What's next for remote working?

0:00
so she's going to record the session so just to let you know that that's been reported and we will use some posts today so
0:06
you'd have an opportunity to give us your opinion on a number of the different topics
0:11
and on the right hand side and you can pull up the panel and in there there's a q a box so if you have any questions
0:19
for our panel as we go through the session please use the q a box and there's a chat box there too so use
0:25
the chat for general comments on what's happening for sharing or if you have any tech problems because i know and the team
0:32
will pick up on any comments you put in there and but it's best if you actually put questions for the panel into the
0:39
the q a box of course today we have two great speakers and bringing lots of international
0:44
experience of patreon leadership and and exploring the
0:49
issues around workplace and remote working and from sharon whitehead of um currently with
0:57
smurfette kappa and i'll air a hr transformation and executive so i'll tell you a little bit more
1:04
detail about them in a few minutes but you're both very welcome sharon and i lovely to have you here today and really look forward to hearing your
1:10
insights on the topic and the challenges that we face for the future and it's interesting when we look at our
1:17
our environment and we it's very clear we're going to talk about the pre-covert 19 days in
1:23
terms of what's happening but unfortunately what's emerging is we're not going to have a clean line into the post code 19 era and
1:31
really we're going to be learning to live with an environment where we have health risks for quite a while so adapting to that
1:38
kind of fluidity is going to be a challenge and so where does remote working fit into this and
1:45
and we know from um a recent survey that we did thanks to many of you for participating
1:52
and what the survey told us was the 70 percent expect and to permit an increase in remote
1:59
working post cover 19 and that's really positive from a working environment in willingness to
2:07
match the needs of employees and take account of the best working practices that are available to us
2:14
and now we talk a bit about the new normal but to be honest really i think that raising your normal
2:20
is a risk of us thinking well it could be just a very different version of the old and this is a real opportunity for us
2:26
as um providing hr leadership to actually go and change our organizations look at the
2:32
culture and see how can we better embed probably flexible working rather than remote working
2:38
there's a question if we keep talking about remote working that we're talking about the place where work gets done and we
2:43
really need to have a broader conversation about it which is about you know where work gets
2:49
done when work gets done how work gets done so um i'm going to maybe use the word
2:54
flexible learning and some of you might have seen the research
2:59
from nui galway where it went out and got over seven viewpoints on the future of what people
3:06
wanted [Music] and like over 80 percent it wanted some
3:12
form of remote working and in the main that's a blended form that's what came back
3:17
people aren't looking to necessarily to actually suddenly decide i want to work 100 at home because for many of us we still
3:24
want that people engagement we still want the opportunity to socialize to interact with people
3:30
and yet we see the benefits in terms of being able to work from home and use work in a different type of
3:35
environment so really a fluid environment that can help meet both the organization's needs and individual needs is really where we
3:42
want to go and what was behind the the session that we want to talk about this morning
3:48
and as we're going to do a couple of polls i'm going to actually suggest to dissenter that she might put up the first poll now and and we can let that roll
3:55
while i just show you some of the findings that we got in our last hr practices survey
4:01
so we rolled out a survey back um and at the beginning of the year in 1999 and 2019
4:08
of our hr practices 2020. what that showed us was a significant
4:14
increase in the need in the ask around remote working so this is not new we might be facing us
4:22
in a new context right now but this ask about remote working was already there
4:28
see if i can just show you one or two slides about that okay yes and
4:35
what we found in our hr practices survey and as i say taken before covet 19
4:40
was that remote working was starting to appear as being a valid organizational response
4:47
to a lot of different issues one of which was inclusive workplaces and so
4:52
on the left there the top way of promoting is flexible remote work acknowledging
4:59
the fact that actually bringing a wider variety of employees and to retain talent and to
5:06
help tackle things like the gender pay gap flexible and remote working is a key strategy around that
5:12
and then when we talked about growing the talent pipeline you see there that the capacity to attract and develop
5:18
people and retain those people 63 of respondents said they were going to use flexing fast sheets and similarly when
5:26
we asked about strategies for sourcing talent the second way people were going to do
5:31
that was by offering flexible working so we have had a strong recognition
5:37
that flexible ways of working and increased agility is part of our future but for us there's
5:43
been a lot more conversation about us and its opportunity rather than its practice
5:50
one or two other statistics so 73 of the respondents have experienced an
5:55
increase in requests for remote working in 2019. now that's quite significant that's
6:00
employees putting their hand up and saying yes can i work um you know in a different format
6:06
and hopefully not just employees but leaders and managers and hr as well because we do need this to be happening
6:12
at all levels of the organization but at the same time when we asked about its availability
6:18
for 70 of organizations it was available less than ten percent of the time and
6:23
some of that would have been zero percent of the time so even though we were initially into
6:28
our strategy and we were um getting more requests we weren't necessarily responding to
6:35
that request and drivers around that and what you told us was
6:40
a lot of it was around commute times so people looking for less commute more work-life balance and better use of
6:47
their time so that they could actually live a better life while delivering and fire the organization and only 38
6:55
percent have knitted it in to the term strategy of yourself so really
7:07
opportunity as a way to try to really embed it and change that culture
7:12
and hence that's what's behind our session today and we talked about some of the barriers we asked about the
7:18
barriers still exist even though we collected this um you know a number of months back you
7:24
know managing changing operational demands was one of the fears and technology is another one of the
7:32
fears and to a certain extent we probably invested in the technology and got over that
7:37
but also a number of attitudinal barriers lack of visible support for senior managers and what's worrying to me is hearing a
7:43
bit more about that nowadays as we talk to uh members and different organizations what we're hearing is
7:49
people saying oh well some of the the you know leaders think that we just go back to the way it
7:55
was so we still have an influencing challenge in terms of what we're doing around that
8:00
then a lack of buy-in for line managers and we've been aware of that for a while and i know we've talked through examples
8:06
of where actually stopping line managers having a veto on remote working has been central to
8:13
some organizations embedding us and just saying actually it's a business case to say no rather than a business case to say yes
8:20
and then we still have that concern about negative outcomes and negative perceptions
8:26
of employees who might try to work remotely or flexibly and that's something that we
8:31
fundamentally need to challenge and i think covert 19 has really proven
8:36
that productivity is retained in terms of remote working because in the main most of the surveys
8:42
are saying productivity stay the same are increased and only for a small proportion
8:47
did it dip yes we need to tackle that proportion but in the main the productivity case around work
8:53
through club 19 or office-based staff has been shown to work so we do have much more evidence
8:58
than we would have had in the past and again in terms of what supports remote working
9:03
and a lot of organizations then have technology and we know that would have increased significantly
9:09
but fewer had and support for managers and guidance from hey george to support
9:14
remote working now that is something that we have started to tackle but we still need to do more in our
9:21
conversation today we talk a bit more about that because now we need to look at actually how do we set the right
9:27
framework for remote working for the future taking account of organization and individual needs
9:33
so a lot of different things that need to happen in this space and not just an immediate over let's
9:39
stick with what we'll be doing for the past three months because we all know that that was a response to very much a pricey situation
9:46
and yes we've had a lot of compliance and in the main it has worked very well and we know everybody's have to respond
9:53
to individual circumstances where people struggle through that and have to deal with those concerns
9:59
and but overall what we've seen is really and people engage with remote working
10:04
and work through that so i'm really thrilled that now today we're actually going to hear and some good insights from sharon
10:12
whitehead and nylair on their experience and around this so um sharon and has
10:19
um is currently group major officer with market capital so we're delighted to hear the insights from smart with kappa
10:25
probably a traditional perceived slightly traditional organization and now being faced with new and
10:30
different um ways of working and john herself was um working in
10:36
quite international roles throughout kerry for her career and she's also actually on the board of
10:42
the cipd and is the champion for ireland on that board so we're delighted to have her talk to
10:49
us about murphy kappa's journey and here today and and smiler has um been working
10:55
in um pfizer for the last number of years where he has um left in recent months and in that
11:02
context of actually being working remotely and leading a team of two to three hundred um hr and support function staff
11:10
working remotely and so it's a lot of experience of how it has got embedded in the culture and the issues you've had to
11:16
face you've had to tackle so he's going to share some of that and with us today
11:22
so i think a lot of experience and from working internationally and working strategically to actually share with all
11:29
the issues that we need to address now to actually try to embed a future of um
11:34
remote working or flexible working and so let me turn off and the screen
11:40
and let me move so that you can and see us face to face and a little bit
11:46
better so hope that's a bit more uh clear for everybody now we can have a really conversation
11:52
and i'm going to start off by and asking sharon to tell us a little bit more about the context in smirk the capa
11:59
and talk to us about some of the challenges and that and in terms of how you operate
12:04
that coca-19 and shared and i know sharon in our previous conversations you were um
12:10
saying actually smartphone capital had essential workers not just um you know office-based staff and i
12:16
kind of think oh it didn't connect smurf and capital with cardboard and paper and then connect that with essential workers
12:22
so interesting in terms of the context that you've been operating in so maybe tell us about that context and
12:29
you know the operation challenges around and program 19. i will do and thanks ferry and good morning everyone
12:36
i hope you're well and murphy's papa for for those of you who may not be familiar
12:41
with us we're a 4100 company and proudly headquartered out of
12:46
dublin ireland we have a workforce of around 46 000 employees
12:52
and we operate across all far asia so really strong presence across
12:57
all european countries and into uh north and south america
13:03
for us um yeah it's been quite a journey and we're i'd say only midway through um
13:10
the challenges but out of the challenges we have actively sought out opportunities and
13:15
this topic is one of those opportunities for us some of the challenges were
13:21
we have got um employees who we needed to show up for work every day 35
13:27
000 of our 46 000 workforce we needed them to feel safe and go to work every day because at
13:34
a very early stage when it started in italy in february and we have a really really big business
13:39
across north italy in the lombardy region which was the epicenter for a long period of time but um
13:47
we were deemed an essential supplier and the governments in every one of the
13:52
countries we operate in helped us to remain open why are we an
13:57
essential supplier and we do deemer operators as frontline workers um over this crisis
14:03
well corporate capital provides the packaging for the essential supply chain for example
14:09
food to communities beverages pharmaceutical and medical
14:15
for example ireland produces is a company in ireland who produces 30 percent of the world's global supply of
14:22
ventilators and our manufacturing capacity was increased by 70 percent
14:27
because their volumes were increased by 70 to produce and ship ventilators across
14:33
the globe so we have one pool of people 36 000 who we need they needed to feel motivated safe cared
14:41
for valued uh to come into work every day and then on the other side we had 9000
14:48
employees and you mentioned this you know smurfette kappa we we tend to be a traditional organization in terms of ways of working
14:55
and most of our leaders have been in the organization since they were young boys or girls so they've never experienced a different
15:02
uh way of working before but within a 10-day period and we have to send 9 000 employees
15:09
home to remote work as you call it so there's been multiple challenges with that mary and everything from do we have
15:16
the technology and to support it i thought the survey that you put up the beginning
15:22
and capability and really shifting the mindset of managers
15:28
to understand what remote working actually means and remote working isn't a word we use in
15:33
smartphone kappa we use smart working um which is very like flexible working
15:38
but trying to shift the psyche of the line manager to not just measure the inputs
15:44
so the effort or the amount of hours an employee puts into delivering their performance and really just to
15:51
focus on the outputs and focus on prioritization and what needs to get done
15:56
and we have to give them a lot of support and probably more support than we anticipated at the very beginning and how do they
16:03
collaborate with their teams and in a virtual environment and how do they set targets and kpis
16:09
how do they onboard new employees because we've kept recruiting we've kept onboarding professional employees
16:15
and how do you dip employees into a culture through a virtual and medium and so on
16:22
and then one of the other biggest challenges we had was making sure that everyone felt they were being treated fairly so
16:28
if you look at your front line workers who have to show up for work every day during covert in very extreme
16:34
circumstances and then they would have the perception of office workers who are comfortable
16:41
and probably have an easier time and in their home office and which worked really hard at making
16:46
sure that there was no differentiation no perceived differentiation between our different demographics
16:54
okay and that's that's great great context in terms of all the
16:59
different challenges you have and how you have to have different streams of support and activity for different
17:04
types of employees not to mind different and national contexts so i mean i when we were chatting to you
17:11
mentioned the idea of looking at the return to work even just to dublin from the employee experience perspective oh i thought that
17:17
was an interesting way of looking at this putting the employee very center stage to that actual journey and not getting
17:22
distracted by the the um the sort of the health precautions
17:28
yeah very true i mean the return to work for us um probably started about two months ago
17:35
when parts of europe and started to reopen because they started different stages of the pandemic
17:40
at different times if i take ireland as an example and the planning that we've had to reopen our
17:45
headquarters and some of our facilities here and this month we took the lens of
17:51
probably two core areas number one is everything we do um is to create a safe working environment for our people
17:57
we had a mantra from the very beginning back in february of this pandemic that we knew if we kept our people safe
18:04
we would keep our business safe because we would have the people we need to perform and keep
18:10
the business running on a day-to-day basis and what was great was that the the executives and
18:16
the senior leadership at a very early stage took that mindset on that our top
18:22
priority here this is a very much a human crisis before it's an economic crisis and was to was to adopt a real
18:29
people-centric first mentality so when we were looking at the reopening of our facilities we looked at
18:35
it through the lens of an employee experience right from the very beginning
18:40
do they have to get public transport to work and how would they feel about that and
18:47
what happens in terms of their journey from when they get off the bus to when they walk into the premises
18:52
and if you drive to work or if you cycle to work and you you land in our car park and what is the flow or the
18:58
movement of you at regular times throughout the day so we looked at how we make safe all the provisions from public
19:05
transport hitting the car park entrance into the building
19:11
coffee breaks using the printer meeting room so all the facilities on a day-to-day basis
19:17
and we'll factor out the employee experience first and then we'll relate that with all the
19:22
the irish safety protocols and i would say that our government here i know it's probably a 29-page document
19:29
it's quite robust but compared to other countries it's a fantastic document in terms of clarity
19:34
on how to keep people safe and we've gradually started to reopen our businesses
19:40
and obviously remote working will be a big part for the next two years uh minimum
19:45
as we go through that and then actually i'm going to just simply you might put up the next poll if you
19:51
wouldn't mind and and sharon and just thinking of of where you go from here
19:56
because now that you've had that experience of people working remotely and and looking to how do you actually
20:03
build the right future and use the label of smart workings what sort of thought process are you
20:09
going on and as you try to in a sense use this opportunity to leave proud back culture forward for
20:15
the future yeah i think it's really important to look for the opportunities
20:20
this has been a wonderful and occupational experiment called not just a social
20:26
experiment and it certainly has accelerated ways of working that in our organization
20:32
employees and leaders would have thought were never possible and i think moving some of that forward
20:39
so you know what are the things that we've done we've done some very tangible things and back in may we have a lot of
20:45
perceptions around how we felt remote working and was for people
20:51
and for the business but we wanted to make sure that those perceptions were real so we we conducted a global um
20:59
covert employee survey and we had a whole section of that i mean there was a section on safety there was a section on
21:05
relationship with manager whilst working through the pandemic whether that was remote or face to face and there was a piece
21:12
around the tools and technology and setup that you have to be effective whilst working from home and and the
21:20
fourth piece was around and do you feel supported in terms of the changes or the challenges
21:26
that you might have so we conducted a digital survey across 46 000
21:31
employees and really got a pulse or a sense of how people
21:36
felt and if i just zone in on the topic we're talking about today which is remote working we learned so much around how our
21:44
employees are feeling and again the public transport might sound very trivial we never thought of public transport it
21:51
was one of the biggest fears that came up on the global survey in multiple countries that people didn't want to come back to
21:57
the office not because they didn't feel safe in the office uh but because they were worried they would catch covet on their commute in
22:04
and out to work so the in the the outputs of that survey for us
22:10
have fed into a series of initiatives and we pulled these initiatives together under an umbrella brand called smurfette
22:17
kappa my work and under my work we have four core pillars and we're just
22:23
about to launch this next month and will be launched in advance of us um giving our 2021 budget
22:30
so people can understand maybe where some of the efficiencies and opportunities will come from from a business perspective
22:36
but under my work there are four umbrellas and it's all about smart working the first one is called smart office the
22:43
second one is called smart meetings the third one is smart travel because as a global
22:50
organization we probably spend about 70 percent of our time in an airport or an airplane uh coming
22:57
together to have meetings like this in a physical building and the fourth area then is all around smart learning
23:04
we have put targets against and changes and ways of working against each of those four pillars of
23:11
smart working so for example what does smart office mean well smart office means that we're
23:17
assessing currently where work needs to get done how it gets done
23:23
and it'll feed into our talent agenda around and do we need to mobilize and
23:28
relocate as many people around the globe or can certain jobs be done from
23:34
um home countries or home locations or assessing what roles can be done remotely
23:40
and what roles need to be physically in the office like a receptionist or an engineer as an example
23:48
within the smart meetings piece which very much feeds into working more virtually
23:53
uh we're saying very clearly we can reduce our elements of travel and meetings um
23:59
by using the technologies we've adapted during the covert pandemic and we'll probably reduce our
24:05
face-to-face meetings by at least 50 percent now that there's positives and negatives
24:11
to that the culture in smurfette kappa is extremely personable it's a very interpersonal organization
24:18
very relation orientated and we've got to make sure that we preserve the culture so some of the
24:24
changes we're making might feel very counter-cultural so we have a whole change program behind us
24:31
to make sure that that interpersonal sense or feeling isn't lost through a remote um forum or
24:38
a remote way of working smart meetings also means that we have to look at let's say i have 10
24:44
and you are 10 team meetings a year where i'm pulling 20 or 30 people together i need to sit back and really look at
24:52
the objective of those meetings why they're held in the first place do they need to be face to face
24:58
can they be held in a virtual so it's not just looking at how you conduct your meetings it's looking at why
25:04
you have meetings in the first place all of this is around efficiencies and new ways of working
25:09
um young demographic for you know a traditional a traditional business over 55 percent of our employees
25:16
are already of a millennial generation and you said it there in your
25:21
introduction mary that there was a desire for change before the pandemic but obviously the pandemic
25:27
has accelerated an awful lot of those changes and i would say efficiently so and
25:33
and that generation is now getting an experience that they've been asking of us for a very long time
25:40
and i'm not sure they are willing to go back so you know employee engagement and
25:45
really working with our people through understanding now whatever solutions we come up with have to work for the business too
25:52
so it's unlikely that in our organization people will be home working all the time it's about getting the
25:59
balance between what is the function of the office and how productive an individual is
26:05
whilst working remotely and it feeds all the way into our recruitment process now because you're looking for a certain
26:12
type of profile to make sure that people we hire are self-directed
26:18
are self-motivated our high energy you know we can trust them and to work so so there's so many
26:24
initiatives but we're pulling them all together connecting the dots for say putting them all together under the my work umbrella and the
26:31
smarter working initiative and just what have you done to pull
26:36
together the learnings from the pokemon game experience to feed into this so that there's i suppose greater acceptance for this as
26:43
a way forward we went out to a number of different groups so we started with every ceo
26:50
so every one of our countries has a business ceo and hr director and we went to every ceo and hr director
26:56
and we asked them three very simple questions what have been your biggest challenges
27:01
um through this pandemic the second question was what are the biggest opportunities what are the surprises
27:08
the things that have evolved as a new way of working that you think are better
27:14
and the third question was what do you want to leave behind and what you want to take forward
27:19
as we create our new norm and it's amazing how three questions brought us back um spreadsheets and of
27:27
information and we've broken um all of those key themes down and they were part of building into
27:33
the my work initiative and the consistency 95 consistency
27:39
and despite the different experiences people have had with this pandemic 95 consistency around we never thought
27:47
remote working was possible in smurfit kappa i never thought i could lead my people
27:53
uh without seeing them face to face the productivity of people
27:58
and who aren't coming into the office or to one of our facilities every day is higher
28:04
we know from our pulse survey that our engagement employee engagement levels are higher than they would be in a normal
28:09
environment and we're asking ourselves why is that probably because we're communicating and putting more effort into engaging
28:15
them health and safety statistics have improved substantially in terms of accidents near misses etc
28:22
also we've got a whole business case around it but the big pieces that our business want to take forward
28:28
is finding that balance between home and office working
28:33
and secondly we don't need to travel everywhere all of the time to be effective
28:40
and then the third piece is around smart learning and again we like to bring our people face to face to do a lot of our
28:46
leadership development programs we've now already started a virtual academy and we're looking at how we give
28:52
them a virtual experience while achieving the same objectives or
28:58
outcomes of the learning so it is all possible and i might make it sound easy but it's not
29:04
because it is a change management program and leaders want us but sometimes when
29:09
the changes are happening and it's a bit like be careful what you wish for
29:15
so we are having to help our leaders and our managers through education through support
29:20
through business partnering on how to cope and live with the new changes so but they're embracing it so
29:25
far okay okay sounds um very progressive in terms of all the thinking that you've
29:30
done to make a change in such a short space of time and i just and finally just ask
29:36
about you know what's this actually going to do to your to your culture and you talk about being very personable
29:42
and if that's core and central how are you making sure as you go forward that you're
29:47
embedding the key aspects of the culture or do you see the culture is going to have to change to adapt to new ways of
29:53
working i mean that's probably a question we struggle with ourselves
29:58
uh one of the one of the one of the strengths of smurfette kappa is the
30:04
culture and it is literally how things get done and our our leaders espouse the values um
30:11
every day in this i'm only in the company a year and a half and i've come from 20 years in in kerry group and it was very very
30:17
similar there and so no matter where you are in the world in smurfette cafe you know you're in a smurfette kappa building
30:23
because the culture feels the same and we value and safety loyalty trust integrity and
30:29
respect and they're the words that get used quite a lot i actually see the changes dialing up
30:35
an awful lot of those values because we're having to put an awful lot more trust support respect into our colleagues into
30:43
our employees than ever before there is a fear that we will lose some of what makes us
30:49
good and that's probably just a natural um reaction i think it will i think it will evolve
30:56
and complement the culture mary i don't think it will take away nor do i think it will be the exact same
31:02
culture in two or three years time but i think it will evolve the culture into a much more
31:08
innovative um way of working and i think as we embrace technology we
31:14
have to learn ways to make sure that we maintain the relationships
31:20
and the stakeholder management and making sure that remote doesn't take away from the
31:27
interpersonal sense uh within the organization and there's ways and means to do that
31:33
like we're currently looking at how do we do team building um through a virtual forum and there are specialists
31:39
out there who can who can help us do that i think onboarding employees is interesting um during covert and i'm sure many of
31:46
you would have had this experience and i only see it as we reopen back up
31:51
offices where we've been on board with people for three months and technically they're getting everything but they haven't had a real
31:57
dip into the culture so they're they're all they think they're onboarded but actually
32:03
it's probably the first week in the office and you can see the cultural um nuances playing out already
32:10
so we have a bit more work to do on that great i mean that's really insightful
32:15
and sharon in terms of trying to look at the way forward but there are so many day-to-day practical pieces that
32:21
have to work to support that and to make sure you know that you're using your values as the foundation
32:27
point like if we talk about respect without that in our my work environment that we talk about
32:33
trust and when you go back to those it's it's it's harder for people to object to it
32:38
in terms of going on the journey with you and if anyone would like any particular
32:43
um questions for sharon if you want to drop them into the q a box that would be fine
32:48
you pick them up in a couple minutes and i know the last pose that empty center put up was about the level of
32:54
change to the culture that remote working was going to bring and people were saying yes it is going to bring
32:59
and change and she said we might put up the next poll now too while i
33:05
actually introduce em nile and uh look forward to hearing what knight has to say
33:10
i suppose um listening to um sharon and smurfett kappa very much on the journey as to how do we
33:16
actually do this go forward whereas nyle you've been a little bit more embedded in us from
33:22
an operational perspective from your period and advisor over the last number of years
33:28
and trying to actually both lead a team and that is virtual and globally and
33:34
also and support a culture and an organization and that's been doing that and so
33:42
maybe just um talk a little bit about your experience and getting to that
33:49
remote work culture and you know and and what are the things picking up
33:54
really from where sharon has finished off how do we actually um sort of set that
34:00
as as the right way of working that works for both the business and individuals so good morning guys so good morning
34:07
everyone and uh can you hear me okay mary yeah here you find me okay great well done thanks sharon that that sharon gave
34:14
it an excellent um portrayal of of the the current position of an organization to
34:21
some degree in crisis mode which a lot of organizations have been in this space over the last number of
34:27
months my experience in in pfizer which i've left now but for the last 10 years i've effectively
34:34
worked either 50 percent or for the last eight years 100 remote
34:39
uh and in that i've been managing and leading work across the world in hr um it didn't really matter how
34:47
many people are on the project and the work because at the end of the day if they're not in front of you they're remote
34:52
so there happened to be 200 or 300 spread over 60 countries or 70 all working on
34:58
specific projects related to hr key point that i say to every
35:03
in those seven years i had two face-to-face meetings with my manager
35:09
okay so just to say that can this work unequivocally yes all right that would
35:14
be my my intro um so in that team i had to deliver the work
35:19
and get the work done i had to manage the teams they all did not report to me directly
35:25
they were working in projects but i was leaving some of them did report to me so i had to
35:30
a couple of contacts the work had to get done mary and i had to get done across the world
35:36
with people collaborating half the time i'd be on webex's and i'd see people in their homes the other times
35:42
they'd be in the office uh dealing with people in different time zones and so unequivocally i would be a passionate
35:49
advocate of remote working in the right culture in the right environment
35:55
and for organizations to do the right i worked for pfizer global organizations by their design
36:02
naturally fall into this space more easily than some of the more national or
36:07
smaller organizations so in terms of working for a big company like pfizer
36:12
the hr technology was of a very high standard in terms of me leading my teams and and
36:19
managing people over on boarding as sharon had said there the processes were all clearly defined
36:26
we had come to a very significant hr transformation journey to enable leaders to to
36:35
manage teams globally so people sitting in new york would have on their hr portal all of the
36:40
hr tools to be able to onboard recruit performance management
36:46
reward not to say everything was perfect but just to say that that mindset and i think sharon
36:52
picked up in their mindset that mindset of of remoteness had uh come across in pfizer for many
36:59
many years by virtue of its of its global reach
37:04
and a couple of key points i would say where a lot of organizations are on now
37:10
they're moving slightly out of crisis mode and to start thinking of moving into more kind of sustained more
37:16
infrastructure positions uh this is a going towards remote
37:22
working is to some degree a organization design concept and typically organizations design where
37:29
a group of leaders get into a room they bring in consultants they do all the figures they come out and they tell
37:34
the organization this is it remote working design in my perspective is totally different
37:40
it's an engagement process and a partnership approach with your colleagues and employees
37:47
sharon mentioned there the the surveys and the questions and the engagement and i think that it's and then when
37:53
people get back to work they'll be doing workshops they will be doing finding out remote working is not your traditional
38:00
organization design you have to engage with employees you have to find out when employees
38:07
you have to engage out with line managers and you also have to know from an organization what you really want out of remote
38:13
working exactly from a culture i would say that the most important point i would say to
38:19
any organization to make it successful is remote working has to transcend
38:25
in some shape or form to all roles at all levels in the organization
38:31
uh i think from my experience in hr traditionally there had been some unconscious bias around the world
38:37
working some resistance from leaders it's been refreshing to see sky news every night
38:42
with the ceos and the cfos remote working in there in their houses
38:48
and see that you know to show that senior leaders in the last three or four of these massive big companies
38:53
can still do their job remotely work can get done so my advice on my learning
38:59
is that if you're moving in this direction this can't just be for if you quote unquote the workers
39:04
or up to the the process people and then all the senior people come in and do a full it's not it's not
39:11
for them it has to be inclusive it has to be uh role models and not just supported
39:19
i would say actually [Music] used by a portion of the
39:25
senior executive team so if somebody says well we want 75 percent of our people remote working
39:31
on a blended version that transcends all the way up to the leadership team in my view because i think that that is
39:38
very very important to show people down the organization that you have a career in this
39:43
organization you are valued and remote working is not just a perk or a benefit for you
39:48
it's a it's it's a mainstream strategy of our business i think i think that's really
39:55
interesting now because i think that's possibly where a lot of people are struggling is how do we actually take remote
40:01
working and make us being part of our organization i mean you talked about working out what does the organization
40:07
want from remote working and that's not a question that people ask themselves before now
40:12
and now they were coming out of and covered 19 and lockdown it's now a very clear question so i mean
40:19
it was interesting to hear how sharon they went out and they sought both the employer leadership
40:24
input into that in terms of what works and what people wanted to keep so i think you know that that plays very
40:30
much and into that is to work out that particular question because then that feeds into and how it
40:36
gets translates and sometimes i think we need to talk about how it gets translated into activities not just roles
40:42
activities in my role that need to be face to face and activities that can be done remotely you know so it's not just about mary
40:49
worked this way but mary applies her various ways of working to different activities that need to be
40:54
done that's a different level of announcement about hatred it is because it you know you know in in many ways
41:00
remote working is still seen as a hate your benefits hate your it's actually if you
41:06
really stand back and think it's a business strategy you know it's it's you know in all the
41:12
predictions and all of the research and all the academics are telling that this is a revolution that has you
41:18
know remote working flexible working was on its way and the journey was transcending what
41:23
we've done in the last three or four months is that that the debate for remote working is now over
41:29
it will be here it will be here uh it's not going to go away it's going to
41:34
grow business leaders and again this is the influencing that hr have to do
41:40
is to make sure that this isn't just a hr policy there is an element of the operations asset
41:45
but the business leaders have to understand i have to well and and and i have to paint a
41:51
picture of their operations to that this is a critical strategy for their people uh business their
41:59
retention the war for talent uh diversity and inclusion uh and as sarah mentioned you know
42:07
efficiency there are huge benefits all the research will say that the engagement is different because
42:14
it's virtual it's better the efficiencies and productivities if managed properly
42:21
increase real estate and cost go down so what business leaders would turn around and
42:27
say i don't i'm not interested in that so this makes total business sense and then the one
42:34
thing and i suppose you know sharon touched on it about culture and we've been in hor and businesses
42:42
driving agility flexibility the adapting sort of ethos over the last number of years
42:49
remote working is an extension of that so we as hr professionals have been in
42:55
this space and in this and again sharon's point in that mindset and the one example i would give to
43:02
avoid is to avoid two cultures in the organization a off-site an office culture
43:10
and a remote working culture and i don't have all the answers here either mary for that but just to think to approach
43:16
this to say that you more embed it into your existing culture and ensure that it's around where work
43:23
gets done how work gets done what's flexible as opposed to this whole new sort of
43:29
um way of doing things and try and keep as i did in pfizer if you were remote working and i was
43:35
managing my teams all the performance systems all the learning and development
43:41
career progression and the hr technologies they were all the same whether somebody was sitting in front of me
43:47
or sitting 9000 miles away from me in the other part apart from that obviously the interaction was different
43:54
so there are there is one system and one kind of ethos of how you manage your people and that has to be there and remote
44:02
working can sometimes drift you into and leaders can have their own different
44:07
views and then that makes sense yeah and certainly we've seen some
44:13
um leaders talking about the need to make um our people processes virtual so that
44:19
they can operate virtually and then to move not just and you know and then not just in the people are even
44:24
but to make all work processes virtual because then you have the the framework within which people can
44:30
work and in different locations and and then actually if you can get your processes virtually
44:37
it's it's apparent from what you're saying that you worked in that environment but many organizations that actually
44:42
is quite a important starting point is now that if you've been doing and you
44:48
know they're equipped with the onboarding virtually over the last um three months
44:53
at what you need to do now to embed that as a way of working even if somebody is is physically unsightly so it's not
44:58
about where it's done but actually the process is done virtually so there's there's a thinking a different mind set that needs to be
45:05
put in place around that yeah and that could be in the journey some more investment in hr technology it
45:12
could be somewhere i mean example if you're a manager and a leader and you have a job to promote our job and you
45:18
and you have applicants you may have some face to face and some uh will be virtual so the process might be different for
45:24
different people but um the reality is that the best person gets the job and uh
45:31
those sort of so to hang on as i and again to reiterate what sharon said the core values of your organization
45:37
should not change inside that we're very simple similar to a sharon global organization
45:43
90 000 people 100 or 100 markets it was around respect integrity teamwork
45:51
innovation uh deliverance all of those values and remote working was not for everyone
45:57
there was lots a lot of manufacturing sites you have to you can't make the pharmaceutical product from your home
46:05
you've got to be in there so the determination of what roles are available to remote working the
46:11
biggest issue i've came across even in faison is that some leaders and managers
46:16
by their own bias because they've led face to face for so long they feel that are they losing control
46:25
and i think you know what i think before coming on today i was thinking what is the the kind of key you know from the
46:30
leaders so there's a lot of business imperatives to do it but from the leadership and why have leaders true in some
46:36
organizations and most being somewhat resistant in this space and
46:42
i think it's about any tips on dealing with that resistance because we do know
46:47
that's still there and you know and a lot of hr community are going to have to be tackling that particular thing
46:54
anything you saw work when i'm trying to deal with that yeah i think it's just a consistent message
46:59
around you know build it into you know leadership and we all most organizations have a
47:04
leadership skill set a learning development program building remote working into that
47:10
building a module building the behaviors make it mainstream call us what it is
47:16
and i believe that the skill set of a leader is the the core skills that that can be
47:22
applied to remote working you just probably have to adopt some of your skill set in a slightly different
47:28
way and um a lot of leaders are actually cautious and nervous about doing things
47:34
like performance appraisals performance review virtually uh you know
47:40
some of them don't like to do them anyway uh you know because you know and it's all right when it's all good news but how do you performance
47:47
manage somebody who's not performing virtually so i think reassurance uh coaching
47:53
and training and building is calling and everybody agreeing that we have some
48:01
leadership measures and behaviors that we all agree on and one of the key messages
48:08
that you don't want to have different leaders approaching different remote working in different ways
48:14
so hr is in a great position we are the gel at the moment that we can really pull
48:19
all this together i think we have an hr have a phenomenal opportunity
48:25
uh to transform and to assist businesses in in in the most critical transformation in
48:31
my view since the internet has come along this is the next big thing and to embrace us
48:37
uh it's not for everyone but all those important point is for the hr to work with the business
48:43
and to get the business leaders to understand and really map out why they want to do this yeah
48:52
i think that's that's a very powerful and um point of view i think and that'll take a
48:57
bit of work now we haven't um i just want to put a question to you so encourage
49:02
people to um use the q a but there was a question in brian isle in terms of
49:08
and you know from your um experience what you found has been the
49:13
key difference managing a team that might be removed versus one where you could have regular face-to-faces
49:20
it's it's different it's difference in obviously it's different not in actually the work
49:26
getting the work done it's different in all those objective setting performance appraisals performance
49:32
assessment um very difference where i had one or two situations where i had to
49:37
uh people were on kind of their performance wasn't up to the level and they were halfway around
49:44
the world how do you manage and motivate people and whereas if you're face to face you can
49:49
go for a cup of coffee you can have a a level of informality you can get close to people
49:54
on an even in a more personal level so you won't have that relationship uh ability to do however you have a
50:02
different stronger relationship in in a virtual relationship so the reality is we have relationships
50:08
but they will become more virtual but that doesn't mean that they're any less significant but you have to realize that
50:15
they're different and you won't get it's it's more remote working for me it's around
50:21
discipline structure it's more clinical
50:26
it can be a little bit more lonely at times if you're on your own for particular periods and how your organization blends all
50:33
that together and the last point i'd say is that if you talk to and you look at all the debate that's
50:38
ongoing and and sharon was very clear in in in kappa around health
50:44
and safety well-being uh rules and regulations and that's very very important employee
50:51
well-being and you know there's a consultation process that's been kicked off by the government
50:56
uh around this space uh because you know organizations and we all need more
51:01
guidelines we all need more structure well-being is something that is very very important
51:07
having said that over the last 10 years pre-clovers it wasn't the top issue that i was
51:13
dealing with okay it's now because of where of took over that has but covert will come and covert will go
51:20
but remote working in my view would still be here so uh that that would be my answer there mary
51:26
okay great thanks and thanks a million for that nile and yes um and even i can say um because when we
51:34
work so much into our london colleagues you know what i mean a lot of that is remote but i love the opportunity to have them
51:39
in dublin and go out for me that chat alongside them so for me that's an important part of the
51:44
relationship building and then you get you know you're much more focused in your in your virtual
51:50
face faces and sharing one or two questions for you and in terms of and
51:58
i see three really good questions there mary from uh yvonne libby and michelle on communications
52:05
yes yes if you want to pull those those all together and i think in terms of the the
52:12
communications or the engagement and why why do i feel it has improved
52:18
i think we were very planful and very determined at the onset that um we were going to
52:26
probably over communicate during the pandemic and now i'd be lying if i said at the very
52:31
beginning we had everything passed out and we knew what was coming down the tracks that we weren't it was very iterative you know
52:37
day to day and week by week we were we were shifting our plans to adjust
52:42
the situation but i think there was three core things that are different and we can feel the benefit of that back
52:49
through our people the first one is um communications in the past were probably very formal
52:57
and very informative so they were telling people something was happening or an
53:03
appointment or whatever it may be whereas we've accepted that piece too much more
53:08
um head and heart communications so because of the nature of this being
53:14
more human crisis at the onset and our ceo was very much in line with
53:20
his tone of voice and his narrative was going to be very empathetic and consistently
53:26
authentic and so that was the first piece authentic and sympathetic the second area was around um
53:34
we were communicating very frequently and what we wanted to do was to make sure that
53:39
people understood and had consistency so in march we created a communication
53:49
microsite and we called it we probably themed it under three areas safety safe supported connected and we
53:56
started talking to our people through the ceo and myself initially globally that we wanted our priority was to make
54:03
sure that they felt safe they felt supported and they felt connected safe is very straightforward
54:09
it's all about the new ways of working you know travel ban and social distancing no visitors
54:15
allowed on the plans temperature checking in our plans closure of offices etc
54:20
the supported piece was interesting and that was all around how we made sure that people felt
54:26
supported by their manager and by the organization and we had some communications around that
54:32
and the connected piece is the one where we got most hits on our microsite and we thought safety
54:38
was but connected and this was all for people who are working remotely people who are used to
54:43
interacting daily in the office and having face-to-face meetings and social lunch and all that
54:49
and there was a series of fun initiatives around making sure people felt connected
54:54
with other people um and you know we on the microsite portal because you have to make these
55:00
things fun we connected them with the business through updates but we connected them with their peers
55:06
through um photographs and where they could post up this is what my life looks
55:12
like um at the moment and you might have a man with a baby on his back in the dark
55:18
or you know it could be anything and one of them actually appeared on sky news they won some award um
55:23
for it but you have to make these things fun and so if i go back heaven heart
55:29
communications and safe support connected and the third piece is all around purposeful work
55:36
um so we started to try and create i mean we produce paper and packaging
55:41
and we're not making life-saving drugs or anything like that so we have to create our purpose
55:47
so that people would feel very proud and engaged and fulfilled so our purpose
55:53
evolved for for covet and our purpose evolved to be that our people were front line workers
55:59
making sure that their communities were fed and received the right medicine
56:04
and the right medical equipment to save their families and their communities during covet and we gave each of each of
56:12
our countries and donations whereby they could choose how to spend the donation locally to
56:19
help their communities those three areas have drove significant engagement for us we were about 20
56:26
percent higher this year than we have been any other year um and in such a short space of time
56:33
that that's wonderful so again we'll try and continue that with frequency and you know there's no such thing as over communicating
56:40
but you have to make it very lighthearted but very clear and business orientated as well
56:46
okay okay and one of the other questions there sharon was around trying to and keep that engagement when
56:52
learning development you know might be going more virtual and and getting that balance when it comes
56:59
to sort of a more developmental agenda which we're now i think moving on to as you say the agenda was that poor
57:05
connection and now we're moving into actually what we do much more about development yeah so we're obviously we're we're we're trying
57:12
to get back to a business as usual state whilst living in a covered shadow
57:18
and that's very much our our focus at the moment i think it's really important to say that
57:25
you can't just change how you work uh for ie switch on remote working or
57:30
switch on and digital learning and think you can do it the same
57:36
by just using technology um it's not about learning and just doing it through a
57:42
medium you actually have to think very differently about how you interact with people how you engage
57:49
with people and we've all been on plenty of webinars and during this covert crisis
57:54
and we know that sitting and listening to somebody for an hour or two hours is one of the
57:59
hardest things you can do if there's no level of engagement so we're trying to look at how you
58:04
really interact with people we don't have the answers yet but we've seen some examples externally of smaller
58:10
companies in ireland who have done a really fine job at this and what we're doing is we're looking at
58:16
how do you facilitate um breakout groups team building workout sessions i mean later on today
58:22
we're doing an mbti feedback session with our middle management cohort
58:28
and who completed it in february um and we're trusting our partners to be able to
58:33
deliver that in in the virtual in virtual environment it can be done but you can't just take
58:39
the content of old and deliver the same content but just through a virtual
58:44
you've got to rethink um all of your content and how you actually deliver it and it's part of the skills in hr that
58:51
we're going to have to build that capability to be able to facilitate and become more effective
58:56
and via virtual networks and just to say that's the myers-briggs
59:02
that when you you made a record there's the mbti that's the myers-briggs and and certainly that idea i mean because
59:08
actually in cipd we're doing a whole piece of development work to convert a lot of our programs for that real digital delivery and
59:14
engagement and so take over the next couple of months now we will be actually coming out with those on a
59:20
whole range of different topics because it is it's a different way of learning so we are actually investing in that and
59:26
right at this point in time just one final question for sharon because that's all um really fascinating
59:32
just a question on how um all this change doesn't have a negative
59:38
impact on people's perceived career opportunities or and and some of it is how it doesn't
59:45
have the impact and then the second thing is nearly how you manage the perceptions around is it not so i mean i know you're
59:52
early on that path but it's still something we're all going to have to face yeah it's it's a really good question
59:59
actually um so we've had a number of internal appointments that we we we tried we made a decision
1:00:06
probably about two months ago will we put them on hold on something settle down or will we go ahead and start the
1:00:12
process and um and we said no we start the process because it may not be the right time but it will
1:00:19
show people new skills and and we did all of our interviews internal interviews online which our
1:00:25
candidates internally found very very strange um but we had successful outcome i think
1:00:32
the stigma associated in some organizations around remote working has to be removed
1:00:38
first because i know um and and like nile i've worked in
1:00:43
in global roles for most of my career so i'm very used to working on different time zones
1:00:49
from my office or from home in a virtual environment but when i came into smurfy kappa people
1:00:55
didn't even use skype to im each other and i found that it was conference calls and i was like i haven't used a conference call in 10
1:01:01
years and so i found it very very strange and i could see that if one or two employees started
1:01:08
remote working they would have felt um that it would have been frowned upon and would have
1:01:14
impacted on their career so it has to start at the top and it has to be very much part of
1:01:20
the the dna of the organization and that is going to take some time but i think you've also got to find
1:01:26
opportunities where you can spotlight um these things for example if you're
1:01:32
announcing um an internal appointment or an external appointment and into your organization i think it's
1:01:39
really important to put things in there like and you may know sharon
1:01:45
she works she's been in our company for x amount of years and sharon currently works remotely
1:01:52
she's based in such a location and be very explicit and overt about the
1:01:57
setup so the more that employees and people can see oh look at this person they've got
1:02:02
promoted oh by the way they only work in this office two days a week and they work from donegal the other three days a
1:02:08
week and i think that's really important to slowly change the culture and the perception around it i think on
1:02:14
the other side your talent management process you should make sure that you've got
1:02:19
visibility of all talent and that really shouldn't discriminate and it shouldn't really matter and but so the first part of your
1:02:26
question was more around perception mary which is why i'm saying build it into communications and i think um a lady called yvonne
1:02:33
asked a question earlier on which is very linked into this which is around how do you convince the c-suite and
1:02:39
that remote working is is okay and is the right thing to do and i think you have to do that as well
1:02:44
um and i it resonates with me completely because you know i said this is a change
1:02:50
journey and just because i'm saying these great initiatives doesn't mean they happen very easily and very swiftly
1:02:56
there's a lot of influence and a lot of stakeholder management and the conversation i have with
1:03:02
employees or with hr is a very different conversation about the same topic than i have with the business executives
1:03:08
and and i firmly switch my conversation with the business executive to what's in it for them and what's in
1:03:15
it for them is everything from cost benefits talent attraction talent retention i'm
1:03:21
talking real hard data real numbers you've got to create a business case
1:03:26
because without the hard facts or the the reason for change and they won't go for the softer stuff
1:03:33
they're trying to run a profitable business at the end of the day and trying to really balance the business case
1:03:39
with um more the employee experience piece which is your type of conversation to an
1:03:45
employee and or to hr they have to be too very different so i would recommend that you do a very
1:03:51
high level stakeholder map and finally say what's in it for them board what's in it for them
1:03:56
executive leadership what's in it for them employees and then really figure out how you
1:04:03
convince and influence people that this is the right thing to do okay okay that's an excellent piece of
1:04:09
advice to be to be giving people in terms of that stakeholder management and that influencing is fundamentally what's on
1:04:16
their agenda and i know one of the questions asked about how this applies in small organizations
1:04:21
and i think fundamentally it is looking at what does the business owner the business lead actually need out of this
1:04:28
and how can you use this more flexible way of working to actually deliver that whether that's
1:04:34
to attract or keep the same skills or sometimes it will be actually you know if
1:04:40
if there's less perception of of pay opportunities but actually there could be much more
1:04:45
flexibility in my experience in small business because the rules and the frameworks don't have to be so tight
1:04:51
yeah and you also you have much more visibility of where all the bits knit together whereas like you know for yourself and
1:04:59
it's much more about how does the process spotlight some of those things whereas actually it's much more listed together
1:05:05
and integrated and in a small organization and now i mentioned the fact that the
1:05:10
government has a consultation out on that and we and cipd will be participating in that and putting together these thoughts and
1:05:17
our research and to share with the government and the minister around this but also we're open to any
1:05:23
everyone's views so if anyone has any opinions that they'd like to share our generated conversation
1:05:29
you just have to drop an email to info at cipd.i.e and we pick that up and we get back to
1:05:35
you to have a conversation and around that as we go forward in the space and i think what today has highlighted
1:05:42
is how much of pulling the concept of remote or flexible working or smart working you
1:05:48
know language is important but has to be right for the organization center stage and saying this is how we
1:05:54
need we want to do things around here and then moving out from that rather than trying to sort to say well this is
1:06:01
who we are and how we operate and let's stick on a little bit of about working for those that want us
1:06:07
we've probably done that in the past hasn't achieved us it's great to see our aspirations
1:06:12
it to use this in terms of attraction in terms of diversity in terms of inclusion well-being work-life balance
1:06:19
and all those things so really articulating the business case it was really interesting we actually
1:06:24
did a session on this back in february pre-opened 19 days actually probably about two weeks beforehand
1:06:30
in ulster bank which have gone down that route and they were able to put up the financials the engagement the metrics
1:06:37
because they've been doing it for two or three years and and to talk through that i mean one of the business leaders say
1:06:42
we have saved so much money on property and and so there is real benefits there and
1:06:48
hopefully we've moved it out of that case as to the overall business case and now it's more about how do we
1:06:55
connect us into where we need to go for the future how do we connect it into our culture how do we use it to deliver on our
1:07:01
business aspirations and our culture so a really big thank you to both um nile air
1:07:06
and sharon whitehead for their time this morning and i think it's been really inspiring and helping us to think about
1:07:12
that bigger picture and not get lost in too much of the detail and but very much you know this can be
1:07:18
done and you know when we all step back in a year's time and look at this journey i think this is
1:07:24
going to be post covert 19 posted no not postcode 19 post lockdown journey
1:07:30
is we've got over the price of the lockdown is how we move forward now in in actually making better workplaces
1:07:36
after using cipd it's a really exciting time the final thing i'd like to do is to
1:07:42
like to thank all the participants for your time this morning has been really helpful having you with us hope
1:07:47
you and got a lot out of it and we welcome your feedback thank my own team but in particular i'd
1:07:53
like you to call out michelle stanton who is actually finishing up with us this week and she would have been facilitating some of these sessions
1:07:59
previously so just want to wish michelle well on your behalf on our behalf in terms of
1:08:05
her future career plans and say big thanks to michelle bar and all the her contribution so i
1:08:11
know if we were live we would hear a round of applause so we should take that another one
1:08:20
and and very much appreciate it so you'll be in touch with everybody and following this and setting up future
1:08:26
events and um look forward to your feedback and again just a big thank you to both nile and sharon for your contributions this
1:08:32
morning very insightful i really appreciate it okay thank you everybody bye-bye thank you bye-bye everybody
English (auto-generated)