 This episode of the podcast is supported by Bentley Lewis, an award-winning executive search firm. Hey, folks, welcome to the podcast. We are proud to be official media partners of Diving Festival this year, which is really cool and we're doing a series of podcasts for the festival. And if you don't know, Diving Festival is a global movement in the insurance sector, which is supporting the development of inclusive workplace cultures. So really, really cool work. They're in about 33 countries now. So they do these really cool events, panel discussions all over the world, really helping to promote diversity and inclusion, which is very cool. I hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Awesome. I'm alive. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We're doing our final podcast for the Diving Festival with the wonderful Katherine Conway, head of DNI and community affairs at Aion. Thank you so much for joining. Just before we start, for those that don't know, Diving Festival is involved in promoting work, inclusive workplace cultures. I've said that about five million times and I can't even get it right now, around the world. And given what's going on at the moment, it's all virtual and they've managed to expand it to loads and loads of countries. So it's really cool. So if you haven't watched any of the events yet, please do. I think you can find the replays on the website. So Katherine, thank you so much for joining me. How are you doing? Yeah, no problem. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Yeah, getting used to lockdown. Well, I am obviously used to lockdown, but just thinking that that's going to last a little bit longer now. I know. It just felt like it felt like we were easing up. And so in the city of London, I saw more and more people start to come in and and now we're speaking on the 23rd of September. The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has announced that we're going into a slightly tighter lockdown now. Yeah. And very strange that not that long ago, they were encouraging people back into the workplace to try and get the economy going. And now, actually, we've been encouraged again to all still work from home. So yeah, it just feels like this is going to go on for a little bit longer. I know. I thought I would I swore it would be over by May completely. I did get the year on in the end, probably. But how have you how have you found it all? So I've actually found it OK. So because I have a strange work life balance, I live in the north of England and I work out of the Ledinall building in the centre of London. So I've all I've tended to do a sort of three, four day a week in London, staying over when I'm in London. So but I've always really enjoyed working at least one day a week from home and I've travelled quite a lot. So it's been a massive change for me being able to work from home all the time. During lockdown, sadly, my personal life has changed quite a lot. And I've separated from my husband of many, many, many years. And I'm now and I've moved house. So I'm living alone. So that's unusual as well for me. So but I'm really getting used to it. What I am finding difficult is the blurred lines between life and work and how many hours I'm working and how many hours I'm relaxing. So that's been quite tricky to manage. So you're finding you're working more now than you were before? Yes, yes, even though I was super busy before and even on the commute between Yorkshire and London, you know, I'd always be working on the train and that sort of thing. But yes, it's it's busier and it's intense. You know, we're talking to people all day every day, you know, by virtual means, which, you know, is always a video for me. Always I'm just on the video all day and it's intense. It's draining. It's really draining. I read an article by a psychiatrist. I can't remember who it was. And she said that the feeling you get after a video call is similar is similar to morning, almost, because you're you're like subconsciously like wishing you were actually in front of that person. In real life. Really? Yeah, well, I guess so. I guess so. I just I just think that they take so much more concentration than if you're in a room. Yeah. You know, you've always got to be aware of who else is on and making sure everyone can has got time to speak up and make sure you're including everyone. But I also find that you're always doing a five to ten minute check-in at the start of every meeting. How are you doing? How are you feeling? How's it going? How are the kids? How's the dog? You know, and actually then which is great. I mean, for me, I'm all about inclusion. You know, we've never had enough of these conversations in the workplace for me. But then, you know, that also takes up time. So, yeah, it's intense. I'm not sure I'd say it's like morning. I find a sense of sort of relief, but what tends to happen is, you know, you sort of take a deep breath and then you're dialing into the next one. Yeah, but it is tiring. I mean, you can't do so many in a day. I mean, for me, and I love I'm quite extrovert and I just get a lot of energy for meeting someone face to face and you come out energized and the whole thing. And with the video, although I do enjoy it and it's going to be one of the things I'm always it's like it's here to stay and I'm comfortable doing it. Either I just find, you know, hopefully this is going to be a nice balance at some point where you can meet people, you can do the video, you can do the telephone calls and, you know, a little bit of a mix of all of it, I think. I think that seems to be everyone's sort of wish is that they can have a bit of everything. I think there's been some real benefits from working from home. You know, I had a leader say to me recently how he's so much enjoyed having dinner with his teenage kids every single night, you know, and now they've gone back to university or school and it's slightly different. But actually, he said in sort of 25 years of working that has never, ever happened. He's never been able to spend that much time with his kids. So I think there's some real benefits in that and that the way that people have realised that actually we can all work from home and get the job done and we don't just sit on the on the sofa watching daytime TV all day is a big change. But I think we do need that mix. I think it would be great to go back into the office. But I think people are hankering after the office environment, how it used to be. And I think going back into, I mean, I haven't been, I have no idea what it would feel like. But it's certainly very different now. I guess if you're sitting on your floor of, I don't know how many 350 people and you're even there. I mean, you know, it's not so fun. You're like, please come, please come. And what do you think? I think before this lockdown, you know, there was a lot of a lot of discussion around working from home and getting companies to be flexible, getting them to let their people work from. Do you think now Mother Nature told us to stay at home and it's kind of, you know, everyone submersed in it? It's what people thought it would be pre. Yeah, I think that that's a great point, isn't it? I think Mother Nature told us, told the world to take a pause. I have to say, I really think if you think about where we were going with climate, with, with politics, with everything, everyone just needed to take a bit of a chill. You know, I think that it and for that, for that, I think it's it has been really beneficial for us at Aion. We moved into the Ledinall building in 2015 and we we went on a journey of a whole different way of working prior to us moving into that building. We'd been in about four different buildings in the centre of London. So to bring us all together and we had to adopt a new way of working. So we we modelled agile working and we worked on that, which meant that people could work from wherever. Everyone had the technology, the laptops, the mobiles. Some people were much better at it than others. Some people very much still like, you know, we you could sit at any desk, you could sit on a sofa, you could sit in the cafe and work. And we tried not to encourage people to sit at the same desk every day so that they could meet new people and move around, be flexible. But there were still teams who very much like to work in their, you know, set sort of team. And and yes, it was great because you could, you know, go for a doctor's appointment or leave early to go and watch the school sports day or whatever. But that was sort of as far as it goes. Some of our teams worked from home, you know, they were they were in they had to work from home one or two days a week. So that was great. But there was still teams who weren't fully embracing it. So I think that this has been a great opportunity to practice, shall we say? I mean, we wouldn't have wished this on anyone. But it's certainly given us a massive step change. Yeah, hugely. And just kind of on the DNI aspect and maybe just the inclusion aspect. Sure. How have you how have you guys adapted to it and to make people feel really included part of teams, decision making, these kinds of things? Yeah, and that that obviously has been really difficult. We focused to start with hugely on well-being. We recognize that there would be people who felt massively isolated, you know, living on their own and not seeing anyone and people who suffered from anxiety or any other mental health condition, you know, would find it really challenging. So we really focused on raising awareness of all of the support services that we had available. We've got mental health first aiders, our EAP, our private health, get all of those things. But also we did a lot of work with our managers to sort of spot the signs of people struggling and also encouraging people to say, you know, use your own initiative in terms of when you can work. You know, we had parents trying to both homework and look after the kids and some would work at the first part of the day from like six a.m. to one p.m. and then they'd swap and then, you know, but we were saying just just go with go with it, go with the flow. So that was our main focus, but also encouraging everyone to just check in with their colleagues and make sure and think, oh, I haven't heard from so and so for a while. You know, I wonder if they're OK or or notice when people's videos were off a lot or when they didn't contribute in meetings. You know, and we all had to just be so much better at that. Yeah. What was the norm, people with their videos on or off? So we encourage that's a really great question, because at the beginning, we encourage people to switch them on because it was like, you know, we need to see each other and but then recognise that you could definitely get some video fatigue and that sometimes. And I think also we didn't realise that there were some people, particularly the younger generation who live in London, you know, rents are so high, they were in shared shared accommodation where actually they didn't even have a space to work. Yeah. So they were working from their beds and, you know, so switching videos on, they want to show you can be quite. Yeah, people felt quite embarrassed. The other thing is we found that some people didn't really have great internet connections at home because they came into the office every day and it's expensive. Yeah. Right. So if you if you live on your own or you, you know, you're a young graduate and you live with your family and, you know, so there were all sorts of challenges that we had to really true that. And also, if you ask being someone with bad internet connection, you still you still are rolling your eyes back, aren't you? And it's some conscious a little bit like, yeah, yeah. And I'd say, oh, you know, my my internet, my videos off because my internet's connection bad bad, but it just allowing people to do that because you the other thing is, you know, we're seeing into everyone's homes and we're seeing their pets and their dogs and their partners and their kids, which is really cool. And I think it's helped us all. What I say, lower the waterline, you know, get to understand people a little bit more. But obviously, there'll be certain things about people and their home style, their life, the places where they live that they just really didn't want to share with their work colleagues. I'm going to appreciate that, right? That's absolutely. Definitely. It has felt that to your point, it's everyone's got a bit more human now because you come into work with this façade. You know, you put you put your certainly in insurance industry, you know, pretty much and it's been relaxing a bit. But you put your seat and tie on. Ties got relaxed a lot over the last five years or whatever. But still, it's, you know, you've got to be looking smart and not annoyed. Yeah, although actually, I think even Lloyd's a scrap, they tie now. But yeah, but I think but it's still certainly smart cash, you know, in the city. Definitely. But then it's your home. I mean, it's a bit strange if you if you're doing a video call someone at home and they're sitting tight. So yeah, that would be a little odd, wouldn't it? But but that but that's right. Again, we only saw we could only judge people and, you know, everyone was in smart dress, you know, the women had their make upon the men had their thing going on. And again, you know, we just didn't understand the person behind the smart dress and the attire and you go to work and you, you know, you put your work head on, don't you? You might have so much going on at home. You know, one of your family might be ill. You might be had a really bad argument with your partner or whatever it was. Or you might have a, you know, a caring responsibility that that no one knows about or you're trying to keep something quiet. But you put your work head on and you walk in and that's you set for the day. You're in work mode. Very rarely did we allow our home lives and our personal issues to come into the workplace with us. And even though we talked about, you know, for so long about being able to be authentic and be open, how many times do people actually ask, you know, and you get that, are you OK? How are you today? How was your weekend? They don't really want to know the answer, do they? They just want you to go, yeah, fine, thanks. Yeah, good. Yeah, great. You're not going to say, oh, the kids were ill or, you know, this was a nightmare or, you know, but now. And I love that fact. I think for inclusion and obviously everything that's going on around covid, you know, we're thinking more of our neighbours and treating people with respect and the whole thing about the NHS. And, you know, why did we never, ever respect the NHS and love them as much as we do now? I mean, that's sad. So I think that we've all got in touch more with our caring, sharing cells, which for me is fantastic. Yeah, the kindness thing, which which people are talking about a lot, you know, and definitely my wife's been working in intensive care with covid patients the whole way through through the lockdown. It's been it's been quite interesting because she she was going into work because remember, we're talking about this work from home stuff. I think you have to appreciate if you're lucky enough to do a job, which you could do at home because you've got to think like, you know, it's the NHS workers, Amazon delivery, that dustbin men, a lot of people that were keeping the country together are out, you know, and having to having to go out. So supermarket workers, imagine those in those early days. Wow. Yeah, I mean, they were super, super busy. So, you know, with all of this, like, I think you're going to have to put your yourself in in the context of, wow, I'm lucky that I can choose where I want to work and stuff, which I think is great. And yeah, I think it's I think it's I know it's been hopefully eye-opening for many people and a lot of I think good stuff and good working practice will practices will come from it. Yeah, I hope so. I truly think it will. I think it's going to be a huge shift and, you know, firms are going to think why do they need so much office space and, you know, how do we work together? And there might just be one day a week when actually you all get together with your team and it's much more of a creative, you know, sort of process. And and we do that. But I think it's going to also allow people to to talk about how they work best and to make it work for them. You know, I think that's fantastic. And it's going to open so many more opportunities for people. I think I think so. I think the caveat, I would say, is I mean, everyone I speak to is talking about taking less office space. So I think that's that's for sure. I think on on how you like to work or how you think you're most productive. I think, you know, if you think about people entering the workforce right now and you talked about younger people, I don't think you quite know yet, you know, how how you're most productive. And I think, you know, the danger is, you know, I speak to I speak to some some very senior people, people who've been working for a long time. And they always say, you know, I'm really happy to work at home. I know what I'm doing. It's great. But when you're young, you don't know what you're doing. And I did it about you. But I learned so much from just sitting next to a line manager hearing how they talked, interacted, you know, approached people. And I and I just I just hope that that people remember to include younger people, you know, to make sure they invest the time, the training and things like that. That's a really big deal. And we've found that the people that want to go back into the office are the younger generation, because for them, work is their social as well. You know, work is social life. Those chats over the coffee machine, you know, going to the gym with a colleague, you know, during your working day, you know, having a drink or two after work, you know, that's their social as well. And so they work hard, but they love that sort of. Yeah, they they love that interaction. And I think that must be really hard. And like you say, they need to be involved and listen to other conversations during a meeting. So for me, it's about making sure that you're including colleagues in meetings with clients, et cetera. And even if they just listen, you know, and don't really get involved, but just to understand the conversations and what's happening. And hopefully people are, like you say, not excluding because we need to build that younger generation. This year, for the first time, we held a so our summer interns that we take in for a period of 10 weeks, they were virtual. Can you imagine doing an internship where you never go into the office and you never meet anyone from the firm? Like and some of them, some of them, yes, we'd hired face to face before we went in to lockdown, but some we didn't. So we even hired them. But we sent them a laptop and some on goodies. And we really worked hard to make it a rich experience. So again, you know, we have to really think about how we're doing things like that. I mean, that was a huge change for us. Yeah, it's interesting. It's also, I think if you're if you're young and listening to this, you've also got to take some ownership as well of your development. And I think even, you know, like even sending someone like you an email and saying, hey, would you mind five minutes with me on a video call or having a quick coffee? You know, I think like it's the way to network internally now to to get on in, you know, in a company like a really got to work hard now. You're not just going to bump into someone in the left. Sadly, not sadly, not. And I think people are more open to that. I'm certainly doing a lot more of that, you know, having virtual coffees with people and catching up and they're saying, oh, how can I do this? Or this is what I'm thinking of? Or how can I do more on diversity and inclusion? And and so that's a that's a big part of the role is actually, yeah, rather than just, like you say, bumping into someone or we held a lot of events. And that's where a lot of those conversations would take place. You know, you know, they'd be a lunchtime event or an evening event. And you'd meet so many new people and build your network. You have to be quite intentional about it now. And I think, you know, even, yeah, even, you know, talk to your boss about, I'll talk to others and say, could I join in that meeting, please? You know, how's that going with that client? And, you know, can you can you bring me up to speed on it? Or could I listen in on that meeting or whatever it may be? But I think you've got to sort of take the initiative and ask the question. Yeah, definitely. And if you're not comfortable with it, again, hopefully you're in a firm which which creates the environment where you're able to, you know, because it's sometimes quite hard to to message someone that's more senior to say, hey, grab a coffee, also help. It's a hard thing to do. Definitely, definitely, definitely. It really is. And I think if you're more introvert, you know, if you're that sort of type, maybe you'd struggle a little bit with it. But, you know, maybe drop them and drop them an email and and and ask. I think that's all you can do. Definitely. We talked, you talked a bit about mental health and the help you give people, which which I think is great. And and obviously we've been talking about that for a long time now. There's some great work to be done. I think what I find really interesting and I hope it comes out of it is actually our physical health, because it's it's not it's not been OK to go up to a colleague and say, you know, I think you need to lose a little bit of weight or, you know, something of that. Or, you know, I saw you had for lunch today. You know, whereas whereas it's you wouldn't do that, right? Like you just wouldn't do it. But you would go up to someone and say, you know, are you feeling OK? Or I saw your video was off. You know, is there anything going on? Can I help you? You know, to the mental health side. Yeah. But then, you know, what we've seen from Covid is, you know, I think it's high 90 percent of the people in intensive care have had high BMI, obesity, diabetes. So so so you're and again, physical and mental health is completely linked. I'd love to see it be OK to speak about physical health going forward. It's a tough one. That is a tough one. But also, I think what you what you've got to look for is is changes in people. So you talked about drinking or or eating more. And I think if you see a shift, I'm not sure you could just go, hey, you know, you've put a bit of timber on lately or something. I mean, you actually have just got goosebumps even thinking about no. But it's the shift in someone's behaviour that is usually an indication of them struggling. So they might be more quiet than usual. They might eat more than usual or a lot less. So they might suddenly put weight on or lose it, or they may be drinking more. And that usually is a sign that people are struggling. So I'm a mental health first aid. And that's part of the training is to spot signs of people struggling. But I agree with you, the physical health. So we have a well one app on and it's an app and it clocks your steps and it touches on the four areas of well being, you know, financial, social, emotional and physical. And the physical is like so we get step challenges and and people. We were better at this at the beginning of lockdown is saying, let's have a walking meeting, you know, rather than just doing this. Let's let's, you know, and actually a few people said, you have to get out during this meeting. So put your earphones on your phone. Let's do it. You know, there'll be no slides. You don't need to take notes. Let's just have a conversation. So I think there's some things that we can do. And I think one of the areas of well being is to look after your physical health. I mean, says me, I I am spending too much time doing this and all my ideas of keeping up with my running and meditating and and eating really well. It's not going as well as it could. That's the thing. Well, you know, because you're right, let's be honest, more people are going to work more from home. And whether or not, you know, when when when all this is kind of blown over, you know, people are going to be doing a bit of both, right? You're going to come in and you're going to go home. It's great. Yeah. What I what I found is, you know, from speaking to friends and colleagues and clients or whatever. And they're always like, oh, you know, I'm not eating quite as well. I'm definitely doing less steps because the thing about the commute is it gets you up and it's nice to move. You know, like you just feel good moving. I don't know about you. I just get I don't know in a better mind frame when I'm moving around. Definitely. And even going to get a sandwich or going to get a coffee, it's giving you a ten minute break from, you know, intense work. And it sometimes just helps digest your thoughts and think, right, where am I up to with that report? Or what do I need to do for this? And it just gives you a bit of thinking time. Yeah. But the steps thing, sometimes, I mean, I actually still wear a Fitbit, which is ridiculous because every night I check my steps and I know what a busy day I've had by how few steps I've done. It's just embarrassing. It's so important to programme. You know what I do? I put a meeting in my diary. So my exercise and I regard it as the most important. It's like like I'm meeting the most important CEO. That's my exercise. You know, it's a meeting you do not you do not move. You do not move. That's fantastic. And because I think it's it's it's just it's important for so many reasons, you know, and I think if you diarise stuff like that and you regard it as just the most important meeting of your day, you stick to it. Hopefully, yes. I know one of our leaders. One of our leaders does that and he blocks out I think it's 10 30 or 10 o'clock or something. And he always thinks midmorning is the best time to go to the gym because it's quiet, but also you get those early morning meetings out of the way. But literally, it's immovable in his diary and he goes out, gets to the gym for half an hour. And, you know, that is his time at Sacrosanct. Yeah, I think it's great. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about diversity. And, you know, there was a lot of a lot of diversity initiatives prelock down and all of these things. Do you think that I guess at first year, they are they were have you found that they're working and they change in the dial? And and how have you found it during lockdown? Sure. So. So, yes, lots of diversity initiatives, lots of things happening, slowly changing the dial, I would say. Some things are more successful than others. I'd say that, you know, diving has been a massive sort of trigger for firms in our industry to do more and to really enable that conversation and that debate and give practical tools and tips on what firms can do, no matter how big or small they are. So I think that's been fantastic. We've had really open conversations of part of diving. So it's great that we're, you know, in the sixth year and it's such a fantastic success. But some diversity initiatives are better than others. We we have to I mean, for example, let me, you know, let's take women in leadership. It's very difficult to move the dial. It takes time, you know, we have to sort of build the pipeline. People have to leave to create a role. You know, we've got to have diverse panels, obviously, the right person for the job, which as long as you've got a diverse panel, whoever is the right person for the job is the right person, you're never going to just promote someone because of their gender or the colour of their skin or whatever it is. But it takes time. But some of the programs that we've got are seeing the you know, we're really increasing the pipeline of women coming through, which is fantastic. So some are more successful. Also, where we've been more successful is really targeted programs, particularly at the early careers level. So we had what we called our Bain Future Leaders Programme, Black Asian Minority Ethnic, bringing people into our graduate program and really targeting the Bain community. How could we advertise the insurance industry and sector, but also help people succeed? And it's it's to that. I talk about equity a lot. We all know what equality is. We treat everybody the same. OK, exactly the same equity is giving people more support where they might need it. You know, and equity is really, you know, just looking for where people need additional support to bring them up. And our Bain Future Leaders Programme was part of that. We brought some amazing graduates in from all around the country for a two day workshop, helping them understand our industry, helping them understand how the city works, you know, giving them real great tools, insight, doing some work shopping, you know, working together, working on projects, helping them understand what an assessment centre is and how that works. If you think if you're from a lower socioeconomic background or where your parents have never worked in a in an office environment, maybe you don't know how to act, how to behave. You've got no role models. So it was that sort of and it's been a fantastic success. We've seen the ethnicity of our early careers and our highers really ramp up. So across apprentices, interns and our graduate population, in twenty nine percent in twenty twenty nineteen, thirty eight percent were from black and Asian and ethnic minority communities, which is fantastic. This year it was thirty three percent because we had to scale down, you know, why of our, you know, of our intakes, but still thirty three percent. So a whole third, which is great. They're fifty fifty on gender. So that's great. So changing the dial sometimes when you're really targeted really works. But changing mindsets and behaviours and changing hearts and minds, I think, actually, Louis, is is more difficult and takes more time. Yeah, definitely. Is there anything you've had to do differently now since the pandemic, given that things are on video? You know, because I know there was a lot of, you know, we were talking about blind CVs and things like this to try and reduce bias. But now, you know, video is an interesting one. You know, we talked about people not wanting to show where they were living. You know, if you're interviewing now from your bedroom. Yes. You know, yeah, exactly. A bit more a bit more difficult. We've we have used video assessments for quite a while initially to screen. But but we've been doing some really tactical things but not so much changing during lockdown. It's been like a change. I think the biggest change during Covid has actually been recognising the disproportionate impact of Covid on race and ethnicity and people from different backgrounds and the Black and Asian communities being really more adversely impacted. Yes. So we we've, you know, and since that tragic death of George Floyd, I think, and also just a little bit about what we were talking about earlier, the whole everyone feeling a bit more, you know, empathetic and being a bit more thoughtful and, you know, being a bit more emotional, maybe, and just thinking about other people's struggles. And then the the George Floyd incident and the ramifications and the racial injustice and the protests. Have really made people stop in their tracks. But I think if that had happened without Covid, I'm not sure it would have had the same impact. I think we felt so much more emotionally charged, you know, community focused, more maybe emotionally intelligent, just thinking of others. And then when that happened, it had such a had a much bigger impact for me on all of us and everybody. And so on diversity and inclusion, it's had a phenomenal impact. And it's made people really every single person really consider and and look inside themselves. I think, well, am I racist? Could I be? And then, of course, everyone says, well, of course, I'm not. But then they think, but have I shown that? Have I done enough? Have I stepped up? Have I intervened? Have I been visible? Have I spoken up? Am I talking to my black colleague? You know, do I understand how it feels like to be black? So I think that Covid has enabled us to do things differently. And I've talked about being busy. All of the people that I know that work in D&I have said that they have, you know, been so busy during this time because there's an appetite to do so much more, to understand so much more. You know, people ask him, what can I do? What can I do? How can I help? This is what I do. Can we do this? Can we do that? Can we, you know, which is fantastic. It's a dream. Yeah. So yeah, it's given us a massive window of opportunity. And we would it would be so sad if in six months time, things go back to how they were. And we haven't really taken the opportunity to address, to lead, to drive, to listen. Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, sometimes with these things, it's it's timing, you know, like a moment in time is perfect to make a real change in society. And that's why I always find it a little bit odd or sad. I don't know what the right word is. When people try and make a business case for diversity, when really it's it's just good for society, right? It's just fair. I mean, you want people to have an equal opportunity to to make something of their self. So you're right. I think it all, you know, it was people, people to lock down some some really bad events happened. And it it just culminated in in just a big desire globally to, you know, to make a change, which I think was great. And the one thing I really hope that doesn't happen. And you've you've kind of seen it a little bit where, you know, some people are talking about you've got Black Lives Matter, then people say, well, hold on, all lives matter. And then you feel like there's some, you know, there's some backlash towards the diversity initiatives and stuff that going on. And I think we need to work really hard to make sure that that doesn't happen. And if everyone feels included, you know, you don't want it to be you don't want a great cause to be undermined by by those things. No. And sadly, you know, social media, there's some great things. But also, you know, there's also can be a real groundswell of opinion that is not helpful at times like these. And of course, all lives matter. Of course they do. But right now and after the events with George Floyd, you know, we recognise that the Black community needed so much more support and help. And and that we need to we really need to come together, you know, and actually it's OK. You know, white people saying, well, all lives matter. Well, of course they do. You know, and it's like talking about it's talking about white privilege. You know, and people say, well, I really struggled. You know, I had a tough time. What do you mean? White privilege. But, you know, it's not that. I mean, what we're seeing on the news and in events and, you know, even in the UK, some of the things that we see and hear, it's not that all lives don't matter. Is that we we seem to think that black lives matter less, you know, by the way that they're being treated in the US. But also, you know, we can see the same things happening, you know, on the lesser scale, the stop and search, all of those things that happen in the UK as well. So we need to we need to just put ourselves in someone else's shoes to understand that. You know, white people are very lucky in that. I'm not saying that white people have never struggled. Of course, we all have our struggles, every single person. But the colour of our skin doesn't add to those struggles. And that's all white privileges. We're not getting judged each time we step outside our house. We're not having to worry about, you know, how we how we come across, how we look, you know, not being judged at all. And so we we don't face that. You know, everyone has some pain, everyone has some struggle, but we need to recognise when people have been adversely affected. Definitely. And to your to your earlier point, with all the things going on, it's nice just to take a breath and appreciate, you know, the challenges that others are going through. And I think people are doing that. And, you know, we're moving in the right direction. Yeah, which is, yeah, I think we are. And the fact that we're having these conversations and are being really open, you know, we held straight after all those incidents, we held some listening sessions with our leaders, with our multicultural network. And I know that lots of other firms across the industry, you know, were doing the same, but that had such a huge impact. Just listening to the stories, to the everyday, to the day to day life. And I'd encourage anyone who hasn't really thought about it, just to listen to some of those stories, put yourself in someone else's shoes, you know, and just think about actually, yeah, what some people have to go through and how we can support them. And and that anti-racist thing, you know, be more proactive. Don't just it's not enough just to say, well, I'm not racist or sexist or homophobic, but actually, you know, or ableist, are we all doing something to to to raise awareness and speak out. And sometimes it's difficult to speak out, but when you hear something or see something that's inappropriate, we have to do that. And I think that these times give us license to speak up and speak out. Absolutely. Definitely. And storytelling is such a powerful way to communicate now. Right. I mean, it's happening in or with everything. And I think even even sharing because, you know, the good side of technology, the good side of social media is you can share stuff and if you see someone's story that's worth sharing, I mean, you know, show the love and share. Right. I mean, absolutely. And you can you can certainly you can certainly do your part even in that small way. Yeah, definitely. And diving is a big part of that, obviously. It's a big storytelling. So, you know, and it's really accelerated the conversation. And I definitely think that personal stories, you know, personal impacts are just the way that we can open our minds to difference and understand what it means to be different and the challenges that it plays and understand what we can all do, you know, and become allies and and just have more awareness. We're going to need all those skills going forward when you think about, you know, and our workplaces are better. They're richer for it, you know, having all those, you know, that rich diversity of experience and diversity of thought is just brilliant. But we need to improve our own cultural competence to really take advantage and value those differences. Definitely. And I think, you know, if there's a cloud, if there's a silver lining amongst the covid cloud, it's that I'm seeing so many companies now open to hiring from a much wider geographical scope, which, of course, improves diversity, right? I mean, you don't have to hire someone in London. You can hire someone anywhere. I mean, they're going to be working from home, probably anyway. So, you know, I really hope our Zoom calls are the face-to-face meetings are going to just be full of diverse people from different countries, backgrounds, colours, religions, whatever it is. But, you know, I think I think that's a wonderful thing. And a real opportunity. Definitely. Well, what a beautiful place to end. Catherine, thank you so much for joining me. No worries. It's been great to be with you today. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to hopefully seeing you face to face one day. Yeah, that'd be nice. It's a real life. You should get a coffee. All right, great. Thanks, Lewis. Bye. See you. Bye.