Katherine Boardman – How Remote Work Works in Today’s Environment

Connect with Katherine:

• 

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• BlueConic
• Compensation Consulting Services
• HR Data Labs Season 6 Episode 7
• HR Data Labs Season 6 Episode 5

• “We were measuring [remote employees] in terms of their engagement and satisfaction, . . . which are critical to [our productivity as a company].”
• “I always start with ‘what does the business need’. . . . Take the time to understand what [remote work] means and why it should become the requirement.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record, pour their discussions into a beaker, mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

 

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky alongside my co-host and friend from Salary.com, Dwight Brown. Hey, Dwight, how are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:55

I'm good, David, how you doing?

 

David Turetsky: 0:56

I'm very good.

 

Dwight Brown: 0:57

Good!

 

David Turetsky: 0:58

But today, we have a special guest, Katherine Boardman who is the Chief People Officer at BlueConic. Hello, Katherine, how are you?

 

Katherine Boardman: 1:06

Hello! Nice to be here. I'm well.

 

David Turetsky: 1:09

So Katherine, give us a little bit about your background. And what got you to this moment in time.

 

Katherine Boardman: 1:15

I am an HR people pro through and through. I've spent my whole career in HR. And I think it's fair to say that sort of being with people, understanding how people are in organizations as individuals and then collectively is my passion.

 

David Turetsky: 1:36

We love people too. Enough said on that one, right, Dwight?

 

Dwight Brown: 1:43

Right, exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 1:46

So tell us a little bit about BlueConic. Who and what are BlueConic?

 

Katherine Boardman: 1:49

Sure. So BlueConic is a CDP. For folks who don't know what that acronym stands for, customer data platform. So, you know in a, to sum it up, we are in the business of helping our customers connect with their customers, deepening their relationships with them, and really sort of promoting their customers' growth and transformation in a digital way.

 

David Turetsky: 2:19

That's awesome. And very necessary in today's environment.

 

Dwight Brown: 2:22

Definitely.

 

David Turetsky: 2:24

So Katherine, what's one fun thing that no one knows about Katherine Boardman?

 

Katherine Boardman: 2:29

Oof, so I am a, this this part about me is known by probably a lot of folks who know me, I am a hot power yoga junkie. And have been doing it for some time now. So when I look back at the classes I've taken, it, looks, it turns out that I have spent over 2500 hours on my mat.

 

Dwight Brown: 2:55

Oh, wow.

 

David Turetsky: 2:56

2500 hours.

 

Dwight Brown: 2:58

Holy smokes! That's a lot of hot yoga.

 

David Turetsky: 3:01

Yeah, that's a lot of sweat. Hopefully you've gone through different mats.

 

Katherine Boardman: 3:05

Oh, yes.

 

David Turetsky: 3:07

Okay, all right. Namaste.

 

Katherine Boardman: 3:10

Namaste.

 

David Turetsky: 3:13

That's, that's, that's that's one thing we never heard before, Dwight. That's a good one!

 

Dwight Brown: 3:16

No! That that is a good one.

 

David Turetsky: 3:18

So would you say you're a relaxed person, Katherine?

 

Katherine Boardman: 3:21

I would say that doing the yoga certainly has helped me have some moments of relaxation. I'm probably by, since Hot Power Yoga is my preferred form of yoga, it does attract quite a lot of type A personalities because we're able to get our sweat on and then you know, in those last few moments, have some nice Shavasana. Nice corpse pose.

 

David Turetsky: 3:48

Got it. You know, in the old days, people used to just go for what's called a schvitz and that was good enough. Now you have to contort yourself and schvitz at the same time. And for those of you who don't know that terminology, that means sweat. That's an old German Yiddish word schvitz. So, there you go. Now that we're all sweating as we

 

Dwight Brown: 4:12

Right, exactly. I'm starting to feel a little hot in here right now

 

David Turetsky: 4:15

You're in Arizona! It's a dry heat.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:17

Yeah, I know, I've got no excuse.

 

David Turetsky: 4:20

You don't. Well, you transitioned from Wisconsin, which is a dry cold.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:24

Minnesota which is also.

 

David Turetsky: 4:26

Sorry, sorry, Minnesota. I apologize.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:29

Which is just a cold cold. It's not even a dry cold. It's just a cold cold, cold.

 

David Turetsky: 4:33

Bone chilling.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:34

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 4:34

Now you're in the hot hot, but dry hot. So

 

Dwight Brown: 4:39

I always work in the extremes, one way or the

 

David Turetsky: 4:41

Yeah, you can schvitz there too. You just have other. to make the wetness to get the schvitz. All right enough on that! Our topic for today is a really cool one. We're gonna be talking about remote work and making remote work work in today's environment. Really excited about this. And so Katherine, I understand that BlueConic has decided to close an office, actually the office in Boston, and make the shift to remote first work model. What led you to this decision? Because it's a big one!

 

Katherine Boardman: 5:20

It is a big one. And the primary driver, if we sort of dial back a bit was sort of how much work changed through COVID. Through the pandemic, certainly, like many companies and organizations, there were, there was a period of everyone went home, stayed home, stayed within their homes for a period of time. And as time as the months went on, we started to think about, as many HR folks and leaders did, what comes next? What does? How do we come back? So as we looked at how we were coming back here, that not as many people came back into the office! People had adapted, people had figured out what they needed to do to sort of support their families, support themselves in terms of how and where they were working, what other demands on their time did they have. So we, as a business, adapted ourselves and said, okay, we actually can do what we need to do without having people face to face five days a week. It also happened that our lease here in Boston was going to be up. So seemed like a really good time to look at what are the changes we make, because we've learned so much over the past couple of years in terms of how we communicate, collaborate, spend time together, get the work done. And that's what's brought us to today and this decision to make the shift.

 

David Turetsky: 7:01

So it's obviously a really big decision. Right? And let me just ask the the obvious question, was it, do you think it was because the nature of the work that made it easier? The type of organization it is, the type of work you do, the relative technology that you're used to? Does it lend itself to making it more of a remote first work approach?

 

Katherine Boardman: 7:28

It does, it does. We certainly have the ability to leverage, leverage technology, leverage tools, messaging tools, email, and we. And because our customers are all over the world, we too, the way we're communicating and working with them is in a virtual first way. With that, we, looking at all those tools that we have, we recognize that people need sort of, they need the information in different ways. So from an employee standpoint, people learn differently, they absorb information differently. So if we didn't have that face to face interaction, what does that, you know, end up being replaced with? So it is those technology tools, and it is making sure that you're using more than one tool. Because there are places where the messaging is appropriate, you know, instant messaging, sometimes it's in written form. And other times it's in in zooms. So using any and all of those.

 

David Turetsky: 8:39

I think the word zoom took on a completely different meaning over the last four years. And other technologies like Slack and discord and other things that were that were more communication mechanisms took on new approaches with formal working, rather than being more either academic, or more informal, personal. And so you know, what we've seen, I used to work in a development organization. You know, we used to use Slack. And we used to use teams, and we used to use even Jira, which was the data collection tool for doing bug fixing and requirements management. We would be communicating through those things mostly, as much as face to face. We were using those tools to communicate requirements and communicate issues and problems that we were dealing with. Did you find the same thing that they were adopting, like you were saying, zoom and other things more readily?

 

Katherine Boardman: 9:30

Yes, certainly adopting them. And as I think it's it's been critical for for leaders, certainly within HR within our people ops team and beyond to be deliberate and instructive about what tools to use when and to give employees guidelines so that, you know, it's so that people aren't wondering, oh, gosh, so should the be a Slack? Or should this be, you know, should I call a meeting for this? We want to make sure that we're being really thoughtful about what tools we use when to sort of enhance communication and reinforce all the information because there's such there's so much information that's flowing at all times.

 

Announcer: 10:23

Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by Salary.com. Now, back to the show.

 

David Turetsky: 10:35

That leads to the next question, which is, you know, with employees all working remotely, did you take concrete steps to ensure that you're remaining true to your culture? And you know, who is BlueConic? Did you have to do anything policy wise? Or, you know, you mentioned that that HR and leadership had to had to roll out some things. Was it formal?

 

Katherine Boardman: 10:56

It was formal. I think it was both formal, and with some, you know, with a couple of dashes of organic as well, and just being responsive. We started with looking at, we did surveys so that we could get a baseline for okay, we're assuming some things about how people are feeling and experiencing this new way of working together during both the interim period, the pandemic period, and then post that. So there was sort of survey mechanism. There was also we made sure that we had, you know, we set expectations about people attending bi-weekly stand up meetings. And if you couldn't, if you couldn't attend in person, within a couple hours of the meeting, we're posting up the recording, but we still have the expectation that you're going to watch it. So we did that. And we also in thinking about how we, how we work together, how we learn how we take care of customers, thinking about the opportunity to connect. And that was, that was critical. So making sure that we had, that we were putting emphasis on what those connection points were. So whether it was collecting feedback. One of the other very important steps we took was to, because we have this distributed workforce, and we couldn't, you know, there were not, the majority of people couldn't rely on that face to face interaction, even between employee and manager, we implemented a platform that records one on one meetings, or can, you know, managers can record notes. Employees can bring agenda items to that, so that we have multiple ways to collect feedback and really use feedback between between our, between and within teams.

 

David Turetsky: 12:56

One question that comes to mind, Katherine is, how did you measure productivity? And did you see a change? Now, you said you did a lot of measurement. Right? Did you have any goals for productivity? Did you have any measures pre-COVID for productivity? And did you see it change dramatically during that period?

 

Katherine Boardman: 13:14

So I think for for measurement, I think productivity, we can sort of like so how do we define productivity? One of the things that we looked at was sort of employee satisfaction, because I think that is a direct driver and is reflective of productivity. So we have an annual once a year, we do a full large employee satisfaction survey. So we, that had started pre-COVID, we added in COVID questions during the during that period. And then now we've you know, with last year's survey, we sort of stripped those out because they didn't apply anymore. So we were measuring, we were certainly measuring folks in terms of their engagement. Engagement leading to productivity. So we had that in place. Implementing pulse surveys, so a way to, you know, couple few times a year to poll folks and say, so how is it going? How are you feeling? How connected are you? That ties to productivity. And then just regular, you know, sort of performance reviews. Again, all all supportive of how managers, employees, teams are collectively working together and sharing that information, you know, knowledge sharing across the across teams across the organization: critical to how well we're doing. And then you know, productivity, certainly as measured feedback responses that we get from customers and making sure that we're getting that information back to employees. So no one should be no one should be surprised when they're doing an actual, having a review, performance review discussion with their manager. That's not the time to say, oh, by the way, something's going not so well. Should know about it already.

 

David Turetsky: 15:10

Right. Yeah.

 

Dwight Brown: 15:11

I'm curious in the employee satisfaction, whether you experienced any backlash in any areas either expected or unexpected?

 

Katherine Boardman: 15:20

I don't think it was backlash. I think, in this organization, we, we were very aware. And the impact that the pandemic was having on people and all the change, and that there is, I think, a greater sensitivity to change now. So change has always been around, right? Everything's changing all the time. But I think that there were there was a period there for a couple of years where the changes were dramatic. And they were, they were significant for people. It was people's healths, lives, livelihoods. So there's a with that sensitivity, we, we made sure that we were really listening to people. And then any changes that we were making, for instance, with the change around closing this office, any future steps that we're taking, as we imagine what the future of our work together looks like? It will be iterative, we'll be collecting feedback as we go. Because we don't, we don't know exactly what it's going to feel like for people. So that that approach is the one that we applied throughout the pandemic period was, asking people, how is this feeling to you? That one example of what we did when we were starting to think about transitioning back into the office was we surveyed people. And that survey said, hey, how do you how do you think you'll use the office? Will you be a by definition hybrid worker, where you come in maybe two or three times a week, fully remote, or in every day? And what we saw on those results were that most people said, I'm gonna come in two to three days a week. In actuality, when the doors reopened, that's not how often most folks were coming in. So I was like, oh, okay! So even what people had imagined for themselves the landscape would be in their lives, once it says, oh, I have to commute. I have to get out of the house. I have to rearrange my yoga class schedule. My kids are at home going to school. So that was okay with us. We said, okay, so let's adapt to that. So let's adapt to what what's at hand right now.

 

Dwight Brown: 17:55

That makes sense. I mean, it's, it's hard to look into the future, and especially when the environment around is continuing to change and, and be able to predict exactly what it would look like for each of us personally. And, you know, I think of the remote work that we do. I'm full remote, David's full remote, and there are days where I really miss seeing people. I'm a terrible introvert, but I still miss seeing people.

 

David Turetsky: 18:22

I see you almost every day!

 

Dwight Brown: 18:24

I know, but in person, it's that in person!

 

David Turetsky: 18:27

Yeah in person.

 

Dwight Brown: 18:28

You know, and but I can also see where people would say yeah, it'd be really nice to be able to see people in person. So I'd probably be there two to three days a week. But in reality, like you said, there are a lot of other factors sort of pulling people back. So but it sounds like, it sounds like you, you looked at that, and you continued to make the changes around that.

 

Katherine Boardman: 18:52

In response to sort of those changes and the closing of this office. What part of this imagining this next step, and this next phase, we do have an office in the Netherlands, which is pretty populated. People came back to that, to that setting and working together, sort of more than they did here in the Boston area. So what we're, though we won't have a permanent office in Boston, we're thinking about that time in person together, that connecting live with one another is what we're hearing over and over again, is what people really want. So it doesn't mean traveling, you know, sort of a month, you know, a week a month, but it does mean being very planful and coordinating and we're gonna lean into this. And we've started to outline this and build out a structure of how do various teams, departments, groups come together, both in the Boston area, in the US, across, you know, across the globe for us, to work together and be able to have that sort of in person connection time, which there's not one person that reports after they've had the experience of working together, even for a few hours face to face, a huge sort of boost in creativity, productivity. So we're going to, we're going to lean into that, we're going to try that out. And again, we're going to go step by step, collect feedback along the way, analyze what's working, and sort of double down on those parts that, you know, that we'll be having success with.

 

David Turetsky: 20:39

And Dwight, I think we've seen this that other organizations we've talked to say things like they, they now have subscriptions with WeWork or with Regis, where there's a common center that they can go to, to rent office space, if necessary, for whether it's large projects, or large meetings, or things like that, where doing that in a mostly remote world doesn't really work. But finding those spaces to be able to collaborate and not online, but in person, you know, IRL, is that what the kids say in real life?

 

Dwight Brown: 21:10

Yeah.

 

Katherine Boardman: 21:11

IRL!

 

David Turetsky: 21:12

Yeah, IRL. Yeah. But but to be able to have those workspaces. I mean, when we were growing up in business, the reason why I loved being in the office was there were staples there, there were there were note pads, there were pens, there was a closet to go to, I had a desk with a phone, maybe there was a computer at that desk. But but that's the reason why I had to go there is because that's where all the stuff was! Nowadays, because we're not generating as much paper, you know, printers and copiers or fax machines, let's just use that word. They're not as important. We have Docusign now! So it is to me, Katherine, to your point before, it's the ability to get that boost in creativity, from the interaction, not because the paper clips are in the closet, right? Whereas I think it used to be the paper clips in the closet to go to work. Yeah, I love dealing with the people. But the paper clips they were they were the reason.

 

Dwight Brown: 22:05

I think what David is saying is that the change is hardest on all us old folks that are used to it.

 

David Turetsky: 22:12

Dwight, I wasn't gonna say it. Well, and you and I have talked on other podcasts about that security manila envelope that used to go interoffice, little red, red. Remember that one, Katherine?

 

Katherine Boardman: 22:26

I might remember that one?

 

David Turetsky: 22:27

Yeah, it said confidential on the outside. And God help you if you opened up that pure red thread that went around the two posts. Good Lord. Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this? Well, you're in luck, we have a special offer. For listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast, or whatever is on your mind, go to Salary.com/HRDLconsulting, to schedule your FREE 30 minute call today. So let's talk about some of the concrete steps or examples that you have of work activities and investments you're going to make to make sure that you can have more meaningful interactions across your organization. Are there examples or steps that you're taking?

 

Katherine Boardman: 23:20

So in terms of how we'll collaborate in person and meet, we will, certainly there's natural rhythms and cadence to activities that are already going on. So this is about sort of not sort of not creating something from nothing, but thinking about what already exists in terms of our planning. So we have, you know, in the beginning of the year, we do a revenue team kickoff, we did that this February, we'll do that. But now when we look at doing that next year, we'll say, Okay, who were all the people that will come to that, and then who's sort of connected to that group that we should also invite that who will also benefit from that sort of meeting with some of those folks on the revenue team. So what are those connections that we want to make sure that we're promoting? We also have, you know, we do currently because that's, that's an in person connection. We want to make sure that we continue to have sort of our remote interactions. For instance, we are doing you know, related to sort of, you know, Pride month this month, we're doing drag queen bingo at the end of the month, which you if you haven't done that before. That's an amazing activity and just pure fun. So that's, that's going on.

 

David Turetsky: 24:50

I can imagine that being a ball!

 

Katherine Boardman: 24:53

It's a blast. It is a blast, highly recommend. And then when we have customer events and marketing events. So if we are at conferences in different cities, again, making sure, okay, who are our folks that are in that region? Let's bring them in to come in a day before or stay a day later, join the group, both for have some social time together. And also just work, work, you know, in a room together and share some ideas, even when those folks aren't on the same team. Sometimes those are the most valuable aha moment, opportunities. When someone in product is, you know, chatting with someone on the account management team. They go, Oh, my gosh, yes! And what about this?

 

David Turetsky: 25:39

And I want to emphasize that one point you made about the personal time, because so often, we go to these conferences, and I'm going to two next week, but we go to these conferences, and it's just a whirlwind of stuff. But if we don't have that time to actually have that in person, personal, whether it's dinner, or coffee, or whatever, you really miss out on learning who these people are that you work with, and to your point, not just making the connections, but also just having a chat. Just just connecting as a person there. It's it's unbelievably valuable. And so much great stuff happens out of those meetings where, you know, people remember the connection that they made, and they say, Hey, there's something that came up. I remember I was talking to Dwight at that conference, I need to get this, get his opinion on this. Because I know now he cares about this. So it just, to me, that's just absolutely incredible.

 

Katherine Boardman: 26:34

And it can be a quick walk around the block. I'm gonna go grab a coffee, want to join me? 10 minutes.

 

Dwight Brown: 26:41

Right. Yeah, doesn't have to be long and involved.

 

David Turetsky: 26:45

Or you don't have to go to the gaming tables in Las Vegas and lose a lot of money either, which has happened to other people who I won't call out on this podcast. So Katherine, if you were talking to someone who was struggling with remote work, and you know, we know that there are those organizations that had teeter tottered between fully remote, hybrid, and then the demand that everybody comes back in the office, and there were some famous demands of returning to work. What would your advice be? Or what would be some examples of how you'd have someone or you you'd talk to someone about going through that thought process, you know, with their culture with the, you know, where they are as a company from a maturity perspective? What would your advice be to those companies dealing with this this remote work issue?

 

Katherine Boardman: 27:36

Yeah, I think there it it certainly is multifaceted. So I always start with, what does the business need? So as you know, for leaders, if you're demanding people be in office three, four or five days a week. If you are sort of saying, okay, now, it seems like fully remote is a great idea, we're just going to do that. Take the time to understand what does that mean? And why are you, why is that the requirement now? And wherever one lands, so assuming that was a good sound business decision, even if it's to say we're going to try this out for a period of time. Because back to our sort of crystal ball, we don't know exactly how it's going to go. Depending on the type of business or organization there certainly that will sort of provide probably some guardrails and framework. But once it's sort of that decision's been made, really to communicate and over communicate to your team. And I think there's there's so much value in those different ways that we have feedback and interactions today, which are one on ones between managers and employees. And then our people ops team has regular check ins sort of scheduled every so often with every employee more regularly with managers, you know, how are people doing? What are you hearing, because in building and developing those relationships, then we can we can see if something's a little off, if someone who is a fully remote employee has become pretty quiet, maybe they've sort of, you know, sort of taken some time off or just been called in sick, what's going on for that person? Because as we know, we don't have a personal us and a work us we're all the same person. And at any given time, there's stuff going on, and we can if we sort of understand that not that people have to share with us their most personal kind of situation. But if there's a way you know, if we have a sense that something's going on and we can be supportive of that, then we can put together are some measures, some responses, some, you know, we can kind of look in our toolkit and say, what are the different ways that we have to support people? Again, back to as we were speaking of earlier, this change is, change is ongoing. We can count on the change as leaders, as HR pros, we have, I think it's a privileged seat, frankly, that we, in a role that we have to enable teams, individuals to continue to move forward. And to be, you know, sort of feel satisfied the majority of the time in the organizations that we're that we're spending so much of our, so much of our days at.

 

David Turetsky: 30:42

Katherine, I think one of the things you touched on during that, which was really well said, was that we're now giving new tools to the managers and employees to be their actual selves, and to recognize the fact that we're not going to penalize them for having real mental health issues or, or having bad days, or needing to actually talk to someone. Because in the past, we used to call that person disengaged, and we used to kind of write them off. Or we used to give them a really bad performance rating and that kind of spiraled out of control. Whereas now I think there's a much more of a understanding that mental health, especially once recognized, is something that we have to be very careful about, and that there are resources we can employ for that employee. Not by explicitly saying it, but by generally telling everybody that there is help out there for you, whether it's an EAP, or whatnot. And especially given that there's been an explosion in conversation around mental health challenges in the workplace, and with remote work exacerbating it by, as Dwight said, there are some people who really crave that interaction. I guess my question is, is that as HR professionals, do you think we have more tools today? And is it I don't want to say, is it easier today to be an HR person because you don't have to be Sigmund Freud? But is it easier to be an HR person today with the tools that we have at our disposal, especially in the benefits world? Or is it just a recognition of the differences and the call outs around things like the mental health challenges that we're facing?

 

Katherine Boardman: 32:19

I think it is, these tools have been transformational, and the benefit that I see every day with people, and again, this does come back to an organization's culture. So, you know, certainly fortunate where I am able to hang my hat right now. And I think many organizations are similar and the same in this. And in that, we recognize that, you know, we've all had a period of time that there's there's some tough stuff going on. And for some folks, it is it takes different forms at different times, and may be sort of just an ongoing. But recognizing actually, and I think this is this has been a major step forward, certainly for for HR is this, this acknowledgement that all those differences of people, the struggles, the good days, the all of it, the who we are, is all additive to our our company culture. And so whereas I think in in days gone by, there was much more of a, well, here's what you have to look like, here's what you have to sound like, here's how you have to be and act. And here's the expectation and don't sort of color outside those lines. Now we're celebrating that like, oh, no, this actually makes this so much better and fulfilling, and what a gift to one another when we can show up as ourselves. So I think yes, those tools, the tools absolutely help us from apps, like, you know, for meditation for stress relief to what sort of health providers insurance companies are now offering. And, you know, we should be treating mental health as we would a broken arm and it should be covered the same, it should be promoted the same. It should be recognized as this is something that needs to be addressed and taken care of. And we and we do that easier.

 

David Turetsky: 34:28

Which was not in the past. It has not been true in the past. Katherine.

 

Dwight Brown: 34:32

Right. Exactly.

 

David Turetsky: 34:33

I've seen that firsthand where you know, I've had challenges and my family's had challenges with trying to find providers and going to our coverage and the coverage just isn't there. And it's like, wow, the medical side, yeah, they've got that down like crazy, but the mental health side just is awful for some of these providers. So I'm glad it actually is coming together a little more. But not too long ago, that was definitely not the case, so.

 

Katherine Boardman: 35:01

Very true.

 

David Turetsky: 35:10

So, Katherine, is there anything else that we wanted to cover we we've covered a lot about remote work. And it's been a fascinating conversation around the why you've made that journey as BlueConic. But also the the things that you've had to do to be able to help support the organization, stay true to its culture, and then as well, the things that you're doing and the investments you're making, anything else you want to cover?

 

Katherine Boardman: 35:35

I think I would just bring it back to, for HR teams, for people and talent teams, in working with their leadership to not be afraid to make some of these changes to just try out some of these changes where it fits! Again, where it will fit in the business and that it all starts with just a small step. So having conversations, why might we want to change this? What will the benefit be? What could the return on this investment be for, for all or for many aspects of our business and our organization? And it's just it's in starting there. So it's the small steps that can lead to some sort of, pretty significant changes that can be really, really beneficial and really sort of growth producing for for teams.

 

David Turetsky: 36:30

Very well said. And I think that those of us who work in remote work organizations hope for that for other people as well for other teams. And if you don't work in a remote world, and you are thinking about or your organization is thinking about it, I think the message from Katherine, If I could sum it up is that first step is the hardest. But don't be afraid. Right?

 

Katherine Boardman: 36:56

Right.

 

David Turetsky: 36:57

Katherine, thank you so much. You're awesome.

 

Katherine Boardman: 36:59

Thank you so much.

 

Dwight Brown: 37:00

Yes, thank you for being with us. This is great.

 

David Turetsky: 37:03

And thank you all for listening, take care and stay safe.

 

Announcer: 37:07

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