- 9 months ago
Work(place) Revolution What Needs to Change
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TechTranscript
00:00Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here. This is Viva Tech Europe's biggest tech and startup event.
00:06My name is Ellie. I'm going to be your host this afternoon.
00:09Thank you so much for being here today, those who are here in the room and those who are joining
00:14us remotely online.
00:17For the next two hours, we are going to talk about the future of work,
00:23and we are going to broach the topic from three different angles.
00:27The first angle will be the workplace. What has changed? What needs to change further?
00:33The second angle is going to be lifelong learning and skill building.
00:39And the third angle will be the role of technology.
00:43This event is yours, so we would love to hear from you.
00:47You can head to the app, ask your questions all through these two hours,
00:51and we'll do our best to take them and address these questions to the different speakers who will be on
00:58stage.
00:59So, without further ado, let's broach the first topic, workplace revolution.
01:04What needs to change?
01:20Ladies and gentlemen, please have a seat comfortably.
01:24Yes, let's give them some applause to welcome them on stage.
01:28So, as you know, the world of work has undergone a profound revolution.
01:34In just two years, things that could have seemed strange have now become our new normal.
01:39Some industries have switched to new ways of working.
01:43These new ways, some of them are here to stay.
01:46The hybrid work models, for example, those are some of the things that we're going to be broaching in this
01:52first discussion.
01:53So, I'm very pleased to be joined on stage by Samet Chopra, President and CEO, EMEA of WeWork.
02:00Hello.
02:00Welcome on stage.
02:03By Guillaume Vives, CEO of Tlaxoon.
02:07Thank you.
02:08Hello.
02:08Welcome.
02:10By Caroline Girard-Leroy, Global Head of Human Resources at Payfit.
02:16Hi, Caroline.
02:18And by Émilie Sidikian, who is Managing Director of Salesforce France.
02:23Hello.
02:24And welcome to you as well.
02:27So, I would like to address my first question to you, Samet.
02:31I think you have a privileged view of the changes that are taking place in professional real estate.
02:37What new trends have you noticed?
02:39And what are the trends that have been the most impactful?
02:43Thank you so much, Elie.
02:44And great to be here on this amazing panel.
02:47You know, real estate is one of the largest and most impactful industry sectors globally.
02:55It is not, however, known to change very fast.
02:59And it's very gradual and very deliberate in the changes that it allows itself, both from the inside out and
03:06the outside in.
03:07And, you know, the few changes that have, however, occurred over the last few years, which have now set the
03:14tone for what the future is going to look like in the real estate sector.
03:18One, of course, is the emergence of the real estate sector, which, of course, we've been a big part of.
03:27That, you know, the value proposition for flexible space as a core component of the real estate sector is now
03:34here to stay.
03:35There were some questions and evolution of that concept, which took a few years, especially over the last decade or
03:42so.
03:42But now, given the needs and the ever-evolving needs of the hybrid workforce, as well as the, you know,
03:50enhanced need for greater flexibility and the need to have, you know, experience at the heart of any employee journey
03:59or employee experience,
04:01literally writes the value proposition for the flexible space sector and emboldens it more.
04:07The other thing or the other change, which I think will also get accelerated over the next few years is
04:14the need to have, you know, sustainability as a big driving force for large real estate developments and developers.
04:21And combine that with the need to have buildings and environments, which put an emphasis on wellness of its occupants.
04:32So you will see more and more of that.
04:34And that will literally, you know, we will have to rewrite how companies think about their real estate strategy.
04:40And lastly, I'd say the whole focus around hospitality and the experience that it helps delivers both owners of real
04:49estate and occupiers of real estate will be the third and has been the third change,
04:55which is not only impacting how we think about real estate today, but how we will think about real estate
05:00in the next decade or so.
05:02Thank you so much.
05:03We'll be more on that in a few minutes.
05:05I'd like to talk later on about how this hybrid work is making work more collaborative and perhaps more meaningful.
05:13But we'll get back to that in a while.
05:15Thank you for this.
05:16Emily at Salesforce France.
05:19What are the big changes that you have observed in the workplace through your company, be it in France or
05:26maybe beyond our French borders?
05:29So hello, everyone.
05:30And thank you.
05:31We are very pleased to be here.
05:33Salesforce was very well known, you know, to reinvent the customer journey.
05:36And it's true that the pandemic gave us, you know, the right opportunity also to reinvent the employee journey with
05:42the first priority around safety.
05:45And that's why, you know, for all our employees, we launched also what we call the safety cloud to secure
05:50the fact that we could, you know, come physically or also connect in a digital way.
05:55And I'm going to launch a small movie to understand what does it mean clearly for you to understand how
06:02we leverage technology on that.
06:04So safety was really, you know, the point number one.
06:07And we also developed what we call the wellness day to give for each manager the opportunity to say, OK,
06:14on the Friday, we will work in a very different way.
06:17You can stay at home.
06:18And we try also to erase the routines that used to be before the pandemic.
06:25And they can have not only the current vacation, but also they can decide together to say, as we are
06:33based on the results, let's take the Friday and that's fine.
06:37And they decide at local level.
06:39The second point is about how we use technology because we are a tech company and so we acquire also
06:45Slack and we manage with Slack to reinvent the way.
06:49We speak about HQ and we speak about the digital HQ, which means that you don't need to be at
06:55the HQ to perform your job.
06:57You can also stay at home.
06:59You can be synchrone or asynchrone and work also with different time zones.
07:03You can, for instance, wake up in the morning, that's my case, where my colleagues from the U.S. continue
07:09to work on one project.
07:10And when I wake up, I have all the history of what they have done during the night.
07:15And so it's quite powerful because like this, nobody is, how I can say, is left alone.
07:22You know, he's still part of the team.
07:24And maybe the third point about what we have noticed in terms of big change is the strategic question around
07:32the culture and the management way of performing our jobs because it's reinvented the real estate.
07:40And we need, you know, since day one, when you enter in a real estate to have an experience.
07:46So how you trade the event to have back your employees and actually there's no one-size-fits-all solution
07:53because when I look at our current figures in France, the occupancy rate is nearly at 80%, which is actually
08:01good.
08:01When I look at the U.S., in New York, it's 50% and in San Francisco, it's less than
08:0620%.
08:07Why? Because, you know, culturally, they are so, they commuted a lot.
08:13And I think maybe, you know, it was maybe hard for them, you know, to come back.
08:17So we try to listen a lot to our employees and to improve each time the way we are going
08:24to apply locally what we call flexibility for all.
08:28And so we have decided at a global level to have a flex agreement and at a local level to
08:34apply it and to say, okay, we lower the center of gravity.
08:36And it is manager by manager with their team.
08:40They decide how they go back to the office.
08:43Thank you so much.
08:44Staying on the topic of flexibility, which is really the big, big change that has come about in the wake
08:50of the pandemic.
08:51I'm going to turn to you, Caroline.
08:54Can you tell us how PayFit organizes hybrid work?
08:57It's a very specific model.
08:59We're listening to you.
09:00Yes.
09:01Thank you.
09:01So PayFit, just as a reminder, is a scale-up that is aiming at simplifying payroll and HR experience for
09:11the small companies.
09:12I don't know how many of you knows how to read your pay slip, but good luck.
09:19So why also I'm here and talking about flexibility is because as a modernizer, as a company that wants to
09:27modernize HR,
09:28we wanted to have a very different way to organize our work and the way we work together.
09:35So back to the pandemic two years ago, we decided to have a hybrid organization that is called Work From
09:43Anywhere.
09:44And I think there are two very different things from the market on this way we're working.
09:51One is that it's employee first.
09:55What does it mean is that we empower our employees because we trust them to decide what is best for
10:02them in terms of where they want to work,
10:05how they want to work, and when they want to work.
10:08And it's not about, you know, two days at the office or blah, blah, blah.
10:11You choose exactly how you want to do because we believe you're the best one to know.
10:16So the second thing that we do, and it's that it's context-led.
10:21We're still a collective organization.
10:24We need to organize each other.
10:26So what I mean by context-led is first we anchored this organization into our culture.
10:36Of course, being in such a disruptive way of working is not a given for every company.
10:41You need to know who you are.
10:43And so based on our culture, which is based on trust and autonomy, we decided to go that way.
10:48Let me give you also another example.
10:50One of our value is care.
10:53And so it means respecting, you know, people and respecting your customers.
10:57And so, for example, if you work in the customer service and you want to go to the gym during
11:02the day, that's fine.
11:04But you need to make sure you're going to respect your customers so your customers are worse.
11:09And your team might, because if you go to the gym, but your team might have more work.
11:13That's not respectful.
11:15So, again, we ask our employees to be responsible in their autonomy and we trust them.
11:23And the last thing in the context-led organization is that we believe more and more in companies.
11:29You know, you cannot fit one for all.
11:34So each individual, each employee has different needs.
11:38So, for example, if you're a junior sales, well, it's going to be hard to work, you know, almost fully
11:44remote.
11:45You need to observe how your colleagues are doing calls, for example.
11:48So we trust our manager in each organization to design what is the best type of hybrid organization they can
11:58have.
11:59So what happens is, for instance, we have our salespeople that are working four days a week in the office
12:04because they need to for their jobs.
12:07Whereas a senior engineer would be based in a BRX, for example, works from anywhere a few weeks abroad, and
12:14that's fine.
12:15And he can come in a less frequent basis.
12:18You seem to have developed a nice culture of responsibility.
12:22Perhaps we'll touch up more on that in a few minutes.
12:26I'd like to turn to you, Guillaume.
12:29Klaxoon is helping teams work together more efficiently, both in person and remotely, which is really a lot of what
12:37we've been talking about up until now.
12:40What new developments have you seen with the pandemic?
12:44So let me start by doing a quick survey in the room.
12:48Show of hands, how many people love their meetings?
12:51Meetings for hours in the same room and show of hands, anybody?
12:55Who loves meetings?
12:57Who loves meetings?
12:57Loads of meetings for hours.
12:59Nobody, perfect.
13:00Okay, that's score one.
13:01You all score one point.
13:02Second thing, who loves to spend five hours in Teams meetings or Zoom meetings all day?
13:09Nobody, right?
13:10Well, that's what we do.
13:11We help with team engagement.
13:13We help support the hybrid model.
13:16And what we have found is we were all forced, if you remember the last two years, we're all forced
13:22to sit from home or from an office or from an airport or from any location, Starbucks,
13:27we're forced to kind of listen in into those Teams meetings, hours of meetings.
13:33And guess what?
13:34There's only one or two person participating.
13:36Everybody else is zooming out, right?
13:38Well, we actually, what we see now is people are demanding that they don't spend those hours.
13:45If we work in a hybrid mode between now and the rest of our life, right, we don't want to
13:50be sitting in those useless meetings, right?
13:52So, the big change we have seen in the industry is about that transformation.
13:57Shorter meetings, more participation, everybody says something, everybody engage, right?
14:03So, that's what we do and that's what we've seen.
14:06Thank you so much.
14:08My next question is going to be for all of you, whoever wishes can answer.
14:12Now, with all these changes, I'm curious.
14:16We have teams that are working from different locations that are seeing each other less frequently.
14:21How do you go about maintaining a strong company culture in a context like this?
14:27Who would like to answer this question?
14:30Well, I can try.
14:33It's a big challenge.
14:35You know, if you put this in context in the pre-pandemic world, right, every company had two constants they
14:43were dealing with.
14:44They knew exactly what number of people or their employees are going to come into work and they knew exactly
14:51where they are going to go.
14:53So, the number of offices and which offices.
14:55And despite having those two constants, almost every company was challenged by culture, innovation, productivity, brand, etc.
15:06Now, post-pandemic and the question that you asked, the context of the same, now those two constants have become
15:13variables.
15:14You don't know how many of your employees are going to come in and you also don't know where they're
15:19going to go.
15:19Now, so that only compounds what anyways was a challenge for every large and small company.
15:26Now, of course, but the challenge needs to be solved.
15:29So, what I feel is going to happen is technology is going to have to play a much larger role
15:36in the way companies think about their workforce and their workplace.
15:41So, you know, we work has recently invested in one of these technology solutions called we work workplace, which basically
15:48allows all employees of an organization who are either working in their own office or our, you know, flexible offices
15:56to be able to book meeting rooms, office space, desks as a team.
16:01So, you know, you can basically book for your entire team on a Thursday and you're all working from the
16:07same location, either we work or the company's offices at the same time, but you are coming and collaborating and
16:15you're working on projects together and innovating, etc.
16:17Those kinds of technology solutions will have to play a much bigger role in alignment with, you know, what every,
16:25you know, you know, head of HR or every CEO or CFO would want is to have a bit of
16:31a guideline on how they anticipate and how they expect this whole process to play out.
16:37It will be an iterative process. It's not going to be easy. You know, we're going to see many back
16:41and forth between now and the next few years till companies actually settle down on what they think is their
16:47perfect model to actually, you know, further propagate their culture, brand and innovation ideas.
16:53It is a work in progress. What I understand, what I'm hearing is that there is a long reflection already
16:59that's in place around these topics.
17:02Perhaps, Guillaume, since you were the one who said that you were for less meetings and not as long meetings,
17:09so no meetings, no company culture?
17:11Well, you have to make each moment matter, right? So, actually, I want to jump on what Samit was just
17:16doing, right?
17:18Remember when we're going to our offices, right? When we used to spend five, you know, five days, eight hours
17:23of meetings, meetings were boring.
17:26Meetings were boring in our conference room. What WeWork is doing is they're trying to make the office fun.
17:32Right? And that's what it goes along the side of, you know, making each moment matter, right?
17:38If I am in a meeting or if I am engaging with my team, the few minutes I'm going to
17:43be spending, the 10, 20 minutes need to be interesting.
17:46I need to learn something. I need to be able to express myself, right?
17:51And that's how we change. That's how technology change, right?
17:54So, now, it's no longer a question of hybrid. Do you work from the office? Do you work from WeWork?
18:00Do you work from home?
18:00is I actually have fun doing what I'm good at. I'm no longer sitting in conference room or sitting online.
18:08Hope I answered your question.
18:09Yeah, I can only, you know, be part of this discussion.
18:13If I take the example of the employees at Salesforce, they have this concept of culture guides.
18:19And actually, they raise their hand. It's on top of their current job.
18:23And you have 12% of the employees in France that, you know, are culture guides.
18:28And they're also responsible to create the event.
18:30And events could be at the office.
18:32So, you have, like, Donald's Day.
18:34You have lots of, you know, events at the office, the smoothies bar or whatever.
18:38But also, you know, how you bring this culture, you know, at any type of location in a digital, with
18:47digital events.
18:47So, it's a company culture-led, if I may say, where it changes completely all the processes.
18:54When you recruit someone, you check not the resume.
18:58You check first the values and the fact that you will be on board with the values of the company.
19:05And I can tell you that we have recruited globally 20,000 people during COVID time,
19:11which is also a challenge when you speak about culture.
19:15And if you ask, you know, a single employee, what are the five values of Salesforce,
19:19they can say it in the right order.
19:22Because at the recruitment, we speak about the values.
19:25In the onboarding process, we speak about the values.
19:29And also, what does it mean to perform their job?
19:32And they can also experience the values at the office or at home.
19:38I agree with you, Emily.
19:41I think it's interesting, your question, because you say strong culture.
19:44And so, to me, the question is more to maintain the culture than specifically a strong culture.
19:49Why?
19:50Because at PayFit, we measure the engagement.
19:54And the culture is one of the questions.
19:57And the first question, so do we have a first strong culture?
20:03And before that, we changed the organization.
20:07And now, we have the same number.
20:09You know, 90, more than 90% of our employees are saying that they're leaving out the values every day.
20:15So, what does it mean?
20:17It means that probably changing into a hybrid model,
20:21does that change significantly if you have a strong culture or not?
20:26Why?
20:27Because you have probably strong fundamentals.
20:30So, for example, that's what you said, Emily.
20:33Assessing the value is not something that is new.
20:35You know, we were doing it before.
20:38Having leaders and founders that are role-modeling your values is not something that you change, right?
20:44And so, by having strong fundamentals, you ensure that changing and you measure it into a new model doesn't change
20:51that culture.
20:52Now, the challenge is, indeed, to maintain whatever is the maturity or the strengthens of your culture.
20:59And so, as we do as well, have a lot of rituals, I think, to nurture the sense of belonging.
21:07That's very key.
21:08So, we've been talking very positively about hybrid work, which I perfectly understand.
21:14I benefit from it as well, so I get it.
21:17But there are a few things that also cropped up during the pandemic.
21:21There was a sense of disengagement and a sense of loneliness that was talked about by many employees.
21:28So, how do we address this?
21:30That's the first part of my question.
21:31And the second part of my question is, how do we convince employees that they also might benefit from being
21:39in the office, right?
21:41So, it's a two-pronged question.
21:43Who would like to address this?
21:46The loneliness, perhaps the negativity also of hybrid work?
21:52No, I mean, there's so many events.
21:57I can tell you they are not really lonely.
21:59But the real risk, if we're honest, is the stress and the mental health that we need to take care
22:09of.
22:09Because you have also, in the hybrid world, actually an increase in the productivity.
22:15So, as mentioned by Guillaume, of course, when you come back to the office, you meet people.
22:20It's about collaboration.
22:21We changed also the real estate and we announced, for instance, a plan of 3.5 billion investment in France,
22:28where part of it is how we reinvent the real estate and we created villages to really say,
22:34okay, when you want to work alone, you can stay at home.
22:37When you come back, you need to have an amazing employee experience.
22:41But, what does it mean?
22:43How do you detect that someone could feel lonely when they are at home?
22:47How do you make sure that you could prevent from stress?
22:52And that's why we also lower the center of gravity for the management.
22:57It's key to empower, based on trust, what you said, Caroline,
23:03to empower the managers to be very close to each member of their teams
23:08and to check that and to secure the fact that we could give the right caring environment.
23:14For instance, it's about financial support.
23:17And we have, like, so I talked about the wellness day,
23:19but they have also financial support to have, you know, when you have children at home,
23:23it's not easy to work.
23:24So, we help them also to find the right organization at home and so on.
23:30So, I think it's part of the philosophy of the company,
23:34part of the attractivity of the company,
23:36and the value proposition also change.
23:40Thank you so much.
23:41Anyone else to answer on this?
23:42Do you mind if I jump on this?
23:43So, we did a lot of survey during the pandemic on who was impacted the most by...
23:48Hold your mic closer so we can hear you.
23:49By the pandemic, right, by age group.
23:52And what we found is the age group that were the heaviest impacted
23:55were actually the youngest, the sub-30 years old.
23:58They were heavily impacted by working from home.
24:02Why?
24:02Because, well, they're typically single.
24:04They're typically working from home.
24:06They have smaller homes.
24:06But also because their work is their social circle, right?
24:10So, they were used to having this social circle.
24:12So, finding solutions, you know, needs to vary by age group.
24:17Actually, people that were young kids, they were pretty happy to work from home, right?
24:20The 30 to 45 age group were actually pretty pleased.
24:24So, it all varies by age group, right?
24:27This is why having these wellness Fridays,
24:30we just started doing this in the U.S., wellness Fridays.
24:34It's fantastic.
24:35It's a great way in sharing with each other what we're doing.
24:39It's not only about taking the afternoon off, right?
24:41It's about actually sharing what you're doing.
24:43Oh, you're doing golf, you're doing craft, you're doing cooking.
24:46Let's share with each other, right?
24:47So, we're people, we're social circle, recreating that social circle, right?
24:51It's very important.
24:52So, again, that varies by age group and the solution is not one size fits all.
24:56You've got to make it work by age group.
24:58Thank you.
24:59Just one quick point to add.
25:01Firstly, Guillaume, thank you for that tagline earlier, make every minute count.
25:05We might use it.
25:07I think, you know, to the second part of your question actually on what do we need to do
25:12to actually try and engage the workforce back into the work environment.
25:17And I think it is basically creating a more engaging experience for the workforce where it's not only the workplace
25:26that they're coming back to,
25:28but they're coming back to an engaging work experience either with their colleagues or not, right?
25:34So, one of the things that we pride ourselves in is being able to build communities of, you know,
25:42various different and diverse, you know, people from different backgrounds, industry types, you know, big and small companies.
25:50And that's what really creates the vibe that Guillaume was talking about earlier in a WeWork location.
25:56That level of engagement, therefore, is then utilized by many companies who are in that camp, right?
26:02Not everyone is in that camp, but those who want to bring back their employees faster and, you know, in
26:08a big way,
26:09they actually use the fact that they're actually working out of a WeWork,
26:12and that helps them and ties them back into a much more engaging environment,
26:17which, you know, a more homogenous setup where it's your company and only your employees just fundamentally does not allow
26:24you to do,
26:25which is why companies like Dentsu in Paris have now, you know, literally closed down their HQ and moved into
26:32a WeWork location,
26:33which I believe also now helps them attract as well as retain talent.
26:37Thank you so much for this.
26:39Again, if you wish to ask questions, you can use the app.
26:42I now have a device that's letting me know when the questions come in.
26:46Emily, you wanted to react to this perhaps?
26:48I saw you raise your microphone earlier on.
26:51To the last question, you mean?
26:52Either on the last question or on the how do we engage people more, the loneliness aspect, whichever you like
26:59best.
26:59No, it's a very good, I agree with you.
27:02I mean, I think today if you don't have an attractive, well-placed office, good luck, you know,
27:09unless you force your employees to come, which unfortunately is the case.
27:14I think you need to make it naturally and not forced to come to the office.
27:19That's one.
27:20The second thing is, yes, for employees that are alone, young parents with children or, you know,
27:26we had also foreigners that are coming and don't have any ties where they are.
27:33We decided to have a very concrete budget for each employee.
27:37So you have around 400, it can be more if necessary, to come back to the main office.
27:44Because we know that when you're young, it's not always easy to spend two days in Paris and pay for
27:50the hotel and everything.
27:51So we want to concretely make sure an employee can afford to coming back.
27:56That's one.
27:57And the second thing we did is the same thing.
27:59We trust our manager and we gave them a budget, 600 euros minimum per employee to nurture rituals,
28:09to make sure when they come to the office, they can have team buildings or any activity that would foster
28:15those relationships.
28:16So people can feel less lonely.
28:19And lastly, I think there's no perfect things, but the quality of your management and how you are measuring it,
28:30it's key to avoid those kind of situations as well.
28:33Because at the end, he or she is the only one to know perfectly if things go wrong or not,
28:40hopefully.
28:41I'd like to piggyback on that.
28:43How has this new way or these new ways of work changed what we ask the managers to be, what
28:53we ask their role to be?
28:55Has their role changed in any way?
28:57And have you accompanied them in this change of management?
29:01I don't know if anyone wants to react to this.
29:05So I actually use the word coach.
29:08Now a manager needs to be more of a coach than a manager, right?
29:11It's no longer about, you know, you're no longer in a room where you tell people what to do.
29:16Because actually, most of the time, you're not going to see these people, right?
29:19They're more going to be remote, working with other groups.
29:22You can't touch them.
29:23You can't, you know, you can't go to their cubes and tell them what to do.
29:26So you have to change your behavior as a manager, right?
29:29That's why I use the word coaching, right?
29:31Because, you know, athletes go to their coach for advice, right?
29:35Nobody goes to their boss for advice, right?
29:37So it's all about coaching.
29:38So that's what I would advise people, young managers, to focus on.
29:42Right.
29:43Be more of a coach for the employees that work with you.
29:46You wanted to react to this as well?
29:47I wanted to add also another example.
29:50What I have noticed is that, you know, usually, previously, at the office, you have people vocal, okay?
29:58So you see them in front of your office at the coffee machine and so on.
30:02During a hybrid mode, you can also detect new talents that are more introvert, that, you know, maybe you don't
30:11see at the office, but actually they are fantastic talents.
30:14And the manager using, for instance, you know, you were talking about Slack and the S-inclusive Week is the
30:20same.
30:20You see them interacting digitally within the community, showing new ideas, sharing knowledge.
30:28And so you could also detect new profiles that was not the case maybe before with some unconscious bias.
30:35And also it gives a lot of opportunity to recruit in an inclusive way because you're not stick to, you
30:41need to be based in Paris.
30:42But you could recruit also in the territories and find and bring back people, for instance, in the tech industry.
30:49That was my next question, actually.
30:51Thank you for the segue.
30:52I was wondering if this broader use of tech is helping in any way in diversity in the workplace.
31:01I mean, diversity in the large sense of the word.
31:04Do you have anything that you'd like to share with us on this?
31:08Yeah, I have strong convictions on this.
31:11I think if you have, well, first, if you have a hybrid model that helps, but if you have a
31:16model where each employee can choose, that's even better.
31:19And I think you follow me, especially if I talk about women and I can share my example.
31:26When you know, and if you have children, unfortunately today, I wish every couple could have a perfect family load
31:34equal, but that's not always the case.
31:36We know that.
31:38And it's true that having the flexibility to, I don't know, once, twice a week, being able to go to
31:42school, pick up my kids, and after we go back to work, all, that's extremely valuable for anyone.
31:49And that's drive engagement and motivation.
31:53And remember, when you had to go early, I don't know how many people leave that in that room.
31:58When you have to leave early, for children, for anything, you know, you feel guilty, you're not comfortable.
32:03That flexibility, remove that guilt, and you are free to better mix your personal and professional life.
32:11And that's fine.
32:13And lastly, I would think also for people with disabilities.
32:16I'm thinking about autism.
32:18I'm thinking about, you know, physical disability.
32:21It opens much doors because you can stay, you know, fully, almost fully remote.
32:26You don't have to, if you don't like social relationship, you don't have to enter in them in an office.
32:32That also gives new areas of possibility for those people.
32:37Thank you so much.
32:38Any other reaction to this?
32:39Just one quick one, you know, and just, you know, expanding on that, obviously, you know, Caroline explained that, you
32:46know, how the flexibility translates into, you know, being able to achieve and push the envelope on the diversity angle.
32:55The good news now is that, you know, that level of flexibility is very easily feasible and possible for every
33:02large and small company.
33:03You know, which is why companies, you know, like a fast growing company like Jelly Smack here has basically, you
33:10know, signed up with us and basically have an all access pass, which is, you know, you just sign a
33:17monthly membership.
33:17And now you can use any of our 20 locations in Paris or any of our 50 locations in London
33:22or 70 locations in New York.
33:23And that basically that level of flexibility to your entire workforce to be able to work from anywhere at any
33:31point in time without having to sign a long lease or having to build out new spaces, etc.
33:36It just brings a certain level of nimbleness in how much and how far you can react to the changing
33:43needs of your workforce expectations, which I think is something which is which is new and will be here to
33:50stay and will continue to push the envelope on the inclusion as well as diversity angles.
33:55This being said, to speak true, we are in a country that is not traditionally very accustomed to remote work.
34:04What I mean by this is not traditionally very accustomed to the bosses not watching their employees work, right?
34:12I'm just saying it as it is.
34:14And to prove my point, here is one question that we have received from the audience and if you'll be
34:20so kind as to engage with it.
34:22Since so many people prefer work from home as an option, how do the leaders ensure that trust and transparency
34:32levels remain between the teams?
34:36This is the way we receive the question.
34:39And let me tell you how I understand this question.
34:42I understand that this is a person who is asking, how do you make sure you can trust your teams
34:49when they are remote,
34:51when so many of them would like to work from home?
34:55How do we answer this question and how do we alleviate the anxiety?
35:00Anyone have a take on this?
35:01I have a comment on this.
35:02So, you know, it's managing by performance versus managing by attendance, right?
35:07If your job as a boss, if you see your job as a boss, you just manage attendance, make sure
35:13people show up, right?
35:15It's not, you're not effective, right?
35:17But if you manage by results, like I really don't care what people do during their day.
35:21As long as on Friday, everything is done, right?
35:25I personally love to take a break mid-afternoon and walk my dogs.
35:29That's my thing.
35:31You know, I will take it.
35:32Whatever happens, it rains, it snows.
35:34I walk my dogs mid-afternoon.
35:37You know, and some people want to pick up their kids, right?
35:40That is not my boss's...
35:41My boss doesn't check on me, right?
35:43So it's focus on the results.
35:45Focus on what you have to do.
35:46If you're in sales, you need to do good quarters.
35:48If you are, you know, in HR, you need to make sure that you're helping the departments that you're supposed
35:54to help.
35:54So as a manager, you need to focus on that, right?
35:57And what we see is talent is going to dictate where they want to work from.
36:03If you want to hire top players and they have kids and they want to work from home three or
36:08four days a week,
36:10if you want that person, you're going to need to be flexible.
36:13As a manager, you're going to need to learn, right?
36:15If you force people to come to the office every day, you're not going to get the best people.
36:21If I may say, I'm going to be a bit provocative,
36:23but I think this question is outdated today
36:26because what we've seen as a shift, you know, as being an attractive workplace is the same for manager.
36:32You need to be an attractive manager today.
36:34It means that, of course, you need to live by performance because at the end, we're still a company.
36:38But you need to make sure that you give the right feedback, the right coaching, the right development.
36:44You need to motivate your teams and your employees.
36:48And that's, I mean, anyone that is having a job, they don't want to fail.
36:54You know, they want to succeed.
36:56They want to be, because that's a really fulfillment matter to be successful in a work.
37:01So taking that into account, I think it's a matter of you have to trust and you have to make
37:09sure you are becoming a great manager
37:11to make sure your people will deliver their performance.
37:16Just to finish on that, perhaps we can give some practical data.
37:21You work in a company that has given this opportunity to people.
37:25They come to the office when they wish to come to the office.
37:28How have people reacted?
37:29Have they been reliable or not?
37:32Or has it been absolute chaos?
37:36This is for me, right?
37:37Yes, it is.
37:38No, it doesn't have, it was not chaos and actually we measure it again.
37:44And work from anywhere is seen as a fulfillment, having a fulfillment impact for employees since the beginning, 95%.
37:53So for sure it's an asset.
37:55And what's interesting is that we measured, you know, how many employees are coming to the office or not,
38:02or how many people are going abroad, because again, we give a lot of freedom.
38:07And it's interesting to see that more than 70% of our employees are coming back two, three days a
38:12week to the office.
38:13So what it means is you give a lot of trust and autonomy, still people will have the same trend
38:19that we see on the market, naturally.
38:21So it has not led to chaos to actually give trust to your employees, in our case.
38:27Very interesting.
38:28Thank you so much.
38:29So we have a little less than two minutes left.
38:32I'd like to do a small roundtable and ask each of you for a short closing remark on this topic.
38:38Perhaps we could start with you.
38:40Make every moment matter in your work and come and check us out at the Klaxoon store in the booth.
38:49Thank you.
38:49Short and sweet.
38:50Thank you so much for listening to you.
38:53And a last word is don't be afraid to trust your employees and trust your managers to make your organization
39:04fulfilled.
39:05Thank you, Caroline.
39:07Samet?
39:08Well, the future is definitely flexible.
39:12It's engaging.
39:13It's exciting.
39:14You know, what we're going through right now is something that probably most of us have not gone through ever
39:21in their lives.
39:21But I can tell you this is an opportunity for all of us to innovate and invent from the inside
39:28out and the outside.
39:29And so let's make it count.
39:30Thank you.
39:32Emelie.
39:32So I agree.
39:33The future of work is now.
39:35And we try, you know, to have, like, fantastic solutions, for sure, powered by technology.
39:43But listening to our employees, listening to the ecosystem is key because we will for sure improve and find new
39:49ways also of working tomorrow.
39:51And I would conclude by saying that the future of work is promising if we know how to put the
39:56people at the heart of it.
39:58Thank you so much, Caroline, Mathieu, Samet, Emelie.
40:02Yes, we can give them some applause.
40:04Thank you all for being here.
40:06And you're free to head back to your seats.