How AI can make workplaces psychologically safer with Barbara Phillips

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Hi, Roger.
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Hello, Sarah.
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How are you doing?
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I'm very well.
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How are you?
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I'm very well, thank you.
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Good, good.
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So today we're going to be talking to a really interesting guest, Barbara Phillips, who runs Brownstone Communications.
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And she's developed something called the Brownstone EDI Guru, which is an AI assistant trained on UK equality and employment law.
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So that'll be really interesting to talk to her about that and how it helps employees, managers, and HR understand the rights and responsibilities without creating policy or replacing legal advice.
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So her focus is building psychological safety through clarity and consistency.
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And I'm interested to find out more.
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And I think what we're hoping to do is set a bit of background first, so find a little bit about Barbara, also get her definition of psychological safety both, both in the technical sense, but also in the practical, how that shows up at work.
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And then we've done a little bit of prep where we'll gonna throw a few scenarios at her um tool and see what it comes up with or see see how it would respond to some of these scenarios.
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So really interesting how she's using AI in this way as well as a as a as a conver to have a conversation with in a way that's secure as well.
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So really looking forward to our chat.
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Excellent, let's let's jump in.
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So welcome to the podcast, Barbara.
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Hello, thank you for having me.
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Excellent.
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So Barbara, tell us about you and uh what you do.
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So my name is Barbara Phillips.
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I am a PR and comms professional, have been for 25 plus years, but it's always run alongside lots of efficacy.
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I've done lots of voluntary work, whether it's social justice, whether it's you know racism, whether it's EDI or DEI, I prefer EDI.
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Um, so those two have always gone hand in hand.
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But my day job, if you like, is strategic communications, change communications, helping organizations just have decent cultures and decent workplaces, which we'll I'm sure we'll come on to.
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But I'd say that's what I'm I do right now.
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I mean, you know, like everyone, you've been around a very long time.
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Hopefully, if you're lucky, it grows and it evolves, and I've kept it evolving, so I'm always 100% interested, and I haven't switched off or become jaded, which can happen.
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Are you being kept busy at the moment?
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Not busy enough, actually.
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Well, not busy with this sort of work that I prefer to do, but you know, we all have financial commitments, put it that way.
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So you you do what you need to do, but I'd like more of the advocacy work, and I'd like to do more of getting under the skin of why our corporate cultures are the way they are after many, many years, and after literally millions of words have been written, I'm sure, about what good looks like.
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Why isn't it good?
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I think I'd like to do more of that.
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Great.
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Um, so one of the things that you've done that was really interesting, you know, we you had a a pre-chat was your work on the EDI Guru Registered Trademark.
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Yes.
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Um, tell us a little bit about that.
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Well, how it all started was um we've all had some fairly unpleasant experiences at work.
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And I think most of the time when we have experiences at work or in life generally, it's the uncertainty.
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You know, you wonder, is that me?
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Am I just ultra-sensitive today?
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Was that really what I thought it was?
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And as I said earlier, you know, I know what good looks like.
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You go on leadership courses, you go on training courses, and they say to you, Yeah, this is a great culture, this is a good leadership style, you know, servant leadership is the one to be, etc.
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But then you you often go into the workplace and it's just not like that.
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And you think to yourself, you know, where is the disconnect?
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So that's where it really started from my own personal experiences.
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And then also, if you look at the world today, what where we are today globally, without being, you know, pontificating, um, a lot of people are not they don't feel safe and they don't feel reassured.
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Now they don't feel safe in their homes, they don't feel safe generally, but there is one place where you are supposed to be, you know, you're supposed to feel safe, and that is that what in the workplace.
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In the workplace, your your employer has an obligation to make sure that you know you feel safe, and this is not just you know hard machinery and making sure your fingers don't get chopped off in factories, this is psychological safety as well.
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And psychological safety has been around a very long time, but it's still not used or adhered to as much as it could be.
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So I thought to myself, you know, there's the whole feeling of uncertainty and people not feeling safe or not having a place where they feel sure.
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Then there's these, you know, it's corporate culture which could always do with improvement, and then you add into the equation, people we know AI is around, people are, you know, people know about Chat GTP and all the very various other um agents and assistants, and people are still thinking how do I use this?
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And there's so much written about don't use it on your CV, don't use it in a press release, people can tell.
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And actually, in fact, as an aside, there's a whole universe that I've just found out about where all of the assistants and agents can talk to each other.
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Have you heard about that one?
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And you can't, um only humans can only observe.
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I thought, oh my lord.
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But uh it's like, okay, I don't know if that's where we wanted to go.
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So if you put mix those all together, and I thought, well, here we are, we have AI, it's technology that's available to us, and people are fairly comfortable with it.
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But let's not just use it to try and make ourselves feel perfect, let's not just use it to say, you know, it's perfection, look at this, you know, it's the most brilliant piece of copy I've ever written.
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Let's use it the way that it's actually being used because another um piece of information that I'm sure everyone knows is the the highest use usage of Chat GPT is for friendship, it's for the whole, you know, almost like a therapist, it's for comfort.
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And I thought, well, okay, uh, I'm in line with that.
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Being an NLP coach as well, have been for 20 plus years.
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I'm in line with that.
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So, how would I like to apply um AI?
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And I thought, okay, if EDI Guru, which is what it's called, essentially is a way for you to have those conversations, they're almost self-interrospection, have those conversations about how you're feeling, specifically about work but life as well.
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How you're feeling, what's happening, for you to really just get a handle on what's going on in your workplace without having to talk to your line manager because they might be the issue, or having to go to HR.
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Because sorry, HR, HR isn't always doing what it's supposed to do in terms of looking after employees.
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So I know this is a long-winded uh no, it's great.
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Context essentially it's putting all those things together.
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Thought the the way how would I want to use AI?
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You know, I'm not a technophone, but how would I want to use them?
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And this is how I thought I'd want to use it.
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So, in a nutshell, um, I have trained it with obviously some designers because I'm not a technical person, but I have trained it to you get access to the Equalities Act 2010, which is Hughes, the new employment laws um rights act that's just come out, everything from ACAS, any sort of policies to do with I do work, I do I do work, payroll, um, I do things like social mobility, it has neurodivergency, it's all the things is kind of workplace that you just want to make yourself feel more assured about.
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And there is you can have this is an assistant, and you can chat with that in absolute confidence, and nobody needs to know your business.
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And I think we've all been in a scenario at work, it doesn't not necessarily badly.
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Sometimes when you're gonna go for promotion, you think, hey, what do I need to do?
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You know, what's the what are my circumstances?
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You want to have that confidential conversation, but you kind of want to have it with yourself.
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So that's what the chat, that's what our the assist A EDI assistant does.
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It allows you to interact with all of the laws, all of the policies.
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Uh, when organizations take it on, they can actually load their own employee policies if they want to, if not just stick to.
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But it's on a separate VPN that nobody has access to.
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I don't have access to it, and nobody will know what you're saying and when.
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That sounds absolutely fantastic.
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One thing that would be good.
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Um, Sarah and I did do some preparation for this.
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So we have got a few potential scenarios, it'd be interesting to get your views on.
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But before we do that, it'd be good to just get your actual definition of psychological safety because it's something that you hear being mentioned more and more, and potentially people sometimes mention it without entirely knowing what that means.
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So it'd be really great just to get a definition of what that means for people in the workplace.
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Yeah, the person who actually coined it, whose name escapes me now, which is great, um, she was a Harvard law professor, um, well, or or definitely stuff studied at Harvard, and or it was about your business.
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Um, and the idea is in a psychological safe environment, you can actually turn up and be who you are supposed to be.
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I'm gonna, you know, I'm not gonna downgrade it, but in sort of layman's terms, it means you turn up to work, be who you are, anything you need to support you is given, you know, given in terms of support.
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It means you can make mistakes and you go and get absolutely crucified.
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It means that the leadership realizes that people have days where they're not fabulous and other days where they are fantastic.
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It literally means it's not even the psycho psychology, it's the safety and it's that feeling of safety.
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And I think most people know when they feel safe, let's say in a team, if you're in a really good team environment, it's great because everybody's free, everybody is listened to, everyone's ideas are heard.
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If you say something really ridiculous, everyone just says maybe not, and then we laugh it off, and it doesn't follow you for the rest of your career while you're in that organization.
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So I think the focus really is, and I, you know, I should really have come back to you with the the official um definition, but my my version in terms of culture and working today is you can go to work, you can be yourself, you can make mistakes, and it's not career ending.
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It's not, you know, you haven't got a mark on you that take that means you don't get promoted and you don't get those opportunities because you said something that people, you know, maybe don't agree with.
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And by the same token, it doesn't mean you just turn up and say what you like, because we all we're all feeling now the idea of freedom of speech isn't freedom from responsibility or accountability, but it does mean that you feel safe enough to say, Look, I've got this idea, I don't know if it'll work.
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Everybody listens, and they draw down from the bits that work for whatever you're working on as a pro you know as a project, and then you move on.
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It's it's just that idea that it's it's safe, and this is my point earlier.
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Usually you get that at home with your family, you can talk about whatever you want to, you laugh, you joke, people say, Oh, that's ridiculous, and it's fine, they're still your friends and family at home, but somehow when you get to work, you know, it's a like almost like a taboo, and people are terrified to be themselves, and then you miss all the innovation and you miss the creativity and you miss the ideas, and people will leave because they're just terrified to speak or speak up.
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Yeah.
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So it was that it was Amy Edmondson.
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That's it, thank you.
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Yeah, coin the first.
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Oh, I could see Sarah, I thought she was struggling to try and remember a day when I wasn't happy with this.
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I have a look in my diary, I do note it.
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Um, yeah, so that, yeah, just uh uh but it's interesting you said that.
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And uh my question is um, why is it so hard for leaders to to get that right, to create that sort of psychological space?
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Well, you'll get no joy for me.
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On I mean, I've taught I've I've trained on lots of leadership courses, so you know, I'm uh in tune, I mainly work at that senior level when I'm when I'm training and I'm working.
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But a lot of it is choice.
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We don't take, you know, culturally in the UK is the you know, you can get away with an awful lot and not take accountability, you can do an awful lot and not take accountability for it.
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I think it's just the nature of our culture, but it's a choice a lot of the time because as I say, we all know what good looks like.
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We all have seen it and hopefully we've all experienced it, but maybe it's that nothing much in it for them.
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Um, even when you have the servant leadership style, the you know, I'm gonna almost sacrificial, I'm gonna do everything I can for my team and you know put myself last and what have you.
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Even in that scenario, there's always sadly, there's always an ulterior motive.
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And I think it's just the nature of corporate UK is the way that if you look at who, if you you look at who's been held up as successful, there's certain behaviours, sadly, that go with that kind of level of success.
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And very few people have the time or energy to go behind that and say, was that really successful?
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You know, you look at successful people, no one asks really successful CEOs if they're happy, for instance.
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They might have the title, they might have a huge salary, you know, they might on the outside it might look fantastic.
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I've worked with a couple who are truly miserable, you know.
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I've coached a couple who've stopped and done something completely different.
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One went to gardening from a from a CEO role, it started like a garden centre, because they're absolutely miserable.
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So I think it's the reason why it doesn't happen is because they're so far there hasn't been enough investment in terms of what's in it for me.
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And if I if I go to this side, if I do this servant leadership, or if I let everybody be themselves, will that hamper my progress?
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Will that hamper my you know trajectory?
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And still in corporate UK, we still are up one way up, you know, absolutely nobody wants to be lateral.
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Everybody still thinks it's the only way to go is up, even though it's a pyramid.
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And I think that's cultural.
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So I think culturally people understand it, but they haven't thought there's not enough of a risk of it, you know.
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I'm not gonna risk it because I might not benefit from it, and I think that's the truth of it.
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Yeah, I mean it is true that money doesn't necessarily buy you happiness, but I I just quite like the opportunity to prove that that's true.
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Hello, I'd like to test that that theory.
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So, um, what we did do, and um we are, as I say, we always say these are bite-sized, but if we're having a an interesting conversation, then we do like to to to continue it on.
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But we did just come up with a few scenarios to see what might happen if you um put these to your EDI guru, and that might be you know, you actually literally putting it in, or or what you think it might say.
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So we had one which was about a mid-sized organization that runs a promotion round.
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An employee discovers that despite consistently strong performance reviews, they were overlooked, and informally they hear hear feedback that they were not quite the right cultural fit for leadership.
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Um the employee happens to be from an underrepresented background, and there's no objective criteria or documented scoring used for the decision, and there's also no transparent appeals process.
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So when the employee raised concerns internally, they're told that they might be overinterpreting things.
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So if you were to place that scenario into your tool, what what kind of response would you get from it?
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That's a that's a great one, and that's a slam dunk.
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That's exactly when you wouldn't have the conversation, you'd go to the EDI guru before you had the conversation.
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That's exactly its purpose.
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So when you're thinking you have all these, you know, you've gathered all these information, you think, you know, there's there's absolutely no reason, I don't space on it.
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It's looking at it's a bit subjective, and this this whole it's a not cultural fit is a euphemism, usually, for you don't fit in with what we've decided our leadership should look like.
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And as I said earlier, generally leadership tends to be white, male, middle class, heteronormative, you know, very healthy, no disabilities, no mental health issues that we'd know about.
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It's almost like perfection.
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Um, and if that's what's held up as the bastion of success, if you don't fit in that scenario, then clearly, you know, you're not going to get promoted.
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So what the guru would say is it would pick up on those themes in terms of this whole language that shows bias straight away, whatever the bias, it could be LGBTQ, it could be disability.
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It's not always everyone always thinks it's always racism, it isn't always racism.
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There's gender, there's there's nine protective characteristics, so it could be any one of those.
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It would pick up on the language, and then it would give you, it would list you.
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I I've I've trained it so there's at least five scenarios, there's like five steps you can do, and some of them would be okay, gather your information, and then you know, uh make sure you look at your employee handbook.
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Was policy followed?
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Because before you go outside of the organization, you have to, you know, work within the policies of the organization you work for.
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So was there were the employee um guidelines and the employee handbook?
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Was that followed?
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And then you can start exploring, you can actually load scenarios like okay, when I went to do X, my colleague got Y, but I got Z, and it will get it will actually come back to you and say to you, that looks like it's based on you know racism, that um homophobia, Islamophobia, or and then it will give you the scenarios in terms of exactly what you say you've actually already done.
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It will say speak to whoever you need to speak to, follow the process, and if the process internally doesn't work for you, then it starts to say to you, okay, go to ACAS guidelines here.
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It'll give you the guidelines of what fair work policies are, it will give you the guidelines of what you can do next if you're not get getting you know the remedy that you want, but it's all within ACAS and employment law and the Equalities Act 2010.
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So your HR person, you become your own HR person essentially.
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When you go to HR and you say, Here you are, this is the policy, this is the steps that I I feel haven't been taken, but employment law says should they can't really dismiss you or gaslight you because that's the law, and this is all being enabled.
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The reason why people get in this scenario is because they don't know who's got time to study employment law.
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I haven't, you know, who's got time to study the employment the Equalities Act 2010, it's thousands of pages, but you can dip into the bits that's that apply to you, and you can when you go and have those conversations with HR or your line manager, whoever, it's informed.
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And my one of my main kind of core things was to stop you being gaslit because I spent most of my career being gaslit, too sensitive, Barbara, got a chip on your shoulder.
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Are you sure?
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I don't sure he didn't mean that about you know your family being you know from different countries.
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So would you you know appreciate British culture?
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Which is what I had said to me a long time ago.
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So I know I I've got rid of the gaslighting, and it's like, no, no, you can't actually say that because if you say that, it can be construed as bullying, as discrimination, and it never says, you know, this is discrimination, it just says it can be construed, which means there's always an opportunity for dialogue, it leaves you an opportunity for dialogue, um, and it will do that in any scenario, literally.
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So, what you've done is pretty good, it's but it would it would say it would I would advise you have the conversation with you know EDI Guru first before you speak to anybody externally because then you absolutely know where you stand.
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Oh, I've got a question.
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I don't know.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:39.279
Both got questions, haven't we?
00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:40.079
We're both jumping in.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:46.240
So with the EDI Guru, is it for businesses or individuals or both?
00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:50.799
It's for in the in actual my little intro pack, it's for leaders.
00:20:51.039 --> 00:21:16.799
So leaders can learn about behaviours outside of their own, because that's still a thing, and they can just understand a little bit more about what employees, how you know life is for employees, and also they can because leadership in you know in corporate UK does have one kind of you know, it's as I say, it's a white male, middle class, maybe public school educated, it's good for the let them know what life is like for somebody outside of their group.
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:38.799
So it's definitely for leaders if they want to do servant leadership or just want to be better in touch with their employees, it's for HR 100%, because on the flip side with HRs, they know that some of the stuff that Andrew got, but then no one's got time to you know have their there's there's not the employee the the Equality Act 2010, it's not sitting on their desk for you know casual reading, it's not there.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:59.519
So the idea is when they get uh uh an accusation, which a lot of accusations are spurious, they'll know exactly which bit, they'll know exactly what it's based on, and they can say, go back and it'll cut down on on the conflict, then go back and say, Well, actually, you know, the law says X, our policies say Y, let's see if we can meet somewhere.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:01.759
It will just reduce conflict.
00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:04.240
So it's for HR for the ones that care.
00:22:04.319 --> 00:22:08.880
And for the ones that don't care, they're going to get everything that they should really be doing.
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:17.599
Somebody's going to do half of your role for you because you really should be up on this is how you know employee law and how we work in organizations.
00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:18.960
And it's for individuals.
00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:23.599
And in my little blurb, I say, especially, and this is where it was personal.
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:26.720
I've worked in organizations where I'm the only black person.
00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:28.640
And that's quite hardgoing.
00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:30.559
I'm not going to lie, it's the only black person.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:33.839
And that's when you get comments like, you know, are you sure about that?
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:35.359
They're a bit oversensitive.
00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:38.000
I don't sure he didn't mean what he said.
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:41.119
Maybe he didn't, but let me tell you how it felt.
00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:47.599
And so if you feel that you're one of one, and small agencies, especially a lot of them don't have HR departments.
00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:49.759
You kind of have to be your own HR.
00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:56.720
So when you go and see your line manager or the MD or CEO, if it's that small, you can say, look, this is what happened with John.
00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:02.319
Um, this is what you know, I think good policy for UK corporate policy is.
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:04.400
Can we, you know, can we do something?
00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:10.319
And it again, it cuts through that whole conflict, you know, batting heads.
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:15.680
Because back in the day, when I'd go and have these conversations, I was laughed out of the room, so I'd just leave.
00:23:16.559 --> 00:23:21.279
So let's try and avoid that because there's actually nowhere to go right now in terms of jobs.
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:25.200
You I think you need to stay where you are because it's not great out there.
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:29.759
So I've got one more scenario if I could put this one to you.
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:45.680
So I think, and Sarah asked it was a really good question about who's this tool for, because I think you could have uh a disgruntled employee, and they could it this could be seen as a tool to if you like, prove that they're right and gather the evidence.
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:52.240
But there may be an instance where you know perhaps um there is another side to the story.
00:23:52.400 --> 00:24:04.559
So if there was a scenario, for instance, where um a manager gives direct but blunt feedback in meetings and someone perceives that as being dismissive and they report it as a psychological safety issue.
00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:13.680
However, other team members experience the same style and interpret it as efficient rather than hostile, and there's no evidence of targeted behaviour or differential treatment.
00:24:13.759 --> 00:24:19.279
And the manager's open to discussion, but just believes they're being professionally professional and consistent.
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:32.079
So if you were to sort of put a scenario in, is there ever that there is a place where it maybe says, um, if you like, ask you to consider your own own role in in a situation, does that happen too?
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:35.279
100%, and there's a whole section that's learning.
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:44.079
I've got a whole section, it's called all about racism, and there's another one I'm coming up coming that's coming about intersectionality, because that's that's the whole, that's the other half of it, if you like.
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:44.960
It's learning.
00:24:45.119 --> 00:24:53.359
So if you put something in and you're describing, look, my manager said XYZ, it will say, Well, actually, there's no grounds for racism.
00:24:53.440 --> 00:25:08.880
So no laws have been broken, and no, no policies have been broken, but perhaps you need to work on your relationship with your manager and look at your approach, it will actually say that to you because that's why I built it in, because it's the other side of the vexatious, you know, reports.
00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:12.720
Every time someone does, I've worked for people like that, every time they didn't get what they want, they went to HR.
00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:14.799
You know, they asked me to do something for them.
00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:17.119
I said, I'm really busy, I'm doing my own work first.
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:18.799
They reported me to HR.
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:28.400
Now that could have been racially motivated, or it could just be them being, you know, the way that they are, and when it came all the way back down, there was like no grounds, but just wastes everyone's time.
00:25:28.640 --> 00:25:31.359
So, and that's what I meant earlier in terms of HR.
00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:39.279
When HR get these vexatious, you know, complaints about oh, Barbara didn't do this and XYZ, I say, okay, what are your grounds?
00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:41.440
Where are you, what what's your base on?
00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:50.400
And that you can take that, you can take the law, the legal part out of it, and it gives you an opportunity to create psychological safety over working on your relationships.
00:25:50.640 --> 00:26:09.119
Because a lot of this, and in my blurb to um senior leaders, I talk about behaviours, and I say in brackets, including your own, because you know, no one leadership, some some senior leaders have the worst behavior, and because they're the CEO, MD, everyone has to just you know suck it up.
00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:11.440
But really, it's an again, it's an opportunity.
00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:15.279
Someone told me, who's who one of my users that it's it's a subscription base?
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:28.960
Some of one of the subscribers said to me, you know, this is really good because you've give presented it to senior leaders first, they can have a play, and some of the things they do that they think is acceptable, it will say to them, Absolutely, that's absolutely not acceptable.
00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:32.960
That's actually breaking the law, or that's going to give, you know, bad faith in the organization.
00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:34.640
But that's a private conversation.
00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:41.519
Nobody sees that, nobody sees their embarrassment or shame, and they know the next day, okay, they can make a choice.
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:52.480
All right, maybe I need to stop, you know, slapping whatever on the bum, and maybe I need to stop, you know, saying, Come on, we can do it when everyone's feeling miserable, and they'll realize maybe that's not great.
00:26:52.559 --> 00:27:11.599
Now, no one can have that conversation with that senior person, but the AI assistant can, you know, no shame, and you can have you can, you know, feel the shame, think okay, and then you can make a decision that I'm going to change the way I behave because it's probably not very good, and no one has to say that to you.
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:14.640
And I think that's one of the really important factors of it.
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:18.160
Yeah, so it's a it's just a really great assistant, isn't it?
00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:29.920
It doesn't replace, but it it assists in helping you get to decisions quicker, and like you say, making people much more aware of their own behavior as well.
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:43.359
Indeed, and other people and let them, it's also demystify behaviors, you know, everyone thinks if you say to you know, if you tap someone on the shoulder, you know, that's sexual assault, it really isn't, you know, it's harassment at work, it isn't.
00:27:43.519 --> 00:27:53.039
But if the whole definition of unwanted um, you know, behavior, harassment, sexually based harassment in work, is unwanted and repeated.
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:58.720
So someone taps me on the shoulder and says, Oh, Barbara, could you fine, you know, I might not like it, but that's not it.
00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:07.440
But if you keep on, if I say to you, oh, please don't, you know, respect my space and you keep on doing it, then it is harassment and it breaks that all down for you.
00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:23.599
And I think everyone's just gonna be, it's one of those things where it sounds a bit rah-rah, but we that empowerment is still missing from the what people still don't know what their rights are, they still don't know what the boundaries are, they still don't know you know what is acceptable and unacceptable.
00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:26.079
I've got a whole section on money and pay.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:35.119
Some people don't know what's on their pay slip, some people don't even know what their hourly rate is, some people they don't, there's there's nothing around, so it's all there on the internet and on the government sites.
00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:37.680
I've put it all together on the section called Money and Pay.
00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:49.519
From you know, from your very first salary, you should know as a young person um what the deductions are, what your holiday pay is, what it is, you know, there's no zero-hour contract, supposedly.
00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:53.039
I've updated it on all the latest minimum wages.
00:28:53.200 --> 00:29:00.480
It's just basic stuff that isn't easily accessible without having to alert somebody that you're asking, because this is the other problem, isn't it?
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:09.680
If you go to HR, you've alerted them and they they've marked you as oh, better watch her, something's she's not happy or something's not right, better watch out for her.
00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:11.440
And this is where it all goes downhill.
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:13.359
So you can have those conversations.
00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:33.759
And I also want you to be able to have those conversations with your partner, and how even if you do, it's it's meant to be work-based, but if you happen to log on at home from work, because a lot of people work from home, you can sit down with your partner, your nearest and dearest, and say, Look, this is what happened, it's happening to me, and you can explore together, you know, this is the money scenario, this is how I get promoted.
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:42.240
You know, it's one of those in the place that you are safe, it should be home, uh, you can bring some of that, you know, safety back to work.
00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:50.640
I feel like we could ask so many more questions, but Barbara, how do people get hold of this uh guru?
00:29:51.359 --> 00:30:01.759
Well, essentially, if you go on to the my site, which is brownstone.co.uk, um, there should be, I'm just gonna start a new free trial, to be honest.
00:30:01.839 --> 00:30:08.960
So you can have a a couple of yeah, a couple of weeks to I'm just making my technical guide to sort that out, but you can have a week just to play on it.
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:11.519
And it's not all of the information, but there's limited.
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:14.640
I've definitely done work, money and pay is free.
00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:16.400
Um, social mobility.
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:19.920
There's two big learning sections, it's all about race and social mobility.
00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:25.680
People need to understand how classism shows up in UK culture because it's still there.
00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:33.599
Hello, you know, formerly prince, not a prince anymore, but you know, he can still do what he needs to do because classism allows a lot of things.
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:52.960
So classism, money and pay, and then but I'm doing another section about intersectionality so people understand the you know where it's not only you someone can discriminate against you by your, you know, by your gender, by your ability, by also by your social status in terms of um money.
00:30:53.119 --> 00:30:55.039
So that's going to be available.
00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:59.680
Please find me on LinkedIn because I do lots of posts about what it's about, what it isn't about.
00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:05.200
Or you can email if you fancy email, it's edigurus at brownstone.co.uk.
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:12.240
Send in if you want to have a chat about it or a trial for your organization, happy to do it those ways.
00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:13.279
Excellent.
00:31:13.440 --> 00:31:14.240
Thank you, Barbara.
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:15.039
Yeah, thank you.
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:15.519
Thank you.
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:19.039
And just to be clear, we're not talking about the artist formerly known as Prince.
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:24.400
We've kind of reached our time.
00:31:24.799 --> 00:31:34.160
So we do like to just ask one final question, which is if you've anything interesting that you're currently reading or listening to that you'd recommend.
00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:36.319
I gosh, I do a lot.
00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:37.519
I'm I'm a terrible person.
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:40.960
I read like half a book at a time, and then I put it down and do another one.
00:31:41.119 --> 00:31:48.480
So um at the moment, there's a couple of um US podcasts that I just dip in and out, and one is I think it's called Eggs and Grits.
00:31:48.720 --> 00:32:08.960
And all it is is it's um he breaks down what everything what's happening in society and culture in sort of like bite-sized pieces, and it is US focus, and it is mainly around you know the black experience, so it's it's irrelevant to me, but it is also interesting to know how things are viewed.
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:10.400
Um, I like that one.
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:18.400
Um, I actually, as the polar end, it's not a podcast, but it's called God, I've literally just written, I've just literally just turned it off.
00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:21.680
It's somebody sends round all of the latest laws.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:22.799
I'm just trying to look at it now.
00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:26.559
Um Sebastian, his name's Sebastian Salak, and it's called Clear the Lobby.
00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:33.440
And it's really it tells you all of the laws that are going through the motions in Parliament and on a lookout for those from EDI.
00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:47.440
And one I noticed this morning, which I think people might be horrified to find, there's in last week's votes, there's um human remains, the prohibition of sale, purchase, and advertising goes to a second reading.
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:49.759
That's actually still allowed at the moment.
00:32:50.079 --> 00:32:56.240
And then there's a law going through to stop purchasing, advertising, human remains.
00:32:56.400 --> 00:33:00.559
So it's really interesting to it's a nice little bite-size.
00:33:00.880 --> 00:33:10.400
When you look at the laws that are going through, not that don't make the headlines, there's lots that you're thinking, wow, we have to pass a law so people aren't human remains.
00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:12.720
So I like I like those two.
00:33:12.799 --> 00:33:23.440
And then generally books I'm reading, I'm reading, I've just I'm going, I'm revisiting me and white supremacy because it's like a it's an exercise for people to really un discover.
00:33:23.759 --> 00:33:31.759
I think it's relevant now for people to really understand understand what is happening in society, the role you might inadvertently be playing.
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:45.119
And if you really aren't advocate for all getting rid of all anti-everything discrimination, but specifically racism, you know, there's a role you can play, and then there's another one that tends to be, you know, in the EDI space.
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:53.839
It's called the Science of Racism, and it's this amazing man who has God, I forgot his name again now, but he is it's he's got all the data.
00:33:53.920 --> 00:34:02.079
There's just a thick book of data, of experiments, of studies, of not all US, a lot of them are UK.
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:11.360
And for people who don't think you know any kind of discrimination exists, there's and they only want they'll only be convinced if there's data.
00:34:11.519 --> 00:34:16.639
There's like 300 pages worth of data dating back from whenever.
00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:20.719
And I like to refer to that book when someone says to me, Where's the data?
00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:23.679
You know, I don't I think you're making up, I think it's exaggerated.
00:34:23.760 --> 00:34:27.760
We don't have racism anymore in this country, and I can just present lots of data.
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:29.840
I think we do actually.
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:30.960
I think we do.
00:34:31.519 --> 00:34:32.079
That's great.
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:33.519
What was that one called, Barbara?
00:34:33.840 --> 00:34:35.599
It's called The Science of Racism.
00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:37.119
Science of Racism, okay.
00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:41.039
Yeah, and I and um I didn't get any of my references with me today.
00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:42.000
Sorry I didn't do that.
00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:44.960
But um we can add it in, yeah.
00:34:45.199 --> 00:35:01.679
Yeah, really good one for data because people don't still, you know, some people are not convinced on if you have an experience, if you say there's gender inequality, people say, Well, it's it didn't happen to me, so I don't believe it, you know, and you have to present data, and it's a sad state of affairs that your word or your lived experience isn't enough, is it?
00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:02.800
You have to present data.
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:03.679
So yeah.
00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:05.199
Well, thank you.
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:06.400
Yeah, thank you.
00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:15.119
I've really enjoyed our conversation, and there's some great tips there, and certainly we point people towards your tool.
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:16.719
Yeah, very well.
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:17.760
Thank you so much, Barbara.
00:35:18.000 --> 00:35:20.960
It's been a pleasure to talk to you, and hopefully we'll see you soon.
00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:22.239
Thanks so much.
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:22.880
Cheers.
00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:25.119
That was great, wasn't it, Roger?
00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:26.480
Really interesting.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:31.760
Yeah, although I'm a bit worried about you using that tool and asking it things about me.
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:33.039
Roger said this.
00:35:33.199 --> 00:35:33.920
Is that okay?
00:35:34.159 --> 00:35:35.280
Roger said this.
00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:37.760
We'll be having a few meetings with HR.
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:41.119
Really interesting.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:50.320
And what we'll do is we'll pop the link and also some really good uh recommendations for podcasts and books as well.
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:55.119
So we'll add those in to our LinkedIn posts.
00:35:55.199 --> 00:35:58.239
So hopefully everyone will see those and um also the email.
00:35:58.400 --> 00:36:01.199
So remember to subscribe if you haven't already.
00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:07.039
Um, you can do that via our website leapcreate.co.uk or on Spotify.
00:36:07.360 --> 00:36:30.000
And um, if you join our Leap People Comms community, then you'll get access to our newsletter, our podcasts, and also up-and-coming meetups to meet up with other internal comms, employer brand, HR professionals to talk about the challenges that we face and how comms can become a solution and a part of that.
00:36:30.159 --> 00:36:32.639
So some good stuff that's going on.
00:36:33.519 --> 00:36:34.000
Exactly.
00:36:34.159 --> 00:36:36.239
You said it beautifully, Sarah.
00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:36.639
Nothing.
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:38.320
Nothing more to add.
00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:39.519
Cool.
00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:39.840
Okay.
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:41.840
Well that is a wrap.