hello and welcome to the service Ducks podcast I hum co-host James downs and I'm Rush here and we're here to chat about all things servicenow everyday life as a servicenow consultant new features implementation successes and perhaps more entertaining when it doesn't go quite so well [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to the service Ducks welcome back today we're going to be talking all about meetings meetings meetings meetings takes up all your calendar and it means that you can't actually get down to the real work that you should be doing um so yeah so that's what we're going to be discussing today but before we do that as we normally do we check in and see what we've been up to in the last few weeks so I'm going to pass over to you Russ what have you been doing so yeah I'm I'm laughing because I wish people could see what goes on to make these podcasts right I wish people could see uh what we like before and after because only literally 30 seconds before is like who's introducing who's doing this I'll do it and it just and we just go Um yeah and then and if I didn't call that stuff out no one would never know they're just think oh those are two people so professional they're just on it yeah yeah no one thinks that it doesn't no no one absolutely thinks that at all um so yeah so it's a good topic today um it's quite topical uh for me so I've been doing some some groundwork I guess um on LinkedIn kind of posing some some questions asking some polls in terms of where do people work from nowadays is it home um are there some interesting stats I'll bring up later um and I've also been kind of saying well if you do work from home what does that mean for for those informal interactions and we'll get on to that in a bit but you did ask me what have I went up to so um I have been naughty again because I've been on vacation um went to Center Parks uh fantastic place not far for you actually I did tell you no yes nice civilized tranquil escape from reality it's just nice to just I don't know unwind a little bit I guess um still kept up on the running though while I was there um you know I got another another 10k race coming up so I still kept that up um other than that uh just enjoying the sun uh you can see it's hot it's hot in here in the UK it's late 20s which from the UK that's really hot we don't do too well um yes yes Fahrenheit I think that's like 90 degrees or 95 I think so around that sort of Mark Fahrenheit for us it was quite amusing yesterday because we have um the client that I work for at the moment of a and it's quite topical an informal kind of chatter group right a virtual chat group and the top main type of conversation yesterday was the weather from British do you know what from heat to rain to floods in fact someone said um and yeah I made the comment I've never known such a British conversation to be had all discussing the weather and enjoying it we're enjoying talking about yeah and you know what I have the same thing every single year at the same point of view going I just wish I had an air con unit every year but then you realize one day later that you don't need it this is it so so yeah I've um been on vacation done some groundwork for this podcast that we didn't know we were going to do this topic on until 10 minutes ago um and there's actually something I really want to ask you right so I'm tempted to jump on the electric car bandwagon I know you've done it and you and you yeah despite your eight hour trip to Cornwall which is it's been a minute miles down the road um it it's kind of made me think do I jump on that bandwagon but you know what though right because I was looking at Tesla's the infrastructure is pretty good for Teslas but I've always thought to myself they're so expensive yeah yeah and and to me they are expensive because and it goes hand in hand with the topic we're going to talk on right so working from home I can tell you right now 80 of the people answer my poll work from home so that's 80 of us that are driving less makes sense right yet Teslas are so expensive so I'm thinking I'm doing a lot less travel than I was before why would I spend the money on a Tesla yeah to save myself money that I'm saving anyway do you see what I mean yeah because I'm not driving yeah um so my logical brain's going Russ you you being silly while you think about it you've got all the environmental factors and everything yes I get that so I don't know I'm tempted to jump on the bandwagon but I can't justify the uh the number one telling point for electric cars for me anyway is convenience I think because of my complete lazy person um I like the ability to you know drive past the petrol station going ah you know look at your weight you know you know then you've got the same back at the charging stations as we've already discussed yeah let's say what Tesla wants of course if I was able to afford a Tesla I think I would have gone Tesla very expensive but I wouldn't look at and I don't know you kind of put me off looking at anything but test this in your in your dramatic storied and Cornwall if you haven't listened to that episode go and check it out have a laugh yeah um but yeah I I've been tempted with it the other thing that I can't get away from um I'm a 80s baby it weird me saying that but yeah so I grew up 80s 90s I get the environmental impact I do I 100 get it but there is nothing better than a V8 noise come on I don't drive a V8 by the way I can't imagine getting into an electric car revving it and just getting we can get them false noises can't you you can get that installed the property Tesla probably has a few you know Elite tricks did you know what I've actually got um I've got a false noise in my car my car is a petrol now I've got a false synthetic noise today do you want to choose Rally or go for F1 um so yeah anyway so so so that's where I'm at but what about you what have you been up to you've I don't know you've had a haircut oh yeah yes that's probably number one um needed for this weather I think as well um you're more streamlined you're quicker at running right we're not in this weather I found out from the Greek Manchester run but um no other than not trying to sweat too much I think um I've been doing it sorry I said that paints an image for our listeners [Laughter] this isn't smell-o-vision yeah assembly old now but I've been doing lots of work in the garden so I've been staying in the deck I've been trying to put up some cedar battens on the fence um which is yeah anyone who actually knows me knows I do not do DIY very well yeah I'd rather pay for a man to come do it or a woman of course a skilled Trader let's say that yeah um to come in and do the job for me because I can't even put up a shelf yeah yeah but do you know what though and I had this conversation the other day right and there's something that happens to us when we get to a certain age that I I actually enjoy being out in the garden as well right I I I love making sure it looks like because I want to sit out there and I want to feel relaxed and it's being nice I like the borders to be tidy the grass to be cut nicely yeah but we've got whopping grade trampoline which just kills all the grass underneath it right so it infuriates me and when the kids are playing ball or playing out there which right on the side parent that you'll see them on the switch or the the tablet or whatever instantly get out there didn't have this in my day get outside and play it's a nice weather right as soon as they're out there kicking the ball and the ball goes on my border oh no no no no off my board I dug that last weekend and I catch myself and I listen to myself and think God my neighbors must think what a grumpy insular expletive word there but you know what I mean I was like if I'd have said that to myself when I was a kid oh I would have been horrified so I think I'm on the same page as you but I I in terms of making my gun look nice and and I struggle because the kids are so sometimes and I hope it's not just me but I need to I need to have a word with myself occasionally and just say look yeah let them have fun yeah destroy the flowers that you've spent money and time and effort doing let them break it all yeah it's definitely a battle that we're having on a daily basis with screens and switches and yeah even if I leave my phone around you know one of them will grab it and start watching something on it like no get out there kick him out we've got literally a plane park right around the corner from us just go yeah you know go play I don't know it's a different thing these days I think you have to for someone to go you used to probably go like knocking around your friend's door right and say hey could you come out and play or play football or something there's none of that anymore it's like going back to meetings you're having to book something in advance for you to be able to play with a friend are you free on next Friday at two o'clock no I've got gymnastics practice or something do you know what that's that's a that's a nice segue excuse me I've got oh I've got a frog in my throat well we're saying that is a frog I think I need to know where that came from um if you're listening and you know tell me if not I'm going to Google it'll say and I'll tell you um wow but I think that that's an interesting point and I and a kind of a nice segue right because it's the technology with with kids is something that you know I think I'm the same as you pains me to watch them do it but I understand it and I understand specifically with with lockdown as and you know my kids were obviously um younger stupid thing to say but within lockdown it was a way to interact with their friends and I think that's still the case right it's a way to socialize because you're absolutely right the kids to socialize now it's like well I've got to check with a parent to make sure that person hasn't got dinner at five o'clock whereas me and you just used to get on a bike and go to someone is Johnny in yeah because you didn't have mobile phones and stuff like that right um so they tend to interact a lot more on social and gaming devices and they do face-to-face and it's whether it's it's good or bad it's not the real or that but that links nicely into our topic of the day which is we spend the poll that I did on LinkedIn it transpires that 80 of people work from home did that shock you by the way did you you find that was higher than you expected yes yeah because so so let me tell you the the answers were work from home a co-working office which is like um you know me and me and you we work for different companies we just rock off and kind of rock off hey hey hey it's not that kind of vodka but we'd Rock up and just use the chair workspace or go to the office so without exact numbers but 10 said uh they go to their company's office 10 they said they use a co-working space eighty percent said they're working home yeah right so question number one is and and I've got a very strong opinion on this is yes it shocked me that that 80 percent but question number one is is working from home seen as a perk is it a perk to you that's my question I think for me going back probably a few years ago pre-covered for me absolutely was a perk um anytime I'm not based near the office the office the old dxc office anyway pounding the jar um was based let me let the dog out yeah it was based in order tomorrow which is uh it was a few hours away um so for me to be able to work from home um and interact with people um and probably be more productive from home you know concentrate on what I want to do or what I need to do um I found that as a perk I love being able to do it I love being able to be more in control of my hours of being able to work during the day okay yeah so so so questions so you've told us what it was right right now yeah if you were going for a job interview somewhere yeah let's call it Ross's Company Incorporated okay yeah would you expect working from home or would you expect it to be a perk would you expect that to be a selling point I'll go hey hey guess what James you get to work from home as well no I just think it's one of those attributes of the job it's like and it's remote it's not like oh and you can work from home yeah it's not a thing anymore it's uh that's the key that's the key question companies recruiters stop selling working from home as a perk because it's just not if the General accepted practice no okay so that's an outcome number one number two is and it's something that that I've um noticed and and discussed um over the years actually but as we now we're working more and more from home in order to be more productive we you know we especially in our line of work at the what we do in terms of architecture and um and oversight is that we're involved in a lot of discussions bunny ears discussions um which transpires that in order to have those discussions you can't just rock up and have a quick conversation by the coffee machine anymore so they have to be structured into conversation so they have to be scheduled and structured um and because our time is is finite within the day they have to have some structure to them with an outcome right and what I'm talking about specifically if you haven't guessed yet is meetings right so people have to put meetings to discuss specific topics with specific people yeah um now that is a that's part of the job and it always has been part of the job but one I've seen those obviously increase because we're all working from home it just makes sense I'm not saying anything surprising here yeah um and they and they need to maintain that one thing one Trend I think has has happened is they have become more structured when we weren't all working from home they were less structured because you were out of that Flex time because hey I was going to go and see him having a coffee anyway so you had that Flex time now meetings are more structured um and more I don't want to use the word formal but I can't think of another word yeah how do you and this is this is something that I honed in on LinkedIn and I actually created an article um if you want to go and check it out it's called beyond the formalities my first article in in LinkedIn I shall Take a Bow um but it's around how do you Embrace and harness the informal side of work if all the interactions you're ever gonna have are structured yeah I've waffled a lot what are your thoughts yeah and um I mean we we want to embrace that kind of informality of being able to um being able to rock up and having just general conversations peer-to-peer you know having a chat about their day even and as long as you're still getting that outcome and I think that's really what the piece is because we feel that you have to be you know have to all kind of have the professional professionalism the the structure the order of um knowing who's doing what in the meeting uh to get to your outcome but I think that that kind of Ideal kind of Middle Point is how can we keep things still informal while still achieving that outcome what you need to get out of the meeting yeah um without it being way too long because like you say your your Diaries are filling up especially as an architect or someone overseeing or leading a implementation for example your diary says get it filled up full of meetings so you can't having these chats every single time yeah I think for me it's definitely a balance um it's also understanding what position you're currently in if you're in the project for example you might have certain timelines to get to meet to and actually certain meetings actually end up as Target dates anyway for example you might well have a meeting with a customer on a Friday and on the Monday you know you've got five days to kind of prep to get to that point where you need to demonstrate something back to them so let me let me interject there I've got a couple of points so so how do you then so so we work on projects right with deliverables and when we're not on customer projects we're on internal projects there's always a goal there right so how do you kind of embrace General Chit Chat so what happens if I just wanted to the fat um that if you're in a different country other than UK too the fact just means um have a general chat I didn't know whether that translates well but it's not actually I'm not chewing his fat um yeah and I tell you how it generally ends up being like so uh daily stand-ups great example so what will happen obviously usually they're quite but they're structured yeah they are structured but what tends to happen probably at the beginning of all of these meetings it was hey how you two and good morning how you doing what you you know is that what you've been up to you're right and that kind of end after about 30 seconds are you right yeah you're right yeah you're right yep yeah right okay we're doing this today what's your blockers you don't get much of that Chit Chat and you don't do catch up unless you do I think this is where I've been doing it a lot more with mentoring yeah especially as an architect and the kind of thought leadership sort of space I have a few mentees who I meet up with weekly to then have that kind of Chit Chats and talk about things like I'm telling you I'm gonna challenge you that's a structured Gap it's an organized structured it's not there's certain points that would generally kind of meet it may well be that we could discuss what their challenge their any challenges that we may would be that they're going through some um I know other things could be personal things it could be about their work life balance about productivity yeah it could be about a new feature it could be anything that they want to chat about um I'm there to be you know all ears and still work related sorry all still work related what happened what happened to the coffee the coffee water cooler conversation hey hey did you see the new Marvel movie God I'm hold on yeah no I think the sessions I have that is a bit of that it is a bit about discussing about what they've been up to and what was generally happening but we do still bring it back to let's see how what we can do to kind of progress them as in their careers and that sort of thing come back to work but yeah it's not a complete informal chat about just stuff so so I I think it's come for me and and it takes some some thought about it to get to this conclusion for me it's about creating the environment to him to in in how to to embrace the informal chat right creating that environment so if you think about it at home right so give you an example so at home we sit down and have dinner every night at five o'clock and we're early eaters the kids do we only cook one but we sit down at the table to eat dinner at five o'clock every night right technically let's just call it a meeting right yeah because it's it's a it's a it's all right dog coming back in let's call that a meeting for the purpose of this conversation because it's a structured time it's a time that we all know we're going to be in the same place yeah right yeah the structure of the conversation usually it goes along the line of me saying to the kids so what have you been up to today so we are so so in my home life I've created that that kind of natural time to have informal chit chat it's the same with when you're talking to your other half kids have gone to bed perhaps you'll sit on the sofa and watch them I mean on Netflix or outside in the garden you all and that you know kids are going to bed this is now our structured time to talk about whatever we want it the point I guess I'm making is we are naturally creating structured times to have those informal chats anyway we're not necessarily thinking about doing it you will do it in your natural life the answer I created on on LinkedIn is really kind of um I think it's based around that and this is not about promoting it but it does does create some thought so one of the things that I've already mentioned is around an open Team Channel you can talk or not teams but it could be Slack a collaborative um chat Forum that you can talk about anything you like it doesn't have to be work related it can be Marvel movies it can be gardening it can be running whatever but is that something you guys do at um at the XC pound in the jar um no no um we're starting to do a lot more in-person meetings now yeah where that sort of things will occur um we do have kind of like group chats I think I mentioned it before we call it detect shed yeah then sort of things do sneak in um but people don't like them sneaking in as well because that's not the right the right exactly that's not the right Forum it's not right place people want to get stuff out of it yeah people are asking questions getting questions answered but no there isn't a general place to just chat just chat yeah and it's very rarely um you know started if even if you're in Project teams you're just too busy on clients and things like that to actually want to paint what you're up to and that's the good point because because I've seen those work in some organizations and I've seen them really work in similar organizations and and and not and I think yeah it has to for me it has to you have to embrace it everyone has to embrace it and come into it you can't just have the same people going so what's going on today oh yeah please be honest if I've seen it and I was in it I'd mute it yes exactly you've got to get involved you've got to embrace it I think that takes time I've been in that situation before I thought don't really want to get involved in this um yeah much to my I can't think of the word whatever I'll edit it but yeah I haven't got involved but other times what I have I really enjoyed it because you can you know when you you come off formal structured meetings you finish some work oh just fancy five minutes yeah mocking someone about something they did last week I'm thinking I don't think I think one of this could be one of the biggest points is you can't force it I think when you're in the off if you're in an office and you're used to that kind of like coffee chats or water cooler chats it's off the cuff it's you happen to be up there and you're like oh do you see the football game last night or it's off completely off the cuff about just chatting about whatever yeah if you try and formalize it in terms of during this time we're going to get informal and say we're going to chat about this it will just be black yeah this is why it's so difficult that's why if you have a constantly open channel the other thing I noticed and I'll go on to the other points I mentioned in the article um plug plug um in a second but the other thing I know is someone that I work with um in fact actually Point number six in my article is about a coffee break so schedule regular virtual coffee breaks that people can just turn up and you can have a chat so it's almost like scheduled water cooler scheduled [  ] break you know what I mean go out and have a chat and I noticed someone yesterday on their signature in their email they actually had a link that said um fancier chat an informal chat and it was very it became such a good time it was like fancy an informal chat and you opened it and it took you to a diary where they'd allocate 30 minute slots at certain areas in the week you can just pick one so literally you you were just all organizing a 30-minute chat with that person so just whatever whatever you like um yeah and I thought that was such a good I was like this is brilliant I need to do this um so I think it for me it's something I'm gonna do um there's an app that I found that I'm gonna do and I'm gonna post it on LinkedIn I'm gonna say look I've got a 30 hour slot on I don't know lunch on a Friday if you want to chat we'll just chat random stuff I don't mind yeah but then yeah I think the the problem you'll have is during the normal kind of working hours other things will take over um it will be you know de-prioritized and I think like you say it's that mind shift of being able to say it's equally as important to just chat to each other it is um this goes into mental health and benefits and things like that it is it's easy to say it'll be prioritize and I think in the main you're right but then I think you owe it to yourself the Royal you you have to not let that happening it's the same conversation as you know do you go out for you know regular walks during the day or how often do you get away from your screen yeah um you know when you do that you become more productive um do you know what I I block this hour out so this is 12 to 1. I block it out on my diet says do not book yeah block it out and I'll go downstairs I'll take the dog out not today because it's so hot but I just block it out um I never used to it it got to the point where I think the point you're making you can get consumed by all the time and just um not I don't say work but you can get consumed by yeah you work um but I blocked that time out just just to get out um and I'm not I'm not convinced that I did that for mental health reasons I just did it just because I thought it's just not to have a break for now all right yeah you're gonna get stuff done yeah so I think you've got it I think you have to for me I think I think and this is just my opinion so please don't write in another mode um but I I think companies have to prioritize that in formal conversation um and those meetings um one of the other things that I'll just just quickly we're through I don't know how we're doing for time but the other things you know you we've said around keeping the channel chat channels open you know allowing allowing people that um that time and concentration to talk we've got showing your face that's another key one for me is when you're on I mean that's a big one if anyone's not listening at the minute James and I do this and we can see each other yeah um and I I don't know whether you remember this but well I used to talk to you before before it was covered timed I was like well get on camera because I think you're doing something dodgy yeah yeah you've always said that yeah don't like you when you're on camera you're doing something don't like it but I'm very much uh show your face let's interact yeah um yeah and and well here's a question so generally in your kind of like stand-ups or your you know your general team meetings and things like that how many people have the camera on as a general percentage everyone really it's company policy yeah wow okay yeah it's a company policy um so it's it's a company Choice thing then rather than an individual choice no yeah I don't think that's the same everywhere but no no it's not exactly when I worked at um rent to kill I'm allowed to say that I'll say it again rent kill it's not a partner don't have to put a partner in the Box I used to work there a place called rentkill um you're listening to this and you'd like sponsor us please do so and talk to the doctor at service.com anyway no when I worked there 10 years ago 12 years ago we just embraced Google mail so Google so we're a Google house so we were kind of one of the first large companies to take on Google Mail Google Hangouts and all that kind of lovely stuff it was a company policy 12 years ago to be on camera so to me it's just normal to be on camera yes um and but yeah I've worked in other places recently where it's not a it's a non-standard and I think to be honest places I have uh customers I work for where they they don't go on camera more often than not you find it to be a secure environment that they can't they're not allowed to go right do you see what I mean that's different um which is different it's a bit of a shame so there are circumstances where you can't um so I think you have to embrace some of the other the other things like open chat Channel whatever um to make it work but yeah at the minute um company I'm customer I'm uh my customer that I'm working for the partner it is company policy to be on camera and I like that if I'm being honest yeah no that's good I like that too and I think it's it's very easy to just not switch it on and become disengaged and that may well be what you what you get from it maybe that's probably another good question to put on your on your LinkedIn I think there's a nice poll in terms of camera on camera off yeah really interesting I I mind there and and the the other thing that I found um in the open Channel and even when you've got you so you can have an open informal chat channel that allows you to to keep that informal chat going but also on like project chat I'm gonna close the door oh well your turn this is what happened when you work from home people 80 of us are going through this on a on a daily basis I need like an on-air thing at the outside yeah yeah no it's fine but the um I can't remember the point I was making no the point was so you got informal chats and then you've got like team project chats where people tend to talk Prodigy that type things like oh I'll share this design with you here and have you done the uat and it's very formal but I would say that that for me is a is a good place to show your personality and ways in which you can do it I know you know there's people that's far better at this type of stuff than me is things like emojis emojis uh gifs memes all that kind of lovely stuff that yes it's a formal setting where we're talking about project document and process documents and has um barreled on the UA team that she's supposed to and oh no the stakeholders that I get but it's fine to inject some of your own personality into it with a sarcastic GIF or a you know what I mean a running man that you know um Mark balak always used to do yeah but I think you can inject personality by doing that because if you don't you're just typing on a keyboard right the same words as I could type and me and you just became the same kind of people and that was a scary yes yes yeah so what we're saying here then so are we saying that um we need to start finding ways of having these informal chats but it needs to be a cultural thing um it also delves into the fact of showing yourself on camera showing your personality that might even encourage more informal chat as well if you're seeing people face to face and you can see you know emotions and whatever else yeah I I think there are I think my main thoughts are lots of people now work from home yes lots and lots more than I thought right I think we need we need to step up the informal interaction for those that are working from home we can do that using a variety of techniques and embracing um you know slack technology emojis I know it sounds silly cameras so there's a bunch of techniques that we can do to embrace that and and create that environment yeah I think that's key coming back to my at-home analogy um so we can Embrace that get that environment ready but everyone needs to buy into it I think I think that's the key I think people need to go into it saying okay I'm all right there'll be some people that don't care there'll be some people that just go to work and just just and then nine to five and just go home yeah and that's fine that's fine too but for those who um the way I look at it you're going to work most your life you may as well enjoy it yeah yeah so so what do you what would you say to those who are like questioning whether they should do it if you know what I mean when when maybe culture is a bit more structured professional business speak and you know what you're thinking oh wouldn't it be funny if I just added that emoji in or something just way too informal to do that just do it just do it regardless that that would be my opinion I I I think my thoughts are is if you're thinking and debating about it chances are everyone else is yes 100 that's right everyone else is thinking it and I would just stick two feet in and just do it you can't be yourself yeah you have to self-censor though you can't go into a group chat where you know the CEO is chatting about I don't know bonus pay whatever I don't know and you can't just put in a sarcastic Homer Simpson sarcastic you have the self sensor um but yeah I I would say just do it it's part of being it's the same with LinkedIn doesn't it same with LinkedIn yeah like your your your company will perhaps post something on LinkedIn and then you can um you can repost that right so let's take this as an example DXE partner jar post something on LinkedIn you as a loyal employee should repost that or put some clever comments on that right nine times out of ten when people do that they'll just repost it with no comments yeah with no comments yeah thinking yeah what I really want to put on there is my own personality yeah it may be a slight bit of sarcasm that's my personality yeah but you will think to yourself on us against Brandon best not do that I don't want to get here how will you be perceived exactly and it's about your personal brand so um I would say it's it's the same thing about self-censoring so LinkedIn if you're going to repost something do it but do it in your own personality if you've got something horrible to say then just don't bother at all but if if you want to add something to it um don't be afraid and and I will this is an interesting topic for me because I'm going off on one but I won't say this as well right that it is quite often is if you're reposting something on LinkedIn there is a fear that I I don't want to put comments on because one The Branding police might moan at me and two someone will call me out telling I'm wrong yeah yeah happens all the time happened to me the other day um someone commented on YouTube with a video I did um whether I was wrong or not is Up For Debate um but it didn't didn't bother me in the scientist you know what I mean it's like that's the whole point in this is to be collaborative and people have their voice so I would say if you're worried about putting some out there on on your group chats or on LinkedIn or whatever and you're worried that someone's gonna call you out for being wrong they probably will but I wouldn't care too much about it yeah yeah I've enjoying this can you yeah this is totally up your street this one isn't it I love it [Laughter] anyway what I've got time we're on should we be closing now well 36 minutes should we go for another four minutes you should be there yeah another four minutes another four minutes so I guess here's a question I have for you though okay so let's say so you have these kind of informal meetings and it's embedded into the culture and you have these certain slots that people just chat about stuff and they love it it's brilliant um do you feel that when people moved more to a working from home sort of atmosphere the product productivity probably did go up yeah when you start to introduce more and more of these informal meetings productivity is going to go back down to what it kind of was when you're back in the office um would companies accept it do you think companies would generally be accepting we think they should of course to be accepting of these informal meetings and things I would suspect that wouldn't happen in my in my view um so basically what you're saying is is yes for us introduce these informal conversations but is that going to have a negative impact on product productivity oh yeah essentially what we're saying right yeah there has been many studies only recently in the UK where companies have gone down to four day weeks yeah so they've taken away time from people and yet the productivity has either stayed the same or increased because people are getting that better work-life balance um I think for me it would be a case of embracing all the the kind of techniques and there's more out there um you know the the different structures you can put in place in handling formal chats um not be too red tape about it because that defeats the object and and see how it goes yeah yeah I think gone are the days were surprised counting hours like you know I've worked 7.5 hours today therefore I'm done yeah I think Life's a lot more flexible now in terms of your working hours and it has to be working from home working from home yeah you're telling me people work from home and they don't take their car for an Mot right or they don't go and answer the door to a delivery driver because something else is going on um that's another Topic in it in its own right you know being disruptive in meetings because of life um it happens but it's how do you deal with it yeah but I think yeah I I don't think I'd be just about again just my opinion backed up by no fact at all but I don't think that productivity would would go down um they always say didn't they um happy employees and I don't know what they say well I'd say happy employee just saying that it makes them more productive yeah no no it's a good point but I I don't know these are just my opinions to be honest yeah yeah yeah it's just knowing what balance to strike and what's acceptable and I think a lot of people are just kind of hiding there in their um what they're kind of used to and trying to figure out in terms of what is acceptable and maybe that's a point as well to kind of reach out to um the organization that you work for to understanding what is their kind of policy or what are they expecting from you from home and you'll probably be surprised to find out that they're going to be very pro-mental health and yeah you know for you to go out for a walk and it's okay before that's a bit of a taboo like oh you know just getting up in the middle of the day and going not over half an hour what are you doing we all work differently now the the days of nine till five have gone out the window and I think yeah nine till five is a framework it's like it's like idle in it it's a framework you work around nine-to-fives a framework I think that's gone out the window um and I think you know companies have obviously embraced people working from home and what that means um so I don't I I think you're right I don't think people are micromanaging um employees times anymore so I'm not I'm uh you know like I said I don't think having informal chats here and there I mean to be honest if it got to the point you're always going to have the select view that sit there and have informal chats all day every day yeah yeah um but that was the same back when you were in the office anyway yeah oh 100 yeah right [  ] breaks in an hour yeah so I don't think much has changed I used to know someone who um who didn't smoke but instead of having a bad break they're just um they've got their yo-yo so they'll just go out with them with the yo-yo just just having chats just so they could have the similar amount of breaks that they do this is this is um just in case anyone um haven't listened to any of the podcasts before but this is part of the reason you and I do this isn't it really so we we do this this podcaster hopefully people get some value out of it learn maybe have a bit of a laugh right yeah but another part of the reason is is is we do it so we can just have a chat yeah just just generally just let loose chat whatever conversation we want to have and and that's why sometimes it we talk about running and we talk about me going to Center Park through the week and you're an electric car and stuff because it's just all chat so we've created coming back to our topic we've created the environment where that happens right yes yep we've created our informal but nothing about this is normal yeah if it was we're doing something wrong we lose it we're wrong right we are coming up on voice two minutes yes we're past the 40 minute Mark did you want to sum up um I can sum up very very quickly right yes send the people work from home that's a lot uh employees and employers need to embrace more informal conversations whether that's slack channels teams channels um whatever just to allow people that environment where they can chat about random stuff don't real be afraid to inject your personality into conversations even if it's virtually such as emojis and clapping hands and just personality but self-center don't don't be stupid with it um and I think I think in whole when we do that product productivity will increase because relationships between across the teams will increase you know I know if I know what your favorite Marvel film is um I'm more likely to come to you in chapter and ask for advice and then if I didn't really know you as a person I'm using that as an illustration so that's my so I hope everyone that's listened to this has found it useful and it's still with us if there were 44 minutes in now um I think if you've got any comments or um uh conversations or any topics you want us to discuss drop us a line at talk to the duck at service hyphen duck.com I'm going to be going to select a setup like a calendar thing so people can drop in and have a coffee with me at some point um we're gonna do that do I want to make it work related I'm not sure probably but it's just going to be General chat don't expect anything formal so I'm going to drop that in so I'll try and put that in the description as well so I think that's it and it just reminds us to say I've been rushed and I've been James and this is service dogs that's all for today's podcast thank you for listening and if you want to get your question answered by the service Ducks get in touch through talk to the doc at service hyphandux.com or just use one of the links below thank you foreign [Music]