Work Is What We Do Not Where We Go - Leading Beyond Hybrid with Karren Ferris

Speaker A: The argument that culture will be adversely impacted when people are working remotely just doesn't have a leg to stand on, because culture is not built in a building. Culture is how people come together, as you just said, and collaborate and work together. And we have the tools and the technology to enable that.

Speaker B: Welcome to Future Fit Leadership, a podcast for leaders at every stage who want to stay relevant in a world that keeps changing. Leadership has shifted. The pace is faster, the expectations are higher, and the future is calling for a different kind of leader. One who is human centered, grounded and able to balance capability with empathy. These conversations bring together global perspectives on the skills and mindsets that help people and organizations thrive. Hello and welcome to Future Fit Leadership. I hope wherever you are listening to this podcast, you are well. The Victorian government's changes to working from home laws have sparked strong opinions across the state. Supporters argue they certainly provide certainty and protect employee flexibility. Critics say they remove an employer's ability to make decisions that are right for their business. But beyond the politics sits a much bigger question. Should governments be legislating how workplaces are led because every piece of legislation brings unintended consequences? What does this mean for productivity, for culture, for collaboration? And what happens when legislation begins replacing leadership judgment? There's another side to this debate which perhaps isn't getting enough attention. Many organisations have spent years moving away from rigid workplace policies, building cultures based on trust, accountability and flexibility. They recognise that flexibility looks different across every team, every role and every individual. So does a mandated minimum actually take that flexibility away? At what point does flexible work stop being flexible and simply become another rule? They're not easy questions, but they're questions we should all be asking. My guest today is Karen Ferris, one of Australia's leading experts on, uh, organisational change and the future of work. Rather than taking a political position, Karen challenges us to think the conversation entirely. What if we've confused hybrid work with flexible work? What if the real issue isn't where people work, but where the leaders have the capability to build high performing teams built on trust, accountability and outcomes? This isn't a conversation about who wins the work from home debate. It's a conversation about leadership and whether we're building workplaces around legislation or people. Please enjoy my conversation with Karen. Well, hello, Karen Ferris. Welcome to Future Fit Leadership. How are you?

Speaker A: I'm, uh, very good, actually. My voice is a little croaky. I've got what everyone else has got at the moment. But I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Speaker B: It is going around at the moment, whatever, whatever the lurk is. But you and I, um, connected on LinkedIn post a really interesting article that you wrote. But before we get into that, I would love to know a little about your journey. How did you become the country's, one of the country's leading voices on change, resilience and the future of work?

Speaker A: Yes, a very good question. Aren't they all? So my background was in IT service management. So very different sphere in a way. So that's what brought me out to Australia in 1998 for work. Um, never look back. So obviously from the uk you might

Speaker B: be able to tell, tell by the accent. That's a dead giveaway.

Speaker A: And um, it was whilst I was working in IT service management that I came across um, a framework for embedding change into an organization. When I looked at this framework, this would be really good in the service management space. Um, and it was all about organizational change. And I realized I've been doing organizational change for most of my working life. I just haven't called it that. I've been a team leader, you know, and all, all that sort of thing, leading teams and so leading those people through various different types of changes. Um, so that really shifted me then into the organizational change management space. And that was the first book that I wrote which was focused on the service management industry since it's been rewritten for all industries. So that was my focus on organizational change. Then I started to look at in conjunction workforce resilience because um, my frustration was that people were saying things like, oh, we have mental first aiders on site. I'm like, well yeah, that's all well and good but have you got rid of the stigma that avoids people going and asking them for help and people going no. So it was like these touch, you know, these one off gestures being made to help people in the workplace be more resilient in the face of constant change. That was that sort of work I did and then a big focus on leadership, um, because I really do believe that we have and have had for a while a leadership crisis and we're just in a lot of situations choosing to ignore it. And it's having its toll on the workforce as we can see.

Speaker B: And leadership really changed post Covid. I mean I know we all talk about it and it's probably becoming really boring, but that was a bit of a marker uh, for everybody in terms of, you know, if you want one in how leadership change and hybrid work or the model of hybrid work that emerg was a huge influence on how leadership was expected to change. Why do you think leaders have found it so hard to move towards this new model of work?

Speaker A: I think it's in a nutshell, it's about control. I think there's a lot of leaders and we're generalizing. There's a lot of leaders, especially in the larger organizations, um, who really want to go back to how it was before COVID When I could see you in the office and in their heads I knew you were working and we're like, no, you didn't. They think, correct. Um, I can walk the corridors, I can walk past the desks, I see people there and I have this sense of control now. What really is really frustrating and the sad part of it is that during COVID it was the greatest opportunity to find, to find a new way of working for everybody. And for many leaders, they just couldn't wait to get back to how it was before then. So even though we didn't have organisations going out of business because of COVID or um, lost productivity or a terrible impact on the culture of the organization, none of that happened. But that's what people are quoting as we need people back in the office because it's about culture and collaboration and that's just a load of nonsense. Yeah, culture isn't a building, doesn't make any sense. So I think that we've got a whole generation of leaders who are not prepared to unlearn how they led pre Covid to say, okay, the world's changed. I need to evolve with it. I need to change my leadership style. I need to move away from being looking at control and moving totally to an uh, environment of trust and empowerment. And I think a lot of leaders are finding that very difficult because when you go through a process of unlearning and learning, the first is the wake up call to say something's fundamentally shift. I am no longer serving myself and I'm no longer serving my team. By the way, I'm leading, um, to the wake up calls. A big aha moment. And when you have to unlearn m what you've probably spent decades honing, well,

Speaker B: every book was written about that as well in leadership.

Speaker A: Right. So that's Right. So all that stuff you've read and all that stuff that you've practiced and whatever, it's got to go out the window, it's got to be removed. This isn't about adding two, this is about removing that and saying there's a whole new leadership style I need to adopt and I need to Learn and relearn. And um, that means I might not be the expert I thought I was anymore. And that's hard for a lot of people. I might not be respected the way I thought I was anymore, but those leaders who are doing that are the ones that you know, are ahead of the game. But unfortunately there's a whole raft of leadership that's still stuck back in pre Covid times. And how we move them out of that is the big million dollar question. Um, I think the wake up call will be to slow burn and I think it will be people leaving organizations slowly and then suddenly turn around and go what happened?

Speaker B: Well, it was you and new management coming through. I mean I, I can see new emerging leaders will, will have a different view on, on how to lead and manage people. I'm interested to know what does hybrid work look like to you? Because it is different for everybody.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's become. What's the word? Corrupted, if you like the term hybrid. Um, for me we should never use the hybrid term. It's binary. It's that or this true flexibility. Work flexibility is be able to work from where you want to work, when you want to work, when it makes sense to do so. It's not home or the office. It could be home, library, hotel, shared workspace, cafe, whatever it is. That's the true flexibility. That's what we meant to or should have put in place. But organizations then felt oh well, we just go halfway mhm. And say we need you in the office two days a week and you work from home the other three or whatever it is, that's not flexibility. And when organizations say you can work from home and it depends on the employee, your days at home are Wednesday, Thursday. Well that's not flexibility, that's a mandate. M the same as five days a week in the office is a mandate. So we've lost the plot along the way saying hybrid. Um, and we need this generation of leaders which we've just been talking about to wake up to the fact that work is what we do, not where we go.

Speaker B: I hope you're enjoying our conversation. A quick word from our sponsor. Have you ever wondered how to attract, develop and augment diverse leadership capability in your organization? Well, Future Leadership has a range of leadership solutions including executive search, interim executives, leadership development programs, coaching and workforce transformation specialists. They are an Australian owned B corp and one of very few globally accredited and connected talent solution firms. They are very proud of their 22 year history bringing more diverse leadership to Australian decision making tables. See the Link in our show notes to get in touch with them.

Speaker A: Where we do. Yeah. Not where we go. So flexibility is allowing, is trusting employees. I mean, at the end of the day, they're adults. You employed adults. Can we please treat them as adults now? So we should be able to treat our people as adults and trust them to say when it makes sense for us to gather in person, wherever that might be, when it's intentional, it makes sense to do so. We will do that. We'll get together to do some team building or some high energy brainstorming or collaboration. But attending a place has to be intentional, has to be reason. Not just because it's a Wednesday, not just because it's my second day of my quota to be in the office and I'm going to go in there, have a two hour commute to sit on zoom calls all day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It makes absolutely no sense. Yeah.

Speaker B: I want to touch now on what has happened in Victoria and for people who haven't followed this debate because, you know, we've got listeners from all over the world. Can you explain what the proposed work from home laws actually mean in Victoria?

Speaker A: So it is an interesting thing that's evolved. So let me say outright this is not a political, this is not particular statement. I actually am a labor voter, so there you go. It's the labor government in Victoria. I just don't agree with this proposed legislation. So what they're saying is, and I think the intent is right, the intent is to say, look, if you've got employers who will not, and they're using the word again, flexibility, and I'm using air quotes, flexibility. If you've got an employer who won't give you flexibility, we will legislate that they must allow you to work from home two days a week. And their argument or the proposal is that that provides flexibility. Well, it doesn't, but it will also save you money and time and commute and everything else. Now the employee and the employer have to agree on what those two days will be. So they get named and written down. It's an agreement. If an employee wants to change those days, they have to put it in writing. The employer then has 21 days to respond. If the employer rejects it, then the employee can go to. There's a number of bodies, they can go and escalate it through arbitration and whatever. So there's a lot of red tape around it as well.

Speaker B: It's so complicated.

Speaker A: Haven't we. That is scaring a lot of organizations, as it should do.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but like I Say going back to the intent, the intent is right to provide more flexibility. But I think they're doing the, the wrong thing because they're just interested. Introducing another mandate where it was the employee, sorry, the employer saying, you will work in the office two days a week. Now the government is saying you will work in your office two days a week. Um, it's just more, it's just rigidity replacing another rigidity.

Speaker B: But, uh, also when governments get involved in workplace design, it gets dangerous.

Speaker A: Yes, very dangerous. And my fear is that it will backfire because you could have an employer now who is. Or employees are saying, we want more flexibility. And they're trying to discuss it and trying to do the right thing and it's all very hard and everything else, um, which should mean it shouldn't go into too hard basket. But now that employer could say, you get two days and that's it. No more two days. And we agree which two days they are. So now we've created a ceiling that if an employee, employee or employees say, well, we actually think it'd be a better model if we had true flexibility. And we worked with our leaders to decide when we come into the office and when we don't, the employer now can say, not even talking about it. Legislation says two days. And your days are Monday and Tuesday. So then you've got the situation where an employee says, well, yeah, I've got Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday I've got, um, some tradespeople coming to the house and they need to be there. Or I've got a large delivery happening. Can I work from home on Wednesday? No, your days are Monday, Tuesday. We've legislated on it. It's just going to give those bad employers and bad leaders carte blanche to say no. And that could make it worse for a lot of employees than it is now. And you could have an employer, uh, that's currently allowing people to work three days from home can say no, we're going back to two because the legislation said so. So I just think it's going to. So backfire. And now we've got. There was a latest in the Australian news on. I, um, think it was. Check the facts9.com they said over half of these businesses and all businesses are impacted. There's no particular. The only difference between large and small is that the small businesses, I think it's less than 15 people, um, get longer to implement the legislation than the other organization. That's the only difference. It applies across the board. And over 50% of these organizations in Victoria are saying, well, we're going to offshore these roles now. And I'm like, hold on. You're fighting back against remote work, but you're going to offshore. Isn't that remote? And the only reason. So it's just, you know, I'm laughing at it because it's just absurd. It's like saying, well, we don't want you to work remotely, but the government's going to legislate that you can for two days. That's going to create us so much red tape and bureaucracy that we will offshore your role overseas so we can actually control how you work where Here. We can't control it anymore because the government's legislating M. But then it's going back to. Hold on. Wasn't the whole start of this argument about people working remotely, but now you're talking about offshoring or. Because someone is not sitting in Victoria, are they sitting in, I don't know, New Zealand? What's the difference?

Speaker B: What's the difference? So, Karen, do you think that. And you mentioned this earlier, there'll be bad leaders or poor leaders or leaders who like the compliance, um, who will say, great, I've now got the government on my side. You will be in the office these two days, and it is what it is. And you know, I will. You will do what I tell you to do around this. And then there'll be other businesses and leaders who have been working really hard on getting the hybrid model, the flexible model. Right. They've, uh, had experiments on, you know, different ways of doing the work. And you would hope that those organization and those leaders will continue to do that work. And then suddenly you have two very different environments in the workplace. And there will come a point in time where employees will go, when they add the interview, will actually ask the question, do you follow the mandate in your organization or do you do other than the mandate? And if you do other than the mandate, I rather work for you.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's already. It's already happened. Is it? We see all the job adverts now that say, you know, on site, remote or hybrid or whatever. Because people are asking those questions up front. So, yeah, and that's why I was talking about the slow burn. I think people will drift away from these organizations that are, uh, you know, sticking to the rules, to one where they'll say, well, yes, we. We know about the legislation, but actually, you know, we, uh, are. We have a totally flexible sort of model. But therein lies another issue. And I don't know how the legislation will, will handle this because the employer has to say, uh, Karen Ferriss has her two flexible days as per legislation, on a Monday and Tuesday. Now that is taking away the whole flexibility that organization might have had in place. Mhm. They might have been saying, Karen Faris, you can work, you want to work as long as you achieve the outcomes that we've set and the business needs, etc. Now how's that going to work? I don't know how that's going to work. If you have total flexibility now to work where you want, when you want, and the legislation comes in and the employer has to show if they were to get asked the hard question, are you complying with this legislation? Well, no, we're not. Because Karen hasn't worked in the office for two days, sorry, for three days for the past three months she's had no need to. She's doing concentration, focused work and there's no need for it to come into the office. So is that going to backfire on those really good organizations?

Speaker B: Well, you would hope that the madness of that doesn't happen. Right? Because you would hope. But then crazier things have happened. One of the things I want to just touch on around, you know, the hybrid flexible model. What happens when, you know, we talk about collaboration and mentoring and learning, you know, you've got young people coming to the workforce, uh, the best way to learn is to follow someone or sit with someone for, you know, two or three weeks at a time in a genuinely complete flexible model. How do those things work?

Speaker A: So again, it's going back to treating people as adults and saying, and um, being intentional about in person working or intentional about working in the office. So if it is going to be far more productive and achieve better outcomes by having a person sit in person beside another person and take them through the job to mentor them, to coach them, to train them, whatever it might be, then do makes sense to do it. But there's organizations that have, you know, global organizations with true flexibility that are managing, you know, coaching and training and mentoring globally around the world without those people sitting next to each other. Um, and it works for them. They have the models and the technology and whatever it might be, and they've trained their leaders and they've trained their coaches and they've trained the trainers to be able to train people remotely. Um, so they've invested in it, so it works for them. But the argument about, oh, we can't, you know, work remotely because we won't be able to mentor people. No one's saying it has to be 100% remote or 100% not office. That's not the argument. It's like, yes, we're going to the office when it makes sense to do so. This today I'm training John on um, this new technology. So I'm going to sit with John and watch what John's doing and correct it when it's not going the way it should, etc and John can ask questions. That makes me, makes sense for me to do that commute today. So I'm going to do it. So it's just giving, applying common sense and that, you know, that I'm not going to try and do it remotely because I know it's not going to be beneficial. It's not going to be beneficial to the trainee either.

Speaker B: Yeah, but that leads the question. And you know, we, we run a business here and we do have a flexible environment. But I've always said to the people I manage is whatever flexibility we choose to have as a business and it is not what the Victorian government has mandated. Um, it has to work for the employee, but it also has to work for the business. It can't just be one sided. So what are some of the responsibility employees carry in making a flexible workplace successful?

Speaker A: Absolutely. There's the onus on the employee. It's not the employee standing up and saying, this is what I demand and you're going to have to supply it. It's about the employer, uh, and the employee getting together and saying rather than it being a unilateral decision, one side or the other, both parties get together, say here's our business outcomes, this is what we need to achieve. And you're going to get everyone to agree to that because it's the future of the organization, it's your job. You know, we need the business to be successful. These are the outcomes. Okay, this is what you'd like from a flexibility point of view. This is what you'd like as a workforce, a flexibility point of view. How will that enable us to meet those business outcomes? Where's the rub? Where's the bit that says that's not going to actually align? And how do we come to a compromise on that? Because as long as the business is achieving its outcomes, who cares how, you know, where people work to do it? So it's having those conversations and that, I don't want to use the word negotiation, but that's sort of, you know, it is really. And again, if we're treating people as adults and have those, those adult conversations, I'm Going to go, okay boss. Yeah, I agree. That's what we need to achieve. It actually doesn't make any sense for me not to be coming in on um, uh, a Friday because the nature of my role or that's my training day or my mentoring day, whatever it might be. So I'll make sure I meet, help the business meet the business outcomes because that's in my interest. So my job's on the line if we don't. And I'll do that. So the onus is on the employee as well. It's not an all right out. You know, we want everything and we're not going to consider how the business operates.

Speaker B: Taking a leadership view now, what leadership skills have become really essential to make this world work?

Speaker A: The ones that are missing. So we still have leaders with that command and control mindset. The skills we need today are uh, leaders who have emotional intelligence. Basically. We've talked about that for decades and decades and we just sort of eye roll when it happens. Oh, emotional intelligence, yeah, whatever. But it really is important to be able not only to be self aware but aware of how other people are feeling and operating and um, and why that's taking place. We need leaders who have that empathy. So when the employee for example says my days are home on Monday, Tuesday, I have a large delivery on Wednesday, then you have a leader that says, yeah, take that day. Um, yeah, it's okay, do what you need to do. And that's where you've got leaders with empathy.

Speaker B: I've got a young lady who works with me and she's got two kids. One, one is at kinder, one is at school. We've just had school holidays and she's worked the entire school holidays from home M on a lot of the days. Now as an employer, I could have said absolutely not. How are you going to do your work given that you've got kids at home and you know, both your mother and your mother in law and your mum are not well enough to look after the children. You sought out your care now I was like, yep, sure, whatever. The work still got done. She still managed to, you know, stay at home and look after her kids and shared the workload with her, with her husband. But if I put my foot down, I probably would have disengaged her from my business.

Speaker A: Absolutely disengaged her. Uh, and then you might actually lose her loser. You'll walk out the door and then. And a lot, a lot of employee employers are saying, you know, we're losing our talent, we're losing the people we really want to keep. Because who's. Who's most likely to get a new job? The talent. Yeah, they're the ones that are going to walk out first. And people have already said they'd rather take a pay cut than lose their flexibility. The research has been done, so that's the same. People would. Would walk. So. But yeah, empathy, it's absolutely important. And it's, it's something that people, again, say, oh, empathy. And yes, yes, I, yes, I'm empathetic. And I'm like, no, you're not. You know, it's. It's not sympathy. It's not, oh, dear. Uh, sorry to hear how you're feeling. You know, you, you know, it's a lot more than that. We need to understand and we need leaders who can be adaptive. Technology in the world of work is changing faster than leaders are changing. So we need to be truly adaptive. To say, how I'm doing something today might not be how I need to do it tomorrow. And being open and transparent, we have leaders who expect that as soon as they're given the title. And the leadership should never be a title, but they feel it is that they have to have all the answers. And we suddenly lose all transparency rather than leaders said, you know what? I actually don't know the answer to that. What do you think? So we have true collaboration, and leaders recognize that they're not having to be the expert. That's why you have a team. You know, why suddenly do you think you have to all answers and be the expert in everything? That's what your team are there for. You're there to not direct them. You're there to provide direction.

Speaker B: Yeah. Put good people around you and get out of their way. That's what you need to do.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: How do you build trust when you don't see people every day?

Speaker A: Trust is not. Again, it's not about presence. It's about you as a leader or us as leaders being transparent, being open and honest, and, um, operating with integrity. If we say we're going to do something, we do it and we follow through. If we can't do it, we say, why? If we don't have the answers, we admit m. We don't have the answers, but we will help people find the answers. And you truly listen to what employees are, uh, saying, and they know that they've been heard, and that's the difference. We talk about communication and listening, and I just roll my eyes because people do. It's like, oh, yeah, we all communicate. And listen. I'm like, no, you don't. You really listen. Did you really hear what that employee was saying to you so that you can act accordingly? If people don't think they're being listened to, they don't trust you.

Speaker B: They don't trust you. So I'm going to flip this question now, and I'm going to add a

Speaker A: little bit to it.

Speaker B: I'm going to flip the question. How do you as an employee, build trust with your employer in a flexible world and also ensure that the accountability doesn't become surveillance? Because if you're an employee, for me, they're the two things. The onus is on you to. To make sure that your employer not only trusts you, but knows that you're doing the job. And that's where the accountability piece comes in.

Speaker A: Yeah. And there's two sides to that as well. So it's about a leader being clear on expectations and outcomes, and the employee then saying, okay, I understand what you expect of me. And it's about those two parties having the conversation to make sure. So if I'm saying to an employee, if I'm the leader and I'm saying to employee, this is what I expect from you, I make sure I'm clear about when and what it looks like. I'm always there to support you. This isn't abdication. I'm always there to support you. But then play it back to me. So I make sure that the employee knows what's expected. And then I get, like you said, I get out the way, and then the employee gets on with the job. And if there's an environment of trust and psychological safety, that employee should be able to say, I'm struggling. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to achieve this by the date you wanted it. So there's no sort of going off and stressing and whatever, because they don't think they're going to be able to achieve the outcome. And it's about reporting in as needed as agreed to say, this is the progress I've been making. Are we both sides of the party happy with how I'm progressing? Am, um, I ahead of schedule? Am, uh, I on schedule? Do I have any obstacles I need to be removed? And it's having those conversations on an ongoing basis, you know, with your leader. And that's building, you know, that builds the trust that the job is being done and the outcomes are being delivered. It should never be about the hours that you work. You know, as a leader, if you get the job done in Two hours rather than two days. I don't really care. You know, I'm using a generalization there, but it's about the outcome that you receive, that you produce is the most important thing. And when we have leaders that are using surveillance to check that employees are at their keyboard. So seriously, employees know how to get around those things, you know, and when we. I'll just tell a bit of story because I love this when there's a company called Top 10 VPN. And, um, when Covid hit, they were monitoring the uptake globally on employee surveillance software, and it spiked in March 2020. It went through the roof compared to the time previous year. The thing is, it hasn't dropped back. We all thought, oh, it's a knee jerk reaction. We need to put surveillance software out there and start monitoring our employees. It's levelled out. It stayed at that level since COVID Um, and what happened then was all the boss work came in and employees spent so much time trying to work out how they could keep that green light on and keep the mouse moving on the desk. And I wrote an article way back when some of the things employees were coming up with was like attaching the mouse to a toy train that was going around, around and, you know, or to the, the oscillating fan on the desk. You know, some crazy stuff was going on. And I'm like, they're spending hours coming

Speaker B: up with these words rather than working.

Speaker A: And then, you know, rather than working. So. And you still see it now. You know, we've got teams or Skype or whatever it might be. Everyone just wants to keep that green light on. Because there's a sense that if the boss sees it go yellow or red, they think, I'm not working. I could be reading a really detailed document. I could be working offline, you know, where it makes sense to do so. But we still have that leadership mindset which comes back to the start of our conversation that says, unless the lights on, unless I can see you, you're not working.

Speaker B: How do we build on our culture in a flexible environment where people aren't physically together or not spending a lot of time physically together, where we perhaps are not having the spontaneous conversations around the water cooler or making a coffee? Uh, innovation can be impacted. People aren't in a huddle together and trying to solve a problem. How do we build on that in a flexible workplace?

Speaker A: The argument that culture will be adversely impacted when people are working remotely just doesn't have a leg to stand on because culture is not built in A building culture is how people come together, as you've just said, and collaborate and work together. And we have the tools and the technology to enable that. There are tools out there that will link people up spontaneously. Like have a virtual water cooler. Yes. So, Karen, who' interested in what's going on in the World cup right now? Um, because I've got a profile up there, will link me up with somebody, depending on the work schedule. It's this clever technology, works all this out. It doesn't just interrupt you in the middle of you doing something. Will link me up with, you know, uh, Sabina, who's also got an interest in that. Just for a quick coffee, catch up. So it just assigns you 10 minutes to chat. So there's things like that. But it's just, you know, I've got a client I work remotely with and the team I'm working with on this client. We'll often just jump into conversations. You know, they can see you're, uh, you're free, you're not in a meeting, you're not. You haven't located yourself as busy, and we'll just jump in. I've had people say, how are you feeling now, Karen? You know, I heard you got the lurgy and, oh, this is what the Doctor did for me. And we have those conversations and then we start talking about, oh, what are you up to today? So those conversations still happen. If you allow people to have those conversations so that they can. The red, you know, the green light doesn't have to be on all the time because they're having a conversation with somebody and working on those collaboration things and saying, let's get together. We don't have to be in person. If we can, great, let's do that. But the culture is about how people work together and how they're led and not the building that they're sitting in.

Speaker B: There will always be people in. In any workforce or any business that like to be in the office. I'm one of those people. I don't like working from home. I do from time to time, but I really. I love the energy of people. I love the connection, I love the conversations. And I just work better at my desk. So would one of the things that concerns me is if I have a bunch of people as a leader that I see in the office all the time and a bunch of people who work remotely that I don't see all the time, are we potentially going to have opportunities that are missed for those that are not in the office, like promotions or something else?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's a big one. And it comes down to our own sort of internal biases and stuff like that. That. And it's been shown that people who you see are most likely to be given the opportunities and people you don't see. Mhm. So that's a big shift in leadership mindset that if we are truly going to have people in office, people remotely or wherever they might be, that we have to as leaders ensure that we are fair and equitable in how we lead and manage those people and recognize our biases. Because like you say it should be a choice. I'm not, I never have advocated not having an office or a place to go. I think we should for those opportunities to get together. But it should be yes to say it should be an option that people want to go into the office all the time. They can. But yeah, leaders need to be, we need to educate leaders how to lead those distributed teams and to make sure that our biases don't come into play when we have people who are with us every day of the week and those that aren't.

Speaker B: Um, if you were putting a building together today, knowing what you know about flexible work, how would you design it? Because the offices that we currently live and sit and work in are just completely obsolete. Um, or will be very soon.

Speaker A: I think you've got to. And I'm not a workplace designer, but think of all the, I would start thinking about all the different types of, of work that people do. So there's those collaboration, high energy gets togethers. So we need a facility with really good video conferencing for those people for some reason can't be there who can participate. And we've got, you know, shared whiteboards and all that sort of stuff. Then you've got people who want to come in the office to do focused work. That's what I prefer to work from home to do because that's my preference. But some people, they can't get a quiet time at home so they would prefer to do focus work. So then you need quiet spaces where people can sort of isolate themselves a little bit to concentrate on what they're, they're focused on. You've got smaller collaboration spaces. So think of all the different type of work and activities and design the workplace accordingly. And yeah, the, the big challenge is like how many desks do I need? Yeah, ah, you know, but generally you have a sense of how many people are coming into the office. You know, when, if you need that capability and you know I would have more, more desks than I assume are going to be needed for those before. It's going to cost me at the end of the day. But yeah, don't design the, you know, the cubicles and the desks and fixed desks have stuff that's work based, activity based really is what we're saying. Yeah.

Speaker B: If you were advising every CEO in Australia today, what's the one conversation they should be having with their leadership team about the future of work?

Speaker A: I would say the need to recognize that they need to unlearn. Most of them will probably have to unlearn how they've been leading and having that frank conversation that, that's not easy to do. But right now we're not serving ourselves or our teams by leading how we used to. And as your CEO, I will give you all the help and support needed to transform, uh, our leadership team, transform the way we are leading today. Otherwise it will tell we will lose our people. But we have to evolve as fast as, or keep up with the way the world of work has evolved, how way of technology has evolved. We've got AI now it's causing a whole other issue for leadership. Again, AI is changing how leaders have to lead. So are we ready for that as well? So that's why I'd be saying CEO, uh, is we need to recognize. And a good CEO will say, you know, I've had to do the same thing. How I was leading, you know, this organization five years ago is not how I can lead it today. Things have changed, the organization's changed and let's do that as a, as a, as a collective.

Speaker B: You mentioned AI. And it's one of the questions I do have for you, and I'll bring it up forward now is, you know, there's been a lot of talk about how AI will replace a lot of the work that we do. What impact will that have on a flexible workplace?

Speaker A: I mean it's going to, it is going to do a lot of the tasks and automate a lot of the mundane things that people do. Not sure how that affect flexibility. Maybe I haven't thought that through enough. But what we have to watch what is happening. A lot of organizations are reacting and leadership again is saying, and we've seen it in the headlines, we will get rid of all our entry level jobs because we'll automate them with AI and we don't need those people anymore. And now we're seeing a turnaround with some of those organizations are going to, oh dear, we do need them.

Speaker B: We have no pipeline.

Speaker A: We have no, we have no pipeline. But also I think Ford, Ford is one of them. I've got an article coming out soon about Ford and IBM and Klarma, who've all had to turn around and say, we've got no pipeline. But also we had those expert people, the problem solvers, because they're usually the older members of the, of the team that the gray engineers or something I think they called them, who can solve those detailed issues and are also needed to train AI. And they've had to bring, I think, 500 people back into the organization. Um, so they've had to do a backflip. So you can't just say all those people aren't going to be needed in the organization now and we'll just get rid of them. You need to think through the consequences. I think that's what's not happening at the moment. People are jumping on the bandwagon of fear, of missing out. Yeah, we can't look at, we shouldn't be looking at, you know, all those people work from home. Then we can just automate their jobs because they can't be doing much.

Speaker B: No, I'll share, I'll share my take on this because we are talking about flexibility at the moment. You know, I look at it and I go, we have in many ways been so rigid about leadership. We had all the books, we had all the training courses, we had all the leadership speakers globally around the world talking about, this is how. And you, you know, rinse, repeat. I'm going to follow these four leaders and, uh, what they do, and I'm going to apply it in my business. And I've read the book and there are five things that I need to do and I'm going to apply today. When we talk about flexible workplaces, we also need to talk about flexible leadership styles where we cannot be out there in the public going, well, we're going to get rid of all entry level and this is what the new world of work is going to look like. And we're trying to create a rigid environment that just looks different. It's not going to work. I believe that the world of leadership is now moving into that flexible domain where we actually don't know what's going to happen next week because everything is moving so fast that we just have to go with the flow and redesign everything we do on a regular basis. And it may mean that we redesign workshops and how we work and our leadership styles on a regular basis. And we've, you know, that puts a lot of stress and pressure on us, but I think the day of having anything rigid and set in concrete is just no longer relevant. That's my take on it.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I'm absolutely right. Um, this all comes back down to adaptive leadership, which means you continually change, ready to adapt, shift, change, whatever it might be, and accept that we don't know what's around the corner, we just don't. We don't know what change is going to hit. A lot of the time we can preempt it, we can forecast it, but we don't know when the next pandemic's going to come around the corner and how we're going to, you know, or whatever it's going to be. We need to just be ready for it. And that's why I work with organizations to build resilience. M say let's just accept we don't know, but let's be ready for it, rather than just go into a total meltdown, you know? Uh, what do you mean we don't know what's coming next? Well, that's the real world. But we can equip ourselves to be ready and on the front foot all the time for that, sort of. And accept that the, you know, the workplace is, or the world of work is complex and it's just going to get more complex as we go. Yeah, that's our reality and that's the world we live in and we need a lot of people to have that wake up call that this is the world we're in, we can't change it. It's just going to get faster and faster and more complex as we go.

Speaker B: What's in all the work that you've done and the experience that you've had around this space? What's the questions around flexible workplace that we should be asking not only ourselves but our employees and our organisations that we. Perhaps not.

Speaker A: I think it's that coming back to that conversation that we should be asking the question, what does the organisation need and what do employees want and do they align? And if they don't, how do we make them align? Because those conversations aren't happening. We've got employees on one part of the spectrum saying, we want total flexibility, we want to be treated as adults, we want to be able to make our own decisions about when we go into the office and when we don't and how we work together. And they're all sound arguments. The other end of the spectrum is the organization saying, well, we're really worried because we'll lose control, we won't be able to see what you're doing. And those two parties need to come together, um, to have the conversation. There's no conversation going on in a lot of organizations. It's just being mandated, you know, and the scary thing is some of those mandates, and you probably know this, that some of the. The big banks here in, um, Australia, you know, mandate the number of days that have to be in the office. And if you miss that quota, they have tiers. So if you miss it by this percent, then you do not get a pay rise or a bonus. What if you miss it by this percent, your bonus will be impacted. Yes. Do you want me to name the bank?

Speaker B: No, but that is just ridiculous.

Speaker A: It is ridiculous. So, um, and then if you miss it totally, well, then you're in trouble. It's a management conversation with you. So these.

Speaker B: But that's not flexibility, though.

Speaker A: No, it's not. And it's. It's. That, to me, is bullying. Yeah, but that is happening. So. And it's not just one bank, it's many of them. It tends to be the financial institutions doing it. It's just. Yeah. Coercion and bullying. It's just unbelievable. And so many people I talk to, they're not aware of. It goes. Really. Yeah. And I know people who work for these organizations are saying it, you know, I've got to go into the office today, otherwise I'm.

Speaker B: When, uh, I lose my bonus. Which has got nothing to do with how hard you've worked to get the results. You've got to get the days of

Speaker A: where we thought, you know, performance was based on outcomes, is now for performance to. Based on days in the office.

Speaker B: That's just. Yes.

Speaker A: Well, just crazy.

Speaker B: That's crazy.

Speaker A: It sounds like, you know, we're going backwards, aren't we? Rather than going forward.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and added to that, I mean, for the. Particularly the Victorian leaders who are listening to this podcast with the legislation that's come in, you know, we've solved yesterday's problem but created a new one. What's your advice to them or suggestions to them on how they need to manage it? Because as you said, some of us have got amazingly flexible workplaces and now this mandate has come in. Like, what are we supposed to do? Follow the government mandate or continue doing what we're doing?

Speaker A: Again, I think it was. My advice would be to have a deep dive into what the legislation means to you. If you've got a totally flexible workforce, would you be asked to show the paperwork that says that Karen works from home on A Wednesday and Thursday and Mary Jane works from home on a Thursday and Friday and Thursday. Would that get checked? Because they might be in office on one of those days because they've chosen to be as it should be. So I worry that it's going to cause such an overhead to those organisations that are doing absolutely the right thing. Are ah, they going to be. Is there going to be questions asked if I choose not to work from home this week? Um, I work totally in the office. How's that legislation that says they should have given me two days to work from home going to effect? I don't know. I haven't m done that. You know, I'd be getting some real legal.

Speaker B: How would they police any of that? I mean so many businesses they'd be very difficult for them to police. Unless, unless people start reporting. Um, it would be very difficult. And, and that may happen. You may have unhappy employees in a business who report on a business. But you know it's, it's a very hard mandate to actually police at an organizational level, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's why I don't know how it's gonna. Yeah, it's play out. I mean there are supposed to be written agreements between employee, every employee and the employer about which two days you are going to work from home. It has to be documented and if that's the case there has to be a record of it and it's not adhered to. I don't know what the consequences, the consequences are if, if anyone was to check on it. I don't know if no one's going to check on it. Why it has to be documented? Yeah, why we have to keep a record of it and as we said before, the can ask for that to be changed but the employer has 21 days to do that. Well, that's not flexible. When an employee has a genuine reason for it not to be a Tuesday anymore and to be a Wednesday, um, because of school drop offs or wherever it might be and the partner is not able to do it anymore on that day. But I have to wait 21 business days for that to be considered.

Speaker B: It's a really good example of an overarching government with making decisions with unintentional consequences that are actually against the people they're trying to protect.

Speaker A: Yes, that's what, you know, that's what sort of pricked my ears when I first heard of it. And, and I was thinking I get the intent but it's no, I just, I got these, this worry started happening and that's when I started to really think about what it is they were actually doing. And I'm like, okay, the argument is, yeah, we want to give you more flexibility. We'll save you money. We are trying to overcome those leaders that won't give you that. And the outdated leadership. I'm like, yes, your intent is right, but the problem that you're covering is the outdated leadership. I'd rather see a legislation that says about true flexibility, that every employee can choose where they work, when they work, how they work. And we need to have a leadership that can manage that and that the government will, and we do this through equal opportunities, will provide the training and the education for leaders to do this. And if an employee is not being given that true flexibility and they can make the right business case, then they can escalate it. And we go through the arbitration.

Speaker B: Arbitration.

Speaker A: Not because I want to change my Wednesday to a Thursday.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. My last question to you, Karen. I've loved our conversation. We've probably created more. More questions for people than we have answers. But let's look at the future. Two years from now, you and I having a conversation two years from now, what does the world of work look like?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, I'd like to say very different. But you know what? I'm not sure it will be the way we're seeing things at the moment. And maybe it's just my pessimistic head on my shoulders on a Friday morning. We're seeing that this approach to legislation, the response of employers now saying we'll offshore these jobs when they've just argued that remote doesn't work, and now they're saying it will because we don't want the bureaucracy and we want to have more control, so we're going to employ more contractors. Um, we've got those mandates, as I mentioned, and the. The impact of, if you're not hearing to them on bonuses and pay. I just think we're going backwards. M. And I. I hope we can turn it around. I hope these sort of conversations can make people sit up and think about what it is we're doing and the impact that we're having, you know, on our employees and ourselves as leaders. Rather than, you know, struggle with this and fight against it, why not come to the table and make it, you know, make flexible working work for everybody, including ourselves. Uh, and it's been truly flexible. I would love to see that in however many years time you just said, I'm not sure we're going to. I worry, going to be more of the Same. And if not, go backwards even further.

Speaker B: No. Well, I hope you're wrong. I hope. I hope that leaders understand that the new way of working is. Is, you know, not. Not just in how we lead ourselves, but how we lead people in the environments that we create. It's adaptable and flexible. They're probably the two words that you and I have used the most in this conversation. Um, and. And that goes to my leadership style and how I show up at work versus the environment, the people that I lead, and how they work as well. It's not just the employee and the work style that I choose. It's actually everything that we do in work today.

Speaker A: And it's not unachievable. That's. The frustration, is that it is achievable and people can change. And when they do see that unlearning and relearning from a leadership point of view and you see the light go on and the, uh. I actually could do that. And my team are far happier than they've ever been. And I'm happier the way I lead now. Yes, it was a tough journey and a tough decision, but I'm now ready to the next change. I have to accept that how I led yesterday may not be how I need to lead tomorrow. And if we get that understanding, then we are on the right journey.

Speaker B: Yeah. Karen, thank you so much for your time and sharing your insights. It's been wonderful having this conversation with you.

Speaker A: Uh, thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker B: If you like what you've heard, please share, rate and review this podcast and. And don't forget to share it with anyone who might benefit from hearing it. The producer of Future Fit Leadership is Maritza Barone from Guide youe Life Network. If you would like to reach out to me, please DM me on any of my social media platforms. I'm available for speaking at conferences or consulting to your business. Future Fit is created in partnership with Future Leadership, a capability ecosystem for boards and executives. If you'd like to join the community and receive a free ticket takeaway each week, sign up the Future Exchange app in my show notes. Thank you for having me in your space. This is a guide your light network production creating podcasts with purpose.