#106 How CBRE is Increasing Data Literacy for Over 3,000 Employees (with Emily Hayward)

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Hello everyone. This is Adele, Data science educator and evangelist at Data Camp. Today is the final episode in our four week Data Literacy Month special. And today's episode is a special one. Throughout the month we talked about the importance of data literacy and why individuals and organizations need to grow their data literacy schedule skills. And today we're going to be showcasing how CBRE, a data camp for business customer, is upskilling 3,000 plus people on data literacy skills. Joining us today is Emily Hayward. Emily is the Data and Digital Change Manager at cbre. She is an experienced change and transformational leader in data analytics with a proven track record and successfully leading high profile technology, data and cultural transformation across private and public sector organizations. Emily takes a fun, engaging and people first approach to designing and delivering data transformation. And she fervently believes that you can't change anything successfully without winning hearts and minds, which is the crux of today's episode. Throughout the episode, we speak about the data upskilling imperative at cbre, how Emily has approached building a learning program, how to do effective change management and evangelize learning within an organization, the importance of executive sponsorship when delivering these programs, and much more. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, comment and subscribe to the podcast. And if you're also looking to approach data upskilling at your organization with datacamp, make sure to check out the link we left in the description box. Now, onto today's episode. Emily, it's great to have you on the show.

Oh great. Thank you for having me.

I am so excited you're joining us for Data Literacy Month and I'm looking forward to Deep Dive with you on the Data Literacy program at cbre, how to do effective change management, the importance of data skills, and much more. But before, can you give us a bit of a background about yourself?

Yeah, of course. So, my name is Emily Hayward. I am a data and digital change manager here at CPRE and my role is essentially it's all about the people side of digital change. So in a nutshell, like, how can we engage, inspire and equip our people with the right tools, the right knowledge and support to leverage data Effectively often. I see across many years of doing change management that a lot of organizations, they spend thousands, hundreds of thousands on new tools and tech and then they simply just end up like they'll launch the program without really thinking too much about putting the end user or the end learner at the heart of it. And then they wonder why their program or project is struggling with adoption or realizing return on investment and business value. Say part of my role is to really understand how people are impacted by change. For example, how do they currently work? What are their motivations and resistance to doing things differently? What does the new process, technology or learning mean for their roles and ways of working? And how do we ensure that once the project team or the learning program delivery team steps away, how do we make sure that it just becomes like part of how people do business and go about their regular everyday roles? So how do we ensure that engagement and adoption continues and doesn't just drop off a cliff? So I've been doing it for a number of years now, both across private and public sector organizations. I started at the Financial Conduct Authority, so if you're not a UK listener, that's essentially our UK financial services regulator. So I started there doing technology and change communication and engagement strategy and then I moved into change management. So helping colleagues across the business adopt new data science and analytics tool. And now I work at cbre. So CBRE are the market leader in commercial real estate and here my role is to partner with the business to help them realize their data and digital ambitions, both through technology tools, skills and cultural change. So that's about it in a nutshell.

Adil, I love that and I love how you tie in the importance of your role towards the broader picture of how organizations do a lot of technology investments without necessarily thinking about the people component. And that's why I'm really excited to unpack today's topic with you. So I'm very excited to set the stage for today's conversation by really understanding the why behind a lot of data upskilling programs that you're leading at cbre. So maybe in your own words. Emily, walk us through why data upskilling is so important at cbre.

So maybe I'll just give you a bit of background on CBRE and exactly what we do. So I'll start there. So CBRE are a global leader in commercial real estate. We have over 105,000 employees. We serve clients like 100 countries around the world. And essentially what we do is we help clients realize their potential in real estate, whether that's helping them maximize value on their current future properties, whether it's working collaboratively to implement innovative work solutions or giving them advice and insight into to help them support their investment decisions. So our business essentially is all about delivering exceptional outcomes for clients. It's relationship focused and it relies on our people having the best information, the best data and the best insights at their fingertips so we can deliver the very best client outcomes. So that's why enabling every person at CBRE to realise their data potential and take their data skills to the next level has never been so important. Like it's really crucial to our future as an organization. And then just off the back of that, obviously today's clients are more connected and informed than ever before. They're wanting increasingly sophisticated services and advice. They want more advanced insights to justify their investment decisions. At cbre, we've always used data and information to deliver great client services, to deliver impactful insights and to make evidence based decisions. So going about using data and using data to justify decision making, it is nothing new for us because our people have done it every single day since CBRE's inception. I think the difference is now is that the volume and complexity of the data we hold is just growing exponentially, exponentially. I mean, we have got absolutely loads of it. So we can no longer rely on who and what we know to win business, to deliver a world class service. So data is increasingly becoming for us at cbre, it's a competitive differentiator and it's increasingly pivotal to helping us understand our clients, anticipating and predicting their needs and as I said, delivering a market leading service and our people are integral part of that transformation. It's not enough for us as an organisation to have data and tools alone. We need to have our people to have the skills and the knowledge to confidently read, analyze and communicate with data every single day. And for us we just believe it's too much of a valuable commodity to be the sole remit of data experts and data scientists and data analysts. That's why we're sort of on a mission at CBRE to upskill absolutely everybody across the UK and Ireland to work with data more effectively.

That's so awesome. And I love the way you set the stage for one, how it benefits not only CBRE employees, but also CBRE stakeholders and customers and frame it through the way the industry is moving as well. Moving on to the crux of today's conversation, you mentioned here, the upskilling program that CBRE has, a very, very ambitious program. I'm very excited to unpack with you this, this program at cbre. So can you first start off by giving a general overview of the program, what it looks like, how it's structured and how many people it impacts?

Within cbre, our data mission is to empower everyone across our UK and Ireland workforce to do more with data. So that roughly equates to around three and a half thousand people, more or less upskilling. So we want, on day one, when we launch our program, for there to be something for everybody. So everyone, no matter where they are on their data journey, whether they're a novice, whether they're someone that's really advanced with a PhD in data science, whether they're someone junior, whether they're someone that's really senior in the organisation from day one, that we want there to be something for them to upskill at. So that is the mission, to provide something for everybody. So it is ambitious. It's three and a half thousand people going through this program. They all have different needs, different reasons and different motivations for wanting to upskill, a needing to upskill. So, of course, to deliver this, you need a great team behind it, because great upskilling programs are delivered by great teams. To just give you some sort of context about the program, how we're delivering it from the start, it was really important to us that we carefully designed our project team with a diverse mix of skills and experience so we could deliver an impactful, inclusive and relevant learning program. So to give you an introduction to the program, so we have one project team which brings together around nine people from across CBRE and Data Camp. So, Data Camp, you guys, obviously we chose you as our preferred learning partner. It was one of, like, the best decisions we've made for this program. So we've been working together for a couple of months now. And honestly, Adele, it genuinely feels like we're just one big team. Like, it feels like we're one team. It really does. We've got shared values, shared goals, and I think all, all of us, what holds us all together is that we all have a genuine desire to transform our organization through upskilling and we're all on the same page about it. So Data Camp, for us, like, I know it's a separate company, but you guys really do feel like part of the CBRE fabric. Like, honestly, the Data Camp guys, like, on our project, they could honestly be like another CBRE colleague. Like, that's just how good the dynamics are between us. We feel like we've got the A team in place. Right, so with that, then, so from the CBRE side of things, we've obviously got an executive business sponsor, so that person helps legitimise the value of our program to leadership and C suite stakeholders. They're really involved in spearheading this at a senior level and communicating it to the wider organization. We've got senior leaders from learning and development, from digital enablement, digital transformation. So we're making sure that at the very top of the organisation we've got the right people involved in this. And then from a people on the ground type perspective, we've got L and D specialists, we've got myself as a change manager and project manager on the program from Data Camp side, we've got our customer success managers, product marketers, and then it's not only the delivery team that is responsible for making this happen, like we're the ones doing a lot of the legwork. But I think what a lot of people don't realise is it's not just about the delivery team. You also need a great support team to really make the comms and engagement and awareness campaign around a data literacy program impactful. We do draw on expertise from internal comms branding at Data Camp, they've got like the evangelist team, they've got really good data curriculum experts. So there's a much wider project team that are drawn in to help support the program. So it takes a village idol. It really does.

It definitely does. And I really appreciate one our partnership, but also how you've approached the program. And I'm excited to unpack all of these different elements from evangelism to architecting the program, as well as the different learner Personas that you have. So starting off with the Personas, and regardless of where you are on the spectrum of data skills, whether you're absolute beginner or you have more advanced data skills, there's often a multi Persona approach different folks go through for these learning paths. So can you walk us through the different Personas, if any, within the upskilling program that you have at CBRE and how you approach defining these Personas?

Yeah, so as a change manager, when it comes to Persona mapping, I always start really high level and I bring it back to like the, the Change Delivery framework. And for us, the Change Delivery framework that we've followed for this program is something called adkar. So ADKAR is a change management model. It's basically an acronym for five outcomes and individual needs to achieve change and be Successful in changing. So those five acronyms are Awareness of Change and why it's Needed. It's also Desire They've got to have a desire to want to change, they've got to have the motivation to want to do it, knowledge, the knowledge of how to change, the ability to change. And the last one is about reinforcement, so reinforcing the learning and applying it in their everyday role. So this is a really powerful model that it looks at change from the individual's perspective, which is the best way to deliver change. Like, look at what does the individual need to go through this change successfully? So in terms of like the Persona mapping that you were talking about as a change management person, that starts in the awareness phase. So for us at cbre, how we did that is we identified our stakeholders that were going to be involved and we started an organizational wide engagement campaign to raise awareness of the program. And as part of that campaign, we asked for early adopters and change champions for each business area to step forward so they could represent their area, help shape learning for their colleagues and be our eyes and ears on the ground. So people that were going to champion this to their wider business unit, get their colleagues involved and get that buy in at a local level. So with that we're targeting the whole organisation, but we're also then like picking out advocates in each area that can really represent their area and help shape the program and also the comms and engagement that come out of it. So then secondly, with like the Personas you were talking about, we then moved into the desire phase of the ad car model. So creating a desire for people to want to change, to want to upskill. So to do this, we use surveys and focus groups to get to know our early adopter community really well. So here we use those surveys and focus groups to understand things like key roles across the business, how do they interact with data today? What are their current pain points with data? Like what really gets on their nerves, like what really frustrates them with data? What are the opportunities to improve existing processes through upskilling? What would they do in an ideal world if, like, data skills and tech wasn't a barrier? What are the cool things that they'd be doing with data? How would they be using it to win more business, serve our clients better, get better insights and outcomes for our clients? And then lastly, like some key things, as part of those focus groups is also exploring what are people's motivations and resistance to change and what exactly do they need to feel supported and be helped to upskill effectively. So through doing that sort of discovery work with our early adopters, it really helped build a picture of our learners and that sort of resulted in us distilling most of our people into five key learner Personas. So for CBRE and this, this might be common across a couple of, across many organizations. For us, our key Personas are leaders, managers, people in client facing roles, people in non client facing roles, and our data and technology practitioners. So we've got five key ones for us now, there's like nuance and complexity within each of those. But broadly, each person across our UK and Ireland business will probably map into one or two of those Persona groups. So they'll be able to look at that and be like, oh, that's my one, I fit in there. They can see themselves and why this learning is important to them. So those Personas, they were really important for helping us to create desire amongst colleagues because one, it helped us build the platform. So our early adopters were really integral to shaping learning. For each Persona. We could really sort of understand like what learning did they need and we could justify why we'd given them some learning content over others based on their Persona and their role. It also helped us with comms and engagement, so it helped us to personalize messages in our comms approach. And the key thing for this as well was like bringing to life through comms and engagement and these Personas. What's in it for me? Because I guarantee you that's all people really care about. Like, what is in it for them? How's it going to help them be smarter, quicker, better, more productive at their job, stay part of the Persona work, really help bring that to life for people, what does it mean for them on the ground? And then the two other things were around stakeholder engagement. So the Personas helped us reach more difficult stakeholders. Because working with our early adopters, we were really able to understand for each Persona group who are the most resistant people in this Persona group, what's the best way and what are the best tactics to win them over? Because guaranteed, any change project, any upskilling project you work on, you're always going to have your naysayers, you're always going to have those people that are really difficult to win around, that don't want to change, that are afraid of changing, that are scared to do it, or they don't want to do it, they don't have enough time, all of that sort of stuff. So those Personas were really key in helping us identify who those popular people or populations of people were and how to address them. And then of course that sort of just feeds into our rollout plan. It helps us Put like more bespoke solutions in place with different types of stakeholders. So for example, our data practitioner community are really data savvy. Some of them have used data Camp already, so they probably need a lighter touch than maybe our C suite, which data might scare them and they need a bit of hand holding. So it's really helped there. So I think through following that sort of ADCOM model, like driving the awareness, thinking about what needs to change for them, thinking about how to give them the ability to change, linking it back to them role, it's really been quite powerful for us.

That's really awesome. And I love the holistic answer, hearing how you provide that framework towards how you determine the Personas. One thing I think a lot of organizations struggle with is that early stage of how do you determine your learning Personas? And your answer really clarifies a lot of different components that go to it. Maybe diving deeper slightly into identifying the challenges a Persona may have. Can you walk us through maybe the different best practices and lessons that you can share from exactly that mapping exercise that you've did by running focus groups and what are pitfalls other leaders need to avoid when running such exercises?

I would do the focus groups and because that really helps you understand people on the ground, like how they work today, how they interact with data, what tools and tech do they use. Because data is a broad topic and I think we were sort of finding in some of our focus groups just how broad people thought it was. Like it's about how they manage for some people, it's about how they manage their emails, how they talk to people on teams, where they store all their data, as well as about how you collect it, how you visualize it, the different tools that you use. So it's important to understand through those focus groups what is people's definition of data. Because it's all different for a lot of different types of people. So by understanding that you can then understand well this is people's understanding of data today and this is where we need to shift it to. So that when you're starting from day one, you've got that definition ready to go with. So people have a common understanding about when we talk about data and getting better at data upskilling, what exactly do we mean? So I think that that's quite key. I think getting to understand sort of people on the ground, their roles etc is really key. Because how do you know what you're going to change or how, how are you going to paint the vision of what people need to change if you don't know where they are today. Like people need to see the journey, they need to understand what the gap is so they know then how, what success looks like when we get there. So those focus groups are really key for understanding that first part. So it makes it easier for people to actually make the jump to the end goal, which is being more data literate. So I think that's quite key. And then I would also say if to any other organization listening, like pilot your program. So if you've got champions and you've got early adopters that are involved, I would definitely pilot the program with them. So get them into the platform early, set up some surveys so you can collect data from them. Set up some sort of like focus groups so you can ask them like face to face how did they find the learning, what was relevant to them, what helped them in their roles and why. I sort of advocate that is twofold. So one, it helps collect testimonials for the program. So it really helps with comms and engagement because you can get testimonials that you can use in launch. So real life examples across your early adopters of where the program's added value, what they've got out of it, what they're able to do better as a result of having done the upskilling. So it really offers like a compelling example when you go to launch to the wider organization of oh so and so over there did xyz. Oh yeah, I want to learn that. Like that sounds really interesting. So it creates momentum in the launch. So I would definitely do the pilot for that reason to get those testimonials up front. So you've got great examples come launch time. But then two, it also helps you fine tune the program so you can be confident that on day one, the learning that you put in there has been tested. You can robustly say that it works for the majority of people that are put in those Persona groups. And it also means that you can take some learning out or you can fix the modules or shape the learning to suit people if they say it's not relevant. So you've got the opportunity there to learn a few lessons and get it right before launch time. So if you're listening guys, like definitely put a pilot in. Don't just go straight into launching it, like put a pilot in, see what works and then flex and adapt your approach from there.

I completely agree. And especially on that comm side as well, like if you're able to from the pilot in relatively safe environment, collect a lot of great testimonials to drive higher excitement for the wider organization. That's such a massive win for the rest of the program.

Definitely. I think I'd also add to that is like plan ahead, like really put this on people's radars early because people are busy, they have a lot going on. It sometimes takes like more than one attempt for someone to get the message or to be aware that something's coming. So you need, especially with a large organization, you need to do that quite far out because there's so many people you need to reach. So I'd plan early, put it on people's radars early so they can get their head around what's changing and the fact that this is coming. It's not a shock to anyone when it lands on their doorstep and they've been told they've got to do it. And I think the other important point is you have to get leadership on board and bought in because people will follow great role models and people will do it if their leadership say it's important and are role modeling that behavior from the top. So I'd get them on board if you've got like leadership forums or leadership group strategic meetings, monthly sort of board meetings, whatever that might be for your organization, get on that agenda, have a really great like presentation to deliver and, and pitch it to them and really sell for them. Because I think when people go to leadership, they sometimes go with a this is our program and this is what we're going to do. And they go with like the nuts and bolts of the program, but they, they infrequently answer the question of what's in it for me. And leaders want to hear that as well. They want to hear how data upskilling is going to benefit their bottom line, their people, their productivity, how many clients they're able to win over and impress. So really sell to leadership, what's in it for them and the why they should be bought into it, why they should be championing it. And just make sure you find as many opportunities from the beginning where you're doing awareness all the way to launch to keep those people engaged and make sure you've got a great exec sponsor on board that can maybe get some of those leaders that are a little bit harder to get behind your mission. Get your executive sponsor to get involved in help winning them over.

Completely agree on all of these notions and really appreciate that insight. So you mentioned here the five different Personas within the program. What are the different skills that you're looking to grow within these different Personas.

Yeah. So it means something different for everyone. So I think for leadership, I mean, and this is the key thing, make sure leadership know what it means to them, that that's where the Persona mapping is really useful. Because for our leaders, they might never need to know how to collect data, they might never need to know how to analyze it or visualize it because they've got people underneath them that are capable of doing that. But they do need to know how to make more confident data led decisions. They do want to know how to spot opportunities and risks better. They do need to know from the data that they get in reports and dashboards, all of that sort of stuff, how do I ask better questions, more intelligent questions of the data I'm receiving? They need to be able to look at what someone's given them and be able to interrogate it properly, not just take like whoever created it, word for it, you know what I mean? Which can happen especially when like you think, well, they're the ones with the data expertise, I'll just implicitly trust them. So they've got to be able to ask better questions of data. And then for them it's all about, for our leadership, it's about managing their data talent more effectively. Effectively. It's about understanding not just across their data talent, but across their workforce, like the depth and breadth of data skills and where they can plug skills gaps more effectively. How can they effectively manage resources on projects and plan future headcounts? If you know what the mapping of data skills is across your workforce, all of those things become a lot easier. For our manager population, it's all about flipping the switch from reactive to proactive. So being able to identify risks, opportunities get ahead of things like attrition, burnout, churn. It's all about empowering teams to make the right decisions with confidence and empowering their teams to navigate challenges ahead effectively because they feel more confident in making evidence based decisions. For our client facing teams and people, it's all about visualizing data better, communicating it better. By doing that, they'll be able to create more trust and credibility with clients who need that data to justify their investment decisions. For our client facing teams, it might also be about if we've got better data and we're able to better understand our clients from that data. They can also personalise client pitches and marketing because they'll be able to anticipate what our clients want before they even ask for it. They'll be able to look at key trends and patterns in the market. What are clients really looking for nowadays, how can we tailor our marketing approach so they understand that we're really well suited to deliver what they need. And for client facing teams, it might also be about optimizing sales processes so driving efficiency throughout the sales process, understanding top performing products, markets, salespeople and brokers where there are opportunities to cross sell. So for client facing teams it really is like it can be a complete game changer in terms of like revenue generation, but also like providing just amazing results for our clients. And then lastly, like non client facing teams, I mean there is a bit of crossover with the client facing, but it's about finding the right solutions to problems. So if you do have a problem or you've got a business challenge, be able to look at the data that might be creating that problem. It's about deep diving into problems better. It's also about making better evidence based decisions and backing up arguments and to why there might be a case for change or why they want to might introduce a new technology or a new process. If you've got the data and the evidence behind that and you're able to present it in a compelling and credible way, you're more likely to like push through your projects on time. You're more likely to get funding for something, you're more likely to get budget for that new initiative next year or new headcounts for a new program that you've got starting. So it's all about better decision making and better problem solving. And then lastly for our data practitioners, I mean for them, I mean they have to update their skill set all the time, right? Because new technologies and new tools are always coming into the market. So for them it's all about sort of keeping their skills relevant, keeping them current, keeping up to date with what's going on in industry. But it's also about for them, maybe even business skills like thinking about how they can apply like their data and analytics technology techniques to solve like real business problems. For them as well, it could also be about for some areas of the business, we've got a lot of data analysts, some really want to get into the data science elements. So predictive models and analysis, machine learning, being able to spot the best opportunities and trends in the market, being able to sort of like predict client behavior and what they're going to need next. So I think for our data practitioners it's both getting to know the business better, but it is also about developing some of those data science skills as well. So it really is like a bit of a mix.

I love the level of personalization that you're applying here across all of these Personas. One additional wrinkle hearing challenge with rolling out such an ambitious program is the sheer number of people involved in the upskilling. So how have you approached upskilling? 3,500 people almost. And what are some of the challenges associated with upscaling such a large amount of people?

Yeah, I think one of them is making it really, really relevant for people. So, I mean, we've bucketed people into these five Personas, but I think there's obviously going to be people that need a bit more hand holding than others and need to be told how individually it really can be fitted into their role. So I think, like, getting management on board is a big part of how you address that. Because us, as a program with so many people, we are never going to have the bandwidth to sit down with each and every individual person and really think about, well, how do you embed it into your everyday role? How do you just make this part of, like, how you do business and how you work and operate? It's never going to happen. So our management community is a huge part of that. So for us, like, when it comes to rollout, so one, we've got managers that are on the earlier access program, so they're coming to the focus groups, they're doing the surveys, they're part of the early access program, they're piloting the learning for their people. So they're already helping to shape the program and advocate it to their team. So I think it's important to not just have a lot of junior people in the programme, because often with stuff like this, and I think other people in different organisations will have the same problem, business areas tend to put forward, like their graduates or their associates and senior associates forward for this type of thing. But actually to create a learning program that's relatable to everyone, you have to have a mix of, like, leaders, managers, technical colleagues. Your pilot group has to represent. It has to be an accurate representation of the wider organization. So, you know, you're delivering something that will work for everyone, so get your managers involved. And then I also think, like, for us, we're going to be having briefings with our managers, so part of that briefing is talking to them through the program, giving them a bit of a toolkit. So I put in a toolkit together on how they can make this learning work in their teams. So it could be that they do a course together or they do a module together. So there's a module in Data Camp called Like, what is data literacy? We're toying with the moment about getting teams to do one chapter of that module together as part of a team meeting that everyone starts off like, with the same experience. It becomes like a team thing that they can do together is something tangible that managers can actually action on. And then just giving them sort of pointers on how, thinking about how to embed this into their everyday, how to make sure that we're continually reviewing people's learning and development plans for data skills, rewarding and recognizing our people when they put their data skills to practice and complete learning on Data Camp. So you really have to make sure that we've got that group on board and that they really have like, a concrete, actionable plan of what they can do with their people. And then I. And then I also think it's about performance measurement. Like, you have to be able to know when a program's been successful. And we've got a really good scorecard in place for our program. So we're assessing it against a number of different benchmarks and we've got some really ambitious targets. And we're going to be reviewing that periodically after launch to go, where are we now? What's working well, what's not working? Where's it not working? Who's it not working with? And how can we put interventions and plans in place to reach those people? What areas need a bit more love and attention? What areas are flying? And how can we share their success stories wider? So it really is about not just launching and then being like, oh, well, we've done that now let's move on. This is something that's here to stay. And I think when people know it's here to stay and they know that we're going to be regularly reviewing it, holding managers accountable, holding the business accountable, then that's where I think that we'll really start to get that adoption and it will just become part of how people learn and how people do. Like, data led business across cbre.

One thing that cuts across most of the answers that you've had so far, and the theme in our discussion is really the importance of evangelizing and answering that key question for the learner at cbre, which is, what's in it for me? So how have you approached answering that question and can you share tactics that you found worked really well to evangelize the program?

So first of all, I think you've got to have, like, great comms and marketing and branding, like, for so many data literacy programs that I've seen They're using like bog standard, like presentations, just your standard like corporate template. They've got a couple of bullet points on a few, a few slides as to why it's important. I would definitely say one of the things that's really stood out for our program is our branding team have just, just been amazing. Like our presentation packs, our comms collateral that we've got on our plasma TVs, on our screens, posters, all of that sort of stuff, marketing collateral, video collateral. It stands out, it pops. It's got a distinctive look and a distinctive feel. People look at our program and they, it doesn't just look like corporate compliance training which everyone, we've got to do it because it's a necessary evil, do you know what I mean? But people look at it and go, oh, do you know what I mean? Every year like oh God, we've got to do that again. I don't want anyone to look at our programmers think that. I want them to think it's exciting, I want them to be curious. And our branding does that. It's really slick and it stands out. So I think get your branding and your comms right. Like if you've got a branding team in your organization and you've got a good internal comms team like we do, like definitely join up with them to create something visually engaging. Because I think if it looks good, people will want to read it, they'll want to look at it, they'll want to go and find out more. So make sure it looks good. The second point I want to make is around internal comms. So we've got a great internal comms team and we have made sure that you cannot miss our data upskilling program anywhere. It's on the Internet, it's on the plasma TV screens. So we've been doing like town hall sort of roadshows. So going around every service line, getting it in front of people's faces, like putting, presenting it, showing video on it, really evangelizing in person the benefits because it's really not enough nowadays people are busy. It's not enough to just put something up on the Internet or send an email. You have to get in front of people and I think that's the most impactful thing actually a lot of our face to face interactions and people see how passionate like our project team is, how passionate our data camp partners are in this program. It's infectious, I think. So that would be my other sort of point is really put people on your program that aren't just delivering it because they have to or aren't just delivering it because it's part of their performance objectives and they're just coming into work to do a job. Get people on your program to lead it that are really going to be passionate and energized about it because that rubs off on people. People buy into people and they buy into people that believe in what they're selling. So find who those people are and put them on your program. And then I think thirdly, I mean, if there was another tip I'd give, it would genuinely be to get people on your program that have great change management experience and if they don't have a good change management background, get people that really know how to put the learner at the heart of something. They're empathetic, they can put themselves in the learner's shoes all the way through and think, oh, what would I need at this point? What would I need going into pilot? What would I need coming up to launch? What do I need on day one of my launch day? One week, one month, one month? 6. You have to be able to get, have people on the program that all the way along have got that learner in mind and never take their eye off the ball with that. And I think as long as you've got that, as long as you're thinking about the learner every step of the way, that's just really going to help. And lastly, I do think that Persona work is really powerful because that Persona work will bring to life, especially through the early adopter groups. Definitely have early adopters because that will help bring to life for each Persona real life examples of where the learning can help, real life pain points which other people listen to and think, oh, do you know what that really annoys me as well. Like I really hate doing that. I wish there was a quicker way to do that process or I wish there was a way to automate this or make my presentations more impactful, showcase my data better, communicate it better, whatever it might be. So do the Persona work, get your early inductors involved and really have those concrete real life examples that help win other people over.

That's really great. And I love just the way you think about the importance of evangelism and marketing and putting the message out there is so important. Maybe somewhere related to this is how do you approach objection handling when someone is not yet convinced. You mentioned here there could be naysayers or could be people who are not convinced. How do you approach these conversations and how are you able to bridge that gap?

Yeah, well, we all you're always going to have. I don't think it matters. Like if it's an upskilling program, a new piece of technology, a new tool, new process, whatever it might be. Every, every change you have those naysayers. I think the key thing for me is you got to have really good concrete reason why. And I think your why has to be personal. So for us, when we were starting, I think we were thinking about it very generically. Like, this is going to help people be more productive. It's going to help them win more, deliver better client outcomes and be fit for the future. Now those things sound great, but the end person hearing me saying it is like, yeah, but I don't really know what that means for me. Like, I still don't understand, like you haven't given me a compelling enough reason why to do it. Because productivity, like what am I going to be productive in? What am I going to do faster? Which clients am I going to impress more? It doesn't mean anything. So I think you have to get to those concrete real life, real world examples to really bring it to life. And with that Persona work. So we've got a one pager for each of our Personas and on those Personas it talks about, you know, it literally says, I've got it up in front of me. It literally says like, what's in it for leaders? And I think you gotta have that in your back pocket when you're talking to people. Whether it's like a leadership forum or a town hall, you've got to have in your back pocket what is in it for them. Like what is, what are their, what things really paying them at the minute, what opportunities do want to take advantage of. Have that in your back pocket. When you go into those conversations and be prepared to just, you don't have to go through like your whole pitch. For each Persona, you just bring out a few. Do you know what I mean? Like for leaders this might mean this. For client facing teams it might lead this. You don't have to go through an exhaustive list, but just give them, just give them a flavor of what's to come. And then if you get challenged off the back of that still, then you've still got like 10 other answers on your list that you can go, okay, well that didn't win them over. But what about Got xyz? So definitely be prepared with these people. It might even help as well. So at the beginning of change management, when you're mapping out your stakeholders, we often do like resistance tactics and planning. So you think about, like, what are all of the challenges that someone's going to throw at you for this program? What are they going to say? Is it going to be. They don't have enough time? Status quo already works for me. Why do I need to change? I like the process. We've already got, whatever it might be, write it down and think of, like, how you would handle it. And then you're going into those conversations with the naysayers prepared. And then I think lastly around people that are negative or quite resistant. I am a bit sneaky and I always think, who do those people listen to? Who influences them? Like, if I know as well that I've got particularly, like, someone that's very resistant, very. Then they're very senior and I know that that person has influence on, like, hundreds of people underneath them. I think, who would that person listen to? And then I go to the person that they would listen to, who probably is more warm and receptive to what I'm doing, and then I get them on board and then I'd ask them then, and this is part of the executive sponsor role as well within the program, I get them to go, well, we've got this group of stakeholders over here. They probably won't listen to me because I'm too low down the pecking order, but they might listen to you and they'll definitely listen to their peer or someone senior than them to have a strategy. Get other people on board that are going to evangelise your case and bring them round. And if that doesn't work, get their people on board. Because often, especially if it's more senior people that are resistant to change, the people underneath them are the ones that feel the pain of not being data led most acutely. They get them on board and when they soon start hearing that people in numbers are talking about this and it's getting momentum, I mean, they have to stop and listen to it at some point. So if you can't get them directly through having, like, great retorts, great resistance tactics go around is what I'd advise.

That's really awesome, Emily. Now, of course, Emily, as we close out, what is next for the D Literacy program at cbre?

So, of course, I think the big milestone for us is actually launching our program and I'm so excited for it. Like, I actually can't wait to show people, like, what has been months and months of hard work from both CBRE's end and the data camp end. And also, like, can't wait to just see, like, all the hard work and the input of our amazing early adopter groups come to fruition because obviously they've been a huge part of us pulling this program together and really making sure that learning is relevant and impactful for everyone across our organization. So we've got the launch, at our launch, we've got like a great keynote speaker for the first day. We've also got local regional rollouts as well. It was really important for us that this didn't just feel like a great initiative from London and all the other offices, just get on board. We really wanted every single office to feel like it was their program for their people. Whether you're in Scotland or Manchester, Birmingham or Dublin. We wanted every single office to have a launch and feel the buzz around the data literacy program. We want them to be excited and for them to like, this is their program for their people, they own it and they're just as important as our head office. So everyone feels like they get an equal experience. So we've got the local rollouts and then I think after the local rollouts, it's about rewarding, like really good use cases and really good success stories. Rewarding learners that are going above and beyond with their learning, rewarding people that are really putting their learning into practice. So we're going to have some like, like giveaways and we've got like some spotlights planned for like the intranet and at local town halls and stuff to really celebrate people and share good news stories of where there's best practice across the organization. And then finally, I think it's just about making sure that we're taking those checkpoints to stop, pause, reflect on how well we've, we've done and then look at areas where we might want to improve. Because I think that's really important. Measuring success. I mean, we couldn't really have a data literacy program and not be able to have the data behind it to show whether it's been successful or not. So we're definitely beginning to do that and looking at where we can strengthen areas we're really good at. But then looking at where some of the gaps are, where do we need to encourage adoption, where do we need to give a bit more love and care, where do we need to perhaps refine and further fine tune some of the learning we put on for people? And then I suppose, like, once we get to the end of that year, I think year two is then probably because. Because this year is just about delivering something for everyone. I think year two will be about actually working with different business units and actually getting into the nuts and bolts of how does this impact like your people day to day? Like how can we actually impact people on a role and job specific level rather than just a general company wide level?

That is awesome. Thank you so much, Emily for coming on the show. Before we wrap up, do you have any final call to action?

Do you know what? I think, you know, if there's anything that people can take away from this is just being be enthusiastic about your program. Like find people that are really passionate about what you do and bring them on board and get people on board that are really gonna evangelize what your program is there to do and evangelize the benefits it and bring it to life for people. I think that's like the final note. People will buy into it if you pull out the what's in it for me factor and make it really relevant to their job. Yeah, I think actually we'll stick with like the what's in it for me factor because I think that's the key thing if you can bring that to life for people every step of the way. What's in it for me? What is benefits. You should be on track to get really good adoption providing that obviously you're learning content matches the what's in it for me statement as well.

That is really great. Thank you so much, Emily for coming on the podcast.

Thank you for having me. It's been such a pleasure. Thanks Adele.

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