How Fujitsu are Cultivating a Culture of Inclusivity and Wellbeing

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In a competitive tech talent market, having an inclusive, caring culture can be a key differentiator. As Kelly Metcalf, Head of People Experience at Fujitsu, explained on a recent HR Leaders podcast, the organization focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion as an integral part of the employee experience.

One of their four priority areas is helping people bring their whole, authentic selves to work. As Kelly said, "We want you to show up and be confident to bring your true self to work." They are also driving inclusive hiring practices through training hiring managers to minimize bias.

"We're being really creative about where we look for talent, making sure that we've got a great offering so that we are more attractive than some of our competitors."

To promote inclusive career development, Fujitsu has sponsored programs to advance ethnic minority employees into more senior roles. And they aim to eliminate the gender pay gap completely by 2030.

Kelly also discussed how Fujitsu empowers teams to determine the work arrangements that fit them best. While remote work enables flexibility, they are intentional about bringing people together to facilitate connections and maintain culture.

For HR leaders looking to evolve their organizations, Kelly advised, "I would say time is super precious...Use your time to really focus on having a positive impact on people." This sense of purpose is what drives employee experience.

Episode Highlights

How Fujitsu are creating an Inclusive workplace that goes beyond just recruitment to address systemic disparities like the gender pay gap
How Gen Z’s presence is reshaping workplace dynamics and what it means for the future of work
And How Fujitsu are embracing a Sustainable Hybrid Workplace Model

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🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript

Kelly 0:00

Be completely you. And that is the culture that we want to have at Fujitsu. That's the experience that we want all of our people to have. We want you to show up and be confident to bring your true self to work. Because we don't want you to have the unnecessary stress of feeling. You've got to code switch between a work persona and home persona. And we know that when we get laser diverse perspectives together, get a better end result, we get better quality of service delivery for our customers.

Chris Rainey 0:34

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the HR leaders podcast. On today's episode, I'm joined by Kelly Metcalf, who is the head of people experience diversity and inclusion and wellbeing at Fujitsu. During the podcast, Kelly shares how Fujitsu are creating an inclusive workplace that goes beyond recruitment to address systemic disparities, like the gender pay gap. She also talks about how Gen Z's presence is reshaping workplace dynamics and what that means for the future of work. Lastly, we discuss how Fujitsu are embracing sustainable hybrid workplace models, which is super interesting. Before we jump in, as always, make sure hit the subscribe button, turn on notification bell and follow on your favourite podcast platform. But that being said, let's jump in. Kelly, welcome to the show. How are you?

Kelly 1:20

I'm very well Chris, thank you. Great to see you today.

Chris Rainey 1:24

I love the fact that whenever we speak, you're just so full of energy and smiling. What's the secret?

Kelly 1:28

Well, I'll share with you a quote that my my mom taught me when I was about nine years old, which is it takes fewer muscles to laugh and smile than it does to frown looking at me and seeing these frown lines? I don't know, is it true? I think once you smile on the outside, whatever going on inside it helps, you know does help you smart within this? Well, firstly,

Chris Rainey 1:49

I wanted to share with the audience a little bit about your role or roles, shall I say could you give everyone a bit of an overview of your current role at your current roles, or Fujitsu and how that breaks down? I

Kelly 2:00

wear two hats at Fujitsu. So I have a European role in that I'm the head of diversity, equity, inclusion and wellbeing across our Europe services business. That's 15 countries across the European region. And then in my spare time I'll be at this takes up more than half of my time. I've had a people experience for our UK organisation. So our UK business is the largest geography within the European territory. And within people experience, I guess I have four key focus areas all around the culture, the way that it feels for our people to work at Fujitsu in the UK, the moments that matter, these little touch points that makes such a difference to people's experience, engagement, genuinely just listening and acting on what people are telling us. And then the experience that we give our managers to have quite a broad portfolio, I think it's fair to say but I'll be at DNI and wellbeing for Europe is the focus. Whereas it's broader than that in the UK, I think there's so much connection between the two, inclusion and well being underpin the culture and the experience that we want our people to have. So there's no there's no accident that I have responsibility for both of these things. Yeah, I

Chris Rainey 3:13

think they complement each other perfectly right. And in many companies, they sit separately, which I think does causes some challenges in organisations. And the fact that you have those on the same umbrella is great. Was it a conscious decision? Initially,

Kelly 3:27

it was created through circumstance, I think it's fair to say, but actually, when I moved into this role, it was the first time that the EI wellbeing had been connected together. And immediately I saw the opportunity that that presented, because I started in this role about three and a half, four years ago. And one of the things that I picked up quite early on was that inclusion is brilliant at elevating perspectives of those groups that are underrepresented. But perhaps what we hadn't done well enough in the past was bring everybody along on that journey and make dei relevant to every single person. And I think when we bring well being into the agenda that makes inclusion taught everybody, equally, when we focus on inclusion, we can't create a sense of being completely you can't enable our people to be completely themselves unless we're deliberately doing things that support their well being. And it isn't a one size fits all. All different groups of employees need different things to help sustain their well being so actually considering the diversity of our workforce to determine our well being strategy is really important. So it gives us the opportunity to create choices for people. So it's not just we do these things for your well being actually we have a suite of well being offerings, and those things individuals can select according to their personal needs and priorities. How did

Chris Rainey 4:53

you go about communicating that message? Because quite a pretty tough Do you communicate in an industry In tone of putting wellbeing and inclusion in the same messaging, or do you separate that out? What does that look like? The way that we

Kelly 5:06

would communicate that within our HR function and to our leaders is very different to how we would communicate it to employees. So we often wouldn't go out, for example, and say, We're connecting diversity to well being employees. And this is how we're doing it. Instead, we focused on the outcome, we're doing these things. And this is what it means for you. And this is how it's going to benefit you. So we tend to use as little jargon as possible, otherwise, I find that it sort of turns employees off a little bit. And but the way that I communicate that with our leadership, for example, is I'm quite a visual person. And I see the thing, these two things is kind of almost separate sides of about a wider set of weighing scales, but created a circle between them. So if we create an inclusive workplace, that directly goes to the next side of the circle, which is that creates a sense of well being. And then in turn, when we have people with higher levels of well being, they are likely to be much more receptive to the needs of others, they are likely to exhibit much more inclusive behaviour towards their colleagues. And so in turn that contributes to creating that inclusive workforce. So, really simplistically, that's how I would articulate why it's so important that we connect the two.

Chris Rainey 6:19

Now, I love that. And I love the fact you said before that your messaging to employees is what it means for Chris, you know, super important because sometimes we kind of put this broad statement, but it doesn't connect with the individual and within their hearts and minds. And then they just kind of did the disconnected. What's some of the practical things that you've been doing to create, you know, a culture of inclusivity? What are some of some of the specific things you've been doing,

Kelly 6:40

we have four focus areas. And I'll give you some examples for what we're doing under under each of them. So the first is be completely you. And that is the culture that we want to have at Fujitsu. That's the experience that we want all of our people to have. And many organisations have their own variations of that all along the similar theme, we want you to show up and be confident to bring your true self to work. Because we don't want you to have the unnecessary stress of feeling. You've got to code switch between a work persona and a home persona. And we know that when we get laid the diverse perspectives together, get a better end result, we get better quality of service delivery for our customers. So be completely us all about policies that we have about developing our people, managers and our leaders to understand what does inclusive behaviour mean, it's working with our inclusive community. So that brings together all of our separate diversity and inclusion networks together with well being to make sure that we're really listening. The what is it that employees from diverse backgrounds need? The second area is that inclusive hiring. So we're in the technology sector, there's a number of the challenges within tech one, high profile, one of which is that there is still a real gender imbalance. So LinkedIn stats are quite a good source of what is the diversity from a gender perspective in the tech sector. And that tells us today, around 30% of the talent pool externally is female. And we know when we go out and try and proactively attract more female candidates to our roles. We know it's a really hot market. But women in tech especially so I tell you what, if you want to be in demand, you want to be a woman in loads of organisations are trying to trying to hire you. inclusive hiring is our second area of focus that is a big piece around working with our recruitment partners, educating our recruitment teams, making sure that we're being really creative about where we look for talent, making sure that we've got a great offering so that we are more attractive than some of our competitors, to that limited supply of tech female to happen. But also that really practically, we're giving our managers skills around making sure that they are being inclusive through the hiring process. And I think maybe back to the point about let's try not to use too much rhetoric, when we're talking to our people, we try and be really practical with our managers, because I think most managers, you would sit them in a room and you say, Are you committed to inclusive hiring? And they would say, Oh, yes, definitely. But then when they've got a job vacancy that needs filling three weeks ago, and they just want to get the best product, you know, the best person in that role tomorrow, then some of the best practice falls out the window. What we do with our managers in terms of inclusive hiring training, is we get really practical with them. Notice when you're going through a recruitment process, where are these sources of bias creeping in? And then that thing, what is the practical counter to that to how do you a notice the behaviour and then you'd be doing something deliberate, to just put a pause and change that behaviour. And then our third area is like inclusive career progression. So this this applies based from a point of view of gender and ethnicity, which are the two that we can At the two areas of diversity that we can best measure, we have an imbalance. So whilst we're still striving to get that 30% of women in tech, we have a lower percentage of women in more senior roles than we do in the organisation overall, equally, from an ethnicity point of view, we have a higher rate of ethnic diversity at more junior levels compared to at senior level. And that's not right. We want to make sure that we reflect the organisation at every level, but also we want to make sure we reflect society. Certainly from an ethnicity point of view, we're not there yet. We're making good progress, especially since we published our ethnicity pay gap a couple of years ago, but we really need to make sure that we've got balance in representation. And in senior roles, inclusive career progression is all about making sure we've got a really clear pipeline of diverse talent. And actually the unashamedly, we're recognising where we might need to put in place additional support and sponsorship to address where we've got an imbalance now, so things like, you know, we've done a career sponsorship programme in the last couple of years for colleagues of an ethnic minority background, because we need to do that if we're going to level up that imbalance in representation at the top.

Chris Rainey 11:17

You mentioned the gender pay gap. When was that you said mentioned a few years ago, we went through that process? Yeah, so

Kelly 11:23

this is a really, this is topic I'm fascinated by, I have to confess, I'm a bit of a data geek, Chris, I'm really sorry. But it helps, it helps, it really does help especially where sometimes the ethical arguments we've got under representation doesn't wash with some individuals quite the same as, let me show you from a numbers perspective, if you're a female joining this organisation today, based on the role you're likely to occupy, by the combination of your career, you're likely to be paid 10% less than your equivalent male counterpart. It is some of these numbers really do capture the attention with certain individuals where just the stories and the kind of ethical values based arguments don't. So the gender pay gap reporting requirements were introduced in the UK back in 2017, that became mandatory for all organisations for more than 250 people to publish the gap in an average hourly rate of pay between men and women. And even though when now, six, seven years on nearly from when that was first introduced, there is still a bit of confusion between gender pay, and equal pay, gender pay is all about measuring, if there is a seniority gap. So if an organisation has a positive gender pay gap, what that's really showing is that the organisation has an under representation of women at a senior level. On the flip side, if there's a negative pay gap, that's showing the opposite, that showing that there is an over representation of women at senior level. And that's not what we want, either. Yeah, ultimately, the majority of people just want Paris, they want equity in opportunity. So we first published our our pay gap at Fujitsu pretty early on actually. So back at the end of 2017. Our pay gap then was 17.9%. Fast forward to 2023. And we're now at 10%. That we've made really significant reductions in that gap. Our goal was to get it to zero by 2030. And some of our employees have paused and said, Hang on a minute 2030. Why should we wait that long, that's such a long period of time. The reason that it's such a long game is because this is about sustainable culture change. And we unfortunately cannot shift. But a large organisation in terms of culture, the ways we work, the ability, we have to attract and retain diverse talent, we just can't do these things overnight. And that is super interesting. Just with my European hat on there's a super interesting piece of legislation coming in Europe imminently, which I think will, will challenge us within the UK as well. So in Europe, there's there's this thing called the Corporate Social Responsibility directive, that's coming into effect in 2024. And that will require organisations of more than 50 people in every EU member state to publish their gender pay gaps, say for us. So that means some of our countries will be publishing their gender pay gap for the first time. And the quick on the back of that we've got the EU pay transparency directive coming in 2026. And that will introduce a whole set of additional requirements for organisations around reporting, equal pay, reporting, explanations, whether there is there any gap in pay equity between men and women. And I'm super optimistic for that both for our European countries, but also for the UK because even though that clearly won't apply is a piece of legislation in the UK, I think with Fujitsu, as with many other organisations that have a presence right across Europe, I think that has the potential to put real pressure on organisations to think what more should we be doing on the point of trade pay transparency and in the region overall, and in the UK, and we know where organisations publish pay data, they're much more likely to attract diverse candidates, the way they're silent on pay.

Chris Rainey 15:28

I was going to ask you, what are some of the benefits? Or you just said one, the one of the major one there, what are some of the other benefits? I

Kelly 15:36

think it's about showing serious commitment, really serious commitment. And so I genuinely believe when you start to measure something, it enables you to then start to get really objective and granular about where you need to focus your attention. And it gives you less place to hide, you know, but when you're having to be public about where we have equal pay issues, you're then beholding accountability for an organisation. Yep. To attract the best talent, you've got no choice but to do something about it. Now, some organisations may choose not to act on it. And I guess that will, you know, show ultimately, and who, who chooses to work for them or, or not. But I think it creates that real accountability, as you say, and it puts a real laser focus on taking action, which ultimately, these things are geared to do to drive.

Chris Rainey 16:25

Where do you see having gone on the journey and still still on the journey? As you mentioned, what's the biggest challenge that you think organisations and HR leaders are going to face?

Kelly 16:35

So we talk about gender pay gap? And I think that's a small part of the equation. So measurement super helpful. I think the biggest challenge is how do we continue to embed inclusion into how we work the how do we make it genuinely every day inclusion, I and my team talk about the fact that really success for us, is us not needing a job. And that's when we can sit back and say, our work is done. Because actually, we just have embedded inclusive behaviours, inclusive values, inclusive decision making, in every part of our organisation. So I think that is the ultimate challenge. Now, that's one of the reasons I'm super optimistic about the change that we're seeing with Gen Z entering the workplace. And actually, expectations of this generation are completely different. They will not stand for we're not inclusive, they absolutely will speak up, if their rights are not being recognised. They'll speak up where they experience inequity. And I think that's brilliant. And I'd love to be able to fast forward 20 years time and see what impact that's had on inclusive behaviour within organisations. But that's something that gives me real optimism for actually people that are joining the workforce today, you're going to be leading organisations in 20 years time. And I think naturally, we will see some of those values really flow out. And for me, if that means that the AI is no longer needed, is it as a specialism in itself because we're just living it? That would be a market success?

Chris Rainey 18:09

No, I love that it's gonna be interesting. I'm trying to imagine now my, my daughter is five years old. When she walks into the workplace, what is going to look like? I think one of the things that's gonna be interesting is, and I said this before, the work is gonna no longer be a place you go to was this, you know, we grew up with a you go to work, right? It's an actual destination is a physical office. But when Robin goes out, she she probably fingered as a funny idea, the idea that oh, so you had to go to this specific space to be seen to be doing work? Right? She's covering a ground like that, that doesn't make any sense. That one of the things actually is keep coming up in conversations now is sustainability. Could you talk to kind of how that links to your role? Because there seems to be a link within with dei wellbeing, sustainability, which is a topic of conversation a lot recently.

Kelly 18:59

Yeah, sure. And I guess, I guess you can think about that from different perspectives. So when we talk about sustainability, do we mean the impact that we have on society and levelling up socially? Do we mean environmental impact? And then do we mean the impact that we have on individuals are they taking taking each of those things? In turn, I think all organisations have a real responsibility to play in thinking about the impact not only that they have for their shareholders, but that they have for society. And I think that is really borne out now in expectations of people joining in the workplace, but also in some of the mandatory reporting that organisations are required to do, and especially for organisations like mine, where we do a huge amount of work for the public sector, is social value. Reporting absolutely expected to be weaving into our contracts with our customers, how we will deliver social value for the client point of view of environmental social sustainability, in terms of how we impact society, I guess that's again, how we use our, our strength as an organisation, that influence where we see inequity, they some of the things that we, we do and we know gets great engagement from our people is working with, with schools, especially in less advantaged areas of the country to inspire people into careers in STEM. Now that has great side benefit. We know the primary benefit of that is let's inspire our future workforce tomorrow. But actually, that has great benefits for engaging our people as well. And if you bring sustainability to an individual level, well, actually, I think there is still a discussion to be had around is the way that we are working today. Sustainable. Yeah. And we've gone on such a shift from ug sacred work being that place that you go to the work being that thing that you do, wherever you happen to be whether you're like I wrote yesterday, you know, I also have a five year old, that by my five year old doing his little bits of times table rockstars on his iPad, and I was there do my email, and that was six o'clock yesterday evening, I was technically still working, is that is that sort of working sustainable? And actually, with the fact that work can be all pervasive now. It can be done anywhere, we encourage it to be done anywhere. But how do we make sure we just create that sustainable balance so that people still can switch off at times, they still can get the benefit of human connection, they still do feel aligned to a shared sense of purpose. And I think certainly for us in jujitsu, we're still trying to navigate through to where is that happy point to sustain individual performance and well being in that very different working context than we had even just a few years ago? And I'm

Chris Rainey 21:50

sure that links quite nicely to your role, as head of people experience, what is the approach that you're taking at the moment? Is it three days in a week, two days from home? Or is it leaving the decision making with the line manager to make that decision with their team? Depending on their context? What's the approach you've taken?

Kelly 22:05

Yeah, it's the latter. So we back early in the pandemic, we observed almost immediately, that wellbeing about people actually shot up in the early days of the pandemic. And we went out and we consulted all of our people across your, how do you want to work differently beyond the pandemic, and it was something like 85% of people told us they wanted to continue to work more flexibly. And we actually also asked, How many days do you envisage, you'd be in the office, what proportion of your time because we wanted to listen, and we wanted to act on what would be most beneficial and most productive for our people. What that taught us was that it's really different in different parts of the organisation, and there was not going to be a one size fits all approach. So we do have some teams that provide face to face customer services, those cannot be done even with a very bad intention, you cannot replace somebody's desktop from home. Unless you've got some sort of magical powers that haven't been invented yet. Some roles will always need to be delivered in, in person. And but equally for some teams. They're quite remote anyway. And it was going to work to have a fixed day a week in the office. So we came up with what we call work your way, which is where we empower managers and their teams to work out at a team level. What is the right pattern of work? In terms of location for them? Where we are today is we probably have we and we measure this? We have between 10 and 20% of our people going into an office at least one day, a week. Now I'm continuing to monitor that and continuing to monitor, how is that showing up in our pupil engagement results? And how is that showing up in the sense of connection that people feel, and since pride in the organisation, and the reason I continue to monitor it is I'm not sure that we're quite there yet, in having that balance, right. So we're trying different things at the moment, because what we noticed is when we have events running on site, we get a great attendance. But if there's no events, people might say, well, I want to go in because I want to see colleagues, but then they go in and nobody else is there. And it sort of negates that first bite. So we're trying to now create this kind of local community model, where each of our hub locations will have a real focus around bringing people together, maybe only once or twice a month, though. Absolutely. So you come in. And while you're there, you're gonna have the opportunity to have informal coffee chats with them a leadership team based on site, we're gonna do some basic speed networking, we might be doing on site health checks, and we're doing some community engagement activity. You're coming in, and actually you're probably not going to be sat in front of your PC doing calls during that day. What you're going to be doing is given loads of opportunity It's easy to connect with colleagues in different areas of the business, because that's what people are telling us that they're missing. And for new joiners, especially, I think this is really key. We noticed actually, in the last couple of years, our our attrition rate for new joiners has risen slightly. And we understand the feedback for that. And an important part of that is people struggling to find that connection with colleagues outside of their direct team, we put a huge amount of effort into recruitment and picking what we think is the best talent to join the organisation. And we then want to make sure that we're helping them really integrate. And so there is a deliberate intent behind some of these things as well to make sure that we're helping our new joiners properly embed into the culture and create their own networks where it's not been quite so easy with with as much remote working in the past.

Chris Rainey 25:52

I'm so happy you identified that in the new the new joiners because I can't even imagine when I first joined an organisation that doing it remotely because you kind of lose the feel of what it is to DNA of the culture, right and what it means to work or Fujitsu. It's okay for the rest of your employees that have gone from one office to remote because they still understand it, they still have that self connected tissue as well. But it's really important for new for new people to come in and build that network outside of the team experienced that and network and also for for the organisation you need that for for innovation. For that knowledge transfer from senior leaders in team down through the organisation you want that knowledge to stay within not just leave the business. That's why I was I'm so happy that you identified that we talk

Kelly 26:38

we talk about social capital don't wait. And actually it's so helpful just to have that network. Yeah. And you do you much more easily identify and create that network when you're just bumping into people who happen to be in the same location as you. I mean, there's other things that we're considering as well. So we're looking to do a bit of experimenting with creating a virtual means of networking for our for our new joiners. So we were in the early days of planning a pilot to help that as well. So I think you we certainly can't claim to have cracked this, but we're aware of the challenge. And now that that, you know, the the task is let's work out how do we improve the experience that we get our new joiner attrition really to level our attrition overall,

Chris Rainey 27:24

I think it's always going to be evolving. I don't think there's ever a point where it stays linear in the same because also people's needs change throughout their career, right. If you're new into the business, and you're young, you want to be in the office, you may want to be in the office more. If you're kind of older in your kids. And you know, you're looking after elderly parents, for example, you may need a bit more flexibility to work remote. I remember I had quite a few members of my team that wanted to stay 100% remote after a few months is it actually I really don't enjoy this. I miss being in the office and not a call when they come into the office. So depending on what stage they're in their life and their career, that will also change. So as organisations, we need to be flexible. Last

Kelly 28:01

year, we launched a flexible workspace offering. And we did it where we'd closed a couple of our office locations. And we didn't have a Fujitsu office based in close proximity to some of our employees anymore. So we created the opportunity for people to book office space, that kind of public shared office spaces. And it was it was intentionally done because there wasn't a desk with Fujitsu's name on it in proximity to that individual. And what we found was completely positive set of unintended consequences around the impact it had on people's well being. And the number of the people that participated in that pilot said, This is great, because actually I hadn't realised I was feeling quite lonely. Yeah. And it's brought me together with people who may not have previously seen and heard him talking to people from other organisations arrive in the place. And fast forward 18 months and we now offer it specifically for well being where people feel that they're there. They're isolated. It's not practical for them to be in an office location there might be home based and they're not near to a Fujitsu site. So we weren't we're human beings, aren't we we do need connection Yeah. And find the best tech in the world is not going to replace the value of just being in the same room as another human being.

Chris Rainey 29:20

My next door neighbour said that to me that she only a few days ago, she she works for a global company and they have similar hubs. And she's like, I don't need to go in. There's no requirement, but I just love separating, just getting out of the house, to be honest, just getting out of the house and going somewhere different and just sort of a change of pace and just again, the opportunity to speak to network and bump into people that you wouldn't normally do in the co working space. What are you most excited about moving forward? Like obviously, you've got these dual roles you're in right now. a tonne of different projects. What are you most excited about moving forward?

Kelly 29:55

The thing that is really exciting to me at the moment is the impact that AI can have Oh, here we go. This is not without controversy. And I'll tell you a story for why I believe this is one of the many reasons I believe this is not without controversy within Fujitsu. We've just done a round of HR conferences. So we do these every year in all of our HR people together in different so in three different locations around Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, we did a focus session a couple of hours on AI on what is the what is the potential for AI to enhance how we work within HR. And we start that session, asking the question, how do you feel about the way that AI will impact our work, and will impact our lives? And we get people to literally physically move around the room and line up? Are you super optimistic you're over here on the left? Or are you completely terrified, you think it's gonna be the end of the human race, and you're here on the right. And it never ceases to amaze me, just the diversity of perspectives that people have. And you can probably tell from the tone of my voice, I'm pretty optimistic. I think there's loads of possibilities for AI to help with some of the more administrative burden we carry within the HR function. Still, I can't yet see how that can replace some of the empathy, compassion and human connections that people bring. But I think actually, if we can help to automate some of the more administrative stuff that we do, because you're more tired, a wonderful opportunity, absolutely, what a great opportunity for those of us in HR, that really get value and bring value to organisations in terms of the coaching, evolving the organisation continuing to develop the culture, all of those things, I think it presents a great opportunity. But then we've got these at the other end of the spectrum that say, Well, this is gonna take my job. Oh, no. And, and actually, your position and we've been giving is we don't believe that AI is going to replace your role a person using AI. Well, now that's a commonly quoted quite, I can't remember who, who said that, but it's not my quote is attributed to somebody. And I think that's really important. Why am I optimistic about it, I think this huge potential, but also, I think this is unavoidable. So I don't think an acceptable approach is to sit there and think I am scared of what AI could do to our organisation. And to my role and allow for I'm just going to sit and hope it all goes away, because it will not go away. And I would much rather be part of a function that really embraces this, and says, we're going to we're going to, we're going to develop an opinion, we're going to learn how to use these tools, we're going to think about ways that we can appropriately apply them to our work, because obviously there are security, confidentiality restrictions around that, we're going to develop a point of view. And we want to lead in this, we do not just want to be a victim of having stuff done to us when we're at the end of the, you know, the end of the party and many other organisations to seize the opportunity that we failed for us, though, that is something that I am super excited by the prospects that it could bring. And again, if I had a crystal ball, I'd love to know, 20 years time, how might the way we are working now. And the makeup of HR role be different? Yeah, because I think it has huge potential to be different in a really positive way. If we use AI to complement some of the stuff we do, what was

Chris Rainey 33:30

the outcome of the meeting? Where what are some of the outcomes that you took away from that meeting, and some of the steps you're gonna take now moving forward with the team, we want

Kelly 33:38

to involve our people. So we definitely do not want to do too. And we also want to create a culture in Fujitsu, of experimentation of curiosity and of embracing change. And so we've got a number of our HR people volunteering to be part of a working group. So how are we going to embed these tool in how we work in HR, we have some we got people doing practical stuff, take some of our policies, and see how you can change them to see if you can change the language within them. And instead, for example, today of having a HR handbook that is one HR handbook for all employees, actually, in the future recognising that there are some generational differences between how people like to consume information certain tone of communications will appeal more to certain generational groups than others in the future. Might we have tailored version of our employee handbook? Might we take some of our policies that perhaps feel a little bit outdated and make them far more punchy, far more engaging, properly written with the, with the audience in mind? So a number of ideas came out of the session? I wish that we'd done this and we just got this feedback anecdotally at the end, but some of those that were on the kind of right hand side of the spectrum of I am terrified, and I just want to put my head in my hands to deny that this is ever going to affect our roles actually had their perspective broadened a little bit to think there are opportunities here and far better to embrace where we think they are, take the mantle of base and start to experiment with some of these things.

Chris Rainey 35:06

Or sometimes you can be afraid of things that you don't understand. Right? So having that conversation with the team, and then to share a different insights and perspectives, that's going to help that help those individuals. Because you know, it's changes difficult is scary sometimes, as well. But to your point, there's no avoiding this, this is here to stay. And that quote you mentioned is that 100%? Sure, you're going to be replaced by people that are using it, if you don't do it. But listen, before I let you go, what would be your parting piece of advice to the audience? And then where can they connect with you? If they want to reach out to you personally and say, Hi, I'm

Kelly 35:41

Oh, my parting piece of advice. This is tricky. And I talked to my husband actually, this morning, I said, I'm doing a podcast today. And one of the one of the questions is what's your advice? And he said, oh, you should never give advice to anybody. I guess you know, listen to this, if you will, I will position this as what are the values that I hold really dear. And take this, if it resonates with you in in any way, I would say time is super precious, super, super precious. It is our most precious resource. And people are precious. Yeah. And use your time to really focus on having a positive impact on people. Whatever it is that you're doing in your organisation in your life, because that will give you a fulfilling sense of purpose that will put a smile on your face that will keep you jumping out of bed in the morning, even when physically you were your ex that gives meaning to life. Yeah.

Chris Rainey 36:35

Well now we've discovered the secret to your smile and your energy. Right till the end. So it's just a perfect, perfect beginning and end policy and where can people connect with you? Was it was they connect with me on LinkedIn turn Kelly MATCOM amazing. Kelly. I love honestly I love your energy. I love talking about purpose and impact. Clearly you're in the right place in the right role. Clearly you're living with purpose and leading with purpose. So I appreciate you coming on the show. And I wish you all the best until next week. Thanks so much.

Kelly 37:05

Thanks so much, Chris.