Jo-Ann Feely , Global Managing Director , Innovation , AMS
In conversation with ...
Sinead Gogan , CHRO , Deloitte Ireland
AMS ’ s Global Managing Director for
Innovation Jo-Ann Feely talks to Sinead Gogan , Chief HR Officer at Deloitte Ireland , about her role in influencing change and innovation within the organisation .
Jo-Ann Feely ( JF ): Could you tell us about your role at Deloitte Ireland , and what sets it apart from similar roles in other organisations ?
Sinead Gogan ( SG ): Yes , I lead the People & Purpose Team for Deloitte Ireland ; we have up to 3,000 employees in the Irish market , and my team provides end-to-end people services . What ’ s slightly different , and probably the most important element , is the purpose part of my role .
Last year , the team was reimagined to put purpose very deliberately at the heart of our strategy . This involved moving the Corporate Responsibility team over to join what was previously the HR team and integrating our corporate responsibility approach into our people programmes and plans .
Our overall purpose at Deloitte is “ to make an impact that matters ”. This touches everything from our communities , to our climate change ambition , to how we interact with clients – and it obviously includes our people , who are the essence of our market proposition . So we ’ re focused on how we bring that to life for the organisation and how we bring that to the market and use it to differentiate ourselves .
JF : The purpose part of your job is really interesting , especially in light of what ’ s happened in the world over the past year . What are the specific challenges you ’ re currently facing ?
SG : Like most employers of ‘ knowledge workers ’, we quickly transitioned everyone to homeworking . In some ways , that was the easy part , because as it became more permanent , we had to reimagine how to support people in that .
I think people feel supported in a supervisory context . But what ’ s been difficult is the social part : how do you connect with people in this virtual world , with all of the pressures and the level of anxiety that ’ s running through society everywhere ? We ’ ve had to think that through and come up with new approaches , such as offering a paid sabbatical to colleagues and pivoting to virtual delivery for our corporate responsibility interventions with charity partners .
Wellbeing now is a C-suite topic . During my career , I don ’ t remember much focus on it from leaders , but we ’ re now seeing an emphasis on core capabilities such as resilience . As a training firm , we have a large cohort of graduates and early careers professionals who are just starting out . We ’ ve really had to think through our support for them and look at our curricula , adding in things such as self-care and augmenting access to employee assistance and counselling . We ’ ve also had to go on a journey , bringing wellbeing conversations into the wider organisation .
We ’ ve had to consider how to get work done in this virtual environment , where people are dealing with all sorts of complications and trauma in the background . It has been challenging for all businesses , but also hugely transformative , because there are benefits to how we ’ re structured now .
Our people have told us they want to continue working remotely – not necessarily five days a week , but there are aspects that they want to keep – so we are trying to be deliberate and thoughtful around designing ‘ work for wellbeing ’. How do we use what ’ s happened to change how we do things and how we service clients ? How can we help clients to think through what the future of work will look like ?
We are being very deliberate and thoughtful around designing ‘ work for wellbeing ’
JF : Do you have access to the Deloitte Human Capital team to help you internally ? I know that cobblers ’ children often have the worst shoes !
SG : Yes , their support is phenomenal , and we want to be their guinea pigs ! One of the biggest opportunities for my team is having access to that thought leadership and eminence and to their tools and resources . We ’ ve worked with them on aspects of our strategy , our operating model and our technology road map . It ’ s also a two-way street : they , of course , want to have access to real HR organisations , and to gain our insights .
JF : How do you see your role as CHRO influencing change and innovation within your organisation ? When we think back to the 2008 global financial crisis , it felt like the era of the CFO , because some practices needed to be overturned . Has this crisis initiated the era of the CHRO ?
SG : I absolutely think so . Our Deloitte Human Capital Trends report this year actually finishes with an open letter to the CHRO community .
Due to the pandemic , everything has been destabilised , and we ’ re in the middle of ‘ disruption on steroids ’. So , the phrase that comes to mind is “ being more human ”; getting to those connections and human aspects . Our graduate campaign this year was titled ‘ Humans Wanted ’.
There has never been a better time to bring the CHRO perspective into the business and into decision-making . Organisations are looking for these insights because everybody is scrambling to adapt to this new world . In some sectors , they ’ ve leapfrogged their road maps by years in terms of digitisation and use of technology , and that affects how we deal with people as well .
Our employees now have a totally different expectation of the workplace , so big themes that are front of mind for me are employee experience and the human aspects of how we engage with our people as consumers . With what happened last year , I think the business is even more open and ready to work through what that means .
Our graduate campaign this year was titled ‘ Humans Wanted ’
JF : Does it perhaps gives us a chance to do more than simply revert to the old ways ? Are there things you are missing from the ‘ old world ’ that you ’ d like to reinstate and is there anything from a new world that you ’ d like to ensure we don ’ t reverse on ?
SG : Yes , as we talk to people and hear what they ’ ve missed , it ’ s back to that human connection . Achieving a truly purpose-driven culture requires listening and being very open to what you hear . We surveyed our staff and more than 90 % want to have virtual working in the future , just not five days a week . So how we use our spaces will be much more about co-location . But we miss that human aspect ; there ’ s a ‘ lack of collision ’, I guess . We don ’ t run into people and have random conversations ; we have to schedule time with someone .
Within our regular spheres , we are probably just as productive , if not more so . But it ’ s those wider aspects that we miss . And people who are new in an organisation – how do they learn to navigate the firm ? What will change dramatically is everyone schlepping into the city centre office early in the morning and then back home at 5pm .
And then there ’ s how we service and deal with clients . Deloitte has clients in every sector of the economy . How can we help them think through how they might optimise those models of the future ? In the past , everybody had to be physically in a certain chair , doing things in a certain way . Everybody sees the possibilities now – you ’ re pushing against an open door .
JF : In terms of innovation agenda within Deloitte , is there anything that your CEO and leadership group are particularly focused on as we move into 2021 ?
SG : I think most leaders are very firmly of the view that they ’ re not waiting for things to go back to normal ; they don ’ t necessarily have the answers yet , but we are asking “ how do we re-engineer and use this destabilisation to solve problems ?”
We are trying to challenge ourselves , to go with that agility and build that resilience in the organisation – and use it to position ourselves to support clients into the future with the next inevitable disruption .
Sinead Gogan , CHRO , Deloitte Ireland , leads the People & Purpose team and strategy for Deloitte Ireland . Over her 20-plus-year career , Sinead has worked in consulting , technology and financial services across EMEA , the US and China .
Jo-Ann Feely is a member of AMS ’ s Executive Committee and the Global Managing Director for Innovation , a newly created function within AMS that focuses on evolving and developing AMS ’ s service portfolio while realising the benefits of technology in an ever-changing marketplace .
CHROs have a chance to drive transformation
One specific objective of the innovation function is defining the services that support workforce dexterity , so that we can help organisations think differently about talent acquisition . It isn ’ t always about bringing in new people . A lot of organisations suffer from ‘ talent FOMO ’ and believe they need to bring in talent from their competitors . In fact , reshaping their existing workforce and utilising the talent they have – as well as growing their own – will allow them to be so much more flexible .
I think organisations see the ‘ grow-your-own ’ strategy as just a graduate or apprenticeship model . But we ’ re learning that it could also be retraining skilled and unskilled workers from other industries and tapping into their potential , from the perspectives of social mobility , D & I and ethnicity . We have a phenomenal opportunity to help reshape and reframe our industry .
The next wave of HR transformation will be human . Until recently , transformation has been digital , but we ’ re beginning to see humanisation coming through because we have had no other option during COVID . It ’ s borne out by CEOs looking at wellbeing , motivation and work-life balance . These topics are high priorities for employees , so if you can say there are positives to the current situation , this is one of them .
It means that the time is now for CHROs to seize the opportunity to influence the board agenda , and to make that leap into a more people-focused approach to business planning and strategy . In the past , there ’ s been a lot of rhetoric around “ people making the difference ”, and the right talent increasing shareholder value . Now , I think that is coming into sharp focus .
CHROs have an opportunity to use data to lead the way and to challenge their executives to think differently about engagement and investment – and to put people at the heart of it . If they don ’ t do it now , that moment will move on .