Podcast: The war for talent - Retreating or worsening?

Has the war for talent mitigated? Is it as ferocious as it was during COVID? How does it differ between sector and stage? What can hiring managers and senior leaders do to ensure diversity is front and center, not just an afterthought?

In this video, QED Managing Partner Nigel Morris moderates a discussion on the current talent environment with project44 Chief People Officer Renee Mauldin; Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Diversity, Company and Infrastructure Shavonne Gordon; and Lingua Franca Search senior recruiter Jim Reo.

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Show notes

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Nigel Morris is the co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, a fintech venture capital platform focused on disruptive, high-growth financial services companies. QED has made numerous unicorn investments, including Credit Karma, Nubank, Avant, SoFi, Klarna, GreenSky, and AvidXchange.

Nigel is the Chairman of ClearScore and Mission Lane and serves on the boards of Remitly, Quinto Andar, Bitso, Amount and Current. Additionally, he serves on the board of Ideas42 and Scotia’s Digital AdvisoryCouncil, and he works in an advisory capacity with General Atlantic and Oliver Wyman. Nigel previously worked on the boards of Capital One, The Economist, Brookings, National Geographic, Klarna, Braintree, TransUnion, and London Business School. He frequently keynotes at industry-leading conferences, including Money2020, LendIt, Finance Disrupted and the Bernstein Annual Financials Summit.

Prior to QED, Nigel co-founded Capital One Financial Services in 1994. Under Nigel’s leadership as President and Chief Operating Officer, Capital One pioneered an information-based strategy that transformed the consumer lending industry.

Although Nigel grew up mostly in England, he takes immense pride in the fact that he is at least half Welsh. He has an MBA with distinction from London Business School, where he is also a Fellow. Nigel was recognized as a Top 100 Venture Capitalist by CB Insights in 2019 and Midas List member in 2020 and 2021. He is an avid cyclist, but he is happiest when he is at home in Virginia with his wife, four children, and three grandchildren.

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Shavonne Gordon graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor of science degree in systems engineering. She started her career as a systems analyst where she worked in manufacturing for five years before joining Capital One, where she worked for 21 years.  

She spent much of her time at Capital One in the technology department in a number of roles – including business systems analyst, IT project manager, program manager and agile coach – before joining HR in 2014 to follow her passion for recruiting and supporting diverse talent. As head of diversity and campus talent acquisition for Capital One, she had a tremendous impact across the company through her focus on attracting and developing leaders and mentoring associates - in particular, lending her counsel and insights to advance the growth and development of Black associates.

In June of 2022, Shavonne joined Morgan Stanley as the global head of diversity for technology and operations, continuing to focus on the diversity work that is both her passion and purpose.  Her scope has since expanded to include all of company and infrastructure for the firm.

In 2019, Shavonne was recognized as one of Savoy’s Most Influential Women in Corporate America, and again in 2023 as one of Savoy’s Most Influential Executives in Diversity and Inclusion. She is the president and CEO of the CALIBR Global Leadership Network, an organization focused on providing coaching and leadership training to mid to senior level Black professionals with the goal of advancing more Black professionals into senior executive roles. In 2020, Shavonne was appointed by VA Governor Ralph Northam to the board of visitors for Virginia State University, a 138-year-old HBCU in Ettrick, Va.  Shavonne also sits on the advisory board for the Ron Brown Scholars Program, and the board for the Ridley Scholarship Program at the University of Virginia.  She resides in Glen Allen, Va., with her 14-year-old daughter, Simone, and her 18-year-old daughter, Kennedy.
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Renee Mauldin is the chief people officer at project44. She was previously the chief people officer a tech giants including Uber, Twitter and Nubank.

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Jim Reo is a senior recruiter at Lingua Franca Search, having spent 24 years leading the executive recruiting function at Capital One.

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Full transcript

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Nigel Morris:

Hello and welcome everybody. I'm Nigel Morris and I'm the managing partner of QED Investors, and we're a fintech the specialist venture capital firm focused on helping disruptive companies worldwide from pre-seed all the way to IPO. And in today's Thought Leaders series, we're going to dig a little deeper into the topic of talent because as we all know, people are our most important asset. And I'm joined today, thank you very much, by Shavonne Gordon, the Global Head of Diversity and Technology and Operations at Morgan Stanley, and Renee Mauldin, the Chief People Officer of many organizations including Capital One and Nubank, Uber and Twitter. And she's just taken a job today. She'll tell us about that.

And Jim Reo, Jim is part of Lingua Franca, which is our in-house recruiting platform at QED. And prior to that he was at Capital One for a long time. So there's a common theme amongst all of us, Shavonne, Renee, and Jim, and myself, that we all cut our teeth at Capital One. I'm really, genuinely, absolutely excited about it, and I really want to get to wrestle with, is the war on talent mitigating, is it over? Is it every bit as ferocious as it was during the COVID period, and the pre COVID period, particularly in the fintech space. So I'm just absolutely made up, delighted to have this conversation with all of you.

Shavonne Gordon:

Thanks, Nigel. I'm Shavonne Gordon. As Nigel mentioned I lead diversity for all of our company infrastructure functions at Morgan Stanley. Nigel, I spent 21 years at Capital One, actually started my career there in tech and when I left was leading diversity and campus recruiting for Capital One and actually got to spend a lot of my time at Capital One working with Jim. So I am also excited to get a chance to talk about talent. I actually reside in Richmond, Virginia, but spend a lot of time in New York. So excited to be here.

Jim Reo:

Jim Reo. I joined Lingua Franca Search last year after spending 24 years at Capital One, so just a few years on Nigel. I built and led the executive recruitment function at Capital One for many years. I also led board recruiting. I wore other hats including being an executive coach. Thank you for inviting me into this discussion. It's a great topic, one I'm passionate about.

Nigel Morris:

And thank you, Jim, it's great to have you as part of the QED umbrella, so to speak. You've been involved in lots of executive searches and increasingly on the board searches as our companies evolve. Last but not least, Renee, I did see a press release this morning that you have consummated a new job, which will be another stage in your incredible career.

Renee Mauldin:

Yes. Great. Well, I started at Capital One in 1999, and I'll never forget that year, Nigel, leaving a town hall meeting and shaking your hand. So then 11 years later, after being there, went on to be a part of Tech Giants, Google, and Uber and most recently have been at Nubank, which is the largest neobank in the world, and took that public onto New York Stock Exchange. And then here I just joined Project 44, which is the leading supply chain visibility platform, and it's very exciting to be here. It's a company that's actually the undisputed leader. It's named the Gartner Magic Quadrant, and very excited to be here at Project 44 and apply all the learnings that I've had in past organizations.

Nigel Morris:

Man, I mean you have such a richness in your experience of the last generation of neobank being Capital One and then the next generation of that in Nubank. Okay, so let's go straight to the sort of biggest issue, which I think will branch out in many, many different ways and that is what what's really happening out there. We observed as investors that, just about three years ago, we went into the COVID period after 12, 13 years of up and to the right in terms of fintech where we saw lots of breakthrough companies emerging, gaining share, doing well, net promoter scores to die for, and then COVID hit. And we thought we were going to go into a deep recession. We did not, huge reaction in government support.

And then we saw a step function toward digital occur across the world where people did not want to queue up at a bank anymore, and if they could do it digitally on their phone, inertia was diminished massively. And we saw the step function, which led to a surge of investing in fintech. We're now 18, 20, 24 months ago. We went to a white-hot period where particularly analytical people and engineers were much, much in demand and that was termed the war on talent. So let me start with you, Shavonne. Do you agree with that basic characterization, and how do you see the war on talent now? Has it mitigated?

Shavonne Gordon:

Yeah, so Nigel, I agree with you a hundred percent. I think there was, even a little bit before the pandemic, there was a mad scramble in the market for tech talent. There were just not enough software engineers, and so it really was a seller's market. If you were tech talent, you kind of had your pick, and the salaries were high. There was a lot of money being thrown around to get this talent. And then the pandemic happened. And to your point, Nigel, I think folks thought things were going to slow down and really didn't. We saw that that war talent continued, and then we added a flavor of diversity to that war on talent as well because in the world, George Floyd happened and a lot of firms initiated large diversity efforts as well.

And so it made it an even hotter market for a diverse tech talent in the market. Now what has happened, and we've all seen, is since COVID, a lot of companies have realized that they over hired and they're trying to scale that back. But the ironic thing, and I think Renee will probably agree with me, is for tech talent, it's still a war on talent. And the reason why is we never had enough tech talent in the market in the first place. And so even though a lot of the tech companies, the FAANG companies are laying off, there are lots of people waiting in line to pick that talent up once it gets laid off.

Nigel Morris:

A definition, Shavonne. When you say tech talent, are we talking about classic computer engineering, or do you broaden that to include AI and ML and sort of advanced analytics skills?

Shavonne Gordon:

All of the above. So I think it is software engineering, it's data scientists, it's AI, it's ML, it's also some of the digital in the product space as well.

Nigel Morris:

Yeah. Renee, in your new job, are you going to be looking to hire some of these people, and what's your sense of the arc of has the war on talent mitigated?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I would agree with Shavonne. I don't think it's been mitigated. I think we continue to see, even with the layoffs, that people are landing jobs fairly quickly. This is anecdotal, I don't have necessarily this data, but I'm sure we all get hit up by folks that are out there that are needing help finding positions. And again, the folks that have come out of tech companies outside of the GNA type roles are finding new positions fairly quickly. I think that one other thing I would state is that many companies have gone to hiring outside of the US in lower cost locations. So I am starting to hear and see some of that, which maybe that would be a changing dynamic for the US, but I don't think so. I just think that the needs that companies have are just too large, and it's just unfortunate. It used to be opportunistic about being able to get all the talent that you could get at once and find work for them to do, and it's just not that anymore.

Nigel Morris:

Yeah. Well we certainly see the over hiring, Renee, and probably half of our portfolio companies have to go through the euphemistic reduction in force. And so many of them have gone through several rounds of it as they've attempted to navigate a much more austere funding environment. A quick branch out to outside of the US, I've heard of Berlin, I've heard of Porto, Lisbon, Ukraine largely before the current tumult with Russia, and then India of course. What offshore sites are the most interesting for you as you think about your new role?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I think we already have locations in Krakow and Bangalore, and I think that we're continuing to double down on growing talent there and so in attracting talent there, so those are two locations. We do have sales professionals in many countries around the world and some of which are just remote workers, but those are the two locations that we've been looking at.

Jim Reo:

So Nigel, I agree with Shavonne and Renee that the war on talent is still very much alive. Our search firm is a specialty firm by sector, so we work across functions, most functional groups, but within fintech and with major financial services companies as well. So actually our practice has seen a bit of a tale of two cities. So mid to late 2022, we had fintechs starting to pull back, but the major banks still had their foot on the gas from a hiring perspective. Enter 2023, we have fintechs coming back in very targeted kind of critical, specialized roles, but banks have pulled back. So I think that there's an aggregate, there's public data that show cases, there's fewer job postings, but when you get into certain job families and types of roles, it's very much the war is not really subsided on talent. And all the layoffs have actually made it, for some clients, more of a confusing or complicated market for talent and recruitment professionals.

Nigel Morris:

So Shavonne, if you think of about it through the lens of your role at Morgan Stanley and are you backing off the hiring of certain functions but leaning in aggressively on other types of talent, particularly in a world where some of that talent is being let go?

Shavonne Gordon:

Yeah, I don't know that we are backing off. I would agree with Jim in that we are slowing down and being more thoughtful about where we make hires, being more responsible to make sure we don't end up in a position where we are over hiring. But I would probably argue that the amount of hiring that we're doing in the tech space, Nigel, so the engineers, the AI, the machine learning, is pretty steady. And we've actually found ourselves sometimes in a pretty unique position where we are hiring and our tech competitors are not. And so finally, Renee can probably relate a little bit to this, folks are looking at the banks because we actually in some cases present the more stable option but can still provide the sexy technology roles to talent, particularly early experienced talent that's looking for that first opportunity to launch their career.

What I will say I've seen in the market, Nigel, is less of an appetite for aggressive hiring in some of the more support functions, so think project management, Agile, some of those things that often are support functions for tech, but where we've actually seen also a lot of layoffs, also recruiting would be another one, where during COVID there was a boom and you couldn't hire enough recruiters and scrum masters and project managers because we were hiring at such a fast clip for tech. And now that we've scaled back some of that hiring, it is impacting what we need for those roles as well and out. So I would say for those roles, hiring has definitely slowed because we just don't have as much of a need anymore that we're not over hiring.

Nigel Morris:

Very, very insightful framing. I really appreciate that, role like recruiting and project management, support functions less necessary but still leaning into the AI, ML, and engineering space and how steady that is. Let's lay the diversity theme over this. I mean this should be a chart, shouldn't it, for incumbents and disruptors alike to be able to really lean into diversity. You mentioned earlier the George Floyd reprehensible event and the energy that released, if you like, into the system. How are you seeing that at Morgan Stanley, and what do you see more generally in the market?

Shavonne Gordon:

Yeah, Nigel, it's a great question. Most companies, after George Floyd, put out some very public goals around increasing representation at their firms. I think tech was already on that journey. One of the reasons that I actually moved into HR was tech was looking to really move the needle in terms of diversity in tech. And tech was already on that journey and it got amplified when George Floyd happened. And so I feel, what I see in the market, is that focus, Nigel, is still there, especially for tech. But the interesting thing that we are also seeing in the market, and this one is a bit more concerning, is where we've seen a lot of the layoffs is in those support functions, and unfortunately that is where we tend to see a lot of diversity. So when you look at your scrum masters, your project managers, your HR professionals, your recruiters, where in the market we've seen the layoffs, it's impacting people of color at a much higher clip because they tend to be in some of those roles.

On the flip side, Nigel, in kind of the tech and digital space, people still have their foot on the gas pedal for that talent. And so it is still a hot market when it comes to Black technologists, Latinx technologists, women in technology, folks are still trying to hire that talent and so they still kind of have their pick of the market. And I think the thing that complicates this even more is companies are trying to navigate that it's a hot market and the demands of that talent has changed. Folks want to stay working remotely. We're trying to figure out how does hybrid work environment impact our ability to attract this talent. And so we're not just fighting the war on talent against our competitors, but a lot of times it's how do we adapt as a company?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I mean, I think it goes without saying, but with lives being so disruptive from COVID, so if you think about folks had to move in with other family members, people relocated for more space, there was concerns around obviously health, and I think there was just a lot of changes in people's lives as they reset what they were focused on and where they wanted to physically be and who they wanted around them. And as a result of that, we've seen this yo-yo happening with remote work. We're remote, we're not remote, we're going to do three days, we're going to require people, we're not going to require people. And one thing I would just put out there is that I think it's really important for all companies to go back to what is our employment brand and what are our messages around what it's like to work here now. That's one thing I am seeing, which I think people have lost their way a little bit about how to even describe what the culture is.

Nigel Morris:

Yeah, well, one would think that in an environment where there's more uncertainty and there are layoffs and they're all publicized in the press, and I won't go into all of them, that would slow down attrition and people will be less likely to leave, more likely to stay with what they know and gives them comfort. So it would suggest that it might be harder to attract people to move in this environment given those circumstances. And something you said earlier, Shavonne, you'd expect that the incumbents would have an advantage here in that I'm not sure if I want to go and join this nascent fly by night disruptive idea when I can work for a very large incumbent where they've been around for 210 years. Jim, how do you see that and how is LF approaching that?

Jim Reo:

So Nigel, we've been faced with this quite a bit in recent months. So you hit on the point that I was planning on making today. There's a lot of risk aversion in the market. When you think about we've seen an uptick in CFO searches for example. And you might not be surprised by that given restrictions to access to capital, cost-cutting, but positioning companies to be ready for the upswing in the economy, and the CFOs that are being pursued by early stage and more mature early stage companies, they're looking for talent that is also being pursued by very mature companies. Large corporations provide a lot more fixed pay. And I think that when you think about when venture money is flowing and going to startups was very fashionable in 2020, 2021, people get caught up in that and they also get more open to taking some risk and having more speculative compensation, especially on the upside of what they could potentially make.

And with fears of the economy, the recession that's been coming for the last year plus, people, I'm not saying are hunkered down, but we have seen a drop in our offer acceptance rate. So you could go back two years ago, a year ago, and was probably like 80 to 90% that an offer was extended and we had an acceptance, and that's dipped. I don't have an exact figure for you, and the people are staying at their current company. Some are negotiating with another company and have a competing offer. They're more risk averse and they might take a job in three or four or six months or a year, but they don't feel like they've got to... that they're going to be missing out on the next big thing. And that's the fear of missing out factor that I think fueled more movement, people being more comfortable with more risk in their compensation packages.

Nigel Morris:

I think what we've got going on here, we've got sort of a natural sort of cycle of the sort of booming and busting of people being more willing to move versus being more reticent to move and risk averse, as you say. We've also got some structural things moving underneath too, where, as you said earlier, Shavonne, some job families are much, much in demand and haven't really mitigated and others really have. But one of the things that I've been having debates with my friends in the C-suites of the incumbents, largely the banks, insurance companies, is this is a time for you to really step up your recruiting because you have that stability in your story, in your narrative.

And the tech companies, a bit of the FAANGs and the fintechs, have had to lay off because they've had to manage their expenses. This is the time for you to step up. And one of the things I often hear, and I'm going to slightly parody this for the sake of making the point, is, Nigel, yes we agree, but don't you know there's a recession going on, or about to go on, and don't you know that inflation is raging, and don't you know... So there's a difficulty, I think, at the C-level of a lot of the incumbents. Do you think this is a time for the incumbents to really step up and build their capability?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I think so. And I think, again, it goes back to, like I was saying, the narrative and for the folks that do have more stable environments, using that in this time to attract people, and I absolutely think that that's an advantage and something that I would be looking at doing if I were in their shoes. And I think part of the thing I would also just call out here is doing some talent planning. Look one year out, do your attrition modeling. Actually look at it in a smart way. If you're going to have a director level engineering manager role open even a year from now, start recruiting now.

Nigel Morris:

Haven't used the C word yet, culture, but the culture of HR has been really interesting over the years. I think all three of you may have been schooled under Dennis Liberson, who I'll give him a shout-out. Dennis as a dear friend and headed HR at Capital One for a long time during my time. And he would go and say, he would talk about how HR had an administrative function, a defensive function, but how it was a strategic weapon. And if you did HR very well, you could hire the best people, you'd manage the best culture, you'd keep the people happy, they'd be more productive, they'd be more innovative. But HR departments are often not terribly entrepreneurial. And I think one of the reasons why the incumbents can't step into this space aggressively is that they don't just don't think opportunism, and you've led very large HR functions. And so let's go to you, Shavonne, are you able to inject entrepreneurism into HR?

Shavonne Gordon:

Yeah, I think you can. I think traditionally you're right, Nigel. I think a lot of times people don't use HR and entrepreneurial and sometimes even innovation in the same sentence. But what we are seeing, and I think what Morgan Stanley is doing as well, and we were doing this at Capital One, is some of the same innovative things that we use in technology, there's no reason we can't use them in HR. We use AI and machine learning just as much in HR as we do in tech. And so how do we actually use HR as a strategic lever in thinking about some of the things that Renee said around culture and being innovative in how we retain our talent, how we invest in our talent, our succession planning, and how we start to think about bringing great talent in and advancing them through the systems, using HR in a rotation for your senior leaders because what better place to learn how to run these incumbents than sitting them in HR?

And so I do think the companies who are faring well and who will fare well after all of the chaos in the economy are going to be those companies who have been innovative in the HR space, really looked for opportunities to partner with the business, and have been innovative in the solutions that they are providing.

Nigel Morris:

I love the idea of rotation. I'll throw that to you, Renee. Have you seen examples of companies where they are rotating their future leadership into other functions, including taking a run at being HR executives?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I absolutely have seen that. And I think that's helpful for many purposes as you think about also building a stronger company overall and injecting a new skillset into the HR organization. I would say though, a slightly different stance in terms of how I build teams that I think creates a different dynamic, is typically some of the first folks that I add to the team are not traditional HR professionals. So marketing analysts, getting an engineer, a marketing analyst, and some folks that are really passionate about people that want to run projects, and even a product manager, frankly, on the people team can make a huge difference and really orienting people less about the sort of functional silos of the past, which are the TA function and compensation, and turning it on its head to actually think about the customer and the center of that and the experiences and solve the problem of onboarding, for example.

And that problem requires people from all different parts of HR. And so we, at this point, I've seen many companies that have those handoffs. So I think it's important as well to build a cross-functional and new type of people team with the diversity of skillsets. And I think what you'll see is people are unshackled from the old ways of doing things in HR.

Nigel Morris:

I love that. I'm going back to some of my old stock phrases, recruiting is not HRs job. Recruiting talent is your job. You are the line manager, you own that. If you've got a problem with an employee and you need to work it through, it's not HRs job to do that on a Friday afternoon. You own it, and you are responsible for the mistakes that you make, and you might spend a lot more time doing really good diligence on the people you want to hire if you know you're accountable for it. Jim, great resignation, people call it, there's a lot of people who basically in the COVID time opted out of the workforce. They said, "I'm not playing anymore. I really like being at home. I get to be with my family. I get to play video games, and I get to play with my train set. And I just don't really want to do it anymore, and I've made enough money." Is it weakening through time as we now start to move to, hopefully anyway, a new equilibrium?

Jim Reo:

I think it's a very uncertain time with respect to the future of work and all the companies that are calling people back in to be onsite either three to five days a week. So we're going to learn a lot in the next year or two. There are definitely individuals that want to be in an in-office environment, creating culture, working alongside of their peers, their colleagues, being able to access the executive team, but there are large numbers of individuals who have gotten quite comfortable, and for good reason, with the flexibility. So I think we're in the early innings of figuring out how this all washes out. I mean, I think we're all bracing ourselves for the impact on the commercial real estate sector, which is going to have an impact on our economy, and might also be affecting how people think about going into an office of work because it could affect their own pocketbook.

So I think companies need to continue to do three things. They need to be flexible. I think if you're rigid to one absolute, either remote, you may not attract people that don't want to be in a remote only culture, and then vice versa, being required to be a hundred percent in the office. I think things like being transparent with associates is going to be even more critical to keep retention and to keep people from the next great resignation. I think that the layoffs that were done in big tech that were notifications through mass emails sent people reeling whether you were impacted or not. So the level of distrust that is existing in corporate America and employees is definitely rising. And we'll start to see some metrics when this story plays out over the next few years.

Nigel Morris:

Has there been an erosion of trust between the sort of social contract between employee and employer? What should you be saying to leaders in corporate America, corporations around the world, and in particular, HR leadership?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I think internal communication is more important than ever, to Jim's point, because I think when there was also the first round of layoffs, I think people really felt like that was it. And whenever you're able to say, "Okay, now let's focus," and then you do another one and then you do another one, it's very difficult to build that trust. And even though the employers would state, "Look, we didn't know. We didn't have the insight obviously to make those decisions at once," it doesn't matter. Then you're left with human beings who have a visceral reaction around whether or not I'm going to lose my job, which provides for my family and for my future.

And so the only way to sort of overcome that, I believe, is constant communication about where the company is going, how does someone fit into that picture, and how are you continuing to develop these individuals at their current companies so that they do stay and they do have a rich experience. And ensuring things like diversity and inclusion programs internally that you're focused on do not go away. I think it's easy to lose sight. You know, you cut people and next thing you know you don't have anyone to do these events or things that build engagement inside the company, and that also erodes, I think, trust even more when they see those things going away.

Nigel Morris:

In a time of austerity, Renee, the natural things that you cut are training, that usually goes really quickly. You focus on R&D experiments that you're doing, you pull them back, which are not where you're going to make money in two years, but it's where you're going to make money in five or 10 years, and you see that start to unravel. But I think your point on diversity and inclusion, it's very easy to say, "Nigel, don't you know that we're in a crisis so let's come back to that. Let's put it on the side." I suspect, Shavonne, that you've been a stalwart advocate that you can't do that, at Morgan Stanley. Has that been difficult in there or at Capital One?

Shavonne Gordon:

You know, it hasn't. I do think one of the first places, when we talk about budget and cutting back, it's programs. Diversity programs tend to be one of the places that people naturally gravitate towards. But I think the important thing that we did at Capital One and that would do at Morgan Stanley as well is you have to integrate those programs into your normal programs. It's not a diversity talent acquisition program, it's a talent acquisition program that has diversity infused into it. It's BAU. It can't be separate and apart, and then you lower that risk of the potential for people to cut programs. And then to Renee's point, people work to live, they don't live to work. And I think one of the things that we all found out during COVID is life is precious. And so we need to be able to meet our employees halfway.

We need to be able to be flexible, as Jim said. We need to be able to provide benefits that allow them to take care of their families and their partners, and we need to show our employees that we care about them. And so making sure that our programs take into account just basic human needs of our employees is so important. And to your point, Nigel, for diversity efforts, making sure that that's just infused into what we do naturally. And so a lot of what we do at Morgan Stanley and what we did at Capital One, a lot of times in partnership with Jim, is how do we make sure that it's BAU. It's just what we do versus one of those standalone things that has more tendency to get cut.

Nigel Morris:

In your new job, Renee, are you going to let people work remotely? Are you going to require everybody to come in five days a week? I think the other Morgan just announced that they're going to require people to come in five days a week. I'm not sure if they're going to require them to dress in the way that you had to dress 20 years ago, but what's your take on remote working and how do you get that balance between, as you said, people's need for the social aspect and the continuity and the culture, but on the other hand, people's desire to be able to work from home and to do it effectively?

Renee Mauldin:

Yeah, I think there's a few things. One is I think you just have to have also some good rationale around what jobs you allow to work remotely, what jobs you won't and why, and for those that live near an office, what are the guidelines around someone coming in? I think clarity is the most important piece. Even people that have put out statements, I think people are just still confused even within these companies. And so here at P44, we have employees that work remotely and the team members all over the world so we have a bit of hybrid and different sort of setups in different countries. But I think again, it's critical that people just get really clear on what it means. I think everyone's adaptable, right? We can move our lives to actually fit back into whatever makes sense.

Nigel Morris:

So what upsets people is when it's some sort of across the board, homogenous fait accompli with no signaling, rather than saying, "Look, here's where we think it's really useful. Here's where we think it's less, so here's where we can accommodate." So you are going to adopt a much more of a contingent based approach. Shavonne, how does Morgan Stanley, a massive rich heritage of being a bastion in Wall Street, and some of your competitors are I think encouraging people to come in more and more, what's your take?

Shavonne Gordon:

Yeah, I'm glad you said the other Morgan, Nigel, because it is the other Morgan. It's not Morgan Stanley.

Nigel Morris:

That's right. I tried to make that clear. Absolutely right. This is the Jamie Diamond Morgan.

Shavonne Gordon:

That's right. That's right, not the James Gorman Morgan. So I actually think James has done a really good job actually of setting the tone at the top that we do want to retain a certain degree of flexibility that we all experienced during the pandemic. And so, Nigel, we actually do have a true hybrid work environment where we do ask our employees to come into the office three days a week. They get to choose what those days are, and so whatever makes the most sense for their teams or for their business partners that they support. So it's not everybody's in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or everybody works from home Monday, Friday. We allow the employees, and a lot of times the teams, because what we want to promote our team norms, so what makes the most sense for the teams and the organizations.

It allows them to connect with people live and to meet members of their team, and that's really important. And so we feel like this hybrid working environment is the perfect balance in allowing folks to do that. Are there still people who want to be a hundred percent remote? Absolutely. And when people have those requests and they have a valid need, we are flexible in working with our employees to figure out what works best for them. But James has done a really good job of setting the tone at the top that hybrid three days in a week is going to be the new new normal for Morgan Stanley.

Nigel Morris:

I want you to point to one or two things. Most of our audience will be younger entrepreneurs building businesses. I'm sure we have a lot of people from the incumbents too. But from your vast experience of the three of you, what would be the one or two pieces of advice you would give to a leader looking to manage the human resource talent that they have? What do you tell your CEOs on a regular basis that is your big takeaway? So Jim, what are the biggest standouts for you?

Jim Reo:

For me, I think that leaders in any environment, and particularly in this one, need to be focused on the development of their teams. They can't walk away quickly from putting high potentials on leadership development programs. They can't cut back on executive coaching. I mean, executive coaching has significant impact. There's data that shows the impact that makes on leaders. So they need to keep developing themself and not lose sight of these are sparse times and we do less in these spaces. They have to do more, lean in even more on those fronts.

Nigel Morris:

So the irony is that people will tend to do less in times like this. And ironically, it's a time when you have to do more.

Jim Reo:

For the entrepreneurs and people who've only worked in more early stage companies, there's going to be a resistance to borrow practices from big companies, but they need to study what's some of the successful things that large companies that do have the resources do to keep retention and engagement at their company. So it's going to be maybe out of the comfort zone to try to study up the companies they're trying not to be because there's some golden nuggets in there.

Renee Mauldin:

I guess my advice would be go have what I call stay interviews or go have conversations. Double down, again back to communication, on those that you currently have in your company, the talent you have. I think it's easy to be distracted with everything going on. So it's sort of, to dovetail with Jim's point about development, but I find sometimes leaders just aren't speaking to their teams enough, don't know enough what's going on and what's on their mind. Don't wait for an engagement survey to tell you where there might be opportunities to improve on your teams. Get out there and speak to people, especially if they're remote.

Nigel Morris:

Yeah, get out there and be transparent and build that trust. I've got it. Thanks, Renee. Shavonne, what would you add?

Shavonne Gordon:

I would double down on everything Jim and Renee have said. The other thing I would say too is as a leader of an organization recognizing, and we've all said it, your greatest asset at your firm, at your company, is your talent. And so it is important that you continue to invest in them. And as a diversity professional, I also would say making sure that diversity is infused into that talent strategy and looking for opportunities to make sure that that advancement and that investment is equitable for everybody that's at your firm. And that sometimes means having the tough conversations. Nigel, that means creating accountability so that folks can't shrug their shoulders and say, "Yeah, but it's hard." It's hard, but we solve hard problems every day. We can't set aside the a diversity problem just because it's hard.

Nigel Morris:

If it was easy, we would've made a much bigger dent in it.

Shavonne Gordon:

Exactly.

Nigel Morris:

I want to have all three of you back. I want to have a part two of this conversation where we can drill down into some other really interesting areas, particularly around diversity and inclusion. My big takeaways are just, love this, the war on talent has changed shape, but it is still hot, and there's an opportunity in that for everybody to step their game up. Risk aversion is something that exists today and there's a huge premium on being out there, focus on transparency and trust. And I really, that trust word has really spoken to me today. And as leaders, you have a natural tendency to pull back in a time like this and circle the wagons and it's exactly what you should not do.

And that really has resonated, and get out there and talk about it. And I mean, the last point, Shavonne, reinforced with you, is that diversity and inclusion is not a program. It's something that has to be embedded and integrated into everything you do and leadership needs to own it. Shavonne, thank you. Thank you, Renee, Jim Reo.

Renee Mauldin:

Thank you.

Nigel Morris:

I just want to say thank you. You guys are the best. I mean, you guys were the ones who built the apparatus that was Capital One's secret source, which was its culture, and just huge thanks and wish you all loads of luck. And good luck in the new job, Renee, and talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

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