HRchat Podcast

DisruptHR Birmingham 2.0 Preview with Verity Gough

August 28, 2024 • The HR Gazette • Season 1 • Episode 739

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In this special episode of the HRchat Show, Bill Banham talks with My Staff Shop MarComms Manager Verity Gough. Tune in as Verity gives the lowdown on what to expect from DisruptHR Birmingham 2.0 on September 5th at The Button Factory. Verity also offers insights into ways My Staff Shop and partner brands are helping to reshape the world of work for the better.

Get your tickets here to network with HR pros and leaders plus hear from such speakers as: 

  • Pauline Gunn, Head of L&D at Securitas UK
  • Deborah Hartung, Culture & Leadership Transformation Expert
  • Dr Ali Raza Nemati, Senior Lecturer and Head of Human Resources at Magna Carta College
  • Debra Corey, Consultant, Speaker and Best-Selling Author at DebCo HR LTD
  • Nicky Marshall, Author, Speaker and Director at Discover Your Bounce
  • Kul Mahay, Leadership & EQ Specialist, Tedx Speaker, CEO Ignite Your Inner Potential
  • Lara Holding-Jones, Founder and CEO at Pink Jelly
  • Carl Hinett, Director at re:find, Interim & Executive Search
  • Liz Crutchley, CEO and Founder, Orange Orchid
  • Tom McDowall, Chair of The Learning Network
  • Chris Robinson, Learning and Development Manager at Octopus EV
  • Vicky Campbell, Founder of Advance Populus


More About DisruptHR Birmingham

Disrupt returns to Birmingham on September 5th at the Button Factory! Join us to network and hear from lots of top HR, Talent, Leadership and Tech experts.

The Disrupt Birmingham summit is an information exchange designed to energise, inform and empower executives, business leaders and people in HR:

  • Hear what HR leaders and workplace innovators are doing in 2024 to improve the workplace
  • Discover innovative approaches to how companies are disrupting current practices and adding value to the Birmingham HR community
  • Network with forward-thinking HR and Tech people - we want to ensure we network

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Speaker 1:

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:

Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello, listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and in this episode we are going to focus on the amazing Disrupt HR Birmingham event which is happening on September 5th. And here to join here, joining me today to talk all about it, is Verity Goff, a freelance journalist and communication specialist with 20 years experience. I guess she started when she was about five writing for National Consumer and Business Media as a former editor of Training Zone. We love those guys. She writes extensively on hr and lnd and is a regular contributor to titles including people management and hrd connect as marcom's manager for employee benefits company, my staff shop we love those guys too. Verity heads up all areas of marketing and that includes organizing disrupt hr birmingham. She is the genius behind the event on september 5th.

Speaker 2:

In her free time, verity loves learning foreign languages, enjoys a spot of wild swimming. Really, verity travels whenever she gets the chance. This is true. I'm often like verity, where are you this week? And has a particular passion for Morocco. She is a mum of two gorgeous girls, which keeps her busy the rest of the time and, may I just add, listeners, she is my very good friend and I love her lots. Verity. Welcome to the show today thanks, bill.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much. It's nice to be able to talk about these things, and that was a lovely intro, thank you well beyond my reintroduction there, anything to add, anything else about you that we don't know?

Speaker 2:

do you want to share a bit more about your career background? Why don't you take a minute and tell us more?

Speaker 3:

yeah, sure, uh. So I I kind of wear two hats I am a freelance journalist, like you said, and I am our comms for my staff shop um, so doing both of those. There's a a crossover, obviously, in communication and that's kind of where I've ended up finding myself doing a bit of both and marketing as well, and I'm just lucky that I do something I really enjoy. Basically, I don't realize how much fun marketing was. Having come from a journalism background, it's quite different, but there's a lot of crossover with the skills. So I get to do all of those things and that sort of takes up most of my time.

Speaker 3:

And, like I said, I've kind of fallen into L&D and HR um, quite by accident. I was writing for all the national consumer press before that um and doing a lot of online stuff, community building and whatnot. So going into HR is um been quite interesting. Really. I always thought it was a bit of a dry subject, but actually, um turns out it's not and there's loads and loads and loads of really interesting topics. Anything that affects you in life quite often affects you in work and therefore we tend to write about it, and that means that all the topics that we cover are really important to most people. You know working people, so I'm lucky, I enjoy that, and then, obviously, I'm with my staff shop. Did you want me to tell you a little bit about them?

Speaker 2:

You must be some sort of clairvoyant, because that was going to be my next question. Why don't you take a minute or two now, verity, and tell listeners all about the mission of my Staff Shop, and maybe its partners too, such as my Health Extras, and why the whole parent group brand is so wicked awesome, as the cool kids say?

Speaker 3:

Well it is. It is really. I mean, the fact is that I have been a freelance journalist for like 20 years and I had been freelancing, being completely not employed, and I've actually gone to become an employee for this company. I don't think I would have gone to work for any other company other than my staff shop, who are employee benefits benefits. Um, I had got quite a lot of experience writing on that topic so I was kind of familiar with it, but I didn't really understand the whole world of of eb, um and coming in as marcoms. There has been a bit of a sort of um baptism of fire to a certain degree, but it has been incredible because not only is it an employee benefits company and therefore does all these wonderful services and helps people really maximize engagement in the workplace and for the members themselves lots of discount savings and really great services, beneficiaries of the company. And that obviously means that we're very motivated, very engaged and want to really create the best possible business for us, the staff, and for our members and for our clients. And I do think that's a point of differentiation for us. Certainly, you know, we're not as big as some of the big boys, but, um, you will definitely get a superior service with us. I can honestly say that, um, and they're just a really great team. You've met us all and we've been working with you through events which we sort of sidestepped into as part of the growth of the organization.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we are three organizations within one. We're under the name of my group, um, there's my staff shop, the employee benefits, but we also have our own company that provides um health insurance and that's um, my health extras. So any of the products that we sell through my staff shop directly come from us as well. Um, and we're fsa um company as well. We've got a wealth management arm, um, which is called uh, g7 wealth. So we also have that. Um and my money extras, which is another new business, which is where we put people within organizations to help improve the take up of benefits. So one-on-one presentations and things like that, and that's for any organization who wants to take advantage of really maximizing take up of their benefits. So I mean, it's all benefits related, but it's complimentary as well and, like I said, it's just a really, really great company to work for. So, yeah, I'll be there. It's always nice to be able to say that you love your job.

Speaker 2:

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. Yeah, and that comes through all the time. You're a gregarious person, uh. You and Jamie are very good with people. You generally care about what you are doing, and that always comes through, uh. So since I moved back to the UK, um, and got involved with the Disrupt events, I have met lots and lots of people in all different walks of lives, with all different things going on. I can honestly say hand on heart uh, you and Jamie and your team are right up there. I love working with you. You're great people like you're genuinely lovely people, and this is why we do loads of stuff together and then we go out for drinks afterwards on a regular basis.

Speaker 3:

So there you go.

Speaker 2:

Um, thank you. Um, okay, so let's move on to the main focus of today's conversation. We've got six minutes left. Very verity has a hard stop, so we're going to run through this now. Um, verity, you, you are, of course, a co-organizer of of a disrupt chapter birmingham. I'm delighted to be one of the co-organizers with that too. So you've you've got that perspective on things. Uh, my staff shop and the wider group sponsor a bunch of the events that I get up to. You guys have been involved with other disrupt events as well, so you've seen that side of things and, of course, you've been a speaker at disrupt events, so you've kind of got the full perspective, the full gambit there.

Speaker 3:

So who better than you to for me to ask to offer in 60 seconds or less, because the time we've got left um, give our listeners, for those who aren't familiar with the disrupt hr movement, uh, give them a bit of an overview of what disrupt hr is and why it's something they should check out um, well, I mean, if you want to go to an event and learn something about hr and let's face it, we haven't had much of that in the last few years with all the COVID stuff this is probably the event to choose, because you're going to get innovative inspiration, ideas, lots of amazing networking, and they tend to be focused around cities and towns and what have you. So you're getting a local community, which I think has been really important for us in Birmingham. There wasn't a huge amount of events like this and disrupt. Birmingham has definitely brought together lots and lots of people who have, um, you know, jobs in common and work in common and building this kind of hr community. Uh, you, just you want to work birmingham specifically, um or generally disrupt, because obviously we're within the birmingham area, which is not just birmingham, it's like, I suppose, coventry, you know, derby, and kind of going around that area. Um, this time, obviously this is our second event um, we're sort of building on the, what we created last year in digbeth, um, and I I think it's just become something that is really important to people in the area.

Speaker 3:

We've been running kind of little events the Erupt Disrupts we've had three of them running since January or early February and they've been an opportunity to sort of meet people in the area and just get them involved as well. And in fact we've got a couple of speakers that pitched at the Erupt events who are of speakers that pitched at the events, who are going to be speaking at the main event, which is sort of what the idea with these things are that you get the talent, if you like, from the community to actually talk at these events. You know, these are the people that are living these jobs day in, day out and the ones that can really benefit from hearing their ideas or how things work in their companies. It's a really, really unique event and a really great concept. And of course, there's the 20 slides 5 minutes, 15-second rotation, the sort of Pecha Kucha thing. There's slightly sort of TEDx in there, this sort of delivery. You know they've got to be short, sharp, interesting talks that captivate people and allow somebody to sort of delivery. You know they've got to be short, sharp, interesting, um talks that captivate people and allow somebody to sort of talk about something they're really expert in, uh, which I always think is nice for people like for me myself.

Speaker 3:

I ended up doing three talks on like communications, generational kind of communicate. Obviously, comms is my thing and it was. It was tough. Thank you for putting me on like second. Uh, I don't know if I'd go to, I'd mean, any later than that.

Speaker 3:

Um, I found it great and it is such a such a rewarding experience for people to do so. We've got a lot of first timers going to be talking and I think once you've done it, once you want to come to another one and even talk at another one. I never thought I would do more than one, but I have. And even you, bill, you did your first Cambridge as well. So after running so many events, you actually got to do it. It does give you a real perspective on how everybody must be feeling and you know the whole. It's an experience, isn't it? And I have to add, the community around it ie, the audience are always so supportive and I think that it really helps anybody who's going to stand up there and talk and put themselves out there for five minutes. It's amazing to have the support and the networking and what have you as well. So that's why we love disrupt as a whole.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much. Uh, we've only got a couple of minutes left here, yeah, so just a couple more quick questions for you then. For this disrupt, as it currently stands, we are ticking the official disrupt formats in that there are 14 speakers set to speak. Of course, the nature of these things are speakers drop out last minute or whatever, but as it currently stands, there will actually be 14, which is the official disrupt format.

Speaker 2:

Can you just take a minute maybe highlight two or three of the speakers? Uh, tell us a bit about their, their sessions, why you're excited for them, and then we'll wrap things up.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, a bit more about you 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 3:

We've got some great speakers. I'm going to give a shout out to Pauline Gunn. She is head of L&D at Securitas UK and I have to say she's already shown me her talk and I think I'm really excited for it. Who knew Securitas was doing such cool stuff? That's all I'm have to say. She's already shown me her talk and I think I'm really excited for it. Um, who knew Securitas was doing such cool stuff? That's all I'm gonna say. And she'll be talking about that and uh, yeah, I'm just super impressed with what they get up to very inspiring stuff. So Pauline's going to be doing something. Um, we've got uhah harting as well, who is just a absolutely fantastic speaker. Deborah um is a culture and leadership transformation expert and she's talking about how your values are killing your culture. So she's very culture focused and, again, having heard her speaking and seeing what the content is, that's going to be a really juicy one.

Speaker 3:

Um, who else we've got? We've got, like I said, we've got a couple of people who, uh, the erupt um pitchers, let's say. They pitch their ideas, erupt. So we've got, uh, lara holding jones, who is from pink jelly. So she's going to be doing a talk about analytics. She's very much into people analytics. It's quite nice to have more of a data focus with one of the talks.

Speaker 3:

Um, of course, we've got carl carl hinnett, who is the director of refined, who's also one of our um organizing partners as well, and they've been fabulous helping us um get the community together. So this is his first talk. He's never done them before. I'm really excited. This is called, uh, becoming a purple squirrel standing out in the hr world. So I'm not 100 sure what he's going to be talking about with purple squirrels, but um, carl's fab, so I'm looking forward to hearing from him.

Speaker 3:

Um, and we've got um chris robson, who robinson, who is also from octopus ev he's he's the L&D manager there and he's talking about what my beard taught me about L&D and I have not long heard his talk in practice and it was really great, really great. So that's just a few people. We're going to be doing a LinkedIn Live actually with a couple more of them just to sort of tease some content on Thursday. So you know, if people want to tune into that, they can hear a little bit more. There's loads, there's loads. I'm not giving you any more than that Bill. They'll have to come or watch them afterwards um on the disrupt main website.

Speaker 2:

Obviously they can catch them afterwards very good, okay, and a purple squirrel, by the way, is a term used by employment recruiters describe a job candidate who precisely meets the uh, the right criteria in terms of education, experience and range of skills. There we go. I'm looking forward to there's a bunch of speakers I've seen speak before and others I haven't. Um, I wasn't going to be at disrupt birmingham on september 5th because our second child was uh due to be a couple months before that, but she kindly arrived a month early, which means that I'm able to come up to birmingham and be on stage with verity and the team. Um, verity, before we wrap up for today, how can our listeners connect with you and learn more about my staff shop?

Speaker 3:

well, um, obviously there's the old LinkedIn. I'm Verity Goff on LinkedIn and my Staff Shop on LinkedIn. Also, you can go to our website, which is mystaffshopcom, and there's lots and lots and lots of information on there. We've got blogs, we've got like an insights hub, so there's some of the assets that we've been creating the my Little Book of Employee Benefits and my Little Book of R&R. So we've got creating the my little book of employee benefits and my book of r and r. So we've got lots of resources for people.

Speaker 3:

And you know we are uh, we are, we know what we're doing, we know what we're talking about. We're very much, um, experts on engagement and people in the workplace. So if anybody wants to find out a little bit more and come and meet the team, come to the event, obviously, um, but otherwise, yeah, connect with us on linkedin and come and meet the team. Come to the event, obviously, um, otherwise, yeah, connect with us on linkedin and just have a look at some of the content that we create, just to see if we'd be a good fit as well. But we're nice people at the end of the day, so we could always have a virtual coffee and what have you with people. We're just happy to talk um about the world of work and how to better engage people.

Speaker 2:

There we go. Everybody wants to work with nice people, right? What more do you need for reasons to do so? And, by the way, listeners, of course there will be links in the show notes to register for the event, to my staff shop and the other properties under my group, to Verity's TikTok profile. Possibly, who knows, There'll be links. Verity's looking at me right now saying no, don't put that in there, Bill. Okay, that just leaves me to say for today, Verity, my friend, thank you very much for the time. Thank you for being my guest today.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, bill Brilliant. Thank you very much and hopefully we'll have an amazing. Well, we will have an amazing event in Birmingham and we can tell everybody about it afterwards.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely and listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.

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