Return with Intention: Building Work Models that Focus on How, Not Where

If we can give a warm welcome, I would love for you all to, uh, in the chat or the emojis, give these individuals a warm welcome to the virtual stage with me. First off, I'd love to introduce Katerina. She's Head of People and Talent at Leap. Sum also coming overseas. So give her some extra love for staying up late into the evening to do this with us. Amy Bayer, global director, DEI, engagement and Culture at Duck Creek, coming outta Chicago. And Catherine Mattis, workplace bullying expert, author, TEDx speaker, LinkedIn Top Voice, coming out with a new book soon that we're gonna be supporting. Uh, so welcome Catherine. I'm gonna stop sharing here. And, um, thank you to the three of you for, uh, taking some time outta your busy schedules and, and, and Katerina in your case, staying up later in the evening to do this session with us. I'm really excited to unpack this because I feel like there's often a lot of pressures from external forces on how we should decide and navigate these decisions within our workplace. And I'm, I'm really curious of how we can arm our community and ourselves to be more intentional with these things to help really become the best workplace that we can. And, and, but what's the tactics? Like, how do we actually align on some decisions? What are ways we can actually maybe approach our C-suite into these decisions in a more effective way versus making some times some very short-term, uh, quick decisions that have impacts? Right? So that being said, would love to kind of go around the horn and maybe start with just introducing yourself, uh, some of the work that you're doing. But then I would love your initial maybe perspective on like, how do you just see people reacting to this decision about return to office or how work should be done? Like, where do you feel like you're seeing some of these drivers come from? And Katerina, I'd love to pass it to you to start. Would love to, yeah. Introduce yourself and what's your initial perspective on how companies are navigating this? Hi, Zach. Um, hi everyone. Thanks for having me today. Um, I'm Kate, I'm part of the Lipson team. I'm heading the people and the, um, culture team. Been with the company for the past two and a half years, actually went through quite some changes. Um, we started office first, went through remote first. Currently we have a hybrid setup. We have a global distributed team across two continents. We have a presence in EMEA in North America, which obviously brings some complexity to the topic and kind of the model that we, that we use as well. And from my perspective, I think a lot of the pressure from sea level comes from, um, equaling presence with productivity, which is not necessarily the case from employee perspective. What we are seeing a lot is enjoying and reaping the benefits of either a remote or hybrid, um, approach. That gives a lot of flexibility, that gives a lot of autonomy, a lot of freedom, and actually helps build diverse, um, workforce because obviously different teams, different individuals have different needs, um, and unique family or individual, um, situations, which is why we opted for the hybrid model. Um, but more on that, um, bit later on. Yes. Well, thanks for kicking us off. And one thing I would also love to unpack with you in the group later on is also like navigating those changes in models. Like you went from in-person fully to remote fully, and then now hybrid, like those inflection points can often cause a lot of engagement or disengagement in many ways. So we'll talk a little bit about that too. But thanks for kicking us off, Amy. Welcome. Uh, yeah, please introduce yourself and share a little bit of your initial perspective on how companies are making decisions or navigating this space. Yeah, thanks Zach. Really great to be here. Uh, Amy Bear and I lead DEI culture and engagement at Duck Creek Technologies. Full disclosure, we're fully remote or what we like to call is flexible. First we have offices, but we empower our employees to find the place where they do their best work. So if it's in the office or working from home, that's what we, what we want them to do. And I think along the lines with Kaita, it's complicated. I don't think that there's just one easy solution right now. I think there's a lot of pressure in the workplace, and I think we're feeling that from CEOs, right? And just as Caterina says, uh, equating a button a seat to mean that you're being productive. And I think it's, it's an inflection point that we're going through because the, the future of work is changing and I think there's gonna be a lot more to come, but I don't think that any company has it fully figured out just yet. So I think there's a, a lot more that we can all learn from each other. Thank you, Amy. And, and yeah, a lot of learn and unpack of like, okay, we haven't figured this out, so how do we figure this out and be more intentional with it? And I really like the point that I'll plant a seed on. We'll also revisit of like, yeah, a lot of times our reactions are, well, productivity's having issues, obviously we need to return to the office 'cause that's gonna be the, the savior to our productivity issues. But I mean, if we think back, I'm sure we had productivity issues back when we were fully in the office to begin with too. So it's like, okay, is that actually being the solution here? So, all right, I'll stop there. Uh, Catherine, thanks for being here day two in a row as well. So for some of you that were with us yesterday, you know Katherine already, but please introduce yourself and, uh, share. Yeah. What are your, some of your expects, especially coming from the outside a little bit with companies? Yeah. Um, this topic. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm Katherine Metis. I'm the founder of Civility Partners. We are a consulting firm that focuses on organizational development and really focused on culture. Uh, we are super specialists in turning around toxic cultures and toxic behavior. And I do have a book out. Um, the dummies from Wiley reached out and asked me to write a book on to toxic work environments. So that's due out, uh, June 26th and 26th, and Zach is gonna have me back for that. So thank you for that. Um, yeah, I'll, uh, I echo what Katerina and Amy said, CEOs are equating productivity to butts and seats, and I know, we'll, we'll get to this later, but you know, our, I think we need to do some research and have some research based or data backed decision making going on. Where's the proof that productivity is happening in the office versus at home? So, um, and I I just wanna say, Amy, I love your, I I, I think you're at the forefront of something really cool, that it's really about flex first. Wherever is your best self, that's where you should be. I, I've not heard that at all, so that's cool. Yeah. And, and Catherine May, this is a bit of a leading question, but you being a toxic workplace expert, can you have toxic workplaces in a remote environment and an in-person environment? %. So I think, um, if you're remote, it could be a little more insidious in that if, you know, I'm a yeller, for example, and I yell in the office, everybody will hear me. But if I yell in a one-on-one with you on Zoom, people aren't going to hear me. So there, there is that little extra hip hiccup. But I would say, uh, the, the problems are the same no matter if you're in person or, uh, in the off or at home that, um, you know, we have poor communication. We can have some bullying, we can have poor management. I mean, all the problems are maybe a little, they look a little different, but the problems are the same. So, um, I'm not convinced that having big people back in the office really solves problems in the way that CEOs maybe think it does. Yeah. Well, let's start to unpack some of these things. And Katerina, I'd love to pass it to you to kind of kick off this next part of the discussion, which is it, uh, part of it's like you went through a few evolutions at Leap, sum and Office first, then obviously it sounds like the, maybe the driver for remote was the pandemic, and then now you determine Hybrid First was, uh, best for the company. Can you talk to us a little bit about those inflection points, how maybe you got to those decisions and, and how it all came together? Yeah, Absolutely. I think our journey really mirrored the broader shifts we saw globally. So historically, like many, um, other work, um, works out there. We operate in an office, first model, primary work, primary interactions, all of the cultural touchstones. Everything was happening around the physical, um, office space, team meetings, spontaneous brainstorming sessions, um, social events. Everything was around the in-person, um, experience. Then the pandemic hit, and all of a sudden, um, everybody went remote, which was a significant shift, not just for ourselves as the company. I think it was like a huge impact on the entire industry. And I think what was very formative in those times was, um, actually seeing the benefits, um, and living through, um, the advantages of both models. So seeing the flexibility for the employees, seeing the ability to access a wider talent pool in a remote, um, setup, especially in terms of high growth, hiring, et cetera. Um, but as the pandemic continued within a remote setup, we also started seeing some of the challenges. Productivity re remained, um, relatively high. I think the same happened for a lot of the companies. Um, the market was quite booming, um, for a lot of industries back then. Um, but what we did see and slightly negative shift towards was, um, collaboration started slightly dropping, employee engagement, started slightly dropping, um, organic building of relationship across different teams or easily and fast onboarding of new joiners, um, started taking a different shift to what we were, um, used to. And I would say ultimately four things have led us to the decision to go hybrid. One was experiencing both models and kind of seeing and living through the benefits and, and cons of both. The second thing was going through the market, um, and the talent shifts. The reality was that the workforce was changing, the entire industry was changing. Everybody did a couple of successful years of remote work while productivity stayed relatively high. So nobody was going back to an in-office, uh, model, right? This was already something that, um, has proven to, to work. Um, our company, um, kind of stage and maturity started shifting. This all coincided with the, um, point of time where we received our series A funding round. We were supposed to scale massively, hire massively, we needed talent, and we needed it fast. And we opened a New York office. So our team was already becoming a global distributed, uh, team, which wouldn't necessarily work in an purely in office, um, setup. Um, and the last two important pieces was, one, listening to the feedback from our employees doing continuous pulse check surveys, internal discussions, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, um, for them, because at the end of the day, our talent is our biggest asset. And finally, the founder's vision and kind of the culture we wanted to build and, and nurture. Um, I think for a lot of the things and a lot, lot of the culture, um, at leap sum, everything is rooted in trust in our people offering flexibility, um, and offering meaningful in-person connections. So this was a very crucial aspect that we also wanted to, to keep. So while fully embracing the benefits of, um, um, remote or hybrid work, um, we also very much recognize and value the in-person collaborations and all of the added benefits that that come from it. So ultimately, that's what has driven the decision, and that's, um, kind of the, the model that we have today. What I love about that journey is it kind of connected a few things for me. And, and Amy and Catherine feel free to jump in or share what stood out to you, but it sounded like one, you were making dec decisions based on like the seasons of business you were in. Like you were in a season of high growth. Uh, you got investment you needed, uh, to access top talent to reach this next stage. And the best way to access top talent is a remote environment, right? 'cause you're not restricted by geographic location in that case. So you kind of embraced that season of productivity and growth and accessing talent. And then you got to this next stage of, of your company's, you know, seasons and, and existence where you go, okay, actually let's maybe start thinking about what is our actual talent philosophy as a organization and as a CEO, and do we want to be a workplace of trust and flexibility, or what is that philosophy? And, and then you kind of built maybe your decision run that. So it's kind of interesting, like for everyone listening, it's like thinking about, okay, as a business, what season are you in? And is there a certain environment you need to build to support that season of business? And then what's the philosophy behind it? Yeah, absolutely. And I think for us, um, it was a very kind of natural process driven by all of those things. It kind of happened in a very gradual spontaneous way, driven by both internal and external, um, happenings, which is obviously quite different if you have a mandate to, to run and not something necessarily either you or the team agrees to. Yeah. Amy, you, you've shared a lot about how your decisions at Duck Creek or the organization's decisions were somewhat rooted more in like a talent philosophy versus, um, I don't know, some other maybe factors of, of pressure. So yeah. Can you tell us about that for you? Sure. Happy to do that. So, um, you know, pre , so pre pandemic, we really did base a lot of our talent decisions on offices. So if you couldn't live near an office or commit to that, then we lost out on some, some great talent, and we really wanted everybody to be in the office. And, you know, that was the, the push and the strategy pandemic happened. Us along with all other companies started to work remotely a hundred percent across the company. Um, within that time, we, we were doing great as a company, um, just like Katerina, and we went public. So fast forward to a year later, uh, we have a new chief people officer and our CEO, one of the first mandates that he is, he wanted to work with her on is like, we've gotta figure this out. What are we gonna do? But you couldn't argue that we weren't being very successful as a company. We were, we'd gone public. And so, you know, we started to work and research what are other companies doing? And then we started to really listen to our employees and the things that we were hearing. We had employees who were in Mumbai were, they would say, Hey, Mumbai, mom here, thank you so much that I don't have a two hour commute in the morning time to start work. Um, we were hearing from our employees, wow, this is really affecting and impacting in a positive way, our wellbeing, our work life integration. And so when we were looking at it, um, you know, we were like, okay, we gotta, we gotta keep going with this, but we need to let our employees treat them like adults. Let them figure out where did they do their best work. We did not wanna get caught up in the mandates or the tracking. That just wasn't who we were as a company. We really always have operated from that high trusts culture. And so it just, it, it felt like Katerina said, it just felt seamless too. It just, it, it was the right thing to do. And, um, you know, here we are, , it's working really well for us as a company. You know, we are able to hire so many talented people, um, across the company, but if there are people who want to be in an office, we do have options for them as well. I would love for you to, could you maybe expand also on the journey of, of that? Like, it sounds like there's a lot of listening going on. You're also reflecting on the state of the business and how things were very successful. And I think it's like, okay, if something's working, like don't try to fix something that's not broken. Right? Right. And, uh, Mariana and the Chad even shared, right? She's trying to develop this talent philosophy, but there's still leaders that are maybe in the pre pandemic area and there's change management needed. Like, did you face some of that resistance as you were going through this too? Like, were there leaders who were like, yeah, we're productive, but I'm still in my old era of how work gets done. Like did you have to get, like, was there some change management, some narrative changing? Like how did you navigate that? Well, and, and you and I have talked about this too, and it also, it came from a place of not fear as we stepped into this, it came from a place of confidence. So I think that's a good time to be making decisions as a company. And as I was reflecting on that, sure, we did have some leaders that maybe this just wasn't a part of who they were, or they couldn't tap into that other set of tools that you need to be this leader in this flexible first environment, because it is using a different tool set. But I think what we really anchored back to is, okay, this is who we are, this is our culture, this is what we find our employees do the best with. And so there's just people who, that is, is just not their thing. And, you know, we wanna keep everybody that we can, but if you don't wanna be on that journey with us, then it was time that maybe they found a different company to work with, if that makes sense. You know, we, it was, I would say, more outliers who weren't leaning into this. Now I'm not gonna say that it's not hard and it's not bumpy, and that we gotta keep working at it. It's definitely a journey, not a destination. I don't, as I said, I don't think anybody has it figured out. So I know we're gonna talk about it later. Like, there's things that we keep doing to be intentional about it. But no, I, I really wanna be honest with you, I wouldn't say that we had a lot of leaders that this was a challenge with. Um, overall, you know, I think if, and we talked about this, if you had probably issues with, um, someone in their, what's going on at work and productivity, you probably would've had those issues in an office or remotely. And, you know, being in an office is not the magic bullet that isn't gonna all of a sudden make someone more productive. I think it's really a different issue. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that you also pointed out like, our decisions weren't being driven from a place of fear or insecurity or control, and it really just came from more of this side of empowerment and values as well as like, truly like, what's going to provide us the biggest impact on the business, like productivity wise, and let's embrace these things. And I like the, I think a hard commitment that I think some organizations have that have hard time making is like, really defining who are we? And let's stay, uh, let's stay connected to that at the core, and let's really be disciplined with our decisions with who we are. And that may weed out some people that Yeah. That don't align with it. And you kinda have to accept that a little bit. Um, Catherine, for you, I know you come into a lot of situations where change management is needed and there's disruptive narratives that you kind of have to kind of push through. Mm-hmm. Uh, what has been some of your experience there? How are you seeing some of this from, like how people are approaching this R-O-T-R-T-O mandate and, uh, and, and also how you approach maybe some of the narrative changing that, um, Mariana is facing? Yeah, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna circle back to Stacy's put a question in there about Gen Z. So I have all sorts of things in my mind. Um, one is, you know, as a consultant, we don't like to give advice to clients unless we know things. We need data. So, um, always start with data. That's how you change the narrative for leaders. So if you're doing any sort of survey, uh, already, you know, you can find some answers to things like, where are you most productive? Um, you know, and I'll also say, um, we talked about this yesterday, and this comes up a lot in my world. Um, if you're doing an employee engagement survey, great, but that does not tell you about your culture. So that is a different survey. Um, so just be aware of that. So if you're gonna do a culture survey or what we call a climate assessment, um, that's going to give you more information about how people are feeling and how people perceive your culture. Um, but circling back to engagement, you know that a lot of times things happen in silos, returning to work, our engagement initiatives, our DEI initiatives, our wellbeing initiatives, and that's a mistake. So leaders really need to see, like, if, if your goal is engagement, which that's a hot topic right now and has been for several years, um, it seems like mandating return to work goes against that building of engagement. And I think we all know at least one person who's being forced to go back to work, and that's driven their engagement down because they're not happy about it. I shared a story before about a, somebody at a company who had bought a house, it's like an hour and a half away from work. 'cause they were never, there were no signs that they were gonna have to return to work, and now all of a sudden they have to return to work. He's got a, you know, three hour commute or two hour commute, um, all of a sudden. And so obviously he's less engaged than he was before. So, um, keeping really being intentional about your decisions and looking at how everything works together. So sometimes to go back to your question, Zach, is like, um, what kind of a culture is this company trying to build? Uh, looking at your core values, does mandating return to work go against your core values? I would argue that if something like diversity is in your core values, that mandating return to work goes against that. Uh, I'm a single mom and I own my business, so thank God, because I can come and go as needed. Um, but if I work in a company that's requiring me to drive, you know, an hour away to get to the office, and my kids are over here where I live, um, that makes my work life balance very difficult. Um, so, and I'll just add one other thing. Um, you know, everybody works better in different places, as Amy has pointed out, and also at different times. Um, so maybe that's pushing the envelope a little much, but I do really great work between like : PM and midnight because it's quiet. I've, I've been processing things all day, so I'm pretty productive during those hours. If I'm mandated to go back to an office and I'm forced to work between nine to five, that's not helping my productivity. So, yeah, I think it goes back to what some of the stuff you were sharing too, of like, what's that? What's the ultimate driver of these decisions? And if it's our talent philosophy, is it certain belief systems? Is it certain outputs that you're going for? Like, is engagement the thing that you're going for and you're making decisions to impact engagement or productivity, again, is another example. Mm-hmm. Uh, then you have to ask yourself, okay, how and where and when is the best model to achieve those results? And are you using data and insights from your people to feed that decision versus just maybe providing your narrow viewpoint and perspective on it and saying, okay, well that's how I work best. I work best in the office from eight to four. Mm-hmm. And that's my most productive time, so we should just, that should be our model as a company. But as you shared, you're like, no, for me, I work best from : PM to midnight. Like, that's some of my most productive hours. So if productivity was the goal that I was trying to unlock for my team, and you're on my team, obviously I should embrace a flexible model to allow you to do that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, sorry, I wanna add one other thing. I, I think, um, you know, like Katerina's company, we've got, we all have, uh, Amy it sounds like you've got a global workforce too, as do I. Um, my global workforce is small and mighty, but you know, there's a lot of things that you can do in a remote or hybrid environment that, um, you can also do in the office. We have the technology for that. I see my employees face-to-face over Zoom fairly regularly. Um, and of course we chat about things all the time and we have a lot of fun in, in our chats. And, um, so I think if you have to pick one, um, that the hybrid is the best to circle back to Stacy's comment about Gen Z, maybe they wanna be in person more. Great. Give them a spot to come in person. Um, I like to be in person, but sometimes I like to be at home. Um, so I don't know. I feel like, uh, re or hybrid's probably the best way to, to get at what everybody needs. I jump in too, 'cause Jennifer's got a question in the chat, and just like what Catherine's saying, I think everybody at different parts of their career need to seek out what works for them or can, you know, help them the best. I have, I was just sharing with Zach, I have a son entering the workforce and the company he's gonna be working at, they've switched from hybrid to five days a week in the office. But maybe as an early career professional, that's a great place for him to be myself, like Catherine, you know, I, I've have some years I'm most productive right now working in this flexible first environment. Um, so Jennifer, I think that it, you know, there's not a hard and fast rule. I think everybody needs to find the workplace that works for them. But I will say, and if any Katerina, I don't know if you wanna add to this or Catherine, you know, we've had, um, no shortage of career growth and promotions. I, I feel like my own self is an example. Um, I was able to move from being an HR business partner into this new role. And this has been probably the most engaging and exciting role that I've ever had in my career. So I've done this at a fully remote company for the last five years. Yeah. Katerina, could you maybe provide some of insight on the experience of how maybe you've embraced Gen Z or younger generations or how that maybe guided some of the decisions to being in person or hybrid? 'cause that was something Amy and I were talking about before too. I was like, thinking about earlier in my career, those in-person experiences being new to the workforce were invaluable, right? Like the mentorship, the connections that come from it, but now, you know, a little more head in my career, I'm like, no remote environment. This is an environment I'm really productive in, but I see a lot of value from those in-person engagements early on. Um, so was that part of some of the things that you're seeing too, or making decisions around of like, hey, if we're having newer teams or if we're having a workforce that's gonna include a younger generation or a newer generation entering the workforce, maybe we should have an in-person or hybrid in arrangement? Yeah, absolutely. And I think majority of the organizations today have like, at least three different generations. Um, they're employing with different needs with unique setups and kind of different contexts, and they get motivated from different incentives. Um, they prefer different hours. Um, they're their best at, um, we have plenty of young people who do, um, a lot of work from anywhere. Um, and that was actually something that came through listening to the employees and their feedback. So we implemented a couple of different, um, policy to tailor to different needs. Um, so we do have flexible working hours, um, flexible locations, which obviously works great for, for parents. Um, we do have flexible vacation policy, um, whereby every employee can opt and use up to days, um, PT per year if they wanted to. Um, which can be beneficial also for, um, parents the same way it can be beneficial for, um, for younger people. We have sabbatical, we have, um, um, couple of months per year working from anywhere in the world. And what we've seen is sometimes you tend to think that, hey, this is something that's actually more beneficial for one generation or one type of people. And then you start, um, implementing it and you see that actually it's beneficial to the majority of the company. And I think like having that aspect of, um, what tailors to everybody's needs, but also what can uniquely satisfy, um, the needs, um, the flexibility that different types of people and different type of generations in the company, um, need is actually the best way to go forward. Yeah. Can I jump in here too, Zach? I, 'cause I'm just, I love all that's in the chat. I also wanna say even within our flexible first remote environment doesn't mean that we never come together. So I think that that's a myth as well. And you know, I I think early on even our CEO was like, well let's just, you know, let's have a social event or let's bring lunch in that's gonna bring people in. And we learned that still doesn't bring people into the office, right? People don't really, that's not a driver for them. They might just go to the social event, they're not gonna come to the office. And so where we really try to focus at and being intentional is around those moments of impact. Um, when we're having, you know, a reason to bring our team in, let's bring them in to meet. So we still do meet as a group, and what I find is those, I don't need to do that all the time, but when I do, even with my small and mighty team, it is, it, it, it, it really fills the cup for us. It really helps us, it keeps us more connected. Um, one example that I like, a moment of impact, we have an in-person summit that we hold. And then what happens is, is that we got people coming in and then people also tag in other work meetings around that. So they're meeting with their team. And so everybody kind of uses it. So we really wanna focus on those moments of impact. And again, not just having people to come in just to come in. I, I wanna add, um, based on what's I, what I see in the chat there about mentoring and employees need to be intentional about growth opportunities too. And I, that's a great point. And I think high performers, which we all want in our organization are going to do that. The organization has to facilitate, you know, the ability for them to do that. So they're not in a black hole, but, um, the, yeah. So high performers are gonna seek mentors anyways, whether they're in the office or not. Um, and I, I'll just share, I mean, I, I had a mentor way back when I started my business through my professional association, a TD, which many of you may know, you know, we didn't work together that was very remote. Um, she's the one who came up with my company name civility partners, and she's still super important to me. And you know, that that's a little bit different 'cause we didn't work together, but we had a virtual mentor relationship and it was very impactful. Um, I had sought out a mentor in a TD and she was willing to do it for me, but it's, um, yeah, it, and being in the office doesn't solve problems. And I want some of the stuff that I wanted to build off of too, with a quick perspective on like being intentional about getting more career growth opportunities and exposing people who, who work when we're remote working remotely to those opportunities to engage with. Because, uh, often so many of our models for promotions for people who get access to coaches and leadership development programs, it's sometimes a very subjective process where they're saying that, Hey, I, I engage with Zach all the time. I see him as a high potential leader, so I'm gonna enroll him into this mentorship or this career opportunity, right? So it's sometimes a very political game where you, we need to create better, I guess, talent identification practices that take the subjective nature out of it and, uh, helps you identify who your high performers are that might be hiding in the virtual silos, right? Like, how can we tap into them because they're not maybe as loud as Zach is in, in certain scenarios, right? Uh, so that's another thing I would encourage all of you to think about, especially if you're embracing that flexible remote workplace. How do you identify top talent, high performers? And is that subjective, uh, bias kind of flow there where you're only maybe picking up on the loudest virtual employee, right? So it's like, how can we find those silent performers and bring 'em into these career opportunities and things like that? Amy, I'd love Oh, go ahead Amy. Yeah, yeah, Because I, I, and I think one way we also do this as well is with our employee resource groups. We've also got some opportunities. We've got an employee experience council, or DEI advisory board. These are the ERGs are employee led. Um, and as we know, leadership's a behavior, not a title. So here our employees that are raising their ha hand want to impact our culture positively. They're leading groups, they're working on skills that maybe they haven't had the chance or wanna really, you know, work on a little bit more in a safer braver space. And so this has been a really great way to get visibility, um, to get talented people, you know, more time meeting people, you know, across the company, all our executive leadership team, our SLT members, their executive sponsors. So I find too, that's another way that has worked really well for us. I love that, right, leveraging these other peer-to-peer like communities and groups to bring those opportunities to life and, and not having, again, like to rely on, on some of these in-person engagements. And Katerina, do you have any additional thoughts on this? Especially as right where we think like, okay, if we're gonna be flexible, if we're gonna be remote, we need to be more intentional about how collaboration is supported. Can you give some examples or ways of how you do that in, in a remote or in office environment? Yeah, I think as we've already mentioned, like just bringing people to the office, one magically enhanced collaboration or productivity or by default mean better career growth for majority of the people that are in the office versus the people that are, um, remote, um, potentially, um, what we try to do is we look at both setups and how we can, um, enhance both of those and add values, um, to the employees. Um, like one very simple example for the in-office, um, presence and collaboration, we do have, um, assigned team office days, um, especially in our New York office. Um, it's a newer team, it's also a smaller team. Um, so actually it works much better when the majority of the people go there on the same days and can actually meet in person, engage with each other, um, and kind of intentionally designing the, um, the schedule and the structure behind, um, those days. Not just to be physically present but actually facilitate something that's, um, intentionally other collaborative or building that connection. And, um, and relationship. A lot of those, the teams use those days for strategic planning sessions, brainstorming sessions, um, anything where you get in a room together and kind of do a creative collaborative, um, brainstorming. Um, but also a lot of our, um, company communication like the, um, old all hands, the leadership things, um, the board meetings are facilitated. Um, the one-on-ones, the team weeklies, um, the team launches, um, the social aspect of it, like whether it's welcoming a new joiner and having a happy hours after that with the majority of the team to welcome that person. A lot of those things are, um, intentionally designed and facilitated around those two, um, office days. Um, so being very intentional and having in mind that that serves for both work purposes, whether it's collaboration, whether it's, um, um, focus work, but also having informal interactions that actually build those, uh, bonds and builds that, um, um, relationship and, and culture, um, around the company. And for the remote setup, I think two things have been super helpful, uh, and useful for, for us. Um, and I think Katherine, Katherine slightly, um, mentioned this, um, before, we do invest a lot in tools and structured processes that does facilitate that effective collaboration despite the physical distance. So there's plenty of things from whiteboarding tools, communication tools, strategy dogs, collaboration dogs where people can asynchronously do their work and collaborate with each other without the, um, sometimes the, um, the gaps of time zone difference or location difference or physical difference does facilitate and help a lot in that, that process. And then two, um, I think Catherine also mentioned this before, like having that social aspect remotely as well. Like one super easy win for us has been we do have what we call a social coffee, um, channel within our Slack environment. It's super easy. You just see join, everything happens, um, automatically, you randomly get paired with a different person every week. So you kind of interact from people across the different teams, across the different offices that you might not interact with on regular basis. And that facilitates a lot of that engagement, a lot of that community, uh, piece in a very natural and armed forest manner. So I would say the key is don't leave collaboration to chance. Don't leave culture to chance. Don't leave productivity to chance and just hope that, hey, if people are in the office, things are magically gonna happen. But act actively think about, hey, what's the type of work that people benefit from most when they're in, in person? And kind of strategically design the office experience around that and the value it brings to the employees. Um, and on the other side, look at, um, what are the added benefits for the remote experience? What's the flexibility people need? Um, and strategically tailor that within your talent management, within your strategy, within your business objectives, um, and so on and so forth. I love that like both environments, you had to design mechanisms to get those things going, right? Like neither of 'em just instantly created this output. Like there were still operations and mechanisms that were intentionally designed to lead to a certain thing, whether it was collaboration, productivity, you know, communication and things like that. Uh, yeah, I love, yeah, Catherine and I, I doubled down on the coffee. We did a program lunch with a group called, uh, walkie Talks, and it was very similar. Like we just matched random people across the company together for minute walkie talks. Almost had like a little bit of a wellbeing element to it as well. So they literally would go on a walk within whatever neighborhood or area in the world they were, and they would spend the minutes with the two or three prompts we provided them to talk through and have a little bit of a connection point. So one, it got 'em to disconnect from like staring at a screen all day. So it's like that break from a productivity standpoint really important, but also now you're engineering the connection piece. And in some cases, the company actually started, uh, pairing walkie talks across departments that they were looking for more cross-department collaboration around, right? So it's like, okay, if we are trying to get, uh, you know, sales and customer success to work better together so that sales is doing a better job at teeing up new partners into the, the client base, uh, let's pair those departments together for these type of engagements. Right. Uh, so Amy, do you have any examples or ways you've also navigated this? Especially as we see, you know, communication or collaboration often the thing that struggles within this hybrid or flexible work environment? How have you addressed this? And before I do, I just wanna tell you, I love the walkie talks. So just like Katerina and sounds like you, we, we've just launched that we call 'em it creek Connect, where we're gonna have the random pairings. Um, but I love the fact of you adding in the wellbeing part and then the, the, the departments. That's genius. So, um, great takeaway. Uh, I know someone, um, my team are listening, so, uh, noted all of that. That's so great. Um, just, yeah, as, as Canita says, you can't leave it to chance, right? You have to be intentional, as we said, like there's a new toolkit that you have to use in this virtual environment or even the hybrid environment. And so we, um, part of our listening is the engagement strategy. And you know, what we've seen as a strength from this flexible first environment is having work-life balance for three years. This has been one of our top strength, but I know as I said before, that this is a journey, not a destination, so we gotta keep working at it. So we're really working with, you know, personally across the company, get getting the in insights from the ways that you're working. Um, so kind of gleaning what you can from that. But then the leaders, they're also having macro themes and trends that they can see from how their teams are working. And then I'm also gonna be looking at that organizationally and then really taking some intention from what we're finding and setting strategies. So that is something that we have just been kicking off. Um, what I'm hoping to do too is to take that data and take it with our engagement survey data and really say, okay, this is, you know, this is what's going on with the teams and this is how they're working. How can we then take both data points and start to make things better? Because as I said, I don't think anybody has this figured out, but this is the future and I really wanna be a part of shaping it and not being reactive to it. So that is one thing. I'll pause. Um, we have other things, but I'm sure you know, Catherine might have something to share. Uh, Yeah, I've got some ideas as, as well, we don't do this anymore. We did it during covid. Um, so maybe we'll bring it back. Two things we maybe need to bring back. One is, um, we used to just have a office on Google Meet and people could just be in there. And so like we, and, and it could feel micromanaging in the wrong culture. In my culture, uh, civility partners, it was just more like, you know, 'cause if you're working in a cubicle next to someone, what happens? Where's the connection? You chit chat about things or, oh, I just talked to that client again, that's annoying, and you talk about it, right? So it was kind of that, that same vibe where it was like we just all were in there and we would, sometimes it was silent and we were just working and doing our thing, but, but it facilitated that ability to walk, walk across to somebody's desk and have a conversation with 'em. And, um, so just having this like open office space virtually for people to go. Um, the other thing that, you know, 'cause working next to somebody doesn't mean you communicate well with them or can collaborate well with them. It's that moment of impact, those that the really intentional connections, right? So, um, one thing that we were doing, we, we need to bring it back. I know Jenny's here from my team, so Jenny, can you help us? Um, we do, um, an impact lunch where once a month we were all coming together and it started to where we were supposed to be talking about impacts we've had on clients where, you know, the goal was like, here's this client we're working with. I did a training, it was really impactful, or here's some coaching moments I had with someone. And it was great, but it ended up actually really just being a love fest where we, it's really shifted to, um, you know, Hey Jenny, you really had a big impact on me when you did this thing and you did it so well. Or, um, you know, we, it just turned into, you know, how we've been impacting each other. And then clients kind of became secondary. I think there's like, there's a lot of power when you have, especially when times are tough, right? Like if there's, if the business isn't, isn't doing as well, there's like different pressures economically, and it's just like times are really tough to drive results and you're working really hard. Having that peer-to-peer like shared experience can be the differentiator to push your business through it, right? And creating this like, sense of shared fate that we're in this together and we're gonna battle through this tough time as a team. That's incredibly powerful. So having like what you just shared, like being able to design like this, like shared experience that you're not alone trying to battle through this really tough time and environment is what will get your company and your team and that individual through it in the long run, right? And so how can you, how can you design that? Whether that's like, I remember, yeah, being in the person in the sales pit, you know, they're making cold calls, everyone's getting told, no, it's not as bad when you're, everyone's getting told no together. You know, like it's, it's a little bit easier to navigate. Uh, so, okay, we have a couple minutes left here. I would love some closing thoughts here for the group, especially as they think about, okay, how do we return with intention being the theme and, and how do we help our, our leadership team, our organization, be more intentional around these decisions around how we work and, and guide 'em to a better, more productive way? So I'd love some closing thoughts around that. Like, one, it sounds like listening's really important, like truly listening, gathering data from the field and how are you actually taking feedback from your people and having data to support your decisions versus just how, what you feel is best. So, uh, maybe provide how you're doing that or just provide some thoughts on like how maybe we can continue to be more intentional with these decisions. And, uh, uh, Katerina, I'd love to pass it to you first. I think what really worked for us quite well, despite the, um, listening piece, which is super important, um, as opening, um, lines of communications both ways, not just to listen to the employees, but also, um, continuously communicating, um, why the model you've picked or you have is the model you believe in. What's the added value out of it? Um, and what do you actually want to, um, to achieve with the setup that you've, um, come up with, um, to, um, invest in connection opportunities, whether that's virtual, whether that's, um, in person, bring the intentionality, um, to it, and, um, design them in a strategic way and format that kind of creates win-win scenarios for both the employees and the business. Um, third piece, um, what's very important is, um, ensure your managers are well empowered and enabled to kind of manage that setup, whether that's remote or hybrid or in office. Ensure you give them the tools and the techniques and the resources they need to actually manage whether it's distributed or global. Um, workforce, we've talked quite a lot about leveraging technology. Um, I think nowadays we're especially lucky in that sense. We have quite a lot of tools, quite a lot of, um, systems and resources we can use to actually enhance that experience, um, for, for both sides. Um, and final thought, I would say, um, it's never a dumb process. Like maybe hybrid is what works for us today the best, but potentially five years down the lane, um, it's something completely different. So I think it's also very important to stay agile, stay adaptable, um, and kind of like move with the shifts of the business of the market and of the, the talent. I love that. And I love, we didn't really get into this much, but like how you communicate the narrative and, and communicate the intention super important. So it's okay to return to the office, but we have a powerful reason in a way to communicate why, so people can, you know, understand at least at a bare minimum. So, uh, well, I don't know Amy and Catherine if she left anything for you two, but yeah, Amy, any additional like, thoughts here on like returning with intention, ways to kind of really navigate that in a more, uh, effective way forward? Yeah, and I, I don't wanna repeat. So I, I think we've talked a lot about listening, but I think it's also where I come from is we're all a part of this. We all own the culture of the company, have the employees be the co-create co-creators of the solution, right? If we don't like the way things are going or, you know, we want to change as a company, we need to all be doing it and owning it together. So I think that that's a really important piece and that they are our biggest asset and so let's treat them all like adults and, um, you know, really empower our employees because at the end of the day, that is gonna impact their engagement and they are gonna be able to, when you take away all the noise, they're gonna be able to do their best work. And that's what we really want and give people a purpose. Yes. Thank you, Amy. All right, Catherine, bring us home. All right, I know we're at time. I'll be short and sweet. I I'm gonna go circle back to the managers. We all know people leave managers not jobs, right? So wherever your people working managers always need more education and tools than they're probably getting now. And, um, making sure that managers have the time to actually manage, you know, don't, we had a client that they're top top manager was like % billable and then people complain that she was kind of a, a bully. And I'm like, well, she, 'cause she's so overwhelmed. How is she possibly managing if she is a hundred per % of her day is billable hours with clients. So, um, making sure that managers have the tools. Someone had said management by walking around virtually, it's absolutely possible. Hop on a Zoom call or a Google meets, have a chat, find out how people are doing. Um, that's the best way to build that connection. Well, thank you for bringing that home. I think that's such a incredible final point of how essential our leaders are in the results of these decisions, right? Like if you're having communication issues, uh, it depends on how well leaders can communicate remotely or in person. So it doesn't really matter. So, uh, invest in your people, listen to them. I'd say treat it like a little bit of an experiment. Have a theory. If your theory is in person's the best, go gather some data and feedback to back that up, right? And really get some insights from the field to test that theory. So, uh, overall, I think though co-create it with your people as Amy's shared. Thank you again everyone for joining, though this was a a great hour. Can we give our, uh, three incredible leaders, some, some appreciation and round applause for spending some time outta their busy schedules as well. And, uh, I applaud all of you for joining too, for investing time outta your days to grow, to develop, to contribute to building a better world of work. And, uh, grateful to have you on the journey with us. So that being said, we are all cut for today. Uh, hope to see you again at the next one. Have a great rest of your afternoons and uh, yeah, we'll see you in the future. Thanks everyone.

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