SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you want to really be effective, you've got to support the leaders. You've got to support them to understand the full journey, that capability growth that you're after. And that looks different across organizations.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello and welcome to the Talent Download podcast. Really pleased today to welcome my guest who's come from quite a far away, actually. He's come from Australia. He's part of our APAC team. Nick Fuchs, who basically is one of our leads in learning and development. I think it's really important to for people to understand the shape of the market within APAC and also the UK because there's very lots of similarities across the board that we can see there. And we certainly see that within Amberjack as well. I think the global consistency about what we do as a business can be really important for people listening in and watching this. So it's great to have you here. Flown in just literally the other morning. So a little bit of jet lag as well. But introduce yourself, Nick. Tell everyone about yourself a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Thank you, Darren. So my name's Nick. I'm the head of delivery for the development side of the learning and development side of our business over in Australia. I lead our team of uh instructional designers, facilitators, uh, bringing all that early careers talent development to life across Australia. And now, you know, my role now has gone from a national Australia uh role to now this sort of global role involving uh the development team over here as well. So it's a really exciting time. So you're a Brit, you you've got you.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So tell us a little bit about that story. How did you get to Australia?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Uh 14 years ago, moved over and uh haven't looked back. I mean, I I'd love to sound that's a unique experience, but I know it's not. Yeah. Um, and uh I now find myself in a slightly odd situation of I I know I've got an Aussie twang, uh, but in Australia everyone's uh yeah, everyone's like, well, you sound really British, so I don't really you know I'm I'm a global role suit me well. I'm not quite sure where I'm from, but Guernsey Channel's is where I'm from originally.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

And you had an interesting start because uh in terms of your career, maybe just give people a little bit of insight into that of how you before you sort of start damjack a few your roles.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, so I've had a weird and wonderful career, which actually is it has been a real asset for the early careers development and and talking about how careers can evolve, um, uh and actually thinking about that in the lead up to turning up today. Uh, my first role, my first job was I was a fly fishing guide in Wyoming. And uh I used to go out into the wilderness and talk to people every day about what they did. And and one guy gave me some advice which I didn't I didn't know would quite come to fruition in the way it did, but he said you can never he couldn't predict how his career came to pass. And he loves his career, but you he can never have added up and put those jigsaw pieces together in the way that it's happened. And my career's very much followed a similar path. Uh, I was a zoologist at the time. Uh, I then had some jobs in Kenya and Thailand doing some wonderful things uh for the Kenya Wildlife Service and saving elephants in Thailand. Uh, I then made the obvious choice from zoologist through it to accountant, uh, and I was an auditor for KPMG and BDO, so a hard transition. Um, because I'm from a Chineline, so you know, uh lots of uh lots of good financial services auditing needed. Yeah. Uh and when I moved to Australia 14, 13, 14 years ago, uh filled a very unique niche in in life where I was an accountant by week, auditor by week, and a zookeeper at Toronto Zoo in Sydney. Uh for any of our listeners who've been to Sydney, they'll know it. It's a great zoo uh on the weekends. Uh and and you know, uh I I think through that it taught me a lot about careers and motivators and and and skill sets and those transferable skills, um, which then led me through to teaching, where I taught some science from my zoology background, a bit of maths from accounting, and then into learning and development, which ultimately for me is led to a combination of those skills and really actually lent into the soft skills that have underpinned what I've done the whole way along. But took me quite a long time to realize that that's there was a reason that I got taken from a zoology background into audit and accounting, which is that they knew they could throw Nick into any environment, talk to any particular client. Uh, those were soft skills. They could teach me to be an accountant. Um, and ultimately that's that's that's led me through my career, and I've really uh understood my my assets in terms of my my experiences and those skills and and what I also love doing as well. Um, so no surprise, Darren, to find myself in a in a global role having grown up in the Channel Islands, worked in Kenya and Thailand and the US and Australia and and you know, now now a global role, which is ideal for me. Good.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Well, we could talk about the zoology uh quite extensively regarding it, but I'll try and keep us on track just today, just because I know everyone's listening to to understand a little bit more about what we're doing in the learning space. But give us a give us a view of kind of what that landscape looks like at the moment, particularly you're you're experiencing it in APAC, you're kind of you've got a global role uh for us in the organization, but just give us a view of of what you're seeing at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Look, I think um what I think is is well known is that the world's an increasingly small place, and and thinking about APAC trends versus UK trends, um, I think there's a lot of commonality across them. Uh you're seeing a drive for uh AI capability uh and and what that really means for organizations when we're looking at early careers talents and what they a mix of what the company, the organizations want out of early careers talent development, and also what the individuals generationally or even cohort expectations and and trends there's fair there's some consistency in there, uh I think across locations, uh, in that um, as I say, there's there's a there's a known growth in AI and and how do we leverage all of the opportunities that can come out of AI, but also support this early careers talent that comes in with experience. Uh they they come in with a skill set, but how can we support them to utilize that skill set the best they can? Before AI popped up a few years ago, really popped up, that same story was being told. They came in with experience. But if you look across any cohort in a graduate program, let's say, um, you're gonna have a mix of individuals who come in. They're not all grad straight out of uni, a lot of them are, but some of them have had previous roles already. So if you had a group of 30 graduates, how can you understand them, contextualize for individuals, contextualize for the company as well, so that when you provide development for them that's targeted, targeted towards their capability growth, uh, and that's a mix of the company's capability growth that they want to see, and also the individuals, how can you how can you find balance between all of those things? So everyone walks away gaining something, and that really starts that creates this melting pot of AI is in that mix, but also so are leadership skills because generationally, Gen Z, they want leadership opportunities really quickly. Um, so a lot going on, and and I think a lot of those trends um are fairly consistent globally. Um, what we're finding is that actually we need to contextualize to organizations, individuals, um, as well as starting to you know um look at some of the bigger picture of what um the the wider trends are, and and that's quite that's location specific as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, I think it's it's interesting you um because within learning there's there's obviously been this uh this massive shift of the introduction of AI into the education system that sort of had this instant impact into an area uh where you know pretty simply you could actually get essays kind of written for you. Now arguably there were thousands of people doing that in Kenya, and people were cheating anyhow and providing that back through. But ultimately it's instantly accessible to everyone. And the way in which kind of people started to think about learning and the ways in which that changed, of course, that's adapting and changing every day at the moment. Something that you know you've got to think about.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

You do have to, absolutely. And and again, I think it comes back to understanding that um individuals uh across a breadth of any group will come in with a variety of experiences and they'll be able to leverage that to differing degrees. Um, but that that that application of that knowledge can go from just finding efficiencies in roles, and I think generally people are pretty pretty on top of that, to how do organizations want to actually utilize AI? Um, and increasingly, you know, across the organizations we're seeing, um, companies are making decisions as to which AI platform they want to lead into for a variety of reasons. Um and and so then what is the gap between how companies want to use it and how early to careers talent can use it? And then for us, of course, in development, focusing on those human-centered skills that really become the things that currently AI can't do and become the the differentiators between talent to be able to navigate the workplace that we now find ourselves in, which is changing really quickly, which is great for us because we want to support them in that changing landscape. But what do they really need? What is human-centered uh capability? And of course, I think there's plenty of conversation out there for our listeners to to know. It's it's creativity, it's emotional intelligence. You know, it's one thing to be able to use some AI, but it's also another thing to be able to talk to other people. There's still people behind all of this. So, how can I understand someone and work really effectively with them whilst also leveraging AI? AI is not the only story here. It's it's the it's the use of it in the background as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, agree. And and how are you seeing the organizations actually keeping up with that um with clients that you're working with?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

I I think it's I think it's challenging uh for organizations to to keep up with it because, as I say, the organizations are are making decisions as they need to, not not driven by uh the early careers talent growth uh as a primary sort of focus, but their organizational needs. And then the the the growth across the organization from leadership down to you know their early careers talent, uh I say down too carefully because of you know that they're they're really important, they're the they're the future leaders. Um, but regardless, um uh there are decisions that are need to be made as to really what that looks like. And and then how can you how can you involve graduates, let's say again, in that uh in that space so that you're not just involving them and building skills because you think you'd need to, because it it might have impact. Knowing that we're gonna have impact, and and for us, a conversation we have quite a lot is the difference between best practice and next practice. And best practice is a comparison of uh what people have done and what people are doing right now, but it's really a past andor current thing. And that that tells you whether what you're doing in terms of, in this case, learning and development is aligned with what the best that people do. And that's what we do at Amberjack is is continually try to understand are we doing best practice globally? And I and I think we are. Um, but actually, if we want to be really good at this, best practice isn't enough because it is kind of based on the past. We need to think about next practice, and and anyone who works in learning and development, or I dare say anyone, um, is is excited by new ideas and innovation and change, and how can we do things differently and bring that conversation back to AI? It's not necessarily enough to do a workshop, let's say, uh, within a graduate journey just on creative thinking or critical thinking or problem solving. That's that probably that probably leans into uh best practice. Next practice focuses more on impact. So, how can you develop those skills but give them a scenario, give them a situation where they can then actually have impact? Uh, and that leans into things like innovation challenges, where you give graduates opportunities to work on real challenges, real business problems, needs within businesses where they go, if we lean into the AI conversation, how is this company going to use AI within their organization? And I'm not just talking about the, you know, the um the efficiencies of you know writing emails for you and things like that. How are they really going to use it? And if you give them opportunities to, as a group, uh, you know, in small groups, really workshop real problems that the organization's facing. And at the end of the day, not only do they get to present that to senior leaders, which gives them this wonderful platform to demonstrate all of their skills and all of the things that they've worked on. But actually, if you can make that into a project that could actually come to life, that might have a budget in the end of the day. Now graduates start elevating their development and their potential to real impact. And that's where you start going from best practice to next practice and really elevating what they do in their development. Uh, and we are seeing that increasingly, um, uh, the these innovation challenges that that a lot of our clients run in Australia at least. Um, it they are they are real opportunities for them to have real impact and start elevating themselves beyond just I'm a graduate, I've got to learn some things, some technical skills, I've got to learn some soft skills. Now I'm now I'm really creating a personal brand that that can lead me somewhere great in the future. And they're excited by that, and of course the organizations are.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

And do you see any pressure points kind of in that for employers? It's kind of the the they they need to sort of think about, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

I I yeah, I do. I I think um there's a lot of pressure points. I I think organizations increasingly are looking at ROI uh and and and how they can show that in the learning and development space, development is having impact. Um, but again, it depends on how you view that impact. What does that really look like? What does that mean for an organization? Um it's it's it's it's a tricky thing, ROI for development, because you can you can run a survey after a workshop and go, how was it? And and and the grads will be like, great, it was great, I really liked it. Um and occasionally they'll give you really good feedback, and that's how we get better. But but let's say they broadly go great. You actually you don't it's quite hard to in a valid way know that a week later, a month later, a year later, that that one workshop has had impact because inevitably as soon as they leave that room, let's say it's face-to-face, they leave that room, there's all these other influences that come in that might be the reason why they grew. Um, so it it's it's quite hard to know for sure. And so you need to have a strategy that doesn't just build on that short-term feedback, but also looks at longer-term feedback from the graduates, from their leaders. Leaders are a really important part of development. Um, you know, we we talk quite a lot to the 70, 20, 10 model. And uh, you know, what we do is the 10%, we get a really short period of time to spend with them upskilling. Uh the 70% on the other end is really where all that learning's happening, and the bridge in the middle is the 20%, which is the leaders. So it's we can just do the the development on that 10%, but really, if you want to really be effective, you've got to support the leaders, you've got to support them to understand the full journey, that capability growth that you're after. And that looks different across organisations. Um, but supporting them to be that bridge is is is really important.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

And in in the programs that you're um or we're delivering, as is Amber Joke, you're involved in. Um what are the approaches that are really delivering kind of strong, I guess, outcomes uh across those? What are what are we seeing?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I think um the the areas the the approaches that are having impact are the ones that are flexible and adaptable. It's it's the reason why the the way we create uh and bring to life graduate development, the the the nature of the consulting that we do is where we have impact. Because it's not enough uh uh in in most cases to be just an off-the-shelf uh uh product. You you really have to understand an organization and and their values and their culture that they want to bring to life. Uh do they have a capability framework or do they not? And there's reasons why you wouldn't for flexibility. Is that capability framework driven by graduates' capability growth that they want to see in the grad program? Sometimes that's actually a leadership capability that will it looks at what they want for when they roll off the program. So, what is that growth you're actually after? Um, that's the sort of company level. And then you look at the cohort level, the where you can really have impact is looking at what does this generation want or need? And sometimes that doesn't always align with that capability framework. Sometimes that leans into, well, we know we have to, we know we want to cover off this capability growth. That might be led by things like AI, but it might be led into that leadership growth that we want them to roll off into. But actually, during the program, even within this cohort, let's say, there's a real need for business etiquette, let's say, or accountability and personal brand. Because yes, they're really excited and they want all these opportunities, but there's a lot of nuance in the workplace. And and and as we all know, this generation still is experiencing this sort of state of flux in how people go about their work lives. We were used to five days a week, nine to five minimum, and and and everyone knew what that was, and and you knew what that that looked like and felt like. COVID obviously happened, and I don't think I need to uh remind our listeners as to what that that was and what that looked like for early careers talent, but we're still in an evolving space where organizations are increasingly looking at bringing people in um you know more days a week into the office. But what does that really mean? And and and and how can early careers talent leverage all the opportunities for that? And so it that that creates challenges that consulting, which is what we do, allows us to address on the fly as we're going along. That's where we're adding value, uh, is to continue to have conversations as we go through even a one graduate journey, which could be 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, and figuring out yes, we were going to do this, but we need to add in some nuance into this, which is addressing particular needs. Uh, and and that's where we increasingly have value for for our clients, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Do you think you we ever get into uh a space or you get into a space where you can risk kind of over-engineering kind of what with the output of about what what you're doing within that?

SPEAKER_00 20:04

I think there is a risk of that. Um you you you you could overthink that and you or you could overreact to uh individuals feedback, for example. It could be an outlier. Feedback's a feedback's uh an interesting, tricky thing. Um for one of my clients, uh we ran a workshop. It was on presentation skills that led into their innovation challenge, and uh off the back of the workshop, great feedback, really good, loved it. A week or two later, the client asked the the group, hey, um, how was the workshop? How did you feel? Do you do you want anything different? And despite giving me great feedback, two weeks later they told the client, great, but and and just a few things that that they wanted addressing. And and part of my role is to is to understand that. You don't want to dismiss feedback, it's important, it's real for the people who've given that feedback, but understanding how we want to react to that feedback. Um, and and in this case, it was it was trying to, and and I'm hearing this more and more, is give them more uh contextualization scenarios that are driven by the business itself. And we were doing that already, but they wanted more and they wanted more detail. And if you across any organization, you're not always gonna get every graduate working in one business area, you're gonna get a breadth of them. So now every graduate wants their scenario to be their own. And part of the conversation is well, yes, we can do that, but also showing them that actually giving them a scenario that isn't their own is still an opportunity to grow. And that's where the sort of the skill of facilitating comes to life. Uh, we these aren't classrooms, they're they're facilitated workshops where. We unpack their experiences and we challenge what they already know because ultimately, increasingly, this this group of talent they come in with understandings of they've seen models that we've we've we've done before. Um they or they've done before, sorry. So how can we challenge them to go, okay, resilience, let's say, how how resilient do we feel out of 10? And everyone gives themselves a nine out of 10 on resilience. Um, you really challenge them on what that really means for them. And and of course, no one's 10 out of 10 resilient. We there's always areas that we are challenged. So it's giving them options, it's giving them opportunities to to challenge them, find those gaps, and then start filling those gaps. Uh that means we start really uh having more and more impact with them.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Do you think there's a generational side to you you you said about kind of the feedback kind of loop regarding that? You you you went for feedback initially, then was further. Do you think there's a general do you think there's been a sort of a change in terms of how open that feedback is around what's being provided?

SPEAKER_00 23:05

It's a good question. I I I think uh I dare say uh generationally, Gen Gen Z, uh if we if we're okay to to group them all together, um are known for uh knowing what they want and and and really wanting and expecting things that that you know when I was a graduate at KPMG, I was I was a graduate by name and that was it. Uh whereas now there's an expectation for development, for example. And so they're pretty happy to give you feedback um to make sure that that what they were expecting comes to life. Um but I would say also within any of the clients that I've got across Australia, and actually the the clients that are are across Australia and the UK as well, the feedback that we get from them um sometimes talks to their own needs, sometimes talks to sort of broader needs, is you have to find the line, understand what that really means for them across those across those locations and and and where's the value, what can we actually respond to with with regards to their feedback? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Do you do you find the the data plays quite a lot into the way in which you kind of then we go about planning the way in which we think about things for the future? Do we do we utilize do you utilize that a lot?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

We we do utilize data, but it does come back to the ROI conversation and and really having valid data. It's it's it's you know quantitative data is easier to try and make decisions from, and a lot of our data is qualitative. Uh, so uh, you know, it it comes back to understanding what's happening at any particular time. Uh and feedback's obviously a really important sort of data point for us, for for for the graduates or through the leaders as well, uh, to get some insight into what is working or or what's not working, uh, and and trying to understand really what we can do off the back of that feedback. Back to that client I mentioned, I made some changes, the next workshop. One of the graduates who'd given that feedback said in their own feedback for the next workshop, we can see that what we'd asked has been responded to, which is fantastic. Yeah, it's really great. And and it led to a conversation for development for the next cohort and for the same client for 2026 to go, what are we doing? Um, and and what are the what's where's the value that we're trying to deliver for that particular client, for example? And and increasingly, I think the the I'm seeing a bit of a trend for for our clients where they they want to make sure that they're getting value from the development because it costs money, it costs money to bring people together, it costs money to to get um, you know, uh experienced professionals to come in and facilitate uh contextualize client-specific workshops. But those they do that for a reason. They come to us for a reason because they know we're gonna we're gonna increase the impact. And because we we we have so much experience across the across lots of industries within that early career space, we can draw on that experience to deliver workshops that would be harder to do internally for an organization because they don't have the same exposure that we do, even just on its own. Um, and that we also then have insight into, for example, for that same client, we realized off the back of that their want for the the graduates want for scenario-driven, really specific um contextualization. We were, we had been intentionally draw leaning into the the that company's uh values and cultures, but but there was a change that had happened that hadn't really been communicated to us in the last like few months. So when we looked in next year, we go, okay, great. Uh we've been doing this, but we can we need to shift what we're doing. And and competency alignment is increasingly something that we're seeing, or capability alignment, where it was enough previously for graduates even to run workshops that are focused on these particular topics, modules, and and and that was enough. And and the graduates are going, great, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now you run those workshops increasingly, and they go, Thank you. And why am I doing that? And they want to know the bigger picture, they want to know why I am doing that, why is that is that adding value? Why is that adding value to me? So giving them that really that that full picture, and that requires planning up front to be able to tell them at the very beginning of an 18-month journey where they're gonna see me, Nick, every single workshop throughout 18 months, and I'm in the background having those strategic conversations with the client. Well, we know, we knew at the beginning, there's intention, and it's not just responding, but there's intention behind what we're doing and why we're doing it. And I can tell you every single workshop while you're doing this, and this is the bigger picture that you're working towards. There's an increasing want for that. And that then starts linking back to ROI to know that the workshops are focused and intentional for development that will lead to those capabilities that you want when graduates roll off.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And what do you see? We you talked um about the impacts of COVID, the the change in the workplace. And obviously, there's lots of kind of different data points that you can take up on that, but particularly in development in learning, um instantly came a little bit of a shift in terms of classroom-based kind of learning to to basically through Team Zoom, whatever, whatever media you're gonna use to kind of get through. How have you seen that? How have you seen kind of the impact around it? And you've got you know your previous years of experience in in learning.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Absolutely. Uh I think a classroom is a word that I try and avoid, actually. Uh, you know, but it's a word that's often used, and the reason for that is uh it particularly I you know I I I regularly share my experience with people. I love a I love a good story. Um and um whilst uh I try and drop in zoology as often as possible, uh uh the the the teaching experience that I've had uh is an interesting one because if you're when you're facilitating a workshop, it's very easy for graduates. We've all been to school. It's a it's a weird thing. Everyone's been to school, so everyone quite quickly will jump back to does this feel like a classroom? Does this feel like school? Well, I'm an adult. Um I'm I'm a professional who wants to be a leader and I don't want to feel like I'm in a classroom. So I I'm it I'm very careful to try and make sure that where I'm doing direct instruction and really leading them through, let's say, a model that will uh that will unpack and and facilitate that it doesn't feel like a classroom. Uh so that they feel like they're being their their experience is being recognized, that we are being intentional to unpack what they know and where we want to try and get them to and the potential that they have. Uh and and I think that's something that post-COVID, there are there are nuances that are that I think people who were in their roles before COVID and after COVID know know and understand. You know, going into the office is an opportunity for people to collaborate more more easily together uh and and and and get that, build those human skills that you can do over a virtual environment, but I I think there's a there's a skill even in that. There's a there are there are similar but different skill sets that are required to work in a virtual environment and a face-to-face one. Uh, and let's say emotional intelligence. And how do you read someone, someone's emotions virtually versus face-to-face? I think we all know that that looks and feels different. Um, so it's unpacking things like that, but also giving them the understanding, for example, from a point of view of personal brand. If you're in the office, you not only have the opportunity to talk to your peers, but you have the opportunity to work more closely and get exposure to managers, leaders, senior leaders, and and the value that that can bring, particularly as the world of work continues to change, is intangible but tangible. Uh, and and and giving them that nuance and sharing that nuance, I think is really important for for early careers talent to understand the full breadth of the the value of this sort of changing work environment so that they can see the pros and cons of of both. Uh and and and you don't want to stop them, you don't want to stop them challenging why they're doing things. I don't know that we're gonna ever do that, and I don't think we would ever want to, but drawing on our experience and and and our own experiences and also what we want them to be able to see and leverage, I think is really important in that space.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

I think it is. I I've spoken a few times on the on the podcast. I've got a few sons. I've got one son at the moment that's doing their placement just in just in the city of London, and um so he's got a one-year placement, and the requirement is comes in five days a week into that office environment. It's an accountancy firm. It's um it's amazing the experiences that he kind of picked up and the learning that he picks up in that environment, which will actually suit him well when he he takes that forward, you know. Showing my little bit of my age, typically I had to come to London five days a week, it was just considered the norm. That's that's what you did. You didn't have any really accessibility to any of the technology that would even sort of allow you to do that. Um, but his learning in his development and um simple things like um one of the partners taking him out for lunch to kind of speak and understand about how he's how he's going at the moment and things like that are valuable learnings that you've done. And we're just talking about it at the weekend. And I just think this you need to create the right environment, obviously, for the people to come in and they need to see the need um for that within the office structure, but but that will last him for his development in his career. I can totally see it.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Totally. I I there's there's I you know, I think there's also a uh an increasing desire for if we look at our the workshops, when we looked at the data for our workshops that we're we're running in Australia over this year versus the previous years, the the desire for workshops to be face-to-face versus virtual has shifted from 6040 last year uh to 50-50 this year, with that being an increase in face-to-face workshops. Graduates want that that connection, that face-to-face connection. There's a challenge within that because it costs it potentially if your if your early careers talent spread across a country or even internationally bringing them together, well, that costs money. And so you have to know that that's going to add some value to the graduates, to the organization that's spending the money. Um and I was chatting to a uh a client the other day about the uh the the want for in inductions for graduate workshops to bring everyone together. The importance of that, to to bring people together and go, not only are you part of organization A, but we have a culture here and we want you to feel and know what that is on day one. And the way we're gonna do that is to bring you all together into one place so that you can feel that not just what that feels like for organization A, but also as a group and as a cohort and start building those connections. And when in one sense, you you might say, well, actually, they should be able to feel that if they go to they they rock up on day one in their separate locations. But um, if you bring everyone together, graduates talk, uh, and graduates talk and communicate in ways that again we never used to, as we all know. And so if they have an experience where they they feel really part of that company on day one, actually, even before day one, and that's that's an important conversation to have that sort of keep warm period. But there is a value there that again is is potentially intangible. Um, the the cost is real, but the value you're getting from bringing everyone together means that people will talk more positively. The graduates will talk more positively about the graduate program at organization A. And so now not only are you building culture that will pay dividends later on for you just with that cohort going through their grad program, but actually you can leverage that feeling uh in attraction. It starts paying dividends elsewhere. And that's where, again, that ROI conversation is a really interesting one because that one thing alone might provide value that you we we're not always thinking about in the breadth of the full grad program, not just in development that I focus all my energy on, but actually the sort of the bigger picture and how a grad program is perceived more broadly.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, that's good. We talk um Amber Jack um about a role which we see as the future, we call it um the creative generalist type role, where you see uh the candidate's ability to utilize the language models that are available to chat GPT, those different types of products within their current role, almost sitting alongside them uh as an assistant. These have been around now for a little while. We talked about it um a moment ago in terms of you know just suddenly entering the the education space and suddenly how you had to kind of adapt uh to that from a teaching uh perspective. But uh I believe the future is is where we need to um test and look at the way in which a candidate's ability to basically utilize those types of tools for the future because it's happening every day. Every, you know, generally smart people are are thinking about how can that actually sit alongside me and help me uh within within that role. And I think that'll be an interesting uh journey, kind of particularly as we as we think about our content, the way in which we kind of work uh with people for the future. Absolutely as we go forward.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

I think that leans back into that um best practice next next practice and trying to think uh proactively about what the future will look like and what we need to be assessing for the development cap the capabilities we want to develop for. Uh I did a talk at our um uh industry conference uh in October about what the future of the grad industry might look like and and unpack some some potential scenarios and uh of what if grad programs uh were not as focused on permanent roles at the end, but uh a recognition that it might be more project-based kind of gig work? What would that what would that mean for grad programs? What would it mean if um graduates were more interested in their um impact from a sort of social sustainable perspective over that next role? Uh what does that mean for grad programs? How do we incorporate that that shift in focus from an EVP perspective or how you're assessing for that, how you're showing that through innovation challenges, like I mentioned before. And then, of course, we um we spoke about AI because it's a hot topic and everyone wants to talk about it. Um, and what does that look like from the point of view of again assessing or developing? Um, I think in if we want to main remain relevant, we have to be asking these questions. Um, that's obviously important for us as a business to make sure we're asking those questions. But also, you know, ultimately, we want to have impact. We we want to support the graduates to be the best they possibly can be. And I think that's us challenging, you know, the idea that graduate programs aren't just entry points, they're launch pads. And that requires a rethinking from the whole grad industry uh to go, what does that really mean? Uh, what what can we do differently? For example, that that first scenario where we one of our clients actually really leans into this, but it's the nature of that client, which is a project-based, uh, they they do this, run this really big project in one of the states in Australia. And they know that there is no that that that project will come to an end. So they bring graduates into that organization to get experience, but not get a permanent role at the end of it. They are their their service to the industry is really around building future talent and that talent pipeline that then becomes hopefully circular in nature. They get out into the industry, they roll off the program, they leave the organization, and you can then track what happens to those people. Where are they having impact? It's it's where alumni networks, for example, become really impactful for them to see what's happening to them. And and hopefully those people might even come back even before back into that organization, having gained more experience into that organization, potentially if that project is still on ongoing, because they know it's in it's it's definite, it's not indefinite. That works for that organization, but if you look at other organizations, do they really want to put all of that investment into future talent uh knowing that they'll leave? Most most companies want to want to put that investment in and get the dividends on that investment by them sticking around and and being the talent, the future talent for that organization. But can we challenge how we think about grad programs as a whole to go actually we can that there can be dividends paid to all of us, all the organizations, and that's a shift in perspective that I think is interesting, but also challenging because, of course, you know, there's a reason again why people talk about ROI because they want to make sure that the money that's being spent where there's a lot of organizational change happening around the place, that there's value being given, and often that's more of an insular internal views and then the sort of bigger picture. Yeah, true. But an interesting conversation.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah, sure. And you talked you talked about you you were at a conference, you were thinking about what the future holds. I guess what do you think the future looks like 2026? What do you what do you see as the things that that we can expect to see within the early career space?

SPEAKER_00 41:51

I I think increasingly I'm I'm feeling like, and of course this is self-serving, but uh the the the value for for us in that uh consulting space to create personalized um development workshops that are contextualized to the individuals as well as the organization, giving that that that picture and and using our expertise to lean into capability alignment, um uh looking at capabil, leadership capability growth and really understanding what that is so that we know that we're having the impact, that future impact that we really want to have. Um ultimately, I actually unpacked with my team the other day about all of the things that we do to try and service and support graduates, early careers talent. And and the early careers talent I keep saying because it's not just graduates, it's where we do a lot of our work, but it's interns, it's apprentices, and of course, their contexts are different again. Um, but understanding what they need and then also what the organization needs. And uh I mentioned before keep warm and and the importance of that, you know, for for organizations, they spend a lot of money on attraction and recruitment, and they want they want those people to turn up on day one. Uh, and and development, we we there's a an interesting space that that crosses both sort of that attraction recruitment space and the development space where that keep warm uh opportunity for people to connect, uh i bring everyone in on a day before they start so that they see the office and they meet each other. We run a lot of workshops, sort of virtual workshops. That um that let's say we run three of them. The first one will be on just get to know your connection, that kind of thing. Uh, the second workshop would be on transition to work life. What does that look like? How are you feeling about turning up on day one? What will that what will that look like for you in terms of energy, your energy and how you're going to utilize that? Um, what do you think the stresses might be? What are you worried about? And you open those conversations up, and it means that people not only get to talk about it and realize that they're on the same page as everyone else, but also inadvertently building some more connection along the way.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

And then we'll talk about personal brand, like how. Do you want to rock up on day one? Know that when you turn up on day one, everything you do will impact your brand and how you're perceived. Can you totally control how other people perceive you? No, but can you influence it? You can. Um, so giving them that perspective, and and I think you really start to, there's such an opportunity to develop skills before they've turned up on day one. Not only does that help the talent that rocks up on day one, but it helps the organization because graduates will go, well, company A is giving me all of this before I turn up, company B is not. I'm gonna turn up to Company A. And that helps with reneges. Um, you know, there's there's so many wins to be had from that. And as you know, we we've also we're trying to be adaptable in that space too. Because again, you need to be adaptable, you need to innovate, and uh using 60 uh uh uh you know our e-learning, micro-learning um opportunity to support them when they're not in a workshop, but they can access some learning and they can they still feel connected and they can connect with that anytime. So now I'm now I not only have opportunities to to see my cohort and build my development three times in the let's say three months before I turn up on day one, but now I can access it anytime because I've now got like a really Gen Z-friendly opportunity to to upskill myself, and that's ultimately what this generation wants. They want more. So, hey, we can give you more. Um, so I think there's a lot of opportunity out there across a lot of things, and I think that's ultimately sort of the message is that there are a lot of things that we need to get right if we're gonna get this this this right.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Yeah, it's been great listening to all your insights uh today, Nick. One of the things I always like to do is a quick fire, rapid question round uh with anyone who comes. One word answer. I sometimes allow a couple or a few uh a few more words if you want to. But I've got a whole list of list of quick questions for you to run through. Uh so one word describe today's early talent. Potential. Biggest mistake organizations make in early careers, L D. Inflexible. You're not gonna like this word, but I prepared it already. So classroom learning dead or evolving. Dead, dead, perfect. AI in early careers threat or opportunity. Opportunity. The biggest differentiator for employers by 2026. Adaptability. And finally, one word that should define early careers programs of the future. Amberjack. Perfect. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with us, Nick, today. And uh, I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip over in the UK. It's been a great conversation. I hope everybody's enjoyed uh listening into it, and I will be back speaking to you again very soon. Fantastic, thank you, Donna.

unknown 46:44

Thanks.