L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders - Onboarding Curiosity: Crafting a Learning Program that Treats Every New Employee like Your Future CEO

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

There’s a small but significant chance that someone you’ve onboarded at your company… will become its next CEO. Isn’t that the point of hiring, training and developing any employee? To get the maximum value of their skills while helping them become the best version of themselves? To help us craft learning programs that treat all new starters as future CEOs, we’re joined this week by Toby Newman. Toby brings insight from a 20-year L&D career, including his current role where he leads onboarding, wellbeing and learning tech at CH Robinson.

You're listening to L&D in Action, winning strategies from learning leaders. This podcast, presented by Get Abstract, brings together the brightest minds in learning and development to discuss the best strategies for fostering employee engagement, maximizing potential, and building a culture of learning in your organization. On today's episode, we're chatting with Toby Newman. Toby's career in learning and development spans 20 years in several industries, including IT services, outsourcing, logistics, and a rather happenstance beginning in retail. Toby currently serves as Senior L&D Consultant at C.H. Robinson.

He leads the firm's onboarding and well-being programs and is also in charge of learning tech solutions. Toby had a stint as talent development lead for TEDxEindhoven, and he even gave his own TEDx talk a few years ago called Remember Jurassic Park? Our conversation covers Toby's areas of focus, onboarding and well-being, but we venture into other topics such as gaining executive buy-in on learning programs, as well as how he utilizes new AI tools like ChatGPT. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host, Tyler Lay. And today I'm speaking with Toby Newman. Toby, it's a pleasure to have you. Thanks for joining. Very pleasure for mine. Thank you very much.

What was it about working at Blockbuster as a trainer in the 2000s that made you say, I want to become an L&D lead at a multinational transportation company with 17,000 employees? What was it, Toby? Well, as people say, it started with Lake Horn and it grew up. It was just like most people in L&D, I fell into it. So I was an assistant manager because I love films so blockbusters was my kind of you know my perfect job and my manager at the time said are you going to train those people on the till because they're new people and i'm like all right okay i know how to use the till i can do that and then as i was showing them and then i could see them kind of repeat the process and then go oh yeah it's this

this this and i'm like yeah i like this something's going on and like i like them kind of repeat the process and then go, oh, yeah, it's this, this, this. And I'm like, yeah, I like this. Something's going on. I like this kind of feedback loop. And then as you can imagine, it then kind of grew and grew and grew. So I started then I worked for T-Mobile as a product trainer going to all the different stores. And so from one or two people to five or six people and then kind of grew into customer service training for philips and sony and so growing up again getting up to like the 10s and the 20s of people training and then in my previous job to this i went up to training in a sense thousands

of people but online so it's it's kind of digital learning. And then now it's the kind of similar thing, but just different companies. So for me, I feel at home in a corporate environment. I love that origin story. It's wonderful. So currently at CH Robinson, you are in charge of a few different things, onboarding, the well-being program. I want to start with onboarding because I hadn't realized it until I kind of took a look at your

LinkedIn, but I haven't talked with too many of my guests about their onboarding processes and whether they're actually directly involved with those. But it's something that is very important to me because at my current role at Get Abstract, I had one of the best onboarding processes that I've had at any job, which was very surprising because I had a sales position where it was a very robust onboarding, but it was kind of stressful and it took a long time. And, you know, that's sales training, I guess. But at the end of the day, this one felt very smooth and I never quite realized how different those experiences could be. So I'd like to hear from your experience, kind of how you structure, how you think about onboarding. Is there a certain amount of synchronous versus asynchronous

engagement? Anything formal that you have to include in there? Rigid versus flexible? How do you structure the onboarding overall? Yeah, it is a complicated process because, especially in a corporate environment, smaller companies, maybe it's a bit easier. But when you're looking at corporate ones, you've got mandatory stuff that has to be done you've got centralized processes with hrs systems that are sending them certain information at certain times you've got to balance up all that information with then the the need of the manager to say i need this person up and ready as quickly as possible but then you've got the needs of the individual to relieve their stress get them kind of you know feet under the table as we say in English and get them ready for the role as well

as the technical training so my role in all of that was the kind of a bit of the glue that fits everything there so I wasn't in charge of the absolute everything of onboarding in the company. But for my little piece, I suppose, for me, the focus was about the individual and making sure that their mindset was right. So we had experts in the field, the managers and buddies that would look after the technical training. So that's kind of, you know,

that later on secondary piece. That tertiary piece is the kind of the our hrs system and sending them kind of like the legal stuff like here's how to sign the documents that kind of thing and then your it training and that kind of stuff that mandatory stuff that was that piece but my first thoughts was how do i help this person become the most comfortable they can? Because I hear a lot of insights from different people. And for me, the one thing that stuck with me, I can't remember who said it,

but they said you should treat every new starter like they're going to be your next CEO. And in theory, it could be because you see so many stories of CEOs saying they started at the bottom and they worked their way up. So it is technically feasible. And I think you just have to have that mindset so that old kind of the army adage, nobody gets left behind.

And so that you get the same experience wherever you go, wherever you start in the company. And it sounds very kind of maybe soppy, but you get like a little digital hug around you to say you're in good hands let's just walk through this and it's an extra challenge when it's virtual because you know when we've got 2 000 people not onboarding all the time but you've got tens or or 20s of people onboarding at all different locations, you've got to think digital first for one, and you've got to think what is needed when. That's kind of the big thing. And the challenge for me was to balance everybody's needs, to balance the needs of the leadership and the management, balance the needs of the individual, and then balance the needs of the corporate, and then making that as kind of as seamless as possible. So I created a lot of videos, created this kind of journey that kind of said, right, so on day one,

you're doing this, on day two, you're doing that. Now, one of the things that we still have internal conversations, discussions, arguments, sometimes internally, is about the level of interference and i put inverted commas interference of us as lnd versus individuals doing their job because some people would say we should like take them by the hand and walk them through nine till five every day like this is what you do on this hour this is what you do in that hour this is what you do on this hour. This is what you do in that hour. This is what you do in that hour. And I think in some roles that would probably work when you've got so much to do. My preference is to be less handholding and more creating that environment or that mindset of curiosity to say, here are some of the key things we want you to remember, we want you to think about. But now you go off and speak to that person or go speak to your manager about this topic, go speak to your buddy

about this topic and guide them through it with, say, maybe two hours of formal learning each day rather than six, seven hours. Now, I'm not saying I'm right. I think there is a middle ground. six, seven hours. Now, I'm not saying I'm right. I think there is a middle ground. But I think that's, for me, is the most interesting piece is where does onboarding become intrusive? Maybe intrusive is a weird word, but yeah. How much are you coordinating with direct managers of these people? Are you actually setting up times for them to meet with them? Or is that very much autonomous how the bosses meet with their new hires? Oh, you mean as part of the actual the onboarding process or as we're setting up the onboarding process? The onboarding process? Yes, I would assume that a good amount of the onboarding involves synchronous face to face, however, they do it meetings with their managers.

I mean, naturally, that's how it all goes. They are part and parcel of the process. So in the ideal world, not saying it happens all the time but in ideal world the manager actually kind of almost walks through the onboarding with the person obviously they're not part of the onboarding like hours and hours and hours but they know exactly when what is expected of the onboarder they know what parts the onboarder has to play and what part the manager has to play and what part a buddy has to play because there's that kind of trilogy of people involved and they know the expectations now there is technology out there that allows you to synchronize all those things and that's one of the things i love about tech and one of my big passions is learning tech

is that you can automate all this stuff relatively easily with the right tech and one of my big passions is learning tech is that you can automate all this stuff relatively easily with the right tech and it just makes everything so much easier and seamless because otherwise you get enough and bonus you the situations i've had in my own work is that where the communications broke down or i assumed people were aware they weren't and the managers would get annoyed because and new starters would get annoyed. So it's, again, I'm not saying I've got the perfect process, but it's that communication is essential. Keeping everybody involved is essential. And for me, it's that kind of softer touch rather than the hand-holding we're going to walk through it.

Yeah, I do want to talk about the sort of tech stack, if you will, and the infrastructure of your learning system at some point. But my first question and follow up to this is, if you know, theoretically, you're thinking, okay, everybody here has the potential to be the CEO, and we must treat them that way. That also means that you need to prepare them in certain ways, you know, you've got to set them up, as you said, with the right mindset, They have to have clear opportunities to meet with other people and sort of explore their curiosity. And I'm wondering if you have anything formally established, whether it's sort of interpersonal systems in place or if it's even a part of the tech stack that encourages people to do this, you know, throughout their career at C.H. Robinson. So some examples that I've seen are, you have marketplaces that allow people to sort of explore their curiosities and other positions, almost like gig rotations. I've spoken

with a number of guests about that, but also just the way that you communicate with your new folks and the way that their managers communicate with them and the access that they're given to other people. I know at remote companies, you can't just, you know, knock on someone's door, but theoretically, if you have the right system set up, it shouldn't be too hard to speak with people and learn about what they're doing. And ultimately, it's sort of, you know, how much is this encouraged by leadership? And what are the goals set by encouraging people to do that? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, because for me, curiosity is underpins a lot of things, you know, kind of all that there's so many, I think we all know the benefits of

curiosity in any company but driving curiosity is another thing i mean if you look back at kind of individuals usually you know as they're growing up they're encouraged as kids to be curious but then once they get to an america high school that's kind of usually drummed out of them like no curiosity this is the exams you do and this is the test you do and then if you're lucky enough to go to university usually then that's encouraged again usually it's right you've got a three years to create a seat at your thesis in a sense and then you're encouraged to do be curious that way and then the trouble is in most companies is again it's drummed out of you this is the mandatory training you have to take this is the training you have to do this is how you do your job and off you go but then nowadays a lot of companies are saying well actually we do need curiosity because

dei well-being just in general effective teams innovation all comes from a basis of curiosity so there's a couple of things that I try and do, like to do, and a few things that I kind of recommend for others, and especially when they're tech snacks. So in terms of what we can do, or anybody can do, is understand what curiosity is

and kind of in yourself know what does curiosity mean and what does it look like? Again, I'm not saying I'm an expert in curiosity. Chat GDP has helped me a lot of kind of driving that and understanding the differences between the nuances around it. But kind of things that I like to do is right from the start, like I said, in terms of that, not necessarily hand holding, but guiding them is to create even basic things like checklist so not necessary to say do this do that do that but to say here are the things that you

need to do go find the people that you know and use this kind of scorecard as a reminder say right to do this piece of information i need to speak to this person or this division or this department. And then you write it down and you go and speak to them. And then you kind of come back and you go, tick, that's done. Is this like full range, like the whole company, basically, they can just reach out to any department, any division? Is it as free as that? Yeah, but that's what we try and do. You've got teams and then all our structure is built into teams. So you can click on a person and see their hierarchy and all that kind of stuff. So we encourage people, everybody from the CEO all the way down to kind of virtually knock on their door and go,

hey, can I have a quick chat? And we encourage that side of things. So that's obviously an important thing because you don't want people to say I'm too busy to go away. Obviously, there's a time and a place, but you need to start encouraging that. I think also that as individuals and as managers, manager has a duty, I suppose is the best way to create that curiosity. So just like maybe if you've got a kid, rather than tell them this is how you do it, you ask them, how would you do that? How would you solve that? Now, obviously, they need to know technical stuff because you can't just say, hey, how would you solve that

without knowing how to use the system? But it's the time element. Most managers are so stressed, so time deficient that they don't have the time to kind of sit with a person and go try this, try that, try this, or what do you think? It was like that coaching technology. Sorry, coaching technical. And that's why people talk about a coaching culture in leadership is that changing the language of rather than tell is to ask. In terms of maybe more towards the technical side of things, you can take self-assessments to see how curious you are. That kind of starts driving the self-awareness. And you can do that either chat GDP will create a self-assessment for you. There are companies that help you to create curiosity. And I think the other thing with tech stacks is having the

knowledge of where all my knowledge is kind of sounds weird. But if you've got digital learning, like, for example, Get Abstract, or you've got a Percipio or a LinkedIn Learning or a Udemy or a etc, etc, etc, is teaching them right from the start of how to use that technology. And more importantly, what's in it for me? What is driving me? So getting your personal development plan in there right at the start. What's your goal? Where do you want to go?

Not just your day-to-day jobs, but where do you want to go? That starts that conversation and that thinking about, oh, I haven't really thought about my career. Maybe I should think about that. Oh, that looks interesting. Oh, that looks interesting. And you need to start that kind of methodology of promoting learning, promoting development, promoting your systems, and promoting that conversational standard. Yeah. So you have sort of a blend of the technical access to digital learning, you have a system of encouraging your folks to reach out and learn from others. Is there any other sort of social learning component to what you offer or what you recommend for your people to more

spontaneously learn than just kind of the recommendations that you give them to solve certain problems? Is there any sort of autonomous social learning? It's a difficult one because it's very hard to kind of stipulate to say, this is how you solve that problem. I think when you talk about social learning, the big A to have social learning is always a positive because not every company, they pretend that they have it, but they don't really. Like, for example, our company, we've got Yammer,

or was it Viva Engage now? I think they've rebranded it. And we use it. There's a lot of great communities that are happening. But if I was honest, I would say we don't practice social learning because for me, social learning is about taking what you've thought of, what you've seen, put it in a social environment to say, hey, I saw this, I think of this, and getting that discord,

that kind of, yeah, I don't agree with that bit, I agree with that bit, I don't agree with that bit. So what I'm trying to build up in our European teams is that discord around DEI and wellbeing to start off with. So we've got very engaged communities around both of those topics. And it's not just a one-way street. It's not just me going, hey, everybody should be about wellbeing. Everybody should be about inclusivity.

But it's putting sometimes even controversial stuff on there to say, well, what do you think? Do you agree with this? Do you not agree with that? And then having that openness to set to allow people to have that discord. It's difficult. Psychological safety is a really, really hard thing to do. And there is no surefire way to do it. But it's just you've got to try, you've just got to keep on doing different things to just kind of eat at it. And that could be everything from global communications, even down to workshops. So whenever I do any workshop for learning, I always include an element of psychological

safety. So I talk about this being a safe bubble and I use questions to entice people to talk about what do they think? Why is they think something differently and get them to think differently about learning rather than just being told what to do. Do you actively create avenues for the feedback that psychological safety represents?

Because what I've learned over time is that a lot of the default seems to be that it's assumed that you can give feedback to just about anything, which is never true, obviously. It's never as simple as that. But then the next level is, you know, you can say that there is, this is a safe space for giving feedback and presenting your ideas, even if you're a new person or if you're relatively new in your position. But if there isn't any sort of a clear avenue for doing that or a person to whom to do that, it still can be a bit of a challenge and

a little bit of a nerve wracking process. Do you have like systems set up for that feedback? So there's a couple of things that we try stroke do. The do is we have two forms of feedback process. So we use Workday as our HRS and learning system. And built inside that is what they call anytime feedback. So you can request feedback from anybody in the company at any point but the downside that is not anonymous i know other companies and other platforms that use anonymous feedback so that 360 feedback tool where you get that it's anonymous feedback that's just randomized and then then you get that. We also use companies such as Hogan 360. And that's a really great kind of standardized tool where you get feedback from a load of

different people. And it gives you scores and ratings based on all that feedback. But I am a strong believer that when you talk about feedback, it's an art. And I don't think enough people talk about it as an art form because it is both giving and receiving feedback is not a black and white thing. It's not like you do this and this is how you do it and this is how not to do it. It's a nuance. It's kind of like it's asking the right questions, being open to feedback, acting on that feedback, show that you're acting on that feedback.

So many different elements to that. And I think aside from the technical piece of kind of where do you give feedback is, for example, I'm sure you're familiar with like the agile methodology and scrums and retrospects and stuff. As an industry, as companies, do we do retrospects? Most of the time we don't, unless you're in a software company that is specifically running that but after a project is done so i'm going to put my hand up as well and do this how many of us go right great move on next project and not to say you need to think back and go you know what's the success because that's what you normally do as part of a project but it's what

went well what didn't go well what do we need to change? What do we break down? What was our communication like? That nuanced piece of feedback that needs to be built in to these projects. And I'm not just talking about a survey that you send out through Microsoft Forms or SurveyMonkey or something saying, hey, did you enjoy our session or something? It's that have you built into a learning program or doesn't matter what it is, that time to give the feedback, receive the feedback, act on it, and then give your gratitude to the people that have given it because that's an important piece to say, thank you very much for your honest feedback. I really appreciate it. And this is what we're going to do. Because there's too many times when it comes to corporate surveys or engagement surveys, is that they say, thank you for your feedback

and you hear nothing else. Like, well, what happened to all those pieces that I gave? Not just to an individual, but at least generally. And so that's the space to give you feedback, the acceptance of feedback and the gratitude of it. And then that's the space to give you feedback, the acceptance of feedback and the gratitude of it. And then the ability to say, this is what we're going to do with that feedback. So what about feedback to you specifically in the learning programs at CH Robinson? So are you collecting satisfaction surveys? Is that the sort of data that you get in the feedback that you get?

Are you doing anything that's more, you know, numerical and that tries to demonstrate any sort of an ROI? Like, what is the data that you collect about your learning programs? Yeah, I don't tend to get into the ROI. I know there's a lot of people that have a lot more kind of expert at me when looking at return on investment. It's a tough question. A lot of people are trying to figure it out. The data... Exactly. Especially with learning. And I think that's one of the big things is when you've got It's a tough question. A lot of people are trying to figure it out. The data... come over this side, they're like, well, we can just do it. And they're like, not really. But anyway, that being said, for me, you need the quantitative and qualitative side of feedback. Now, I think everybody knows the Kirkpatrick levels, and you've got your happy tick sheets and all that kind of stuff. And I like to use things like NPS scores, net performance or net

promoter scores to kind of set some balance about the trending, where we are, and all that kind of stuff. For me, I'm not a big person on getting loads and loads of feedback. This is maybe going to sound arrogant, maybe, but I like to just get a sense. I trust my senses, and I trust my intuition to think, is this something people are needing? And I think probably if I'm thinking back on it, probably one of the biggest things for me is when people actively tell me they don't like something. That's then a big trigger because not only have they taken their time out of their day to give you feedback, but they've taken their time out of their day to give you developmental

feedback, or they could just say, I didn't like this or whatever, but it's helping you. So that's the stuff I really act on. Yeah, maybe it's just been around too long, and I'm not really doing it properly could be. But I kind of trust myself that I kind of know what I'm doing. And I trust myself that if it doesn't feel right, or I do something, I'm getting like no feedback. That's also a kind of a bad sign to think, okay, maybe I need to shift it another bit. But again, I'm probably on an island of one not doing that. I think you probably have your clear marching orders and you know what you have to achieve for the company because that's why you're where you are. But ultimately, yeah, there are assessments and that kind of thing. Yeah. Like don't get me started on completion rates. I will

try and slap people silly when they talk about completion rates, because I hate them. Because that's not a form of measurement. But there are other things that you can use around that we kind of not have to use, but we use to appease people. I was having a conversation with Christopher Lind recently, a previous guest, I think you are familiar with him. And what he said is that, I think we all know this intuitively, but you know, learning leaders have to be the ones that are learning the most and they have to be more or less as aware, if not more aware than, you know, executive leadership about what's going on in the world so that they can prepare the rest of the company for all of that. So theoretically, you know, what needs to be learned at the company and

the feedback that you're receiving is probably more or less about format and sort of engagement and the style that's coming in and that sort of thing, which can always be optimized here and there. But I think the ultimate point is that our goal here is to be the ones that lead the company in the right direction. So you probably are making the strong decision in that sense. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting aspect, because you've got the trusting your instincts to create the right training so then you're just in the flow of work learning blended learning i'm not going to talk about learning styles because i know that's been defunct and stuff but yeah i'm

not going to go into that but then you've also got future learning or future topics so for example dei or maybe dni is not necessarily a future one but well-being, because it doesn't quite sit in learning. But I think it does, because that is a topic that we need to educate our managers and individuals on how to take care of yourself and how to say when it's OK to not be not OK. AI, chat GDP is another topic. And it's not about going, oh, what's the new fad? I don't like trends because I think they're misleading because it makes you think, especially in learning, it makes you think, oh, that's something I need to do.

But actually, no, trends are more just, hey, these are just some interesting topics. You should know as a company where your targets are, where your vision and mission is, what's your aspiration, and know which technology or which trends you should be aiming towards to suit you, not just, oh, that's the top 10 trends, we should be aiming for that. Yeah, well, let's dive into those things then. So well-being and AI, I mean, you are more or less responsible for teaching those things at C.H. Robinson, it seems. You know, you do technology and you do well-being. And I guess

we can start with AI because I've been reading a lot about it lately and I want to talk about it. I assume that the freight business and the transportation business is, the industry is one of those that can be pretty seriously optimized by AI interventions in many ways. I don't know how much sort of, you know, manufacturing is associated with all this, but I would assume that there's some degree of robotics and especially with self-driving cars in the deeper future and that sort of thing,

self-driving vehicles, and then just big data and AI optimization, cognitive AI decision-making, like all these things to me, the transportation industry kind of screams like optimize me. That's how I feel as more or less a layman. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to go into obviously details because then, you know, but it's things like if you've got any process, so you've got orders coming in and then, because obviously we're a 3PL, so third-party logistics so we're helping customers to move their

goods around so we've got customers on one end capacity teams and hoolage companies and trucking companies on the other end and it doesn't take a genius to think some kind of ai will allow you to streamline that process as quickly as possible not not necessarily without having a human being, but to enhance the human being. So within Robinson, one of the biggest things, one of our biggest USPs is our people. We've got dedicated, you know, kind of hungry people. And that's, you know, again and again,

our customers come back to us and say, that's the thing that they love about us. So it's not about getting rid of the people. But one of the things I always talk about with AI is that AI won't replace you. Somebody who knows AI will replace you. And I think that's the message I always try and get across is don't be afraid of AI, but use it. I mean, I mentioned a couple of times already, I use, and I'm not going to back away from everything, I use chat GDP a lot in my job

that maybe a lot of people think, wow, you should be knowing this yourself, whether it's a wellbeing strategy or a whatever training program. And I'm like, yeah, I do know it, but I use AI or chat GDP. I call them just a very, very, very clever intern. So that gives me all the information

and then I channel it in the right way. So I still need to have the expertise. And that's the same with trucking or whatever industry you're in. You hold the knowledge, you're using AI to speed it up and to give you, going back to that curiosity, to give you other things that

you maybe not have thought of. To think, ah, yeah, that's a good idea. I didn't try that. Yeah. So how are you training your folks to be prepared for that sort of thing? Are you in charge of this realm of education? I'm not in charge of it in terms of, so we've got obviously our IT technology teams are looking at how do we bring AI into our process stream. So I'm not involved in that side of things. The way I am involved in is the awareness for the general population to say, what is chat GDP?

When can you use it? When you should not use it? Because as we know, we've seen some of the horror stories from companies that have put their private information onto a public forum. So we guide and give awareness. And basically, the weird thing is I'm a promoter at the moment, just like I'm doing on here. I talk about the benefits of it and give use case examples. So to give you an example, I'm rolling out a personal development plan program for our European employees. And as part of that process, we're encouraging people to think about their goals, think about

their strengths and weaknesses, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things I've also put in there is I've created my own prompts, like my own little chat bot, and put that in the training to say, if you are struggling on knowing how to create your goals for your development, then use this prompt in chat GDP to guide you. So for example, if it's you're thinking about communication, you can put into chat GDP and the prompt is something along the lines of, I am a development coach. And the question is around X. So you insert here, and whatever the question is, give them the answer based on formal training, based on social training, based on practice. So that 70-20-10 piece,

which managers and people don't really need to know about. But I've created that prompt for them so they can use it. The other thing I've encouraged people to do is when they're building business cases, is that if they want to bring in X customer, I would encourage them because that customer's details is public because it's a website, to say, use ChatGDP to build you the best business case and the best hook to get that customer in.

Not saying you have to put private information in there, but it's to use it to enhance your skills to be better. And so that's kind of the thing we're doing at the moment. Yeah, I mean, the right prompts for ChatGDP is huge. That's what a lot of people that I follow on LinkedIn are doing, just releasing prompt lists and being very explicit as to how to speak to the machine, how to get out what you need by using the right language. Yeah, these like mega prompts is really because it's usually people just put in

going back to that PDB. It's like, how do I develop myself? And it's just like, no. Yeah. Whereas if you put in, spend some time putting in your requirements, what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you're looking for, where your career is, what your role is, if you start to put in some still public information, but a bit more detailed, you start to get a lot better insights. then sorry just last thing on that is the conversation is important it's not just that prompt it's that once you get that answer is to look at it again going back to that curiosity bit and going oh so you asked chat gdp why did you put on the third sentence what do you mean by that how do i do that you've mentioned this? How do I do that? You've mentioned this, but how do I do that more?

I don't understand. You have that conversation with the chat GDP, and that's when it really starts to get meaningful. Yeah. Let's pivot then to the well-being question. So I'd like, if you can, just to tell me what are the underlying principles of how you teach and promote well-being at Robinson? That's a good question. I mean, I spent a lot of time thinking about the kind of the strategy and how we're going to do it.

Now, if you look at a lot of people on LinkedIn, they talk about like it's not healthy to just say, oh, we're going to give gym membership to everybody or we're going to give everybody a fruit basket and that kind of thing. Am I the way i think about it's like well no you shouldn't be putting people down for trying to do something around well-being it's anything is better than nothing so for me it's like that low-hanging fruit and i'm going to use myself as an example is we had loads of different things that we wanted to do but one of the most simplest ones was to have a i think twice weekly in our main office we get a order of fresh fruit bring in it's like you know five ten euros a week or something like nothing really for

a big company like that but we have got some really positive feedback, people saying they love it. They love the fact that they can come in every morning. And if they think, oh, I'm peckish for a banana or an apple or something, then they'll try it out. So there's little things, but also there's a couple of like grand ideas that I'm looking at. But I suppose the first thing is awareness. Let's start with that is making sure that people understand what is wellbeing and what it's not. But what is wellbeing? So twice a week, I post out

all different things about wellbeing. And it's not just a list of, you should take care of it. But I've been interviewing our CEO and our leadership about what do they personally think about wellbeing? I interview them about what are they personally think about well-being. I interview them about what are they doing about their own well-being and about their own fitness and how do they think

about it. So that's kind of that raising that awareness. I use, again, psychological safety. So I talk about what is psychological safety, how to create this environment that if somebody says it's I'm not feeling okay, then you've got a space to be able to say that. But also, I like to keep things very practical. So in all these posts, I talk about what things could you ask somebody if you don't think they're feeling okay, and vice versa. If you're not feeling okay, what kind of basic questions could you raise to your manager in a one-to-one or even your colleague to give them an idea that it's okay to ask me or it's okay to have that conversation about struggling. So that awareness piece is so important. I think on top

of that, you've got the mental and the physical side of well-being that needs to go hand in hand. So that kind of, it's okay to not be okay. Understanding stress is such an important piece. A lot of experts I know that talk about stress, but especially in an industry that we are such a fast paced and that kind of maybe stereotypical macho kind of environment, that it's, if you say, oh oh i'm stressed or i'm too busy that's seen as a weakness stereotypically so how do we get rid of that conversation and that's part of the one-to-ones coaching managers to have those difficult conversations with their man

with their team is important and then just the physical stuff so just simple things like do we have standing tables as well as sitting ones like the ones that can raise and fall because that you're if you're sitting all day that affects your well-being you're either physical and mental in theory one of the things that i'm talking with my company about is looking at rearranging the office to support well-being so one of our offices already has because obviously we're coming out of covid lockdown not everybody's back at the office all the time all the office space is not necessarily used so think about it using it differently so one of our other offices is instead of using one of the meeting rooms, they've turned it into a meditation room. And all it is, is just a quiet room, you know, kind of they're blacked out or like, you

know, shaded out the windows and doors. And they've put a little speaker in there that you can play some soft music. I don't think they put couches, but I think they just put throws and you beanbags down there. And you can just sit and relax and, you know, kind of take it easy for half an hour or something or whatever you need to. And it's just little things. It's that thought that goes into how do I make this a better environment? And then we are doing training. So we're doing meditation training, not to say, you know, everybody, but it's more like, what is meditation at work? So it's more, it's an awareness workshop everybody but it's more like what is meditation at work so it's more it's an awareness workshop so it's not training it's not just awareness but it's somewhere in

between and one of the things we're planning is to do more of the kind of alternative training so meditation fun at work gratitude at work like we talked about before, feedback, arts, how do you train that out? So we're doing all these little workshops, or we're planning all these little workshops, just to really support our employees. But you know, there's no one way or right way to do it. It's just consciously thinking about it is the biggest thing. Yeah, I mean, that's a thorough and multifarious system for well-being you have there. I mean, I can't think of a better way to do it than, you know, give that many options. But the thing that stuck out to me is the fact that you really spend time with it's

okay not to be okay. I don't really like that culture of encouraging people to speak up about their issues because it's not them that has the issue talking about it. It's society that has an issue listening to it, I think. And it sounds like you understand that and you are addressing that directly by working with managers to know how to have those conversations or to prompt them. And also just by giving suggestions for how to have those conversations more broadly and just bringing it up more than just saying it's okay not to be okay. I mean, that's sort of the bare minimum as far as I'm concerned. It sounds like you have really developed systems around that. So I'm very happy to hear that. Yeah, it's an interesting because I

think different cultures, obviously, being a multinational company, you've got majority of our companies in the US. And for those in the US, our head office is up in Minneapolis. So you've got that kind of, you know, that's, I don't know what they what you would call them, but the happiness, the kind of like the Minnesota nice, I think I've heard before, you've got the European or West Eastern European, you've got Eastern European. So that's that kind of more hierarchical kind of process. And then we've got teams in APAC as well. But I think for me, the biggest thing that I've seen is the difference between the US

and here in Europe is exactly what you said, that you've got people in the US would kind of pat everybody in the back and going, oh, well said. And people would say what they're feeling

and be very, very open. But I like the way you said, it's like it's not you saying something, it's how you're received and how other people react to it. And I think in general, in the US, again, I know this is maybe very stereotypical, but it seems like it's a culture of, we want you to say things and we want you to be yourself.

We want you to be open, but not not but, but there's, we're not going to do too much about it it's very not high level but very kind of superficial level whereas i really want to kind of deep dive into that to kind of go well let's have those difficult conversations in the one-to-ones i would much rather an individual had a difficult open conversation with their manager, rather than in a workshop or an open session, somebody go, yeah, so I've had this upbringing, I've had this trouble with my life. It's like, that's nice for them, but it doesn't really kind of drive it. I wouldn't say I'm an island to myself on that,

but I just really want to get that practical element. That's the thing that's always driven me through all my career, is that I don't like kind of the BS that goes on. It's more, well, what are we actually going to do to change things? So one more thing that you mentioned is the success of the DEI conversations in the platforms that you have and how that's going, which frankly surprises me. I think it's hard to have an organization that's universally enthusiastic about that conversation and how to implement it.

and relearning. Second of all, it's just not an easy thing to implement, you know, DEI initiatives. I personally think that it more or less mandates, you know, bringing in outside experts and those who have specific experience and people from different cultures and backgrounds in order to implement that. So I'd love to hear kind of how you're going about that and how you've achieved this more or less amicable sounding conversation in the company. Yeah, I mean, it's a try. I'm not saying we've solved it in any way, shape or form. Yeah, not solved it. But it seems like people are talking about it, which is the first step. Yeah. And I think what helps is our director of DEI.

So we've got a VP of DEI, Benita, who's a fantastic lady and is as bad as energized as I could possibly imagine anybody to be around this topic. So to have somebody sitting at the top table and their sole responsibility is D&I is the first thing. I would say that I would have loved to have a well-being person at that level as well, but one step at a time. So to have that person driving D&I from a strategy and making sure that the leadership is just talking around diversity, inclusion, belonging, all those kind of things is important. But like I said before, for me, it's about the practicalities. So when I talk about inclusion, what actually is inclusion? And obviously, that's a hypothetical question. but inclusion means different things with different people if i ask typically you know at least in our company people in the us they think about

uh gender they think about race as the two inclusive bit if i talk about inclusive to be in europe at least you know to most of the people i speak to it's actually about culture and countries so that i am a slovak that's living in croatia like me i'm an englishman living in the netherlands and that's an inclusivity piece as well i mean you've got able and disabled inclusivity as well which tends to get missed out you've got i think it was christopher lynn that mentioned i can't remember who it was that talked about learning inclusivity and making sure that everybody can learn at the same rate so if you've got somebody that struggles with learning and maybe they're not intellectually slow i can't think of the you're gonna have to forgive me for the right term of using it but i think neurodiversity is focused lately that that sort of thing. Yeah. And so are they being inclusive in the training you're giving? So if you're doing a

workshop, and even things like if you're an introvert, and you're being forced into a workshop and told you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to be part of this activity, are you giving them enough time to go away, think about it as an introvert and come back with the answers? There's so many different aspects of that. For me, it's about creating that awareness of what actually is inclusivity? What is it for other people? I went to a conference and they talked about DEI, kind of agree with them.

They said, you can't train DEI as a topic. And I would agree because there is nothing to hang on to. There's no one way or right way to do it. You mentioned unlearning. I am on the fence. I don't know if there's such a thing as to unlearn something because you can't just take it out of your brain and be done with it. There's kind of, it's relearning or it's changing something or it's changing your direction.

And, but again, it's like individuals individuals how do you do that as a company so i think you have to keep at that awareness level you have to help hiring managers to ask the right questions you have to give that coaching environment to managers to get that information out to people. And I think it comes back to psychological safety. I know we keep on talking about it, but both for wellbeing and D&I, if you can really get a good psychologically safe environment going, that people are not just aware of, they can feel their true self. And that doesn't mean I'm gay, so I can be my true self, And that doesn't mean I'm gay so I can be my true self or I'm straight or I'm whatever it is. It doesn't matter.

It's not about that. It's about just being able to say, I disagree with that and I challenge it. And everybody goes, yes, thank you for that. Right. What are we going to do instead then? That is a kind of a real foundation of psychological safe and if you can have that all the other things kind of just fall into it naturally yeah i see what you're saying so we're up against time now but i want to ask you one more question which rolls all of this into one idea so psychological safety but from the perspective

of being the learning leader how do you convince your leadership to approve what you want and to get the budget that you need? At the end of the getting buy-in from leadership and really getting what you need, I listened to a talk you had with David James in 2019 on his show. And you were talking about how it felt sort of in your early career as an L&D practitioner that the training and development folks were the ones that would kind of get cut quickly when there was any sort of budget concern or there's any sort of, you know, issue in the market. And it's still the case. Yeah. And that was my question, actually, is in 2019, you said that it had more or less evolved so that it wasn't as much of a knee jerk reaction. But now that we're post pandemic, are we has it gone forward or backward? What do you think? If I'm being honest, I think it's improved because I still think that the learning and development and any service is the first to get cut.

Because as we know, in any company, if you're stretching, if you need to hit something, you either increase your sales and your revenue or you decrease your costs. That's the kind of the only two ways of doing it. By decreasing costs, typically it's you go for your services. IT, HR, L&D are usually the first to go. That's always been through my whole career. What I've started to see is that the value that we bring, not just L&D, but HR as well,

the value that we bring to develop people, I think leaders are starting to realize, and not just starting, because a lot of them do this already, but in general, there's a growing realization that actually if we keep these divisions and even invest in them the long-term gains are going to be that much more because of with retention because of increased motivation all the kind of factors that we keep on preaching about for what learning does, I think leadership is starting to realize, actually, that is a value. It's not a cost.

It's a real tan. You talked before about ROI. You can, in some instances, really put, I mean, I know there's been studies to say, what does it cost for a person to leave and rehire? There are numbers that you can put on that. And I remember in my last company, we did a quick research with our HR department that said, if we keep somebody for an extra month, it saved us, you know, you times that by X number of people. We were saving like a million pounds just on one person or if everybody stayed a month longer. I'm a big believer of Richard Branson says, you should train people to leave and engage them to stay.

So it's not keeping them, but it's wanting them to stay and developing them and giving them the resources and all that kind of stuff. But I think in terms of getting budget and getting buy-in, it's got to go back to the business case. What's in it for them? What are they looking for? What's their bottom dollar? So I'd say for any person that's looking at business cases or anything,

don't start with you. And that's what I used to do. I'd be like, oh, everything's important. Learning and development is important. You should buy this because it's cool and it's pretty and it's sparkly and it's going to do all this no no they don't give a rat's ass part of the language about it what they care about is what's it going to do for me so if you can say i'm in my last company this was pre-pandemic we basically i spent months and months and months doing a bit of research that

basically said, if we move to a digital platform, we will save 100,000 euros a year. So I basically said to the leads, she said, do you want me to save you 100,000 a year? And they all said yes. They don't care how, they said yes. But what happened was that as we went through it and we started showing them what we could do with skills analysis and all these different things they could do, we actually ended up spending more than the 100,000 we would have saved

because the leadership saw the value in it and started saying, ah, we want this and we want this and we want this. Like, great, great. We'll implement that in. Sometimes it's raw in. Sometimes it's raw numbers. Sometimes it's just understanding the value. But I do think as an element of luck, in terms of having the right leader, because I've known a lot of leaders, and some of them,

when I talk to them about well being or training, they're like, stay in your lane like kind of you do that i'll do this whereas other leaders and i'm kind of very thankful to be in a company at the moment where i've got leaders that embrace this learning i was talking before about the videos i asked my ceo or my european president to say can i have five minutes of you to record something on how important well-being is for you? Done. 10 minutes later, we've got a quick video. And last week I asked him, can I just do a quick video of how important personal development plans for you? Done. And it's that mentality and that kind of realization that development is important because they've seen it important in their own careers. That's the luck that you've got to have as well.

All right. Well, I think this is a great place to wrap. Toby, thank you so much again for joining. Before I let you go, can you just let our listeners know where they can learn more about you and what you're doing these days? Yeah, sure. So my AKA or my kind of alternate ego, whatever you want to call it, is The NeverEnding Learner. I'm attempting to write a book around the NeverEnding Learning experience and stuff. But you can go to my website, neverendinglearner.com. If you want a good laugh, I've done some videos on YouTube that's under there. But I'd say mainly it's on LinkedIn under The NeverEnding Learner. Great.

All right. Well, for everybody listening at home, thank you so much for joining us. And we will catch you on the next episode. Cheers. Thank you. Help us keep delivering the conversations that turn learning into action. Until next time.