Kevin Green, CPO at First Bus and FirstGroup plc, describes himself as a business person first, HR practitioner second. It’s an approach which has served him well in his career, and one which could be key to success for many CPOs.
This balance has been important for Green as it has reflected and facilitated his passion – to be involved in organisations undergoing transformation. In this context his work has always shown how HR’s power and influence keys into significant business change. As former HR Director at the Royal Mail, Green was part of the team that took the organisation from losses of a million and a half a day and on the brink of being sold, to floating on the Stock Exchange with a valuation of £3.3 billion. This turnaround was made to a highly unionised business of 200,000 people with a huge legacy. The transformation required a clear direction and huge investment in systems and technology – with the leadership needing to convince the Government to invest in the business to realise its full potential.
Following on from that, Green was headhunted to become CEO at the REC (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) the UK’s largest membership body for the recruitment industry. Again change was firmly on the agenda. On the one hand he needed to shift the performance of the organisation in what was fast becoming a treacherous business landscape because of the financial crisis. On the other hand, the organisation was in prime position to lead a wider transformation of the recruitment sector itself, helping it to assume a more professional status.
When I ask for investment at the start I have to make a clear business case.”
Having left the REC, Green sought to encapsulate some of his learning and ideas in his book Competitive People Strategy. He also took on a few non-exec positions as well as consultancy work. Some of that work involved acting as interim CPO with First Bus. “At that point the company was looking at cultural change,” explains Green, “and I was helping it to find a new CPO who would take that on.”
However, with a plan for managing change in the organisation forming, the company’s leadership suggested he took on the project in a full-time capacity. “My wife said I was mad to take it,” he says, “But it was the pull of transforming another legacy business was the thing for me. It was a chance to be successful in a different market place.”
From asset driven to service focus
The task facing Green and the leadership of First Bus was to take what had been an asset driven business and turn it into one that was service driven – focusing on the customer and the people rather than the buses. According to Green, the deregulation of bus services in the 1980s had seen the business expand through acquisition – including three in US businesses (Greyhound Buses among them). As a result the UK bus business was among the smallest of the company’s concerns and at the end of the queue in terms of investment.
The firm took the step of selling its US businesses for £3.3bn and instead focussing on the domestic bus and train service, with the expectation that this would be the key to future growth. To make this happen the Bus business needed to shift from being asset-led to service-led. As such the change clearly needed a people strategy that would instigate and support such a transition.
Realising that making change from the top down would be problematic and not necessarily right for the business, Green’s strategy started with the frontline managers and staff. At that point the business had around 13,000 people and Green’s team set about gathering ideas from every depot, using those suggestions to create and pilot new projects, enabling staff to influence change and coaching managers to lead the change locally.
The business restructured at the same time and a new award winning leadership programme was established – called Leadership Lab. According to Green one issue that arose was that managers barely interacted with the good bus drivers, their time being taken up with disciplinary issues and absence management rather than highlighting excellent work when it occurred. They therefore introduced a 20 minute catch-up meeting between managers and drivers, rooted in a recognition of their work and checking on their wellbeing rather than foregrounding punitive measures.
