Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of Vet Chat, and today I am chatting to two behemoths of the veterinary profession, even though they're both really little people. So, we're gonna chat about the Good Workplaces initiative, which is, is being brought to the fore by the BVA. And I'm delighted to be joined by the chair of the initiative, Gurin Raves, the now senior vice president.
Of the BVA Daniela dos Santos. Now this is, I am delighted to say, her first interview in a post-presidential role in I think what we can probably say has been something of an eventful year. So she's had a nice lie in till about 6 o'clock this morning, and, and she can join us looking fresh faced and looking forward to a year as SVP.
So guys, thank you both for joining us, and I just wondered. If we could start off, obviously, you know, times are changing at a rate of knots in the profession. Certainly, you know, we look at the change over 20 years, it's been massive, but actually if you look at the change over 5 years, the cultural shift in what our expectations are as vets and nurses and anybody working in a veterinary practise is, is seismic.
What was the, what was the thinking for BVA behind setting up, you know, a good veterinary workplaces initiative? So, you're absolutely right. I mean, the change has been phenomenal.
But if we just step back maybe 5 years and look at, say, the Vet Futures, that was led with BBA and RCVS where we actually wanted to look at what the future of the veterinary profession is, and the veterinary profession was gonna lead that future, workforce, and the sort of retention. Piece was massive. And we knew that people were struggling to recruit, so recruitment retention was a problem.
But, and we had lots of anecdote, but we didn't really know why. And the sort of Vet Futures, one of the things of Vet Futures really wanted to look at that, so that we had sustainable, thriving businesses. But most importantly, we had veterinary surgeons who were happy, contented in their job.
And so their life and their job was sustainable as well. And that makes for a good profession. So for me, it sort of stemmed from there.
And certainly when I was with the BVA, we worked on the piece with the University of Exeter that people will be hopefully very aware of, looking at retention, satisfaction, motivation in, in the profession. And I think we'll all agree that those three key words are what we look for in a job. And your workplace has a massive impact on that.
And that led into some work on gender discrimination as well. And then Daniella has obviously done superb work on the wider piece around discrimination. That's pretty reprehensible in the in the profession, and so we got evidence, you know, we got evidence to back up this anecdote that we knew people were, perhaps, you know, it wasn't a retention place for vets, and that's, that's a shame.
So, we thought, you know, great evidence, got all that, what do we do with that? Because actually, sitting on a shelf isn't where we wanna be. We want to be putting stuff out there that workplaces can use.
So we set up the Good Workplace Working Group, and we brought together loads of people from the profession, all different workplaces in veterinary. Brought them together as a Working group. And then what's most important, actually, is we drew on other people's expertise in the profession, and really importantly, outside the profession to go, Do you know what?
How do you do it? Let's take some massive themes, and we'll go through the themes. Let's take some massive themes and look at what we're good at, what we're not good at.
Actually, what is happening outside the profession that's really good, and where do we want to be? Let's take that. Let's run with it.
And let's get this evidence and put it into something that people can actually use. And I know we're gonna, like, chat more in depth about that. And hence, I think both Daniella and I are so excited that this massive piece of work, and thanks to the, to the policy team and just thanks, massive thanks to BBA, has finally come together that we can go, Do you know what?
Here you go, let's run with it. Mm. But it's really, so Gurin has summed it up beautifully, but it's really important to start by saying this is aspirational, this is a massive piece of work, you know, and we as a professionals are very good at highlighting problems.
Oh, this is, this is bad, we can't do this, and actually, here's a solution. But what we don't want is for people to look at this and go, oh, it's huge, I'm never gonna achieve this. Actually, we'll dig into the, you know, the various different aspects of it.
But, you know, even just starting by going, well, we want to look at this, and working together as a team to sort of work your way towards what is considered a good veterinary workplace. It's not just about clinical practises either. It's about anywhere that a vet is working.
And I think, Guren, you'll agree there's a, a overarching theme here, that this is about teamwork. It's not just an employer's responsibility or an employee's responsibility. It's incumbent on both parties to work together to, to develop it.
Yeah, and I think the fact that you highlight the, the important thing there, and I think, you know, in a profession that is saturated with a lot of perfectionism, it is important to highlight the fact that, you know, this is an aspirational piece of work. So. The great thing the aspirational piece of work, that's right, everybody, if you can hear anything in the background, it's just a fire alarm test.
Daniela's building is not on fire at the minute. But yeah, the, the, the real important thing to highlight is that. This, you're not gonna have all of this down on day one, and it, and the goalposts will always move, you know, we look at the working culture of today, it's very different to the working culture of 10 years ago, which is different to 10 years before that, and so on and so forth.
So the goalposts will almost move all the time, but it's fantastic that we've got people that have engaged who are willing. To, to look, to, to aspire to achieve these things. So I just wonder, obviously the, the, the, the, the report is split into multiple different areas.
Why have you chosen the areas that you have done? How have you sort of gone about the, the process of developing this good workplace guide? So a lot of it has obviously come from the group, and that's why it's really important that when we, we look at big problems, we don't do it in an, in an isolation of our, our own view.
We take a group of people. And we use their expertise, we use their experiences, because that's actually how we learn. And I think Daniella and I will both agree that we've learned a huge amount from listening to other people's experiences that has changed the way we see things.
And that's probably one of the most important things about the report, is, is, is sharing those experiences and the case studies in it. But you're right, so we've, we've broken it down into 7 areas, and their health and wellbeing, diversity, equality and fair treatment, workload flexibility, reward and recognition, personal and career development, management and HR processes, and culture. And now they're chunky titles, and we came to those because as a group, we wanted to break down what does a good veterinary workplace look like.
And through a lot of discussion, through a lot of looking actually wider than just our profession, of talking to people who work in this particular area, we felt that these seven areas were areas that, if you can work on these, you can highlight them within their practises. Look at what you're doing already, look at how you can improve them. They are the cornerstone for making a good veterinary workplace.
OK, so Obviously, the thing that I guess is difficult is that there are so many different cultures and different environments that we work in. And so how do we go about sort of harmonising the approach across the profession? What, what sort of factors do, do you as a working group, look, look to consider from, you know, one practise in, in X circumstances versus other practises in Y circumstances?
So I think you're absolutely right. And, and as Daniella alluded to at the beginning, this document is aspirational for lots of different retinary workplaces. It does not, it's not a list of prescription of you must do this, because every workplace is different.
I think between the three of us, we've had a lot of workplaces that we know have been very different. But what it does do is it looks at the evidence that's out there. It highlights relevant law and guidance.
It signposts people to information that can be useful, and it helps you on the journey to work out within those frameworks and within those headings, what is the best way for your practise to move. So, if we look at culture, culture, it, it's not a culture must be this. This is what Culture is.
A culture is very different. It's a, it's a strongly held belief, a set of beliefs that's shared throughout that workplace. And that needs to be decided between everybody in that workplace.
That's not for us to say, this is the right culture for you. But what's important is you do that. You work out what the culture is for everybody in that includes all the other six themes that are in it, because culture underpins.
And then you take that culture and you go, How do we live that culture? Is that culture our strategy? Does that culture permeate how we recruit people?
So, when we recruit people, does the culture lead the recruitment process? So somebody coming in already understands that and can work out whether they, their culture is right for them and how can they help that culture. And sometimes that might not be right, but if you lead by culture that you have all come together, Then you can actually move forward in a way that fits with everybody for you.
And that may be different depending on your veterinary workplace. So I suppose what we're trying to say is this is a guide to help you structure. Cause we know, you know, you go, right, go and do a great veterinary workplace.
That is a huge task. And I think we can all say on the working group, that was a huge task. But I hope what we've done with this report, and then the code, is we've broken it down to make it achievable.
Into chunks to help you work through it. And, and I think the other thing is to acknowledge that culture is different for everyone, what matters is different to everyone, and this is. This code isn't, and, and report isn't gonna generate a one size fits all workplace.
That's just not the way it goes. You know, for some of us, career progression might be more important, for others, other factors might be more important. And so, we're just talking about recruiting based on culture and making your values quite clear.
But as individuals, as employees, we also need Know what, what we want from a culture, what we want from the workplace environment. Because not all environments would be right for everybody. You know, I can think of places that I've worked at where the culture was not right for me.
That doesn't mean that the culture was wrong. It just wasn't right for what was important to me. And we, as employees, also have that responsibility to think about that when we're looking for jobs.
Yeah. And I think, obviously a lot of people, you know, you hear conversation and there's a lot of practises that, you know, do make a lot of effort in terms of their teams, in terms of their workplace, in terms of trying to do the best, because ultimately they have a vested interest, it's their business, they want their business. To be successful.
But there's a lot of people that would, would turn round and say, look, you know, all of this stuff about having this improved and this improved in practise is simply giving lip service by a lot of employers. What, how, how do you combat that? Mentality from a from an employee perspective, because obviously you know as as an employer, there's only so much you can do, there's only so much you can afford to do at times.
But as an employee, of course you potentially want, want everything to be perfect there and then and and how, how do you strike that balance between the interests of the two parties? So I think that the report is coming out on Monday. It, it might be out by the time everyone's listening to this podcast.
I think, you know, throughout the report, we've been very clear that the responsibility is on everybody within the team. So that's employer and employee. And we've highlighted in there what, what the working group feels are the responsibilities of each to come together and make this work.
And you're right, a lot of people are doing, you know, some very good things. But sometimes, It, it's right to stop, to pause, to think. Is this actually the right thing we do?
And, and one thing, you know, I, I think we probably don't do enough of is actually monitor the results of things so that we can audit, we can reflect. So we might put something in place that, you know, we as a, a group think is a great idea. But if that's not actually making a difference throughout the workplace, then we need to know that, and we need to stop, reflect, look at the evidence and see.
And, and this is the thing I think, what, what we're trying to do is, there's no hierarchy in making this work. It's not led from the top. It's a conversation that flows through the entire workforce.
So, almost, you know, you, you have to have those conversations with everybody, and you have to have a culture that allows people to speak up and be themselves. So I think One of the things for me is, you know, if, if you think you're doing lots of stuff on culture and you have a great workplace, and you may do, you know, none of this is to accuse anybody of not doing it. But do you know if your employers come into work every day and could be their authentic self?
So if I go into work and my other half comes in, or my best mate comes in and sees me in my work environment, do they recognise me? Do they say, that's the person I know. Because if that's not the person being their authentic self.
That's not right, as far as I can see. And that's what we're trying to say. Culture has to be about people being able to express themselves in work.
And sometimes you might have done all the best things in, in culture in the world, but there's something stopping it happening. And, you know, I know we'll get into other things, but Daniela did some fantastic work on discrimination, and we did stuff on gender prior to that. And, you know, and there's some.
There's some startling statistics in there that are not right. And if, if you as a workplace or as as a profession, don't look at that, monitor it, measure it, acknowledge it and try and work out why. You don't even know it's happening.
So those are kind of thing we need to understand it. And I know Daniella and I have, have worked with so many groups in this veterinary workplace, and by listening to people's lived experiences that they might not be sharing at work, we have learned a lot. So sometimes we've gotta step back into the simple things of asking our employees what works for them and is this happening?
But you've got to have that environment to allow people to share their story. And I think that that probably opens up quite nicely to the second topic in the in the in in the the the code, which is diversity, equality and fair treatment. Now.
It's interesting, isn't it, people's different perspectives on this. There's some people that would turn around and say, well, there's not a problem with fair treatment in the workplace. I dare say those people have probably never been on the receiving end of unfair treatment.
And and, you know, some would perhaps hold me up for saying that, but having seen both sides of the coin, I, I think, you know, there is potentially a. You know, a problem with unfair treatment of certain people at certain times, and I think unless you've ever been on the receiving end, it's probably hard to rationalise in your own head, perhaps, and you know, maybe that's making excuses for people I don't know, but, but. Why is that such an important element of this code?
So, various reasons. I mean, Goodwin's work with BVA looked at the fact that we do have a gender discrimination problem, and despite the evidence that was quite clearly presented in that report, there are still members of our profession who will say, not a problem here, don't know what you're talking about, it's completely biassed, but that's at the core of what we're talking about when it comes to equality and fair treatment is, is the bias and often unconscious. Just when you say about there's a, there's a gender sort of discrimination, what do you mean by that?
So, in the study, it was found that when all else is equal, and I mean everything, apart from your name, Marco Elizabeth, you, it was found that Elizabeth would be paid less, be seen as less competent, less likely to be put forward for a promotion or encouraged to go for a promotion, and less likely to be seen as a, useful source of information. Retention and satisfaction as well because if you don't feel valued, you don't feel like you fit in, you can't be your authentic self. So this all links together.
Now the irony of this is that, That was due primarily to unconscious bias, but it's essentially illegal. So, we as a profession, are not even, in many cases, meeting our legal responsibilities. And when you expand it, when we looked at discrimination more widely, through our discrimination survey, some of the statistics were horrific, you know, I think it was 44% of Cases reported were gender discrimination.
It was sort of the mid-20s for racial discrimination, which when you consider the fact that only 3% of the profession is from a black or a minority ethnic background, that is pretty horrific. And equally, we were seeing discrimination against members of the LGBTQ plus community. But actually it, it goes further than that.
Those that are parents are finding it harder in the workplace as well. And so this is about reflecting on how you're treating people should be valued for their skills and for themselves as individuals, and they shouldn't be penalised in any way. How can you be your own authentic self if you come to work and your clients are racist or sexist towards you and no one says anything because actually it's OK, we'll just let that client see someone else next time.
You know, that's not how you deal with these things. But. Equally, I think it's important to highlight that we spoke about parental leave and, you know, flexibility for parental duties and things like that.
But equal treatment and fair treatment goes beyond that as well, so, kind of slightly into the flexibility issue here, but, you know, if you have someone who, I would like to go running with a running club once a week, for example. Affording them the flexibility to do that will allow them to be happier and more fulfilled in their workplace. And so, if you're only offering flexibility to parents, for example, and leaving out the flexibility for others, then there may be issues there as well.
Good, I don't know if you want to expand on. Yeah, no, I, I, I think, you know, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of, if, if you come to work every day, and they're, and, and you don't feel like you fit in. And you don't feel that you can share your stories from home, or there are aggressions or microaggressions to you each day.
You know, take a, take 10 seconds and think how that feels. You know, that is not a good place to be, and that should not happen in this day and age. And that is reprehensible.
But think how it feels if then your workplace doesn't support you if those aggressions happen or those microaggressions happen. For whatever reason. For whatever protected characteristic, and you're not supported.
Think how that makes you feel. Are you prepared to go up and beyond in your job? Do you feel like you can be part of the team?
Can you speak up if you think something should be done better in the practise? Does anybody listen to you? And then think, you know, from the simple stuff, if you're a, you're the owner of the business, do you want your team to be able to speak up and help you improve that business and go the extra mile and feel like they have the same ability to shine in the practise as you?
I think you. Would, because ultimately, if everyone's pulling together, everybody wants to succeed. And most importantly, everyone feels they can succeed, you have a better business.
And actually, you can learn if you're diverse. If you have equity in your business and you're making it fair, you're making it fair for your customers as well. So, I think it's, you know, as we found in, in the gender piece, it's not that people went outright to do it wrong.
I think they so thought they were doing it right, or were so scared of accepting they were doing it wrong. That they didn't ask the questions. They didn't think, can I change?
They didn't open their mind to think, I can do it better and I should do it better. And I hope, certainly with this section of the report, it will make people stop and think. And I think one of the, the things I found a little bit of a shame, I say, with the gender stuff is people got very defensive.
And I understand that because we're putting a mirror to people's faces sometimes and saying, You could do it better. This might not be the best way to do it. And that is really uncomfortable.
And we've all been there, and within the working group, we had a mirror put to our faces, and we learned, and we moved forward. And it's OK to say, I'm doing this wrong. But it's not OK to go, I'm doing this wrong, but I don't want anyone to know.
I'm just gonna carry on. The most, you know, the, the most courageous thing you can do is talk to your employees and do it right, and I really hope this report helps people to make that journey and do it right. So, you know, every section in this plays into all the other sections and the culture is really important.
But we do need to get diversity, equality, fair treatment, right, it's the human thing to do. You know, little things like language, how we talk to people, the language that we use is so important. To small stuff but have those conversations and just be courageous enough to make changes.
And I think in when Gurin says putting a mirror up to your face, if you happen to be an employer who has an employee that is brave enough to say something, just. Sort of stop and take a deep breath before you respond and just consider what's being said to you, because it is, unfortunately, natural human behaviour to become defensive when someone points out that you're doing things wrong, or you might be hurting someone or treating someone unfairly. So if you're an employer who find yourself in that position and actually stop, take a breather before responding and just listen, and, and you'll find a way through it together.
I'm just gonna let that catch up a little bit because you dropped out a second. I thought the BVA's great Wi Fi. Oh it's bloody brilliant, isn't it?
And a fire alarm in the middle of it. Right, we'll edit that bit out. OK.
So, obviously we, you know, we've looked at things that employers and employees where there's potentially even this, this kind of mis mismatch of expectations between both parties there, but of course, For many people who, who are employers, and, and, and of course nowadays that you dare say that a lot of that is shifted down the independent practise route, people who are in practise who are owners and employers are generally, you know, in independent practise now, whereas obviously the corporate side of things there's more of a hierarchical structure, even though you have clinical directors, regional directors and so on and so forth. But how, obviously, you know, how do you, How as an individual who's higher up the chain than than those who are, you know, more junior colleagues, how do you bridge that gap? What, what, what sort of steps can you take as an individual to, to sort of.
Match the expectations of people who are lower down the chain inverted commas, you know, because of course their, their key outcomes are are different to yours potentially. So, I mean, I, I think you've, there, there's two important points there. So there, you're right.
There is, if you're talking about bigger business, there is often an, an infrastructure of HR and management, etc. But I think we should never forget that, actually, most of us at some point always work within teams or always manage teams. Even if it's our team working in theatre doing a surgery, or it's our team in the lab working on an experiment.
If we are the lead person of that 2 or 3 people, we're taking a leadership position. So, everybody at some point will lead, and everybody has a duty to make that culture in that team work. So I think the report and the code, although, you know, perhaps aimed at making a, a, a big culture shift or a, a big shift according to these themes, actually is applicable to everybody who is ever in a position of leadership.
Because you as an individual, can affect how your team works. But, a, a lot of these things, no matter what the size of your business, are, no matter what the size of the business, these are important factors that affect. It, it starts with the culture for me, and that has to lead through.
And that's why we've talked about it, it has to start from recruitment. Because actually, if you're an an employee and you're working way up through the business, if you're embedded in that culture of the business, and you understand what's expected of you, You want to share that back in, and you're going in there with complete transparency. And then, if you're sort of in the middle management or whichever section of the business, it's about having transparent processes in place that work for you.
There is no point in having a process that comes from head office, say, that doesn't apply to your section, to your team. These have to be lived working processes and experiences that people are dealing with. So that means that it is applicable to the environment that you are managing in, in that small group.
So I don't think, no matter what your level of management, for want of a better word, it's not a case of saying, well, up here deals with that, or we have a process for dealing with that. It's actually making that process applicable to that person in front of you. And I, I kind of think.
For me, you know, this, if I put it back to a clinical setting, perhaps, and this, you know, applies for all veterinary workplaces. But you will have the same presentation in pretty much the same animal in the same day. But how you deal with that will be hugely different because it's a different owner, different set of circumstances, different environment you're seeing them in.
And you apply all that you know of good principles to that case. And I see that with this good veterinary workplace. You apply the really good principles in it, no matter whether you're dealing on a one on one with the newest person in the business, or you're dealing as the HR department, as a team of business.
It's having the applicable processes in place that are transparent and open, that people understand that apply to them. That has been thought of with everybody involved and you live that culture. One of the, one of the, the, the areas that jumps out most at me from, from the, the code of conduct is the reward and recognition section.
And that's something that a lot of people in the profession will look at and potentially raise an eyebrow, and kind of even go as far as saying what the hell is reward and recognition. So, Obviously that is an important section to have in. I just wonder what, what sort of insights and highlights did you guys have from looking at those particular topics and, and you know, things that are done and perhaps not done across the profession.
So with this topic, we were really lucky to look outside of the profession as well. And we talked to Tracey Killen of of John Lewis as one, and we talked to other HR managers, and that was really fascinating actually, seeing how others do it. And reward and recognition.
Obviously, there's, there's the financial reward that we all know about. But it's also recognising what people do on a day to day basis. And we know that plays into motivation, satisfaction, retention, actually.
If you engage with people, listen to them, talk to them, and, and, you know, engage them in their knowledge as well, fairly, then that is a good way of rewarding and recognising people. But mostly, you know, we're not here to set pay scales and look at that and say you should have these benefits and you should have those benefits. It's about, say it one of the main things is about the transparency and the fairness of it and allowing people to do a good job and feel fairly rewarded.
But feel fairly rewarded that they're as fairly rewarded as their colleague and they know why and how they're being rewarded, because actually that empowers people to do a good job and feel that they, that it, that it's the same, that there's equity in it. So, that was one piece that we looked at. And, you know, it, it is, and we've put in there that it's, you know, transparent, fair, equal pay for all employees relevant to their roles.
Because we know that you can't pay, you know, people will get paid differently, and we always talk about money, but it comes back to the fair and transparency. So I know how much I'm getting paid and why. And I don't have to think that if there was somebody with a different name.
To me, doing the same job, that they're getting paid differently to me, because that's the biggest way to, I think, disempower people, and that's when you start to get problems. And the, the thing around benefits is working out what's, what's right for your, for your workplace, and again, making sure that they're fair and equal, so people understand what they are, why they're getting them, and that they're equal to everybody. And that, and now having those benefits is about understanding your business and knowing what works for you to make that positive work culture, and that will be different for everybody.
So, looking at sort of that that sort of culture that we have across the profession, different people of course have different expectations and you know, for doing the same thing people may want things in a disproportionate level, but how do you. As an employer, look to manage expectations, you know, and something that I've discovered in the last few years in business is that, you know, the power of the 1 to 1 meeting, the power of quarterly and six monthly reviews, and, and certainly I've only ever worked in one practise where that was a thing, and actually they were. Done correctly, incredibly empowering, because I had, this is what's going well, you know, it's that sandwich effect, isn't it, where it's like this is what's going well, these are the things that you've monumentally cocked up, and these are the things that we think you're getting better at, and, and if you do a little bit of this and that and that, you know, you, you kind of get well at these.
Does that work universally? Is that something that all practises should be looking to, to utilise as a process, you know, how, how do you make enough hours in the day, you know, obviously I know one of the big sections here is management and HR processes. How, how does that feed into the day to day running, especially with the likes of smaller practises where there's perhaps not the manpower.
Yeah, and, and you're absolutely right. You know, these things shouldn't be onerous. You know, managing and working with people and your teams and getting things right, shouldn't be onerous.
It should actually be quite pleasant. Now, I, I know sometimes you have to have difficult conversations and that, that's hard, but hopefully you, you set up the transparency to be able to do that and the trust to be able to do that. And, you know, expectation starts from day one.
And we've talked about this in the report. So expectation starts, I mean, it starts even before we get to the veterinary profession, but that's a whole other podcast. But if we're just talking about employment, it starts at recruitment and retention, and it's making sure that the person you are recruiting understands the expectations of the practise, understands the culture, the strategy of the practise, and vice versa.
So that person coming in. Has realistic set expectations. And we know that when the market is tough, it, it can seem, you know, you just want to get someone in and you might promise something, but we have to be very careful in how we recruit and we select.
And because that sets you up, hopefully for the long term. And then, I think you're right, I think those conversations and actually having dialogue, because you can't know what is going on if you don't talk to people. And people have to have trust in you and they have to be, feel they can open up.
And that, you know, this report is not about telling you how to do an appraisal. It's not about telling you how to have those chats because you're right, different businesses have different processes and they will have different times and different, you know, ability of people to do that in terms of their work structure. But the most important thing is that they are meaningful and they are.
Allow somebody to actually vocalise what is going on and what is important. And they are empowering to both the employer and the employee. So both need to engage, both need to listen.
I, I mean, personally, I quite like the open door policy. That doesn't work for all, where you feel you have the trust and you can talk to people. It might be that actually, you need to book an appointment in and make it more formal.
You will decide, but it's getting the process in there to. Make sure they understand. And then it's, you know, at those, do you reassess and reaffirm the expectations?
Do you reassess and reaffirm the culture of the practise? Do you look at the, make sure the reward, the recognition is right? So that there is a structure to it, but you're actually going through what the practise is about or what the veterinary workplace is about, what is expected.
So you're constantly reaffirming. What is expected on both sides and making sure it still fits. I think taking that time, you know, Ben, you've mentioned.
The small practises, they might not have the time, but actually finding the time to speak to your employees makes the long term difference, you know, as Gurin's just highlighted, for all those reasons, you know, reaffirming, finding out if there's a problem, how do you know if your employees are happy if you never take the time to speak to them, for example? And actually, I think the one thing that's coming across loud and clear, pretty much everything, Guri and I are saying is that it's about honesty and transparency. I'm gonna talk about COVID very briefly because actually I think it's a good example that.
This has been a really testing 6 months, and actually those practises that have been open and transparent with the whole team are those that are getting through this better. Even when there's been difficult decisions such as, you know, having to send members of staff on furlough or pay cuts or pay freezes, it's those employers that have been completely transparent and said. Here's the bottom line, this is why we're doing it all.
This is why this person's going or, or not. Actually, they're the ones that got through this better. So finding the time to constantly re-evaluate and speak honestly and openly with each other, reaps the benefits in the longer term.
I think it's important, you know, as we've said throughout the whole piece, it's not just about employers having to do this, it's about employees engaging with it. And feeling and and having the trust to come and say something honestly and openly to all, all the people that that need to know about it. So it's a two-way engagement, otherwise it can't work.
Yeah, and I think, you know, that sort of open, honest approach is sometimes easily said and more difficult done and I think you know when there's a, A, a, perhaps even a void between sort of management, and, and people on the shop floor, as it were, then I think, you know, that can be a difficult bridge to gap, but certainly not an unattainable outcome. And I think one of the things that many, many veterinary professionals would look at as being a huge pain point for them in the workplace is workload. And it obviously features heavily in, in, in the in the code and in the report, and.
What is a, a good workload, you know, how on earth do we quantify what is, is right, because some people thrive on, on being busy, and some people will want longer to get more in detail and more in depth with cases that they're working with. And I don't necessarily think that there's a right answer, as Daniella said earlier, about a one shoe fits all, but how do we manage workload for our staff better? There's not a, a, a, one size fits all here.
You know, some people want to work in busy 24 hour hospital environments or busy policy environments or something like that. And others won't want to. But if your workload is such that your members of staff aren't getting toilet breaks, or aren't getting time to eat, or in clinical practise are not having time to call back their clients, because actually, that's an important part of, of your job.
It's not just seeing the people physically, but it's maintaining the relationship with your clients outside, then. Everyone needs to reassess the workload, and you cannot do your job properly if you are not properly rested and don't have the time to do what you need to do. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, we looked at, when we looked at retention, satisfaction and motivation, we saw that endorsing long hours made people sort of more, more, more likely to stay.
And, and, and then you, you sort of go, oh right, well, we should all work long hours. But actually, no, because we don't want people endorsing long hours, cos what about all those people that actually. That, that's, we shouldn't be, we just shouldn't be working long hours.
That's not what we want. We want people to be working a good day that is meaningful for them, that is doing a good job, that is fair, that they know the hours they're working. We, but we know we work in a profession, irrespective of where you work in this profession, where there are unforeseen things happen, and we all step up.
Of course we do. But the word in there is unforeseen. We should not be expected to have unpredictable hours and not leave when we think we're doing that eats into our work-life balance.
It should be wholly unforeseen and we challenge ourselves and we get on with it at that point. But what, and, and you talked about people like being busy, of course we do. Most of us are busy people.
We enjoy what we do and we want to be busy at it, but there's a very much, there's a difference between busy, overworked and stressed. And I would challenge everybody, no matter what your workplace or what you are, it's, it's not about I'm too busy to tackle this. Do you even know it's going on?
Do you know what your employees are working or how they feel about it because actually it while we are really busy and COVID is making that even more so, sometimes stepping back and looking at it and saying, OK, how is this happening? How can we do this better? How can we rotor it?
How can we get the flexibility? To take time to maybe make those tweaks and changes, that may mean that somebody doesn't leave the workplace, that then makes it harder. And it, it's about having the, you know, we talk a lot about fairness, but if it's, if the unpredictable comes in, how is it made fair as to who deals with that at the time?
How is it made fair that somebody who does deal with it is then given a little bit of extra space and free time? Because actually people will go up and beyond if they believe it is fair. If they believe people make just even a thank you for it.
But that it is recognised and that there's a fairness to it. And, and we go into a lot more depth in it, but none of this is to say we shouldn't be busy, we shouldn't be doing the unpredictable. It's how we manage it, and it's actually saying it's important we do.
It's important that we take that hour away and we work out what's going on and how we can improve it for everybody. I think the unpredictability is, is the key factor here. If something is genuinely unpredictable, that is fine.
But if members of the team are staying late regularly, you know, every day you have members of the team staying an extra half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, that's not unpredictable anymore, and that's when we need to reassess what's going on. That is not because it's one particular member of staff. It is because there's a problem, and we, as a profession need to stop working.
Badge of honour that I stayed late 2 hours last night, or I didn't have, I haven't had a lunch for 2 weeks, that shouldn't be a badge of honour. We should really be looking at that and saying there is something wrong with the system. I suppose that as businesses often we look at perhaps even the wrong metrics, you know, of course it's easy to get drawn into looking at profitability with any business and saying, well, you know, we've been this profitable, but actually, if you look at some of the businesses that are less profitable.
Actually more successful on the basis that, you know, you look at work teams that are working at 100% saturation versus work teams that are working at, you know, 85%, 90% saturation. And you think, actually, that little bit of leeway and slip time, and, you know, this has come in, there's nobody else to pick up the slack here versus, actually, it's all right, someone over there can, can pick up that while I'm dealing with this, and we've got that little bit. So maybe being.
Only, you know, overstaffed, obviously in a easy to say in a circumstance where we're maybe a little bit under-resourced as a profession over overall at the moment, it's certainly something for people to, to, to consider. So I just want to look at, at wrapping up and a lot of what we've sort of discussed today breeds and leads into a practises culture. And culture is, I personally think, quite rightly, the last chapter, as I understand, in, in, in the guide and the code, and it's a case of saying, you know, what is, what is culture, you know, in a practise, cos I think, you know, it's, it's a, perhaps a buzzword that is, is sometimes overused and sometimes incorrectly used, but, but what is.
A good workplace culture. What, what, you know, what would, what would define that to each of you? So, for me, a good workplace culture is somewhere that I can go into work.
I understand what the, the core reason that business is doing it, and I'm not just talking about business matrix, that I can be my authentic self, that the, how the, the values, the morals that I, I feel ref are reflected in that workplace. That I can walk out of home and wear the same face in work as I do at home. I'm not a different person.
I'm not pretending to be somebody I'm not. That I can share or not share things with my colleagues as I wish to do, and that I feel that I am treated fairly and treated with respect, and I do a good job. For me, that's culture.
It's about those sets of beliefs within a practise of how they work that fits with me, which is why the onus has to be on employer and employee. It's not for wanted it. And just one last thing, cos you, you mentioned about, about, what makes a business successful.
Of course it's got to be financially successful, that's without a doubt, but I would love to see, and this happens in some businesses. Employee satisfaction, employee happiness, and an employee growth as a business matrix that is monitored, that's assessed, and that we strive to improve all the time, and that is part of a successful business. Well, I don't know how I follow on from that.
I suspect that that's possibly what James is saying as the incoming BVA president this is gonna be amazing. I think mine would be far more concise, but I echo everything that Goodrem says, but for me, a successful business is about people, and that's what culture is about. And so for me, a culture is knowing that my workplace has the same set of beliefs and values as I do, and therefore I'm gonna be happy there.
So yeah, what Gurin said. Thank you both so much. It's been, it's been a really enlightening episode for me.
Thank you to everybody who has been involved in this. Obviously, you know, we've got 22 figureheads here, but there are a multitude of other people from all over the profession who have been involved in this and shaping this so far. I'm trying to keep a straight face at this point because all I can see is Gurin pulling a hoodie up, so she is well and truly being herself on this podcast.
So. I would actively encourage everybody in this profession to, to have a look at this report when it comes out on Monday the 21st of September. Get engaged in it, whether you're a new graduate, whether you're someone who is the CEO of a corporate, and everywhere in between, read it.
Engage with it, take learnings from it. If there's something you don't know, ask people. And you know, this is all about focusing on engagement across the profession, so thank you both so much, and thank you to everybody who's been involved in the, the, the good workplaces initiatives so far.
