The Future of Work is a crucial topic. Preparing for a World of Constant Change is something that we all need to take responsibility for in our lives. In this interview, I am joined by Carla Serra from Futturwork.
Futturwork is a HR Transformation consultancy, working with clients to align Strategy to HR Technology revamping roadmaps and delivering truly engaging employee experience.
What Tech jobs are trending right now?
How easy is it to find and hire for these jobs?
How can companies up their game be the chosen (by candidates)?
You can listen to the audio here or watch the video below.
The Future of Work_ Preparing for a World of Constant Change with Carla Serra
The full transcript is below.
00:00:24
Well, hello. I threw me there a little bit. My, my intro had like an extra couple seconds of music. I was like, huh, what’s happening? Is it playing again?
Carla Serra
00:00:33
It was playing again.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:00:36
No, it, it it’s. Yeah. My sister helped me with that cuz she’s a, she’s a professional voiceover artist, my actress over in, in America. So I’m kind of lucky to have that have that resource, but oh yeah, I’m really privileged to be, to be joined by you today. Carla. It’s it’s my pleasure. It’s an absolute joy. So for people that don’t know who Carla Serra is, she, she runs future work, which is an HR transformation consultancy working with clients to align strategy to HR technology, revamping, roadmaps, and delivering truly engaging employee experience. Yeah. And both of us, we have a, we have a huge interest in the future of work and preparing for this world of constant change that we’re in. Right? Yeah. And I know you’ve got masses of masses of amazing career history, huge amount of credibility, obviously working with Accenture and lots of other major brands in the last few years. And you know, I’m really interested to learn more about this and you know, I mean, I think before we came on here, we, we talked a little bit about, you know, where did it all begin? When did people like learn that they had to do something? And I know when you set up your company, you said you did a bit of research into, you know, where did it all start and all this kind stuff. And I I’d love to hear a bit more about that actually. That would be absolutely super,
Carla Serra
00:02:01
Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, thank you for inviting. It’s a pleasure to be here. You know, I follow your podcast and, and it’s wow. It’s like, I feel like a celebrity, all of a sudden joining you. So thank you for the opportunity. I think for, for me today, what I would want to get out of this podcast with you is, is that we can pass on this message of how, how did we get here? Why is it that we’re kind of stuck in this situation and how to get unstuck to really move into the future of work? That’s what I think is important. Nathan, I dunno if you agree, but that, that would be the goal for me and
Nathaniel Schooler
00:02:33
Absolutely.
Carla Serra
00:02:35
Yeah. I mean, I come from a family of archeologists, right? So my, my brother’s an archeologist. We like to dig through stuff and find out how things work and why they happen. So when I set up my consultancy, the motivation was I have been through SaaS corporations. I’ve worked for HP. I’ve worked for Accenture, also for the bigger companies with huge legacies and structures. And I found that there was just something not clicking for me work wise. So I created my own consultancy. And what I want to do is to be able to help clients move towards a different way of working. Now, we all talk about the future of work and no one really knows how that looks. That is the biggest problem that I find. No one can define it. It’s not remote work. I’ve been doing remote work for the past 10 years when COVID hit.
Carla Serra
00:03:20
The only difference was that maybe I couldn’t go to the gym because it was closed and I had to wear a mask to the supermarket, but otherwise I was working from home. Just the same. The difference is that I used to travel and take a plane more often and I miss that. But otherwise, how did we get to these circumstances of the office work and the nine to five, etcetera. So I started looking into history and effectively the first offices actually exist since the Roman times, the evolution itself was quite cyclical and very similar until the industrial revolution, you always had niche businesses. You had a lot of trade of services, it was less about the money. It was more about doing what you did well, giving that in return to something and kind of getting by. And there were folks that were making money out of those trades, but you always had limitations there until the industrial revolution kicked in.
Carla Serra
00:04:16
And it was the volume that allowed us to really enrich, but also to move into this consumption met lifestyle that we have. So what I see from the industrial revolution is that for instance, the nine to five, the interesting thing I never understood why nine to five? I just thought, well, maybe it’s the most adequate time for work, but it actually has to do with daylight savings. It’s not necessarily the best time for you. Some people like I wake up at 5:30 AM. I start my day at seven, that works for me. Others will sleep until 8 45, wake up and sit in front of their desk and work. We all have different rhythms, but we just have this inheritance from the industrial revolution that has not been adjusted. So we, we keep, it’s like a square wheel. We keep doing the same thing, expecting different results.
Carla Serra
00:05:04
So I’ll give you an example. I’m now working with a client. The project is remote, but I will go into the office. And if anyone hears this podcast from that company, they will probably find this hilarious and start looking at me when I’m in the office. But I find it really difficult to now sit for hours in front of one desk without taking that break, to go to the gym, without taking that break to maybe take a phone call or go and work from a bar or a restaurant in my area that I know well, that is secure, where I can do tasks that are less requiring of a, a compliant internet. And I think that’s really what’s missing right now in terms of how we work. That’s number one, then number two, the jobs that we have. So I think the jobs are completely different or their needs are different and the skills urgently need to be adjusted.
Carla Serra
00:05:55
We’re not learning at a pace that is fast enough for the face at which things are changing. We’re kind of trying to avoid the change thinking that will go back to how used to be things will stabilize, but the change is here. It has happened. It’s just that some companies have really very quickly adopted and others are still kind of no, wait, no, wait, let’s do some analysis. Wait, let’s bring in a project. It’s gonna take six months, 12 months. We’ll, we’ll get this analyzed. We’ll come up with a strategy it’s too late. Even training is not fast enough for people to, to ramp up for the job needs for the skills that their job requires right now in the current company. So we’re in a bit of a dilemma and the dilemma comes mainly from resistance to change.
Carla Serra
00:06:44
So what companies like mind can actually do at this point is, or consultancies out there are all working towards advising clients with things like skill strategy, the right technology that goes with that, not just the process, how to hire differently, how to train differently, trying to make clients understand that maybe that position structure that you have is not ideal. It’s too static. It’s too rigid at times, making clients understand that to learn there’s different ways of learning and that there’s different needs. So if we’re talking diversity, I don’t think diversity is yet respected as it could be, especially when it comes to learning and job, but that’s probably a topic for a different podcast.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:07:26
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Carla Serra
00:07:28
A very long one.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:07:30
Yeah, it is. It’s a huge, because there’s massive bias in, in everything, right? And to have a great organization, you really need people from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities and all that sort of stuff. So I mean, you know, where we’re at right now is a lot of people are kind of scared. They’re worried they’re gonna lose their jobs. And you know, if you think about by 2025, according to the WEF I mean, we’ll talk about the whole jobs market is what they’re saying is, is that 85 million jobs might be displaced by 2025 and 97 million new roles may arrive. So the thing is, is that I saw, I looked at this report, I had a real, you know, a little bit of a dig into that. And what’s very interesting is 69 million teachers will need to be recruited in the coming years to reach the global education targets.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:08:19
Right? So we’re basically, we’re basically looking at a serious challenge. However, I think, you know, we need to remember and we need to look back to 1940, which this report reminded me of. And what was interesting was, and this is the recent analysis of jobs across the United States shows that most jobs performed in 2018 did not even exist in 1940 and close to 60% of jobs done in 2018 had not been yet invented in 1940, right? So we, we need to basically learn to become fast learners. We need to, you know, I’ve talked about this with a number of other amazing experts as well. I’m privileged to know, and the most incredible things are happening right now. I’m looking at this from a, a really positive viewpoint. I think, I think that as long as we can be aware of what these technology platforms, what social media is doing to us and how it affects our brain, then we’re gonna be able to actually learn.
Nathaniel Schooler
00:09:19
Because the challenge that we face is we’re all very busy being busy, but actually, are we busy being productive? Are we busy doing anything that has any value, right? Because it’s about value exchange. Yeah. Anyone can sit there and they can say, well, I don’t wanna be in work until 12. Okay. And I don’t wanna, and I, and, and I don’t, I don’t wanna work more than an hour and, and you know, and I want you to gimme lunch and, and they’re fresh out of university and they have no skills whatsoever and they don’t know what on earth they’re talking about, but yet they, they still think you need to pay them 60,000 euros or pounds per, per year. Right.
Carla Serra
00:09:51
There’s
Nathaniel Schooler
00:09:52
That. So, so we are dealing with a lot of people that are actually blissfully unaware. I personally believe of, of what is going to happen to them. They are lazy, frankly. And we’re bringing up a generation of, of people that have no, I don’t know, no drive to really do anything. A lot of people, in my opinion, I could be, could be wrong and shoot me, shoot me if you like. But you know,
Carla Serra
01:10:17
Well, once I, once I read, I think it was a history book that I had from high school. At some point I must have been, I dunno, 14 years old. And, and there was this excerpt of a parent talking about their teenagers. I don’t know where the world is going to end these teenagers. And that was actually from before Christ. It was in Egypt. So yeah, I think history does repeat itself. And back to what you were just explaining the report from 1940s, I think history does repeat itself. The concern that what will happen with my job, the human being doesn’t like change. We like patterns. We like repetition and safety. Fair enough. I think we’re now at a point where history is repeating itself in terms of that change in the job market and the technology, you know, when people say, oh, AI is going to take away jobs, is it going to take away jobs?
Carla Serra
01:11:03
I think it is going to replace what we shouldn’t be doing any longer. We are complaining about becoming ill back problems and whatever arm, shoulder problems from being at a desk all day, the physical effort of street cleaning. For example, if you’re 60 years old, can you still do that job? There are machines right now that can do that in an automated fashion that can clean a whole street or a whole neighborhood without a person sitting on them and, and maneuvering it. So what we need to move towards is thinking, instead of just doing, and I think that is really the future of work strategy. What do I want the machine to do for me? And I think that’s the next step of the industrial revolution, because that, that’s what it was all about. If you think of it, right? But at the time it’s still required quite a lot of manual operation, but there, the automation started there and that produced the volume, the scale.
Carla Serra
01:11:57
That’s what we’re looking at now. But now we’re in a more comfortable position of having a lot of software. And the biggest thinking is around how should the software look like? What does it perform? What problem does it solve for me or better what problem I have to solve and then work backwards towards the software. This is why we’re seeing a huge number of developer roles popping out of nowhere. I am now working on projects where we struggle to hire developers. We have projects that are stuck mind you projects, to move things to the cloud projects, to try and achieve that automation, because we just don’t have enough people trained to do this job that is crucial of move to moving towards the automation. I think that is key. If the company understands any organization out there understands that no, the implementation of, in my case, we implement software for recruitment.
Carla Serra
01:12:48
I’ve dealt with recruiters that were anxious about what the implementation would mean for them system administrators of learning systems. Is it going to take away my job? No, it’s going to change it. It’s going to allow you to spend more time looking at reports, data strategy of how can we improve the learning experience, what content is, you know, especially in the, in the realm of the recruitment. I think something very interesting is really happening there. That’s going to change how the jobs look, recruiters have always been kind of Dean salespeople in a sense. Well, they are, and they will become marketing people if they want to be successful because the tools have to become marketing tool for recruitment to be successful. It has to look more like an e-commerce the whole experience of going into that website, where I look for jobs, I get recommendations.
Carla Serra
01:13:35
There’s a chat that pops up talks to me, make sure that I don’t leave so that the, the concept of conversion of leads is very strong nowadays, with some of the, the SAS tools we have out there for recruitment, and that will change per se, the skillset of recruiters in the future. You will need to be good at sales, but understand also marketing and pipeline. So the clients that are already doing that, they are the ones being able to retain the candidates and hire them. Now, once they’re hired, then who can retain them. That’s yet a different story.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:14:08
Right? Right. I’ve been nodding away to, to all of that. I mean, yeah. It, it makes, it makes a lot of sense. And you’ve, you’ve sort of talked a little bit about the, the kind of the kind of tech jobs that are trending right now. And I mean, just to give you a bit of info, I looked at this report, like I say, on the, from the WF and you know, all of the jobs that they are mentioning that are gonna be displaced and, and shrinking are basically every single job has to be augmented as far as I’m concerned. Like you say, with, with technology, when you, when you look at MIT technology review saying that we are at the beginning of like this massive technology revolution of productivity right now, which is it’s insane. I mean, when you look at what you can do now, now when you wanna write something quickly, for example, you wanna write a nice white paper report, you know, and the quality of, of these, these tools is amazing. The kind of chat bot technology, all based, based from the same kind of core. Right. Which is, which is just fascinating. Yeah. So
Carla Serra
01:15:09
Oh it’s a life saver.
Nathaniel Schooler
01:15:12
Are. Absolutely. So, so what sort of, sorry. So what sort of tech jobs are, are trending right now? And do you think that that’s gonna continue? Because I like to, I like to kind of look out five years down the line because look right. IBM and all of these tech companies have been talking about chat bots, right? They’ve been talking about chatbots for the last seven years. It’s like, well, chatbots, everyone has to have a chat bot and it’s the revolution. And we, we have, you have to have it and everyone’s gonna have one. And, you know, and, and it’s actually the chat bots. They haven’t really moved on that much. Not, not, not in the last seven years until now. And, and now we’re at the beginning of this space where they’re gonna start becoming much better. You know, we’re gonna have virtual influencers in my, in my opinion, which are, that’s, that’s already sort of started. So, you know, manufactured influencers, which will have a persona, which will represent a company. And then that will have its own tone of voice as a chat bot, much like the Watson chat bot that they have at Wimbledon you’ll have that, but actually it’ll be an influencer on, on social media as well. So that, that’s, that’s just a couple things from, from what I’ve been learning about the last, the last few years, but what, what, what sort of jobs do you think are are trending right now?
Carla Serra
01:16:28
I, I think again, developers and especially cyber security since we had this whole pandemic and most people were moved to the, the, you know, I had a remote office already, but if you’re working in finance, if you’re legal, all of a sudden security became a huge crisis point. If you are working from home where your network is not as secure. So that has definitely grown. And is top one out of, let’s say the top, it’s the number one out of the top three, if you would like it hires despite these. So, so the whole cycles of that we’ve seen since March, 2020, with what is technology industry firing, having to do adjustments in terms of their workforce. It’s not just because of budget. It has actually to do with those skills. Having hired a ton of people that corresponded to the past. Maybe they hired too many people in the support center, maybe too many people for implementation.
Carla Serra
01:17:25
And they realized, well, I just need to repackage my services or going to a partner model and delegate the work of implementation. All my consultancy work goes to an Accenture or goes to a Deloitte. What I need to focus on in terms of hiring is the cyber security is a good project manager in tech that can help me lead this project of conversion to the cloud or, or, you know, a series of episodes. But what I’m trying to say is that that since March, 2020, we are seeing, and you see on LinkedIn, the almost pity parties in a sense, and please, I do not mean to say that if you have lost your job, you shouldn’t go there and complain, but the solution’s not there. That’s just the fact that that company in that moment had to reduce certain roles to hire others. And surely there’s another company out there that needs you because the money hasn’t evaporated and the business needs have not evaporated, they have shifted.
Carla Serra
01:18:15
So when SaaS companies have these phases of these peaks of having to fire batches of people and all of a sudden having to rehire for other positions, it’s really just an adjustment. It’s what it is. Microsoft has just done that to a very big extent, an Oracle along with other smaller SaaS companies, so that the tech market this semester, and especially in June hit a peak of redundancies in the United States alone, but it has also increased the number of positions open for let’s say, cybersecurity developers. The second one, anybody related to infrastructure in IT is also being hired. The salaries are hitting the six figures. So it’s, again, it’s not that the budget is not there. It’s just that the needs are different. And then the third position that we found that is really exponential are the project managers in it. So in this space, and I can tell you that myself in the HR space, project managers for transformation, it’s booming, it’s still all over.
Carla Serra
01:19:12
So all my colleagues that are contractors, everybody is working in that sense. Everybody is working because it has become a need. Now chatbots, does that really replace? Is that, or the future? Are we going to adapt? Well, I would dare say that it will be easier for a generation and you’ve got children too. Like I do. I think for them, it’s going to be second skin. You and I probably still find it funny to speak to the chat bot instead of the person you ask a question, the, the, the answer that comes out is not always what you expected. And you’re like, please, I want to speak to someone instead of being here with a machine. So for us,
Nathaniel Schooler
01:19:49
No, no, I’m good at, I’m good at jump in on that. I’m sorry. I’m gonna jump, jump in. I, I think, I think that where we are right now is we are, I want a chat bot. I’d rather have a chat bot. I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna speak to anyone. I just want to get that stuff done. Right. Like I just, just want it done and I want it, you know, I want it finished. Right. I don’t wanna mess around. I don’t wanna call anyone. I don’t, I don’t want that. I literally wanna, I want to go online. I want, but
Carla Serra
02:20:11
You want the solution.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:20:12
Yeah. And I, and I want the answer to my question, right. And I think that we’re, we we’re getting better at it. I think that obviously we, you know, I lo I know a bit about marketing and that’s kind of a space that I feel comfortable talking
Carla Serra
02:20:24
About. Absolutely.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:20:25
And, and cyber and, and some tech stuff. Right. But, but mainly marketing. So I’m fascinated by this. And I think that the jobs are actually gonna be about the people that are in the background and the jobs are really about the data analysis. It’s about the data, the strategy, you know, the chief digital officers, the data analysis, people, the, you know, all of these kind of jobs. But I, you know, I mean, I know people that, that are working with in tech, they, they, I know a chap who’s on my LinkedIn. Actually, he hasn’t had a job. He’s a programmer. Right. He hasn’t had a job seriously, probably for like seven years. And he’s been looking for a job for seven years, but you’ve got to a, you’ve got to answer, like, ask the question, like, have you, is there something wrong with, well, it’s not that it’s like, is there something wrong?
Nathaniel Schooler
02:21:12
Like with, with, with your, your attitude? I mean, I don’t want a job. Right. I got approached by someone the other day that she was like, well, can you, do you want, like to talk to me for 20 minutes? I’m like, no, it’s on holidays. I don’t wanna talk to anyone that isn’t booked in my diary already, unless it’s an emergency. Right. And, and she’s like, but you know, you gotta make 20 minutes for me. It’s important. And I’m like, well, why don’t wanna talk to you if I don’t want a job. Right. Cause I’m kind of unemployable, I think, but that’s me. Yeah. Then there are other people that they want that security. They, they want that job. Right. And they, and they, they want, they wanna work. Yeah. And how easy is it to find and hire then for, for these jobs, if you are, if you’re an HR person or you are, you are a chief operations officer and you want to build out your team. I mean, you sort of said you work with many different size businesses, so you know, how, how easy is it, do you think to, to do that? Carla.
Carla Serra
02:22:07
So in a market, in, in a market context, such as this one, it’s difficult, very difficult. Even throwing big salaries at people sometimes is not enough. I think that individuals have become more ambitious. The ones who’ve understood. So if, again, going back to the example of the project manager or the cybersecurity developer, I think that those folks have realized that there’s a lot of work and they can negotiate a bit and they can pick and choose, but no one is going to choose something just for the salary. Like we used to why? Because the pressure has risen. You know, you’re going to go into 14 hours, work a day. You know that you’re going to go to zoom calls from whatever eight o’clock in the morning, down to the 5:00 PM and it’s going to be violent. So you want a company that will understand maybe that you have a family or that you want, you’re a nomad and you want to work remotely.
Carla Serra
02:22:56
You want to make sure that your job contributes to something. So the company culture is going to be a size of factor in the choice of the job, not just the salary anymore. Why? Because those individuals have been probably switching jobs for the past five years, six, every two years, they may change jobs to get a salary increase. So they know they know the drill and they know what they were going to get inside the company. So to stay long term, to really retain someone, it’s all about culture, but the culture can no longer be just the ping pong tables like you had at Google, the mature individual, at least that has the real knowledge, wants to see the CEO pick up the kids at school, leaving at five to pick up the kids, not to doing the 15 hours a day. So the traditional industries that we were talking about, you know, the, the Accentures, they’re all trying to become more human.
Carla Serra
02:23:47
The financial institutions have to change. We still have a big challenge with what is, for example, M and a those guys, when they have deals, they have to stay in the office, 14, 15 hours a day. What does a mother of two year old children do in that moment? She almost has to quit her career right now as it is. And that is a problem because that is a loss of skills and knowledge. So I think that those are the things that will be changing in the future. Even those traditional industries will have to be really disrupted, truly disrupted and accept either the remote work or the interruptions that you can still close deals. If you work from home, not having just the team in the office a lot still has to change. And it’s all here. It’s all the mindset. Okay. So going back to the chat bot, I think there is still a mindset and, and no, it’s not for everybody yet.
Carla Serra
02:24:35
Nathan, it’s not for everybody yet, but it will become definitely the future. Especially as we move to voice, I’ve got a friend, who’s got a company he’s based in Australia and he produces actually a wonderful chat. That is voice based where his, you know, his, his motto is well, you know, doctored, my computer recharge, you talk to the chat bot through teams. It will submit a ticket to whatever company that will trigger a request to the provider and in that process. So he will probably skip four talking to four or five people, three or four service tickets. It’s all done by the chatbot and automations behind it to request that recharge to come to you. Oh wow. That’s amazing, that’s amazing. That’s that’s the future work. Future work is automation. It’s us really using our creativity to solve problems, lay out a right strategy, map it against software and automations.
Carla Serra
02:25:27
So, you know, I think, I think there’s so much there that we need to explore instead of spending so much time creating project plans and documentation, focusing on that, just focus on what really solves the problem and what can I automate today that really burns my brain as an employee. As I sit there for hours, what can I do to actually make a difference? And that’s what people are looking for. So in terms of hiring and retaining the part of the culture that people will value is how much do you automate? How much do you allow me time wise for training for creative development for, for real growth, that is growth. Growth is not going up the salary scales and the grades as a consultant or whatever is the, the job that you have. It’s about what have I learned? How can I make a difference in the market? If one day this job is to be terminated and I need to go out there and look for a new job. That’s what people want.
Nathaniel Schooler
02:26:24
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I, and I think, you know, it’s really important to have some kind of mentorship or coaching in these kind of areas, you know, like absolutely. I, I kind of coach a few people from time to time and, and, and I was talking to this, I’m not gonna say who it is, cuz it’s still undercover right now. Right. But basically I was talking to this, this person a few, maybe about six months ago and, and, and they were, they were saying, oh, I’m gonna go into this different industry. And they’re in cyber security. Right. And, and I was like, what are you talking about? Right. I’m like, what you mad? Like, are you out of your mind? And at the time they were working in a, in a, in a top 10 brand yeah. Global company. Right. And I was like, are you mad?
Nathaniel Schooler
02:27:07
You are just, you’re kidding. Right. You need to stay where you are the same industry and look for the right job. And it blew my mind. They sent me a message, had a call with them about, let me see about a month and a half ago saying I just started a new job. And I got a 300% increase. I’m I’m heading up an entire team for the whole of China and, and India. Right. Like from, from that’s, from working in a corporation with a, with a toxic, a toxic environment environment, right. To, to straight into that big job. And I was just, I’m so proud and I can’t wait till I announce this and get my, get my LinkedIn recommendation. Right. For, for my, for my, for my coaching kind of encouragement. Yeah. But it’s funny when you, when you, yeah. But when you see people and they’re only like one millimeter away and all it, all it takes is for you to give them little, that little encouragement and it, and it makes, it just makes you feel good. And it, it makes them feel good as well. Right. And I think this is, this is just massive in, in, in the future of work, like having people who are innovators, they they’re entrepreneurs within a business to turn around and say, well, you know what, what if we do it this way? What if we, what if we change it around a bit and we do it this way or that way, and this is what, this is what excites me. Right. It really excites me. You
Carla Serra
02:28:28
Know, I, I think two key takeaways of the future of work are exactly that, what can I do today differently from, you know, try something different. Because what we used to do right now is just not working. Whenever I fall into one of my comfort habits, simply even random things around the house, it just doesn’t work. So it’s like take, take a moment, sit down, stop and think, what can you do differently today to achieve what you want? Because what you want has changed and you just haven’t realized it. So it is about that. And that’s one of the key takeaways. The other takeaway is we need to stop forecasting because forecasting hasn’t really worked in general. You can never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Look at the pandemic. Sure. So try and try and do that back casting, which is where would I like to be?
Carla Serra
02:29:13
And then work backwards. We already did that in project management years ago, that has always worked. And that’s how it should be. You should have always the end goal in mind and then be very agile in your adjustments as you go along, because there will be interferences and things you cannot count on that are difficult. And then the learning aspect, I wanna come back to the coaching because you’ve just touched something really important for the future of work. So let me tell you this, a few months ago, I was attending learning technologies here in London. Okay. Which I, I do because it’s part of what, what I do, learning recruitment performance. And as I’m going, you know, I’m walking around through learning technologies. How great is this to see everybody again, two years without events. And, and something was kind of weird in my mind, I was walking around and I wasn’t recognizing part of the offering.
Carla Serra
02:29:58
There were all of a sudden four or five coaching companies at learning technologies. So instead of having the usual new software companies for learning, you actually had coaching organizations. And we suspect at this point is still early days, but we suspect that training might actually be replaced eventually with coaching. Simply, first of all, first and foremost, I believe the job of a role align manager should not be to supervise you again, back to the industrial revolution concept. This has to be adjusted. It should be a person. In fact, a colleague at Accenture, I still remember her saying, I don’t really need a manager. I just need a coach or something. Someone that I can go to for questions. When I have a doubt, cuz I can know, I know how to do my job. This is what I’ve trained for years. I don’t need someone to breathe down my neck.
Carla Serra
03:30:48
I know I need that person that guides me and helps me see through the weeds. How do I set my goals for the day, for the week, for the month and, and make sure that I’m achieving that I’m in check because we all know what to do. It’s just that we are so overwhelmed that we lose ourselves. So any CEO should have a coach, a mentor. This is why executive coaching has sold well throughout the years because top managers need coaching, mentoring. But I think right now all other employees should have that coaching and mentoring because they need to stop doing what is repetitive focus on strategy. So if I want the recruiters that I implement software for to really let go of the backend, the administration, the repetitive tasks, because the system does that very easily requires less effort, you know, compared to what it did 4, 5, 6 years ago.
Carla Serra
03:31:39
Now it’s time to look at the reports to look at the Google tag manager reports, especially to see how people behave across the, the application process. What can they deduct from that experience? What do they need to improve? That is not being done. We’re just kind of expecting the tool to do that magically and software. Doesn’t do that for you. It shows you what you need to think about. And coaching mentoring will help you get into that mindset. Training is not fast enough. If you go out there, I am going to do a degree in organizational psychology to try and be better at helping organizations with organizational restructured. Well, good luck because that’s gonna take you three, five years and it’s, you know, the restructuring is happening now. So what do you need? Maybe you need a quick online course, but what you need as a mentor that guides you through what you need to execute someone who has done it. And that’s where we’re not, we’re not there yet, but I think that is definitely going to be the path moving forward. Learning has to be become bite sized. I am. I know that there are people launching businesses out there just based on looking at YouTube videos and learning from people. Who’ve done it instead of going and taking courses, cuz you do this outside of work in your own time and it’s free.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:32:51
Well, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the, the number of Mo courses, which MIT and others have have launched, I mean, I think, I can’t remember how many million moot courses that MIT have given away in the last 20 years. It was 20th anniversary of free of free courses from MIT last year, I believe, or maybe earlier this year. Yeah. Early this year. And it was just ridiculous. I think, I think it was like a hundred million courses or something like crazy, but it’s everything you’ve said there like totally resonates with me. I mean, I spend a lot of time with Kim or Del Randor. Who’s like leadership coach in the last couple years I’ve been working with her pretty much every day. Right. And going through that change of, of like transformational change in order to focus on the tasks that are really important and just execute.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:33:39
Right. But the thing is, is that I think also trying out like these three day, weeks and four day weeks and, and things like this is an interesting experience. I, I tried out a three day week for the last two, two or three months. I was working three days and then that became actually demotivational because I wasn’t working enough. Oh. And that was very interesting. Yeah. I got, I got, I got basically a bit sick of not working. So, so then I was like, OK. So, so I, so like I need like, I need to do, do meaningful work, right? Yeah. Cause it’s about meaningful work. Isn’t it? It’s about finding something that you have your childish enthusiasm to, to, you know, make you motivated. It gives you this drive. Right. And, and having this purpose as well. Yeah. But what you said about the five year plan and working, working backwards from that is, is absolutely what these coaches need to it’s the only way doing it’s.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:34:31
Absolutely. And yeah. You know, I mean, we have like this perfect day process, which is more of like a vision. It’s not like a goal. It’s not really a goal setting thing. It’s more of a vision kind of thing. And it’s like, well, you know, you wake up in the morning, like what, you know, what are you doing for that day? And, and are you enjoying it? Have you got time to exercise? Can you eat? Have you got time to talk to your friends? And it’s having this like integrated like balance almost, which is quite interesting. So how can companies come up? Can up their game be the chosen. That’s what I want to know.
Carla Serra
03:35:06
Yeah. So we talked about culture and that’s, that’s, let’s go back to that point. I think the, the cultural part and the feedback I’ve been receiving from people that I speak to in companies, you know, both colleagues or right now as a contractor kind of semi colleagues and also other friends in the industry is just, we tend to stick to who gives us a clear vision of what they want to achieve. Like everything. I mean, you and I, we listen to podcasts. We podcast also, who do you follow? You follow the ones that have a clear vision about what they offer. You buy the brands that have a clear vision of who they are. If you know who you are, you know, your place. And that is the same thing for organizations, a well defined organization that is in it, not just for the money will definitely gain more candidates.
Carla Serra
03:35:55
You know, the, the SA SaaS software SaaS tends to hire through throwing money at people. You will be going to an interview and you’ll be told, yeah, the salary is this much the bonus, the, the commission. And then, you know, we have a lot of company events and that’s all really engaging, especially if you’re young, but we’ve all been through the cycles of taking on that job, doing the 12, 14 hours a day, then maybe being fired, being part of a big redundancy batch, you go to the next company, same story. And then your brain goes like, wait a minute. How can you fool me now? Because I’ve lived this once or twice, it’s like a vaccine in the end, you recognize it and you go, do I want this? So you will go to the company that actually teaches you that invests in you.
Carla Serra
03:36:36
So coaching is one of the ways of making a difference. If you can, and career pathing more than having a clear, defined career path that you will know what you’ll be doing in five years. I don’t think we’re as interested in that. We’re more interested about the, the lateral moves. Like if I get bored of being in cyber security in two or three years, what could I be doing next? How can I transfer my skills? That is the big one. And we’re all struggling with that. If I’m very honest, why? Because we don’t have that habit. We have this ingrained idea of the career path and the grades and you’ve, you’ve become accountant level one and two and three and four and five and then retirement. Right? So that, that doesn’t exist anymore. That has to change. And what we’re seeing a lot go in.
Carla Serra
03:37:18
What we’re seeing a lot in terms of the transformation projects are clients that are going okay, I am ready to talk about skills. And I want a tool that shows me all the recommended skills and training and positions to my people. Yes. But are you ready to give them the job if they identify what they want to do next? Oh, they might need to go through a year or two of, of training and learning. Well, then you lost them. This is the reality of things. It’s just simply that capability of being really open if the person wants to go in and try. So another thing that we believe makes a difference to really engage and retain people is offering a bit of a, a gig economy environment where you can take different projects and experiment. That’s a great way to mitigate skills, learning and, and retention.
Carla Serra
03:38:06
If I am a consultant that wants to dip the toes into the project management part or solution architecture, can I be junior in a project where I am actually, you know, shadowing somebody as I’m doing. And this seems like, oh yeah, but we all do it. No, not everyone does it not yet. And that has to happen more and more that I can work on a project three to six months, totally unrelated to what is my position in the company. So if I’ve been hired as project manager, can I do something as solutions architect? Because I actually know software from the past, or can I do something also in, in, in accountancy? I don’t know, depending on my, my skill set, can I experiment and see what really I can do with value? Of course, there will be a certain amount of skills. You have to have a certain number of skills and, and things that you can transfer. This is not like you can, all of a sudden go and do heart surgery, right? There are limits. But within the realm of what we do, there’s a lot of transferrable skills that we’re ignoring that could really help people stay and be happy and engaged. What, what, what really kills us is what we tend to crave, which is actually the constancy and the routine is the biggest killer of happiness. We just don’t want to realize it. It’s hard to deal with anything that is adverse change adaptation, but that’s what keeps us going every day.
Nathaniel Schooler
03:39:25
So, so, so basically to wrap up, right, we, we’re basically two things from, from what I’m, from what I’ve been thinking about the past five years, it’s like, look, we’ve got all this data. Everybody knows about, you know, where the careers are going. If we set out a pathway, we should be able to actually come up with a very personalized learning experience and, and mentoring a coaching experience, which will help those people to gain the right experience based upon what they have in the past and where they want their goals to be. Right. The other thing I think is literally complacency is complacency and laziness are the killers of, of, of growth. Yeah. And growth is, what’s gonna keep you employed. And if you are unemployed and you’re listening to this and you’re like, well, how dare he say that? It’s like, look, you know, do you think I just sat here and like woke up one morning and like could, could podcast and have a sensible conversation.
Nathaniel Schooler
04:40:23
Exactly. Tech experts. No. I picked up a book. I read that book. I looked at YouTube videos. I listened to podcasts. I networked with people in technology companies. I listened to, you know, and the same with you, cars, you’ve worked in you, you’ve invested time in your personal development. And if you think you’re gonna sit back and, and not learn anything and not move forward, then this is the, maybe the wake up call. You’ve gotta just adapt, move forward. And I, you know, you got this, it’s kind of where I’m at. So I can’t thank you enough. I, I hate to kind of cut this short because like, I know we could talk for hours, but I may get like murdered by my daughter. You might see her like stab me on screen show.
Carla Serra
04:41:03
Yeah. Have to love children. Really.
Nathaniel Schooler
04:41:10
So thank you so much.
Carla Serra
04:41:11
Thank you.
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