In conversation with Peter Cheese and David Collings

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so as we've gone through this wave of change is back really seems to start out
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year since February March time we've seen a lot of decisions that have actually been very people centric so
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even the hold people have come along that helped that come before and economic issues and financial issues and
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that has given Peter or a really strong role in terms of pulling the profession center stage in all the decisions of all
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the actions that have to take place and I think that's how to move and with position up conversation around and the
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leadership that HR has provided in despair and then we can move on and we can talk about the future of the
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workplace that we're going to be working with and then what are the implications of that for the profession and how we as
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ourselves need to end and stay up to the mark so people are going to ask am i
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inviting you to talk to us about from your experience now engaging people over
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the last number of months I've stood out to you in terms of hit your leadership role in disguise
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yeah well thank you Mary Ann and good afternoon to all of you I'm so sorry that I'm not there physically with you I
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always loved my tread style and meeting friends and colleagues and that as you say Mary this week ironically would have
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been the the Irish conference but it's a real pleasure to be able to at least connect and communicate a little bit by
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these sorts of platforms so yeah I mean as you said in your introduction I mean these are completely extraordinary times
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I think the word unprecedented will slowly go down as the word of the year and it's true we've never experienced
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things like this but right from the outset of this crumb assist in first the most important things everybody
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recognized is this was a crisis of people of human humanity of health and
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and it was therefore put right from the beginning the idea of people being very
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very central to any of the organizational response and indeed there was a interesting article that I've
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often quoted in The Economist there four weeks ago there compared this crisis to be global financial crisis of 2008 9 and
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said that you know that was indeed it with all the financial in the CFO or the chief financial
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officer was very much in the spotlight on that one but this one is very different it's very different in scale
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and magnitude of course but it's also as I said profiling human crisis so that has put the head of HR and the HR
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professional function very much the front front and center of the organizational response and I find that
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very very consistently from organizations across all sectors and it has been preparing to mounting a very
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challenging time at the beginning of the crisis and everybody we talked to was saying they have never worked so hard at
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having to deal with many many issues as you said Mary that we haven't particularly experienced before and
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you're also right to point out that the beginning of the crisis when we all had to very rapidly move into lockdown in
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some ways the parameters for us were fairly clearly defined we have gotta move people to work for hire more and
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close our workplaces and of course I had our other pitch the medium term impact but now we're in this things are
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gradually easing restrictions everywhere I noticed in Ireland you're looking forward to further announcements next
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week native June of further easing in the bays - and that's happening pretty consistently across across Europe and
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other parts of the world but the complexities of the easing of restrictions are manifestly greater than
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the original lockdown so we're I'm sure we'll explore some of those parameters but it is continuing therefore to put HR an HR leadership
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front and center of the organizational response and I can say that I think is also a strong recognition not only as
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it's been a challenge in time for the perfection but this is a time of opportunity - this is a time of
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opportunity for the profession to really take its rightful place at the heart of business thinking and powered by many
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ways this principle its idea that this crisis is fundamentally people crisis
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and therefore how we deal with our people how we support them how we deal with their well-being they're engaged in
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the noise of questions very much more front and center of the agenda and I for one believe we can take that momentum
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pause and really should take that momentum pause to shape a better future better ways of working better focus on
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people of the very heart of business and I'm David just turn to you now you
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have been involved in a piece of research and in the last couple of months looking at the leadership role of
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chief a key role working with University of Columbia and and that sounds like a really exciting thing to be doing that
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research very much lies in the current environment maybe tell us any bit about that and about some of the key findings
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and insights that are coming through from sure and firstly very just thanks
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for the implications enjoying the conversation this afternoon and QG important topic and and it's going to be
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part of us and I look forward to discussions and good afternoon to everyone yeah so we've been working on this pissy
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research my colleague John mica Mackin and away and ECU and after all we should Anton over at the university so Carolina
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many people have probably familiar with Pat writes work in one of the leading contributors the academic feeds of
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theater for a number decades and and and he is one of his colleagues there and
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yeah so we've been looking at the chief human resources officer role for about the last six weeks at this stage and
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about I don't know exactly where from I had 45 to 50 C intervals globally at
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last count they did covered about 1.4 1.3 1.4 million employees so quite a
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wide spread in terms that the CEOs were speaking to and we're asking them questions about how to have the crisis
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unfolded in their organizations what they're all have been at HR leaders how their priorities have shifted as
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equalities evolved and how they're doing and you know from from a well-being point to you and it's been fascinating
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to get that sense of seeing the crisis resolved from from their perspectives
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and you know what we're finding is very much resonating way to number things that Peter mentioned it just now so this
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is fundamentally a people process and I think you're compared to any crisis we faced on a global scale before it
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probably I to be the first in modern times that has been that and that has really pushed hedge or in the in the
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forefront and what does that look like well in many organizations said the HR leader is leading the crisis response to
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crisis management teams or a lot of organizations from a governance perspective establish different types of crisis management teams and in a
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significant margin majority affirmed led by H or and and the kind of things
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were hearing from hecho are practitioners from they talk about the reaction you know the real challenge in
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the early days was they were fourth act quickly and without precedent so the
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kind of decisions they were having to make in early days where we had no precedent we had very little data to
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inform the decisions that were being made so the kind of things we typically heard were you know a number of CHD
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roles that said you know we made a decision on a date that would have seemed absolutely improbable on a Monday
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and by from dates in two weeks legs so the sign was shifting so quickly in those early days and that they were
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forced make you know very difficult decisions very quickly I completely agree with the point that Peter made though the ratings of options on the
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table was quite limited at that stage so so in some ways as we go forward the decisions are likely to be more
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challenging we kind of things they told us that really mattered so you know Manickam it was the importance of
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returning to the first principles of HR so really getting the really basic hygiene stuff right so making sure
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people were say it's thinking about well-being and they chose rule as as a coach to other leaders in the
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organization who were struggling with this kind of unprecedented decision-making
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so really return to first principles and you know I've done a couple of sessions
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reasonably even a clip from my groin that the warrant Health Organization work where somebody asked in a press conference you know what have you
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learned from managing Ebola that teaches us that's relevant for managing this crisis and he said well what we've
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learned is you have to act quickly and have no regrets that perfection is the enemy of the coach and I think was a
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really powerful message for HR leaders there in that you know certainly as as
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the situation was as fluid as it was in the early days and continue to be relatively curious search for perfection
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is probably not the ideal buyer that we're looking for here we understand
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we're good enough is good you know and I think that's really something that comes through very very strongly anything in a
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number of the conversations we've had and and and I think that that that
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importance of of reflecting on where HR can I the most value of where we can make good
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enough decisions I think as a real priority nearly days that shifts as we move forward we have more days and more
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information yes certainly we picked up on the level of sort of flexibility in
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response and that things that were previously totally untouchable or just
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went out the window as people responders and if those the question is around
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where does that leave us because now we've actually in many cases from what we might the past where some of the
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rooms and yes certainly we always we had too many policies and being that we worked in the past but now we've shown
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organizations how we can be adaptive we can respond so what do you see is coming
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through around what way we're going to have to work for the future you know whether that if there are any and
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enlightening come to from the research dave around but where are we going yeah
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so I think to your point Mary the one thing that changes we're now starting from a new baseline in implementing
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areas so we're all familiar with those leaders and organizations that were hugely resistant to things like working
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from home and and the lack of trusted employees in some instances you know doubt the autonomy to be at home and I
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think our starting point for any discussion on working from home now is well you know why on your what
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circumstances will we bring people back office and you know who would we bring back and blame and so I think that
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fundamentally shifts that conversation as an example of something that's changed like you forever and you know
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there's a huge amount of debate about this and I think it like a lot of things the debate gets polarized so you know so
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folks a or nobody'll ever come to an office again and I know they're like I will just sit back normally I think you
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realities will land somewhere in the middle to mediate questions we need to be asking about in thinking about the
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return to the workplace are questions like you know what why would somebody need to be in the workplace so even if
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you look up the announcements from Twitter and some of the tech organizations that have said people can stay from home they're very clear that
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if the job allowed that so there's some goals and organizations that point by
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design have to be in the work place at least a significant amount of time and there are a number equals what we
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would want people to work from home so so obviously there's a work/life balance issue you know takes kids away from people and it gives people more
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flexibility it may help us with cost it take some real estate allow us to teach
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our real estate certainly in the longer term with social distancing that's probably you know going to be a single
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sum game person until that's resolved and you know so there are some reasons we might want to people to work from
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home but there's also some downsides to working at home so you know we know people like the social interaction of
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the office and the relationships that they build with people I was going to call that we could an insurance company
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who had done some internal research of one of their sites and I would have a population of a couple of thousands
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about 50% of people said they would like to look to stay home as much as they could and about a quarter people said
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we'd like to come back to the office right now who proposed and there was another quarter that kind of work
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equivocal so you know there are some folks for whom the offices is somewhere
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they want to be and you know not everyone is lucky enough to have an environment at home that that's
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appropriate for workplace so so I think you know we need to think about what we gave up from from working from home so
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we know the pushback in Silicon Valley you know a technique ago when allows the tech companies roll back their work from
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home because they felt it impacted our innovation so I think you know there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle of
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where we can achieve a lot of those goals but I think a question I would ask the HR leader so is well why do why
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would we have people working from home right now it's safety it's easy right it's black and white and I think the other thing we need to
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monitor is the quote the implications of working from home you know so so mental health among be you know is a huge huge
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issue every catering leader you see brings that open and I think it's really telling we did some work on
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the future or last year and I was 50 interviews I think when we asked you
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know what are the skills of the future two people said mental health and well-being our variations thereof
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well I think we now recognize how much of an issue that is and how far it inspected that social interaction is the
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people at Lotte News and at the over tonight flag from the workers own thing is the impact on
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diversity and a watchful eye on diversity you know we've seen already and we know from why you research anyway
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that that ended situations you know females tend to take on more at home
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care responsibilities whether they're other parents or our children and you
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know we also know that Wesker's employees are less able to work at home the types of jobs they generally
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do and he also saw a careful eye on diversity to ensure that we're not
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disadvantaging Elliot and any of our employee groups true true that shift to work from home yeah I think just to go
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back to you started off talking about the and they're not working and certainly when you look at when you
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dwell into it you find that often people I like to do it for a certain period of
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time actually don't want to do it and for full time so you know can we come up
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with a formula that's sort of a blended way of working or by we have time for both and certainly when you hear of the
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mental health and issue coming through so strongly makes you realize how much the social infrastructure in the
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workplace was actually a support for that are an avenue to get support others
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and and yes I mean we look at Irish organizations many people met their
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partner in their work environment you know it has a lot of implications and pay for maybe just just turning to you
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in terms of what you see as being some of the key features I mean Dave talks or a couple things but from your
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perspective coming at it from a more additional perspective what's jumping out at you I think many reflections is
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Dave's already observed I mean the first thing I'd say is that the paradigms of
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work that we've had for a very long time have been that and not changed I mean the paradigm of work that if you're not
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working in the workplace and somehow you're not really working those sorts of biases that we've seen for a long time
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the fact that many aspects of flexible working in recent years have really shifted very very slowly and then you
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combine that with other statistics and facts like the growing level of stress there people have seen and
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therefore the mental health issues that they rattle called out were already growing and we were seeing far more
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focus organizations on these ideas of mental health that work and so now we hit the crisis and the crisis should
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have taught us already a number of things the first is is that people can work from home and that can work
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productive it and they can be effective now state said that doesn't mean to say to so we now shift them all to everybody
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works and home if they can and there's no other choice I think the reality is is what we need to acknowledge and storm
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out is much more of this personalization of work if you will this ability to recognize this not one size fits all the
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different people for different circumstances and different reasons need to if they can to have choice and that
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choice would of course include it things like working from home where they can and it also can include things like more
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flexibility and working hours and schedules and I think if we can create those patterns of work going forward
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then not only will we attract to you today's point a more diverse workforce because there are many people are
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constrained from work because of other issues like young children or whatever it might be secondly hopefully we'll have a more
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well workforce because we're reducing levels of stress and allowing people to map their lives around their their work
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as well and thirdly that we'll ever get the best out of people in terms of productivity because it's not again one
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so so it's all and I think those have really profound shifts if you think about it it's not that they're all new I
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might have often said interesting is in many of the features that we were starting to address the future where I
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will fight mental health like flexible working we're all that we were understanding that stress is a big issue
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understanding issues of productivity and innovation creativity but I think the process has taught us that we can
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actually think differently and accelerate many of those good ideas about what the future work should
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represent because of what we learnt through the crisis so I would absolutely emphasize the idea of a choice I would
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also emphasize the idea therefore that this is an ongoing learning I mean I think those funds really well made this
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is not about perfection it's about us learning as we go what works what doesn't what do people want keep
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surveying you for your teams and your people to understand what they want what works best and then let's try them out and we're
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going to have to do that in workplaces anyway because we do not know how we can make places truly safe but as a matter
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harmony guidance and guidelines and piles of paper issued by governments to say this is what you should do the fact
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is is we're dealing with human behavior and we will need to learn as we go and then take those out operations Ford's
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insight as I said of being what I believe can be some learnings that really can improve work for more people
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in more circumstances and have them thrive in a world of work in terms of all that means their well-being and
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their productivity in their creative yeah certainly the concerns we're
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picking up to is is how the risk of us all adopting to traditional behavior patterns so regardless of the structure
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is that when I go back into a workplace my temptation will be to behave the way I did behave and that is actually one of
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the key changes that we have to and support people to bring about so that
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they have that consciousness of the need for different way of working and I'm similar to what you said Peter I know
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certainly and we'll be talking here about the personalization of the employment relationship now more and
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more people are looking for that but I think this and particularly as we move from where we are now into her chart
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work situation is going to make that center stage how do we actually absolutely him deliver on that because
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it is a different way of working and it means taking away those boundaries that we've all worked to and we know during
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this fell people have struggled with boundaries that boundary of being safe at work in my home and they're not at
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work is one of that people have struggle to actually manage and for themselves
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and we sometimes also so we need to get better at that but Peter just to come
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back the terms of the profession and where the profession is going and what this all means for like profession and
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posse I P D because it you put it all together it's actually a lot to change
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yes there is no but it but it's also opportunity I would like to think of thing claps are full I mean as we've
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already explored there are many things changing because of the crisis which we can taking very positive better ways interestingly something I've seen it we
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just released was the b-cup profession survey which was a wide survey looking at how people
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felt about the profession all the way from what they gave meaning and purpose but also cause looking at things like
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professional skills and competencies and and interestingly many of those reflections are exactly what we've been describing first of all there's a lot of
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positive messages about how people feel about the profession giving the meaning and purpose and of course in the context
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are now talking about with a much more human centered way of thinking about work that meaning I think grows all the
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time it was also an acknowledgment that some of the skills and capabilities that we perhaps talked about for a little
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while come much more to the center because the profession itself is being put much more to the center of business
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now that ranges some things I mindsets which we're Dave and I have already explored that say ok well let's not just
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imagine there's a perfect manual and it's every all the rules are in Dax they're not the fact they never were and
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we've got to be much more adaptive and agile we've got to be prepared to experiment to try things and innovate
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and that's what I've seen so much during this crisis many many HR practices innovating trying different things and
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learning as a result of that not something we need to set forward but I think we do have to step up on some of these areas who talked about for a while
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about analytical capability because because there's we try these different things we've got to understand what's working what are the measures were using
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and if I go to some of the most profound measures of law at the highest levels of organization I really really believe
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that now is the time to Center the ideas of transparency of businesses of what
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they're doing with their people basically well being as just as an important output a business almost as
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your profit and loss statement and that's an opportunity for HR to step up and how to define what really are these
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aspects of responsible business at the highest levels to ensure that we keep our focus on these ideas of things like
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well-being so to set an analytics and corporate governance and this more strategic part of HR is really important
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OD organization design and development also going to be really important how do we restructure and adapt our business in
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very fast changing economic circumstances I saw that the latest estimates in Ireland from the SR is that
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the Irish economy might drop by as much as twelve and a half percent GDP this year that's not uncommon to many
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across the world and that means many businesses having to restructure and HR needs to be at the very very heart of
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that sort of debate and therefore OD change management those sorts of things I think very much comes in for in terms
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of capabilities for the future yes certainly there is a lot of concern out
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there about what is actually facing us in terms of the labor market because once we start to open up the financial
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realities of that mercial realities are going to force people into making tough
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decisions and again we want to make sure that people do that again and sensitive away as possible
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these are I should put out there you know being transparent being open around us and being empathetic in terms of
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situation that and that can be boring and today maybe a little more than just
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come back to you and I mean you've talked there from the research and what
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it's it's telling you about and what what see hey trolls are doing but where
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do you see this going for the future what do you think in terms of of the profession and the chief hey Charles
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what's coming through in terms of what they need to be capable of doing where they need to be putting their attention
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yeah I'm just thinking as Peter I was talking it's much easier on those news shows where they have two completely
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contrasting opinions and you have this really great debate but but I agree with absolutely everything Peter said and
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just you know in terms of what else we're seeing I think you know one thing does that we're seeing it was creeping
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into a chore but I think it's likely to become more common with the importance of agile skills and agile methodologies
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and HR so to Peter's Peter's point of we need to try stuff and fail fast and how
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we measure whether things are effective or not or don't absolutely those analytical skills those data analysis
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and and data storytelling and I've always been of the view that the
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analytics personal compass' are only half of their of the data side the other
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half is the storytelling and the rule that HR leaders need to play in influencing their colleagues and
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executive leadership team and colleagues in the business and telling the story of how our
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essence of people matter to the business so I think you know that's that the second part of that scale and I think
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the other thing that she G important is the kind of the forward-looking strategic planning so you know looking
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at where just scenario planning around where the organization is going a blocking implications are for people and
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skills and you know even before the crisis we generally organizations had a good sense of where they wanted to be
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from a strategic perspective whether it was you know their market share or their sales volume or with the demonstrating
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conversation of the people that enabled us and the implications for people often didn't get the same level of attention
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and credibility and I think you know those organizations that we're seeing that are kind of better equipped to
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manage true and out of the crisis have a kind of what we call in somewhere research at Northstar decided what
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they're doing so that I'm thinking of what they want to be how that aligns with skills and capabilities I think so
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so you know a great example of an organization that pretty well aligned looking forward is a global insurance
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organization that we're working with at the moment in terms of research - this is pre crisis but they did an analysis
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abroad in the organization and looking at the impact of of the future work and technology and the like and their
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analysis was that 15% of rules will be eliminated in five this years by technology and 50% would need some
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augmentation support organization is now using that roadmap to guide its investments in people and better analogy
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to the crisis and the absurdity is that as parts of the business or closure and
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parts of the business of our visitor right now they're realizing people into
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the growing parts of business and the bits that are busier and also focusing on on building the skills in capability
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so we skimming and upskilling folks in to the parts of the business sector that are doing well now they're lucky they've
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got some resources they've got you know they've got a war chest that allows them to do that but very much their priority
26:18
now is to use any slack that's in the business to risk it an upscale and to
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align people at work with parts of the business that are going so I think that forward-looking perspective
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from where the businesses and one of the opportunities that this is given that hedge or isn't money instance of
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greeting to crisis response team still right in the middle of the business narrowing so that that opportunity to to
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really get into the weeds of the business and really understand the business I can consume so I would say
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understanding the business the data side including the storytelling side and
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agile an equally that kind of strategic planning and that forward-looking I
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think you know I've often made the point that you know if you look at any data on skills and talent you know wcco's all
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clocks are very year and year eighty percent of CEOs we don't have the talent capabilities we need when one of the
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reasons is because a lot of our our our capability development is reactive at short term as opposed to looking forward
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and investing in where we need to be not where we are right now so I think that that's part of the position of those
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organizations to come out with this successfully I'm certainly not something we'd be picking up on the ground Dave in
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terms of people needing to do that things not always necessarily having had it done actually now needing to say but
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where are we going or what are our core capabilities and whether they are central offering and being able then to
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look at what are the areas where they may need to to to downsize our moved
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people from one skill set into another skill set and certainly we did recognize that the start of this was definitely an
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opportunity for development you know where people had some spare capacity we
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haven't necessarily picked up that it has happened as much as people apply and you know in terms of actually
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organizations getting their head around the need to actually take good value from the time that's been available to
28:16
them yes it's thoughts but probably not John consistently are are strategically in
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the way that you're talking about I have no I would agree with that Mary - from
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what we're seeing it but I think this is going to be part of this next shift because as we're all exploring we're
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moving more likely into some of this bigger restructuring types of things where you're going to have to redeploy
28:40
people or maybe in some cases let them go and so I think if they said it's going to put much more centrally this
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agenda about how do we do that how do we develop and enhance our capabilities and
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upskilling re-skilling businesses again things we're already looking at pre-crisis we're all talking about future work by sometime we need to do
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that the crisis is going to accelerate this our ability to deliver digital learning all these other things in very
29:05
very fun ways where to focus on what those core skills and competencies are as you rightly said Mary what are the transferable skills and even if I am
29:13
letting people go what we're hearing from you obviously sometimes it needs the resources to do it but from from any
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bigger employers saying if we've got a research let people go we are also going to provide learning and training opportunities as well so their best
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position to pick up new opportunities so I think that's another aspect of responsible business but the final
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points that make on this because it's such a big subject and importance of its own skills is what governments are going
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to have to think about differently because if we're going to see shifts economic shifts across sectors you know some sectors being as much slower points
29:43
of recovery others already you're not able to fulfill demand then how do you shift people around and what's the the
29:49
role of government in helping you know Bri skill and up skill people more broadly and this again has been a very
29:56
challenging agenda in most countries of adult learning lifelong learning what's what's the role of government in helping
30:02
to match better supply and amount of skills and capabilities I think some of that is going to have to emerge as well
30:07
yeah it's starting to be recognized here in particular when they look at profiles of people who might be on some of the
30:13
state foreign schemes we are seeing that they tend to be predominantly young people low-skilled part-time workers so
30:20
we have a particular cohort who are likely to be at risk maybe more than some of the more and sort of traditional
30:27
and civil service are professional type roles so that means the investment is
30:33
really going to have to go into a cohort who we would have seen as being vulnerable in any case so yes certainly
30:38
and not under the moment P so we have negotiations negotiations going on about a program for government or said yes
30:46
they're going on and on and on I will say anymore and and and and and they free one of these
30:54
things you mentioned to us and the other day and talking about this was how you saw hate your leaders of the CH Orioles
31:02
investing their time and you know looking at what you learned so far but
31:07
what you see is being some of the key leaders that they need to be using as they seek to move their organizations
31:14
forward now in the way we will be talking yeah so I guess what we saw in
31:19
terms of time was and Peter mentioned this at the outset you know many HR
31:24
leaders were just completely overwhelmed in the early days it was seven days a week it was you know crisis meetings
31:30
true that we gained so so their time was just completely not their own and a
31:36
number of them reflected on the fact that they just just delegated all their
31:41
core work to their team so again a great opportunity for their teams have exposure to projects that they may not
31:47
have done well as the crisis evolved and it went on for long periods time a
31:52
number the HR leaders we were speaking to were reflecting on the fact that they were so guilty about the lack of time
31:57
they were given to their own teams so recognizing that they needed to connect them with their teams hot dogs one to
32:03
once again and support their own colleagues so I think and I think there's been a greater recognition of
32:09
that I think what a number of them are telling us in terms of time is that the boundary between Co would work and non
32:14
Corbitt work is now very much very difficult to see that you know covetous
32:21
is is now just normal it's normal day today and you know it looks like it's
32:27
going to be here for a period of time so really in terms of prioritizing their time you know again it comes back to
32:33
questions like you know well what do we put on the shelves and leave on the shelves that's just not a priority now
32:39
so we've seen some organizations that have you know put on hold large
32:44
technology upgrades or HR systems that have put on hold you know certain processes but will receive more and more
32:51
over the last couple weeks there's a recognition that this is going to last longer than we may have initially does
32:56
so some of the things have come back on the table so I had a great conversation last week with it with a chief Learning
33:03
Officer actually who was speaking about their their leadership development program and
33:08
initially it was due to launch in saying mid-march I can remember exactly but he
33:14
said you're thinking at the time was one let's waste and let's just wait and see and if we can get everyone together for
33:20
the kickoff weekend's in the autumn time did not make sense but there's no realization that's not going to happen
33:25
so they have to reorient at the lucious development program recognize that people are not going to be together on
33:30
the ground and come up with a way to do that virtually so what was done is kind
33:36
of redesigned it to try and identify some of the trickiest projects that are
33:41
ongoing in the organization and align that folks are the talent program with
33:47
those projects on a gate type basis in a forward ways that are get to work on this really interesting work which is
33:54
kind of very different to what they were planning before had actually yesterday I was on a call with somebody who had the
34:00
potential problem for a global technology company and they were at the back end of a program closing it out and
34:07
you know they had the last couple of sessions virtually and one of the things they did was brought together people in troops
34:12
kind of sized rooms are they online and a piece of feedback I got from almost
34:17
everyone was look normally that networks from these programs endure because we
34:22
need each other out sighs so what would matter most was is a way to keep those networks happening so they're putting in
34:29
place got a monthly copy groups or lunch groups of these folks we're the kind of
34:34
a gentle agenda so so it doesn't just become you know a child about football
34:39
or whatever and everybody gets forward but a gentle agenda to keep them engaged so a recognition that still has to come
34:45
back on the table because this is going to be a medium to long term going to deal with as opposed to something that's
34:51
going to be gone by the autumn okay I certainly we're picking up that
34:58
too both in terms of what we have to do within CIPD but overall in terms of people saying actually things that they
35:04
had say not ones to do virtually and just thought that they could allow time for they now actually have to completely
35:10
revamp and say we need to get on with this we need to actually work with this so I'm starting to have those learning
35:17
the development conversations and you can see with the range of challenges that we're all facing you do need to be
35:23
an op skilling and people one of the questions that come to is around some
35:28
practical examples of the innovation in here or and that have come true I've
35:35
I've you've got any examples of something particular that stands out in terms of innovation I mean I think it's
35:42
very exploring I mean to me some of the innovation has been about how we've supported people and how we've let them
35:47
work I mean there whether it's flexing their work hours and lots of different ways in which people have collaborators
35:53
connected how we support of those things here's some real innovation if you compare it to remnants of what we've
35:59
seen in the past this is pretty radical stuff and yes it may have been brought about a bit by force of circumstances
36:04
but oh my goodness we've seen a lot of that really innovation in thinking about
36:10
how we support people to work in these very different ways yes they've highlighted also the ways in which
36:15
people connect and supporting their well-being that's so important and therefore encouraging people you talked
36:22
about families well how'd you make those boundaries how do you use the losses you have physical interaction social
36:28
interaction how can you replace some of that through these sorts of environments and so people not just using them for work but
36:34
use them for forms of social connection as well and then of course I would also highlight a lot of innovation in how
36:40
high eighties are reaching out their organizations they're surveying the Millau they're asking lots of questions and doing and I think in very very
36:47
different ways much faster feedback much for us turnaround that implemented things quickly to support them where
36:52
they seem there is that kind of need and that that is innovation and this is I think we've already explored on the call
36:58
it's recognizing that yet to get to do those things you've got to let some of the things care you've got to let go
37:04
some of the old colleges and rules things which we brother buried ourselves under in the past and just be agile and
37:11
be adaptive and that is at the very heart of innovation yeah I think they
37:17
cooked some of the things that had struck me as being innovative I've been struck by the simplicity of them so it's
37:23
not necessarily sophisticated thing so so one example I saw was an organization who and basically they started because
37:30
they had a thickness team that huge community sessions on the outside journey and they were eager to do
37:36
something that so they subdued like what would we do and in a fitness team started developing online content and
37:43
it's been one of the most accessed of their life under learning and development program so far beyond the
37:48
sites colleagues around the world are accessing this content and it's to the well-being agenda another organization I
37:55
think communication has been something that's really come to the fore and organizations I think those
38:00
organizations that have the most positive I like a know Pro thr leaders
38:06
we speak to reinforce that essence that engagement is actually really high in their organizations know that there's a
38:12
sense that employees have been front and center and decisions that we made today's the organization's acted quickly
38:19
to protect them and I think that that that kind of that connection and that
38:24
sense of mutual and I guess respecting
38:29
the light from from the organization so a lot of organizations are reports high-level engagement I think what
38:34
really drives that is is excellent communication and those organizations that are doing a good job on
38:40
communication really standards and and you know obviously some of that is more
38:45
challenging in a virtual book form but you know I I heard two CEO rates there recently that was her third town hall of
38:52
the day and she said normally it takes me two days to do one because I need to fly and deal with it come back so so
38:58
communication again another organization that set up a weekly radio show where they had so many influencers that they
39:05
call them prick'd ever association with their brands come on speak to a DJ but it's completely targeted at their
39:11
employees and what they found was that the families of employees were becoming part of the community in a way and again
39:18
with this you know Marcus made a big play on online learning where they need
39:24
other Coursera content available to friends and family of their employees where they you know invested a million
39:30
euros in Khan Academy for content for kids so you know there's organizations do tremendous things out there most are
39:37
not very expensive most of them are pretty simple and I can't read up the key lesson here the things that really
39:44
matter to people aren't big enjoying generally clearly simple things yeah and
39:49
it's really worth emphasizing that communication point over every organizations also every HR lead every
39:55
CEO does that right click we've shifted how they communicate this is a very very regular very creative and how they do
40:01
what I did as well I never communicated more the organization and I now weekly blogs all sorts of webinars and seminars
40:08
and ways in which we can connect and some of it very crazy them it was one of my favorites who saw in the last couple
40:14
of days is a video training video for people returning to workplace Everett sort of the primary produce in the food
40:20
industry and they'd put it put together learning video now you can imagine what that might have looked like in the old
40:27
days this is incredibly creative it was all done to the tune of that is this the way to Amarillo and everybody was sort
40:34
of dancing all the workers doing their thing and it just got the message across in a very different way in a very very
40:40
engaging way so I agree I think another really powerful thing we've seen in innovation is around communication and
40:45
let's take that forwards as well and each one conscious you need to go and to
40:52
have another appointment with the end government to participate in their conversations so am I'm going to throw
40:58
another question today but before I do that I just want to say thank you very much for your contribution today and a
41:04
pc8 your time today and your sport and that's been very insight for the terms of sharing this almost yeah no thank you
41:10
Mary thank you all as I said it it's great to even be able to communicate in these ways and I really do look forward to the next time physically I can come
41:17
to Ireland to spend more time with you all these are incredibly challenging times but I think as we've explored
41:23
during this webinar already it's a time of opportunity for our profession and we want to do all we can as this happy to
41:30
support you not owning these sometimes but also as we think ahead and I'm sorry a little early it is a
41:36
minister a roundtable interestingly talking about the issue of what government can do to encourage upskilling re-skilling these really
41:43
difficult difficult times and we want to share those learning Sami so thank you and look forward to talking to you soon
41:49
thank you Mary thank you Dave so much very quickly part of this as well okay thank speech going to do Davis I
41:57
was reflecting on that last conversation where we were talking about the innovation and and you know the level of
42:03
communication and that and the positivity in terms of engagement but you know particularly look at the Irish
42:10
situation as we move forward we are going to be looking at downsizing and we are going to be looking at redundancies
42:15
in some organizations so what are the things we can do to try to maintain some
42:21
of that innovation and positively as we move forward through that struggle
42:27
that's all a bunch of halt actually gained yeah for sure I think we mentioned we were in the planning
42:33
coordinator game area one of the examples I thought that was very powerful over the last couple weeks was
42:38
Airbnb and so I'm sure we also Airbnb made a substantial number of redundancies and Bo verily I can't
42:47
remember his name I'm sorry he wrote a letter to employees that and I don't know much about their B&B but it seemed
42:53
very authentic right and he spoke about the culture and the personal challenge
42:59
of making the decision and said look this isn't something we've done easily but here is why we're doing this and
43:06
here's how we decide this which rules we would make redundant so again a real
43:12
effort in transparency and trying to explain to people this is how we get into the decisions we case and here's
43:18
what we're going to do to help you so you know a relatively generous redundancy package I support package in
43:26
terms of helping people find new roles at and putting in place those kind of things so I think at the end of the day
43:32
the importance of remembering you know human side of these conversations I think the importance of being
43:38
transparent in our communications and and and being humane at the end of the
43:44
day because you know I don't believe any leader makes these decisions lightly you know so so this those kind of things are
43:51
happening in the boardroom when we're making decisions but it's really important that our khloe's feel that
43:57
entity three things that that you know because it is really powerful and you
44:03
know I you know seen Mary we're doing some research on boob right hairs right now you console like a good business
44:10
it's going to come back around again you know we know economic sectors move up and down that's the nature of economy so
44:17
you know I think it's really important that we think about you have to make
44:22
those difficult decisions what the off-boarding process is like I hope we can we can maintain it as positive
44:28
relationship as possible and it's not going to be possible in all the cases where those people continue to be
44:34
advocates for organization that are brand they continue to be people we can
44:39
potentially tap into in new rules or even in future rules and when they come
44:45
back and the opportunities them to come back to us as boomer I hire so I think you know communication honesty and
44:52
transparency is a really really good static place to start and of course is always this you know how transparent
44:57
Diary of a lot of sorry it'll obviously dicta are you route to the transparency
45:03
is sometimes not not the best either but you know I think being as transparent as
45:09
one time and consistence with one's values you know again the number of literals that have spoken about
45:15
referring to their values as principles when you're making decisions without priests and without data and a hugely
45:22
important you know so I think organizations will be judged above by
45:27
how they make those difficult decisions moving forward like we said earlier the easy decisions happy made that would
45:33
becomes much more difficult for us yeah yeah I'm certainly we're picking up what
45:39
I liked about that particular example and of just off after attention just was that indeed lay out his principles and
45:44
he laid out the principles as to how they were going to go about that and that they were a very inclusive and
45:51
transparent and and parcel of people and the other thing and it's interesting when you finally how the decisions can
45:57
get made in the boardroom but actually they have to be delivered but it's having that empathy and making sure that empathy
46:04
comes through and I saw a recent debt comparison of should we really when we talk about CEO at this point in time
46:11
chief empathy officer is the role that they need to be playing and admitting their own difficulties you know showing
46:17
their vulnerability steeples and then acknowledging that this is a painful time for individuals even for people who
46:24
might be holding on to their jobs but how the processes man managed was determined really how connected I'll
46:30
engage the people were left behind are that that's a really important point Mariette and what it reminds me of it we
46:38
either grade that into procedure last weekend he was talking about and in the past how uncomfortable here the C major
46:46
or would have been to go to an executive leadership team and say I don't know and I don't know the answer and and I think
46:54
every one of us is making decisions that are religious right now where we don't know the answer and we can see clearly
47:01
what term of leadership looks like we see yellow on political leaders in
47:06
countries pretending they know the answers to things they don't and spreading false information to
47:12
vulnerable people about what works and what doesn't in curing in treating and
47:18
curing the lungs accorded so I think that the importance of the willingness of senior leaders to put their hands up
47:26
and say look people know we don't know what it's going to look like but we're going to do our best and here's here's
47:31
how we're going to hear the print that they're going to guide how we act and the decisions we make now under mental
47:38
health and the well-being point of view one of the most powerful and guest
47:43
speakers we ever had on our mattress full of DC which was a HR director who came and spoke about well-being in their
47:49
organization fast fast fast tech company he said Noah we're doing great in the
47:56
great place to work and were really good and he said then one of our board members I meant an issue and had to take
48:03
some time out of the workplace one of the directors of the organization and when he came back and told all he kind
48:11
of wasn't planned remember I need you said look I just wanted to say to everyone I thought I'm
48:16
great and others didn't find lasting ones have told me that I was not doing well and made me realize the importance
48:24
of speaking about mental health and being open about that good if I have an issue please come and talk to me I think
48:30
18 people counted within two weeks to the culture of the organization and the
48:35
approach of the organization and the willingness of people to be bonded of themselves in a haste by that leader of
48:43
being willing to be vulnerable in front of of his employees and that to me is
48:51
what defines a leader in these circumstances they're willing to be vulnerable the willingness to say that I
48:57
don't know all the answers here and you know we're all struggling with this and you know that that kind of tax
49:04
transparency it's not like you know and this then weeds of the financial
49:10
situation that is early or any of those things it's just that that personal
49:16
transparency is just as important to the in leadership yes yes yes definitely and
49:21
I mean one or two of the comments in the Q&A have been around and that kind of
49:27
that issue around mental health and virtual teams and how we and you know
49:32
how do we make sure that there aren't too high expectations and for for virtual teams and how we support them to
49:38
manage those boundaries and with their mental health so even if we do talk about trying to hold on to some of that
49:45
and home working and the optional home working and like let its acceptance be a
49:51
new normal we have to watch that that isn't much with and to high expectations
49:56
our demands on people and just feels great for their mental health careers
50:02
yeah so like we talked about it all the time in so many transitions from I think
50:07
vigil contributor to a leadership role we say you know what we want equip them with the skills they need to be a leader
50:13
just because they were a good team member doesn't mean they're good because we're you know just because I'm good at
50:19
doing my job in the office doesn't mean I'm going to be good at transition we're doing it to a virtual environment so you
50:24
know question I'd ask it as an organization what are we doing temper our colleagues
50:29
transition into that virtual environment how are we providing them with the tools that the resources they need to operate
50:35
effectively in those environments and I saw one of the tech companies is giving
50:41
a budget of what that x dollars the states for teachers to equip their home offices whether it be by a desk or you
50:48
know I cared like number of colleagues who said to me that big bad thing because they're sitting on our chairs
50:53
are inappropriate chairs we're at home so just not just that that the skills of
50:59
working the soft skills it's also that infrastructure and all those things that go with us that are for physical advent
51:05
Allah who you know I think we need to recognize that if the difference gives us it's certainly not exactly the same
51:11
and ask what we're doing is organizations to equip people with those skills and you know I'm online learning
51:19
platforms for example do we have the right content downloads in terms of you know digital working skills in terms of
51:27
conflict management in the digital environment whatever the different capabilities are are we tracking what
51:32
employees are accessing I'm tracking what employees are searching for in terms of things they need and only be
51:37
responsive to those trends in terms of providing that material that they're really need to enable them to do this
51:43
work and virtual environment yeah I think trying to cope with that virtual
51:48
world I'm accepting that it's with us for longer is really sort of opening people's eyes to we support that ways of
51:55
working I mean you mentioned the ergonomics there and it was interesting in the big survey that was done by the Western mission in nu IG that was one of
52:02
the reasons that came out terms what through my employer healthy with the and the ergonomics because it's not
52:08
something we talked about enough when we talk about not working and it came through and very and strongly as being
52:15
one of the things that needed to be tackled and but also I mean what emerging you know motor to people have
52:20
mentioned since today I think like trying to learn how do we move into and poaching into performance management and
52:27
discipline as we move into remote working and none of those have we fully package yet or got our heads around so
52:33
in terms of an innovation and I know Peter talk like keep you know I think we're still going to be
52:39
on this path over the next slide as we try and just sort of cope with both that
52:45
the change the organization and the organization development piece as well as just making sure that we have things
52:51
like virtual working working really well that individuals to keep that engagement up yeah and I would say in terms of
52:58
keeping it simple I completely agree I think one of the trends we've seen over the last couple years is a recognition that in many instances we over-engineer
53:06
EHR systems and processes so you know what guards are saying in terms of looking forward well well what's the
53:12
purpose of what we're doing so in terms of performance management you know what we do in performance management you know
53:18
we talk to a lot of organizations so there can be on guilty about that so if I'm a night manager I don't really know
53:23
what the objective that's here is it simply to come up with a number that's going to be used to allocate some sort
53:29
of for somebody's you know sometimes somebody's renumeration is it internet I've identified development gaps you
53:34
know whatever it is so I think being very clear about the objective of these processes is a really good place to
53:41
start as we think about what we need to do with how we do is in environment that looks like it's going to be virtual a
53:47
certain significant agreed for for the next very design yeah yeah but okay I'm
53:56
really conscious of time and we're coming up to four o'clock and and it is a holiday weekend coming up and a
54:03
beautiful sunny afternoon so I mean I think you've given us an awful lot to think about who's really good here to
54:08
start all about the research that's coming through what that's telling us about that response and what the next
54:14
steps are looking at and even for you know for for individuals to be thinking about what is the new normal in our own
54:20
organization and how do we shape this you know because we are at such a point
54:26
in time that the decisions we make now and how we build the organizations and the workplaces of the future we have
54:33
actually a lot of influence over and I love your face you know take action and
54:39
don't be afraid to fail because we're going to have to do some of the ashes to sort of learn fast and and move on because we're going to
54:46
have a lot of different issues that we're going to have to deal with we some strong principles and you know
54:51
mental well-being inclusion and equity that we're working off thank you very
54:57
much your clients afternoon thank you for everybody who's been with us for the hour I hope you've got some insights and
55:02
that we haven't got all the questions unfortunately I'd like to pull in some of the threads as we've been going
55:08
through our conversation and we we support really welcome your support and and we will be in touch in CIPD in terms
55:15
of that the we're going to support you as we go through all these challenges in the coming months so many thanks to
55:21
everyone special times to Dave and to Peter who's left us and hope you have a lovely weekend when familiar area times
55:27
over very good I know
55:44
you
55:54
you you
56:03
you
56:13
marry
56:19
hi
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