Episode 321 · 23 July 2026 · 52:05
Is HR the Loneliest Job in the Building? With Tom Emery
Featuring Tom Emery
Is HR the Loneliest Job in the Building? With Tom Emery
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The Vet Analogy: Why HR Leaders Feel Lonely
Breaking Out of the 'Outside Looking In' Trap
interview#hr#mindset#career#perspective
Getting Commercially Curious: The CHI Zero Impact Framework
The Art of Disagreeing Well
Modelling Psychological Safety
interview#psychological-safety#leadership#team-dynamics#trust
Tough Moments: Sitting in the Discomfort
Humanising Workplace Change in the Age of AI
Lessons from Big Corporate to Founder
The Book, People People, and Where to Find Tom
Top 3 Takeaways
interview#takeaways#summary#hr#leadership
Show notes
Why HR Might Be the Loneliest Job in the Building — with Tom Emery
Guest: Tom Emery — former Chief People Officer at a top City of London wealth manager, 20-year corporate HR veteran (ex-HSBC), and founder of HEX Talent & Development.
HR leaders spend all day surrounded by people. So why does it often feel like the loneliest job in the building?
Tom joins Al and Leanne to pull back the curtain on the reality of HR leadership — including his powerful "Vet Analogy": just as vets enter the profession out of love for animals only to see them at their illest, weakest, or most aggressive, HR leaders enter the role because they love people, only to be brought in when people are backed into a corner.
Together, they dig into how HR leaders can step out of the isolated "police officer" role and into the room as true strategic drivers, how senior leaders can build psychological safety by simply asking for help, and why learning to disagree well is the missing ingredient in high-performing C-suites.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Get curious about the business, not just the people. The HR leaders who get taken seriously understand how the company actually makes money and manages cost levers as deeply as the CFO does.
- Build safety by asking for help yourself. Admitting you don't have all the answers isn't a sign of weakness — it's the fastest way for senior leaders to model and build trust.
- You can't fix every outcome. Chasing 100% approval or trying to solve every hard moment will lead straight to burnout. Sometimes the job is just sitting with someone in a difficult moment, not solving it for them.
More From Tom Emery
- Website: hex-development.com
- Book, People People: free UK copy at hex-development.com (or available globally on Amazon)
- Podcast, Beyond Potential: beyondpotential.podbean.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tomemery-b8809818
- Instagram: @tomemeryhex
- TikTok: @tomemeryhex
- YouTube: @HEX-development
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 ElliottTom Emery spent 20 years in corporate HR, the last few years as a Chief People Officer, surrounded by people all day, every day. And he said at times he felt really lonely.
Tom EmeryThe book People People was written for HR leaders because I thought that there was a gap in the market. Um, you know, I didn't have anything when I was a Chief People Officer, and I found it really lonely when I first started in that role because it was just me and the CEO really that I could talk to.
Leanne ElliottLonely. And the most peopled job in the entire building. Tom's got a theory for why, and it starts with an unlikely comparison: HR leaders and vets.
Tom EmeryVets go into the profession because they really love work, you know, they love animals. But what they find is when they go into being a vet is that they're seeing animals at their weakest, at their illest, their most aggressive, just their most difficult. And they have to do things with animals which are You know, we don't really want to do, and we don't really want to be in that situation. And I think there are some parallels with HR leaders, because lots of the HR leaders that I know, and I think I was one of these, go into HR because we really like working with people. But unfortunately, you know, in, in the role of HR, just by its nature, you sadly come across people when they're often really backed into a corner, or they're really at their worst.
Al ElliottSo you take the job because you love people, and you spend your career watching them at their lowest point. That's hard enough on its own.
Leanne ElliottBut here's the part that really makes you think. The person whose job is supporting everyone else in the building, doesn't always have anyone supporting them.
Al ElliottToday we're asking, if HR is the people centre of a business, how is it the loneliest job in the building?
Leanne ElliottHello, and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottWe're founders of people and culture consultancy Oblong, and together we're here to help you simplify the science of work.
Al ElliottOur guest today, Tom Emery, spent 2 decades in corporate HR, most of it at HSBC, before becoming Chief People Officer at a wealth manager in the City of London. He's now built a whole consultancy and a book around what he learned in that seat, including things he said he really only understood once he'd left it.
Leanne ElliottIf you're a leader who's ever felt like you can't ask for help without looking bad, This episode is probably going to hit close to home. Tom's got a theory about why senior people stop reaching out right when they need it most.
Al ElliottSo after this short break, we'll get into the vet analogy properly, why HR sometimes puts itself on the outside looking in, and what actually needs to change.
Leanne ElliottDon't go anywhere.
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.
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Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Tom EmeryMy name is Tom Emery. I style myself as a people performance consultant. So, my background was in corporate HR. I did a 20-year career working across several different industries, but mainly in financial services, working for a big global bank, HSBC, and then for a wealth manager in the City of London where I was the Chief People Officer. And then I set up my own consultancy, which is called Hex Development, We focus on helping individuals, teams, and organizations to be at their very best and reach their full potential. And we do that through supporting leaders, essentially through individual coaching, team coaching, and broader leadership development work. I suppose I think I have a relatively unique experience of having been a Chief People Officer working on the C-suite in both PLC and private equity-backed firms. And I also have, I suppose, an interesting lived experience, um, you know, sort of growing up in, in the Northwest and then going into, uh, working, um, in, in the City of London in a, in a very sort of traditional and, uh, and I suppose quite an elite world.
Al ElliottBeing a Northerner, going to work in London probably about 15 years ago, is that, is that the timeline?
Tom EmerySomething like that.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. How did you find that? Because you can't just say hello to people in the street in London, can you?
Tom EmeryYeah. I mean, you don't do a lot of that in Manchester either, to be honest. But, um, you know, I'm, I think that the experience of working in the city, I think, is quite interesting. And, and I definitely, I think, learned to tone down a bit of the, a bit of the northernness. Um, whether that was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, I don't know. Um, I sort of do think that you have to shapeshift really into your surroundings if you want to be successful. But I think it's important that you do that without losing the sense of who you really are, because that's really what my work is all about. It's about helping people to find confidence in who they are and being able to use that confidence and use their strengths to achieve great things.
Al ElliottLet's talk about HR leaders. The feedback we get is that they feel like they're almost on the outside looking in. Is that something you've come across?
Tom EmeryYes, definitely. I mean, I think there's a mindset thing about working in HR. And I think sometimes that means that we perhaps in HR, we sometimes inadvertently put ourselves on the outside looking in, whereas we might be more effective actually on the inside. So, I suppose, how does that manifest itself? I suppose by believing that Because we have more access to perhaps personal information or perhaps more sensitive information, that puts us in a position of not power necessarily, but that puts us in a position where we can't really connect with the people that we work with. I think there's also something else about us sticking in our swim lane too much, and we're just a people person, and we don't—
Al ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryStray outside that, and we don't really give an opinion, or we don't get curious about what's going on outside of our natural skillset area, if you like. And I think all these things are mistakes because I don't think this is what organizations are asking from HR people. And I don't think this is what organizations need from HR people. I think they need HR people that really are on the inside. And build those connections with their C-suite colleagues, with their execos, with their boards, with their investors, so that they are really a fundamental part of the success of the business. So, you know, there are lots of ways that I think you can do that as an HR professional, which I suppose we might get into as we go through our conversation.
Al ElliottWe definitely will. And I'd like to get into a little bit of that now, actually, if we can. I sense that, I mean, particularly in a lot of sort of TV stuff, the HR is seen as the bad guys because all they do is fire, or you get sent to HR. It feels like going to the headmaster's teacher— headmaster's office, doesn't it? Um, that's— is that actually the reality in, in something like HSBC or some of the clients that you work with?
Tom EmeryI think it can be the reality depending on how the organisation is set up, but I think It's fundamentally down to the way that the HR teams operate. So, if you believe that that's your role, the role of the police person, the role that does the hiring and firing, and that's all you're there for, then that's the role probably that you'll end up taking, and that's the image that you will give out. I think there's a different way of doing HR. I used an analogy recently. I spoke at an event where I was talking about A parallel between being an HR leader and being a vet. So just bear with me on this one. That when vets often go into the profession because they really love work, they love animals. But what they find is when they go into being a vet is that they're seeing animals at their weakest, at their illest, they're at their most aggressive, they're at their most difficult. And they have to do things with animals which are— Yeah. Which we don't really want to do, and we don't really want to be in that situation. And I think there are some parallels with HR leaders, because lots of the HR leaders that I know, and I think I was one of these, go into HR because we really like working with people. But unfortunately, in the role of HR, just by its nature, you sadly come across people when they're often really backed into a corner or they're really at their worst. So, Maybe they're in a disciplinary hearing, maybe they're just about to lose their job, or they've put a grievance in over something very, very upsetting for them. And I think we have to go into the profession with our eyes open, and there will be some of that really difficult, horrible stuff, and we won't be the best thought of people in the organization, and we have to live with that. But saying that, I think We can be something different as well, and we can be really building capability. We can be building engagement. We can be building business performance, and we can be really curious about what's going on in our operations and our wider organizations that mean we can pull some different levers around business performance and making the organization better.
Al ElliottSo, you've used the word curious a couple of times now in the last few minutes. Talk to me. What does it actually look like?
Tom EmeryWhen I wrote my book, People People, I built a model, which you mentioned in the intro, called the CHI. Zero Impact Framework. And one of the skills in that framework is that of being a commercial explorer. And this really is about the idea of being curious about how your business works and how your business makes money, how it pulls cost levers, how it works with its customers, how it funds itself. And yeah, what's important to it. And I think only by doing that and only by having that curiosity can you'd be a really effective HR leader. And I think, to be honest, I think that's one of the reasons why I perhaps wasn't as effective as I could be, because I wasn't actually that interested in financial services. Money's not a big thing for me. It just doesn't really float my boat. And so, I think that sometimes held me back, and that meant that sometimes I stayed too much in my lane because I just wasn't interested enough in what was going on around me. That's what I always talk about when I'm working with HR leaders, is that you do have to be really curious about your business and about your organisation if you want to be a successful HR leader. It's not enough to just be interested in people and to say, well, people are people wherever you go, because that's true. But the context that people are working in and the priorities that they're working to are also really important if you want to provide The best enablement, if you like, that you can offer as an HR professional.
Al ElliottI suspect some HR professionals listening to this have just realised why they haven't been quite as passionate about their job, because they're not as curious about the general business. So, should they be looking for another company they're more in an industry more curious on, or is there something else they can do?
Tom EmeryWell, I mean, I think that's a luxury, right? I think, yeah, if you can go into an organization that you're really passionate about what they're delivering, what their values are, the way they work, passionate about the people that you work with, passionate about the product or the service that they're selling, then that's brilliant, right? Because that's going to get you up in the morning much more than just going in and doing your job. I think you can do a decent enough job To be honest, if you're not super passionate about banking, for example, I still think you can do a good job, but I don't think you're going to blow the lights out. And I don't necessarily think you're going to enjoy it that much either. And I think sometimes, going back to that point you made about HR being outside looking in, sometimes I think that there's sort of this slightly undertone of resentment amongst HR people that they're not able to quite do what they want to do. They're not quite in the right conversations or in the right rooms and things. And I think if you get more curious, and I think if you're able to push yourself into some of those different conversations that might feel uncomfortable, and you might have to be courageous to do it, and you might have to ask a few questions that you think might sound a bit silly on the way, I think if you can do that, then I think you will, you know, you will be better.
Al ElliottWell, let's talk about the other functions because Some of the people I hear from, they say that the people like, for example, the CFO struggle to see why HR should either not exist necessarily, but why it should be at the same level as a CFO. You talk about the CHRO. Talk to me more about that.
Tom EmeryThey're bringing very, very different skill sets into an organization. And I think that actually having those 2 Those 2 roles as peers, albeit, I mean, the CFO will always get paid a lot more than the CHRO. I can tell you that for nothing. But having those 2 roles as peers, I think, can be a really helpful, almost dissonance, if you like, in an organization. Because I know that the CFO I worked with most in my last organization before I set my business up, we shared some very, very different views.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tom Emeryviews on the world and on business. And so, I was obviously often gunning to invest more in people, and he was often gunning for, let's not spend as much so that we can maximize our profit and maximize our shareholder return. Now, what we were able to do because we got on well and we were able to disagree well was we were able to use that to the organization's advantage because it meant that we had really robust conversations. Where we made good decisions because we were able to really kick the tyres on that. And he was able to bring his perspective, and I was very much able to bring my perspective. And out of that, you probably got some balanced decisions, which are, yes, it'll take care of the profit, it'll take care of the EBITDA, it'll take care of the shareholder return. But at the same time, it's also gonna take care of your engagement, it's gonna take care of your wellbeing, and you're gonna balance your performance on That basis. If you've got a CFO who doesn't want your HR leader in the room, then I think, well, that's incumbent on HR leaders to show their mettle, show what they're worth. And back to the conversation that we had previously, you do that, I think, by being really curious. Because by being really curious, you start to build your credibility around what this business is trying to do and how it's going to operate best. And you can then start to tailor your expertise and your expertise around people and how to deploy resources and how to engage people, motivate people, build their capability in service of an aligned goal, which is the same as the CFO's. And I think what can sometimes happen is that both roles can get into a bit too much navel-gazing and the CFO can get into, this is just about the numbers. And the people person gets into, this is just about the people. And, you know, we're not really being sophisticated enough to bring those 2 sometimes conflicting elements of the organization together.
Al ElliottYou used a lovely phrase then, Tom. Disagree well, I think is what you said. Tell me, in practice, I'm sure you can't give us a specific example maybe from your life, but can you just generally explain what disagreeing well looks like?
Tom EmeryWell, I mean, this is a real area of interest for me at the moment, actually. And I've literally just finished writing an article for CEO World, which I've just sent off, which is about the importance of being able to have really great conversations. And the whole article was basically about ripping up your people strategy because it's a waste of time. You've got to focus on how people are collaborating and how people are communicating together. And disagreeing well is really important. So many people that are listening will know about the Tuckman model of team evolution, which people know as the forming, storming, norming, performing model. And when I work with teams, so we do a lot of work with exec teams, particularly exec teams that are forming, just coming together, or perhaps have had a lot of change, or perhaps almost in crisis, just not getting on very well, not able to agree well. And we talk about Tuckman and we talk about the storming phase. And What this is all about is teaching teams to storm well. And the way that we do that is by, we basically surface challenges rather than push them down. We give people frameworks to be able to express themselves and to express their views in a way that is nonjudgmental, that is basically talking about the business and not about individuals. We teach people to accept challenge graciously and to recognize when they're being triggered and maybe behaving defensively or angrily around feedback or challenge, because those are all elements of disagreeing badly. Now, every organization has to be able to disagree well. It's an absolutely fundamental part of a high-performing culture that you can say what you need to say. If you don't, you miss opportunities. You—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryYou add risk to your organizations. There's always the classic examples that people talk about that at some point Blockbuster Video had the opportunity to buy Netflix for 50 million quid or whatever and said no, because there was just this groupthink on their board, which said, nope, we're just going to go down this one route. I suspect that some of them thought, this is a good idea. We should be buying this, but they couldn't say it. They couldn't disagree. just didn't have the tools or didn't have the culture to do it. So, how you agree well and how you create the conditions and the container for agreeing well, I think is absolutely fundamental to any team in any organization. And I think if we focused on that more, actually, not only in the professional context, but also if we were taught how to disagree well at school, if we were taught how to disagree well at home, Um, then, you know, we'd probably have a much more productive society as well that wasn't so polarized because, you know, we'd be able to talk about these things without getting triggered and without getting really wound up about things. So yeah, agreeing well, I'm all about that. I think it's so important.
Al ElliottAll that sounds lovely, but the— what's coming into my head is Leanne's voice saying psychological safety, psychological safety. Like the whole story about Blockbuster, you suspect someone, there were a couple of people on the board going, this is a good idea, but they didn't feel that they could step up. Talk to me more about that, what needs to happen so we can start disagreeing well.
Tom EmeryI mean, I think with psychological safety, psychological safety is built through disagreeing and disagreeing well and building trust. The other model that we use when we talk about psychological safety in teams, as well as the Tuckman model, is Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions, which is that basically he says that if you don't have trust as the basis of your team, You can't have challenge, you can't get commitment, you can't get accountability, and you can't get results. And so, we talk a lot about, okay, let's fundamentally, let's build trust. That is the foundation of a psychologically safe and high-performing team. Well, how do you build trust? You surface challenges in a safe container. You get a team to storm well. And the more disagreement that you have that you successfully get through and you successfully resolve, The more trust is actually built. So it's a virtuous circle, if you like. And what happens is you build more trust, then you get more challenge, and that builds more trust, and you get more challenge. And then it's not like you're just challenging all the time for challenge's sake, but you get to a point where you really kick the tires on your decisions and you build that culture of just automatically We critique, but we don't critique in a way that's judgmental or critical or that blames people. We do it in a way that is safe. And that's really always where we start with when we're trying to build psychological safety. The other thing about psychological safety, and this particularly, I recognize this with senior teams, is That often in senior teams, the more senior we get, the less that we feel able to ask for help. And actually, one of the best ways that you build trust and psychological safety, in my experience, is you encourage people to ask for help and you encourage people to take that interpersonal risk of saying, I don't have all the answers here, so I need your help. And we love to help people. We love people asking us questions. We love people to ask our advice on things, and we're always really happy to give it. Yet for some reason, we feel nervous when we get more senior that that's going to look bad on us if we don't ask for help. So, in all the work that we do, we're all about setting containers where people feel safe to do things that perhaps they wouldn't feel safe outside the container. And then we set the containers so that they can then continue and make that sustainable without having an external person there to do it. But it takes effort.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryAnd it takes real behavior change, and it's difficult behavior change. So, it's not always something that teams manage to do successfully. And I don't really think I've ever seen a team get to a point where they're sustainably really brilliant at it. They always slip back and always have to take action to move themselves towards that safety again.
Al ElliottWhat about the other end of this? We had a guest on who said that him and— he was like the I think it was the chief marketing officer and him and the chief financial officer would be at a boardroom table screaming at each other and really, really disagreeing. Then when the meeting ends, they'd go for a pint and have a chat, and they'd be like best mates. Is that unhealthy? Have we gone too far with that?
Tom EmeryWell, not— I don't think necessarily. I think if the contract in the room says that that sort of behavior is okay, and That is not intimidating, uncomfortable for either those 2 people that are involved in that conversation or those around, then I don't think there's probably a big problem with that because they know that it's done from a position of trust. I mean, if I think about the biggest arguments that I've had in my life, they've usually been with maybe my brother, my partner. And the reason that you can have those big arguments and you can get over them very quickly is Because you have a lot of trust. So if 2 people are able to scream at each other in a meeting, albeit screaming is probably not going to be appropriate in a workplace environment, probably be sort of saying, let's tone it down a bit, shall we? But if you can do that and then you can go for a pint and have a laugh and there's no lasting damage to that relationship and there's not been any inappropriate insults fired at the other person, Then I think that shows real trust, and that probably shows real safety. I suppose we would just need to be quite careful about just anything under the surface that might be going on. And it's not uncommon, I think, for people to look like they're okay with that sort of behavior, and then all of a sudden, them to say, actually, I'm going to go off sick now. I can't cope with this anymore. And that goes back to, like, I need to have the safety to be able to say, Can we just tone this down a bit? Like, this isn't really working for me. I'm not very comfortable with this.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural 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. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell 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 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?
Al ElliottOh, I am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Let's talk about your book, People People. Brilliant title, by the way. Love it. I've got a note down here that the— it's following Joanna, I think. Is that the name of the protagonist? Yeah. And she's dealing with imposter syndrome and burnout. Now, I've got to ask you, is there any part of Joanna that's a little bit like Tom?
Tom EmeryMostly. Yeah, most of her. Yeah. So, I mean, the book was inspired by— so I had a business coach guy called Robin Waite, who's an awesome chap. And he'd written a book called Take Your Shot, which is about a golf pro that this coach, this business coach goes and coaches a golf pro and coaches him on his prices and all this sort of stuff to get him to build his business. And I thought, Robin had said to me, you should write a book. It's a really great asset to have. And I was like, great. I think I've got a book in here. Didn't write it because I wanted anybody to read it. I just wanted something to give to people, to give to clients. And I wanted to build a model as well for HR leadership, which was part of it. So I decided to write it in a similar way to Take Your Shot, which is as a story of a chief people officer, a chief HR officer who is struggling. So yes, there was a lot of me in that. And there was a lot of other people that I was observing and working with at the time. So, what they were really struggling with in the role. And yeah, there was a bit of imposter syndrome, if that's the right word. So, for Joanna, who's, like you say, the main protagonist in that, she was really struggling maybe a bit on that, like she was external sort of facing in instead of being in there. There was something about how she really got in there, how she built those relationships. The burnout thing was really around, she was a people pleaser at heart, which is a bit like I am, and didn't really like saying no to people, had an identity that was really tied up in, I can get stuff done, I can do stuff for people, I can be the one who sorts things out, even when it's not my problem or it's not my emotional labor to take on. And so, Yeah, there was quite a lot of her in me. I was on another podcast and somebody asked me who it was that would play Joanna in a film. And I'm terrible at answering questions like that, both off the hoof and I still, after all this time, can't work out who it would be. But there was a transformation in Joanna as she went through and she worked through this model. And she went from being somebody who lacked a bit of confidence and lacked the lacked the sort of ability to step into her strengths to somebody who had really set up really clear boundaries and was, you know, really working to her strengths and was therefore being much more impactful.
Al ElliottMight be a difficult question for you to answer, Tom, but what do you think were some of the toughest moments of being in HR when you were back in HR?
Tom EmeryI suppose there were 2 sort of sets or 2 categories. And One was, like I spoke about before, I went into HR because I liked people, and I had to operate at times in a way which I found very difficult because I was planning, giving people news that really just went to the core of their being, their identity, their ability to put food on the table for their family. And had to do that in a professional and pragmatic way because it wasn't about me, it was about them. And so, I couldn't let myself get pulled into the emotion and the drama of it too much. And that was really tiring for me and something that after 20 years of it, I'd pretty much had enough of doing. I didn't really want to do anymore. The second bit, which was even harder in some ways, I think, was managing really senior relationships. And that's one of the reasons I'm so interested in this now and why so much of my work now focuses on helping senior executives manage relationships that they have with other senior executives or with investors or with regulators or with the board. And so I found being on an execo, particularly when I was dealing with issues of compensation, I found that quite a challenge to manage all those different relationships, not only their relationships with me, but their relationships with others, which I think is a really core part of HR, of an HR leader, is how you really operate as the glue on your exco, and you help the CEO to really make sure that those relationships are working well. And often, I would end up in some quite interesting power dynamics, maybe between the chair, with the remco chair, with the CEO, with the CFO.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryAnd by my nature, I wanted to be all things to everybody, and I wanted to have all the answers, and I wanted everybody to walk away from every interaction with me feeling that I was on their side and that I was able to help them and that I was committed to sorting out their problems and making them feel better. And it was a steep learning curve to realize that that wasn't my job. The ability to walk away from a conversation with the other person not happy was a big thing for me. I found it really, really difficult. And to be honest, in my work now, I still find that's the most challenging part. I want to do good work. I want to be a brilliant coach for people. I want to be a brilliant consultant for people. And it's not always possible to achieve achieve that and give everything, absolutely everyone, absolutely everything that they need. And I think a lot of HR leaders really struggle with that ability to say, I cannot help you anymore. This is for you to deal with now, or, I can't change this for you. That's how it is. I'll sit with you. You can cry with me. You can rant at me or whatever, but I cannot change this outcome for you. This is what the outcome is.
Al ElliottDo you know anyone who's had to do that to perhaps a friend at work or someone they admire massively? They've had to let them go or give them bad news?
Tom EmeryYeah, lots of times. And yeah, I think that's really hard. And I think that's one thing that leaders have to be able to build capability in, is about boundaries. And I'm not saying, like, you can be friends with people that work for you. But in being friends with them, I think there's also a very important piece of contracting, if you like, that has to happen, that although you're friends with someone, they also understand that there are professional, or you both understand that there are professional boundaries. And it goes back to, if you've got to make a difficult decision as a leader, Then you have to be able to stand behind that decision. You can't hide behind other people. If it's your decision, you've got to make that decision and you've got to own it. And you also have to not make that decision about you if it affects somebody else, because it's about them. And yeah, and that again is just being able to sit with the discomfort of not being able to—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryYou know, to help somebody walk away with a good impression. If you handle it well, they'll probably think more of you eventually anyway, but there might be a bumpy period that you might have to cope with, and that's life.
Al ElliottI don't think we can have a conversation about HR in 2026 without talking about why HR has been so famous and in the news, which is all around the layoffs because of AI. We've got all kinds of things like we've got Jack Dorsey's Block. We've just had I believe Coinbase, lots and lots of businesses who are just getting rid of people and replacing them with AI. What's your personal opinion on that?
Tom EmeryI think this is change ultimately. And I was chatting with someone a few weeks ago who started her career a few years before me in the late '80s. And she was, so she reminded me that When she first started work, people didn't have computers on their desk. They had ashtrays. And they used to have an in-tray and an out-tray. And I remember an in-tray and an out-tray from when I started work. And then her job was to go around and take the memos out of the out-tray and go and deliver them into the appropriate person's in-tray. So we were sort of making the joke that she was the human email system of the late '80s. So she was the one who was taking all the messages around, making sure people had got them. So AI is a massive change, right? But we've had lots of change before. And I think sometimes we forget that, that the world of work is pretty unrecognizable from what it was 30 years ago, 50 years ago, definitely 200 years ago, completely different from 500 years ago. And yes, of course, AI is a big change and it's a different change, but I have no doubt that we will adapt. to it because it's in our interests to adapt to it. So I think we're adaptable creatures. Sometimes it takes us a bit longer, but I think generally we're adaptable. There's no escaping. We live in a capitalist society. Organizations have to make money. So where they can utilize machines, utilize technology, they will do over people because it's much cheaper than people and it's generally more reliable and all that sort of stuff. And it can work at night and all that sort of stuff.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmerySo, we have to be like, when we're managing any change, we have to be really honest about that and accept that change is happening and we're not going to stop it by resisting it. But I think what we can do as organizations is that we can humanize the change as much as we can. And I think this is where really great HR people come into their own, actually. It's about how do you make your business human and how do you make the change human? And that is treating people really well, being honest and open and direct, communicating well with them, sitting with them in their discomfort, being curious about what's going on for them, answering as many questions as you can to help them create some certainty in a world which might feel very uncertain. And also, whilst recognizing that there's change and recognizing it might be difficult, also Creating an optimistic picture of the future, not an unrealistic one, but creating that optimism and just making sure that people understand that we will get through this, and yes, things will change. I think if we make this a very, as human thing as we possibly can, I think that's the best way that we will get through it well. And I think it will be the organizations that do humanize digital the best, that will be most successful. But I do think there's some bumpy times to come. And I suspect that lots of people will lose their jobs, will have to think about how they reskill, retrain, how they adapt, and yeah, how they build the skills that the future will need. And that will be all around like, what are you curious about and how do you learn the new skills that you need in the new world and therefore change your behaviours on the back of it?
Al ElliottSo can I put you for a second back into an HR role in a company? Imagine that you have found out that Sandra from accounts is now using AI to do like 80% of her job. Me, I think that's brilliant. I love stuff like that, but I can't imagine that's going to go down well with HR. How would you react?
Tom EmeryLook, Sandra works in accounts. She doesn't work in HR. So I would be going to talk to the leader of the finance function first and foremost, because The challenge there is, I think, is not necessarily what Sandra's doing, because Sandra's doing what she should be doing, which is she's finding more effective ways to do her work really well. And maybe she's increasing her accuracy and she's increasing her productivity and all that sort of stuff on the back of it. So, I wouldn't really be blaming Sandra. I mean, if Sandra was— hopefully Sandra would be looking for other things to do as well, so that she was filling her time with something productive and something useful. But I mean, that all comes back down to the leadership of that team and the culture in the organization. We should be constantly working with our people to make sure that they are being more and more effective and more and more productive and challenging the way that they do things. And if we're not doing that, that's a failure of leadership and it's therefore a failure of the culture. So I would be focusing very much on that. And I wouldn't necessarily blame people in that. I mean, I remember taking over an operational, looking after HR operations, and we had a couple of people in the team that every month they would check the payslips of the top 100 people in the company or 200 people in the company, but it was a big job. They would check all the payslips and they would cross-reference what was on the payslip to what was on the system to what was going in their bank to make sure that they were getting paid right. And I said to them, why are you doing this? And they said, well, a couple of years ago, the CFO was paid wrong. And so on the back of it, we put this process in where we would check the top 100, top 200 people to make sure it's all right. I said to them, well, how many errors have you found in the last 2 years since you started doing that? And they said zero. And I was like, well, why are you still doing this then? Why are you wasting 2 days? And There's a lot going on there. It's just part of them had never really thought about it. Part of it was they quite liked being in the room for 2 days, just checking payslips. It was quite enjoyable, easy work to do. But that was a failure of leadership that nobody had said, like, what's going on here? Have you spotted any mistakes? Let's keep reviewing what we're checking, what we're doing all the time. And I think if you don't know what your team are doing and you don't know that they're doing 80% of their work on AI, then that's a leadership problem. And so I'd be focusing on what else is going on in your team, Mr. or Mrs. Finance Director.
Al ElliottInteresting. Interesting. There's a quote by Bill Gates, I think, who says, I love lazy and entrepreneurial people because they always come up with shortcuts that we can then adopt in the company. But it is a very difficult thing to navigate, especially with AI. Talking of AI, let's— do you think that there's any part of HR that AI could take over? I know lots of companies out there are trying to do it, but what's your opinion on the whole thing?
Tom EmeryI'm sure there are lots of ways that HR can take over some— sorry, that AI can take over some HR stuff. So, already you see, for example, HR systems. So, people want to query their pay or query a policy or whatever. Lots of front ends of HR systems now, Like your big ones like Oracle and SuccessFactors and all that, use AI so that you can chat to a bot so you don't have to chat to an actual person. So there's going to be all that sort of stuff. There's got to be loads of stuff that it can do around compensation and checking and all that sort of stuff, which perhaps manual in the past has had to be done manually. I suspect that, I don't know organizations that are doing this, but I can certainly see that.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom Emeryfor basic advice around HR, like around staff issues and things like that, that using AI, you could definitely do that for the more simple tasks. I think where AI is not going to reach its sort of full potential yet, it might do in the future, is when you've got really complex human things that are going on and where there's a lot of judgment to be made on a lot of different variables, which are not data-driven because human beings are unique, they're messy.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryWhich is what makes us great, right? But it means that we respond to situations in a very unique way often. And so what we think will happen, sometimes the opposite happens when people get news, for example. And I think to try and get advice from AI on very complex issues, I think can be quite— would probably be some way off yet if it can happen at all. I think the other thing that will be difficult for AI to replace is anything that has that real requirement for human connection. So, yeah, I mean, I do a bit of coaching, and I was coaching a chief people officer a few weeks ago who spent— we were together for 90 minutes. She spent 45 minutes of it in tears. And I sat with her, and for a lot of it, we didn't actually say anything because there was nothing I could say that was going to help her. It was just like, look, I'm just going to sit with you.
Al ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryAnd let's just sit this out and process it. And at the end of the session, I gave her a hug and we parted and I made sure that she was okay and said when we would follow up and all that sort of stuff. And I don't know, I just can't see, even without the hug, I can't see how you can really do that without a human being there that's connected to you. That is able to just provide that space and provide that safety to be able to just be able to process. And I think that is the challenge for HR leaders. As I said earlier on in the conversation, it's about how you make business human because you're dealing with human beings. And I think the organizations that just dive straight headlong too far into the digital solution straight away, they're going to lose something.
Al ElliottYou've worked for huge, huge organizations. You've worked for organizations that I believe IPO'd. And now I sense that you've got your— well, I know you've got your own consultancy and I sense that some of your clients might be working for smaller organizations. Any lessons that smaller organizations can learn from bigger or bigger can learn from smaller?
Tom EmerySmaller organizations can learn professionalism and Really great, strong governance and strong compliance, really sort of high professionalism from some of these bigger organizations. And big organizations can learn from smaller organizations, adaptability, entrepreneurialism, ability to pivot, just to be a bit more relaxed about the rules and things like that, take a bit more measured risk. I think it's going to always be a really difficult transition that organizations make from, say, going from being founder-led to invested by PE, for example. And I'm supporting a couple of people at the moment who are going through that process as the organization that's taking in the the founder-led firm and is really struggling with the founders because founders don't operate in a way that is conducive to being part of a bigger organization necessarily, because they've never had to do it before. And it's similar with all these adaptive skills that smaller organizations have. There's always going to be that challenge of how do you keep hold of the best bits, but also take the best bits of the other? And it's really difficult and you have to be really intentional about it. And I think it goes back to making sure that you've got psychological safety to challenge things, to be able to say, actually, this doesn't really look right. Do we really need to do this? Or should we go a bit further here? Are we being a bit reckless here in terms of some of our risk-taking? And if you've got that diversity of thought and different people coming to the table that all feel safe to be able to speak up and say what they're seeing and ask questions and be curious about it, then I think—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Tom EmeryI think they're the organizations that are the most successful, but difficult, difficult, really difficult. The reason why they call it growing pains, I think, and that's because it is, it's painful to move from that small to a larger business.
Al ElliottTotally agree. Well, you've got a podcast called Beyond Potential. You've got a book called People People. Who are these aimed at? Who should be listening to you and reading you?
Tom EmeryThe book People People was written for HR leaders because I thought that there was a gap in the market. I didn't have anything when I was a chief people officer, and I found it really lonely when I first started in that role because it was just me and the CEO really that I could talk to. And the CEO, she was in her first CEO role as well. So she was really getting to grips with that. And so I wanted to build a reference manual, if you like, for chief people officers so that they had somewhere to go. So that's who it's aimed at, but it has some broader leadership lessons in it as well. So, I would hope it's accessible for a broader set of people. And then Beyond Potential, I mean, we have quite an interesting mix of guests on there. So, I host it with my colleague, another Tom, Tom Mason, and it's aimed at leaders, founders, HR professionals, CEOs. And we've talked about all sorts of things on there from culture to wellbeing, to challenging conversations, to— Um, like moving into the C-suite to, um, founding a business to getting seed investment, all that sort of stuff. So we, it's, it's quite broad and we just try to be, hopefully we just try to be entertaining. And I was, as I was saying to you before we pressed the record button, we, I think we released episode 88 last week. So we're, whilst some way behind you, we're hopefully getting a bit better at it and, um, and building our podcast skills. I would dread to listen to the first one back again, uh, to see how awful it was.
Al ElliottIf people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to go?
Tom EmerySo, you can follow me on LinkedIn. So, I post quite a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. I'm just Tom Emery on LinkedIn. If you go to the Hex website, which is hex-development.com, we have a resources section in the website, which we've got loads of free resources on there, which are for HR leaders and for a broader set of leaders. Also has links to all the events and the podcasts that I've been on. You can also order a free book there. So, anybody in the UK, unfortunately, we can't send them out of the UK, but anybody in the UK can get a free book. If you want to buy the book globally, then it's available from our, either your favourite or your least favourite big internet store, mentioning no names.
Leanne ElliottThat was Tom Emery. And I think that that analogy is one of the best we've had on the show, actually.
Al ElliottI totally agree.
Leanne ElliottSo, let's wrap up with our top 3 takeaways. Number 1, get curious about the business, not just the people. Tom says the HR leaders who get taken seriously are the ones who understand how the business actually makes money, not just how to run a great engagement survey. If you don't know your organisation's cost levers as well as your CFO does, you're not in the room, you're outside it.
Al ElliottAnd number 2, build safety by asking for help yourself. The more senior you get, the more it can feel that admitting you don't have the answer will make you look weak. Tom's research says the opposite is true. Leaders who ask for help build more trust, not less. If you want a psychologically safe team, model it first.
Leanne ElliottAnd number 3, you can't fix every outcome, and pretending you can will burn you out. Tom spent years trying to make sure everyone walked away happy. It's not possible. And chasing it is exhausting. Sometimes the job is just sitting with someone in a hard moment, not solving a problem for them.
Al ElliottAnd you know what? Maybe that's the answer to our question. HR is lonely when you think the job is to have every answer. It gets a lot less lonely the moment you're allowed to say, I don't know, I need some help.
Leanne ElliottTom's book is called People People, written for HR leaders who feel exactly like this. If you're in the UK, he'll send you a free copy through the Hex Development website. That's hex-development.com. Everyone else can find it wherever you buy your books. He's also got his own podcast, Beyond Potential, with his co-host Tom Mason, and you can find him on LinkedIn under Tom Emery.
Al ElliottYep, and we're appearing on that podcast quite shortly. Now, that's all for today. Next week is the start of our summer schedule, designed to be a little bit lighthearted and a little bit silly.
Tom EmeryI've—
Al ElliottI say a little bit, it'll probably be a lot silly. We are We are kicking things off with Georgia Hodgkinson, where we try to find the world's weirdest job.
Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work. We will see you next week for a little silliness.
Al ElliottA lot.