In partnership with Rhino Interiors Group; Introducing Workplace Leaders episode three
Chris Moriarty: This episode is brought to you in partnership with Rhino Interiors Group. Rhino create workplaces that connect space with performance, helping organisations deliver environments where people can do their best work. To find out more, visit rhinooffice.co.uk
Chris Moriarty: Hello and welcome back to Workplace Geeks, the podcast from Audiem, exploring the world of workplace work, and everything in between.
Chris Moriarty: We're back with our third instalment of our Workplace Leaders Top 50 series where I've been catching up with some of the people who've made this year's list and asking them the same handful of questions.
Chris Moriarty: How do they get here? What's challenging workplaces right now? Where do you see the opportunities and what advice would you give to the next batch of workplace leaders? And first up is Loren Cooper Gold. Now Loren is a workplace strategist at Deloitte, but her route there has taken her through architecture, the Houses of Parliament consultancy, and now she's sitting on the occupier side of things.
Chris Moriarty: So let's start there with Loren.
Loren Cooper Gold
Chris Moriarty: let's start there with Loren. Loren, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Well done on getting onto the Workplace Leaders top 50 list for 2026. But just to get us into the conversation, why don't you tell us who you are, where you work, and what you do.
Loren Cooper Gold: Great. Yeah, thanks Chris. And yeah, it's a real honour to be part of the, the workplace leaders this year.
Loren Cooper Gold: So I'm Loren Cooper Gold. I'm a workplace strategist working in-house at Deloitte within corporate real estate team. So I'm very much on the occupier side of the table and that means I'm living and breathing the business alongside my colleagues. I'm not advising from the outside, I'm working through our requirements, our priorities, the politics that always comes alongside that within an organisation and those real constraints that we don't always see in a brief when we're on that receiving end as a consultant.
Chris Moriarty: So just give us a kind of a sense for how you've got into this now. You sort of talked about the fact that you are in-house and haven't looked at your CV and stuff. I can see that you weren't always in-house. Just give us a sort of an idea. How did you come into the industry and what sort of pathway have you taken through it?
Loren Cooper Gold: So I actually started out in architecture. I did my degree and then I worked out in practise for a few, uh, few years. And that really gave me the foundation for everything I do now. So I worked master planning, residential design with my architectural days. So I was very much conscious of how people were using space, what space needed to do for people as well.
Loren Cooper Gold: That's where I wanted to change my focus. So I was really drawn to why behind the brief and not just. This is what we need to do for the brief. How can we support people in their wellbeing? How can we shape their experience? And how can we really influence how actually people use space and function in that space day to day?
Loren Cooper Gold: That's where this job at the Houses of Parliament came up. I jumped at it initially, but that was actually for an interior design role, not in architecture. So I wanted to shift that focus from wider perspective of how people use space to really granular detail of how people were using space. But whilst I was there, I very quickly moved from interior design into shaping design and real estate strategy within the Houses of Parliament, and that's where I was in the internal Strategic Estates team.
Loren Cooper Gold: So I got involved in the major relocation projects and that's where it really clicked for me. And then I heard the terminology workplace strategy and I saw firsthand, you know, how it affects people's wellbeing, their experience, and their ability to do their best work. So that's when it stopped just being interesting and it became something I really wanted to build my career in.
Chris Moriarty: One of the things I like about this sector and stuff is a lot of focus is on offices and all the rest of it, but there are some amazing jobs out there and it strikes me like having that role in the Houses of Parliament, the history, which I guess comes with loads of challenges. The stakeholders must just be off the chart.
Chris Moriarty: You know, people, people listening to this now are sitting there going, oh, I wonder how finance are gonna handle this, you know, or, or wonder what marketing you think about this fit out. Have no idea, I guess, about politics with a little p and a big P, I guess that you had to kind of navigate in that role.
Loren Cooper Gold: Absolutely. And it wasn't just that as well, we talk about Houses of Parliament, it was House of Commons versus House of Lords. So it was very different and very different perspectives from either side. Sometimes they were complimentary and sometimes we had to negotiate between the two of how that would really work.
Loren Cooper Gold: And we had that difference between the colleagues that worked for the House of Commons and what they needed and how they needed to function and versus the House of Laws colleagues needed to function as well.
Chris Moriarty: And, and just looking at things. So you, you sort of went from there. You've, you've gone out into kind of advisory and consultancy on the outside before you've come back in.
Chris Moriarty: I mean, how did you find that kind of transition? It goes from like a single, very particular workplace with lots of multiple stakeholders to kind of multiple workplaces with lots of different needs and, and wants.
Loren Cooper Gold: Absolutely. So yeah, from there I moved to Space Lab. It was a fantastic experience. And then onto Claremont in those consultancy roles.
Loren Cooper Gold: And that's where you can, as you say, get that broad perspective across different organisations. But I think for me, you're bringing it back to the end users and the people using spaces and why they're using those spaces. It doesn't matter whether you're a law firm, I did some work with London Zoo as well, or at the Houses of Parliament.
Loren Cooper Gold: You're, you're speaking to the end users, you're speaking to the people. You are making sure that space is fit for purpose for them.
Chris Moriarty: Well, I'm not gonna draw a line between inhabitants of the House of Common in Yes. Zoo. But, um, so I don't know if I've spoken to anyone such a kind of like eclectic kind of combination of, of experiences is amazing really.
Chris Moriarty: So with all that in mind, with all that in mind and, and maybe particularly in the role that you're in at the moment, which you've, you know, at Deloitte that you've been in for some time now, just gimme an idea of what the big challenges are, whether it's facing the sector, facing people in your role in particular, or your organisation.
Chris Moriarty: What, what's the things that are getting people scratching their heads
Loren Cooper Gold: thinking about those challenges today? I think we're still asking the wrong question. We are still spending a lot of time debating mandates. How often are people coming into the office rather than thinking about why they're coming to the office, what are they coming in for?
Loren Cooper Gold: What do they need from the space? We've spent a lot of time pulling in collaboration spaces, which I'm a huge fan of, but actually are they required in the vast amount that we've been putting in post COVID, especially somewhere like Deloitte, where we've got a tax and legal and audit and assurance colleagues, they're very much head down focus workers and they need that space.
Loren Cooper Gold: We're creating that space for them without creating noise in the background with the collaboration spaces. Um, so I think we're still focusing on. How often people are in rather than why they're in on the back of that as well. The gap between data and understanding. We've got tonnes of occupancy data from sensors, manual floor, walking past data when they enter and exit buildings.
Loren Cooper Gold: But it's telling you what's happened, not why it's happened. So again, coming back to the value of speaking to people, understanding the lived experience behind those numbers, the opportunity to engage that end user should never be underestimated. If you get that right from the start and you bring people on the journey of what you're doing as well, I think we're always coming out stronger as a collective team.
Loren Cooper Gold: And I also think that tension between pace of business change and pace of property. So obviously we look at lease terms that are 10 to 15 years away, but our businesses can change and shift quite quickly within that time. Thinking back to Parliament, every four years we had a new government typically every four years.
Loren Cooper Gold: That's, and also at Deloitte's quite similar, we have a, a big change every four years a new exec comes in. So everybody has new ideas, new ways of thinking, and our property and leases can't always adapt to that. So I think making sure we are working alongside our landlords developers to make that much better, make it flexible enough for people's needs and for the business over time would be better.
Chris Moriarty: I particularly like your point there about the speed differences, because that's something I've been involved in organisations we've talked about that, you know, even like if you compare lease timescales to FM contracts, to workplace changes to furniture solutions, they're all on slightly different timings.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah. So how do you get everything to sort of talk to each other? So plenty of challenges there. What do you think the big opportunities are for workplace professionals at the minute
Loren Cooper Gold: listening to Occupy and tenant voices? So I think we are working much more closely with our landlords at Deloitte as well in determining what we need from a space, not just what they assume they, that they think we need and that matters because we can then enhance environments and shape those environments that potentially CA stage in some instances, rather than having to go in, strip things out and, and then make it amenable to what we require.
Chris Moriarty: There's been talk about that for years, isn't it? About landlords actually getting closer to tenants rather than just almost getting to a certain stage and going, yeah, that's fine, that's a good thing.
Loren Cooper Gold: Yeah. With definitely over, I'd say significantly in the last 18 months, we are definitely getting more traction with landlords.
Loren Cooper Gold: Uh, and them having those upfront conversations around what are we looking for? What do we need from those spaces? What can they do to help us develop something that is really exceptional and enhances our experience.
Chris Moriarty: Let's take you all the way back to fresh faced, architect coming out of university and maybe thinking about, oh, I wonder what a job at the House of Commons might look like.
Chris Moriarty: But if you could go all the way back there and or there was people listening today that are, want to be on the list, like this in the future, want to be kind of recognised by their peers or simply just wanna make you know an impact, what advice would you be given the next generation of leaders?
Loren Cooper Gold: Yeah, I'd say stay curious.
Loren Cooper Gold: We're always given a brief, a written brief, but if you start asking why, you tend to uncover some deeper thinking of, of what's really required. So yeah, stay curious. Really listen and understand what people actually need from that space. Also, just drawing from my, uh, as you pointed out, quite varied career between consultancy and um, in-house roles.
Loren Cooper Gold: I think don't narrow yourself too early. Maybe try and experience both in-house and consultancy. They teach you very different perspectives. So if you can learn from both. And then finally, workplace strategy is a multidisciplinary role, and we stretch between design people, data technology, real estate psychology.
Loren Cooper Gold: You can't be an expert in all of it, but you can. If you really find that thread that matters to you and keep following it, that's where your best work and your most meaningful contribution will usually come from.
Chris Moriarty: I particularly liked Loren's distinction there between measuring what's happening and actually understanding why. So thank you very much Loren. So up next we have Saskia Lorrenson. Now, I've known Saskia a while now and pretty much immediately upon meeting her decided she was a bit of a workplace firecracker.
Chris Moriarty: She has a wicked sense of humour, which you will start to hear come through in her interview. And this conversation caught her at a particularly interesting moment. Saskia is swapping London for Nairobi, which takes our conversation somewhere I definitely wasn't expecting when we started. So let's hear from Saskia.
Saskia Lorrenson
Chris Moriarty: Well, Saskia, welcome to the Workplace Geeks Podcast. Well done for getting onto the Workplace Leaders Top 50 lists for 2026 Fully deserved.
Saskia Lorrenson: Thank you very much.
Chris Moriarty: To get us started, to get our our listeners into the right head space, tell us a bit about you and the work you do.
Saskia Lorrenson: So I am Saskia Lorrenson. I have recently, up until a few months ago, I was with NBC Universal as their workplace director. And prior to that I was in various other occupied positions. But what's most exciting is at the moment, I'm in the transition of moving my whole life to Nairobi in Kenya to, uh, go and join a serviced office provider over there.
Saskia Lorrenson: But most of, like, my, my career so far to date in London has been around workplace experience, change management, workplace strategy. Um, design is something I get very, very excited about. Um, but that's just my whole thing. I've just always been so hooked on how workplaces and environments can like, change your mood and just change.
Saskia Lorrenson: I know like the impact that the built environment has on your health and your wellbeing. I just is something I've always gotten behind and always still to this day, really firmly believe in.
Chris Moriarty: Did you come into this straight away? Did, you know, come straight out of education, like fired up about this stuff and straight into the industry or, you know, how, how have you sort of ended up here as well?
Chris Moriarty: 'cause you know, have, I do know you, we've, we've chatted before, we've caught up before and I know some of your past roles, but, you know, you've, you've been advising, you've been occupying, you've been, you know, now serviced offices is a slightly different thing. Again, how did you get into this industry and how have you sort of navigated through this industry?
Saskia Lorrenson: I'm gonna give an answer that I think every other person gives. When asked this question, I just sort of fell into it. Chris, really,
Chris Moriarty: Nice.
Saskia Lorrenson: Like, who doesn't answer, who go, who wakes up thinking they're gonna be in workplace or facilities management? I graduated university. So from at uni I studied commercial music. So I wanted to be a singer. Someone said to me when I was in year 12, and I was choosing universities, they're like, well, what do you wanna be in five years? And I was like, honestly, I want to be Beyonce. So I did that for three years and then I came out of it and I was like, I don't think I wanna be a singer. I think I wanna make money instead.
Saskia Lorrenson: So after uni I went, I came home, I did a bit of travelling and then, um, I applied to a recruitment agency in Bracknell and they put me forward for every and any entry level job you can imagine I went for like a telemarketing job. I went for a recruiting job and I was like, nothing. None of this is right. Nothing. None of this is like resonating with me. And then I got put forward for this interview to be a receptionist for a company called Area who were a design and build company.
Saskia Lorrenson: And they did office fit out and they were based in Ham. And I was like, well I've got no idea about any of what that means. So I went along to this interview and I started as a receptionist for area in their eggum office doing their milk monitoring, doing the sweetie jar monitoring, doing the post and then like, 'cause that didn't take that long to try and conquer, right?
Saskia Lorrenson: So then I pretty quickly got put onto other things like, hey, we need some support with like the telemarketing team with leads coming in, can you help putting them on the CRM system or the design team needed drawings folded. So I learned how to fold a drawing properly 'cause they'd sent it down to me. So I was just kind of became a bit of like an extra pair of hands for lots of the different teams.
Saskia Lorrenson: And that's when I got introduced to the consultancy team. I did the workplace strategy, did the change management, and I was like, that's what I wanna do. So I just worked really hard and like kind of elbowed my way into that position, into the consultancy world.
Saskia Lorrenson: So after five or six years of being with, with the consultancy company, um, there was an opportunity with convex the insurance company and I knew the team there, so I kind of, and I knew they were looking for that role, so I just kind of messaged and said, Hey, would you consider me for it? And they said, yeah.
Saskia Lorrenson: Then I was there for two and a half years. And then after that, my dear friend Pete Sandal gave me a call and said, Hey, we've got an opportunity at NBC. Um, the, the director's going off for a year. She's on maternity leave. Do you wanna come and do her job for a year? So I went and interviewed and that's what I did.
Saskia Lorrenson: So it's all, it's literally been who, you know, that's been it. It's like people calling me into positions and saying, Hey, do you wanna do it? And I'd be like, yeah. Okay.
Chris Moriarty: So let's, let's get into your thoughts on the sector, right? So I want to start with challenges 'cause I wanna finish on a positive. What do you think the big challenges are you could look at that as your challenges, you know, as a workplace leader and what the things you're battling your organisations or just generally from picking it up around the sector, what do you think are the kind of the big head scratches at the moment?
Saskia Lorrenson: So I felt like you could answer this question with some really obvious middle of the road responses, like, you know, competing stakeholder mindsets or whatever, or like conflicting views on what the workplace should be. I don't know. But one of the things personally for me that I think I started to struggle with as a workplace leader in the industry here in the uk was this level of like, repetitiveness.
Saskia Lorrenson: And I would tell you my example here, when I first started as a junior consultant, one of the first tasks that they gave me was, um, put together a PowerPoint presentation explaining activity based working that we can do for one of our clients. So go away, do the research, you know, pull together the stats, look at what activity based working is, look at what it isn't, look at the behaviours that have to like kind of happen and the, the change management that has to happen to support the space that to, you know, what technology has to happen to support activity, activity-based working, being like a way of working in a space.
Saskia Lorrenson: And so I did that and I did the research and I have the PowerPoint and we did it. And that was fair. That was in 2017. Flash forward to 2025, I land at NBCU. One of the first tasks I'm given is there's a leader in the US who's really keen to know about how we implemented activity-based working here in the uk.
Saskia Lorrenson: Do you think you could just like pull together like a quick presentation explaining the strategy, the method, the, the technology that has a supported the, and I was like, do you know what? I have a presentation that I think I can probably lean on for that. So it was just that I, okay, it's been how many years there's been a pandemic and yet we're still talking about trying to introduce people to new ways of working more.
Saskia Lorrenson: You know, that that, that to me was a moment where I was like, oh, okay, things have changed. Like lots of things have changed. Don't get me wrong. Like, I'm not thinking that anything hasn't moved on or progressed, but there's still some very fundamental things that you just have to keep repeating. And I think I notice that when I speak to a couple of other people, you know, when we're talking about I, there, there's like a phrase that people say where they're like, oh, remember I remember talking about this in 2020, like 2012.
Saskia Lorrenson: Like, we've been talking about that for the past 15 years. And I'm like, 15 years. Really? We're still on the same thing. We're still on trying to convince people about flexibility in the workplace and not using a desk if that's what you wanna do. But that's my, that's kind of where I was at when I was thinking about that question was are we still just talking about some of the same problems we were talking about 10, 15 years ago?
Chris Moriarty: So if that's the challenge, what's the opportunities for workplace leaders? What, you know, what, what's sitting there waiting for us to grab, to go and really make a mark?
Saskia Lorrenson: With my new company that I'm moving to, which is called Kasi based in Kenya. I think that it would be silly for me not to talk about the opportunity and the potential across Africa in this particular stage. Now, look, I'm sure that everyone doesn't have, you know, real estate in Africa, outside of, I dunno, Johannesburg or something.
Saskia Lorrenson: But like, you know, we were always talking about where can we learn from different places? And I know you, I've heard you speak previously about like, what other industries do we look, do we literally, like you just said, academia, I know that you've had a big thing for like, you know, marketing and, um, branding and hospitality and all that stuff.
Saskia Lorrenson: So like, where else can you look to for inspiration? I'm like, Africa, guys. Africa and like Africa. I mean, Africa is such a huge continent, and I was actually at a conference yesterday about, um, about Africa and they're like, we have to stop thinking of it as one continent. There's so many different cultures and, and languages and behaviours and just, it's so, so diverse, it's so rich in potential, in opportunity, in innovation.
Saskia Lorrenson: There are things happening in, in Kenya that I think just completely bypass what we're trying to achieve here. There's so much that I think we could be learning from a place that we have previously potentially disregarded.
Saskia Lorrenson: Not out of any sort of malice, but just out of sort of ignorance to the fact that actually there's so much happening there previously. We just consider it to be like, you know, Africa's one, one big place and it's like, you know, x third world countries, et cetera. Not anymore. It really, really isn't. There's, there's a lot to learn.
Saskia Lorrenson: There's a lot to be looking at it, and I, with my move, my imminent move, I really feel like I'm on the cusp of, of the beginning of this like sort of revolution of people talking about Nairobi. More people talking about Lagos. More people like, not, not just in the Africa community, but like in the global real estate world.
Saskia Lorrenson: It's just gonna explode, I think.
Chris Moriarty: So a lot of pressure here because that was such a good answer, but what would your advice be? Let's take Saskia all the way back to her , Beyonce aspirations. You've come out and you've seen the money, you've gone. Actually that's a much more exci, although I think Beyonce's doing all right for herself,
Saskia Lorrenson: Yeah, but she's Beyonce. Let's be honest.
Chris Moriarty: Um, what would your advice be to the next generation of workplace leader?
Saskia Lorrenson: Twofold. One is don't go to university unless you want to be a lawyer or a doctor. It's not worth it.
Saskia Lorrenson: my second one is when I think back of like, what did I, what I think I did really well, bear in mind that I went from being receptionist to then getting offered the role of international director within the span of eight years. Like kind of what, what, what did I do right about that?
Saskia Lorrenson: And I think there's a level of arrogance you kind of have to have around yourself of like, no, I'm gonna put myself into that position. I am good enough to go into that position and even if I'm not, I'm gonna give it a go. What's the worst that could happen? I just, I, you know, I say the wrong thing, like, I just think you just gotta go for it.
Saskia Lorrenson: You just got like, if you want to succeed, if you want, I'm, I know what you want to get to, I think is quite good. Like I always knew I wanted to get to being international director for a cool company of workplace strategy. Like I always knew that was what I was kind of aiming for, which worked well for me.
Saskia Lorrenson: And I'm sure other people might not have those aspirations, but like, just, just put yourself in this situation. Ask the question. Like people are really generous. I think back to loads of people who were so generous with their time and their knowledge because I showed interest in the subject and I just kind of put myself into those positions of like asking them the question, invite yourself to the meeting, like tag along to that site tour.
Saskia Lorrenson: If you can make yourself like a known safe pair of hands as well, that people actually come to you for like, oh yeah, we get Saskia on that 'cause we know that she's gonna do a good job. You know, we, we don't mind putting Sasha in front of a client. That became like what I was known for. It's like, don't go to university number two, just don't hold back.
Saskia Lorrenson: Like, I don't know about people being self-conscious and like, oh, what if I'm good enough? Just screw it. Just do it. Just go for it. Like what have you got to lose? Like most people are good, most people will help you answer the question. Just, just don't. I just think there are some things I think back and think, oh, I should have done more.
Saskia Lorrenson: You know, I should have been in
Saskia Lorrenson: I should have been in more places and just asked more questions and gone to more things. But yeah, there you go. I don't think that's gonna live up to my Kenya answer. Apart from don't go to university.
Chris Moriarty: Always good fun catching up with Saskia. So up next we have got a chap who I've known for a very long time. So me and Steve Henigan go way back. I've known him for the best part of a decade now. He's a proper deep thinker, and one of the things I've always enjoyed about talking workplace with Steve is his ability to connect ideas from outside our little workplace bubble, particularly from sport and high performance back into the world of work. Here's Steve.
Steve Henigan
Chris Moriarty: So. Welcome to the Workplace Geeks Podcast. Congratulations for making the workplace leaders top 50 lists, which I think probably overdue. Mr. Hennigan, I've known you a long time and I was expecting to see your name on this list previous years, so I was delighted when I saw it on this year's list.
Chris Moriarty: I know you very well. I have done for a, for, I suspect it'll be getting knocking on for a decade, but for the people who don't know you, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do?
Steve Henigan: Thanks very much Chris, and always good to, to chat to you. So Steve Henigan, I'm the founder and CEO of Henigan Workplace Consultant.
Steve Henigan: We're a completely independent workplace strategy and change management practise, which I set up about eight and a half years ago. Having prior to that, led the consulting team in a number of the larger design firms and actually prior to that, not something I admit to too often, but actually started off in life as a quantity survey.
Steve Henigan: So spent a number of years both client side and contracting in cost management roles before going into wider mainstream business consultancy roles, and then eventually finding my way into to what today we call workplace consultancy.
Chris Moriarty: Did you come straight out of like, education into surveying? Did you get sort of go through the kind of traditional education route into that?
Steve Henigan: Yeah, so probably not a great advert for, for anyone like my daughter doing their A Levels at the moment. But having had too much fun at six form college and not doing as well as I should have done at a levels, it, it almost forced me down a, a part-time university route getting a job with a, a London based surveying practise doing day release over five years and then doubling the last year into to my chartership.
Steve Henigan: So at the age of whatever it was, 20, 23, 24, 6 years industry experience and a degree and chartership and a headhunter who talked to me about a management consultancy role in one of the big four accountancy firms and really liked the, the idea of the role, the work at that time wasn't so keen on working for such a large organisation.
Steve Henigan: So over the next few years I got an MBA at the University of Red, and again, part-time launched what was at the time a more generic business consultancy business, but found with my background in real estate and, and corporate workplace in particular, I was getting dragged more and more into, at the time I didn't realise, but what I now would refer to as workplace consultancy.
Steve Henigan: And I think coming at it from a quantity surveying and a, a more mainstream business consultancy background did then and still does now give me a slightly different perspective on the world of workplace strategy compared to many of my peers who come from a more design background.
Chris Moriarty: It seems to me that you are one of those rare cases, well I suppose there'll be others, but in terms of that consultancy model where you've actually, you've kind of come from the building bit, you know, you sort of touched on it there about.
Chris Moriarty: Seen it as a bit of a strength now, particularly from a market position or however you want to kind of define that as a strength. But what, why do you think that is? What is it that it allows you to see slightly differently to someone who maybe has come from more of a design and kind of ways of working perspective?
Steve Henigan: I think it's what motivates me and it's the reasons why I do what I do. So I think the reason why I was initially attracted to the more mainstream management consultancy world is the idea, the philosophy of fixing things, of making things better. And if I compare that to some of the sporting analogies I talk about, when you look at the aggregation of marginal gains with the British cycling team, when you look at some of those kind of big case studies, what Sir Clive Woodward did with the England rugby team, and I would say my passion is very much about how can I make something better?
Steve Henigan: How can I make it more efficient? And in doing so, how can I make that a better experience for the people who are using it or engaging with it? And I guess in some degree, it's almost because of my background in construction and workplace that I've kind of fell quite specifically into the workplace strategy element of that.
Steve Henigan: So whilst I have an understanding, I hope a good appreciation of design, it's not the design of the space which really motivates me or interests me. When we're developing a workplace strategy, it's how can we really try and understand where this organisation wants to go and then create a space which is going to enable the culture, it's gonna enable the way of working the behaviours for the people in that organisation to be able to do that.
Chris Moriarty: So with all of that kind of in mind, what do you think at the moment, the kind of big challenges that organisations are facing or people in the workplace sector are facing that's kind of dominating thoughts and scratching heads at the minute?
Steve Henigan: I'm sure this won't be the first time you've heard this through this, this podcast series and, and apologies for anybody who's getting bored of listening to this, but I think there is still a huge discrepancy on the equation between how much real estate organisations want to have, and with that, how much they want to pay for and how many days per week they want people back into the office.
Steve Henigan: So as a practise, we produce a piece of research every year, which looks across sectors at what the average mandates are days per week. And we're seeing consistently across all of those sectors that the requirement, the ask is increasing, not hugely, but it's definitely going in an upward direction. With the clients we're working with, with other end users we're talking to.
Steve Henigan: I still don't think in the majority of organisations there is a true appreciation at board level of what that then requires from a real estate perspective. Because I've heard so many times in client meetings where we talk about three days per week where we can average that across five days. We had an end user round table recently where we had I think 12 end users from all different sectors.
Steve Henigan: And I asked a question whether anybody in the room had been able to successfully bring people back into the office on a Friday and it was tumbleweed and, and to my knowledge there are very few, if any, organisations who have been able to incorporate that into their remote working model, into their, their kind of rhythm.
Steve Henigan: So I think we've still got this huge disconnect between the kind of, the reality of what society now believes is the right way of working. Whether you and I believe that or not, is is almost irrelevant. I think society has almost dictated that's how we work now and people in boardrooms who are still trying to do equations which include the five days of the week,
Chris Moriarty: it has come up already, you know, this kind of hybrid return to office thing.
Chris Moriarty: But like, have you heard about experimentation? Have you seen some experimentation where people are trying to, I dunno whether it's the, the objectives to level out, whether it's to increase the utilisation to justify the number. I mean is everyone trying the same thing or is it kind of a bit of a wild west and everyone's like having a go at something?
Steve Henigan: I think it's a very broad spectrum at the moment and I think we're seeing many organisations who are. I think not being explicit as to, to the why behind the ask. So whether it's moving from two to three, three to four, we're in this world now where it's very much a okay, what's in it for me? And I think for most people, if you could articulate the reasons why people needed to be in the office more and they felt that there was a benefit to both them and the organisation, then I think some of those conversations around cost and work life balance would be slightly easier.
Steve Henigan: But I think most organisations so far have not been that great at articulating why we want you in beyond what you've already described around, well, we're paying for this space, we want to see it utilised, or we want to go back to the good old days, as I've heard several people reference in more old school boardrooms.
Steve Henigan: I think where we're seeing it have the most success is almost by providing a level of autonomy down through the organisations to a department level. So if there is a global mandate for three days per week, well what does that mean? But if we ignore that part of the conversation for a minute, by providing guiding principles and providing some kind of high level direction of what is and isn't acceptable, then allowing department leaders, team leaders to almost draught or create what that way of working then looks like with each individual team, I think works really well at getting that happy compromise of, we want everybody to be three days a week, but there may be certain people in certain teams who have care and responsibilities, childcare responsibilities, which have significantly changed how and where they can work.
Chris Moriarty: Mm. Well, let, let's get off of challenges then. Let's, let's be more optimistic. What are the, what are the big opportunities out there? You know, what, what could we be doing differently? You know, what, what's the net we should be grasping here? And really driving forward.
Steve Henigan: I've heard people kind of say, oh, well, we don't, we don't trust people to work from home.
Steve Henigan: My my view's quite simple. You either trust people or you don't. If you don't trust them, then you should be having a very different conversation, whether they're they're in the office or not. And I think actually the, the opportunity is to find out where is this sweet spot? And then probably come in a little bit more into to your world, what's the role which AI plays in that?
Steve Henigan: Because I'm. Still slightly cynical of some of the things around ai and I, and I worry for future generations that if AI suddenly does all of the junior roles, how do you ever get promoted up to an intermediate role without having gone through that learning process? But I'm also well aware that the genie's out the bottom on that one, and that if done correctly, it provides us with a really exciting opportunity to completely rethink how we work way beyond the big change that everybody thought COVID brought.
Chris Moriarty: So you mentioned next generations. What was your advice for future leaders or people entering the jobs market or people that simply go, you know, it would be great one day to get recognition like this and appear on a sort of influencers list. What, what would your advice be to them?
Steve Henigan: I think, and, and I hope this is something I'm relatively good at, but I think it's being open-minded enough about what has happened in the past, but also what can happen in the future.
Steve Henigan: So we've got to where we've got through lots of revolutions from, from kind of lots of great management thinking, lots of kind of great technology. And I think there are an incredible amount of lessons and good work we should take from that to build as a foundation. But I think at the same time, not being scared to, to almost embrace the things you don't know and understand.
Steve Henigan: And I think even if I look at, at people of our generation, I, I remember when I first got a mobile phone, I remember when I got the first text message and, and that was all kind of quite new and alien to me. Now the pace of technology is just going quicker and quicker. So those things that were new and alien to me, however many years ago that was now, 25, 27 years ago, there's gonna constantly be things which are coming quicker and quicker to the generations who are behind us.
Steve Henigan: And I think just having that balance of, well, we did this in the past and it worked quite well, so let's not throw it out, but at the same time, let's be open-minded. I don't understand that. Maybe I don't even agree with it at the moment, but let's just keep that open mind to see what it might be able to do or how it might be able to help us.
Chris Moriarty: There's the Steve. I know Mr. Pragmatic, thoughtful, and always looking for the thing underneath the thing. Anyway, we are going to take the opportunity now to take a quick break and when we'll come back, I'll introduce you to somebody I first met at the beginning of his workplace career, who's since gone on to become one of this year's
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Chris Moriarty: top 50 workplace leaders back in a bit.
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Chris Moriarty: So before the break, I hinted that I knew the next guest from a very early role that they had in this sector, and that person is Chiv De la Hoyde.
Chris Moriarty: I remember meeting Chiv at ITV back in 2014. I was very lucky to get a tour from the then facilities leader, Ian Jones. And Chiv was a young lad that joined us on that tour, and he talks a bit about that role in the interview. So it was genuinely lovely to reconnect with him all these years later, having watched him build his career and now finding himself on this list and his route into workplace is a great story in itself.
Chris Moriarty: So with that, his civ.
Chiv De la Hoyde
Chris Moriarty: Chiv. Welcome to the Workplace Geeks Podcast. Congratulations on making the Workplace Leaders top 50 list. When I saw your name on there and without sounding like a, like a really old grey beard, it was really nice because I, as we talked to before we start recording, I met you in 2014 at ITV head office in, on the South Bank. Uh, and you were sort of a, you, it was like your first role, wasn't it? So I'm about to ask you how you, uh, how you got into this, this game. But first off, just tell us what, who you are, what you do now, and then we'll find out a little bit more about you.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Of course, yeah. So Chiv De la Hoyde, uh, workplace professional. I work at a company called Entain now. So the Entain group own high street brands people would typically recognize, like Ladbrokes, Coral, bwin, but we're a partner in BetMGM as well outside of the UK, so over in the US market. Uh, so gambling sector.
Chiv De La Hoyde: I've worked at Flutter previously as well, who are the other side of that, I would refer to them as. Um, ITV, Deliveroo, Perito FM from a supplier side, long and enjoyable time there as well. That was kind of where I had the experience with Deliveroo, with Flutter. Uh, so yeah.
Chris Moriarty: Tell us how you got into this, because as I said, I, I sort of know a little bit of the backstory and I think it's a really interesting one. But tell us, tell us how you got into this, this game that you are now kind of up to your eyeballs in and, and sort of with a, with a bit of a, uh, international role.
Chris Moriarty: How did it all start?
Chiv De La Hoyde: Sure. So I, I'll go back a little bit further than the first job because I think it adds some context later, uh, into sort of my motivation side of it. So finished school, didn't do well, didn't, didn't focus, didn't lock in. I was playing World of Warcraft way too much. Didn't do my, didn't do my GCSEs, uh, as I should have, so underperformed there.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Didn't get into the sixth form I wanted. Went to college, did travel and tourism because I didn't know what else to do Through that, uh, I joined the police cadets, fell in love with the idea of becoming a police officer. Uh, became a police officer, was a special constable, but full-time, so as a voluntary police officer basically.
Chiv De La Hoyde: It was the only way you could get in at that point. Just before the Olympics, so like twenty ten, twenty eleven. Uh, literally applied on my eighteenth birthday. That was like how passionate I was about getting in. Um, did that for about a year and a half voluntary and fully supported by my parents. Had an amazing time there in the year and a half I did it. Uh, was involved in like the London riots, stuff like that. I got a Chiv Superintendent's Award, one of my first awards, uh, for commitment.
Chiv De La Hoyde: I think it was 'cause basically one of the first people to call up and say, "I'm coming in. What do you need?" kind of mentality, and it all went down really well. It was a great experience. Uh, loved that. So how did I end up here? I applied, you know, or tried to go through the application process to become a regular police officer. But it was a very, very difficult process for an eighteen-year-old coming out of college and in that environment.
Chiv De La Hoyde: And it's a hard job anyway, but you go into that world and then to try and kind of navigate through like going to Kent to do your TSG training and all this sort of stuff. It was a very interesting experience, but then all of a sudden they just cut recruitment just before the Olympics, and I was like, "Well, I've done this for a year and a half.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Now I'm being told there's absolutely no chance of getting a role permanently. I'm gonna have to explore other avenues 'cause I can't do this for free for the rest of my life." Right? And you, you never know when they're gonna kind of unfreeze recruitment. So my dad worked at ITV at the time. Uh, he worked in the post room.
Chiv De La Hoyde: He'd been there twenty-five or so years. Uh, my granddad had also worked at ITV. Uh, and my dad basically kind of, you know, got me a job with one of the contractors that were ITV. They were a cleaning company called Elite Cleaning Services back in the day. Uh, I went and got a job with them as a porter. So I was like, "Okay."
Chiv De La Hoyde: But like, you know, it was paid work. I was like, "Cool." I think it was like, I don't know, seventeen and a half grand. I was like, "Wow, great money. This is nice," um, having worked for free for a year and a half. Then I got my first opportunity with Donna, who you know, Donna Euden. Uh, she gave me an opportunity as a project assistant, so that was kind of my first, uh, more FM that we know kind of role.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Like less operational, more involved in projects. That was mainly centered around like events, experience, branding, that sort of thing. Uh, loved it. That was where I realized like I actually, you know, I quite like this.
Chris Moriarty: What do you think the big challenges are for the sector at the moment, or, or, you know, for the profession? What do you think the things are kinda the most headaches at the moment?
Chiv De La Hoyde: I, I would say from like a current modern day, particularly in the UK market, I think the return to the office, I should say, rather, rather than return to work. That's a bit sort of back to original post-COVID times.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah.
Chiv De La Hoyde: g- yeah, convincing people that the office is a better place to be than your bedroom or your office is, is a hard ask, right?
Chiv De La Hoyde: And, you know, we are lucky to have quite a, I, I describe it as like a healthy budget for our, our workplace stuff, so we were afforded the luxury of putting on these events and putting on like great social events whether it's a sports event, like obviously in the n- in the industry we're in, it's kind of leveraging whether it's famous athletes coming in to do talks or kind of the diversity networks we have arranging talks from sort of other really kind of big names, uh, and big brands coming in and kind of giving people reason.
Chiv De La Hoyde: You know, giving people reason to do that commute. Especially like, you mean this week of all weeks, we're talking about 30 degrees, you know, in London on the tube.
Chiv De La Hoyde: That's not an attractive proposition to get up in the morning. You know, actually my, my coffee machine I've got at home, and I've had at home now for a while because I'm used to this home working lifestyle. The, the puppy I bought, you know, two, three years ago that requires me and my, my care every day.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah.
Chiv De La Hoyde: those things, like you're competing with a lot. You know, you're competing with the convenience of chucking a wash on in the day and going picking up the kids at the time they wanna be picked up, not having them wait till 5:00, 6:00. You know, bringing them home when they wanna come home, and then cracking on with your day.
Chiv De La Hoyde: And I think employers almost kind of a detriment of their own flexibility and kindness over the years. You know, we've got a workforce now of people that are very much used to that flexible life, and rightly so, to be fair. I do think as a community, and I'm not talking about our industry specifically, I'm talking about the working force of the UK and the world, like we do need to remind ourselves at times we are human beings.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Like we, we, we do need to kind of take care of each other, and that is so important. I think that's, as I say, kind of my kind of... if I go back to my fundamentals now as my whys of working, that's probably one of the biggest ones. But the... Yeah, like that, you, you're fighting a big battle there to get people out of that habit of everything happens at their own convenience.
Chiv De La Hoyde: You know, they s- they can start work at 6:30 if they can't sleep, and they can finish at 3:30 or they can start at 9:30 if they had a, a bad night's sleep or they wanna drop the kids off to school in the morning, right? People have become used to that, and it's a nice life. They've built their work around their lives for the first time,
Chiv De La Hoyde: you think historically, we've always built our lives around work.
Chiv De La Hoyde: And it's, yeah, it's gonna be an interesting transition for sure
Chris Moriarty: So what, what are the opportunities then? So, you know, I always, and part of the reason we've structured the questions in this way is that I've kind of, I've always tried to look at challenges as opportunities and whether it's related to what you just described, but what do you think the big opportunities are for the sector and, and for people in your position?
Chiv De La Hoyde: The business, , can see how much value we're adding now directly because they're like, people are coming for the office, right?
Chiv De La Hoyde: They're not coming because they're told to. They're not coming because they feel they should. They're coming because the office is attracting them to come. So like, when it comes to like games in the office and getting a pool table, getting a, a table tennis table, having a games area, you know, having really nice breakout spaces and rest areas, having really nice kitchen facilities and bathrooms, and kind of doing all the things in an office that you'd love to do, we have that opportunity here to do that.
Chiv De La Hoyde: Like, we don't have an endless pot of money by any means. Like, we're certainly not creating slides in the office and stuff like that yet, and I don't imagine we will. But it's really given us the opportunity to think about, you know, even if it comes down to like BMSs and the security stuff we have set up, you know, with through access control and CCTV, like making sure that we have the best stuff available so that the experience for users is so seamless it doesn't feel like a, a, a speed bump of their day coming to the office.
Chiv De La Hoyde: You know, the commute might, and we, we're limited on what we can impact there. But the, the main challenge is gonna be the hesitance of, do I need to go in today? Should I go in today? It's us kind of making people s- it's that surprise and delight. Like, I might miss out on this. You know, creating a bit of FOMO in the office, and that is quite a fun space to operate in, I would say, for our teams.
Chiv De La Hoyde: You know, it's we're putting on a good show because it makes it worth their while getting out of bed
Chris Moriarty: So final question then. Uh, you, uh, there's a young shiv up to join the Met and work for 18 months for three, uh, thinking about the world of, of law enforcement and know how exciting it's gonna be. And you get to take 'em to one side and say, let me give you some advice. Uh, now the advice might be, don't do the year and a half. 'cause at the end of it, it's gonna be a really difficult thing. But I I What would you be saying to people that are at the start of their career in this sector or, um, I'm starting to think about where they go next. What would your advice be with them to, to, if they wanted to kind of go on a similar journey to you?
Chiv De La Hoyde: Trust the people around you. Like, people don't get to-- This comes back to a bit of life advice, I guess, as well of like that respect for your elders thing isn't just about respect.
Chiv De La Hoyde: It's like listening and trusting that experience people have around you. And the thing I've learned as that, you know, young whippersnapper I really thought I had it all figured out, and I realize now, like the advice people were giving me. You know,
Chiv De la Hoyde: they sort of, five minutes they take you to the side and be like, have you thought about this? Like, what about this? And listen, that would be the main advice. Like, listen to the people around you in, you know, whether, whether it's FM or not, listen to people. 'cause they know what they're talking about. And everyone deep down is well intended for people that are kind of starting out in the sector. I think it's quite easy to get lost in the surplus of roles at the operational level of what we do, right? So you see kind of all the, the teams that are doing things every day. So your, your housekeeping teams, your security teams, your reception teams, your contractors, your, your workplace teams. So like your workplace, those workplace coordinators. There is so much on the table, right? I love the bit of my conversations with my team where it's like, Hey, sev, you know what next? And they're like, I don't know. And then I get to go through this beautiful list of things that they could go into, right? You could, you could talk about interior design, space management, project management, occupancy and efficiency management operations. You could go into like the m and e side and the technical side. You could go into like actual people management and leadership and strategy. There's so much on the table. And I think people just see facilities manager, oh, that's the guy that you complain to and the bogs and boilers don't work. Like, it's so much more than that now.
Chris Moriarty: I think Chiv puts his finger on something really important there. If we're asking people to give something up to make that journey in the commute, the convenience, the puppy, then there needs to be something worthwhile waiting for them on the other side. So, yeah. Love that. Thank you very much Chiv. So onto our final conversation and we're changing tax slightly. Uh, Chris Coathe is the Director of Digital Transformation at NG Bailey Facility Services, which is quite a job title considering as Chris himself points out, it barely existed a couple of years ago. Here's Chris.
Chris Coathe
Chris Moriarty: Chris, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast. Congratulations on making the Workplace Leaders Top 50 list for 2026. Just to, uh, orientate our listeners, just let us know who you are and what you do.
Chris Coathe: So I am Chris Coathe, director of Digital Transformation at Nng Bailey Facility Services, so responsible in getting our business ready for the future in terms of all things digital.
Chris Moriarty: I mean, that's some job, isn't it? Like getting, getting ready for the future? Do
Chris Coathe: I, I ju does
Chris Moriarty: that mean you know what the future is?
Chris Coathe: I'm trying, I'm trying to work it out desperately. I, I've asked Jack GTP and it's not even Sure. Uh, yeah, it's a pretty broad spectrum as you can imagine. Kind of digital touches everything these days.
Chris Coathe: And I think it also, it's a job title that didn't exist probably 18 months ago, 24 months ago. So, yeah, it's a, it's a new challenge.
Chris Moriarty: Good, good. Well, tell us how you got to this point then, because you're an NG Bailey now, I've sort of, you know, had a little look at your LinkedIn profile and seen some of the roles that you've had coming in, and it seems to be that there's a, there's a strong energy thread in there.
Chris Moriarty: So just tell us, you know, what kind of led you to this job title that didn't exist 18 months ago?
Chris Coathe: Well, look, I guess, um, yeah, I've, I've come on a bit of a journey. I, I actually studied a university product design and marketing, so that was like, that, that was my starting point. So I was designing kettles and cars and things.
Chris Coathe: I was colouring in basically at university for three years. And whilst it was, whilst it was really good fun, I quickly kind of realised there was a bit more to life than colouring in. So, uh, I went and did another course in design engineering and naturally fell into building services, which you believe.
Chris Coathe: So very quickly ended up working with pipes, wires and pumps and, and things like that. Couple years later, the business, I was working for a very small consultancy, a fantastic adult business, uh, got acquired by NG Bailey, and I fell in to facilities maintenance, which you believe, I guess, like everybody does, right?
Chris Coathe: I mean, not many people go to university to, to work in fm. So I fell into it like everybody else, I guess the, uh, the MD at the time said, well, look, you know, you, you've got an interest in engineering, you've got an interest in buildings, why don't you go and work with all of our customers and help 'em save energy?
Chris Coathe: So that's what I did. So I spent the next kind of two to three years kind of upskilling myself, applying kind of my understanding of design concepts and engineering and putting them into practise for our customers buildings. And that's it. From that point onwards, I got really interested in energy, renewable technology.
Chris Coathe: I did some solar projects, a lot of, uh, biomass projects, heat pump projects, and it went from really becoming an energy manager to taking ownership of the energy business and building the consultancy. Uh, from that point, understanding how buildings work and maintenance works, I transitioned into kind of maintenance standards.
Chris Coathe: So I took over our data team in terms of how we set up our systems, uh, then inherited our mobilisation team, so our project management capability and our business, and then a whole wr of other things kind of layered on top of that. And before you know it, I ended up with a job title digital transformation director.
Chris Coathe: So. Yes, it started with energy. Now we're collecting whole swarms of data, BMS data, IOT sensor data, and the key part that I'm really focused on is how we use that data now to drive our technicians. How can our technicians be more powerful when they're stood in front of the asset? You know, how can they do more for our customers?
Chris Coathe: Not just maintaining it, but making sure it, the asset lasts as long as it possibly can last. Make sure it performs as best as it can perform, make sure the environment's as good as it can be, and of course, at the same time, make sure it's as efficient as it possibly can be. So yeah, that was really the starting point.
Chris Coathe: Data's kind of the key thread. Definitely.
Chris Moriarty: Yeah. What, what the kinda challenges that maybe you specifically or or or people in your sort of role or your clients are facing in the landscape at the minute? What are the big challenges?
Chris Coathe: Yeah. Well, I guess we're facing a fair few, aren't we? Certainly in terms of energy security and global politics.
Chris Coathe: But you know, for me, I think the biggest challenge is still about getting your foundation of data right across everything you're doing. Whether or not you are an fm, a building owner, you're an estate director, absolutely understanding the assets you are responsible for and your buildings. That still is the biggest challenge We come across many customers we work with, they come and work with NG Bailey, their asset data's still in a pretty poor state.
Chris Coathe: We really pride ourselves in every new customer we work with. The starting point is asset verification. If you get that foundation solid, you can then start to do so much more with it. You can then start to plan your asset lifecycle. So when people are challenging you around net zero, you can start making informed decisions around, okay, well this asset's going to expire in about 20 years.
Chris Coathe: Maybe that would be the natural time to do X, Y, and Z. The same thing goes for your compliance. You know, of course, number one priority in all buildings is to make sure statutory compliance, good foundation of data, will enable you to kind of get to that point. And then naturally leading onto the real kind of future, which is AI and maximising how we can use tools such as AI in the future.
Chris Coathe: That all relies on a really solid foundation of data because, you know, if you put crap data in, you're gonna get a crap answer out. So let's really build up that foundation. So again, I can't always say data foundation get, get good quality data, then you can really do the world with it. But there is of course, still a challenge in terms of who's accountable for that data.
Chris Coathe: So who is really making sure that your BMS system is kept up to date, who is making sure that it is tagged correctly and named correctly to ensure that, you know, you can use that data and it's structured appropriately. So yeah, there's still challenges in all of that, but none of them are insurmountable anymore.
Chris Moriarty: Well, that can do attitude leads us into the next question, which is what are the opportunities then? You sort of struck me as someone that sees the kind of half full glass of water there. So what are the big opportunities for us on this?
Chris Coathe: Well, look, I, AI is gonna play, play a huge part really, and certainly coming to that kind of predictive maintenance piece.
Chris Coathe: I think that that is the holy grail in my eyes of building maintenance and operation, making sure we can get ahead of the thoughts that are coming in terms of the building, making sure our technicians are dispatched ahead of time to go and preemptively address an emerging issue with the system. So I guess that is the holy grail if we can achieve that, and I think most of our customers will be happy.
Chris Coathe: I think the other area that really interests me is, is really industry standards and maintenance plan. Preventative maintenance has its absolute place. Let's go and regularly service an asset to ensure that its asset lifecycle is optimised. That makes logical sense, but not every asset is, is the same.
Chris Coathe: You know, there are thousands of different types of pumps in our industry, in our buildings that we maintain and not, not all of those pumps require the same maintenance. So one of the things that I think is gonna be really interesting in, in the future is how all of this data we collect from BMS systems, from energy systems, from our work order management systems, um, from our compliance systems, how can that shape how we have bespoke and individualised maintenance regimes for specific assets?
Chris Coathe: And I think that will be, again, holy grail number two for me, number one, predictive. Number two, getting to really bespoke optimised PPM plans. They're kind of business specific, they're tailored to our customers. So they're, they're the two things that are gonna get me really excited about the future.
Chris Moriarty: So look, let, let's turn our heads now to, uh, advice.
Chris Moriarty: If you are sitting there looking at a room of people that are just about to start in their career, you know, they've just been designing a kettle and they're thinking, right, I want to pivot now and go somewhere else. What would you be advising the next batch of workplace leaders? What sage advice would you be giving them?
Chris Coathe: I think, look, if you've got somebody sat there that wants to pivot, I think that's probably a good starting point, isn't it? So the first thing I'd say is they're probably the right person to consider progressing their career, because I think it's the pivot that really makes you, you know, valuable in your career.
Chris Coathe: The ability to be able to change your approach or focus on something, apply what you have to offer, that that's what really matters. And I think, you know, that's probably one of the, the things that put me in good stead, you know, that I'm happy to take on any challenge, you know, and I will always give it my best, most enthusiastic kind of approach, but it's the willingness to try something different that I think will, will really stand you in good stead.
Chris Coathe: I guess the other thing for me is, you know, look, um, I come from a design background, so I always apply this kind of design language to what I do so that, you know, I never, I never try and jump to a solution. It's always for me about understanding the problem. Conceptually, what could a solution potentially look like?
Chris Coathe: Once I've got my kind of top two, top three solutions, well, let's, let's develop them a little bit. Let's refine them. Let's try and work out which one will stand the test of time. And once I've kind of come to that kind of holy grail solution, come up with a really solid implementation plan. And I think for me, that kind of design language has always put me in good stead.
Chris Coathe: And if you apply that to pretty much anything, you generally get a good, a good outcome. The counter to it, of course, is you always think you know the right answer and you don't listen to other views and you don't test it, and you don't accept challenge. If you, if you go on that route, I think, uh, you're gonna hit your glass ceiling pretty quickly.
Closing thoughts
Chris Moriarty: And I think that's a pretty good place to finish this episode. There are more conversations from the list still to come alongside the Main Workplace Geeks Series, so make sure you are subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem, helping organisations understand what people really think about their workplace and the experience around it.
Chris Moriarty: Thanks for listening, and we'll speak soon.
