Transcript of CFO StudioLIVE Interview with Christine Laurens, CFO, AT Kearney
Andrew Zezas:
I’d like to introduce you today to CFO Studio Live interviewee Christine Laurens. About Christine Laurens. She is the CFO and a partner with the newly rebranded Kearney, Global Consulting Firm, Kearney. Formerly known as A.T. Kearney and based in Chicago. In her role as CFO, Christine is a member of the firm’s operating committee and the liaison for the Finance, Audit and Assurance Committee of the board.
Ms. Laurens leads the Global Finance, IT, Real Estate and Procurement Groups, serving 44 countries. As you can imagine, she’s quite busy. During her tenure as CFO, the firm’s earnings have more than doubled. She’s known for her calm voice, for purpose driven decision making, her global perspective, and most of all, her joyful leadership. Christine began her Kearney career in Paris, working across positions in finance. Before joining Kearney, Ms. Laurens was the CFO of Keyrus and the Managing Director of the French subsidiary of Agency.com.
Christine started a career with Ernst & Young and its Telecommunications and Media Practice. Ms. Laurens earned a Master’s in Management from HEC in Paris and a CMES Master’s in International Management from … Oh boy. Christine, help me with this one. ESADE is that the correct pronunciation?
Christine Laurens:
That’s right.
Andrew Zezas:
Thank you. In Barcelona. Christine is also a CPA and a strong believer in always learning. Continued her professional development with a Harvard Business School, Executive Education Leading Professional Services Firms Program. Wow. In 2019, Mr. Laurens was appointed to the Board of Directors for Technicolor, a global publicly traded media company. She also serves as a board member of the Alliance Francais of Chicago and Friends of HEC. She’s involved in the International Women’s Forum and the Chicago Network. In 2019, Ms. Laurens was awarded with FEI Chicago, CFO of the year, large private companies. She and her husband have two sons and have lived in Chicago since 2014.
A little background on Kearney. As one of the original firms, Global Consulting Firm Kearney has never lost sight of the fact that consulting is a people business. A global partnership in more than 40 countries, Kearney’s people make them who they are. They’re individuals with different passions and strengths, who take as much joy in the work that they do, as from those they work with. You can read more about Kearney www.kearney.com. Today Christine Laurens will share her insights as to the effects of the current global business shutdown on Kearney’s business, on its industry, on its employees working from home, it’s client relationships and more. And her discussion today is entitled, let me get my papers, Forward Motion Through the Crisis, a discussion with Kearney CFO.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to my new friend, today’s CFO studio live interviewee, Christine Laurens, Chief Financial Officer, and Partner at Kearney. Good morning. Good afternoon, Christine. How are you?
Christine Laurens:
Good morning. Good afternoon, Andrew. Thank you very much for having me today.
Andrew Zezas:
Oh, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for being here and for giving us an opportunity to sharing your insights and communicate your thoughts to the CFO community. I understand that you’re checking in with us today from Chicago. Is that correct?
Christine Laurens:
It’s correct. I was hoping actually to have this interview from my bedroom/office, but my internet went down on Sunday morning. So I had to go to the office today, which has been an interesting experience to go back to the office after a two months and a half quarantine in my home.
Andrew Zezas:
I can only imagine. Did I hear you correctly before say that you have three floors of an office building almost to yourself?
Christine Laurens:
Correct. That’s correct. In Chicago I’m riding on the 39th floor overlooking beautiful Chicago city. I’m not complaining though because I have the office for me.
Andrew Zezas:
Well, and Chicago is a beautiful city. In fact, it’s one of my favorite cities.
Christine Laurens:
It is beautiful. It is-
Andrew Zezas:
I get there as often as I can. And I’m looking forward to my next trip. So, let’s talk a little bit about what’s been going on in the world and how Kearney is reacting and responding. Obviously, this is a very unusual time, very peculiar. Nothing that anyone has experienced in the past and it’s required a tremendous effort by many, many people. And I think in the business world, it’s fair to say that, our heroes are our IT executives and those folks who make all the IT happen and make things like this possible. Because, without the kind of technology and the backbone that exists today across the country, across the world and within our companies, we’d be in very, very serious situation in comparison to our ability to have continued through this crisis. Wouldn’t you agree?
Christine Laurens:
I can’t agree more. I actually am very proud of my IT group. Because, we really started working from home and we moved the entire company, 3,500 people, working from home entirely from one day to the other. I mean, there was, I would say, no more than a couple of glitches with our systems. And the infrastructure was very robust. Obviously, I mean, our consultants are on the road all the time, so they were used to be working remotely. But we were able to really convert everyone to work from home. Including in countries like India and China, where, the bandwidth is not always good, actually.
And we’ve been able to continue our sheds of these vendors operations in finance and other functions, really well. So I have to say I applaud my IT function for their work they’ve done. And they were visionary, actually. They were actually very visionary because we had all the tools to communicate with these type of tools like zoom or others, but also the other tools to collaborate. Which is really critical in our business. Working on similar files, changing PowerPoint Excel sheets at the same time, all this was ready. Actually an interesting thing was, we’ve been working for two years with the IT group to try to, actually transform our company to be even more digital ourselves. And have a better adoption of all these collaboration tools.
And, we were thinking about, what can we do to engage our own people better? And it was hard for them but actually in two months, I think we have gained two years of digital transformation internally.
Andrew Zezas:
Wow. So, you were already involved in a digital transformation. I would imagine that that tied well into your preparation for sending everyone home. Were there any particular technologies that you put in place?
Christine Laurens:
Well, we already had all of the technologies, now they’re just used. So we’re using the Microsoft Office Suite. We already had all our emails online. We already had Teams. So Teams is a great collaborative platform. So people were using it, I think we were at 20% before the crisis. Now we’re at like 80% usage after the crisis.
Andrew Zezas:
Wow.
Christine Laurens:
We have all the tools like, Cisco WebEx for our video conferences, and it’s been working really well actually. Including, important meeting like, we had our first board meeting completely virtual. It worked actually pretty well. People being well engaged even virtually, I think the challenge we still face is the time zones. Technology has not solved this big issue when you’re working for a global company.
Andrew Zezas:
Understood. So aside from the technology, what steps has Kearney taken during the crisis to support employees and to continue to serve customers and clients?
Christine Laurens:
Well, as you heard, we’re a people business. So employees were absolutely front and center. And the very first steps we took were to make sure our employees would be safe and healthy. So we very quickly actually closed our offices around the world. We didn’t want to second guess. So we were very quick in making decisions because we had the infrastructure to allow everyone to work from home. So we quickly closed our offices, and then we implemented a portal, for example, for all of our employees with a lot of tips, about hygiene, but also about, wellbeing, how to remain healthy, both physically and mentally.
We are running a lot of practical activities to help our employees. Because very quickly we noticed that working from home, is different from working in an office or working at the client site. So for example, how do you sit in your chair? How are you postured? And then to avoid neck pains. So we’ve implemented, for example, virtual classes to help our people to have the proper posture, to do some stretching exercises. We’ve also implemented mindfulness sessions with our employees. And of course, everything is not compulsory, people can just sign in, participate in and get a little bit of help to support also, the psychological impact of such a crisis on our people.
Andrew Zezas:
And how do you find that that motivates employees? Because, the technology works, we’re able to communicate. But, as you and I were talking offline, the inability to feed off each other’s energy, to acquire the creative spirit that you have when you’re in a meeting and sharing in a physical place in the same physical place, sharing ideas. How has the company proceeded in keeping its employees excited and motivated?
Christine Laurens:
Well, so technology has clearly helped. And having these tools to collaborate has been really important. Our consultants work as teams, so they’ve been extremely engaged and continue to be engaged around client issues and client challenges. Thankfully, the work has continued. Some of the work has shifted to different types of services. Some of the work just continued as it was before. And I think there was a sense of purpose for a lot of our employees, actually. And I would say, not just on the consultants, but also, in more of the back office. Some of our consultants have participated in the extremely exciting projects. Like helping, I can’t name the client, but, helping a large pharmacy in the U.S. implement the drive through to do the testing for COVID-19.
So they’ve really felt a sense of purpose that they were, yes, not saving lives, but they were indirectly helping resolve this crisis. On the back office side, and I would say in the finance team, I really felt that people were extremely engaged. They’d been working like crazy for two months, actually more than that, because we implemented a new system mid-last here. But the finance team had been extremely committed to really feel that they had to help the firm, managing cash and really safe guarding employment. Because the ultimate goal is to make sure that we keep everyone of our people.
Andrew Zezas:
Wow. That’s tremendous. And you find that you’re able to maintain culture as well, corporate culture as well?
Christine Laurens:
Well, it’s a great question because as you heard in the introduction, our culture is very strong. We like to be a joyful firm and therefore we have really stepped up the communication. We felt that it was better to over communicate than under communicate. Our managing partner, for example, is sending weekly emails to all of our employees. And it’s not just about health and safety, it’s not just about business. It’s also about sharing the films that he’s watching. Some personal aspects. So making it more personal, more relatable.
Our leaders are doing a lot of videos around the well to engage with the people. So trying to communicate, not just through emails, they’re using the various channels that are available. And another element that I like, our European units have been preparing showed videos. Asking all of their employees to film themselves and then do it three minutes video to showcase their country and their culture. That was actually really nice because you could really see the different cultures. Through the musics, through what they were showcasing. For example, our Nordic unit would showcase the landscape nature, the French unit would show more about the food and the music. So it was really entertaining and all these video were shared across the world, to continue to make sure employees feel the sense of belonging to Kearney and to the community.
Andrew Zezas:
My guess is that you’re doing that now, but Kearney may not have done that prior to the epidemic. So, it sounds to me like the situation is actually fostering aspects of corporate culture maintenance and bringing your employees together that perhaps didn’t exist before.
Christine Laurens:
I would say we’ve always been fostering a culture of really bringing our people together. We had to cancel because it was just at the beginning of COVID. A big event in Europe where we’re gathering actually all of our European employees. We had to cancel it because it was like, on the 11th of March. So we still had the culture of bringing people together. Now we have to be more creative to do it more remotely. I think what this has brought is, an even bigger emphasis on authenticity and who people are. Because people are showing up on these videos, just like, in their homes, in their bedrooms, in their offices, in there sometime their, daughter or son’s bedroom. And I think people are seeing a more personal aspect of our leaders.
Andrew Zezas:
That’s excellent.
Christine Laurens:
I think this is the aspect that I think is new, is maybe this, more personal approach to our leaders and to people in general. And we’re also working at crazy hours now, I think this is something that we’re seeing across the world. The work, life balance is no longer really respected. So we’re having calls at crazy hours and, when you have a call at 6:00 AM in the morning, no one is going to show up fully dressed up or perfect. So I think it has brought a lot of humanity to the work we do. And I would say not just internally, but also with our clients. Because our clients are in the same, so-called boat, and where I think we’re creating more personal bondings. Which is kind of weird, because everything is virtual, but we’re able to create more personal touches and bondings with our clients
Andrew Zezas:
Now, it sounds like you’re applying externally a lot of the principles that you’ve successfully applied internally. And you’re doing that with existing clients, but in the current circumstance, which makes it difficult to connect with people that we don’t already know. How is Kearney maintaining its focus, not only on retaining its clients, which I think I heard you speak about a moment ago, but in acquiring new clients and establishing new relationships?
Christine Laurens:
Of course, and clients are at the center of everything we do. We’re a service business and let’s not forget that in service, there the word serve. So we’re really here to serve our clients. And I would say, during this crisis more than ever. And it’s true that when you have long term relationships, it’s easier business wise to stay connected with the people you know, or to reach out to the people you know. I’ve been surprised though that we’ve been able to get new clients during this crisis. And I think that, it’s always, you’re introduced by someone, there are referrals, but it’s also the work we do.
We’re doing and producing a lot of thought leadership. We have our global business policy council, which is a think tank. Who has been also providing a lot of extremely interesting insights. So we’ve been publishing a lot of our insights on our website, but also, on LinkedIn and other media to reach virtually to people who don’t systematically know us. But who can understand that we have a lot of to bring and a lot of, actually thinking and full leadership on everything that is touching the COVID crisis. And not just now, but in the future as well. And the reason maybe it’s for that, I can elaborate a bit, is that, we work a lot on supply chains, procurement. And this is definitely in our core and in our DNA.
And what this crisis has showed is that, supply chain have been substantially disrupted. And companies are currently facing issues to procure. They face issues to procure PPE, for example. So we’re helping, even new client working on this.
Andrew Zezas:
Excellent. Excellent. So, when the crisis resolves, whenever that will be, when the crisis resolves, how will Kearney have evolved? In other words, what changes will come to how the company will operate post resolution?
Christine Laurens:
So some people talk about the new normal, some people they’re now far more talking about the no normal. Meaning that, we really think that we have to be even more agile. I think agility is going to be extremely important for us, but also for many companies. So how do we think we’re going to change? Some people are talking about the world of real estate, are we going to go back to offices? Are we going to stay at home? I think in our industry, we’re getting to have a mix and we’ll probably have more people working from home. Which actually you could argue, it’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity. And the reason for that is, we’ve been facing some challenges in the past years because we were not able to attract all of the talent who would like to attract. Because our business is very high intensity, requiring a lot of travel.
Most of our consultants are on the road from Monday to Thursday. And when you have to take care to your older parents or to young kids, it’s challenging. It’s been also challenging for us in terms of diversity, to have younger women who have kids. So what this crisis has showed is actually you can be extremely efficient and work differently. Working from home, maybe from a different times and then still have your work extremely well delivered. So I personally really hope that these crisis is going to help us attract and retain some of our key talents because they will have to travel less. I think that the ways of working, I think, are going to be changed in our industry. For how long? I don’t know. And I think that some of the habits we’re taking are big to stick.
Andrew Zezas:
That’s very interesting. So for, in terms of lessons learned, do you believe that there will be an evolution in how we work or in how Kearney works? Probably some returning to, I like your term, no normal. That’s very interesting. Some of the organization returning to something similar to what they experienced before this crisis and with some evolving into other directions. Is that a fair assessment?
Christine Laurens:
Yeah. It is absolutely a for assessment. There’s another aspect, and of course you could say, the CFOs, they always look at reducing costs. I want to think that, I’m a CFO who thinks widely and strategically and also think holistically, about the stakeholders at large. So when I think about the benefits that these crisis can bring, it’s also in terms of sustainability. Kearney has signed very recently the sign based matrix, by which we are committing to reduce our carbon footprint in a few years. We actually have been carbon neutral for since 2010, even with the extensive travel that we’re all doing. So we were buying credits since 2010.
But now we have committed to reduce our carbon footprint. I really hope that we’re going to be able to reduce the amount of traveling we do, to be able to help the planet and meet our objectives in terms of sustainability.
Andrew Zezas:
Well, so with the expectation that there will be an evolution, and there’ll be a new combined method of working, when the economy returns, when the current situation is resolved, whatever that means. What changes, specifically in employee work habits, do you expect will remain, not just at Kearney, but in your industry?
Christine Laurens:
Well, I think the work from home is going to continue. Because the clients themselves, are challenged by the return to the office or return to the various plans. It could increase costs for everyone. There’s also potential liability risks that companies may not want to take. So the work from home, I think, is going to be durable, which is helping work life balance as well for people who will have to travel less. Assuming we’re able to resolve the assumption that everyone is available 24 hours and seven days a week, which has been, I think, the case in the past two months. So really, I think this is a change.
Then from, what I think is going to change, I mean, consulting is going to continue to exist for sure. I think the topics that our clients are interested in, is going to evolve. Supply chains is clearly going to be a big topic. Do you want to have your supply chain local, regional, global? It already started with the Tariff war rethinking the supply chain. But now, I think it’s not just about money, it’s also about health and safety of everyone.
Andrew Zezas:
Yes.
Christine Laurens:
So this is clearly something that companies will have to rethink their supply chain. They will have to rethink how they procure. Of course you always pay attention to your tier one vendors, but what about your tier two and three, who might still be important, when you’re manufacturing your products? So procurement also will have to be thought through. And third, obviously, digital which was already extremely important, is something that is continue to be looked at. And really looked at through, how to make sure it’s working and happening. And soon. I think they will be even more bots in the future. Robotics is something that is going to clearly grow because, we’ve seen it right now. I mean, some bots are able to do what humans are not able to do.
Andrew Zezas:
Well, it’s very interesting you mentioned supply chain and procurement. That’s been in evolution for a long time, but it seems to be revolving again, if you will, based on what we’re hearing here. The last five years, a number of companies that previously single-sourced manufacturing in China, were taking a very hard look at what the future of China was and a lot of changes were made. But then, this crisis demonstrated that, even companies that had multi-sourced in various different countries, were still operating under a single port strategy, when they brought product into the U.S. And when you saw a port like the Port of LA dropped between 30 and 40% of its capacity at the beginning of the pandemic, and other ports across the country closed for time being, a lot of companies found that they could not get their products into the country.
So in addition to multi-country sourcing, we’re seeing a lot of focus now on multiport strategies, as it relates to bringing product into the U.S. And then when, at the early part of this pandemic, we heard from foreign, a particular foreign government who said, “Well, maybe we won’t send you pharmaceutical products.” Now there’s a very strong focus on domestic sourcing independence, whereby, critical components should be manufactured and sourced here in the U.S. and not be put at risk. So I couldn’t agree with you more. I think supply chain, as a result of this crisis, is undergoing dramatic evolution and we’ll continue to do so.
Christine Laurens:
And not only actually, when you think about the customers, how they’re thinking about brands, how they’re thinking about retail. It’s also on the customer side, a big change as well. Where I’m personally the most worried, is really … I mean, the U.S. is an economy that is driven by demand and customers and customers satisfaction. And this is the area where clearly, there’s is the biggest risk, actually, because, customers are going probably to reduce spending. Of course, in other areas of the world, it’s slightly different because, some other economies are less reliant on customer’s spending.
But I think in particular, in the U.S. how customers are going to spend and how they’re going to prioritize, the consumer good companies and how they think about what products to bring to customers and at what pricing is going to be extremely critical.
Andrew Zezas:
So you mentioned that the company has maintained, forward motion, has maintained its operating efficiencies through the crisis and it has actually acquired new clients. Have there been any elements of having to actually hunker down during the crisis? And do you see continued growth through the crisis? Certainly you see growth post-crisis, but do you see continued growth for the company, and your industry, in fact, during the crisis?
Christine Laurens:
Well, during the crisis, it really depends on the industries we serve and the plants we serve and the topics we work upon. So it’s very clear that everything around procurement, supply chain, are clearly services which are in high demand. And in terms of industries like telecommunication, health companies, are in higher demand than companies like airlines, for example. So thankfully as Kearney, we’re a global firm. So we have a portfolio of geographies and industries. We’ve really seen that the impact of COVID has being extremely different from one country to another. And it cannot actually be correlated to the seriousness of the pandemic in that country.
For example, our business in Italy as just like being extremely unplanned, if I can say, something coming back to my financials. Despite the fact that Italy has been one of the countries seriously impacted from a health and safety standpoint. So it’s been, I wouldn’t really say that we’re growing though during the crisis, we think that we’re getting to rebound extremely quickly post COVID. This is why it’s been important to us to make sure we maintain all our people. And we’ve been extremely creative at making sure that everyone else is busy. So I can actually provide an example that actually I really care about, it’s a small one but it’s illustrative of what people can do.
So the beginning of the crisis in my team, we were, of course, focusing like any CFO on liquidity and making sure we were collecting cash and bringing and reducing our DSO. And, we had actually assistance from the Chicago office who are financially savvy, who started helping the finance team. So this been actually quite great because, people who were less busy, because of the COVID-19 were able to transfer their skillsets, to help other people. And we’ve really tried to do that across the firm. Our marketing teams have shifted their activities from, of course, there was no longer any onsite activity, but to a lot of virtual activities.
They continue to be extremely creative to find ways of bring our ideas and points of views to markets. Our learning team, who were used to having like in person training sessions, have totally shifted their ways of working as well. Now providing a real curriculum to our consultants and to our management services, on how to learn and grow during the crisis. So to come back maybe to your earlier points, the crisis is not changing the way we think about people and the way we think about personal growth. We want our people to continue to learn and grow. Actually, I read something that was saying that, learning is even more important during the crisis. So learn, learn, learn, is something that we’re trying to really force everyone to continue to do. And I’m relying to myself.
So I’m really trying not to be siloed and just focusing on my day to day, but, continue to connect with other CFOs and understand what they do, share ideas, brainstorm. This is very refreshing and also it’s frustrating, because, I think no leaders has gone through such a terrible crisis. So also insuring and reassuring yourself that you’re doing the right thing is something important in these times.
Andrew Zezas:
The notion of cross training and employees and executives stepping out of their comfort zone and helping with other aspects of the company. I find that tremendously interesting. I happen to sit on the finance committee of a hospital and healthcare company here in New Jersey. And in speaking with the CFO early on, I said to him, “What’s it like, working with your corporate staff at home?” And he said, “Not here in the hospital.” He said, every one of their employees from the janitor up to the CEO recognize that they’re there for one purpose. For the business of the company, which in that case is, saving lives and keeping people healthy.
And he went on to describe how two executives from marketing department were serving as security guards in one of their hospitals, because they needed some additional security guards during the crisis. And two executives from the finance committee were taking inbound calls in HR. And I thought it was very inspiring and the thought that janitor to the CEO and everyone in the middle, recognizes that they’re there for the same purpose. I would imagine at a company like Kearney, your folks recognize that you’re there for a single purpose, if you will, or a series of purposes. My question though is, it sounds like there’s a whole lot of evolution, a whole lot of change going on, not only in your company, but in your industry. Can you pinpoint which of the changes that are occurring will be the most dramatic? Either in Kearney or in the industry itself?
Christine Laurens:
Well, I think the more dramatic change is really going to be in the ways of working, and how people consume consulting in a way. I think this is really, really here. I also think that, how companies, even ourselves, are going to think about risk management. When you think about it, I don’t think many companies had a pandemic on their enterprise risk management broadcast. I have to say, I have to admit it was not on ours. And you always do these charts with a probability versus seriousness, I don’t think like pandemic was anywhere and will clearly become there.
So the agility, the ability to work remotely, but also to be more flexible in your workforce, I think is something that is going to actually change the industry and change our clients. Because, what this crisis has showed, and I think the company which are the most resilient are the companies who can flex. And it’s hard to flex when you’re in a fixed cost business. So I think a lot of companies will find, even more ways to flex their own business. And how to bring the capabilities they need when they need it, not all the time.
Andrew Zezas:
So given that a number of companies, as you mentioned, have focused on cash management. Put as little out the door and bring as much in the door as you can, as quickly as possible. Do you expect that post-crisis, there will be a pent up demand by corporations to spend?
Christine Laurens:
I think it will depend by industry. I don’t think it’s one size fit all. Clearly, some industries will invest and others industries will be a bit more cautious. When I be speaking to other CFOs, what we were saying was, “It’s not about stop spending, it’s about spending smartly. And making sure you’re rethinking where you allocate resources.”
Andrew Zezas:
Right.
Christine Laurens:
So I think, resource allocation is going to be an even more important activity for CFOs. And the ability to shift your resource allocation from one area to another, in a quickie way. Which is going to require even more analytics, to have real time data, to help decision makers, making these decisions on how to allocate to the rights investments. So I think that is going to be a progressive rebounds of investment, but I don’t think it’s going to be in one day. I think it will be progressive. What a lot of the economists are suggesting as well. When you look at the expectation of growth for the mature markets … I attended last week, a webinar from economies from the conference board, and they were assessing that the GDP loss would be 6.6% in 2020. and only rebound 6% to 2021.
So meaning that at the end of 2021, not even back, to where we were before crisis. But I don’t think this can be a, one size fits all. It’s really going to be dependent on each industry.
Andrew Zezas:
Yeah. I would think you’re right. Nonetheless, with the evolution that’s already occurred and the evolution that’s coming, it sounds like it’s a good time to be a company called Kearney.
Christine Laurens:
Well, we’re doing everything we can to really serving our clients and ensure that we’re addressing their needs and their challenges, for sure. And on the other side, and our second priorities is, of course, to take care of our employees.
Andrew Zezas:
Sure.
Christine Laurens:
Because they are our real assets. And actually, employees can go when they whenever they want. So, attracting and retaining the key talent has not stopped. We’re seeing actually, lower attrition, but still a little bit of attrition despite the crisis.
Andrew Zezas:
Very interesting. And that actually brings me to one of the questions that we received from our guests today. Has the company been actively hiring and has it acquired new employees during the crisis?
Christine Laurens:
So we have honored our offers. We have not hired new people. A lot of the cycles to hire people are long. So the people that we’re bringing in now or over the summer, or in September, were actually hired a year ago. We’re definitely going to hire and make offers during the summer, for people who will be coming in 2021.
Andrew Zezas:
Oh, okay. So the process continues, it’s-
Christine Laurens:
Yes. The process continues, we continue to go encompass. We actually, we had to readjust, we have a summer program, where we bring people for the summer. We had to, of course, adapt it, because usually they come in person, they go to con sites. So we had to adapt it to make it virtual, but we definitely maintain our summer program.
Andrew Zezas:
Given that the world is starting to slowly open, a number of companies are sharing with us their plans as to how they intend on reentering their facilities, that have been shuttered since the beginning of the crisis. Does Kearney have a particular plan in mind? And what will that look like? Will it be a hundred percent of the place coming back all at once? Will it be a phased approach? Will it be by department? Will it be different by country? If you could share something-
Christine Laurens:
It’s definitely different by country. Our China offices reopened like in March already. So as soon as the country eased, the restructuring our China office reopened. A lot of our European offices actually reopened two weeks ago. So I can describe the way they have reopened, because it’s factual. It’s gradual and we’re offering flexibility to our people. We know some people have a hard time working from home.
Andrew Zezas:
Yes.
Christine Laurens:
When you have a lot of kids crying or when you don’t have a lot of space, some people just want to go back to the office. So we’re just offering … It’s on a voluntary basis. If you want to go, you can go. There are shifts. So there’s like, their purple week, and then, the gray week, and then they alternate. We’re asking people not to have more than 25% of the workforce going to the office. You have to pre-register. So, just to say that there are processes in place for the reopening of our European offices. In the U.S. for the time being, actually, we’ve not decided to date yet, and we’re working on the plan.
I don’t think it’s going to be a hundred percent and we’re going to clearly offer the possibility for every single person to come or not to come. Actually, I know some people who don’t want to come to the office, and for simple reason. They have an older person at home, who is more fragile and they want to be safe for that person. And they’re working really well from home. I have to say today, I was not intending to come to the office. And, I don’t think myself, I will come. I was not planning on coming before September, actually.
There’s no rush. It’s working really well.
Andrew Zezas:
Right.
Christine Laurens:
So there’s no rush. And also you need to think about the others. I think the way we think about is, we need to give the priority to those who need to go to the office. And send for our clients, we’re going to respect the procedures of our clients. Some clients may not want to see consultants at their premises, and therefore we’ll definitely respect what they want.
Andrew Zezas:
Understood. Understood. We have another question from one of our guests today, a friend of ours, SaaS Mukherjee, the recent CFO of a York Risk and Sedgwick. And he writes, 40% of those who make below $40,000 have lost their jobs. Economists are projecting that 40% of the jobs that were lost, will never come back, even though 78% of those who’ve been laid off, believe that it is temporary. So what type of jobs do you think would not be coming back? And, I don’t know if you prefer to answer that about Kearney or just about business in general?
Christine Laurens:
Well, I can start with Kearney. I mean, first I know the stats and it’s a very scary stat, I have to say. when you think about, and this is why I was referring earlier to the issue we’re going to face in the U.S. with the demand side. I mean, I’m surprised to see the stock market remaining where it is. I’m glad it’s remaining where it is because I know it could impact a lot, a lot of families with their pension. So to come back to the question at Kearney, I don’t think we’re getting to lose jobs forever. We might have some areas where we might have lower needs, in the travel area, for example, because people will travel less. It doesn’t mean that it will not travel at all.
And the fact that we’ve been able to shift some of our support functions, in particular, like marketing, you could think people who were working on events, with people that you would not keep … But actually we’ve been able to repurpose them to other activities and training them. So I think at Kearney, I don’t really think that there are going to be those jobs that we’re not going to recover at all. Now, the economy at large, I think there will be jobs were not getting to be recovered for sure. If I take the airline industry, some economists think that the Airline Industry will not come back as it was before 2025.
So, yes. There are going to be jobs in the Airline Industry, in airports that are no longer going to be need for a fairly long period of time. I hope it’s getting to be quicker. It’s a hope, it’s not a … I don’t think it’s going to be that fast in some areas.
Andrew Zezas:
Unfortunately, I think you may be right. We have one more question from one of our guests, our friend, Jeff Dale, one of the CFOs at the Federal Reserve. I think in charge of the employee unit in New Jersey. And he writes, Christine, you mentioned the 24/7 challenge for employees, which is one of the downsides to the current work from home situation. Has Kearney considered technological solutions that would allow staff to clearly signal their availability? Is there a cultural downside to your team members saying they are not available during certain hours? Very interesting question.
Christine Laurens:
Well, so we haven’t had a policy. It’s not in our culture. We have always been a company where people work a lot. So it’s not a policy. I think, we’re encouraging people to take time off. I can give you the tips that actually, I’m doing with my own team, because I want to lead by example. So I’m very careful with my team. I say, “Guys, there are times in my agenda, which are blocked for personal stuff. If I want to work out, and it might be at noon, it can be at 10:00 AM in morning, I’m just blocking it as the meeting. It’s as important as being with you guys, and it’s important for me to stay healthy and to keep some distance. Because, otherwise I’m going to lose all my creativity, the ability to step back.”
So I’m really encouraging my team to have these best practices. The other aspect is making sure that you have ground rules with your teams, on what is urgent versus what is not urgent. So before the crisis, I also had ground rules with my teams, for example, which were to, weekend is weekend. We don’t work in weekend. If there’s something urgent, we’ll signal it by just texting. But otherwise, you don’t have to read your emails during a weekend.
Andrew Zezas:
Right.
Christine Laurens:
And I think this is more from tips, so were asking and encouraging every team. So the consulting teams, the management services, to make sure they stay very close to the employees. We’ve just signed a charter actually, around mental wellbeing. So mental health. Because this is something that we care a lot about, because we know that this is clearly something that we hear. We hear more and more people talking about being burnt out and we definitely have to avoid it. So I think policies are important, I don’t think technology …
I know some of these tools, I mean, we have, for example, Jabber where you’re green, where you’re do not disturb, where you’re like, arranging for a meeting. We’ve not implemented these tools as a policy, because it’s not in our culture. But we definitely pay attention to … And ask our leaders to be role models with our employees.
Andrew Zezas:
Christine, Kearney is a very, very exciting company. And through your financial leadership, it sounds like the company is on par to continue to do great things, even greater than it’s already done. You’ve been very transparent and very open with us today, and I want to thank you for that. And thank you for the opportunity to hear your insights and your ideas about the future of Kearney and your industry and business in general. I certainly appreciate the opportunity that you’ve given CFO studio to provide a spotlight onto Kearney and to your thoughts. And I want to thank you for joining us today. I hope this was a good use of your time. I’m sure you’ll be contacted by some folks as a result of, sharing your thoughts. But I’ve had a wonderful time and I’ve learned a lot and I want to thank you very, very much for permitting us the opportunity to do this.
Christine Laurens:
Thank you, Andy.
Andrew Zezas:
So some closing remarks to our guests. I want to thank Christine Laurens and Kearney for participating with us. I’d like to thank our guests for joining us today and remind you the link to this podcast will be available at cfostudio.com. Remind you that we have a number of CFO studio live events coming. You can find that list at cfostudio.com. Normally, I wish everyone a safe trip home, but presumably, you’re already there. So, I wish all of our guests a safe trip from the dining room to the kitchen. And Christine, since you were gracious enough to go into your office, I will wish you a safe trip home today. Enjoy the beautiful day, continued success to you and to Kearney. And on behalf of CFO Studio, thank you and God bless.
Christine Laurens:
Thank you.
Andrew Zezas:
Thank you for joining us at CFO Studio Live, visit cfostudio.com to hear more interviews, to attend CFO Studio events and to request your copy of CFO Studio Magazine.