#WFGM24 23/10/2024 Imagining the Future of Work: Crafting Trust, Cohesion, and Shared Values

[Music] [Music] wo wo [Music] so hello everyone so now it's time to turn attention to the future of the workplace where collaboration and Innovation should flourish and where Collective goals align so to this's World presenter we all Paradox because people want more autonomy and freedom and at the same time the they seek stronger inclusion and cohesion in teams and organization so that's why your question of this session is how can company build trust cohesion and Share value ensuring that everyone especially woman feels included and value and it's especially crucial at new technology like AI can

either disrupt the organization our six to to our speakers will see all they might reforce cion and inclusion so we are honored to have Alexandra suu Chief Operating Officer at Lazard Emma Cod Global Chief diversity equity and inclusion officer at De and Doris B offer president of zens France so let's get start with a quick ground on trust the foundation of any successful workplace what are the absolute must have for trust in the workplace so tell us in just two or three words what are the essentials Alexandra I start okay so trust in the workplace

I would say whether you're large or small companies number one inspiring leaders because without that it doesn't work number two transparent communication and number three I would say empowered colleagues well I would add shared values a strong feeling of belonging and as you said it's empowerment I would say though I agree with both of um my uh fellow panelists but but for me it's psychological safety is absolutely critical always feeling included and most importantly always feeling respected so what a great start foration with those words so let's talk about technology and AI so which play

really a central role in today's Paradox between IND individualism and the need to belong so Alexandra in the financial services industry do you believe generative AI can actually help Foster cision in the workplace or on the contrary does it risk polarizing the workforce thank you for the question I think it's going to be a bit of both so I think first of all ji is here to stay and we all have as Leaders or colleague we need to just live with it and make sure we benefit from it it's here to stay and it is

going to disrupt our workplace in a very significant Manner and I would actually argue that it's going to help cohesion on multiple front in the workplace so I'll give you three examples but there is a butt which is coming I'll give you one example which is I think everybody knows that gen as it being implemented reduces uh mundane task repetitive task that everybody does so of course you have more uh engage employees because they're not bored there is less burnout so for sure it is going to help cohesion in the workplace number two I'm going

to surprise you but gen does help to reduce the generation gap in companies because people of my generation all of a sudden can have access to tools and application that in the past they would have thought that they would never have had access so it's definitely helping number two cohesion in the workplace number three as another example but again there are so many I think if because Sanu geni training for example on the job is much more interesting it can be Tade and hence again it helps cohesion because employees are more engaged I could go

on but I would like to go for the butt either either however however you are right batteries it can actually divide and to avoid that we need three or four things number one leaders that lead by example by using gen tools number two you need a lot of communication to explain and build what we call and you've used the word AI trust the AI trust you need a lot of ethical guidelines and very robust risk assessment of what the Gen is going to do because I think everybody is trying to get on the train currently

we're not all all of us sure how we're going so we have to be very Mindful and very careful how we actually go about it okay thank you Alexandra it was really great Insight so now let shift to the world of Industry so there is in an incredibly factual world where people often mistrust new technology on the a or Can Company restore and build trust tell us well I think uh those who have read the ilman trust report know that um I mean people trust more their employer than they would trust governments or politicians so

companies have a very important role to play to basically show not only the threats and fight against the threats of Technology the way how you described it but also to show the benefits and give purpose to technology at seens technology is part of our mission statement uh actually it is our mission statement is to combine the real and the digital world so basically machines humans with uh software uh with artificial intelligence to address the big challenges of society in infrastructure industry and Mobility thanks to technology so it's all about making good things out of technology

and I can share some examp I mean there are thousands uh in the uh round table before we were talking a lot about sustainability so technology is on the one side a big reason for why we have I mean uh climate change but it's also I mean the ends also lies in technology um at seens we work a lot with digital twins uh in order to improve many things in a digital manner before doing it in the real world so you can basically create a digital twin of a factory before building a real factory and

this allows you to optimize for example energy consumptions before you start I mean emitting another example and I mean we talking here about humans is also that we are convinced that um AI can help to democratize uh the workplace I give you an example and I stay with uh production site um today or in the past engineer software developers were responsible for basically programming machines or for the intelligent part now with artificial intelligence I mean operators that are running machines thanks to technology can really enrich their work because they can speak with machines in in

their natural language they are not obliged anymore to master the complicated programming languages that they needed would need to master otherwise so in and this helps us to address the labor shortage that we have in many places that that makes work much more interesting for them and the last example I would like to provide is on people development itself I mean on the one side we are concerned that AI is I mean creating inequalities but it can also help us actually take out bias of per from for example recruiting processes in France we are working

with a tool that is enabled and that helps us basically screen our chop offerings taking out the bias words that could basically prevent people from diverse backgrounds to apply and so we make sure that through this we are opening our job offerings to everyone and another example is around people development employability we have a huge platform which is called Sean uh learning world and their AI helps people to basically conceive their personalized learning journey and increases through that their employability I mean it could go on and go on but this shows how Tech can be

used for good and I think this is the role that companies play today yes so thank you D so we speak about cohesion but cion cannot be possible without inclusion so Emma the an an Global survey of women in the workplace so what did you discover this year uh about what's missing in today's work culture to create more inclusive and Co cohesive environment for women thank you you um and I'm sort of taking it back to basics because I think unfortunately the basics are still missing and uh I am really privileged that I work for

an organization that not only um you know invests in its own people but we also try and Lead the Way by doing great research every year and one of those reports is the women at work report we're now in our fourth year of that and and I'm sorry I'm going to throw some data at you but I'm a great believer in the numbers and in data so we can actually see this this is a survey of five ,000 women across 10 countries um not delit women these are PE women in the workplace and we asked

in a number of questions about their lives outside the workplace and about their experiences in the workplace because I truly believe that an organization can say one thing but it's actually the everyday experience that makes the difference so just to set the scene so only one in 10 women um that we surveyed said they believe their organization is taking concrete steps on gender equality 177% think being a woman in their organization is a disadvantage 35% said I'm sorry I would not recommend my employer to any other um women and 47% say that they're worried about

their personal safety at work or when they're traveling for work um and add to that the fact that the women we surveyed most of them take on the bulk of household responsibilities and all the other things that we know to currently still be true so so just very quickly I want to touch on bring it back to trust and touch on four themes that really or two themes that came out underpinned by Four Points so so sadly what we've seen really for four years in a row um are are two critical themes a lack of

trust and really a concern about being open with your employer so and that manifests itself when it comes to Mental Health Women's Health flexible um work and Reporting non-inclusive behaviors so when it comes to mental health for example half the women we pulled said I feel more stressed than last year half the women we pulled said I'm worried or very worried about my mental health and yet two-thirds of them said I don't feel able to talk about mental health at work why not it comes down to this lack of trust they're worried the impact on

Career progression they're worried about discrimination that'll open up to that they're worried about layoffs the same with Women's Health almost three in 10 women suffer from some sort of pain or symptoms associated with menstrual disorders menopause um and or fertility challenges yet again what do we see we see a lack of disclosure a lack of comfort in disclosing again due to concern about the outcomes and then finally just a couple of really big stats for you which are really concerning flexible working it's like Groundhog Day comes up year after year you'd think we'd have got

it right by now but we still clearly haven't got it right so flexible working our data shows is one of the top three reasons to stay with your job affli working and work life balance and one of the top three reasons to leave your employer 93% of the women we ped say that they think that asking or taking advantage of flexible working will adversely impact their career and round about the same number said if I do it my workload won't be adjusted and then final point is around non-inclusive behaviors so microaggressions harassment sexual harassment 43%

of women have experienced that in the last 12 months that's over 2,000 women sadly only four in 10 or sorry sadly six in 10 reported it the others did not why not again fear the behavior could get worse fear of being judg so just to bring it back to where we started I'm sorry to Chuck so much data at you but this is so important that we've got this and and it shows us that that lack of fundamental trust still is not where it needs to be and I would would argue that then leads on

to a lack of trust in other things it's something critical that we need to get right okay thank you so yes trust trust is crucial and we really want to build inclusion and um and of course cohesion but it can Clash with changing work practices today and so Alexandra with a global company like Lazard and where many teams work remotely and or do you ensure a sense of belonging equality and unity across today this workow okay thank you so just one word on working practices because I think we are a fairly special company in that

sense we have decided back then to adapt our working practices in terms of working from home depending on our clients so number one it needs to work for the client number two it works for the employeer the and then for the employee uh that means that depending on the country in which you operate the working practices are different it will be 3 days in the office in the US five in Europe and depending on the country for in the UK Etc however it works which we were not sure at the beginning when we implemented different

working practices which I think in itself is interesting experience has shown that it works extremely well and we've reflected quite a lot in terms of why and I think cohesion of in know any company whether it's lazardo all the ones in which you work remote working works when you have shared vision and shared goals for sure leaders that lead by example number three intentional and intensified communication and communication can take many different shapes I mean it doesn't need to be just emails you receive every day but it can be mean different things to continue to

repeat I think you need to be a little bit more intentional and a little bit more intensified in your internal communication about your shared goals about your shared Visions about your inspiring leaders and then I would also say you have to be more intentional about team meetings ways of coming back together I do believe of being in the office actually whatever you say it does help creativity it does help so I think it's a question of balance and flexibility and I have to say that the new generation coming into the workplace has understood that compared

to five even six years ago that has really shifted in terms of what they are demanding and how we're addressing all those so I'm sure we'll have different and shared experience but this is we are all learning and continuing everybody there are plenty of reports but I think it has to be there is no one siiz feits all we just need to be smart and for all of us it needs to work for our clients first whether you have external or internal clients okay thank you and so Emma turning back to you what has de

managed to create this inclusive culture where women can succeed and so especially in this new workplace that needs to balance for serving a sense of belonging with uning diversity yeah and Alexandre I loved what you were saying about effects were working that's so important to make that work and I think a lot of it is about trust on both sides it's about you know it's a deal between the organization and what's needed look from our perspective you heard my CEO Joe um on that film earlier I can tell you it really is a leadership priority

so we have goals accountability only last week we were in a meeting with the leaders of our largest um member firms talking about right what do we need to do collectively how can we take action and and this is something that abs absolutely you know Dei it's my job but it's not my responsibility it is the responsibility of all our leaders so I think that's really embedded into what we do we have a real focus on inclusion an inclusive culture not just talking about it but actually you know living it and making sure that all

our leaders understand the power and benefits of inclusive leadership um on women's Equity so to to your your question about women in particular that word Equity we understand that Equity has to involved to get equality and that means doing some very specific things and we are very comfortable to do that and then finally I would just say it doesn't just end at our walls so externally I'm really proud that most of the things that we create for our organization we release so if you look on deo.com you'll see the amazing um immersive experiences check out

Julia and Anton story it's really good so anything we create we try and put it out there because you know I recognize that not every organization has the resources to hand um that we do and then things like the women at work report so it's really a focus internally and then also externally okay thank you so our Central topic today is about reconciliation so D is from your experience at zimmons and Beyond so what action need to be taken to to reconcile business with Society from a people focus perspective I I think many things have

said um I it's all about uh building trust creating shared values and this across uh countries and for us that notion of belonging is really essential why because uh belonging means if if you want you you belong if you can identify with the company that you're working with and identification means there are some others that resemble me in different facets so what can an organization do to create that identity you I mean a company needs to reflect the diversity of society so um what does this mean diversity diversity is not an objective diversity is a

fact yeah I mean we have diverse uh countries men women different colors different sexual orientations whatever so diversity's effect but then comes into the play the objectives that we set ourselves this is equity uh for example at seans we have the objective of having at least 30 uh% of women in in senior leadership positions uh and 30% of women in business functions not only support functions in France for example we right now have 40% of uh women in our executive management team beyond that we have set country specific goals in terms of objective because we

know we have a big issue with filling the pipeline with female talents so we Define as objective uh having parity 50% girls in our apprenticeship campaigns because through this we fill up our internal funnel we started 3 years ago with 20% today we are at 40 and I'm fighting for getting to the 50 and these are inclusion measures because Equity is an objective and inclusion are all the measures we put into place we take action about uh having more women in the workplace about creating a working environment that is more adapted to people with disabil

abilities for creating actions for emplo employees that are caretakers that's also a big issue in society because they have elderly parents for example so this all together creates the feeling of belonging and identity and let me just end with one thing and I think it was also said before I think we cannot do this on our own each of our companies we need to do this in an ecosystem and I'm very proud to speak today on behalf of 70,000 other French companies that are part part of the public interest organization entrepr which means companies engag

because together from the small company somewhere you know in the southern part of France to the big Corporation here in Paris together we take concrete action to work for a more diverse workplace and for a more inclusive workplace and this makes us I mean stronger together and uh this is how we act all together as corporate citizens okay thank you so now I would like to ask each of of you kind of final words so what would be your top piece of advice for crafting trust cision and Sh value in the workplace so or can

company today and in the future become a real place of true reconciliation Alandra you want me to start yeah so you I'm allowed to one word so I'm going to communication I have no transparent communication will allow a cohesive workplace will allow shared values will allow inspiring leaders to come forward so if I'm allowed to one word it will definitely be in 54 seconds uh for my colleagues definitely transparent communication and international intentional communication and I want to thank to thank all the people in all the organization and of course in lazard's organization who work

in communication that help us to indeed keep the cohesive workplace well I would would add to that leading by example I mean it's very important that this topic it's not that the diversity is not a topic of the HR department we need to lead by examples and do it in a way that others like to copy you with pride yeah I mean from my perspective look Pol we have to have the right policies we have to have the right processes in place but those can all be undermined by a raised eyebrow from a leader by

throwaway comment by the thing probably every single one of us in this room has experienced at some stage in our career so I would say you need we all need to be aware of the impact of our words and our actions and we all need to Everyday practice inclusion and be respectful in everything we do okay and so many thanks to all of three of you for for your outstanding contribution I'm sure as we are coming back home with ID and ID for Action in companies and and so many thanks again yes thank you very

much for a wonderful discussion communication The Power of Words I can only agree with your conclusion ladies thank you very much indeed