Using effective workforce categorisation to optimise resource decisions and business outcomes

Reality versus theory on workforce strategy – what works in practice and what do organisations need to commit to?

With Georgina Jones from The Coop & Dugald McIntosh from GRAYCE

00:00:00 - Understanding the total workforce mix
00:10:15 - Defining and understanding resourcing models
00:16:20 - Lessons from rolling out workforce optimisation in practice
00:25:00 - Adapting to change
00:32:10 - Using workforce classification in strategic decision making
00:42:05 - Exploring The Coop's guide to workforce classifications
00:52:00 - The importance of the engagement experience
00:58:40 - Should organisations be work-led or worker-led?

Download the Guide to Demystifying Worker Classification from the APSCo website

Transcript

Jonny Dunning:     0:00       So we are in progress, and I’m very pleased to be joined by both Georgina Jones and Dugald McIntosh. Dugald, thank you very much for joining us. Hi, Dugald.

Dugald McIntosh:  0:09       Thank you very much, Jonny. Good to be here.

Jonny Dunning:     0:12       Excellent stuff. And Georgina, welcome back. How are you?

Georgina Jones:     0:15       Thank you. I’m really great. Thanks for having me back again.

Jonny Dunning:     0:18       Excellent stuff. So I’m really looking forward to this three-way conversation, looking at how effective workforce categorization can help optimize resource decisions. And I think will be really useful. Just before we get started is just some quick introductions on your background just for our listeners to understand the relevance of that. So Georgina, do you just want to give a quick refresh on what you do? How you got there and the journey that you’ve taken?

Georgina Jones:     0:45       Yeah, of course, absolutely. So I work within the organizational effectiveness team at the Co-op. And part of my role is to ensure that we are optimizing all of the different worker types that we have in our organization. So I’m very much from a recruitment background, but I’ve had a short stint in procurement, and I am a self-confessed contingent labor and outsource geek. So thoroughly enjoy listening to these podcasts and contributing, and obviously meeting great people like Dugald to be able to create something that’s both meaningful and useful in organizations. So really looking forward to talking to you about the collaboration that we’ve been working on together over the last couple of months.

Jonny Dunning:     1:27       Excellent stuff. Thanks very much, Georgina. Dugald, you’ve obviously worked on some really interesting stuff. Can you give us a bit of background on your path to where you are right now?

Dugald McIntosh:  1:36       Sure. Yeah, Jonny. I think, I spent most of my career essentially designing and delivering workforce programs that’s principally MSP programs, RPOs, both in the UK and across Europe. But for the last year, and just prior to that, I essentially have been a switch sides, if you like, and have been directly advising clients around how they design their programs and figure out Workforce Strategy. And that’s where Georgina and I connected actually, through one of those engagements, I currently work for Grace. And so I’ve changed roles again, slightly. What we do is we hire really good grads, train them up to fill roles where there are particular skill shortages. So I guess I spent my career talking about skills and skill shortages. And now I’ve got a role in helping make them which is actually really quite satisfying.

Jonny Dunning:     2:43       Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And yes, skills very much core to this discussion. So just to sort of set the scene. So the two of you have been doing some really interesting work in this area. And Georgina, can you just talk a little bit about how your collaboration with Dugald came about? And just in particular, kind of focus on the specific problem or problems that you were looking to solve?

Georgina Jones:     3:05       Sure, yeah, absolutely. So I was introduced to Dugald, his previous organization through Melanie Forbes of the APSCO outsource community. So Co-op and myself are actually one of the founding members of that community. And I was really talking to her about a couple of things to do with how we ensure that we understand the total workforce mix in our organization, and the risks and compliance challenges that might exist in terms of engaging those individual worker types. And that was kind of stemmed from IR35 and my role around implementing IR35 for the Co-op, which, I feel like I’ve been doing forever. But we started to think about, well, yes, there’s limited work, limited company contractors that we need to be aware of, but actually, there’s freelancers in the mix that are probably used in areas, such as a marketing business, and then there’s potentially sole traders that are being engaged in our funeral business, and how do we actually understand the risks associated with engaging all of these worker types? And actually, how many more worker types exist out there, was the question that I was asking Mel and she said, “Look, there’s a really brilliant gentleman that you should meet, who’s got a great brain and a good kind of view on this.” And we started to pull together what almost looks like a matrix of all of the different worker classifications that exist. It’s not exhaustive, and I think we’d probably like to ask some of your viewers to give us some comments on whether we’ve missed any? it’s definitely evolving. But the worker categories what the definition of those workers actually is, because we can all use those terms interchangeably, can’t we? And contingent labor seems to be a catch all for absolutely every worker type that isn’t paid through the payroll. Things like who is responsible for the outcome and the delivery of the work or the service that you’re offering? Is it the client or is it the service provider? Is there an IR35 issue that you need to be aware of? Or is there a greater compliance issue that needs to be considered? So the predominant focus for me was, how do we make sure that we’re complying with all of the legislations when it comes to worker types? But actually, what we’ve been using this for is really to educate our buyers and our stakeholders in the organization as to, yes, the risks that engaging different worker types there’s, but equally that the pros and cons of engaging worker types as well when it comes to thinking about the capability we need in the organization and the work that we need to get done. So how the Co-op started effectively.

Jonny Dunning:     5:40       Yeah, and I think it’s very pertinent in the sense that you’ve got an immediate need around, as you say, risk and compliance and the regulatory side of it, but there’s a wider picture to it. And Dugald, I know, this is an area that you’re very much aware of, very knowledgeable about in terms of the kind of the bigger trends that are affecting this sort of thing when it comes to workforce. Can you just give a little bit of background on what you saw that was going on in the background, and that is still going on in the background as pushing some changes in this area?

Dugald McIntosh:  6:06       Well, you’re both very kind to me. So thanks for that. Let me have a go. I mean, I’ll start by kind of taking us five steps back, if you like, from the challenge that Georgina is kind of trying to handle it her role within the Co-op. And I think these kind of big macro trends that are going on, and that we’ve all been talking about for quite a long time. So you’ve got this globalized marketplace, increasingly globalized workforce, Western economies, who are increasingly have this demographic cliff, in terms of, what I’m talking about there is retiring workers. So people with the skills or generally the workforce are retiring, that’s even more acute in countries like Germany, Netherlands, than it is in the UK. And obviously, that’s been solved in the short term through European immigration, for example, and obviously Brexit as perhaps stop that little bit in the UK. And then you have, if you like, this increasing demand for modern skills, digital technology, and you’ve got the people with this, increasingly calling the shots around how they work and where they deliver that work from. So you’ve got all this, that we’re all figuring out how to deal with and you’ve got governments thinking about what their role is in this. And that’s really where you get the legislation around IR35. The Uber judgement around, are these workers essentially self-employed? Are they employees? Yeah. And you kind of got two things there. I think you’ve got the government’s responsibility to workers, who are ultimately voting for them, and you’ve got the tax revenues that they get from payroll. And obviously, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that both of those detriments obviously increase the payroll tax take for government. But then you can see how risk companies are responding to that. And a real topical one that worth looking at is PNO, I think arguably, I would say perhaps they’ve got their choices wrong in that and they’re obviously rather embarrassing having to eat humble pie. I think that even today, the CEOs had to come out following Boris Johnson saying, it was illegal to accept that, what they did was illegal. Whether it changes the end result or not, is unsure, but it certainly had massive reputational damage, I would argue, and it’ll be difficult for PNO to recover from that. And obviously responsible organizations like the Co-ops are trying to get that right. Yeah, they’re trying to get their workforce strategy right around how they handle these moving parts, do it responsibly, get the workers that they need to get work done, and do that compliantly because obviously, very important to their business, not only to be able to compete, but obviously to be able to have a brand reputation that people want to work for. And obviously the Co-ops case buy from.

Jonny Dunning:     9:32       Yeah, and extends to the internal workforce, the external workforce, the supply chain, it’s all about wanting to be part of that ecosystem these days, isn’t it? It’s a very, very important part of it. So that’s great. So we’ve got these large trends that are occurring. We’ve got issues that were being addressed within the Co-op, there are issues that lots of companies are having to address and have had to address over the last couple of years. And can you both just talk a little bit about, maybe Georgia if you could go first just talking a little bit about in practice, what did it actually involve?

Georgina Jones:     10:06     A lot of discussions and head scratching, I think it would be fair to say initially, perhaps more from me than from Dugald. So we initially talked about the problem that we were trying to solve, as I described, and we really wanted to look at this in terms of kind of what rights did different worker types have in employment law, or not, as the case may be? And then what tax obligation would we potentially have? And how would that play into the different choices or levers that the Co-op might want to pull in terms of the way that they wanted to engage, and what’s really apparent to everybody is that the way people choose to work is only going to change, is only likely to become much more flexible. And therefore, we need to be really aware of the different contracting mechanisms that exist. So it was a bit of a brain dump initially around, well what are all of the worker types that exist? What do they mean? What kind of definitions can we create that are really simple and meaningful, and the list was a pretty long one? In fact, I’m looking at the list and reminding myself just how long the list is. And then we wanted to really challenge ourselves around, well who is responsible for the outcome of that work? And often, one of the things that we as the Co-op, and I’m sure many other client side businesses are guilty of is that we often think the supplier is accountable for the delivery of the work, but in fact, it’s the Co-op. And then conversely, it’s the other way around. So really shaping and defining who is accountable and who is responsible is super critical for, also who holds that responsibility? And also what are the obligations from the supplier, the client and the worker. So it was a number of discussions and almost mapping that out. And then the next thing that we started to do was a little bit of an audit of our workforce. And that is easier said than done. And in fact, we’re still doing that audit, it goes months and months later, because visibility of your workforce is one of the biggest challenges. So you can’t say with certainty what the scale and complexity of your workforce actually looks like unless you can see them. So we started simply with those visible workers. And it was really straightforward to review some of the contracts that we have with the suppliers, and then the backs of our contracts with them individually to determine which classification and category they would potentially sit in. And then therefore assessing the risk that we may be had. But since then we’ve been going on a kind of big program of work to just really uncover where we are utilizing resource and labour to get worked on. So rather than saying, “Are you using a freelancer? Or are you using contingent labor?” We’re just saying, “Have you got third party skills or capability resources in your team? And if so, what are they doing? What do they look like? How are we engaging with them, and then we’re using the tool that we’ve created is almost a check back to say, based on what we’ve heard, and the contracting mechanism that we believe is in place, or in some instances not in place. And we definitely need to remedy that. What classification with that worker technically have?” So it’s definitely a learning curve. And it’s been an education process for certainly myself and equally all of the engagement managers as well, because their predominant focus is to get the work done in the most timely and cost efficient way. And certainly considering legal obligations, tax implications, contracting rights, isn’t something that they would automatically think about. But this has definitely helped to start the conversation. And really what we want this to be is something that’s just part and parcel of their DNA, and the DNA of my team and the procurement team when they’re supporting the buying process. So initially, the creation of the definitions and the framework that really makes sense and is clear. And then the second thing was around that audit. But I think, for anybody listening, that audit isn’t a one off job, it’s constant, because as soon as you think you’ve captured 100% of your work type, you recognize that there’s something else going on that you need to address. So it’s a constant audit and regular check back to get a sense of the risk profile, the cost profile, and then putting in the relevant remedies to address that. 

Jonny Dunning:     14:24     Yeah, I guess within an organization like the Co-op is so varied, there are so many different worker types, maybe more than in some organizations, but also things are changing rapidly, aren’t they? Particularly with like opening and closing stuff with COVID and people being in the office and in stores or home? And it’s a lot to deal with, isn’t it? So as you say, it’s not just a one and done type approach?

Georgina Jones:     14:47     Absolutely not. And the Co-op have been in a really fortunate position, I suppose through COVID. We have been feeding the nation and then we’ve been caring for families who’ve maybe lost loved ones throughout the COVID pandemics. So our need to flex has been ever greater this time, but we continue to need to adapt our ways of working in terms of the way people are choosing to shop now. So clearly, we have a very prominent store footprint, but we equally recognize that wholesale and franchise and E-commerce is probably where our businesses is looking to move to. And therefore we will need to adapt the skills and capabilities that we may be have now into what is going to be setting us up for the future. So that is likely to change our workforce mix even greater than it is today. But predominantly, we’ve been, for a long time a very traditional business have, more on payroll workers than off payroll workers, I think that balance will slightly start to tip but the variance of that off payroll worker audiences far greater than we initially anticipated is probably what we’re finding.

Jonny Dunning:     15:52     Interesting. So Dugald, from your point of view, coming in as an external consultant, soak advisor, how was that process in terms of the way that you interacted with Georgina? Or is kind of that the owner of the initiative and other stakeholders in the business?

Dugald McIntosh:  16:07     Well, I think, it was interesting, I think we all learned as we went through this we started off, I think, there’s three classifications I think a worker, Georgina originally, there was a perm worker, a temporary contractor or as a service based worker, but as you said, very eloquently. There’s a lot more than that. And who’s responsible? Who isn’t responsible? And I think the other thing and I think Co-op a great example of this, you can’t stop to get it right. Yeah, you’ve got to Co-op as Georgina said, you’ve got to keep the lights on, the stores open, everything’s moving. And I think there was a particular pressure with a Co-op as well, where if everybody remembers the supply chain issues that are going on, and probably continue to go on. And then there’s the cost of everything that goes into those stores, which are obviously increasing, and obviously, the Co-op, I’m trying to not pass on all those costs to the consumer. So, there’s a significant amount of pressure, I think, that I recall, so Georgina, if I remember, I think there’s two key things that you were kind of that would, if you like, create the sense of urgency around the project. One was the opportunity to take cost out. So once you categorize the workers correctly, that gives you an opportunity to buy in a more intelligent way. Ultimately, where you’re getting value? Who is genuinely taking risk reward versus who’s essentially under the task direction of Co-op? So I think people for procurement, looking at this will absolutely recognize and organization like Co-op, significant part of their spend is on human capital. So if you can buy more intelligently, then you’re going to take cost out, and obviously, the Co-ops are keen to reinvest that back into their business. And obviously under significant cost pressure for their own customers. And I think the other big driver, if I remember correctly, Georgina, was with compliance. With IR35, and various other things going on, the Co-op is one of these big employers in the UK that doesn’t want to get a tap on the door from the HMRC. And be told that they’re engaging workers incorrectly and incompliantly. So those two big levers, if you like, kind of, what you’re pulling the business forward with, in terms of the necessity to do this project and get it completed? Yeah, whilst all these other priorities are going on, which are also taking lots of management time are also important.

Jonny Dunning:     18:59     And Dugald, in terms of the audit, Georgina was describing, the process around actually bringing all of this stuff to light. In your experience, how useful is that type of information when it comes to pushing the case for change? And actually kind of raising awareness of the issues? Is that something that...?

Dugald McIntosh:  19:18     It’s the start point. Yeah, absolutely. I’m trying to take myself back a little bit here. But I think we had a number of phases, didn’t we, in our project plan? Audit, essentially, was the first one. And then that was data. We’re trying to pull as much data from the system as possible. But the other thing we’re very conscious of doing Jonny was not get too bogged down in it, right? Because ultimately, it changes as you say, yeah, people leave, new assignments are being brought in. What we’re looking for, is the signals as to what it was? What were the workers? Who was supplying them? What was Co-op getting back from that essentially? And that if you like created then the business case to go forward to the next day. So audit was absolutely phase one. And then I think there was certain amount of, in there needed to validate that. In terms of, with the users, the people were buying it. And then that started to create. And that also started to help create the blueprint really, what that future program might look like. And I think the other key challenge that you get, and you get these with a lot of programs, yeah, I think there are certain categories, which are relatively easy to see and get after particularly, contingent workers, temp workers, for example, often is kind of managed first, and an MSP or for a BMS, for example, the service based workers aren’t so much. And for all sorts of different reasons. And sometimes the business doesn’t want them to be frankly. They want them to be opaque. Yeah. 

Jonny Dunning:     21:01     It’s a really good point. 

Dugald McIntosh:  21:04     So that’s why I think we keep coming back to this, what legitimizes this workflow strategy that goes across all the categories of workers? What legitimizes this as being essential initiative that weren’t somebody coming in and maybe, ultimately...? Because it’s not about telling people that, sophisticated buyers that the buyer correctly, it’s about trying to do it in a more optimal way. And obviously, if you can do that, across an organization like Co-op, the rewards are significant.

Jonny Dunning:     21:39     So compliance, clearly a big part of this. Georgina, in terms of the kind of internal support, or the kind of momentum behind this project. I assume compliance was probably a key part of that initial driver. But as you started on earthing information and kind of putting this stuff together, how did the support changed? Was it just consistent? Or was it something that was harder, and then got a bit easier?

Georgina Jones:     22:07     And make mixture of all of those things, to be honest, and when anybody’s trying to implement something that’s maybe new or actually quite difficult, you hit some hurdles and stumbling blocks along the way. So compliance was absolutely our initial driver. But as we began to find some, perhaps misclassification of workers, that meant that we could absolutely drill into that and see whether there was a value benefit or a cost benefit of looking at things in a slightly different way. So, the momentum started to build once we could show that not only did we have misclassification in our workforce, from a legislation perspective, we were also buying in a really inappropriate and ineffective way. And perhaps, that was just through the lack of knowledge and understanding, it wasn’t anyone’s fault, particularly, but we just weren’t really 100% clear what we maybe wanted at the outset. And therefore, we’ve been driven by the supplier’s recommendation, and sometimes that wasn’t necessarily the right thing. So we definitely got some more effort and energy, when we could prove that this wasn’t just about ticking a compliance box that actually we could really add some value around, showing the cost benefit and value benefit of maybe looking at slightly alternative solutions. And part of the work that we’re doing right now is moving away from compliance, not that, that isn’t critically important, we’re going to continue on making sure that we have a compliant workforce, but really making sure that we offer a decision tree concierge approach. That’s how I like to determine, it’s probably not the right language to be introducing to the business, that decision tree concierge. But I hope you get the concept of what I’m saying. We can use this worker classification tool, an Excel spreadsheet, we can use this tool in this framework to help make informed and intelligent decisions. So my aspiration for this is that we can start to overlay some scenarios on it that say, “If you want to do this type of work, you could pull one of these two levers, and this is how long the more it might take, this is how much it could cost you. And this is how you would need to engage with the supplier and/or the worker. If that’s not going to work for you, you could try option A, B and C.” So that’s exactly how I would like to evolve this piece of work. We’re not quite there yet, but that’s how I see it working. And therefore, if we can show that we’re not only reducing cost, removing any element of risk mitigating any challenges, then we seem to be relatively well supported. And of course, in the current climate, we are really focusing on how we can do things in the most optimal way and focus on value rather than just cost drivers and risk drivers.

Jonny Dunning:     24:57     Yeah, absolutely. And that’s where it pushes into the longer term, play and where it really starts to become true Workforce Strategy. And I want to come on to that in a minute to talk about in a bit more detail. But just going back to this whole project, I mean, you were saying that on earth certain things that maybe weren’t the way that you would have, ideally wanted to do them. And maybe there was mitigation going on within the business about different worker types, different opportunities, some of the compliance, but a lot has changed, a lot has changed over the last few years, I mean, take Brexit out of it, take IR35 out of it, take COVID out of it, there was still actually a lot changing, I don’t know if you’d agree with that, Dugald having been involved in the Workforce sector such a long period of time. But with the growth of the gig economy, more flexibility, different working models come in, even if you take out those three giant factors of COVID, Brexit, and IR35, I still feel like a lot was changing anyway.

Dugald McIntosh:  25:50     Look, it’s such an exciting time to be in our industry frankly, as you say that it’s moving very quickly. I think what we’ve seen, these kind of, were in there already, I kind of, talked about up at the beginning but COVID has just accelerated it. And it’ll be really interesting to see, we’ve got this big conversation going on within our own organization, and we have our demographic, the people who work with us tend to be very young, diverse. And we’re trying to understand within our own organization, for example, what the right balance is between home working, working in the office, building those connections amongst ourselves, in order to be able to help people develop and also be creative. And I think the way that we go into whatever, a working state that we’re going to be in, in the future is going to look very different. I think there’s another big opportunity, which will be really interesting to see is, and I think certain organizations are really embracing it is, if we don’t need to be in the same office, and we can’t quite get the skills that we need locally. And I mean, locally, even in our own country. Are we going to be connecting with workers that aren’t even in our countries or connecting remotely? And I think we started to see that, I think it was software development, that type of thing, that whole idea of, just doing software on the beach, I will be interesting to see how that grows over time. But again, another big challenge for governments in terms of how they’re regulating for that? Where’s the tax going to be paid? And I think that’s a little bit away for bigger organizations, one thing for tech startups to be embracing that. But for bigger organizations, I don’t think they’re quite there yet, because of some of those barriers.

Jonny Dunning:     28:06     Yeah, and it’s interesting, when you talk about these changes, and you look at the shape of organizations, more and more, I believe the importance of an organization’s brand comes to the fore in terms of what does that organization stand for? What do they represent? What are their values? Because not only is that essential for your internal core, permanent workforce, but I think it’s more and more important for contractors who discern, who they want to work for? Non-employee workers, and also, as I said, service providers, so that transition from it just being 60-years ago, job for life, and go watch at the end of it or something like that is, this transition more towards is more flexible, skill-based working, where people are focusing on what they’re good at what they enjoy doing. Something like cybersecurity, a lot of people will contract just because they can just do the cool stuff that they’re interested in, as an example. And that’s where you see the importance of the value of brand, ethics and purpose really coming to the fore, because it’s not just about hiring. And that’s important for hiring now, it’s important for everything, because it’s not just going to be your permanent workforce anymore. It’s this extended ecosystem. Georgina, I’m sure that’s something that’s very topical for you guys in terms of the wider approach of what Co-op doing.

Georgina Jones:     29:27     100%. And I think I talked about the way we approach our kind of attraction or talent attraction last time, because we are absolutely, we’re a purpose led organization where we’re member owned, we’re here to serve our members and communities predominantly. And therefore you tend to find individuals who are absolutely focused on the same ethical and social values, being really attracted to the organization and that’s what we want to continue to harness. So for us, it’s about how we ensure that not only our employee value proposition is really clear, but also how can we ensure that that’s clear in the contingent space, because we don’t often talk to our contingent workers, off payroll workers, however, we want to turn them and probably tell them the story about why the Co-op is a really good organization to work within, even if it’s for a short period of time, because clearly, we want everybody to be advocates of our brand, and not just the work that they do for a short period of time here. But one of the things that I also think is fascinating and changing quickly is organizational shift from having very, very narrow roles, and expert routes to organizations becoming much flatter, and therefore, wanting individuals who can pivot to service different organizational needs. And that breadth, as well as depth is of utmost importance for organizations and that people’s ability to have an element of entrepreneurial spirit and actually be able to do multiple things really well, rather than just one thing well, is going to be increasingly critical for all organizations, including the Co-op.

Jonny Dunning:     31:14     Yeah, it kind of comes down to trust, isn’t it? If you’re an organization, and you’ve got trusted employees who are part of the business, who are contributing, then there’s all sorts of things that they could be doing, that are going to really drive value, you trust them, you know they’ve got the right, they share the values, they’re on the same path, they’re committed. And I think the same is true when it comes to the supply chain as well, in the sense that when organizations actually expand their strategy, and maybe look at the services side of it in a bit more detail, there are innovative agile suppliers out there, that again, that trust and that capability can be built. And it can be shifted, possibly when you get these kind of new emerging areas where you might get somebody who’s on the kind of leading edge of one area, and they can help you transition to another area that might mean them expanding and developing as well. So I think it’s a really interesting dynamic. But just to take it back to some of the nitty gritty. So clearly, compliance and cost are two big drivers at the start of this process. But actually, where it really starts to bear fruit is where you gain this understanding. As Dugald said, you kind of understand the status quo that informs the net new opportunities as you move forward. And so Georgina, from a strategic point of view, firstly, creating those definitions, feels to me like a lot of hard work so can you talk a little bit about that, and also, just in terms of how that definition process has gone into the decision making process, or where that’s gone into decision making process?

Georgina Jones:     32:44     So it was hard work. And I think it continues to be hard work because terms, as I said before, are used and can be used interchangeably. And there’s lots of lexicons of terms available, and it would be so helpful for us to almost create an industry standard and or even a UK standard so selfishly, they call her, UK and the organization. So something that’s really relevant to UK, tax and UK employment law, from a definitions perspective would be extremely beneficial for me. And one of the words that was bringing to mind when you were just asking me that question is accessibility and understanding. So whatever we create needs to be really basic and super accessible for people to understand the importance and the benefit of having really detailed and considered informed workforce discussions. So we are definitely still on a journey. So it would be foolish to sit here and say that we’ve got all of this nailed, we absolutely haven’t. But our definitions are published, we have a SharePoint site that we’ve created, the Co-op and our definitions are published on there. And we talk about the pros and cons and almost the features of different worker classification types. We have created a team almost, the actors that central point for queries on this is the particular piece of work that I’d like to get done. And often the decision is far broader than, is it a contract, or is it a statement of work? We are now starting to talk more and more about, is it a recruit, train deploy partner? And so Grace is actually one of our current income partners at the moment. And should we be really thinking about building our own capability if we know that data is going to be an increasing capability that we need in our organization and more effective way to utilize our supply chain to help us to build that capability for the long term. So for me, from a strategic perspective, creating a mechanism and a forum where people can come and seek guidance and support be that through SharePoint or a physical conversation, to get a sense of whether the capability and skill is needed for the long term, the short term, how critical it is to do it within budget, on time, can often mean that we can start to influence the decisions. It doesn’t but by no means experts, we’re not accountable for the decisions that the buyer or the hiring manager effectively makes. But what we can do is be that first port of call and that concierge, so it would be great if we could find a solution that was technology lead or robotics lead, perhaps. But we’re definitely not there yet. And actually, the value of the conversation is brilliant to help us develop our level of understanding as well from a business unit perspective. But strategically for us, it’s about having the definitions that are accessible, easy to understand, commonly used in the organization so people understand that we’re talking about the same thing, we’re comparing apples with apples, integrated into our reporting suite where possible, so we can see the total workforce picture when we’re reporting on our headcount or establishment, for example. So it’s about how we weave this into the DNA of our products and services, as well as the kind of language that we use.

Jonny Dunning:     36:11     Yeah, really interesting. So Dugald, from the point of view of dealing with this complexity. Because I’ve seen the definitions, and there’s a lot to it. It’s not went to do it, it’s not a simple exercise. What was the process that you went through to firstly, deal with the complexity involved on earthing at all, but then to try and simplify it?

Dugald McIntosh:  36:37     Okay, so I think it was a step-by-step process, really Jonny. And it was one of, I think we started from that, those two buckets, who’s in control of the worker, and the work? And then essentially, what did that mean, essentially, from a responsibility perspective? And I think that was a good guide, I think, and I think, Georgina is absolutely right. One of the things that’s not very helpful is there’s lots of worker categories. They don’t have legal definitions. There’s no legal definition for a gig worker, for example, there’s lots of other workers that have been seconded by your suppliers, which make it much more complex to manage. But actually, if you take it back to who has responsibility for the work and who has responsibility for the worker, then that’s to help inform, ultimately, your obligations as the hierarchy and the obligations of the supplier. And it helps you to break out the value also that you’re getting from the supplier that’s bringing you the worker.

Jonny Dunning:     37:49     Yeah, and if we look at the, again, go back to some of the kind of macro changes. So clear shift over the last 20 years, 30 years, maybe to non-perm workers. And that’s accelerated with the addition of the kind of gig models, more remote flexible models, like you say, this internationalization potential that’s come about, and.

Dugald McIntosh:  38:15     there is another mix in there as well, I think, Jonny, whereby I think there is absolutely an increase in non-perm workers, we see that. And I think the expectation is that that is going to continue, that’s going to continue to grow. Everybody expects that, despite, if you like certain government legislation that is almost promoting permanent employment. And there’s a bunch of different reasons for that. Probably, there’s workers that want to work in that way. Not always sometimes, if they’re in the low skilled category, because there’s benefits for the higher but in the high skilled category, I think there’s certainly workers that want to work in that way. But I think there’s also, there’s a convenience for the hierarchy as well. This is helpful, organizationally to companies not to have high fixed, permanent headcount. They want to use suppliers, to help augment the talent that they’ve got in their business. And they want to be able to do that in a sophisticated way. So some of it is totally outsource where it’s the supplier’s responsibility to deliver the work. Some of it is a bit closer, and they want to be able to control the work but don’t necessarily want to employ the worker. And as Georgina says, in some cases, and this is the model that my own company have it will become a capability build so the workers aren’t employees of Co-ops, but after a period of time they’ve developed their skills but they can be, so that becomes potentially a capability build for certain skills where Co-op decides that this is strategically important to permanently employ for the future, but I don’t ever see. And I think this is what you’re saying, Georgina, you expect that mix of non-perm work has actually to increase over time, not decrease.

Georgina Jones:     40:24     Yes and no. So I think that depends on the organizational context. So I expect that to increase from a market perspective? Do I expect that to increase within the Co-op in the immediate term? No. In the longer term? Yes, because our business model will continue to shift and evolve, and we’re not ready to ourselves necessarily for that from a workforce perspective. So I think it will ebb and flow. One of the things that we in all organizations need to think about is, whether there’s another opportunity to deliver projects, maybe in a different way by employing bench strength, for example? So is it the right thing to always flex to a third party, when you get a new project? Or is there a more efficient way of continuing to have a great set of individuals who can turn their hand to many different broad projects on payroll, that might be a really efficient way of working? So actually, this is about an organization’s ability to prepare and ready itself for change. And then being able to make a strategic decision on where that we build that we buy that or we borrow that capability in order to respond to it. And I’ve definitely got a foot in both camps. At the moment, I’m a firm believer that if we need to respond quickly, and we don’t have that skill, then we’re probably going to have to go out to market. But if there’s an opportunity to create a bench or build our capability, then why wouldn’t we do that? Because it seems like the most pragmatic decision to take.

Jonny Dunning:     41:55     So Georgina, the list that you have in front of you the kind of the output from the work that...?

Georgina Jones:     42:02     You mean, the Oracle. 

Jonny Dunning:     42:04     The Oracle. Absolutely. So what’s the kind of almost like the extent of that, in the sense of you look, at one end, you might have fully outsourced, how many different category definitions have you got in there roughly? Because what you were talking about in terms of the different capacity, you’ve got to understand all of the options really, haven’t.

Georgina Jones:     42:29     Yes, I’m counting them actually now, this will be really helpful if we just put numbers on here. So we’ve got the six, I think, if my mathematics is right, legal classifications of workers that we’ve referred to. So we’ve got self-employed, we’ve got worker, we’ve got agency worker, employee, but then we’ve got subcategories within each of those. So under self-employed, you’ve got PSC, sole trader, freelancer, independent, independent worker. So there’s a number of different things. But what we’ve really tried to do is bucket them under one legal classification where we can now there will be notably different contracting mechanisms and payroll mechanisms and ways of working that you need to adopt for each of them. But it’s about trying to make this as simple and straightforward as possible to explain to a stakeholder when frankly, all they’re focused on is getting somebody in the door to get the work done in the most efficient way. So they’ve been designed based on tax and legal classifications, because that’s the easiest and most succinct way to do it. Some of your listeners might have a different approach, and I’m sure we’d be keen to hear from them about the way that they would potentially split this. But this is intended to be a guide. It’s terminology that we want to consistently use within the Co-op and guidance, the intelligent buying decision, that’s what it’s there to do. It doesn’t say anything about what we might need to put into a contract, it doesn’t talk about what benchmark rates we might be wanting to use for each of these individual classifications. I mean, you could create a monster. But what we were really trying to do is make it simple and have something that was meaningful, meant that we understood the risks, the pros, the cons, in order to keep ourselves compliant, and then find some call it low hanging fruit, call it cost opportunity, whatever that is to unpick some misclassification. And as I said, we were not there. We were finding misclassification or inaccurate contracting mechanisms in lots of different areas. And hopefully, over time, we’ll start to address each and every one of them.

Jonny Dunning:     44:46     Yeah, I mean, when you talk about the scope of it, I think starting with like clear legal definitions or compliance and tax, black and white definitions is a great place to start to build that framework out. And then you have kind of like these sub frameworks underneath He says things expand. I mean, we talked about people’s understanding where there’s a clear classification of like a freelancer, for example. But I remember doing some roundtables at one of the SIA summits a few times talking to people about freelancers. And I don’t think I’ve got the same definition from any of the groups of 10 people that were sat on a table each time, there’s a lot of variance in how people describe staff, use of different terminology, and different levels of understanding. But I think...

Dugald McIntosh:  45:27     But now you’ve got a handy guide, Jonny, so you just need to download the guide, we’ve [unclear 45:35]. Yes, exactly.

Jonny Dunning:     45:37     Well, there you go. But if you look across all of these channels, they’re all ways that an organization could get work done. And Georgina, a couple of them that you brought up today, like the bench side of it, and the kind of, build, train and deploy, I probably got that phrase wrong, do apologies for that. There’s a lot available there. But smart organizations need to be aware that there are these different channels available. And they need to know how to utilize them all in the right way. And that has different implications, as you said, from a point of view of contracting, from the risk and compliance side of it, in terms of how you costed out, how you work out return on investment, all that sort of thing. If you’ve got a strategy for all channels, and that business is fit for purpose and is it a great position to compete? Well, for those that aren’t but that can’t even understand what they’ve got to work with, let alone have a strategy for them. They’re going to be way, way behind. So I think it’s crucial. But you mentioned earlier about the decision tree, and trying to keep that simple and taking it through into flows that people can just actually utilize. That’s got to be quite a critical part of it really, I would assume.

Georgina Jones:     46:54     Yeah. It is, it underpins a conversation so right now, it’s a decision tree that’s conversation led. And then there’s a helpful reference to our SharePoint guide where somebody in my team who’s brilliant, process mapping software has been able to create some sorts of “Yes, no” questions, and it spits out a number of different channels. But right now, we’re still learning about what the organization really needs. And you talked about a couple of channels there, we can’t get away from the fact that the apprenticeship schemes that are brilliant and Co-op have anything between 1000 plus apprentices on program at any given time, the programs such as Kickstart, which are really brilliant, it doesn’t feel right to call them sources, but that’s the reality. They’re just other options to get work done. And it’s about helping our stakeholders think all of those different things through when they start to have a buying decision. And when I started in the organization quite a few years ago, now the only conversation was I need to recruit a permanent person in this role. And then we started to think about fixed term and the candies, and then well, we talked about grants. So over time, our organization has become slightly more mature around the different sourcing options, or the channels to hire or engage skills and capabilities. And that kind of classification gets bigger and bigger, and the decision tree gets bigger and bigger. But we do have a decision tree, it’s not perfect. And sometimes you get to the end of the decision tree and think, “Oh Gosh, we need to go back round that loop because we’re not really sure whether the outcome we’ve got to is the right one.” But the more scenario mapping that we can do that shows, the cost variance between operating with a service provider attempt, a recruit train deploy partner, is something that we’re doing on a regular basis. So it’s gives users some a tangible evidence point and a starting point to be able to link to. And what we’re also looking to do is create case studies, where people have utilized different sourcing channels and mechanisms and found them really valuable. So we put them on our SharePoint site as well. So if you’re thinking about engaging an apprentice, or you’re thinking about operating through an SJW on a fixed price basis, here’s an example of what great looks like. So that’s what we would like to start to build out over the course of the next 12 months.

Jonny Dunning:     49:25     Yeah, I really like that. That’s excellent. Dugald, one thing that stands out to me is that the definitions are really a start point, aren’t they, in the sense, as I think you said earlier, what Georgina is talking about with regards to the decision tree and a process, it’s a hugely complex thing. It’s got to be continuously updated. There’s a lot that goes into trying to program that and actually, as you say, a very pragmatic and I think sensible way to do it, as you say, start off by having an almost like an augmenting conversation but Dugald, it ultimately it comes back to the baseline that you’ve got really, doesn’t it?

Dugald McIntosh:  50:01     Well, I guess that was the starting place. And that kind of gave us the logic. And as we talked about right at the front, what was the justification for investing the time into a project like this, and it was compliance and cost. Yeah, that was the initial driver. But I think a couple of things, I would reflect on a little bit, Jonny, I mean, what Georgina is trying to do is really ambitious. A lot of other companies want to get to the same place, it’s not only the Co-op, the one to be able to be making those better buying decisions. And I think some of the examples that you’ve given there, Georgina, around showing, trying to show rather than just trying to force people to follow this process, you’re trying to show them the how and the benefits they get if they do it? I think it’d be really interesting to see how you get that adoption? But the other thing that occurs to me is you can’t remove the people from this either and that’s whether it’s really interesting, that ultimately you’re still having conversations, you’re not directing your hiring managers to some automated tool, you’re having conversations with them to help make the right decisions. And I think that’s probably a good approach, because that will help them and learn that behavior. And also, you get to tailor the process and how this works to get it right for Co-op? I think this is a really good lesson, you can’t divorce any Workforce Strategy, by just thinking about, the people are pawns on the chessboard, whether that’s the actual talent, the workers that are delivering the work, they’ve all got their own wants and aspirations, the people that are actually using the service, ultimately, you need them to be buying, to adopt it and buy, otherwise, you’re not going to get the results that you’re hoping to.

Jonny Dunning:     52:02     Yeah, and I think that speaks to something that both of you have mentioned to me in the past, which is about creating a good experience, creating a positive interaction throughout that process and there’s two sides to it. Georgina, I know that something you’ve been pretty passionate about internally, as to kind of making it easy. It goes both ways, really, doesn’t it, in terms of the buyer and supplier experience,

Georgina Jones:     52:26     Massively. And we have our procurement team do a brilliant job of engaging with our suppliers on a regular basis. So we hold regular kind of good SNOP for resale supplier engagement events where we really integrate them into our strategy. So we feel like they can represent our organization to the outside world just as well as we could represent it. Or that’s definitely the intended outcome anyway, so they can understand why we are making certain buying decisions or judgments. And it’s super important for us to make sure that the resources that those suppliers are popping on site are having a good experience, because I think Dugald said it at the start, we’re a consumer business. So we want people to shop with us, we want people to be members. And chances are if they have a poor experience when they’re engaging with us, then that won’t continue. So experiences are absolutely key, it needs to be meaningful, purposeful in terms of the interactions that people are having. And that’s one of the things that I’ve really tried to hammer home with IR35. Because what we’re not saying to our stakeholders is, if somebody is outside of IR35, you can’t speak to them. You can’t invite them, you can’t do this, you shouldn’t do this, because actually, they are still an integrated part of the team, they still got to deliver successfully for you it’s a balance, isn’t it? Between understanding the risks on the obligations, but making sure that you are being as inclusive as you possibly can, when you’re engaging with those individuals, regardless of the category that they come from. So worker experience, employee experience, supplier experience, whoever they might be, is fundamentally, part and parcel of what drives the work that we do. We need to do more in terms of creating a better experience and monitoring the feedback in the experience that we get. We’ve got some mechanisms of doing that, but that needs to evolve. But it’s fundamental to us that we keep our eye on that.

Jonny Dunning:     54:30     Yeah, absolutely. And if you’ve got a better experience happening for your buyers, and for your suppliers, whichever type they may be, whether it’s an individual, whether it’s a company that’s supplying individuals or whether it’s a company that has individuals within it that are doing some work for you. And if you get a good experience on both sides, then in theory, you should hopefully get a better outcome, better return on investment. And I think it leads on to another area which I’m quite passionate about just in terms of getting visibility of the supply chain, have all the different worker types and engagement types is just building that kind of innovative, an agile capacity within your workforce, which naturally needs diversity within it to make it more innovative and more agile, and more all-encompassing. And that also ties into some of the issues that COVID has brought up, which I would say go across all supply chains, but have been hitting the headlines more around goods and materials and distribution, which is resilience of supply chain, who knows what’s going to happen? Who knows who you might need to rely on and how you might need to engage with your trusted suppliers. So is that something that you see as one of the kind of end products in terms of this sort of full on, almost half total workforce? And I don’t know whether that’s a phrase you use certainly, but that that kind of approach?

Georgina Jones:     55:56     Yeah, so we do use the phrase total workforce optimization internally, took a while to get that explained. But we do now use that term. So yeah, I mean, our strategy is, a big one. And I don’t just look after contingent labor and optimization of a third party supply chain. My other focus is how we optimize and bring agility into our colleague population? How we can offer people more opportunity to move around, not just within their function, but within the multiple business units that they have, and ensure that we’re creating role profiles that allow businesses to pivot resources in the most effective place? So I’ve got a pretty broad agenda. But to answer your question, are we thinking about how we can make sure that the supply chain as integrated as possible, their experiences are as positive as possible, the output and the outcome that we were expecting is measured, monitored and maintained? Absolutely. But you can’t do that if you can’t see them. And probably that one of the biggest challenges for us is we have lots and lots of agreements that are maybe milestone based or output based, but are we monitoring them in the most effective way? In some instances, yes, possibly, not in other areas. So to have a solution that could help us do that. So we can really prove that we’re getting the return on investment and the great service at the same time, is something we’ve definitely got our eye on for later this year.

Jonny Dunning:     57:27     Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s an area that can more easily be missed, in the sense that if you look at contingent workforce, it’s a more mature market. The technology solutions are more mature in the contingent workforce, the MSP provisions, the broader solutions are much more mature. And I think as you get into services, procurement, Statement of Work, outcome based, that’s where a lot more movement is happening right now. But yeah, absolutely, all forms part of the same thing. So just in terms of time, but to start kind of wind things up a little bit. But what I wanted to do to wrap up, was just address another area, which is quite an interesting one. So Dugald, 100%, agree with what you were saying all around, there’s people involved in this, you can’t forget people. But there’s an interesting debate around whether organizations should focus on the work or the worker? And it comes into what Georgina has spoken about, really, really well before in terms of understanding capability and capacity. Dugald, first of all, for you, what’s your view on this kind of conundrum in terms of how organizations address work lead, or workload?

Dugald McIntosh:  58:43     Well, I want to cop out really here, Jonny and say both. I mean, it is. 

Jonny Dunning:     58:50     I knew it.

Dugald McIntosh:  58:52     Yeah, I mean, I think maybe, when I was stood back a little bit, looking at the workforce, like pawns on a chess set. With a more of a procurement mindset, I think it’s fair to say, I’d be saying, I’d be thinking about the work, but I think increasingly, I realized that you can’t divorce yourself from the worker. And ultimately, I think it was you that said, Jonny, ultimately, the only way that you’re going to be able to deliver your projects, if you’re attractive for people to come and work with you, offer them good experiences in a purposeful way. And they’ll find out if that’s not genuine. And I think that’s the same, and I think, as you said, whether it’s your permanent employees, and by the way, Georgina, I love this idea that you have around, your own workforce being a flexible, changeable workforce. And I think an intelligent company should be thinking about how they do that and enable their own workforce to be able to respond to the changing needs of the business. But all the supply chain, you want the supply chain to be attracted to and their workers ultimately, often, if they’re an important supply chain, a lot of their time will be spent working with you. So I don’t think you can divorce yourself from the worker, if you do, then I don’t think you win.

Jonny Dunning:     1:00:27  Yeah, very, very good points. And I think, when you look at the sort of analytical side of it, that feels like the exercise that Kobe have undertaken, and then you bring the people element into it. But Georgina, just in terms of that subject around, whether you should be looking at what it is that needs to be done, how it needs to be done, or dressing it from a, “We want to use this kind of worker type,” what’s your view on that?

Georgina Jones:     1:00:57  So for our Co-op, again, I would say, I think it’s both. And for me, I use this term all the time, really boring, I bore my team, context is everything. So if we really are looking to do a short, sharp piece of work, that’s impactful in some ways, but maybe not hugely visible, but actually focused on the most cost efficient way of getting that work done. But actually, if we’re looking to engage support on an area where we haven’t been before, we haven’t got our own internal scaling capability, and we actually need a knowledge build, then actually, probably would focus a little bit more on the worker, because of course, you’re buying expertise in one sense of the word. And I am really personally passionate about the fact that people do their great work, their best work, when they are engaged, inspired, clear about what they’re there to achieve. They’re working to a common goal or a common outcome. And they’re actually doing stuff that they enjoy, that they’re doing more than just their job. So one of the things that my team working on at the moment is, sounds a basic term, but career conversations. So having conversations with your colleagues about, what does five years look like for you personally and professionally? What are the things that make you stick? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And how could that potentially relate to the work that you’re doing now and the work that relates to what you might want to do in the future? And how can we give you exposure to potentially new areas that interest you and maybe excite you, not as easy when you’re operating with a service provider or continue to work who’s outside IR35, for example, but you still want them to be engaged and passion about the work that they’re doing in order to do their best job. And likelihood is you might want to reengage them, again, so not on a continuum, of course, naturally, but you might want to reengage them for their particular expertise or their knowledge. So it’s really important, when you are buying any kind of service that has a person at the end of it, you’ve got to be really mindful that you are relying on their ability to do a good job for you. 

Dugald McIntosh:  1:03:17  Jonny, I don’t want to date your show too much. But maybe PNO are a good example to a verse or an organization that maybe focus a bit too much on the work, and not enough on the worker. And we get a good example of, how that might come back to bite a company.

Jonny Dunning:     1:03:37  I think with their example, for me, it’s financial decisions that look good in theory, but don’t actually match up in reality, my own personal take on it from fairly scan information that I’ve taken in about it. I think when you look at the work versus worker thing, one of the problems that can exist in that work versus worker discussion is if people are trying to make some work fit into a worker type, that’s when you end up with misclassification. That’s when you end up with people going down a route because it means, “I’ve got a headcount freeze on so I’m just going to use this and this is the only route that I’ve got.” Or “I’m just going to stick it all under a statement of work, because actually, I can raise a purchase order for that, and there’s no limits on it. And if it’s under 100k, procurement aren’t worried about it.” So I think it comes back round to really what you two have done and what Georgina is taking forward. If you’ve nailed the compliance side, at the back of it, at the base, you built this foundation of compliance based approach where you clearly defined how all the different mechanisms need to work, then you can really later on start making the proper business decisions. And actually, you can then really bring in that consideration of the wider issues, people, how they’re going to be working? What that means to the person that’s at the end of that service? So for PNO, from their point of view, what difference is there in a well-loved employee, who’s really bought into the company and been there and absorbed the ethos, their interaction with a passenger versus somebody who’s coming in as a contractor on a short term, for example, all of these considerations can start to be put into place. But if you haven’t got that baseline understanding of the definitions and everything like that, I think it becomes a lot harder, and you’re still then stuck in the mud of dealing with all the misclassification and everything like that. So you can’t really get sophisticated.

Georgina Jones:     1:05:36  And that’s a constant battle, a number of workers are very clear about the way they want to operate. And that can be really difficult if you know that particular person has the real expertise or skills capability that you need, that can be a challenge. And for me, it’s about having an open and transparent conversation that says, “Fine, if this is the way that we want to engage. These are the rules that control the fun, effectively, if you want to engage on this basis, this is what needs to be true. But if actually, it doesn’t feel like that’s going to work for you practically or pragmatically, there could be another solution.” So we are very heavily influenced by worker’s preference. And that will continue to be a battle forevermore, whether we’ve nailed the definitions or not, that will continue to be a battle and equally, whether it’s worker preference, or whether it’s supplier preference? From some of our buyers, that’s something that continues to be a hurdle and we need to get over. So that’s why the engagement with the supplier is really critical. So they understand what we’re doing to try and make sure that things are really easy to navigate. We have the appropriate mechanisms and contracts in place to make sure that our ways of working are clear, and that our obligations, the obligations for either party are equally clear and well-understood.

Jonny Dunning:     1:07:03  Yeah, so I’m going to do a little bit of a Co-op out here and actually agree with both of you, both things are important. But I’m also going to borrow Georgina buzzwords and say that, context is everything, when you look at the work versus the worker, because if whether it’s that, people understand the compliance, the correct definitions, or are they trying to fit something in to somewhere it shouldn’t. But if all of those things are actually dealt with, and you’ve got to consider both sides of it, and you’re absolutely right, dude, the people side of it is critically important in almost all businesses these days, whether it’s from an external service provision to that business’s customers, whether it’s from an internal, just working environment, it’s still people doing the work at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Dugald McIntosh:  1:07:51  Well, I think that’s a good thing because it makes more an enjoyable experience for all of us. Yeah, it makes it richer. And what are we here for at the end of the day? So, I think that’s a positive conclusion in my book.

Jonny Dunning:     1:08:12  I’d certainly agree with that. So, Georgina, the journey continues with this. I’m sure you’re going to be extremely busy with it. Any particular kind of thoughts and plans for the near future in terms of how you continue to roll this out and expand the program?

Georgina Jones:     1:08:29  Well, we’re trying not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And we are taking it on a function by function basis effectively. So we’re starting with the areas where we either have the biggest opportunity to change the misclassification aspect, or we think we’ve got a team that can really benefit from utilizing alternative sourcing channels, because they’ve always only ever used perm, for example. So we’re just working through the organization based on the changing context that we operate within. So, we’re not going to do anything revolutionary by the end of this year, I shouldn’t think but if we can get everybody talking the same language. And we can be really comfortable that we’re in a compliant place, and we’re getting the value. Value being underlined that we expect, then it doesn’t need to be any more strategic than that.

Jonny Dunning:     1:09:21  Well, I think it’s up to you. Fantastic. And I really appreciate you both taking the time to have this conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it. And I think there’s been some interesting points, discussion points that have come out of it. And certainly, the fact that you’ve both been willing to share your experience with the work that you’ve done, is very much appreciated by me. And no doubt, listeners to the podcast, very much appreciate that too. And I know there’s certain things it’d be great to get feedback on, wouldn’t it? We’d love to know what other people are thinking. I’m sure you both probably agree with that.

Georgina Jones:     1:09:51  Definitely. Yeah. And you can I believe download this article, just the definitions effectively. Don’t go searching oracle on the APSCO outsource website, you won’t find it. But you can download this from the APSCO outsource website. And we’d really welcome any comments from listeners on whether we’ve captured everything, whether there’s any gaps and how this can evolve? Because it will evolve. Before you know it, there’ll be another worker classification that pops up that we’ve never even heard of. So we’d love to hear views and thoughts about the content. And whether it’s usable for different businesses.

Jonny Dunning:     1:10:28  Well, we’ll put a link to the article in the podcast notes as well. And ultimately, it’s about best practices and about sharing information if people want to get in touch and share their own experiences. I think it’s a great platform for further conversation. So yeah, I’m really grateful to both of you, and Dugald, thank you very much. And Georgina, thank you very much. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And I hope we look forward to catching up with both of you again soon.

Georgina Jones:     1:10:54  Brilliant. Thanks, Jonny. Thanks Dugald. Nice to see.

Dugald McIntosh:  1:10:57  Thank you both. Wonderful. 

Jonny Dunning:     1:10:59  Cheers.