LIESE LORD, CHIEF DISRUPTOR AT THE LIGHTBULB TREE…

…had worked in a number of organisations and industries during her career and had an early experience of working in trusted and flexible way – long before this was truly acknowledged as a positive way of working, let alone captured in legislation.

The balance, autonomy and ability to perform at your best that was created in those cultures weren’t truly appreciated until she returned to more traditionally approached environments.

These environments, to Liese, felt constrained, sometimes unnecessarily, by the traditional focus on the “clock” rather than “why are we here and what will we deliver”. Working in HR exposed Liese to many situations where disciplinary cases were often a result of time issues and managers rarely explored why or how to resolve this and get the best from employees, and in contrast provided reasons for why things couldn’t change in terms of flexible working.

The introduction of Formal Flexible Working Legislation encouraged organisations to look at changing work patterns. Whenever requests came in Liese supported them within her HR and manager capacity and also applied for a formal flexible working arrangement herself when her daughter started school so she could do the school drop off.

Informal agreements were based on trust and what you delivered, there was more open communication between managers and employees, mutual respect and an understanding that ongoing flexibility would be needed to ensure that the employe and overall business needs would both be met. These arrangements tended to see higher levels of performance and engagement with less conflict or disciplinary issues.

In 2011, Liese became project lead for the HR and Change Management aspects of the European Head Office relocation of her company. The move meant the office would be leaving its established location of 50 years and moving nearly 20 miles away. Managers believed that 50% of the employees would leave as a result meaning a huge loss of the businesses key knowledge at a critical time.

After these changes were put in place instead of losing 50% of its valued people the business only lost 1.5%. Today, more than 5 years later, this agile way of working is a talent attraction and retention tool with employees declining great job offers with other businesses in favour of the flexibility they have.

Liese now firmly believes in a world where flexibility and choice in where, when and how you work is there for everyone and her mission is that all organisations adopt a more flexible way of life and get the best out of their most valuable resource, their people.

The defining moment that solidified these beliefs and the catalyst to build “The Lightbulb Tree” was the change in environment she saw as little as three weeks after implementing the changes she did in her then HR role. In a once cynical environment nervous about an impending office move she was being greeted by smiling people thanking her for changing the way of work, each had their own reasons for the gratitude demonstrating that this way of life can be applied to many not the few.