Episode 78 - Fiona Vines - BT Group

In Episode 78, I sit down with Fiona Vines, Chief Inclusion & Wellbeing Officer at BT Group, to trace her unexpected path from banking to HR to leading inclusion across mining and telecoms. I explore with Fiona why diversity alone doesn’t deliver performance without real inclusion embedded in the work, the worker, and the workplace. We connect inclusion to strategic workforce planning—from customer empathy and accessibility to risk, safety, and measurable outcomes. Fiona shares lessons from BHP’s gender balance journey, why leaders must pull (not just be pushed), and how policies like shared parental leave change workforce modelling and capability planning. We dig into job design, “greedy jobs,” and how AI and flexible models can unlock talent without sacrificing performance. It’s a practical, leader-first conversation on turning inclusion from an HR mantra into a core business system.