LIVE: Part 1: The Working From Home Conundrum with Ray McGrath, Kate Aldridge & Andy Lopata #35

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to a very special episode of The Company Doctor, recorded in front of a live audience here in London. We're thrilled to have three excellent guests on our panel to discuss what we've dubbed the working from home conundrum. In no particular order, we have Andy Lopata, author and host of the Connected Leadership podcast, and one of the UK's leading business networking strategists according to the Financial Times. Kate Aldridge, Paysafe's SVP Corporate Communications, Content and Corporate Responsibility, who recently ran a global survey on what employees want to do about working from home. And Ray McGrath, the Execution Practice Leader UK and Europe at Franklin Covey, who specializes in helping people perform at their peak by changing their mindsets and their behavior. Head over to thecompanydoctor.com for more information on our guests and to peruse previous episodes. And in the meantime, enjoy this absolute humdinger of a live show. Yeah, we're talking working from home today, which is a, it's a quite contentious issue. It's quite polarizing in many ways. Lots of people feel differently about it, whether you're an employee or an employer, whether you represent an HR team. There's lots of different angles to it, and we've got a great, um, a great panel to discuss it. But before we introduce them, I wondered if maybe Gary would be interested in giving his stance, because it's a, it's a rickety fence. Wow. This, yeah.

It's a conundrum, George.

It is a conundrum.

Yeah, that's it. Who thought you'd ask me this question?

Yeah.

Well, I think, thank you for asking the question. I didn't know it was coming. But yeah, for me, one of the reasons we want to have this session is it's very polarising because we speak to lots of leaders and lots of people in business and no one knows what to do. It's like some people want to come to the office and some people don't. And the conundrum is, do I push people or do I not push people? And I'm looking to find out the answer. I don't have the answer, by the way. I'm a consultant. I find answers for other people. So, you know, it is a conundrum and I'm not sure there's a clear answer, but we're going to find out. So I'm not going to do much speaking because I want to find out from these guys.

Okay, great.

But thanks for asking. No worries.

You're welcome.

So should we kick off?

Yeah, let's kick off with some questions. Yeah, you lead the way.

By the way, George and I, when we record the podcast, we don't normally meet face to face, so we're normally like looking at each other through a video. So it feels weird.

It does feel strange. Yeah, yeah. I like it though.

I don't know what to do. Um, yes, I— Ray, do you mind if I pick on you first? Sure. Because I've got that conundrum that we just spoke about. I've got this question and I would ask all of you actually, but it's a bit of a fast-changing situation. You know, quite a few managers I speak to really want to get people in the office, you know, rather than make it the rule rather than the exception, actually, because it used to be the other way around. What's your thoughts on how we tip the balance to improve? Because collaboration seems to be a bit of an issue that's coming up.

Thoughts? I guess the first thing I would say is the genie's definitely out the bottle now. Like, you know, that's not going back in. So people are accustomed to a different way of working. So that's, that's the first thing. So going back to that more classical way of working, I, I'm really, I really can't see it happening. When you talk about collaboration, it's interesting because you step into high-tech environments, and they say, well, no, we've, we've got what we need if we want to work from home. There's all of these tools available, all these techniques that we can employ. And then you see the Google building just being built, and that's a billion pounds worth of building that's going to house only 10,000 people.

A nice wine bar next door, by the way.

Yeah. So they say it aids collaboration, and that's coming from a business that specializes in collaboration tools. I think the reality of it, and I can't help thinking it will be the common theme today, is human contact, isn't it? That's the stimulus that we, that we seek, and it's the real human contact that we feed off. And feeding off a screen is tough going. I've tried. So I'm, I'm not sure I'm necessarily answering that.

No, no, but plenty more questions coming. But that is a conundrum, right?

Sort of sense of it. Yeah, that's, that's what makes the conundrum. And even like I say, just watching Watching this building being constructed, for me, epitomises the conundrum of who it is and just the scale of it.

No, it makes sense to me. Kate, can I ask you a question? Because I know you were kind of close with the leadership, and we don't want you to tell us tells because obviously they'll be listening. But in a leadership generically, where some of the leadership want to get people back in the office, I think, you know, what's the thought pattern that people are going through and what sort of things are coming up? With the collaboration in mind?

It's been really interesting because it's been the subject of just absolutely intense debate at Paysafe amongst our executive leadership team and also what we call our senior management team, which is the layer below. And it's a very, very divisive topic because on the one hand we have— and he won't mind me saying this— the chief technology officer He very openly believes in giving people the full choice of remote working and never asking them to come into the office if that's their preference. Because his view is that a lot of his engineers and developers, they actually are the type of people, and he's profiling them a little, who thrive on like burying themselves in code. And actually it can be very disruptive to them if they've got to commute into an office and have lots of stuff going on around them. And he's also saying that the area he works in is highly, highly competitive to recruit. And we have a big office in Sofia in Bulgaria where a lot of tech companies are based, and you have to think of ways to attract people. And the only way you can attract certain people is by saying you can work fully remote. So he's a passionate advocate in allowing people that option and having it on the table. Whereas we have plenty of other executives who believe that we're going to lose a lot of our culture as a business and the Paysafe spirit and that sense of belonging. And we've always prided ourselves on having big in-person events, and it's one of the reasons why people love working for Paysafe and stay with Paysafe is that in-person collaboration and the human touch you were referring to. So I can honestly say there was— there's been no consensus amongst leadership on the best approach. And so we've very much gone to the people and taken the vote.

All right, we're going to come back to that. Don't divulge it, but I'm looking forward to hearing that. Andy, question for you: if you're a manager, should you push people to come back to your office or not?

Um, listening to the questions and the answers so far, and they reflect a lot of the conversations that I've heard and I've had around this topic, I, I think there's one major issue with it. And that's not, that's not a criticism of the answers, I think it's a criticism of the debate as a whole. And that is we're painting with very broad brushstrokes. And even that question, should a manager push or not? Yes and no. And, and that's the problem, because everything's with a broad brush stroke. One person will say, we have to get everyone back to increased collaboration and human interaction. Another will say, well, actually, we can save on office space by keeping people away. One person will say, our staff like to work from, from home, and actually their personality suits that. Another will say, well, actually, our staff thrive from being around each other. It's all of these things and more, and, and that's the problem with it. So we, you know, from looking at the, the, the positives of each approach, you can talk about the, the importance of collaboration, the importance of innovation. I think that there is a very strong argument for having people in an office to increase those two things. And I had a— I have a client in Germany who went from— they're in the medical devices field— they went from having I think 13 offices around Germany to one just outside Frankfurt, which they called their Innovation Center. And the whole goal was to bring people together to have those conversations and to innovate. But then there are— you can have, you know, issues with productivity. Why waste an hour to 2, 3 hours a day on commuting when people can be far more productive from home? I started hybrid working, let's call it that, over 15 years ago. Because I found that when I was in the office— and this is ironic given that I teach professional relationships— but when I was in the office, I couldn't get things done because people kept wanting to talk to me.

Early doctor you are.

Well, when I just wanted to focus, I wanted to work from home so I didn't have all these constant interruptions. So I, you know, I hybrid worked. So from the outcomes perspective, you will have a need for innovation, you'll have a need for productivity. And from a person, a human element, you'll have people who have a secluded office at home room with no kids, no pets, no screaming neighbors, and are able to hide themselves away and work really well. You'll equally have people who are sat on the corner of their bed with people banging on the door and just can't wait to get out. So the answer for me is, should a manager push? No, a manager should have a conversation, and a manager should think. And I, I interviewed Valerie Belhassen, who's the compliance head of HR for BNP Paribas, for my podcast, and she came up with a brilliant answer that I've shared with all clients since. And it's basically when people come into the office, do work in the office, do things in the office that you can't do at home. So don't come into the office and sit at your terminal all day and code. Come into the office and talk and have team meetings, you know, work together to ensure that the right people are in the office at the same time to have conversations. And then you can have an effective hybrid approach. But all I hear is, you know, when we're recording this, we're going— we're having these awful Conservative leadership debates in the UK, and it's just like that. There's no nuance. It's take a position and stick to it and get shot down if you deviate at all.

You know, I've spoken to a lot of people about this and friends and colleagues who, again, you know, as we all do, have very different opinions. But from an employee perspective, if you're either starting out or if you're a very sort of driven person, are you— and maybe this is a question for Kate, you know, are you at a disadvantage if you don't come into the office? Are you going to be overlooked for a promotion? Is that something to fear? Should people be thinking, "Oh, I need to come in all the time, otherwise so-and-so is going to get this promotion, or they're going to be favoured over me in some respect or other." Is that something which people need to consider?

I don't think it's completely black and white, and I think we're still learning that and haven't seen enough results, or certainly haven't seen that enough results yet at Paysafe. But one of the key ways you get promoted is by demonstrating your value to your boss and making yourself indispensable, going well beyond your job description, and very much demonstrating your worth more generally by good reporting. I mean, that's basically just a very— you've probably got much better.

We've been— this is what we've been doing wrong, George.

Yeah, that's why I haven't been promoted.

Tips on development than I have. But that, for me, that's always That's something I, I think, and I think you can equally do that remotely. It's long— going back to your point, it's important to have the conversation with your boss because if your boss does want to see you eye to eye and have more kind of chewing the fat type moments with you, then I think you need to respect that if you want to get on in your career and that boss is the decision maker. I mean, that's just common sense. Yeah, but if your boss is like many people at Paysafe, is in a different— working in a different country. It doesn't make one jot of difference. Going into the office is going to help you with networking with others and stakeholders, but I think it's having that agreement with your boss is critical. And I think there's plenty of things you can do to get yourself noticed even if you're not going into the office. And I'm bound to say this because I'm a comms person, but think about your personal brand. Think about, are you commenting on social media about thought leadership topics, about posts the company's putting out? Because I noticed the people who were doing that. Are you putting your hand up and offering to write a blog on something? Just going above and beyond your role. I think there's plenty of ways you can raise your profile.

So that extracurricular activity?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. You've also got to do your job well as on top of that. Well, that helps. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because it's easy to see where this might be going. We might end up talking about hybrid. The answer might be hybrid, but let me throw something in here. So hybrid seems a bit half pregnant to me. Just throw it out there. The reason is you can go into town for a meeting and find most of the people when you go into the room are on a remote call and I think I've come all the way in, they seem to be at home. Or sometimes I'm stuck in a coffee bar making a Teams call, you know, trying to put the backdrop on. I was in the middle of King's Cross. Well, it sounds rad, bad, doesn't it? Baker Street. And I had my backdrop on, looked like it was in Shoreditch. So what's your experience? About hybrid working that, you know, because I don't think it's necessarily the answer to everything. Maybe, Reys, uh, what's your thoughts about that?

I think I'd quite like to go back to a couple of maybe the previous points as well.

You can do both, blend it in your time. You go for it.

This whole pushing and that, I just not— I'm just not convinced it matters. I'm honestly not convinced it matters where you are. What matters is performance. And that actually sounded quite hard work, you know, the personal branding and the The blogging and making yourself known, uh, oh yeah, that— I'm not sure there's many have got those, those gifts. But if you're employed to perform, so should a leader push for you to back in the office? I had no idea. Should push for performance. That's what we should push for. We shouldn't shy away from it. And so there's something about that I feel really, really passionate about. And, and therefore there's a, there's a really significant responsibility on the leader to understand what performance looks like. How does it manifest itself? How can it be achieved? You may live 1,000 miles away, or you may, you may sit opposite me and, and be physically right there. That, that needs to be okay.

And if, yeah, so if you translated that performance, right, because I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

Is there a preference of where you can perform more? How do you work out, is it remotely or is it—

oh, for sure. I, I, and maybe I just look at it too simplistically. I, if you're an individual contributor and you're a creative, you're going to operate kind of nicely at home, you know, and— or I say at home, in a dedicated, somewhat secluded, calm environment, or an environment that meets you where you're at. But if your work is a team sport, so one of my clients is a very significant financial services provider up in Edinburgh, 450 agents on the phone offering lots of different types of services in the organization. They need to be in. They do need to be in. They need to listen to each other, feed off each other. So there's this beautiful line used in— there's a book called The Nowhere Office. There's this beautiful line that said, um, in a great office environment there's birdsong. You know, when you get this, this kind of, this buzz, this kind of noise in the background. And there are particular kinds of roles, like I say, that's an out-and-out team sport where you need that birdsong, you need that energy being created. And trying to create that remotely, whatever work from home means, I just don't know.

You've just conjured up something in my mind. I'm obsessed with the guy who's mowing the leaves outside my house, so the birdsong in my house is the guy mowing the lawn and blowing up the leaves.

That's a different kind of sound.

Yeah, but I get what you're saying, so there's a kind of harmony, obviously not too loud, but it gives an atmosphere.

Indeed, indeed.

Andy, go on. Yeah, a couple of things on that.

You can disagree with Ray, by the way.

And I'm going to.

Good, thank you for doing that.

Not fully, but I'm going to throw a spanner in the works, but first of all, on, on the birdsong, I do agree. In my 20s, I had a lot of sales jobs, and I think a sales environment, which is what you're talking about, that energy you get from the people around you all on the pitch, it does drive you on. And I think that there's elements like that. And you talked about the creative space where you need to write, for example, or focus on a design where maybe a little bit more quiet time is needed. Um, where I'm gonna sort of, sort of just pick up on what you said, and I think this goes to Kate's point as well, is where you say it's got to be performance, got to be performance. Absolutely, performance has got to be strong and we've got to create the right environment for that. But Harvey Coleman produced a very famous piece of research in the 1990s, but I think it's still relevant today, called PIE, known as PIE. You come across it, so you know where I'm going with this. Coleman looked at the three factors that went into promotion, which goes back to your previous question. And the 3 factors he looked at were performance, image, and exposure. Performance accounted for 10%, image was 30%, exposure was 60%. So if you just do a good job, you're not going to get that promotion. And Kate, you said that your boss needs to know. I always argue, well, actually more than your boss needs to know. If I think when I worked in corporate, my boss wasn't the person who was going to promote me, nor were my peers, but they would know the quality of my work. Um, but it's the exposure piece is so important because you need those people beyond direct contact with you to be aware of you. And it's not just about promotions, it's about selling ideas, it's about selling products and services, it's about anything where other people have a say on the success of your project. Because so many times a conversation is going to take place in a room where you are not present, and you need other people in that room to champion and advocate for you. So you do lose out if you're not in the office in that environment. But I agree with Kate that you can do things to still build up your profile while working from home. For example, you are proactive in ensuring that the conversations you have with your colleagues, with your boss, with other people in the organization are not just transactional ones, uh, that you arrange a half-hour phone call just to check in. You pick up if you're in a Zoom meeting and someone says something interesting, you send them a note and you say, actually, I really liked what you said there, either in the chat during the meeting or an email afterwards, can we have a virtual coffee and discuss it? So you can be proactive around building that exposure by working from home, but it is harder.

Brilliant. Okay, I want to switch tracks now with you. I want to go back to my other question, the hybrid thing, because I think by the end of this session we're going to go hybrid's the answer, and I'm not sure. So just to be controversial, hybrid seems half pregnant to me. What's your thoughts? Young Kate.

I like the young. I, I think we're probably going to be in violent agreement with this, but I think hybrid is the best outcome for most people. Not everybody, but certainly based on my Paysafe experience and the feedback we've had from the vast majority of people is they do want that blended experience. They do want the option to have an office to go to for collaboration days, workshops, brainstorms. But for the vast majority of the time, when their work is maybe a bit more transactional, they want the benefit of a better work-life balance that they get from working at home. To your point though, you mentioned about sitting in a cafe in King's Cross or something, putting your backdrop on. Stuff like that really makes me anxious.

What, me being in the middle of King's Cross?

I was on the other end of that call, trust me, I was anxious.

Because depending on the role you do, I don't think that's always appropriate. And certainly I look after a comms team, we deal with a lot of privileged information, we get material information, we're a public company, and one of the big concerns we have, and it's become a heightened problem with hybrid working, is the infosec risks and security of your information and confidentiality. And I certainly wouldn't encourage any of my team to take hybrid working into a public cafe. Fine for the odd—

no, no, but this is a good point. So I was on— I actually had a call with Andy at King's Cross, and I couldn't make it to an office to have the call, so I just had to do the call where I was. But it's a good point, the security is interesting. And Ray, can I come back to you? Because you, you were kind of giving us some guidance on the hybrid colour. One of my customers talks about me and wee time. And when I need me time, and I need to be, I think you were saying, Kate, then I can work at home or somewhere safe. And when I do wee time, we need to be together. Give us some more of your thoughts about the nuance of the hybrid bit that you were trying to go on.

Yeah, so I've got a client in the public sector, 17,600 people in the organisation, They're 40%. It's all about 40%. It's, it's 2 days in, 3 days out. And, and so, so that, that was actually quite a good start. So I did my research with them. Their structure, their rules associated with it. And, uh, in that environment, it was really welcome. It wasn't constraining. It wasn't kind of draconian in any way. There was clarity. On what's expected of very, very large community of public service colleagues in these kind of environments. So that would be the first thing that I rather like about hybrid when it's done well and it's clear what's expected. I like that a lot, even down to your working day, how you conduct yourself when you're on Teams or when you're on Zoom. And I don't feel the whole Big Brother thing at all when they're saying you should take regular breaks and have a go at 30-minute bursts and getting all sorts of advice associated with that. So for me, when I hear hybrid, provided the company, the organization has thought about the kind of dynamic, the cadence of it all, the rhythm of it all, and they've kind of codified it somewhat. I think it's very good.

Why not? Can I, uh, chip in? Sure. Because that was exactly the thought process we went through with Paysafe, and when we consulted our employees as well, and we concluded that a 2-2-1 policy would be a really reasonable approach. So a 2-2-1 is 2 days at home, 2 days in the office, and then a 5th day where you can decide whether you spend it at home or the office. So we were completely clear on it, completely, if I say so myself, completely clear comms, a very, very clear policy, launched it. And I think it would be fair to say it's been quite a poor success, even though we were totally clear on it and it was what people said they wanted. And the missing piece for us, the reason why it didn't work, was because we didn't the leadership didn't play a part in it, and so no one really came back to the office.

They didn't do 2-2-1, so we mean they didn't do 2-2-1 themselves.

We— I mean, this is against Sandra Coney now. We weren't policing it. There was no consequences if you didn't follow it. So just having a policy and being completely clear on expectations on its own wasn't— hasn't proved to be enough, or it has to be leader-led.

I completely agree.

And that's where we went wrong.

Does it need to be done in teams though? Because what I found, maybe controversially, from a selfish perspective, I find hybrid working great because it means I can pretty much do whatever I like. Wear your pyjamas. Wear my pyjamas, as I still am. But from a business productivity perspective, having recently started a new job, I find it really difficult because I don't know who's in when, you know, I try and get ahold of them when they're working remotely and I can't. If I'm trying to create, you know, we're going back to the collaboration chat, if I'm trying to create a sort of brainstorming environment, it's next to impossible because, oh, so-and-so doesn't work on Wednesdays. Oh, this person works from the shed on Fridays and the reception there is terrible. And so it makes it really, really difficult to create a creative environment. So I think, as you're saying, it needs to be leader-led because it needs to be right, this is exactly what's happening. Or it needs to be, right, this team is going to be doing these 2 days. It can't be split. I don't know if you would agree with this. It can be sort of, I'm going to do this, whereas the rest of the team do that. From what I'm gathering, and I'm sort of talking myself into a hole here, but I do think that it needs to be everyone doing the same thing, otherwise it falls to pieces.

I think that was our learning. We did actually need to be a bit more prescriptive. We were too kind of chilled. This is the model, just follow the model.

If I go back to my first answer, I think it comes down to the why. What are you trying to achieve? And instead of saying, do we want hybrid or do we want working from home, do we want working from the office, what do we want to achieve and what's going to help us get there? So if the why is collaboration and innovation, create the space for that to happen. So we need these— this team to work together, or we need these two teams to talk, then on these dates they all need to be in. Uh, if it is productivity, then you as individuals will work out where you are most productive, and at those times you decide whether you work from home or in, or work from in the office. And so you have not a 2-2-1 and not a, you know, a 3-2 or whatever it might be, or 5-a-side or 6-a-side formations in my football fan's head. Um, but you have a, a set in stone, these are the times when we have to be in and this is who has to be in. These are the times where actually we would prefer you to work from home if you can. And I think that's the one that needs to be a little bit looser because not everyone has, as I mentioned earlier, conducive environment to work from home. But then some flexibility in the, in the middle, and then it comes down to communication. And that's really where you're going to with that point.

You need that communication in the middle because it can be a bit of a power struggle, right? Like, you know, who's in charge of what's best you would assume it's the leadership teams and they need to direct it. But then if they're being too stringent, or those being too sort of strict, which I think is necessary, but if they're being too strict, then new potential employees will say, well, I demand flexibility. And if you're saying that I have to do these 2 days a week, then I'm not going to do it. And it's, I think, I don't know, is there potentially some sort of real butting of heads which is going to end in disaster at some point?

Surely that comes down to decent leadership, and decent leadership in my opinion is about involving everyone in the conversation and the leader making a decision that everyone has signed up to, uh, based on that. And then if you join after that conversation has taken place, then that is laid out for you in the recruitment process.

Yeah, I'm going to switch gears slightly here, if I may, and maybe a question for you, Kate, or anyone, but maybe starting with you, Kate. Is there a difference of opinion for different age groups in the office? Have you noticed that different age groups want different things? And, you know, is it a younger generation who are hungry to be in the office, or are they happy to stay at home.

From the surveys we've done, we've seen it's pretty consistent response from every age group and also from men and women alike. We're not seeing huge differences. I know there's quite a lot of discussion out there that younger people like going in because it's— they want the social scene. But I have, just talking from my own team now, which is admittedly a smallish sample, But I have a fair number of people in their 20s, and they are probably the ones who are the keenest to work from home. So I'm not seeing this pull for social life. And I think what I have seen is they like committing to their social life outside of work, and actually working from home has enabled them to have a good social life, but it's not necessarily so office-based as maybe it was when I was in my 20s. But I, you know, that's a generalization and just a smallish team, but I'm not seeing a huge appetite for them to come in.

It's interesting because I've heard— we hear all sorts of different things.

Unless we organize a party or a free lunch or something, or some kind of social event in the office.

Yeah, but then do you worry that graduates, people who are coming into the office environment the first time, are going to really miss out on learning from the experience?

I honestly do think it's, it's not the same sitting in your living room looking at a screen in terms of developing some of your the soft skills. When I think back to how I learned as a graduate trainee, it's, it's sitting and observing people in action and then having the little chats outside of the meetings. You know, if you get a good mentor, you might be able to overcome some of that. I think it's a lot harder. I wouldn't want to have done my early years just sitting at home.

And you've got, of course, people that I really feel sorry for, along with the graduates— anyone who started a new job during the pandemic. And I've come across this a lot now since I've been starting to work with clients at conferences and in their offices again. They don't know anyone. They've been working there a year and a half and they really don't know anyone. So it does go back to that point about, yes, you can build some profile and some relationships, uh, virtually, but it's not going to replace face-to-face and meeting people. I had a client who wanted to encourage everyone back to the office, in May, and they brought me in in March because they really foresaw a problem and pushback. And they had so many people come into the office, uh, that they actually had to broadcast the talk in two other meeting rooms.

You're the same time.

I— they had a whole day going. I'm not going to take full credit for that, but people had this enormous appetite to be there, and you could feel the enthusiasm in the room. So people do want to get together and meet people, and I think it's a really good point about graduates.

So, so let's look at the build-up to that. So Looking to the future, what positive or negative effects do you think working from home will have on business and society more generally then? This is to all of you.

Well, I mean, the biggest one we've seen during the pandemic is obviously the impact on the satellite businesses that thrive on commuting. So the number of people traveling on the railways, for example, which is great if you're one of the passengers who is on the train that's not as populated as it was before, but it's not great in in terms of the funding of the railways, the coffee shops, the lunch places, all of those satellite businesses. So that certainly has an impact, and they can't work from home.

Yeah.

What do you think, Kate?

I think diversity and inclusion is obviously an incredibly important topic in the workplace now and of growing importance, and I would hope that more flexible working arrangements will drive more diversity and inclusion. I think You know, take for example, if you're in a wheelchair, getting to Paysafe's office, which is in the city building in Canary Wharf— it's probably a bad example because Canary Wharf is probably a bit more accessible than some places— but that so many opportunities would get ruled out for you. That's just one, one example. My husband works for Barclays, and for years and years and years he's worked on the equity research side, and he has to go in and chair a morning call. And it's meant him getting up at 5 in the morning. And, you know, it's been quite a brutal lifestyle for many, many years. And he reached the point where he thought, probably only got a couple more years left in me before I have to sort of throw the towel in and look at something a bit gentler. But now he does the morning— chairs the morning call. It's half six every morning from home. And so he gets a lot more time in bed. And then if he goes into the office, he's allowed to travel in after he's done the morning call. So it's actually meant that it's extended his— yeah, so from an ageist point of view as well, I think it gives you opportunities for inclusivity. I know there's a whole debate around does it favor equality for women and men. I think there's a lot of opportunities for women to get into better leadership roles if they can juggle home life more easily, more flexibility.

Yeah, I agree.

And I think men can play more of a role in home life if they're allowed to stay at home without being frowned upon. So I would hope that that would be a positive.

Oh, there really is.

Impact. Just quickly on that, I've seen examples of men in my network who are saying, well, I can't do that at 3:30 because I'm doing the school run.

Yeah, it's happening more now. You hear that a lot more now.

It feels normal to do it, doesn't it?

Yeah.

It's a pleasure to hear it.

It is a pleasure to hear it. Yes.

Absolutely.

And Ray, if you look on the other side of it, because I'm, you know, I'm worried about, I'm worried about this, I'm worried about business, of course. I'm worried about business and society. You know, there's the whole community and the whole ecospace around business. You know, uh, today this area was like a Sunday. I mean, because of the heat, but also because it's Monday, right? Ironically, we're doing a discussion about working from home on a Monday. What, what's your thoughts about the effect on business and society from that point of view? The coffee clubs and the sandwich bars and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, I suppose the first thing that comes to mind, and to the previous point that was raised as well, in fact, if we go just one step a little step before then when we talked about what it is that people have said they want to do. And you really don't have to look very far at all in any survey where you get an awful lot of people that say, I'm quite happy working at home. I'm not sure that's the right answer. I get it. It's what's said. And this is what very large communities of people in small and large private and public sector are saying. But there's an absolute epidemic of mental health issues, particularly in young people and particularly in males under 35. And I'm not suggesting that it's all because of the pandemic, and it's, you know, and I'm just to your point earlier, the, the broad brushstrokes, etc. But I'm, I am encountering a lot of very isolated leaders and contributors to a business So I'm rather concerned about this sense of isolation even when people are in the office. I witness isolated behavior with the leadership teams that I work with and almost a groove that has been found that is not always as productive as I'd like to see. I honestly believe, and I appreciate I sound like a real scratch record here, but when performance is translated to clear metrics that really matter, that those that are leading the business are intrinsically involved in the creation of those, i.e., how you know you're being productive, how you know you're being efficient. I think there's something really exciting there. And in the last 2 years, I have to say I'm encountering an almost an epidemic of a lack of attention to detail and lack of attention to understanding how we know whether we're performing or not. And so in answer to your question, Gary, I'm genuinely concerned just on the— of course on the human side, as I mentioned, but also in perhaps not really truly understanding how to create an environment where people understand whether they're performing, and which in turn is in service of the very reason for existence, which is purpose.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, um, Andy, I want to ask you a question, you know, building what Reza said. You're a networking guy. A good example is my son likes to go to the office because there's a whole eco-space. You have to meet people for coffee, you bond with people, you can share ideas. There's a whole kind of thing. And you're a networking guy, which kind of works better, I guess, when you're physically together. With that question in mind about business and society, the working from home thing, what's your thoughts about how do we get to keep that connection somehow?

Well, it was a really important point about mental health that Ray made and having those people around you that can support you. Of course, you've got to create the right culture within the office to get the support that you need. You said you've seen leaders that are looking isolated even within the office. We've got to create that. It's interesting, I think you can create the right environment for it, speaking about within the office first, with nudge theory, almost little nudges, but you can't force it. And you have to recognize different personality types. I was working with the BBC around the time that they were moving a lot of people up to Salford, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I, I read somewhere that they had they had deemed that there should be no waste bins under any desks, uh, in the new offices to force people to get up to throw their rubbish away, just so they get up and move around. Now, whether or not that's true and how that's worked out, I don't know, but I, I'm quite interested in that little nudge theory. But it's only as good as the culture within the organization, and it's only as good as the support you give to different personality types. So an introvert is going to get up keep their head down, throw their rubbish away, go back to their desk, whatever you do.

At least they're throwing the rubbish away.

Yes. So I think the introvert's probably more likely to. Yeah. Um, so I think that you have to, you have to create that right culture. It is easier in the office. I, I personally tend to decline most invites to online networking. They're hell on earth for me. The, the only— when I used to run the Fellows community for my professional association. And when I did that, when we were forced into online meetings, as soon as 4 people were on the call, they were put in a breakout room. The next 4, another breakout room. But as soon as you've got 6 or 8 people, it's extrovert dominated all the time. So I think it's, it's about understanding personality types and what's right for people. You— that client in Germany is a great example. The reason they brought me in is they, they designed this innovation center with hot desking and meeting spaces and the whole thing to take all these 13 satellite offices and get them all to talk to each other and innovate together. And then what do you think happened? The, the Berlin office stood over there and the Cologne office stood over there, and they just stayed in their same clique. So you've got to create more than just lip service to it.

Yeah, can we agree with that? And yeah, I think I'm yet to meet anyone who's, uh, longing for the days of online quizzes and, uh, Zoom chats.

I've still got a few sets of questions if anyone wants.

Yeah, thanks.

You're right, mate. Join us for part 2 of this live debate when we'll also be hearing from our wonderful live studio audience. Thanks to our 3 brilliant guests, to the attendees of our first live session, to SmartTasking for sponsoring the event, and to the 8 Club Bank for hosting us.