Transcript

ELISE LOCKYER:

So, communication is the absolute essential tool for making sure that there's a variation of communication. So, be it through open Q&As, where you actively have sessions where you really listen to what your people are saying and you answer them authentically, and if you don't know the answer, go away and find out and come back. You know, thank them for their time, their engagement.

They may have brought something up to you that you had no visibility of and that is the amazing part of really engaging and opening up lines of communication with the team. You work on different things. You do different things. You have different areas of specialism. There is no one more important in the team.

And making sure you've got eyes everywhere – you can do that when you're having open communication with your team. Because they would bring things to you that they had no idea of. And you would bring things to them that they had no idea of. So, it's really about communication, collaboration, and teamwork.

When I say different methods of communication, you've got different people who operate in different ways, work in different ways, learn in different ways. So, you have to mix up your methods of communication, be it through a newsletter and having it a little bit more colourful and documented down and the statistics being very clear, versus having a company-wide huddle or presentation where you are engaging with people either remotely or in the office and taking them through the key and most important things within the business. Following it up in a written format, a CEO report, or a documentation, using Slack as an open way of communication to colleagues that's there and available for them.

But one of the most important things that we've done throughout the pandemic, and we've changed a load of ways in which that we operate is ensuring that we have the technology and the tools to enable these conversations to have happen on a one-to-one basis, on a team basis, on a company-wide basis, on a written format. And making sure then that the messages are transparent and are repeated multiple times for them to be heard across the organisation.

MATT WINTLE:

To be at the forefront of using some of these tools, collaboration tools, messaging tools, those sorts of things. And now that has to be everybody because that's the way that we're communicating most of the time. So, the real shift is in the way that we communicate and the tools we use to do it. And when I talk about communication, that could be a meeting, or it could be a document that you're sharing. And that's fundamentally changed through the pandemic.

In terms of knowledge sharing and production of collateral, if you like, within the business, I feel there's always been an opportunity to do things better. The technology has actually been around for quite a while, but it's the adoption that's difficult.

So, I'll give you an example. It used to be that – let's say we're writing a Word document because we need to do a proposal or a business case or something that's important for the business. Somebody would write it. They'd send it around. Somebody would comment on it. And that's quite a long, verbose process.

Well, now the behaviour that we expect is much different because it's all live and dynamic. So, the document is stored somewhere. Everybody can see it. Everybody can access it in real time. If you want to go and change it and I'm changing at the same time, the technology allows you to do that.

So, you get much more speed, and you get much more collaboration. And if you think of the power of that on a meeting, so no longer we are on a meeting and I'm taking notes and I'm going to update that later.

We're going to do it together as we're having the discussion.

So, the power is actually really, really strong, but the behaviour change is necessary. And that's difficult for some people because they're not used to working in that way. And whether that's because you now need to work a bit quicker and you need to be a bit more dynamic. Or for some people, it's that loss of control. Some people like the fact that they're in control of that document. And it's a change of culture, and it's all about collaboration and speed.

In terms of the balance between a fast-moving collaborative world and the governance that needs to surround that, I feel that we need to address it with some structure at one level and an acknowledged flexibility at another. And therefore, at Admiral, there are now slightly different frameworks in place to manage that. So, everybody's quite comfortable to be online sharing these ideas and creating these documents. But actually, now, if you want to send that somewhere, you want to circulate it, it needs to be classified in a certain way. So, to balance out that flexibility, there's a level of governance.

So, for example, I find, and I'm certain others do, that if you're doing Teams calls all day, they're calls that you have to have because they're work related and they're scheduled and it's for a reason. Whereas, if you're in the office for the day, you have meetings that you were never meant to have, whether that's making a coffee or over the water cooler or whatever it is. And those meetings – I'll call them meetings, they're just conversations – are really valuable because you learn more about what's going on in other areas of the business, you share some of the ideas of what it is to be Admiral, especially with new starters. So, we want people to be in the office some of the time.

LOUISE CASELLA:

Those of us who work in UK-wide organisations but sit in Wales, like us, we're used to sitting on not very good Skype for Business calls before pandemic and that really being a very second-class experience for the people who are at the other end of that call. Whereas now, we've really kind of learned how to use Teams in the best way we can and learned how to use Zoom or whatever technology somebody is using, Google Meet. We now switch between them with relative ease. Like what were we worried about before? We just do it.

But I think one of the things that we could learn more is how we exploit the most – how we get the most out of those technologies. Because it's like using your washing machine, you use two programs whereas there’s 18 there. There's probably loads more within that we could all learn how to use and make an even better experience for each other. So, I love it when somebody tells me there's something else I can do with it, there's something else I can switch to, and then you start adding to your repertoire all the time.

But I think the key thing has been about seeing them as tools. You still have to communicate. They're not, the solution. They're the means to a solution. And to remember that you still have to have those conversations. You still have to connect with people and that the tools just enable you to do it.

JONATHAN MORGAN:

So, there are many reasons why regular communication is fundamental to building trust between the company at all levels for interaction. The pandemic changed the way that Object Matrix worked in so much that it has changed the way that people live and organise their lives. It's changed the way we organise the work. It's changed the way we schedule the work even, because the schedule of the work should allow smaller units of work with regular communication so that we don't just leave someone for a month and then come back to them.

So, in many ways, the pandemic has changed the nature of the organisation, much for the better and some things have been challenges. Biggest challenges for Object Matrix post the pandemic that we have a workforce that has been admirable, has been brilliant, actually, at delivering quality software products and support for our customers. But that has a potential to drift. And by drift, I mean there's a communication of what is the purpose of the company, where are we going with the company, and making sure everybody is 100% involved in setting that direction, but also in the delivery of that direction and the communication of that direction. It's very possible if you spend too long apart that you start to drift in your directions. You might be working just as hard, but you may not be fully aware of where the company is going.

So, the real challenge for me is how do we keep on the same page? How do we have camaraderie? How do we have cross-training of people so that they are all equally up to speed with the technologies that are happening? And how do we deliver that in a hybrid way of working?

Mental health of employees is a very important subject indeed. It's hard enough to manage that when you're in the office and you see somebody on a day-to-day basis and you see them and know them and understand them, yet alone when they're working from home. We should also be encouraging conversation and meetings at a personal level. It could be a "HR," "HR" in quotes. Because, ultimately, it's two people speaking together and seeing how they are.

And that doesn't need to be a manager to an employee kind of a relationship. That could be either co-workers. But it could be coffee clubs that way people meet up online and just talk about whatever they want to talk about. It could be ensuring that we have regular meetups of the staff. And it could be, as I say, the HR side of things. So, they are three really clear ways that Object Matrix is trying to work to make sure that the mental health of the employees is noticed, and then we can, if something is amiss, we can always talk about that and what the best action is.

NATASHA DAVIES:

We did some research, actually, during the pandemic that helped us highlight a number of areas where training might be needed. And it was around things like managing virtual teams, self-awareness, how different leadership styles might impact or work differently in a hybrid-dispersed world of work. Training around resilience, motivating team members, well-being, managing well-being being a particularly key area. And training around some of the softer skills that we think might be really important. So, we're prioritising things like well-being, but also thinking about communication and empathy and that kind of thing.

Through the same research that we did, we also identified a number of attributes that our stakeholders felt that leaders and managers are going to need. And that is very much leaders who are effective communicators, who can actively listen, who prioritise regular contact with staff, who embrace new ways of communicating in a virtual and digital world. Empathetic leaders who understand how different ways of working, how changes in how we work might affect individuals differently. Leaders who can act as role models, who set out clearly what they expect, who don't regularly overwork themselves, because we know overworking really is a risk in a more dispersed world of work. Leaders who really lead by example, managing their own well-being and the well-being of their teams. And then also leaders who are emotionally intelligent, who are open and transparent and are visible across the organisation.

This is something – we're not going to implement new ways of working now that are just going to stay static. I think we're going to constantly be finding new ways of organising our workplaces, particularly as new technology becomes available that can facilitate that collaborative working that perhaps we've relied upon doing in person in the past. So, I think we're going to need leaders who are open to learning, adapting, and embracing new ways of doing things as we move forward.

I think there are many things that can be done to help leaders develop a more empathetic approach. Inevitably, training is going to be part of that. But I think something that perhaps gets missed in this conversation sometimes is that empathy requires self-reflection, and self-reflection requires time.