#655 No-BS HR: Real Talk on Culture, Leadership & Getting It Done

Why is having access to senior-level HR expertise crucial for business success — and what happens when you skip it? 

In this powerful episode of Talking with the Experts: Business Insights, award-winning host Rose Davidson sits down with HR and operations executive Robyn Djelassi to talk all things people, culture, and leadership — minus the corporate jargon. 

Robyn pulls back the curtain on what really drives organisational performance. From creating strong employer brands to building cultures of accountability, she shares the kind of grounded, practical advice that only comes from years in the field. Her “no-BS” HR approach reminds us that people strategy isn’t optional — it’s the foundation of growth, trust, and longevity in business. 

Whether you’re a founder managing your first hire or a leader navigating change, this conversation will challenge your assumptions and inspire you to rethink how HR shapes your success.

🔗 CONNECT WITH ROBYN

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyndjelassi/ 

Website: https://www.cpoconnect.com.au

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Transcript

Intro | 00:00
Business insights on talking with the experts. Hosted by Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:10
Hello, welcome to Talking With The Experts. I'm your host, Rose Davidson from rosedavidson.com.au. My guest today is Robyn... Well done, Rose. 

 Robyn | 00:24
Well. 

 Rose | 00:24
She is going to be talking to us about heavy-hitting HR and talent professionals who know their stuff and get things done. And her business is called Impact People Solutions. I'm waiting to hear all the things that Robyn has to share with us about HR, having people I've myself done a diploma of HR, so I know the little ins and outs and everything. 
 So she's going to be talking to us about why senior HR is so important, why they provide no BS HR and They have seen nearly everything in HR. Why do customers keep coming back? Robyn, it's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for joining me today on Talking With The Experts. 

 Robyn | 01:11
Hi, Rose. Thank you for having me. And well done. 

Rose | 01:17
Thanks. 

 Robyn | 01:19
It's great to be here. I didn't realise that you had actually studied human resources as well. How interesting. 

 Rose | 01:26
Yes, I did some time ago, Back in... 2000s. 
 Yeah, I went through, did a 12 month diploma and yeah, got my certificate and everything and was very proud. Wonderful. To challenge the world and that didn't happen. 

 Robyn | 01:44
No. Look, I actually got my start, believe it or not. I studied computer science, not HR. 
 And then I thought, well, I better, you know, I'm pretty good at this stuff, this computer science stuff. I lied to myself. And I said, I'll go get some experience while I'm still studying at university. And I went to an IT recruitment agency. I thought they'll help me find jobs, computer jobs, right? I ended up working for the agency. And I said, I'm going to change the world and I'm going to help people find jobs. That was not what recruitment agencies were about. It took me about. A week to figure out it was a sales role. 
 So, yes, we all fall into roles thinking we're going to change the world. It's not always the case, unfortunately. 

 Rose | 02:31
And, you know, it's not so easy to get into HR either. When you're doing your course, you know, they're telling you that it is so easy, but it isn't because, you know, a lot of HR roles are specialised and even trying to get in on the grand floor and less... You have something really special to offer the organisation, it can be quite a challenge. 

 Robyn | 02:55
Absolutely. And, you know, I think probably the key for me when I think about and those moving into the profession I think about commercial acumen. And so when I'm hiring for my business impact, I'm not necessarily looking for the warmest, fuzziest person who can give the best HR hugs. That's not the job. I'm looking for an individual who understands business and who understands the numbers, can read a P&L, can understand a balance sheet and know the levers that we can pull to help the business be successful. And we do that through the people. 
 So it is difficult to get into unless you understand commercials. I believe so anyway. That's important. 

 Rose | 03:42
Absolutely. And I think, you know, for me, I... Not necessarily the warmest and fuzziest person. I do like a hug and I've been told I give excellent hugs. Love that. How I, you know, work within an organisation and I like facts and figures. And I think, you know, a lot of people just want the warm, as you say, the warm and fuzzy stuff. And, you know, it can be, you know, difficult for people who are not the warm and fuzzy type to, you know, actually get their foot in the door. 

 Robyn | 04:19
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I agree because it is a misconception that the role is to be a parent figure and to just care for the people. Absolutely. That's a component of everybody's role in an organisation. There's not the core responsibility of HR. In fact, just before I jumped on to chat with you, I was on the phone with a wonderful friend of mine who I've worked with previously at an organisation and she was asking me for some advice. About an employee who had written to her and the CEO very unhappy about their remuneration, their salary, and very clearly used ChatGPT, by the way, to construct an argument that came off as pretty aggressive, you know, to the CEO and the head of HR. And she said, Rob, How would you manage this? And I said, will you take a breath? And you take the emotion out of it because for the individual it's really emotional And the expectation might be that you jump in and make it okay for them. But that my dear is a grown adult. And you will treat that person like a grown adult. You're in no rush to respond. Take your time. Take a breath. It's not emotional for you. 
 And then you respond to that grown adult. The way that's best. 
 So it's not always about making things okay for you. Sometimes it's holding a mirror up and just... With dignity and grace in the moment. And letting you figure it out for yourself. 

 Rose | 05:48
Yeah. And, you know, there is a lot of emotion in the things to do with HR, like remuneration. 
 Yeah. And benefits and, you know, leave entitlements and, you know, the boss is giving you a hard time and you have to prove, you know, that this boss is giving you a hard time. And there's a lot of emotion behind that. 
 I mean, they are sort of complaints, but issues, concerns that staff members may have that they take to HR. And I think. Hey. It can be... Difficult to remove the emotion because for this particular person it's quite an emotional subject. I for us to deal with it as HR professionals, you need to... 

 Robyn | 06:28
Agree. 

 Rose | 06:34
As you say, take the emotion out of it. And that can be It can be difficult, especially if you know the person and you know that And you know the person well and you know their background and their history to take that emotion out of the argument and not get involved yourself with the whole. 
 Yeah. 

 Robyn | 06:56
Yeah, it is. It's tricky. The whole palaver. As we like to call it. And, you know, we need to acknowledge the emotions. We spend a lot of time at work and we invest ourselves into that work. It's personal. Work is always personal, or at least it has been always to me. And the people I work with, are just as important as the work I do. And I acknowledge those feelings, particularly when it comes to salary, because we all have commitments, whether they be family, ageing parents, kids. We all have our own commitments that we need to meet. And so... The role for HR is to balance that empathy and it's genuine empathy. Particularly as you say, if you know the person well, but even if you don't, as a human being there who's invested so much time, and care into their work. Balancing that with the needs of the business. And that is a really tricky space and a really fine line to walk. And so we always acknowledge the emotions. It's difficult not to put yourself into the individual's shoes. As humans we do. But having said that, It's not always the right thing to just say, okay, you can have everything. Because... 
 You know, I know you personally, I like you and I know your situation. Because internal parities matter as well. And you need to maintain consistency. And at the end of the day, you're running a business. If you're treating your staff well and providing safety psychologically and physically, working with respect, and offering them a great environment as well as fair pay, then you've met your obligations. And we need to understand that Sometimes that's not enough for everybody and that's okay too. That's okay. We all have decisions to make. 

 Rose | 08:57
Yeah. Now, there are a lot of private HR organisations, as you like yourself, and then there are the ones that are actually built into the organisation or our knowledge. What are the differences Or are there differences between the two? Then private and. 

 Robyn | 09:15
Consulting. Yeah, sure. 
 So look, my whole career has been internal human resources. So generally within the tech industry, I started my first real HR job outside of, you know, horrible recruitment. I was terrible at it. Was that of HR director for a wonderful business called Unicode Computer Systems. They were recently acquired actually by CGI, but they were a privately owned tech business based in Melbourne with operations in Sydney as well of around 200 people. And they were predominantly professional services in telco and technology. Okay. 
 So I was the HR director there. My first role. And since then, I've moved through various businesses, taking a particular business from Series B to IPO, the list on the ASX and Best job of my life was working for a company called Vino Mofo, which is a wine e-commerce company. And I was their chief people officer for some four years. 
 So most of my experience has been sitting on executive teams internally for businesses as their chief people officer or the head of HR. But I decided To start my own thing, thinking I might slow down for a little while, it didn't turn out that way. But to answer your question, the key difference is For me, that I get to now share the knowledge that I have and that my team has because we don't have any juniors in our business. We are all seniors. Battle scarred, grey haired. Ladies of a certain age, shall we say, Rose, we get to share that proactive experience and experience the learnings with various businesses and apply our skills to industries we wouldn't have worked in otherwise or had known otherwise. And it's incredibly refreshing to know that people are the same no matter where you go and the problems are the same. Right. And so are the solutions generally in every organization. 
 So the difference for me is that I am managing multiple stakeholders with multiple different cultures. However, and various concerns as well as strengths. And we are able to apply our knowledge to each of those really quickly in a way that is fit for purpose as opposed to a one-size-fits-all. 
 So for me, it's more fulfilling, believe it or not, because I'm able to do everything. Hopefully good stuff. We're tons of clients now, not just the one. 
 Yeah. 

 Rose | 11:56
Yeah, I think I'd like to work in a consulting firm if I ever went back to HR, I think. Because you get to work with a lot of different types of industries and organizations excuse me yeah and and You know, you can only broaden your own knowledge by doing that rather than being stuck in a In an organisation that only just, you know, deals with the one thing. And I know that burnout is a big thing in HR with HR professionals. Especially within organisations. I think with a consultancy you'd be more prone to step back from something if, you know, you found that you were coming to the point where you just couldn't like. Continue on. 

 Robyn | 12:41
Yeah, look, burnout is very real in our profession. And, you know, we're not the most loved profession. We're a little bit like journalists to some extent, you know, or parking inspectors and that's okay. But burnout is very real. And, you know, I've spoken about this often, but I have ocular migraines. Which are silent migraines brought on by stress. I have lost three teeth through stress. And so when people laugh and say it's just an admin function or what have you, The work is very real. And as I said, it's very personal. I have experienced... Things, people who have self-harmed, Rose. I have experienced people were grieving. Very recently grieving the loss of parents or loved ones who've experienced pregnancy loss, who have There is a myriad of... Situations that we in human resources face and we are not trained psychologists most of us Yeah. And as I said, you know, warm and fluffy is not necessarily a skill that we are taught at university. It's not something you'd hoard. And we are asked to face these things very regularly. Even looking at somebody who you've worked with for many years and telling them that their role is redundant. Is Heartbreaking. And that is not to take away from the individual receiving that news. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying please feel sorry for us, but I am saying that it is incredibly difficult. For us and so being a consultant does give you a little bit of distance from that stuff. Personally. However, the emotions are the same. We're still human. 
 Yeah. So burnout's real and it's something that we battle with. And I tell you what, there's nothing like a good Pilates class and a walk around the block. It makes you feel so much better. 

 Rose | 14:47
Throwing. Session or a game you can baseball bet you know. 

 Robyn | 14:53
Absolutely I've done that. That's a bit of fun. Actually. We did that for mother's day with my children. 
 Yeah, it works. It works. 
 So it's real. And we, You know, but we love it. You have to love it to do this job. 

 Rose | 15:08
For sure. Yeah, you do. You do. 
 So why is a senior HR person so important, either as a consultant or even within an organisation? 

 Robyn | 15:16
Yeah, it's a great question because, and I'll give you a really short answer, AI is laughter - Hi. People often ask me whether I am concerned that AI will take the job of HR. And I say, please do. Please take all of the grunts and the admin away. I am here for it, Rose, please. In fact, I'm working with a wonderful business called Inventium right now, and I'm sure you've heard of Amanda Imber, the CEO. She runs a business podcast, How I Work. And so it's her business, and we are running a generative AI course for HR pros. Because I am all about it. Let's teach AI professionals how to use AI ethically and responsibly to take away all of that repetitive grunt work that we need to do, whether it be design policies, refreshing them, understanding the fit. We can build GPTs for all of those things. Why do you need senior people though to answer your question? If AI is going to take that grunt away, Because there isn't much we haven't seen. And we understand people, we've made the mistake. 
 So, for example, when a leader comes to me and says, hey, Rob, I think I need to restructure my business. Can you help me? I'll say, okay, let's have a look at it. I understand the commercials and I understand what it takes to run a business and what you do and don't need. We'll go through that process together. 
 And then I know the people and I can work with that business to say, here's how we would do it gracefully. And with much dignity and respect to everybody impacted, ChatGPT can't give you that nuance. It can write the scripts for you. It can give you a great timeline, even a communication plan. But what it can't do is the human stuff. And I believe it takes somebody who's been there before. Who really understands people to do it well. And so that's what my business does. Our service CPO Connect, Chief People Officer Connect, is about connecting businesses with their own seasoned, makes me think of KFC, you know, 13 seasons. Why is it? Connecting businesses with their own super experienced humans. HR human, use AI for the rest. We got you. That's okay. That stuff can be outsourced if you like. But the real human stuff, we're here for it. Give me a call. 
 You know, you don't, You're not sure how to... Have that tough conversation with the guy who keeps turning up late. Chat GPT can give you some prompts, but they're not going to know exactly how to do it. And we can talk you through that. 
 Yeah. 

 Rose | 18:00
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I love AI. It's become... Yes, so do I. It... If I'm having a bad day, I'll, you know, put it in the chat and, you know, no judgment. 

 Robyn | 18:14
Yeah, it's true. It's true. I have wonderful conversations with Claude. Have you tried Claude yet? 

 Rose | 18:20
No. 

 Robyn | 18:21
Claude is a wonderful tool. And Rose, please don't think I'm crazy. Maybe you already do. But I will talk to him. 
 So I will speak into my phone to provide the instructions. Because if you, you've probably already picked up. I talk a lot. I talk quicker than I type, certainly. And I'll have conversations with Claude to get to the outcome that I need. I love AI as well. No judgment. It's great. 

 Rose | 18:46
Yeah, no, I talk to mine. I've even named mine, so... 

 Robyn | 18:50
Have you? What's the name of your AI? 

 Rose | 18:52
Scott. 

 Robyn | 18:53
I love that. Scotty. All right. 

 Rose | 18:55
Yeah, he was my, when I was 10 years old, that was the name of my boyfriend at the time. 

 Robyn | 19:00
Rose, are you still in touch with Scott? 

 Rose | 19:05
No. 

 Robyn | 19:06
I hope he's listening. Hi, Scott, if you are. That's wonderful. That's great. No, I think AI is, if used ethically and responsibly, it can do some great stuff for us. We just, we have to be careful what we feed the beast. Particularly in HR because personal information is for us only. 
 Yeah. 

 Rose | 19:27
And I can see where AI can be very helpful in the HR role in that, you know, as you say, you know, policies, procedures, SOPs, all those things, you know, give it an introduction and let it write it for you rather than, you know, having to sit there and do all that mundane work because, you know, it's... Seriously, I know how boring it can be. Yeah. 
 Like mind boggling it can become. It's like, you know. 

 Robyn | 19:59
Yeah. Yeah. It's dull. Right. And particularly when you want to get to the meaty stuff, we want to do the good stuff. We want to do the things that really make change. So I'm using AI and, at the moment for various things. A gentleman who works at, inventium that is helping to run the course is a gentleman by the name of Nigo Upland And I just told you I worked with Unico, it was my first job in HR, and I met Neo about six gosh, 15, 16 years ago there. And we're still friends today. 
 So he runs the AI. Of course for HR professionals as well as more broadly. He's written a bunch of GPTs for us. 
 So we can do things like review policies. We can create them. We have a GPT for development plans. We have a GPT for succession planning. We have, you name it, he has created a GPT for it. And all of the participants in this AI Masterclass are raving about the technology and what he's created for us because it's freed up hours of our time to do the really high impact stuff and work with the humans. 
 Yeah, it's great. 

 Rose | 21:12
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, having, I mean, even as a small business with, you know, one or two people, having HR people an HR role, like somebody who take on that role to do the policies, procedures, SOPs, because you still need them. Even if you're only a two man team or even a one man team, SOPs are so important for planning because you know, if you ever sell your business, you've got those things in place or if you're, to outsource things. But people don't realise that they need to have those types of documents in place to you know further their business. 

 Robyn | 21:50
Absolutely rose and importantly your obligations are the same so any business under 15 people in australia is considered a small business and there is some wriggle room there on your responsibilities and obligations to employees as you know however anything over that and i'd Sorry, I digress. The obligations are minimised only by about a centimetre. You absolutely still need to be responsible as an employer. However, anything over that, your obligations do increase slightly. 
 You know, there was a case recently in New South Wales where a small business was fined by SafeWork hundred thousand dollars for not having an anti-discrimination policy or grievance procedure in place there was no training nothing and so having received a complaint of discrimination they investigated and their business was fined a hundred thousand dollars now i don't know about your business but that would Really hurt mine. My goodness. 

 Rose | 22:53
They'd be happy to get $100,000 out of me. 

 Robyn | 22:55
Yeah, likewise. Likewise. I'll be washing dishes for a while. And so, you know, that was a small business. That was sub 15. 
 So these fines are very real. And we're seeing more and more of these things happening. 
 So having somebody on call that you can talk to. And the first thing that we do with our clients is we will do a full review of their compliance. I call that the not get sued stuff. 
 So show me what you've got in terms of policies and procedures and we will review everything and make sure that you are protected as are your people equally as important. And I'm finding that if there's nothing there, that's okay. We will just give you ours. 
 And then we will train you and your people to meet that bar of all reasonable steps, that threshold. And I'm seeing that many businesses are overdue with their respect at work compliance. Look at you smiling. 
 You know what I'm talking about. We're three years overdue at this point. Come on. Get up to speed. And so, you know, we can run risk assessments, which you are obliged to do and put in place the proactive steps to meet your duty, proactive duty and likewise with psychological safety. And so no matter how big your organization, your obligations to your employees remain the same. To some extent. 
 And then, you know, once we've done that with our customers, then we're just on call when you need us. And because we're not a call centre. We're not a bunch of juniors. You get a direct mobile number to your HR person It's a virtual thing that we do. We know you, we know your business because it's one-on-one. Then we answer all the tricky questions that you might have. 
 So for small businesses, as you say, just having that sounding board. Or that trusted advisor is often all that's needed. Even larger organizations, you know, might not need a full-time person. 
 Yeah. 

 Rose | 24:55
Absolutely. Now, I totally agree with that. And I think my daughter's working. She went into HR as well and she's working for us. I am a health, Okay. Company and she said that they're just so old-fashioned you know they're moving back still yeah so and you know their policies and procedures are just so out of date as a But as an admin, she really hasn't got much say in how it works. 

 Robyn | 25:13
No. 

 Rose | 25:30
Is you know progressing so you know it frustrates her a little bit. 

 Robyn | 25:35
Yeah, it's tough to keep up. Things change so quickly, so rapidly. Recently, University of Technology Sydney, UTS. Announced they were going to make some 150 redundancies. They were restructuring. And again, SafeWork NSW issued a prohibition order Stop. That process from taking place while they investigated because the risk to psychological health. Now, a couple of years ago, That would be mind-blowing. It probably still is a little bit now, but things are moving so quickly with legislation that we need to keep up. 
 So I'm sure it didn't take them long to fall so far behind because it changes so rapidly and it's our job to keep up to date, right? 

 Rose | 26:18
Absolutely. No, I totally agree. And it can be quite a challenge sometimes when you're working across borders, you know, because not all rules are the same in all locations. 
 So, you know, you've got to be across absolutely everything. 

 Robyn | 26:35
Yeah, definitely. Thankfully we're not as bad as the U S is very tricky. We've recently bought another, I'm not, I'm signing India. I'm not going to tell you the name of the company Rose, but there's a very cool streetwear brand. Who may have a creator, I said the word creator, with 18 million Instagram followers.- This particular brand, we are their HR business partner and they've just landed in Sydney. And we've been dealing with the team in the US, so LA and New York. And I've blown away by our employment legislation that things are pretty similar in New South Wales to wherever else, you know, in the country. 
 So just the work health and safety&S acts and stuff might be slightly different and long service leave, et cetera, because in the US, and I've worked with the US before, you can cross You can go into another town and the legislation is completely different. So we're pretty fortunate here. But yeah, when the team came out from the States and I was trying to educate them on how things work here with modern awards and, you know, better off overall tests, they couldn't believe just how well Australian employees are treated here. In Pittsburgh, LA and New York. 

 Rose | 27:50
Yeah. Absolutely. Now, if you want to find Robyn, or she likes to be called Rob, Rob. 

 Robyn | 27:55
Actually. Yes, I do. It's You can. 

 Rose | 27:57
Find her on LinkedIn. Find her website at cpoconnect.com.au. And you have something that you would like to promote today, Rob. 

 Robyn | 28:07
I do. I do. We would like to offer your listeners, we have up to five rows. We've been speaking a lot about compliance. 
 So we are happy to offer five listeners who might be business owners a complimentary review of their compliance. And we can provide them with a report and what might need to be updated. 
 So while I say certainly we have a GPT for that, and we do, it does a little bit of the work. We've got to anonymise everything and we have to triple check everything. 
 So it's a lot of time for us to do that, but we'd like to offer that to five of your listeners. If they would like to take up that offer, please get in touch with us at cpoconnect.com. Dot com dot au. 

 Rose | 28:55
And mention talking with the experts and they will know where you heard that offer from. 

 Robyn | 29:01
Indeed. Thank you, Rose. It's been great speaking with you. 

 Rose | 29:04
Thank you, Robyn. Thank you, Rob. 
 Sorry. Thank you so much.

 
 Robyn | 29:08
Thank you. 

 Rose | 29:10
Bye. 

 Outro | 29:12
You've been listening to Talking with the Experts with Rose Davidson. The podcast that brings you real stories, bold insights and strategies that work. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast channel so you never miss an episode and dive into our full library anytime at talkingwiththeexperts.com. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and keep talking with the experts.