Video transcript: Culture and Capability

Transcript

Hannah Fry: Hello and welcome to PwC's human-led, tech-powered series. In this episode, we're going to explore the role of culture and capability. We'll ask how organisations can overcome the tech skills gap, where they can turn to for support, what role they should play in growing the talent pool and why answering all of those questions requires a combination of human ingenuity and the right technology. I think it makes sense to start really at the beginning here. How big of an issue, Stephanie, is the skills gap?

Stephanie Kelly: The skills gap issue is huge, in my experience, and I've been Head of HR for twenty years now. The last year or so, there's been massive gap in what organisations need and the skills that are out there in the UK.

Hannah Fry: What do you think is driving this gap?

Tunji Akintokun MBE: I think the gap's being driven by innovation and I think many industries are becoming more disrupted by digitisation, and this is fuelling the demand for skills to be able to address that opportunity that many organisations have.

Hannah Fry: Is this something that's going to get worse over time or are we at the peak of the problem?

Kieragh Nelson: I think, left unchecked, it will get worse over time and I think businesses and organisations today have two things that they're grappling with. How do they continue to invest in longer-term skills capabilities, because the pace of change is only going to continue to get quicker, and how do they solve for their immediate problems today? Most businesses, in my experience, and certainly the businesses we are talking to, are looking to see how they can business-partner and digitally business-partner with companies like PwC in our managed service arena, to actually solve for those immediate skills gaps.

Hannah Fry: In terms of those different strategies almost, the short term and the long term, what can be done about it? What can you do?

Stephanie Kelly: When we first had this big vacancy problem and all these positions that we couldn't fill, I think employers just started to do more of the same, like recruit more aggressively etc., and then suddenly the penny dropped, that just doing the same thing wasn't going to solve the problem, so we needed to do something different, which was really widen the net for talent. So, to have a look in places that we had never looked before and realise that we needed to grow our own to get them into the organisation, and then also fast-track everyone's career in the organisation, so it wasn't just doing more of the same, more recruitment, it was looking differently.

Hannah Fry: I'm, sort of, sat here, I'm thinking about how technology, the move towards technology, is kind of the thing that's created this skills gap but is it also something that can help to narrow it?

Tunji Akintokun MBE: I think it can and I think, if you look at the way in which people are consuming information and learning, it's changing and tech plays a huge role in being able to deliver content to individuals in the way they'd like to, at the time they'd like to. If you look at online learning, and I think one of the things we are seeing on our platform is that there are not just the hard skills but the soft skills that go alongside side. So, if you look at the soft skills that are increasingly needed and are being consumed, it is around persuasiveness, it's around emotional intelligence, it's around adaptability and collaboration, and that goes in alongside all of the hard skills that we've seen around blockchain and AI, machine learning and cyber.

Hannah Fry: What about all the promises of technology taking our jobs though? How is it that, suddenly, technology comes in and now we need more people?

Tunji Akintokun MBE: I think some of that's driven by the fact that jobs are being done differently. So, jobs are changing, even if we're not changing jobs, and what we're seeing is that, as digitisation takes hold in many different industries with efficiencies, actually there are more jobs available. It's just that people need to be reskilled and upskilled to be able to do them.

Stephanie Kelly: For me, as Chief People Officer, what I'm actually looking for are the right attitudes and general capabilities because I know what I might want in someone now will be completely different in 24 months' time. So, I need to find someone who wants to pivot, you know, is going to tell us how we need to pivot, and those are the types of things that we should be looking for, as well as specific tech skills.

Tunji Akintokun MBE: I did a microelectronics degree at university. I can tell you now, when I came out, all of the skills I learnt were absolutely obsolete. The languages I learnt, and this is going back a long way, I learnt Pascal, by the time I came out, it was C++, and then it's gone on from there. When you look at the link between academia and industry, that gap needs to be actually closed a lot more.

Hannah Fry: As though you're having industry influence the, sort of, curriculum, as it were, for students.

Tunji Akintokun MBE: Yes.

Hannah Fry: There are other ways to collaborate with academia.

Kieragh Nelson: So, we, within PwC, as an example, we have a number of what we call 'flying start degrees'. So, they're technology-based degrees that we have co-designed and co-deliver with the universities, and they're really good, both for, you know, bringing through, to your point, exact, relevant industry technology skills that are needed, and then allowing the students to actually have real-life work experience in the company to keep those skills fresh actually as they go through. So, they're really interesting and there's a huge uptake and very successful because it gives, you know, the right skills at the right time, both for the individuals coming through and then the businesses. Then you can expand that out into other work that I would do with Tech She Can, so that's about bringing in a little bit more diversity, in terms of encouraging females to come into the technology subjects. We do an awful lot of work with what we called assured skilled pre-employment academies. So, that's maybe moving outside academia but taking pre-employment skills and giving them maybe ten, twelve weeks deep, deep learning in technology and data skills, so that's back to that re-skilling piece and that's all around helping to grow those skills and helping businesses grow their own as well.

Hannah Fry: How do you create that culture then? How do you make sure that you're fostering an environment where people feel like they can be curious, where people feel like they can make mistakes, where people fit into exactly what Stephanie was saying?

Kieragh Nelson: I think different businesses will do that better than others. A large part of it is actually how you foster collaboration and how you bring different technology and operational skill-sets together. I think it's in and around creating common purposes or common issues to solve, and then allowing them the space, providing they've got the tools and the capabilities, to actually get together and solve for. You have to be able to empower them with the skills and if things go wrong, then that's okay, they're allowed to go wrong and actually then, 'Let's move on and innovate on the next thing.'

Stephanie Kelly: All employers have had to really up their game, right from, you know, how they brand themselves initially, how they make them attractive to potential candidates, and then once you've got to that genius in your organisation, how you make sure your organisation is set up to give them the experiences that they want and need.

Hannah Fry: Part of those experiences must be working on juicy problems.

Tunji Akintokun MBE: Yes, it is. It's interesting projects, cutting-edge projects, and again, some of the data, if we look this year, around the top jobs that are out there that people are going for, no surprise, artificial intelligence, UX, cybersecurity, these are all areas where, you know, we're seeing huge demand.

Kieragh Nelson: When I think about the technologists that we have in our organisation and speaking to other clients, it's the ability to solve problems and it's being able to use their skill-sets or devise new solutions that actually help to solve either societal problems or make a difference.

Stephanie Kelly: When you do have a lack of skill in an organisation and you only have a certain number of people, you've got to make sure that you're playing those people in the right position. So, we will have people that are amazing at coding, let's leave these geniuses alone, doing what they day, let's take off any excess duties off them, and then we have people with the most amazing emotional intelligence, let's play those people in the right positions. Those people make great leaders and managers and people that are inspiring the organisation to achieve.

Hannah Fry: I'm trying to hold all of this in mind, you know, the different things that you're saying and enforcing but the importance for diversity in your workforce at the same time. I mean, that's another dimension that needs to be considered.

Stephanie Kelly: Absolutely, and it's another dimension that needs to be improved. So, in tech, in general, we have under-representation from a number of different groups and that's a problem because we're not getting all the benefits of different people's perspectives.

Tunji Akintokun MBE: Ironically, I was reflecting on this yesterday. I founded a social enterprise ten years ago, which was looking at this problem, which said that there's a skills gap here and there's a lot of diverse talent here that's not getting the opportunity, and I started it here in London actually during the Olympics, and the whole idea was to-, it was in STEM. So, it was, you know, digital skills, science, technology, engineering, maths. We then broadened it to include the arts as well, so it became STEAM, and the sole premise o this organisation, which still goes today, was to be able to say, 'Here's a lot of diverse talent with opportunity.' Going to Steph's point around attitude and aptitude being what you need to get the right talent, to look at where there is the opportunity to grow and thrive in society, and then be able to connect them together. There are lots of organisations out there, like Tech She Can, there's UK Black Talent and others that are looking at this space but to bring them together, and to my point earlier around academia and industry, you know, you can only be what you can see. If you then start to show diverse role models in these organisations, doing these exciting roles, and that actually, funnily enough, behind all of it, there is some tech or there are some digital skills that they can learn and it's a great opportunity, then you really do start to see the magic happen, and that, for me, is one of the many ways in which you can start to close that gap.

Hannah Fry: That's such a nice re-framing of my question, and I, sort of, said it to you as though, 'Here's a problem and another problem layered on top,' but actually, the way that you've just described that is there are two problems, and therefore that means that there's a real opportunity.

Tunji Akintokun MBE: There is, absolutely.

Hannah Fry: I'm just thinking about this from the employer perspective. Where is the real drive for this coming from? Is it coming from the fact that there are things that can't be done by the company or is there also just a real push from individuals working in an organisation who want to upskill?

Stephanie Kelly: There's always a push from individuals in the organisation. So, one of the things that really attracts people to companies and makes them go the extra mile when they're with a company is the chance to learn and grow. So, everyone, almost without exception, wants to be learning and growing but of course, you know, organisations are generally quite profit-driven and they have very clear goals about what it is they need to do, where they're going, so the demand really is from an organisation, to get these tech skills and to get the jobs done as quickly as possible.

Hannah Fry: How can you help support businesses in making sure that they mitigate against these problems going forward?

Kieragh Nelson: That is a question that a lot of businesses are wrestling with today. Not all businesses are technology businesses, to your point, and so it's about how do they perhaps partner with other, either in the short term and increasingly in the longer term, to be able to create the technology solutions, create the operational solutions then that's going to them accelerate their ambition. Increasingly, what businesses really want is they want expertise that they can trust, they want a speed that they can rely on and they need outcomes that last.

Hannah Fry: I'm just thinking about some of the points you were making earlier and I, sort of, wonder whether there's a societal angle to all of this. Do you think that, as a society, we benefit from having a tech-savvy population?

Tunji Akintokun MBE: I think we do and I think one of the things that probably organisations do need to look at is just benchmarking where they are with their workforces, and then to Keira's point, then you can look at whether you partner with organisations to plug that gap, as you upskill your own organisation, to get to those levels. I think that, for me, is one of the most important things.

Stephanie Kelly: I also think that organisations, just like people, have an obligation to help the communities and help UK PLC be more productive. So, there's an absolute obligation on organisations to help skill up and inspire careers in technology, so that's something that we certainly try to do in my organisation.

Kieragh Nelson: I guess you will probably see, the way that we would see, the fact that technologists and younger technologists coming into the business actually are really pushing us, as leaders, and our leadership teams to continually evolve the way that we reward them, the environment that they're in, the culture that we provide. You know, they keep us on our toes as well, and rightly so.

Hannah Fry: I think that's, sort of, been the big theme throughout this entire discussion actually, is that collaboration, that it's partnering with other organisations and with academia, with schools but also that it's really a collaboration between humans and technology in order to close this gap that all of society is going through simultaneously, very interesting stuff. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining me. That was really interesting. You can watch all of the other episodes of human-led, tech-powered that are up online now. Thank you very much.