Back to the office ? Should we have an employee centric approach to our return to the office ?

Sam and Vic are joined again by Chris Collett former Army Major and Mental Health First Aid Trainer to talk about returning to the office. We certainly don’t have all the answers, but we hope this is food for thought!

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Transcript

Sam 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders who want their companies to execute faster. As always, we're virtual. I'm at home in Sunny Bucks today. Vicky's over in Deepest Darkest Oxfordshire. We have a guest on today, but today is a bit of a special edition, so we're not going to follow quite the usual format. It will maybe perhaps be a bit of free form. Our guest today, I'll let Vicky introduce him, but he's someone we've had on the podcast before and we know and love very, very well. Um, and today we're talking about uh the potential return to work and how that's going to work. Should we be back in the office? Should we not be back in the office? Um, I had a conversation with some of the guys from my old team uh the other day because I was sitting here thinking if I were still working properly, I would be blowing desperate to get back in the office. And they were saying that the productivity gains of not visiting the office are are massive. One of the guys was saying that he stays 15 hours a week on not commuting, not travelling, not seeing people face to face. So really interesting conversation. So looking forward to having the benefit of our guests' uh insight there. So Vicky, perhaps you could introduce uh the legend it is.

Vic 1:23

Thank you. I'd love to. So our guest today is Chris Collett, who has joined us. I think you did mental health week as well with us, Chris, didn't you? So this is your this is your seventh appearance.

Sam 1:34

We did five many mental health ones, didn't we?

Vic 1:36

Yeah, we did. Seventh appearance on uh on Get Amplified. So we're delighted that you're uh you're back to share your wisdom with us. But uh, before we kick off, Sam, I'm gonna pull you up on what you just said because it's quite interesting what you just said. You said in the intro, our return to work.

Speaker 3 1:55

Yeah.

Vic 1:56

Well, that's so we think of work. How do we define work? Because actually it's our return to our place at the office. That's absolutely true.

Sam 2:05

You know, I I guess in the sort of arenas that we're talking about, you know, as you largely serve, or we at Amplified Group largely serve the tech arena. Most people have been continuing to work at least as hard, if not quite a bit harder during during the pandemic. So you're absolutely right. It is about returning to your place of work. And there is the old adage, isn't there, that's probably from your centrifix days, I suspect. Work should be a thing that you do, not a place that you go.

Vic 2:37

Absolutely.

Sam 2:38

I I guess for me, with my soft cat history, Vicky, I know you've been to soft care offices, Chris. I doubt you've had the pleasure, but the offices are blooming brilliant. And that is about the fabric of the office and it being a nice, you know, well-lit, comfortable, um, friendly place to be with uh you know free toast and cereal in the mornings and all sorts of niceties like that. But it's also about people. So for me, work was very much a place to go as well as a thing that I did because I loved being in the office and I felt it was incumbent upon me as a director, as the you know, the kind of the tech lead, the geek lead within the organization to be in offices for those conversations, to out train the sales guys, to you know, sit and talk through a customer project or whatever. And I would be really missing that interaction, the casual stuff, and the you know, the buzz of the place. I used to feel that.

Vic 3:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So um, so what we really want to talk about today is you know, we're starting to think about going back to the office or going back to meeting our colleagues. And actually, I'm facilitating a leadership workshop next week, and we've got this on the agenda as a topic to cover because some people, like, like you just described, Sam, are really excited to get back into the office and to see people, and we'll talk about the you know, the emotional capital, as we like to call it, and and what that means, but there are others that are really feeling quite anxious about that, and how do you get that balance? So it's going to be really great to get Chris's perspective on it. So, Chris, it's great to have you here because you've got a completely different perspective. So, have you have you done any face-to-face work since the pandemic started?

Speaker 1 4:38

Yeah, yeah. Like everybody in my situation as a a freelancer, my diary disappeared overnight in March last year. Uh, and I so I had to change like everybody else to find, you know, find different avenues uh to work. But what we I did some work with the NHS in Kent during lockdown because the training we were delivering, it was around trauma risk management, essentially. Uh, they wanted it face-to-face. They were, they, you know, they accepted there was a degree of risk, and we were asked to accept a degree of risk, which we were happy to do. I did it for another company because they wanted the face-to-face interaction. They felt the training was so important that it had to be face-to-face. So you picked up on all those subtle things. And most importantly, those who didn't want to speak in open forum were able to do it in those casual moments around food or coffee or passing on the stairs. Those things that were normal to us in March, they recognized actually they needed that because it was an important avenue to get people to speak, to talk, to share their experiences, or their frustrations, anxieties, and concerns. So, yeah, the short answer is yes, I've done some. And it's really, really good. That's it's really nice to get back to people. And all those are those people that were on the courses I was helping or delivering on were delighted to be there as well. It was it was nice, yeah. But it but I don't think you know, I was just thinking about what Sam said there about your place of work and use the word I loved it, and I and I suppose that's a danger, isn't it? Because you guys I was also thinking about the world of work. What does it look like now? It's it's not the same one that there was in March. People have realized companies have realized there's another way to do things. We don't have to have everybody in work at the same time to be efficient, and as Sam alluded to earlier, productivity for some people has gone through the roof because they found themselves in an environment that either it's done that because they've been they're working longer than they should do. So that's that's a whole separate issue. Perhaps that you know, I've read lots of articles about people saying, Well, I'm working harder, longer hours now. You know, for me, I'm lucky I've got a little office, but the kitchen's just there. So I I'll I'll make a cup of tea first thing in the morning. I'll just I'll just put my laptop on. Well, you can't if you're at work and the laptops at work, you don't so so there's that there's that argument. But I think the the world of work is going to look different because people have been successful working from home and like it, you know. Let's let's I'm gonna be stereotypical here. You know, a mother doesn't have to commute, she can talk the children out if that's you know, and and then go straight to work because it's here, so it might be more convenient. And I think so. The the way the world the world of work will be in the future will be a hybrid.

Sam 7:20

Uh that's a good point, actually. Do you think that if the world is more work from homie from here on in, will that help diversity at the senior level? That's a massive, great big whopper of a question. It is will a lack of presenteism help returning mothers, for example, to be more a part of businesses that you know completely wrongly, they've they've probably struggled to stay in that environment.

Vic 7:47

So I didn't do the school room at all until I started the Amplified Group. I had a full-time nanny. I was I didn't know any other of the other parents, and I'm gonna use the word parents at school because what has also happened, it's really interesting that you just said mothers doing the school room. We've now got loads of dads at the school room too, and that has really, really changed. And actually, parents wanting to realising that actually they want to spend more time with their family and not doing that commute, and I think that's where the balance really starts to come in.

Speaker 1 8:23

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's opened up a world, well, not just the world of work, the the world of home and work. I always think we get the phrase work life balance round the wrong way. I think it should be life work. So if you if you if people have found equilibrium, if they found the balance better, then they perhaps don't want to go back to work full time. They want to have the opportunity to have that hybrid way of working. But just go back to what Sam was saying there about executives and measuring, yeah, it's really difficult, isn't it? Because you can measure the amount of time someone you'll know better than me as technical people, you can measure the amount of some time someone's online, but are they productive the whole time? So it's the same kind of if you're if your bum is sat on a seat and I can see you, are you being productive? I I can't tell, but I think you are perhaps because you're there. So the the how you measure productivity is equally valid both within the workplace conventionally and if it's distributed. Um, but if people are measuring, and you know, from the five behaviors, measure productivity, not the time you're in front of the screen. So that's kind of a you know a sea change we perhaps need to answer, not answer Sam's question, but to throw into the mix. How measure me on my productivity, not on my time on screen or time sat in front of you in the office. And that's hopefully a more 21st century measure. Measure people on output rather than input. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I worked for a really great um brigadier in the last couple of jobs I did in the army. And he, you know, in his opening sort of speech to everybody, he said, We were in an open pan office. I don't expect to see you here all the time. I will measure you on the things I I want you to do. And if you're doing them, I don't care if it takes you two hours and you take you to take six off. That's what I want to the these are the jobs I need you to do, and I want you to find that night, that good balance. And he was true to it. That's the other key thing. It wasn't just a plastic. Yeah, he was genuine. He didn't want to see you there. I remember one well, it was his deputy actually came down to you one day. It was about quarter to six one evening in the summer, and we were on the second floor, and we looked out over what was effectually known as a duck pond. There were ducks, and it was a pond. So and he said he said to me the name, right? Exactly. Yeah, he said, have a look out that window, Chris. What's it look like? I said, Oh, it looks really nice. He says, It's lovely out there, isn't it? Yeah, he said, How old are your children? My children were about, I don't know, 12 or 13 then. I said, 12 or 13. He said, Wouldn't it be nice if you were back home with them rather than sat in here? And his point was, why are you sat here? This this doesn't you don't need to be here. So they not only did you know they said it, they exercised it as well. And that, you know, going back to Sam's point about being a good place to work as well. You're happy to go to work because I was being measured on my outputs, not on the amount of time my bum was on the chair. So yeah, it was good. Interesting. The downside, of course, is that you'd have to pay for your own coffee. But it's interesting, is it? I think about some people will be very happy to stay at home. Let you know, perhaps they are they they enjoy their own company, perhaps they find being around people difficult, perhaps they find working in a busy, noisy environment difficult to concentrate. So what takes them an hour to do at home takes them two at work because they've got these multiple feeds that disturb them. Yeah, I find that environment energizing. Yeah. So I there's no one size fits all, is it? And if if if we're having to wake up to the fact now that that the classic desk scenario or office scenario, if we're waking up to the fact that it doesn't work for everybody, and that certain people work better given different set of parameters or or circumstances, and we've got the we've got the luxury of being allowed to allow people to have that hybrid way of working, then you know, hopefully it's a good thing. Um, I think there was something I don't know if it's a government-led initiative where I think people are trying to say you let's get make it not quite compulsory, but let's encourage companies to give people the choice, not to say you must come back. If if your job can be done remotely, notwithstanding we're still in a dangerous situation at the moment, aren't we? It's still COVID is still there. Yes, you give people the choice. Perhaps they will be more productive if they can be at home.

Sam 12:19

Well, there's a government mandate that people have to have the opportunity to request flexible working. Yeah, you know, that might that might mean flexible on location or that might mean flexible on time. It doesn't mean that they have to grant it, but I think I think they probably have to have a good reason why not, why they shouldn't grant it. Yeah. Whereas I th I think now, you know, more most um organizations, I think will probably land on some sort of hybrid arrangement. Um it's interesting, like so Apple have said that they want everybody in the office three days a week, and that will be mandatory. Um I think it was Deloitte that stole a jump on everyone else in that sort of management consultancy sort of space and said do what you want just to get the job done. And it you know, the comment that I saw on that from the point of view of Deloitte's industry was you know, they've instantly made themselves uh 50% more attractive as an employer to people in that space to have the option. You know, I don't think you'll have businesses of that sort of size and scope, and I know for sure that you know SoftCat wouldn't shut down the offices and make everybody work from home permanent. But I think the office space will change. You know, you you won't have rows and banks of desks, but you'll be going to the office for meetings, team meetings, more of that kind of casual sort of conversation, sit-around chat rather than going in to do task-space stuff. If you're doing task-based stuff, you might as well go home.

Vic 13:55

Yeah, and and quite honestly, Sam, what you've just described there is how I have worked for the last 20 plus plus years. I would go in for the meetings when I needed to go in for meetings and those interactions. But if there was stuff I needed to concentrate on, as I just said before, yeah, it sat in the office. I was way too distracted, even even when I had an office and I could shut the door. I still wanted, I was still too nosy to figure out who was talking to who and what was going on out there. I can see Chris laughing at me there. You can see that completely, can't you, Chris?

Sam 14:29

Um, and whereas I'd have put I'd have put one of the small offices out and gone and got my head down in there. Yeah if I if I needed to write a proposal or some documentation or something, because I was more productive that way.

Vic 14:41

Yeah, but it was just what it's just what I've been used to. But now um working completely remotely, you know, I had the luxury of facilitating a leadership team meeting about three weeks ago in person, and oh my goodness, it was so lovely to actually get in the same room as people and feel the energy. And actually, that's one of the things I want to talk about. Is we've talked on previous podcasts, I think we talked about it with um with David Parry Jones of Twilio. We talked about this emotional bank and this emotional capital that we get when we go and meet people and we get energy from people, and how overline that is. Yeah, yeah. So I felt like when I went and did this meeting, it it felt like my my bank of energy was kind of raised again because I'd been able to actually have that spontaneity in the room, which is very different. And I have been running virtual workshops, and they've been fine, they've been absolutely fine, but it's still you can't be getting in the same room as people.

Speaker 1 15:58

So I totally agree with that. Yeah, the dynamic is different, isn't it? It is it's you know, we're gregarious by nature, aren't we? As a as an as a an animal, we like people, we like to feel like we belong, and in that moment, you belong to that group of people. Your tribe in that moment is the group of people in that room, and as a facilitator, uh you very quickly try to endear yourself to those people, find some commonality, and become part of their tribe, especially if you're an outsider, and you can feel that acceptance and that warmth, and whereas over the airways, it's subtly different, definitely. I think you can still replicate it to a degree, as you say, they're successful because they're born of necessity and therefore you do the best you can. And people on the other end of the screen are doing the same thing. But in a room, you pick up on so much more. We've mentioned in the chat before about that biological data that you don't get from a to from a 2D screen. You do get from being with people that the the subtle hints of body language, the flick of an eye or an eyebrow raise that's easy to see face to face, or just you you it's intuitive almost. Your spider senses are attuned to it when you're in a room. But when it's like this, is it's that much more difficult because you know I'm sort of I don't know, 50 centimeters away from my screen. So my field of vision is very narrow. And if there are 20 people on there, yeah, if you're in a room, you can see the whole room. You can you can pick up on you know a little movement over there or over here, whereas on a screen you're focusing on one place.

Vic 17:26

So yeah, no, you're right. Actually, I'm facilitating a session next week with 18 people virtually, and I'm quite worried about it simply because it's really hard.

Speaker 1 17:36

Yeah, yeah, that is a that is a lot of people, yeah. But yeah, I think it's you've quite gone back to your original question. Yeah, yes, I've been with with people face to face, and it's it is a real delight. I mean it's also much harder as well, don't forget, you know, for a facilitator, because you've got to remember your lines, whereas here, you know, you can have a book and you can you can have notes and things which you which you can refer to, it sounds brilliant, and no one knows you're reading, you know. You but yeah, you could have a whole second second computer. But by by the same token, I guess.

Sam 18:04

Someone's having a great tummy tickle. You can probably see it.

Vic 18:07

I just feel like I want to take a picture of that. Zelda is just legs stretched in the air, having enjoying the most glorious tummy tickle, which you certainly couldn't be doing if you were in a soft cat office at this point. No, no, probably not.

Speaker 1 18:22

If you broadcast this, Vicky, if you broadcast this, Vicky, you might want to mention that Zelda's a dog and not a human. That's a good point.

Sam 18:31

I mean, when you say dog, she's maybe more durable than that, but yeah, the gerbil's probably looking.

Speaker 1 18:36

Yeah, but it'd be it'd be interesting as well, isn't it? Going back to work now. Yeah, because the circumstances are such where I was reading the ACAS. I thought just before we we came on, I went onto the ACAS website, which is some brilliant information on there, talking about I try typed into Google, uh what do I do to go back to work in during COVID? Lots of information in there, but it's about you know protecting yourself, about the company, having a dialogue with people coming back to work. Because some people don't want to go. They they sorry, they might want to go, but they don't want to go until they feel it's safe. You know, we as humans, we need safety, it's one of the first things we look for, isn't it if you look at Maslow, it's as true then as it is today. We look for safety. And if and for the last 18 months, we've felt unsafe. We've been told that those people who we crave those interactions with are dangerous potentially. Yeah, too. One of us could have at the moment, there's three of us on the call. It doesn't matter if one of us has COVID, you know, God forbid we do. It doesn't matter we now if we now step into the same office. Am I thinking it's brilliant to be back? But just stay back a bit, please. You know, you maintain your distance because we still have that little bit of fear in us. So there are some people, I think it was there was a radio programme I was listening to a couple of weeks ago where they were talking about companies saying, Well, if furlough's over, come back to work. And some people are saying, Yeah, no, it's not safe. I don't want to come back.

Sam 20:02

You've got a generation gap thing there. I was shouting to my friend Amy from SoftCat, who's considerably younger than me, but we go to we go to gigs together and we keep in touch and and we chat a bit. And she's I I think is being told that really they want her back in the office. Well, she's mid-20s, mid to late 20s. She's only had one vaccination, so she doesn't feel safe or comfortable. I've had two. I actually feel a lot more comfortable about the situation now. So, you know, you you've got the maybe the older generation who are perhaps in charge saying, Well, I've had my vaccine, I'm piling back in the office, and then you've got the I'm all right, you know, the the yeah, I'm all right, Jack. Then you've got 22-year-olds, 23-year-olds, 25-year-olds who hopefully have had one, but that's a really difficult thing. You know, I I I'm totally with you, Vicky. I think you know, people need to feel comfortable in order to yeah.

Speaker 1 20:55

There's the opportunity for dialogue, isn't it? And good leadership. Yeah. Just because I feel this way doesn't mean to say everybody else does. So if I'm if I have a sufficient emotional intelligence, empathy with people around me to say, well, not everyone will feel the same way. There's also there's you know, in you know, in the leadership sphere, people talk about knowing your people beyond the superficial. So, you know, it might be that you're you're you're fine to come back, Vicky, but you're a carer for someone who's vulnerable. So you're coming into a place of potential risk outside of a bubble which is safe. You're now worried about not about you, but about the person you're coming home to. With nurses we spoke to in East Kent last year, there was a they had this real sort of moral battle dichotomy, call it what you will, where they desperately wanted to do their job as nurses and they were happy to go on a COVID ward, as happy as you can be, but really worried about well, how do I almost decontaminate myself and not take anything home? So sometimes when we're thinking about all right, my staff, my my team, what about the Ripple effect, the you know the multipliers. Well, John comes into work, but John's daughter is disabled or you know has a uh you know breathing difficulties. Well, John now is exposing himself because workers told him to come back to work, not knowing you know, and the leader doesn't know that he goes home to a daughter who's unwell and is vulnerable. So it's really complicated. I guess and that's why you know the ACAS it says on there dialogue between everybody, between the people and those making the decisions at work. So it can be a workable compromise that you can expose these things if your environment is actually happy to do it to say, look, I can I delay a little bit longer, please, until the government advice is X, because I look after my mother who's in her 90s and is, you know, she lives with me and is is is I'm very healthy and happy, but she's vulnerable. So there's a dialogue to be had, and there is, as you Sam, as you quite rightly say, I don't think there's a one size fits all. It has to be a compromise on both sides. Because you know, business are in business to make money, aren't they? And that's the that's the bottom line. No business goes into business to to lose money and be unsuccessful. So they have to be productive. It's about working out that, as we spoke of, the hybrid model, I suppose.

Vic 23:11

But one of the things you just said that's just really triggered it for me, I think when you were talking about Maslow, is if you're forcing someone to come back to an office and all they're doing is feeling anxious, well, they're not gonna be productive, are they?

Sam 23:25

Absolutely not.

Vic 23:26

So that's counterintuitive almost. And I actually really hadn't I hadn't thought about that at all, Chris. So I knew it was the right thing to do to get you on. Thank you for making me think that.

Sam 23:36

That individual that you force back into the office is gonna be first out the door when another job opportunity comes around.

Vic 23:42

Absolutely, and I want to come on to attracting talent as well, but something else I'm just really conscious of. We've been talking quite UK focused. We have an audience that is global for our podcast now, which I can't quite believe considering Lively. I know, it's just astonishing. I mean, we were we were in the the charts in Australia and India and in the US. Wow, in the business chart. So yeah, quite quite astonishing. So it just but what you've just said, I just want to land that really, because that applies to any country, yeah, to any organization, to anybody, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 24:20

I was reading recently uh uh that um in America, I think it's one in three Americans have been affected by COVID, and by affected, they were sort of intimating that they would have been someone in their immediate family or friends would have died as a no one in three when you consider how big Americans are frightening. But going back to what we talked about before, and this is it's related, is there's there was a thing described as COVID anxiety syndrome, which is the fear of going back to work essentially, because you have to be hyper-vigilant in your place of work to protect yourself and protect other people. And if people are already feeling a little anxious, nervous, depressed, isolated as a result, desperate to get back, but also really worried about well, what's the effect if I bring it home and to store I hope you know it I become infected, or I then and I in I then infect somebody else. So it's a it's a very real thing, you know, across the world. I think COVID anxiety syndrome is something people are talking about.

Vic 25:14

And and I've got friends who have been feeling very anxious about it. And actually, I was talking to someone the other day who'd been feeling anxious about it, and she was talking about her parents who'd literally isolated since last March and hadn't gone anywhere, and how her approach had been different, because actually they'd just come to visit her, and that was like a really big deal because they hadn't done any small steps first. And she was talking about, you know, when when we first as a parent at the school, when when we first went back to school, we got used to seeing people again for those five minutes at pickup, and we started because because I'm a really sociable person, but actually for a few minutes last year, I felt like I closed down completely, and I was like, I'm really happy in my little bubble here in my in my back garden. And I don't and it was really weird, and it took it it took ages for me to actually remember how to how to be in a god, I was gonna say a physical relationship. That sounds a little bit dodgy, but to actually being in the same place as as other people and uh perhaps something that we need to talk about is you know those steps that we can go through to get ourselves acclimatized to to being in the office, yeah. Maybe sometimes, but not always.

Speaker 1 26:31

I guess that fundamentally you you've hit the nail on the head by calling it the steps, so it's not uh stop and go full on, perhaps you know, a gradual return to work mornings only or uh or afternoons or a couple of days a week. Um perhaps also it's it's about learning to become social again. I don't know if yeah, I I'm quite lucky I've got a good circle circle of friends. I belong to a triathlon club and we we put training online so and that's carried on. We meet every Monday on the turbo session in the depths of lockdown. That was really important because that was our own my only social contact with people outside of my family. So, yeah, so step returns, but also recognizing that for some people we we talked earlier about um those conversations you have around the cooler or the coffee. Some people perhaps some people have lost those skills. And if if you're having to reintegrate those skills in the workplace where it's a more formal setting, that can be quite difficult for people to do. Alright, you know, for those who are shrinking war violence, who find small talk difficult or did do before, really difficult now. So that's you know, that could be a source of anxiety.

Sam 27:39

I guess so I think part of the answer, sorry, part of the answer there is maybe not so much stage return as in um limiting the time, but maybe not having so many people in at one time.

Speaker 1 27:50

Yes, yeah, staggered returns, but that you know, from a safety point of view, so yeah, so a shift patterns almost, but all but also perhaps for those companies that are large enough to have the luxury to be able to do it is some a social event outside outside of the world of work where you can just get used to talking to people again, and yeah, you know, the the superficial conversations you have, how are you? I am very well, thank you, and work, and then then the opportunity to just talk again with people in it. Oh I on a Thursday I go to a lake and I go swimming, and we the lake we choose to go to as a cafe, and we sit at the end of it, and I and last year when that first opened, it was amazing. We're just talking to people about anything and everything because you hadn't had that opportunity to do it, it was really nice. But I imagine if you if you go to work and you feel like, well, I've got to be productive, I can't really spend all day talking, but I'm desperate to talk, or or I've forgotten how to talk, or there's no catalyst for me to talk. But if you know if companies have the luxury to be able to do it, these sort of return graduated return to work or a shift, so not everyone's there at the same time, and maybe a you know, a breakfast or a walk or whatever it might be. You know, that might be.

Vic 28:56

Yeah, we've been talking about work walks. Um, but what I've also heard this week, which was uh almost a uh an unbelievable story, was of a team that had started to come back to the office, but they've been completely uncoordinated about when they were coming in. So I think that's another piece of this is about being coordinated and knowing who's gonna be in the office when you're there, that you are gonna want to have those conversations with, and you are gonna get that energy from. Yeah, um, and it was it was it was a HR person telling me this, and I'm like, gosh, so almost thinking and planning who's gonna be in the office when you're going to be in, and and broadcasting that to some extent. So you've got some coordination because there's no point going sitting in an office if you're the only person there, all you're doing is changing your environment. Yeah, this is about human interaction, isn't it?

Speaker 1 29:55

Well, yeah, absolutely. And that that you know, that sort of reminded me that the the positive things we talked of earlier, you know, people have been productive, they've found a way to work at home, they've been innovative, um, they've they've managed change and they've been resilient. All those things are equally relevant, going, you know, not going back, because we're not going back to the same thing, but doing that. But also the not so good things, the isolation, the anxiety, they don't disappear overnight, you know. So there has to be a recognition on everybody. So, me as an employer and as an employee have to recognise it for some people it's gonna be really quite difficult. They've learned some new skills which are now going to be transferable back into whatever the new normal is going to be, which is fantastic. But the the negative things won't just disappear because we're going back to work tomorrow. And so we have to be sort of cognizant of that, I think, don't we? And patient. Yeah, yeah. People are going to be anxious, nervous, and not, you know, what are the rules of the game now? We're two meters apart. It's really difficult, isn't it? Because we very quickly forget. I've done it, you forget to put a mask on, or you you you close in with somebody to a comfortable what was once you know a comfortable place to be, which now we know is not good because of the transmission of the disease. So you know, yeah, that we need to be patient with one another. And I think dialogue between everybody is quite important, is it find out what's what's useful for that person rather than starting from a well, I'm all right. Um, yes, yeah, because it's different for each one of us. Our experiences of lockdown will be different, our experiences of going back to work will be different. So the more we can we can be alive to that, then hopefully the quicker we can go back to or not go back, we can find the new normal.

Vic 31:33

I think one of the things that piece of advice that you gave me way back was talking about actually putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, yeah, and thinking about it from their perspective.

Speaker 1 31:43

That's the emotional intelligence piece, isn't it? Being able to walk a mile in my shoe in someone else's shoes. It's really difficult to do, but it can it can open offer up a lot of insight. And it goes back again. So what do I know about this person? I only know they're a really good IT software engineer. What do I know? What do they do? You know, I didn't know they had a you know a child who's a mass prodigy and another one who's in a wheelchair. Well, one has they they have demands on their life which are going to affect how they feel about the world of work and coming back. And I'm not suggesting, you know, work can be quite a cutthroat place, but I'm not suggesting you have to pander to every single thing people have, but it can make you it can offer you a more informed space to make some judgments in, I think, if you know a little bit more about people and you can walk a mile in their shoes.

Vic 32:28

Switching is on a gear. One of the things that I was really keen to talk about is organizations in the tech industry, there is this we're calling it a tsunami of turnover of staff. There is a massive skills shortage, and people are looking for where they're going next. And actually, what the pandemic has done is has opened up the opportunity for people to be able to work more remotely in the future, be able to hire talent from the far ends of the earth, basically, other than having to be in the next local town or having that you know within 40 minutes commute of the office, but it's also really clear that those organizations that are going to attract the talent are going to be the ones that get this hybrid working bit right. Do you think that makes sense?

Speaker 1 33:24

Yeah, absolutely. It's a as we said, what's the new normal? It probably is a a hybrid working model of a mixture of going in and being at home. And if if that's what people want, then those companies like Sam mentioned earlier, Deloitte, that have that switched onto that quite quickly, people are going to gravitate towards them, aren't they? If they provide them with the model of work that they see is the future. Absolutely, yeah.

unknown 33:47

Yeah.

Vic 33:48

I think it's I think it's going to be one of the things that is the most important for attracting the talent. And and I saw uh I think it was a survey on LinkedIn about people. Are they willing to take a pay cut to to actually join an organization that will give them the flexibility to have that work life balance that they want? And it was an astounding yes.

Speaker 1 34:09

Yeah, yeah. I'm not surprised to hear that at all. Yeah, I'll interestingly had a a friend, we sat in the garden yesterday, we're talking about the worlds of work, and he's a really, really successful uh aircraft engineer, you know, he's a bright as a button, and he he led you know huge teams of uh cutting-edge uh engineering in at a test pilot school, and he he didn't quite give it all up, he's still in the same industry, but his his life work balance was completely out of kilter, and he found he just didn't want to do that anymore. So he he reduced what he did and and dropped his wages to get a better life work balance, and yeah. So I think there's an awful lot more people. I think there was an expectation, wasn't it? Maybe I think I'm probably a bit older than than both of you, but an expectation when I started work that you just killed yourself, you worked and that was it, and you had a couple of years of retirement and then you died. Well, my son is 20, they don't want that, and they're right, they've got it right. They want they want to have a life, they don't want to have to wait till they're 70 before they have free time, they want to have it now.

Sam 35:13

Hustle culture is over.

Speaker 1 35:15

Yeah, well, hopefully it is. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure it's quite over just yet. But yeah, the people the next the next generation who are the future, they're quite rightly saying, uh actually, no, we don't want this. You know, I'll take an example from the army. Um, I remember speaking to a brand new second lieutenant, a really intelligent guy, had a glittering career in front of him. When we're talking with a horizon scanning about, you know, you know, 10-15 years in advance, and said, Where do you see yourself? And he didn't see himself in the military, and he'd been in about a year at that time. Um, I said, Oh, and it was a real surprise to me. I thought he would be a career officer. And he said, No, I look at what, you know, he used me, I look at what you and the others do in the hours you work. I don't want that. And if that you know, and he was prepared to sacrifice the job that he enjoyed to go and find where he could get that good balance. And there is a balance, there has to be a quid pro quo between the two, absolutely. But but you know, I think quite rightly people say, I don't want to work 18 hours a day, I want to have a life, and that I think they're right. Uh, you know, it's a um, you know, a 35-hour week, you know, who wouldn't want that? And if you if if you can get that and you can have enough money to do the things you need to do, you know, by taking a pay cut, because some people can't afford to do that, then then that would be a great model, I think. But not always workable in all industries.

Vic 36:35

No, it's not. And just because we're talking about going back to the office doesn't mean that the I like the fact you say life work balance is right with people working remotely as well. That back-to-back Zoom bloom thing that we've talked about is is clearly around. And actually, um, I've got a call with someone next week from Twilio, and they've got a thinking week next week. And the idea is that they don't do lots of meetings, they actually are forcing the teams to have headspace to be able to think. And I'm like, gosh, they are leading the way, they absolutely are in the way that they are thinking about their employees. It was a great thing to hear, and so there's definitely getting that balance, and I think we're going employee-centric. I think that's that's the conclusion that I'm coming to as as we're having this conversation.

Speaker 1 37:27

I guess if you if you're thinking the next generation of of ideas and big thinkers are going to come from young people, we have to a degree that you know there's a meeting of minds and expectations, but you know, they're gonna set the agenda for the future. So perhaps we have to then think, well, how do we make sure that we're attractive to those people? And if we're if they look at us and go, what somebody said to me one day, I was thinking about going to work for a particular company, uh, or won't say who it was. So somebody said to me, Don't go there. What they do is they thrash you for two or three years, don't mind you drop off and then just get the next batch in. Well, people don't want that anymore, do they? They don't, you know, uh you make a choice not to go there. You go to somewhere where you've got a good life work, might pay subtly less, but I'm gonna get to watch the football or be with my children or take the children to school. The expectation of what I should be able to do as a parent, male, female, or whatever. Uh well, actually, I want to I want to do those things. I don't want to miss out on my family and a company that's gonna give me the opportunity to learn, grow, be productive, and do a good day's work for a good day's pay, but also I'm gonna have the latitude to take my daughter to the school bus in the mornings or whatever it might.

Vic 38:37

Yeah, so that's the balance, isn't it? And yeah, it's hard. Yeah, it is hard, but it's getting that well, it's it's probably it's it's just flexibility across the board, yeah, isn't it? And if you're purpose driven and you're I think you described it, Sam, at the beginning, as outcome driven, then it should all of this shouldn't make a difference.

Speaker 1 39:00

Yeah, I suppose we have to we have to nod to the people who want to work those hours, who want that's you know, that's what they want to do. They thrive on that, and that's that's great. And there are others who find a different way. But if you want to attract the best talent, I suppose you've got to you've got to create an environment where people want to come to you and they want to stay with you. I was interested. I was a conversation the other day with somebody about the difference between graduates and apprentices, and this is this is old, old news now, so it might be subtly different. But a few years ago when apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships were relatively new. Um it was a Radio 4 program. I think it was Jaguar Lan Rover. It was one of the prestige car manufacturers saying, We invest more in our apprentices because we know they'll stay with us. Whereas the grads come, get the tick in the box, and they move on, move on again. I mean, that's that's a huge statement. But so they create the environment where you know, come to us, the apprenticeship's fantastic. This is lifelong, you can be with us, there's you can progress, you can, and so it's attractive. So people, you know, are falling over themselves to get those apprenticeships. Yeah, because it's attractive.

Vic 40:02

Um that's a really interesting, really interesting point. We've got um a podcast coming up with um an SVP at Cisco, and the main thing we're talking about is apprentices, and they've actually got an apprentice on the podcast with us as well. So I will be asking that question. It's fascinating.

Speaker 1 40:19

Yeah, yeah, certainly that's the way my son wants to go. He doesn't want to go to university, he wants to get an apprenticeship. Yeah, lots of lots of different reasons, but yeah, they're they're attractive. And I guess if you want to if if you want to attract the the best people, you have to work out what it is you can invest to attracts them.

Vic 40:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get I get that completely. Sam, yes, you look like you're gonna say something before no, not on this occasion.

unknown 40:44

Really?

Sam 40:45

I've not buttered in enough today.

Speaker 1 40:47

Oh I think it's it's worth saying in all of this, you know, companies need to make money, so there's a compromise in all of this. We've kind of seen a lot of this through rose-colored specs. We create a brilliant environment, everyone comes to work for four hours a day, it's hugely productive, and everyone wins. Life isn't like that. So there is a compromise, uh, you know, a balance because whatever company is still needs to make money, doesn't it? It needs to make the money to invest in the future and and be profitable and stay in the market. So, you know, we we have to do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.

Sam 41:19

Well, a company that isn't making money can't afford to invest in the nice stuff.

Speaker 3 41:24

Yeah.

Sam 41:24

Yeah. It be you know, putting some cash towards the team night out, paying for you know free coffee and decent quality coffee and yeah, you know, bits and pieces like that. And you know, you end up in a downward spiral because people get demotivated and less productive when they leave. The company makes even less money, and yeah, unless the company's pushing forward, pushing up that spiral, and it's really hard to maintain that environment.

Speaker 1 41:47

As you said earlier, Vicky, there is no one size fits all, and there is a compromise to be had on everyone's behalf about what expectations we have for the world of work and what the world of work has, the expectations it has for us.

Vic 42:00

Yes. So I think I think from a conclusion perspective, the other thing that I and I didn't think that that's this is where this was going to go, but it still to me comes down to having an emotive purpose, and it's that balance of an emotive purpose that everybody gets behind and they are inspired to do the very best job they can and bring their very best to work, be that at work in an office or work at home.

Speaker 1 42:27

Yeah, yeah. A vision, a common goal that everybody believes in. So, I mean, it's Sorotra, I think, is two-factor theory he wrote about. One of the things he spoke of in there was the that if your own vision and goals aren't aligned with the companies, then you're probably not going to have much fun at work. You're not going to be motivated. Yeah, you're not going to be motivated. But if they are, if they're in time in tune, then it's harmonious, then almost. The people want to be there, they want to contribute, feel like they're contributing. Yeah. And whether that's you know, coming full circle, whether that's at home or in the office, well, there's this there's a hybrid perhaps to be had, uh, depending on the environment, the situation, the workload, the people involved. So it's quite a complicated thing, but not insurmountable, I don't think.

Vic 43:10

No, I don't think so. I think I think you're right there. Sam, do you want to wrap us up?

Sam 43:14

With the greatest of pleasure. We've covered some serious ground there. I thought you said this was going to be 20 minutes.

Vic 43:20

Yeah, sorry.

Sam 43:21

So, Chris, before we wrap it up, do you want to give us maybe your three key takeaways for the potential return to the office? Can't say return to work, can I, Vicky?

Vic 43:31

No.

Speaker 1 43:34

That's quite difficult, I think, Sam, but I think the main one for me would be to talk to people. Don't assume that everybody is going to feel the same way about the world of work, going back to work, staying at home, working remotely. Speak to people, find out what's what what's what they think, and then you know, work on finding a workable solution, a workable compromise between everybody because they're they're definitely. Isn't a one size fits all scenario here. So I thought that was really interesting.

Sam 44:05

I guess the observation would be that it's a changing environment out there. We don't know quite where we're going to land post-COVID. Something to think about and something to give serious consideration to. And every organization will be different, and every bunch of people will be different. But start thinking about it now because hopefully we'll be towards the end of this pandemic and back in the office in some way, shape, or form in the relatively near future. So thanks, Chris, for joining us today. We really appreciate it. It just remains for me to say thank you for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. As always, your comments and your subscriptions are gratefully received.