How to attract and retain tomorrow's talent | with Robert Mac Giolla Phadraig

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's edition of the Shortlist. As you may have guessed, I am not Social Talent's co founder and host of the Shortlist, Jonny Campbell. I'm in fact Holly Fawcett. I'm the director of content here at Social Talent and I'm stepping into the hot seat for today on a topic that, that I'm really passionate about actually, which is really about attracting and retaining future talent. And with me for this week's session, I'm going to be bringing in Robbie McGullah Foldrick, who I have sparred with many a time about this particular issue. So good afternoon, Robbie. Welcome to the Shortlist.

Good to see you, Holly.

Robbie, rather than me introduce you to the rest of the world and probably tell a few tales because we do like to share a bit about yourself, what you do, where you're from and yeah, a little bit around your expertise.

In this area from Dublin. I've been a co conspirator and sparring partner of yours and your colleagues for some time, I think actually an early adopter of your platform in fact. And yeah, I'm one of the co founders and CCO of Sigma Recruitment, which is probably the third largest recruitment company here in Ireland. We support a lot of kind of US investment into Ireland and expansion internationally. Also founder of, of Talent Summit, which is the largest HR leadership conference in Ireland and one of the largest HR leadership conference series in Europe. Now I believe we've been running that for 11 years. 11 years, yeah. Yeah, You've been on the journey with us, Holly. You've been on the journey. It's, yeah, we've, I think the kind of digital kind of space over the last 18 months probably broaden that community to about seven and a half thousand HR leaders around Europe mainly. But it's brought us close the close contact and into further sparring with other kind of HR innovators from around the world. And then in addition to that, then we run a trade mission to the US every year called Ireland Gateway to Europe, where we partner with US investors to support their investment and expansion into Europe and emea. But the talent spaces where I live and breathe have three young girls, Daisy, Robin and Lily. And today marks the first day of the elves and the shelves.

Oh, so where is the elf hiding today?

So the elves found partners last year and they now have baby elves. So now there's three elves per each girl. Right, and I'll just share this little story with you. The two weeks ago, my eldest girl, Daisy, she's nine, she Lost her tooth. And my youngest, Lily, has a wobbly tooth. So this is the kind of the sideline conversation on my house at the moment. So we actually had to break the news to Daisy that the tooth fairy no longer exists two weeks ago. And really surprised by her reaction. Hollywood, she cried. And we said, look, it's a tooth fairy. Like you're nine years of age. And the reason we told her is because she was going into my brother's house. He's a daughter, same age and she is street wise. And she would have shaken Daisy down for her tooth fairy money. So explain this to Daisy. Daisy then said, look, I don't really care about the tooth Fairy, but what does this mean for Santi, for the elves and the shelves? I said, the elves and the shelves. She was, dad, do not tell me that they're not real. And a darling. How could we be so cruel as to lie to you that the elves and the shelves aren't real? So they landed yesterday. And I actually shared that story with my brother, right, about his going out to his daughter's house the next day. And he said, oh, yeah, I remember telling my son, his, his, say his son, my nephew, about the big man at Christmas, and he said, he's going to secondary school. He said, ronald, we need to talk to you. And he said, look, about the big man. He goes, dad, I know. You don't have to tell me. He goes, what you mean you don't have to tell me? He said. He goes, look, I know Jesus Christ doesn't exist. So I think that the lesson of all of these stories, Holly and I'll finish here, is knowing the difference between what we think our people care about and what they truly care about, I think have changed. And I think that's what we've been through over the last 18 months. And I think our elves on the shelves, we need to do an awful lot to understand the value of them, what they are and what truly matters to our people.

Well, that is a wonderful parable and fable that I would never have been able to pull out of that story. Well done, Robbie. Well done. But, yes, the poor elves on the shelves, the elves on the shelves don't live here yet in our house because our little boy isn't old enough to know about Santa. So we have a few more years to go, I think, before they're going to make their. They're landing here in this house. But thank you very much. You're dead right. Tomorrow's talent, and actually even today's talent, we absolutely need to reevaluate what they appreciate and what they want. I suppose that really leads us incredibly nicely, this beautiful segment. Thank you so much for this conversation. So today's conversation is really about attracting and retaining tomorrow's talent. I would nearly reframe that about just today's talent in general, because attracting and retaining talent today is absolutely imperative for all of our organizations as we're recruiting. And I think really, given what's happened over the last 18 months, it's really not surprising that we've gone through, you know, a bit of an identity crisis around work, because we've gone through an identity crisis in general and have had to do work at home for the majority of that as well. And I think all of the conversations that we've had over the past number of months on the shortlist has really seen that shift from employer to employee in terms of power and how that's changed from, you know, work is not really somewhere that we go. It's actually something that we, that we do and are we doing the right thing. So I really want to see how this means for employers and for recruitment today and see what your viewpoint is around that, that power shift, that power moving from employer to employee and as you're saying, you know, really identifying what it is that employees want. How is this, or have you seen anything in particular come about straight away that, that you think people may need to change about, about how we approach work?

Absolutely. Like, isn't it a fascinating time? I don't think like any, like, this amount of change has happened within our working lives to the level that it has clearly. And again, we've been talking about the war for talent for I don't know how long. We've been talking about the HR folks having like, no longer being on the menu and all of a sudden having the seat at the table. But like the war for talent. Like, we know what it means to measure, to drive behaviors, to use tools, innovation, technology to articulate or point a difference and attract. I think the war has moved on to an internal war. And this battle for attention is really the new front upon which it's been fought. And we need a whole new arsenal of weapons. And it's really a war for hearts and minds, Holly. And I don't think we give enough kudos, recognition or measure the re recruitment of our folks that's happening daily. We measured the exit, we measured the entry point of new talent into our business. And even the language, even using the word talent, I'm not sure it's apt or captures the shift, like if I just step back and look at what we've been through, which is important if we're going to look at content or we need to explore the context. So the kingdom in which content is king is important to understand. So my quick reflection, I think we've gone from using a dating analogy from living with our employees as employers, we've entered into this long distance relationship, haven't we? And what happens with long distance relationships? And it has happened, they've fizzled. But those who have traveled are our employees and they are the ones who have been opened up to a whole new world of opportunity, literally new experiences and new adventures. And we're the party in this relationship who have remained at home as employers. And when I think that through, we're now at a point where it may be feasible. Now it's up and down, I know, but it certainly was from September to maybe two weeks ago it was feasible to ask the other party to return from traveling. And as employers, I think this option to give it a go once more, I think there's been two effects. Some have deepened their commitment and others have voted with their feet. So I think we're seeing a second wave of this movement of folks. And again, if I think that point true, I think we are no longer, or in many cases no longer as relevant and no longer as attractive as a partner to the partner who has gone on their travels over the last two years. I think that whole question of what makes us relevant and attractive is increasingly under scrutiny. And I think we are, we are slow to cotton on to what has changed as employers, by and large. And again, the power has completely shifted. And if I look at how you opened Holly around the identity of work itself, the psychological contract of work, it's run very deep with people. And I think the last 18 months our working selves and how we identify with our working selves has shrank. And I think the holistic sense of ourselves has broadened because both happen on a daily basis and a much more deeply intertwined. And as you mentioned, it's no longer somewhere we go. We've got a separate headspace. It's. It's increasingly just part of what we do and who we are. And I think the identity is now under question. But I think the other thing is that work has become deeply individualized and the shift has gone from employee experience to that of human experience. And we haven't reflected that in how we look to attract people. And I think that's what needs to change.

So what was the Difference then maybe between employee experience versus human experience. What are the, some of the immediate things that people would no longer, that would no longer be relevant, that we have done always in the past that we may think are still going to be there, but actually when you like think about it in that much more holistic context. I love that analogy of, of it being a long distance relationship or one of our parties has gone off on their travels for a while and have seen, seen the grass is definitely greener on other sides. But like ultimately what is it that we need to just ditch into the bin or do we just. It's a couple things we need to just tweak. Like what is it that we need to do to move from employee experience to human experience?

Okay, so sticking with that analogy, I think at the same time online dating has become a very real thing. So remote working has opened up the world. So we've another contextual challenge that we're operating within. When I look at the human experience or HX as we, as we call it, I think the loyalty towards employers has changed. It's no longer as deep. And we talk about evp, don't we? So again, what is our employer value proposition? And you close your eyes for one moment and visualize a brand who you feel, you don't have to literally do it. Go for it, go for it, go for it, go for it. You know, you have a nine month old, Any, any chance, close your eyes.

Any chance for a bit of sleep? Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have that effect. But if you think about this, right, so who are the most attractive brands when it comes to employer value proposition globally, like give me three at the top of your head. Holly, don't give me any. Holly, actually don't give me any. Right. Don't you think of the usual suspect you think of like some of the kind of the tech companies and so on?

Absolutely, yeah.

And what you visualize, you visualize a lot of the frills. And now I think remote working has gone from being this kind of five star experience which is based around place now, to more around. Not just the employer value proposition or place or the frills of the employer, but remote working. Being more individualized is more around low cost. It's more around the efficiency of work. It's more around what matters is actually going from A to B. It's not the, the daily kind of frills of what creates the experience and that we identify what we think of the brand of the employer. So the shift, I think from the loyalty piece has gone. And I think even before the pandemic, we're at a point where it shifted from EVP to early kind of job value proposition. Like a lot of people we would have been speaking with would have spoken a lot about the team dynamic, the individual they're working with, the impact they're having. So again, not just getting 1% efficiency over like a two year period for a specific product or category, it's more around like how do they really move the dial around the growth of the organization. So there's a stage and there's a kind of a career trajectory impact around the job itself. And that's what truly mattered to a lot of folks. And therefore the reward and therefore the motivation, innovation and therefore the career trajectory and opportunity. So that kind of job value proposition is what was developing as competitive advantage when we spoke to the marketplace on behalf of our clients. And I think what's changed most around the HX has been the experience value proposition. So how can employers give the experience that has been sought and people think immediately of flexibility? I'm not thinking like flexibility flexes both ways. Like we haven't in my opinion been through a one way door, Holly. This is a two way door. And frankly I believe we've over romanticized remote working. Like we don't have enough data, we haven't done it for long enough at the scale that we have been doing it in peace times to really get a sense of what that means when it comes to competitive advantage, to attract people, but also from a leadership perspective to make sure that we're showing up for our people when needed most. And I think that's what we've been through. But now how do we sustain that is a very different question. So I think the experience or the focus and the experience of work itself and how that fits into each individual's world, which is a highly tailored message. And it's something actually that can't be predetermined. It's something that's experienced during the engagement and selection process and needs to be tailored per individual.

Certainly I'd love to kind of dig into a little bit more about the career trajectory of individuals. But when we are doing remote working, for example, there's a tendency, particularly for organizations where they were doing remote working or hybrid working, where some people were remote and others were office based or location based, that those who were, I suppose promotion is based on proximity a lot of the time. And if you are in proximity to your leaders who have the power to therefore promote you, you're more likely to be noticed for that promotion, more likely to be highly networked, and therefore more likely to actually get that promotion. So your career trajectory is actually on the direction that you're looking for. Whereas those who are remote are often, they're not as well networked, they're often forgotten about and because they don't have that proximity, they don't get that promotion. So is that something that we can repair, I think, going forward? Or are actually people looking for an upwards trajectory in their career? They're looking for other, other directions.

I think that's been the narrative. Isn't it like it's about proximity bias and people logically think those who are further from decision making have less opportunity. I think it depends on what you do. And there's an equal argument for the distractions that come through being in office. So therefore, to somebody who has a full run of the day given very clear tasks, but all the working kind of structures and practices geared towards individual type work, do they not have a competitive advantage over those who are bogged down by distractions in office? So again, it's a bit of a seesaw effect. Now, I do largely agree with the point that there's a proximity bias. I think we have a whole new world of equality and kind of balance that will come out, I think over the coming months and years. That's a whole new front around diversity, inclusion. And it's now based on location, not the traditional ways we think about diversity, inclusion and equality. But I also think I think about this differently, right? So not just about proximity. I always think about an organization being like a structure and I think about the individual building blocks. Think of a brick wall, an individual building block being the human capital. And the cement that binds us is the social capital. It's how we collaborate. The ingredients in that cement is what makes work more sociable, it's what makes it more productive, it makes it more elastic, stronger or weaker. So the ingredients that goes into that cement is really what makes us better. And I think we've. What has happened over the last while is that it's actually the cement that's been broken, isn't it? We've distributed all of these building blocks and our organizational human capital, that's what's being distributed. And now we're looking to kind of bring elements of that back. So what binds the BRICs that are closer versus the ones that are further? I think there's something around our competitive advantage, around collaboration, productivity and actually therefore our message to the marketplace of what work and the Experience of work means to the individual that needs to be fully understood for each organization. And I would therefore argue the point, Holly, that I think the real career advantage is actually the managerial capital. It's the capital you build up with those in decision making, those who make and break opportunity for every individual. And some of that is there's a benefit to being closer and some of that is actually if it's geared towards output, you have an advantage to being full time remote. But knowing how we typically make decisions, it's usually and often a conversation before meeting or the meeting after the meeting where we convene that we kind of make decisions or have done historically at least, you know what I mean? So yeah, I think it all needs to be unpacked. But the ingredients in that managerial and or social capital are really what matter most.

Yeah, absolutely. I can't agree more. I think and obviously moving to an output focused type of organization or certainly a leader where you are really focused on the outcomes and the. In the inputs there aren't as specific because they're not time bound. Right. Those inputs could happen fitting in and around family and life and therefore having that flexibility. As you're talking, talking about those inputs can happen incredibly efficiently or inefficiently. Right. Some people are just really, really, really efficient and boom, they get their work done very, very fast because they just are able to focus. And others may not be as efficient with putting in those inputs, particularly as they're learning. Right. But it's always the outputs and outcomes that need to matter in order for you to be able to move to better and I suppose more a better position that you're looking for in terms of your own growth rather than necessarily always a promotion upwards in the organization, but certainly getting to work on great projects that you're always like itching to get towards. I think it's that outcomes that are always going to be key.

Yeah, I also think when you again think that through. So how long do we have for this, Holly? We've got a lot of ground to cover. But I might share one final thought if you don't mind. I didn't even ask the question. I just railroaded in the culture. What's changed? Like was culture in most organizations really truly built in an environment? It's how we experience each other, isn't it really? There's very few who have been built as fully distributed first. We know the handful examples who were there before the pandemic. We know the companies like hopping and so on who've done great work in Scaling since the pandemic. So there's all these outliers. But by and large, I think when we think through what most companies believe to be their competitive advantage around retaining, attracting, driving performance of their people to deliver for the customer, we think of culture and guided by values. And the way I think about this, I just obviously North Star purpose and the driving ten Commandments, whatever of the behaviors are our values. And I'd ask the question of what values have been stretched most over the last 18 months, two years, and which was shown up most for people when they were needed. And I think there's a complete overhaul required for our value sets in who we are and how we work. And that therefore equals our evolving value proposition to the marketplace. Like, have we not all become like. As the health and wellbeing of our people? Not like gone right up as a kind of key value in all of our organizations yet we haven't repackaged that or articulated that in a very clear, concise way. And I also think about proximity and purpose in the equation of values. And I think of the All Blacks, so the highest performing, until we beat them recently, one of the highest performing sporting teams in any sport. In any. In the world, right?

So I'm sure if the All Blacks played rugby, they'd be fine, but I'm sure if they played cricket, they'd be a very different team.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So. So anyway, the. So the All Blacks, right, so they don't have a home venue, they don't have a training ground. They rotate and they go to different locations. So what has driven the culture of high performance amongst the All Blacks? It's been more about ideology and belonging as opposed to values that are experienced in one place. So I think distributed workforce is more of a lean on ideology and less on how values are experienced. And I don't think we've clearly articulated and probably understood that to the degree that we need to if we are to continue to cultivate and. And to prune our cultures that we. That we. We've long prized as being our point of difference.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, actually, because I'm conscious as well, this conversation is fascinating. I want to continue for the next 20 minutes on this. I'm being prompted that we actually have an agenda for this show. But I will leave you with one quote before we move on to actually our first news article for today's shortlist, which is from Harry Fiddler. So I was doing my learning on social talent today, which was on Bev K's program Love it, don't leave it about finding out that that purpose in your own job, which is actually was quite, quite useful for today's conversation really. But this wonderful quote from Howard Fitler was values actually wrote it down. Values are the emotional salary of work and some people are earning no wages at all. So yes, unfortunately some people aren't earning anything when they, when those values aren't aligned. And I think you're dead right, those values have been stretched to some degree and those are probably the ones that we never really ascribe to. In reality we're more aspirational. But the ones that are really showed up, I think those definitely are our true values. And so with that in mind, our first article for today to really vibe on this discussion is really around the retention piece more so than anything else. Not really on attraction, but from a retention perspective. This was an article from the Harvard Business Review. Six strategies to boost retention through the great Resignation. This was from three Boston Consulting Group analysts who. Sorry, excuse me, four Boston Consulting Group analysts who really actually six very, very useful quick strategies that organizations can deploy to really bring in retention. The first was on incentivizing loyalty. So it's interesting that you're talking about what that loyalty means and incentivizing loyalty being through compensation. I think we all recognize that compensation does need to be a strategy that we, that we put in. The second was providing opportunities to grow. The third, elevate your purpose very much. So along the lines of that prioritize culture and connection was the fourth. The fifth was invest in caring for employees and their families. And the sixth was embracing flexibility. Are there any of those six that kind of pull out to you or do you think, oh, that's rubbish? I wouldn't really agree with that at all.

Like it sounds like ubiquitous language. We talk about all of these words, all of this, these teams for like two years very intensely. But who has really executed with the rubber hits the road, who has really delivered this and who is, who has been really clear at articulating and communicating the true value of all of these initiatives and all of these things that matter to our people. I don't think anyone's really cracked this, quite frankly. Some have done elements of it. I also note you always in social talent with you or Johnny or Vince for anyone's presenting. You always reference Harvard Business Review, the Economist, Financial Times. I never see of any of the papers that you actually read reference when you're quoting any articles in our space. You know, I look forward to seeing them. So the sons the world and the Irish times. But anyway, I'm being kind with the Irish times, which is stopped. So financial, financial. Do you remember, Holly, the government savings scheme that the Irish government launched? Some listeners will probably know. So was the 20 years ago. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was birthday hearing. I remember doing it and I actually had it as my kind of methods to save for my first mortgage or whatever.

For context for listeners or for watchers, this is where for every €4 you saved, the government would give you an extra one. So it would give you a 20% return on your savings. Yeah. If you kept it for five years, was it a thousand euro maximum a month or something like that?

Yeah, but yeah, yeah, two years or something. Yeah. And you couldn't touch it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well remembered.

So and then everyone bought cars with at the end when they all matured.

I think it actually it was the catalyst for the Celtic Tiger which ended in spectacular, spectacular collapse. But anyway, you think about financially incentivizing retention. So again, like, like one of the main pressure points certainly for us and say, for our kind of, say average kind of recruiter in our business, there's usually a kind of a life decision. Usually we tend not to lose to our competition. A lot of us in house, quite frankly, sort of going to the multinationals, they're going to tech companies and so on. There's usually a life decision and it's usually around, it's usually around say buying a house or reaching a ceiling. But if you look at financially. So one good one I learned was actually to have like a mortgage saving scheme for that cohort or probably at an age, maybe in their twenties where the company's working with them over two, three year periods to match fund or to, to contribute towards a savings scheme. Obviously any kind of LTIP and kind of options are good ways to retain, but I think the tax treatment of those is something that's under question. But when I think about what retains people, what's good news? I'll give an example. I often think of the influencers of our people. So quite often they go home to the nearest and dearest or they are at home with their nearest and dearest, back to our point. And they'll share the news after their day's work. So you leave the desk you're at now, Holly, you go to that couch, you'll sit down with your husband, you'll be there with the baby or having dinner, whatever it might be, and you're going to share your news. And quite often the response our people receive from their influencers is what drives much of their feeling around, what works for them and their family. So something that can be directly correlated with a lifestyle enhancement I think is a positive thing. Something around career development. I know fidelity for example, kind of touches on the, kind of the learning piece. But they offer one day every two weeks now to learn a new technology for their developers. So they get to collaborate one day, day every two weeks. And obviously they're upskilling for themselves and there's a whole world of innovation coming out of this. But it was much more frequent than I, than I've ever heard before, you know, and it kind of feeds in then to, if it's lifestyle then brings in the question of the sustainable performance. So we'll probably get to that in a bit. So the financial piece is really, really important. And I think like, I think looking after the well being of our people, they need to be performing to a level where they're earning and they're again realizing their individual potential. And again, it's not a holistic kind of painting brush. We can come in and just kind of paint everyone with the one brush. But it needs to be again bespoken down to the experience of work, but also how it overlaps with their human experience. And if we can feed the human experience and support the human experience as part of their, their, their partnership with us as employers, I think that's going to help with retention.

Yeah, I love that idea actually of matching funds. Like if we understand what the financial incentives are of our employees. Like for example, if people have ridiculous student loans, for example, that they really need to, that they're really struggling to pay off, or they're trying to save for that down payment on a mortgage, or they're looking to save for their retirement, they're trying to pay for their children's education, whatever that is. Everybody does have an incentive and I think once we earn enough to take the issue of money off the table, that usually gives us that flexibility then to think elsewhere. But anything else that's creative, you know, that organizations can do in order to retain people, I think is very, very useful. I really love that idea. In terms of things like embracing flexibility, you were saying earlier that it's definitely a two way door and when it comes to flexibility and you know, obviously employees have been incredibly flexible for employers by, by putting the foot down on the accelerator when times really need it. Especially during the intensity of the pandemic when I'm sure all of us worked more hours than we ever have in an Office because we were at home and therefore we didn't have the commute and therefore it's much easier just to have emails on all the time. And suddenly that blur happened. Much easier, I think, than when we had that separation from work because of a commute. So what can organisations do, I think, in order to encourage and embrace that flexibility that employees need.

Live it and breathe it. Again, we talk about, again, flex on the city. Again, I've loads of them. Holly, you don't. You don't want to know.

I love it.

I love it, like. So a lot of people have changed their tune, a lot of people have changed their tune. And it's also polarized views aren't there, like on what flexibility is and to what. To what benefit and to what cost. Now, my own feeling is where we are a tribe better together, certainly here at Sigmar is my. My feeling. And again, we give as much flexibility as people need and it's not just around time. Flexibility has to kind of be stitched into every aspect of their experience of us. And we haven't cracked it. We certainly have not cracked it. We built a bar at our back garden to encourage people to convene more and again into a safe space which has been well used. So it's, it's really just have a reason and a place that's safe to convene more so for new people that haven't really got together. But look, it's as flexible as is being demanded. Like employment is demand driven. If what's. If this, if our people are demanding it, it's how flexible we need to be. But I don't think like our work practices are really thinking what we need to deliver for ourselves, for where we have places of work, but more importantly for our customers. And again, I think that's where we need to have some realistic, Maybe challenge to flexibility. If it goes beyond or gets to a place where it's not delivering for our customer, we need to question it. And then I think we need to show probably balanced leadership and making sure that it's as flexible as it needs to be. And I don't. Again, look, choose your poison like it's a broad spectrum, but if it's about being competitive in the marketplace, it's as much as being demanded. And then it's a question of the peaks and troughs of times where the flex needs to work in the other direction to show up for the customer when you are needed most. So it works both ways.

Yeah. And I think honestly, when individuals do experience that flexibility where they receive it because they needed it at that time. They're so much more willing to be flexible on the other side than when the time comes. So long as I think that's made relatively explicit, you know, Kate, yeah, happy to flex here for you if you're happy to flex me when I need you most as well, or when I need a little bit more of your time. And I honestly do believe that virtually everybody is perfectly fine with that.

But look, what's being this. If you read like the average job description now, right? So like most people, like, like work from anywhere is baseline. Like there's a baseline expectation, right? Baseline. And if you look at like, I don't see any edgy, innovative, like creative, like articulation of like a real, true, long term flexible way of working. So everyone's promoting work from anywhere, fully distributed, right? So if we aren't geared or built, and 99% of companies in the world have not grown or come from that world, so we're trying to recreate where, by whom and how work gets done. And we will, I honestly believe we will revert to a lot of our old habits. A lot of ways of working will contract once more when we're allowed to reconvene in a wholesale way. I would really question, like, what are we building for the future? Like if somebody chooses to work from anywhere, if they choose to relocate and to do individual contributory work and don't, like, I'd question the trajectory of their career, Quite frankly, in five years time, in 10 years time. Or I might be completely like out of sync and I'm no longer attractive as an employer, you know, I mean, so look, this is the split that's happening, isn't it? Like, you know, but I think we like actually. Do you remember Patty McCord?

I do, yes, I do, yeah.

So, so again, the chief people officer at Netflix and she managed a lot of that early transition. Author TED speaker so she was long, a long time telling me about like, we talk about like the short tenure of our workforce. So 6 months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months. And we're all giving out better retention. And we kind of used to equate that to millennials and kind of growth and expectation and being more demanding and less loyalty. And her point to me, this is four years ago, five years ago was why are we constantly giving out about this? And why don't we reverse engineer our thinking to look to leverage the value of a worker who has now worked maybe five years and on tree stints with world class companies, how do we re engineer our workflows to get as much as possible from that fabulous experience instead of giving out about us and saying no to these people because we think they're job hopping? So the same goes for flexibility. How do we re engineer our work practices to ensure that we get as much as we can for our customers and also for our people? Like we, this is baseline. We show up for our people, we got their wellbeing and it's about the sustainable support of our people. That goes without saying. Everything else on top of that has to work towards what's been sought the marketplace.

Yeah, absolutely. Actually, you know what, the job hopping nature of some kind of workers, The New York Times this morning they do as they do every single morning, they have an episode of their podcast. I'm sorry, the day is a podcast I listen to religiously every, every weekday outside of American holidays, of course. But the, the episode from today was all about Amazon and their absolutely relentless consumption of people, but also realizing that people are a finite resource. You know, it's a, it's a non renewable resource if you're eating them that fast. And they literally, their churn rate per year in their warehouses is 150%. Meaning that every eight months they are replacing 100% of every role in their warehouses, which is bananas. But with that in mind, they also understand that, look, these are eight months that we're going to get out of these people. Let's absolutely get the absolute most that we can. Let's ramp them up as quickly as we possibly can. But they have had to do a bit of an about face where Jeff Bezos, his motto of being the world's most customer centric organization has had to flip to where we're, you know, this is the most customer centric organization where people love to work. You know, it's actually, it's a destination employer. And because their people are looked after in their warehouses, they will therefore look after their customers. You know, he's realized that that has definitely linked the two together. Thank goodness. Because warehouse work at that pace is unsustainable. You know, regardless of how much money you throw at the problem. Money is not always the answer. So it is all those other additions like having that flexible working or having where you're prioritising culture, where you're prioritising that purpose, people can really see what they're actually delivering for. And you know, that's what's going to retain people. Rather than just pay them $15 an hour as a minimum, give them healthcare, it's Also given those other opportunities, as you're saying, around flexibility, around caring for people, making sure you have their well being, center of mind and, and that of their families as well. And that's probably what's going to retain them.

But if we think, and we probably come for world Holly, where we act, behave and think like, like missionaries, you know what I mean? It's about culture, growth, future value creation, people caring. And if the market has changed to people thinking like mercenaries, like this collision, they're two very different things. So I think there's a bit of adjustment required both sides here.

Yeah, well, speaking of a mercenary type of organization, we do have one last article before we finish up for today, which was from the New York Times, and it was that Wall street is grudgingly allowing remote work as bankers have dug in. So finance employees who couldn't imagine working from home before the pandemic are now reluctant to return to the office and their bosses can't figure out how to bring them back. I remember reading a lot on Investopedia about like, what's it like to work as an amateur or a banker? Oh, I know, sorry. Yeah, but like these are people who do 100 hour weeks Monday to Friday, you know, they're not in over the weekend, but it's Monday to Friday, 100 hours and they're, you know, in at 7 o' clock in the morning and they leave the office maybe by midnight and it's this relentless, incredible workload that they have to do and now they're doing it from home and they don't want to come into the office. And initially my thinking around bankers was, oh gosh, it must be like they can't get a Bloomberg terminal at home. They can't, you know, it's all the security things. There might be something, I don't know, there might be a hack or something of a work computer. But really it's more than that. It's, it's, you know, the fact that employees are actually saying, no, no, sorry, I'm not going to be coming into the middle of the city and commuting for an hour each way on top of the hundred hours I do in the office. I'm actually, I can perfectly well do this from home. And I think really it's about, you know, the right tools, the right resources for them to be able to do their work and then the light leadership that they have, leaders who really do recognize what they're going to do. That's maybe how bankers will get into that. But was there anything maybe from this as the most reluctant laggard type organization or, or industry to possibly do work from home or the employees are just going, no, not doing it, not coming back into the office. It's too risky.

Yeah. So I'm meeting the banking CEO for, for dinner this evening and even choosing. I know, I know, it's, it's, it's, it's. And just even choosing what to wear, like I was much more conservative and I will wear a suit. And again we're a supplier and again we're a partner and a collaborator and that's, that's more of a. Yeah, I think it's just a decision that probably ties into maybe the culture, like maybe that Wall street culture which I think is quite unique as is London city kind of culture. But we think about this or what you describe it, Holly is employee and employer. So the employer is demanding the return of the employees. I think there's something much deeper around this kind of peer to peer expectation kind of influence. And if, if, if, if, if, if it is a macho culture that is about is as we expect or understandable all three culture could be, there might be a very different influence at play. Where like there is that like presenteeism kind of expectation. There is that kind of. Yeah, I think nearly kind of a, like I forget who said it, which CEO said it but like if you can go to a restaurant in New York, you can come into the office. Like was there like a, like a table buying moment? Wasn't it like, you know, it's like just get your arse in here.

Where there's a question JP Morgan actually.

Around banking, so Jamie diamond was it?

I must have. He was, yeah. I think in a way they're kind of right. But also presenteeism is a problem. To be seen to be working in order to have a value ascribed to your work is the wrong way to manage in my opinion. I really do really, I think outcomes as is the most important thing and obviously they come through inputs regardless of how those inputs happen. But do you need to be seen to be doing those inputs in order to get the voice in them?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But the opposite is also true. And I'll leave it on this, Holly. So virtual tourism. So again I think, yeah, it's something very different now and I think it's like if you work in an international organization that there's a question around your availability and if we are to really humanize and really individualize work, the working patterns are nearly like the peer to peer Service level of when available, what's expected and availability to work needs to be clearly articulated at a very granular one to one level. So expectations are managed and we don't have this virtual TSM become a significant challenge and issue as we figure out where we are to work over the next couple of months.

Yeah, absolutely. Virtualtism. I like that. I will be stealing that. Thank you very much, Robbie.

Take my two hands.

Well, indeed. So as we come towards the end of our time. I can't believe 46 minutes have gone by already. We ask all of our guests for one last piece of advice that they could add to our shortlist. Robbie, what have you got for us on. Oh, absolutely anything.

Okay. To see the shelf behind me.

I do, yeah.

To see all those books.

Yes.

One of those pillars or columns of books are gifts that are received from social talent. Yeah. And again if, and then if you look at the, the, the fireplace, there's a bottle of liqueur which was another gift from somebody else to be one of those going home this evening. Holly and I let you decide which one it was. But to circle back to your question, one piece of advice.

Yeah.

I think to really figure out our post Covid renewed commitment value proposition values to get clear on them and to make everyone understand what they are and to get that balance right. If it's really about delivering or commitment or drive or growth and usually elements of that proposition and behavior sets and values is about growth. And I think the one winner over the last 18 months has been well being in the truest sense of the world. And to pinch an analogy from the sporting world, person first, player second. I think we need to really stick with that, continue on that commitment and I mean that in the truest sense. And quite often it's this constant challenge I think we face into between well being and well doing. I think with less resources in our organizations, there's a chance that we may go backwards with the amount of demand for our products and services in this kind of growth market. But well being also means. It also means ensuring that our people do well, that they do well. And there's a big question around the cost of high performance. I know there's been some examples that have come out from the last Olympics. It's been the longest training cycle for any Olympics in history, five years because of COVID And I think there's a significant fallout on a personal human level from a lot of those athletes. I heard a one suicide in fact of an athlete in New Zealand. And again, I think the question of at what cost, High performance, at what cost? And the sustainability and ultimately to try and keep what we've gained and to reclaim what we've lost in a, in a very, yeah, in, in a sustainable way is important. But again, it starts knowing that we're backing our people, showing up for them in order to show for customers.

I like that. Yeah. Sustainability is, is, is definitely an interesting trend, not just from a like a climate change perspective, but I think, you know, with that in mind and even coming back to what Jeff Bezos had realized, that humans are a finite, non renewable resource. You know, sustainability is definitely something we, we need to focus on for our people. Robbie, I love that. Thank you so much. And this has been a really fascinating conversation, not a sparring one. I know we didn't disagree as much as I expected us to, but thank you so much.

Well, you start with the, and you start with the off the shelves. It kind of takes out any, any potential to spar.

I agree and I hope the off the shelves, well, are well behaved over the next couple of days. Aren't up to too much mischief indeed. Robbie, thank you so much for your, for your wisdom and for your expertise in this topic. I've really appreciated this conversation and join us next week. Thank you so much everybody for listening. Join us next week on the shortest same time Wednesday at 4pm where we'll be talking about COVID and the rise of anti Asian sentiment. We'll have Lucy Sheen, who is an actress, a playwright and a digital artist. A really, really interesting perspective on this. I really hope you join us for that conversation. That's Wednesday 8th December at 4pm GMT. Thank you everybody and we'll see you next week. Bye.