Dr. Gleb Tsipursky – The Office Whisperer
Nirit Cohen – WorkFutures
Angela Howard – Culture Expert
Drew Jones – Design & Innovation
Jonathan Price – CRE & Flex Expert
About This Episode
Flexible work isn’t new — but doing it well is still rare. In this powerful episode of The Future of Work® Podcast, host Frank Cottle sits down with Cali Williams Yost, a globally recognized futurist, strategist, and CEO of the Flex+Strategy Group.
With nearly three decades of experience guiding Fortune 500 companies, Yost explains why simply offering remote or hybrid options isn’t enough—and how organizations can design flexible work strategies that truly drive performance, innovation, and well-being.
From the myths of “return to office” to the blind spots in AI implementation, Cali offers a wake-up call to leaders stuck in outdated thinking. She explores the role of shared leadership, cross-functional alignment, ergonomic remote design, and Gen Z expectations — and reveals how flexibility, when executed with intention, becomes a competitive advantage.
About Cali Williams Yost
Cali Williams Yost is a globally recognized authority on high-performance work flexibility, celebrated as a visionary futurist, strategist, author, and keynote speaker. As CEO of the Flex+Strategy Group, she been helping organizations achieve peak performance and well-being by redefining how, when, and where work gets done for nearly three decades.
Yost’s methodology blends strategy, infrastructure, and shared leadership, rooted in original research on how individuals can best integrate work and life. She codified her concepts in books like Tweak It and Work+Life. In 2024, she was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices and a top future of work influencer by Remote.com
If her name is familiar to you, you’ve likely seen Cali regularly quoted in the media, including the Wall Street Journal or on NBC’s Today Show and Nightly News.
What You’ll Learn
- Why hybrid models with unclear purpose create confusion — and how to fix it.
- The “three places” every flexible work model needs.
- How training and language alignment can unlock true performance.
- The danger of siloed AI investments that ignore human workflows.
Transcript
Cali Williams Yost [00:00:00] How are we making sure our managers are trained to know how to lead a flexible work team? Because right now, only 44% of managers are getting any training at all, globally, according to Gallup. So when you’re leading a flexible team, you need those skills. They don’t have them, but let’s say you give it to them. And let’s see you give employees the skills to be really effective in how they’re prioritizing what they’re doing and where they’re doing it, when they’re.
Frank Cottle [00:00:24] Kali, welcome to the future work podcast. Gosh, it’s really exciting.
Cali Williams Yost [00:00:28] 30-Year veteran. I know, right? With another veteran. I know it. That’s so exciting for me. Thank you, Frank, for having me.
Frank Cottle [00:00:35] Fortunately, I’m the only one here with gray hair, so we’ll go on for that.
Cali Williams Yost [00:00:39] Well, I may have some, so.
More stories for you
Frank Cottle [00:00:42] You’ve been in the flexible workspace strategist for 30 years. Tell us, how do you get everyone in an organization on the same page about work, or even can you? Because I don’t think they are.
Cali Williams Yost [00:00:57] Now. They are absolutely not Frank. Before we get started, I do want to put a plug in for the episode you just did with Nick Bloom. I think it’s a great foundation for the conversation we’re going to have today in terms of the data-driven business case for flexibility. So I urge everybody to go over there and get that data and you’ll see it’s here. You benefit as a business, so we can put that to the side so I can get on with how do we make this work? Because to me, The next level question really is, how do we make flexible work models high performing? How do we reimagine the way work is done so that we can use that flexibility to fuel performance, engagement, innovation? And so part of that, or the main part of that is getting everybody on the same page about where, when, and how work is doing. And right now we are not, to your point, you talk to Nick. He told you data around the fact that you are now on our next round of mandates. And let’s say you are mandated to come in five days, you’re coming in on average three to four. Let’s say, you’re mandated to come in two to three days a week, you’re maybe coming in two. And the reason for that is, people just don’t know why they’re there. You haven’t gotten them, you haven’t created a shared understanding for the need to be in-person and what you’re gonna do then. And then what you’re gonna do when you’re not in person. So you’re on the same page, it’s inefficient.
Frank Cottle [00:02:24] Well, you know, it’s interesting, years ago, years ago. I’m talking two decades ago. We were working with a major global 500 company, a high growth tech company, and we’re doing a workplace study of the occupancy of the desks and the workstations within their corporate campus, it was only 42%. Yep.
Cali Williams Yost [00:02:52] We were not at full capacity before COVID at all.
Frank Cottle [00:02:55] This is not a new f-
Cali Williams Yost [00:02:56] This is not a new thing. You and I both know this. And I think the hard part right now is we seem to be grasping, right, trying to get back to this traditional work model that we believe existed before COVID, and it didn’t. And so that’s holding us up from now stepping forward and saying, okay, let’s now assess where we are. Let’s admit we’re not going back. So now how do we move forward? Because the model we have now in many cases was executed under a crisis circumstance, right? Like you and I would go in before COVID and do a thoughtful execution and be strategic. And there were leaders that saw this new flexible work reality.
Frank Cottle [00:03:40] Well, I actually think we actually jokingly refer to RTO as return to obedience.
Cali Williams Yost [00:03:47] Yeah, well.
Frank Cottle [00:03:47] Office and I think a lot of companies first of they’ve over invested in facility relative to the way they should be used They’re trying to protect their investment. It’s embarrassing when you’ve got five hundred thousand feet of space and you only needed a hundred thousand That’s pretty silly to the board But also a point you make about definitions. Yes, unless we understand the terms And are using the same terms and the definitions have a certain basis in data, we won’t ever be able to have the conversation that’s necessary to accelerate. And you just said, how do we make flexible work productive or more efficient?
Cali Williams Yost [00:04:34] High performing, like for everybody.
Frank Cottle [00:04:38] And I’m going to say, wait, it’s already outperforming other forms of work. So it’s a matter of how do we recognize these things with uniform data sets, a uniform language and definitions overall, and how do we make it strategic instead of just tactical?
Cali Williams Yost [00:04:57] So I think it’s performing, but I think you could perform better. Okay, so let’s use the example that Nick shared with you of his study of that organization, Tripit, where he did the randomized study where he just assigned birthdays and the people who were on one birthday came in full time and those with even birthdays came in kinda hybrid. And the business outcome of that was you definitely got a benefit in that there was lower turnover for the people who worked hybrid. So that’s the business case. There was no increase in productivity. Comparatively between the two groups. However, I would say if you executed that hybrid model in that study, which you couldn’t do because you needed to do a randomized study. But if that hybrid have been executed in a way where those employees step back and said, okay, what are we gonna do when we’re in person? How are we going to really make the best of that time together? And then what are going to do when we’re not in person, how do we make sure our communication tools or we are working effectively coordinating across places and spaces? How are we making sure our managers are trained to know how to lead a flexible work team? Because right now, only 44% of managers are getting any training at all, globally, according to Gallup. So when you’re leading a flexible team, you need those skills. They don’t have them, but let’s say you give it to them. And let’s see you give employees the skills to be really effective in how they’re prioritizing what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, when they’re it. I’m gonna promise you, Frank, you’re gonna get even more benefit from that process. So that’s where I think we have an opportunity. We already know it works. But what we’re often working from is not a place of optimization. And that’s the next stage.
Frank Cottle [00:06:35] You know, it’s interesting, I wonder as you’re saying that. If we’re spending way too much time trying to train and retrain and fire staff and relocate that around AI.
Cali Williams Yost [00:06:53] Yes, Frank!
Frank Cottle [00:06:57] We need both, but the emphasis right now seems to be a panic about AI or it’s either a golden solution for everything or it is the evil robots are going to take over the world. That’s where all the conversation is. Maybe because people are investing in that.
Cali Williams Yost [00:07:17] Yes.
Frank Cottle [00:07:18] And they’re not investing in training and flexibility to strategically improve what they have and to not disrupt lives so much and maybe that’s something that we should should be out there, you know, sermonizing more effectively as executives within the industry.
Cali Williams Yost [00:07:43] So you bring up a very good point, and I’m sure you’ve seen the recent studies that have shown, I think the McKinsey study showed that 80% of the GenAI investments are not having any return. And we’ve spent $62 billion on those GenAI investments in the past year. That’s a lot of money to not have any return on. And then I think MIT study found that 95% of experiments on AI are failing. So we’re not doing that particularly well, and I would contend that we just need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of work, where it’s happening, when it’s happen, and how it’s happened around AI, and collectively train employees and involve them in the process of thinking through based on their work, where does that happen best, when does it happen best? And then how, with AI, and that holistic approach to defining that work model will actually overcome a lot of this lack of being on the same page and the lack of productivity and performance that we’re seeing.
Frank Cottle [00:08:51] Well, you know, it’s funny when you mention AI, we have a theory in our own company about AI and we make AI instead of AI, we use lowercase.
Cali Williams Yost [00:09:02] That’s interesting.
Frank Cottle [00:09:03] And the lower case is distinctive to us, because it means that we weave it inside of existing processes instead of trying to replace people or processes entirely.
Cali Williams Yost [00:09:16] Exactly.
Frank Cottle [00:09:17] Becomes much more of a seamless tool to use as opposed to a redirecting of everything. Now that may be not the right way to go.
Cali Williams Yost [00:09:31] Well, I think that’s a really great example.
Frank Cottle [00:09:35] I haven’t had anybody and everybody exactly 40% growth last year. We had, we added two people. Yep. So it’s like weaving it in instead of laying it on top and replacing to me seems to be, and we’re kind of off topic a little bit, but
Cali Williams Yost [00:09:52] No, it’s all part of the whole, because this is all about work, okay? This ultimately becomes about the work model, and how, when, and where we’re going to work. And AI is a component of this, but we’re too siloed in how we’re looking at all of these things. So we keep looking at where in one silo, we keep at when in another silo. I would argue time is another issue right now. There’s a new study that just came out today. Robert Walters backed up the Microsoft study around the infinite workday. I mean, there are no boundaries between when people are stopping. And that’s burning them out, right? We’re not on the same page about when, and then now the how with things like AI. So that’s where all of these aspects of work have to come together as we think about the way we’re gonna move forward most effectively.
Frank Cottle [00:10:35] That brings up a really good point. Who should be making this decision strategically within a company? How should this decision be made? Who should being making it? Because right now, we have sort of… I don’t know. I won’t say the blind leading the blind, but it ends up being a certain amount of that. A lot of experimentation and not a lot of thoughtful decision making that’s long-term strategic says I get further if I go slower.
Cali Williams Yost [00:11:11] Exactly.
Frank Cottle [00:11:13] There’s an old saying that says, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Cali Williams Yost [00:11:21] Okay, Frank, if I could bottle that up and send that to every single senior leader right now, because I do think what’s happening is there’s just need to go, we just got to get this done. We just have to do it.
Frank Cottle [00:11:31] Yeah, it’s almost like earnings. It’s almost like earnings, you know, this quarter, this quarter,
Cali Williams Yost [00:11:36] And in the end, to your point, it’s gonna take longer. And so you asked me who should own this. Okay, so I’m gonna tell you what I’ve seen work the best and I think is the best model. First and foremost, you have to have a senior line, senior business line leader sponsor it. It has to be somebody everybody respects because that’s the only way that any kind of a holistic rethinking of the work model is gonna get the time, the money and the space. To be done correctly and that’s where that person has to be willing to hold the space and say we are going to take the time to do this and I am going to give you the resourcing and we are going to give this the attention it requires in relation to all the other aspects of our work that are competing for attention. That person has hold the place and be the sponsor. Then you have to get all these different functional areas together into a collective task force or ownership of the execution? And they have to come together and say, what piece of this do we have to lead? What piece do you have to leave? That’s IT, we cannot keep giving IT the sole access to the keys to the innovation kingdom, which right now in many cases, they are leading a lot of the innovation. And yes, they’re gonna lead with technology, but you have have the people aspect and then you have the space aspect, right, Frank? So you start to define the model and at the same time, all these different elements are coming together.
Frank Cottle [00:13:05] When you explain it that way, it sounds to me like this massive change management project, when really it’s a matter of letting the flow flow. I don’t see it as massive a change as saying it’s natural evolution. Evolution, not revolution.
Cali Williams Yost [00:13:24] Yeah, you know…
Frank Cottle [00:13:26] Approach.
Cali Williams Yost [00:13:26] It’s how we think of change, okay? I think people think change has to be a massive thing, but if those key components are in place and there is just a general direction set where everybody’s communicating with each other, the work is still getting done while the change is happening. So the way we do it is there would be a period of assessment. Okay, that takes some time where you’re just seeing where are we now? What’s working now? What’s not working now. Where do we want to go? So there is some aspect of a shared vision that’s created. So to your point, we let it flow. Okay, we’ll let it evolve toward that vision with intention. Then you are in that process aligning everybody to get on the same page about that vision. So you can’t have everybody evolving in their own different way. Cause right now you’ve got some senior leaders who still have their construct for work as you’re in the office. That has to shift. And then you have some employees who have never ever really been in an office, so they don’t understand. So again, that’s part of the process that has to be in place to get them on the same page. And then you’d have to train people in those competencies that I talked about. Like you have to make sure managers know how to manage. You have to makes sure employees know what their role and responsibilities are. And you and I have talked in the past about individuals having to take more responsibility in this flexible work reality. But they have to be told in many cases what that is. Like, what are the expectations for you? And then you have to experiment. And all of those things can happen in the context of the work still getting done, but there’s an intentionality around thinking about the way we are actually executing this that people are experimenting with.
Frank Cottle [00:15:07] There there’s another element to bring up here that I think is important when you talk about management change All these things coming together We have to remember that there are five generations in the world
Cali Williams Yost [00:15:21] YES!
Frank Cottle [00:15:22] And the differences in a generation, I’ll use myself, I’m active in the workplace. I would be at the baby boomer category. I started off in business handwriting letters. We started making copies with Mimeograph machines.
Cali Williams Yost [00:15:42] Remember the smell, Frank.
Frank Cottle [00:15:43] The facts did not exist. And yet we’ve migrated through all the changes in technology, certain of us. Others are native digital, and they don’t know anything. But the way we think about change is radically different. So when we talk about change and evolution and all these things, each generation within the workforce defines change and speed of change different.
Cali Williams Yost [00:16:15] And that’s why there has to be that intentional alignment, because what I’ve seen is when you bring all those different generations together, that’s where the magic is. So all of a sudden, you have perhaps the more senior leader who gets the opportunity to explain to the more junior person, I get it. Like you are productive in this area when you are working remotely, and I appreciate how you are doing your job. But you know what? It really matters for you to sit in a room with me. And watch me communicate with a client. And so we are gonna make that happen. Let’s prioritize those things so that that helps with your development. And then I’ve seen the junior people say to those senior people, you know, I get it that you don’t love Slack, okay? However, this is where a lot of our conversations are happening, so let me sit with you and help you understand how to use Slack so that we can all find ways to communicate with each other when we are operating across these different dimensions. So to me, it’s bringing all those generations together intentionally as part of that change process that really does help move the organization forward.
Frank Cottle [00:17:23] And by the way, I don’t know anybody that likes slack. But that’s another story.
Cali Williams Yost [00:17:27] Know or it’s I’ll tell you what they like it a little bit better than teams though that’s interesting.
Frank Cottle [00:17:31] Uh, maybe, maybe the doctor sharing this in a good way could argue, you know, hot desking. Is that a realistic solution for, or is that disruptive to culture and, and, and, uh, comfort and things of that nature in the office? Um, how do people think about the physicality of accomplishing this? Um, at their, I’ll say corporate headquarters, remote home offices. How many people that work remotely on a part-time basis, let’s say, and we’ll call that hybrid, but not using a third workplace, actually have a proper ergonomic environment within which to work that’s comparable? And I would say it’s 10%, 20%, no buts.
Cali Williams Yost [00:18:20] Okay so this goes back to this strategic.
Frank Cottle [00:18:23] I’m going to go a step further. How many people in Gen Z don’t have a roommate that’s disruptive to a work environment? How many middle-early millennials don’t have kids running around? So all these things have to be taken into consideration when you’re setting something up remote. And you or we as employers have to say, I’m in. Send someone out to that remote workplace, I’m going to make sure they have a good seating, good lighting, a proper workstation. That’s how they earn, or we provide that to them, a proper environment. Because if you don’t give people, I’ll say comfort tools, you know, slouching on your couch with your laptop with a dog running back and forth is not a good work environment.
Cali Williams Yost [00:19:17] So this is where you have to be strategic, okay? So this assumes you’ve defined your flexible work model. And this is why you said we’ve talked about definitions. So one of the reasons hybrid is limiting is that hybrid infers there are two places that you’re working.
Frank Cottle [00:19:33] You have to have three plays.
Cali Williams Yost [00:19:35] You have to have three and hybrid by definition is two. Okay, so a flexible work model expands the the opportunities for where you are working. Okay. So you’ve been strategic as an organization and you have decided based on the work people have to get done. They’re going to do certain aspects of their work in the office, the home, let’s say the headquarters, they’re going to do a certain aspect of their job when they’re remote. And maybe there’s a third aspect, a certain aspect when they are in the third place. Okay, that’s been defined as to what that work is gonna look like. Then you come in and say, okay, so what spaces do we need to enable that model? And that will optimize what we’re doing when we are in person in our headquarters. What does that space look like? Now we’ve seen what’s emerging is a greater awareness of the need for more collaborative spaces. And actually, interestingly, teams still kind of want their neighborhood where they get to sit together, right? Now, can that be put on the booking system and people can use that desk if somebody’s not there? For sure. Okay. But there are times they may all be there, and that’s their space. Now, in terms of remote, when you’re strategic, you have defined, well, certain aspect percentage of your work is going to be in your home. So, for that to happen, you have to have this kind of a setup. You have to this kind a desk. You have to to have kind of an environment. You to have to kind of chair. Some organizations will actually give you money to get that, okay? Now, if you don’t have that, then there needs to be the next step, which is, okay, so where are you gonna work if you’re not coming into this office? And that’s where it’s very important to have places like that third space where that setup is there and people can access it, but they’re not doing the long commute. So again, start with the strategy and then all those different types of spaces begin to get a lot clearer about what’s required.
Frank Cottle [00:21:29] Well, you know what, something else that’s different, I’m just running through my mind here. We’ve done some work with disaster recovery and business pudding. So thank Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, et cetera. And one of the things that we did for that is put together a sort of a business nudity insurance plan. And it was kind of fun because we said, well, here’s your corporate headquarters. It’s at this spot. And there’s 300 people that work there. If something happens, what are you going to do? Yep. So what we did is we drew a series of little circles around the corporate headquarters. The circles kept extending out and out and within each of those circles, and we divided them into quarters, and then we looked at where people lived and said, well, all the people in this quadrant that’s out two, three circles, four circles go to this place. To this place, and these go to this one. If you look at business continuity models, there’s actually a lot of that can be learned when it comes to flexible workplace models. Totally. When you’re figuring out this third workplace issue, because in a disaster, if there’s no power, or if there is disruption in bandwidth, telecommunications, etc., then You still need to get people together, and let’s say… And this is not a good remote work situation, but you have a service call center, you’re a bank, and you’re required by law to stay in business, or you’re an insurance company, et cetera. There’s a lot of study can be done about their disaster recovery programs to help us create these definitions, because by law, certain types of companies, medical insurance companies, banks, et cetera, financial institutions, by law they have to actually present a very. A business continuity plan.
Cali Williams Yost [00:23:31] Yep, and flexibility is part of that. The flexibility in where you’re working and then the space you’re using.
Frank Cottle [00:23:37] How you connect all of them. I think that the crossover in thinking maybe isn’t a hundred percent, but maybe it’s
Cali Williams Yost [00:23:44] It’s a hundred percent, because it is an application of a flexible work model. So there’s all the, you know, why are we doing this? What’s the why?
Frank Cottle [00:23:54] Corporations are doing that. No!
Cali Williams Yost [00:23:57] Again, this goes back to silos, right, Frank? I mean, like, nobody’s like the risk management people are not talking to the people who are looking at workspaces who are looking at technology. This is part of the whole. So in that model I shared with you where you’ve got all those functional areas around the same table talking about what aspects of this you’d have the risk managing people they’re saying, okay, so how does this apply to our business continuity model? And you’re correct in that. You would have, my favorite story is a COVID, one of my clients email, this is the email I got from him. All it said in the subject line was seamless. That’s all it said. Because they were able to quickly recalibrate overnight all their systems, where people were working, how they were working to be up and running the next day for business, like they had no gap. And so when you make business continuity, like you just said, part of your flexible work model, everybody understands. Regular business times, here’s how and where we’re working. Something happens, this is what we’re gonna do. And they’re able to make that switch. We had it recently with the New Jersey transit strike here. And I’ll tell you, it was like I was living through Superstorm Sandy again, where people were lining up to try to get into the city in cars and it was ridiculous. It must’ve taken people four hours to get into the city and four hours get out. But they still weren’t forced to do it. And I thought then this is just dumb because everybody could just know we have this happen. Everybody goes fully remote and here’s where you’re gonna work.
Frank Cottle [00:25:32] Well, you know, it’s funny, you use the word seamless in the subject matter, which is kind of cute. I’m gonna change that awareness.
Cali Williams Yost [00:25:41] Awareness.
Frank Cottle [00:25:42] All problems, all change. We have what we call a pebble in a pond theory. A pond is a certain size. It’s got different shapes around the edges, different shallow and deep spots in it. Somewhere, a pebbles is dropped. A wave pattern created by that pebble hits all those different sections of the pond differently. Some place it goes smash, some place it’s the tiny little rift. So awareness of what’s going on in the world, whether it’s a weather report or a pre-pandemic, and I’ll use ourselves as a good example. We had put everybody, everybody in our company that was going to go remote went remote in the pandemic in January of 2020. Yep. Okay, three, four months ahead of everybody’s, oh, there was a problem here because We have offices in a variety of places around the world, and we listened. There is a problem, and the pebble’s been dropped in Asia, but the wave pattern is going to hit us. What do we do so that it is seamless? We have no problems. In 2021, we had 91% growth. It actually was, we functioned better as a result of it.
Cali Williams Yost [00:27:08] So, but you have to link those strategic challenges with flexible work, a flexible work model as a solution.
Frank Cottle [00:27:17] Okay, well, that brings up strategically, and let’s use big IT companies as an example. In 2016-17, they realized in their HR department that they could not win the battle for talent unless they had a flexible work program for particularly senior development engineers. They couldn’t win. They couldn’t have. People would say, well, you want to move me from my gorgeous home on my ranch, my property in Tennessee to Silicon Valley where I’d have to live in a condo, and my family would have to go. And it would cost more than my rent. No, I’m not doing that. And then somebody else says, well why don’t we just get you a virtual office or a coworking facility office, a private office in Tennessee, and you just stay right there.
Cali Williams Yost [00:28:16] But see what happens, what happens Frank, is all of a sudden there’s that accommodation, right? There’s that exception to the work model. And then over time, what you see pre-COVID, was people will say, well, why not me? Like why not? And that then forces a more strategic review from the smart leaders, a more a strategic review of the way they’re working to allow for just flexibility in the day-to-day model. The interesting thing about IT, you know there’s like a whole secondary shadow workforce? In IT that’s like, they’re fully flexible. They work for agencies that, so that’s part of the pressure, right? Is this person will just say, well, I’ll just stick with the agency and I can keep working in this flexible way. So labor markets have a great way of forcing this issue. And yes, with IT, that is indeed the case.
Frank Cottle [00:29:04] No, we’ve actually… Stopped, put a stop on our own programmers and developers, and instead hire project managers and outsource. And we find that we accomplish more faster by doing that. Good project managers that can access flexible production teams really has been a solution for us. But, you know, AI implementation, we chatted about AI. And we know that the impact it’s already happening in the world. People are being laid off. And I think the biggest impact is what we’re seeing in entry-level jobs. Jen graduates from college, can’t find an entry- level job because 50% of the work that was done in that job last year is being done by AI this year. So the value proposition of the new hire is bad. So the experience that person gets, if they can get a job. Which they can’t right now. I mean, there’s just a massive problem with getting people into entry-level jobs. Can AI, the use of AI in the distributed workforce help to mitigate that, help to recreate job opportunities for entry-level employees? Because if you don’t have somebody maturing inside of a company or inside of a industry, you’re never going to get the productivity that you want on a generational basis.
Cali Williams Yost [00:30:50] Totally agree. I think we’re looking, I’m not sure we’re look at jobs with young people correctly. I think again, how are we paying for the AI, all right? And I think there has been a business case made to the CFO by technology people that certain percentage of productivity gains will be realized. And that is usually around hiring and cost savings from talent. And so. I think young people were the sort of first place to go for that, but at the end of the day, you’re kind of eating your seed corn. That’s the Pennsylvania. And I’m like, and so you’re never going to get the domain expertise that is going to be required to actually optimize the AI. So I still think we’re struggling with what AI is. And I don’t think there has been a full embrace on the part of organizations that it’s an augmentation. It is not a replacement in many cases. And so I hope we’re gonna turn a corner soon where there’s gonna be a recognition that we really have to hire young people and give them that domain expertise. But again, that goes back to, it’s not just about the AI, then you’ve got to think about how you’re developing these young people who will probably work across these different dimensions when they’re in person, when they are not in person. Give them the skills and companies to use that AI effectively. I just think the implementation overall with AI is just not working. So there has to be a holistic reset on what we’re doing there. And I hope hiring young people again will be part of that reset.
Frank Cottle [00:32:28] Well, you know, we, we have a, I won’t say a rule, but a. Of we’d like to see ten percent of all the people working inside of the company as being interns An intern for us means someone that’s in their senior year of college and sixty to seventy percent of the interns that we hire End up becoming full-time. Yeah, okay, and because we’re able to graduate them into the company and and and that makes a big difference for us and today are 10 year plus managers, there are half a dozen of them or so. All started as interns.
Cali Williams Yost [00:33:11] How about that? And they have all that institutional knowledge and all that history.
Frank Cottle [00:33:17] They’re incredibly productive technologically and with people skills and things of that nature, but it’s because they live and breathe the culture or the industry experience. If you’re not the best student of the industry, you forget your own company of your industry, then you can’t bring enough to the table.
Cali Williams Yost [00:33:41] Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And I think, again, this is going to have to be part of this, I think a broader reset around AI and how much not that we’re not investing in it, but how much we’re investing in to the exclusion of people. And, you know, you have the little AI, I like to see when people put human first, human plus AI, versus AI plus human, I get nervous when I see that AI is not doesn’t come first, it’s really got to be the human aspect. And then how do we execute the AI.
Frank Cottle [00:34:11] Yeah, and if you approach it that way, then your humans, the meat, is really going to learn faster and more effectively how to utilize all the new elements in AI that are being developed today and will continue to be developed. Absolutely. Any tool, we could go back to the Industrial Revolution and look at anything, and it’s the same thing.
Speaker 3 [00:34:35] Absolutely.
Frank Cottle [00:34:36] You know, as we look towards 2030, the magical, what’s going to happen? And yes, this is my what’s gonna happen in 2030 question. The biggest problem, I think, in everything that we’ve discussed today really starts. In the human resources department, having the right mindset of who to hire, how, how they’re going to work, et cetera. And that ultimately comes to companies winning the battle for talent without the brightest, cleverest, most energetic people, you can’t be the leading company in the world.
Cali Williams Yost [00:35:12] You can’t grow!
Frank Cottle [00:35:13] Have those things. Yeah. So what challenges the company is going to face as they try and break through that barrier or as they’re trying to sustain themselves to be to win the war for talent using AI, using flex work, using hybrid remote, all the elements to it. I’m going to on top that’s the
Cali Williams Yost [00:35:37] So the first thing, Frank, is to realize our labor demographics are going to be radically changing by 2030. There is Derek Thompson, who I love, who just moved over to Substack. He was at the Atlantic. He wrote a great piece yesterday that I was like, okay, he’s saying this thing. Why we are not talking about the radically changing labor demographics that are coming every single day, he has no idea. I’m the same way. If you, and I can give you a great report is by a group called Lightcast, it’s called The Rising Storm. They talk about different industries and the coming labor demographic shortages that we’re gonna be facing, and it is extreme. And there’s a line in that report I love because this is me, okay, is leaders who came into the workforce in the 70s and 80s need to understand that’s not the workforce anymore. There is not this endless supply of talent. That you can just draw upon as needed, who will have the skills that you need, and you don’t have to worry. That’s changing. In fact, I think Derek Thompson said, next year is the year we’re gonna have more deaths than we have births. And so.
Frank Cottle [00:36:44] Oh yeah, population growth or stagnation is a thing and I’ll bridge that real fast. We just hired somebody remotely in Kenya. Yeah, exactly. Area where population growth is not a problem.
Cali Williams Yost [00:36:57] That’s exactly right.
Frank Cottle [00:36:58] We’re finding lots of talent in East Africa, right?
Cali Williams Yost [00:37:02] Yep, and but that’s a remote work model. Okay, so that’s a flexible work model that you are leveraging to access talent. And there’s got to be structures and cultures in place for that model to be successful in that person to be successful. So when you don’t act, you don’t realize that the labor market is different, you aren’t going to be motivated to actually execute a model intentionally all the things I said at the beginning, how do we make our flexible work models high performing? How do we what do we need to put in place so that people can work across places, spaces, and time effectively? And we first have to recognize the labor market is really different than it was. And I’ve seen HR people everywhere saying it’s nearly impossible to find people with the skill sets that you want. So you do have to start training people. And then you said something with Nick that I think is important. You had the Ransdad data that said when an organization puts out a job posting that has hybrid or remote in it. You get a five to one, five to, right? And Nick quoted people want to work two to three days a week remotely. You’ve got to give the talent what they want in order to be able to catch them. Now, right now people are saying, oh, employees, employers have the upper hand in the past. Living in that space is only gonna keep you further behind in doing what you need to do to create the model that’s gonna get you the people that you want. And I’ll say all the generations again, you’re gonna have people in the boomer, Gen X category who wanna keep working and have wonderful institutional knowledge but don’t wanna work coming into an office every day.
Frank Cottle [00:38:39] I don’t, I haven’t worked in an office permanently for 30 years.
Cali Williams Yost [00:38:43] And they’ll stick around, but they need flexibility. And then you have the people in the middle who are gonna be all the caregiving that’s coming down the road, whether it’s elder care, whether it is children, they are going to expect flexibility and want it. And that’s men and women. Okay, I always love these studies that say, women prefer flexibility. And then, you look at it, it’s like a 3% difference between men and woman. Well, men guys wanted to, okay? I stopped doing this through the women’s initiative 15 years ago, because all the men would get so mad. They’re like, we would like, it’s like, okay, this is not helping anybody, okay. And then you have the young people who just are intuitively, this is how they work. Like they don’t, they wanna be in person, but they want it to be intentional and thoughtful, but then they wanna also have the flexibility. So to win that labor market and then access talent like you did Frank in Kenya, you have to build the model. And you have to recognize the talent pool is very different. And that’s what I think where we have to start to be prepared for 2030.
Frank Cottle [00:39:43] I think that’s the pebble in the pond issue.
Cali Williams Yost [00:39:45] Mm-hmm
Frank Cottle [00:39:46] you know, overall.
Cali Williams Yost [00:39:48] And we need to talk about it every day, Frank.
Frank Cottle [00:39:50] No, I’m very grateful to you, Kali, for sharing your thoughts. You have a tremendous background with an unbelievable customer base or strategic group that you work with. So very, very much appreciative. And let’s do this again.
Cali Williams Yost [00:40:08] I love it frank and you know i love talking to somebody who’s been in this space even longer than me because i think it’s important that we remind everybody this is not new this is no new. And we just all we’re doing is it’s accelerated and now we have to do it even more intentionally we’re not going back to what you think you’re going back two is not reality and so now we had to move forward.
Frank Cottle [00:40:31] Well, we always, we have a funny saying that Jesus says, every new generation thinks they have been. Peace and sex.
Cali Williams Yost [00:40:37] There you go.
Frank Cottle [00:40:38] And they forget that they are standing on the shoulders of those that came before them. And that is something we all have to recognize. Allie, thank you.
Cali Williams Yost [00:40:49] Thank you, Frank. It was great.
Frank Cottle [00:40:50] Time and we’ll look forward to it again.
Cali Williams Yost [00:40:53] Absolutely.
Frank Cottle [00:40:56] If it’s impacting the future of work, it’s in the Future of Work podcast by allwork.space.
