Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

You can learn more about Sander, hiring & retention trends, and other HR related information at Randstad’s main websites:

https://www.randstad.com

https://www.randstaddigital.com

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. The audiobook version is now available at https://amzn.to/4dTCleZ. Her other 10 books are on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Africa’s EU Ambassador Redefines Leadership: How You Have Global Impact with Cynthia Cherrey
– Cooperation, Leadership & Empathy: George Papandreou’s Path for Meeting Challenges with George Papandreou
– Former Prime Minister Papandreou’s Path to a Just World with George Papandreou

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Sander van ‘t Noordende is the Chief Executive Officer of Randstad, the world’s largest talent company and a workplace equity advocate. Prior to joining Randstad, he spent 30 years at Accenture most recently serving as Group Chief Executive of the Products Operating Group. He is a Forbes columnist and has been featured by Fortune, CNBC, BBC, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal discussing the world of work. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering, specializing in Finance and Marketing, from the Eindhoven University of Technology. He currently is a non-executive director at AECOM.

Transcript
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00:00:00
Welcome to innovating Leadership, co creating our future. I’m Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of Innovative Leadership Institute. We help leaders become future ready. Today, we’ll discuss the evolving world of work with Sander Van’t Nordende, CEO of Randstad. Sandra, thank you for joining us.

00:00:20
Thank you, Maureen. Great to be here. Let’s jump in with what are the key trends dominating the world of work through your lens? Maureen. At runset, we call them the big three.

00:00:31
And number one of the big three is talent scarcity. Populations are aging. There’s going to be fewer people who have to do more work for more people, in short, and that’s not going to go away because it’s a demographic trend. Number two, then look at organizations, our clients, big companies, big government organizations. They are looking for answers, how to deal with this.

00:00:55
So they’re coming to us and says, Ransad, how can you help us attract talent? What’s our strategy in terms of talent? How should we go to market? Should we get them on board permanently or temporarily? And all those kinds of questions are now much higher on the agenda than they used to be.

00:01:12
And then the number three is, of course, technology, the digitization of the world in general, and therefore also of the world of work. And then, of course, more recently, you cannot have a podcast without AI these days. So AI, beautiful. And we just wrote a book on innovating, leadership and followership in the age of AI. So that is an interest of mine personally, because if you believe the hype, there’s no way of avoiding the fact that AI will change our working demographics.

00:01:42
I think you’re absolutely right. AI will play a pivotal role in how the world of work is shaped. I do think we’re at the peak of the hype cycle, and AI is relevant. It’s here to stay. It will go fast, but not as fast as everybody is thinking.

00:01:59
It will. As someone who’s informed, help our listeners understand the reality versus the scenarios on one end or the other. If you look at AI and how to apply it in business, you’re looking for a number of things. A, you’re a big business, so you want to apply AI at scale. B, you’re a big business with a good reputation, so you need to apply AI in the most ethical way possible.

00:02:25
You don’t want to make mistakes. Then that’s c, you need to get it right all the time for all your clients and talents, in our case. And to do that is actually a significant effort. You can go step by step, but you need to have your data in order. You need to have your rules in order, you need to have your policies in order.

00:02:45
Regulation is increasingly complex, so you have to make sure you can explain. So there’s a lot more complexity to it than, you know, doing a little prompt on chat GPT and get a nice outcome. I assume most of us have done the prompts on chat GPT, and it gives back if we’re prompting, well, useful information. But to your point, to take a systemic approach to running a business, ethically driving business value and ensuring that the data you’re getting out of the system meets your business needs, that’s a transformation effort, not just on the side playing with chat GPT. How is that looking to you?

00:03:29
Well, as I said, for instance, in Runstadt, we’re doing a fairly simple use case, which is writing job descriptions. Writing a job description, you can say, well, that’s easy, jet GPT can do that. Yes, Jet GPT can do that, but not to the standards that we need tv, not to the standards that are to the likings of our clients, to the standards that there’s no bias in it. I mean, I tried to, with a prompt, do a very biased prompt, and guess what? It came back.

00:03:55
Looking for an XYZ role, it had to be a person with certain characteristics that you cannot do. So getting those things right is important. Then doing it in many languages. We operate in 38 countries, so we need many languages. And then in every language you have, using the right words, the finesses of the sentences and all of that, it just takes time and learning and training of our people, but also of the model, of course.

00:04:20
And that’s just one use case. Now you have many use cases. In our industry, we use chatbots to interact with talents. We use AI to plan interviews for our applicants. We use AI to do matching of candidates and roles.

00:04:35
So we’re using it, getting it to scale and using it all the time, everywhere. That’s the real challenge. I assume then, like any other large digitization or transformation effort, you’ve got a whole team looking at implementing changes, process, culture, technology. It’s a large transformation effort, no? Absolutely.

00:04:58
I joined Ransat for my previous life at Accenture. The application of digital technologies in general in the HR services industry, in the world of recruiting in the world of talent, is actually remarkably low. And that’s not on the talent side. Now, talents, if you give them an app, they run it right away and they know how to deal with it, and they love to pick their own shift, or they love to pick that job that they’re looking for or apply digitally. It’s been more challenging on the client side to get clients in the digital world has been much more of an effort, and still is much more of an effort than talents.

00:05:34
So there has been an inherent slowness, I would say, in the world of talent when it comes to digitization. That’s interesting. I also came from Accenture and the systems we were implementing with my clients, yours may have been different, were more like ERP systems, not talent systems. Right. I was responsible for the products operating group at Accenture, which is consumer retail, life sciences, etcetera.

00:05:57
And there we had all range of systems, of course, but definitely also HR systems, customer systems, etcetera. Through that lens, the people process technology construct still applies that it’s not just a technology solution, it is revamping the processes that drive the outcomes, which also means changing the culture of how we interact with the processes, how we interact with each other. So it’s a full renovation in our. Run stud North America operational business, and that’s our business, that serves clients in logistics and manufacturing. In hospitality, we are rolling out the Runstadt app, which is a platform to connect supply and demand digitally.

00:06:40
And so clients put their demand on the system. Talents that have been validated by us to work, so to speak, so they have the id, have the working papers, they’ve done the drug test, if needed, et cetera, et cetera. Talent can pick their own shifts. Now, coming from a world where we work from branches that work with clients, that do the matching more or less manually, now you have to sort of start thinking about how do we get to talents? Well, we need to use more digital means.

00:07:07
How do we get to clients? We need to be more out there online then how do we get talents on the app? How do we get clients on the app? What does that mean in terms of talent management? Making sure we engage more with talents than we did in the past.

00:07:21
Rather, here’s a job. Now we want to build a relationship with you because we do not want to give you one job. We want to give you ten jobs in a row. And that means a very different way of working, much more relationship oriented, both with clients and with talents. Then I would say transaction oriented.

00:07:39
And that’s a big cultural change as well. That is so crucial, that point that while we are automating a lot of things, certainly the scheduling can be done in a more sophisticated manner with an AI than with what we would now look back and call more rudimentary systems. But the fact that our human relationships and how we interact with our colleagues will change significantly. Absolutely. Because if you take out the transactional pieces and you automate that, that means you now free up time to spend time with each other on the human level, if you will.

00:08:16
You’re a talent working in a certain role. Let’s say you’re an order picker in logistics. You’re a very motivated person. You’re a good worker. You get good feedback from the client.

00:08:24
Now, maybe you aspire to be a forklift driver. Okay, let’s talk about that. Let’s give you the training, and let’s see if we can find your role as forklift driver. And you can apply that same example to the it world as well. You’re a software developer.

00:08:39
Maybe you want to grow into Salesforce, things like that. So having that engagement with talents and finding out what their aspirations are and seeing how we can help them, I mean, that’s absolutely part of our job. And it’s also what our clients are asking from us and what our talents are asking from us. And yet, I think back again to our accenture days. I was on the road with clients.

00:09:02
We were basically full time with clients. And so the interaction with the organization of accenture often happened in the evenings, on the weekends. And so keeping people engaged is a tricky dynamic, especially as folks have busy lives, and it seems to be they are getting busier, not less busy. No, you’re right. So at Randstad, we’re very, I would say, thoughtful about flexible work.

00:09:28
Working in the office, working from home. We have a concept, we call it flexibility with intentionality, and that means you can pretty much decide where and when you want to work. However, if there is a reason to be in the office, that can be a meeting. That can be you have to work together to close the quarter, or you’re working on that new campaign as a marketing department. That is when you go to the office to meet people and to connect with people.

00:09:52
So both organizations and individuals have to become more intentional about engagement with colleagues, with clients, with other stakeholders. You work with such a broad range of people. We’ve got folks on the, you have to be in the office no matter what. We’ve got folks who say, I don’t want to go to the office anymore. We’ve got folks who are comfortably in that hybrid middle space.

00:10:16
Where are people settling out? Are most people in the middle? Yes. In practice, most people are in the office two and a half to three and a half days a week. And in the office could also be in the client office.

00:10:29
Of course, that does not necessarily have to be the roundsat office, but out there with clients, and then one and a half day working from home or working from somewhere, flexible work, wherever from. What do you see going forward? Because we’re talking about trends. Is that something that’s sustainable, or do you see some other pivot coming online in the near future? The interesting thing there is, it’s what workers employees want.

00:10:54
I have some stats here in front of me saying 37% of workers have made arrangements in their lives, such as moving house or getting a pet, based on the assumption that working from home is here to stay. So people have changed their lives and they have adjusted to this new life, and they like it because people hate in general, the commuter. So they want less commute, more life, if you will. And because talent is scarce, people have options. Now, at the same time, you do see a bit of a swing back because you see more employers say, come to the office.

00:11:25
You see, if you look in the job ads, you see fewer online or remote only jobs. But at the same time, if you read in the newspaper, the occupancy of the big office towers, for instance, in Manhattan, where I live, is still 60%. So I think flexible work is here to stay, whether employers want it or not. So they better find a way to deal with it. And frankly, most have found a way.

00:11:50
To deal with it from an employee perspective. To your point, as you were talking, my dog walked in the room. I feel happier when my dog’s around. I realize professionally being happy playing with my dog is not on the job description, but my life is more balanced. It’s actually interesting that you mentioned the word balance, because we call it the new ABC of talent, and the b stands for balance.

00:12:14
If you ask people what’s more important, balance of life or pay, 50% says balance and 50% says pay. That’s a big shift from what it was. The a is about ambition, which is also an interesting one. If you ask people, are you ambitious? 50% says yes, and 50% says, well, actually, I’m good where I am.

00:12:34
And then the c is about connection. And there’s better news here. 70% of people feels connected to their organization in the purpose or the culture or the colleagues or all of the above. Yet 50% still says that they’re hiding things about themselves from their colleagues, so there’s more work to be done. Still on connection and feeling comfortable at work.

00:12:58
I wonder, pre pandemic, what that hiding things from colleagues number would have been. Because to me, those are two different things. I can be in the office every day. And I think of earlier in my life, where being openly gay was something you hid and people were in the office all day, every day, and you didn’t know necessarily, someone’s sexual orientation residing in the office wasn’t necessarily an indication of opening. No, absolutely.

00:13:28
And actually, when it comes to lgbtq people, that’s still the case. I don’t know the percentage, but a very significant percentage of lgbtq people is still not out at work. But that’s just one thing to be open about at work. It can be your health situation, your family situation, whatever. I always say nobody has to leave anything by the door because ultimately, that allows you to focus on getting the work done, because at the end of the day, work is about work.

00:13:55
You don’t want all kinds of roadblocks there. Yeah, agreed. It is a tricky thing. As we look at some of the statistics, even about working with people of different political parties. There are folks who don’t want to work with people who think differently than they do.

00:14:10
And yet when you’ve got 50% of the population in both camps, just leaving that outside allows people just to come to work and focus on the work. And yet there is the flip side of that is, how can I be genuine and authentic? Which may mean you can be genuinely yourself, but don’t talk politics. Right? Yeah.

00:14:29
No, I think politics is, especially in the US, is a topic to avoid at work. At the same time, when you get to know people who are different than you, you find out that they’re also people. You understand what I mean? All your prejudices go overboard. So I can work with anyone of any political color.

00:14:46
We may not have to agree, but can still be very nice people and colleagues and good people to work with. So let’s not get politics or other biases get in the way of how we collaborate. Agreed. That leads us into the DEI and equity piece we’ve got in the US, the pushback in some conservative states against ESG. In Europe, we’re becoming more inclusive, more ESG focused.

00:15:12
Do you have any sense of through the talent lens, where are we going with equitable workplaces? I think there’s only one way. And actually in our new aspirations, as Randstad, we have said, we want to be the world’s most equitable and specialized talent company. And when it comes to equitable, Maureen, I think it’s fairly simple. Talent is scarce.

00:15:34
And if talent is scarce, we need everybody on the pitch to play in society, to have a job, to make a living, to serve clients, to serve others. So everybody needs to be on the pitch, and if you want everybody to be in the pitch to be their best, then you need to have an environment where that’s possible. The playing field needs to be leveled. That’s the way to go. And now, like all of these things, they go with bubs.

00:16:00
The long term direction is clear, and then you have certain periods of lots of progress. Then you get a bit of backlash, and then there’s another period with progress. So I’m optimistic also, because if you just sort of look in the history of LGBTq people, we have made progress. Then we got a bit of pushback, then we made progress. Now, still a lot of progress to be made, especially internationally, but also in the United States and also in Europe.

00:16:29
But if you then look back 50 years, you know, my uncle and his husband, they are together for 55 years. When they met each other, you were not supposed to say your name. You would be secretive about that because you never quite knew who was who and what was going to happen. Well, obviously, that’s just 50 years ago, so we’ve come a long way now. That means that we need to continue to work in that direction in all dimensions, and I think it’s just the right thing to do.

00:16:57
And most or all of our clients actually are working in that direction, despite the backlash, if you will. I think most people would absolutely agree that equitable is something to work toward, and yet that means different things to different people. How are you defining level and what kind of policies go along with that? Well, first of all, you have your policies in place, let’s say, at the umbrella policy, everybody is treated equally, but then you need to look under the hood. What does your insurance policy look like in every country?

00:17:31
What benefits are on offer for the different groups of people in your organization? So there’s a lot of technicalities there. Then the ergs, the employee resource groups, I think, play very important role in all of this because they help us as leadership in organizations to say, this is important to us. Can we do something about that? This is maybe less important to us, or we need to absolutely fix that.

00:17:55
I think those are very important. And ultimately, I would say the tone at the top is critical, because if leaders walk the talk, everybody will walk the talk. That makes sense. And part of where I was thinking, and I think you hit it, is this can be really nuanced. And things like same gender benefits, I think, are crucial to ensuring that it’s not just lip service.

00:18:20
And the other is the work that you do to ensure that there isn’t bias as we hire and promote. Yeah, but that’s the starting point. That’s table stakes, I would say. I’m not saying it’s easy, by the way, because it’s hard enough as it is. But there’s also back to the beginning of this conversation where you use technology, you have to make absolutely sure that you eliminate bias.

00:18:42
And that leads us into the question of Gen Z and our younger workforce. Back to, we need everyone on the field. How do we attract younger workers to our organizations rather than losing them to our competitors? You need to look into what’s important to them and make sure you have that on offer. And what’s important to younger generations is something completely different than when I entered the workplace.

00:19:09
So it’s more about purpose, it’s more about connection. It’s more about, I would say there’s still career and everything is still important. Growth, learning, it varies by group or even by individual. And this is what is harder to do these days. The one size fits all.

00:19:26
When I started working, there was one path. No, there is no longer one path. We need to create your path with you. And I think that is increasingly important for people. Retention.

00:19:38
Back to the ABC piece, it seems that that becomes more important because our younger people are holding us to account differently. Yeah, and the other interesting stat is, and I call them the assertive one third, one third of people, especially younger folks, Gen Z is willing to quit if they don’t feel comfortable at work or if they are not aligned with the purpose of the company, if they cannot learn and grow, if they cannot fulfill their ambitions. So people have options. They know it and they’re willing to take action. So it’s not like, okay, shut up and do your work.

00:20:14
Now people can vote with their feet, and they do that less. So, by the way, today, because the quit rates have come back to normal levels post COVID, because the labor market has loosened up a little bit, I. Assume in some ways that that’s not much different than when you and I were coming up. We were ambitious. If we didn’t see advancement opportunities, we would have chosen, and I have chosen.

00:20:41
The fact that you’re in a different role than you were at some point in the past, you chose to leave. I assume part of that is ambition, that I was looking for something different. Yeah, and that’s fine. The point sometimes, though, is that something different, you maybe could have also gotten in the organization you worked for, but somehow that wasn’t recognized or it wasn’t discussed or you didn’t see it or all of the above. So that’s why it’s important for organizations to have that dialogue with their people on an ongoing basis.

00:21:12
How are they different than the prior generation in general? And how does that then change how we need to work to attract and retain and develop them? I’m going to say something that you may not expect, because people always talk about the differences. They want it all, they want it now. And Gen Z, people also like interesting work.

00:21:36
They also want to learn and grow. They also need to get a decent salary to make a living at some point in time. They also start a family, they need a home, and they need to pay the rent and the mortgage. So I think we are sometimes over emphasizing the differences and maybe not seeing all the similarities that have been there through the generations. I wonder if the difference is the point at which they hit those marks.

00:22:04
So at one point, people got married or early twenties. Our gen zs are later in that cycle, so they look different, but maybe it’s just they hit the same points of married having children. At those points, people generally settle down, focus more on work because they have to pay the bills and want to provide a different future for their children. Is that really what we’re seeing? Well, it’s definitely a little later, but it’s also a little less, I would say fewer children.

00:22:34
That’s one thing. And that is actually a challenge because that’s back to the aging population, because we need more kids. Sometimes it’s a little less work, part time work, a better balance between life and work, which for the labor market is not necessarily helpful. So in that sense, it is different. Interesting, as we’re engaging a larger age span in the workplace that we’re reading, our more senior folks, 70 and above, many of them will work.

00:23:04
And then we’ve got our younger Gen Z’s that in some ways are unique and certainly different needs than someone who’s 70 and someone who’s 20. How are you helping organizations create a workplace place that is less industrial revolution? We just all follow the same policy and more personalized. But you still have to run a company. You’re absolutely right.

00:23:28
And that’s the challenge these days. I would say one word is flexibility. Flexibility in terms of what you offer to people, what people can choose where, when, how they work. It is interesting that also, let’s say the older workforce, the 60 plus, they also want more flexibility for different reasons. Maybe so, flexibility, deciding when you work and where you work, how you work, I think is a critical thing.

00:23:55
And in some jobs, of course, roles that’s easier to do where there are shift roles or where there’s more knowledge workers involved, but flexibility and catering for different types of situations. Also, younger people, for instance, they want to be in the office more often because they like hanging out with other people. They like the engagement. Sometimes they live with a roommate. So you see that those needs of people change over their lifetime.

00:24:22
And I think as an organization with people from 20 to 70 in the workforce, you have to be able to cater for all of them because the one size fits all may work for the 28 year old, but may not work for the 45 year old and may not work for the 65 year old. That flexibility then requires the organization to do more work to create the flexibility and ensure its needs are met, I assume. Yes, exactly, exactly. And that’s policies. But it’s also mindset, and it is trust.

00:24:54
Trust, I think, is really important because it’s trusting your people that they will do the work and not watching over their shoulders. You actually doing the work, thinking about our people. Process technology piece. To me that means the work is structured in a way that I’m looking at outcomes, not activities, because I can’t know if somebody’s sitting at their desk unless I install a camera in their house. And that’s creepy.

00:25:20
So as a business, to me, it means I am running slightly differently. Yeah, well, for knowledge workers, it’s relatively easy, I would say. I mean, for people working in customer contact, I mean, there’s lots of things you can measure. There are limitations to that, of course. So there’s ways to deal with that.

00:25:37
And actually AI can help there. And AI can help also there in increased productivity, for instance, some of the. AI solutions probably help us address the trust factor. Yeah, I would say so. Potentially, yes, provided you do it in the right way.

00:25:53
Because you already mentioned the word creepy. You don’t want to create a big Broadway watching you type of environment because that’s not trust. Agreed. And back to if I want to create a workplace where I have age diverse people, it’s got to be back to interesting work, a company purpose that people resonate with, addressing just different needs of different demographics. And that means for me, as the employer, my systems have to be more flexible.

00:26:22
I bid on shifts, or our benefits have to be more flexible. My people perceive us as equitable. Even if I perceive us as equitable, it’s really irrelevant if my people think that our workplace is not fair and just. So as we wrap up, what would you like leaders to be thinking about with regard to talent? What will differentiate them or just keep them future ready.

00:26:48
I would say in the past we’ve had many leaders who show our talent, the people are our most important asset. All of that, and I would say this age with talent scarcity and people looking for very different things at times, it is now a business imperative to walk the talk on that. You need to bring that into action. And no sugar coating anymore, I would say. So really think about if people are indeed our most important assets.

00:27:18
We have to be strategic about who, what, where, when, where do we find them. We have to be strategic about how do we onboard them to make them effective and efficient and feel comfortable. We have to be thinking about how we coach them to develop themselves. We have to be much more thoughtful in the whole lifecycle of talent for all generations in the workplace. And that’s a big job, let me put it like that.

00:27:44
And you see quite a few big companies who are absolutely on the case. I think it is more difficult for sort of the, let’s say the mid sized companies who don’t have the resources of a big multinational company, but they have to get on the case also because they need to be competitive in the labor market as well. Thank you. That’s a beautiful wrap up, and I’m seeing that play out. We’re in Columbus, Ohio, where Intel has just come in.

00:28:09
We’ve got more Amazon facilities, and those large companies can afford talent practices as well as talent comp in a much more robust way than some of our smaller local companies. Yeah, so the local companies will have to reflect on that and not complain, but get on the case and do the best possible job. And the beauty, of course, these days is there are so many resources out there on the Internet and tools and techniques that are actually readily available at no or very limited cost. But you just have to put yourself to it because you have to. Because you have to.

00:28:44
What a wonderful way to wrap up. Sander, how would people find you and follow your wisdom? I am on LinkedIn, of course, Sander Vantinordende, CEO of Ransad. Follow me and you get everything you need. I also write on fortune every now and then, but generally we post that on LinkedIn as well.

00:29:03
So LinkedIn is the best place to go. We really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and to our listeners as leaders, talent is so crucial. Sanders comments should prepare each of us to be thinking about how we adjust our talent policies, our talent, technology and our behavior. You’re absolutely spot on, because at the end of the day, transformation and making sure you’re relevant for your customers and your talents requires your whole ecosystem to change. And not just technology or not just people, or not just process.

00:29:38
Spot on. Thank you. Thank you very much. Maureen was a great conversation. Thank you.