Welcome to viewpoint

Careers & workplace advice from Hays

In this ever-changing world of work, the competencies marketeers need to succeed, and ultimately stand out are changing. So today, we’re joined by Stacey Danheiser and Dr. Simon Kelly, principals of Shake Marketing Group and co-authors of the books Value-ology and Stand Out Marketing. They are here today to share how marketeers can elevate their careers by developing five key competencies.

To purchase their book ‘Stand-out Marketing’, please click here and use code STANDOUTMK20 for 20% off

1. So, to begin with, please could you introduce yourselves to our listeners. Simon, we’ll begin with you.

(01:02) Yes, my name’s Simon Kelly. I call myself a pracademic because I’ve had a long career in telecoms and IT, running marketing as a B2B marketing director. And I’ve also worked at various universities, currently at York University, and working with Stacey at Shake Marketing Group to help organisations stand out in marketing.

2. And Stacey, how about you? Could you let us know a little bit about your background and your current role?

(01:33) Hi, I’m Stacey Danheiser, I’m based in the United States and I’m the founder of Shake Marketing Group. As Simon mentioned, we work with B2B organisations to help them with customer research, value proposition development and marketing strategy. I’m the co-author of the two marketing books that you mentioned, along with Simon, and prior to starting Shake Marketing, I also worked in various corporate marketing leadership roles for about 14 years for several Fortune 500 companies.

3. As you said, you’ve both recently released your new book called ‘Stand Out Marketing’. Could you tell us a little bit more about the book and the research that you’ve conducted around the topic?

(02:13) So, Stand Out Marketing is a book that we wrote for both leaders and individual contributors to help answer the question; “Do I and our team have the competencies to help my company stand out?”.

It was really born out of the research that we did into three different industries: the telecoms industry, data centre and UK universities. And after we scraped the websites and Twitter feeds of the top thirty companies within each of these industries, we discovered that everyone is telling a similar story. They’re all using the same words, descriptions, jargon, and “why us” story.

So, we were curious about why this was happening, and we embarked on some more research where we conducted dozens of one-on-one interviews with marketing, sales and business leaders across the UK and US. We also led a global survey with over fifty respondents and we’ve also had our own first-hand corporate experience in over two dozen client projects.

4. And in your book, you mentioned the fact that marketing is ‘swimming in a sea of sameness’ and you gave some examples there such as using the same jargon. I imagine this makes it difficult for organisations to stand out from their competitors. Could you explain the concept in more detail?

(03:25) So, as I mentioned, this was really based on the research that we did into those three industries. The ‘sea of sameness’ is referring to the fact that every company within these industries sound the same.

What we found is that generic business terms are really overused. Words like services, solutions, business, were the most frequently used words that popped up and most phrases, we also found, start with “we” and “our” instead of being about the customer. So, benefit statements that we’ve been in business for a hundred years, we have 24/7 support, comments like that don’t really take it to the next level to explain why a customer should care about that.

And then we also found that proof points are rarely used that are meaningful to the customer. So, for example, there are a lot of promises to help businesses grow or transform. But when you ask how, the answer is always something about purchasing the product or service. So, these are lofty and empty claims or what we say the bridge from how to get a customer from where they are to where they want to be is weak.

5. Thanks Stacey. There are probably some marketeers listening to this who realise that they are guilty of some of those things. And standing out from the crowd is key to marketing, so in the context of your book, could you please talk us through why that is essential?

(04:44) So crucially, when every company sounds the same, basically it leaves customers completely confused about what makes each one different. So, customers end up completely overwhelmed and they just end up making a choice that is usually the cheapest even if that means that it’s not the best option for their situation.

When we asked why this is happening, people listed many reasons, but there’s one that really interested us and that was pure laziness. So, many marketers are really just skipping crucial steps to understand the customer, digging in, doing research and uncovering insights and also doing the true deep soul-searching work of figuring out the essence of what makes their organisation different. And they’re just instead copying what their competitors are doing.

So, after all, it’s easy to go to a competitor’s website, read their “why us” statement and then slightly rewrite it for your own website. But this really comes across as inauthentic. It lacks the depth that we talked about earlier and does not fully mobilise or excite the organisation to deliver on their promise to customers.

Thanks Stacey, that was a great explanation. You can really understand why that sea of sameness exists when everybody’s copying one another, essentially.

6. And Simon, we’re here today to discuss how marketing can stand out from the crowd by developing five key competencies. So, which competencies do you think marketeers of today are lacking when it comes to standing out from the crowd that you’ve mentioned?

(06:20) Yes, no problem. Before I get into that, maybe I can talk about what we see as a competency because it’s quite a contested word. So, we think it’s the knowledge, the skills and the behaviours all put together that you need to be successful in your role. For example, our interviewees said that the most important role of marketing was brand management, which is not a surprise. So, that’s a job to be done by marketing, which is about differentiating the brand in a meaningful way to customers. What do you need to know? What do you need to be good at? And how do you need to behave to develop and mobilise a brand within your company and, crucially, in the markets? That’s what we mean by competencies; What do you need to know? What do you need to be able to be good at to mobilise people?

So, from our research, the five competencies that came out, together, spell the word VALUE.

V is for visionary, which is about foreseeing potential changes in the broader business environment in the market.
A is for activator, which is about getting buy-in to initiatives and to get the business driving forward for growth.
L is for learner, which is about learning from changes in the environment and what your customers’ value and in what sets you apart from competitors.
U is for usefulness, which is differentiating a way that’s relevant, practical, and resonates with customers.
E is for evaluator. This is to evaluate the ongoing success of marketing and sales campaigns and, at the front-end, to evaluate ideas that might be brought forward to see if they’re worth moving forward by the business.

7. Thanks Simon, and we’ll go through each of those elements starting with visionary. What does it mean for marketeers and how can they demonstrate this competency effectively?

(08:14) Well, okay. The first one, to stand out as a visionary, marketeers have got to demonstrate that like an eagle they can soar to 10,000 feet and zoom out to see the big picture, before zooming in on the things that could have the most impact, both for the customer and their own organisation.

So, at any one time, there are lots of things going on, coming up on the near horizon or in the far distance. And if we look at what’s happening lately, it’s really dizzying. In the US, there’s a new president who, on his first day, brought America back into the Paris Global Climate Agreement. In Europe, there’s Brexit for the UK withdrawal from the European Union. And of course, COVID has dramatically swept the world and affected us all in many ways; changes in online shopping, too many zoom meetings, moving towards a situation where mental health awareness is on the agenda. And if we compare the fortunes of different chief executives, for example, Pfizer versus British Airways, we’ll see that these things have had a dramatically different effect on different organisations.

And when we think about what’s happening on the technology front, it’s just eye-watering. The first iPhone was launched in 2007, and the last time I looked there were three and a half billion globally. And coming up on the horizon and starting to embed itself in organisations, we’ve got 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and all these things have impacted on customer behaviour and uncompetitive behaviour.

So, I suppose the two big examples are Airbnb and Uber, and then more lately, Lyft, who have massively impacted industries and don’t even have any of the assets that those industries are famous for. So, taken together, a marketeer must know how all this stuff will impact their customer, their own company, and their industry.

So, if you prefer a sporting analogy, I’ll use the famous and greatest ice hockey player ever, Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian guy, as an example. He says that you must skate to where the puck is going, not where it’s been. So, you’ve got to join all that stuff together and say, “Okay, what’s going to happen and how can we predict that?” Marketeers need to get better at that.

8. Thanks very much, Simon. And talking about the acceleration of technology and being a disruptor, how can marketeers generate creative and innovative ideas that can help their organisations to move forward, or stand out? Do you have any tips?

(10:56) I think they’ve got to read in tech reference points more widely than they would traditionally do. So, look outside your own industry, profession and at other disciplines. I mentioned before, when I’ve been asked these questions, that sport’s quite a good example because they seem to be quite good at sharing between disciplines. For example, in this country, Leicester Tigers’ new coach, Steve Borthwick, he’s meeting with the Leicester soccer or football manager, Brendan Rogers to share experience. So, marketeers should do that and listen to industry experts, dive into stuff that industry experts like and get on to Ted Talks.

When you think about, one of the great academic gods of marketing which is Ted Levitt, I would say, don’t be myopic. Don’t be near-sighted. And then, get together with people, have what the Americans call “brown bag lunch sessions” where you get together and talk about things that are happening and how that might impact on people. And then come up with creative solutions from that. So, you must develop this wider understanding and appreciation to come up with those creative ideas. And so you could work with people like us, if you want to think that through, to do brainstorming about where the future might lead you and to predict about what this combination of potential things can do for you, because in the end, as a marketeer, your job is not just to do all that broad visioning. You’ve got to be able to zoom in on the thing that could be good for your company and for you, the thing that might move the needle for the customer and make your organisation money.

9. So, following on from that, if we could look at the second competency which is activator, that’s about, bringing those ideas to life and activating them. How can marketeers go about getting their ideas heard by their managers to progress or to execute in a vision for change?

(13:04) Again, it might be worth just talking about what makes an activator. Firstly, you must be able to be what we call a “balanced advocate.” So, you’ve heard me say a couple of times already, you’ve got to understand what’s going to work for both your customers and for your company; how well your company is going to make more money, how your organisation is judged on being successful. And you’ve got to be able to listen, but not just listening in order to reply, to really listen emphatically to understand what people are telling you, to understand what’s affecting customers, what might be affecting other people in your organisation. And crucially, you’ve got to be able to understand that you need to negotiate; that not everything that you take forward as an idea should be what we call “fully baked”, because other people are going to have taken on the idea, and from their experience may give you tips to make it better.

And then you must be tenacious, more than anything else, because not all great ideas get taken up the first time. There are apocryphal stories about Dyson and how many times he (James Dyson) got rejected for, now, his revolutionary vacuum cleaners. And then when he moved towards execution, he claims to have had 5,000 prototypes before he found one that worked.

And then you must be people centric. So, to get stuff to work and to get your organisation to buy into it, you’ve got to understand the people in the organisation. What motivates your boss, what type of person they are, what’s going to excite them as a new idea and then the other executives in the organisation. And then to be able to what we call contextualised, to talk at different levels in the organisation to understand what your director is interested in, what the person who leads a sales organisation might be motivated for et cetera. So, that’s the combination of things that make up an activator and they’re the things that people need to do to be good activators.

10. And how can marketeers become more adaptable to modify their strategies accordingly?

(15:13) I think almost the answer is in the question there, because that’s the key, you got to be adaptable. I think if I observed throughout my professional career, the thing that marketeers do wrong most often is this whole thing of going in with ideas that we call “fully baked” and then not liking it if somebody has a different take on the idea or puts forward a better variation. Adapt based on what you hear being said and take away the great ideas and mould them back into your idea and come back with modifications that improve it. Now, this is not designed by committees, it’s other experts or people who have a different take, giving you a different view. So, be adaptable to that and then be adaptable to changes in the market to maybe change your idea too.

11. I guess then, a blocker to doing things differently could be, a person’s organisation being quite unwilling or resistant to change. What advice would you give to someone in that position?

(16:19) Well, I think that’s a great question because I think most marketeers underestimate the fact that at the core of it, they are change agents trying to get the organisation to move towards a different idea or towards a new market. So, you’ve got to create that compelling change case, recognise that that’s what you’re doing. You are trying to get a change in the organisation, the change in its focus. So, listen to the counterarguments and then create a sense of urgency to do that thing that you’re suggesting; if we don’t do this, then what’s going to happen? Are we going to miss out on an opportunity? Is that performance going to start to dip?

And above all, try to be more self-aware and self-reflective. It’s easy to say that an idea never got put forward because the other person was a bit stubborn, but it could be because the approach you took didn’t quite work and accepting all of that. There is a chapter in our book about culture and all this stuff takes place in different organisational cultures. And, we’ve spoken to people who are in senior positions who have left organisations because in the end, they do get a sense that there isn’t an appetite for change. And if you are somebody that likes to change and likes to see it driven, then maybe it’s not always right to be in the current organisation that you’re in. And this is part of the wider cultural fits question.

Cultural fit is extremely important and shouldn’t be undervalued. And if we move to Stacey now, we’re looking at the third competency, which is the learner.

12. Why is it so important for marketeers to upskill to keep on learning and developing, especially in this new era of work that is constantly accelerating with changes?

(18:10) Well, I think 2020 perfectly sums up the reason why being a learner is so important. So many marketers started last year with one set of plans and then six weeks into the year, everything changed. So, for example, the shift from in-person events to online events created an immediate need to learn new technologies.

Companies that had a group of strong learners were able to understand that business and customer expectations have changed, and they were able to adapt to that more quickly. Being a learner is about having a mindset of curiosity. It’s being open to new ideas, able to critically think. And I think, crucially, for this audience, it’s about being deliberate and self-directed rather than waiting for your boss or your manager to come and tell you what to go learn.

Upskilling is important, and that could be about learning a new technology, but there’s also the human side of this, which is learning about your customers, understanding what’s happening in the competitive landscape, the market; there’s many things that that does. And one client that I’m thinking of that we worked with was able to demonstrate that they had the best customer understanding. And they were suddenly invited to participate into strategic sessions in the company. So, previously they had not earned a seat at that table, but because they were the most relentless and able to understand what was happening with the customer base, they became a real source of knowledge there.

13. Thanks Stacey. I’m interested in learning about the implications of not upskilling or not continuously learning versus doing so. I imagine there’s a real risk of being left behind if you don’t carry on learning throughout your career?

(20:00) Yes, exactly. I think what we know is that the only thing that is constant is change. So, of course, the major implication for not learning is that you will not be able to adapt quickly and you may even make yourself or your job obsolete if you can’t keep up with the changing times. And I’ve seen this personally in my career that marketing leaders and individuals that couldn’t keep up with the technology, or didn’t really understand the technology and didn’t bring people onto their team that understood the technology, all of a sudden people are sitting around the table that are not marketers, and maybe they have an IT background or a product or sales background and they were able to more specifically talk about that. Eventually, those people work themselves out of that job because they couldn’t keep up with the technology and understand that.

I think about how much my role has changed, how much I’ve seen marketing change over just the past ten years and the number of different tools that we use now. Often, those tools do make your job easier and they do give you greater insights. So, I really do think it is essential because of the reasons you’ve just pointed out there as well.

14. Do you have any tips for our listeners to help them effectively upskill in a way that perhaps works for them?

(21:18) So the first, you may be wondering is what do I need to learn? We have a set of categories and questions in the book that covers five key areas.

The first is the market. What’s happening with market trends? Where is the market going in the next five years? It’s everything in that visionary category that Simon talked about.

Competitors, what’s happening with the competitive landscape. Who are the top competitors and not just direct competitors, but indirect competitors? And, of course, the number one competitor of people just getting complacent and doing nothing.

The third is understanding the company and the product or service solution. So, where’s the company headed? What are our revenue targets this year and next? What’s the mission of the company? Why are they in business? How are they measuring the value that they provide to customers? One of the number one questions that we like to challenge people with is what problem do you solve for customers? And, starting there, if you cannot answer that, that’s a great place, how well do you really understand the company and the products.

The fourth area is customers. So, who is your ideal customer? What are their top needs and pain points? What are their motivations? As I mentioned in that example, if you’re the one that knows the most about your customer base, you will be invited to participate in strategic conversations.

And then lastly is the role. So, depending on where you are, where you sit in the organisation, what are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you need to learn to improve in your current job? What’s the next job that you want to have and what do you need to learn to get to that next level? I would say I’d start there, ask yourself, where do I lack knowledge within these categories and choose one to get better at.

The second that we hear from a lot of marketers, the biggest hurdle and impediment to learning is that they just don’t have time. So, this is something that is one of those habit-building things. Set aside fifteen minutes to read and think. Don’t view this as wasted time but as valuable time to make yourself smarter. So, a lot of people feel like they must be doing and checking things off a to-do list. Well, add then, I need to read for 15 minutes or I need to watch a video for 15 minutes to make myself smarter. And replace some of that mindless Instagram or Twitter scrolling with something that’s going to help you be smarter in your job.

And then lastly, it’s about developing a sense of curiosity. So, when we were children, we asked our parents about 300 questions a day but by the time we get to middle school, we stop asking questions altogether. So, it’s going back to that childlike curiosity and a great place to start is to ask “why” questions. So, digging deeper into programs that you’re running or products that you’re selling and digging into the “why are those successful or not successful.”

And then another great one is “what if.” So, when we ask the question “what if,” our brains go into this imaginative place that leads us down a path where you could potentially come up with new ideas and innovations.

Thanks for that Stacey, some interesting points. I like the example that you gave, people stopping asking questions, as they reach school age. And I think there’s some, important questions there for our listeners to ask themselves as well.

15. As the expectations that are placed on marketing functions continue to increase in this new era of work, marketeers are understandably under a lot of pressure to prove the value of their role in order to demonstrate their usefulness, which brings us on to that term. How can they prove their usefulness effectively?

(25:01) Firstly, we define usefulness as the ability to connect the dots from what your company does to how it helps solve a customer problem. So, this includes, products, services, your sales approach, your service approach, marketing content. I mean, really everything you do should be viewed through this lens of being useful to both customers and your company.

To be useful, we developed this usefulness triangle, and there’s really three elements to that:

So, the first is knowledge. This is the skills and experience that you possess that other people would find helpful. So, it’s about mastering something; just as you would not take your car to be fixed by an untrained mechanic, it’s the same thing. Your customer wants to buy something from people that are smart and that have dedicated their business to developing something that they know that they can trust. And another thing like B2B buyers, one stat we constantly see is that they want to work with sellers that understand their business. So first, it’s just about the knowledge piece there.

Two is about preparation, which is being ready and willing to help. Again, knowing that there is really no one-size-fits-all approach, that you have to constantly be thinking about the customer and rather than trying to push out a product, maybe thinking about how to make that more useful to individual customers, especially in a B2B buying situation where you have more than one decision-maker to reach.

And then the third element is timing. So, this is the phrase “timing is everything.” And right now, 90% of B2B buyers are willing to interact with the seller early. So, it’s about getting in there to help them solve problems and eliminate problems that they might not know that they have. Another stat, about 35-50% of sales is going to the vendor that responds first to a customer inquiry. So, this timing piece is important in being useful.

One of the things that we see many marketing team’s missing right now is customer research. There’s not a big budget for this and yet companies are willing to spend millions of dollars on advertising, but not really understanding what it would take to make the advertising more effective. And so, it’s about prioritising that deep customer understanding. You cannot be useful to a customer if you don’t understand what they need, first and foremost.

Thank you, Stacey. Over the past year, all of us have worked from home for most of it, and that can probably be expected for some time to come at least. And that means that work and personal lives have become blurred as the one space, and we’ve spoken about how marketing has been under a lot of pressure.

16. How can marketeers effectively prove their value without suffering from burnout?

(28:01) Yes, this is a great question. I saw a startling stat the other day that said 83% of marketers are burnt out. That’s the most of any other profession, and it went up 10% since before the pandemic.

So, what does that mean? It means that suddenly there’s a lot of pressure being put on marketing teams to over-deliver. So, because everything went from in-person to suddenly digital interaction, that largely fell on the shoulders of marketing, to go make the website, messaging and emails better, and put together programs, webinars and podcasts to engage customers.

And so, I think from a marketing standpoint, it’s about taking a step back and putting together a strategy, making sure that you really understand what it is that you’re trying to achieve. It’s not about constantly executing the idea of the day or the flavour of the day. So, if somebody comes and knocks on your door and says, “Hey, I just got a white paper from a competitor. We need to go create a white paper”, or “Hey, so-and-so is creating a podcast, we need to go create a podcast”, It’s about, as Simon mentioned, understanding your business and what your business is trying to achieve.

And then this usefulness piece, again, going back to customers, understanding what the customers really want and need and what’s going to be the best use of your time. Do your customers even read white papers, for example, or are they more video people? Many marketers just don’t know the basic answers to some of these customer questions and so they get stuck in this cycle of just constant execution. So, it’s not about being better or faster executors or working around the clock, but about only choosing and working on those things that are going to move the needle.

Thanks Stacey, that makes perfect sense. And moving to Simon for the final key competency you mentioned in your book, which is evaluate – taking stock of what is and isn’t working, which Stacey just touched upon there.

17. How important is it for marketeers to assess and analyse whether their activity is having the desired impact?

(30:12) Well, I think Stacey teed that up fantastically because, the number one reason is if you can’t do it, you’ll end up being in the 83% that are burnt out because you’re just responding to things that sound like an activity.

As Stacey said, “Can you do this white paper because somebody else is doing one?” or, “Can we go to this event again?” et cetera. And quite often that’s because organisations have this activity illusion, which means that the more you do, they believe that more is going to happen. Now, that’s not the case because if you prioritise on the things that are really going to move the needle, then you must drop some of the things that aren’t having an impact. And you must be able to prove the case at both ends. So, you must have the skill to be able to do it and measure and evaluate.

Now, these are quite dangerous times to be a marketeer, in a way because marketeers have never had a great impression with the chief finance officer and, really, with the chief executives as well because of this whole issue of them not being able to measure the success. Now, at this moment in time, because of digital marketing, it’s much easier to measure some things. But all the things that are easy to measure, now what they call vanity metrics, so I could tell you how many likes are out of my Facebook page or the page impressions on the website or click-through rates to my website or from my website to somewhere else. But it must roll up to be about revenue and profitability or customer satisfaction. And so, it’s crucial that you can evaluate new opportunities to decide how you prioritise.

And it’s crucial to be able to say, were stopping that one cause it’s not worked, or we are going to just slightly change that because there’s one or two things that are not working, or are we just going to keep going with that cause it’s been really successful.

You can burn a lot of cash in calories focusing on the wrong things and just imagine how much of a positive impact you would have in an organisation if you had the bravery to say, “Oh, and by the way, this is one of my own initiatives, which I am prepared to change or stop because I’m not seeing the desired effects of this campaign”. So, all the above reasons are why it’s important, from burnout to enhancing reputation in the C-suite trying to be somebody that’s got integrity and credibility and organisation.

18. Thanks, Simon. And do you think that the need for these competencies in marketing has increased with the COVID-19 pandemic? And do you think the importance will continue into the new era of work?

(33:00) I would say yes, dramatically. I mean, let’s have a look at a few examples. So, when we get back to vision, the V, we’re not saying you’ve got to be, it’s always a vision for five years down the road. We’re talking about far distance and near horizon. So, this thing just came up on people quickly, and companies that displayed vision, so they converted their output from being gin distillers to providers of hand sanitisers. Or we know of an example of an event management company in Boston that used it’s QR code capability to switch from events to checking people onto construction sites for safety, and so that’s an example of vision.

From an activation standpoint, the companies we’ve just talked about could talk about how those ideas got mobilised quickly and got turned around. Now, we have spoken to other companies who said we’ve had some great ideas and our organisation was too cumbersome and got in each other’s way to move those ideas forward. So, activation has either got people ahead of that curve in this lockdown, and it’s going to help them going forward.

So, the learner, as Stacey said, has really been heightened during this pandemic. Customer habits and needs are changing, and things are rolling forward very quickly. We’ve gone from a situation where everybody had loads of Zoom meetings and thought they were great to now they’re realising it’s just terrible. People are getting tired of it; people are having mental health problems and anxiety. And just a real tactical example that, locally, I’ve noticed that all people do now is sit in the house and either work or watch films and then they go for walks in the locality. And there seems to be this trend to stop off for coffee and food stops. The local bakeries that have responded to this started to open on both days of a weekend because it’s a big money-spinner and others have not because they’ve not seen that change in behaviour.

And as far as usefulness is concerned, new problems have come to the surface and therefore you’ve got to find some new solutions. Some of which we gave as examples, either you change the offer that you make, or you change what you say because you need to resonate with a thing that’s now the issue. IBM was a great example from quite early on in the pandemic where, because of what they realised what would happen and they changed from quite a big portfolio to focus on six big things that they knew were important for customers and segmented the customers in to look at them in different ways.

Some big companies needed to be kitted out with laptops and broadband and stuff like that because they’d never worked from home. And then evaluator is heightened because you’ve got to be quick to assess what in your portfolio might not be working, what is working and to change direction quickly. So, even more than before, I would have thought.

Well, thank you very much Simon and Stacey. It’s been great to learn about your book, Stand Out Marketing. I’m sure it’s given our listeners plenty to think about as well and given them plenty to reflect on their own careers, how they operate in their roles as well and what they’re doing within their organisations. I’d like to finish on a question, and I’ll ask you both separately. We’ll start with you, Simon.

19. If you had one piece of advice to help our listeners navigate their careers through the pandemic and beyond, what would that be?

(36:57) One and a half really. I’m in the camp of don’t feel that it’s a problem if you’ve just got through this because it’s been tough, and there’s plenty of marketeers who’ve been made redundant or furloughed through this process.

So, I would say cut yourself some slack but adapt and be pragmatic and learn the things that people deem to be useful now. In this book, we don’t talk about digital a lot because we regard that as a skill that sits inside the overall competency added to behaviour knowledge, as we said. But right now, organisations are asking for people that are digital natives or have got digital expertise.

So, unashamedly as the lead writer for Marketing Week said in his column recently, you have to go to interviews developing a story about what you’ve done to be a digital native because that’s what’s important now. But nevertheless, these big competencies are the enduring things that we believe, carry or follow. But above all else, cut yourself some slack. This is a tough time, just get through it and do the best you can to be a good marketeer.

Thanks, Simon. I think that’s very important: don’t be too hard on yourself.

20. And Stacey, if I could ask the same question of you. If you had one piece of advice to help our listeners navigate their careers through the pandemic and beyond, what would that be?

(38:27) Yes, so my advice, I think building on what Simon said, it would be about mindset. And that’s really to recognise that you have the power to change and impact your own development. And this is about having the courage to take ownership of your career and not waiting or relying on your manager to prescribe a specific plan. So, it’s defining what you want and what you don’t want in your career and being bold enough to go after it. And as a starting point, we listed five competencies here today, so choose one that resonated with you the most and just commit to starting to get better at that. It’s really going to help you as a marketer, but also help define what you’re good at and where you want to take your career.

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It will come as no surprise to employers and employees alike that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health and wellbeing of many employees.

But what specific challenges are employees facing, and what opportunities are there for employers who wish to support people more effectively?

We’ve gathered global and regional data in the Hays Journal Statistical Snapshot to find out.

Hays Journal 20 | The organisational challenges and opportunities of COVID-19 from Hays

Here are some more Hays Journal 20 articles that you may be interested in:

The challenges of the pandemic have forced many businesses to adopt an innovative mindset in order to adapt to new demands in record time. And while many of us look forward to the world returning to what will be the new normal, this way of thinking is something that many organisations will want to hold on to.

The year 2020 was one of seismic change for everyone, both at home and at work. Businesses were forced to evolve and adapt rapidly in light of the COVID-19 crisis. In the year where hybrid and home working, virtual meetings, social distancing and face masks became the new normal, many organisations had to completely revamp their business models and working practices.

Innovation became a matter of survival during the COVID-19 pandemic

According to a global study of 899 C-suite executives by McKinsey, companies have accelerated by three to four years the digitisation of their customer and supply chain interactions, and of their internal operations, following the pandemic. Furthermore, the share of digital or digitally enabled products in their portfolios has progressed by seven years.

One of the most common changes for organisations around the world was needing to switch to a fully remote workforce. “Our shift, like other businesses, was very rapid,” says Peter Histon, Chief Technology Officer at life insurance firm Resolution Life Australasia. “We wanted to ensure our people could safely work at home whilst being connected to their team on a daily basis. Our people’s wellbeing is really important to us.

“We used a monthly engagement survey to ask them how they were managing, what further support they needed and if they were set up adequately with the appropriate equipment to do their job. We delivered monitors, chairs and headsets all across Australia. Each leader was empowered to make decisions that would support their team’s wellbeing and performance.”

It was a similar story at PwC UK. Laura Hinton, Chief People Officer, says that prior to COVID-19 around 10 per cent of PwC’s employees worked remotely at any one time. This switched to nearly 100 per cent almost overnight. “Of course, switching all of our 22,000 people to remote working was unexpected, but our investment in technology and embracing a culture change meant this particular adaptation was relatively smooth,” she notes.

Hinton says a decade’s worth of innovation and change took place in months and that some of the new practices, including flexible and remote working, will form the framework for businesses in the post-pandemic world.

Kathleen Jones, Chief People Officer (interim) at Rathbone Brothers, says the investment management sector has been similarly overhauled in a very short space of time. Much of this change has, Jones believes, actually been a positive thing. “Organisations like ours were worried about embracing flexible working because these businesses weren’t sure how they would manage productivity, but this has made many companies see that people can remain productive and professional while working remotely,” she says. “The pandemic has been a catalyst for a new way of thinking for us.”

How adopting an agile mindset can create opportunities for your organisation

Some organisations had to do more than move to a remote working model, and completely changed their business model to ensure they survived the effects of the pandemic. Across the globe, organisations pivoted to create products to help fight the spread of COVID-19.

Fiasco, a New Zealand-based company which usually supplies touring equipment such as protective road cases for musicians, was forced to quickly rethink its strategy when the live music industry was paused. The business considered what different products it could produce with its existing supply chain and began making home working desks and plastic screens for retailers instead.

In China, Foxconn Technology Group repurposed its production lines to make surgical masks. Meanwhile, luxury goods conglomerate LVMH began producing hand sanitiser at its Dior and Givenchy perfume sites. And in South Korea, CJ CGV, a major cinema chain, created completely contactless theatres, with robots, automated snack bars and unmanned ticketing systems.

Michel van Hove is Partner at Strategos, a US strategy and innovation consultancy founded in 1995 by Gary Hamel. He says that with mounting challenges, many businesses moved quickly to offer new or altered services or products. “There was a general sense of urgency and, in many cases, companies quickly scaled up basic infrastructure that was already in place.”

He adds that in times of difficulty there are often opportunities available to those who can see them. “Generally speaking, when constraints are applied there will always be individuals who see this as an opportunity to come up with different working practices and behaviours that help them achieve better outcomes.”

Why innovative organisations outperform their peers

While an organisational culture that promotes change and innovation can be necessary to survive economic challenges, it can also give businesses a competitive edge when things are more stable.

Boston Consulting Group’s global Most Innovative Companies Report 2020 found that 66 per cent of the 2,500 executives surveyed see innovation as a top three management priority. Yet only 45 per cent are “committed innovators” – that is, they see innovation as a top priority and back up that commitment with significant investment.

“Sceptical innovators” (30 per cent of the total) see innovation as neither a strategic priority nor a significant target of funding. And “confused innovators” (25 per cent of the total) report a mismatch between the stated strategic importance of innovation and their level of funding for it.

The research found that committed innovators are seeing the best results. Almost 60 per cent report generating a rising proportion of sales from products and services launched in the past three years, compared with only 30 per cent of the sceptics and 47 per cent of the confused.

And in Australia, a 2020 survey of 180 firms by Innovation and Science Australia found that SMEs with high growth in technology spending increased their revenue 3.5 percentage points per year faster, and employment 5.2 percentage points faster, than those with low technology spending.

How can organisations continue to prioritise innovation post-COVID-19?

With this in mind, how can businesses ensure that the innovative mindset they gained by necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic becomes a permanent part of their culture?

1. Celebrate your achievements

One way to maintain the momentum of employees’ innovation-ready mindset is to celebrate their achievements so far. Kate Cooper, Head of Research, Policy and Standards at the Institute of Leadership and Management, points out that while the long-term impact on productivity after switching to home working is still something of an unknown, employees’ willingness to make this change is something businesses should champion.

“So many people have demonstrated capabilities to learn new technologies very quickly, to find ways of collaborating with colleagues and manage performance – all virtually,” Cooper says.

This is indicative of an adaptability we will continue to need in the future, she says, not just in response to a crisis. “It could be we need to get something to market, find new suppliers or train people on a new system – whatever it is, an ability to respond quickly and effectively will deliver real competitive advantage.”

2. Continue to disrupt and question your business model

In November 2020, Resolution Life switched to a new working model called ‘enterprise agile’ to support an innovative mindset beyond the pandemic, says Histon. “This has enabled us to fundamentally shift the way we collaborate across the organisation, to transparently generate ideas, test solutions and ultimately deliver great outcomes for our customers.”

As part of this shift, the business now holds regular events called ‘ceremonies’ to provide feedback from different levels of the business.

“One of the ceremonies we’ve implemented as a part of our agile flip is the concept of a fortnightly showcase. These are open to the entire organisation and the senior leadership team (including our CEO) have a presence at each of the showcases.

“This gives our people the opportunity to hear regularly from the senior leadership team about how important innovation is and how they are embracing ‘different’.”

3. Build a culture of clear, consistent communication

Sheryl Fenney, Vice President, Global HR at Fanatics, an international sports merchandise business that works with the likes of the NFL, Manchester United and Bayern Munich, says she and her colleagues learned that building a culture of communication and strong leadership was essential when implementing quick changes to their business.

“With so much uncertainty in our lives and with our offices being across 11 countries, it was important that our global leadership team gave a strong, clear and consistent message,” she notes. “Increasing our communication, both at a global and local level, was also vital.”

They also learned that they needed to put employee welfare at the heart of business, says Fenney. “We did a lot of work making sure that we regularly communicated to our whole organisation and that our leaders showed humility, empathy and honesty when they spoke, many sharing personal stories of challenges they’ve faced,” she comments.

But while the COVID-19 crisis was very much a global issue, Fanatics had found that in previous periods of significant change within the company, different countries responded in varying ways. In the UK, for example, employees sometimes struggled to adapt. “In the UK we had found, after compiling employee feedback previously, that people were more resistant to change or saw it as a negative,” Fenney says.

To help combat this, Fanatics rolled out a number of ‘change workshops’ for UK employees, delivered by an external facilitator. “This wasn’t needed as much in other countries, such as the US, where the employee base was much more used to and excited by change,” Fenney notes.

4. Your processes must keep pace

Of course, for many businesses, following processes to ensure services or products are delivered to a set standard is as important as innovating regularly. Accordingly, van Hove warns that these should be developed with equal urgency.

“At Strategos we believe innovation can flourish by enabling creativity with robust processes,” he explains. “These are not mutually exclusive as many like to believe. Core processes and shared purpose provide overall coherence for everyone.

“If we look at our clients, 2020 was a time when prescribed ways of working (policies and procedures) were often ‘ignored’ in favour of helping colleagues and customers. Organisations need to innovate their products and services, but those same processes must apply to their working practices.”

Kosta Mavroulakis, CEO and Founder of global innovation scouts Empact Ventures, agrees and recommends that organisations research to see if there are existing products that may support them in this endeavour, something he has witnessed organisations do throughout the pandemic. “It led them to make better use of existing off-the-shelf platforms, which better align to their existing system and processes,” he notes. “In other cases, it forced them to seek out new innovation provided by tech start-ups and scale-ups, or even to invest in creating their own.”

Renewable energy firm Bulb has taken on an additional 200 employees since the start of the Covid-19 crisis last March, and taken advantage of existing platforms to get the most from its workforce. “We use a mix of data and feedback to understand how things are working,” says Tom Fraine, Chief People Officer at Bulb. “One example is Slack – we know that this platform helps us work better remotely because our teams use it every day. If it doesn’t work, we change it.”

If businesses want to move quickly and effectively, Fraine says, they have to look closely at how their teams are using the tools and processes they have in place and change them if necessary. “We know that in order to be effective, we have to be agile in how we operate.”

Fenney, meanwhile, says that organisations can create a balance by putting equal weight on the importance of both innovation and process, even when recruiting: “Being innovative and agile is key for all roles, but it is important that we balance creativity with subject matter experts to ensure due diligence and compliance.”

5. Give your people the freedom to fail

Another key way of nurturing an innovative mindset is to ensure that reversing changes where necessary is not seen as a step back. Not every new idea will be a success, and encouraging your people to be mindful of this is important, says van Hove.

“When innovating, learning about the idea needs to come before the commercial argument. Assumptions-based testing is a great way to put ‘learning before earning’ and allows colleagues to roll back changes, reflect and reconsider ideas or correct the course if necessary.”

Resolution Life has a reflection process known as ‘retros’, where teams recap on recent changes in the business. “Every fortnight in our retros, our squads and self-managing teams reflect on what went well and what could be improved,” says Histon. “This session really highlights how we’re a learning organisation and recognise there’s always room for improvement.

“Part of the focus in the agile model is testing and learning, and the phrase we use is ‘it’s ok to fail, but let’s do it quickly’. We want to test new ideas, but we want to know if they are going to work. If not, we can try a different approach before launching to customers. This means we have to be very focused on what we are learning and be open to changing things accordingly.”

Mavroulakis, meanwhile, says there is value in communicating clearly to internal and external stakeholders, and that innovations within an organisation may roll back if they are found to be ineffective. “Organisations can adapt their online and offline communications to be clearer about the changes, and how they are subject to change, to enable them to reverse them in the future,” he says.

Ultimately, an organisation’s ability to sustain a culture of innovation at all times, not just during a pandemic, requires a deep knowledge of what allows its employees to break barriers. No two organisations will have followed the same route, and even colleagues within the same organisation will have had different experiences. It’s for this reason, van Hove says, that organisations must investigate thoroughly and gain a full overview of what has helped their people over the past year.

“It is not enough to send out questionnaires, as many organisations did during the pandemic,” he says. “They must identify and engage with individuals to understand at a deeper level what motivated them to innovate their work practices.”

This blog was originally written as part of the Hays Journal.

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The COVID-era cohort of school and university leavers are facing unique challenges entering the world of work. What role can employers play in helping the next generation take the first steps of their career journey?

One of the lasting legacies of COVID-19 will be the unprecedented experience of young people who looked for, or started, their very first job during this pandemic. The ‘lockdown generation’ of school and university leavers will enter the world of work in a very different way to those that are training or supporting them.

Graduates and school leavers face a challenging time

While the roll-out of vaccines has begun in some countries, and economies begin to recover, it remains to be seen how much of the ‘new normal’ in the world of work will become permanent. The long-term effects of the pandemic to society and the economy will only become clear in time. Until then, how can organisations ensure they’re supporting the next generation of talent, and help them to feel positive about their first step on the career ladder?

There’s no doubt the ‘lockdown generation’ is facing challenges in this area, with internship offers withdrawn and many first-time employees furloughed or made redundant. Graduate job numbers fell in 21 countries due to COVID-19, according to the 2020 global report from the Institute of Student Employers (ISE), with eight geographies, including Ireland, Hong Kong SAR and South Africa, cutting graduate jobs by 15 per cent.

And it isn’t just graduates who have been affected: the number of available apprenticeships in England in 2020 was down 46 per cent compared with the same period in 2019, says the UK Government’s Department for Education.

Furthermore, a global survey from the International Labour Organization found that one in six young people aged 18-29 (17.4 per cent) had stopped working since the beginning of the crisis. The figure climbs to 23.1 per cent when restricted to the 18-24 category alone.

Why organisations need to rebuild their onboarding processes

However, with organisations focused on battling the pandemic’s negative impact on business, why should they assign valuable resources to reach out to first-job recruits? “Taking on apprentices or graduates might not be high on some HR teams’ to-do lists,” says Stephen Isherwood, Chief Executive at the ISE. “But this could be something businesses live to regret. Employers need to think about how they will build a pipeline of talent coming through the organisation – talent they’ll need when the economy recovers.”

Besides that practical consideration, some business leaders feel they also have a social responsibility to invest in the next generation. Technology entrepreneur Daniel Cooper, based in Cambridge in the UK, has set up the Lolly Foundation to provide graduates and school leavers with free training courses. “Numerous firms already have specific pledges that go beyond profit, like commitments to reduce their carbon footprint,” he says. “It’s time to commit to a new one – hiring from the lockdown generation.”

While the most obvious way employers can help is to continue graduate and intern recruitment, apprenticeships and other training, the COVID-19 enforced working-from-home culture faced by many is a game-changer for onboarding new starters.

Many employers have been proactive in adapting to lockdown and social distancing requirements by creating virtual internships, hosting online inductions for new starters and turning previously in-person graduate training schemes into fully digital ones.

But Professor Christine Naschberger, of French business school Audencia, warns that although younger people are accustomed to online interaction, virtual onboarding still brings challenges: “It may be difficult to understand the company culture, and what the company expects from them in terms of performance and behaviour.

“Communication with their new line manager may be different because they cannot simply knock on the door if they have questions. Managers and HR professionals need to be proactive and reach out to the fresh starters to help them integrate.”

What’s more, employers will need to show compassion to the challenges this generation have faced. Being unemployed at a young age can have long-lasting “scarring effects” in terms of career paths and future earnings, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And a UNICEF report published in December 2020 says that, for many young people, COVID-19 is “still making it more difficult to integrate into the labour market”.

Four ways you can support the next generation of talent

So, what can organisations do to support the ‘lockdown generation’, and help them to build their careers?

1. Rethink your mentoring strategy

Lauren Stiller Rikleen, President at the Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership, is a US-based expert on developing a multi-generational workforce. “Employers should consider thoughtfully designed programmes to assist with this generation’s adjustment to the professional world,” she says. “In particular, there will need to be a greater focus on intergenerational mentoring and support.

“Workplaces should strengthen their stress management programmes to operate at the employee, workplace and organisational levels. This could include, for example, early-career affinity groups that encourage open conversation in a supportive environment and coaching interventions to prevent minor performance challenges from having long-term implications.”

Sandy Wilkie, Co-Director at Greenhill HR, says HR teams and senior managers should be working hard to ensure new starters flourish. “It’s key to put more effort into regular and engaging conversations with new starters leading up to their start date. Ask them what and who they think they need to know and build this into a tailored onboarding or induction plan that blends face-to-face and online meetings.

“When they have joined, ask them how they feel on a regular basis and invite them to participate in daily check-ins so they feel supported and can highlight any problems they’re having.”

Wilkie agrees that intergenerational mentoring is important – and that it can benefit both mentor and mentee. “Reverse mentoring, or co-mentoring as I prefer to term it, can help a new graduate worker learn about behaviours, culture and organisational politics, while their more workplace experienced co-mentor can learn about new technologies, for example.”

And Rikleen adds “By having to cope with a change of life as they knew it, the next generation of employees may enter the workplace with a greater level of empathy and adaptability, qualities that are critical components of emotional intelligence and important to effective leadership. Employers can build on these skills by offering training programmes for young employees that will develop these leadership qualities from the outset of their careers.”

2. Find new ways to assess young talent

If an organisation decides it will take on first-job recruits, how can it spot talent among a cohort of young people who might have unconventional educational or employment track records due to the disruption of COVID-19?

Harjiv Singh is CEO of BrainGain Global, an online hub aimed at higher education students, primarily in South Asia. He says organisations can look for the alternative forms of development young candidates may have undertaken, as some may have gained transferable skills. “Organisations that are smart will look to see how individuals navigated the pandemic – despite the disruption, did they find a way to learn a new skill, make new connections or work on something pro bono in an area that they are passionate about? This shows resilience and someone who is not deterred by challenges.”

He also advises that if an organisation wants to attract young talent, it should better understand what the lockdown generation is looking for in an employer. “Young employees coming into an organisation want it to be supportive of their personal career growth and provide opportunities to learn new skills and gain experience.

“It’s also crucial to build a strong employer brand: next-generation candidates gravitate toward career opportunities that strike a strong work–life balance and offer a sense of purpose. They’re also drawn to organisations that embrace professional freedom, innovation and flexibility.”

3. Consider a ‘bumper year’ of young talent

Many organisations, such as accountancy and financial services firms, base much of their talent strategy around the progression of entry-level employees who gain qualifications on the job. These businesses now face the additional challenge of returning to a regular training cycle. So what are they doing to secure their talent pipeline?

Starting on a positive note, over half (54 per cent) of accountancy and finance employers in the UK tell us that they plan to hire new staff in 2021. This is actually a touch higher than last year (50 per cent). But while hiring remains on the agenda, there is more involved when it comes maintaining a pipeline of new talent.

Matt Rawlins, Director of accountancy and financial services training company Kaplan, expands, “In the absence of maintaining a pipeline, it’s predicted that the business will suffer in five to 10 years, due to a skills gap caused by the current talent moving up within the hierarchy, with no pool of talent to replace it,” he says. “They may also fail to demonstrate the diversity candidates and clients expect in an organisation.”

Rawlins warns that, in the longer term, this may lead to organisations needing to recruit more senior staff, increasing hiring costs and negatively affecting progression. “It’s certainly worth considering filling the gap with a bumper year of recruits or trainees,” he says. “A delay of a year won’t hugely affect a business’s talent pipeline; however, if the ‘hole’ is not plugged quickly the impact will be extrapolated.”

And once these talent gaps are filled, what can organisations do to ensure that training is adequate for these entry-level employees, even if working remotely? Simply replicating training that was once done in person online won’t be engaging for those taking part. Remote training has come a long way since its inception. There are now a huge variety of different models, tools and platforms that are worth exploring. Consider which is most straightforward for new hires or junior staff.

I would also recommend incorporating a variety of learning materials. Entry-level employees will need to absorb a lot of knowledge about the role and your organisation, so cater to all learning styles and preferences by ensuring that the delivery of the training (albeit remote) is diverse and interesting.

Finally, measure your results. Which aspects you track will depend on the goal of the training, but it will help you understand the comprehension and capabilities of your entry-level employees.

4. Explore government support

Employers don’t have to do it all on their own – they can look to government subsidies for help recruiting the next generation of talent. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority introduced a HK$10.8 million subsidy plan in 2020 to pay half the salaries of 300 university graduates hired by banks and other financial services firms in the region.

The French Government is spending €6.5 million to encourage companies to hire youngsters through financial incentives. And in China, the central government helped set up online recruitment platforms featuring job postings for graduates, while the regional government in Hubei province, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak, created more public sector jobs for graduates and increased funding to help SMEs hire graduates.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Government launched the Kickstart Scheme, which provides funding to employers to create job placements for 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit. Looking at the impact on entry-level hiring for 2021, those industries most affected by the pandemic, including hospitality, leisure and travel, will most probably recruit less than other industries.

But across all sectors, Wilkie believes there will inevitably be a backlog of 2020 graduates who have not found an appropriate level, or any, job. “They will swell the ranks of those 2021 graduates looking for work and I expect many vacancies to be heavily over-subscribed. The economies that have been worst hit by COVID-19 – the USA and UK for instance – face far more long-term issues than the likes of New Zealand, Australia, China and Germany.” Whatever the availability of jobs in 2021 and beyond, he believes some of the pandemic-enforced changes in the way young people experience their introduction to the world of work will outlast the pandemic. “To some extent, COVID-19 has accelerated what was already happening. Face-to-face interaction isn’t going to disappear and will always be necessary, but many of the developments we’ve seen in virtual learning and recruitment are here to stay.”

This blog was originally written as part of the Hays Journal.

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Adam Philpott, President EMEA of cybersecurity firm McAfee, discusses how the firm creates balance between its technology and talent strategies, to keep moving into the future.

Uncertainty about the future is something many businesses have felt in recent months. While this can make many uneasy, Adam Philpott, President EMEA of cybersecurity firm McAfee, believes that a path can often unfold for us if we’re able to step back, look at the information available to us and act upon it.

His career journey is an example of how different experiences and interests can make sense later on, even when we’re unsure of what they are leading to at the time. Here are seven things we learnt during our conversation with him.

1. He allowed his career path to evolve organically, as he learnt more about himself

“Like a typical young man, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he laughs. “I wasn’t even going to go to university. I was on holiday with my pals in Ibiza and just decided to do it and went to study marketing. That was the first time I really started to take an interest in studies and academics.”

He says it was at this time he started creating different business plans, even though he still wasn’t sure what direction he hoped to go in after he graduated.

One such plan led to him launching his own streetwear company with a friend. Although the business folded, it also showed Philpott that selling was something he enjoyed and was good at, leading him to spend the next few years in distribution until he felt ready for a new challenge in 2000. “I felt that I could offer more in a consulting-led value proposition role,” he explains. “I quit my job and moved to Australia without anything lined up and then ended up working for Cisco.”

While he had a clearer idea of what he wanted to do, he still had to prove himself within the multinational technology company. “I started there at the very bottom of the ladder,” he says. “In fact, I started below the bottom of the ladder, working as a bag packer on a two-month contract.”

He soon secured a permanent sales role and the company sponsored his residency in Australia before he gained citizenship. “I then moved to Singapore and then relocated back to my native UK – all with Cisco,” he says.

With the experience of leading sales in various countries under his belt, alongside 15 years of service in one company, Philpott was again ready for a new challenge and it was at this point that he found himself joining McAfee.

“I didn’t want to just be seen as the guy who can do things in one company. I wanted to demonstrate that my skills are effective regardless of company and I knew the CEO of McAfee pretty well, so I came to help him drive the transformation here.”

2. His own career change aligned with a strategy change at McAfee

Philpott’s change in direction coincided with McAfee’s own, as the company moved from a software-focused strategy, to a cloud-first offering. With his sales background, Philpott understands better than most the risks of failing to meet customer needs, and it was exactly this that drove the change at McAfee.

“Our customers were using more and more cloud services, whether applications, storage or anything else to more dynamically run their business,” he explains. “If we want to be relevant to our customers, to help them face the risks they’re exposed to and assist them in accelerating their strategy securely, we have to be more cloud-centric. The money was going in that direction and our customers needed us to go in that direction to support them.”

3. He likes to identify replicable models to solve talent challenges

Of course, this change in direction required a change in the company’s talent strategy too, and Philpott says that McAfee focused on three areas: “I like replicable models – little things I can use to remember a structure when dealing with external challenges – and the one I use in this area is the three Cs: capacity, capability and commitment.

“When you look at your talent, have you got enough capacity? Are there enough people with the knowledge necessary to go and do this thing? One particularly important area for us is to continually enhance our consulting-led skillset, both at an operational and executive engagement level, and across technical and go-to-market resources.

“In terms of capability, you might have enough people, but are they used to building or selling legacy technology rather than cloud products? If so, how do you build that capability?”

The commitment, he says, has to come from colleagues, but also from the organisation. This means rewarding people for adapting to new ways of working. “It’s great if you’ve got enough people and they’re skilled, but if you’re not rewarding them for supporting change, they aren’t going to do it,” he says. “From a sales side for example, if they are going to make their quota selling old products, they aren’t going to sell new ones. It’s harder, so they’ll find the easiest path to revenue that they can. But if you blend these things together, it gives a nice framework for how one takes talent through that process.”

He says that once this framework is established it is vital to communicate it effectively and frequently. “The saying ‘repetition is the mother of learning’ is completely true. It takes time to sink in, but if you put all those things together and make people competent, you can then remove some of the safety nets until the risk of not doing it is greater than the risk of doing it.”

He adds that not being afraid to fail is also key in moving quickly as an organisation. “We pride ourselves that we will call out quickly where we’re failing, because we’ll recognise it quicker than other people and that is actually a competitive advantage.”

4. He has built trust among McAfee’s people to get honest feedback

In order to give colleagues confidence to flag up things that are not working, Philpott says that McAfee has created feedback channels that allow concerns or ideas to be shared across the organisation.

“At a leadership level, on a weekly basis we have an extended leadership meeting of 90 minutes where marketing, HR and all manner of different leaders participate and have the opportunity to share updates on their domain.”

He also hosts quarterly meetings called ‘Post-It Sessions’ to allow frontline staff to feedback to him directly. “I’ll talk for five minutes and then I’ll shut up and let people ask any question they want to. I have built some trust with them by being candid and transparent and non-judgemental, and they feel they can ask questions and get an honest answer.”

Customer voices are also added to the mix of feedback, with all leaders going out to see clients, listen to them and alter their plans as a company accordingly. “We talk about diversity a lot and I think this is a good dimension of diversity,” says Philpott. “There’s no point in listening to one type of individual otherwise you’ll get a narrow breadth of input.”

5. McAfee have a clear plan for improving diversity in the tech industry

Of course, being open to hearing diverse voices is only half the battle. Like any technology business, the talent McAfee requires is scarce as it is, even before trying to ensure the organisation has a diverse workforce. A 2020 report from S&P Global examined IT departments in 550 companies worldwide and found that just under half of them said women accounted for less than 25 per cent of staff, while 9.5 per cent reported no women in their company’s IT department. It’s a challenge that Philpott says they are only too aware of within McAfee, but one they are working to address.

“I’m a big fan of facta, non verba – deeds not words – which is an appropriate phrase for diversity,” he says. “I think it’s important to contribute to the debate, but I’m really interested in the actions that we take as well. So, our primary focus when I joined was to put in place a gender diversity programme. That’s where we felt there was the biggest gap at McAfee.”

McAfee took steps to retain their existing female tech talent, such as implementing pay parity for all employees working in the same roles at the same level and location. “We felt so strongly about this cause at McAfee that we achieved full pay parity in just one year,” he explains. “This marks McAfee as the first cybersecurity company to reach pay parity for women globally and for under-represented professionals.”

However, they also worked to improve the numbers of women interviewing to join the organisation. From altering the language used in job descriptions, to ensuring there was always a minimum of one female candidate that made it to the interview stage of roles and putting women on each interview panel, McAfee has taken several steps, and Philpott says the numbers are going in the right direction.

“We massively increased our incoming female talent pipeline. It was around 23 per cent when I joined in 2017, and last year 39 per cent of our hires were female. That doesn’t mean that we’re at 39 per cent female talent overall, but it shows actions can drive results.”

He says that, more recently, he has begun focusing on ethnic diversity within the organisation, following the killing of George Floyd in 2020. “I’m from Bristol, a diverse UK city, I care about humanity and I wanted us to do something on ethnic diversity and inclusion as well. We’ve started working with a society college in London that has a very diverse population. We’re about to launch some of the things that we’re doing with them.”

Prioritising tasks is a big part of technology development, and Philpott says that this approach can also be helpful for organisations not sure where to start on improving diversity. “It’s not always about doing something global and massive, it’s about doing small things as well,” he adds. “Big things are made up of small differences, and that’s what we seek to do.”

6. McAfee’s previous strategy shift positioned them perfectly to take on the challenges of a pandemic

While McAfee has made its transformation to a cloud-first organisation over the past few years, the COVID-19 pandemic means that many other businesses have had to adopt similar approaches, some for the first time.

Philpott says that McAfee’s products were well placed to support their customers in this transition, but that they have still altered their approach slightly. “The strategy we have in place is robust because it was seeking to drive this change, and the pandemic has simply accelerated it,” he says. “That said, some things have changed, like how we prioritise different technologies working together. There’s definitely some change there that we’ve had to react to.

“Again, it comes back to early warning systems and being quick to recognise something has changed, understanding it and addressing it when we go to market. I think of it as a factory floor; the toolsets that we use to create a quality product are no different to that. We have telemetry in place that understands the quality of what we’re doing and the impact in the marketplace as well. That means we recognise where we need to improve as rapidly as possible.”

There was also a sharp spike in cyber attacks during the pandemic. Philpott says this is something McAfee was very aware of as customers faced these new threats. “In order to allow organisations to thrive, our role is to ensure we help them manage the dynamic risks to which they’re exposed,” he says. “These grow in both volume and sophistication, whilst the manpower required to address them is insufficient on its own. Ensuring efficiency, visibility and control, augmenting human capacity with intelligence and AI has been a key dimension of how our security architecture and its components have evolved.”

More widely, Philpott is considering which of the changes brought on by the pandemic will affect McAfee’s own operations in the longer term. “For me, one of the interesting things is what it will mean for how we consume real estate services in the future,” he says. “Life is about balance. We’re not all going to be working completely virtually, but equally we’re not all going to completely go back to the office because of pollution, the lost productivity in commuting and mental health challenges that come with that. Those things don’t make sense and nor does paying for real estate which sits there idle most of the time.

“Flexible consumption models – driven by data – can understand what we are using, what we can use more of and how we can tweak our real estate investment profile to reflect what we really need. I’m really keen to see what happens in that area.”

7. Philpott is continuing to let his career path unfold organically

Aside from organisational goals, Philpott also has his own ambitions. But, as with taking a late decision to pursue higher education, or taking a chance on a new career in Australia, they are broad and are likely to leave him with many different options to pursue in the future.

“While most of my roles have been about go-to-market leadership, I have never, ever conducted them as that. I have always taken a general management approach to them,” he says. “Having a good comprehension of trends and insights and toolsets that one can use across functions is of huge interest to me.”

To gain this insight, he has joined one board and is in the process of joining two others. By doing so he hopes to expand both his knowledge of cyber and of other functions, and allow his path to reveal itself to him. “No one can be an expert in everything, but broad leadership really interests me as an area to grow in,” he concludes. “Sometimes our skills lead us in the right direction, whether we know it or not.”

This blog was originally written as part of the Hays Journal.

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At the end of 2019, environmental, social and governance (ESG) momentum around the world was strong – especially with regard to improving the sustainability of many organisations. But then came COVID-19, forcing many businesses into survival mode. As the world recovers, how can businesses ensure that being greener moves back up the agenda?

Over the past few years, businesses have learned that attracting and retaining customers and employees alike goes hand-in-hand with reporting on and showing a commitment to making a positive impact on sustainability and society, otherwise known as environmental, social and governance (ESG).

Sustainability in particular has been moving up the agenda for many businesses, in an effort to attract both customers and talent. A 2020 IBM study found that 71 per cent of consumers surveyed indicated that traceability of products is very important to them, and that they are willing to pay a premium for brands that provide it. Meanwhile, HSBC’s 2019 Made for the future report found that 24 per cent of organisations said that one of the driving forces behind their investments in sustainability is to improve their ability to recruit and retain the best people.

Organisations have been responding accordingly. Just before the pandemic hit at the end of 2019, the proportion of S&P 500 firms reporting on their ESG performance surged to 90 per cent, from 20 per cent in 2011. Meanwhile, KPMG’s Survey of Sustainability Reporting 2020 has revealed that 80 per cent of companies now report on sustainability, compared with just 12 per cent when the consultancy began tracking sustainability reporting in 1993. The consultancy’s latest report surveyed 5,200 companies in 52 countries.

Also in 2019, the European Commission launched the European Green Deal, which aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent. But then COVID-19 hit. Would a pandemic pause, slow or completely halt sustainability progress?

The impact of COVID-19 on workplace sustainability

Patxi Zabala, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Spanish industrial and tech company Velatia, says that many companies’ sustainability operations took a hit as a result of having to go into survival mode.

“The impact caused by the COVID-19 crisis had negative effects on businesses, which have had to make decisions that, due to the urgency of managing the impact of the virus on the life of the company and from the economic point of view, are sometimes not entirely sustainable.”

For example, many organisations have had to introduce new rules that require colleagues to wear personal protective equipment, such as masks and gloves. While essential to keep people safe, many items are disposable or single use. However, Ryan Swenson, Head of Sustainable Development at Australia’s Officeworks, points out that sustainability reduction in some areas does not have to result in an overall reduction in sustainability performance. “The health, safety and wellbeing of team members and customers must remain the first priority, but this doesn’t mean sustainability practices have to be compromised,” he says. Despite the new demands on workers, in October 2020 Officeworks was still able to launch its Positive Difference Plan 2025 – a five-year strategy for the team, community and environment – and has continued to progress towards becoming a zero-waste business and its net zero goal.

How can organisations build sustainability into their post-COVID-19 recovery?

So as organisations look ahead, how can they ensure that sustainability moves back up their agenda and forms a part of their recovery? Zabala believes that it is important that businesses which have discovered more sustainable practices don’t revert to old habits when they reach the other side of the pandemic. “In those cases where the crisis is having a positive impact on more sustainable management in terms of ESG, businesses should consider maintaining these changes by identifying their sustainable purpose and the profitability associated with better and greater sustainable management,” he explains, adding that increased public awareness of the need for sustainability will “make it easy, not only to return to some sustainable practices but also to develop many others.”

For example, the pandemic has also seen a significant reduction in business travel, which normally accounts for 12 per cent of global transport emissions, equating to 915 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019. Yet during the pandemic, there has been an unprecedented reduction in overall air pollution of up to 60 per cent, which takes into account not only international travel but the daily commute, too. This has been made possible because remote working, something that wasn’t available across the board before the pandemic, has been forced upon employers and employees, who are utilising programs such as Slack, Zoom and Teams to continue to work effectively. A global survey undertaken by Slack in October 2020 revealed that 72 per cent of people would prefer a mixture of office- and remote-based working, with just 12 per cent wanting to return to the office full time.

Furthermore, some businesses (including Deloitte and PwC) have already gone on record to say that sustained business travel reduction will form part of their ongoing plans to reduce emissions to net zero. But looking further ahead, what can leaders do to ensure sustainability moves back up the agenda within their organisation?

1. Take the chance to change behaviours

For Professor Dr Laura Marie Edinger-Schons, Chair of Sustainable Business at Germany’s University of Mannheim, there is hope that these newfound sustainable practices will remain the norm. “Research on sustainable behaviours has repeatedly shown that it is very hard to change habitual behaviours and routines,” she explains. “Thus, this unexpected disruption of our normal work-related behaviours offers a great opportunity for permanent change.” She also adds that many unsustainable practices as a result of the pandemic can be once again removed from business when the pandemic is over. “During the pandemic some industries were forced to use more unsustainable business practices, for example due to an increased delivery of products or use of plastic packaging; however, many of these will not be necessary anymore after the pandemic.”

Companies can also look at ways to make commuting into work – wherever that may be in the future – more inclusive and sustainable, with nearly 25 per cent of employees having left a job because of the commute. Organisations can look to subsidise commute costs and provide alternatives to company cars – which have been shown to increase household vehicle use by 25 per cent – such as cycling schemes.

2. Challenge suppliers to be more sustainable

Businesses can also take the opportunity to revisit supply chains; for example, companies can indirectly become more climate resilient and fairer to society and individuals. “We can achieve more through collective action than as a single organisation, so collaboration with many of our stakeholders, including suppliers and government, is really important,” says Swenson. IKEA’s supplier code of conduct, for example, requires that suppliers meet their standards in areas including working hours, employee benefits and wages, chemicals, waste, business ethics, the environment, child labour and discrimination before IKEA will consider working with them. Meanwhile, German sporting goods company Vaude has engaged with the German Government and stakeholders to co-create the ‘Grüner Knopf’ (the green button), a sustainability label for its textiles.

These sorts of initiatives are requiring companies all over the world to be more transparent, which will lead to more companies needing to identify their own supply chain risks. This is something The Susta i nability Consortium (a global non-profit sustainability organisation) is helping companies to do through its commodities mapping tool, which addresses where the risks are, what the risks are and how these issues can be addressed.

3. Encourage sustainable behaviour at all levels

Within business, however, it’s not just down to the upper echelon to encourage change. “It’s everybody’s responsibility to question the status quo and to participate in rebuilding and shaping our economy of the future. Of course top managers have greater power to change structures and processes, but employees are an equally important driver of change in organisations,” says Edinger-Schons. “And for those privileged few of us that are not facing existential threats due to the pandemic because we have secure jobs, I would say that our responsibility is even higher.”

But the responsibility to rebuild sustainability does not lie with businesses alone. Governments have a role to play here too – something that we’re already seeing in Spain. The country is set to receive around €140 billion from NextGenerationEU, the European Union’s recovery plan, which will go towards Spain’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. The plan covers green fiscal reform and includes bringing forward the country’s Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan goals from 2025 to 2023, the introduction of 250,000 electric vehicles, boosting renewables, especially floating offshore wind farms, reinforcing the grid and investing in smart grids.

The business fabric of the plan has been framed in a document put together by the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations. “It involves the entire value chain of companies. Through their awareness, and the implementation of a purchasing policy that incorporates ESG criteria, they must prominently emphasise the protection of human rights,” explains Zabala.

4. Make sustainability part of your organisational purpose

It’s easy to see how investing in industries that support existing sustainability momentum creates more jobs, and gives us a ‘greener’ normal after the pandemic. But what about the businesses whose existence was never based around these goals? We’ve already seen that investment banks and wealth managers are creating sustainability-focused portfolios, but what about those that, on paper, have very little need for interaction with sustainability practices?

“For several years now, companies have been worried about what new talent wants,” explains Megan Kashner, Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of Social Impact at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. “Prospective employees want the company they work for to be purpose-driven, to be on the right side of sustainability and to feel their values align with the values of the company. As a result, we’re seeing an increase in jobs that are about sustainable supply chains, that are in clean energy, diversity, equity and inclusion, and that are focused on sustainable finance. We’re seeing some of the biggest financial institutions shift their hiring to put talent behind these necessary initiatives, which it might have seemed they were only giving lip service to previously.” She adds that although previously progress was slow in providing transparency where it wasn’t required by law, “something about the pandemic has accelerated that”, and companies are having to make sure people like what they find.

It’s also fair to expect one of the direct outcomes of the pandemic to be that companies proactively change their hiring policies, as Zabala explains: “2020 was a year of changes, and the health crisis highlighted the need for sustainable models, the great relevance companies have in society and their fundamental role in providing rapid responses to the most critical, global and unexpected situations. In fact, in this pandemic many companies have demonstrated exemplary behaviour by making their resources available to the community, responding to productive, health, economic, material and social needs.”

So whether it’s an increase in jobs directly in the field of tackling climate change, or in roles in businesses that put sustainability at the forefront of a company’s ethos, the experts believe more jobs are coming. Zabala concludes that intelligent organisations understand this opportunity.

“They are reorienting their business models, with investments of millions in some cases, and with a positive impact on their entire value chain with the creation of thousands of jobs.”

This blog was originally written as part of the Hays Journal.

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Organisations in the life sciences sector faced quickly evolving recruitment needs throughout the pandemic. But how have these differed around the world, and how can organisations ensure they stand out to candidates in this market?

Unsurprisingly in the face of COVID-19, the talent needs of the life sciences sector have evolved rapidly since the pandemic began.

While some roles in the sector have been highly sought after, others have remained flat or even seen demand fall. The need for rapid vaccine development saw a surge in demand in some areas, while clampdowns on non-essential services caused declines in others.

But how have different countries been affected by these changes to demand? Here are some of the challenges that have been felt by the life sciences sector around the world.

The contrasting talent demands across the globe in 2020

Australia faced fewer local restrictions, but organisations still got caught in international hiring freezes

Alice Kedie, Manager, Life Sciences for Hays Australia, explains how it has impacted the talent market in the region. “We have been fortunate to largely have had much fewer restrictions than many other countries, so this has allowed things to continue to a degree as before; although because many affiliate operations in Australia are linked to headquarters in Europe and the US, the country has still been affected by things like hiring freezes.

“From a sales and marketing perspective, organisations that supply ventilators, personal protective equipment and over-the-counter antiviral products experienced exponential growth,” she adds. “On the opposite end of the spectrum, government and hospital capital funding was diverted away from equipment and drugs that were not COVID-19-response related and, therefore, saw a fall in sales.”

Analytical talent is in high demand in the UK and Belgium

In the UK, contingent entry-level talent was in high demand to support testing efforts earlier in the pandemic. More recently however, the market has settled into business as usual. There are a lot of trials in vaccines and we’re seeing needs for data science roles at the back end of the trials. The drive is for technical disciplines such as health economists and healthcare specialists, that can use real-world evidence to support the long-term roll-out of vaccines as they compete with the others on the market.

The requirement for analytical talent is a common thread for many regions, not just in Australia and the UK. Yannick Chentout, Team Leader – Life Sciences, Hays Belgium, says Belgium is another country experiencing a shortage of talent on this front: “For instance, testing centres are looking for laboratory technicians to analyse PCR tests, but a laboratory technician won’t remain on the labour market more than few days.”

Mexico and Poland saw the need for marketing and sales talent grow

Mariusz Popin, Senior Manager, Life Sciences, Hays Poland, says that a push to market products more effectively has driven talent demands. “One of the key tasks in Poland during the pandemic was the reorganisation of sales departments, as well as the need to develop new channels to reach doctors and patients,” he says. “We have noticed a greater demand for recruitment in the areas of digital marketing, regulatory affairs and clinical trials.”

Similar trends have also been observed in Mexico, with organisations requiring talent to facilitate clear, ambitious and aggressive sales and marketing strategies in order to increase their market share and productivity. Meanwhile in China, the country perhaps furthest into its journey through the pandemic, there has been demand for research and development, regulatory, and quality assurance talent.

Manufacturing activity fell in France

Elsewhere, France saw a fall in pharma manufacturing activity. Lockdowns meant some facilities shut down for a time, which in turn caused slow restart procedures to begin manufacturing safely again. Over-the-counter drug consumption also fell, with lockdowns reducing seasonal illness in the country.

The country has, however, seen a rise in the need for specific healthcare talent. Geriatric doctors have been required to support at-risk older people in the country, while emergency doctors were in demand to support a surge in demand in hospitals. Psychologists are also sought after to help understand the longer-term effects of lockdowns.

Different countries now face diverse hiring challenges

Polish organisations are looking to hire from abroad

As well as facing different talent needs, organisations operating in the life sciences sector are also facing different local hiring challenges. In Poland, Popin says that organisations sometimes have to turn to talent outside the country when they are opening new operations in the country. “It happens when we support life sciences companies in opening regional or global support centres,” he explains. “It is necessary to recruit large teams with rare skills and from a niche specialisation (or therapeutic area) with regional or global experience. More and more often we engage foreign candidates who decide to relocate and continue their professional career in Poland.”

Australia is short on clinical research skills and entry-level development

Meanwhile in Australia, Kedie says there is a shortage of clinical research skills, as the country has become an increasingly desirable place to conduct clinical trials. “This is not only because quality of clinical trial data is very strong here, but arguably because hospitals are not overrun with COVID-19 patients,” she explains.

“There is also a lack of development at the entry-level and limited opportunities for training and development of STEM graduates to enter into technical roles within the industry,” she says. “More university intern partnerships would help this.”

New talent pools need to be explored in Mexico

There may also be an opportunity for businesses in some regions if they were to look in other talent pools. In Mexico, for example, it has proved challenging to recruit sales and marketing professionals for organisations that are unwilling to consider candidates with experience in other industries or sectors. While candidates with direct experience will have a shorter learning curve, the pool of talent is smaller, so looking elsewhere may be a better option.

The UK must overcome changes to immigration post-Brexit

Finally, in the UK, companies are facing challenges relating to Brexit – like other sectors, life sciences organisations have new systems to navigate when hiring talent from abroad. By understanding these systems, organisations should be able to go further afield for talent. Over the next 12 months, organisations are going to get used to a points-based immigration system in the UK, and work out how it can work for them. Understanding that will be a key part of talent strategy going forward.

This blog was originally written as part of the Hays Journal.

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Welcome to viewpoint

Careers & workplace advice from Hays

Innovation became a matter of survival during the COVID-19 pandemic

How adopting an agile mindset can create opportunities for your organisation

Why innovative organisations outperform their peers

How can organisations continue to prioritise innovation post-COVID-19?

Graduates and school leavers face a challenging time

Why organisations need to rebuild their onboarding processes

Four ways you can support the next generation of talent

The impact of COVID-19 on workplace sustainability

How can organisations build sustainability into their post-COVID-19 recovery?

The contrasting talent demands across the globe in 2020

Australia faced fewer local restrictions, but organisations still got caught in international hiring freezes

Analytical talent is in high demand in the UK and Belgium

Mexico and Poland saw the need for marketing and sales talent grow

Manufacturing activity fell in France

Different countries now face diverse hiring challenges

Polish organisations are looking to hire from abroad

Australia is short on clinical research skills and entry-level development

New talent pools need to be explored in Mexico

The UK must overcome changes to immigration post-Brexit

Power the world
of work
join Hays

Unrivalled scale, balance and
diversity

Annual Report
2024

Welcome to viewpoint

Careers & workplace advice from Hays

Innovation became a matter of survival during the COVID-19 pandemic

How adopting an agile mindset can create opportunities for your organisation

Why innovative organisations outperform their peers

How can organisations continue to prioritise innovation post-COVID-19?

Graduates and school leavers face a challenging time

Why organisations need to rebuild their onboarding processes

Four ways you can support the next generation of talent

The impact of COVID-19 on workplace sustainability

How can organisations build sustainability into their post-COVID-19 recovery?

The contrasting talent demands across the globe in 2020

Australia faced fewer local restrictions, but organisations still got caught in international hiring freezes

Analytical talent is in high demand in the UK and Belgium

Mexico and Poland saw the need for marketing and sales talent grow

Manufacturing activity fell in France

Different countries now face diverse hiring challenges

Polish organisations are looking to hire from abroad

Australia is short on clinical research skills and entry-level development

New talent pools need to be explored in Mexico

The UK must overcome changes to immigration post-Brexit

Power the worldof workjoin Hays

Unrivalled scale, balance anddiversity

Annual Report2024

Power the world
of work
join Hays

Unrivalled scale, balance and
diversity

Annual Report
2024