73 | Adapting to the Future of Work: Insights and Strategies From Industry Experts & Ireland Together

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures. Hello there and welcome to this special episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Uh, a couple of months back, I was asked to facilitate a panel discussion for the team at Ireland Together. For those of you who don't know Ireland Together, they are an amazing community of peers set up by 4 friends of mine pre-COVID to help and support Irish businesses and entrepreneurs through what was a really difficult time for businesses, not just in Ireland, um, but obviously globally. In that period, the 4 who set it up have, have barely, if ever, met, um, but they've now got 1,500 business leaders from 21 industries and 16 countries, um, in their network who are all facilitating and supporting and training and motivating each other through what has been a difficult time. They me to join their Returning to the Workplace conference series and pull together a panel of people to talk about the future of work. So I reached out, I looked back through my guest list and picked some amazing guests to take part in that panel with me. Denise Black from Invest NI, Kevin Empie from Work Matters, and Gillian French from Cubic Telecom. We had a really good discussion, and when I listened back to it, I thought that that would make a great podcast episode. So We're going to go into that in a second. If you want to hear more about Ireland Together, you can go to irelandtogether.ie, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast. And as usual, please do get in touch on social if you have any questions or comments.

So let's kick off just really easy by just maybe going around my screen, maybe just who you are, where you work, what you do, uh, would be fab, um, just so that the, uh, the audience knows who you are. So top right, I've got Gillian, if you want to kick off.

Yeah, hi, I'm Gillian French. I'm working for a company called Cubic Telecom, which is an Irish business and global connectivity software company, and in approximately 10 million devices. We have 180 employees headquartered in Dublin, and I'm the Chief People Officer, so I look after all things people-related within the organization.

Thanks, Gillian. Kevin.

Hi everybody, Kevin Empy. I'm Founder and Managing Director of Work Matters, which is a training and consulting firm specializing in future of work, changing world of work, which was an interesting— there was sort of a pre-COVID existence to that and a post-COVID existence, but set it up in about 2017.

My last corporate job was head of HR and talent consulting for Willis Towers Watson, but I had got interested in the whole future of work and the kind of practical implications of it all about 10, 12 years ago. And moved into this territory full-time, I guess, with Work Matters in 2017.

And as they say, the future is not quite what it used to be, so obviously adapting to everything COVID like everybody else.

So look forward to the conversation.

And I'm sure you're too humble, Kevin, to say it. I'll say it: and a published author as of literally this week or next week. So if you want to see some bits and bobs on Kevin's book called Thrive, all about working in an agile world, then just pop along to his website and click on Thrive in the navbar.

So it just happens, I just happened to have a copy there.

Kevin, most people with a published book have it on the bookshelf behind them so we can all see it. Oh yeah, well, I'll put an invoice.

I need your advice. I need your advice.

Yeah, a bit of PR consulting. Denise.

That's very hard to follow that, and I have to say, my name is Denise Black. I'm the HR Director for Invest NI. And we're the regional business development agency. And basically our role is to grow the Northern Ireland economy, and we do that by sort of helping new and existing businesses compete internationally and then attract new investment into Northern Ireland. So we do that through 620 staff that we have across Northern Ireland, but then we also have teams in 7 cities in USA, Dubai, Europe, and Asia Pacific. So I had the joy of joining on the 20th of April 2020 in the middle of COVID so it has been the most surreal 14 months of taking on a new role and especially a people role when I've been in our headquarters, which some of you may have seen on Line of Duty, for any Duty fans. AC-12 was in Bedford Square, our building. That's my claim to fame. A total of 10 times. So it has been a very interesting year and very much now focused on how we return to work. So delighted to be here today.

Great.

And I'm hoping that I won't have to say hold your whisht at all.

Yeah, hold your whisht.

Hold your whisht. We say it different in Glasgow. We say it a bit differently in Glasgow, but that's okay, that's all right. Let's kick off. We're gonna, as I said, let's hang on and see, you know, we'll get going and we'll see are there any people in the audience that want to ask a question. But let me kick off with this because I'm conscious that within the Ireland Together membership there's lots and lots of smaller companies and I just wonder what for smaller companies do you think the future of work going to look like? Realistically, is there going to be any real change if you're in a smaller company?

Kevin?

Gosh, well, I think one of the things I think you said there, Scott McInnes, which I think is really important for us all and something I've been working with companies large and small over the years is what does the future of work actually mean for you in your specific circumstances, in your specific industry, etc., because it is—

for me, it's actually a bit of an annoying term. It's a label of convenience that actually— there's no definition to future of work. It's just this label we put on everything that captures anything from robotics to artificial intelligence to multiple generations at work to hybrid working. Now, of course, it's like a horse race. It's come up to first place probably in all of the things we think about. But when you strip it all back, and I don't know how many hundreds of people have asked about what does it actually mean for you, a couple of basic realities come out. And I wonder, and I'd be interested in your views, but that they're kind of common for us all in the sense that— because the future of work didn't start with COVID it was already happening before, there was things happening, and it will continue way beyond COVID. So what are those things happening? A couple of them were the idea that business interruption is normal. The sort of frequency of change is happening much, much quicker. The need to be able to execute in the short term and deliver profit and results for clients and customers now while keeping an eye on the periphery has become such a more important skill set, if you like, or necessity. You can't just deliver, deliver, deliver, and then expect the world to stay the same. So there's something about business interruption being normal. This idea of agility being a constant kind of capability rather than an episodic kind of necessity, I think, is another one. And the idea of how and where work gets done, the options around how and where work can get done.

Are now at an all-time high in terms of difference.

And finally, I think expectations from employees and other stakeholders about how and where work can get done, about work in the workplace, those are changing and changing fast. So those are the kind of the realities I think we probably all are grappling with, but I think the very important thing is what's the context for you as a company. And I think for smaller organizations, and I've certainly experienced this in the last while, is that They were already agile, they're already adaptive, they're already future-oriented, you know, before. So it's maybe just formalizing some of those qualities that we were already good at and also expecting that our suppliers and the ecosystem that we're now working in is going to be much more fluid and flexible and hybrid and all of that, and we probably need to be ready for that. So it's not just what's happening for ourselves in our own little bubble, but maybe an appreciation that our whole customer base and supplier base is going to be changing their outlooks as well, and the whole digital agenda. I haven't even mentioned technology because it's kind of, it's an understood, the digital agenda, as someone said, I'll finish with this, someone said to me, gosh, the slow bicycle race towards digitalization is over, you know, because it's just a given now, and I think that's one of the kind of things we need to definitely watch out for.

—put out there already.

I love the idea that if change, you know, change needs to be just how we do things around here, that it's not a case of, you know, we go along and then a change and then back to normal and a change and then back to normal. It's actually, you know, we're going to see, you know, just instead of big change curves, we're going to see just lots of little change curves all the time. And people have to get kind of comfortable with that because if you're not changing, you're dying as an organization. Gillian, from a people kind of perspective, what's the future of work going to look like for those smaller companies? I think it's a great opportunity for smaller companies.

You know, I have traditionally worked in smaller businesses that have had high growth, and you're sometimes competing with the large multinationals. And, you know, like as Kevin just said there, you know, being agile, being able to change quickly— generally smaller businesses can do things like that. They can adapt things quickly, make those changes quickly, and larger multinationals aren't able to move at the same pace that a smaller business can. I think as well for people, you know, people are saying a lot lately about professionalism. I see this as the era of being human and it's very, very important for people. People have really changed their perspective and employees are now, as you saw with Apple there, they're saying no, no more, you know, there's a lot of people behind this. People have changed during the pandemic so organizations are going to change because people are behind that, they want it. I was at a webinar with EY there last week I think they said something like 54% of employees said they are willing to leave their employment if they don't get the flexibility that they require. So for smaller businesses, I think it's a great opportunity if you can structure your business and give people flexibility. It doesn't add to your payroll bill, you know, it actually builds social capital, it'll build a stronger relationship with your employees, and, you know, hopefully you'll still be able to get the work and the work level that you need done. So I think it's a great opportunity for smaller businesses. And Margaret Heffernan wrote a book, and I think Kevin, you were kind of alluding to it there about, you know, it's a full ecosystem. And I agree, it's about building relationships with your partners, building relationships with your employees and suppliers, and having a really resilient business that if change does come or other change comes down the line, that your business can pivot and can rely on those relationships to adapt to the changing environment. So I think that's really important for smaller businesses. Businesses to focus on the relationships, talk to their people, and get their business ready. Because one thing we know over the last pandemic is none of us— we can only plan so far, but we really don't know what's up ahead.

Yeah, great point. Thanks, Gillian. And I think what's really interesting is that maybe on one side of the fence you've got Apple employees throwing their toys out the pram, rightly, because they don't agree with what Tim said. But in Tim's camp, we've got people like the CEO of Goldman Sachs who said, well, we just can't work in that hybrid model. That's not going to work. We'll be expecting everyone back in the office on September 1st. How do you balance, Denise, how do you balance those two needs? The needs of a company that maybe thinks, well, we can't have the creativity or we can't have the water cooler moments and our graduates can't learn because they're not seeing things happening. How do you balance that with people wanting to be hybrid workers, wanting to work at home a couple of days a week. Where's the happy middle ground?

Yeah, I think echoing what both Kevin and Gillian said, and I'll share our approach because I think whether you're a small company or a larger company, it's the microcosm, macrocosm, the same approach really, I think, for each one. And we did just PPE, as I call them, people pandemic evaluation, because PPE is such an invoked term. Over the last few months of getting groups of our staff together and asking them those questions. Okay, if we were gonna work remotely long-term, how would that affect decision-making, team engagement, coaching and mentoring, ideation and creation roles, and your mental health, health and wellbeing? And we got all this information back and distilled it down with some very varying views. And literally 2 weeks ago, I just went out with the communication saying, 'Okay, so here's what you told us, and here's now what we're going to trial from September, October onwards, and we're going to empower.' And remember, we're an arm's-length body, but still this civil service mothership sort of, you know, oversight. But I advocated that we start from a position of trust and empowerment, as the last 14 months has shown, where we've been highly flexible. Because lots of organizations— and I'm previously from the financial services sector for 32 years— Some of them have been a little bit more mandated that you must be in the office 1 day or 2 days a week. So I've said, let's try that. No, we do it on the basis of 4 pillars to look at when you come into the office, and that's to connect, to collaborate, the client, and commute. So those are sort of the 4 pillars that staff will look at, and each team will look at, okay, what's my role? Does my role require lots of creation and ideation in it? 'Cause let's be honest, you can do so much in a micro— on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, but that energy in the room and the body language you can't beat. Or is my role, as we have people in strategy who spend 2 or 3 hours researching, they do not need, on your point Scott earlier, to drive from Newry to Belfast to sit and research. So now it is the key is training the people leaders to think in that way with our support of saying, okay, how does the role impact the need? And then the other sort of, phrase that I'm trying to inculcate is critical contact points. So if we're going to empower staff to say, listen, depending on your role, let's look at what are the critical contact points that we want you to be in the office and we would like you to be in the office. So team meetings, new starts, definitely, and the more sensitive HR issues ideally. And then also, you know, performance reviews, end of years and midterms, those sort of, you know, key pieces are better face to face. But the mental health piece is a big thing I want to mention because, you know, we— I think there's a lot of staff who have been very open saying, I need to get back in for my mental health. Actually, I do not want to work from home either because one, I'm isolated, or two, there are three people in the house and I cannot get peace and quiet to do my work. So, um, so like you said earlier, we're going to trial this and see what happens, but I'd rather start from a position of trust and empowerment, and then if it doesn't work, then we'll move into a slightly more mandated approach maybe. And I'm hoping not, you know.

And you know what?

It's a wonderful place to start because that whole empowerment piece, as I said in the intro, you know, no two teams are going to operate the same way. Actually, no team singular is going to operate the same way from week to week. So actually trusting them to get on with, look, you know what it is we have to achieve. You know where it is we're going. Assuming, of course, that organizationally your communications are good enough that people do know where you're going and they do know what's expected of them and they do know your mission and your purpose and your overall objectives, just get on with it.

We're all grown-ups. We often hear people talking about, well, treat me like an adult. Here you go. There's the ball.

Go off, score the goals.

And one thing, just to— I remember I did a counseling qualification, God, in the late '90s. And one of the things that really landed with me, I remember, was talking about stress. And I think it's such a live term at the moment. And the definition at that time for stress was stress is about things that haven't happened yet because, you know, you often get so stressed about that board or the presentation you're going to. What I think for companies that haven't made their mind up at the moment, I would urge them to because I think there's a real, you know, when staff are still in this sort of quasi we're having to work at home, they're wondering what will happen, what is the organization going to do, So the sooner you can give them a blueprint to say, listen, we're going to try this, you know, the shoulders drop. And I've got good feedback from the comms last week. I'm just saying right now we sort of know what's happening and that's good. And, you know, there's a raft of things to sort out, obviously, but I think just getting that initial message out really helps staff.

Yeah, yeah. And that idea of here's what we're going to try.

Yeah. Try being the operative word. If it doesn't work, we'll change it and try something else.

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Kevin, if organizations, large or small, don't take the opportunity to do something different with all of this, all that we've learned in the past 14 months and all that we know going forwards, what trick will they have missed? What's the impact going to be, do you think, potentially?

I think Gillian really identified it straight off, saying there about the opportunity around talent perhaps, that actually this is now a part of the employment deal that we can really compete on here. It's something that staff or employees are looking for that we can actually potentially facilitate better than a bigger organization can do.

So there's a huge opportunity in that, but of course then the opposite is true, isn't it, that if we don't take advantage of that opportunity, we maybe miss that. There's a real sense that that work, it's about accessing skills. Now, there's also the whole opportunity about getting skills not just to come in and be part of your immediate sort of bubble, if you like, that the company is in, but actually accessing talents and expertise from anywhere around the world based on the principles of hybrid and remote kind of working. So you perhaps, perhaps, and maybe you've already explored this, but there's the opportunity of a pool of talent way beyond, if you like, maybe the normal assumptions around the pool that we've worked in. So again, with both those opportunities come the threat that if we don't avail of those, our own people become equally accessible to others for that reason, that if we don't have the flexibility, then it becomes, as I said to one leadership team, it is as much a defensive play as it is an offensive play because you're defending your talent as well from possible attraction. So there's something, there's something in that. And I really think too, there's something in what Denise was saying about the trust and empowerment that she's really— there's almost, I think Denise, what you're saying is you're actually engaging in a culture transformation as much, or a culture exercise as much as anything else, by engaging people with the problem and getting them to co-create the solution and identify the possible friction points in a grown-up way with your people is actually an incredible opportunity to engage with them on creating what the next phase is going to look like. And that could help to really build a bond and a shared responsibility for the success of the model that you, that you're going to create. And an extra stickiness, if you like, and involved in that. And also the idea that you're— so you're showing a bit of vulnerability as well because you're saying to them, look, we don't have all the answers. You've got to help us with this. And as a team, uh, we've got to create this. And that for me is huge because that means that way beyond COVID, in a year's time, in two years' time, you've actually used this transition experience as a way to really improve. Like the Kintsugi example, you've improved something about the culture regarding the connection of, of it. So you're creating agility I think this transition to hybrid is the greatest sort of example of actually agility in action in itself. And by doing that successfully, we're going to be embedding some ideas of behavior, trust, safety, leadership. We're actually embedding some of those skills for the future. But if we, to your point, Scott, if we kind of try to treat this as a top-down kind of thing, then there's a there's a chance we might actually put people off and they might vote with their feet.

Yeah, for sure. And I'm thinking about that talent piece, Gillian, particularly, and just what you both said there. And I think that it's funny because we're all quite comfortable now. So the person that does my digital marketing is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The guy that built my website is based in Melbourne. Australia. We seem comfortable with using third parties who are wherever they are, but what change in mindset do you think it's going to take from a leadership perspective in organizations, Gillian, to get our heads around the fact that maybe our employees could also be based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, or in Melbourne, or in Barcelona, or in the, you know, the back arse of Mayo?

I think the pandemic has really helped with that because they have, they're very hard-pressed to have an argument now because for the last sort of 15 to 18 months, it's how people have been operating and the businesses, majority have run very, very well and we've proven that it can work. So I think if leaders are going to say that they, you know, can't hire people or can't have people in different locations, they're really going to have to have a very strong framework to prove, you know, why that role or, you know, they can't hire that person in that location. So I think that's important because it has worked well. I did want to just jump on to what Denise said as well about some of the things that she set up. I think it's brilliant and empowering line managers and, you know, giving them the empowerment and the trust. And I think that's absolutely critical. Difficult to do remotely. We haven't met people. Generally trust builds when you are in the organisation. But the really important thing for me as CPO, and I want to ensure, and sometimes I don't hear brought up at these type of workshops, workshops is about presence privilege or kind of politics building in a business when people are kind of present. So for me as CPO, some of the key messages I would be giving line managers and leaders when they're going off to figure this out is that we can't have presence privilege. We can't have that because you're located somewhere differently that you get more privilege than someone or that you're in the office all the time and we've given these flexibilities to our employees but we're actually biasing them then and not promoting them and leaving them out of information. So whatever whatever we do, it has to make sure that equal opportunities are given to everyone regardless of flexibility or where they're located. I think that's a key thing and I don't hear it coming up much at these type of seminars.

That's a great point and I suppose that, I mean, that whole presence privilege thing outside of just the information you get and things like that, you know, I think there might be a fear and a concern among people that, you know, because Denise is in the office all the time, that if she and I are in the running for a promotion that she's going to be more likely to get it, so she says, "I better get in the office as well." And then of course everyone's in the office because everyone's worried about that. Is that where that could go?

Yeah, and I think it's a big threat then to the model because I think, you know, moving to the hybrid model or moving to a better model where people have a better standard of living and maybe have more time in their home or more time to collect their kids or do things or have their hobbies, you know, I think that's really important for us as a society and I think it's a great move forward, but my concern is that if We don't address these things, you know, we will fall back. And the small things like I was in the office last week and I don't know if anyone has gone back to the office. Not everyone's back. But it was really odd because everyone kind of walked in with this great energy to meet everyone, but everyone was on Teams still. So it's all kind of like, oh, sorry. Yeah, sorry. You know, and it's, you know, they're then embarrassed that they've interrupted and then someone's so loud on Teams and someone else is typing away. So it's still all very odd. So the etiquette of how we behave when we go back to the office and, and the making sure that, you know, the presence privilege, all these kind of small things have to be managed because that's what will trip us up.

Absolutely, it's always the tiny things, isn't it?

It's great too, I think one thing we have going for us in the next probably 6 months is this opportunity to experiment.

I mean, when are we given that? You know, normally when we're talking about huge big transformations, we're dictated to by deadlines and we're also trying to deliver business as usual while doing something out there there's usually, you know, the idea of having kind of some kind of a transition period where it's expected that we're going to be a bit clunky, it's expected that it's going to kind of be a bit messy, and to take advantage of that. In fact, we know that some employees don't want to go back, they're nervous, so the idea of just bringing people back, you know, in some kind of phased way is probably some—

is on.

I know for some smaller organizations, maybe on front lines, that's not possible, but the idea of even psychologically using the next phase as a way to share experience. And to Gillian's point, absolutely coming up all the time, the presence privilege piece. And one client, for instance, who started to bring people back already, one of the things they started to notice was people were booking time seats, booking their desks, etc. And they acknowledged that they were waiting to see who else was in that day.

In other words, bosses and stuff.

So in other words, employees are wise to this. But they're better off being in the office when it's probably politically the right time to do that. And it's kind of like you've got this opportunity of nailing some of that stuff early on by actually taking some data from these experiments. And one of the things too, Scott, we've talked about too around the privilege, the president's privilege piece, is thinking mindfully about that, as Denise has been talking about too. And using technology as a leveler. So I think you're doing it too, Gillian, by you're saying, for instance, that you're in, you're actually in situ, but you're on Teams in the sense that you're using the technology as a work canvas. And there isn't kind of an email going on after the meeting with the minutes that have been drawn up by somebody who had a side meeting with somebody else after the Teams meeting.

And people outside the office are going to go, I don't recognize that.

No. So we're actually using technology to do everything in the moment and to collaborate and to work together on a common canvas.

And that means nobody is disenfranchised or disadvantaged by whether you are on-site or not. So there's some tips and tricks, but I agree with everybody here that it's actually as much a mindset and a behavioral attitude to all this and mindfulness about all this than it is about tools and practices and techniques, but they will help, there's no doubt they will help us. Yeah, agreed.

I think I was just going to say as well, I think, you know, I'm, um, you know, everybody's a bit scared by it, and although I did this comms last week, there was like, well, where are the guidelines, where are the FAQs, you know, that sort of, you know, help us, this is all scary, and I said they will come, you know, wait, they will come as they do, But it is about guiding, I think, tactically that if you're going to go in for the day, maximize that day. See, you know, make your strategic meetings with who you need to meet. And obviously there's a bit of connecting and catching up. And I think that's a very valid point again about legitimate tribalism. People want to sit with their own people, you know, and we get very territorial. And so our offices opened yesterday, but I've only opened 2 floors out of the 7. And you have to book through a desk booking out where you sit, but people are like, "Oh, I want to sit up on my own floor," you know, and all this sort of stuff. We're going, "No, we're just minimizing at the moment," you know. So there's a huge adjustment I think that people will have to— we'll all, including myself, I'm going in for my end of year this afternoon now, so I'm with the chief, he wants it face to face, so I'll be back in the building this afternoon, which will be strange. But it's nice as well, there's an excitement and we have 70 I only had 70 bookings for just opening up yesterday, which isn't a lot. So there's still a little bit of unease and people wanting to be vaccinated and stuff. So there's a real next 6-12 month journey.

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Let me, let me move on very quickly to a question from Joanne around psychological safety, because I think that a lot of what we've been talking about here around that kind of particularly around presence privilege and around, you know, people in meetings and that kind of thing. You know, she was talking more particularly around kind of co-creation of feedback loops and having psychological safety in organizations to be able to do that. We're going to have to— I think we're going to have to focus even more on the whole idea of psychological safety. And I wonder, Denise, from your perspective, have you seen situations where that didn't exist and there was an issue with it? And how do you cultivate that? How do you generate psychological safety in an organization?

Well, now remember, I suppose I can give on my previous experience, but I suppose that the last 14 months working remotely, I've seen the teams more virtually more than anything else. But I know even within my own team, and it goes back to the leadership style, the psychological safety is so intrinsically linked to the leadership that is adopted. And the points about vulnerability and authentic leadership, which those terms, although sometimes they can sound a bit cheesy, I think authentic leadership has definitely come to the fore in the last 14 months. And I think COVID, you know, as a leveler for everyone, no matter what grade you were, because certainly, you know, in some organizations that positional leadership thing is high, sadly. And now that in the last 14 months we were all at home in our rooms not suited and booted and corporate in your office, which gave you status, if that's what it did. I think that's really helped level things. And we were all anxious and scared, whether you were the chief executive or whether you were the new entrant. And that accelerated, I think, that real authentic leadership. And certainly from a comms perspective, having worked with Scott McInnes and all his influence over the years, you know, I asked each executive to do, you know, we did videos on how you're coping, not the strategy. The first thing was, how are you coping? 'How much weight have you put on? What Netflix are you watching?' Loads of weight! You know, all those. And that really helped. And the feedback was, 'God, the leader— we're all humans.' So from that comes psychological safety. I think that sort of realness. And it's something you have to work at every single team meeting. And also The admitting when things go wrong, you know, fail fast and move on. And senior people saying, I made the wrong call there, guys, you know. So that's something that organizationally I'm seeing. Is that a natural thing or is it something you have to build on? You know, so just depends on the culture of where you are. Work in progress.

Yeah, and I love that. I think it was you, Denise, and I've used it loads now, that acronym FAIL, First Attempt in Learning. It's not a failure. It was just our first attempt in learning. That's all it was. We'll try something new. We'll try something new and differently the next time. Gillian, anything to add to that on how you can generate, build psychological safety in an organization? I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it.

Sorry, I was writing down that acronym. Sorry, Denise.

I thought it was good.

It was just your first attempt in learning. It's fine.

It's not my first attempt at learning how to unmute myself.

Yeah, like, I mean, you know, I don't think I get it as Good comprehensive answer, Denise.

All I can answer, you know, for us in Cubic, we communicated to the power of 10 during the period of the pandemic. It was regular comms, told them when it was going out, to build that and be completely honest and open about where the business was at, what we were going to do, explaining step by step what would happen, you know, keeping people— and they expected the comms on a Monday and a Wednesday, they knew it would come. First thing in the morning. I think that built a lot of trust within the organisation and also they knew that they would be the first if anything was going to happen. Now, like yourself, I think you've made a really good point just on the next steps. We need to be more proactive in sort of telling people what the new models would look like. We're sending out comms, we're telling them when it's coming, but we need to involve them a little bit more. So yeah, I don't think I can add any more hints and tips. It's really communication to the power of 10 whenever there's anything like that. But yeah, that's it. Yeah, cool.

Anything I'd add on it, I think, and Gillian used a word, I think, which is fundamental in the psychological safety is the trust piece and the relationship.

It's very basic, actually. It's, do I detect that this person has my back, you know, and I can be vulnerable with this person with the information I'm about to convey. I'm going to admit something, I'm going to admit failure, I'm going to admit anxiety about something, but actually it's okay because I know they're not going to use that data against me in terms of like career limiting or that they're weak or something like that. So trust is fundamental and the relationship piece. But I, and if anybody, I presume some of you, if you've, I believe you were talking about this topic, so you probably came across her work before, but Amy Edmondson is is probably an authority in this area of psychological safety. She's all over YouTube, et cetera. So I think you'll get a lot out of that. And one of the things she talks about is that psychological safety isn't about being nice.

You know, it isn't about being soft and nice and cuddly. Like it's, it's, uh, because then there's a risk that it just becomes apathy, you know, that actually I can do anything around here.

I like that there's no consequences to what I'm doing.

So that's when maybe psychological safety is almost too gone too far. It's the combination of that. That comfort in someone having my back and the challenge piece. And I think it's so knowing that if I try something, it's going to be okay. If I fail, it's going to be okay. If I raise my hand, it's going to be okay. So it's actually— there's a stretch element to psychological, and I think this next phase offers us an example, an opportunity to actually improve psychological safety because we're saying to people, We need you to raise your hand. We need you to say when something's not working and actually it's completely okay. It's human. I'm feeling it too.

You know, that type, that relationship trust kind of circle can, can really flourish, I think, in the next phase because we're all finding our way. So what better time to actually build that, that muscle, that psychological safety muscle.

So I think it's, it's, it's both a a solution but also a great dividend out of this whole next phase. Yeah, definitely.

Gillian Fiona Maguire said, great to hear you highlight presence privilege. It's the unspoken fault line in the hybrid workplace. The power relationships hinge upon this piece. Completely true. And she had a question. We've actually got— I was looking at my time— we've got about 7 minutes left. I have 2 questions that I want to ask, one from Fiona here and then one that I'm going to finish on. Fiona's question is this: what do the panel think about the implications for gender equality in the hybrid workplace? Denise, I might throw that to you first.

Thanks, Scott McInnes. It's actually very topical because we just signed up as an organization to the Diversity Charter Mark in Northern Ireland, and I'm getting a— I want to get a group together, obviously internationally, to look at some of these key areas, and one of them is that very point about promotional opportunities and location, because everything is Belfast-centric in Northern Ireland. So all the staff out across the various regions always feel if you want a promotion, you have to go to Belfast. And it's the same, but I know another organization, same in Dublin, Scott, when we worked with AIB, you know, everything was in the bank center. Whereas now we've shown that you don't have to. It isn't location. It goes back to the point, work is an activity, not a location. So, you know, if your role allows you and you can work effectively and productively, well then it doesn't have to be Belfast-centric. So I think from a gender perspective that will really help. And hours is the other one. You know, how many senior roles are put up as full-time jobs and that's it, if you want to go for it, well then you're going to have to go full-time. And I mean, I know that way back, I'm old enough that you could only be a manager in the bank if you worked full-time. You know, that's how archaic it was. So, I think this has really helped from that perspective, both of location and ours. And also just writing your job descriptions carefully, looking at your choice of words, tone of voice, Scott, all that stuff about making sure it's not very specific and the behaviours piece is brought out as much as the technical acumen. You know, that— so I don't know if that's answering the question, but I think there's a more positive future for gender equality on what we've seen in the last 14 months, and certainly that's what I'm hoping to do in this, you know, diversity and inclusion group I'll set up. Brilliant. Gillian? I would probably have a concern.

I think that during the pandemic as well, you saw a lot of stats that show females dropping out of the workplace just with the pressure of home life and the pressure— a lot of things fell on, you know, single moms or females in the home.

Oh, did we lose Gillian?

Kevin, you're there. Denise, you're there.

We lost Gillian temporarily, but I'm sure, I'm sure Gillian will come in. But maybe I just— yeah, continue her point because I do share that. I was talking to Julie Cinnamon actually of Enterprise Ireland, so Denise will know, same same world. And it was interesting, she was genuinely concerned about this issue, that as we now bring flexibility into the workplace, that some of them—

we just need to watch, we just need to keep a watch out that the numbers don't find that there's a move towards flexible working as seen as some kind of like— it's a positive and we all know it's a positive, but that it doesn't become a distinguishing factor between how the gender is now split in terms of their relationship with work, their presenteeism, etc. So really important that our promotion and our development programs are agnostic to location, and then we watch out, we just watch the data, just watch out for the data on this. I think it's important, there's a concern.

I think the fact that we're raising it now is probably good that that is one of those watchouts.

Okay, 3 minutes left and hopefully we'll get Gillian back just for this final question. And I always like whenever I'm doing sessions like this or the podcast to get really practical, to get really down and dirty and into the weeds. And just ask you this question then to close: what's the one thing that companies and leaders should be doing now? Pick one thing, the most important thing you think that they should be doing to reap the benefits of this whole idea of future of work? What's the one thing they should be doing?

Denise? Ask their staff. Talk to their staff.

Okay, great. Have a conversation. Kevin?

Yeah, actually, I was going to say the very same thing, is the idea of reaching out now and being vulnerable, showing all those things we've been talking about in the chat, reaching out to folks and engaging them co-creating the future, getting them to say—

one of the most interesting kind of survey questions we ask at the moment is, what do you think the implications are going to be to teamwork, to productivity, to the client, to the customer?

Get them to self— to reflect on this and not it be a top-down thing. So that for me is my number one as well.

I agree 100% with Denise.

And because I think Denise, it doesn't— it opens up all kinds, and that's been open to the responses that we get.

Is the related point on that, and being open to acting on what they say, because that is going to give us such a track record of change and agility into the future. It'll have much more dividend and much more impact than just a short-term issue of getting back to work. You'll actually find it's creating something much more important for the future. So that would be my number 1 too, I think.

And look, I'll throw in another one, Scott.

It's just, making sure the technology is there to enable this to work, because if it's going to be such an awful employee experience in terms of the engagement and communications technology that we're going to use, it's really going to tire people out. I'm talking about Wi-Fi, I'm talking about setup at home, just making sure the basics are there for a normal work experience. The pandemic has not been normal, is not normal. People are probably working in suboptimal environment. So we just need to make sure that that outside-in experience is good, and that might mean an investment in some technology. Okay, brilliant.

Thanks, Kevin. And I think probably the one piece I would add, which is the jigsaw piece that fits together what both of you said, you know, from Denise's perspective of asking employees and speaking to employees, and from Kevin's perspective of acting on that advice and that input, for me, the jigsaw piece in the middle is what I would term link and label, is making sure that every single time we ask and then do something based on that feedback that we tell people really obviously— oh, there's Gillian back— that we tell people really obviously that, you know, we've done this because you said this, that we're showing we're listening. It's one of the cornerstones of really good employee engagement, employee voice. You told us this, we've now done this. You said, we did. And making that really obvious for people, really, really obvious for people. Gillian, in 10 seconds, What's the one thing companies should do now, the most important thing you think that companies should do now to reap the benefits of the future of work?

Okay, I think that they need to provide flexibility. Flexibility has to happen. Employees are going to leave. But you do need to make sure that everyone is treated equally. That's really, really important. Everybody should be treated equally.

Bingo. Now catch your breath. Panel, Kevin, Denise, and Gillian, thank you so much for joining me. I thought it was a really good conversation. And thanks for me throwing you under various buses. That was very good of you. So we'll say thanks. I'll leave it there.

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