Lydia Dishman 0:00
So delighted to be here at this last half-day conference of the year. And this is a looking forward topic that I am personally looking forward to having, so let me just start by saying this year, like so many others, adapting to evolving workforce expectations remains a critical priority for leaders across industries, table stakes, but recent data is highlighting the urgency of this shift. 72% of employees say that they expect more career development opportunities this coming year, with a particular emphasis on upskilling and internal mobility. Additionally, despite the RTO mandates, 59% of workers are now prioritizing flexibility in their work arrangements, including remote options, which is continuing to reshape how organizations structure their workforce. Finally, I found a McKinsey study that 83% of executives recognize the need for skills-based hiring to stay competitive, yet only 36% of organizations have implemented that effectively. So, that underscores the gap between awareness and action in talent management strategies. So today we’re going to dive in to explore how leaders can effectively address these trends and some others that are at the top of my mind so that my panelists can meet the growing expectations of the workforce in the year ahead. I can’t believe it’s just about to be 2025. Okay, so I’m going to ask each of you to introduce yourselves briefly, and let’s keep it personal for my icebreaker question: tell me what a key focus for you in 2025 could be. It could be life. You don’t have to reveal your deep secrets or any of your resolutions, Christopher. Let’s start with you.
Christopher Rotolo 2:20
I was hoping you wouldn’t pick me first, but Christopher Rotolo, I’m with a company called MiTek. It’s a Berkshire Hathaway company. We’re in the construction building industry, but we don’t really build anything. We have products, software, services and automation to help innovate the building process. So we work with builders and component manufacturers to really streamline and gain efficiency. I’ve been there for about three and a half years, and my role is global talent. I have talent acquisition, talent management, and talent development. So it’s a good swath of the employee experience, and I’m enjoying every piece of it, because it was a complete green field coming into the role. My quick 2025 is, I’m looking for my flying car. Wow, 2025, we should be flying in cars.
Lydia Dishman 3:20
No, that was only in the Jetsons.
Christopher Rotolo 3:25
But in reality what’s going to be my main focus for 2025 is turning on our skills-based organization, which we’ve got all these different components in, in the hiring, just as you were saying, in learning and development, in performance, but what we’re struggling with is tying them all together and really trying to, trying to get a common like skill ontology that works seamlessly. So that’s kind of the last hurdle, that that’s the challenge that that’s going to be next year.,
Lydia Dishman 4:01
Okay, Rebecca, how about you go next? Tell me what you’re focused on personally this year.
Rebecca Warren 4:13
Hi and hello. Rebecca Warren, I am based outside of Phoenix, Arizona, and a former TA leader at several large CPG, agribus, restaurant, and retail organizations. Now I work eight hours. I’ve been here. It’ll be four years next week, crazy and moved from customer success when I first started, and now I’m in a new team that we’ve created called Talent Center Transformation, where we focus on helping organizations transform their talent life cycle by shifting their focus from jobs to talent and skills through using talent intelligence so lots of words, but super fun and exciting, and that ties into my focus for 2025 my keyword is stress. Much, and that is with health and family and work is amazing.
Lydia Dishman 5:06
I love that, and it’s always good to stretch if you’re able in the middle of the day. Yeah, there you go, working from home. Yes, okay, let’s go to Bhavna next
Bhavna Sharma 5:22
Hi everyone. My name is Bhavna Sharma. I am out of Washington, DC, working for Sirius XM. We also own Pandora. You probably know us as your entertainment in your car. We’ve got, like I said, Pandora. We also have a lot of podcasts. So, it’s a really interesting portfolio. I lead up the talent enablement team, which has performance management, all learning and development, our early careers programs, anything related to that. And I would say, similar to Chris, it’s also a green field for us. This was a job created about two years ago that I was asked to lead. And so really it’s been just an open field in terms of what we would be doing. And I would say for next year, again, similar to Chris, I’m really excited to put our skills, you know, skills based model, into the next phase. This year, we did a lot of leg work. We also implemented a skills assessment earlier this year. And next year, we have plans to sort of take it to the next level. So you know, a lot of that’s going to require change management. So I know that that’s going to take a lot of effort, but very excited for it amazing.
Lydia Dishman 6:37
And we will check back with you at the end of q1 as well and see if you’re getting through all of that. Thank you very much, Laura, how about you go next?
Laura Mazzullo 6:50
Hi. I’m glad I remember to unmute Hi everybody. I’m excited to meet you. I haven’t met a lot of you yet. I’m based in New York City. I own East Side Staffing, which is an HR recruitment firm that I launched in 2013 in addition to HR search, I also help companies hire better, which is really my goal in 2025 I feel like 24 has been a very big wake-up call from candidates about how bad some of the experiences are that they’ve had with candidate journey, the hiring journey, the candidate experience. And I’ve realized that while in the past, my passion has always been helping companies find the right talent and helping candidates find the right home, I feel a really renewed sense of energy for helping companies just learn how to do it better. And so I think I’m at the stage in my career where instead of just doing it, I’m excited to teach it. Continue to help companies with the skill of hiring. I think they’ve often neglected hiring as an actual skill, and certainly one that can be honed, yeah, for
Lydia Dishman 7:51
sure, and could always use a refresher. So that’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Last but not least. Maris, over to you.
Maris Krieger 8:03
Hi. I’m Maris Krieger, and I’m with Hearst Corporation, which is a little bit of everything. It’s a very diverse portfolio of consumer media and business media companies. I’m located in Seattle, Washington, not in New York, so it’s an outlier. I’m also Lydia. You mentioned internal mobility. I’m a poster child of internal mobility for Hearst because I studied in one of the companies on the business side, and then multi-corporate, worked a little bit in the talent strategy team, and now ended up in learning and development. And I have been with
Speaker 1 8:36
Hearst for five years. Okay, amazing.
Maris Krieger 8:39
The year anniversary is March. So what is my focus? Or what am I expecting from next year? We have been doing a lot of heavy lifting, and we are just hoping to start reaping the fruits and benefits of all the heavy lifting and hard work that we have been putting in this year. We built the generative AI learning program. We are adding more initiatives there. We revamped our learning program because we believe that there is a healthy blend between technology and power skills, which are human skills. So we are ready for next year, we just launched the new procedure for the power skills learning, for, for next year.
Lydia Dishman 9:25
So I love, love, love that you’re calling it power skills. I’ve been saying this, you know, sort of not so quietly, for the last couple of years. So it’s finally sticking. I’m excited. Alright, well, so let’s dig in. Rebecca, I want to come to you first. Let’s do a little table setting. What trends are you seeing from this year that you think are going to carry over into next?
Rebecca Warren 9:47
Well, I have a huge laundry list. I’m not going to share them all. I don’t want to hog the whole entire time, but top three. The top three are exactly what I plan to do. We are, we are vibing. So there’s, there’s a lot of. Things happening right now. And we, you know, were mentioned like 2024, lots of learnings, lots of things happening. So I think one of the top things that we’re seeing that will carry over is diversity. So diversity is slowly moving from an initiative to integration, especially in light of organizations, dismantling departments and changing focuses. So I think we’re going to see companies do a better job of incorporating die objectives into business goals and adding in inclusive communication and decision-making practices such as asking whose voice is missing, as well as how does this come across to our different audiences, as well as pulling in ERGs to help understand customer needs or developing products and services. And I think one other note there is, I think the general definition of diversity is widening. We’re moving from just focusing on demographic, cultural and social identities, to also thinking about abilities and perspectives and cognitive capabilities as well. I think the definition will continue to grow if we get better at listening and respecting each other. So down the road, maybe we’ll be able to incorporate ideological beliefs. We’re not there yet.
Lydia Dishman 11:18
I have all the faith in the world. I believe in people. We’re getting there.
Rebecca Warren 11:22
I can do it. Yeah. The second one is AI, right? AI is here to stay in 2025. HR leaders, I think, will continue to figure out how to best use it for all things. So it’s still a bit squidgy right now, with different levels of understanding and usage. You’ve got some organizations dipping their toes in the water, thinking about chatgpt to rewrite job descriptions. You’ve got some added AI-based tools or platforms. And then you’ve got some organizations that are creating full AI-augmented ecosystems. I think 2025 is going to be the year of really seeing where that convergence of human and tech capabilities come together for HR.
Bhavna Sharma 12:07
I know that I’ve got one more so,
Rebecca Warren 12:08
One more thing, in August of 2024 we collaborated with 360 Insights to survey 500 HR leaders at the VP level and above, companies with 5000 employees or more across six different countries, as well as 1200 employees that are full or part-time in those countries. We also found that for HR departments and their leadership, 53% said they were fully involved with the overall business strategy. 52% say that they regularly collaborate on strategic C-suite initiatives, and 44% say that their talent strategy is fully aligned with business objectives. The part that really opened up our eyes is that only 18% answered all three. So clearly, HR is on the right track, but there’s more work to be done. So it’s that focus from tactical operations, event planning and compliance to driving productivity and growth through aligning with organizational objectives more closely, data-driven decision making, incorporating tech and AI, using talent intelligence and talent design, And then championing those transformational, transparent and continuous communication focuses, okay, I’m done.
Lydia Dishman 13:25
That was a lot, excellent. No, that was, that was great. One of the things that I was listening for, and it almost seemed like it was a thorough line, maybe unintentional, is this notion of inclusivity. And, you know, the DEI piece apart, it’s just, how are people including the right stakeholders? Are people being included in decision making? Are people including AI in their everyday strategy? And so, Laura, I want to come to you because you mentioned teaching these leaders how to do things better. And that inclusivity piece is really integral to the way that HR leaders need to move going forward. I mean, it’s certainly a piece of emotional intelligence to be able to be more inclusive. So talk to me a little bit about how this, this way of doing things better, looks for you with that lens.
Laura Mazzullo 14:29
Okay, I’m going to try to break it down granularly because I think we all tend to talk in buzzwords, because we’re so used to this space. And I know there are people watching who have no idea what we’re talking about. And I just want to simplify it. Good, good, good, good. For example, there are internal talent acquisition teams, right? I’m on the outside. There are people on the inside who are good at their job, but probably haven’t been given a lot of opportunities for learning and development, because often, as we know, HR is neglected from an L and D budget, which is a problem, and so you have a lot. Of under trained internal recruiters who are struggling right now. And when I talk to them about what they want to learn, yes, they want to learn AI and better tech, and they want to hear all these fun programs that are offered, but really what they need, and they know they need this, is to move from the tactical order taking, I have a new rec. I’m going to fill a job. They want to go from that to what Rebecca was saying, which is sitting in a meeting with their HR business partner, with their executive, with their hiring manager, come up with strategies, figure out plans, give tough feedback, push back, and they’re nervous, and they’re insecure about that because they’ve never done it. And so a lot of times when clients are hiring me to coach internal TA, they think I’m going to be teaching all this really complicated stuff, and I’ll say to them, I’m probably going to be spending a lot of our sessions on confidence building and how to influence and how to negotiate. And so to your point, it’s emotional intelligence, and I liked Maris’ phrase, which I’m going to think more about the human and the power skills. That’s where I think we need to focus, because the AI will help us with the reporting and the data. Great. We need that, but I think we can’t just have a team of people who also are lacking that negotiation skill influencing skills, and so those aren’t just taught by osmosis. They’re taught through coaching. They’re taught through brainstorming. They’re taught through role playing. And we’ve made this transition from HR, you know, from the tactical, transactional, so, meaning paper based whatever, to strategic. And I always say to clients, strategy requires training. You don’t just get there. And anyway, I just think it’s been a neglected part of the whole journey. It’s like, how are we teaching strategy? We have to spend some time there.
Lydia Dishman 16:44
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that one of the interesting things that I’ve seen crop up in these conversations is that people are starting to experiment using generative AI and asking what’s missing. Who else should be included in this. What points am I missing, instead of just, sort of, like asking the general question, you know, to sort of get to those deeper layers, and apparently chatbot is, like, sort of good at that. So not saying that that should be the be all in the end all, but it’s, it’s certainly something to consider if you’re sort of wanting to build those skills, maybe asking generative AI what you might be missing could be a jumping off point for another piece of the conversation. But while we’re talking about these upskilling managers, Bob, now I want to come to you next managers, especially younger ones, don’t always know how to have these conversations with their direct reports. So if we’re talking about upskilling managers to have more meaningful career development conversations with employees, particularly when you don’t necessarily have a direct ladder for promotions, or there isn’t a next role that is readily available. So how are you seeing this developing?
Bhavna Sharma 18:09
Yeah, I mean, we’re actively doing it right now, absolutely committed to up leveling managers. In fact, before I got into this role, I was a lead business partner, so I felt that gap more directly, and always felt that, you know, investing in leadership is not just really about that individual. It’s a ripple effect, right? It impacts the culture, it impacts employee experience and then overall business outcomes, in my opinion, just to give you some context of where we were and kind of the steps that we’ve taken. You know, over the past, I would say five years we’ve undergone multiple acquisitions. I’m sure a lot of companies can relate to or a lot of individuals can relate to this, but each of them introduces their own unique culture and their norms and practices. So throughout, you know all of that, we recognize that there was a need for, I would say, a unified leadership approach. So we began by crafting a leadership profile. Really just sort of set A establish a baseline, if you will, and what it means to be a people leader within the organization. And the profile reflects our core values. It incorporates our competencies. It outlines the scope of influence at every management level, including executives, and it’s made transparent for everyone. And then obviously what we do from there is, you know, to ensure that leadership development is actionable and integrated, we then align it to our performance management process. We wanted to tie development goals to our regular quarterly conversations that we have. And then additionally, we also took the leadership profile and infused that into our talent reviews, our succession planning efforts. And you know, succession planning is an. Not just to assess readiness, we also use it to sort of help identify targeted developmental needs for our managers. Yeah, it’s been super helpful to sort of think of it in a more holistic way. And then also in December, we launched a serious exam University, which, you know, really is an effort to support and cultivate a growth mindset broadly. But the key focuses in and as we were developing our curriculum were one empowering managers as career coaches. This is not an innate, you know, competency, not everyone.
Lydia Dishman 20:41
It is a very tactful way of saying that.
Bhavna Sharma 20:44
We know we wanted to provide the tools. We wanted to provide training and resources, just enabling managers to be able to guide their employees effectively through their career journey. And one of the tools that we build that we’re really proud of is a manager toolkit. It’s basically micro-learning cards, if you will. But there are very, very quick, very actionable tips on things that managers can do, like structuring and improving one-on-ones. I can’t tell you how many times I hear from people that they don’t have regular one-on-one meetings with their managers. Boosting team collaboration is another right, having those difficult conversations. So anything that we feel, that managers, you know, need that extra support, we created. The other thing we were focusing on was establishing, you know, manager accountability. That’s an area that we felt was really important. So by introducing a people manager goal in the coming goal setting cycle, we’re focusing it around improving accountability and improving collaboration. Those are the two competencies that were actually identified as areas for us in our engagement survey. And so we figured, we kind of are addressing both things now, right? We’re addressing up leveling our managers and of course action taking. But in addition to helping managers, we also have to help individual contributors. You know, because I’m a firm believer, you own your own career, you have to drive your own development. Yes. So, so last year, we published a career framework, a career path framework right to address some of the feedback that we kept hearing from managers and kept hearing from employees. Like, I don’t know what it takes to get promoted here, and you know, for us in our people and culture teams, we’re like, this is obvious, but it’s clear. It’s not right. So we created a comprehensive framework outlining all of those steps. We also created a training that we offer to all employees, which is how to own your own development so linking it back to all of our resources. And so we were hoping, like you take the training, combine that with the framework. So, you know, hopefully it’s not just offering insights to the process, but we’re hoping that it really, really helps empower both parties to sit down and develop a plan that’s, you know, achievable, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I would say lastly, one thing that I think is really, really important is trying to reinforce the notion that career progression is linear . Most people, especially people that are younger and newer in their careers, think that that’s the only way career progression works in one’s journey. Career progression shows up in different ways, right? It can literally be taking on additional responsibilities, increasing your scope, even transitioning to a different role laterally, you know, with adjacent skills.
Lydia Dishman 23:52
And I know that’s a hard sell, especially for science, either, yeah, but, but not always. And I think that, you know, I mean, we’ve devoted entire conversations here, from day one to this, like the career jungle gym, if you will. You know you’re going sort of sideways. Sometimes take a step back down, grabbing to the So, yeah, I totally hear you on that. It’s not as tough a sell as you think, though.
Bhavna Sharma 24:14
Yeah, I think the managers sometimes push back on it, but that’s because they have to have those conversations, and they’re not necessarily prepared, right? So, yeah, well,
Lydia Dishman 24:23
totally.
Rebecca Warren 24:25
Well, just throw one thing on there really quick. Yeah, I think what you called out is great. I love what you’re working on. And I think when you start having, when you train your managers to have those conversations immediately, right? Like that quick, that micro feedback, give it to them quickly. So that way, whether it’s growth-oriented or whether it’s positive, when you get to review time, it’s not a surprise when you say, Hey, I think you should look at this opportunity, or maybe this is the right direction. So it becomes less of a ladder if you know, here’s your next step. It’s more about where you would fit the best. Here’s where your skill sets fit. Because they’ve had that continuous feedback. It does. It feels like such a surprise. So even when you hit your quarterly meetings, it’s like, oh yeah, we’re not discussing anything new, but we’re discussing how I’m going to get there.
Lydia Dishman 25:09
Yeah, don’t sleep on having those conversations throughout the year versus waiting until all the way to the annual review time. Chris, it’s a similar question for you, since you’re the other green space person, what is what is it looking like? There?
Christopher Rotolo 25:26
Very similar. So we’ve been on a journey to upscale our managers in all aspects, not just around career discussions and career development, but hold them accountable. Next year, we’re going to be doing our very first upward feedback manager survey, so they’re getting the feedback. And the way we’ve started it is implementing these assessments and 360 feedback, but doing it in a very developmental way. So the first few years, anything that the manager gets is purely for their own development. They’re the only ones seeing it. And then down the road, after a couple years of implementation, we might use it as a data point in performance management, or use it when we talk about succession or talent mobility, coupled with that we do transition training. So when they become a first time people leader, they go through a training program. When they become an upline leader, they go through a different program. So try to hit them at that moment of transition, and then around the career topic, we instituted, I think it’s fairly well known. I think the Center for Creative Leadership developed this, although I may be wrong, but the ACE convened so that we have each manager at least once a year talk to each employee about their person’s aspirations, capabilities and engagement. So we tried to really simplify it and give them even scripts to use to talk about those three things, and that took on stuck pretty quickly, which we were pleased to see, and I took it from my old role at PepsiCo, where it was very well known there. And so people have these ace conversations, and they talk about, you know, what you aspire to and where you want to build your capabilities. How are you doing in terms of engagement? And those seem to really resonate with the team members there and managers have an easier time doing that. So that’s on the manager’s front. So very similar to what Bob now is talking about.
Lydia Dishman 27:53
I love the ACE framework. I’m probably going to steal that because I think that that’s a really great way to look at having those conversations. And I don’t think there’s any shame in prompting people to have, like, to give, not a script to necessarily, but just kind of give them some like lead ins to have the discussion. Because capabilities, you know, your mileage may vary, and they do. Thank you. Um, all right, well, let’s talk about AI, Maris. You mentioned managing the mix of AI and humans. I want to know really more about how leaders can ensure that employees remain engaged. Stay caught up, but also feel like their skills are being developed in ways that align with where the business is going. So let’s talk about that.
Maris Krieger 28:51
Yes, absolutely. I will start with generative AI because I feel that this is like Rebecca said, generative AI is here to stay, and this is the future ready skill. Several panelists mentioned skills based talent management. We started with that at the beginning of this year, but then we put it on hold because we realized that, as we have a very diverse portfolio of companies, the priorities were different. So we had to prioritize what what was important and critical for the business so generative AI, the future-ready skill was number one, and we absolutely envision the environment where the technology and power human skills are like, friendly, like working together, because we don’t believe that generative AI is going to replace people, but people with generative AI skills might reflect some people. So that’s why we’re like, hey, let’s, let’s upskill everybody about this. And I can talk about this, obviously, for hours, because that was one of the huge priorities for this year. So we had the learning program, and I was saying that to many people that this is not only. A learning program. This is a transformation program. There was some pushback. There was cultural change that needed to happen, because not everybody was welcoming generative AI to a playing ground. So that was a lot of communication, like saying, easing people into learning, saying, This is one skill in your skill toolbox, so don’t, don’t feel that you have to use it, but find ways where it helps you to be more productive or more creative. And we see the areas where it is really helpful, and we see the areas where it is not there yet. So we, we’re like, Well, this is, this is still time to experiment and learn, and the learning program was only one thing. We complemented and supported it with the Speaker Series. We have our internal heroes. The people were very enthusiastic about generative AI and doing really fantastic things. So they were sharing their experience. They were sharing what they were doing, what went well, where they had some failures. We’re sharing the tools. So that was really awesome. We also have the generative AI champion program, so we have people in every business who are leading their business specific initiatives for generative AI. And for next year, our Tech Academy is still running this, this program, Gen AI Champion Program. Additional learning. They’re holding some hackathons, which is really exciting. I can’t wait to sign up for one. So this is super exciting. But as I said, there are power skills as well. We don’t think that these are going away. These are evergreen, irreplaceable, irreplaceable skills that people need, empathy, collaboration, communication, leadership. These are all there. That’s why we like the second part of the year. We were really doubling down on coming up with a catalog of learning, focusing on the power skills. We brought in the business learning and development leaders. So we were very inclusive. It wasn’t the corporation that was doing something behind closed doors. We collaborated. We asked what they needed, what their priorities were. So we have a beautiful program with close to 30 offerings, virtual instructor led training. We also curated our LMS content. Of course, we didn’t create everything. We don’t believe that more content is better. We believe that better curation is better. So now we made it really easy to find e-learning topics in certain areas that are aligned with our other categories for the instructor-led training. So we are super excited. And we believe that these two skills, technology and generative area skills and power skills work together best.
Lydia Dishman 32:49
Yeah, absolutely. Then you’ve got one whole, really great, talented person when you develop all those skills. You know, we’re talking about this notion of career development and focusing a lot on that and the components of it, but I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the changing expectations around work life balance and remote work and flexibility, particularly as we’re coming out of a time where it feels like a lot of organizations, are sliding back to the old way of doing things and and I’m wondering how all of this fits into engaging employees and upskilling them and providing leaders with, you know, new skills on on building their emotional intelligence. So in the last few minutes that we have, let’s go around the room again, the virtual room, as it were, and talk about how to address those changing expectations. So Rebecca, let’s start with
Rebecca Warren 33:57
you. Yeah. So I work remotely. I love it. I would really struggle to go back into an office full-time. I love being able to commute and, you know, into the home office when we need to, but I think that one of the things that makes the difference is focusing on the outcomes, not the hours, right? How do we think about what work needs to be produced? It’s the same thing when we think about, instead of looking at a job description, we need to look at the skill that somebody needs in order to do that, that end result. So that’s my first thing, is focusing on the outcomes, not the hours. And so you shift to skill based, performance based metrics, rather than focusing on schedules or presenteeism.
Lydia Dishman 34:41
The presenteeism is really a tricky one, because I think that plays into a lot of the expectations that leaders have traditionally had around who gets promoted, not necessarily that, you know, here’s a person that checks all the skill boxes. So Chris. Yeah, what do you say? Yeah,
Christopher Rotolo 35:01
I would agree. I mean, I think one of the things that has carried over from last year is this kind of hybrid work. I would love to litmus test my hypothesis, but I think the hybrid work has pretty much plateaued. I don’t see a whole lot of retreating back from that now. And so all this push to get back into the office, I’m not seeing a whole lot of organizations, you know, going full full time. There’s a few that have made the headlines. I know that, but
Lydia Dishman 35:33
because they were so large of organizations, yes,
Christopher Rotolo 35:38
but, but what’s interesting to me is at the same time, I think another trend that we haven’t really touched on, I think you mentioned it early on, was the mental health and the, you know, just the, just the the men, the mental ability to refresh yourself and you know, and it goes hand in hand to with with your work life balance. And so I see those two topics really coming together. And you kind of can’t have one without the other. And so to me that that’s going to continue to be a conversation that we take into 2025
Lydia Dishman 36:17
Yeah, for sure, Laura.
Laura Mazzullo 36:22
I’m laughing because I could talk about this for four hours. I’m trying to think about how to compartmentalize my brain. Say, as a New Yorker, it’s tough, because I work with a lot of executives who don’t have the mental health piece. And you know that in our Yes, I am in New York, you know they are used to working 15 hours a day and being in the office, so there’s so much pushback. So Chris, I’m seeing tons of returns to the office, to them. It’s like that is what we always did, and I am not interested in a new way. So there’s this whole training and learning around unlearning what is no longer serving them. So that’s huge. The second part is, I think about how I can help them through that. A lot of the times when we’re recruiting are like, can you actually look at the data? Because a lot of them have done surveys and have asked employees and have looked at who’s more productive, and the data is so clear. The data is so clear that people are happier at home and more productive at home, or flexible or in office, or whatever it is, but usually it’s some kind of a balance of things. For some reason they’re resistant to trusting that data, and so part of it, and like, the reason, I think it’s so interesting, we talk so much about tech and AI, but it’s like, you’ve got to actually look at the information and then do something with it. So there’s data there that would allow employees to have the flexibility they want. There is no reason a company should not be listening to that. But I think there’s just a mindset shift, yes, and especially in New York, is stuck when we’re trying. And it helps that we have West Coast colleagues that we can say, Look at what they’re doing. Look at what Seattle’s doing. Look at what Portland’s doing exactly. And so like Phoenix getting their old school banking, legal, it’s struggling with this.
Lydia Dishman 38:03
It really is absolutely and I, and I do think that you know what, we’re unfortunately the product of years of not being able to evolve out of that sort of limbic brain where we don’t like to change our minds, because the change is a threat, and therefore activates the fight-flight freeze thing. So you can look at all the numbers all day, but your little reptilian brain is saying, no, no, I want to go back to the old way. So there that’s what that is. Bhavna, what do you say?
Bhavna Sharma 38:37
Yeah. I mean, I think every one of you has sort of hit the points that we’re all working on, right for me, I understand the whole New York mentality. Our headquarters is there, all of our executives right there. So, yeah, what’s been really important, I think, over the past four years, is really helping to foster a culture of trust and autonomy. Trust was like one of the biggest issues as we were transitioning to becoming, you know, fully remote for the first couple of years. But, you know, as Rebecca said, focus on outcomes, right? If we can have outcome-oriented work that eliminates the need to be nitpicky, and also, you know, with the training, If we can empower decision-making, we can help minimize micromanagement. That also, I think, helps productivity, and it helps to continue to feel that that trust,
Lydia Dishman 39:32
Trust is so key. And I saw a meme, and I wish I could remember where I saw it, but it was like, you know, hire adults and then trust them to do the job, period. It just doesn’t get any simpler than that. Maris takes us home.
Maris Krieger 39:49
Yes. Um, I totally understand the New York mentality. Our headquarters is in New York. I also understand why they want people to have to be more in the office. Um. But we will never go back to five days in the office. We vibrate. There is more flexibility for the teams, but they have really cool events there. So they, of course, want people to attend and be in the audience when some celebrity comes to a speaker series and they’re sharing really cool stuff. But we are trying to be very inclusive in that sense that most of the time, there is the virtual option. I love when Rebecca said, outcomes are more important than being in the office. For example, our very, very successful generative AI learning program, we were remote. The core team that created that was remote. We were not in one office. Our power skills are learning, design and the whole like strategy. We worked with people from remote locations as well. Miro was our favorite tool, and that’s a very inclusive tool. I highly recommend it to everyone. If you’re using a Miro board, you can do a lot of things like brainstorming, writing, and design ideas. So perfect. We also have more technology companies under Business Media, and they are more into this. Like technology, people are remote. We hire them. We are not forcing them to their office location. Obviously, they do more team retreats, McG health that I was working for two years. They still have a beautiful office in Seattle, but they do McG week once a month, when everybody’s coming together and it’s more intentional and defense and learning opportunities. So, that’s what, how we are trying to solve it and have the balance that, yes, we have the office, babe, you’re not forcing people back to the office.
Lydia Dishman 41:40
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, you know, this is really the sort of conundrum, and I can’t believe we’re still talking about it five years later, because we are really bumping up on five years since we were many of us were sent home, not frontline workers, obviously, but the rest of us and, and I think that, you know, the trust is so clearly important. So what I’m hearing from everybody is that the emotional intelligence, power skills piece has to be a part of our focus. Going forward. I’m also hearing that the inclusivity, as I mentioned, even with the generative AI component. But the last thing that I want to ask, and Rebecca, I’m going to put you on the spot for the last, last question. Yes, I’m sure you have an answer for this. How do we change hearts and minds besides the data?
Rebecca Warren 42:34
Yeah, and I think we all talked about that, right? It’s building relationships. It’s connecting the dots, right? How do we use technology to serve us? How do we put AI in a spot we talk about using AI as an intelligent but inexperienced intern, right? You need your interns. You help them, you work with them, but, but the relationships, that’s what and and the human factor is what adds the context and the layers and the connective tissue. So I think keeping those relationships core and making sure that you don’t lose what your end goal is. I’m very much an outgoing person. What are we trying to accomplish, and then how do we get there? How do we continue to work together, using the tools to make us better as a workforce and as an organization?
Lydia Dishman 43:26
Well, I’m going to end on that, because I love the simplicity of it, and my focus for the coming year, not that you asked, but I’m going to volunteer it anyway, simplicity, point A to point B, and how do we get there? And sometimes, when you strip away all the other stuff that we’re like in the hamster wheel day to day, that’s really kind of all you need to remember. If I am here. I want to get here. How do I get there? So with that, it’s the top of the hour. I want to thank you all for spending this time with me. Rebecca, Chris Maris, Laura and Bhavna. Thank you so much for your insights.
