Deborah Hartung — Human Resources, People, Culture, Change

And it is what's involved one more time and a special guest. Goodness me have we been trying to actually get to talk to each other? I don't know. It's been it's been years and The worst part of the years thing is when we eventually got our act together and decided we were going to go and have copious amounts of tequila Then the Rona came so we didn't my guest is Deborah Harting. Hello Deborah Hi Dave, how are you? I am well, I am well, and I'm so glad we eventually got to do this even though it's kind of virtually Yeah, and even though it's not over tequila, right? Yeah, I should have thought about it. I mean we could have we could have done remote tequila It is it is still allowed I believe but never mind I suppose, you know non tequila non tequila interviews make for for more. I don't know probably better radio Yeah, probably, you know, I'm not convinced but you know We'll we'll take that as a as an excuse. So tell me Deborah Harting What what is where do you where does Deborah come from? Tell me a little bit about your background growing up education that kind of thing. Oh Wow, um, that's a that's a question. I wasn't expecting so so yeah, so Deborah Harting is um Is actually a nice bit dirty. I may see So I'm born in Cape Town So, you know how everyone always has to say they were born in Cape Town like we can all lay claim to the mountain You know our ancestry goes all the way back to the mountain so born in Cape Town raised in Pretoria an Interesting thing that a lot of people don't know about me. Only my friends know this is that I went to Afrikaans schools So young Deborah and Harting ginger as she is Was sent to Afrikaans schools in the early 80s and I could really speak Afrikaans And I think that experience, you know, you don't think about it at the time but experiences like that really do shape who we become and I think to a certain extent it has shaped a lot of tenacity in me and a lot of you know, I think also understanding the concept of not fitting in and Kind of having a foot in either culture So so that's been an interesting ride and I speak fluent Afrikaans and when I'm with some of my friends from high school in varsity you would honestly swear that I'm a nice Buddha my see and Then you know and all my friends call me Debbie for that reason because of course, you know Deborah was just a little bit impregnable with The village women surname as well in Afrikaans schools. That's amazing because my stories is a little different to that I mean been a Benoni boy born and bred. I'm now living in Pretoria and I'm engaged to a lovely lovely Afrikaans lady. So I've learned I've learned Afrikaans. I'm not nearly as fluent as you in it But I know how to begin off because now so it's cool

Well, you only need to really know that you know how to say please and thank you and then you run your way in any language Please thank you. And yes, dear the secret to a happy life Exactly. No, no, no and you're right And I'm sorry David. I'm sorry and you were right. So those are the other two. All right. Got it. Got it So now you grew up you went to varsity. What did you study?

Interestingly, I studied international relations. I had very big dreams for myself of joining the diplomatic service and traveling the world and helping to mend relationships and I don't know advancing world peace So 19 year old Deborah and hot on was very idealistic and shall we say naive?

Okay Yes, and how I landed up in in the career that I've landed Interestingly is that I got fired not from the diplomatic service. Don't worry They they never hired me in the first place. I mean, I don't know why because I'm delightful obviously Absolutely and and obviously I would have also I think being almost six feet tall and being ginger And I think I would have really made a very good spy I think I would have really like, you know, just blended into the background and I'm not being noticeable at all So I'm deeply hurt about my career that never took off as a spy Yes, I got fired and and I landed up actually working in employee relations I landed up working for the labor lawyers who I had approached to assist me with with my my woes

Okay, and then

And then I learned lots and lots of stuff about employee relations and labor law and some really hardcore litigation and Union negotiations and strikes and a lot of time spent at the CCMA and a lot of traveling and a lot of people dismissed for misconduct and a lot of people fired and And after that actually I moved into into retail where I did pretty much the same work and then I moved into Financial services and I had an HR GM who knew that the company needed some help from an employee relations perspective, but she very much believed that there wouldn't be enough work for me and and made me a journalist and made me part of a bigger team and that was really I think the turning point where I learned so much more about HR than I've learned at Varsity and I learned that there's so many different dimensions to people and there's there's usually a story behind the story You know when you work in employee relations and you're appointed as a true person to preside over a hearing You you don't really get to know the person, you know, you're only dealing with one aspect of them Which is oftentimes one of the worst things that they've ever done in their lives at work And and you've now been called in to adjudicate this and to decide Whether they get to keep their job or whether they're going to join the unemployment line and you don't actually get to see everything that led up to that happening and You know, you don't see the full picture. So I think Working in financial services and working in HR as a generalist very much made me Mindful of these things and I think it softened me around the edges to a large extent and then the final blow to that harsh exterior for me was getting married and having kids that's really Softened me the most it's um, it's tamed the beast as it were Yeah, you think you're rough and tough until you have kids and suddenly they go who's in charge? Yeah, you say it Fervently me and they go. Well, would you believe that's going to change?

Exactly and all of those things that you say, you know, I will never all my kids will never Yeah, that all goes out the window to All right. So you you you had a company Which was hearting associates. Is that still running or or have you moved on to to the new one now? Well, I think associates has kind of been rebranded and it's it's Debra hearting Inc And and basically what that company does is a lot of consulting work And and change management work project based stuff culture change, you know

Leadership development training and coaching those kinds of things. So so that's still going that's been going for 12 years Which I'm I'm I'm very blessed to be able to say I think especially in this climate And then I also started another company about three years ago, which is more of a digital business And it's a little bit in limbo right now. I think as many others are And and that business was really aimed at providing affordable HR and labor relations solutions for SMEs and startups So a lot of the work that we do, I'm sorry, you know, and some of my colleagues are going to murder me But it really isn't rocket science and I can teach you how to do it yourself You don't have to pay thousands and thousands and that's why I started the business You can you can literally spend an hour with me and I can teach you the basics and and give you a couple of you know Elitable documents to download and you can do it yourself and not mess it up Wow, okay. That's not something I expected to come out. But when we come back, let's let's talk a little bit about Your passion because one of the things I'm very well aware of is you love working with entrepreneurs young leaders Startups that kind of thing. So when we come back, we're gonna be chatting a little bit more about that My special guest is Deborah Hartung this morning. It is what's involved?

And we're back with what's involved. My special guest is Deborah Hartung. So talk to me about your passion for for entrepreneurs and because you know a lot of people if they looked at your background and they saw Deborah, you know was in HR is in the HR field. They're gonna go tough as nails hard exterior Doesn't care about us and yet the Deborah. I know is the exact opposite

Don't tell people down a David so

So, yes, my my passion for entrepreneurs and for young leaders specifically I think comes from a place of deep empathy I think for myself

From the very first job that I held I was always the youngest person in that role or the youngest person in the room or the only woman at the ballroom table and You know, I very much have that understanding for feeling like The aren't people that you can turn to for help and assistance and feeling out of your depth And I think that sense of imposter syndrome that follows all of us around no matter how old we are I'm very empathetic towards that and my passion for entrepreneurs and young leaders specifically comes from that place of you know, you just need someone to believe in you and and one of the biggest challenges that Young leaders and entrepreneurs face is that they have the passion they have the ability they have a dream of vision They're willing to work hard and one of the biggest weaknesses Unfortunately is while they're chasing that passion and that dream is they're not very good at doing the people stuff Or they get caught up in managing and not in leading or they don't know how to you know create that divide between Being friendly with you and having a really great working relationship but not being your friend and letting you get away with murder because Those are the kinds of things that ultimately create our workplace culture So for me, it's a big passion of mine to work with young leaders just starting out their first kind of supervisory team leadership management type of role so young leaders entrepreneurs just starting out because I believe that we can change the world if We get to people Soon enough if I help them to empower them to equip them with the skills that they need to really lead People and change and you know create places where people want to work. It's going to change the world. I Would agree with you and the interesting thing is you know in my past and in my background You know specifically in terms of of corporates the culture there Well, there wasn't so much a culture as a dictatorship for a very long time And it was it was this whole sort of ranking thing So if you were the lowliest of the low employees, you know And you had people maybe in positions above you that you that I certainly when I was doing it with certain think I don't know what you're doing there because you're filming useless, but they'd been there for 30 years And and you know in those days it was all about the company not the people you were a number if you worked in a in A large organization that completely slowly changing. Would you agree? I Would definitely agree with you and I mean I've seen it happening and evolving over the last Especially the last I would say 10 to 15 years. I've seen that process speeding up but By my estimation, it's just not happening fast enough and I think there's there's a couple of reasons for that and that's really one of the main reasons that lead me to Developing the methodology that I have and and to writing my book and You know just to to kind of extrapolate on that a little bit I think a lot of our beliefs about work as you say David, it's about the company right? It's about profits It's about productivity. It's what can you do for us and our definition of success and high performance and being the best is The people who can do the most work or the best work, you know the the top salesperson and Oftentimes there is people just so happen to be not very nice people to work with or to work for But we turn a blind eye to the human side of things because oh, they're making us so much money Hmm Yeah, and this is but this is one of the things because you talk and I know that that HR Runs in your blood and it and it in the title human resources But we don't seem To have much interest in the human part of the resources. As I said, you you like numbers and resource You become a resource that you know When when your paper in the office runs out you buy more paper and that's the way that we've been treating our people as well when we work David into You know an early grave or we work him out of the company because he just can't hope anymore We just replace him with the next youngster will come in all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and you know, I think one of the things that we need to realize as as business and HR leaders is that people give us literally the best hours of their day the best years of their life and they make us all of this money and that they help us provide goods and services and the least that we can do is is Help them to self actualize and interestingly the more that we actually do that The better they perform and the happier they are and the longer they stay Which all makes sense, but it doesn't seem that that that people are doing it and now we we've sort of in the middle of I don't know I don't know anymore where we are But but this fourth industrial revolution that that people talk about and you know where they go The robots are gonna take over. We're all losing our jobs. I think in the world at this Specific time we need more humanity not less Completely and you know for me I'm I am very excited about the things that I see happening in the world of work Specifically around automation. So my approach is not one of fear and the robots are taking over our jobs What the robots are able to do is to take over the mundane repetitive Exactional tasks and what that frees us up to do is what I call augmented humanity So that gives us the the bandwidth for a nice corporate weasel word for you It gives us the bandwidth and the ability to actually start focusing on Humanity and on you know, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs We can start focusing on this off actualization stuff because you're not caught up anymore Doing the day-to-day, you know, you're not data capturing Because thanks to technology we input that data once and it can propagate across numerous different systems and Suddenly you've got some time on your hands and I'm hoping that we're going to use that time To actually be more human and to do more meaningful purpose driven work Yeah That's brilliant. But if I think about it in terms of worldwide There are changes and and particularly with with corona We may talk about that but you are and you're very modest about this, but you're considered a global HR thought leader And I know it's a mental you don't wear comfortably at the moment

But you worked with disrupt HR hacking HR What is that all about? So both of those movements are indeed global movements and they are all about creating the future of HR and the future of work and you know trying to break free from the shackles of What HR is known as and what HR is really known as to be honest and fair is actually Personal management, you know, if you think back to the olden days, it's it was a bunch of people sitting with rows and rows of gray filing cabinets capturing data and getting people paid and you know decreeing policies from up high and managing consequences when people don't conform and don't obey and What disrupt HR is about and hacking HR as well is really about creating the best HR that's ever existed bringing the human back into HR looking at the future of work and ways of working really bringing in engagement and culture and You know human potential Into the mix and I'm very fortunate. Yes, I don't wear the label comfortably Because I think the whole term influencer or you know a thought leader is is almost a hollow term in today's day and age because every second person considers themselves an influencer But I'm very thankful for the opportunity that I get to to work with global companies and to also work with global technology partners and other consulting organizations because it really opens up, you know our eyes and it gives us this this lens into the world and Interestingly here in South Africa, we might be behind the times with many things at work but one of the things that we can take to the world is our approach to diversity and Inclusion and equity at work and that's really one of the things that that global leaders and HR leaders are looking to us To helping with at this point in time Well, that is a breath of fresh air because you know, I'm so used to South Africa being on the bottom end of the scale I want to talk more about where we are in South Africa and and the need for HR when we come back My special guest is Deborah Harting. This is what's involved. We will be back in just a bit

And we're back with Deborah Harting it is what's involved so good to have you along with us Deborah just before the break we were we were going to talk about I said I wanted to talk a bit about Where we stand with HR because you've just said that people are looking to South Africa in terms of what we can do And yet on the outside, you know for somebody who's not in the know looking at South Africa we go. It's a mess I mean there's Autocrats, there's all sorts of nasty things happening. Where do we stand in terms of HR in this country? Look, that's a that's a very loaded question and I you know, as I said, I think to a large extent We're a little bit behind on many of the things and I think that very much stems from our history in terms of Having migrant workforce and and feeling that need to control people, you know And but that's not something that's unique to South Africa that that almost Unhealthy parents child relationship and you know companies wanting to install Monitoring software on your computer now to check that while you're at work during corona time that you're actually working even though you're at home that that is a global phenomenon and and that's something that we really need to work to change and To challenge the beliefs around if you're not watching me, then I'm not working, you know to give people the freedom to work How how and where and when it works for them?

So we are a little bit I would say behind in many respects behind the UK for instance in in that regard, we're also a little bit behind specifically in terms of Wellness and mental health at work. And again, that is I think partly a cultural thing in our country And this is something that we find across all of our race groups is a little bit of stigma still attached To mental health and wellness. So in that regard, we've got a lot of work to do You know in the UK so many companies have got formal mental health at work programs They've got people who are trained up to be what they call mental health first-aid Practitioners, you know, so literally colleagues who can intervene and spot you and say, you know, Debs I it looks to me like you're taking some strain and you know and just kind of help you through it before the burnout setting So we've got a ways to go there But in terms of the equity and the diversity, there's a lot that the rest of the world can learn from us in terms of just our approach to To a large extent having legislated certain things And and having enforced that so a lot of countries have got legislation About equal pay for women for instance or for minorities, but they're not enforcing it so that's something that the rest of the world is looking at us for and the other thing of course that the rest of the world is looking at us for is how we manage to transform our organizations from mostly white and male You know at in the late 90s even early 2000s how we've managed to transform our Organizations and what we've done in terms of closing that gap You know from it from a talent and its skills perspective. So, you know, what are we doing to?

Identify young talent and that's literally kids in high school already and then take them through, you know Training them up up skinning them and bringing them into the workplace and what are we doing to keep people engaged? And what are we doing to create a a workplace? where things are just diverse and equal and It's not because these consequences and it's not because we're chasing numbers, you know And again, they we've still got some work to do but everyone globally has got some work to do in that space

All right, so Leading on from that then where do we stand in terms of if somebody's listening? to this broadcast right now and there are Maybe a small company a couple of employees and maybe a medium-sized company. Where does HR start? Where would we need to start thinking about things like company culture, etc? Honestly David and I love that question and and this is why I love working with entrepreneurs and young leaders because your culture starts actually the minute you start your business and What people don't realize is that the founders and the shareholders bring so much of their personality into an organization so if you're a very Conservative thinker you don't like taking risks you you know, you prefer hierarchy you prefer structure It's it's kind of tough being a startup, you know and and working in an agile way And and what we find is the minute you hire your first person and you need to start setting up a structure you're going to default to hierarchy and policy and Ticking boxes. It's not going to be that easy for you to start the next Google You know, so your company culture really actually starts the minute you decide to start your business Even if it's just you Very good point, but now in in terms of what you offer to people If people are listening and they they're in that position where they kind of just started because I know a lot of times When you if you if you're a startup for whatever reason You know The first thing is you bring in Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Flo used to do the books for so-and-so and your brother needs a job So you bring all of them in Because at the time it seems easier and then as that business grows it becomes quite challenging having those people working with you What do you play in that sort of field?

So if I'm if I'm I got a small company and I'm like, I'm totally confused now I don't know what to do auntie Flo is now running the joint and you know She's got a bit of a drinking problem, but I don't even know if I could get rid of her What do we do do you come in there? Would you help businesses like that? Oh completely. So yes so I think the important thing for our listeners to to remember here is that culture isn't something that that Happens like great cultures don't happen by accident, right? Culture becomes the worst thing that we are willing to tolerate so, you know, you're joking about auntie Flo and her potential drinking problem You know and uncle bull who's always been a little bit handsy with the ladies And and we tend to down play those things and whether they're family members or friends From varsity that we start this business with or there's someone we hired off the street When we allow those things when we tolerate those things They become part of our everyday culture and that's really how the toxic cultures get off the ground and and how they get maintained with the minute we start to challenge those things when When we speak up and we speak out and we ask questions about it. That's when things change So the work that I do and I mean obviously it's across the board and and here in South Africa You know global experts always telling us to niche down and and I know you've been told this as well Choose one thing that you specialize in choose one market But the problem is that you know if we do that a lot of the time we can't really entirely survive in this country So we kind of have to diversify and I'm in a very fortunate position that my background in Employee relations and labor law enables me to do that so to come back to your example about auntie Flo with her potential drinking problem is my first advice would be if you're starting a business is number one don't default to hiring people number one is please do some research and see what can be Outsourced and what can be automated and I know a lot of people are going to hate me for saying this But it really is your safest bet because your core business Isn't the finance side and doing the books?

So if it's not part of your core business and the thing that makes you money you need to look at whether you can outsource it or whether you can automate it and and Effectively do it yourself until you can afford to outsource it or to to get someone The second thing that I would advise is honestly understand that you craft your culture And I've actually got a lovely program that I run called Crafting your culture as a startup or scale up see shameless plug right there. I love shame

So I have this program and and basically we start no matter where you are in your journey We can start the best time to have started Crafting your culture was on day one the next best time is to start doing it today and we go and look at You know your personality and and what you want your culture to be and what you want it to stand for and then we start looking at what makes your business unique and we cross your values for you and redefine your values, you know, because Values like innovation for instance, that means something different to a Google Than it means to you and I starting up a small career company, you know So it's really about going to define your values then and and then infusing those values throughout the entire Organization in terms of how we hire people how we make decisions Just just our way of being and our way of doing things it becomes all of that And if we need to fire on flow, you know We actually can if we're drinking is starting to impact your ability to do the job Then then yes, there's a process that we can follow that the law allows for Fantastic stuff. My special guest is Deborah Harting and this is what's involved when we come back We'll be wrapping up with Deborah and finding out what we can do now and if Deborah's got any advice to us any steps that we should Take and I believe there's a book we need to talk about as well all of that and more when we come back

We're back it is what's involved wrapping it up with my special guest Deborah Harting so Deborah Are they things because I know you you're you're very much a giver in the sense Is there something that you're going to be offering to to the listeners and then talk to me about the book as well? Okay. So yes, I will definitely be offering the listeners something after my shameless plug. I will definitely be offering this to them So yes, the book is is actually hitting the virtual bookshelves the e-book readers on the 31st of August it is called talent liberation the blueprint to performance management in the new world of work and what the book is really about is how by making a couple of small changes to the way that we Manage performance and some of the other little things that we do along the way how just making a couple of small changes can improve workplace culture employee engagement and Profits and performance and productivity so we can literally get it all by just making a couple of small changes Fantastic stuff. The book will be available then on all sorts of digital platforms. I'm assuming Yes, and the paperback will be coming out a month later so building a little bit of buzz and seeing how the book does and there was a brief moment a couple of weeks ago in pre-sales when when one could call oneself an Amazon number one Rest-selling author and not in a dodgy category like camel milk recipes for lactose intolerant people It was actually in the business section So so yes one one can call oneself a best-selling author at this point, which is which is also kind of cool That's very very good to hear. So what are you offering to to anybody that's listening to the show?

That's that's sort of sitting in this pit now and going ah, I don't know what to do and I don't know how to get Out how do you how would you help people like that? So what I would offer is I'm firstly by the book. It's super affordable It's literally under 200 bucks for you so buy the book and read through it and start challenging some of your beliefs around work and productivity and people and motivation So the book is not a textbook It's written almost as if you're reading a series of blog posts or articles and it's it's very You know Practical and how can I help you? so definitely read the book and and start implementing some of those things and if you care about your culture and You know, maybe you're at the point maybe your business has been going and I know businesses like this that have been going for more than 20 years and don't have a formal set of values and Can't actually describe their culture so if you're in that space or you're perhaps a startup or you want to know more about how to actually Creates an amazing workplace culture and how your personality as the founder the CEO actually impacts all of this I am giving away to all the listeners and we'll drop the link I'm sure in the in the episode notes and for the podcast. I am giving away free access To my craft your culture as a startup or scale up program and this is literally a couple of hours with me teaching you how to do it yourself all the tools that I use giving you access to those for free Talking you through it giving you all the templates and the tools that you need to actually Start on a good foundation and then build forth on that using the tips in my book. I Think that is phenomenal. Thank you. That is that is very kind and very generous of you. The book is called The book is called talent liberation the blueprint for performance management in the new world of work And thank goodness, you never use new normal once in this discussion because I would have torn my hair out The book is that available in your website as well?

And it is not available for sale through my website But there are links you can visit Hearten calm and there are links to take you and you can literally purchase this book and I've had a couple of local folks In South Africa saying oh, I don't have a Kindle. I don't have this they are apps for those things folks you download the app for free on your phone and You can buy books any book in the Kindle store or Barnes and Noble or Kobo and you can read them on your phone It's super cool It is fantastic. And yeah, I've got a long story about myself and You know printed matter which I used to love and then got the Kindle and became an absolute raving convert So definitely definitely well worth it Debra we're running out of time and I think the book is going to be absolutely Fantastic for those listening now. What what one piece of advice would you give somebody? That is maybe sitting with an HR problem. Now. I know my first response would be called Deborah, but what is yours?

Well besides besides cool Debra my first response is stop procrastinating Because whatever the problem is Sometimes you think it's not that big a deal. Sometimes you think nothing can be done about it no matter what it is that you think if it is gnawing away at you and bugging you and causing you even five minutes of taking your mind off of your business and and and your purpose being speak to a professional ask for help and and take action because again, like I said earlier your culture becomes the worst things that you are willing to tolerate and No one starts out being an absolute horrible boss. It always starts out with something small something legally that we let slide That is so true. And I remember when I was employing Various staff members. I had a graphic designer And during the course of the time that the graphic designer worked with me They they had a bit of a drinking problem. There was a bit of a Narcotics problem as well what happened at the end of the day It cost me a whole lot of money to get this person to actually leave purely because I'd My whole approach was you know, I trust you. Let's let's all be friends This is a friendly place a friendly place of work. I trust that you will be doing the work You should do and I had no policies and I tell you what it was an absolute nightmare Unfortunately, it is and and and the other piece of advice following on from what you've said now David is you know being Being direct and being honest is kind We're not actually being kind when we don't give people candid feedback When we don't set boundaries when we don't make it clear what is expected. We're actually not being kind There's a there's a very big gap between Kindness and empathy and and being candid and and then having people, you know Kind of take take us for a ride and and most people, you know, you're not micromanaging by setting clear boundaries and You know again, like I said when when we speak up about something when we challenge it, that's when we change it

Very very wise words before I let you go Deborah Harting The the website to find out all the info about yourself and about the book is Deborah Harting com That is correct. Thanks, Dan. So Deborah D be O D T-E-B-O-R-A-H. Goodness me. Suddenly I was so I was hitting a blank there just can't beat a good education Deborah Harting calm as You're about to step out of the interview. What's next for Deborah Harting? Well, very very exciting Working on the talent liberation master class. So it's a whole course that's being developed and working with people who are much smarter than me around actually, you know making the book even more accessible and more practical and Training up more people and apparently changing the world of work. So so exciting and and somewhat intimidating at the same time Oh, we wish you all the best and I'm glad we had this chat. It's taken long enough, but I think it happened right when it needed to Thanks, David. I I totally agree with you There we go. Next time. Oh She said tequila There was my special guest Deborah Harting Don't forget you can check out all the info on Deborah and I know that she's always willing to to give some advice Lend it. Yeah, it's Deborah Harting calm and that wraps it up for this edition of what's involved