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In celebration and support of International Women’s Day 2022, a number of colleagues and contacts crossed their arms to show solidarity in support of this year’s theme of #BreakTheBias.

Individuals and organisations are ever more committed to ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging’ (DEIB). While positive change is taking place, there are still a lot of gaps as some women still experience gender bias, stereotypes, and discrimination in the workplace.

Recognising and breaking bias is high on many agendas. With this in mind, companies are having honest conversations about how they fully integrate DEIB into their company’s mission and purpose, while driving out implicit bias at a systemic level. As we enter a post-Covid era of work in which employees have more power, flexibility is the norm, and well-being is more important than ever, the opportunities to advance workplace gender equity are greater than ever.

The organisers of the 2022 International Women’s Day ask us to:

Imagine a gender equal world.

A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

A world where difference is valued and celebrated.

Together we can forge women’s equality.

Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.

Every day this week, our contributors share their insights and observations into breaking the bias and what the theme means to them.

Lillian Forsyth – Lead with Equity

How can we move beyond unconscious bias training to eliminating the systemic biases and barriers for women in the workplace?

We’ve made some gains in representation in the past decade, but we’re still a long way from equity. The last two years have been a major equity setback for women in the workplace. A few stats to get you thinking:

According to a 2020 Women in Management global study done by Catalyst, the higher up you look in organisations, the fewer women you see.^[1]

The 2021 Lean in Women in the Workplace study found that the places where women drop off the most in comparison to men are 1) in the initial transition to manager, 2) the transition from manager to senior manager.^[2]

Yet, Gallup’s 2016 Women in America study showed that 45% of women aspire to CEO or other executive roles.^[3]

So, what’s going on? If women want to be in higher levels of leadership, but that’s not happening consistently, there must be systemic barriers getting in their way.

What can employers do to start breaking down systemic biases?

Here are some ideas:

Provide leadership and executive development programs specifically targeted toward women transitioning to manager and senior manager levels. There is a different skill set that is required for anyone to thrive in a senior leadership role. This includes things like strategic relationship building, raising the visibility of your accomplishments, blocking out weekly time for strategic thinking, and exposure to different business units. Some of these skills are culturally discouraged for women, so we shy away from them. Employers can support women by providing opportunities to develop these skills.

Provide deliberate career pathing for women. A 2019 study of more than 3,000 professionals by Working Mother Research Institute and the National Association for Female Executives, suggests men and women receive very different career-building cues. In this study, men were three times as likely as women to have been encouraged to consider a P&L role. Employers can ensure that regular career conversations are happening equitably by providing managers with templates, resources and having a central location for career pathing data.

Provide flexible work options. Women are still more likely to be primary caregivers for children or others in their home. Providing options for less than 40 hours/week jobs, job sharing, or fully remote management and leadership roles will make it easier for women to prioritise family while still being able to contribute to your organisation at a high level.

^[1] https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-management/ (Executives: 23%, Senior managers: 29%, Managers: 37%, Professionals: 42%, Support staff: 47%)

^[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace

^[3] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238070/women-america-work-life-lived-insights-business-leaders.aspx

Tom Armstrong – HPC Executive Coach

How can we move beyond unconscious bias training to eliminate the systemic biases and barriers for women in the workplace?

It’s a start to become aware that we have bias. But to bring about change and to make a difference requires more than just raising awareness.

Breaking through bias requires practicing an UNBIASED pathway:

Understand the experiences of others – get into the shoes of those who are at the wrong end of experiencing bias

Remember the Neuroscience – the brain is malleable and capable of positive change

Think about our own beliefs, conscious and unconscious, and our Behaviours – what are our behaviours saying?

Increase our interactions with those who we may demonstrate or practice bias against – Include them and get to know them better

Take positive Action to change to behaviours that are the opposite to our bias – act another way – against the bias

Show how to break the bias through action and speak out where we witness it

At moments that matter, ask yourself, is this Equitable and embracing Difference?

Awareness is a start – behaviour is a result. Be U N B I A S E D

Has working from home made it harder for women to progress?

Last year (2021), while working from home was at its peak, I carried out some collaborative research on the impact of remote working.

One significant finding was that men indicated they were having a more negative (or less positive) experience than women, across every heading of remote working that we examined.

The themes explored were wide ranging and covered sense of connection, work-life boundaries, productivity, motivation and more. Whatever the elements behind this finding, it suggests that (on average) women have managed and felt better about remote working than their male counterparts. This may predict that as hybrid working develops, women will spend less time at the office. An unfortunate and perhaps unintended consequence of this could be a concentration of power at the physical office, with those least in the office missing out on opportunities to progress and less participation in critical decision making. We don’t know the answer to the progress question yet, but we do know that it’s important to guard against the slow creep of exclusion.

Yvonne Farrell – HPC Senior Facilitator

A diverse workforce brings varied perspectives that contribute to an organisation’s prosperity. We know that at a top level, only one in five C-suite leaders is a woman and fewer than one in 30 is a woman of colour, according to a study from LeanIn.org and McKinsey.

At all levels, organisations are trying to overcome this disparity. Many say that diversity is the number one priority on their company agenda, gender diversity being at the core of this. But it seems that there is a big disconnect between the good intentions of leaders and true progress on closing the gender gap.

So, what do organisations need to ask themselves as they try to cement an inclusive and diverse process of attracting, supporting and retaining women within their business?

Attracting female talent – What image does your organisation portray? What behaviours do you display? Does it attract or detract women? Examine your recruitment campaign ‘habits’ and ‘bias’. Challenge your traditional routes to candidate markets. Do you reach out to females early, in schools and colleges, to encourage them to consider a career with you? Revise the language in your job adverts and the images in your recruitment campaigns – are they gender balanced? Ask yourself, are women in non-traditional roles seen and celebrated? Are your interview panels gender balanced?

Support and Retention – Ask yourself what you are doing to nurture your pipeline of female talent. More importantly, understand their needs and desires by asking them. What does it mean for women to feel empowered, included, and acknowledged in this organisation? Are women encouraged and supported to go for promotion? Do you have flexible working policies that support women and their families?

Attracting and retaining female talent requires strategy and action. And the most important question to ask yourself is: Do women look to work for you, and more importantly, want to stay working for you?

Adam Burke – IDA Ireland

IDA’s most important asset is its people and, in a constantly evolving global economy, the organisation does its utmost to support career development, well-being, diversity, inclusion and belonging. Their company culture, leadership and people management are the bedrock on which they have built a fully integrated well-being and diversity approach.

Under its Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Action Plan, IDA has taken a number of steps including membership of the 30% Club, the OUTstanding professional network, the IBEC Diversity Forum, and the Open Doors Initiative. IDA’s HR Team has included D&I in the induction programme for all new joiners, and there are D&I focused questions in the annual employee survey. New policies include those in the areas of home working, open location roles and increased levels of flexitime working – all designed to provide greater flexibility and a better work life balance for IDA team members.

We asked Adam:

How can we move beyond unconscious bias training to eliminate the systemic biases and barriers for women in the workplace?

“Mark Fenton of MASF Consulting coined the phrase “Catch it, Call it, Change it.” We are all navigating the evolution of language and we may not always get it right; an internal language framework enables Team Members to call out safely without vilifying colleagues. Empower everyone to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns or even mistakes. As Amy Edmondson says, “psychological safety is not at odds with having tough conversations – it is what allows us to have tough conversations”.”

Fiona Claridge – HPC Client Director

Why is recognising bias important?

We can miss an opportunity to connect, share, learn, grow. Being aware of bias will help us to stop, lean in to a situation we might not otherwise have done and when that happens the outcome may surprise you, in all the right ways.

How have you witnessed companies breaking the bias?

It gives me such joy when I hear about companies who promote women, whilst out on maternity leave. I am hearing of this occurring more and more and commend any company who does so. They stick in my mind and I will make sure to make others aware of these great practices by promoting them to others.

Why is it particularly important to rebuild post-pandemic workplaces without bias?

Post-pandemic, there are huge opportunities to reinvent our work practices and processes – how we hire, assess for development and evaluate success. So much has changed and we are unconsciously re-evaluating the “why’s” across our business. Workplaces without bias will benefit from diversity of thought, new innovations and experimentation – the key to future business success.

How has remote work & the COVID19 pandemic changed your approach to advancing women in your workplace?

I now look at it in a much more holistic way. Before I was solely focused on what happens during “working hours”. I have had the absolute realisation that this is only a fraction of the time that needs to be focused on in terms of supporting women in their careers. So much of our success in work is dependent on what is happening outside of work.

About our Contributors

About Lillian

Lillian is an experienced coach and workshop facilitator in the areas of communications, leadership, and diversity, equity and inclusion. She has held communications, operations and human resources leadership roles with both for-profit and non-profit organisations.

Through her work she continually noticed a common theme: individual leaders and entire organisations struggling to engage, retain, and promote people from historically underrepresented backgrounds. This was the impetus for starting Lead with Equity, where her role is to help leaders to lead more effectively, inclusively, and equitably and to help organisations embed these skills into their leadership systems.

Connect with Lillian on LinkedIn >>>

About Tom

Tom is a member of HPC’s Executive Coaching Panel. In addition to his coaching qualifications, he has over 25 years’ experience working as a senior executive within various sectors.

Tom’s executive coaching experience has enabled him to coach in a wide variety of environments including executives in small, medium and large private sector companies, as well as private individuals and leaders in public organisations. He offers his clients a safe space to explore options and ideas, and to raise awareness, thereby facilitating personal and professional growth and development.

Learn more about Tom >>>

About Yvonne

Yvonne is a highly proficient HR Professional with a wealth of practical experience in all areas of people development. Her expertise in business and career coaching adds strength to her HPC facilitation work across all organisational levels.

Yvonne has over 25 years’ industry experience in the management and development of people and has held a variety of senior roles, including Head of People and Organisational Capability at Vodafone Ireland. Her extensive business experience enables Yvonne to excel in the design and delivery of effective programmes across HPC’s client base, with a particular interest in behaviour change and competency development in management and personal development.

Learn more about Yvonne >>>

About Adam

Adam is an HR & OD Project Executive at IDA Ireland. Through his experience of Learning & Development, he is passionate about supporting the growth of others – helping them improve their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing at home and in the workplace.

He has dedicated time to a Masters in Work & Organisational Psychology due to a huge interest in HR practices and also the degree in which companies can impact employees’ wellbeing.

Throughout this career, he has trained and developed thousands of learners; supported businesses in improving their customer’s experience by delivering live workshops and seminars; and delivered talks at industry conferences, webinars, and created bespoke content.

Connect with Adam on LinkedIn >>>

About Fiona

Fiona’s role as Client Director within HPC is to partner with organisations to shape bespoke people development solutions that achieve impactful results. She works in partnership with clients across a diverse range of industry sectors and offers a deep understanding of how ever-changing business needs impact how HPC’s work adds value at a strategic level.

HPC has been designing and delivering people development solutions for 40 years, partnering with clients to create a high-performance culture that has a positive impact on business growth and personal development.

Connect with Fiona on LinkedIn >>>

Creating a culture of belonging. What exactly does it mean? How is it defined? What stage are organisations at? What challenges lie ahead?

HPC recently held a virtual roundtable discussion with L&D leaders to facilitate debate around these key questions. Part of our ‘HPC Talks’ series, the session was led by HPC’s Fiona Claridge; Lillian Forsyth – Co-Founder & CEO of Lead with Equity; and Siobhan Sweeney – Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging Leader at HubSpot.

Based on their knowledge and work in the areas of diversity, inclusion and belonging, HPC invited Lillian and Siobhan to facilitate the conversation and give advice. The attendee group was made up of L&D leaders from a range of sectors who are at differing points in their ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging’ (DEIB) journey.

We wanted to capture some of the themes of this discussion around how belonging is being driven and what is needed to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

What is Belonging?

Belonging is a word that has been swirling around the corporate world, especially in HR, L&D and Talent departments. It differs from diversity and inclusion in that just because someone is included in your organisation, certainly doesn’t mean they feel they belong. Belonging is when every individual is integrated into a culture where they feel welcome, connected, and celebrated.

In short, diversity is a fact (employee numbers), inclusion is a choice (you decide whether to include someone or not) but belonging is a feeling that can be enforced by a culture that can be purposefully created.

Through her work in this space, Lillian observes that, “Organisations have worked hard to increase the diversity of their teams and create inclusive cultures, yet there is still a way to go. Regardless of how diverse a workforce is, unless your people truly feel they belong, you’ll never realise the full potential of the talent you’ve worked so hard to attract.”

She explained that belonging is a powerful feeling; an additional force that is the product of a DEIB strategy. It’s a fundamental human need that translates across any language or culture, and a feeling that every human is wired to want.

She firmly believes that “belonging gives all employees, regardless of background or difference, what they need to thrive at work.”

Some L&D leaders discussed the maturity of their organisational approach to belonging, while others are only starting their journey.

They commented:

“We don’t have an exact definition of belonging, but we do know what it is not. It’s about bringing your authentic self to work. We’re still defining our organisational stance on DE&I, then we will move to belonging.”

“I think it’s interesting that we’re all struggling with the definition of belonging and I think that’s because it’s going to look different in each organisation. For me, I think of belonging as the outcome – the product of what we do as D&I or L&D professionals. Diversity is what the organisation looks like. Inclusion and equity are the work, the strategies, the programmes we implement, and belonging is the result of those.”

“Our business has been involved in a large multinational takeover and many cultural differences exist. We were already considered as a diverse organisation but there is now more work to do on the DEIB front. We don’t have an official definition, but we are trying to put together a practical description. What we do know is that belonging is more about how you feel about being in an organisation, rather than a KPI.”

Alignment of DEIB Strategy

Siobhan’s previous roles in the area of DEIB at AIB, Open Doors and HubSpot have been largely focused on advising on alignment, driving internal initiatives and bringing all stakeholders together.

“It is important to take a holistic approach in aligning your organisation’s DEIB strategy with overall corporate priorities. Then creating awareness of these through employee integration will make it meaningful,” she says.

Some key takeaways from our discussion were:

– DEIB should fit naturally into your corporate culture. Priority should be given to internal awareness building of DI&B so that it is lived through the culture on a daily basis. This behaviour is the cornerstone of inclusive companies.

– One participant observed that even though companies say have a DEIB policy, there is no meaning behind it. They publish it on their website and in company handbooks, but if belonging is not immersed in the corporate culture, it’s not real; they are just words that won’t make a difference.

– Organisations that treat DEIB as a ‘tick box’ exercise could experience some backfire. In this digital age, if a company does not fully commit to a genuine approach, this can be easily exposed on online sites such as Glassdoor. This may put potential employees off the organisation, which will ultimately affect talent retention.

– Some companies are more mature in their approach and have dedicated structures in place to instil DEIB within their organisation. If you are only beginning this journey, there are plenty of resources and support available once you have a framework that works for your organisation.

– Lillian stated that “for early and mid-stage start-up organisations in particular, there’s an opportunity to infuse inclusion, equity and belonging into your organisational systems as you establish them for the first time or change them to accommodate your organisation’s growth.”

– For smaller organisations who don’t have a dedicated DEIB role, you could assign additional roles to internal team members. This should be properly defined in their official job description and current responsibilities exchanged to accommodate this.

– Siobhan advised, “If you are starting out on the DEIB journey, start small. Choose a number of key initiatives and how they can be embedded into the everyday culture of your company. Reviewing and learning from them for constant evolution is critical.”

Measurement and Evaluation

– As well as defining belonging, organisations need to plan how to measure it. Siobhan suggested that to measure belonging, organisations could use retention analysis as a key indicator of success.

– We discussed short surveys that ask employees specifically about different elements of inclusion and belonging that act as a baseline indicator of progression in this area. Organisations who want to do this on their own can find online resources to put a survey together.

– Shorter pulse surveys on the topic can be conducted on a regular basis and paired with other data from a retention analysis. Together, this data can give an organisation a good sense of whether their initiatives around DEIB are working or not.

Organisational Direction & Engagement

– Top management and leadership should be leading the way in DEIB. They should foster the leadership style approach and behaviours that cultivate a culture of belonging and be accountable in terms of metrics and KPIs.

– When diversity, inclusion and equity coexist within teams, and throughout the wider organisations, an individual will feel a sense of belonging. Belonging is the outcome of these being present within the corporate culture – where everyone truly feels empowered to speak up, make change, and shift the culture. It is the responsibility of those in leadership and of the dominant social culture to create these conditions.

– Siobhan suggests that “organisations should adopt a bottom-up approach by encouraging initiatives to be employee-led. They should invite employee feedback and take it seriously. If survey fatigue kicks in, assign internal ambassadors to conduct formal ‘listening tours’ – to absorb feelings and ideas that come straight from the staff. In this way, employees will feel like they belong to something they value and that they have the power to bring about change when it’s needed.”

– A top-down and bottom-up approach allows the company to meet in the middle. Engagement between all important stakeholders – individuals, communities, and leaders – creates a space to ‘co-create’ a sense of belonging together.

The global Covid-19 pandemic

– The global events of 2020 and 2021 have increased the urgency for real change when it comes to DEIB. Leaders are recognising that hiring a diverse team is no longer enough; the pressure to integrate inclusion and belonging into every aspect of your organisation is higher than ever before.

– The impact of the pandemic, working from home and communicating virtually caused some people to re-evaluate themselves and ask if they actually belonged to their organisation. Some people have called out their organisation about their DEIB shortfalls or worse, left the company – and some organisations are struggling with that.

– Siobhan discussed HubSpot’s definition of DI&B and highlighted the importance of people having the ability to show up on a daily basis and be themselves. She explained that after the events of the pandemic, “80% of HubSpotters have opted for flexible/fully remote working, so we need to adapt and bring belonging to the virtual environment so that people can communicate, share thoughts, provide leadership and give feedback.”

– Due to Covid-19, inclusion has been more vital in supporting employee wellbeing, ensuring clear communication and helping employees stay connected to their teams.

– Post Covid-19 it is important that leaders ensure that inclusion does not just rely on visibility physically in the office in order to achieve progression. Inclusion needs to be all encompassing as some people are fully remote or working within a hybrid model.

In conclusion

The power of a DEIB strategy goes much further in cultures where people feel they belong because when they’re seen, heard and valued for who they really are – their own unique and authentic selves – they thrive, and so does the organisation around them.

People who feel a greater sense of belonging at work, will be more resilient and willing to challenge themselves and others to be better stewards of equity, diversity and inclusion.

Lillian explains, “studies show that organisations where individuals hold a high sense of belonging produce more engaged employees who are energised by their work, better connected to their team, and ultimately perform with better creativity, execution and productivity. Belonging and performance outcomes are therefore linked.”

Our roundtable discussion showed that no matter how big or small an organisation is, or what stage they are at on their DEIB journey, everyone has the ability to be visionary and creative about the way they approach belonging. Driven from the bottom-up and top-down, a holistic, authentic and genuine approach will be the power behind this important journey.

This discussion was part of our HPC Talks series – a small quarterly forum to discuss topics and issues relevant to the world of L&D. If you would like to be kept informed of future events, please contact fiona.claridge@wearehpc.com

HPC Talks Contributors

Fiona Claridge – HPC

Connect with Fiona on LinkedIn >>>

Connect with HPC on LinkedIn >>>

Lillian Forsyth – Lead with Equity

Connect with Lillian on LinkedIn >>>

Siobhan Sweeney – HubSpot

Prior to her current role as Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Leader at HubSpot, Siobhan held a number of roles within AIB, including the role of Diversity and Inclusion Lead. She was also Director of Diversity and Inclusion with the Open Doors Initiative.

Siobhan is passionate about diversity and inclusion and the positive impact it has on both organisational performance and people. Working collaboratively and pragmatically with stakeholders, teams and diverse talent, her career purpose is to drive D,I&B through cultural change, to ensure talent attraction, development and retention. HubSpot’s DIB data can be viewed here.

Connect with Siobhan on LinkedIn >>>

HPC has been nominated for two prestigious awards at this year’s Learning and Performance Institute (LPI) Learning Awards for its work with ESB, the largest generator and supplier of electricity in Ireland.

The LPI Learning Awards are the learning sector’s annual celebration of outstanding achievement, best practice and excellence in corporate learning and performance. HPC has been shortlisted as finalists in the ‘People Development Programme of the Year (Private Sector)’ and ‘Learning Impact’ categories.

According to the LPI, “the shortlisted finalists have been selected due to their demonstration of innovation, exceptional performance and contribution to the learning profession.”

Amidst the challenges posed by climate change, Brexit and energy security, ESB developed its ‘Brighter Future Strategy’ that sets a path to a low-carbon future while ensuring business growth and the financial strength to invest at scale. Both awards are recognition of ‘Leaders for a Brighter Future (LBF)’, a development programme designed by HPC in conjunction with ESB that is linked to the rollout and success of this strategy.

David Storrs, Managing Director at HPC, recognises the power of the nominations:

“This is a tremendous recognition of the partnership we have established with the team at ESB, the strength of ESB’s commitment to L&D and the positive impact our work has had across the organisation.”

People Development Programme of the Year (Private Sector) Award

This award is for the design and implementation of a proactive, large-scale People Development Programme. The LPI judging panel looks for “clear differentiation, evidence of innovation, effective needs analysis and verification, learner and sponsor support, client satisfaction and a sustained organisational impact on the overall performance of the staff within the enterprise.”

Following a highly successful programme to the top 200 leaders in ESB, HPC partnered with ESB to bring the Brighter Future Strategy to life for 575 middle managers. The focus of the programme was the enablement of a high-performance culture that supports innovation and collaboration. The outcome was measurable behavioural change and increased engagement between teams.

Patricia Nolan, Learning & Development Delivery Manager at ESB notes the scale and the sustained impact of this programme:

“Working in collaboration with HPC, the programme was successfully designed and delivered to support 575 of our managers to lead and demonstrate the behaviours aligned to build high performance with their teams and enable the delivery of our company strategy into the future.”

Learning Impact Award

Finalists for this award had to provide the judging panel with strong evidence of “how the learning evaluation strategy measured the positive impact to the business goals of the enterprise.”

ESB’s LBF programme was focused on raising confidence and performance, empowering people leaders to deliver ESB’s Brighter Future Strategy. Specifically, participants were tasked with clarifying performance expectations and enabling the behaviours that drive collaboration and higher performance.

ESB required robust evidence of programme impact along with sustainable individual and organisational change. HPC’s unique approach to evaluation, supported by their ability to demonstrate the impact and value of learning, delivered this.

Noreen Gleeson, Learning & Development Specialist at ESB explains the impact that HPC’s approach has had within their organisation:

“We worked closely with HPC on our approach to evaluate the outcome of this programme that was based on survey outputs and data analytics. This evaluation approach has given us clear evidence of improvements in manager skillsets and we can see the sustainable changes in behaviour and increased engagement with their team.”

Looking forward to the awards

HPC and ESB will attend the Awards Ceremony in London on 17th February 2022 and David Storrs sums up their relationship:

“We’ve worked with ESB for many years, and we have a strong partnership. Understanding and being immersed in their business strategy has enabled us to design, implement and evaluate L&D solutions that have paved the way for long-term change within ESB.”

The LPI’s CEO, Edmund Monk, notes that “the total number of submissions has beaten all previous years – a sure sign that the global L&D industry continues to prevail against recent challenges. I find it extremely gratifying to discover how each individual or organisation has uniquely approached workplace learning, and how they have all found new ways to drive performance within business.”

The stature and prestige of The Learning Awards is well recognised in the industry and HPC look forward to being in the company of all finalists, who are leading the way for L&D.

About The Learning and Performance Institute

Established in 1995, the LPI (Learning and Performance Institute) is a self-governing professional body for global workplace learning professionals and organisations.

A global ceremony for the learning sector, the Learning Awards recognise outstanding examples of high standards, best practice, innovation and excellence in Learning and Development across the globe. The Awards are independently judged and this year received hundreds of entries from more than 80 countries.

About HPC

HPC has been providing people development solutions for 40 years, partnering with clients to create a high-performance culture that has a positive impact on business growth and personal development. We work with senior leadership teams, emerging leaders, frontline managers and graduates to build capability, provoke new ways of thinking and support an improved employee experience.

About ESB

Electricity Supply Board (ESB) was established in 1927 as a statutory corporation in the Republic of Ireland under the Electricity (Supply) Act 1927.

As a strong, diversified, vertically integrated utility, ESB operates right across the electricity market: from generation, through transmission and distribution to supply. In addition, ESB extracts further value at certain points along this chain: supplying gas, using our networks to carry fibre for telecommunications, developing electric vehicle public charging infrastructure and more.

HPC Client Director, Fiona Claridge shares some views in advance of HPC’s sponsorship of the Irish Institute of Training & Development (IITD) Masterclass, // Leading Learning in a Changed World – Wednesday 1st December 2021.

New York Times best-selling author Daniel Pink and Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic – author, entrepreneur and Professor of Business Psychology at University College London and Columbia University will lead the IITD Masterclass with two keynote presentations. Fiona Claridge will join Elaine McGleenan (Director, Learning and Organisational Development at KPMG) and Aidan Lawrence (Learning and Organisation Development Director at Hewlett-Packard) to discuss the main themes of the masterclass.

In preparation for some of these themes, we caught up with Fiona for her views on the following three questions:

How has the last 20 months impacted the world of work?

This is a big question with such a broad response. We have experienced a level of change in a space of months that otherwise may have taken years, propelling us forward in terms of new concepts and approaches. I think of the phrase “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

We digitalised overnight and changed our ways of working without lengthy discussions. Everything just happened and we all got on with it. Does that mean it was all done correctly? Probably not. In many instances we reacted to the situation we were in: remote working. We didn’t change how we organised work or what we expected from employees; it was an invasion of people’s homes!

We now have a huge opportunity as HR and L&D Professionals, and we must become much more deliberate in our approach. The last 20 months has earned us a seat at the ‘top table’ like never before and we need to take opportunity of the gains we’ve made to lead our organisations and answer fundamental questions such as: Where is our organisation going?; What capabilities are needed to get there?; “How do we push our boundaries?” and “Why are doing what we are doing?”

What do these changes mean for leaders and leadership?

Thankfully core fundamentals around leadership were already high on many agendas pre-Covid. There was a focus on terms like vulnerability, agility, stamina, human-centric, coaching and purpose-led. What the last 20 months has meant for leaders is that they need to live the ‘case study’ and learn how to implement the behaviours identified as successful within their organisation, in the real world. There was no practice run it had to be done in the here and now. The values and mission of the organisation were no longer just words on the wall; leaders had to demonstrate them in a genuine way.

How do we encourage leaders to prioritise new behaviours and new ways of working?

I attended a very interesting client event recently where senior stakeholders encouraged leaders to rollout their own team’s flexible hybrid working approach. Autonomy at its best. These leaders approached the task with an amazing amount of agility and openness as they explored a number of angles to create their new approach. Our role was to help these leaders to fully explore every other angle possible to get their hybrid working approach completely right – creative thinking to push boundaries and explore all possibilities that they may not have considered for their teams.

I firmly believe that all leaders need to be given a facilitated forum to learn from each other (successes and mistakes), share knowledge, explore new ways of thinking and continue to instil the levels of trust they’ve built up in their teams. As well as this, they need to keep reiterating the importance of focusing on collective team results and keep clearly communicating purpose.

Fiona Claridge’s role as Client Director within HPC is to partner with organisations to shape bespoke solutions that achieve impactful results.

She works in partnership with clients across a diverse range of industry sectors and offers a deep understanding of how ever-changing business needs impact how HPC’s work adds value at a strategic level.

Before joining HPC, Fiona gained consulting experience across many aspects of Talent Development Assessment in global Tech, Pharma and Professional Services organisations including Manpower and Aon as well as niche start-ups such as Own The Room and cut-e.

HPC’s Blended Learning Report Examines and provides insights into how the Covid-19 Pandemic has affected Learning and Development Teams and the work they do.

HPC’s Kevin Hannigan reflects on how small nudges can drive large-scale behavioural change and help produce metrics that convince senior management that L&D’s work is producing effective results.

Most L&D professionals would probably agree that it can be hard to define and illustrate the true value they bring to their organisation. While other business functions like Marketing, Manufacturing or Sales can report solid metrics and easily identifiable KPIs, people-development is more nuanced.

This creates two distinct problems for L&D professionals. Firstly, how do we convince senior management that we are creating value in the organisation so that they allocate the necessary resources to L&D? Secondly, if we can’t measure impact, how do we know which, if any, of our approaches is delivering results

Over the past few years, we have worked with our clients to pioneer new approaches to demonstrating impact. As well as supporting the business case for greater investment in L&D, this data driven approach has also allowed us to identify specific tools that accelerate the transfer of learning and drive behavioural change.

The tool that we will discuss in this article is based on Nudge Theory. Our experience is that combining Nudge Theory with our approach to design and learning transfer has increased behavioural change for our clients.

What is Nudge Theory?

Popularised by the 2008 book, ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness’, by Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge theory proposes that the most effective ways to influence the behaviour and decision-making of groups or individuals are through positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions. In this way, nudging contrasts with other ways to influence behaviour such as education, legislation or enforcement. Thaler and Sunstein put it best in their book as follows:

“To count as a mere nudge, the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid. Nudges are not mandates. Putting fruit at eye level counts as a nudge. Banning junk food does not.”

Nudging in L&D

So, what might a nudge look like in L&D? Based on Thaler and Sunstein’s idea, it really could be any tool that suggests a way of behaving or performing or any way that reinforces learning. It could be a reminder or a conversation with someone. Think of nudges as an ecosystem of reminders to help people make better choices post-training.

Nudging in Practice

Over the past two years, we have been working closely with our clients to help them assess the impact of specific leadership development programmes. For the purposes of this article, we have selected two programmes with a similar audience profile and similar organisational contexts. Both programmes were different in scope and subject matter, but at their core, both were focused on recalibrating leadership in their respective organisations. From team engagement and the deployment of coaching, to creating an accountability culture and embedding values in everyday conversations, these programmes were carefully designed to create an environment where people could perform to their potential.

A critical difference in programme design was the use of nudges. In one programme, participants received a series of nudges between programme modules and in the 3 months following the programme. These nudges were a series of prompts that reconnected participants with key concepts from the programme and prompted them to act. The second programme did not use nudges.

Findings and Insights

The results spoke volumes and showed that the practical application of behavioural science can play a crucial role in modern L&D.

On both programmes, we assessed behaviour 12 weeks after the workshops had completed and compared the results with a pre-programme benchmark.

The programme without nudges demonstrated an average shift of 68% across seven behaviours i.e. more than two thirds of participants had changed their behaviour following the completion of the programme. For the programme with nudges, the corresponding figure was an average of 90% across seven similar behaviours i.e. 9 in 10 participants had shifted their behaviour.

When we asked people about the impact of the nudges, more than 80% of participants indicated that the nudges had reminded them of key concepts from the programme and had prompted them to try new things.

Nudge Theory in your L&D programme

So, how might you start incorporating Nudge Theory into your programme design? We believe there are three initial steps you can take:

Identify the critical behaviours you want to change – focus on what you want participants to do and how they will do this.
Consider a basic nudge framework – nudges should be straightforward, accessible and timely. Consider how to get to learners in a simple way that prompts them to try something different.
Experiment and track – ultimately, you need to try different approaches and track results. This will allow you to build your case internally for increased resources or specialist help.

We know that programmes on their own are rarely enough. To drive measurable change and organisational performance, we need a strategic approach to learning transfer. Using nudges as part of your learning architecture may just be the additional tool you need to demonstrate value to your senior stakeholders.

Kevin Hannigan leads the Learning and Talent Consulting offering and is also a Client Director at HPC. He works with clients to develop, deliver and evaluate bespoke solutions that drive performance across their business.

He is a highly skilled consultant and facilitator with a wealth of experience in designing the systems and processes that support effective learning, measurement and talent development.

Before joining HPC in 2013, Kevin was head of learning and development for Matheson, Ireland’s largest law firm and for C&C Ireland.

HPC’s Justin Kinnear reflects on the importance of culture – its place in organisations, culture’s response to Covid and the part it has to play in the return to work.

First and foremost, culture is all about groups. The pandemic has totally shaken up our sense of groups, with some people losing connection with some groups entirely, and others deepening their connection with other groups. Without groups there is no culture. It’s not something that means anything on an individual level.

I like Edgar Schein’s explanation, which I will paraphrase. He describes culture as the way groups have learned to successfully solve problems over time, such that they are willing to teach these solutions to new members of the culture. Think of how office staff show a new colleague how to make the fiddly coffee machine work by deviating slightly from the instructions. This notion of culture being a teachable way that we solve problems means that when the problems are dramatically and suddenly different (the pandemic) we need to suddenly change how we solve them. Covid has already caused us, in small ways, to change our culture. How we connect, how we meet, how we collaborate and solve problems ‘virtually’ – these are all small examples of how our culture (Deal and Kennedy’s “the way we do things around here”) is changing already.

Culture is soft (unquantifiable) and lasting, meaning we don’t really like to change too much too soon. So, as we focus on the return to work / hybrid working possibility, part of our psyche is likely wondering if we can return to solving familiar problems using familiar solutions i.e. can we go back to the good old days? It’s likely that Covid has changed things far more dramatically than we imagine, and therefore some of the changed approaches to solving problems will remain as part of the newly evolved culture, even when back in the office. Leaders that reassure people that new and better ways of solving problems will be part of the new culture send a powerful message that gains will be locked in and not lost once we return to the office.

Culture is also about who we define ourselves as, whether as IBMers with long service to the organisation, as Googlers or whatever group we see as our tribe. We identify with many groupings – at a team, unit, organisational or national level. This facet of culture allows us to decide who is ‘of our culture’ and who is not. This can be helpful to create togetherness and pride in the collective effort, but it can also be limiting, excluding and divisive. Our sense of what we are part of is changing, and we see ourselves now as being part of so much more than a handful of exclusive groups or tribes. Whether we choose to or not, others will also tend to bracket us into neat categorisations, and this can also be unhelpful as they hold onto outdated ideas about who we are and what we contribute. The pandemic has shaken our sense of culture as an identifier, since we can’t be in the office, wear our “work attire”, or do all the things that set us apart from others.

Culture has historically been seen as something that is defined and role-modelled by leaders. In the past we have narrowly defined leaders as those in hierarchical positions of influence, and those peers that we tend to look up to and respect. Covid has made it harder for those leaders to reach us, and much more effort has been required to keep channels open and keep communication flowing. But it’s easy to see why, fatigue aside, leaders need to keep communicating in a pandemic. If you don’t inform them, someone else will, and they may not have the organisation’s or the employee’s best interests at heart. If you want to shape culture, keep leading by regularly communicating. Let people know you’re there, that you care, and that you’re willing to spare some time to keep them in the loop.

There are two final facets to culture that are worth mentioning when it comes to the pandemic.

Culture often shows up through the imagery and architecture of a business, the stories that are told about heroes and successes, the rituals and customs that everyone “knows” about. These things confer status, prestige, and difference and during the pandemic have lost much of their value. When we can’t see them, we don’t consider them. Employees value these facets of belonging to a culture so the leader’s challenge is to acknowledge them when they are far away, show people how they will come back in some form, and to bridge the gap if they will not be part of the future by suggesting something different and more appropriate.

The final aspect of culture to note is the importance of culture as it sustains the lifespan of a team or organisation. As we learn how to solve problems over time and lock in those learnings, we teach them and those who learn will go on to teach others. This learning and sharing approach creates and supports longevity of practice and allows a team or business to keep doing what it’s doing for an extended time. We know Covid has changed the problems, and this means new ways of solving, some of which we have yet to teach and share with colleagues. This can shake the stability of a team or business, as much appears to be suddenly unstable. Leaders have a role to play in setting out a vision of what the culture will evolve into, almost the picture of where we are now and where we hope to be in X months or years. Helping people to accept that the culture is changing, and to explain and explore why, allows people to experiment and put a tentative foot forward into the new way of doing things. We all want to know where we’re going, and that’s a vital input from the leader. Leaders may not know exactly what the end stage looks like, but they can set a path forward to cover the next year or so and allow people to start looking forward through the windscreen instead of gazing back nervously into the rear view mirror. The leader that shows that a team has a future, that we’ll need to evolve to get there, and that we know the plan for the first couple of kilometres will get their team moving forward more quickly than a leader who is waiting for all the detail to become clear before saying anything.

Culture is how we have learned to solve problems in groups. New problems need new solutions, which drives new culture. Leaders, in the broadest sense, help, encourage, support, and reinforce those attempts to find new and better solutions.

We might not be fully back in the office yet. We might be navigating the challenges of implementing a hybrid working strategy. But we can all help, support, encourage and reinforce our teams as they look for new solutions to entirely new problems during this prolonged pandemic stage.

Justin Kinnear is Head of Research at HPC. His passion for people development and his ability to inspire makes him a key member of HPC’s facilitation and coaching teams.

As well as his extensive research and facilitation experience, he was formerly Head of L&D at IBM and Britvic.

His work with HPC focuses on the development of a high performance culture for our clients with a particular emphasis on accountability and feedback.

Slowing Down to Speed up – As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, sales teams cannot conduct business-as-usual. HPC’s Paul Irvine presents this as an opportunity for sales and business development teams.

While Covid has undoubtedly created new challenges, a nugget of opportunity is presenting itself to business development professionals amidst this change and upheaval. And with the right mix of client understanding alongside proven tools, you can master the hybrid approach, seize this opportunity, and maximise outcomes in highly competitive markets.

Life has changed for business development professionals in both micro and macro contexts. While the macro changes have been profound, at a micro level, the pandemic has created the space to maintain focus, stay close to customers, and cultivate relationships.

As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, sales teams cannot conduct business-as-usual. And this is where the opportunity lies. To navigate the next 12 months, clients need suppliers and business relationships they can depend on. They want to emerge from this period of uncertainty with a select group of trusted advisors and suppliers who understand their business and can flex their offering to meet the new reality that they and their organisations are facing.

Now is the time to galvanise that connection nurtured with clients and bring the business relationship to the next level, but only if you understand your client.

Through our work with business development teams in several industries, we know this opportunity exists and we believe that by addressing three key issues, sales professionals can develop their own strategy to grasp this opportunity.

1 – Understand where your client is right now

‘Know your client’ has always been a traditional mantra within business development, but truly knowing your client and their challenges has never been more important. Life has changed irrevocably for many clients. The pandemic has upended markets, challenged supply chains and impacted their customers.

Understanding their priorities for the coming year, the challenges they face and the potential opportunities that exist for them is key to your success. You cannot just assume that things will return to the way they were pre-pandemic.

2 – Understand the opportunities that exist

By working hard to understand the nature of Covid-induced change in industry, and the full impact on clients, you are already stacking the odds in your favour. Taking the time to slow down and understand the problems that your client faces is an act of respect to your client and an investment in your own success.

Your clients will already be starting to identify problems and they will need great partners to help them solve these problems. There may also be problems and opportunities that they have yet to consider. Your role as a Business Development professional is to leverage your insight gathered across multiple clients to identify what these unforeseen opportunities may be. Taking the time to consider these and sharing your thoughts with your client is an act of trust and faith in the relationship that will pay off over time.

3 Apply this Insight Alongside Proven Sales Tools

With a clear understanding of both how working life has changed for your client and how you can help them adjust to it, the next steps can be taken. Shift your attention to applying this insight in practical, day-to-day terms.

Effective Preparation is the foundation of any successful business development professional. With the insight you have gleaned from the first two steps above, consider how this impacts on your preparation for meetings and pitches. What questions are you asking? What insights are you sharing? Are you genuinely taking the time to understand your client or diving in, looking for the business?

Embrace Hybrid: Developing business in a hybrid world brings its own challenges but also opportunities. In some ways, it has never been easier to speak to people and hybrid can also speed up the business development process as you reserve face to face tie for what really matters.

Mindset and Positive thinking are the foundation on which to build your approach. Taking the time to understand your clients and the challenges they face requires faith in your process and the discipline to stick with it. By following this approach, you will build confidence in the knowledge that you fully understand the impact of Covid on your client and how life has changed for them. Use all your experience and knowledge to present a confident, clear proposition to your client.

Every economic forecast is predicting overall growth for the economy and there are opportunities to develop your business in the coming months. But only for those brave enough to slow down before they speed up.

Paul is HPC’s lead facilitator on sales and business development programmes. His extensive industry knowledge of the corporate world of sales and relationship management enables him to develop highly effective, bespoke solutions for HPC’s clients.

Prior to joining HPC, Paul worked for 15 years in sales, consultancy, portfolio management and new business development roles within the financial services industry

He specialises in the design, delivery, project management and evaluation of bespoke sales development programmes, working with a range of client companies across multiple sectors and distribution channels in UK, Europe, United States, Middle East and Asia.

Part Two: Who is responsible for the shift to hybrid working?

As organisations share their ‘return to office’ plans with employees, HPC’s Head of Research, Justin Kinnear asks “Who is responsible for making this hybrid arrangement work?”

In our last article on the Future of Work post Covid-19 – Part One, we explored how many organisations were anticipating the future and beginning the shift to some form of hybrid working. A true hybrid work model will combine staff working from home and staff working from an office and the number of days committed to both may vary depending on individual roles and responsibilities.

With summer 2021 upon us, many organisations are now signalling their hybrid working plans to their employees. Anecdotally, most organisations expect to start welcoming staff back into office environments from September 2021. Of course, many employees have already returned, while some never left their posts at all during the pandemic. As organisations share their RTO (return to office) plans with employees, the question remains: “Who is responsible for making this hybrid arrangement work?”

Not everyone is shifting to hybrid working

It’s tempting to think that hybrid working appeals to everyone who formerly commuted to an office job, but that’s not the case. Some employees, and perhaps more telling, some employers, have made it clear they intend to ‘go back to how things were’ as quickly as possible. Recent press coverage of some prominent professional and financial services firms suggests that they don’t see hybrid working as a viable approach for their staff. Time will tell, as it appears that among employers globally, they are in the minority view. We may also see that staff, particularly those with in-demand skillsets are able to determine their working arrangements regardless of the views of the firm.

The emerging shape of a hybrid working arrangement

What seems clear now is that most people will aim for a work arrangement where 2 to 3 days can be worked remotely, and the remainder worked at the company office. Based on our recent work with clients, our experience is that more than 75% of staff express a preference for this arrangement. While some may elect to work more or less days at the office, the biggest determinant is likely to be the requirements of the team you work in and if you are a people leader, the team that you lead. We expect some meetings and learning activity to continue virtually, while other meetings and collaborative activity will resume in the face-to-face format either in the office or at other physical venues.

What’s not clear yet is the amount of overlapped attendance, that is, whether we expect that on certain days everyone in a team will be simultaneously present in the office. Deliberations continue about this, and it makes sense for organisations to be flexible for the first few months to figure out what works best. Many organisations are experimenting with the use of personas to determine what a hybrid working model may look like for different staff across the organisation. What is becoming clear is that a model will take some time to emerge. Deciding up-front on an attendance policy and rigidly imposing it from day one is surely a recipe for failure and acrimony. Experiment in partnership with your team, take an agile approach and let the best solution emerge from experience.

So, who is responsible?

If hybrid working is to be successful, then who is responsible for ensuring this? Our view is that it will take the collective will of the organisation and like any cultural change, will require the efforts and purposeful intent of leaders, the HR team, the individual, and line managers.

Senior Leaders

The degree of genuine commitment to hybrid working will be signalled through the words and actions of the organisation’s most senior leaders. It won’t matter what the policy or emails about hybrid working say if the leaders are saying and doing something different. Senior leaders must lead from the top and lead from the start. Based on our experience, one of the biggest issues that senior leaders will face is the need to consciously include those working at a different location in decision making and ensure that their contributions and impact are not diminished by virtue of where they work.

The HR Community

HR and the management community should be aligned about hybrid working. HR must help managers to establish new working arrangements, encouraging flexibility while at the same time making sure the business can meet its objectives. Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School, suggests in her research ‘How to Do Hybrid Right’ that HR needs to help managers and staff consider their roles based on the dimensions of:

(1) jobs and tasks

(2) employee preferences

(3) projects and workflows

(4) inclusion and fairness

HR should work with managers to help them understand and map the impact of each of these dimensions on the work of their team and what it might mean for hybrid working.

Equally, there is an opportunity for HR to work in a very agile way over the coming 6-9 months. Based on our conversations with clients, there is an expectation that the model of hybrid working that emerges in mid 2022 will be very different from that in Autumn 2021. HR have an opportunity to experiment and iterate with managers over the next year to develop ways of working that support the organisation and the people within it.

HR will also need to watch out for pockets of resistance in parts of the business to hybrid working. Turning a blind eye to company policy and allowing managers to create micro-regimes where they don’t support hybrid working is to be avoided. If an organisation commits publicly to hybrid working, then the HR community owes it to the entire business to play their part in supporting and enabling hybrid working throughout the organisation.

The Individual Employee

Trust has been a huge part of why the shift to mass remote working was so successful during the pandemic. Managers needed to trust employees because they had no choice. Employees needed to deliver on their commitments in exchange for that managerial trust but also in exchange for autonomy over the working day and how they used their time to get work done. As we move to the new hybrid working arrangements, it will be a little strange for managers to take comfort from being able to see people at work, while also needing to trust when they can’t see them while working at home. This will require great adaptability from managers and will also require employees to, once again, prove their dependability and trustworthiness by getting the important things done as promised. Flexibility, better wellbeing, increased family time, less time spent commuting and all the other benefits of remote working remain available if employees continue to deliver their side of the bargain. Essentially, employees have a big say in the ongoing success of hybrid working by showing that productivity, responsiveness, and participation are as strong from home as they are from the office.

Line Managers

Thinking about the question we began with, “Who is responsible for making this hybrid arrangement work?”, the most critical person of all is the line manager. How will we know if hybrid working is indeed working? We will only know if the line manager knows, and that requires the line manager to be on top of everything. The good news is that this should not require much more than what the line manager has been doing since the pandemic began.

First, line managers must continue to trust their team members and now build up that trust when they have the chance to meet each person in the office. Avoiding the signal “I trust you more when I can see you” is a good start. Trust is about promises honoured and work completed, not how anxious I feel when you are out of my eye-line.

Second, line managers need to plan for the hybrid work environment. They should know who is in the office on which days, and who is working remotely. They should keep track of with whom they have discussed performance, to whom they have provided recognition or feedback and so on. This reduces the possibility of proximity bias where those near the manager get higher quality interaction, while those far away feel forgotten about.

Third, line managers will do well to focus on the execution of work. Are people completing the actions they committed to complete? Are promises being honoured as expected? Managers who drive performance and execution the same way, whether people are in the office or at home, will create a culture of performance and accountability. It should not matter where work is done, but if managers only know about work they can see in the office, this creates a problem. Encouraging everyone to do what they say they are going to do, including the manager, creates reliability and trust irrespective of where people are doing the work. Checking in regularly on actions and progress keeps everyone focused on execution and promises.

Line managers will also need to attend to the well-being of the team. Teams have been through a great deal of upheaval, and many are exhausted by the pandemic experience. As we move into the hybrid working stage, managers will need to work with their team to rebuild trust. Remember that some people have joined teams during the pandemic and have never met colleagues in person. Others have left or retired, so teams will need to “relaunch”, as Harvard’s Tsedal Neeley puts it. Team members need to know that they can count on one another as they tip toe into this new stage of working together. Time invested in rebuilding relationships, re-energising and relaunching the team, will be time well spent indeed.

Finally, when line managers don’t report productivity or performance upwards, they inadvertently create doubt and misgivings that hybrid working does not deliver. Once again, we only know things are working when we can see the data that shows us so. Keep track of the data that will help those around and above you to see that hybrid working is delivering for the business and for the team. Sticking a finger in the air and taking a feeling about how things are going is not sufficient. Gather the data on performance and productivity. Is work progressing? Are the team succeeding? Do we have challenges and issues, and can we forge a plan to address them? Data helps. Strong data convinces. Make data your friend and most importantly share it with those who need to know what it says.

We all have a part to play

We all have a part to play in making hybrid working a success. It represents another adjustment, another demand to adapt and learn, and it presents us with a chance to strengthen relationships and trust. To lock in the gains of more than a year of remote working and blend them with the benefits of office life, we should take our time to identify the best ways to work as a team from here. We don’t need all the answers up-front, but we do need to be willing to experiment at first. Leaders have a vital role in showing the way. Managers have a vital role too, encouraging good performance habits and tracking how the team is performing so we can say, unequivocally, that hybrid working is working well for the business.

Justin Kinnear is Head of Research at HPC. His passion for people development and his ability to inspire makes him a key member of HPC’s facilitation and coaching teams.

As well as his extensive research and facilitation experience, he was formerly Head of L&D at IBM and Britvic.

His work with HPC focuses on the development of a high performance culture for our clients with a particular emphasis on accountability and feedback.