Company cultures post-COVID-19

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good afternoon everybody i'm going to get started my name is katie jacobs from cipd
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and i've been hosting our coronavirus series of webinars um and this afternoon we've got a really
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exciting session lined up for you exploring the impact that covid19 has had on company cultures
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what has changed what will stick what will we be waving goodbye to and joining me to discuss this this
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afternoon i'm joined by peter cheese ceo of cipd and sharon pamplin
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partner for hr at deloitte i also meant to be joined by tim jones tim is global head of hr at
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london stock exchange we are having some technical issues so he might pop up at some point if he doesn't pop up then i'm sure that
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sharon peter and i will be able to have a fantastic discussion without him but
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just to let you know that as ever i'll just run through some very quick housekeeping notes a reminder the session is being recorded
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and it will be available via the webinar section of the cipd website from this afternoon
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if you go there you can also access recordings of our previous webinars and sign up for future webinars
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we have two more coming up for you next week we're going to be looking at creating learning cultures and we're going to be looking at youth employment
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in the light of the summer statement and after that we're going to take a little bit of a break over august if you want to submit any questions
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during the webinar can i ask you to please use the q a tab which you can see at the bottom of your screen please don't use the chat
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box for questions a reminder that the legal advice cipd members can call our hr inform helpline
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which is available 24 7 and a reminder to head to the cipd coronavirus hub for up-to-date information and resources
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and as always a reminder about our new well-being hub and helpline for members in the uk and ireland
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which provides free access to consultations with therapists for people professionals via our
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partnership with award-winning workplace wellbeing provider health assured and we'll give you some more
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details about that at the end of the session so let's get on to the topic at hand
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the coronavirus pandemic has turned our ways of working upside down and more than 18 weeks after
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the uk went into lockdown and as organizations focus more on rebuild and recovery
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now is good time to reflect on how the coded crisis has impacted our company cultures has it
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forced organizations to press the reset button and to entirely rethink their cultures have organizations with strong cultures
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going into the crisis being able to leverage this to come out even stronger and what should organizational cultures
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look like post code 19 as we try to build a fairer society those are the kind of questions we're
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going to address and please do ask your own by the q and a box at any time
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peter's going to open by giving us some quick opening thoughts and setting a little bit of context and then sharon will give a case study
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about her experience leading the hr function at deloitte and what it's been like for them over the
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last few months and then if we get tim tim will do the same for his experience
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and then we will go into panel discussion um a reminder to please ask questions
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throughout not in the last five minutes as keeps happening in these webinars because then we will not have time to answer them all
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we've got a few in advance which is great so i'll also address those as well so that's it from me for now i'm going
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to hand over to peter to kick us off thanks peter thank you katie and uh good afternoon to
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everybody it's great to be talking on this subject um i think like many of you on this call i'm sure
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i'm i've always been a student and fascinated by ideas of culture and we all remember sayings like you know
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culture can eat strategy for breakfast and yet often our collective understanding of culture has not been as strong as it
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should and now as kate is highlighted i think perhaps the debate about culture and
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ways of working is never been more central to a lot of the thinking about what will happen next
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and i think we're seeing sort of strategy and culture getting very very intertwined because a lot of strategy thinking in many businesses now of
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course is that what's the world going to look like post cover but not least what's my organization going to look
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like where where and how might we work differently what might be some of the different skills and capabilities that we need and
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what have we learned during this crisis and what after all has been the biggest experiment in home working we've ever
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seen that we can take forward as positives and in how we connect and how we work as
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as businesses i think you know the external shifts aside from these being the biggest
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shifts we've ever seen and and i always think about the shifts not just in terms of the pandemic but you know after all
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we've been living through a period of time where the environment has become so much more important to us and our
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responsibilities of businesses in that regard we've now got things like black lives matter which is again reminding us of
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many of the societal challenges we face and as katy touched on therefore ideas like inclusion becoming more
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more and more important and then of course you know what we're now moving into which is clear and clear which is an economic
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crisis so so they are massive shifts i think also what is driving and then those of course force us all to
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be more agile to think very strategically but there's also i think added elements of scrutiny i mean the reality of a
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crisis which is being driven very much by sort of humanity if you will in people's health and well-being
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is of course forcing us to think internally more about those things but it's certainly causing more scrutiny
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externally so how do organizations respond to all of this how do they treat their people
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as a result of this crisis if they're going to restructure what are they doing and we can all read the headlines i mean
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almost every organization that is perceived not to be treating their people well in some of these things is
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certainly coming in for an awful lot of scrutiny to some degrees real challenge about how they're
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thinking about these things um or other ideas like how they've accessed government funds it's been
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notable since the more recent announcements by rishi sunak in the uk about you know paying perhaps a thousand
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pounds of people coming back off early a number of organizations and i think rightly said but why would we take that
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money we're going to bring them back anyway and we shouldn't need that kind of incentive and we shouldn't be taking that kind of money so you got
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scrutiny on those levels as well um but as i said i think when you then boil that down to what do we think about
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cultures internally what do we take forwards from all of this is positive learnings i think a whole bunch
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of things they're ranging from as i said this idea that strategy and culture getting very very intertwined because so many of
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the strategic questions about organizations now do really relate to our cultures how we treat our people
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how we work together and our ways of working and so on i think this idea of purpose
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is being revisited we've been talking about purpose quite a while but being more clear on our purpose
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and particularly clear on our purpose in terms of our responsibilities to all stakeholders this
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multi-stakeholder idea particularly our employees but also recognizing that you know if you're a
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company with investors the things like esg environmental social governments again have got another big ramp up through
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all of this on my point about scrutiny but i think very centrally to the idea of culture has
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always been and is being strengthened through this crisis is the idea of people at the very center of the
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business agenda and business thinking and what is encouraging to me in so many businesses are talking about this much
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more directly that people are absolutely essential to our business they are our
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key assets but how we treat them how we look after them their well-being and all those other ideas we've talked
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about so for so long have had a real catalyst through this and ideas like caring and compassion and
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and the very idea of well being moving significantly beyond i mean if i just take simple examples like
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that old thing of you know how are you feeling today and people say fine and then you move the conversation on
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people really asking that question with meaning behind it now how are you really and people checking in much more with
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their their their team members because they have to because we're not seeing them every day they're working remotely
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people working in different circumstances not in very difficult circumstances that is forcing us to to connect to our
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people in very different ways so the whole idea of caring and compassion and well-being i think being ramped up connection and
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communication as i said already linked to that many business leaders i talked to now and i would include myself in that would say
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they've never communicated with their people in their organization more because they know that in a time of
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great uncertainty when people aren't disconnected from the normal office chatter and all of those other
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things we've got to work a lot harder in how we communicate and i for one would say that those are really
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positive things to take forwards into a culture of the future where i think most of us and i'm sure we hear from sharon are saying our
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organizations are not going to just flip back to what we did before we're going to learn and give people choice about where and
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how they work which will be probably a more dispersed workforce we're not all going to be doing the old nine to five monday to friday things
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which frankly are paradigms that have needed to change for a long time we'll have more choice more ability to give people choice and how and where
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they were and that puts greater emphasis therefore on the things which we've learned through this crisis
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on things like communication and connection but it calls out other ideas too like trust and empowerment and again how long
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have we been talking about those things they're so central to culture to the idea that do we trust our people
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and do our people trust us and all of this debate about things like presenteeism and all our surveys as the
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cipd and others besides have shown that the issues of well-being and mental health of this this fixation on presenteeism
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have been growing not declining and and now this crisis perhaps creates a real opportunity of change to shift
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that balance away from those ideas that we can understand and trust people based on what they produce and what they
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output and not how much they're present in an office or sat in front of a computer screen and
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we've been forced to think about those ideas now through this crisis so i think those
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create some very interesting cultural dynamics as well and i say this whole notion of trust not just trust
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up to the leadership do i trust my leaders but do the leaders trust my people and can i trust them to get on with their jobs
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without thinking that i've got to scrutinize them all the time or that i'm only going to measure their performance by how much time they spend
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in the office so and then other ideas like diversity and inclusion and this is also very very cultural we
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we have an opportunity i believe to push harder and we must i mentioned black lives matter and so
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forth to push harder on inclusion and that the fact of more flexible working does create that opportunity
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for people from different backgrounds different circumstances to engage meaningfully in the world of
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work we're hearing more and more now about the disparity of the economic recovery across the country
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and bl and difficult spots of economic activity in across the united kingdom which are not
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just based on industry sector but they are based in locality and and if we can create more flexible
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ways of working why couldn't people in in perhaps uh parts of the country where the job opportunities are much reduced
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participate in work wherever that may be and those are really really powerful ideas but
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what we have to guard against is this flip back and we've already seen evidence that that in restructuring of organizations
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that we do not keep a clear line of sight on inclusion and diversity those things can start to dissipate very
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very quickly and so we're already starting to see the concerns in the media about more women being let go made redundant
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through through some of the restructuring that's starting to happen because perhaps it's the part-time workers which might have more
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predominantly women involved who are being let go first which ironically is strange when you think that yeah but the whole thing
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we've learned through these ways of working surely is that we can engage people in these different ways so some very important points about the
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importance of inclusion to good healthy corporate cultures but but recognizing again these things
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will not happen by themselves we have to keep a very strong focus on them and other ideas that are emerging i
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think also about as as we move into these next phases of what's going to happen in the post-covered world
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is how do you bring people back from furlough what what happens in restructuring how do i treat people in these sorts of
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ways and as i said at the very beginning we are under more scrutiny as organizations if you're going to have to
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restructure how do you do that in a responsible way that looks after people as best you can perhaps it helps them in coaching or or
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upskilling or re-skilling to find other opportunities beyond your organization and those are very big and very
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challenging questions and those are things that we as the cpd believe in very strongly but also trying
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to influence government thinking and support and there are some positive messages coming from government on things like encouraging more coaching and support
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for example that we all need to engage with so i think to sum up you know we've talked
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about culture in many many different ways but as i said i think strategy and culture now never be more interwoven because it is
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it's talking to all these different dynamics of organizations ways of working a whole shift of paradigm shift away
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from many ways of working that we've had for so long almost literally since the industrial
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age into something that could really be different and better which will encourage more inclusion encourage trust in people in different
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ways as i've touched on but but my strong and fervent belief on this is those are positives which you
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can take forward but they are not going to happen by accident we have to see these as part of our strategy going
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forward we have to embed them in our strategic thinking we have to drive them from very tops of organizations and make sure we
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are measuring and holding ourselves to account for these ideas because at the end of the day it's not just about what we do in organizations
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and creating healthy cultures i also believe that we are all as business leaders and perhaps particularly in our profession
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under more scrutiny for for good reason than perhaps we've ever been before but as i say to finish on a positive i
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think there's a real real opportunity now for us to take these ideas forward and create better healthier more diverse
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organizations that are more responsive more flexible more agile more innovative for the future and after all those are
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things which drive both business outcomes individual outcomes economic outcomes
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and fundamentally perhaps on top of all positive societal outcomes as well so so
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let me hand back to katie on that note thank you so much peter that was a really brilliant overview and a
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fantastic call to arms as well for the profession i hope everybody listening is feeling suitably inspired
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and we've got some great questions coming in already do keep those coming i'm going to hand over to sharon now and
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um sharon's going to pick up i think of some of the themes that peter's mentioned um but bring them to life in
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an organizational context over to you sharon thanks very much katie and thanks peter and good afternoon
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everybody i think it's so interesting hearing what peter said about some of the opportunities that the
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last few months have provided to us as an organization and i think whilst it's something that we
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would never have anticipated or probably wished for um certainly um it's posed some challenges
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but also many of the opportunities and made us really ask questions about the way that we work
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that we took for granted or perhaps esteemed historically that we couldn't change i was talking with dave ulrich last week
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and he said something about culture which i thought was interesting and he said that when we talk about culture
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we should ask what's the value of it and he concluded that we spend time in our internal culture so that it helps us to
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succeed in the marketplace and while that's also obviously very important
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to organizations i think that peter talks about purpose and some other things that are also really critical to
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us all and as an organization in the last few months we've been grappling with another question in relation to our culture
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which is how do we make work work for our workforce a bit of a mouthful but i think really
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important thing that we should be considering so we're a professional services firm we've got about 360 000 people
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worldwide and about 18 000 of those here in the uk and luckily we can
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mostly work from home so as an organization we were able to arrange that very very
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very swiftly and i know that many organizations it would have been more complex and difficult for them to
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do so we haven't had to take up the opportunity of furlough either because of that
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way that we could go into lockdown so quickly um like many we recently reopened though a small number of our offices
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and most of us are still however working from home probably just about 10 of the workforce needed to return and as
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peter talked about wellbeing earlier we certainly provided the opportunity for those who found it more difficult for various reasons to
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work from home to be able to return to the office so it wasn't just about work that needed to be done there um we
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we operate a very flexible working policy but we're also conscious that our people are now navigating
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around myriad of other responsibilities so we've had to put things in place to enable greater flexibility for example
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and enabling our people to work from uh times when it really suits them around family and other commitments
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uh school agendas etc um so not normal office hours and also do introduce things like short-term
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sabbaticals for people with caring responsibilities so there's quite a few things that we've had to do very quickly and very
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differently uh to accommodate things in the lockdown process but they're things that we want to talk
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about so that we don't lose some of the things that we've learned as we go forward being part of the
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global company we've been able to learn from our global colleagues as well about um what they've experienced some of them
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wanting to look down more quickly and therefore into recovery cena and they've shared things with us to help us
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with our recovery planning and that's been quite interesting so for asia for example pretty much very quickly went back to
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more of a normal working regime perhaps not implementing so many changes
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scandinavia did warner's to make sure that we sorted out the coffee um before we actually got everybody back into the uk offices
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so that was a very important tip for us there uh it was quite a letdown i think they thought they would be going back uh into
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a more and more workplace than that perhaps they found so um to be quite a few interesting things that we've been uh trying to
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learn from across the organization more globally um danielle if you could just move on to my next slide that would
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be great um so there's a lot of start of the lockdown one of the things that we did was we established principles that would
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help to guide the actions that then we took from the initial response and now into recovery that are helping us to
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think about how we we go forward from here so firstly it was about how do we protect
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our people and look after their well-being how do we support our clients and how do we ensure the long-term resilience of
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our firm and we've used those principles very much just sort of guiding lines to use each thing that we've now done
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so as our thinking developed um so to use our appetite and to create a culture in which all of
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our colleagues can thrive in the post-covered world we really do want to push the boundaries to the art
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of the possible by challenging the way that we do things and asking ourselves what's the purpose
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now of the workplace and how can we create a seamless experience between the physical
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and the virtual workplace of the future so i think as peter thompson was certainly not anticipating going back
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uh into the way that we used to operate i think we'd like to capitalize on the things that we've learned so as we've been thinking about
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it there's a few key priorities that have started to emerge for us firstly how do we bottle the brilliance
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of what we've learned during this period and not just learn from it but build on it how do we challenge how we um we use our
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space so the physical workspace moving away probably from people coming going to the office just to use their
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desks but to create an environment for collaboration and for socializing which we have realized is really important
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both to our people but also for the way that we do business and then how do we support our people
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understanding that our workforce is very diverse and they will require different forms of
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support and i think something that peter said that really resonated with me um is that inclusion has always been a really
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important item for us as an organization and something that we've seen that's been really
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interesting is that through lockdown and as we're starting to emerge from that we're actually able to
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really prioritize and drive forward our inclusionist gender in a way that we perhaps haven't anticipated um
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one of the uh examples i'll just share with you i was talking to one of our audit partners the other day
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and he said that we've had an opportunity to reinvent the way that we do audit
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so part of an order is doing an inventory and if you imagine that if you're doing that in some form of
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warehouse environment you would physically have to go into that workspace and physically
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count palettes for example but we've been able to reimagine the way that we do that because we've had to
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and as a consequence it's enabled us to say if we can change the way that we've worked because of the situation how can we
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now allow that to provide us an opportunity where we can allow people to work when they want to where they want to and
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perhaps that opens up both for us a new diverse talent pool but also hopefully makes us more
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accessible to people who are interested in working for us as an organization that might have ruled us out historically because of the way that
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they were required to work so we've been actively seeking um contributions for our people to talk
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about the way that we work in the future and maybe a little bit of survey for fatigue but we thought it was really
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important to gain their their views and their insights um and danielle if you can move on to the next slide for me these are some of
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the sort of insights that we've started to glean so one of them is that it's not enough to simply shift our current ways of
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working into a digital world whilst our it department did a wonderful job of
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getting zoom in place and enabling us all to work remotely really effectively really quickly we've realized that we need to
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fundamentally rethink how we organize how we operate and how we behave as an organization and use our digital
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platforms to enable that so it becomes a supporter rather than the driver if you like
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um we know that our people have adapted really well they've adopted new technologies they've got much clearer focus in
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meetings and we've seen much more agility and decision-making which has been fabulous
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but we also do recognize that our business is built on creativity and innovation and our people do need to
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be able to do that um in order to collaborate and to work effectively together so thinking about the workplace we need to
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not lose those coffee chats that we used to have which is we do recognize that's how some of our relationships are made
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and i think peter was talking earlier about the fact that new people joined our organization and they doubt many other organizations that
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have probably never met each other other than virtually as we're doing today so we also know
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that a sense of belonging and purpose is really important peter touched on purpose earlier
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and certainly it's important to us in attracting and returning key talent we also know that the availability and
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the visibility of leadership has been really important through this period but we recognize that that side of desk
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chat um is really important to our people we need to think about how we can retain
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that perhaps even if we did maintain some form of virtual working so our people directly have said
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starting with the positives of remote working during lockdown about things that are important to them about our culture is that
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whilst they've adapted well to remote working they've really enjoyed much more flexibility
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at times that have worked better for them and many people have actually shared in focus groups that they'd like
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to continue to work from home um perhaps doing something like a couple of days of working in the office
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couple of days working from home once locked down does end they've also said that it's been really
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important to them that they felt like one team and we've been able we were very um dispersed as an organization a lot of
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offices throughout the uk and globally but it's meant that we've been able to connect more easily with with colleagues around
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the world and in fact many of our people have been excited about the fact that they may not have to live in an or
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live in a city in order to work with us in the future um we've also recognized for ourselves
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and peter touched on it that we can have a culture of presenteeism um it does force some individuals to
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feel that they have to come into the office and be seen and perhaps that's probably unnecessary is what we've learned through lockdown
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um like many organizations we've found that we've been incredibly productive through this period and therefore we're hopeful that that
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culture can actually start to shift and change and our people have also commented on how lockdown's been a leveler
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and they've talked about the fact that everybody's the same size on zoom which is great but they've also said that it's been
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really nice to have more access to their leaders than ever before in a much more informal way and that's
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something that we've recognized as important there have been challenges peter had talked about that and certainly we've
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recognized them as well and we've been constantly serving our stuff about their well-being and have dialogues about that
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and some people have certainly commented that it's been quite a challenge during the lockdown period to try to work from home whilst caring
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for family having various distractions around them and also some of our people don't have the
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spaces that are supportive of remote working and therefore that's been more challenging some of our more junior
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people as well have said that learning on the job hasn't been quite so easy and they have noticed that absence of
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their team their leader their colleagues being sat around them physically providing with that face-to-face coaching and support
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so that's something else that we've been very mindful of so i think danielle if you could just move on to my last slide
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i think one of the things that we would conclude is that lockdown very much has shown us that there is a great
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opportunity to reflect here on about how we work in a much more distributed way
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and the impact on our business our teams our individuals is something that we're very mindful of
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but we've also learned such a lot that's been so positive business agility is clearly going to be
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a key requirement for us for the future the current environment has forced people to really speed up their decision
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making it's reduced bureaucracy without increasing risk and i think that that's been a game changer
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certainly from an hr perspective and it's something that i'm personally keen that we do maintain and hang on to um we've
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learned a lot about how we use technology but i think that it's one of the things that we need to really think about for the future
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i think some people have commented about the always-on culture so that's something that we're very mindful of so we need to think now about what
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policies do we need to change what's our overall narrative going to be and what risks do we need to mitigate
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but we certainly plan to maximize what we have learned from co-fed we're really keen to build a future of
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work that listens to our workforce and enables them and puts them firmly at the center of what we do
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so they've been very much the lessons that we've learned a lot of what peter had talked about today and clearly a lot for us to do and
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reflect on from what our people have said so exciting times ahead i think katie thanks so much sharon and
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i'm delighted that tim came tim came on during that so tim could you unmute yourself please um welcome just test that your
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sound's working hello everybody and thank you katie i'm going to
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mute myself and hand over you to you tim to tell your story thank you so much and um hello everyone
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and and peter and katie thanks so much for the invite and sharon good to to present with you
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so i'm going to give some insights um more of a case study in terms of what we've done at the london stock exchange group and
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just to give people some context we're a business which is a circle of 5000 people
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um globally based across 20 countries so quite an international business with circa 40 of our colleagues in the
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uk and high densities of colleagues in in sri lanka malaysia romania italy france
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and the us also and what i'd like to do is just talk to you about particularly how we take an approach to to covid and the
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response to that which is framed in a context of we actually feel quite privileged as an
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organization because whilst of course our organization is affected by the crisis many of the services that we provide and
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the importance of what we do within the financial services and financial market infrastructure businesses is critical
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when there may be times of stress within the markets or stress within businesses so don't know if you could go to the next
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slide please i'd just like to give you some context um whenever i've talked about our group before i'm conscious that in many
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aspects we have a quite a global presence but we're a b2b business so if you think about our key
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aspects of what we do it's primarily around in capital formation that stock exchanges as an example the
28:57
london stock exchange borsa italiana and the infrastructure that comes with that when it comes to risk
29:03
balance sheet management that's very much around clearing and settlement so those very important transactions that
29:09
take place within financial communities and information services is very much
29:15
brands you may be familiar with such as ftse or russell in the us which is a lot around data and the importance of the management of
29:21
data and the provision of that information very much framed with very resilient and
29:27
high quality technology and operational excellence and that's one of the reasons that many of our colleagues are based in
29:32
other locations around the world now we've been operating in a similar way that sharon described
29:40
in lockdown 100 from home from early march and the context in in how we're
29:45
operating is also framed with at the moment as an organization we're in the process of completing a
29:52
transaction with refinitive now refinitive is a former division of
29:58
thomson reuters the financial arrest division it's circuit 18 19 000 colleagues in 70
30:03
countries and one of the things that we've been wrestling with as a management team is not only the importance of
30:08
how we lead the business during this time how we support our colleagues during covid
30:14
but also just spare a thought for thinking about how you start to plan and integrate with an organization when
30:20
you're not physically meeting with people you can all appreciate when you're seeking to get cultural alignment when you're
30:25
seeking to understand businesses when you're making selection decisions the benefits of doing that face-to-face
30:31
have suddenly had to be rethought and that's been a real learning for us as a management team so if you daniel if you
30:36
go to the next slide please i want you to just draw your attention to some aspects i think many organizations
30:42
will state their values their behaviors their beliefs and for me the covid crisis is an
30:48
example of where some companies have been really able to embrace and take an approach which aligns to their values so as for
30:55
us the concepts of partnership integrity and innovation has meant that we've really in many cases not even mr
31:03
beat in terms of the services and the provision of um particularly for clients in terms of how
31:09
we've approached things and in a moment i'm going to show you it's not just rhetoric from me but i'm
31:14
going to show you some data points which we've been able to test and evaluate and i know katie is smiling at this
31:19
point because i'd really like to ensure with my team if we're going to back value to an organization we can actually
31:25
measure it we can put metrics around it at the same time and that's very important for us to ensure that we're demonstrating value so
31:33
these values these behaviors have actually meant that you'll see in a moment when we've surveyed our colleagues when
31:39
we've talked to them they feel more connected than in a pre-covered world they've actually got a greater assessment
31:46
of our leadership approach than in a pre-covered rule which i think is quite stark
31:51
so if you could just go on to the next line i'm going to give you a couple of examples of things that we've really really
31:56
driven i think all organizations have an increasing focus on well-being
32:01
and i think that it is now more important than ever before um we typically choose around the five
32:09
well-being initiatives but it's particularly for us around the emotional and the physical well-being
32:15
where we've really had to think differently so from a standing start we actually developed online
32:23
mandatory training tools around ergonomics mandatory sounds as if it was quite
32:28
cumbersome but what the team did is literally in two days they designed um a module to help people ensure
32:36
that they were sitting correctly they had the right equipment in place we also for all our managers and
32:42
colleagues in the group we gave them an allowance to go out and help invest in the right kit if they didn't
32:48
feel that they were able to work from home and as you can appreciate we're fortunate that
32:53
all of our colleagues can work from home perhaps it's the emotional well-being which is something
33:00
i think every organization has placed a huge focus on this is becoming even more important as
33:05
i think people are starting to have a level of weariness with screen time as colleagues are having an impact about
33:12
how they maintain motivation we've done some tracking of our holidays
33:18
and we're really pushing people to take their holidays but actually the number of people that have physically taken them
33:23
in a covered world versus in a normal working environment is much lower than it should be and that's something we're really focused on
33:29
in trying to improve so these areas are quite constant and
33:34
what we've noticed is that people are clearly are blurring the lines between are they physically working from home or
33:42
sleeping in the office and we're trying to enable situations where they're taking time out
33:47
um breaking things up and you know it's okay to be walking and having a meeting on the
33:53
telephone it's okay to get some fresh air it's okay to think differently in terms of how we're operating it
33:58
one of the other aspects that we've really had to look at in terms of this is how we continue to bring in different
34:04
technology tools to enable people to brainstorm to critique to iterate because as any team the
34:11
importance of working together is somewhat lost in this this strange environment so we've tried to bring in technology tools such as
34:18
microsoft teams at pace to really uh enable that and to really accelerate that focus
34:24
so that for us has been a real core pillar and it's been recognized by our colleagues
34:29
if danielle we could go to the next slide now please i just wanted to show you a very quick example like all organizations
34:37
we place huge emphasis on the engagement of our people and our leaders and these are good results in my opinion
34:45
from a pre-covered world so in terms of relatively high levels of engagement with the organization
34:50
but for us there's definitely was always some focus in areas such as leadership and
34:56
management as well i don't want to dwell on these but i'm going to refer to them in a moment when i show you some of the initiatives we've taken in
35:02
the impact in a moment but i just wanted to give you a highlight this is this is how we were engaged with our
35:07
colleagues up to the end of last year so danielle if you could go to the next slide now please so we've done a number
35:13
of things um one of the my favorite has been the social exchange so we're all partnered
35:19
with different colleagues around the world so this morning i had a a social exchange of skype meeting with a
35:24
colleague in dubai and last week it was with a colleague in romania and the week before that was with a colleague in sri lanka
35:30
and these are just literally like those coffee chats those discussions that typically would
35:36
happen in an office environment we're just connecting in a different way and what's been fascinating
35:42
is our colleagues actually feel more connected when we're in 5 000 offices than when
35:48
we're in 20 so there's been some significant learnings for us as an organization in the way that we go about that
35:53
that's been very very powerful as an executive committee we often will host virtual we talk
36:00
typically do them over a coffee or breakfast we're now hosting virtual chats with colleagues around around the globe
36:06
we develop quickly a microsite with tools with best practice much of it linked to external material
36:13
but also adding our own material i'll talk about some of the manager interventions in a moment
36:18
and constantly the theme for us is particularly our mental health and well-being at the center of it
36:25
so these are some of the things that we've done i recognize all companies are doing it but for us it's connected with
36:30
our colleagues in a different way than we had before so danielle if you could go to the next slide please so
36:36
one of the things that we had intended to do this year was build on a manager excellence program and a leadership
36:41
program unfortunately we only got one cohort out the door in february before we had to rein it all back in so what we've done
36:48
is we've shifted the approach and we've now built and it's still alive in its implementation but every
36:54
week or two weeks there is a webinar or a learning module where our managers
37:01
all of them across the globe are invited to attend and this just shows you the examples so some of it is
37:07
about how they lead in a crisis how you lead and manage virtually how you keep people motivated and
37:13
productive we've had i think circa twelve hundred attendees to these webinars and there's still more
37:20
coming and the intent is short bursts of activity best practice thought leadership
37:25
tips of how to get the best out of the people and you can see the subsequent ones firstly it was
37:32
around adapting to challenge then we've moved more to empathy and engagement and now because this is
37:37
prolonged we're focusing that around focus and resilience they're videoed so they're always available to people if they can't attend
37:44
and the feedback as you can see has been fantastic so that's really been about upskilling
37:49
skills and capability of our managers because they are having to lead and manage as we know in a very different way
37:54
danielle if you could go to the next slide please what's interesting is we obviously track
38:00
like everywhere does the output of these types of programs and we've really tried to hone our
38:06
management excellence as you can see and the top line here is what typically will be face-to-face sessions in a normal environment and the
38:13
level of not just responses but in terms of feedback face-to-face sessions
38:18
we've also held specialist manager sessions by country you can see them listed on
38:24
the left-hand side why by country because some of the arrangements are different in sri lanka
38:29
our colleagues are often living in homes without air conditioning whereas in the office they're an air conditioned environment for them
38:35
actually getting back to the office is quite important in in our locations where we've got
38:40
graduates some of them are tired of sharing kitchen tables with five other
38:46
colleagues in a shared house trying to get the best out of their operating so we're having to put specialist
38:51
support mechanisms in place for those individuals what's been really powerful is that what
38:57
has led this is not just been by an hr colleague but it's often been led and
39:02
participated in by leaders and managers around the organization giving real quite authentic experience
39:07
which has meant that the level of responsiveness the facilitation the feedback has been very very positive
39:13
we've probably done more of this type of training than we would do in a normal world we've actually ramped up the level
39:19
of activity because of the importance of it so danielle could you go to the next slide please
39:25
so what we decided to do was that we would survey to see how we were doing the team developed a survey in a week we surveyed
39:32
uh we allowed people to participate for a week we analyzed the results in a week and these are the headline results and
39:40
if you can just reflect back um to some of the have your say data around our typical engagement surveys
39:46
you can see the impact so 63 participated but what was interesting is
39:53
that 94 felt that we responded well to dealing with the pandemic where it's quite interesting if you look
39:59
at the top right of this slide 92 were confident about the leaders ability
40:04
during this time that compared to 70 normally when it came about managers 86 felt they
40:11
were being effectively managed compared to 70 normally so what we felt this
40:16
demonstrated is that the efforts and the support actually people were leaning in and doing more
40:22
than they would perhaps in a normal working environment for me these become the norm whatever
40:28
capacity we all return to office in the future these are best practice aspects for us that we will
40:34
continue to maintain and if you look at the well-being aspect which is a central pillar of what i
40:39
spoke about earlier you can see that 81 of people know who they need to speak to
40:45
what was fascinating if you could go to the next slide please what i just wanted
40:51
to show you here and very happy if anyone would like access to the questions we presented our
40:56
our results to the board and as you'll appreciate all boards have directors that can often
41:03
sit on other companies many of them ask for our questions to share them in other organizations that they worked in and these are the type of
41:08
things that we were asking so what i just wanted to show you this is this is the type of focus that for us
41:14
was quite important i've listed just at the top right there the
41:19
what we call career stages the different hierarchies within the organization i
41:24
would just like to draw your attention to three things on the on the right there you can see in terms of the level of support
41:30
is felt particularly from a manager perspective is high this is higher than normal for us and we think is a direct response to the
41:37
manager's effort what's interesting if you then look a little further down at the remote working to the second yellow bubble
41:44
what when you see the question and remote working i'm able to work effectively irrespective of the level
41:51
everyone is broadly the same they feel they can operate in a working from home set up in a workspace
41:57
what's interesting is the more senior the person is or the more reports that they have
42:02
when it comes to productivity it declines and that for us is a real area of
42:08
interest because when someone is an individual contributor we sense they're able to
42:13
manage their time and their resources more effectively but at a manager and leadership level we
42:18
recognize it's harder to get the best out of people um in this environment and you can see
42:24
there that we've got some areas that we want to focus on and improve what's interesting the third circle at
42:30
the very bottom we asked our colleagues um when things returned back into a return to office
42:36
scenario what level of remote working would they like and you can see there the response was 59
42:42
so what that means is that people are thinking in the future that they would like to work three days
42:48
a week from home anecdotally and some of the feedback that we got which because we asked for written comments too
42:54
it was absolutely clear that people had really determined that
43:01
amount based on concerns around public transport and financial centres in which we operate it was the concern about traveling on
43:06
public transport rather than our ability to set up the office that aligns i'm completely with an ey
43:12
survey that was completed fairly recently where 30 of people felt that that would be the type of percentage they'd be
43:18
working from home in the future so if we could go to the next slide now please um we're going to be moving
43:27
back to katie in in terms of questions but what i just wanted to do is thank you for listening today if anyone would
43:34
like access to obviously these slides through the webinar or any of the questions we're happy to share them
43:39
recognize we haven't got it all right but you can see some of the data related improvements suggest
43:44
we've got it more right than not so thank you for listening thank you so much tim for sharing that
43:49
and thanks for your generosity in offering to share the questions got quite a lot of people asking for them so we'll figure out a way to make those
43:56
available um by the copd website if that's okay i'm going to go into q a we've had some
44:01
really great questions um can i ask peter and sharon to unmute themselves please so i can put questions to you um
44:08
so we've had a couple about creating water cooler environments while being remote or any advice on team cohesiveness
44:16
when we're when we're not in the same place sharon any any thoughts on that yeah i think it's something that we've
44:22
been particularly mindful of as an organization and probably like many we've done alternative uh
44:28
things as best as we can so examples would include things like zoom coffees um we've had was
44:35
sessions wine over zoom in the evening clearly not in work time just to help people to try and build the
44:41
relationships more informally as best as they can we've also inducted quite a big student
44:49
population over this period of time and so what we've done for them is run separate webinars that are um large
44:56
gatherings and then small gatherings so that they can start to build their own local communities
45:01
um because certainly that sense of trying to establish uh your own network is is very very
45:06
important at this point so um try embarrass different things i think at the moment
45:12
and tim have there been any tools that you've found particularly useful i mean yes i mean i think um i mean some
45:17
of sharon's we use so we've encouraged people to have quiz times that you you heard about the
45:25
connecting colleagues i mean that for me has been the most powerful i'm meeting with colleagues that i would not normally connect with
45:31
like a social exchange it's 15 minutes a week but my word i've got more insights from
45:37
them and that's not just something i'm doing it's you know i think it is peak we had over a thousand colleagues doing it in one
45:43
week so that's been very very powerful i think um i say this respectfully about
45:49
social distancing um if you can also meet with people in large open spaces in small numbers i
45:54
would also consider that wherever that's possible because i found the concept of trying to induct
46:00
colleagues when they're new to the organization and they've not met their colleagues is difficult so i'm not in any way suggesting that we should
46:06
breach social guidelines in any country but i think where you can meet people socially distance and safely you should
46:12
also try to consider that as well because we miss that human contact wherever that's possible in certain cities or location
46:18
thank you and peter can i ask you a question that was submitted in advance around um what are the key hooks
46:25
that hr professionals can use to influence seniors directors about the need for change rather than
46:32
simply flipping back as i think you put it so how do you positively challenge it's a great question and of course a
46:39
lot of people ask me because if we're honest i mean whilst we've got two great exemplar organizations talking about
46:45
the positive change not every business leader thinks about in these sorts of terms so i would say i mean sort of building on
46:51
what we've heard from sharon and tim is first of all to call out and really recognize the positive things i mean some of them take
46:57
a lot of good data about what the organization what the stock exchange is learn
47:02
from uh these forms of remember working and there's nothing more powerful
47:10
influences the skeptical business leaders on you know good good evidence and good support and
47:16
analysis is to pay for so i suppose it's always been true hasn't it about challenging hr is to implement
47:22
sometimes skeptical leaders on need for change particularly when it comes to things like culture which are not always easy
47:27
things to understand but i i would say there's no substitute for good analysis good understanding and insight of the
47:33
kind we've heard today use that to help to influence the wider discussion and tim have you found the
47:39
use of data useful there yeah i mean not just useful uh um i mean we we had
47:44
some debates as a management i don't mind sharing them with you we we do quite a lot of our own 360 degree
47:49
feedback so in our in our organization um working for the executive committee or md's and
47:55
then the next level as directors we had a big debate do we go ahead with the 360 degree feedback exercise
48:00
remotely and we said yes and then we've actually rolled it out for our directors so md's
48:06
is about 100 our directors is close to 500 and that's live at the moment many people say well why are you doing
48:12
it we're all working remotely but the reality is we all need to be learning how we're doing in this situation so i'd guide people to
48:19
continue to be bold in these areas we we we were a little regretful we couldn't implement the leadership
48:25
program we've just turned it on its head and we've put a webinar-based program that we're developing so try to think creatively to
48:32
still try to give people that intervention because one thing i am finding is that people are craving development because
48:38
they're not getting quite as much as they would perhaps in a work office environment yeah and actually
48:43
building on that we've had a question about how do you believe leadership development and training needs to change to support
48:49
ongoing cultural change and sharing any thoughts on that building and perhaps what tim's just said yeah i think very similarly to tim so
48:56
we've done a lot of work over the last few months and probably accelerated like many organizations the way that we deliver
49:02
learning so a lot more virtual a lot more digital learning um something that we wanted to do anyway so that's
49:08
very good news but one of the things we particularly concentrated on is about helping leaders to lead
49:14
virtually and remotely and to some extent people do anyway um but i think that this has actually
49:19
just given us the opportunity to focus on it more yeah and we've been talking a lot about
49:26
obviously we're all at home right now peter's not peter's in the office but the rest of us are at home um and you talked i think tim i love
49:33
that phrase about are we working from home or sleeping at work so how do we avoid this always-on culture when that kind of
49:40
delineation is is quite hard peter can i put that to you first yeah it's such an important question i mean i
49:46
think first of all is to reflect it for ourselves individually i mean there are things we've got to be conscious of and we're all
49:53
guilty of it me included that when you're working from home those boundaries become less clear and
49:58
so i'd say first and foremost is to recognize that for yourself in terms of saying okay so let's make
50:04
that discipline and routine that i will start work at six or i will take that lunch break but at the
50:10
same time i think of course what we can do culturally within organizations sending those signals from the top because if we're honest
50:16
a lot of stuff about presenteeism and ways of working is because of what they see people above them doing all the way
50:21
through to the tops of organizations so we've got to set examples as leaders and then i think what we're also seeing
50:27
is organizations starting to think creatively about so how do i have you know working practices if you will that put more
50:33
structure into people's days so i i talked to other big banks recently saying that they are making sure that between 12 and 2 there
50:41
are no meetings because i mean the other factor
50:50
in the world now is you can bounce endlessly from infrastructure of that nature into
50:57
people's workplaces i think it's also something that we've got to think about yeah and then to build on that somebody's putting a a great comment
51:03
about seeing some research yesterday that indicated people miss one element of their previously required commute
51:09
and that was the time for themselves so um tim and sharon what are your
51:15
organizations doing to challenge this thinking that we don't need to have permission or an excuse
51:21
to have time and space we had we had a debate there came some suggestions from some
51:27
colleague groups about needing my time or me time and we did debate whether that should be
51:33
on a friday and because we were trying to demystify the issue regarding friday afternoons we actually went with
51:39
wednesday afternoons from free to the end of the day is known as midweek my time and
51:45
everyone's diary is clear now of course there will be some leaders that will still work occasionally in that period but literally
51:53
it's up to you what you use that for it might be your mid-year review it might be your development it might be a
51:58
learning module but it's basically we do not put meetings in and even in sri lanka who
52:03
are working uk hours we've adapted it for them so they can because they're supporting our
52:11
businesses in europe we've adapted for them at the same time that has gone down brilliantly um we did wrestle with it
52:18
was wednesday or friday and i think picking wednesday was the right uh time to do it um and the feedback has
52:23
been absolutely fantastic for our course i love that it's brilliant all about within deloitte sharon yeah so
52:29
because we've worked flexibly for quite a long time we didn't particularly establish any
52:34
times or days or anything because people tend to have a different pattern of work
52:40
anyway but one of the things in terms of helping to develop our leaders at the beginning is we provided a lot of
52:46
guidance faqs etc that helped to encourage them to have an early dialogue
52:51
with their people to talk about what would work for them so actually what we've encouraged is
52:57
individuals to say i need to work at these particular times i need to not work at these particular
53:03
times for example i've got to do certain lessons um for my for my children uh homeschooling etc
53:09
so what we did was we actually we've just adapted or enabled people to adapt their day so they're not working normal
53:15
core hours they're working about when it suits them and that very much reflects our focus on the output rather than
53:21
uh actually just doing an all-day job thank you and then somebody's put in the
53:26
chat that they've introduced to free from friday a day free from meetings to allow people to get on with work projects research etc which has
53:32
worked really well and great to see some creative ideas coming through i had a question or a couple of questions actually about
53:38
inclusion somebody said that through the work they do with senior execs it appears that the organizations which had
53:43
more inclusive cultures pre-covered 19 have fared better would you agree and do you think a continued
53:49
focus on inclusive cultures is required and sharon i think you mentioned inclusion as being very important
53:55
to your organization so i'll put that to you first yeah that's right and i think you know i was giving an example earlier about how it's today enabled us
54:02
to drive that agenda forward peter i think you talked about really pushing um the inclusion agenda and this is
54:08
something that perhaps we were surprised that it's unable to just to do so one of the things is we were all um
54:14
recognizing that you know there's growing urbanization there's a need for everybody to live and work in cities
54:20
actually this has enabled us to rethink that and say do we really need people to be in the cities
54:25
actually no we probably don't certainly as an organizatric we are um
54:38
and actually we have some big regional offices and there is no reason why we can't operate out of those offices or even
54:45
operate more remotely and that's that's been a really good learn for us thank you and and peter i know you did type of
54:51
answer to this to say your thoughts as well yeah i mean it is a great question and i do actually
54:57
genuinely believe that organizations which were more inclusive have fared better because at
55:02
the heart of the idea of inclusion there's respect for individuals care about people and all those sorts of
55:08
ideas and safe and open cultures and and those are absolutely critical attributes you've heard a lot of very
55:14
good examples through this webinar critical attributes of what the good organizations are thinking about now so
55:19
if you already had that way of thinking your culture i think it certainly enabled you through this this time as well
55:25
which doesn't mean to say if you didn't have those cultures that you're a bit you know stuffed as aware because that
55:30
is the opportunity isn't it it's the opportunity to recognize that that's what you now have learned through some of this
55:36
is more connection more care for people more respect for individuals and understanding different circumstances and engaging
55:42
with people i think you heard it from sharon and tim even the fact that we're dialing into people's homes has made us understand people as individuals more
55:49
than we had perhaps in the past and these are all essential attributes of inclusive cultures but
55:55
but uh the final part i make which is the exactly what shannon just said is we have got to keep the focus on this i
56:01
genuinely worry that with all the you know economic anxiety and restructuring and everything else
56:06
as people have said well maybe that gets pushed slightly to the side the inclusion agenda and it cannot it must be part of our central uh
56:14
strategic agenda and our response in building responsible and effective organizations longer term and we must keep that thank
56:21
you i'm sure everybody who watches these webinars is getting very sick of seeing my sofa my poster of danish chairs
56:26
in the same place um tim any advice on so there's loads of great opportunities we've identified around improving
56:32
culture connection inclusion what about when things get difficult how do you deal with conflict or dispute
56:38
or grievances um and is it can you do that remotely and virtually well um
56:45
i mean i think if you'd asked me this three or four months ago i would say probably no but but the reality is
56:52
um organizations still need to continue and i think whilst we all hope globally will be able
56:58
to deal with covid quickly i think this is with us this way of working is with us for some time so we have had to deal
57:05
with all of those aspects in a virtual way and in reality for us we've always tried to treat our
57:11
colleagues really as adults their knowledge workers that you know they're well educated they know
57:16
exactly what really the right things to do so we haven't stopped doing things that you've just described there katie
57:23
because of kobe we've just continued but we've had to do it with more care and we've had to do with more support
57:29
because the support structures and the ability to read body language as
57:34
much as you can read it to a point in this format is much much harder than a face-to-face meeting so we've definitely
57:40
taken time where we have had inevitable speak up aspects or grievances in those
57:46
situations yeah thank you and sharon any thoughts on handling difficult situations i think very similarly to tim i think
57:53
perhaps it's one of those things that almost hr um professionals might dread
57:58
in the sense of having had so much history of of people being fired by text and things like that
58:04
um but actually what we've done is it's very much like tim it's it's enabled us perhaps to be um more considered in how we do these
58:11
things and to think about helping the person to prepare ensuring that they have
58:17
somewhere that's quiet that's appropriate to have a dialogue so i think you know it's important these things don't stop
58:22
but i think that it encourages us to think more um comprehensively about what we need to
58:28
do to do it well and to do it supportively thank you and i'm just going to ask one more very
58:33
quick question to both of you because you're in global organizations and peter as well um how did you manage
58:39
the cultural differences um were there any cultural differences or communication barriers
58:44
and tim yes i mean i gave it a couple of sri lankan
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examples i think earlier we always seek to take a global approach but occasionally apply
58:56
local or country support so when it came to the manager workshops we did those locally because we felt
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that there could be a more active response in those locations whereas things like learning or webinars
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we did on a global scale so i think it's really important that we all maintain that global outlook that
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that inquisitiveness that enables us to do things differently and we that's how we approach but we our
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first instance is take a global approach forever we can and sharon have you noticed any differences i think very similarly it's
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been things like well-being um why wouldn't you take a global approach and i think other things perhaps we'd be
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more uh culturally aware of so for example some of our offices uh did open uh more quickly if people
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felt that it was more appropriate to return to work um but i think that as i say we shared
59:44
those best practices insights so that we can form each other geography and i think one of the things it has done is perhaps enabled us to
59:51
connect better as a firm um and to talk more about how do you actually
59:56
coordinate as you can and learn from each other in a situation that nobody had experienced before thank
1:00:02
you i'm going to wrap it up there because i've gone one minute over which is very very naughty of me um so
1:00:09
i'm afraid that is all we've got time for this afternoon so thank you so much sharon and peter and tim really glad you got on there in the end
1:00:15
me too sharing your stories and answering questions so well um this webinar and
1:00:21
the slides will be available on demand from this afternoon and we'll try and um we'll talk to tim about making the questions available as well
1:00:28
a reminder that you can sign up to our future webinars um which are going to be running next week by the cipd website and then we're going
1:00:34
to take a little bit of a break over the summer and a final reminder about our new well-being support for members in the uk
1:00:40
and ireland with a free 24 7 telephone help plan staffed by qualified therapists and provided by health assured
1:00:46
thanks very much everybody for tuning in thank you for your incredibly thoughtful interesting questions and we shall see you next time goodbye
1:00:52
thank you thank you thank you
1:00:59
thanks all i'm gonna end the web
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