The Truth to Enhancing Employee Wellbeing and Performance
Josh Krichefski, CEO of GroupM UK and EMEA, shares his journey in the media and advertising industry. He highlights his "people first" agenda, focusing on mental health, wellbeing, and the importance of an inclusive workplace culture. Josh discusses strategies for attracting and retaining diverse talent and emphasizes psychological safety to foster high-performance teams.
In today's episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we are joined by Josh Krichefski, CEO of GroupM UK and EMEA, and President of the IPA.
Josh shares his extensive journey in the media and advertising industry, detailing his rise to leadership and the significant impact of his "people first" agenda. He emphasizes the critical role of mental health and wellbeing in fostering a high-performance culture and discusses the initiatives he has implemented to support a healthy workplace environment.
🎓 In this episode, Josh discusses:
How to attract and retain diverse talent
The importance of psychological safety and inclusive workplace culture
Practical strategies for supporting employee mental health and wellbeing
Greenhouse delivers a 589% hiring ROI
IDC calculated the business value of hiring with Greenhouse, proving we’re not just another hiring tool: we’re a strategic partner that helps customers maximise their hiring efforts.
In this IDC White Paper, The Business Value of Greenhouse, IDC examines the specific impact Greenhouse has on our customers’ hiring processes, digging into measurable results. According to the IDC study, organisations using Greenhouse saw benefits such as:
- Average annual benefits worth $6.65 million
- 589% 3-year ROI with a 7-month payback on investment
- 36% more efficient recruiting teams
- 56% more DE&I initiatives met
Complete IDC’s hiring assessment and get a personalised, data-backed report detailing your potential business value with Greenhouse.
Josh Krichefski 0:00
about making sure that when you're bringing talent in, you're not ticking boxes, you're actually bringing talent in just because you're looking to increase the amount of diverse talent that you're trying to bring into the business. You know, it's important that that those of people who are people who you really feel are going to progress in the organisation and that they're going to be really successful. Because it's not like, I'm not just trying to be altruistic here. This is about creating a really, you know, I drive very high performance culture in the businesses that I run. So this is about doing good business as well, in a business where you're communicating to multiple different audiences. How can you really understand the best messaging to reach or resonate with an audience if you if you don't have that audience reflected in your words?
Chris Rainey 0:50
Josh, welcome to the show. How are you?
Josh Krichefski 0:51
I'm very well, thanks. So
Chris Rainey 0:53
nice to see you again. Interestingly, you got plants behind you and I was real. Yeah, I asked that. Because most of our guests now like me, I've got the fake ones.
Josh Krichefski 1:07
I'd be lying if I said that. We always keep them alive. We don't, but we do best. But these are all real. Yeah, there's no, there's no plastic ones behind me.
Chris Rainey 1:18
I love it. I love it. My friend gifted us a cactus and I still somehow managed to not. It's like, how do you not keep a cactus alive? In the desert?
Josh Krichefski 1:32
I think I might have drowned my one. So
Chris Rainey 1:35
before we jump in, tell everyone a little bit more a bit about your personal background and the journey to the role that you're in now. Well, so
Josh Krichefski 1:43
I work for a company called group M, which is the world's the UK is well, it's a global, it's a global business. It's basically the media, the media operation for WPP, which is a big marketing services organisation. And group m is the number one media investment company in the UK and in Amir and in the world. And I'm the CEO for Amir and for the UK. So I've run both businesses, which is a bit weird, because normally we have one person running the UK and one person running Amir, but at the moment I'm doing I'm doing both. And I've so it's kind of media and advertising agency background that they have. I've been working in the industry since 1998. So that's quite a long time, but 26 years. And I've always worked in agencies, all my career, I've had my own agency business at one point, I've worked for global organisations like the one I'm in now, I've worked for small independent agencies that are just UK based. I've worked for Creative Advertising agencies, but I've always been on the agency side. And yeah, I love our industry. It's very exciting kind of dynamic industry to be in. And that's, that's what I've always done. kind of by accident. Honestly, I didn't I didn't even know media agencies existed when I was at university. And somehow I've spent the last 26 years in one so yeah, the that's how these things. I'm sure a lot of your listeners who work in HR, in particular, understand that
Chris Rainey 3:29
it's a running joke on our show, like every CHRO like, we've done 700 episodes and like 10 of them chose a career in HR. Like no one was like, hey, I want to go to HR when I leave uni, like ya know, like, honestly, like, and they come from all different backgrounds. And I was interviewing L'Oreal Seto recently and she was the, in their research division for 20 years. Yeah, r&d. And now she's the chief HR officer, or Legos chief HR officer was in sales for most of his career. And now he's the chief HR officer of Lego, like very rare actually, do you have anyone in this or me and Shane, we grew up playing ice hockey and breakdancing and now we do this stuff in HR. Because I have I happen to get a sales job selling to HR executives, and for all this is really interesting. And now we're here so it's always fun. You never really know you've got a taste. I always say to people got to taste different things. When you're young use it as an opportunity to taste as many things as possible. And then figure out what is it really where your passion lies, because yeah, like this really difficult to grow up and be like, This is what I want to do everyone I 99% of people I know who decided that do not are currently not in a career in that space. Yeah, that's
Josh Krichefski 4:37
interesting. I think it's good advice as well about you know, try as many things as you until you sort of find your sweet spots. It's it's definitely the right thing to do. People shouldn't feel fearful of, you know, trying things new and I often sort of say it's, it's when things are going well. That's a good time to try something new and actually change rather than waiting for things. I
Chris Rainey 5:01
always say that to be true. I said, I say to Shane, I'm always get scared when things are going to Well, he was like, well, Jimmy, I'm like, because I feel like we're not pushing ourselves or innovating or learning new things. It's kind of like a middle ground of seeking discomfort, as as we call it here that we've always kind of shamed, by the way is my next door neighbour growing up. And now we're co founders, we've been whole journey together. And we're always the strange kids of when something gets too easy, we lose interest. And we're off to the next challenge. And we've always been on that. And then we both have decided to go into business together, knowing that about each other that we're always like, what's next year? Now, for the last couple of years, we were immersing large language models in AI, because that's a whole new forefront that we're discovering as a business and we're launching our own copilot. So it's that's the exciting thing. Yeah, I don't like being comfortable. I think when things are going really well. I'm like, Okay, we're gonna get disrupted right now. Yeah,
Josh Krichefski 5:56
I mean, to be fair, I don't think I've ever felt completely comfortable. But But I yeah, I know what you're You mean. And I think it certainly sounds like you've found a very good partner in crime. Very lucky to kind of hold each other to account and push each other. And yeah,
Chris Rainey 6:14
we're not. We've not strangled each other yet. I don't know how. It's very hard to do that with friends. And separate the two. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend any anyone getting into business with their friends. But some Yeah, for some crazy reason. It does work. Yeah. What about you're obviously also the president of the IPA talk a little bit about? Yes,
Josh Krichefski 6:35
the IPA is the Institute for practitioners of advertising, which is basically our industry body. And yeah, I'm very honoured to be asked to be the president last year before the end of the year before last, so you get a two year tenure. So I mean, I'm just, I've just finished my first year as president, and I'm really loving it, actually, it's a really cool thing to be doing. I mean, I'm obviously very busy with work. But you know, it's funny, you know, there's that old expression, you want something done, give it to someone who's busy.
Chris Rainey 7:14
I haven't heard that one before. But I like it.
Josh Krichefski 7:18
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's really true, you know, give it to a busy person. And I feel like it's not a burden to have that additional responsibility. Because what the IPA allows me is a real opportunity to try and affect the industry in a really positive way trying to sort of put you know, what you do is you get, you get given two years, and it's up to you to set out what your agenda for the industry is going to be for that two years. And you set out a manifesto, and then you put in place various things to try and deliver on what your agenda is. So, so yeah, so I set out an agenda this time last year, and we've made great progress. So far. I've got an amazing team at the IPA who really helped me on that on that journey. And it's all about pizza people first agenda. So I think it sort of rings true for most leaders in our industry, I don't think there's anything more important in our in my industry, because the advertising industry, it's all about, you know, we don't manufacture anything we don't, you know, we don't have lorries we don't, we just it's just creativity, and it's all about people and their great ideas. And they're not our greatest asset, there are only asset really so. So it's really important to kind of put them first and to really focus on what's what's best for our people, and how we can continue to have a thriving industry. So that's really my focus.
Chris Rainey 8:43
Yeah, I always find it fascinating about your industry, that your people are your product, and that's done as a sound, you know, but in reality, like their creativity, so if they're if they're not operating at the highest level, you're not getting, you're not creating psychological safety, you know, you're not taking care of the well being all those things are directly impacting your product, and any innovation. They can't Yeah, not many, in many industries have that. It's very, it's very, yeah, it's very unique.
Josh Krichefski 9:09
Yeah, it's a creative industry. So that's what the creative industries are all about, really, and, and ours is ours isn't is another one that, by the way, draw a huge amount for our economy here in the UK. So it's a quite an important creative industry for us as a country. And actually, it's an industry that's always been a bit sort of work hard play hard culture. And I think in this day and age that that doesn't really, you know, it just doesn't really ring true for employees. I think it's really important that we I think I didn't actually I think COVID said a really big impact on on the culture of work, and I think that but even before that, I think there was a real I think well being and mental health were becoming increasing issues just in the world. And I feel I felt like that It's been something that our industry has, you know, I think that that work hard play hard culture has taken its toll on our people over the years, really. So that's really at the heart of what I'm trying to sort of change, I guess in the ad industry world. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 10:15
talk us through then the you've got the free tenants have this agenda of the people first agenda Talk Talk us through that book called
Josh Krichefski 10:23
it I've sort of said it, I've called it opening eyes, opening hearts and opening minds. And opening eyes is really about trying to, is really about trying to attract the best talent into our industry. And the way to do that is really to open the eyes of potential candidates coming into our industry, have the positive impact that advertising has on society, I think a lot is talked about in terms of some of the negative things that adverts the impacts AdWords advertising has, but I think there's a lot of good that our industry does, I think the 10 or so I think the biggest brands, or the fastest growing brands over the last 10 years, are ones who've really focused on purpose and on and on what positive impact they can have on on the world. And it's advertising his role to get that message out there, really. And, you know, advertising has a big role to play in driving culture. And that is something that traditionally used to have been happening, you know, kind of water cooler moments on TV, but increasingly now it's in, you know, digital platforms like Tiktok, Instagram, and all media honestly. And so, I think so my first area is really about kind of various different initiatives on to focus on, on on that really kind of the relevance of advertising on modern British society. The second one is opening minds, or sorry, opening hearts. And what that's about is really retaining diverse talent in our industry. So once we've attracted them through opening eyes, I think we've been really we've got we've I think we were much better than many industries at attracting diverse talent, whether that's socio economic, gender balanced, or racial backgrounds, into our industry at an entry level. So I think if you were to walk around one of the agencies, or if you walk around any of the WPP campuses, so just talking about my business by not saying this is just in my businesses in many of our competitors, as well, I think if you walk around agencies these days, they do feel much more reflective of society, I think you do see a lot more kind of black young talent in the in the agencies, it feels much more kind of, I don't know, fresh and exciting and reflective of society. But if we're really honest with ourselves, when you look at more senior roles in our in our agencies, you don't see that you still see, quite it's quite white, it's quite middle class. And I think that the reason for that is that although we may sometimes be patting ourselves on the back for attracting diverse talent in, we're not brilliant, and making them feel like they belong in our industry, or that they belong in that agency. And that's not something that's done intentionally, it's I think, every all leaders have very positive intent, but I think that we, we, I think we've struggled to really change the kind of systemic behaviours that might make people feel a bit other, honestly. Yeah, so. So opening Hearts is about kind of really trying to surface the best in class practices to make people feel more included, whatever background they come from. So that's the second one. And the third one is opening minds, which is about how do we make our people feel supported and mentally healthy, and, you know, have a good balance in their lives, in their working life, honestly, and help them thrive at work, because I think that if we, you know, going back to what I was talking about earlier, if we can have a thriving kind of happy workforce, then the opportunities are endless, of what we can achieve. So that's really the third, the third bucket really in my kind of people first agenda. And if I'm really honest, that's probably when most of the the I mean, there's been work been done in all three, but I think probably the most noise has been around the third one, and around some of the programmes that we've introduced around around kind of mental health and well being in the industry. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 14:51
Firstly, I think all three of those kind of go hand in hand as well and all complement each other. So my last book as I did earlier, which was talking about with mental health, UK, your health, England, you know, we're talking about the connection with the well being, you can't have one without the other. I mean, they work they play so well together. But you're right, I feel like a lot of companies, there's so much to unpack about what you said, firstly, great to hear that your talent is represented in the local communities that you serve. Because when I came into the workplace, 20 years ago, it was a whole floor of white male men. And I was confused, because I was like, the local community in East London that we served didn't reflect that. And I was very confused. As someone who went to school with, you know, I was a very diverse classroom of leaders. So that's, that's great to hear. But one of the challenges that I see companies having, and you just mentioned it is they can attract that talent, but they leave just as quickly, because they're not creating a workplace where they feel like they actually belong. Yeah, as well. So it's one thing actually bringing in the talent, it's organisation, but if you haven't set them up for success, and created a workplace, so they feel like they can belong, they have a psychological safety, they can actually see themselves in the leadership, they can see people who would look and sound like them as aspirations to grow and develop you, it's gonna be really difficult. Yeah, and
Josh Krichefski 16:15
I've totally agree with that. And also think it's about making sure that when you're bringing talent in, you're not ticking boxes, you're actually bringing talent in. So just because you're looking to increase the amount of diverse talent that you're trying to bring into the business, you know, it's important that that those are people who are people who you really feel are going to progress in the organisation and that they're going to be really successful, because it's not like, I'm not just trying to be altruistic here. This is about creating a really, you know, I drive very high performance culture in the businesses that I run. So this is about doing good business as well. And equally, you know, in a business where you're communicating to multiple different audiences, how can you really understand what you know, the best messaging to what to reach or resonate with an audience if you if you don't have that audience? reflected in your work,
Chris Rainey 17:13
or sent? Yeah, like I was part of what I do every day as I interview chief diversity officers as well, right. And my wife hosts one of the biggest di podcasts where she interviews chief diversity officers every day. And we always talk about that what you just mentioned, the innovation, the diversity of thought that you're bringing into the business, to your point, how can you serve those communities if that's not represented internally? Organisation Right. And, and some of the most innovative groundbreaking products have come from companies that are very good at doing that, you know, I was speaking to Unilever recently. And it was sharing some specific examples of, from their ERG groups and from some of the things some of the ideas that they develop that they've turned into products that have added, you know, another couple 100 million into the business because someone's because someone said actually, that's Yeah, what about this? Or save them hundreds of millions? On going with this formula for not making a mistake, and and doing something? was when I heard like years ago about the Dyson, you had one about the Dyson hand dryers? Yeah, that one is really random. But they, one of the leaders, I'm not gonna mention their names at Dyson, told me that this is also, I don't know if this is true. Allegedly. The it was programmed that when you put it was programmed for white hands when you put it in. So when you if you if you put a black hands in, it takes a couple of seconds more to turn on. And I've tried this with my friends. And it's 100% True, as well, because the way it was designed to detect white hands when you put it in the ones sensor, for example, right? There's a million other examples like that, that you see, as well, especially, you know, my wife tells me stories are in the beauty space around beauty products, as well that are not only specifically designed for different skin tones, etc. So it's really important that you have that diversity of perspective. Even my team have called me out on certain times that we haven't reacted to something or we've, we've we've made mistakes and some of the content we're producing. They've been like, Hey, Chris, like, Hey, you all Firstly, I'm disappointed that we didn't react to something like that. We should have taken the stance and shared our support. Example was sort of the Black Lives Matter, George Floyd situation, I made a video I didn't post it. And my wife was my wife's black and she was really disappointed that you didn't post that. Because you were worried about saying the wrong thing, which is why you didn't post it, but that's the issue we have. Yeah. And I was like, okay, that's very, it's really
Josh Krichefski 19:53
it's really difficult because, you know, you talk about, you know, you were talking about psychological safety before and I think Pete People do, people are still very scared of saying the wrong things with they've got really positive intentions. And I think there is it's really important that everyone's open in this conversation about, you know, getting it wrong, but correcting it, but you know, with a positive intention, and I think I really understand that, you know, I find myself in those situations all the time as well. And, you know, you can't I'm in a position where I have to be very careful about what I say and what I don't say, well, I'll come because, you know, I can find lots of people, I've got set, I've got a workforce of 17,000 people coming into me, so whatever I've got out and stay usually pisses somebody off. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 20:44
And I didn't realise that the more our meet our audience has been growing, the more I realised, that's gonna happen, and I just had to come to terms with that. A long time, the way I didn't realise that it's an effect of our growth, which is a good thing, but just realise I'm not gonna please everyone along the way. But um, in terms of the opening minds, side, the well being what are some of the projects or programmes that you've been doing do you feel are really truly making a difference?
Josh Krichefski 21:12
So I think that I'm not, I'm not someone who really, I don't like to talk too much about kind of initiatives, I like to talk more about sort of, kind of broader approaches to things and I think, but I do like threes.
Chris Rainey 21:24
So you'll have noticed that I noticed that already. Yeah.
Josh Krichefski 21:28
Three more now. But what I've tried to do is, I've tried to crystallise what I think is a good approach to mental health and well being in the workplace. And that doesn't, this doesn't just come from me it comes from. So before I became president of the IPA, I'd established a, an advisory board around mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. With an incredible board of people from across mental health training companies, academia, businesses, like Unilever, where else where else, where else from kind of McKinsey health, the world of wellbeing movement, to try and understand what a sort of like the macro things that really needs to happen in an organisation to have a kind of positive. You know, healthy workplaces. Yeah. And, really, so we were working as an advisory board on how we might talk to government about actually introducing a law around how leaders of companies above a certain size might demonstrate their, how they're looking after their people, right, so that was over like five or six years. And I've actually taken all of the stuff that we were working on into my IPA agenda. And I'm, I've introduced it as as a, rather than kind of like a mandate. I've asked business leaders from within the IPA, but I'm starting to ask like they will, everyone's kind of signing up for it. So now I'm trying to broaden out across the creative industries, to get people and it's kind of like, I would call it sort of a blunt way of putting it, but it's like a mental health certification type type of approach to leadership of companies. And it's in three areas. So I've called it empower, support and prevent. So Empower is about empowering the individual through awareness through education, to understand their own mental health, and also to understand the difference between, you know, something like a psychosis or a neurosis or just a bad day at work. Yeah, so kind of empowering individuals, teaching them about resilience, and how to kind of be able to look after their own well being really, but also to understand their mental health. So that's the kind of the first tenant. The second is what I'm calling support, and what that's about, it's about what can the business do to support people who work for their company, right. And that could be taking it from like training people to like extreme and actually providing mental health support to people who are really struggling with a mental health issue. And then the third one is prevent and for me, that's almost like the most important one prevent is about having, ensuring you don't have a toxic workplace culture, right. So having all of the right things in place to ensure that there's real transparency in your company. So making sure that companies have things like star surveys where they're totally anonymous, where they learn how their people are feeling and what how they're experiencing life at work, and then playing back to their people, what they've learned about them and what they're doing to try and live whereas some of the issues that that are coming about, because what's very clear is that, number one, the biggest negative impact that you can have on someone's well being work is having a toxic workplace culture. And two, there is a huge chasm between company policy, and actually how people are experiencing work on the ground. So, so those are the three areas of my kind of opening minds thing around mental health and well being. And what we're doing is we've, we've launched what we're calling Outlands wellbeing lab. And in that lab, it's kind of an online resource, but there's also going to be kind of workshops during the summer. It's an online resource of some of the best resources that you can find, to help you around each of those three areas, whether it's Empower, support, and prevent and it's categorised on the website, you can easily find it the IPA website, you don't need to be a member of the IPA to access it, by the way, it's there. It's got loads of really brilliant resources that show great examples of how to put in place different Empower, support and prevent strategies in your workplace. And then so that's the first part. The second part is we've got what we're calling the people first promise badge of honour. And so we're inviting member agencies and other creative companies to apply for people first badge of honour, and all they need to demonstrate is they need to provide one piece of evidence of each of those three things in power support and prevent in their workplace. And then they get this lovely plaque and people first badge of honour, which hopefully will be something that attracts talent into their businesses themselves. And also clients to work with them, because clients are increasingly taking this stuff seriously.
Chris Rainey 26:44
Yeah, it's now becoming a must for, for companies, when they're looking at who they're going to work with, right for the suppliers, as well, similar from the islands, right, this set of requirements. First of all, I love I love the freeze. I think it's important though, because obviously, it's easy to remember, you also need to create a brand, you will do that you're in an industry of doing that, I'd be surprised if you didn't, for people to remember, there's some companies that offer a lot of these things, but they don't really create something memorable. And so I'm glad that you're doing that also great for everyone listening right now to be able to and I'll put that link to the website below. So people can go check out their resources, as well. And the what I want to do is
Josh Krichefski 27:26
I want this to be over time. I wonder once we've, you know, I'm doing the ad industry and then we're moving out broader into the broader Creative Industries by you know, after my time at the IPA, I want to I do want to broaden this out into just business as a whole. So, you know, anyone's, anyone you know, I'd love different companies from all sorts of different sectors to sign up for it,
Chris Rainey 27:45
we do something similar. So we have a wellbeing event called ripple weed every year. So we bring together around 3000, CEOs, chief HR officers, heads of wellbeing, something I do, I did it with and we've partnered with Arianna, Huffington five global. Also, at the time, the chief HR officer of Walmart and a couple of others. And
Josh Krichefski 28:04
actually, I have remember now, yes, oh, global chief people officer told me about that.
Chris Rainey 28:10
Yeah, so we what we do is that we do it every year, it's a five hour livestream. We bring the leaders from all over the world, do sort of panels around different of these themes that we're talking about. And we offer, obviously, different companies, organisations that bring in different free resources to the table. And even even between the livestream breaks, we have like a mindfulness session, then we get everyone out of their chairs at home doing some exercises, they never does a full day where we're bringing together companies and leaders from all over the world. And we started that during the pandemic as a response to really help people, especially that were struggling. And it's been amazing that we do that every year, as well. So like, for us, it's been someone who personally suffers from anxiety, and I hid it from my wife and friends or family for 15 years. And still, still still continue. That that was something that we really want to give back. And yeah, and find out. And obviously we do events. So that's our medium, to be able to bring all those people together. So I love what you're doing. And I definitely thinking, if you're going to do it where it goes beyond your industry, that'd be very helpful for everyone.
Josh Krichefski 29:21
I hope so. But yeah, it's I mean, what you just described there about struggling with your own anxiety and not telling people about it. It's just such a common thing. And, you know, I think it's just something that the more we can normalise the conversation around that the better. I think it's you know, I talk quite a lot about my eye and the reason kind of what, what, what I was why I was interested in this in the first week so I've been talking about this kind of like, you know, decade really was that I struggle with insomnia because of my anxiety about work. Like I'll wake up in the night. That's
Chris Rainey 29:59
me Initially, I was awake till like 3am. Last night thinking about working over, it was going on, I end up going downstairs just just to reset and then kind of go back to bed again. That's been,
Josh Krichefski 30:10
I did exactly. So I was I was down here at my desk, which is downstairs in my house. I still think about sleeper agents, to be honest, will read my book and everything, but I don't get it every night. But I get it when I'm particularly stressed. And so loads of people do. And that's the point. I think, people you know that we talk about it because I think people often look at, you know, you're successful businessman, you know, I've achieved certain success in my in my world. And I think people need to hear that it's not always rosy. You know, actually, it's quite difficult. And that's very common, and people aren't alone. And you know, it's quite common people to feel like that. If
Chris Rainey 30:55
and if one thing I noticed, which really helped me come out and talk about it, because I tell it quickly, but everyone knows the story, because I've heard the podcast so many times is I was speaking to Tim London is the Chief Learning Officer Chief Learning Officer at Unilever. We also like it was also the Global Head of wellbeing, and was doing a podcast. And he shared, he just came back from two months mental health leave. And I was like, wow, here's this amazing leader that I have respect, who's you know, being vulnerable. And that was what encouraged me to share, live on LinkedIn, with Tim, how I was feeling and everyone found out that way. So it's a crazy, crazy way of doing it. I wouldn't recommend this everyone to do it on LinkedIn live, but it just felt I felt safe. And he made me I was like, here's this person I really have respected and follow for many years who's willing to do this. And even if one or two people that are listening to that podcast, made them feel the same way it's worth it. To do that. And off the back of that. Friends, family members might one of my best friends was actually in counselling. I was like, Dude, we see each other every day, neither of us. Well, we're we're comfortable telling kind of each other how we were feeling and what we're going through. But to your point, the reason I never did that is I spent 10 years in a company where it was toxic. And that one time I actually did go to my manager and try to explain how I was feeling I was told to shut up, man up and get get back on the phone. That was the exact words is a sales sales are very high pressure sales environment. And I was like, Okay, I'm never gonna bring that up over again. Right? And then I thought, Oh, I can't tell my next boss either. Because what if they don't promote me? Right? So throughout my whole career, I was I had to sort of, I can't tell my wife what she thinks less of me. I can't tell my employees because they're gonna think I'm a weak leader. Those are all the things that I was constantly sort of battling with day to day. And then I started seeing all these high performers will all suffering the same way. And then the more I got to know, and ask questions on and off the podcast, I was like, wow, the people that I look up to as the V most high performing people in the world, are the ones actually sometimes suffering the most. But you don't know about you just all you see is the success. Yeah, of those people. You don't see what's happening behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Krichefski 33:26
It's very true. And what you described there, in your sales job, I think was a very common thing to say trait in any business, honestly, when I started off definitely was the same where I was working, you know, it was a lovely company, and I haven't got bad word to say about them. But if I turn around to my boss and said, you know, having a wobble, I wouldn't have got much sympathy, because that's not what happened in those days. But thankfully, it's not the you know, shouldn't be like, I mean, isn't is like that in some companies, but I think it's becoming they're becoming, it's becoming less of the norm.
Chris Rainey 34:04
I would just come a long way.
Josh Krichefski 34:07
Yeah, but it's not surprising that, you know, I think people often look at the look at this sounds like I'm pitting myself and I'm not, but then people look at senior people in an organisation and they sort of go yeah, you're, you know, you're the devil or you're the You're the man or whatever. And you know, I understand and sort of a lot of the way that people feel like might feel stressed or the bad decisions being made about a company, and it's good to be able to go you know, it's the boss's fault, but often it's the boss, the boss is cut, you know, is having to carry a lot of the burden of that responsibility is quite stressful. So it's no coincidence that you're hearing that a lot of these senior people are struggling with these things because that they have is
Chris Rainey 34:53
only at the top. Yes, the top like, the HR leaders are the biggest culprits. They all know you all know your list. Right now they're looking after everyone else but themselves. Yeah. So I speak to HR leaders every day that are burning out. They're retiring early, that really strike because who the Lego who to who they go talk to? Yeah, who does the HR? Who does the CFO go talk to her in the business when they should go to their CEO, but in a minute times, I just don't feel comfortable. Yeah. And then again, similar to your point, most co founders I speak to and CEOs very lonely. For me. My outlet is my coach. Chester, he like for me I have he's impartial. He's he'll tell me how it is. And and I have that. And that was one of the biggest game changers for me actually was getting a coach as someone who actually, not just Shane is great, obviously have a co founder, but having someone separate, that I can actually have a conversation with.
Josh Krichefski 35:49
I think that's really I think it's really important, actually. Yeah, I do think coaches have an important really important role related. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 35:56
Interesting question. I really didn't plan on asking this. But what do you what does success look like from you? When you think about this? You're the CEO CFO relationship, and partnership? Well, I
Josh Krichefski 36:08
mean, I speak to my chief people officer every day, often multiple times a day, she's she's on my favourites list on my phone. And she or thing she's for her sins. So she's often the first person I call him. And I think it's really important to have, you know, absolute trust, total safety. She takes, you know, it's really important that she totally takes the piss out of me all the time. And, and I do her as well. So that we have that. I feel I mean, I don't know, if you asked her, she might say something else. But I think I don't think there's a more important relationship in a business, honestly. Because most I mean, I can't speak for all leaders. But I think when I think about myself, the stuff that keeps me up at night is less about kind of where where should I be investing, or you know, how we can win that pitch, or it's always about people. It's always the people stuff, it's the stuff that keeps me up at night. And so it's really important to have a very close relationship, honestly, between the two Fitzy duplex. And I think if you don't have that, actually, it can have really negative implications all the way down through an organisation. If that's missing, because I think if the chief people officer doesn't feel completely kind of toe to toe with the CEO, then it gets, I just think that it just it just ladders down through the through the business. So yeah, I think it's critical.
Chris Rainey 37:53
How do you establish that relationship? When you when you first connect? What what are some of the ground rules you set? Like, for example? How do you deal with conflict? Do you have a framework around how you navigate that together? Because that's a challenge that I feel like CHR OHS have with their CEO, this sort of balance of how they wind up a challenge. And many of them,
Josh Krichefski 38:17
I think, the truth is that don't have one. And you know, that's my failing, probably, I don't have a framework. Personally, I think the way that I work with everyone who are most people, I would say, who are in my kind of circle, who are who worked in working to me is, is it has to be completely trusting. So that means total openness and transparency. I don't hold anything back. I'm very honest about my own vulnerabilities and worries. And I invite challenge. So I sort of say, I don't know what I'm talking about here. But this is what I think what do you think? And so I think it's really important to have a have a culture in your team where people feel safe to challenge you, as a leader, and that almost like it's kind of, you know, you're rewarded for it. Because there's nothing worse than not feeling like you can say what you think. And, you know, the truth is, I always hire people around me who are better at what they do, then I would be so they I'm paying them to be specialists in their particular area. So I trust them implicitly and in what's right. And so I'll challenge that and I can challenge my art challenge my chief people officer on things and she'll generally tell me, I'm wrong. But sometimes she might say, no, no, you're right. Maybe you're right about that. Because some of these things they're not. They're not they're
Chris Rainey 39:50
not. They're not binary. I get it. I think it's just one of the things I hear especially from the sector as we do our private sort of every month we get together 100 To see it's frozen, the largest brands in the world and no media, no cameras and no conversations. One of the things they always tell me is one of the reasons I come to this event, Chris is the one time that I am challenged. I was at What do you mean by that? That it will only ever see it, you're always here and not afraid to tell me that I'm wrong? Or actually, you maybe you should look at it a different way, because we create that safe space. And then but many of them also say that is an issue because they need a team around them that will challenge them. But the answer to that is well, I mean, are you creating that space that they thought they can? Are you creating that environment that you are receptive to that feedback? Do they feel psychologically safe? And I can only imagine that would be the same for you as well?
Josh Krichefski 40:43
Yeah, I mean, I think what I guess I don't, what I guess I tried to have, let me, you know, some days and probably, I haven't got my game face on as well as I'd like to, but particularly goes after I haven't had a good night's sleep. But what I sort of want is for that safe space to be just everywhere, always. So it's not like, you know, I want I want everyone to feel that. And I think it's really important that when we talk about role modelling that we we don't allow, you know, bad behaviour in the team, however talented somebody is then you know, you need to, you need to be respectful. People who, who communicate respectfully challenge respectfully. And if you don't, you need to change only needs to be seen to change that.
Chris Rainey 41:34
I've made that mistake before was that I said, I've made that mistake before, where I've kept somewhere around the very high performer, for example, the sales I had someone who's amazing sales bringing millions of pounds a year, but it was just toxic to everyone else. But I was like, ah, but it makes so much money. Right. So I think we've all been in similar positions. But the moment you remove that person, wow, does it make a difference? Yeah. Do you see? You don't you can't really see it. Sometimes you're blinded by that. I've made that mistake. I've learned from that mistake in the past, but yeah, but it's, I can talk to you forever. At some point. Before I let you go, where can people learn more about the work that you're doing? And also connect with you? Directly? If they want to reach out and say hi,
Josh Krichefski 42:21
well, my you can find me on LinkedIn. And you can if you go to the the IPA, I think it's ipa.co.uk I'll find the link
Chris Rainey 42:34
below. as well.
Josh Krichefski 42:36
If you go to the IPA, you'll see the wellbeing lab and the people first promised badge of honour and and you kind of like you can see my speech where I talk about my gender and stuff like that. If you're interested in hearing from me, then that's probably a good place to look outside. But don't worry, I won't be offended if you're not.
Chris Rainey 42:53
Listen now. Honestly. Thanks for coming in. I appreciate what you're doing. And obviously, everything you've just spoken about is aligned with everyone that's listening right now. This is high priority for everyone, including me, and I wish you all the best into next week.
Josh Krichefski 43:07
Thank you. Thanks very much for inviting me on. Thank
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Sarah Harnett, Senior Director at Greenhouse Software