instead of a number then we use names or categories, but then again we're back to the slide back to the slider again. It's, it's the same. So yeah, but also sometimes it's it's not only the majority in HR, it's also the majority in in the management team and the leadership team, and the CEO should to say, okay, this is the traditional, then we start with that. Then we can work on on kind of softening up the processes a little bit. Yeah.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 45:06

If you find an HR professional who is part of an organization where they are kind of the only one and they would really like to start rethinking or doing it differently, what would one of your advice be for them?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 45:22

To be curious on the business, to to talk to the business again, work not from hr and out, but from the business and into hr. So we we look at what are the business needs, what? What? Because it it? It cannot be just rethinking hr because hr think it's a good idea and because everyone else in hr does it. It needs to be rethinking hr because the business needs it. So so that would definitely and be curious. Be curious about the business, be curious about why are we doing it the way we are and talk to some other people, get some share, some experiences and so it's actually what?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 45:58

what you're saying is to find partners that are outside the hr department to pair up with in this reflection and rethinking wave movement.

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 46:08

Yes, yeah, and also peers within HR to kind of spare with and have the dialogues with. Yeah.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 46:18

I think actually I would recommend to go and look outside HR, outside the organization, and look towards people who are future-oriented. What are they foreseeing? So, instead of looking at what do we have, what do the organization need? It's just like asking a hungry child what do you want to have for dinner, dear? You might just look a little further and say what would you need for dinner to grow and sleep well and be strong tomorrow?

Pernille Hippe Brun: 46:56

And was that also very much what you meant right in the beginning of this podcast about that HR is evolving into becoming the department for the future?

Majken Juel Heskjær: 47:04

I think so. I think if we put ourselves out there, being right on the edge between the organization and the future, we might be better in helping the organization moving towards that. And if we don't do that, the organization is left behind from the organization coming up evolving, from the new generations of organizations, and they don't want that shit. Sorry my language, but I do believe that if we are to be relevant for future organizations, we have to be on the edge. Yes, translating the future into organizational new habits.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 47:49

Well, I think this podcast episode clearly shows us that we need this dialogue, because I love how you build on each other, but also that you're not necessarily coming from the same place that you are coming from where you are right now, and also your own experiences, of course, and this is a big takeaway for me already in this episode here. What do you hope that listeners of this episode can take away from listening?

Louise Hoe Nielsen: 48:16

I hope they can take away some curiosity for the HR agenda, for looking into the listeners if they are inside of HR, could go home and have some not go home but could have some new ideas, some kind of just keep the thoughts going on how to do HR, to do HR in a new way, and they might not be in an HR department that have the majority to change something big but do like small, small steps and do kind of reflections on on how can we do hr going forward, because I think it's it's necessary to do some, also because hr is in many ways the heart of the organization. So it's, it's what we do in hr doesn't only affect hr, it affects all of the people in the organization. So it's so important this work and rethinking HR is not only rethinking for a more sustainable HR practice within HR, but it goes beyond that.

Majken Juel Heskjær: 49:18

It goes out throughout the entire organization. I think if the listener will look at their current task right now, just stop and look at it and say, and by just copying what has been done, and how could it look? What does good look like? If I look into the future, how can this process I'm creating or this task I'm doing, how can that bring us into the future? And that's a little abstract. So maybe hopefully the listeners will be part of our group and it's very Danish. It's only called HR Genting or HR Genting, so for now it's very Danish. But what if it becomes global? What if we make circles of new groups or international groups? I think my hope would be that we will meet up in countries to see how can we develop, how can we make circles around themes and develop that together. And that would be really really great to see not only the Danish part grow, but maybe we could grow out and be international.

Pernille Hippe Brun: 50:40

Well, isn't that a great way to maybe end this podcast international? Well, isn't that a great way to maybe end this podcast? I hope that it was um interesting for you to have this conversation today with me. I learned a lot. Uh, there were many perspectives I hadn't thought about before. So thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for having us. Yeah, you've been listening to the work in Progress podcast on people and culture. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share on social media. For more resources on people, culture and working in a modern world, please visit GetSessioncom and check out our articles, guides, webinars and more. Thanks for listening.