Episode 160 · 7 January 2025 · 52:55
Professor Sir Cary Cooper Unfiltered Full Interview - Special Episode
Professor Sir Cary Cooper Unfiltered Full Interview - Special Episode
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Sir Cary's potted history — from Hollywood to professor
The true cost of financial insecurity at work
Why organizations have a duty of care beyond the legal minimum
Where to start with financial well-being interventions
Spotting the signs — why emotional intelligence in managers matters
What to do when your team member is in real financial trouble
The return-to-office debate — Google, Zoom, and what employees actually want
The secret of culture (it's simpler than you think)
The one-salary story — a real-world example of radical transparency
Sir Cary's biggest lesson on workplace culture
Show notes
Professor Sir Cary Cooper Unfiltered — The Full Interview
Special Episode — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) bring you the complete, unedited conversation with Professor Sir Cary Cooper, one of the world's leading experts in organizational psychology and workplace well-being.
This is the third instalment of our Unfiltered Series, following conversations with Rory Sutherland and Professor John Amaechi. And this one is packed with exclusive content you haven't heard in our previous chats with Sir Cary.
From the true cost of financial insecurity to why line managers are the make-or-break of workplace well-being, Sir Cary doesn't hold back. He shares insights from the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work's financial well-being report, explains why emotionally intelligent managers matter more than ever, and reveals what younger generations are really demanding from work.
🎧 What We Covered
The hidden cost of financial stress
Sir Cary opens with a stark reality: financial insecurity isn't just a personal problem — it's a productivity killer. When people are worrying about money, they're not fully at work, even when they're sitting at their desks. Organizations that ignore financial health as part of their duty of care are missing one of the biggest levers on employee well-being and performance.
Line managers are the frontline
If you want to know why well-being initiatives fail, look at the line managers. Sir Cary argues that too many managers are promoted for technical skill, not people skill. The managers who can empathize, spot early warning signs, and have difficult conversations are worth their weight in gold — and they're rarer than you'd think.
The secret of culture is open conversation
When Al asks Sir Cary for the secret of culture, his answer is almost disarmingly simple: it's allowing open conversations. That's it. But simple doesn't mean easy. Breaking down the stigma around financial and mental health talk requires leadership that models vulnerability first.
Evidence-based interventions that actually work
Drawing on the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work's financial well-being report, Sir Cary shares real-world examples of organizations getting this right — and the measurable benefits they've seen. This isn't fluffy stuff; it's good business.
The future of work is already here
From the return-to-office battles at Google and Zoom to what Gen Z actually want from employers, Sir Cary explains why organizations that don't adapt will struggle to attract and retain the talent they need.
💡 Top 3 Takeaways
Financial well-being isn't just ethics — it's economics. Organizations that address financial stress see it in productivity, retention, and performance. Ignoring it costs more than fixing it.
Line managers are the make-or-break of well-being. Technical skill gets you promoted; emotional intelligence is what makes you effective. Organizations need to select and train managers for people skills, not just delivery.
Open culture starts at the top. If leaders can't admit they don't have all the answers, neither will anyone else. The secret of culture really is open conversation — but it has to be modelled, not mandated.
📄 Resources Mentioned
- Financial Well-being Report — from the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, free to download and packed with actionable insights. Mentioned by Sir Cary at
[51:38].
🔮 What's Next in the Series
Join us next week for the fourth episode in our Unfiltered Series — an unmissable conversation with Dr. Audrey Tang. We'll be exploring leadership, resilience, and how to build lasting workplace cultures.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a chartered psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWelcome back. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy Tuesday. Uh, now on a Tuesday, we would normally be bringing you the This Week in Work where we share the latest workplace news, the hot take, the weekly work— workplace— workplace— oh, it's a bit of a tough one, isn't it?
Leanne ElliottAnd we never say it.
Al ElliottAnd I was the one who came up with it. But—
Leanne ElliottAnd we started the new year saying it wrong as well.
Al ElliottOh no. Well, world famous Weekly Workplace Surgery. There we go. See if I can edit that back in. But for January, we're bringing you something a little bit special. This is our 3rd episode in our special 6-part Unfiltered series where we're giving you the full, unedited, unfiltered interviews with some of the most inspiring and thought-provoking guests we've ever had on the show. If you've missed the first 2 episodes, then we started off with Rory Sutherland and then we had Professor John Amici, 2 absolute legends. You can find those episodes in our podcast or go onto the YouTube channel if you wanna see our faces.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and today we are bringing you another brilliant mind. Our guest is someone who has had a profound impact on how we understand world well-being in the workplace. He's an organizational psychologist and author of over 200 books and a true pioneer and legend at this point in his field. I am talking about none other than Professor Sir Cary Cooper. He's also the co-chair of the National Forum for Health and Well-Being at Work. If you've ever wondered why financial well-being, stress management, and effective leadership are so critical to workplace culture this is the episode for you. Now, long-term listeners may remember Professor Sir Cary Cooper from our panel episode called Protecting Financial Wellbeing Amid the Cost of Living Crisis. We discussed the cost of living crisis and financial wellbeing with Professor Sir Cary alongside Metro Bank's Kushpoo Patel and founder of Finwell, Ryan Briggs. If you haven't heard it yet, it is definitely worth a listen.
Al ElliottBut this, this is the full unedited interview with Professor Sir Cary Cooper. Professor Sir Cary Cooper, can we, can we just agree that we're gonna call you either the Prof or Sir or something? I can't seem to get your name right. Anyway, so this is the full interview, including loads of exclusive content you just wouldn't have heard before. We talk a lot about financial wellbeing, which many of our employees will need support with this year, along with Cary's hot take on managers and the surprising story of a business owner who wrongly assumed giving his team equity share would hook engagement and performance. So settle in and grab a cuppa and enjoy the insights from one of the most respected voices in workplace wellbeing.
Leanne ElliottI've got my cuppa.
Al ElliottJust a quick thought on this interview with Professor Sir Cary Cooper. My audio wasn't brilliant, my, my video wasn't brilliant, but you are getting literally the unfiltered interview. So Cary, don't worry, is absolutely phenomenal and his audio is brilliant. My co-host and wife Leanne is devastated she can't be here. Second time she's missed you because she studied, uh, she did her MSc in organizational psychology or business psychology at Your school at Manchester Business School.
Leanne ElliottOh, fantastic.
Al ElliottI think that it was the year you took a sabbatical or you left for a couple of years, and that was the year she did it. And so she missed you then as well.
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly.
Al ElliottAbsolutely devastated. So if you just give us your potted history, so give us like 10 to 15 seconds on who you are, what you do, and what you're famous for.
Leanne ElliottOkay. Yeah, as you can tell from my accent, I come from Hollywood. I'm a professor of organizational psychology and health. at the Manchester Business School, the Alliance Manchester Business School, as it's called. And I guess I'm fairly well known for stress and wellbeing in the workplace. I've been doing research on that topic for decades, and wellbeing is extremely topical at the moment for most organizations.
Al ElliottYeah, well, I mean, our entire podcast is called Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture, and it centers around wellbeing. I think almost every single episode we've ever done is around wellbeing. Now, I mean, you are the expert. I could ask you about anything. In fact, we could just— we could do an entire podcast, you and I, for the next 2 years on everything you know. What I want to focus on right now is the financial wellbeing, because I was reading a couple of the reports you've done, one in 2020, one just recently, and I just want to get a better understanding of financial wellbeing. So can you start by saying what is the— for anyone who's never really heard of this term financial wellbeing, can you just give us a definition?
Leanne ElliottOkay. Basically, when you're looking at the field of wellbeing more generally, there are lots of sources of stress on people in the workplace. They could be your relationship with your boss. It could be about your career. It's about long working hours, about being overloaded, but it's also partly about your financial circumstances and how that affects your health and wellbeing, productivity and the like. So financial wellbeing is just another source of stress for an individual in the workplace. It's become more significant. It started becoming significant in 2008 to 2015 during the financial crisis. Lots of people lost their job. Job insecurity was rife. People were out of jobs for quite a long time, lost their jobs in the finance sector. Something like 35 to 40% of people lost their jobs in that 6, 7-year financial crisis we were in. The major— I'd call that the depression rather than the recession. I'd call it depression too. Now we're in a recession. Many countries, Germany, Britain is bubbling and bouncing along the bottom. It really is in recession in effect. And so financial wellbeing is all about the problems that your finances are having on you and how it's affecting you at work, in your family, and elsewhere. And since I focus in on the workplace, then my concern is about how do we get people to be open about their financial circumstances with their employer? Because the employer wants to help. Many employers want to help. But if employees— a recent survey found a huge percentage of people, 2 out of 3, will not reveal to their employer that they're having any financial difficulty, yet it affects them at work, it affects them in their relationships, it affects them at home, and their performance as well. So how do we get these people to actually talk about it, feel open to talk about it? How do we get the organization to train line managers to be able, uh, to broach this subject with their subordinates and their direct reports? And, uh, again, About a third of people, it is found, feel that their employer, you know, well, a lot of them feel their employer— number one, they don't want to talk about it with their boss. Number two, they don't think their boss would necessarily be open to talking about it. And many organizations are not really dealing with this as an issue. They feel that would be intrusive or it's not in their bailiwick. It's not What we should be doing things on. Although EAPs, employee assistance programs, are available in bigger organizations, both in the public sector and the private sector, and an aspect of them is not just psychological counseling, but an aspect is about financial counseling as well. So we just need more openness about it because we're in a recession. Things aren't going to get good for a long time, particularly because we have Brexit. Brexit will keep having a negative impact on Britain, but the financial crisis— well, I wouldn't define— not the financial crisis, but the recession, the cost of living crisis, energy, all that kind of stuff is going to affect the whole of Europe for quite a long time, particularly as long as the Ukrainian war goes on.
Al ElliottWell, you've answered about 4 of the questions that I wanted to ask you, so I'm going to ask you in a bit more depth in a second. about some of these. But the first sort of more fundamental question is, perhaps I'm just old school being a Gen X, and maybe I'm old-fashioned thinking, but why is it even the organizational's responsibility to care about this kind of thing?
Leanne ElliottWell, number one, the organization has a legal, in almost all developed countries, certainly in the EU and beyond, they have a legal responsibility For the health and wellbeing of their employees. That's legal. Okay? So that's one thing. If one of the drivers for people getting ill is their financial circumstance, right? And the employer— many, there are employers, by the way, that hire in consulting firms that help their employees manage their financial circumstance, right? They do that. There's lots of organizations that actually provide this to organizations, just like they would if you had an EAP. You know, they would just come in and help people with their particular circumstance in a kind of counseling way, but it's financial counseling. So I think why they should be concerned about it is why are they concerned about people's mental health? Because it adversely affects their Productivity and performance. Also, they're off ill with it. If people are off ill with stress, it's something like 2 or 3 times longer than if you have cancer. If you have severe depression, severe anxiety, you're off a hell of a long time, much more than any other illness. So if people get very low and depressed by their financial circumstances, And by the way, financial circumstances is quite a broad construct. That is your own financial situation, but it could be your feeling of job insecurity. If you're in an organization where people have been made redundant and you're a survivor of that redundancy, that's a part of financial insecurity. I'm worried I'm going to lose my job. I have commitments, I have a mortgage, this, that, and the other. So why they should be interested and why they should be concerned about it is like they are about the mental health of people. If you want to be really crude about it, you know, if, if their, if their mindset is that we want this person performing, we don't want 'em off ill for a long period of time, therefore let's deal with their psychological state, their financial circumstance, any way we can help and support them. is part of our duty of care. So that's why they should be concerned about it. But to be honest with you, more and more organizations now are concerned about people's mental wellbeing and financial insecurity. Financial difficulties are a driver.
Al ElliottYou mentioned something before, which I thought Well, I'd written down a question around this because particularly in Britain or the UK, you've got this sort of— nobody really wants to talk about their personal finances to friends, family, whatever. So you said, oh yes, this is, this is a problem and a challenge for an organization. How do managers actually open up the lines of channels of communication? How do they actually do this? Is there any—
Leanne ElliottOkay.
Al ElliottSo if someone's listening, they want to do this, where would they start?
Leanne ElliottHere, here's where our problem is in the whole field of wellbeing. But let's look at financial wellbeing is only one aspect of it. The problem we have is to do with line managers. What we tend to do in developed countries is we recruit and promote people to managerial roles based on their technical skills, not their people skills. This is a very fundamental problem we have, which we haven't directly tackled. You know, we look at, we look at somebody who's a good marketeer and we say, that guy's great. He's, his sales are fantastic. Let's make him a marketing manager. That teacher in a classroom is outstanding. So let's make her a head teacher, you know, with minimal amount of training or even thinking about whether they're competent enough to do it. This is very fundamental. So what we need in the future— so these are, by the way, people who don't have much EQ, not much emotional intelligence. They're technically really good, great marketeer, great teacher, great social worker. Put them in a managerial role and they fail. And it's because they might not have the people skills to put people together. Now, what do people skills mean?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSocial interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, being able to empathize with your colleagues, understand, seeing their change of behavior, being socially sensitive. So you notice somebody's not the same. So, you know, I've noticed that, you know, Al usually is very ebullient. He's in a meeting, he's, you know, he's participating like everybody else. The last few weeks, he's just quiet, totally withdrawn. And when he does come in, he's very angry, very aggressive. Now, a good line manager recognizes a change of behavior, and that's a line manager all the way from shop floor to top floor. This goes all the way up the system. Anybody who's in a managerial role.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottSo that person is more likely to be To recognize symptoms in their subordinates and saying, putting armor on shoulder, Al, I've noticed for the last few weeks, maybe month, maybe 2 months, you've been kind of withdrawing. Something's troubling you, isn't it? I just feel it. Is it? What's wrong? And because he's an open person, he or she's an open person. Al is more likely to respond and open up themselves because open people, open people who have these social skills are people who are prepared to admit their own vulnerabilities, which enables people they're working with to open up. That's the way you do it. So in the future, what we need Is we need to recruit or promote line managers where there's parity between their people skills and their technical skills. They still need technical skills. You got to be a teacher to understand in a managerial role as a head teacher to manage the rest of the teachers. You've got to be— you have got to understand marketing if you're a marketing director. You, but you know, but you, but you have to understand that, but you also have to have the people skills. Therefore, if you get the right people in, and here's the problem we have, Al. The problem we have is because we don't have enough of them. I mean, in the years I'm that old, which I can say in all the years I've worked in organizations, I would say, and I had a university spinoff company, University of Manchester spinoff company, Robertson Cooper. Our work was working with lots of big companies, organizations, hospitals, public, private sector bodies.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottI would say that if I was giving an estimate, I'd say if you looked at the managerial pool of most organizations, 40% of managers, wherever they are in the hierarchy, have these skills naturally. You know, luckily they have the good people, social interpersonal skills. 40% are trainable. There is a problem that about 20% are untrainable. They shouldn't be in a managerial role. They just have a personality that makes it difficult for you to train them, right? The more we recognize that. So the problem we have in most organizations, in my view, is we have to deal with the cohort we currently have, the 40-40-20. 40 is fine. No training needed. 40, training. 20, find another role for them. Take them away from people, whatever you do. They technically may be very competent. That's fine, but don't give them a managerial role. Find a vehicle to put them into a part of the organization where you can benefit from their technical skills, but get them away from human beings. So that in the first instance, that's the issue we have. We need to train people, and that applies to financial wellbeing too. It's more fundamental than just financial wellbeing, is that the individual is not going to— if 2 out of 3 are not prepared to talk to their boss, then we got a problem. Why aren't they? I don't think my boss would understand. He or she's not, you know, very open person. I think there could be— they could think I'm not a very good employee or a good worker. Because I'm coming to them with a financial problem, which is partly not my fault. I mean, the cost of energy is astronomical. All the costs have risen. I can't afford it, but I don't want to ask for more money in my job because I'm frightened of losing the job in the first place. So I think what we need to do is maybe at this point in time with the existing pool of management we have, we need to train the ones who just don't have the school and HR knows who They are. You just talk to any HR person, you say, can you point out the people in this organization who just don't have these people skills? And they'll say, yeah, that's Fred, that's Janet, there's Peter, there's— there they are. They're good at the technical things they do, but they're just not— all the problems tend to come from those people. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both the same podcast network.
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fel, host of Nudge, UK's number 1 marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Seamless. Seamless.
Al ElliottTell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys? I am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
Al ElliottI've got that.
Leanne ElliottKeep that in.
Al ElliottSo just when you were talking there, it made me think, if I was a manager and my— let's say my budgets were fairly tight, which is not unreasonable to consider in the current state of affairs, and I suspect someone's having money problems, my reticence might be I don't want to say, are you having financial problems? Because then that opens the door to them going, yes, and I need more money from you. And then I go, ah, shit, I haven't got more money to give you. So in that situation, is that a really small-minded way to think as a manager that you shouldn't be bringing up because they're going to ask for more money automatically?
Leanne ElliottYeah, but people are not likely to be asking necessarily for more money. They need help. They may be in real turmoil and they need support. There are so many organizations out there that are providing this support to businesses. And I think, you know, like you seek support for counseling from EAPs, or you seek support for mental health first aid from organizations out there that help train your mental health first aiders. The same thing would apply to this. I don't think it's a, it's, it's not complicated. Yeah, that might be the case that they feel they need a wage increase as one vehicle, but most of the time it's people have just got overwhelmed with their finances. They may be really good at their job, but when it comes to their own personal finance, they got themselves in trouble. They just need some support to get through it. And The payoffs will be great because number one, the more you provide this, there's a, like, there's lots of companies like Close Brothers is one of them that comes in and does training, helps people with their own personal financial positions. There's a whole number of these kinds of companies. They're very good. And what they do is they, you know, it, because the They help them sort out their problem. This problem will trans— the lack of this problem will translate into higher perform— better performance, higher productivity. In the end, it'll pay for itself, just like EAPs pay for themselves. I did a major study on all the EAPs in the UK, and this was funded by the HSC. Health and Safety Council years and years ago. And we, we looked at it and, and saw the cost-benefit— looked at the cost-benefit analysis of buying in an EAP. And if you help people with their personal problems, how that was going to reflect itself in increased performance, less sickness absence days, and the like. It, it, it's a no-brainer. You're right. If we have less EQ'd line managers, They're going to be reluctant to do this, uh, because they don't know how to handle people, because they're not good at handling people, full stop. But we can train those 40% that are trainable into this and saying, look, being open means you're prepared. Recognize the changes of behavior of your employees. If you see major changes in your behavior, provide opportunities for you to discuss it with them. What, what might be the drivers in this? What might be causing this problem and see if you get the social supports they need to deal with it. It could be a marital problem, could be a financial problem. Who knows what it is? But you know, why not? They, they come into the workplace and they're not automatons. What's going on outside affects them inside. So you could just ignore it and say, it's not my problem. They have financial problems, they have mental health problems, they have relationship problems. Not my problem. It is your problem because they come in with those problems. And that's why the evidence on EAPs is that it works. It pays off to the bottom line.
Al ElliottSo you've talked a lot about the EAPs. You mentioned a consultancy that would come in and train around financial wellbeing. Have you come across an organization Who is, who does this really well? Not a provider, like an organization who would, who would put these programs in place, like a Google or an IBM. Is there someone you know who's doing it really well at the moment?
Leanne ElliottAnd everybody thinks that those companies in the IT sector are really good. Did you hear? I mean, Google now has a lot of these techie companies. Twitter, did you hear what was it? Twitter? No, it wasn't. It wasn't Twitter. It was Oh, I can't remember which IT company just recently said you can't work from home. You have to come in minimum of 3 days. Well, Google's done that before, but another one recent— oh, I'll tell you what it was. It was Zoom.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottZoom has told their employees they have to be in a minimum of 3 days. Can you believe it? First of all, they thrive on the fact that people are working from home. Most of these companies thrive on it, yet they're doing that. Don't assume. that the good people firms are the IT firms. They're not necessarily at all. So there are companies that really know how to deal with these kinds of issues, and we're getting more of them because more and more companies are thinking about wellbeing in a more strategic way. Okay. And so, I mean, I— we did some work, Robertson Cooper, my ex-Manchester University spinoff company, did work With Mace, the big construction builders. And we were going quarterly to the senior leadership team. That's the CEO and his team once a month, talking once a quarter, talking about when we had a contract to do work with them on wellbeing, develop it strategically. And we said, okay, we've done employee wellbeing audits. We got the employee voice now. We know that there's that problem in that part of the business and that problem in that part of business. We're going in and intervening. So we go in and intervene and we would then bring back the data on the, on the before and after of the intervention. Sometimes it was successful. Sometimes it wasn't. When it wasn't, we'd say, we tried that, didn't work, but we know why it didn't work. So we're doing that. That's what it should be about. And you have a strategic plan. You're getting employee voice. You're finding out that they have financial— that people who are— a number of people have financial wellbeing issues. What are we going to do about it? How are we going to deal with that? And open it up and in the whole organization. So it— this is doable, but you have to get open communications. You have to change the culture, the secretive culture with people frightened of talking about that they, they're stressed or have mental health issues or relationship problems at home or financial difficulties. The more you can open the conversations, then you can have more conversations and you train people to have the conversations who don't have the natural social skills. which you can train people for, then the better it'll get. And you'll ultimately get— and then ultimately what you do in the, in the medium to long term is you attack the issue that I talked about earlier about line managers. Get more socially interpersonal skilled line managers in, more EQ'd line managers. You won't have as many problems in the future. I run the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work. It's made up of 50 global employers. It's HR directors, chief medical officers, directors of health and wellbeing of some of the major brands globally. All right. We meet about every 6 weeks. We've been going for 5 and a half years. These are very senior people, but they do things. They said 5 and a half, 6 years ago when we first formed this, they said the big issue for us, if we only did one thing, it'd be the line manager. Because if you have the right kind of line manager all the way up the system, that person will recognize when their subordinates, their colleagues are not coping, will recognize, will be open people, and people will feel they can come to him or her with problems they've got, whether they're financial or otherwise. And we will have minimized the number of problems down the line where Because you haven't dealt with it, people are off work for many, many months.
Al ElliottSo you used a phrase there before, the secret of culture. So is the secret of culture just allowing open conversations with managers who care? I mean, is it that simple?
Leanne ElliottIt is that simple. I mean, it sounds silly. I mean, you think, oh no, it can't be that. It is. That's what that— who's your culture as an employee? Your culture is your boss and your work colleagues that you see every week, right? That's your— it's not the chief exec. The chief exec has his or her own team. That's their culture. You know, they talk about a— it's like the National Health Service in the UK. Everybody talks about it like we've got to do this with the NHS as if it's Uh, uh, uh, an oil tanker heading toward a port, right? And now we're gonna do that and it's gonna shift the whole war. They don't think about it as a flotilla of tons of little ships, i.e., hospitals. And you say, if you're smart, you would say, if you were the head of the NHS, do you see that port over there? How you get to that port, I don't care, because you have different demographics than the, than another boat in the flotilla. So you decide how you're going to get there. You determine your navigation toward that port, given the context of your demographics, the problems you face, and everything else. And that's what it's all about. So for me, in an organization, The culture that affects you the most are your work group, your team. Those are the ones who affect you and the line manager. And so the more we can get that good communication within everybody there who feels safe and comfortable and talking about issues and problems, the better. And so it's not, I don't think it's that complicated. It's only complicated because we don't have enough of those people who are in managerial roles who have that competency.
Al ElliottI love it. I love it. My wife is going to be so devastated she's not part of this conversation. She just loves all this kind of thing. In fact, I think she always, if you listen to any one of our podcast episodes, she'll always say at one point, it's the manager, it's down to the line manager. So in the report, you identified there were 4 dimensions to financial wellbeing in the workplace. I've got written down here, reward, Reward and benefits, in-work progression, education and support. Can you just take me through these? Is there any kind of order we should be looking at these in?
Leanne ElliottNot really. I think it's about, in terms of financial wellbeing, it's about partly your career. It's about the rewards you get. By the way, there are psychological rewards as well as financial rewards. Right? In other words, if you think about this, I might be asked to go somewhere. I might be recruited for a job. It's a job I actually would like to do, but they don't pay me half of what I currently get paid. So that's a career issue, but it's also a financial issue for me. I had that happen to me once where I got offered a job at a very prestigious just university or, you know, much earlier in my, in my career and everything else. But it wasn't gonna pay me very much. And I had 4 kids, or I can't remember at that time, maybe it was only 2. I can't remember. I just can't remember. It was ages and ages ago. Okay. So I decided to stay with the money, but I could do my own thing where I was anyway. So what do I need to, you know, those kinds of issues come up all the time. And that determines, that affects your financial circumstance. Say I would've taken the job at this place, but ended up ending up with 4 kids. Probably would've stayed with 2 at the time, but say I would've, 4, that would've been, that would've cost me, caused me a lot of problems. Maybe my wife, oh, my wife actually was working at the time anyway, but let's say she wasn't. She may then have to go to work. So.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAll those kinds of issues about your career, your rewards. And there are a lot of rewards you get from a job which are not necessarily financial, and you might want to stick with the job, but it causes financial complications for you if you do. So a lot of people can say that, I'd love to do that, but I can't do that because it doesn't pay me enough money. So I think all those 4 kind of constructs, you know, just are interactive, interdependent, and they affect your financial wellbeing.
Al ElliottFabulous. Well, I'll definitely link to that as well in the show notes. I just want to kind of finish this off by talking a little bit more about The signs that I'm not doing it right. So if there's a leader or business owner listening and they're thinking, I've not really thought about this before, what are some of the signs that they're not addressing this problem? Okay.
Leanne ElliottWell, number one sign is people are taking off more and more time, but they're taking off for stress more and more. The difficulty is maybe if they're not prepared to, if they're not open about, if they feel the organization's not open for them to talk about their financial circumstances, they're certainly not going to tell them why they're off ill. Let's just say they're off ill more and more. They might not be saying they're off for stress, but they're off a lot. Um, there, there's a whole load of signs. Their behavior changes over a period of time. So normally when they're very extrovert, they become more socially withdrawn. So there's behavioral changes which indicate to a manager, business owner, an SME owner, or any manager that they are behavioral changes. Somebody who usually is very humorous, affable, becomes more socially withdrawn. All those kind of subtle behavior changes, you see them. And the way you know as an individual you're behaving differently is when somebody says to you, um, you don't seem yourself, Carrie, you know, are you okay? Um, or you— somebody asks you, are you okay? And your response, your nonverbal response tells you the way you look at them, your body language, that they're not okay. Even though that what they may say is, yeah, I'm all right, I'm, I'm okay, I'm all right. How many times do people say that when they're asked that? They do. So looking at the nonverbal forms of communication, looking at change of behavior, looking at sickness absence rates, uh, listening to what employees have to say about other people. And if you're a good manager and you're walking the talk, Then you're going to hear all sorts of rumors, you know, chat from employees about other employees. You know, Fred's a bit strange these days; he's not really part of the team. All of that—that's what you have to look for. But to do that, you have to be socially sensitive person. You have to really be a. manager. That's what a manager should be. A manager is not just somebody who says, here's our priorities, hit the bottom line. A manager should be somebody who just looks at everybody in the team individually. The good news about the pandemic was I think more managers then knew more about their subordinates and their direct reports than ever before because the They had— first of all, they got worried because they weren't in an office. So I don't see them all the time during the lockdowns. So what did they do? Everybody was doing, or the organization told most managers, and most organizations said, do one-to-ones with your direct reports on Zoom. They told them that. Don't just have a business meeting and then Forget the individual because you're not seeing them. Do one-to-ones, but make it less about work and just ask them how they're getting on. So funny enough, there was a movement during that period of time of pushing people, pushing managers into the role of trying to relate to the individuals as people, what circumstance they were experiencing. What their worries were, particularly then we had, you know, uh, people worried about their jobs. We had furloughing going on. We had all of that happening that period of time. And oddly enough, we, we probably had better open communications during those 2 years than we have ever had before in the past, because people were mandated to do something about it. By the way, it didn't mean that if you were a socially incompetent line manager that you were particularly good at it, but at least you were encouraged to do it. Maybe you learned a thing or two in the course of doing that.
Al ElliottYeah, I think the pandemic, it's the P word that keeps on giving. But yeah, it is. It definitely was a reset, I think, for a lot of people. I'm curious on your theory of this. You may even have practical experience or practical knowledge of what happened here. There was a company about 2 years ago that just raised everyone's salary. They're American, I think, or might be Canadian, actually. And they raised everyone's salary up to about $75,000 a year. Did you ever come across that news story?
Leanne ElliottNo. Go ahead.
Al ElliottOkay. So basically, everyone in the company went on one salary. So everyone, including the owner, every single level, one salary. I'm curious, would you theorize that that would solve 90% of the financial wellbeing issues in that with those within those people, or is just giving people more money not going to be the solution?
Leanne ElliottNo, it could, it could be part of the way to the solution, but it's a, it depends on whether you as the owner of that business or the CEO made the decision to do that without talking to your employees. I'll never forget once I was a non-executive director of a small company made up of about 40 employees. They were really nice guys. They went to Cambridge together, 3 of them. They founded this business and they wanted— they were guys who had this philosophy. It was a small company. It was quite successful, and they wanted to give their employees part of the business. They wanted to give them shares. So they brought me in only for that purpose. So an advisor, but I was sitting as a non-exec director on the board to do this because they thought this was a big deal, 40, 50 employees. So I said, that's— they said, what do you think of this? I said, in principle, it's a great idea. You know, you're giving them a part of the business, but don't you think it'd be a good idea? I said, to go talk to the employees.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThat I should go talk to them. You don't have to do this. I— that's my job. I'll do that. You're bringing me in to do this, all right? And I'll go talk to the employees and find out, um, it— you know, is this something they want? Because in the end, if you think about— you want to change an organization, you want to make a difference, you ask the employees. They are the guys and gals at the coalface. They're the ones who live this job day in and day out, Monday to Friday, all hours, et cetera. So I went to the shop floor and I started to talk to all of them one at a time, had lunch, coffee. I go back to the board meeting. I said, they don't want that. So they said, what? I said, but everybody's talking about share ownership with your employees. I said, quite a lot of them would want it. This particular group don't particularly want it. I tend to believe, by the way, in share ownership for employee— employee share ownership. I think it's a great construct because they feel part of the business. John Lewis Partnership is a perfect example of it. They were very successful during the pandemic. They were probably the only company that was making money during the pandemic.
Al ElliottZoom.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and Zoom for sure. Zoom.
Al ElliottOkay.
Leanne ElliottSo they said, well, what do they want? I said, you, you won't believe what they want. See, I didn't know until I started talking to them. What they wanted was healthcare coverage, private healthcare coverage in case they got ill or their families got ill. That's what they wanted. So that's what they gave. But look at who, who would've known that unless you talked to them, they would've just mandated like this guy was mandating, everybody's getting $75,000 now. The problem with the $75,000 from a financial point of view sounds like it's solving a problem, but it could be creating another problem. What's the other problem? There's Fred. He's on 75 grand. I'm 10 times more competent than Fred. I deliver much more. I say sell more, or I produce more, or I have get more clients or whatever they do. Can you imagine the problems that could create? So I don't know if that's the solution. And for some of the employees, getting more money would be a solution. Just like in, during the financial crisis, there were companies who were doing something really rather interesting from a financial wellbeing point of view. A lot of people lost their jobs during the 2008 to 2015 crisis.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne Elliottscenario, particularly 2008 to 2012. That was horrendous in many, many sectors. Some companies went and talked to their employees, said, we can't afford it. We're in real trouble. Uh, here's the books. We're in trouble now. We have to get rid of 20% of people. Now, the other option would be that we don't get rid of anybody, but we reduce everybody's salary by 10 to 20%. What do you think of that? Now, that's innovative. You know, that is, that is a way I think of approaching it, is talking, sharing the problem with your employees and coming up with a solution to that problem with your employees rather than doing it all yourself. Management isn't just, you know why the Japanese have been very successful for so many years? Because manager's role is very different from what we have in the West. By the way, I don't think we can shift to a Japanese model, but I've worked in Japan a couple times. A manager's role is to talk to their employees about a problem and get them to solve the problem, take the solution to that problem up to the next level. It's not the manager to sort it. What we do is we have meetings at which we act like The employees are solving the problem, but actually the manager has already come up with a solution, just wants validation of that solution. And probably the majority of them don't even listen to the alternative options open to them. Some do, and those are the ones who are socially skilled would do, but many of them do not, and they just take it up at the next level. In Japan, the role is quite a different role. I'm not saying we should do that, but I do think we should listen to employees and try to get them to help us. They may come up with really interesting solutions. Prepare to take a 10% cut if we all just keep our job. That's a financial wellbeing solution.
Al ElliottThat's interesting. That's— it all stems down to, again, going back to the simplest idea of going treat them like adults. Ask them what they want.
Leanne ElliottExactly. Exactly.
Al ElliottSo before I ask my final question to ask you, um, ask you where people can find out a bit more about you, I'm guessing they can go into Amazon, type your name in, and with 200+ books comes up.
Leanne ElliottDon't market me, it's okay.
Al ElliottI think the question I always wanted to— want to ask people of your experience, you've got You know what, 200 books, probably 10 times more clients, 10 times more clients you've had. Is there a favorite story around workplace culture, perhaps like the strategy, the transformation? Is there something that sticks in your mind as one of your favorite stories across your career?
Leanne ElliottOh, wow. On workplace culture?
Al ElliottOn workplace culture, on whatever you think. I just, I'd love to hear your story.
Leanne ElliottOkay. I think, I think, you know, again, it's about, again, it's about people. It's about having the right people in the right place. So I guess when I was talking earlier about this construction company, there was a director of health and wellbeing who I knew, right, in it. And she was really motivated. The, this, what changes cultures, I think, are people who are passionate about what they do. They care. They're really motivated. And I remember when I met this person, this is before my university spinoff company was doing work with this construction company. Before that, I knew this woman who took the role on there and she was so passionate. She was director of health and wellbeing, and she worked with the HR director and with a health and safety director and all sorts of people. But her passion spilled over into everything. She helped change— can you imagine a construction company, very male-dominated, right? Looking at what other people in that sector, and mainly the male-dominated sectors, would call that soft and fuzzy stuff. I.e., wellbeing. I could see how she changed everybody's opinion at the senior management level. I could see her infecting everybody with how this is the right thing to do. Let's really have a go. Let's really try to make— let us be the leaders in this, particularly in that sector. And they were. They were. They just It changed it. It's a sector that never did stuff like this before. Now they do it. And I guess I saw that and I could see a culture change in that organization. But it all sparks from the passion, the commitment, and, you know, not looking after just yourself and thinking, oh, I want to make sure my job's secure. I'm just thinking this is the right thing to do. If I fail, I fail. I don't— if I lose my job, I lose my job, but I, I believe in it. And I think that's what we need more of. And particularly in the context of the UK, for example, with Brexit, boy, do we need more of it. Brexit was the biggest mistake ever, ever, uh, in, in the UK. It's, it's been very, very damaging to business. So we need, we need to reignite the passion. And, and we have a lot of people who are very passionate about what they do, get it out there. But, you know, the insecurity, the financial insecurity, the job insecurity is driving much more conservative behavior. And we need to get rid of that and just let rip. Maybe the next generation will do it. In fact, I think so. The Z generation, the young millennials are a different breed. First of all, they don't have mortgages, so there's no security to worry about. They don't have it. And they call them the snowflakes, that generation. And that's because they flip from one organization to another. You know why they do that? They saw what happened to their parents. Their parents were the 2008 to 2012 financial crisis. They saw how they were dumped by organizations. It was lack of loyalty. These people want good quality of working life. And they're not afraid to ask for it. And that's our future.
Al ElliottWhat a fabulous line to leave it on. Thank you so much. If someone is interested in learning a bit more about you, I'm sure they can just Google you because you, you are the first 1,000 results. But is there any particular, anywhere particularly you want them to go?
Leanne ElliottNo, not really. Yeah. I mean, I, maybe you can mention, Al, the report we did with, uh, The National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work. You've got it, don't you? It's on the website. It's free. They don't have to pay for it. It's there. It was done by a group in the National Forum from Barclays Bank headed it. And there was a group of about 10 other companies in my National Forum who came together to produce that. It's excellent. If they want anything on financial wellbeing, get it from that.
Al ElliottThat's where I got most of my questions from because I read it. Well, I read it and Leanne read it and she pointed out bits to me that, uh, that I should be asking you about. You have some suitcases to dump, so thank you so, so much for your time.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Thank you, Al. Look after yourself. Say, say hello to Leanne for me. We hope you enjoyed that as much as we did. What a legend. Professor Sir Cary Cooper always brings so much wisdom and actual practical advice to the table. He's just, he's just ace.
Al ElliottHe is amazing. He is amazing and just genuinely a really nice guy. I think when I interviewed him, he was due on— going on holiday that night or the next morning, and he still made time for us. So thank you very much. He's a cool guy. If you want to dive deeper into topics we've discussed today, you can check back on the Financial Wellbeing Report from the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work. Leanne will leave a link to that in the show notes.
Leanne ElliottAnd don't forget to join us on Thursday for episode 4 of this special Unfiltered series. We'll be sharing the full unedited interview with another incredible So I guess stay tuned for that.
Al ElliottUntil then, don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn. And if you enjoyed this, then perhaps think about leaving a review or sharing it with someone who you think might need to hear it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think especially this episode, you know, 2025, new year, it's always— money's always a bit tight in January, isn't it? Um, but anyway, thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
Al ElliottBye.