Adam

Welcome, Jon, on this rather cold and frosty morning.

 Jon

Hi, Adam. How's it going?

 Adam

Yeah, well, thank you. We've got quite an interesting topic for this episode. So, I guess we ought to start with.

 This is about fairness. And we've had a lot of comments about remote working and hybrid working generally. But some of those that really stuck out, one in particular, was the comment from Nicholas Hieronimus from the L’Oréal CEO saying essentially remote working is not fair.

So, we had to kind of poke into that and pick those layers and just kind of get some perspective on that. So, Jon, what's your take on some of these comments then? You know, particularly the L’Oréal one about not being fair.

 Jon

Yeah, well, it's one of those ones which is I think the word fair gets thrown around a lot, especially. I mean, we've heard it from other CEOs like when we listen to people like, you know, Elon Musk and Jamie Dimon. And, you know, even Jacob Rees-Mog back a couple of years ago.

 Now, there was an overwhelming sense of you can't have some workers who have to be in the office and others who can work remotely because that's just not fair. And it's something that I always feel like that's where people focus on because it's quite easy. It's a nice way that you can sort of wrap everything up and go, well, that's why we have to be back in the office five days a week, four days a week.

 Or we're going to do this structured hybrid working where you have to be in on certain days because that's unfair for everyone. But I mean, the word fairness, sorry, the word fair or fairness is a bit misleading because it focuses on trying to make sure that everyone across all jobs, across all personal circumstances are doing exactly the same thing and get the same benefits or could use the same tools or, you know, everything is exactly the same. And as we know, that's just not true.

 Adam

Yeah, what we're talking about here is when we say fair, it's actually the word fair being used as a tool, as a lever to get people to come back into the office. Right. That's what we're talking about, really, because we know that, you know, work isn't fair.

 It's not set out to be fair, of course.

 Jon

Yeah, I mean, well, it's not even that it's so that things are unfair. It's that people are doing different jobs. So Elon Musk saying it's what he was saying.

 It's immoral that that's, you know, people who work on that already work remotely. Morally wrong. That was it.

 Yeah. You know that people working on laptops are living in la-la land and they need to be in the office because it's not fair for the people that make their food or that work in the factories that they're not allowed to. You're like, yeah, but they're doing different jobs.

 So, you know, are they being if you're talking about fair, are they being paid the same? Yeah, the L’Oréal CEO saying that it's not fair for the blue-collar workers who work in the factory. You're like, yeah, but you're you know, he will be working in a hybrid way unless he can tell me that every day at nine he turns up to the office and works from nine to five.

 And then after that goes home, he's doing work remote in a while working in a hybrid fashion because he'll do some work remotely or some work off site or whatever it is. But it's interesting.

 Adam

I mean, Elon Musk is a good example. I read something about this today where Elon Musk is the CEO of five different companies. So, is that one of those four or five?

 So, he's actually working in a hybrid way for those five companies. Sure. Which means that when he's in one of them, he's not in the other.

 So therefore, well, anyway, that's not fair, Mr. Musk. Are you morally wrong then for, you know.

 Jon

Well, that's probably for another podcast. But yeah, I mean, that's really interesting as well, because it is it's the people who are the most outspoken that seem to about this topic seems to really have the blinders on. You know, the Jacob Rees-Mogg famous thing of walking around people's desks and saying, you know, sorry to have missed you.

 Yeah. You know, the most passive aggressive thing that you can do and implying that all of those people had to be in the office. And, you know, he said all sorts of things like it needs to be stamped out and its terrible product.

You know, basically every single polarising thing that someone who wants people back in the office can say he did. And then you go, well, yes. So, do you always work from the same location?

Well, if you do, then I think you'll probably lose your job because you need to be in your constituency. You need to be in the House of Parliament. You need to be doing work on the road.

You know, he works in a hybrid fashion. He goes to people's houses, well, presumably or used to, to try to canvass for their votes. So, yeah, it's really interesting that he was so outspoken about it and so hypocritical about it.

Adam

So, what do we what do we really think these people are saying? Why do you think they're trying to use that as a as a lever then? What do you think that Nicholas Hieronimus is really, truly saying?

Jon

Well, it's I mean, I think the important thing for all of these is to look at them individually. So Nicholas is saying I'm going to call him Nicholas because obviously we're good mates. Nicholas, when you look at his business, he's saying that, you know, he works in fashion.

He's saying that I think the quote was something like beauty is not remote or virtual. So he's trying to get people back into the office for whatever reason. So not for whatever reason.

He's trying to get people back in the office because he believes that that's fundamental to the running of his business. And I'm not saying that that's he's wrong. I'm saying that saying the word fair in order to try to bring people in that being used as the argument is incorrect.

And actually, probably a better and actually because you're saying that that then throws up more objections from the people that can work remotely. You know, you're whatever you're whenever you're trying to bundle everyone together, you're going to upset some people. And actually, what you should be doing is looking at what each individual person needs for their job and for their personal circumstances.

 ou know, you can’t say something's fair for everyone because it inherently won't be. Some people will be disadvantaged by it.

Adam

Yeah, I mean, you're going to… there's so much strata within that statement on its own about, you know, pay for somebody who's brand new compared to the CEO. That's not fair, right? Yeah, when you start to look into it, it's a bit of a minefield and you get you can get lost in the detail about what truly are we trying to get to here, I suppose.

So it's really about from his perspective, then talking about what's right for his business. And he feels as the CEO is the leader of that business that actually how he feels and maybe he's got data to back it up. That productivity, culture, efficiency, these moments of magic actually would be better because they're caught in the office rather than that.

And those moments are actually what driving the business forward. So the people who rely on that part of the business, if they're remote and not doing that work, the blue-collar workers, we're going, well, actually, that's not fair because you're not doing what you should be doing your responsibility towards the business. You're not doing that.

So, we're not going to be able to do our jobs very well in the future. It could have a knock-on effect potentially. Really lies, I suppose.

Jon

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think there's also I mean, what you're saying that, you know, you do have it even in a business-like L’Oréal, where they are obviously more fashion and beauty focused, there will be many, many different jobs, which won't just be, you know, even the people in the factory will have different jobs. So a factory floor manager will be paid differently to someone working on the on the line.

So you need to actually be, I think it's the biggest problem with it is it's too, it's too all-encompassing and you need to actually be looking at the different roles. So within the rest of the, you know, the HQ, for example, will have lawyers, will have IT specialists, will have managers and salespeople and all of these different roles. And actually, that's where, you know, if you do say it's fair, what's fair for one person is unfair for another.

So if you're saying, well, it's fair for the blue-collar workers, if you are going in someone who sells and going, but actually I need to be out and about, you're now disadvantaging me by forcing me back into the office when we've proved that actually my job requires me to be out and about a bit more. So I think, yeah.

Adam

Yeah, I mean, I've got a stat here that a whopping 80% of bosses regret their initial return to office decisions and say that they would have approached the plans differently if they had a better understanding of employees’ attendance, their usage of office amenities and other related factors. So it's very interesting when it's I've just written a blog about and there's some very interesting stats about how many people are working from home and how many are not. The fact that it tends to be a younger generation that are actually going into the office because they they're in their learning phase of their work or that's a very large part of what they're trying to do is when they're younger is learn their skills, their trade or whatever.

So they need to be around somebody who's going to teach them. It's very difficult to do that remotely.

So, yeah, it's really about, I guess, his culture, his business and trying to, I guess, make it to use the word fair again for everybody in his mindset. So, let's dig into this a little bit deeper. I mean, there's two parts to this that kind of initial parts around culture and role.

So what's the folly in trying to make a culture fair? Is that the right thing to do to try and create a culture when roles are so different? And, you know, the office being used is this putting on a pedestal, I suppose, in a way and going, that's where everything happens.

Jon

Yeah, yeah. Well, we've both talked about that before, where, you know, that is what seems to be happening. And this trying to make everything fair seems to just be, you know, pushing out even further.

And it's interesting what you said there about the, you know, the CEOs now saying that they made the wrong decisions. And I mean, that's talking about culture. That's a problem with modern day culture where you can't be seen to make a mistake.

You know, even in politics where you do everything you can, apart from say, you know what, we messed up on that. We learned from it. And now the next one is going to be better.

But those decisions were made at a time where the world was on fire. So, you know, desperation leads to, in those situations, you need a leader that's proactive and makes the decision. But as I said, the folly of trying now to make it all fair is that it's not going to work.

You know, you can't, if you move out of the individual company perspective and you stop trying to, you know, and the media talks about this all the time, where they're talking about, you know, the them and us, the people that can work remotely and the people that can't. They think, well, so someone who's a bus driver, they have to work driving a bus. That's their job.

That's where their workplace is. Do you think a tube driver during the summer says, oh, it's really unfair that the bus driver gets to see sunlight, but I just get to see tunnels? It's like, well, they might do.

But if that's the case, then, you know, you need to consider what your job is. Maybe try to get another job. I know it's very easy to say and actually really difficult to do, but jobs aren't the same.

You know, racing drivers do a very different job to me sitting in front of a computer writing code or talking to you. So, yeah, it is unfair.

Adam

You're right. Yeah, it is unfair. I mean, your role.

I mean, I do wonder how many of these blue-collar workers are genuinely saying, and I haven't read anything to say so, that, oh, those people in the office, you know, they're on a jolly. Which brings us to the whole mindset around people working from home. That paradigm around, well, actually, it's a bit of a jolly.

People aren't truly working or they're using it, you know, in the past, prior to the pandemic, to kind of have a bit of an easy day, you know, because no one can see me. Then I can get away with, you know, getting up late and not really doing too much work, watching a bit of telly, having a few extra coffees and all this kind of stuff. Surely that's an old-fashioned paradigm.

Now, after three years after the pandemic, and we've proven time and time again that we can actually work from home on a laptop, if we can do that. Working from home isn't the weakest link. It's not the issue.

Jon

But I think that is something we were talking about earlier. I think that also comes back to the individual person, because, for example, you, I know, can work very well from home and I'll try to stop doing it. So much in the future, I keep telling you that you need to stop working in the evenings.

And, you know, we both read that article today. It was like, well, actually, that's probably really demoralising for you. And I probably shouldn't be doing that.

But, you know, your personal circumstances mean that you are very good working from home. There are other people that genuinely find work from home really bad. And we shouldn't be promoting them and penalising others because of where they're working.

And this is the, you know, it's the whole of hybrid working has just this Pandora's box of new variables that go into how people are productive. And so even trying to close that box and say, well, we'll be fair for everyone just doesn't work. Because some people are better working at home.

Some people are better working at the office. Some people need the variety. And that's, you know, and it does depend on the jobs they're doing and their personal circumstances.

And that's at that moment in time rather than just a general sweeping statement.

Adam

But the pandemic's changed this all, hasn't it? It's what it's done is created a mindset now where we've realised that. Actually, first of all, it's an option because we've done it before.

We've been trusted, we're productive, whatever the case may be in our own mindsets, perhaps. But equally, that we've got a choice in the matter. And the choice actually can be based on some very complicated and complex issues around mindsets, personal circumstances, finances, even, you know.

And I know I read a stat for a blog I was writing yesterday around that this call back into work is particularly going to affect working mums who have the lion's share of the care responsibilities at home. It's going to cause all sorts of issues with working mums, if they are indeed the primary caregivers, and single mums as well with children. So for me, it's, I think, yeah, it comes back to looking at the individual, the individual person, their role.

And as a leader, as a manager, and as a business, allowing managers to have the authority to do that, having the systems in place to do that. But it's that we as individuals have had the power now to choose and go, actually for this project, for what I'm currently doing, what the business needs are, I should be able to choose the need based on what I feel is going to be most productive, rather than the business tell me that the only place you can be productive is sat in a desk, in amongst the noise, you know, with phones going off, and emails pinging, and people tapping you on the shoulder, etc, etc.

Jon

Well, yeah, I mean, it's, I disagree with a bit of that, actually, which is, you know, what everyone's hoping for, a bit more of a debate, because it's not great when we both disagree with each other.

Adam

It's a bit one-sided.

Jon

Yeah, but I do think the businesses do have a duty to make sure that, you know, what businesses want is to hire people that, and hopefully, let's start that again, hopefully what businesses want is that they'll hire people who can grow with the business, improve in themselves, and keep sort of moving up the ladder and do good jobs. That's sort of what they're working for. And juniors, for example, who come in and then say, well, I want to work from home.

You know, if a manager looks at someone and goes, yeah, but you're not actually very productive. Like, I've tried to get hold of you when you're working from home, and you're never there. Your work's slipping.

I think probably more importantly that their work's slipping rather than they're just never there. Because if you are working truly flexibly, and you can do sort of asynchronous work, and it does mean that you can still be productive, then great. If the work's not being done, and if your productivity, if a manager can see that your productivity's dropping, then there should be some more guidance.

And, well, actually, maybe that doesn't work for you. Maybe you do need to be in the office with some people more. And if that means that then the manager has to actually be in the office with them, or they have to pull in some senior people, then that's what the job requires.

That's what's needed in order to achieve the task that you're trying to do. And then, you know, so the job sort of needs to come first, because that's really what people are being paid for, is to do that job. What the pandemic sort of opened up is the fact that now personal circumstances can be taken into account a bit more, because we can use different tools.

We've got different software and technology, and we can work from different locations if our job allows it. So if you are a primary caregiver, and you can do your work from home, then maybe you should get a bit more slack and a bit more flexibility to not always be doing the nine-to-five, to maybe work from home more than someone else who might need to be in the office. So I think it is definitely about the jobs, but the pandemic has brought in this personal sort of individual circumstances element to it.

And I think one of the reasons why, sort of going back to why people are saying it's fair, is because it just makes it easier than to say, we're all doing the same thing, rather than, okay, let's actually delve into this. What do you as an individual person need to achieve this job? And what can we do to make sure that you do that?

And one of the things I know you talk about a lot is the sort of Gen Z and the younger population, and how exciting it is that there's a, you know, the TikTok revolution, and all these people who are making money and working by themselves. There, you know, back when I was starting to work, if I was able to work from home, I don't think I would have done anything. I would have sat playing PlayStation.

But now there's been a shift and they're doing more work and appreciating working from home. So do you think that's the right sort of way? Do you think that's where we're going to go in the future?

Adam

I think, well, I disagree with the fact that home was always going to be, I mean, I would have worked, but I think it's very much down to how I saw my job, how purposeful I felt in my role. So working from home, if I'm driven, if I feel purposeful, if I connected into what we're trying to do as a business, then home was just a great way to sometimes do some deep work. So it was a place to concentrate.

It was quiet. It didn't have some of the disruptions. But it was, at the time, it wasn't realising that I was using that as a tool or allowing my team to use that as a tool.

Most often people said, oh, I want to work from home because I've got a lot to do today, and I just want to get it done. Which kind of implied that we could get it done in the office, which means, hang on a minute, that was the tail wagging the dog sometimes or we got the office wrong. So I guess, but that's me as an individual.

I'm one of these people that I got told off. My old boss, Curtis, a fantastic leader, really lovely guy. And he understood me and the fact that as a creative, my brain goes, you know, and I'll do a month of kind of crazy work, loads of productivity.

And then I'll go bang, and I'll be like, my brain's just kind of worn out a little bit. So I had this kind of dog tooth style of working sometimes. And I needed to try and flatten that out.

But where I was working, the times I'm working, you mentioned at the top of the episode where, you know, last night I was working two hours. And it's like, you know, why are you sending me a message at 044? I didn't even know a time existed.

But that's just how sometimes my brain works. So I've never really seen that because I'm plugged into what I'm doing, that being at home wasn't really the issue. Yes, there's more flexibility, I suppose, in that sometimes you have to.

Somebody knocks on the door, my door is just there. So, I guess it's mindset and purposefulness that would be how people are connected. Future?

Jon

Sorry, just to jump in there. It was interesting what you said there about, you know, you are working from home, it's all about the purpose. And the work that you do is very creative.

And going back to sort of the initial quote we said about the L’Oréal CEO at the, where did you say he was the other week?

Adam

Oh, he was at Davos. Yeah, Davos. This was in January last month, yeah.

Jon

World Economic Forum, Davos. Yeah, that was it, World Economic Forum. And one of the main things he said was that people who want to work, I'm going to butcher this quote, but people who want to work remotely are lazy and lack creativity.

And, you know, you sort of go, that's, again, I feel like the arguments being used are just, you know, you just throw around as much bad language as you can. And you try to almost guilt people into the fact that you're trying to get them back into the office. And that's just, that's always going to be a recipe for pushback and friction.

I think it was, I don't know if you've read the book, but by Chris Voss, I think it's Never Split the Difference. He's an old FBI hostage negotiator. And he said he never uses the word fair because it always, it triggers an emotional response, which is not what you want in a negotiation.

And it's always sort of accusational or being used to manipulate someone else. And with what's being said with all of these CEOs, that's, you know, it does feel like that's what they're trying to do, whether or not that is their primary purpose. You know, in the case of Elon Musk, and I know you wrote about this, you know, are they doing it because, sorry, did he say, he said it was morally wrong because, and if you don't show up, then don't bother coming back.

Was he doing that because then you secretly get a way of getting rid of a huge number of staff. So without it being, we're making redundancy. So yeah, is that their primary purpose?

Adam

Yeah. Is there a darker motive behind these statements? I mean, it's a very smart way to kind of turn around and get people to leave your company because if you tell me, oh yeah, we're all coming back into the office and 50% of them are, you know, your team are working months because that's the kind of business that you're in.

It's like, oh bugger, I can't do that. I'm going to go find another job. You know, there are stats I've got on the website.

I can remember off the top of my head, but something like 50%. If, if a work, a back to work policy, there's some research done by weirdly, I think it's called Owly or something, which was makes those boardroom microphones and fascinating why they would do this research. But something like 50% of people would basically go, I think it was 20% said, I'm going to leave straight away.

And the rest of them said, I'm going to look for another job. So you'd lose 50% of your office. Their research showed if you'd said, had this sort of mandated return to work policy.

So, so yeah, I guess it's from that point of view, you know, you were saying that these people are making these statements and they've got a hidden meaning behind them. It may not be actually to get people back into the office, but it's more because any CEO would enable their generals to manage their team. What the CEO wants and what the CEO gets isn't necessarily the same thing, of course, because in a large organisation, particularly there's a disconnect between, between those things.

And of course, any good leader would listen to their own team and say, well, hang on a minute. Those circumstances would allow that. A CEO is not going to get involved, you know, with a 10,000-person company.

I don't know how many people work for L’Oréal, but he's not going to go down to the individual level and say, well, hang on a minute is the manager of 10 people that work in the finance department. Why is that person not coming into work today? They're not going to do it.

So, the reality and what the statements are could be construed to be something very, very different.

Jon

Yeah. And it is, I mean, one of the things that's interesting there as well is these are the people that are, you know, coming out and talking about it, obviously, because of their roles and the companies they work for, it's being picked up by the media. And, you know, the data from that is then being picked up by other people.

So I remember, well, you tell the story of what happened with the, your policy and with Google and how that was influencing.

Adam

Yeah, I mean, one of the businesses I worked for said that what we did is we looked at just what larger CEOs, other companies were doing and said that they've also done the research and the data. And we'll, we'll follow that for now. You know, some common-sense rules were applied layering over the top of their umbrella rules.

Like, you know, there's no point in having a, you know, insisting me back in certain days when people aren't in those days, you know, as a team. So as a team, you can, there was some flex in what days do your team need, but ultimately it was two days in the office. And then one day was a flex day, depending on, you know, that you could move around should you need to, but try and keep it.

But there was no research back then to turn around and lever and go from our point of view and go, because it was fresh out of the pandemic to go. It was very much a kind of, well, this makes, this is, we sat down as the leadership team and said, yeah, this makes sense. The office would be a good place.

Do you know what's interesting? We, we didn't really talk about fair. We spoke about individual needs as a, you know, kind of team needs first and then it's down to the individual leaders to, um, to manage their teams and do what they want to do.

That certainly my VP said in that company said you did that. That's your job. I don't want to worry about that.

And of course, the caveat to all of that was, well, there were two caveats. One, let's see how this goes. And secondly, we need to make sure that we're doing our jobs.

We need to stay productive.

Jon

And how did you manage, how did you measure the productivity and that this job was still being done?

Adam

Largely technology. Um, and, um, and kind of making, holding people account to the KPIs for the roles that were already there. There were frameworks, there were, there were numbers that people had to had to hit, whether it be in a particular role that could be done, or it might be, for example, somebody who's gathering data, they had to keep the continuity of the amount of data they were building.

So we use technology, we use numbers, we, we used, um, frequent communication, um, really regular one-to-ones. Um, and we had team meetings. Um, and then we had group meetings.

We're all plugged into the, how our small microcosm of activity plugged into the bigger. And we had connective tissue that we could demonstrate and then prove in front of the rest of the business to say, this is what we're doing. So we had stats around hours of calls made, how many people on our events and all these kinds of interesting things, which, you know, there was a level that we think we shouldn't go below.

And if we stayed beyond there and we kept growing and could evidence that that was great. So, technology communication and KPIs really. Um, but that was a company that was culturally very advanced.

Um, and we're very much interested in the individual brick coming, uh, and certainly me as a leader. That's why I worked there. It was very much the individual, um, it was an important part of how they, how they showed up as important.

And the leadership was, um, you know, how can we enable that person to be a better version of themselves every single day? Uh, and this is a very good point, actually, because we talk about productivity and we don't really understand it all the time, but we, as people, we're not machines. We are productivity changes based on, you know, our personal circumstances, our tasks, our team requirements.

It could be, you know, get out of bed the wrong way. You know, we ate from the gym or we, you know, we had an argument with our partner that day and that is part and parcel of understanding fair, I suppose in some ways to go, actually it's fair for me as a leader to turn around and go, actually, that's the right thing to do today. Cause that's fair on that person.

So rather than fair to the team that's taken into account, but the decision was really after some questioning and going, well, I trust you, your, your history and our communication, um, and the work that you're doing says to me that you're engaged, you're, you're, you know, you believe in what you're doing. You're good at what you do because you're, you know, you're kind of interested in it between the timeframes that you're here. So that's not an issue anymore.

So I can extend trust and say, you make the decision. So that trust piece I think is probably a very, very important part of this. I think within businesses is how much, how much trust is there in organisations, you know, at this level and how much does that trust play a part in the culture of the business for CEOs to make comments like it's not fair.

Jon

Yeah. It's, it's interesting what you said there. Cause, um, uh, I had previously when we talked about it, I'd taken a slightly different, um, I probably jumped the gun on what I thought your previous company had done, but effectively what you did was you looked at what a large company that was in a sort of similar, similar Ish, um, industry maybe Ish services and tech kind of, yeah.

But you looked at a big company, you saw what they did and you thought that seems balanced. So I use another word instead of fair. Um, but that's, but you then use that as the, as the, the base mark, the, the, the benchmark, sorry for, um, what you then did and you then looked at what would work for each individual team.

And you were given, you were entrusted to actually try to make that work. And the, the key thing of that was as long as our app are what we're doing and not necessarily the output, but the, the outcomes that we're achieving, as long as we're still being productive, according to our KPIs, then we can experiment around a bit and try it. So I wonder if maybe, you know, as I said, I don't want to completely, um, chastise these CEOs for saying what they're saying, because again, it gets picked up and sometimes you make a throwaway comment and that's what everyone focuses on.

But if they had said, rather than it's not fair, if they said, look, we are, um, we're all about beauty. Uh, as he said, you know, beauty is not remote or virtual. We're going to start with a baseline of everyone in five days a week, and then we're going to experiment and, and see what we can do to see if people, if some of these groups can actually do less time in the office, see if it actually works out for them.

And as long as, you know, their productivity and what they're set out to achieve keeps above that baseline, then, you know, you can start to sort of spread it. And then it's, again, it's not a one size fits all trying to do the same across everyone. You're going, let's do a baseline.

And that's where we're starting. Yeah. But you know, if, if blue collar workers, actually, if the technology gets to the stage where they don't need to be on a factory floor, where they can do things remotely, you know, technology will, will change then maybe that's an opportunity for them as well to then be to start to, you know, look at their personal circumstances and are they more productive at home or working remotely or, you know, doing, doing whatever they need to do.

So I'm wondering if that would be a better start.

Adam

That's a very important point, actually. I think to a certain extent there are no excuses now per se to not understanding what's right for your organisation, because there is so much technology there now to enable you to have data around hybrid working and remote working and the technology that our own software does this, it enables you to manage these very complex kind of parameters, individuals, if you like, okay. Like herding cats, but it enables you to manage that and understand that and gather data around that.

So you can make data-based decisions. So I think that there is no excuse there's tech there. The manager won't be able to do it in the past because it's like, oh my goodness, I've got 27,000 things to do and I'm managing people and not productive myself.

That's part of leadership. But I think that's part of this too, is that the world's moved on. We're not where we were.

We can count stuff now we can understand it a lot more and then move on from there. And as you said, technology is going to get better and better anyway, and more human centric, which is, you know, that's how we base our technology on the software that we make is coming from the individual and the person will be able to link no matter where they are with their productivity.

Jon

Yeah. But I think, I think my only caveat to that would be, yes, we do have the data, but you have to, you almost have to plan what you're trying to read from it in advance and not use other people's data. Cause you've no idea how it's collected.

And maybe that's something that we can talk about in another, in another podcast. Cause I feel like that's a bit like, you know, we'll look at other companies and go, that's the baseline. And you've no idea what their circumstances are, what their culture is.

So you need to make sure it's done. The data driven decisions that you're making are from your data.

Adam

Yeah. I think what's after, you know, the reading that we've done in our conversations, I think for me, what we've got to be just really careful of is, is taking individual comments about fairness and about, you know, Jamie, Jamie Demon from JP Morgan. When you actually dig deeper, there's actually a lot more to this and you can have a one comment can give you a very myopic view of what you think they're doing.

This connects with, they don't look at other people's data, but in reality, when you delve into this and go past the headlines, actually they really have thought about it because their culture and their business productivity and getting their teams to feel connected is really important to them as every good CEO should be. So I think that's, that for me is the headline is I think fair has been levered perhaps, but also partially taken out of context. And I think that everybody's smart enough to know that actually fair is so grey is it's one of those, as you say, a lot of emotion connected to it, but it doesn't really mean anything.

It's very vague. It's, it's a media, the media.

Jon

Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't exist. It just plain doesn't exist.

Adam

It doesn't. No, no, no, it really doesn't. Well, I'm not sure whether we've, I don't know whether we've, have we come up with any answers apart from be careful of headlines?

Jon

I think the, for me, the main thing is it isn't about fairness. Just ignore, ignore that because, and we've explained why fairness doesn't exist, but trying to work out what works for your company and for, and treating people by their jobs and by their individual circumstances, that's the way that you're going to start to make it through this, this process.

Adam

Brilliant. Again, very insightful. Thanks, Jon.