HR Unfiltered - brought to you by SOPEOPLE

Deano catches up with Anwen Bottois, founder of Purple Sky Consulting and host of the HR Strategy in the Hot Seat podcast. Anwen spent over two decades as an HR leader across manufacturing, not-for-profit, British Gas, and higher education before setting up on her own to focus on what she cares about most: Helping leaders actually love the job of leading.
This is a conversation about what really happens when people step into leadership, and why so much of what we do to prepare them (if anything!) falls short.
In this episode:
The moment Anwen stepped up to associate director level and genuinely thought "what is it we do to people?", despite already being an experienced HR professional
Her three-part framework: Clear, Capable, Confident and where leaders consistently fall over
Why conflict is a choice, not a circumstance, and how leaning in early prevents the build-up
The accountability conversation done properly: Why ownership has to come before you can hold anyone to anything
Why she uses the word sincerely instead of authentically and what the difference means in practice
Her mission: More leaders who love leading, not just tolerate it
How to make the ROI case for personalised development when your organisation is hardwired to reach for the group programme
Why the learning doesn't happen in the training room, and what to do about it.
Links:
Anwen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anwenbottois-leadershipcoach
Purple Sky Consulting: purpleskyconsulting.co.uk
HR Strategy in the Hot Seat podcast — find it via Anwen's LinkedIn and website

Thirty years of employee engagement surveys, billions spent, and the data is getting worse, not better. In this episode, Dean and Sue take a hard look at why the engagement model isn’t working, and why many organisations are measuring symptoms instead of fixing causes. From “HR archaeology” and the illusion of action plans, to the role of managers in shaping everyday experience, they unpack what’s really driving (or killing) performance. Drawing on:
Self-Determination Theory
Thomas International's Connection Intelligence, and
Lived experience inside organisations...
... we explore what actually creates the conditions for people to thrive. This is a direct, practical, and occasionally uncomfortable conversation for CEOs, founders, and HR leaders who suspect there’s a better way, but haven’t yet found it.
And if you're keen to help, however you can, Sue's friend Katie, please use this GoFundMe link: https://lnkd.in/eRUm5-yQ
As always, you can challenge our thinking and add to the conversation via www.sopeople.co.uk or by emailing hiya@sopeople.co.uk. 

In this episode, Deano flies solo and is joined by Sean Miller, who brings nearly 30 years in HR (incl. L&D and OD), and is a specialist-in-training in organisational transactional analysis, for a conversation about why organisations get stuck and what HR can actually do about it.
They cover: The "Yes, But" game and why it's not incompetence, it's pattern; Berne's ego states and how language shifts them; the gap between public and private organisational structure; etiquette, techniques and character as a diagnostic tool; and why contracting is the work, not the preamble to it.
Clear, practical, and hopefully thought-provoking about human systems. (The best kind of episode, no?!) 
Sean can be reached on LinkedIn and www.brightn.co.uk!
And please feel free to follow HR, Unfiltered on LinkedIn as well.

Chris Manning joins Dean and Sue, and makes a compelling case that employee experience isn't a platform you buy or a project you launch; it's the sum total of every process, system, approval chain and human interaction your people touch every single day. Armed with real examples from Unilever and Nuffield Health, he unpacks the frameworks that actually move the needle, and explains exactly why 70% of engagement variance sitting with the manager should keep every CPO up at night.
Chris is the MD of Experience HR, and can be found on LinkedIn.

What happens when AI stops being a shiny tool and starts quietly reshaping how work, judgement and even identity function?
In this episode of HR, Unfiltered, Dean and Sue sit down with futurist Matt O’Neill to explore the less comfortable bits of the AI conversation that many organisations are skirting around. Not whether AI can save time, draft emails or automate admin. But what happens when people start handing over too much of their thinking to it.
Matt shares why he believes leaders often overestimate AI in the short term and underestimate it in the long term, why most organisations are still only seeing “pockets of excellence”, and why the real risk is not just process failure but a loss of human agency. The conversation moves from workflow redesign and shadow AI to leadership, learning, hiring, meaning at work and the growing need for what Matt calls digital flourishing.
There is plenty here for HR and business leaders:
How to redesign work rather than simply speed up old processes,
Why fear has to be addressed before adoption can succeed, and
Which deeply human qualities we must not outsource.
This is a thoughtful, provocative and surprisingly human conversation about AI, work and what we must hold on to as everything else changes.
Matt can be reached on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattone/overlay/about-this-profile/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base%3BZLFQGXBjRQ6%2FXdeQ4G9eFQ%3D%3D 
SOPEOPLE and HR, Unfiltered can be found at www.sopeople.co.uk
 

What happens when you invite a VP of Client / Customer Success to hold talk about HR? Turns out, quite a lot, and most of it grabs us in all the right ways.
Rachel Rewerts has spent 15 years in Customer Success, a function that proves its value every quarter, in public, with numbers. In this episode, she draws an uncomfortable and energising parallel between CS and HR business partnering, two functions doing essentially the same job, with very different levels of accountability.
We get into the bartender vs. personal trainer problem, why HR might avoid pushing into the bruise, what leading indicators CS uses that HR really should steal, and who gets away with the most narrative spin. (She said it, not us (but with affection)!)
Blunt, warm, and genuinely useful. We think there's something for everyone who wants to learn more about business partnering.

What happens when a CEO with a psychology degree bans Friday meetings, challenges “bring your whole self to work”, and tells CPOs to get commercially dangerous? Find out in this episode, when Luke McKeever joins us for a blunt, intelligent and occasionally uncomfortable conversation about leadership, AI, and the future credibility of HR/People.
We explore:
Why authenticity at the top is harder than it sounds (and what integrity really looks like when you’re holding confidential change);
The three drivers of human motivation (autonomy, competence and relatedness) and what they mean in practice;
Why psychometric insight shouldn’t stop at hiring;
The “reverse centaur” risk of AI, where humans become the compliance layer to machines;
Why too many CPOs may still be struggling to hold their own at the commercial table;
And what it actually takes to protect human value in an efficiency-obsessed world
This is not a conversation about HR trends, it’s a conversation about power, agency, judgement and courage. If you care about the future of work, and the role HR will (or won’t) play in shaping it, this one matters.
To find out more about the podcast overall, head to www.sopeople.co.uk. And you're keen to find out what Thomas International's innovative products can do for you and your organisation, you can do so at https://www.thomas.co/
Finally, you can get Luke on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-mck-thomas/

In this episode of HR, Unfiltered, Dean Corbett and Sue O’Callaghan are joined by CFO Sam Park to explore what commercial HR really looks like from a finance perspective.
Sam shares how great recruitment and thoughtful organisational design directly impact financial performance, why people issues show up clearly on the P&L, and what makes a people strategy credible at executive level.
The conversation tackles common myths about CFOs, the dangers of process over pragmatism, and why headcount isn’t always the answer to performance gaps.
Expect straight-talking insights, practical examples, and a candid look at what CEOs and CFOs really say about HR when it isn’t in the room. Essential listening for HR leaders who want genuine influence at the executive table.
If you’re keen to connect with this People-loving CFO, you can do so on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samjpark?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app 
And as always, if you’d like to ask questions, comment, get in touch or get help from the team behind HR, Unfiltered, you can do so at www.sopeople.co.uk. Finally, don’t forget to check out our accompanying article here at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/hrunfilteredpodcast/
 

In this episode, we sit down with Kirsty Baggs-Morgan, author of The HR Confidence Playbook, for an honest conversation about identity, confidence and what happens when your job becomes your entire sense of self.
After being abruptly and unexpectedly let go from a senior HR role, Kirsty found herself at rock bottom. What followed wasn’t a polished reinvention story; it was a difficult, deeply personal journey back to confidence. The book she eventually wrote began as a simple coaching framework scribbled in a notebook years earlier, used quietly to rebuild both herself and others.
We explore confidence in HR: Why it wobbles, how redundancy can shake your identity, and what it really takes to rebuild professional self-belief. Raw, reflective and practical, this one will resonate with any HR leader who’s ever quietly questioned their worth. 
You can get hold of Kirsty's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HR-Confidence-Playbook-essential-respected/dp/B0FN7QQQFJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2V97W9V2RJJIK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tntDCnd_Ne13CgxXU5BCHWO8aaZgdmVO7aQAWxRID-twZuDkQJ9HtEszE5DE1FioB7qtO1hrraSAhPNnmUPVvw.Ff_oeyoBlfelw4GMBGupRRza3eDvfSnnffnsgBgAGBg&dib_tag=se&keywords=hr+confidence+playbook&qid=1771229457&sprefix=hr+confidence+playbook%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-1
And you can find Kirsty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-baggs-morgan-hr-strategy-confidence-and-connection/ 

Restructures have become the default response to pressure, a kind of panic button! Markets wobble, cash tightens, leaders feel the heat... so the org chart gets redrawn. It looks decisive. It feels controllable. It rarely fixes the real problem.
In this episode, Sue and Dean unpack why restructures so often fail to deliver. We explore why leaders start with boxes instead of outcomes. Why change is treated as an event, not a process. And why over-engineered roles quietly break people and performance. We name what happens when the human system is ignored (fear, loss, cynicism and disengagement.) We challenge the idea that structure equals strategy, and we explain why clarity beats complexity every time.
This episode is for anyone who’s lived through a restructure and thought, “this isn’t working," and wants a better or different way. 
And for leaders who want results, not just moving deck chairs and causing pain.