Rediscovering Connection with Shelley Doyle
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Rediscovering Connection with Shelley Doyle
#28 - Emilia Salhotra - Leading HR Transformation in a Global Landscape
Emilia Salhotra is a HR and Digital transformation leader based in the UAE. Originally from Metro Detroit, Emilia has been leading complex digital transformations in Dubai for the last 7 years. We talk about the challenges of keeping hybrid teams connected, AI use cases - in HR, digital etiquette tips for global teams, and using technology to foster connections - in our personal and professional lives.
This episode is ideal for global leaders navigating digital change and seeking to enhance team cohesion.
About Emilia Salhotra:
Emilia Salhotra is a digital transformation and change leader with a proven track record across diverse industries and global markets. As Senior Director at e&, Emilia leads HR digital transformation, change management, and employee experience initiatives. With a strong foundation in management consulting, Emilia has driven successful strategies and programs across sectors such as Oil & Gas, Government, and Telecommunications.
Find Emilia Salhotra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emiliaallen/
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Hi, I'm Shelley Doyle, a Social Wealth Strategist and Connection Coach, helping remote and hybrid leaders who are struggling to find a balance between tasks and relationships, within and beyond the workplace.
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I'd like to mention is, when it comes to technology not just HR technology, but just technology in general there seems to be a gap with women embracing it, and so, for me and maybe this is a conversation we have at another time, shelley, I'd love to do that, but really a push for women to look into AI, look into some of these bleeding edge technologies and begin to implement that in their work. For me, technology should be democratized, it should be for everyone, but we're noticing there's a gap with women's using and embracing technology, particularly gen AI, and that's something that I'd like to talk about how we can address that gap and have women really be embracing this. Otherwise, we're going to have an even more of a digital divide.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection. I am Shelley Doyle and I'm here today with Amelia Salahotra, who is a HR transformation expert and digital transformation lead who is based out in the UAE. And Amelia came onto my radar through some of the future of work talks that she has been involved with and in my master's thesis I'm really delving into social wellbeing, social connectedness and how this impacts employee engagement. So in this conversation we will be delving into some of Amelia's experiences, past and present, some of the organizations she has served, really looking at some of those impacts during the COVID pandemic and what she's been doing since to help her, help the leaders and help the teams to stay connected in a time of sustained change.
Speaker 2:So welcome Amelia, so wonderful to have you here. Thank you for making the time. Hi, shelley, thank you so much Delighted, and I know your journey is kind of similar to mine in that you've lived in multiple places around the world, so I don't know if you want to start by just sharing a little insight about, kind of, where you come from and where you are today. Sure.
Speaker 1:I recently I told someone that I'm from a small town with big dreams. You know, I'm very proud of where I'm from. My roots are in deep metro Detroit, Michigan I'm from.
Speaker 1:My roots are in deep metro Detroit, Michigan, and I find myself here in Dubai. I think I was always going to take a global role. I've always sort of sought that out. I love people. That sort of has informed my career in transformation and in HR and in people development and coming to Dubai was sort of a natural pull for me as a place where I could really grow and contribute. I have a management consulting background and so from the opportunity to come and contribute and participate in building our talent and organization practice arose, I grabbed it with two hands and have been here in Dubai for the last seven years.
Speaker 2:Amazing and let's delve into the COVID pandemic when I think all of our roles and priorities changed almost overnight. I'd love to know kind of how your role evolved and what you really took by the helm to help lead your teams through this kind of turbulent time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So during that time I was in Dubai. I was working with an Abu Dhabi client on a massive ERP implementation like 60,000 user implementations are huge 60,000 user implementations or huge, several waves of releases. And then COVID hit and we were sort of gearing up for it, gearing up for it, and then we thought, wow, we've got this massive workforce. Our client has this massive workforce. We have to equip them to be able to continue to work during this time and this client I like to refer to them as the economic engine of the country. So really, really critical work.
Speaker 1:And so I remember having to put some tools. The organization has several different teams or group companies, maybe they call them. I remember I was assigned one and had to provide a white glove service very quickly we had a week to do it to go and put Microsoft Teams and these different tools on people's desktops, their laptops and their mobile phones. So it was a very rapid, quick, quick change of look. We've got to equip you to be able to work from wherever you are. And then there was, of course, the training and the etiquette training that accompanied that, so they'd make the most of the tools they had.
Speaker 2:I want to delve into this. This word etiquette training. What does this mean, and do we all need to have this training?
Speaker 1:So here's what I'll say. So I have a management consulting background. When you're in consulting, notoriously you can work from anywhere at any time. Whether that's good or bad, I guess it's up for discussion. Things like I mean it began with, like Skype I don't remember Skype back in the day then Zoom came out and Microsoft Teams, so I'd always it sort of became part of the way that we worked as consultants.
Speaker 1:But if you have always worked in an office nine to five and you don't have that sort of remote work culture, there's a lot of sort of nuances that, uh, that you need to know about it. Uh, and these are things that I think, because we've gone through covid, most people adapted to. But I remember, uh, when we did the etiquette courses, it was like put yourself on mute until you have, uh, you know, a contribution, raise your hand, um, join a minute beforehand so that you've got your screen and your audio is working, and you know, start your meetings on time, end your meetings on time right, because we also saw during the COVID. So I think, even now, as we continue hybrid work, this blurring between work and home and so being really respectful of start and end times, If you're going over saying something like okay, see, we're at the top of the hour, do you have five more minutes? So this sort of etiquette that sort of surrounds this new way of working.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. I remember I was taking the science of happiness qualification at my whilst I was at my last organization and one of the things on there is like really simple but just encouraging meetings to wrap up five or 10 minutes before the hour, being conscious that most people will have another meeting starting on the hour. To give people, at least you know, a time to just have a breather between meetings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you're really a zombie after seven, seven hours back to back, no break. But then I think also we as individuals, or we as employees, are also being a good people leader managers is being careful of those sort of nuances. I think something I also learned during that time that I hadn't implemented before, which I absolutely implement now, is I schedule my day. I put everything in it. So if I'm going to eat, I've got a half hour block. If I have a heads down time, I've got two heads down times, that I have two hour blocks in my calendar every day and I keep that and I move it around as needed. But I've got that time designated for me to do a lot of. I like try. I'm trying to do meeting during that time, I'm trying to stay up to date on research and the newest trends, but if I don't have that dedicated time blocked, I just find I don't do it.
Speaker 2:So it's okay for me to have it.
Speaker 1:We'll just creep into those hours as well, I would imagine, yeah, so I've got it scheduled, I move it around, but I make sure, sure I give myself that time to do that sort of necessary thought leadership, deep thinking work.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful, and I know from my experience, like when I'm at my most productive and for me that's mornings I really need to put my head down, but it working for a large organization that doesn't always suit everybody else, and then your mornings can just get backed up with meetings. So I guess, just being mindful of your own productivity levels and maybe communicating that to your teams, to say actually I need my block in the morning so I can get the work done, and then let's meet when the morning so I can get the work done and then let's meet when.
Speaker 1:you know, I recently saw an interview with Jeff Bezos and I mean, this is a person of incredible privilege to be able to do this, but sort of an interesting piece that he doesn't take a meeting before 10 am and he sort of has his putter around time. That's what he calls it puttering around and he putter around time. That's what he calls it puttering around and he putters around. He reads the newspaper, he catches up on whatever his information sources are, and then he takes his first meeting at 10 am. I think most of us don't have the luxury to do that, but it's an interesting exercise. He also keeps his most important meetings, the deep thinking meetings, for 10 am and again, that's someone in an incredible position of privilege, but it's an interesting thought exercise yeah, I don't know if you saw his interview with Lex Friedman, but that was an excellent interview.
Speaker 2:I think it's the first interview I'd ever seen of him, and something that I really took from that was about being the leader in a meeting, and he would. People would come very prepared with whatever the discussion was that they were putting forward, and then he would allow every other person in the room to share any thoughts or feedback before him and he'd be the last one to speak. I thought that was powerful.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. That to me says he's got the right team in the room. He's like I've got all these brains in the room and I'm going to let them work. I like that a lot.
Speaker 2:So how is your way of working now? I've been speaking to a few other organizations that have shifted to either remote work or hybrid. First, um, how is this set up? Where you are right now?
Speaker 1:uh, so hybrid, hybrid. So three typically three days in the office, two days, uh, remote. But every Friday is a green Friday. What does that mean? That means everyone's remote on a friday and everyone's remote on a friday. You uh conservation, conservation, uh initiative. So it means lights are dimmed. The ac is a low word, um, so it's. It also has a sustainability impact as well. So really it's it's three days in office and you get to pick your one wildcard day between Monday and Thursday.
Speaker 2:And how does that feel, and how have the employees responded to to that Like I imagine it's more flexible than pre COVID, but that's still quite, a quite a big number of days in the office, is that? How's the vibe?
Speaker 1:And I mean I'm an advocate, of course, for COVID. I'm an advocate of doing whatever you want. So if you're which I think is quite controversial, maybe but if you're judging your employees' performance on value-based outcomes, then you're totally fine with people working remotely from wherever right. So I come from that sort of school, that model, if we need to meet in person. The consulting firm I worked for had offices all over the world and if you're an employee, you know I was in Delhi, for example, and I was able to scan in and go into the office there Very cool. So I'm used to that model.
Speaker 1:So I'm always going to lean towards more freedom of location. But in order to do that, you have to have a skilled workforce and you have to have managers that are in a position to have difficult conversations with employees about their performance. You have to have a transparent performance and reward system that everyone understands how it works and you've got to have an employee base that understands, that's able, that's in a position that you have roles, are able to thrive in that right. In that way, I would say In general, I think that if you have gone hybrid, it's really tough to go back. It's really tough to go back and I think that when we see some of these, like financial institutions, calling their employees back to the office full time, you know I'm quite critical of those choices.
Speaker 2:And I've just been reading a report about employee engagement and those figures are an all time low. That's based in the US. Yeah, would you say, that's a global trend.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine it wouldn't be. I can't imagine it would be, because the overall message that you risk sending to your employees, when you've had people work fully, remotely or in a hybrid environment and then you call them back in office is you risk sending the message that we don't trust you.
Speaker 2:yes, and then that has a reverberation unemployment, engagement, morale and how is social connectedness between between teams right now, having kind of gone working from home, now coming back and that is it feeling like the teams are connected as well as they were before, are there any tactics that you're bringing in to help them really nurture connections with each other?
Speaker 1:What I think about the clients that I've had here in the GCC, and they've ranged from large multinational companies, from financial institutions, you know, from some of these core sectors, you know oil and gas. When I think about all my telecom, when I think about all these sort of these clients, we talk about social connectedness. The thing, the thing for me that's so important, is that you're purposeful in it. So I know that there's criticism on we lose our culture when we're remote or hybrid, but if you do, if you set up programs, if you seek that connection in a purposeful, surgical, intentional way, you'll be able to foster it. Um. I'm also someone who's a big advocate for new realities, so this is what we have seen like a metaverse. It's sort of been this evolution right where we're calling it metaverse, and then web 3, and now it's sort of new realities, um, but really what? It is? Sort of embracing different mediums and different ways to interact with colleagues.
Speaker 2:Beautiful and I'm totally on that train. I ran a metaverse meetup group for about a year, a couple of years ago now. It was kind of when the hype was really high before AI kind of dominated any conversation, and I love it. So I began taking friends into different metaverse spaces and and also with my meetup group, and I just discovered that it's so much more fun to like go into these spaces with people that you know, because, like just going in and exploring these spaces on your own and just bumping into randoms it's you just don't really get a feel for what these spaces are offering. So I'm really excited about, about this new, uh new way that we can interact, um, and I really think this is going to be yeah, this is going to be the future of work for me, I I think that we've got some things wrong with metaverse in the beginning.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to sort of say that I think that we've got some things wrong with Metaverse in the beginning. I'm willing to sort of say that I think we got some things wrong. I think that we were taking gaming and trying to make it a corporate environment.
Speaker 1:So this is gaming, and then we're going to just take our corporate environment in a game, and I think what we've seen, or what I really like that we see, is this evolution of gaming being gaming. And then how do we use that to foster connections? And use cases that I love are things like for training, for HSE, so like recreating hazardous environments, and how you might work as a team together to sort of address like there's a fire somewhere, what is our agency protocol? How do we put that into place? And then also doing a competition together. So, for example, mario Kart is a team building exercise from wherever we are. So letting gaming be what it is as a way to build community in an enterprise.
Speaker 1:So I'm liking the way that we've sort of evolved from. Okay, because I agree with you, there are these spaces and it's like, okay, we're going to go watch a speaker in the space and it was cool, it was cool. But to allow it to be what it is and then sort of reapply that to an enterprise environment, for me is very cool.
Speaker 2:And really what's coming up for me is just, it's all about shared experiences and, like, as someone that's living away from my hometown, you know, I can catch up with friends or family and just give them a recap of what's going on in my life, or I can invite them to share a live experience with me, like a digital experience in the metaverse somewhere, and that thing gives us something to talk about with other people. So it's like how we bring that into the workplace to, um, yeah, I guess incentivize, uh, connectedness when people aren't necessarily going to be in the same offices as each other and even in more sort of uh simplistic so we sort of went to this like this gaming piece I love to talk about, um, but even a more simplistic way.
Speaker 1:So I so I live in the UAE, my family lives in Michigan and reason I have a nephew who I don't get to see enough, um, and I, and I also am a mother of a toddler, and the other day my mother and I we have the same book, baby beluga. I don't know if you're Rafi Rafi's greatest hits.
Speaker 2:I, I, I know I know Rafi a little bit. He actually came to my university to receive an honorary doctorate the first year that I was here in Canada. I didn't know who he was and my children were the only children in the audience because it was all just like people receiving their certificate. So he did like a 30 minute set to us, which was Baby beluga and all of the songs. So we got home and then we put him on youtube and I'm now like connected with raffi. We're like twitter friends.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, we have to take him in this podcast episode. Yes, well, the thing is so I've got a baby beluga copy and my mother has a baby beluga copy and we're taking turns reading the book to my son and then my mom to her nephew, and we're doing it jointly together. I read a page, she reads a page, and it was fantastic. It was fantastic because we're trying to foster those connections, both me with my nephew, me with with my mom, but then also between my young son and my nephew.
Speaker 2:So it's a great way to bridge that, because you know this great distance that we have yes, and I spoke to a friend recently whose mother is in France and during COVID their mom was giving them French cooking lessons on video. So they've, like, really perfected their culinary skills with their mom. Having that beautiful connection during during, you know what could have been a time of disconnection, of actually really embrace an opportunity to connect and this is what, and this is what is the goodness of technology.
Speaker 1:This is the goodness of technology and I think, when we also talk about AI, for example and I recently built out the AI strategy and roadmap for one of the organizations I've worked with and there's a lot of fear around AI, I think totally warranted. I think totally warranted. But I always give two examples. One is because I'm from Metro Detroit and I talk about the assembly line and sort of the revolution that that brought in the industrial revolution. It was a technology at the time that workers had some trepidation around, were unsure about it. I see AI and what the tools and the possibilities for what it can do is the same sort of revolution for us as well. But I think it's really important that we focus on building responsible tools, building responsible realities, building responsible enterprises with this technology, but keeping the goodness of it at the core.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Yeah, I was listening to a podcast the other day and it was just saying with anything like AI, your view is going to be so based on your life experience. So that's a really beautiful example of that from Detroit, how that's really shaped your. You're not really living through fear of it because you've. You can feel into an example of how this benefited the, the wider society and I. Really. I really live that. Like I, I live the idea of positive, how these tools can positively impact our lives.
Speaker 2:But I'm also very aware of the risks and, as someone who's worked in communications for 20 years, when AI, when ChatGBT first became public, I was overusing it and I was starting to like filter my social media posts through it. I'm like what am? I was starting to like filter my social media posts through it. I'm like what am I doing? Like I can do communications, like I think it's wonderful for people that haven't had that experience and they can. You know, it kind of levels the bar in that way. But as someone, I don't want to lose my voice and I think that's the concern that we're going to allow it to.
Speaker 2:And I don't know about you, but my email inbox is full of emails that maybe some people would used to send them every week or every couple of weeks or every month, and now they've suddenly put their emails into an AI tool so they can be sent out on like a daily basis or in every other day, and I'm like unsubscribe, I don't need.
Speaker 2:I don't need to hear from people as frequently so um yeah, very, very conscious of the, the risks, but also leaning into the positive of like it's fabulous for like templates and helping, helping to just kind of lead us in the direction, to populate it in the way that we we can and we have honed our experience to be able to do. Yeah, I'd love to hear any other examples of maybe where AI is really helping the work that you do.
Speaker 1:Sure. So I think when it comes to like, let's talk about HR use cases in particular, so the cases that you typically hear people get, so I'm a little controversial in some of these viewpoints, but it's because there's a. I think that some things are a bit of a regurgitation and so I want to stay away from that. So the most common HR use cases for AI that we hear have to do with talent acquisition and a lot of them have to do with screening candidates, and for me, this is very dangerous. This is very dangerous, and we've seen sort of this evolution of now. If you look at LinkedIn chats, they'll say here's ways to beat the ATS right, the applicant tracking system, here's ways to get recognized. You hear from recruiters, especially in the Gulf. This is a real issue in the UAE. Part of the reason is because the barriers to visa entry are so low and also it's just a great place to live and work. You know, the UAE is fantastic One role, a thousand applicants in three days, which is not a challenge that we see as common in other parts of the world. So really it's a huge issue in the Gulf and really a big issue in the UAE. So then we have our talent acquisition teams leaning very heavily in AI. So then they say to me okay, what am I supposed to do? Then you want me to go through a thousand, a thousand you know CVs for one role. Is that what you want me to do? So I think the answer is you have to use the tool judiciously so you can use it as a way to look and a lot of people will apply to roles that there's just no, not even a close fit at all right and so to use it as a weeder for them. There's no fit, but you still need to have a human eye. We still need that skill set that some of our great recruiters have of being able to winnow out and find and seek good candidates. So, from talent acquisition perspective, I'm quite critical of those use cases. But what I do love is use cases within HR operations and I also love it within. I've got a great example.
Speaker 1:We just did this at one of my clients for performance management. So one of the leaders came and said I, the methodology that this projected client was using for performance management and goal setting was a smart methodology, so specific, measurable time. But you know, um, and said I want everybody, the whole organization. You know 11 000, you know 12 000 people must have all of their goals. Smart um, and my colleague, who the woman, I should say, who was overseeing the COE for performance management fantastic, really, a leader in her fields, a great to partner with actually was, you know, did the timetable on it, didn't say no, said if you want me to do it, here's how long it's going to take for me and my team to do it. And so I said I bet we can build you a tool. I bet we can build you a tool for that.
Speaker 1:So I have a great relationship always with the IT teams, because I work sort of in the chasm between I'm a translator, so sometimes I consider myself part of IT, Like I think I'm part of IT and transformation teams, and that's because you know my background, obviously. But I digress. What I'm saying is let's build her a tool. And so we were able to build her a tool that was then able to use Gen AI to assign a percentage weightage on where a particular goal was from a smart perspective. So then, something that would have taken her a month she was able to run it in a couple hours, able to prioritize. Okay, look, these person's goals are 60% smart. We'll do that later, but I've got all these people that have got 10 to 30% smart goals. We need to focus on them and course correcting them. So that's a great productivity hack from a Gen AI perspective brilliant.
Speaker 2:I love that, and I also just want to go back to the 1000 applicants for a role piece. So obviously ATS is a thing and they're going to be run some of those through. So how many of those 1000 do you think is actually touched and seen by a human being?
Speaker 1:wow, that's a great question and I should have an answer, since I'm vocal about it, about this use case. I can't imagine that a recruiter is looking at more than 100, 150. I can't imagine which is still a lot, right, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, wow. And do you think that's typical in the UAE now, like everybody just wants a job there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great place. It's a great place to live and work. There's a lot of opportunity. So I think that folks are wanting to come to the UAE, to be in the UAE and then hoping to grow in the UAE. So it's really a unique problem to to this part of the world.
Speaker 2:And how about community and connection outside of work in the UAE? How have you found that like integrating into the community there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's quite naive of me when I first came. So someone asked me this question last week how long it took for me to acclimate, and I gave the truthful answer which was two and a half years. And I think by acclimate I mean completely feel at home, completely be able to navigate systems to you know if there's an interaction with the government, know how to manage that, uh, to feel confident in those interactions. Also, maybe two and a half years that's how long it took, um, and I was working the whole time right, I've had great clients. You know I have um, I have some clients.
Speaker 1:There are some in particular who are I can't name them because I I think they'd be quite shy, but really without sort of that friendship from my clients I would not still be here in the UAE. It's been that critical to help me navigate the culture, to have someone cheering you on in your corner. You know, recently actually, one of my very first clients, um, when I first came here, I actually had a, had a call with them earlier today, quick 15 minute call, how you doing um, and so those deep relationships have really helped me thrive and put roots here and how about?
Speaker 2:I know that you're looking to get home yeah, for a break to reconnect, and how do you find yourself staying connected with some of your beloveds back home? Do you embrace some of this emerging technology with people that you know and love?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know, so I get, I have to. I have to say this the the the greatest lottery, the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was being born into the family I was born into. I have incredible parents, I have incredible siblings and really, you know, you and I are just talking on one here today and it just looks like it's just me just talking on one here today and it just looks like it's just me, but really my community is behind me, organizations are behind me, so literally thousands of people push me and cheer me on. So sometimes this is everybody that I know. Everyone feels this.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you think you're alone, it's just you, it's insurmountable, but then there are so many people behind me. My, you know, my, my high school is behind me. My community is behind me, everywhere I've ever worked behind me, my universities are behind me, so, so I so I have to remember that from all, even though I'm here, I'm an expat there are so many people that are cheering for me, that are saying go, go, go, go. So I'm really lucky to have that. And then the tools that I use are all the time so I've got zoom, uh, microsoft teams, instagram, social media, tiktok, um regularly. I stay in touch all the time um I talk to my parents daily, talk to my parents daily um so I have those strong social connections um from so many people and and I think that that has helped me not feel alone when I'm so far away.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine, like just go back 20 years and what was available to us? Email, email was available to us as a communication tool. How different the expat experience would have been in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, much lonelier. So that's where I think it's also really important, though, to keep that centering on, because it's not just me that has their community behind them. Right, there's so everyone has that. Everyone has people that stand behind you. We do nothing alone. We don't succeed alone, so I think it's a little bit of the mindset that you have to have to embrace the bit of bravery to know, even though I'm gonna go try something new, be physically away from those people that that I love, that love me, um, but I always carry them with me. I carry them with me, you know, and I am fortunate that we have these tools and I am able to talk to them, but I think it's also my mindset of I don't do anything alone.
Speaker 2:And this is kind of leaning into part of part of the work that I do. So I came across this incredible theory called Dunbar's number and the idea is that our human brains only have the capacity for 150 people at any one time, which, of course, will evolve and fluctuate as we go through life and like there's different spheres of intimacy. So I actually started to map the people in my life last year and this is after going through like a real period of disconnection and loneliness, being here in a different country, and I discovered that even starting to do that process of mapping started to help me to realize I have incredible people in my life. I have these amazing little communities um dotted around the world and I have the power to reach out to them and they, if they have capacity in their life, they may well come back to me, they may well not.
Speaker 2:And this is part of the work that I do with my clients to really help them to map the people in their life and and really think about who are the key players in their life right now. And those key players don't all need to live around the corner from you, like speaking to your parents every day. They're your key players. They are in that central core of your map, and technology can be an incredible tool, but what I'm discovering more and more is that social media if we're not mindful and intentional about our social media use, we might be filling up that 150 with a whole bunch of people that we have never met, we will never meet, we're not actually even interacting with, we're literally just voyeuring. Um, and then we are. We are losing the spaciousness in our 150 for the people that actually really matter to us.
Speaker 1:So what an interesting concept, what an interest. I had not thought of it that way, that if you that there are some ways that you can, if you only got 150.
Speaker 1:There are ways that you can artificially fill um unintentionally, yeah, interesting, yeah, the intention I like the intentionality of that. Something that I've been saying lately is that legacies are no longer left in monuments, in sculptures, but legacies are rather left in people. So it's about fostering those relationships and those friendships um, because I can tell you about clients I've had and I can tell you about colleagues I've had um, but it's been those individual friendships and that's what's lasted.
Speaker 2:And that's really like it's proven that if we are feeling socially satisfied either within work or outside of work, it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:So long as our social needs are met, we are going to be feeling more engaged in the work that we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's an interesting concept, um, when we talk about like burnout, and we talk about particularly in the consulting field, um, which is sort of notorious, when I was doing that, it was common for me to work 16, 18 hour days, um, and I think there were some times I felt my existence was a bit vapid, right, because it was just work, sleep, try to eat something. You know, I think for me, a turning point was when I had stopped exercising, which is something that really, you know, fuels me up. I identify as an athlete, although these last couple of years I don't know that anybody else would, but I identify as an athlete. And so I think, when I stopped exercising, I think that was like OK, this is all consuming, this is all consuming. And then the promotions I was getting, you know, in rapid succession, I really, I really I really progressed quite well and the organization made it a huge investment in me, but I think it was eating away at me as well the expectation probably rose with the promotions yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But the thing is it was odd because I loved I love working hard, I love that intensity. You know it really fuels me, but I think it was also eating me, and so when I made the decision to step away from consulting and sort of seek out an industry role, really it was a role that I couldn't refuse. It was the opportunity to lead something I really wanted to lead, make an impact in the country that I felt had given me so much. But there are other ways to do that. There are other ways to do that, and I think that some of it was I. I needed to step away from that industry for a bit. Um, I have a deep respect for people that are are consultants. I think that I will probably return to management consulting one day, or I would hope to, uh, but I, I would like to do it a bit differently and maybe, maybe set, um, maybe set some more boundaries.
Speaker 2:So, as we kind of start to wrap up this conversation, I'd love to just ask you what is the future of work?
Speaker 1:I can tell you what I would hope for. I can tell you what I would hope for. I can tell you what I would hope for. I'd hope that the way that we work becomes more value-based. It becomes less about profits and more about people. I hope that we're able to use technology for all the goodness that it can provide, and I hope that we're able to continue to have this sort of global world that really respects the individual cultures and cultural nuances that have made things so special. That's a bit abstract, but for me, that's what the future of work, an ideal future of work, would be. It would be people focused and culturally nuanced.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. It's been a real pleasure to delve into these topics with you. Is there anything that we haven't covered, that you feel really passionate about just getting across today?
Speaker 1:passionate about just getting across today. I think the last thing that I'd like to mention is, when it comes to technology not just HR technology, but just technology in general there seems to be a gap with women embracing it, and so, for me and maybe this is a conversation we have at another time, shelley, I'd love to do that but really a push for women to look into AI, look into some of these bleeding edge technologies and begin to implement that in their work. For me, technology should be democratized, it should be for everyone, but we're noticing there's a gap with women's using and embracing technology, particularly gen ai, and that's something that I'd I'd like to to talk about how we can address that gap and have women really be embracing this. Otherwise, we're going to have an even more of a digital divide thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, amelia. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and to go deep into your areas of expertise. Thank you for your generous sharing today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, shelley, looking forward to talking next time.
