In a new series, SHP interviews speakers featuring at our partner show, Anticipate London – combining Safety and Health Expo, FIREX, Facilities Show and IFSEC for cross-industry sharing, between 2-4 December 2024.
In this article, we sat down with keynote speaker Becky Ray. From early beginnings in engineering to thought-leadership in health and safety, Becky now heads up Culture Kick, a consultancy firm for improving business culture, and here she shares key influences on workplace culture.
‘You’re a girl’ Becky Ray was told by a middle aged man looking her up and down as she interviewed for an engineering apprenticeship at the age of 17.
Becky Ray
Now it’s more ‘your ideas are a bit pink and fluffy with too many feelings and emotions’ she’s told as she helps transform the culture of businesses across the UK.
But it’s the combination of these lived experiences that sets Becky apart.
Having spent 10 years as an engineer fixing forklift trucks, she then spent 10 years as a health and safety leader before launching her own company called Culture Kick.
As CEO, she is passionate about creating a high performing culture and taking businesses from good, to great, to awesome.
“I love seeing people get rid of Sunday night blues and inspire leaders to make changes in a business so people enjoy working there,” Becky said about running workshops and being a culture consultant to businesses.
“Some people say I’m too modern and progressive, there are always people with arms folded at the back of the room and they are vocal about it too, but those are the people I love.
“They are a tough nut to crack but I have so many things in my toolbox, I know I can find a way to get through to them.
“People are scared of new and different things but it is simple stuff – it might be new and different but society is in a different place and sometimes still operating in the same way as years ago, you can’t argue with that.
“Take comedy, for example, which you can easily compare to leadership – jokes that were told 20 years ago are just not funny now, people aren’t laughing now – you can still be funny but change tone slightly because your audience, your workforce, has changed.
“It’s the same with leadership – we can’t keep on doing the same things in the same way we did 10, 20 years ago, it just doesn’t work these days. And that’s what my work is about.”
Becky said one of her favourite things to witness is watching business leaders see the connection between workplace culture and success as a business.
She will go into a business, observe and understand the business before bringing the culture cake to life – yes, cake. Becky actually takes a cake!
She developed the five-layered ‘culture cake’ after years of experience and perfection of her theory and the best way to share it with both business leaders and employees.
Becky’s ‘culture cake’
Her five layers are: Make it Easy, Speak Up, Frustrations into Focus, Learn from Failure and Everyday Learning.
She drives home the message that people need to be set up for success by making it easy to get work done, the people have all the solutions to all the challenges that a business will face and there needs to be a psychological safe environment where people can openly share ideas and concerns, leaders need to listen to what is getting in people’s way, failures are opportunities to learn and improve when things go wrong and people should seek to understand the context and reality of normal everyday work and successes.
Her cake has taken into consideration experiences from every role she has held and each step in her career since completing that engineering apprenticeship.
One of her first roles was driving a van around Britain to multiple sites a day, soaking in the culture of each of them and observing people and calming them down when they were stressed because their forklift truck had broken down in a high risk, fast paced, dynamic environment.
She said: “I understand from an operational perspective what makes a good culture.
“I love the ‘doers’ in a business and I have so much empathy and compassion for operational teams, they have the biggest influence on culture in a business.
“I have a desire that people shouldn’t be unhappy at work – people get stuck in ways and do the bare minimum, as they don’t feel empowered to bring their best selves to work – it’s bad for people and bad for business.
“People leave the workplace and become entrepreneurs, it’s good but not everyone can be an entrepreneur. If you’re not given what you need to do a great job you feel stifled and restricted – table tennis tables and good coffee are good, but you also need the tools and fundamentals to make it easy to do a good job.
“Safety people want everything safe and operational people want it done, I understand the sweet spot in between – getting it done but in an empathetic way, thinking about welfare.
“My experience is unique, going into culture from an operational business perspective, not HR or academic which is the norm, I offer something different.”
In 2020 Becky left a job at a large construction company when her fixed term contract ended during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Having run her own company for five years now, her business has evolved, honing in on culture ‘but not ignoring safety’.
She often works with health and safety directors, who are the link in to a business, but her work aims to reach more operational people as soon as possible because ‘culture is broader than health and safety’.
Now in her 40s, Bristol-based Becky prefers working with industries such as railways, construction, military aviation, engineering and manufacturing – even though her framework would work in many different environments, such as education, she prefers ‘to work in high risk industries because they need it more as the consequences are so massive’.
“Businesses are throwing resources at technology and systems and this is great, but it needs to be a balance because we can’t take people away completely,”
She ‘wants to help as many leaders and businesses as possible, be on more stages’ and ‘has a book in’ her.
She believes the future of culture change will become more normalised and she hopes will lead to more people talking openly about the importance of culture and looking at the humans in a business rather than making a machine go faster.
“Businesses are throwing resources at technology and systems and this is great, but it needs to be a balance because we can’t take people away completely,” she added.
“So let’s make sure they are set up for success, be mindful and have a balance about what they are spending their money on.”
Becky will be bringing her culture cake to Anticipate London as a keynote speaker at the event in December.
She will develop the theory and show how she brings the cake to life – there may well be actual cake!
She said: “Anticipate blends stages of health and safety and fire and security – culture appeals to both of these industries and any business regardless of what they are doing, so it is the perfect space.
“I cannot wait to share my lived experience, business model and network with people too, I am really looking forward to it.”
To sign up to attend Anticipate London and see Becky’s keynote speech at the event at ExCel London on December 2-4, click here.
