How to Build a Multigenerational Workforce That Works Together
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we're joined by Vishal Thanki, Director of Talent & Culture at B&Q. Vishal shares how B&Q is intentionally building a multigenerational workforce that reflects its diverse customer base, while driving high performance across all levels.
From gamified e-learning to pay parity, inclusive training programs, and real talk on what motivates Gen Z to Baby Boomers, this episode is a practical playbook for designing a workplace where five generations thrive together. If you care about performance, inclusion, and real HR impact, this one's for you.
🎓 In this episode, Vishal discusses:
Why engagement surveys drive better cultural decisions
How to reflect customer diversity through your workforce
How store managers personalize support across generations
Why B&Q invests in age-inclusive pay, upskilling, and leadership
How B&Q creates an environment where everyone - from Gen Z to Boomers - can thrive
What if global compliance took 5 seconds?
It does now.
atlas copilot partnered with our friends at Deel, the all-in-one Global People Platform, to bring on‑demand employment matters and compliance intelligence into your daily flow. With Atlas' GenAI agentic platform and Deel’s vetted sources, get authoritative answers across 150+ countries.
Ask anything:
“Is a 3‑month probation period compliant in Mexico?”
“What termination notice is required in Germany for 18 months’ tenure?”
“How long are the maternity and paternity leave in the UAE?”
You get clarity, that used to take hours, in seconds.
This is not a feature. It’s a new operating model. The chaos of Slack threads, scattered PDFs and expensive calls collapses into one trusted interface. Your team moves faster, escalations drop, decisions align and you see regulatory change as it happens.
If you’re still stitching notes from outside counsel, you’re already behind. AI-Smart HR leaders are shifting to always‑on intelligence. Don’t let compliance feel like navigating a minefield.
Vishal Thanki 0:00
How do you create an environment where you can be yourself, but being yourself, being at your best? Like, that's the that's the real crux to it. We've kind of got our version of, like, what is a high performance culture, but a high performance culture has got to be the foundation of it. Have got to be bedded in. Like, real good. Like, inclusive environment, a diverse workforce that represents your customer and that people belong. If you don't have those three things kind of as your solid base, you're going to really struggle to get to all the cool stuff, like leading High Performance team. Once you get that, you can Springboard you Hey,
Chris Rainey 0:53
Vishal, welcome to the show, my friend. How are you?
Vishal Thanki 0:56
Yeah, all good that. Thank you so much for for the invite. I feel like it's a bit of an honor of being here. I've listened to a couple of the podcasts, and it's, yeah, pleasure being on this side. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 1:06
I didn't tell you this before we started, but this is really fun. My six year old was really excited that I told her I was speaking to being cute
Vishal Thanki 1:16
today. What did she say? Because
Chris Rainey 1:19
she always asks me, Who you talking to, right? And then she are like, you know, like, what companies? And I said B and Q. And then she's like, side listing off everything we've ever bought for me and Q, you know, we went there the other day to get some soil, and it went to get to get barbecue. And she remembers all of those moments. And she likes riding around on the car, like the, what you call them that you put stuff on. It's trolley, trolley, right? Yeah, but it's like the big ones, the industrial ones, yeah, oh yeah, the flat bench flatbed. She loves sitting on the flat bed while taking her around, being cute as well. But the fact that she has a real strong connection with the brand at six years old just made me, like, chuckle a little bit. I thought that's really interesting. Yeah,
Vishal Thanki 2:01
it is, and it's really interesting. We did a bit of research a couple of years ago about what, what connects people back to being cute, and what is it, what is it about the orange? What is it about the brand? And she will have that same feeling that a lot of other generations will have as well. So actually, when you scrape back, and I'll not make your daughter, but it, it could be that actually it's just time with you. And so it's just, it's just like, so actually, there's a lot of connection back to the memory I have. So I, if I think about myself, we've, I'm from the Midlands, about Northamptonshire way, and I still remember, like, my kind of, my dad is happiest was when he was in BQ, dragging me around. But it was telling me all about this lawn mower. It was telling me all about this hedge trimmer. And it's just like, I go back in and it's just, it's just nice memories. And so we've always got this lovely, like, connection back to people where they just, they just remember it for good times.
Chris Rainey 3:02
Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. It's just like my co founder, Shane, his dad, my co founder and I are next door neighbors, for context. And he loved any excuse to go to B and Q, AI, you'd always be building stuff for any reason. He could pop down there and it would take us there, the one in Beckton, the Beckton one. Oh, yeah, right. So the big one, that's a big one. It's a big one. Yeah, yeah. So going being cute Becton as a kid. And every aisle you're looking down, you're like, what's down this aisle as well. So it's super fun.
Vishal Thanki 3:36
And, and it's the, it's quite interesting. There's, there's also the counter of it a little bit of it's like the calm before the storm. So like, you're you're preparing all your stuff to go into your garden to build something. And so it's quite interesting. The like, when you go back into our customers, like, they can be quite anxious in our stores as well. Like, I don't know what I need. I don't know what I want. Can someone help me? And you look like you can, because you know more than me. And so it's like, I always feel like we've got a really important role to play, though, to help and just help as much as we can. Like, how can we make that as easy as possible? So you or anybody else, just, just build it. Yeah, enjoy it and have a look at it afterwards and get a sense of achievement.
Chris Rainey 4:19
I think one of the things I associate with with being Q as well, is a multi generational workforce, because when I go in there, I can see people that maybe it's their first job, and then I get the others that I can see they've been there for many years, that know everything about everything, and you have a conversation, and they're really passionate talk a bit more about that, because I think that's very unique to to be not unique, but I think It's interesting to be in Q, yeah, I
Vishal Thanki 4:41
think it's, it's the thing we're really proud of. So we, I would probably say, when we go back into looking at each one of the generations that we've got in our workforce, and we, we capture the data a bit, we are really evenly split between kind of the Gen Z. These millennials, Gen X baby boomers, and it is a pure split. And I think we've got the really good balance between. We've got lots of people there that have worked for a long time and love it absolutely. They come in every day. They want to help people. They get that fulfillment of working, of working there and helping people, and you've got the complete counter of you've got Gen Zs that come in who are trying to do exactly the same thing. They want to help. They want a job. They we've built a and one thing, and we're super we've built an environment where we listen to all of them. We've built an environment where all of them can, we use this word quite nicely. They can play as well. They can they can enjoy their time at our place. So I think the one thing that's helped the kind of give parity to everyone is regardless of age, regardless of what demographic you're in, if you're a customer advisor in our store, you get paid the same. So whether you're someone new coming in, whether you've been there, what like, it's, uh, whether you're part of our older generation, that it's all the same. So I think, and and the level of learning that goes on. So what's quite interesting is that most people will sit there and I, and I'll talk to loads of people about being Q, and they'll be, you know, I bet these, these youngsters coming through, they're the ones that are super curious and wanting to learn all the time. It it's not just them, you know, I've got somebody who's 80, who just graduated on an apprenticeship. I've I've got other people who are just wanting to learn, who are getting a different, you know, a different period of their life, and they want to learn. They're super curious. They want to use their skills. And as you said, we also got to reflect our customer base quite a bit as well. So when it comes back to who's walking in our door, like, are we really reflective on our our workforce around them? What does that actually look like? But the main thing is, for us, this doesn't happen kind of just organically, with magic to up like, you've got to you've got to create the right environment. You've got to have the right tools and systems around that to make that
Chris Rainey 7:11
work. Yeah. Well, one additional challenges that you have for say, charter, is that, how do you reach them on the front line? Could you talk about some of the practical ways that you're reaching you mentioned learning development, you mentioned communication, getting feedback. Like, how are you doing that? Yeah,
Vishal Thanki 7:26
so I think we're, we're really lucky in a way that we've, we've been going a little while. So when it comes to how we reach them in communication, we we can access, yeah, we've got 21,000 colleagues. We can access them pretty well. We've got 320 store managers that run huddles every single morning. We've got great systems set up so that actually, regardless of where you are, who you are, you can access we've got a lot of information that goes to them. But also what we've got is, I think it's, it's a big mantra for us. It's, and it's a big philosophy that we have is, What does your what's your definition of looking after somebody? That's true and and our and our definition of looking after someone is, we look after the whole person, so not the person who's on shift from seven to three or nine to five or afternoon shift. But what do you really do to look after them? And then, once you start from that place, everything else kind of comes into line. So when it comes to so if you go with, we look after the whole person, and they want to learn how to do their own actually, their personal finances, like traditionally are. Is that our job to do? Is it not our job to do? For me, if I'm looking after the whole person, like courses, so what? What do we offer them, and how do we help them with that? What's all of everything that we need to do to get there? So I think we get access to to everybody, which is brilliant. I think the second thing is, we listen. So twice a year, we do, you know, an engagement survey. We just finished one. Actually, we call it my view, where we have 80% of colleagues actually take part, which is just incredible. How
Chris Rainey 9:13
do they take part? Yeah, so they
Vishal Thanki 9:17
can access it in different ways. So it's an online system where either, if they haven't got a mobile device themselves, they can, they can access a computer at work so they can come in and go right my private time, my private space. Let me answer a couple of questions about what you really like to work here. Now, what 80% really tells me is 80% of people that want to make it better and actually care enough to be able to go, Look, I think this stuff could be better, just to make it better for everybody. So I think we can and so, and if they've got a device, they can, they can take part in their own time. So once you get through a point of actually, we listen, and we don't listen from a token point of view of put it in and we'll shelve it. It's. AI, and this is what we heard, and this is what we're going to do about it, and being really honest with things that we can't do anything about, there's, there's actually, this is there's only so much money we have that we can give out to everyone. There's only so much time, there's only so much deployment, there's only so much but I think what people really respect is that we heard you, and this is what we're going to do, or what you can't do. I think once you start from that place, then I think that what you've got is a really engaged workforce. And you know, between 21,000 people, I'm sure they've got a good
Chris Rainey 10:30
answer, versus me, yeah, what was the most? What's to that most based on the recent survey?
Vishal Thanki 10:38
Yeah, there was a couple of things we've, one is we've, we've changed a bit of well, we say, we change direction. We've doubled down. So I'm going to go on two parts. So one, we've, we've really doubled down on when a customer work walks through the door, what do we do? So there are two parts to retail, and I'm sure they look like there's a retail guest on here. So one is, there is filling shelves, but there's the task, there's delivery, there's putting stuff on shelves, there's there's that. The second part is, which is the more terrifying part in when you do home improvement, is talking to a customer about what their challenge is and how you help them. And we've really doubled down on supporting our colleagues around what are the skills and knowledge you need? So when Chris walks in and goes, right, I need a barbecue, because I've got a barbecue for 40 people I have never barbecued in my life. Help me. But what's what's your response to that? So we've done so much work on that, and so a lot of the results have actually come back around. We really, truly feel customer first, actually, how we're just trying to help them. Now, that's hard, because someone then goes, What's the difference between
Chris Rainey 11:52
coal and gas? How do you do that? There's so many 1000s of questions that can be asked, like, Well,
Vishal Thanki 11:58
interestingly, there's a couple of bits in that it's,
Chris Rainey 12:01
I've always wondered that, like, how are they retaining a bit of everything? There's so many things that they can be asked.
Vishal Thanki 12:09
So in reality, when a customer walks in, generally, I think it was about a year ago this came out, so it's evolved a little bit since then. But, you know, there's roughly about eight or nine questions that
Chris Rainey 12:22
consistently get asked, Oh, what are some of those? You gotta tell where?
Vishal Thanki 12:26
So, so it's, but it's how you respond to it, so that, where's the pain?
Speaker 1 12:29
Oh, basic stuff. Yeah, yeah, super
Vishal Thanki 12:33
basic stuff. So like, where's the paint? And our response, you know what? What we what we're trying to avoid, is going, it's over there. Yeah. What we're actually trying to do is go, Oh brilliant. Use some paint. Let me. Let me show you where the paint is. But just, just out of interest, you know, he painting your whole house. He painted, can I help a little bit more? And about, Oh, no. What I'm actually is, I'm redecorating my living room. I'm like, okay, cool. But what you'll probably need is, there you got paint brushes. Let's go sort some paint brushes out. Actually, what else you do? Alright, I'm actually putting up some shelves as well. Cool. Here's some shelves. Here's the tools that you need to do it. So, so if anything there, what? What you're probably thinking of, what a lot of people think, is that right? How do I put this adapter into this wall and do? And what we say is, please don't do anything that's electrical yourself. Like, get, get a proper Sparky to come around and do it. But actually, generally, the questions are quite similar. It's what you follow on with afterwards, just to try. Like, our goal is to try and help. Like, how do we help? Because DIY is hard. It is hard. Like, putting a hole in a wall is quite, is, is quite a big deal. I do it, and I work here, and I've worked, you know, in the group for the past eight years. I have my drill in my hand. I'm just, all I'm doing is putting a picture up. I'm about to go in the wall, and I go, right? I take a deep breath and go, I could really mess this up, I like. And the recovery of it is horrendous, because then you're like, you're patching, you're like, repainting stuff. Like, it's hard, so like, how do we make that as easy as possible? Yeah, and there will be a million stories of those around. Like it just so when we think about our colleagues in stores, 21,000 of them, how do we help people and generally, a lot of the questions are quite similar. Unless you're quite an advanced trades, trades person, then you're kind of your questions are probably quite specific. So yeah, it's, it's, it's hard. We're trying. So there is a base level of knowledge, but then there are specifics. Until the beauty of our stores, they're quite big. We have a lot of people in our stores. They will generally be people that know what we've seen in there. Most people have got head for headsets. Oh yeah, I've noticed that. So they'll be like, like, Chris, imagine you work in Beckton and you are the barbecue expert. And someone comes to me and says, look like, look, I'm doing a barbecue 40 people. I'll be like, no worries. I might have got an expert who. Loves barbecues. Chris, do you mind just coming over as a customer? Now, imagine you as a customer. You've gone, right this person's just a first. They've heard me. They've taken the time to listen to what I need, and they're going to go get someone who really knows. So actually, in reality, when you think about when you've got quite a big store, you can cover ground quite, quite quickly in that way. So there's, there's lot. There's a reason why people work for us. They, they, they also like DIY. They like Home Improvement,
Chris Rainey 15:27
yeah, so how do you train and upskill that many people at scale? Yeah? Like, what is there specific technology using you have, like, computers in house? Like, how, what's, what does that look like?
Vishal Thanki 15:40
Yeah, yeah, there's, there's loads of different routes. So what is, what we do encourage a lot is just knowledge and sharing, but that's already there. But there are specific products that we have, that we do, that we do train people on. So if we've got products that are quite new to the market, if we've got a particular range that's slightly different that we want to train people on, then we've got, we're quite lucky. We've got a quite a lot of E learning capability that we can get out to colleagues, and we can gamify. So we've recently gamified and been testing a lot more around actually, how do you gamify this learning so that it really sticks? And and that actually has been, has worked really well in just in the sense of how much sticks, and we know that one bit of training is not going to do that. It's doing the hard thing, which is going talking to a customer. That's, that's the hard bit, yeah.
Chris Rainey 16:37
So and then, and they can all access that on their mobile,
Vishal Thanki 16:41
yeah, so it's fully, fully accessible. And again, if they don't have a smart device, then we've got, we're lucky. We've got training rooms, we've got access to computers for people to use if they wanted to use time. So I think it's a we're quite fortunate in that way that we've got, you know, actually, from an accessible point, we've got different points where people can go,
Chris Rainey 17:05
Yeah, I'm just asking because, like many, many companies that I speak to in your space with blue collar workers, frontline workers, that's a big challenge for them is how they continuously Reach Up skill, re skill, and stay connected in some in some organizations, these people don't have a mobile device, don't even have an email, right, you know, as well. So how do you, how do you make that happen and then create that sense of belonging?
Vishal Thanki 17:30
Well, it's and I completely understand that. So my wife works in retail as well, and the stores that they have a slightly different to ours. You'll have two to three people in a store at one time. You potentially won't have a computer, or you may. So I think it's slightly different challenges. And sense of like, can you afford someone to be off the shop floor for that period of time when you've only got a couple of people there. That's that's more difficult. And I guess our challenge around that is is slightly different in a ways, that we've got quite complex products. How do we help our customers aware? But we have people so that. So for us, I think we it's difficult, but when you we prioritized it so much in the sense of, this is so when, when apprenticeships first came, you know, actually, the the time out of store to be able to go and learn, you know, initially was really difficult. So actually, getting our store managers to think, right, this person is going to be out every Friday or every other Friday, that's, that's really difficult, because we only have so many hours. Helps that work. And once we got through a couple of cycles of the benefits of someone going through a retail management apprenticeship and coming back and going, well, I've actually got lots of new skills and knowledge to be able to benefit us and benefit this store, suddenly our ramp up just became really extreme, in the sense of our uptake went up quite dramatically, but we prioritized it. So we within our stores and our regions, we've managed to prioritize where we can put deployment. But for us, I think it's it's it has to become a prerequisite. But also it goes back to that philosophy. We look after the whole person, if we truly mean it, then what we're doing about
Chris Rainey 19:16
it? Yeah, makes sense. I want to go back to your point. You mentioned around representing your customers in the different cultures and communities that you serve. What does that look like? Like? Do you specifically target talent pools in those specific areas that represent those communities? But then, okay, if you do that, how do you still make sure it's equitable? And you know, you're not just focusing on just that group. You know, it's
Vishal Thanki 19:42
a brilliant question, and one that I've been asked a lot. So I I take this back. I talk about this a lot. I take this back to what's our what's our main goal. So if I kind of start the highest and then and I'll come back. So we want to say. Serve our customers in the best way possible. I we want to serve the community that we've got in the best way possible. So I one of my local stores is, is the other side of London, is Istanbul. Istanbul has got a really big Asian community. And if I go back to that premise of what we talked about with DIY, home proof is hard. Now try and do it in your second language, and now try and communicate that in store in your third language. And you're just trying to put a hole in a wall, but you're trying to find the words to figure out the right drill bit to put through, or you're trying to ask somebody and trying to figure out, Is there wires behind this wall to do it? So once, you kind of then take that challenge in the sense of, right the communities that we serve, we want to serve them really well. We want to be able to help them with their projects in the best way. How do we represent that community so that we can just serve them so so for us, we always try and challenge ourselves, and we've got brilliant data from UK census around in those communities. Stanmore, as an example, has a big Asian population, that big Sri Lankan population. So we really challenge ourselves around now that we know that, and we also know the demographic of our workforce. Do we have any Tamil speakers that are just going to help our customers in the best way possible? Now, what we don't do is go out and kind of see them, but naturally, if you've got 60% of course, the local area, you're going to attract less. Let's just take normal probability of 60% of the applications are probably going to be Sri Lankan, or are going to speak Tamil or good, or good, or I'm, you know, I'm, I'm Hindu, I'm Gujarati. So actually, someone who speaks Gujarati, actually, that would be amazing. Now, it then helps your thinking process, or your kind of right, what do I need to serve my customers in the best way possible? So I'm not actually thinking about my worth or saying, What am I doing to serve my customers and what's best way? Yeah, and that, and that's just one element. So I always see this as like a deer, not a DNI tools like, yes, it's a customer tool. We're just trying to serve customers in the best way and make it as easy as possible. So I probably flip this slightly differently where I know I've listened quite a few of your your your podcasts, and it was, yeah, when people talk about always doing the right thing, yes, the right thing to do. Talk about equity, absolutely. Talk about inclusivity, yeah, actually, to make sure that person who is maybe a first generation, generation immigrant like me feel really welcome in a sense of belonging in that store. So actually, what have we got to do in that store to make sure that actually they feel like they can apply for that job? They got a fair chance to get that job. They join us, and they feel like they've got a really sense of a good sense of belonging. So I kind of see it as it's the right thing to do for our customers. So what's the environment we've got to create to be able to get there? So it's so it all just all revolves back to, how do we just serve people in the best way?
Chris Rainey 23:10
Yeah, I love that. No, I completely get and it's something different. When you go into a store that feels like the culture and the people that represent you, if it was different, right? Like growing up going into that, I grew up in East London, super diverse, right? So any, any of these stores I went into was very diverse, you know, and, and you notice it when it's not the case, it really stands out. Like one of my first jobs in central London, in, uh, in London Bridge, I walked in, and it was literally just 50 white males in a sales floor. And immediately, even though I'm a white male, because I grew up with such a multicultural background, I was like, what's happening? What's going on? Why is there? Why are you only hiring white males between this age category, and it was shocking, if I'm being honest, when I when I went in,
Vishal Thanki 24:05
yeah, it's, I tell you what, though, even just having that observation, and you've got, obviously very different lived experience in that way, it's such a brilliant place to start, like, start curiosity just over a bit of, right? Okay, cool. So how I'm not judging it. It's not, it's not about a judgment place. It's like, right? Let me be curious about how we got here, and let me just figure out what, what was some of those levers behind that? Yeah, we got to do. Because, actually, let's look at our customer base. Like, who and
Chris Rainey 24:33
our customer was super diverse. Like, it's crazy. I remember asking the HR manager at the time and it, they kind of was, like, almost oblivious to it. Yeah, there's a lot of unconscious bias that did, oh, and ignorance that just, and I was like, like, it's so obvious, right? And that, literally, the first black employee in the company was someone I hired a friend of mine. It was, yeah, who spent many years in sales, was incredible. He did and came in. And even when he came in, he struggled, because it was like, I have to bring a certain persona now to this environment. And I didn't fully get that at the time. My wife, my wife, has experienced the same thing as a black female leader in finance as well. So it's like, it's just super interesting. But the diversity of for the diversity of perspective, the different insights, all of that, that is just lost when you don't when you don't have that. And I was like, yeah,
Vishal Thanki 25:36
it's super hard, right? Everyone talks about and maybe I've, I've probably over thought this, but the AI before the D or before the AI, so like, what's interesting for the example that you shared, is someone having to come in and be somebody different, yeah, and I find that just heartbreaking, like I genuinely do, and I I always feel that real sense of like, purpose and responsibility. Here of someone, I don't culture. I don't have culture. I try and architect and build a blueprint so that everyone can be at their best, like that's that's kind of it. And as you said, the diversity of thought. But how do you create an environment where you can be yourself, but being yourself, being at your best, like, that's the, that's the real crux to it. We talk and have a buzz word at the moment, but we've, we've kind of got our version of, like, what is a high performance culture? Yes, but a high performance culture has got to be the foundations of it. Have got to be bedded in. Like, real good, like inclusive environment, a diverse workforce that represents your customer in whichever whatever guys your your customer is, and that people belong. If you don't have those three things kind of as your solid base, you're going to really struggle to get to all the cool stuff, like leading high performance teams. How you get like that is, I've always had Foundation, once you get that, you can springboard. It's like a big trampoline.
Chris Rainey 27:06
I completely agree with you, because, like my previous company, they would very much say we're a high performance, right? But they missed that entire part, which has led to people quitting early burnout, you know, anxiety, just, you know, like everything you could think that comes with skipping those layers, and they try and make up for it later by doing some initiatives and products too late, you know, you can't, you know. And also that's driving the behaviors and the culture in a very different way, right? If you start with those layers, you're setting a very different set of expectations from your leadership, especially those, I'm sure, like in the work that you do, those those managers in stores are are so important because they're your direct access to all of your employees, right? So, yeah, time investing in them must be very important. Oh,
Vishal Thanki 27:57
massively. I still see it as their Our stores are islands. Keep using your Becton, it's an island, right? Store
Chris Rainey 28:06
Manager? Robbie, yeah.
Vishal Thanki 28:09
Store Manager is the most that is so pivotal, so important. They lead your comms. They access 96% of our workforce, how they behave and show up, and the questions they ask set the tone for everything. And I remember a leader a little while ago, just I joined a new team, and I did a new new boss, and they asked me this question, and they really dwelled on it, and it was really thoughtful, and it's helped me with our store managers and questions that they ask. So which was, I'm sure, Chris like the story from one of your previous roles around right? What? What gets you at your best? Because you can't be at your best every day, because we've got families, we've got people, kids, wives, we've got stuff going on outside. We've got our own anxieties. We've got loads of stuff going on. But what gets you I remember I answered actually, I'm pretty simple creature, in a way. I know myself, even if we disagree, just hear me out. Just listen to me, and I'll feel really heard, and even if we go the other way, I'm committed. I'm all in, but that's when you'll get me at your best. Shut me down really early. You won't. And it's interesting when we then start talking to our teams about being really inclusive and sense of belonging, there is a load of key questions that just set the tone in your store around, like, what gets you at your best, let me come to you. You don't have to come to me. Don't worry about it. And it was so there's lots in that around, what, what our leaders are, you know, those, as you said, those store managers,
Chris Rainey 29:53
they're so important. Like, I can't, like, like, another question, right? Which I learned the hard way, is asking. Your team, how do you like to be recognized? Yeah, right. For years I was like, recognizing people, how I like to be recognized, right? And until I asked that question, I found out, oh, you hate going on stage and getting that award. You know, Chris, it gives me anxiety every single month. I hate that right, like and that person preferred to be recognized one to one in private, and that really meant the most that they have that quality time with me and we, you know, we had that we can have a great conversation. So, like, similar to your question as well. Like, what can we do to get the best out of the relationship? Like, how often I've got one more for you. Go for it. Go for
Vishal Thanki 30:37
it. One more for you. Now, how you term this question is slightly different for different people, but I'll do the simplest way is, um, how would you like your feedback? Yeah. Now that's not me. Now that the reason why I say that is everyone hears feedback and they're like feedback. This is, this is horrendous, like, and it's, and it's not that. It's a right. I want you to be at your very best, and how can I give you great recognition, or just give you the one percenters? That is that in the moment, is it? Later, is it? But what you're doing is setting some intention. I want you to be brilliant, and I want to help you, and if you allow me to help you, then that's brilliant, and just start off a great conversation. But that one's always an interesting one, because that's the one where there's, there's a lot of fear behind that, and it's
Chris Rainey 31:24
normally a negative, like, it shouldn't be, because feedback is, again, it's like, but it's normally the knee jerk reaction is negative, yeah? Like,
Vishal Thanki 31:32
well, the Yeah, the behavioral science says that it's three to one. Oh, really good ones. Three good ones to one, which is just an even better if so actually, it would be, look, I always like to start off a great question, like, how do you think that went? I'm super curious. Oh, brilliant. Well, what I saw was, actually your presentation was this, it went brilliant. The team were really engaged, and they were hanging your storytelling was brilliant. I tell you what. There was probably a couple of words that you use that just you could see you turn a couple of people up now I could see them and you couldn't. So maybe just think about, actually, is there any more inclusive language without alienating people in that and then? But don't forget, like this stuff. So it's it. There is the behavioral science behind it. Is three to one, which, but naturally, as human beings, we go to survival. So we, we do hang
Chris Rainey 32:21
on. So what you're saying is, when I've been giving my wife feedback, I've been doing one to one, so it's not been working. So
Vishal Thanki 32:28
try again, Chris, again. Hopefully after this you'll, you'll say that I met this great guy V show, and he said three to one should be like, Oh, this is happy days. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 32:36
it goes both ways, though. So I'm like, when I, when, when I, when you give me feedback on my barbecue skills, you know, I need, I need the free score.
Vishal Thanki 32:45
Yeah, absolutely. Three to one,
Chris Rainey 32:47
yeah, we'll help you out with a good barbecue. Don't worry. No, I love it, but variety goes anything we didn't speak about that we should have. I think
Vishal Thanki 32:55
one of the big things for us, I guess, is that, and the big thing around high performance is just people being at their best. I think it's so interesting. There's so many great podcasts out there, others with Title of the high performance in there that and they always ask that question of, how do you define it? And I think we, I think we've done a pretty good balancing job around just people being at their best, but knowing people can't be at best, every day. Like, how? How do you get it from 100 days of the year to 120 now, if you do that over 21,000 people, then suddenly you've got something special going on.
Chris Rainey 33:30
Yeah, what is that? I appreciate you coming on. I'm like being Q is part of my childhood. And that may sound silly to people listening, and not from the UK, but if you're from the UK and you grew up, you were dragged along to being you, and you like trying to touch everything, grab everything, like, stop. And now as an adult, kind of on that, say, like on the other side of it as well. It's kind of ingrained in the culture as well. So congrats to you and the team and all of the work you do. And I always have a good experience whenever I go to a store, so clearly you're doing something something, right? So congrats to the team, and I wish you all the best until we next
Vishal Thanki 34:04
week. Thank you very much. Cheers, Chris, you.
More from the HR Leaders Podcast
Wouter Durville, CEO of TestGorilla.