The Shortlist with Bryan Adams & Graeme Johnson

And we're live. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, whatever time it is on the 6th of May. For those of you tuned in, welcome to this week's the shortlist. It's Wednesday, 6th of May. I'm Johnny Campbell, CEO, co founder of Social Talent. And we have another great show for you today. Over the next 45 minutes on the shortlist, it's week, it's month three of lockdown for most of us. So we're kind of getting to a more mature understanding of what's happening with regard to talent and hiring a lot of businesses. And we've got two excellent guests, two of my favorite people joining us today to have a chat about employer branding, but also talent strategy and how you have to change in a crisis. I encourage any of you who are watching or listening to, please chime in with your questions.

Whether you're on YouTube or LinkedIn or.

Wherever you're tuning in on podcasts, do chime in with your questions. We'd like to take your questions live.

If you're listening live, and try and tackle those.

Both of our contestants, or contestants, both of our guests today are well up for whatever you have to throw at them. So I'm going to hand over to them to introduce themselves. We've got Brian Adams and Graham Johnson going to hand over to Brian to tell the world about who he is and then pass over to Graham. Brian, you're up.

Cheers, Jonny. Hi, everybody. I'm Brian Adams, CEO and founder of PH Creative. We're a global employer brand agency. We specialize in working with large organizations with complex talent audiences.

Thanks, Brian. Over to you, Graham.

Hey, guys. Contestant number two, Graeme Johnson, sub director of resourcing talent and development at GBC Group. So we're the world's largest sports betting and gaming business.

So, lads, I'm too used to doing these kind of zoom quiz shows with work with people at the weekends. It's like I'm just alternating. It's the screen in front of me. It's like, where's my point? And what question are we on next? Who wants to be even in there? Right, so not quite there yet. So we're going to start with the news as we do every week on the show. We got three articles we want to have a discussion around. So I'm going to ask nad to bring up our first article and three great articles this week and tons to choose from. And the first is around, I guess the risks of reopening and the conversation, which I know in Ireland started last week when we announced our Roadmap to get back to work. But in most parts of the world, in the last few weeks, they've announced a roadmap to get back to work and that's leading to a conversation in businesses about, well, are we going back to work? When would that happen? So I'm keen to hear your thoughts. Graham and Brian around, you know, who go back to work, what jobs, what roles, etc. What does that look like? When is the right time? You know, when will we have normality, if there's such a thing as normality in the office place again? So maybe, Graham, your thoughts on that maybe applicable to your business?

What are you guys thinking about?

Yeah, cheers, Johnny. I mean, it's a real live debate for us. Actually was on a call this morning with the leadership team just kicking around our plans and interested in the article I picked out. It was like 58% of people are concerned and it was US audience, US poll, which Brian will be an expert in. But I think that that's probably an underestimate. I think. I think if you were to look at Europe or UK in particular for us, I think there would be more anxiety about going back to work. Right now, particularly, you're not really seeing that death rate, recovery rate come down yet. We're waiting to see what government are going to announce this week. But for us, I mean, one thing I really loved was a really bold, brave statement that this guy called Rich Barton, who runs Zillow in the us, he pushed that out. I think it was on Twitt the other week and it was. There's no expectation whatsoever if you don't need to go into an office, you don't have to go into one for the rest of the year. And I think that. I think companies that have been a bit more brave and a bit more bold about statements like that, that really drop the anxiety levels of their staff. I think that's really important. But I think there's also like a balance between, you know, there are people who maybe don't have the right conditions at home, maybe need to be part of a team and working in our business, certainly we've got traders who incredible amount of kits, we've got betting control teams, you know, and they work best in an office. So what we're thinking through and working through is for those that practically need to be in, what are the steps we need to take? What's the, you know, capacity level in an office that's sensible and safe, but absolutely putting people's safety first and not, you know, not Doing anything to kind of jump the gun. Just a time for us to be conservative really and stay at home as long as we can.

What do you got, Jim bro?

Yeah, so personally, with pH, we'll probably take a more conservative approach and I don't think there's anything wrong with swift, decisive action as long as you're doing it with the best interests of your people in mind and you're communicating that with empathy. So we'll probably be more conservative than most just because we know that there is nervousness within our team. And what we're doing now is taking the time in between to assess what we're going back to, you know, because it's, it's all about the next normal. And I think, you know, we're probably in an unprecedented time of socially accepted vulnerability, so we can be more transparent and there's just a sense of empathy across the world right now with every organization, you know, so we're just sort of taking it step by step, not jumping into anything, but we're being more transparent with our people. And I think that's what's being appreciated the most.

It's funny, I heard two stories. One was from a couple of weeks back. Again, they're third hand, so I can't say they're 100% true of these organizations, but I believe the CFO of ebay in Ireland had an all hands a couple weeks ago with the team here, but 1300 people, they're based out in North Dublin outside the city in a big building and announced that, you know, the future is going to incorporate virtual and they don't ever plan to have 1300 people back in that building. And then a buddy of mine who's in with Amazon here in the senior role in Dublin was telling me he was informed during the week that they can continue to work home in perpetuity. You know, there's an office there for them to come back to when it's ready. But don't worry about it. If you want to, if you're comfortable doing this, we will never have to ask you back. I don't know if that applies to all levels of jobs, you know, but maybe it's, maybe it's more the tech companies are kind of being brave, as you say, Graham, making those bold statements. Now, not everyone's in a position to do that. And, you know, you don't want to jump the gun three weeks in and say, hey, this is great, let's do it forever. And then eight weeks in go, why did I say that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's definitely, I think, I mean, there's interesting piece in the FT this week as well. About like 25% of CFOs are reviewing their property strategy. All economic predictions you see are, you know, a virtual work. It's almost like this period is going to fast track the move, that some businesses maybe being a bit hesitant or reluctant, but they've actually proven they can do it. So I think, you know, there's implications there for commercial properties. You know, what's, what's London in our case going to look like? I'd be really, really interested in the sort of weeks and months to come. But I think people, there's some businesses making smarter moves to have like campuses and, you know, where they've got three or four offices in one one location. Just go to one and reduce. And I think that'll be a big trend.

I'd say we'll see a lot of innovation in commercial property. You know, we were already thinking about our circumstances, right? You know, I was like, should we just go move to a WeWork and have a certain amount of WeWork spaces available? But actually, even WeWork as it is, as I understand it today, that doesn't really work because people still don't want to commute to a city to sit in a desk. Maybe they don't want to be at home with their kids, to your point, Graham. Right. Or anyone else that's making noise in the house all day long to get their job done. But maybe they just want to go down the road two miles and maybe I'm hoping you'll see innovation where commercial property companies like WeWork start opening really small satellite offices everywhere so that literally there's always a place to go five miles from your house. And you can buy a membership card and go somewhere that suits you that's not in a crazy commuting kind of city or whatever.

But I think I'm open.

Never underestimate the power of entrepreneurs that come up with ways of, of leveraging new solutions for companies that are all faced with these decisions. I'm going to go to our next article, actually, because it's very related. I think it's a good point to make at this point, which is the fact that. Thanks, Niall. This is from Business Insider. And we're talking about remote working and we're talking about people. Will they work from offices or not? The reality is, we all know is that's not representative of the entire workforce. Some people just will always have to go back to their place of work, do their job but it's interesting here looking at the countries in terms of the top 10 countries in the world by GDP. What percentage of jobs, an estimate of the percentage of jobs that can be done at home and the ranges. And one of the kind of challenging things that I saw in this article was that the richer countries typically can do more of their jobs at home and poorer countries tend not to be. So that's not really balanced view of the world. So what did you guys get from this article?

Well, I think it's a snapshot in time and I think if you, if you fast forward six months, I think those stats will probably change radically because as you say, you know, innovation kicks in, needs must, and people adapt, you know, so it'd be interesting to see the trend of those figures, not just the snapshots. I noticed UK is not on there at all, actually.

Yeah.

You know, so I'd be interested to see, you know, the change. Not necessarily, you know, take, take those, those numbers and center a discussion around what is now or even, you know, three months ago, six months ago. It's probably different.

Yeah. And I think I've just added to that. I think it's got an interesting implication for companies, big companies that have offshored a lot to like India, Asia, you know, talking about our operations, it's been hardest to kind of jump to a business continuity plan in the Philippines, in Hyderabad, actually. And I think that companies might rethink, you know, whether they'll do some reshoring activity. And I think it's been a good test for a company to see how they can cope. So, yeah, I agree with Brian. Like there were stats sort of a little bit of skeptical about. I think a lot more companies and countries can do it when they set their minds to it. And I think that will probably look quite different in the next six months.

Like, I know some economies are, you know, more manufacturing and more agricultural, you know, oriented than others. But, you know, I'm one of the bottom countries, as in, you know, a low percentage of your jobs according to that stack can be done remote. I'd look to the countries that have a high percentage and say that's achievable. You know, we could get there. That might not be where we are today. But what are, what's Luxembourg doing? What's unique about Switzerland? What's unique about Sweden? Norway? Sweden and Norway have large manufacturing bases as well. It's not as if they're pure tech, you know, so how does that compare to Austria, for example? You know, how could Germany learn from that and try and open up more opportunities for that.

I think part of it will be talent led as well. You know, if suddenly there's people out there saying, well actually I've never considered working from home but this has given me a much better balanced life. I see more of my kids, I can get my work done. I don't like the commute anyway. You know, this is what I want. For organizations paying huge overheads in London for offices housing hundreds of tech developers and software engineers and all the rest of it, that could change. So the options of being able to onshore roles that previously made sense to outsource to different countries could well change very quickly because people are in the short term certainly more than happy to sacrifice salary for quality of life, work, life balance and working from home. And then you know, if you see commercial property decline because of that, you know, you'll probably find commuter city to towns around London. You know, the domestic house prices will probably grow because people can work and have more flexibility and that kind of stuff.

So it's going to be on that point. Let's jump to article number three because I think that's this is probably where we're getting to the conversation right now is an unprecedented opportunity to hire great talent. This is a Harvard Business Review article.

That I think we're beginning to touch on these points.

I won't comment actually because I know Graham, you're about to jump in there. I think it's we're seeing the opportunity. What do you see as the opportunity? What are you seeing as the potential for this?

Well, I was just going to sort of add to what Brian was saying and related to this article. I think any recruiters, sources thinking about practical things they'll be doing now, it's not asked questions like where does the talent exist in proximity to our where does the talent exist? And to give those insights. So for us, you know, we're looking at data scientists and we were constrained previously by trying to make sure it's sat in one of our hubs. But I think we're reconsidering that question now. So I think it's got those implications. One interesting thing for me about is how ready will people be to jump. So I think the next 12 months we're heading into a global recession. People who were ready to probably move from organizations will be looking for different things. Security will be one thing, how their employers treated them, how recession proof their organization is. I think what you might get is a bit of a slower movement of talent or it might be harder to get top talent out of an organization. So I think there's some implications there about demand and supply that we need to think through carefully, without a shadow of a doubt.

And I think priorities of the talent audience have shifted dramatically just in a few weeks. But I think it is an unprecedented time to attract top talent. You know, there's massive opportunity, massive more opportunity, arguably. But also I think there's an even greater risk of pitfalls and making assumptions that, you know, could actually leave you high and dry. I mean, just assuming that top talent will come back to you if you've made massive layoffs, I think is, is a risk. You know, don't assume that once you fill the position that that's the end of the story as well, because people might just take a job because they need a job. And then, you know, how you're treating your people at the moment, I think will be a legacy that'll stay with you for many, many years. You know, and also, don't, don't assume that the talent that you've retained through this are going to stay as well, because they're having, you know, a lot of people are having epiphanies left, right and center and reassessing the life, you know, what was important a couple of weeks ago is suddenly doesn't matter, you know.

So I'm going to take some questions.

I want to hear. Brian, maybe you can answer because I think for your area of expertise, particularly around the core branding could be good. This is from Celine. See, if I didn't pronounce that correctly, a sourcing specialist at Goldman Sachs asking how can we attract the talent during these uncertain times as candidates considering economic conditions and not so likely to look for new change? You know, Brian, what's your slant of this maybe addressing that employer brand topic we want to talk about? How does an organization gear up? What's the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do to be in a position to attract this great talent in this unique market?

So the first thing is I think we're going to look back on 2020 as the year of employer brand. We might not recognize it until 2021, but there's never been a better time to exercise a strategic use of employer brand. I think in such uncertain times, what people are looking for is security, certainty and clarity of an offer. But that can't happen without reassessing what the current reality is, what people care about, and how you can match what you have to that. But, you know, I would implore anybody to lead with a much more transparent approach of being very clear with what the demands and expectations of your employee experience is, you know, so people know what they're walking into and you know, people are consciously now asking very different questions which get to the heart of your organization. So be there first. Control the narrative, be very transparent. And you know, if, if you can inject more empathy and compassion into your offer, which is difficult sometimes as an employer brand leader, you know, it's, you're not controlling the why or what, you're controlling the how. But if there's fundamental change, you know, even if that means vulnerability, I would say lead, lead with that. There's never been a more socially acceptable time to be vulnerable and give somebody an opportunity to add impact and make a decision as to whether they want to come on that journey with you, you know, so I know there's a lot of things in there, but if you, if, if you do take that approach, I think there's a massive opportunity, a huge opportunity. And I think it'll be the difference between, I think there'll be a gulf in, in, in organizations performance over many years and we'll look back and it's because the great talent joined the, the compassionate, transparent organizations and, and the remaining organizations will wish they'd been perform better in the last few months.

I don't know what you think this Brian. I was thinking about like how do you tap into the anxiety levels of the things that are going to be on people's minds that are actually going to stop them, prevent them from wanting to make a move like short term, next 12 months. And I think it's about, partly about anxiety of how do you integrate into an organization if you're going to have to be onboarded Virtually your normal sort of move into a business is you build relationships in your first three months, you earn your stripes, you make an impact. It's going to be much harder to do if you're going to receive a laptop in the post. So how do you, how do you kind of, you know, from a week we're going to onboard you. We realize this might be a concern of yours. This is how we're going to support you on board yourself, but also some things we'll do to help set you up for success.

Well, I think it's a brilliant point you make, but, and this sounds counterintuitive, I know many things I say, but I don't, I don't know about your organizations, but I do suspect like ph, you know, we're all further apart physically than we've ever been but we've never felt closer. And it's not physical proximity, it's the sentiment of, of your messaging, it's the empathy behind that. It's listening and being human and getting through, you know, times thick and thin together. And I think you can onboard somebody virtually with more empathy and compassion and thought and transparency and togetherness if you decide to. So. So actually I would, I would be careful with that assumption.

Great. What are you guys doing in GBC in terms of strategy? I know a great question from Isan in the Coca Cola company here saying, you know, do you think this new normal will have a huge impact on employer branding strategies? Let's go up a level to just talent strategies. You know, you guys, I assume going into this had a talent strategy. How different is your current strategy today from eight weeks ago?

Yeah, I mean, the real challenge we faced is, you know, our retail estate in the UK is shut down. So, you know, we've shut our shops. But we're growing on our digital business in our gaming brands and we're growing in other markets in the us so we never switch off, you know, we're always hiring, we're always in the market and sourcing and talking to candidates. But I think our emphasis has changed so we're focusing on a digital strategy. We're looking at, you know, which markets are going to generate revenue for us and which roles are really critically important in the short term and making sure that we're prioritizing those. So we've gone down to kind of skeleton staff, reduce the amount of activity that we've got. But we're really focused, you know, about the types of roles that are going to make a big impact in the short term. So we shifted in terms of our talent strategy then from a business point of view, I mean, we've just been really clear with our people about the two objectives we've got. We're going to be conservative, we're going to do two things. We're going to protect all jobs and we're going to conserve cash. So everyone's got the same two objectives throughout the whole business. And when we come out of this, there'll be a time to be more aggressive and we'll be aggressive, but, you know, just be really clear to our people. You know, this is, this is the strategy right now.

And you know what the cool thing about that, that you just said there is, you know, it's an assumption that usually there's times like this there's a tension between the organization conserving cash and doing the Best for the organization financially pulling against what's right for people. And actually, you know, with the transparent approach that you've just articulated, there's a phenomenal opportunity to galvanize people together. You know, don't leave it as an elephant in the room. It's like the best thing for all of us is because it can serve cash. So we can, we can actually, you know, employ people and pay wages and all the rest of it. Therefore, here's what we need from you. Let's all pull in the same direction. And you know, I think once you start to look for the correlation between business health and employee welfare, that's where you start to find unity and you can, you know, dial up the messages of that will bring people impact, purpose and a sense of belonging.

Yeah, we've talked about it on the last couple of episodes of this show, but Sarah Gordon is bringing up a question that's kind of echoed a bit by Isabel around. Isabelle from Schneider is asking will the crisis lead to a change in performance management and the valuation? And then you actually, sorry, Paul Berry's asking, you know, will leadership let go control of people to work flexibly, remotely because it makes more. Makes total sense to work remotely, but takes trust in good performance measures.

It does take trust, does take good performance measures.

You know, will it will. Therefore people have to change the way they do performance management and evaluation because all that stuff is built for the old analog in office world. Like what do you think?

Yeah, well, I mean, you're talking to. I mean, I work for more of an entrepreneurial organization where we don't have traditional performance management, you know, so we're actually just working through what performing at GBC looks like and it's kind of good career conversations, some goals. We don't look to kind of measure people with the scoring matrix. So we're slightly different in that respect. I think if people are kind of lumbered with a traditional performance management approach and wondering, like, how do you switch that if the strategy changes? I think I'd rip, I'd rip up your performance management strategy. I agree.

And I think this disruptive change coming whether you like it or not, and I think using the word control is interesting because there might be a perception of control, but like any disruptive change, it's going to be audience led and people want, need and will ultimately demand.