Talent enablement with Abbe Smith (Legend)

Speaker A: Maybe we can start just, just broadly speaking with yourself, little intro to yourself, uh, what you do and any kind of areas of talent that, that you're passionate about just to, uh, Just to get us started.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So, hi, I'm Abby. My job title is Senior Talent Enablement Manager and I work at a company called Legend. Um, so I've been with the company for just over three years now. Started as a talent partner and moved into management and then into this role now. And my job is just basically to. Things work better in talent for the team, for the candidates, for the managers. So, um, working on lots of system stuff, process improvement, documentation, data, uh, kind of anything and everything to do with enablement to make things a little more enjoyable and easier for everybody who's kind of involved in the talent process.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I'd be keen to unpack some of those responsibilities in a bit. But first maybe a little journey, like, can you. Because, uh, obviously I got your LinkedIn here and uh, that's, that's definitely a journey, uh, that you've made into, into the current role. So how did you start and, and what got you here?

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So, like, I imagine a lot of people I, I kind of fell into at the time was recruitment rather than talent. So I'd gone to university to study geology. Hated it. Left at Christmas, took the first job I could find, which was in the call center at Nationwide. Ah, Film Society. Um, really enjoyed that for a year and a half. And then an opportunity came up internally in the recruitment team, um, to do like contract administration and things like that. And I had no desire to work in recruitment or hr, but Nationwide was a great company, wanted to keep working for them, but I wanted to get off of the phones in the call center. So I somehow landed that role, which I was very pleased about. And that's kind of where it all started. So very quickly, um, started picking up extra responsibilities and moved into more of a sourcing role. Um, I was at Nationwide for a long time, so I'm not going to spend too much time on there. But in that time I looked after finance it. Um, emerging talents like apprenticeships kind of actually helped launch the first apprenticeship pilot at Nationwide. Huge, um, range of things there. Uh, and then I was relocating and, um, this was kind of before remote working was really as much of a thing as it is now. So I decided to leave, um, and move to Alex Mann Solutions. Did a short stint on their Santander account, um, looking at internal mobility and then, um, felt like I'd kind of had enough of financial services. I wanted to do something that was a bit different. And a role came up at Sue Rider, which is the hospice and neurological career charity. Um, and it was a brand new role of recruitment, retail recruitment and induction coordinator. It's a very long job title. Um, and basically um, it was hiring their paid shop staff, um, into kind of a patch of shops. Um, and I was the only external hire. And I remember being in a team meeting and everybody was like how are you filling your role so quickly? And I was like well I just go and indeed and get the CVs and contact people and like jaws drops. Like they didn't even realize that some of these really basic talent things were available to them. And that was kind of the first trigger in me of like, oh, okay, actually maybe I quite like sharing knowledge and training people and supporting people and coaching people. And that was kind of the trigger for me of that. Maybe that's kind of the route I want to go down. Um, and I love my time there, it's great for the soul. But I ended up covering a huge patch and I was driving like four or five hours a day sometimes to go and do like two interviews and it just wasn't so sustainable. Um, and um, an opportunity came up at a, ah, web design and development agency in the next town to where I was living who were looking for somebody to kind of help start set up their function. They knew had they had a new head of hr, they had a talent or a recruitment partner in place on a fixed term contract and they wanted somebody to come in permanently to kind of help set things up. And that was what I did. So I was there for about three years or so. Started off as that individual contributor working with the other talent partner to actually do the hiring and then start to set things up. Um, was successful in securing the management role and by the time I left there had uh, a team of sort of like five to eight people with some RPO resource in there and I had a great time there. I learned a lot. But it just got to the point where I felt like I needed something different and also a break. I hadn't stopped, never had the break between jobs so was very fortunate to be able to do that. So I took a couple of months off and then I landed my, my role at my current company. Um, and um, it was an IC role at first and I was a little conflicted about taking it. Um, if I'm honest, it felt like a step back slightly to go from managing a team of eight and Essentially being like the most senior recruitment person in the business underneath the head of HR to being a talent partner. But I was so keen to get back into that position of learning from others and not being the seemingly apparently the font of all knowledge. Like, I wanted to be able to ask questions and learn, um, and be in that really solid environment. Um, and that's what I got. Um, and. But I very quickly couldn't help myself. There was a management gap and I kind of like crept into it and then was successfully promoted into that and then, yeah, just kind of some lateral promotions into a senior talent partner manager role. Our Head of Talent left and I kind of acted as Head of Talent for, uh, for a little while. And then our new Head of Talent started and she was like, what do you want to do? And I was like, fix some stuff. There's some stuff I've been wanting to do for a long time. Like what we, we do recruitment really well here at Legend. We have a great team, we have great processes, we have great managers who are really involved in it, but things can always be better, more efficient, easier. And I've been wanting to fix so many things but just haven't had the capacity. And I was like, this is what I want to do. This is what really gets my brain going. I love this stuff. Um, and so we built this role for me. So we hired an excellent talent acquisition manager who started to take on the management of the team. And then I moved into this role from about April this year and yeah, five months in and I'm loving it.

Speaker A: Gotcha, gotcha. And just, just to double check and maybe you get this a lot, but. So you didn't start via agency, right, or.

Speaker B: No, I've never worked. Never worked in an agency. I did that, um, about a year in an rpo, but I've always been in house. Never worked in an agency.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Which I know is quite unusual. Most people I speak to, I know when I've hired talent partners, I'd say like 99 or 9 out of 10 have done even a short stint. But no, never, always fully in house.

Speaker A: I'd like to think like, uh, people such as yourself, you've been. You're uncorrupted by the, the darkness, you know, by the by. Oh, the cold call quotas and, you know, um, that sort of stuff. Or maybe, who knows, maybe you experienced it early on or maybe not, but. But yeah, that's maybe another story for, um, for another time. And getting into the, um, uh, I suppose the talent enablement role that you Men. And uh, because I spoke to another person a while back and they were more like they were saying they were like a talent Ops person. Uh, maybe it's ah, are those similar, different or I guess kind of related because they, you know it's also around data and so forth. Like um, how, I guess in detail. Like how would you describe the talent enablement role to, to begin with?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. And it's still quite a new discipline within talent. Right? It's only something that's really kind of come about quite um, and I don't know if there's like an official definition. Um, I won't lie, we don't have a talent Ops team here. So I do end up picking up talent uh, ops stuff as well. But um, the way the me and um, my manager have kind of built this role is just to um, not just focus on that stuff but also like the end to end how we're making stuff better. So some of the projects I've worked on, just to give you an example is we've moved one of our um, companies who was on a separate ATF into our new ats. So training everybody, documentation, process change, all that kind of stuff, um, integrating our uh, ATS and our HRIs. So now when we push somebody as hired on lever, it all flows through into our uh, um, hris and then also into JIRA for kind of onboarding tracking as well. So that was a big project that I've been involved in. We're looking at things like interview training for the next season. Um, we've done a big kind of employee advocacy and employer branding launch as well. So I think the difference ops is obviously such a critical important thing that makes everybody's life easier. But that's kind of day to day. The way I see enablement is it's actually okay taking a step back and going what needs to be done to make this process better, to make it easier, to make it more efficient? How can we use the data that we have in our systems to drive those decisions? Um, are we gathering the right data? If not, how do we do do that? How do we take that information to senior stakeholders and say this is what we've got and this is what we need and this is the reason why. So for me that's where the difference is. It's kind of um, they're very closely related but it's that kind of slightly more of a step back and looking at the bigger picture and how it interacts with legal and finance and operations and don't just change one thing here without telling the hr, the people OPS team, because it has an impact on them and things. So that for me is the difference. But don't coat me as the, don't quote me as the Oracle on that because I'm still quite new to it as well. But that's kind of how, how I see it.

Speaker A: Totally, totally. And, um, just to kind of discover a little bit the objectives of the, the talent enablement role. So I suppose. Would you say kind of like the pillars, the ultimate. Would you say maybe goals? Or you mentioned, I think, uh, efficiency could be one of them. Or I don't know if you mentioned like interview training. Maybe it's like a time or quality of hire type objective. Like. Yeah, uh, the top. What would kind of be the top three objectives of the talent enablement? Or maybe it's like a quality, I think they call it quality of life improvements, let's say. Oh, the ATS keeps breaking down. That's so annoying. Oh, uh, we have to use this ATS in one country, but they're using another ats. That's, that's, that's just a lot of miscommunication that can cause. Like, what would be kind of like maybe the top three objectives?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. Um, so I think if I was to look at this year, the top three objectives that I've had have been that system integration. We've also done another project recently which I'm literally hopefully wrapping up this week, which is, um, automating all of our contract, sending through our ATS and kind of working with people ops on that. And then the interview training and the employee engagement with the process, those have kind of been the top three for this year. We've got a team, uh, day later in the week actually, where everybody's coming into the office in London, which we're very much looking forward to. Um, and the exercise that we're going to be doing as a team is, is a bit of a pain point mapping exercise. So we're literally going to go old school with a whiteboard and post it notes, um, and draw a timeline for like from the moment a candidate even thinks about applying for a job and then hears about us, uh, through to the moment, we kind of hand them over to people ops. What happens? Where are the frustrations from us, from managers and also from candidates? Um, and that is definitely going to help inform, I think, what some of the, the drivers and the focuses will be for next year in terms of enablement and kind of there's no point me and the manager being like, oh, uh, our email templates aren't great and aren't very engaging and aren't in line with our tone of voice. Let's change them. Yeah, sure, that's, that's a good thing to do. But is that really going to help people and make things easier and more efficient? Probably not. So, um, yeah, we're going to work with the team to, and to understand where those frustrations are, where these blockers are, uh, what it is that they need us to do to make their life easier. And it won't necessarily just be like talent processes. It could be something to do with the finance processes at role approval or it could be something to do with the onboarding process. So I will then kind of work with those other teams as well to look at that. Um, but yeah, that's kind of how we're approaching it. We want to make sure that we're not just picking what we think needs some work and actually working with the team to understand what they need from us.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a, uh, it's an interesting balance you have to make between being, I suppose, proactive. Like, oh, you have good ideas, you have good insights that you want to implement, but also getting feedback from the team, from hiring managers on, um, oh, what can be improved. And I can appreciate sometimes it's tricky because at least, and maybe I'm just not the most skilled person at this, but sometimes when I try to bring hiring managers into the loop, the reaction I get is like, uh, well, I don't know, you're, you're the expert. You tell me, what, what is the improvement we, we need to make? Right. Um, so that's, that's also kind of like a confusing part of the role. Like, I guess if we can, if, if you can give us a little kind of like insight. But what's that, um, hiring manager engagement piece like? Is it like through surveys? Is it just one to one, you talk to them? Um, or, you know, how do you kind of get input from hiring managers on what part of the process to. To improve?

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And just to kind of link back to what you said there, we don't expect the hiring managers to come to us with the answers. They may well have suggestions, but at the end of the day, we're the experts in what we do. Um, so we'll ask them for feedback and if they have suggestions, they're welcome to share them. But we would never go to a manager and be like, this isn't working. Why? Because that's our job to do that, to work that out. So we um, we sent out a survey actually just recently around our recruitment and talent processes to understand how managers are finding it. What they find works really well, where they have some challenges and we've kept that completely anonymous as well. So they can feel that they can share anything that they want to share without us maybe going, oh gosh, it's them complaining again. Or whatever. Which we obviously wouldn't do anyway. But people think that we're gonna do that. Um, so we do that. We also within Legend have a kind ah, of a slack channel of all of our managers and there's a weekly call where all the managers get together as well. So if we have any updates or anything to roll out, we kind of make sure that we've really engaged that management community as well as the wider community. So um, either in that channel or on that weekly call, um, myself or another member of the talent team will be there uh, to kind of talk about what's happened. Um, we're really open in terms of feedback here. We have a real feedback driven culture and we try to drive as much feedback as possible. So we always say like, tell us if something about this isn't right for you or isn't working. Um, there was a recent notion page I put together around some interview guidance which um, I asked some volunteers and um, um, some managers volunteered and I thought I'd made everything crystal clear and it was ripped to shreds. I was, I've never seen so many comments on the notion page. And at first I was like oh God, okay. But then actually I get it right. This is my day to day. I understand this. This is literally my whole job. It's only a very small part of their job. So that was really helpful process to go through for me to go, oh, okay, this isn't as clear as I thought it was or the people partner reviewed but thought it was really clear but. Etc. So we kind of do like that. And also it is quite any feedback from that the talent partners get, they kind of feed into the leads as well. So we try to keep it quite loose. Like we don't have a real like every three months we'll do a survey because it's very easy to get survey fatigue. So we try to kind of approach it from lots of different ways, more anecdotal as well as more kind of like data from surveys and things like that. Um, but yeah, it's, it is, is really, really helpful to, to get that feedback because even if we think something works really well and it works well for us, it may not work well for the managers. And then it's about finding that balance of okay, so it makes life easier for us, but it makes life harder for the managers. So where's, where's that sweet spot in the middle that's going to make life a little bit easier for everybody? If we can't make it fully easier

Speaker A: for everyone, it really reveals that for the talent enablement role, like good communication skills, good stakeholder management, like soft skills, as much as the technical job related skills are important, like knowing your ATS or knowing recruitment data, uh, it's sometimes more around the stakeholder management piece and it reminds me of this. I think it's like a bias, it's called the curse of knowledge where basically you know your role so well, you know the technical aspect so, so well. But then when you try to communicate, let's say when you maybe write a one page document explaining how to use something to a non expert, they're like, I don't. What are you talking about in this page? I don't understand this page. And then there's always that uh, miscommunication that risks happening. So always kind of adapting communication to the person is one of the key things to consider. And second, I think it's um, another insight that I read recently about that you might relate to is like generally when you ask a request from someone, when you request them to make a change. And I appreciate, I think a lot of your role might involve asking for a behavioral change in people. Right. I read this. So basically it's better to make uh, the request and giving the person you're making the request to an option to like not do it or multiple options for them to kind of choose what works best. Because I guess as any recruiter knows, like if you give directives, like first of all you can't really give directives. It's not in your job description. But also people just generally don't respond well to commands, directives, orders. Right. Like they're like wait, whoa, wait, what are you, you're telling me what to do? So yeah, that's ah, a, that's a weird balance to um. So it's better. Yeah. Always got to persuade, always got to kind of like meet people halfway. It's a, it's an interesting balance.

Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely is. And I think it's about like you said, giving people options. So there's certain things that are non negotiable. Right. Like you have to fill out your feedback form on the ats. We're not accepting it any other way. It goes on the ATS because it feeds into our interview scores for offer purposes and which will then feed into our quality of higher score, which is something we're going to be looking at soon. So, like, that's non negotiable when it comes to sharing your jobs on LinkedIn. Like, one of the projects I worked in over the summer was a toolkit for the talent team, but also for the rest of the business around sharing on LinkedIn. And, um, there's genuinely like 30, 40 different templates of things that people can use. There's all sorts of different routes that people can go down. Like you can just reshare our post. You don't have to post something fresh, but if you want to, here's how you do it. And like just giving people lots of options so they can explore what works best for them, um, and how, how they want to portray themselves and the business. Obviously we have a tone of voice. We, we are a, a certain kind of brand, but actually the people are what makes the brand. At the end of the day, we really love to see people's personality. Um, and so when I see some of the LinkedIn posts that people make, I'm like, uh, I love that because it's just, it's them. Like, I see them in the post and it's such a good reflection of them and why somebody may want to work with them and work with us here as well. So, yeah, by giving people that freedom to do that where it's appropriate and you can, I think it really helps with that engagement because if I'd gone and said, here is the one template for posting a job, don't you dare use anything else. Nobody would have used it. Right. So, um, yeah, I agree and I think that's a really, really important thing to consider when you're looking at any kind of change where you can kind of allow that space for people to, to show their personalities and to kind of work in the way that's best for them.

Speaker A: Well, it certainly seems like a role. Where would you agree? And I suppose with the talent enablement role, but also with the management roles you've had. I mean, especially with the soft skills, communication, stakeholder management or managing teams. Like, there's a lot of, would you say there's been a lot of like, highs and lows, like, oh, you know, big moments, big wins, um, but also like risky moments, risky situations. Like what have been the highs and lows like of, of of those roles. Like how would you define the overall, you know, best, Best moments to begin with?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question. So, so we, we had quite ah, um, up and down 80 month period or so where we had a huge amount of change within the business. Then our head of talent left and then there was even more change and it was, was me and there was obviously there's our chief people officer and there were other heads of other streams of the people team who I worked really closely with. But I was um, kind of flung, I will admit, willingly. I was very keen to do it, but I was kind of flung into this more senior seat and um, been involved in a lot more things that I hadn't had that much exposure to. Um, before any kind of like leadership meetings. I was there normally just to like help and maybe take some notes or whatever. But suddenly I was kind of leading those conversations from a talent perspective and

Speaker A: at the time, by doing, right. Like, uh, yeah.

Speaker B: And that's what I do, that's how I learn best, is by learning by doing. But at the same time it was also terrifying. So I think actually being able to navigate that for me, but also keep the team positive and engaged through so much change was, was really rewarding. Um, the team are amazing. Like they will muck in to anything that needs doing. Um, super flexible. They're all incredible at what they do. Um, very, very fortunate to work with such an amazing team. Um, and so it was really rewarding to support them through, through that time. So I'd say that that was probably ah, a really positive thing. Um, and it was a positive time as well. Like it was all really good change. Like, I don't want you to think anything bad was happening, but it was just a lot going on. Um, um, and it's just always humans don't like change. It's just naturally here we are, we get comfortable, we like what we like and then suddenly everything changes and you're like, oh God. So, um, whilst it was all positive, it was a lot. So I'd say that was probably one of the, One of the career highs for me was kind of coming out the other side of that and being in a good spot with a really engaged team, still scoring really well on like our employee engagement scores and things like that. That. So, yeah, that's something I was really proud of.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's also, I mean it's such a relatable experience with so many TAs that I've spoken to the last kind of 18 months. Have been for everyone, just a very tricky, uh, period with either big hiring sprees or, um, uh, or unfortunate kind of like moments at companies. So it's uh, it's such a tricky period. But hopefully, hopefully we're coming out of it. I mean, I've been saying hopefully we're coming out of it for like six months, but you know, like, maybe this is the new normal. Who knows? Like, it's such a weird, um, market that we're in and who knows where it's gonna go, but hopefully in a, in a positive direction. And um, any key, I guess, would there be any like. And doesn't need to be like necessarily at this company. Maybe it was like at Nationwide or a previous role where looking back, like let's say knowing what you know now, would there be anything you would have done better? Like, oh, what's, what's maybe one key learning that you would like pick out from, from that experience and say, ah, you know, this is where I would have like, um, knowing what I know now, this is what I would have done slightly, uh, differently and I suppose for anyone listening and that's in the same trajectory, maybe looking to progress into a lead role or maybe looking to move into a talent enablement role. Like, how would you define that, that learning?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure, it's a good question. So I think a learning I've had. So I, I, um, know that I've got to where I've got to by pushing myself and putting my hand up to do extra things and challenging myself. But it definitely got to a point where I was taking on too much extra stuff rather than actually doing a good job of my core role. Um, and partly that could have been because I was like, actually I'm not really enjoying the core role. So all this extra stuff is nice and shiny. Let's go for that. But equally it was also because I was like, I know I want to progress. I need to be able to demonstrate I've done this. But it got to a point where we were doing some team awards at a company and um, the award for always volunteers for everything or some words, those effects. And I was like, that's going to be me. And it was. And everybody was laughing and I was laughing as well because it was quite funny. But then in reflection I was like, I'm not sure I want that to be my reputation. I want my reputation to be that I'm actually really good at what I do. And I am, am supportive and I am helpful, but actually I just smash what I do as well, as helping other people. So that was a real learning for me is finding that balance of. Actually, of course, if you want to say yes to other stuff and you want to stretch yourself and it is helpful to do that for your growth, then go for it. But don't let yourself become that person who, oh, yeah, Abby will do it. Oh, yeah, well, we know Abby will do it. Like, that's not for me. At least that wasn't what I wanted. So, in reflection, I wish I'd realized that a little bit sooner. Um, and I still don't think it would have impacted my growth because I would have still said yes to the right things and just no to the wrong things. Like, why do I need to volunteer to be a note taker, uh, in a disciplinary meeting? Like, it's not part of my job, and just because nobody else volunteered, actually, it's not my responsibility to do that. But. And this is in a previous job, but I kind of felt like I had to because nobody else is volunteering. So realizing that, actually there is a line of where you can still be supportive and helpful of others, but still protect your own mental health, your own workload, your own work life balance, that's been a real key learning for me.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I totally agree. I mean, um, I remember also at some point, I think in the first half of my career, it was kind of like a similar situation. I'm like, I want to progress, I want to grow. So let me take on all these projects, say yes to everything. It's such an unfortunate one, though, that people kind of then instead of the reaction you're looking for, like, oh, uh, this person, like Abby, always keen to go the extra mile, you risk becoming the, oh, this person. They say yes to everything. So let's give them more or give them the tasks that no one wants to do. So, but Abby says yes to everything. Jose says yes, everything. Let's give them those tasks. So I guess it's, uh, I guess framing it as, oh, actually, I'm doing this because I want to go the extra mile. I want to, uh, get the job done. Right. So that's one thing to consider. But, yeah, I totally agree that you risk almost burning out, taking too much responsibility, and the more spinning plates you take on, the more mistakes you risk making. Right. So I guess prioritizing is a key thing. Like, oh, not taking everything, but taking the right things and doing them very well, as opposed to a bunch of things, um, that you're not doing too well. Like, I remember I had this Manager long ago that uh, they were not a, uh, they were, I were, I was reporting to them. But they weren't originally uh, recruitment manager. They had like a technical background and they just so happened to be managing me. And that's, that's maybe another story. But they were trying to take so much of the recruitment side of things in their hands also to the point that it almost never got done because they, it was, it would just become a long list of tasks that they would, they had to do that would just, it would just be too much for one person and uh, they would almost be like um, what's the word I used once? Um, holding the task hostage.

Speaker B: That's a good way to think of it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh, yeah, just prioritize and get stuff done as opposed to too much stuff that doesn't get done.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And I think it also being able to let go of things as well. There was definitely a time when I first moved into a management role and I started to work on kind of project stuff where um, I really struggled to delegate because I knew what I wanted, how I wanted, how I wanted to do it. So I found it really hard to kind of step away and trust others to do a good job. And it's not that I didn't trust my team, but when you've kind of got something that's kind of your baby, like handing parts of that over to somebody to do is actually quite nerve wracking. Um, and um, that's something that I've definitely had ups and downs of. There has been times I'm like no, I'll do it all. But then there's other. So I'm like no, please do this, do that, etc and actually been really helpful. That was some really valuable feedback I got from the team, um, here at Legend. I asked them some feedback after that. Kind of interesting 18 months. Um, and it was, it was all mostly positive but a lot of the constructor stuff was around like we could have helped you more if you'd let us. Um, so that was actually really valuable feedback to hear that the team were really willing to do that. Um, and I know that they're capable of it. But it's very easy to be protective of stuff if, especially if it kind of is going to end up looking like it's your work. Like you want to know it's been done really well. Um, and like I said, it's not that I don't trust people but it can be quite hard to let go sometimes. So I think that Ability to delegate as well as the beings making sensible choices around what you say yes to. I think those have probably been the two key learnings for me.

Speaker A: Totally trust, trust, trust and prioritizing and say no. Right. Should be kind of like key learnings. Well, look, the last question was any cool ideas, tools, methods you wanted to share, Abby? Anything you've seen recently or read recently. But I kind of feel we've gone through tons of insights, tons of amazing kind of observations on talent enablement. Do we leave it there or.

Speaker B: Yeah, I should try to think about this. And, and if I'm honest with you, it's a real basic idea which some people probably be like, why are you. But for me it's time blocking in my calendar. So from going from when I was a recruiter and then even as a manager, like I'd have like five, six, one to ones, I'd have meetings, I'd had leadership meetings, I'd have this, I'd have that. So my calendar would be really structured going into this enablement role where I had like our team meeting, I had my one to one with my manager. I don't manage anybody now. So that was, that was basically it apart from a couple of recurring project meetings with the wider business. Like I have days where my calendar is empty. Um, and I know that if I don't have structure, it's very easy for me to procrastinate and spend like the first hour of the day being like, oh my God, what am I actually doing today? So I have an hour booked out on a Monday morning, 9 till 10, where I literally go through everything that's on my list and I literally block it into my calendar and there's obviously like flexibility if something urgent comes in and stuff can move but, but just literally blocking out. Like I've got two hours blocked out this afternoon because I need to write a load of LinkedIn content for uh, the business for the next couple of weeks. So I know if I don't block that, I'll forget about it. So it seems really obvious, but it's been a real shift for me of going from that constant like meeting, speaking to people, your slack is pinging every minute to silence and an empty calendar. It's been a real shift, so it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's really worked for me kind of scheduling that stuff in so I don't miss anything.

Speaker A: Yeah, having a moment for yourself, like a couple of minutes where you can just think clearly, think what do I need to do? How am I going to do things, just strategizing a little bit in your head, that really kind of improves your performance, your productivity. So time blocking everyone. That's something you got to do. Uh, well, look, uh, Abby, Uh, and for the listeners. So I'll add, um, uh, Abby, I guess to find you on LinkedIn, right. I'll add a little link to your profile in the episode description. Uh, but look, was an amazing time speaking with you, learning so much about talent, enablement and career journey. So it was an absolute pleasure, and thank you so much,

Speaker B: Sam.