Recorded on Wednesday, June 24, 2020
We are delighted to invite you to our next virtual meetup on Organizational and HR Agility.
Our guest speakers for this session are highly experienced Agile HR practitioners, leaders, and experts, who will share with us their experience and learnings, particularly with regard to organisational and HR agility in these Covid times - and beyond.
Speakers:
We look forward to you joining us for what will be an engaging and insightful session.
If you have any questions re. this session, please do not hesitate to contact Kevin Empey or Joanna Koprowicz (hosts).
Find us here: www.agileleanireland.org
Recorded on Wednesday, June 24, 2020
We are delighted to invite you to our next virtual meetup on Organizational and HR Agility.
Our guest speakers for this session are highly experienced Agile HR practitioners, leaders, and experts, who will share with us their experience and learnings, particularly with regard to organisational and HR agility in these Covid times - and beyond.
Speakers:
We look forward to you joining us for what will be an engaging and insightful session.
If you have any questions re. this session, please do not hesitate to contact Kevin Empey or Joanna Koprowicz (hosts).
Find us here: www.agileleanireland.org
There's a variety of people from all kinds of backgrounds in this code, but I guess one thing we all have in common is is our is our struggle and our interest in the whole area of organisational agility in general and and and how that's been such a growing topic in in recent years. We know the drivers for this, right in terms of increased. Complexity and technology. Be and and change and they'll be all financial crisis. Various disruptions of of many kinds. And of course since March 2020, we're just adding a global pandemic on to the list. So. So look, we we understand the need for agility and how organisational agility. Has become such a big, big topic. For us all and and and I guess this is also also led to a wider application of agile principles and practises and mean practise as as a way to try and enable this agility or support this agility. And we've seen also. Haven't we had that spread across the enterprise as well from maybe traditional functions and technology and product and manufacturing, et cetera? But but within the HR area, this is one of the fastest growing areas of this adoption of agile principles, practises, philosophies and and. Mindsets, et cetera. And and I guess no surprise because you know, HR does influence or control so many of the processes that will either enable agility or indeed blockers or. Render it so that's why and and thanks to agile lean Ireland for hosting this evening and our wonderful guests Nieman Fabiola to try just put a spotlight on that issue that that whole area of where are we regarding? The organisational agility. Challenge and particularly though the HR journey in this and the HR. Experience in all of this. And as it tries to adopt. New ways of. Working in that function and to enable the. Business as well to. To improve its agility. So that's the kind of backdrop and and really really delighted to welcome Nieve and Fabiola and and 1st off Nieve who is. Enterprise product owner and global process owner for performance Management and Novartis. So they get that right here it's a it's a it's a.
And until title Kevin, it's changed off time.
And formerly head of people and organisational at the service centre globally from the artist space as in Dublin and Prague and many other several others you know HR leadership roles as well, it's. So, so, you know, a wonderful story to tell and right on point and maybe you could start just tell us a little bit more about about, about your role, but particularly I guess the Novartis's journey with agility, obviously a very regulated industry, global multinational, etcetera, the things about the Novartis. Journey with agility and how that's shown up in HR and how the HR has responded to that. I suppose challenge in in recent years and then maybe we'll get on to some of the specifics around performance management, but maybe just the general background first, sure.
Uh, well, thank you to Agilent Ireland for inviting me, UM, this afternoon to share my own experience and maybe the organisation experience around Agile. And I suppose the the organisation has been experimenting with agile methodology and principles for quite a long time, but mostly in the IT space. And around 12 months ago. There was a this was a call to action to think can can we apply this methodology more broadly in our organisation? And it was coming really from the talent and odd side of the house. Uh, within our people and organisation we call HR people an organisation. Uhm, so they were like we we're talking about this future talent and this need and digital. And you know what? How are we applying that in our own organisation and HR? And what are the problems we're trying to solve for, and are we solving them in a? Very traditional manner? Or are we? Thinking differently about this and how might we apply agile in this? So that conversation was going on somewhere in Basel. And meanwhile I was sitting in Dublin and I was having UM. Conversations with my own leadership team and trying to stay up to speed with what was happening in the space of digital and agile, and one of the things that I was doing was engaging with Kevin and attending a master class in all things agile and the application of that in HR. And literally the same day, uh, I was sitting in, uh, a hairdresser in Dundrum and an e-mail came through saying that they had. They were looking for people to apply for enterprise product owner roles in of artists in. People in organisation in HR and it's like my God, this is an omen. I I have to apply. This is something that is very different. And at the time I was on a crossroads from a career perspective and thinking I want to do something different. I want to say potentially and you know, but I want to do something a little bit different and I want to be part of the future of the organisation, obviously highly motivated. After everything that I'd heard from Fabiola and Gavin. Uhm, so off. I went and applied and then thought what have I done you know? Do I even have the skills to be able to do this and what? What would it mean to be an agile product owner? They were looking for six product owners at the time and they were all solving problems for our end user customer. So one of them was around culture. We're on a culture journey and we want to move to a more inspired, curious and involved culture. So we what does that mean? How do we make that? OK, we'll have a product team look at that. Then we had another one around coaching and feedback. How do we really embed a coaching organisation, a coaching culture in our organisation? We've had lots of trainings, but nothing's really sticking. So we'll have a product on that. Then there was another one around. Talent to values. So our talent processes and what we look at now in terms of potential and how the world is starting to move into a more democratised talent approach and we don't really know what that looks like in Novartis. We have a product. And then there was another one around uh, sustainable high impact. And kind of aspects around well-being, but really translating that into a business context and how do people perform at their best in this ever changing world and what do we need to do from an artist context? And we've started some experiments on that with an organisation called take them. And we wanted to take that to an enterprise scale and again, they looked at that from an agile methodology. And then there was the one around reimagining performance management, and this had come off the back of having a crowdsourced event where there were over. 2000 ideas that were submitted and the number two of those 2000 ideas was kill Performance management. What to do? What do you do if you kill performance management? What does it look like in the future? And you know how? Do we really? Operationalize that in Novartis, keeping a user centric approach. So anyhow, after a number of interviews and they were more agile interview process apparently uhm, I got a phone call to say you're you're you've been hired. You know you're you're the new UM enterprise product owners. Great. I assume I have coaching, you know, and they're like, no. Reimagine performance management. And I thought, oh, Jesus, that's massive. How am I going to cope with this one? And do you know, I'm based in Dublin like, you know, how could I do that? And they said, well, you know, we're figured out. We started off on this journey, US 6 Agile product owners and we looked to our IT colleagues to find out well how do you do agile? And then we looked to externally to. What training was available to us specifically around HR, Agile and HR, and they engaged an organisation called Andus and appointed a number of agile coaches to work with US building the capability and helping us to build out our team. But the constant message that I was getting was, you know, agile is all my collocation. You know, small liberal teams working together solving the problems using the agile methodology. And that was great for the other five product owners. But I was based in Dublin and my team. Were all over the world. So we quickly had to adapt agile methodology and really bring it to a virtual setting. So the 12 months ago. And I have to say that. For me, the journey has been. We had a brilliant, agile coach who worked with us and literally was part of the team holding us true to our methodology. So you know, setting up our rhythms and rituals on the team, uh, we worked off the backlog. Uh, for RPM, we didn't consider ourselves purist for agile. Because we were already straight away challenged with the Co location aspect of it, and so then we said, OK, let's let's embrace what we can from the agile methodology. But let's live within the existing infrastructure that we have and try and make the most of it. So what we have now. Now is, I would say an agile way of working rather than pure agile methodology. We then started to think through, OK, you know, how do we operationalize this in terms of technology and you know, we were using Ms. teams, uh, we started using mirror boards to help us, you know with our different making sessions. We introduced very early on the rhythms and rituals around. 14 meetings and then we would have biweekly retro. And and really that helped to to really cement the team together and you know the feedback that I get from the team is that it's one of the best experiences I've ever had. I feel very empowered. Even though we're literally everywhere from Hyderabad, right through to Texas and everything in between. Part of a team. There's a bit of. Fun on the team there's we read the you can feel the sense of caring for each other. The psychological safety is there. We are experimenting, we're learning, we're failing, we're learning. We're iterating, but at the core of everything we do, it's about user centricity. So the the most powerful tool that we've had. Is the demo. And you know, working in two week biweekly sprints, demoing on a regular basis but not demoing to necessarily all the senior stakeholders but to the end user and getting their feedback building it into the product and then. Moving it on. And and the reason that I call out the the senior stakeholder piece is because that's been the biggest challenge. You know, working in an agile way assumes that everybody understands what you're doing. I have to say, enough artists. You know, there's great empowerment of us to do this. But then the expectations of the senior stakeholders are still we want to report on, you know, an update on what you're doing. We want, you know. Uh, the governance structures? What about starco? You know, how do we direct the work that you're doing? Uh, how are you going to get that for approval if we don't know what you're doing? And so they talk about the empowerment, but then? When it actually comes to it. It was a a practise of having to let go.
Had governance, some of that governance and so the mindset was still in that kind of.
Waterfall. Yeah. Yeah, very much still in the waterfall. And and we had to really be pirates. And that was one of the the kind of core values that we had we we said we are pirates and we need to challenge the status quo and not be afraid to challenge the status quo with our senior stakeholders. We tried bringing them to demos regularly, but there's competing priorities and agenda, and if you're working on a like a, you know, biweekly Sprint pace and work and working out of pace. Trying to get people to come every two weeks for your demos, particularly if there's six products that are all looking for their share of air time, that can be very difficult, you know? Then we tried super demos which would. Happen maybe once a. Month where we would have snippets or pieces of work from each of the six products in breakout rooms virtually and kind of do that World Cafe demonstration. And that's worked. Probably better in COVID-19 than it worked when we were in the office. Honestly speak. Uhm, but we're trying different things around the governance piece and and trying to keep the stakeholder engagement there getting and and really clarifying your role is around giving feedback. Your role is around asking clarifying questions. Your role is not to direct the work. We've also talked about introducing an investment board concept. Where you are very much like the Dragons den where you're going looking for with your minimum viable product saying OK, this is at the stage where we've got it to now. Are you willing to invest to bring it to the? Next stage and then so they're involved from the financial resources and time perspective, but not necessarily in the solving of the problem. Unless it's true feedback so that that's been a bit of an interesting journey for us over the 12 months and bringing the stakeholders on the journey. UM, but I have, you know, made leeway on that. And actually what was really interesting for me is the people who are more inclined to embrace the new ways they're working or maybe not. Our brothers and sisters than hate or, but actually the business units themselves. So our executive committee of Novartis, I suggested that. Ahead of going for the formal approval on reimagined performance management that we'd run, a number of demos with them to allow them to cope to, to have a feeling of Co creation with us as well, so that when we got to the approval stage, it wasn't so much. That there was a risk in that they might say no. Because they have skin in the game on the journey with us. So I thought that was a very interesting experience and and I have to say. From the HR colleagues perspective, they have come a long way from where we started out and they're they're really open to trying new things and to understanding the challenges that we have coexisting. Agile and traditional in the same world.
Could I could I just before we. We finish up on this one talked a little bit about that I mean and obviously during this all these high level Board presentations from the bedroom as well, that's kind of but uh.
From the bench.
So so going forward, so you know what? What are you taking forward do you think? What is it going to be is do do. You sense a profound effect if you like in terms. HR will this be a one off like ohh we did. We did performance management this way and it was great and we we got through it all. Can you see something kind of enduring going forward within how HR does its business and and and how what would be the two and three things that would feel different if you like from traditional? HR to the new way of HR that you would see. In the future.
Well, there's a couple of things, Kevin. So I was joking when I said my title keeps changing, but one of the the kind of refocuses that I've I've now got is that now that we've kind of come through the journey of reimagining performance management, I've been tasked with building a deployment model and an agile deployment model. For us in the past, we would have had a very heavy influence of HR deploying, whether it's in the country or whether it's. At a business unit level where there was a big, heavy lift from the HR community running workshops, roadshows, all that sort of stuff. And now what they've asked me to do is to think differently about deployment and how can we have a more user centric deployment where we're thinking about a multi channel strategy and the direct to the associate or direct to the employee is kind of the bigger emphasis. Coming off the back of the fact that we've built this with the user centric mind and that you know we wanted a simpler process, we wanted a more effective process. But again, we don't want necessarily this big list for H or H or in the future would be more of a supportive coaching strategic partner rather than. I am doing the traditional lift and deploy.
Coming up with the. Answer Space and then yeah, yeah. Trying to sell it.
Yeah, yeah. And or we know what the problem is and we'll all go off to an ivory tower and sort out and then deploy something that maybe. Doesn't meet with the user needs. So I think that's that's definitely something that we've learned and has worked really well. The other thing that I would say is that we're huge focus on data and gathering data through our agile approach. So an evidence based approach in the way we worked, and I think that really is in a way for HR to work as well. And again you know going through the approval process. And speaking to the business leaders of the organisation. The feedback consistently was wow, you know, the data that you have, the the evidence based approach that you're taking. This is a very new way of. Working and we. Love it and and actually that's the way we want our HR partners to work going forward. And we were the first of the products from a HR perspective to use that methodology and that's both internal data, but also external UM data that we gathered. And so I think that's the second kind of trend that I'm definitely seeing is that data centric approach that's kind of data and digital and agile kind of in. Kind of kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And their new skill sets for us to learn as well in in a chore world. And and it's something that I'm refining constantly myself and really sharpening the saw on at the moment. So particularly on the data side and understanding. And the statistical analysis that maybe I'm bringing in, how to interpret the business problem? Into a data problem and then understanding what insights I'm getting from the data to then reapply UM in our business case are in our solution, so it's the agile marriage with that and umm the the digital solution in terms of the direct to the to the end user so that they're the trends that I'm very much seeing through the work that we're doing. And that we're embracing.
I'm in Novartis. I using into HR, yeah.
And you can see.
Particularly in HR and even in the the HR operation model, the future HR model operating model, there really is a space for agile and I can see that being really carved out. They can see the effectiveness of having a user centric approach. UM, and also you're lessening the duplication because what was happening in the past was you'd have countries gone off and developing. A solution for leadership development. For example, you might also have a business unit developing at that at a global level. And everything else in between, rather than having a central team that you say, OK, this is a complex issue. We're not sure what the answer is. Let's give it over here. They will engage the ecosystem through the agile methodology and we'll get a better solution at the end of it. That's more user centric. So I think. For me, that's that's that's the trend I'm seeing. That's what I'm seeing in in Novartis. And I'm very happy that our team has been kind of pioneers on that. And and we're learning as we're going as well. It's not perfect, but we we are kind of having that growth mindset.
Yeah, lucky you didn't have your phone turned off. And you know the headdress and all that time ago, but, yeah, we'll we'll leave it there and just reminded folks, by the way, you should have said it earlier. If you've got questions for Nieve. And indeed, Fabiola now, to put them into the chat room, we're going to have a discussion now with Fabiola, and then we're going to take a couple of questions perhaps then. And and then hopefully we'll have time then as well for, uh, a little discussion club meet up for a few. Minutes for for folks to. Talk about this stuff in their groups or talk about the weather. Whatever you want to do and and and the folks will organise that. And plus, I think we'll be OK for. A few minutes after if. People want to switch out. At 6:00 o'clock when we're done. That's fine Irish time, but we'll stay on. For 5 minutes or. So if you, if you haven't had a question. So if that's OK. So OK, thank you so much nieve. That'll be all there. I hope, Sir. Isn't that right like that? That I should know. Planning. I should know by now. Fabiola, native of Switzerland and board and executive advisor on All Things organisation and piles agility and people operations. Agile HR. Head of your own company. Just leading solutions. And and based out in New York but currently. In Calgary, so we're. Talking to a real global citizen. Here and and your background. I think recently in finance and and and business I'll be able to put over the last what you tell me over 10 years, isn't it? You've been really a a pioneer in this whole area of agile HR people. Operations working with people all over the world, on this, on their organisation, agility on a wider basis, but particularly working with the HR community on on their. Programmes and strategies. So to kick things off, I'll be like, just love to get your input that history. We just love to get your impression very briefly on how how you've seen that and Julie and HR Agile, HR progress. I mentioned that at the beginning and he is very nice. He talked about the shifts that she's seeing in Novartis and in HR. In her environment. As it played out for you, what? What? What have? You sort of seen happening in that transition for HR and where do you see it going?
And a lot of wonderful things that happened for HR in in the past few years. As Kevin said, I've been in the actual actual HR space for about 10 years in HR for 20 years, and I'd like to introduce myself as a recovering HR professional. But right now I have the best job in the world because I get to work with amazing people who really want. To make a difference and to really see. The potential and the power of HR. And to make things happen. And when I started out when other people.
Started out there was not that much.
Talk around at all in the HR HR. So there may have been some recruiters who knew about that, so because they. Were recruiting for it teams. But that was about it. And luckily that has changed. So there was. Still a couple. Of years ago. We would maybe have like a huge population in the actual space, but we will only have a few people who actually. Talks about at your innate. Are, but now things are really changing. So initially we started seeing more agile communities or lace the lean, Agile Centre of Excellence or Business Activity Centre actually taking on HR and say hey guess what? HR needs to be part of this whole transformation. Let's have HR. In here, let's have an interdisciplinary HR team within our actual transformation, but something really cool happened a. Couple of years. Ago and we still see that happening. More and more. Is that this one here is going to be reversed, that HR says hey. This is about culture. This is about people. This is about transformation. Delays the actual transformation has to be with us. We are leaving. We are driving that change and I think that is just one of the most amazing changes that we see in, in the space right now. That nature is really. Taking on that role and say, hey, these like, because there is no question in my mind if you want to achieve business agility. Your enterprise utility. HR has a key role to play and HR is really the the secret behind the success of the natural. So there are a lot of wonderful things happening.
Like because I guess what Dave is talking about, there was the constraints, if you like, with some of that agile working was actually some of the traditional. Governance and decision making and executive practises. You know in, in, in her case I guess HR is is often, you know discussed because. Manages things, or at least as a custodian or as an influencer, or even an author of architect of so many of the processes, right? So the talent we have, the performance management. The rewards the. Communications, et cetera. So if HR bit like that? Executive team is not is not on. Board with the agility. You know, objectives, if you're like an organisation and it's going to get. Unstuck at some at some point. And it's and it's going to end up being seen as a blocker rather than a labeler, if we. Don't sort of get get get on board.
And that's really when we talk about the the difference between change and transformation because. Change is all. Just changing processes digitalizing stuff, things like that. But when you really go into transformations about changing the culture, it's about changing the mindset. It's about changing those behavioural and structural anchors that we have and that's a completely different. OK.
Have you so. So if that was the kind of trajectory before March 2020, just interested, have you seen any stories or evidence of of, you know, how agile HR, if you like, has shown up, if you like in, you know, the COVID since March? I mean, has it been a case where? Some of those principles and practises have actually meant that some organisations have, you know, fared better. Or is there? Is that just? Maybe wishful thinking? Or has it has? That job had been shoved aside because we have an emergency and we're going. To do things the old way. So what's how is it? How is? That giants going to showing. Up, if you like, in. The last few months, from your perspective.
So the answer actually has two parts. To it on. On the one hand, the tour is still. Out on it. So it's still going to take us some time to really digest what happened, look at it and really analyse it. We feel better by having an actual. Approach, but one thing is for sure, we certainly. Have a lot of anecdotal evidence. That companies teams who were more agile and thought it was much easier for them to embrace this new normal. The system for that, the shock to the system, was less intense than for others, and especially what we see is that they would lean in a bit more because they were used to having being more. Creative to experiment with things and one of the things. That we see. Is that change is. A chance for them. It's not a threat. It's not something that. Freezes you that you're scared to. Do you say? Hey, it's a chance change. We didn't want this. We didn't expect this. But let's lean in. Let's see how. We can make the. Best of it and having that mindset really change the trajectory for people as well, and you could really tell that we have teams to have more problem mindset. Or was it more a solution mindset? With the problem lighter, it was all. Like, hey, what are we going? To do and it's so bad and. So on and so forth. First, if the solution is OK, this. Is the situation that we have, what are we going? And and the other part is also that they had that power of collaboration. They knew how to collaborate and. Because it's not. Easy to collaborate in a virtual setting because there is all that tribal bonding and and and all those nuances that are get lost when people just log in once a day, maybe not even with the video. Or so, and we could obviously bank on the collaboration and and team building and it was done before. So if this continues, we're not going to have that or if you have new people come on board, you're not going to. Have that but I. Can share with you and. Something that Marie Williams, she's head of of HR at NC State, wrote to me just the other day and she allowed me to use it here, she said. COVID has certainly changed the way we look at at the nature of. Our work work schedules. And workspaces, our actual training and transformation. It's definitely been got sent to our division during these uncertain, unprecedented times as he had to pivot and prototype many different things quickly to do the ever changing HR wards and policies and guidelines. So basically what she said is. It's easier because we were used to. You have to pivot. You have to experiment. We have to come together, show up together, so there is certainly an external evidence, but again, I think the future is still out on seeing what's going to happen and also how do we analyse what happens, because what we often hear us that. I would say he was so efficient he had ever best eye your best quote ever. But that has to be taken. With a grain. Of salt as well, because this was not usual, this was not the usual setting locked down. All of that was going on, so we have to be mindful of. How we interpret? That that data and what we read into it. But it has certainly accelerated the thinking around what's going to happen. What are we going to do with our office footage? Our office space is. That where people do.
Their work or is?
That where people come together to be innovative, to be creative, to collaborate, to bond and all these things are going. To change the. Way they're going to do things and things.
So that opportunity that now exists to maybe we think we imagine new ways. Of working, et cetera. Just like what Neil has done in performance management, if you've got, if you've developed the muscles and you've developed the habits around experimentation and experimenting and failing and trying stuff, engaging with stakeholders and diverse group. Being the facilitator rather than the, you know, the expert in the room and and doing using data you know all the things you said if. If you've developed those muscles. Going into COVID that you were able to use them, I guess you know it's been the experience that that you seem to be talking about. So, but if you haven't, and if you are still a bit fearful or resistant about maybe trying new things or doing things in a different way, then maybe you were a little bit more frozen, you know to, to to naturally do it. But it probably feels like it. We've all had to do it in one way or another, and perhaps that's. The the legacy out of this whole thing is that we've had to do whether we were doing it before or not. We've all had to do so this to some extent, right.
Yes, and it has certainly accelerated certain things. You know, stuff like Home Office, how many companies do you still know who prior to COVID talked about, should we really have Home Office? And how people are really going to. Work if they.
Work from home, all that stuff.
That's gone so. There is a lot that we have accelerated. But it's gonna be very the the field. Is going to be very different now after. COVID, we're going to. See teams that are going to accelerate and others are just happy to get back to the what they thought will will be all done.
I think it's just that. Any shows in this one? I mean any. Any thoughts about you? You've been a. Student and observer of the trajectory you've now had this experience in COVID. You know what? What? Like like we have all been so one or two things that you'd expect to see now within HR that might be different than than than it has been traditionally. You know, in a more mainstream. Right.
And yes, there are a. Lot of things that are. Going to happen and for us, we are evolving. As an industry, but we are not. Going to evolve at the. Same pace and not into the same direction. So I think we're going to see very different. Ways of dealing with. This and and merge and. One way of of showing that that I I like to use is this one here. When we look at trajectory where we say so do we have teams that are more sort of in an inertia? Yeah, you know, they're not that courageous to do something or they they're very cautious about what they do and we have others who have high energy, who who really have the courage to do things and on the other acts we more have people who are more on in the change mode. And we have others who are more in the transformation mode. And what we see is that actually shore or business agility is really up here. You know, the whole organisation has embraced this. You have to be up there, but what we see happening is that a lot of the companies who have been in this mode, who are disruptive right now are more down here. So we have. This disruption come up and it's going to. Be really hard for them. To actually make that trajectory up here to. Really move from. But hey, you don't really want to change too much, but we still have to change to go up here. So what's gonna happen with most of them is that they may have done already done some changes or done something, so they may have already been here and in their in their transformation. So the question is going to be are they going? To move up here so they're. A bigger part of the organisational going to transform or the business transform. Action or are they going to go all the way up here to really say we are transforming where we are, so here you have your, your people, your mindset, your culture and So what direction are they going to go? Can they jump here or are they going to stand? They more on the process and technology. Side of things. So that is something that that we have to consider. And what's interesting, when you look at the prior recessions, changes during the recession are usually made here on the process and technology side, not on the people and culture side. And that's certainly something that we have to look at or change. And I think actual teams. HR teams are really going to accelerate their learning. They're going to. Sort of lead the pack. And leave the rest behind. So we're. Going to have. A bigger like.
Just because why there? There's a more comfort level. There's a more, there's more. More comfort with the idea, with the messiness of you. Like and with. The uncertainty and the ambiguity of some of the issues they're gonna have to deal with is that why is that? Why, rather than relying on kind of process and technology? To solve the problems is that what is that true?
Well, let's just say this the easy side. But transformation that you really change the culture and the DNA of the organisation. And that you work with. People, that's the the messy side and you know. There are a couple of. Sort of telltale. Words or things that people do and say that is going to trigger that they're probably not as active as they. Think they are? And it's, you know, stuff like when they talk about efficiency, especially cost efficiency or meritocracy, that would pay for performance. High potential ports. All these things indicate that their thinking may not be fully actual yet, that they still have. Work to do. Bottom of the.
Learning on traditional processes, relying on traditional ways of working ways of thinking and boxing things in.
Yeah. See that with the whole learning approach. So if you look at the data, what is happening in the learning space right now then? You look at. Actual organisations or actual teams, so they started out in in January. Now we're in in June. If you look at the number of people that they trained or that sent to training for agile teams, the curve or something like that. So we have. Tip and now they are almost at the same level. As they were. At the beginning of the of the year. So this is actual teams sending people to courses and and having learning sessions but with HR. What we see is this one. Here we have a dip. And they aren't recovering it. So they stop investing in in learning. For people and things like. That so there are a lot of. Things going on and and we see a difference. Team teams with a natural mindset versus a. More traditional one.
So it just seems like a great opportunity though for HR to re rethink we, you know plan it's like because we're really in so many ways we have this kind of fresh. Sheet of paper to start to we think how we kind of recover and how we move on from this and taking on board some of the things that we have been talking about and and you it feels like they were real opportunity for each other. It should be a real facilitator of. This transformation change rather than you know being. Being frozen in terms of the. Relying on process and. And and traditional way. And I'm I'm working. I'm conscious of of time. Fabulous. That's OK. What we might do, Joe, is if we want to take a couple of questions now.
Yeah, I think I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, Kevin, I'm thinking now we are, Angela, we're talking about Angel. So we will be, you know, we need to, you know, adopt our plan not to go.
You know with the.
Plan so adopt A different plan not to go with our, you know, present plan. So I think we might keep on the on the discussion club, but as you said we are we will be you know we I can the the you know the line is booked you know have six so if people are interested in having some discussion and networking we can definitely. Facilitate that and do you know group session or breakout sessions so whichever suits. But I think now we have few questions. So I think maybe we'll move on with the question. Would that work? So me if the first question is for you. So by doing this new performance management approach, having this new you know approach to performance management, did you get enough data? That you needed. You know, to make inform people decisions.
So thank you for the thank you for the question. The data was as I mentioned, centric to the whole approach that we took and so we had an experiment running with over 16,000 employees across the globe. Uhm, covering 8 countries, seven different business units and UM. We started with a pre survey so to kind of cheque where we were at and then we also ran a post survey at the end of the kind of uh performance cycle. In addition to that, then we we ran sentiment surveys every month throughout the UM the experiments and we also ran a number of E focus groups to kind of go deep on a number of topics where we were seeing maybe. UM, satisfaction levels being lower on capability, building different things. In addition to that, we went external and we commissioned 3 rapid evidence based assessments with the Centre for Evidence based Management focusing in on our hypothesis. So we had developed the hypothesis at the outset of the the product that we were testing the whole way through our experiment. UM and then we validated that hypothesis with the external and the internal data that we gathered. So for me it was really around. Ensuring that the data was robust and that we could stand over and there was a large enough sample size and that we had control groups in place. So yes, is the answer. We had a lot of data and and. In addition to that, in our deployment we are very much taking an agile product approach that we're not saying that it's a done and done for 10 years. So in traditional HR, you'd build something and you'd say, right, that's it. And we walk away, we're building KPIs and metrics in that. We will continue to evolve, evolve the product over time. Based on the feedback that we're getting and we will have releases of the product as we move forward and we also have a new HCM system coming in in two years time. So this was built. It wasn't a technology solution actually to fabulous point. This is around the business that are in transformation. So it was focused in on the people, the culture. Excuse me the behaviours. And how we wanted to build our agility into our organisation, our organisation is 110,000. People and we've built in team creation like objective creation ceremonies, team Retros, into the way that we're proposing our new performance approach, so we're building agility into the model for everybody, so it's not that it's agile at scale in terms of everybody working in Agile team, it's very much. Agile ways of working in Agile mindset is being built into the performance management approach that we're taking with data at the core.
OK, as if you have any question, everybody is muted. So can you please type it into the tab and then we can take it from there and live in the meantime, I could question myself. So I would be getting to Earth because obviously you know, experiments are evolving around hypothesis and with hypothesis you know the the outcome might be not always. What you expected? So how did you? Send that message. Maybe not the. Message. But you know, recover for the buy in with the outcomes which were blessed. You know, positive that you would wish because I'm sure you had to have some sandbags. So how did you recover from them to go forward?
That's a great question. So I think again, data was our friend here. So where we maybe had data that was less favourable than we anticipated, we went and. Ran a number of these focus groups to help us understand what was the root cause. Was it that this element of the performance of the new proposal? Just wasn't working. Or was it that there was something that we could do to evolve it and make it more user centric or a better experience for the the UM? The employee at the end of the day, so I think it was really around understanding what lay behind that finding and then putting a corrective action in place. So it was having that solution mindset rather than having a problem mindset. I'm I'm trying to think of one of the things that maybe wasn't as favourable I think the. The the reward system. We had a number of different experiments on the reward side and one of them was around. Having a more ongoing team recognition piece rather than having pay for performance and and and and a kind of a differentiated piece. And I think we were all expecting that that would come out more favourable than having. Some level of differentiation and actually the level of differentiation came out more favourable than having just a pure team incentive. Both models were more favourable than what we had in the past and the external data then shared with us was that actually extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are equally important and can coexist, and that having a level of differentiation is important and is a more motivational factor, particularly in highly complex work, which is what? We do in Novartis. In terms of pharmaceutical, so in the end solution we've taken the best of both and having a team incentive. But equally having given flexibility there to have uh individual recognition as well. And that's something that we will continue to evolve and we have a. We have a a further experiment running next year with our productization teams and agile teams to see how we can look at having more of a. An agile team reward because a lot of the agile teams want to have same objectives. They want to have and we all win together or we all lose together approach. And and we're going to pilot that. Within the existing framework that we've developed, the new framework that we've developed, so again it's about learning. Piloting, iterating, moving on.
Thank you very much. And we have another question again to need. So and I have lots of questions formula, but I don't want to monopolise the conversation, so I will read this just to. So lots of compliments about the talk and then what other behavioural successes are you looking to achieve with this new performance management approach?
OK, so the the behaviours that we're looking for is that it's an, it's a, it's a kind of a. An ongoing approach rather than a kind of a once a year approach. So we need managers and associates to have regular conversations and coaching culture. So that's something that's a it's a behavioural change. Uhm, but also that the associate is more empowered, the employee is more empowered. UM and it's not just the manager's responsibility to have to give feedback. It's everybody's responsibility to give each other feedback and and introducing things like Team Retro is kind of building muscle in the organisation that we're all empowered to to kind of. And we're all accountable, actually, for the success of the organisation. So that's something that's a very different mindset. The other thing that we're looking at is recognition on an ongoing basis rather than just one off at the end of the year. So that's another behaviour change and we've started to see that happening more and more and the recognition doesn't have to be monetary. It can be just saying thank you. It can be acknowledging somebody for their collaboration and it can be giving feedback. Positive or construct? Is also a form of recognition as well, so there are some of the things that we're looking at in terms of that. Behaviour change. The other thing that we're looking at is around, UM, check-ins. It's not just about the performance, it's also about the well-being of the individual, because if people can come and be their best. They'll give their best at. Work as well and you'll see the. Overall performance boosting so. I think that's also an agile principle and it's something that. Is more, you know, anchored around diversity and inclusion, but also mental health and all of the things that go with it. And I think the coronavirus and COVID-19 has been something that we've seen managers having more check-ins with people around the well-being side and then starting the conversation around the task. And that's something that I think we should embrace and keep going. Post COVID as well as we emerge. And and honest and frank conversations with them and, you know, Retros, you know, we we we had a retro and we we were very open and we said look when you don't come to the demos and then we go and do something and then you don't. Like it well. What are? How are we? What are we supposed to do with that? That that's not really valuable feedback to me. Uh, two weeks too late, so having a very open and being empowered to have those conversations and and and. Getting them into that mentality, I think really helped. The other thing that we did was we, we, we did bring them on a training around Agile methodology so that they could understand. Better our world. And and that really helped as well for them to understand how we were operating. So that when we came back and we said OK, we're not getting the engagement at the biweekly demos and we'll try the Super demo approach and see how you feel with that. And then we said, look, we actually need a little bit more skin in the game. So we want the. Investment board approach. You know, trying new things, I mean, we don't necessarily have a silver bullet on this, but trying out new things and not being afraid of they don't work. But to give the feedback and say, OK, this aspect work. But let's maybe amplify it a bit and or this didn't work. Let's drop it so you know, I think being very open and honest and being, UM, being agile. You know, living an agile UM. The way with your senior stakeholders as well, I think helps them to bring to go on the journey with you.
But as soon as I go. Ultimately it needs to start though with that leadership. Permission though as well, which obviously they did as they signed those solutions.
But they absolutely did.
And from the.
Top I mean our our CEO is very bought into UM, agile ways of working and they have sponsored the productization team. We've developed a playbook. Uh. We're seeing more and more agile teams. We're not fully agile at scale, but we're going in that direction in terms of. Even thinking through what are the blockers for us working at more agile at scale? How are our HR systems entering us with that you know and a lot of the time it is the systems that hold you back as well. So how does it work around that?
So so I'm thinking if I be only if there anything you want to come in on, just feel free to to finish finish off here. But I suppose the Angela coaches out there. Hopefully. Uh, you've got some reassurance. I I think you know you've you've you've kind of managed to touch on every agile buzz where I can think of from minimum. Fibre products tubing to retros and sprints and the Co creation and coming back and all the principles just seem to come come come out of the that experiences that you've had. The demos you know and the whole mindset piece and the sponsorship etcetera. So you know, thank you so much for telling the story and also some of the the difficulties as well. But I think again, as I say to agile coaches, bear with us in HR. We are getting there in. Terms of trying to. Maybe take on some of this. And and in fact. I've I've said this quite a bit. We so need each other and I think in this suspect. So in the agile community, if you like. We talked to to to to those folks there and talk about actually some of the, the the blockers and the issues with what we're trying to do with other agile. Teams is that people stuff. And if we had HR with us, we could probably solve for those a bit quicker a bit. Easier and and then the HR folks are saying actually we need a bit of what you folks have are able to bring into HR as well. So you can start to see the two communities and really start to merge. And I guess this is part of it. And I know. The adjoining folks have seen that, and they created this. There's people who coach our shack to the to the conference last year and we'll be doing so again when. When that's done. So thank you so much fabula any any last thoughts before we before we finish up?
Well, I agree with everything that you said because Agile and HR is two sides of the same coin. It's all about people, so we should definitely. Build a strong partnership for sure.
So really, I think, Joanne, I think somehow I don't know what's happened there, but on her behalf, perhaps just thank everybody for for taking part this evening. Keep an eye out for for further I know she's keen to maintain and and some more sessions on the kind of whole organisational people on the HR side of this as well as the. Other meet ups that you folks. Soon, so hopefully we'll see you at one of these events again soon. And just to thank again Fabiola and me and for taking the time to join us this evening and for you for sticking with us as well. And what we'll just do is just give people permission to to sign off now. But if you want to have a little bit of a a chance, take your simself news. And and have a bit of a Q&A after after now just let feel free to hang on. Otherwise, have a lovely evening.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you, Catherine.
No problem when you stay on maybe.
And as someone else how to get best hold of of us so you can ping me on LinkedIn or I can put my e-mail address there, but you'll find me on LinkedIn.
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm I'm on. LinkedIn as well.
Good. Any thoughts? Anybody wanna Chuck in there and any any ideas or challenges or questions?
I just want to say thank you for kind of expanding on the leadership impact. Uh, the UM, you know that it was the investment board that was the final breakthrough is that? Correct for stakeholders? Or was it? Or were there other things that help kind of have a breakthrough?
I think we're still on the journey and core and I, you know, we're trying it and. We'll have to wait for another session. I'll tell you if. It worked for them, but we're we're on the. We're on the journey. Maybe Fabiola has seen some examples of where that has worked in the past, or other things that might maybe tips for me and what might work as well, but. It's just, you know, they are bought in, they are invested. It's just how do you keep that alignment and how do you keep that energy behind it from a senior stakeholder perspective?
And it's not just the senior stakeholders are not just there. To give you feedback and. Input. It's all about removing roadblocks. But the other part is also. Of being part of that learning journey because you go through so much change and so much learning in the two weeks or or whatever your iterations are and they need to keep track of that learning. They need to be on on top of their game and in order to do that, they can't just just cheque in every six months the way they used to do it before. And they also have to become familiar with the language that you using because we have a lot of false friends in the agile slash HR space and we talk about collaboration. It has a completely different meaning for agile teams than for more traditional folks, where it's more like, well, we're in the same organisational unit and we help each other while they need be. While that's not the kind of collaboration that. We talk about in the actual. Ways or words like potential while hiring for potential in actual means. Hey, we hire them because no matter what, we're going to throw at them, no matter what's going to come up, they'll be able to flex their muscles and deal with that. This is not about. Taking the next step in the career track. And by having all those different words and different meanings. If you have. The stakeholders in at regular intervals, they get that they you start speaking the same language and that has to be understood as well. And as as Nicholas was saying, it starts by having their buy in and their commitment to show up to be there. To do gimbal walks and. To interact with the team so that they are. Part of their learning journey.
Thank you. What is the Y that? You give them for them to show up.
Well, it's the why are you? Even doing that initiative. The initiative is prioritised high enough and. Of course you. Start by understanding what problem are we trying to solve. What are we hoping to change? What are we hoping to gain by embarking on that journey? And you know, words like we want to. Be agile. Well, that's not. An objective so you have to dig in deeper. You can use those design thinking tools and power wise and wise and systems thinking iceberg models to help you get there. Why are we doing that? And that's where you get their buy in to really show them. Hey, there is a lot of power behind it and there is a reason why we do it. You don't just do it because everyone is teaching employee appraisals. That's not enough reason to actually do it. What you really want to achieve? What is different and then you? Can wrap their imagination at the beginning. It's going to. Be much easier to have them buy in.
And I and I think little things like kind of even having the placeholders out in the diary six months in advance, you know like having your biweekly rhythm there for demos. And then the other thing is that before your demo, maybe the day before sending a note saying this is what we're covering on. The demo simple. Are effective as well because sometimes they go oh jeez, it's another demo. Is it really that important that I'm going? But if you can give if you can hook them in with something and it will slash or whatever, that can really help as well. And we've also recorded the demos, you know, because to allow for time zones and things like that. And and while they're not active participants then in the demo. What we have done is we've started to use pigeonhole and and an internal Novartis to like pigeonhole. So this is like ongoing Q&A. Where you can vote up questions. So we've started using that in conjunction with our demo so that even if a person isn't live in the demo, they can still add their contribution to the Q&A. And then we go back with the answer. So it's kind of a very UM, active too. So that's something that that can be tried as well. Umm, that has helped us. And particularly when people are just, they don't have the bandwidth, you know, for all of the meetings that are coming along, it also helps them because you can print it out, it becomes your FAQ.
You know, so. At the same time, you don't want to make it too comfortable for them not to. Show. I don't know.
So that's, that's the other side that.
You want them? To show up because they get the value.
They get value and and I think the other thing is that the as the capability is developed on the team, our demos has become renowned. People love going to the, you know, because they're getting value out of them. And and there's three or four people on the team that have really built a muscle around the facilitation demos. And we kind. Of change how we're facilitating, if we we're introducing new tools. And as I said like my team because we set up as a virtual team initially during COVID we became the go to team for how to do virtual agile. Uhm. And we found that teams from it and other places were coming to us saying. Like what? What? Is mirror word any good? Like do you know one thing about that? Have you any? Tips for you know facilitating good demos so you kind of you build a bit of momentum around things like that as well. Yeah. I mean just little things and not being afraid to try new things, you know, just try and fail. It doesn't work. Doesn't matter. You learn something and move on.
Any other. Any other questions, folks? Anybody else want to chip in? Lessons learned already. It's very interesting about the virtual piece nearby. I'd say the market has gone way down for sticky notes. Now you know there's there's been no, they've been used for all kinds of other reasons. Yeah. Really, really, really interesting.
You know, for me it it what was lovely was in it really levelled the playing pitch. And and it was kind. Of welcome to our world. And and it was funny because I had a board meeting the other night. And UM. Some of the people in basil have now gone back to being in the office. And it felt there was half the people on. Teams in the other half were in the room and actually it just didn't feel as good as it did. When we were all on the UM. And so that was something you.
Know I I've noticed that these two plays now just in the last week have been talking about the going back going back kind of strategy and and they've actually avoided using the the word remote working on flexible working. They've actually said agile we want.
Yeah, 10 years.
We have an ambition now in post COVID around agile, working of which remote working is only a part of. So they're they're trying to use the sort of COVID as. A sort of a way to to to. Really envision what? The future state of of of work is going to look like and. Feel like in the post COVID world. Right. And they're trying to avoid things like ohh, we're. Going to work from. Home kind of like, you know, labels. And remote working. And no, but that's not what we're talking. That that's only a visit. That's like the tip of the iceberg. It's like a symbol of what we're talking, what we're actually talking about is trust. We're talking about a new deal around and an adult adult conversation about. Where was and where and when you work. Is not as important as it was maybe pre go, but we're we're having a conversation about how do you collaborate with different people at different times. So it's it's, it's just interesting how the sort of post COVID return to work. It's going to be an opportunity to actually create something, something different than it was there, but not just fall into the trap.
We've a whole agile task force working on it at the moment and it's very much we don't. We're not really saying about going back. Nobody wants to go back. We're emerging. And and we're thinking about choice and we're thinking about distributed workforce. And having that more and distributed workforce at a level four or five is? More right output focus. And not about working from home. You know, it doesn't really matter where you work, it's just what you produce and having that output, output mindset, and it doesn't matter. I remember, and very early on, umm, somebody asking you the question, what about core hours? Do we have to stick to core? Hours during COVID night. Like. I mean, I don't. Know how you'd. Be able to stick to core hours. Particularly with kids. At home and you're, you know, doing. Swing shifts with your partner or whatever. And and people are working. As and when they need to work in order to produce the outcome that that they need and it's amazing how the the narrative has evolved from March to even now and it's been incredible. And I know even one of the the for the business case for reimagined performance management. Talk about the time for changes. Now, because some of the questions we would get from different parts of the organisation was, well, could you just do the coaching? Part do you have to remove the ratings you know, or could you just remove the ratings? Do you have? To do the reward part or whatever it was. And yeah, yeah. And one of the things that, UM, that we learned from COVID-19 was around organisational readiness and has sometimes in H or we over index on this terminology, organisational readiness. Nobody was ready for COVID-19, but we all survived in terms of. You know the organisation and and have trust in the organisation to do the right thing and to be constructive and you know, and that's where the agile teams really came into their own around it. Empowering them to make decisions they didn't have time for monthly steer Co. They just needing to turn Ms. teams on, you know things like that really. The you know, agile became the the way of working, so there's no going.
Whether you called. It that or not, yeah, whether you called it.
Whether you called it that or not it, that's exactly what it was, and it's about how do we embrace that now into our.
You know that's the trick. Now is to capture. That kind of mostly use. It a few times, but just to. Kind of keep that going and into the future. OK folks. So any last question or two and then we'll, we'll we call it an evening. Or a day or a. Morning or whatever it is where you are.
Do you mind one more question? OK. Yeah. So the other part of, OK, so you're you're working at choice or working distributed at choice and what prevents people from burning out because you've got some working at 9:00 in the morning, some you've got working 9:00 at night, but those? Two people need to. Talk together. So how are you? And I'm handling that. You know, especially when you're distributed like you know at at Novartis, your distributor across Texas, Hyderabad. You know Dublin Basel, you know. How do you help your teams not burn out as a result?
Yeah. I mean, there's a very fair question, I think. For our kind of core team rhythms and rituals, we have them over the kind of golden hours the the lunch time. So I'm constantly eating sandwich on the goal or. I'm having my coffee, but UM. Yeah, it's just asking the team, you know what? You know what makes sense for you and and where possible. Having or making sessions at those kind of. Core hours, but there are certain aspects that like so. The team that I have in the part of the team that I have in Hyderabad are working on the data and and it just happens that that they're working on the data aspects of it. And so for them they don't need necessarily the same level of collaboration that some of our. The team that are working more on the. The design of objectives or design of some of the classes that we're doing. For the cons, so we kind of divide up the tasks amongst the team based on their strengths and and how they. Want to work? There are some things that we work on and we're all together and then we just have to be mindful. Of the time zone. So I think again with the UM distributed work model, that's something that has to be factored in. But also not having core hours helps because people decide when they want to work. So you know it's about, you know, agreeing that in your own team. Team principals and Team charter team.
Which is something you've seen more discussion about. You know, even though they've been working, people have been working in teams forever. It actually coming up with a more uh, clear. Team charge or a team agreement. Uh, the principals. And since we've been working together for 10 years and we've never asked the question, what might suit you, what might suit you to meet? We've just assumed that 9:00 AM on a Monday morning or whatever was that. This is the first time and they came back, said John. Principles where we've actually started to challenge some assumptions. As about why and where and when people were can actually the team agreements have become very democratic discussions rather than just a set of. Like with Fabiola was talking about assumed practises that. Well, of course that's the time we meet. Well, why you know? So you think a healthy thing that's come out actually is the need for team agreements to to, to, to make sure that the burnout stuff that you talk about doesn't have.
And of course the. Actual teams have their cadence and their velocity and everything. They can manage some of it through that, but then our people developers have to take on. The key role. As well to have their regular check-ins. And as you were saying earlier that mental health cheque and everything to see, hey, they are not burning out or how do we we make sure. That they take care of people. So that's definitely part of of the new HR business partner Slash people developer or to have those regular check-ins. Even more important now. That we're more in the remote.
Virtual set, yeah, yeah.
Agile and HR coming together. I've always thought that that should happen and so you know, but then when you get in trouble to go to HR and say hey. Let's work together. It's like ohh OK. Then I shouldn't do that. So I'm really happy. I'm really happy.
To see this.
Yeah. No, it's been. You can see it happening for for quite a while. And as I said, it's reality conversations was as agile or technology teams, you talk to, you know it directors, for instance who who have some of their organisation has been agile. Some of that is still waterfall and so that. They will call agile. Because depending on the nature of the work that they want to get done, but but invariably when you talk to them about their challenges, the organisation operational challenges to it's a bunch of people, people, issues and processes all the damn performance management system or the reward system or. The recruitment, the training, whatever it might be. Some things just getting in the way, and sometimes that's all that's taken actually is just HR talking in this case with it. What can we? Take out of the way, just to to allow people to to do. Come up with their own, their own, their own rhythms and. Their own ways of doing things so. So Conan Doyle is there's hope.
There's hope there. Yeah, I could see Adrian there. And now you need to talk to Adrian.
Adrian is a converse. Completely now and he would love to. He would love to work with you on. All this he's an HR leader.
Fragile agile in the. Hater. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So go ahead, agent go. Ahead I was going.
To say it's been wonderful just to listen to some really good stories there. And I've I've jotted down. So we're on a journey on that marathon about 20 miles behind you. But where I can see some of the stuff you've Rd. Map and I'm going. Oh my God. Yeah, that's that's exactly some of the challenges we're facing. Some of the wins we've got COVID has amplified and. Some of the some of the things. We're told could never happen in terms. No, we can't have people doing this. We can't have what are. They working on in leadership. Development trust. That trust. If there was trust. Beforehand, and the team those teams are are really doing well now, actually. And they're finding it even if there wasn't trust, my God, our business partners are there with the you're you're called out straight away. But actually a lot more people because it kind of happened worldwide. Pandemic, as you said, nobody could really plan for, it's opened the door a little bit for people to kind of go. OK, let's see. Let's maybe get experiment. Give it a go and and and we've tried to say you need to when you get that door. Open a little bit, let's. You know, let's walk through this kind of thing. So for us, that's been a a good thing. And thankfully, Kevin, you've been a wonderful coach as our coach for us to help us. Among some of our big projects kind of thing to keep us, right, keep us staring right on a on a moving forward because we're on an early stage of the journey kind of thing. But we're we're finding we are seeing the benefits like usually seeing the benefits kind of thing and the administration and red tape that you can cut through when people. You know, so. Watch this say Ohh failure. The fear of failure, imprisoning yourself and thus yeah, yeah, I could decision making a very senior level. And how am I? I did psychology. How? Can people can go into little mic fails over here and my God, you can make a. Job out of that. And using powerful questions in a trusting way to say, look, you know and and and that's where we've built up the business partnering model using some of the agile to kind of you know go in under the radar, not every comp not everybody's on the same journey on the. And step and and and there is a PR part of the job and HR that's for more and technology now. And that data-driven, I love the data-driven evidence, but don't get don't get swamped by data. I'm sure any of your that's where your I love your E focus groups. What does it mean? So what if we went from an 8 to 20% wage and what? Does that actually mean to us? What's the meaningful? Tell me the story behind the figure, and if we can't tell the story, tell me what you really care about. You know, so so that maybe we can push the story on or move the the agenda.
So look, folks, I think we. Should sign off now. No problem. OK, everybody, look. Let's stay in touch. You know where we are. We'll you'll find this. Easy enough.