This conversation is part two of our three-part Lead/Forward series, where we talk with technology leaders about the real stories behind three themes: innovation, talent, and experience. In this episode, we tackle the theme of talent and how companies can best enable their workforces by looking at the whole person and not just the tools they use or what they're paid. Michael Loggins, Global Vice President of IT at SMC, joins the show along with Renu Upadhyay, Vice President of Product and Technical Marketing, End User Computing at VMware. Michael and Renu talk about everything from the great resignation to the unique challenges of companies that can't have all their employees work remotely. During our chat, we cover why technology and culture must be viewed as equally important for companies to ensure they're creating rich digital and personal experiences. In today's competitive talent landscape, this is key to differentiating your organization and attracting and retaining the best people to do their best work.
This conversation is part two of our three-part Lead/Forward series, where we talk with technology leaders about the real stories behind three themes: innovation, talent, and experience. In this episode, we tackle the theme of talent and how companies can best enable their workforces by looking at the whole person and not just the tools they use or what they're paid. Michael Loggins, Global Vice President of IT at SMC, joins the show along with Renu Upadhyay, Vice President of Product and Technical Marketing, End User Computing at VMware. Michael and Renu talk about everything from the great resignation to the unique challenges of companies that can't have all their employees work remotely. During our chat, we cover why technology and culture must be viewed as equally important for companies to ensure they're creating rich digital and personal experiences. In today's competitive talent landscape, this is key to differentiating your organization and attracting and retaining the best people to do their best work.
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Michael Loggins:
We're not going back to 2019, we're past that. I think one of the big things we can do as leaders and organizations, is go through and challenge and destroy any of the old paradigms that existed in our culture that may or may have not worked even back then, but really, really address what's important now. The big thing is employee engagement, employees aren't engaged, you're not going to get good quality, you're going to experience the great resignation pretty hard because they want to make sure that they're part of something.
Yadin Porter de León:
Welcome to the CIO Exchange podcast. Where we talk about what's working, what's not, what's next. I'm Yadin Porter de León. This conversation is part of our three-part Lead/Forward series, where we talk with technology leaders about the real stories behind three themes, innovation, talent, and experience. In this episode, we tackle the theme of talent and how companies can best enable their workforces by looking at the whole person and not just the tools they use or what they're paid. Michael Loggins, global vice president of IT at SMC, joins the show along with Renu Upadhyay, vice president, product and technical marketing, end user computing at Vmware.
Yadin Porter de León:
Michael and Renu talk about everything from the great resignation to the unique challenges of companies that can't have all their employees work remotely. During our chat, we'll cover why technology and culture must be viewed as equally important for companies to ensure they're creating rich, digital and personal experiences. In today's competitive talent landscape, this is key to differentiating your organization and attracting and retaining the best people to do their best work.
Yadin Porter de León:
Michael and Renu, we're in the midst of what a lot of people are calling the great resignation talent. Of course, is extremely important, extremely press precious. And there's a lot of things we can do digitally, culturally, the way that we run our company, the way that we interact with our teams in order to honor talent, in order to foster talent, to help the best people do their best work. I want to bring you both into this sort of hallway style conversation between the two of you, really about what your take is on, what that next step is. Maybe a little bit looking backward, but a lot of looking forward into what companies are doing and thinking about doing as we start to wind down a lot of the restrictions that we have on people being in the same place at the same time.
Yadin Porter de León:
Renu and Michael, we would love to hear your thoughts on how companies are grappling with this, specifically you Michael, at SMC, how we're looking at what the possibilities are and what companies might be doing to solve some of these problems moving forward to keep talent, and to keep people moving forward.
Renu Upadhyay:
First of all, I just want to thank Yadin, that you bringing this topic up, it's very near and dear to my heart, especially because when you think about these times, finally, we are starting to focus on what I consider the most important asset that any organization has, and that's its people. It's the hardest to find, it's the hardest to train. And it's the one differentiator that separates the good companies from the great companies. First of all, I think one of the things that the environment we are in has done for us is help us focus, and has drawn focus to this very important part of our companies, of our businesses.
Renu Upadhyay:
I'm excited to talk about them, and share some of those thoughts together with you, Michael, since we last met at... I was just looking at the calendar, it's almost exactly two months to the day since we were both excited to finally leave our remote offices and actually meet in person. Great to be on this conversation again with you and hear your thoughts as well. But before I get started, maybe I thought I'd just check in on how you've been doing since the last two months since we met. And I know when we chatted, you talked about your specialty being dad jokes. How many dad jokes have you accumulated in the two months since we met?
Michael Loggins:
According to my dad jokes of the day calendar, it's been about 60 dad jokes, so about 60 opportunities for my kids to grow and wish that I would stop having this dad joke of the week calendar. There's only about 30 more of these for the year, they'll buy me another one next year, then it's all on them.
Yadin Porter de León:
I guess the true test is if they really do buy you another one.
Michael Loggins:
Absolutely.
Renu Upadhyay:
They'll definitely think about their gift in the second time round. That's great. Let's maybe hear your perspective, as Yadin kicked us off in terms of sort of the environment we are in, and we chatted earlier about SMC and the transition, especially your business went through during the pandemic. The fact that you, as a manufacturing organization, a global manufacturing organization had to even pivot some of the things that you do, maybe if you go back and reflect on that, what did you pivot that manufacturing to? And what was the role of your talent? How did your talent, your people, your greatest assets respond to that?
Michael Loggins:
Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate you bringing that up, and I think that point can't be driven further in that. All of this stuff that we are able to do, regardless of what industry you are in, is only because of the amazing people that we have working for us. And definitely the last two years has really brought that to the attention, and we've been able to see it a lot at SMC. Across the globe, we're an essential business, because of all the industries that we touch. We never closed. We had to do a lot of changes and we had to ask a lot of the people that work at SMC, we asked them to leave their homes, the safety of their homes and family, and go into cities and into our factories and warehouses.
Michael Loggins:
And what sometimes felt like we were putting our lives at the line for this, and at times that's very hard in general, just to do as a human, it's very hard as somebody who's a leader to ask your people to do that. But when we looked at what we were doing during that time period, I know, because of all the industries that we touched, our product lines, we didn't have to fully drop everything, retool everything and build. In some of the places, we were just building different products because products that we were building now were going directly to people making masks, going directly to groups that were manufacturing bulk hand sanitizer, going into ventilator systems.
Michael Loggins:
SMC works a lot with oxygen concentrator, at least in the North American market. We have companies that from that medical industry, just were ramping up knowing that there were all these problems. And once we really were able to understand where our products were being now leveraged in this, it really brought a sense of pride every day of coming in, knowing that we weren't making stuff, because somebody wants to buy a TV, we weren't making things just to help out normal industry. That's really cool, that's what we do every day, but this was very different. It was knowing that what we did at SMC across the globe had a direct impact, taking care of our fellow people, our fellow men across the entire globe, whether it was making sure they could stay alive in an ICU with a ventilator, making sure that we could sanitize and stay safe at home, wear our masks. There was a different level of what we were able to do.
Michael Loggins:
And we started talking about that, and making sure that our employees understood that. And that's across the globe, we shared stories from India, from SMC India. We shared stories from the UK, from Japan, from China, from the U.S. of all these people who are doing amazing things with our products to really help change what we're doing for the rest of the world and to really get through the pandemic. And I think to a certain degree, that really helped solidify a lot of the people here who were really nervous about being here. Like I said, it really brought a sense of pride to everything we were doing. And I think we've been able to capture and really leverage that sense of pride and grow in that sense of pride as we've been coming out of this, out of all these lockdowns, out of the economic changes, out of quarantines, and as things are opening up, we're able to start talking more about all the other places where SMC is on a normal course of business that has huge impacts to the economies and communities all across the globe.
Michael Loggins:
We're able to really understand how SMC is, everyone's looking for a way that they can impact the globe in their jobs. And a lot of times you don't think about that in a manufacturing organization of what that is. And I think this has allowed us to really dive into that as a company and find where we actually are doing good for the world.
Renu Upadhyay:
Yeah. It's interesting because last year, despite everything that was going on, a crisis... People say, "You look for opportunity, it also unifies." And what you're talking about is the situation that we were going through last year really unified. And I have to say, it had a similar impact, I saw in our teams as well, because we felt we were helping play a hand in someone like an SMC that was helping, maybe not directly impacting hand sanitizers of that production, but we were able to help your teams with our technology work successfully, and essential workers and states and governments sort of be able to work no matter where they were and despite those conditions.
Renu Upadhyay:
I think that sense of purpose, what you talk about was definitely a unifying factor last year. Now having said that, it's interesting how we've moved into this year, because this year is similar yet not, in many ways. I look at human beings very resilient. We also sometimes have long memories and then short memories, depending on what it is we are talking about. How do you, in terms of, when you think about the culture of the company and last year being really about the sense of purpose, and you think from a sustaining point of view, because now at least your teams have been in the office, ours are still at home, how have you transitioned into this year? And of course we have the next variant waiting for us, but it's still better this year. How have you thought about your culture in that respect?
Michael Loggins:
I think overall, we've been able to really focus in back on the people piece of it. Through all this, we were able to decouple to a certain degree the people who were doing the work and the work outcome itself, and really be in, I think the idea is how do we nurture and make sure that the people are taken care of. SMC has always done a great job of being very people focused, providing great benefits, being very compassionate, very family driven, to make sure that people have the ability to do what they need to do and feel welcome. Now it's taking that to the next level. It's about removing other barriers that would potentially keep them from not feeling connected to the overall mission of SMC, taking things out of the picture that may cause stress in their family life because of them being at work.
Michael Loggins:
And I think when you look at down that path, what you're really doing is you're trying address and create compensation. You're creating benefits for the whole person, not just for their bank account, not just for, you're not just checking boxes to make sure you can match up, but it's really what do our people need to feel good about being here every day and contributing, what do our teams need to make sure that the groups of people can contribute as teams, and they feel a sense of purpose. I think we've all been trying to do that for years, but I think what last year showed us is the importance of that, and how much work and how much enjoyment people can have even during the stressful and crappiest of times. How much pride and things you can get done if we take that slightly different approach and just more intent focused on the whole being, and that whole being also includes their family in a lot of ways.
Michael Loggins:
I think this year's really been trying to focus on what can we do, what are the things that, and how do we listen better to make sure that we can adapt and provide better for our employees, so they feel like they're part of something, and they don't feel that transactional nature between what they do and what the company has and needs.
Renu Upadhyay:
Yeah. And that's so critical, especially when we started the conversation. You mentioned great resignation. In these times, when it's easy to feel disconnected and disengaged, what you're talking about, thinking about the employee from a holistic fashion, including their families is amazing in terms of how they connect to the organization and find purpose in what they do. One of the things we observed, again, partially also because of the relationship we have at VMware with SMC is the role of technology. And if anything, just like last year, and continuing into this year has put our focus on people.
Renu Upadhyay:
I keep referring to them as our greatest asset, is also the reliance, the deep, deep reliance on technology that we observed, because there was a lot of interesting ways in which, and you run a global IT organization. You've had to adapt on the people side, but also on the technology side to be able to keep this going. Maybe you could talk a little bit about your technology experience and also what did you need to do differently in order to sustain this?
Michael Loggins:
When everyone around the globe went home, it definitely brought a completely different set of challenges that SMC just had not yet gotten to the point where we could address. I was honored to be able to take the position, and be able to take on that global responsibility for IT, a whopping one month really before the whole world started to shut down. But the innovation that popped out of SMCs, IT groups all around the globe on how they can better support and handle that, was amazing. I mean, none of it was nice and pretty and clean, but it was the innovation and the want to drive, so we could stay successful was huge. We had people in some countries driving around the city, dropping off the computer that were on people's desks to their house, setting them up, getting VPN set up so they could go to work.
Michael Loggins:
In some places, we already had things like BDI technology or much more robust web applications that we just needed to figure out how to stretch a little bit farther and scale. I remember when I started hearing about this in January, the first thing I did was call our server administrators and say, "Hey, if I send everyone home tomorrow, do we have the load? Do we have the capacity right now to hold everyone on our systems?" And the answer was, "No." And I said, "What do you need in the next two weeks to figure that out?" And because of what we had already done with VMware, and what we had already been working on in North America, we had that capabilities. That capability was what we've been doing in some of our things in Europe, we had some of those capabilities, but the drive of IT to be able to do that, it became very obvious that there are many places throughout SMCs organization that really needed to take a different approach to IT, to allow IT to be a flexible utility when it comes to something like that.
Yadin Porter de León:
Michael, I liked you mentioned that it was messy, because it's not. Solving those kind of problems, those crazy hairy problems, it's not clean. It's very messy.
Michael Loggins:
Yeah. And anyone who comes and talks about how seamless their move to home was, either was not actually involved in the seamless move to home, or is trying to hide something. Because like I said, we didn't go home. Our salespeople who are already remote around the United States stayed home, and we still had problems. And so there already at home, so it's a messy, it was messy everywhere. And IT saw the brunt of that as well. But you hear all over the place, of these amazing projects that happen around the globe, with IT departments figuring out how to take school systems virtual in a brief period of times, getting municipalities to be completely virtualized in just a matter of weeks.
Michael Loggins:
It shows the power of what we're able to do with the technology that's available to us. And what that also allowed me to do, is take that and say, "Hey, look at what we were able to do in places where we've invested heavily in technology, and where we've made technology an enabler to the business, rather than just a simple utility to the business." And that's really been a driver for how we've been working in IT across the globe for the last year and a half. It's how do we change from being just a business utility to being a business enabler, to make sure that we provide that flexibility and those capabilities to do business wherever, whenever, and however it needs to happen.
Michael Loggins:
If 2022 ends up only being marginally better than 2021, because of the next variant, we're still in a much better place than we were, and just keep building on that rather than just trying to say, "Okay, that sucked, let's go try to do something else totally different." It's really one of those, "Okay, how do we just keep building on this to get us out of this, and get us to a place where we never have to have conversation again, because now at the core of our DNA is building that difference in how IT functions.
Renu Upadhyay:
It's interesting you mentioned, you took on the role of whopping one month before the pandemic. I took on mine at whopping less than two months. I totally, there's another thing we haven't comment over there. I'm curious of the role of IT and you talk about how has the perception changed? Do you feel the conversations you are participating in now as this key enabler of business versus a function on the site that's behind the scenes. How have the conversations changed and where you are participating in, and therefore what shifts seen from technology enabling business?
Michael Loggins:
Like most IT people, we found ourselves finally at the table of every conversation. And what we decided is, we got there, we may or may not have deserved to be there at the time when we got there, but we're determined to never get uninvited from that table again. We have changed how we talk, what we talk about, we do a lot with more listening than we've ever done in the past. I think that's been the key thing. When we talk about what we're doing, we really have to have two different stories, you can have the technical story of all the things that we're putting in, all the systems we're doing, and that's great, and there's a certain audience that really appreciates that and can get behind it.
Michael Loggins:
But then we also are having the conversation of here's what we're doing that directly benefits the business. Here's the value to the business of this, and here's why it's important to you. And it's not going to be, "Hey, we deployed a data center in this location." Who cares? I mean, when you're talking about what the business needs to run, there's a lot of great reasons why you need to compute an infrastructure and things like that. But when you're looking at somebody who just needs to be able to do their job the best way possible, what they want to know is, "Hey, we've now created the ability for us to improve performance as we grow in a manner that doesn't require months and months for an additional capital investment, and extra people just to be able to do this." We're not adding cost as you grow, we're not going to add a necessary time and delays in the need for you to grow.
Michael Loggins:
We're protecting your environment now. And we're able to address issues before you ever see them because of the things we're putting in place. They don't care that we have all these network security, endpoint security, systems in place. What they want to know is, and what the story is, "Hey, we are blocking 99% of bad stuff coming into the environment, and the other 1%, we're able to handle with these other systems and controls, so you don't see it. And by the way, of the 99% of the stuff that we block, X number percent were company killers. There are things that actually cause downtime and problems in the company, you're not going to see those.
Michael Loggins:
No one wants to make the headlines for being breached right now. And no one wants to be the company that is used as the example for all of their IT people about ransomware protection or malware. Being able to have a conversation of what... But no one really cares about that until it happens to them. Having the conversation now about what we're doing and why it's important to them, rather than just saying, "We can check the box that we have security. Hey, we can check the box that we're in the cloud, or we can check the box that we have of data centers." It's drawing it directly to a business value, a business target, a business goal, so they can draw it, and then it becomes more powerful to the business as well.
Yadin Porter de León:
And I imagine that changed too. With so many people distributed with that attack surface morphing, just like you said in those two weeks or overnight, almost it felt like that, I imagine that conversation change, when you have all those people that you want to be productive, but at the same time, it's secure, but at the same time, you want to talk about the business value of supporting that talent in a secure way.
Michael Loggins:
Absolutely. And no one wants to also be the reason we get really heavy into security awareness training for our employees, and we don't pull any punches. We let them know that unfortunately, you're probably the reason why we're going to get attacked, not anything we have built at this point. And no one wants to be that person, who clicked the email and because of it, we had a breach of some sort. Yeah, it's definitely changes those conversations, but like I said, we're bound to determine, to never get uninvited from that table. And so we take a very different approach, we're really trying to shoot more for a customer experience approach, so we see the business, whether it's our individual contributors, our factory line employees, engineers, sales people, even at that point though, investors and executives and the global organization, those are our customers.
Michael Loggins:
And although, as IT, they have to use us because that's where the organization and the company. We want them to want to use us, we want them to need to use us, to meet the next goals of the business. Not just, we're the only ones they're allowed to call. It really changes the way we want to focus IT, and as we've seen other IT departments localized, IT departments, as I've seen my colleagues in IT start getting marginalized away from that table, they're now sitting a row back on that table because they did great things, but now they're going back to being a utility, they're not finding ways to inject themselves into the actual strategy and direction of the company, they're getting removed from the table.
Renu Upadhyay:
That's such an important point, being able to tie the value that the technology provides to the business outcome, that is critical, not just for the employees and all of you who are working for that business, but the customers. And it's not often that people see that whole thing end to end. What is my role in IT mean to how SMC is successful with this customer in Japan, for example. Being able to tie every person's job and especially from the IT organization, and how critical you were.
Renu Upadhyay:
I really like how you're saying, we don't want to get uninvited, and I think this is a conversation I have with many IT leaders, some more success successful than others who've been able to lean across the table, extend their hand, and then continue to partner with their business leaders. It takes two to tango, and both have realized the codependency and continue to see that investment in each other. I think I can almost see a whole other material for another conversation on how do you build that relevance with your business and continue to stay relevant. But speaking of customers, since you mentioned that, when we spoke, you had also talked about how you had to adjust and the impact to customers, and the relationship you have with your customers and your sales teams relationship with their customers when they could no longer show and tell products. How is that going? How has that gone since we last spoke, and what innovation have you seen come out of that? You talked a little bit about your marketing teams as well.
Michael Loggins:
Yeah, when you look at how this industry that we're in sell and talks to their customers, it's still fairly old school. When we talked a couple months ago, we couldn't for a year and a half go out and sit in front of a bunch of engineers at one of our customers and physically display a product and talk about an application. All of a sudden, they were gone, they were home, we couldn't leave and do anything. Our ability to really show the value in tangible form of our product got very complicated, and just couldn't happen in a lot of places. Once again, this is a great place where we saw a ton of innovation happen inside of our organization, whether it was, we've had a 3D modeling system that's available on our website, but it's there.
Michael Loggins:
We talk about it, we push it, but it became a direct force of what we needed to be able to do. That was a great way for people, for us to get in front of an engineer, again, is they could download, and we could talk about the model while they're looking at it in their CAD programs, and able to fit it into their applications so we can have those conversations. We're seeing a lot more, obviously right now we're able to get out and talk more and more, but the conversation of how do we make this more virtual, what technologies can we put in place to allow this to happen? I think we also spark something in a lot of the younger engineers at our customers of, once again, it's why do I need to have somebody come out and show me these things, give me the ability to go find this stuff out and let me go do it myself, which is a big generational change for a lot of things in this industry.
Michael Loggins:
We're not done talking about it just because now we can get out and talk to everyone again. We're seeing in cross North America, we're seeing it right now happening in Europe and Asia. Once again, more virtualized methods of having a tangible conversation about a product, whether it's over 3D CAD, whether it's shipping product and having more show and tell, but with the product on the other side of sales, rather than sales holding it. It's gotten a lot better, we're changing how we have to sell. We cannot sell at the engineering level only anymore, because we can't get in front of that as well.
Michael Loggins:
We're taking once a holistic approach to sales, and we're really addressing everything we can with sales remotely, and then we're showing value in a different way as SMC, is not just we've got these great products. We still have the world's best products, but now we're bringing the world's best people from different areas together to help sell it, because we have to be able to tell the story differently.
Yadin Porter de León:
This is a fascinating conversation, Michael and Renu, because you're talking about... You talked about Michael earlier, but taking it to the next level and some of the innovation that you mentioned as well Renu about taking technology and increasing connection, increasing engagement. Michael, you just gave example about what sales is doing differently and also some of the self-service models, but more importantly, how are you enabling some of your employees to do what they do better, to connect better?
Yadin Porter de León:
And I'd like to get your perspective, Michael and Renu, to close this out. How are you, or how are customers, how are you thinking about taking it to the next level? To create benefits, to create engagement that as you say, benefits the whole person, not just their bank account, that includes the whole person, their passions, that creates an environment. Like you said, that doesn't just have the best products, but has the best people in order to create the best products, in order to sell the best products. How are you seeing that next step to take it to that next level, and maybe Renu, you could talk about, first maybe what you're seeing some customers, then Michael, maybe you can give your perspective.
Renu Upadhyay:
Yeah, for sure. I think one of the things is recognizing that we are permanently in a new mode of operation. How much is a spectrum, and it does depend on the appetite of the business. Clearly SMC is a leader here in pushing those boundaries, but every company has their own sort of comfort level. But I think things have permanently changed. I think being able to one acknowledge that, two, identify the things that were done to help the talent, to recognize the innovation that the talent put in, to understand the environment we are going in, and then plan in a more sustainable fashion, what happens going forward is very critical.
Renu Upadhyay:
Again from my point of view, it's really, one, being very cognizant that this is a permanent shift, and two, being also very critical thinking about what worked, what didn't work and all the things that work, what can we continue to implement? And then finally the technology and business conversation that we landed on. I think it's so important. While there's a tendency to maybe leave the table, sit on the second row, however you want to call it, I think if anything, that's definitely one of those things that worked that should continue going forward. And that's sort of how I look at it. And from a people perspective, just to, in terms of wrapping up, to talk about employees, I think connecting to that sense of purpose stays important, always, especially for all the high performers and continuing to keep all employees engaged is extremely critical as well. Michael.
Michael Loggins:
Yeah. I mean, I think we're not going back to 2019. I think that's important for everyone to understand, is that we're past that. We're so far past that, it's not even in the rear view mirror anymore. I think one of the big things we can do as leaders in organizations, is go through and challenge and destroy any of the old paradigms that existed in our culture, may or may have not worked even back then, really, really address what's important now.
Michael Loggins:
And like you said, the big thing is employee engagement, employees aren't engaged, you're not going to get good quality, you're going to experience the great resignation pretty hard because that's what they're wanting. They want engagement, they want to make sure that they're part of something. And your cubicle farm and Hawaiian shirt Fridays, is a bunch of BS when it comes to culture, that's not feeling engaged. It's really making sure that you as a person have a connection to the outcomes that matter. I think also what we're seeing is a shift, a hard shift, especially in the manufacturing industry, from just looking at outputs of processes, to really the outcomes of the entire, against the goal of everything.
Michael Loggins:
It's not just about how many lines of code am I writing? How many bills am I getting paid? How many calls am I making today? It's what happens because you're doing that. That is really starting to get the attention of the organization at this point. And that's where we need to start celebrating our employees as well, is at the big level of really what the impact of their work does to everyone else, not just the attaboy thank you for doing the job that we've paid you to do. I think we're past that as well.
Michael Loggins:
I see when I have conversations with people who, when we're having conversations about work from home, work from the office, we are still at least North America, we're in the office still. We're here to support our factory, and we have a family bond of about, we all are here to support that factory operations. But I'm hearing from my friends who are home, is how much they miss being in the office, or at least sometimes seeing it. And then I hear from other people that they're so glad they're not in the office. I think everyone is getting an opportunity to reevaluate what's important to them. And once again, if your value that you're delivering your employees is as a cubicle farm, some plants, free beer at four o'clock, that's not-
Yadin Porter de León:
And donuts. Don't forget the donuts.
Michael Loggins:
Yeah, absolutely, donuts. That may shift it the other way, but that's not culture. That's not what's going to keep somebody there. That's not what's going to drive that community that makes people feel connected to each other. It's the people. You've got to figure out how to get the people to connect with each other. How do you really draw that through? And absolutely ways to do that when they're in the office, and there's ways to do it when they're remote. And when you find ways to do that in a manner that become location agnostic, then at that point, you're really starting to tap into something that allows that to grow. And once again, that really allows them to connect, not only with their team mates, but with the company and then those outcomes. And those companies that do that are going to be the ones that are going to come out of this with happier employees, more employees, and better outcomes for their employees.
Yadin Porter de León:
I like that you say like location agnostic, I think is that key piece. I think once you find something that connects the culture together, that connects the people together, and it doesn't matter where you are, you can still have that connection. I think that's really powerful. Well, Renu, Michael, I think this has been a really good conversation. This has been a great sort of some story shared, and also a good look forward at some of the powerful ways that companies can really change their perspectives and turn that perspective change into actual change and actual shifts in the way that they do business. I really appreciate each of you, your thoughts, and I want to thank you both for joining this special Lead/Forward episode of the CIO Exchange podcast.
Yadin Porter de León:
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