AI and Championing Social Mobility in HR with Nikki Scarr

In this episode, we hear from Nikki Scarr, Global Head of HR at abcam. With a career spanning both corporate and military HR, Nikki brings a unique perspective to the profession with 18 years of experience in a variety of HR roles across the world.  

Nikki's passion for social mobility, stemming from her own experience as the first in her family to attend university, shines through as she recounts her journey into HR. Hear how she's been instrumental in creating her company’s first social mobility employee resource group, expanding global work experience opportunities, and supporting future leaders.

In a candid conversation, Nikki opens up about her decision to share her personal story on LinkedIn, which not only garnered immense support but also inspired senior leaders to share their own journeys.

Nikki will be a speaker at the Cambridge AI Summit on June 18th.  In the conversation, Nikki shares her views on AI and digital workers - underscoring her belief that technology should enhance, not replace, human-centric tasks. Nikki discusses the ethical considerations and her reservations about AI in recruitment processes, advocating for the indispensable role of human involvement to ensure fairness and depth in candidate selection.

More About Nikki Scarr

Currently Global Head of HR for leading Cambridge-based life sciences company abcam, Nikki has partnered the organization’s Digital transformation for the past 3 years forging connections between talent and innovation. Her is passionate about creating inclusive and diverse workplaces that empower people to achieve their full potential. 

Nikki is a British Army Veteran, trustee of Army Families Federation and a social mobility champion. Nikki believes ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ and has championed initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field for future generations.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts and business leaders. For hundreds more episodes and what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom and visit hrgazettecom.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Nikki Scott, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the HR Chat Show today. Hello.

Speaker 3: 0:37

Hello, thank you for having me. I've been to a couple of Disrupt events now and I've been hugely impressed, so I'm thrilled to be invited to take part. I think you've covered a lot in your intro about me, but I guess I could add that I love most about our profession is that we're always the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. We can influence change and outcomes far wider than ourselves and ultimately we coach and develop others to achieve things that they didn't think was possible. So that's why I'm in HR. I'm wired.

Speaker 4: 1:03

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazettecom. And now back to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:19

Love it. Thank you very much. Okay, so you're a very interesting person. You're very clever, charismatic and you've had a very interesting person. You're very clever, charismatic and you've had a very interesting career background. Your career journey into HR is fairly unique because it spans both corporate and military HR. How do you think your experience has shaped you as an HR pro?

Speaker 3: 1:41

Oh gosh. Well, like many, I didn't plan to go in HR, um. I had four years of recruiting experience before joining the army and I ended up as a HR specialist just by chance, because there was a short notice slot for training. I enjoyed it, it stuck. I'm here 18 years later, um, so it's not been a stereotypical ladder, um, but in terms of how it shaped me, I've seen and experienced many challenging situations. I'm really flappable and I've I'm really fortunate to have worked in some incredible, high-performing teams and, frankly, the best in the world. So I take those learnings and into my corporate partnering and it's driven me to be purpose-led. I seek out teams and opportunities to work with people and environments that make the world a better place. So it's driven me to be purpose-led. I seek out teams and opportunities to work with people and environments that make the world a better place. So it's really focused me on where I like to play in my role.

Speaker 2: 2:32

And because you are such a nice human being, Nikki Scar, one of the things that you're quite passionate about is social mobility. Tell us more about why that is.

Speaker 3: 2:43

I am yeah, I'm not sure I'm the nicest human being, but, thanks, bill, um, I try to be. Um, it's really personal to me. Um, I am the first in my family to go to uni. I did that part-time at the age of 28. Um, I didn't even know that these career paths exist. I didn't know what HR was, um, when I was younger, and I believe that you can't be what you can't see.

Speaker 3: 3:08

So if you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up, they're likely to cite something similar to things that are familiar. So a doctor, a policeman, you know those things that they see around them or what they see in their family or, in the case of my nephew, an ice cream truck driver. But I think by opening doors and enhancing social mobility, we provide visibility that helps us tap into untapped talent and helps individuals have a wider opportunity and a wider visibility of what they can achieve Selfishly. It's also really rewarding to to see that impact of leveling the playing field for future generations and hearing about the impact you have on a young person. I had um a student last year who, um he, he messaged me actually after he got into university and saying that it was his experience in our work experience week which he cited in his applications and he talked about in all of his interviews that he feels got him the role that he did and the opportunity that he did at uni. So it's it's hugely rewarding.

Speaker 5: 4:19

Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes things up, it makes you think differently and it leaves you inspired. That event is Disrupt HR. The format is 14 speakers, 5 minutes each and slides rotate every 15 seconds. If you're an HR professional, a CEO, a technologist or a community leader and you've got something to say about talent, culture or technology, disrupt is the place. It's coming soon to a city near you. Learn more at disrupthrco.

Speaker 2: 4:54

So my first job when I was 13 was in a bingo hall. I still know all the numbers to this day. Back then, back then, it was Majors Den, number 10. And I am also the first in my family to go to universities. I can relate to that. Kudos to you. What initiatives have you championed for social mobility? What would you like to highlight there?

Speaker 3: 5:15

I founded Abcom's first social mobility employee resource group, which we had work experience weeks before that and it was just about science and just in the UK. So by pulling together an employee resource group across the world, we were able to spread that cross-functionally and globally and we also expanded outreach and implemented structures to support development internally as well. So social mobility is not just about young people and outreach into the environment, but also about how we support leaders of the future. Within our organization. We've reached more than 300 young people by work experience, mentoring, open days, workshops and we've raised awareness internally by sharing stories from leaders and we've run campaigns with t-shirts of career journeys.

Speaker 3: 6:05

You might have seen mine on linkedin. Um, it's the most famous. I've ever felt when that got shared on linkedin and an ex and my mum told me it was on x. Um, I'm not sure how she ever saw that on X, but her colleague told her about it. So, yeah, it's a social mobility. Urg was really the thing I'm most proud of and the legacy that I kind of set up within our organisation.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Wonderful. Thank you very much. What have you had to overcome, nikki, to have meaningful impact? Do you think?

Speaker 3: 6:38

Raising understandings of social mobility in the first place was quite a significant challenge. I think it's got the lowest awareness across diversity and inclusion initiatives. Um, and just starting the conversation to say this is about supporting people from less privileged backgrounds. Um, and helping people to understand that we had to change perceptions of Cambridge, actually where, where we're based in our HQ because people think it's it's just an affluent area, which it is. But Cambridge ranks 275th out of 324 local authorities across England, wales, on the social mobility index. It's really low for young people from poorer backgrounds in the city and has the fifth lowest score of any local authority for youth social mobility.

Speaker 3: 7:25

So, overcoming people's perceptions of Cambridge and then understanding how do we outreach into our community to help teachers, to help students, to help young people, care leavers lots of different avenues. But to change that perception initially was quite challenging, and then I've had my own battle with imposter syndrome. I outed myself as being from a working class family and giving that information in quite a public way I did it on LinkedIn felt really challenging, but I felt like I needed to, as the leader of the team, to set an example and inspire others to share their stories. And really that's about myth busting and enabling people to see that those in leadership roles have had you know, have had different journeys, and to see themselves in you. So it was a challenge, but well worth it.

Speaker 6: 8:28

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Speaker 2: 9:07

So just briefly on that Nikki, you're brave and you put it out there through LinkedIn. What was the kind of response that you got? Were folks generally supportive? Did you get inspiration, lots of love? Did you you get any trolls? Just share a bit about that.

Speaker 3: 9:23

I didn't get trolls, um. Maybe that's indicative of the lovely people that, um I'm connected to on LinkedIn, um, but it was phenomenal, honestly, bill. Um. Firstly, I got a lot of love, um, and a lot of love from people that I probably haven't connected with personally from earlier on my career, that didn't know this about me, or people that did and knew I'd been not necessarily hiding it but not overtly saying that I, you know I haven't had privilege, um, which that's.

Speaker 3: 9:57

That's unfair. I've had privilege in a lot of ways, but um, financial privilege wasn't uh where I initially came from. Um, what else did I have? I actually had a lot of people, um, so I did it via the this little girl is me um for um, uh, international women's day, and I had a lot of people connecting with me afterwards junior people in the hr profession, asking me for a chat or um a mentoring session. I actually connected with quite a lot of people about how to progress in our, our profession and and in your career out of the back of it.

Speaker 3: 10:36

So, um, yeah, and then just within my organization, it inspired other leaders to share their stories internally, um, and we had some great stories from very senior leaders, um across the organization that shared who they are, where they'd come from, um, and you know you look at a, you know vp of sales or um uh, or the CEO, and you don't necessarily expect that they haven't gone to private school and they haven't had an amazing education, but they've got their three-share hard work and they shared stories about mentoring or getting the chip off their shoulder and um asking for help where they need it, and talked about their stories of overcoming their challenges. So, uh, yeah, it was. It was.

Speaker 2: 11:29

It was great in hindsight, but I was shaking when I pressed the button well, I think you are brilliant for doing that, so lots of respect to you. Uh, I wanna I wanna switch focus now, nikki. Uh, with a few minutes that we've got left before we hit record today and this is the reason we've only got a few minutes left, because we're having a good old chit chat before we hit record today um, so, before we hit record today, uh, nikki and I were talking about her involvement at the cambridge ai summit and she's going to be doing a Disrupt talk focused on AI and the world of work within the AI Summit. We've done a couple now in Norwich, uk, and we've got others happening in Peterborough and Wilkins and places again in the UK.

Speaker 2: 12:11

There's so much going on over at AppCamp and Nikki is heading up so much, so I've got a gazillion questions I could ask her about AI and the world of work and how her team is getting more from generative technologies, but I don't have a lot of time so I'm just going to ask you a couple of quick ones. So, for example, from our chat earlier, I understand that you're already using bots. You're using generative AI, that you're already using bots, you're using generative ai. You've got this amazing technology with personas to help, uh, augment, or indeed, in some cases, replace some functions. Um so, for example, uh, your, your bots, they've got profiles. Uh, they're called abby, they're called nikki, who's in a leadership role, I believe you mentioned. Tell us a bit about that. That's awesome.

Speaker 3: 12:55

Yeah, so we've got digital workers and, like you say, they've got their own personalities, their own profiles.

Speaker 3: 13:03

We recruited our first bot manager, actually, and I think that was my first realisation that it's here to stay and it's an opportunity for us to really look at the future of the workforce.

Speaker 3: 13:14

So, yeah, we've got Abby, dottie, luca, charlie, nicky Nicky shares my name and is therefore a very strong leader of the team, but our bot team really looks at how we can enhance what our employees, our colleagues, do by taking some of the legwork and the the incredibly valuable work but um that you know can be done, so our teams can focus on the the more interesting, the more human-centric areas of their work, and I think that that's the way that the world is going. Um, and that's where you know I I personally don't think that um, ai is here to take all of our jobs. I think ai is going to enable us to really focus on what humans do well and have the critical thinking, the human interaction, and ai can enable us to do that better, quicker, faster. Um, and we as professionals need to think about what does that future look like and help our teams to plan for it, both from a talent perspective, but from an ethical perspective too, so I'm looking forward to talking about that.

Speaker 2: 14:24

And we're looking forward to it. It's going to be an amazing session. The ethical side you just mentioned right at the end of your answer. Again, before you and I hit record today you mentioned Bill. One area that I'm not super comfortable with yet in terms of AI doing most of the the legwork, to use that phrase is, uh, is the selection recruitment process. I feel like maybe, uh, we still need to have humans involved there. I hope you don't mind me sort of quoting, quoting our conversation before we started. Um, just just briefly, what? Why is that? Why do you think at the moment, it's important to still have real people involved in the, in the selection and recruitment stages?

Speaker 3: 15:01

my understanding of ai at the moment is that it's looking at the history and what information is already out there, and so, from a recruitment perspective, um, it looks at what your workforce has already got or what is available.

Speaker 3: 15:14

So if you have a white, middle class male workforce, it's going to look for that in the way that it works, and also it'll look for things you know where a human can be critical and look at information and ask questions and think about how that might be structured. Ai can't do that for us, and so I think we still need to have that critical ear and edge. And then I'd add to that that a lot of um the workforce coming through now are using ai to develop their cvs, to their, to do their applications, um, and therefore a lot of them are very similar, which sometimes isn't a bad thing. But you need a human to look at what does this really mean for us, what value can they really add, and to see that untapped talent and, as I talk about social mobility, that could be a real area that's overlooked um by ai. But we we can add that critical edge wonderful um listeners.

Speaker 2: 16:07

I was also trying to tap mickey up to speak at the uh ai summit we're doing in milton keynes in oct October, so watch this based on getting her involved with that one too. Maybe, nikki, before we do wrap up for today, how can, uh, how can our listeners connect with you?

Speaker 3: 16:27

uh, linkedin. I keep getting told that I should be on TikTok and Instagram and the rest, but I still feel too old to be doing that yet, although my teams tell me that I'm not. Um, I'm on LinkedIn. Find me there. Um, love to connect with other like-minded people, chat about social mobility. Come ask questions perfect.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Well, that just leaves me to say for today, nikki Scar. Fantastic name, by the way. Nikki Scar, thank you very much for being my guest on today's episode of the HR chat show thanks, Bill Bill. And listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1: 17:02

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