Nigel Cassidy: From hiring and nurturing staff to having to tell them things they might not want to hear, people professionals have to do it all. But what does it take to make a great one? I'm Nigel Cassidy and this is the CIPD Podcast. 

Now here's a question to start the new year. Do you have to be a people person to be an effective HR manager? What are the ideal qualities for the job? Because over the years the professions morph from managing employee paperwork to being a multifunctional key player in an organisation's success. But there are core skills, traits and qualities that may go to make an HR all-rounder, juggling everything from new hires, handling absenteeism and championing your people, their well-being, equity, diversity and inclusion. And what a range of skills you need to manage today's scattered workforces. The confidence to use data and social media, to know when to take a moral lead or say no even to leaders. 

Well, to find out if today's ideal people professional is a mythical creature, a unicorn in HR clothing, we've a tip-top line-up. Like unicorns the best podcast panels are hard to catch but we've managed to lasso from Willow HR, a self-confessed strategic and rebellious thinker with 20 years international experience and she's a keen amateur kickboxer. Maybe not a core requirement in HR but you never know, it's Laura Callaghan. 

Laura Callaghan: Hi there Nigel. 

NC: From New Cross Healthcare Solutions, a chief people officer who's led HR teams in numerous private and public organisations to reap the benefits of better technology, AI and design improvements, it's David Balls. Hello. 

David Balls: Hi there Nigel. And someone who's done more thinking than almost anyone about the role of the HR professional in the new world of work, which also happens to be the title of his new book. He says the essential skills for HR professionals are profoundly human in nature.

NC: It's the CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese. Hello. 

Peter Cheese: Hello Nigel. 

NC: So Peter, I mean it doesn't take a genius to work out, which is probably how I managed to do it, that I mean the list of skills or competencies that you need to progress in the HR profession have kind of grown like topsy as the reach of HR itself has increased. 

PC: Yeah I think that's true because the context in which we're operating in many ways is becoming more complex. We're talking about all sorts of different variables, social change, different generational expectations. Obviously we've been going through something of an economic crisis, cost of living crisis and of course very big drivers of change like technology which is forcing us to adapt and think differently and create organisations which are agile. And in all of that, that does create this bigger space for our profession to operate and I always look at that from one perspective which I think is exciting, which is that it is a space where we can make such a difference to the future of organisations and people's jobs and careers.

But on the other hand of course it does bring with it some challenges and there's no doubt as we look at the profession today and as we survey certainly the senior profession, we're very consistently hearing these worries about all the pressure that the profession does feel because we're also not immune of course to things like cost saving and cost cutting ourselves and having to deal with all of those issues across organisations. So, as I said I think the context is driving a lot of this without doubt. I think it's a very good time to be in the profession but we've got to make sure that we're supporting each other through our community, through our learning, through our investment in ourselves to deal with the challenges that we're facing. 

NC: And Peter puts the emphasis at the end there on human abilities. I'm sure we'll touch on plenty of those in the next half hour or so. David, when we had a quick chat before the podcast you were zooming in on the paramount need for people professionals to begin with a commercial head on them. So, being great at the job in your view then stems from understanding the business rather than a list of attributes.

DB: Absolutely Nigel. I think the key for any HR professional is they've got to really embed themselves in the organisation and using Peter's word understand the context that they're operating in and I think it's then about how do they apply their knowledge, their expertise, their people lens if that's a better phrase, to the particular problems that they're facing and I think that flows all the way through. I think it's not just about embedding themselves in the organisation as much as looking at how technology is influencing their organisation and how that applies to their particular people problems, the cultures that they're operating in with flexible work and they might be looking at the hybrid models that they're looking at and really understanding them in their own context and then how does their particular knowledge, their particular understanding of their people, their people practice or their area can be brought to bear on those particular issues.

NC: But I mean David do you really see HR people performing without much business understanding? I mean if that's the case what is it like in terms of how they prioritise or do the job? 

DB: Well I think it's I don't see people not having that understanding Nigel. I think it's about the balance which is yeah we are an organisation or a group I must say sort of seen as a social conscience of an organisation at any one moment in time and I think that's important that people, the people function does that someone's got to do it and we've got to do that. But I think it's then understanding how you operate like that in a particular business environment and the only way you're ever going to do that is if you understand the business context so, you've got to get those balance rights and there will be difficult times where those two are diametrically opposed or coming to conflict, you know the difference between a whistle-blower and a grievance. You know one is fundamental it's got to be raised the board, it's got to be dealt with, that is what we are here to deal to deal with versus the other one is maybe a very localised issue that the HR person needs to go away and sort at a local level. 

But yeah there again, I think you've got to understand the context and you've got to understand what you're dealing with and you've got to understand what you're expected to do in those circumstances, to really understand the right questions to ask to get to the root of the problem to probably differentiate between what is a fundamental business issue or something that is just a grievance, a local issue that can be dealt with in a much more subtle or easier way. 

NC: Okay so to get to the bottom of some of those problems, Laura clearly you're going to need some core skills we can start talking about those now and let's get this out of the way first. I mentioned at the beginning do you need to be a people person?

LC: That was something that I was considering a few months back and that created a social post on that and looking at some of those things of what a people person was actually defined to be around kind of being somebody who's very friendly, somebody who's very talkative, somebody who's very sociable. In actual fact, I think that we do genuinely practice what we preach within HR around diversity and inclusion and there are HR roles and organisations for all sorts of different people. You don't have to be an extrovert, you don't have to be a chatty person. 

NC: What about just being likable because that's associated with being a people person? I mean unless you sit in a back room and just sort of doing job design or interpreting analytics, I mean you're going to have to have those difficult conversations with people aren't you?

LC: Well, exactly that but I think then when it comes to being likable is if we enter into discussions and initiatives with the aim of being likable, we're not going to necessarily get down to the hard conversations, the tough decisions that have to be made and unfortunately in HR, we are part of a lot of things that may not always have positive consequences for people and so being likable unfortunately is not one of my priorities. Being fair, being consistent and making sure we are human that's far more important and let's face it, if somebody's making redundancy decisions you're not going to like them kind of regardless of their personality so, it just it shouldn't be part of the agenda.

DB: I think Laura you raise an excellent point there. I think it goes back to another question which is what is the people characteristics that people are supposed to have because I think some of the time in our role, we're going to have to have really difficult conversations with people and sometimes that is going to be, you're not right for this organization or you're not right for this role, and people aren't going to necessarily like you at the end of that, right. They don't like to sometimes have those conversations but if we are going to be compassionate, if we are going to be supportive, if we are going to be creating meaningful work and meaningful jobs for people and meaningful environments for people. We sometimes have to have that. 

So, I think it's very, it's the key question there is what are, you know, what do we what do, we class as the people traits that are important because I think likability is certainly something people want and would aspire to be, you know, we don't go out of our way to be unlikable but at some points you're going to have to say things and do things people might not like but it's a very compassionate thing to do. 

LC: And HR can be a really lonely place as well sometimes because we've got to maintain that professional distance so when I look at the various different teams across all of the clients that I'm really embedded with is that they cannot be considered friends because we have to maintain professional distance to make independent decisions and advising and influencing people on what the right thing is to do. And we can't be, we can't be, tainting that with personal relationships and so we've always got to kind of be that person slightly to the side. 

PC: I think sometimes this conversation has got a bit confused about how the function and profession itself is perceived, I mean unfortunately when you look at you know popularity ratings of different functions across businesses, HR doesn't generally figure anywhere close to the top half it's often seen as a function which too many people would regard as, it's control and it's about you know computer says no or whatever. And I absolutely agree with what Laura and David said it's not about individually being likable but the function itself, it's more about being respected and in order to be respected we've got to make sure, as we've already said, that we're focused on the business outcomes, that we're being fair and that we bring evidence and data to the conversation. So, that we can be seen to be fair and transparent on what we're doing and I think those are the things that help to create a function and profession which is respected and can influence, which is really what we're talking about here and not focus so much on this this construct of likability. 

NC: Peter, I also see the CIPD's produced this professional map an international standard developed with 20,000 people professionals and purpose sits in the centre you've got values core knowledge and behaviours empathy and emotional intelligence and that is quite a useful thing to see but I think it's sometimes quite difficult to kind of match desirable qualities with actually how the job works out day to day.

PC: Yeah I mean, the profession map obviously is a really important part of how we think about the capabilities and behaviours of people professionals and as you said, at the heart of it, is this notion of purpose and I think you know, certainly in recent years there's been so much more conversation about, what is the purpose of the business or the function or indeed ourselves individually. And the thing that I find very exciting about our purpose as a profession, is it is can be very profound. I mean, we talk about the idea of championing better work and working lives. So, it has an organisational and business purpose but it also has beyond that which I think attracts a lot of people into it. A wider social purpose as well, if we see our role as helping create great organisations with great cultures that are inclusive, support people and deliver business outcomes through productivity and all these other things, then that's good for everybody, it's good for individuals, it's good for businesses and it's certainly good for the economy and society more broadly. 

So, I think anchoring on that idea of purpose is really important and then as you touched on Nigel around that we very much talk about a couple of core principles one is that everything we think about should be led by principles, it should be evidence-based and it should be outcomes driven. And then you're into this sort of idea of what we would just describe as core knowledge and behaviours and that's before we've even got into all the different specialist areas, if you will of the profession and a lot of the core behaviours are very much around the things we talked about. So, being able to exercise judgment, being able to influence, being able to think ethically, being able to think holistically and understand situations and contexts. I would also add to that and I think it's a very important attribute of HR professionals in today's world, is curiosity and that desire to keep learning because the reality is, as we've already touched on the world of work is changing very fast and I really really believe our profession has a profound role to play in shaping the future of work and so, we've got to be curious, we've got to understand. We don't need to be experts on all these things but be asking the right questions, I think as David said on things like technology and artificial intelligence and all these sorts of things. 

So, we very much do anchor the thinking about what it means to be an HR professional around these ideas of, centred on purpose, centred on things like core knowledge and core behaviours and incidentally in the core knowledge it talks very much about business acumen and understanding. Before you get into all of the things that you layer on top, in terms of specialisms and areas of professional competence and job competence, we know we all need. 

LC: Unfortunately, I've actually been in HR now for 20 years which I can't believe, I've been doing anything for 20 years but we've gone from being a people focused function of a business where employees perhaps had a consideration that we were there for them. And then as Peter says, what we've actually shifted now is to part of a strategic driver within an organisation which is around what are the business outcomes or organisational objectives, if it's not a private sector organisation. So, what is the organisation trying to achieve and therefore what is the right thing to do here right now. And sometimes unfortunately, that means that there can be detrimental impact on staff members whether that be restructures or reshaping and those kind of things but what we have to consider is that, the organisation needs to achieve its aims and how are we going to do that. 

So, purpose of HR is to support an organisation to achieve its organisational objectives through its people and therefore what does that mean for them and in keeping with the foundations of ethical behaviour, fairness and consistency. So, that shift of attitude towards us being there to sort out people's issues, to being a strategic driver, really I think there's still a bit of confusion for some employees as to what our purpose is within some organisations I've come across certainly. 

NC: And of course, being a strategic driver David Balls means focusing on the organisation's business performance, what do you need for that in your view? 

DB: Well, I think you actually go back to what Peter said earlier. I think a lot of those traits that we're talking about are pretty consistent across any person who wants to be a senior leader in any department in any organisation, you know, being able to exercise judgment, being ethical, understanding how technology can influence their department or influence what they are doing. You know using data, being thoughtful, you know all of those great things are fairly ubiquitous. I think across good senior leaders and I just don't think the people function is any different. I think what they've got to do is be all of those things but then have the expertise and the understanding of people and whether that be from a psychological perspective or you know they're into a reward perspective or into a cultural change perspective, but be able to bring all of those skills that we've talked about and apply their knowledge and expertise to the particular business problem they've got. You know, as someone in finance would understand a particular regulation or a particular standard that would then apply that knowledge to their particular context.

NC: And Laura technology and AI loom increasingly large in day-to-day HR work and numeracy and tech skills are really needed aren't they? Some people find it hard to adapt to that aspect of today's working world. 

LC: Absolutely and so I feel as though to be a to be a senior HR professional now that numeracy but also that commercial awareness and David talked about this right at the top of the session, that every single person within any organisation within any function, within any team, needs to understand, what is our purpose, what is our product, who are you here to sell it to, what's our environmental context, our market context and those kind of things because as HR professionals, we are never going to build trust within an organisation if we can't talk with some authority around what its meaning for existence is, down to all the way down to how can you possibly interview a candidate if you weren't able to answer those kind of basic questions. But then you know, we've also now need to make sure that as senior professionals we're able to be strategic, with strategic thinkers we're able to be analytical, we're able to be able to work budgets, those are absolutely critical skills that you can learn and that you can acquire through experiences. So, those don't tend to be those kind of like fundamental traits that's things that we learn as we rise up through an organisation. 

And so, what we also then see is great generational differences, we've got people who are growing up with these technologies, people who are able to adopt and adapt to these technologies really, really easily. And I feel like that's one of our super strengths within HR roles, is that we because it's in our DNA already to think about, right who do we need to bring into the room, to be able to give us that guidance and advice and so what I see quite frequently is generational differences between decision makers that sit at the top of the organisation and the skills and the expectations also of those who are perhaps at the team member level. And bringing those people to understand what are the expectations, what are the skills and what can those people bring in with the business leaders and those who aren't ultimately the decision makers. And so, not kind of feeling as though there's that where, only the decision makers have the capability to know what to do in any given situation and to bring forwards that the skills of other people in the team and other people in the organisation.

NC: Sure and those HR capabilities Peter Cheese often involve translating an organisation's goals or mission into actual fulfilling work for people, from changing how work's done, who's doing it and there's then this phrase that grates on me a bit ,you know, helping people to be their best selves. Can you just sort of talk a bit about this new world of work and the role that HR people can play and the qualities that they're going to need?

PC: Yeah absolutely, I think this goes back to what we see as the purpose of profession in a very broad sense, this idea of championing better work and working lives and the reality is, if you look at work today and indeed in, I suppose more or less the history of work. So, it hasn't always been fulfilling there are many people who are very stressed, are disadvantaged at work, not using their skills effectively, feel disengaged and unmotivated. There are endless surveys that talk to these sorts of things and I really strongly believe that we have to design work consciously for the future, in ways that does create jobs, that are good for people, because work should be good for us. We spend a lot of time doing it, it should be driven by a sense of purpose and we understand that purpose and aligns to our beliefs and values and so on. But it is also using our skills, it's also good and supportive for our well-being and many of these constructs have actually been understood for a long time.  You know, the idea of job quality. What are those attributes of good work? 

What is encouraging is, there is a lot more discussion about those ideas and it's coming through even in the sort of public discourse, if you will. So, the ideas of good employment charters things of that nature which we've seen emerging across different parts of the country in which we're very supportive of, as the CIPD because this is central, as I said to, I think our profession and really anchoring our thinking of the future about, all right let's build. And it really is about constructing jobs particularly with the impact of technology now and the role that our profession has in constructing jobs and the organisations and cultures that sit around them that fulfill those ideas of what good work really is, and how it therefore can be good for all of us. It can be inclusive, it's good for our well-being and so on. And again, we have a massive opportunity, as a profession to lead the way on so much of that debate and then finally on your point about helping people to be their best selves. Yeah, it's a bit of a clunky expression but it but it does sort of capture that idea that, don't we all want to try to be our best selves, don't we all want to you know, have that opportunity to grow and develop and achieve something meaningful. 

And as I said, work is a very important way in which we do that and it's so important now that, we create that that sense of purpose, that sense of meaning, fulfilling work and work that is good for us. And it's not least because that is what, I think the generations coming into work now are far more articulate about demanding. I mean, when I first started work, we didn't talk about these things very much. We just did work and we had to sort of suck it up, as it were. I think you know, the generations now generation y and generation z, are very much more focused on these ideas and so they should be and we should work together to create a future that is ultimately good for all of us in that regard. 

NC: And I wonder David to what extent an organisation that has meaning, as we've just heard from Peter needs to think a lot about culture which is another word which perhaps wasn't talked about 20 years ago. As somebody practical who sort of deals with real situations in companies, does culture ranked very highly with you? 

DB: Yeah I look, I think cultures are incredibly important but I think again and I'm going to come back to something Peter's saying, I think, I think, the challenge with all of this is, you start to talk in amorphous terms. And actually when you distil cultures down they are about those individual transactions that happen on a daily basis and Peter was saying they're about meaningful work and charters. I'm not sure they're the ideal route to go down. I think the profession should be encouraging meaningful debates between what we are classed as business people or business managers or whatever, whatever terminology you want to use and the individuals. Because that meaningful work will come from an individual saying this is what I want to do, this is what I bring to the table, this is what I'm committed to give, this is what I believe and this is what I value. And the organisation has got to make a decision at that point in time, whether they can create the right environment for that person to be successful. Sometimes they can, sometimes they can work, sometimes they can't but my point is that it's encouraging that two-way dialogue. 

LC: And I'd echo exactly that David and I think especially since the last recession, where we've had you know for over 10, you know, nearly 15 years of people who have joined the world of work, where job security is just simply not a thing. It is not an expectation on either side, it's not talked about it's just not part of our world anymore. And so we have to be able to have conversations about mutually beneficial relationships and I say this, I preach this to businesses all the time, this is like one of the key, the key things I think absolutely critical is that we have to be able to articulate explicitly what is in it for the employee. What do we expect from them, we're really, we're quite familiar and very comfortable with those conversations. We have to talk about what they get in return. Because as Peter says these generations, they are expecting something from this. And so, we if we can't describe to them and say right this is where we're going and this is what you get out of it. They will simply not join us on that journey. 

DB: I would just say on the back of that though, I think very, very important is organisations feeling and knowing that they can say no. 

NC: But we're talking here in the context of what the professionals can do to be ideal in their jobs to grow how do they bring an influence to bear on these quite difficult issues sometimes?

LC: And we're coaching, we're coaching those managers and those business leaders that when somebody comes across and says well, this is great, I can, I can be this, this role in your organisation but this is what I expect in return. So, whether that be a salary that kind of goes outside what the organization is comfortable with, or to attend training that's kind of not within the budgets and those kind of things like. We are now as Peter has said there are generations that are very happy to ask and ask but equally that there is, we have to be comfortable to say, that's not something that we can offer you and so David's earlier point around well, there comes a point which we have to say what actually your values and our values, are what you need and what we can offer, simply don't meet. That's something that we have to encourage and coach and develop managers to be happy and comfortable to have those conversations.

NC: Peter Cheese, if I can just bring you to another important question which is that not all HR people progress in their jobs do they? They get to a certain point, they don't become influencers within their organisation, maybe they're not very good at doing that kind of pushing back, with senior managers sometimes that we talked about. Not great at the harder conversations. Can you retrain yourself do you think to reach a higher level if you feel you've come to some kind of impasse? 

PC: I suppose my reaction to that is that's again a very broad question that would apply to any function or profession it's not and there's nothing unique about that to HR but I think as we've all explored that the reality of our profession is we do have to be good at influencing and communicating. We have to deliver difficult messages sometimes, we have to challenge sometimes as Laura said we sometimes have to challenge senior management on things and what I've also found over the years with the profession of course, is if I compare it to finance and accounting, finance and accounting is very rule driven. If something's not right, I can tell you it's not right and you can't do that and if you carry on doing that you're going to be in trouble. HR of course, has a legal foundation but it's much less sort of rules and regulatory driven in that sense and secondly, I think everybody has a view in HR, right. Now not everybody will have a view on finance but everybody has a view on HR. So, in that context it does mean I think in particular perhaps for our profession our ability to influence, to deal with conflict and difficult conversations and balance perspectives, we've got to both champion the workforce as well as champion the business and management pragmatism and priorities. 

And those are quite challenging things to do and therefore to grow through the profession up to these more senior levels. Those ability that the skills we called out, things like the ability to influence, communicate clearly, critical thinking evidence-based practice understanding business, are really, really essential and and all of those things to answer your core question. Yeah, you can absolutely develop and train those things. Now one other quick point I would make is, I think we also need to think about in developing those skills and capabilities, we don't just need to do them by saying, you need to stay in HR, never move from HR. I think some of the best teams I see now, really are more fungible in terms of bringing people into HR from other areas of business and maybe move back into other areas of business and they're bringing with them that HR understanding and vice versa. And I think we can do more to develop some of these capabilities by being a bit more fungible and how we think about HR expertise and how we grow the function for the future. 

LC: And I think also, I've seen some really fantastic HR professionals who, can they train to have those skills to have the difficult conversations and to be that level of independence and the and the conscience and the critical frame. Yes, every person will be able to train to, be able to do those things. However, not every organisation is wanting that out of HR and I think there's a level to which we have to also accept that the evolution of HR isn't complete. And we are continuing to be on a journey and there are some organisations that are further evolved than others and therefore if a HR professional listening to this feels like, do you know what, I'm doing everything I can and I'm still not succeeding. Go and get a job in another organisation, it's not necessarily on you, it could be on them.

NC: Comes down to what David was saying at the beginning about understanding the business. 

PC: Well, I mean actually yes it was going to sort of reflect exactly that point we talked a lot about our profession understand the business. But we've got to educate business to understand what strategic HR is and very much to Laura's point. I mean, that so the reality yes what you're describing therefore is also to some degree what I've seen with people, they almost hit a ceiling within their organization because they want to be acting in this much more strategic way. But they're not being always given the opportunity because the business leaders don't understand what strategic HR is. 

Now, that to me is always the question about what we need to do also as a professional to educate business leaders much more on these questions. I mean, we talk for example, about culture and yet many business leaders really struggle to understand that. We don't teach enough about it business schools, I've been and spoken to many MBA programs for example, we talk about all these fantastic things like finance, strategy and things of that nature. But we don't talk about things like people's strategies and cultural understanding and organisational dynamics and those sorts of things, really should be seen as important business skills, that business people need to have. And then we find a we will find and we're part of that process, a much easier connection with business leaders so that we can grow the profession and grow those strategic capabilities which we aspire to in the more senior levels of the profession. 

NC: OK, so if we're thinking about that in practice David Balls, I was thinking maybe the times when you go into an organisation and try and make it work better. Where does that relate to what the individual HR people are doing and what their skills are? 

DB: Well, I think I said this earlier about things like cultures being this amorphous term. I think the big thing about it is you've got to break it down into what does it mean and the behaviour that you're going to demonstrate at any one moment in time. Now, a culture will guide that but each a culture you can hide behind a term about the culture and I think, what we've got to get HR people doing and indeed other business leaders around the entire organisation, is thinking about what they are doing in their interactions and what does that say about the type of business they want to be and the culture they're trying to create. Because you know, it only takes you know, one interaction where it is counter cultural to start to make people think well this isn't the right place for me. Yeah, this is not what I expect, this is not what I signed up to, so, I think it's really those those individuals, thinking about the behaviours that they're going to demonstrate in any one interaction, which has got to be aligned to the culture they're trying to create. 

NC: OK, well we want to try and bring this to some kind of conclusion so, I was wondering in the light of all that Laura, can a people manager really be like a Swiss army knife, you know deployable in every single situation or to what extent is it okay to prioritize your skills in line with what particular HR work you're doing? 

LC: Yeah, absolutely we've got to be able to flex and in any particular situation is this is the emotional intelligence is that, what does this situation require of me. What is our objective and how are we going to make sure we elicit the right responses out of people. So, sometimes that can be, that kind of like that tough straight talking direct version of you and sometimes it can be somebody who's going to be far more um empathetic. And take a much longer time and there's many different ways in which but we have got to be able to respond to what the situation requires of us. And to be tuned in to that situation and the needs of those people in the room. And so, if you're dealing with those kind of the business leaders then we've got to be able to be direct, we've got to make sure we can make our point and we've got to be able to influence in that room quickly, we've got to demonstrate those expertise. But with our with team member populations, they're going to need taking on the journey. They're going to need kind of guiding through, so we can be many things to many different people as long as we're being authentic. That's a bit that shines through very quickly is if you're not bringing your authentic self then that's that's very difficult to hide from. 

NC: And we're talking here about the ideal qualities for an HR person so, final thought there from David and Peter. David first. 

DB: The ideal HR person I think we go full circle to where we started which is, I don't think it needs to be about this gregarious extroverted likeable wonderful unicorn person, you even referenced in your introduction it just that doesn't exist. Clearly as any professional in any organisation you want to do the things that people and Peter said earlier respect you for doing. And I think as long as people can go into those conversations, I keep coming back to these single interactions and thinking about you know, the right the right sort of tone they want to sell. The right melody they want to create in their organisation and have the right impact, using the right data points, the right information to just. Yeah that's what you've got to ask of a good HR person is just, think about the context that you're in. Think about the interaction that you're having and just putting your best foot forward and using those skills that you've got and data that's around you to take the best most respectable path forward. 

NC: And Peter Cheese 

PC: Yeah, I think it's been well said and well explored through this podcast. I would go back to things like this sense of curiosity. I would certainly also talk about this idea of purpose and a lot of things that we talked about which are I think very well embedded in our profession map. But also you know I think this is a very exciting time for the profession. Yes, it is definitely challenging but I think certainly my view. We have a clear line of sight as to what the real value that we add to organisations is now. Almost more than ever before. The context we're in is about a lot of change, a lot of adaptation, a lot of discussions about skills, about culture, about you know, responsible business, ethical behaviours, impact to technology and all of these are very very critical themes. As I said before not just for organisations but ultimately for our economists and our societies. And this is what I think our profession can really, really contribute to and I think that is very, very exciting. So, I would like to encourage people of course, to come into the profession. 

You know, recognising as we've all said, there is not one single model for what you need to be, to be a good HR professional and indeed many of the things and attributes we've talked about will apply to good business people in general. But I think that sense of purpose and belief in what we do and why it's important, that sense of curiosity and you know finally I think a little bit of resilience as well because I said it is important to recognize that with all this stuff happening, there is a lot of pressure on the profession and we do have to deal with some difficult stuff alongside you know, the inspiring and future-driven things. And that also I think, calls for a little bit of resilience and courage as well. 

NC: Well, what a thoughtful start to the new year for the podcast. Many thanks there. Peter Cheese the CIPD Chief Executive. And also let's thank Laura Callaghan from Willow HR and David Balls from New Cross Healthcare Solutions. If you haven't, please subscribe to this podcast because we've got some great content coming up, starting next month when we dive into the implications of what's happening to our climate and the role HR can or should play in driving sustainability. Until next time from me Nigel Cassidy and all of us CIPD, it's goodbye.