 Hello there. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are joining us from. Hi, my name is Abhijit Baduri. I'm the author of the book, Dreamers and Unicorns, which actually talks about how leadership, talent and culture are the new growth drivers. So if you haven't read it, do give it a spin. But today I am going to talk to a very, very interesting person who works in a field which very few do, which is in the area of org design. So we'll get to talk to this person. But more than that, I'm going to really dig into this person's experience of how well-being in the workplace has changed. Because that's going to be the focus of what we'll talk about. So without any further... Welcome, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me. And I'm going to talk to you about a bunch of different things that when people ask you, what do you do? What is your answer to that? Thank you so much Abhijit for having me first of all. So a lot of people do ask me this question because the field that I work in, you rightly mentioned, not a lot of people do. So I introduce myself as somebody who curate the experiences of people in their corporate life cycles. So that's what I introduce myself in one night. And I'm sure people say that what does that really mean? Then what do you say? Curate the experience? Of course, employee goes through a lot of life cycle experiences right when the employee joins in till the time when the employee exits. It might be anything starting from onboarding to training and development to getting the salaries on 31st or sometimes later. And then being cared by the employer in the tough times and in the good times being promoted or taking leaves or interacting with any of the systems while working in the organization. You experience something and how curate that experience into a positive one using the concepts of talent management, using the concepts of all design so that we have effective systems and processes which enable us to do that is what I do in an action. Okay. How do you know when you evaluate somebody who wants to become a consultant? What do you look for? What do you tell them? How does somebody know that am I ready to be a consultant? What is your answer to that? Abhijit, I have been hiring for a lot of consulting roles in the last three to five years. The primary skill that I feel that is required to work as a consultant is not working 12 hours a day, which a lot of people think it is true. It's actually a zeal to understand the business better. You as a consultant will hop on from one consulting assignment to the another consulting assignment every two months, sometimes in every 15 days. Your zeal to understand how the business is designed is experiencing that design is the primary skill that I live for and the ability to do that is what very few people would have and to do that in a very, very quick time is something that I look for as a primary skill. While there are other skills which are required be analytical skills where we see whether the person is able to analyze a lot of data that the client throws at them. We also look at the fact whether the consultant is able to present the findings in a better way. So hence communication skills and presentation skills come to the fore. So these are some of the skill sets that I feel are critical when it comes to entering consulting at any level. And, you know, we've got a bunch of people who joined us. So Harish, Dr. Ahmed Gupta, Renal, Nathan, all of you, thank you so much for joining in. We are today talking to Akash Khatri, who is actually a talent development consultant who works in the area of org design. And I just thought that before we get down to talking about well-being in the workplace, I just thought that, you know, I'm going to get a little bit of an inside story on how does one become a good consultant and what segregates a good consultant from the average one. So that's something that I would love to know his point of view about this. And by the way, if you have any questions, do put them in the chat box. I'll bring that up on the screen. And then, you know, we'll have Akash respond to that as well. So it's a live conversation. And Akash, I know that you're in the client side. So, you know, which is, which is an interesting element that you have to be very adaptable as one of my hypothesis that you have to be able to work in all kinds of organizations, you know, large organizations, midsize organizations and smaller organizations. Is there one which you, is your favorite size? I mean, you'd say that you'd prefer to work in a small organization because you get to see, you know, into a large organization, how do you answer that? Abhijeet, I think that's a very, very brilliant question because, you know, I work in almost all size of clients, if that's the, you know, perspective we go by. While there are advantages and disadvantages of working with different type of clients. So for example, if you go to a small client, they wouldn't have a lot of processes in shape. So the amount of learning and the amount of impact that you can create to that client is going to be huge. So the delta, you know, as we say, is going to be huge and the satisfaction level is going to be huge. So that's small clients. We talk about large clients, you would see a lot of processes and systems in place already. So the added challenge there is to ensure that how do we increase the efficiencies of the existing system. While the impact that you create in the delta that is there is not going to be huge, but a number of intervention for that client will be high. And hence, I think it's the game of magnitudes versus volumes. How many people do you touch versus what is the impact and how big is the impact that you create for them. I don't have favourites in terms of sizes. I have worked in a multitude of client sectors with many, many sort of sizes. I feel that different client sizes have different learnings to take and different sort of impacts. Yeah, I would agree with that that, you know, and depending on the nature of the problem that you're trying to address, you know, you get a certain kind of a learning for yourself, etc. And by the way, we are off to start with the audience question. So we have one question from Renal who says, Hi Akash, what is the difference between all design consulting and business design consulting. So how would you address that? Sure, I would like to answer that. That's a good question. A lot of people get confused as to what is a business design consulting. So the primary difference when it comes to all design and a business design is, is the function that you're operating under when you talk about business design. You talk about annual operating plan, you talk about creating sales plan for them, strategizing their overall policies at a business level. When you talk about all design, it is more related to people. How do you ensure the organization structure is in place, which means what sort of, how the responsibilities are divided between the body responsible for one single activity, or do we have, you know, crystal clear accountabilities charted out. It's also about, so when it comes to people, there are a lot of processes we touch using all design. So for example, performance management system, how to ensure that we measure the performance of people who are working day in and day out. So anything that relates, that is related to people, anything that is related to understanding how the organization operates by design for their people is of design consulting and business design consulting, as I said, is a larger domain which talks about the overall business at coding. So would it be fair to say that business design consulting is more to do with how do you make that business become more effective in terms of the work that it does become more profitable, etc. Whereas all design is what does it feel like when you're an employee of the organization, you know, the way the work flows, the way your reporting happens, the way the smoothness of the workplace, etc. All of that. Is that the image person? I mean, that is partially correct. I would say, because, you know, employee is the most critical resource in any organization. You can replace your machinery, you can replace your assets, but your employees are in replacement. I think I missed the internet. Yeah, I'm back. So to continue that, I mean, yes, effectively, that is the difference, while business consulting, business design consulting looks at business at the core and how do we take this business forward? All design consulting also looks into that because people are your core. And therefore, when you focus on people specifically, it becomes all design consulting. And is there a certain kind of, you know, as a follower question, I guess, women, that what kind of experience do you need in terms of you have to be more effective? Is there a recommendation you would have that kind of experience? No, so I think I read the question on screen. The org design consulting wouldn't require you to have a business design consulting experience. While, as I said, you know, one of the most important skill sets is to understand the business right when you go to that client, whether you're working remotely or you're working on the client side. The primary skill set that you should have and that you'd need is to understand the business in a very quick manner. And that's the only requirement. Of course, all design consulting requires you to have HR experience, whether you have worked in the HR function in any of the businesses, or you might have had done an MBA or any other master degree, which focuses on human resources and people at the center. I think that's enough for you to be qualified to work in org design. Okay. And, Akash, you know, you sort of looked at organizations for the last couple of years in the work that you've done. When I look at the pandemic, you know, from then to now, what has changed? You know, besides of course the fact that I also want to pick your brains on the great resignation. I don't think, you know, has changed. Is a great resignation a byproduct of that or is this something that would have happened any which way? What would be your response on that? So Abhijeet, I think this is a time when, you know, we have as a consulting organization, we have seen a lot of organizations right from when this pandemic began in 19. So we have seen smaller organizations, medium scale organizations, and even large scale organizations who have gone through this time, who have, you know, suffered a lot in terms of their business revenues, in terms of people leaving them. And you rightly mentioned the great resignation is here and a lot of people are looking outside and that has happened. So I think businesses are struggling in the last three years, they're struggling to find the best way to treat their employees if I talk from an org design and people in change perspective. We have seen a lot of organizations struggling to do that, while there are some organizations who are spearheads to build in some initiatives which have, you know, which have not been used in the industry. And there if you compare and we have done those researches while working in my organization, that we've seen that those organizations who are spearheads in, you know, bringing in those initiatives, be it wellness related or performance or org design related, which actually curate the employee experience in these struggling times, are the organizations where attrition is low, even with a great resignation, other where in the industry, you would feel that these organizations are better off. And, you know, what do you see? Give me concrete examples of things that you see organizations do, which, you know, we could all learn from and sort of say that, okay, that's something that makes sense to us as individuals as well as from the organizational context. So let's start by looking at, you know, what is it that you think we are doing, you know, you've seen as a trend that when organizations get it right, what have they done? What has been the starting point? Is it a design issue? Is it a people skills issue? Is it a, you know, an approach that they've always believed in? Or have people stepped up differently to respond to the pandemic crisis? Yeah, so Abhijeet, I think, so we have done a research, right? I mean, I would want to quote some numbers here to ensure that, you know, what we talk makes sense, right? So there was a research conducted by KPMG, you know, a couple of years back when it started, and then, you know, this research went on for a year, right in the pandemic time. We found out that about 78% of the respondents in that survey said that my mental health is getting negativized. I mean, my mental health is going down while I'm working in the office. It's, I mean, it might be because of anything and everything. I mean, it might be because of the excessive workload while they're working from home or due to the personal issues at home, which the employer is failing to look at. In that same survey, we also found out that 76% of these people say that my organization should do more to protect my mental health. And that's a huge number. That's more than three fourth of the whole number. We also saw that 85% of the HR employees, which is, which is, which are the employees which are all designed specialists in the organization. They all, they have also said that we do not have a strategy of employee well-being and taking care of employees in place. We used to do a lot of, you know, initiatives, yoga classes or, you know, mental health sessions every day, but that's not enough. My employees are looking for something larger and we do not have that 85% of people feel that we do not have that strategy. So while, you know, this data is there in place, something that I've seen in a lot of these organizations, both small ones and large ones, that has worked well for them is the ability to listen to the employees. A lot of these organizations have started to do pulse surveys every week. We used to see that organizations were very slow in picking up the employee sense in what their employees have to say by doing, let's say, an annual survey or a biannual survey. Now, employers have, you know, understood that we need to listen to our employees more frequently because the times are tough. And my employee might have to say something different every week about their mental well-being or their physical well-being or something that is bothering them on the job, be their manager or the workload or something like that. So therefore, I think those pulse surveys, those listening ability has increased tremendously in the last two years is something that we've seen, which is very common. I know of one of the organizations where, you know, in the morning when you log in, as soon as you logged in for the first time during the day, you get a message which is pertaining to some element of well-being, which is that, you know, how do you rate your manager in terms of, you know, the work that the person is doing? Are you happy with this policy that they have introduced or they're talking about, you know, the nature of the project that you're working? Do you feel it is value-adding to you? But there are a whole lot of questions which potentially, you know, somebody who manages you should be asking. They ask those questions and I think it makes an enormous difference. So I would say, you know, what is quite fascinating is most of the employees do stop by for those 30 seconds and do answer that question. So on real-time basis, they get this response from people every single day. So I would think that, you know, from the time frame that, you know, you used to have questionnaires being sent out once a year and then it became six months. And now, you know, there are people who are doing it once a week, but really I would think that this is a pulse when you are looking at it. You take your temperature every single day. So that I think is a good sort of policy. But what else have you seen, you know, when people are responding to that, when the employer gets to know that, okay, here is a set of challenges. What are some of those categories of challenges that seem to impact well-being? Sure. So what we've observed, you know, Abhijeet, why you rightly mentioned that, you know, this is one of the most important things to notice when it comes to change whether the employees have faced. They in fact stop for those 30 seconds to answer that. So one of the, you know, so the categories of challenges that you've seen in these clients, I mean, right across the sectors and with all the sizes of the clients taken together. So the employees face mental challenges and those are the top most challenges to talk about. When we say mental challenges, they can be further categorized into two challenges. One are your work-related and the second one are your home-related challenges. In our survey, about 60% of people said that my home challenges are affecting my work-related stress, which means that on work what is happening is not that important. What's happening at home is more important to me, which means in the last three years organizations should have focused more on the employee well-being at a personal level, at a home level, whether your parents are fine, whether your wife is fine, whether your children are doing okay. And, you know, not only at a physical level, but also at a mental level, do you have family time together or do you work always? You know, being at home, the luxury of not traveling is there, so you save time. So are you using the time to work more or are you using the time to ensure that, you know, I spend good time with my family? So that is one, you know, sort of category of a challenge that employees face while working in the post-pandemic and even in the pandemic era, which is the mental stress. The second challenge that we have seen and which is not that prominent as the first one, but it's real. Employees have started working from home and, you know, most of the organizations while they're starting to come back to the new normal while following a hybrid model, but there are certain organizations who still have work from home options given to the employees. So the work related problems during work from home is something that concerns a lot of employees. For example, if I'm in office, I am being overlooked by my manager every day and they see what am I doing. So not only my outcomes, but my efforts are also getting recognized and appreciated. But when I'm at home, my manager doesn't see me daily, you know, out of sight, out of mind. So the outcomes are only seen. And if sometimes let's say if I'm working in sales, if I'm not able to produce an outcome, but what about my efforts? Are my efforts getting recognized? No, sometimes no, sometimes yes. So that is, you know, the second set of challenges that these employees are facing, which is more focused towards work. So we've seen organizations having different strategies towards mental challenges, both at home and on work, and also work related challenges. Thank you. So those who've joined in late, you know, I'm talking to Akash Khatri of KPMG. He's worked in the area of org design. He's worked in the area of learning and development, change management, etc. So we had a couple of questions around that. And now we are really talking about wellness in the workplace. And I'm really trying to understand what are some of the trends and patterns. So one of the things I just wanted to summarize what Akash has been talking about is there are two categories of challenges which seem to be impacting wellbeing. One of which is, you know, given the fact that because of the pandemic, work has moved to the home, you know, it did for most people during the lockdown phases, etc. So that was one set of patterns that he talked about where, you know, the challenges at home, whether somebody is unwell physically or mentally, that tends to have an impact. And the other set of things is that, you know, when you are now trying to come back to the workplace, you have a different set of challenges, which is when you're working from home, the supervisor can only see your output. Whereas when you work in the office, the supervisor sees your effort and the final output. And in both cases, you know, the impact on how the supervisor views you, that changes. In some cases, if you don't have an output in the work from home setting, that is harder to sort of prove. So, you know, when you look at this whole shift that has happened, when you look at this whole shift, Akash, the question I would have is, do you think that because of, you know, the fact that the work has moved to the home, the role of the employer has got expanded to include people who are not even employed by them, which is the family members and their well-being and all of that, because in that set up, it's impacting the employee. So it is, you know, something that is impacting the employee. Is that the reason why it has now become part of their remit? What would you say? Yeah, thanks Abhijeet. I think one of the reasons that employers have started to think more about it is, in fact, their families. And while employees are someone they interact with day in and day out, they do a lot of full service and they do regular check-ins to see whether they are fine and their work stress is okay. One of the reasons that the employers have started to focus more on, you know, well-being initiatives is to see whether their families are okay. So research says, you know, that about 40% of personal mental issues in this pandemic era was due to the fact that one of the family members was either sick, either physically or mentally, because, you know, it's not only the pandemic disease that has affected everyone, it's also the lack of social connectivity. It's also about, you know, in your friends circle, and that has impacted a lot when it comes to people in my family or people in anyone's family. So what we have seen is that employers have taken a lot of initiatives in that space, be it creating a COVID task force, let's say, which caters to the disease part of the well-being, which is to say that if somebody is sick, we have a COVID task force which can tell you where you can find the resources. You know, you've seen in Central and Northern India in Wave 2 that the resources were a challenge and employees were stranded to see that we don't have anywhere to go. So organizations are now focusing on creating task forces which can tell you where can you find hospital beds, where can you find oxygen cylinders, and where can you find medicines which are very crucial for, you know, COVID disease. So that's one, you know, set of initiatives that the organizations are following to make sure that your family is also safe apart from the fact that they focus on yourself. The second set of initiatives that we have seen, you know, is an increase in the overall wellness sessions and the awareness programs, not for yourself or not for only for yourself but also for the family. So, you know, we used to see that every Thursday, let's say, organizations used to have this yoga session where no one would join in. Now they're making it mandatory part of, you know, the responsibilities that you need not only yourself come but also make sure that your family is there. They would have some, you know, sort of fun activities. They would call it a family day. They would ensure that they also are aware of the wellness initiatives. And a lot of these activities around making sure that your family is safe. We have seen about 70 to 80% of mid-scale organizations focusing on access to live apps. So for example, in India, you would see practice, you know, let's say one of the biggest sort of provider to ensure that you get primary health support or first aid whenever you have any emergency or exigency in the family. So this is not only for you but also to ensure that your family is safe and you get unlimited packages all sponsored by organizations. And this is what we have seen. So that is the second, you know, section or category of initiatives that the employers have taken. You know, Akash, I think what you mentioned actually shows two or three different elements. One is during this time as, you know, when work is moved home, somewhere that has also triggered awareness in some of the employers that it's not the employee is not looked at in isolation. You know, but you also look at the employee in the context of the family where the person is operating. And in doing that, the employers have, you know, expanded the reach and potential impact, which means if I as an individual could have access to X number of hospitals or the sources of medical help, etc. The organization throws its might and power behind me. And with that collective effort, I can, you know, not only address the issues for myself but also for the family members. And which I think is a very, very powerful way in which the organizations have stepped up. And so this is something for those who are not doing it. I mean, that's one of the ways to think about it. How do you expand the role of the employer in doing something like this. The question I had is also, you know, the second piece that you mentioned before I forget that which is I like the fact that you talked about increasing awareness. I think sessions are made available, not just to the employees but also to the family members. And therefore, they begin to understand the importance of well being, you know, whether it has the physical well being spiritual well being a mental well being etc. You know, to me, there are four elements mind, body, heart and soul. When you look at that and you talked about one of the elements which is the social connectivity that the fact that we are isolated we have a need to go out and connect with people and engage with them. The question is, is that a problem that only extroverts have or is that a problem that introverts have. What is your take, you know, who gets impacted more by this isolation. Yeah, so it's a very tricky one. Why extroverts will feel that, you know, very explicitly that you know, if I, if I was going to party today at a friend's home I'm not able to do that now. Or if I'm the center of attraction in my whole office, I'm not able to do that anymore. But even introverts. So there's a saying that introverts are extroverts in their own circle. Right. So, while if you talk about introverts, they would at the outset, you know, seem like people who would not talk to anyone. But when it comes to people who they are comfortable with, they would at least find so less talking to those people, talking to people who care for them talking for people who understand them. And therefore, even now, when introverts are also not able to connect with that social group, I think that is also impacting the social and the mental well being. Abhijeet, I think you also, you know, written a book around it and there might be a lot of research that you must have done, you know, come to a beautiful book that you've written. So, can you can you just also talk about some of the, you know, while everybody will have to go and read that book to get that data. But, you know, what are some of the instances that you must have felt are important in this space where who are getting impacted, who is getting the most impacted with this whole shift in social change where people are not able to meet their friends and companions. And how employee well being is sort of become more important in the last three, four years. You can share some instances, some excerpts in your book. Yeah. So one of the things Akash is that, you know, when I was looking up this whole question, interestingly, it is the introverts who seem to be a lot more impacted because of the isolation. One of the things is because the extroverts find their energy, you know, they'll get on to the online forums, they'll do their zoom call parties, they do all of that. So the extroverts do find online life easier to adapt to and, you know, so they are sort of beginning to have these virtual parties and virtual coffee sessions, etc, all of that. For the introvert, it's been a little harder to engage with that. So, you know, the large gatherings even virtually have not really been of great help. So you are right that for them it is important to have a more of a one on one deeper conversation. So they are not really looking at, you know, engaging with 70 people online and feeling good about it, I think. So that was one part of it. I also think that, you know, one other element that I was struck with is the importance of the intangible elements, you know, the intangible elements that have come up are progressively becoming far more important in the workplace. And so there was a point of time when organizations understood physical well-being. But today when you look at well-being and I have for a bit worked with organizations in this whole space of well-being being defined in those four dimensions, as I said. And it is interesting, one of the one of the large consulting firms that I worked with. They used to actually have these sessions to build awareness. And then once you build awareness to make options available for people on each of these areas, you know, so mental well-being is addressed, physical well-being is addressed. Being able to connect with people is addressed and spiritual well-being is of course left, you know, to the person to address in the way they look. But at least three out of the four, the organization provided resources. So I did look at, you know, some of the best practices and in that. I, you know, I just really think that I wanted to move to another aspect of this that when people are, you know, when you look at this shift that has happened and you work in the area of change management, etc. So I'm very curious to know what you think. By the way, I think Miral also has another question, which is that looks like he says that looks like we started asking feeling questions as feedback from the employees. And Gallup has real-time data on struggling, surviving versus thriving. Do you have any data on the percentage in the Indian workplaces? You have on that price that something. Yeah, so Abhijeet, there was a, you know, very small glitch in my internet. So I couldn't listen to the first question that you had, but I was able to hear and see what Miral had to say. Yes, you know, organizations have now started to ask feeling questions, you know, and that as taking that as a feedback is one of the most important business drivers today. As I said, employees are the most critical resources, making sure that they are in shape both mentally and physically is one of the prime agendas of employers that have come out today. I do not have statistics on the Gallup survey specifically, but in terms of the research that my organization has done, and we do a lot of these research in organizations that we work with. You know, one of the, as I said, one of the prime important things that has come up that has changed in the organizations is their ability to listen to these employees. More than 90% of these organizations, more than all sizes, have increased or enhanced their employees' listening capabilities, either by bringing in tools, pulse surveys or chatbots who, you know, like you said, in the beginning of the session, when you're logging to your system in the morning, there's a chatbot that comes up on the screen and asks you how you are, how is your manager treating you, what's your workload and all of that. So we have seen more than 90% of organizations improving in that space, which meant that, you know, these many organizations were in fact lacking the capability to look at, to hear and listen to their employees very deeply, which is what they're doing now. So, you know, one element that seems to come across when I compare the response with all the previous guests in the series and season three, where we have been focusing on wellness in the workplace, very clearly, one of the things that seems to be happening is you're looking at being able to listen to employees is certainly is one of the key agenda items. It was not that important. And I don't know whether it had something to do with the fact that when, you know, people are right there in front of you, you don't specifically take out time to listen to what they have to say, whereas, you know, going online has created this option that it's, it's something that can be, you can respond to right away. Also, I think what has happened is in the last two years, the employees ability to work in an unsupervised manner, you know, they have a lot more autonomy. At one level, that is fulfilling. So that's one. But if you don't know, you know, whether what you're doing is right or wrong, it can be a source of immense stress. My hypothesis on that, and I have no data to say, so I will say that upfront. My hypothesis on this is that when you're on your own, you know, so somebody like me who's a who works for himself or his own organization. Autonomy is something that you, it means much more to you because you can define the boundaries in which you work. When you have autonomy, in an organizational context, possibly it, you know, if you don't periodically get feedback, what you're doing is right or wrong, it may be the cause of stress. Is that correct or not? I mean, Akash, you work in an organization, you see so many of your client setups. Is autonomy more valuable when you're working for yourself as compared to if you're an employee working for somebody else? Yeah, so if I talk about, you know, behavioral science to start with, studying organizations is a talk about behavioral science. There are different type of people, there are different type of employees. While there are employees who would, you know, like autonomy, autonomy boards well for them. But there are other set of employees who would either need hand-holding because not every employee is the same, not every employee is a high performer. There are employees which are low performers in the organization and there are employees who would want to improve if they're low performers. So therefore, you would need that hand-holding, sometimes school feeding and sometimes enough support from the seniors and supervisors in order to improve and go ahead in the organization. So there are different set of employees and, you know, when you talk about the psychology behind it, there are different set of personalities who fit well in the first section of the employees and there are different set of personalities which fit in the second section of the employees. As an employer, you need to be inclusive, you need to be, you know, sure of the fact that you're taking everyone together. So therefore, you know, while working at home, autonomy is something that has improved. The regular sort of feedback that should go to the employees is something which got missed in the initial some months when this pandemic started. And this is where the technical part of an org design comes in. So we have worked with a lot of organizations to design their feedback systems in order to ensure that we have more continuous feedback going to the employees in the organization. We make sure that not only the outcomes but also the efforts of these employees are recognized and appreciated. We have built in a lot of collaboration tools. So if you are an employee in an organization, if you don't see any of these tools and sort of initiatives taken by your organization, you can very well, you know, sort of reach out to your manager and say, this is what is happening in the industry. Why don't we have such sort of practices and to all the listeners out there, you know, that's a message. So therefore, you know, we have built in a lot of these tools and initiatives where organizations are now thinking about everyone and they're getting more and more inclusive every day. So that's what I wanted to say. Not every employee is the same. So while autonomy is good for some, it's not for, you know, all the people. Sure. Yeah, because, you know, and yeah, I think you've got a good observation on that because one of the things is that when there are people who move from very structured settings, very structured settings, let's say, you know, when somebody joins after being a student, they get into the workplace for the first time. One of the things they grapple with is that as a student, a lot of your life is fairly structured, you know, you need to go for this particular class at 9 o'clock, then 10 o'clock is this particular class. This is the time for a break. This is the time for exam. This is the time for, you know, your socializing. When you get into the workplace, these distinctions are not clearly laid out. And, you know, one of the biggest transition challenges that people have when they work for the first time is that, you know, they're struggling to figure out how to deal with this ambiguity. So you're right. It doesn't necessarily only work well because, you know, somebody is sort of doing that. Some people like that structure and it makes sense because some people don't like structure, some do. And which is where I think what you mentioned that org design, the right kind of org design can make a world of a difference. So this is a great case in point. I'm going to ask you a little bit about your own reading. You know, as a consultant, what kind of reading do you do to stay current? Tell us about some resources. What are some of the books that you've been reading in the recent times? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you listen to YouTube videos? What's your intellect? So, you know, there are many sources, right? I mean, there's not a single source which I can say that it's my favorite. But, you know, there are some of them which are very prevalent in my mind and, you know, I make sure that I don't fail on each of them every day. So the first one is being able to connect with my peers. You know, I'm not the only one who's working in this industry. There are a number of people getting equal or more amount of experience every day that they operate in, right? So therefore, I make sure that something that is coming out of people, something that is coming out of peers is very experiential in nature, very, very practical in nature. So therefore, I follow that 70, 20, 10 learning principle where, you know, 70% of the learning comes from peers and comes from experience on the job. Yeah. So that's, I think I try to learn more from what my peers have to say and what I learn from the job where I'm working at. But there are other sources of information. There are certain sort of portals and platforms where a lot of HR and all design talent related information is. What are some of the telesteams of South East. So for example, People Matters is one of those, you know, biggest platforms. SHRM is a worldwide platform, a strategic human resource management. And there are many other HR platforms where you would see experts and CHROs of multiple organizations bringing in their view. So like we, you know, are talking right now, there are these sort of interviews that are taken by industry experts, you know, from a particular segment of these CHROs and leaders of these organizations who are then, which are then posted to platforms like People Matters and SHRM where you can go read about it and even ask questions if you have any. In fact, you can post in your own case studies if they're getting selected, you know, they make sure that that is published on those forums. And if you have some interesting finding and experience, you know, that gets published and that's also helpful. So that's, you know, the second source of information that I do have. I think these are the primary sources of information. Apart from that, if I talk about books, yes, I do read a lot of books right from the time when I was in my B school about seven years back. I started reading about, you know, Dave Ulrich's books. Dave Ulrich is a stalwart in HR and all designs. So there are many other sort of writers and authors who you would find their books very interesting and conceptual in nature. You know, everyone says that, you know, whenever you want to do something, you need to learn the basics first and then to be able to put it on. So in order to ensure that my basics are always right, I go and brush up those concepts apart from making sure that I'm very much closer to the industry while I read and go through these borders and vaccines. Fantastic. You know, what are your personal habits for well-being? What is it that you do? Because, you know, consulting means lots of travel, lots of time away. At least it used to be that way. And it may have a marginally changed now. What are your personal tips for that? Before we come to an end, I just wanted to know your thoughts. No, absolutely. I think if we talk about, let's say a Maslow's hierarchy, it always says that hygiene factors are on the bottom. And today, health and safety and well-being is in the hygiene factor and it does not go in the social well-being part of the Maslow's hierarchy. So I think I give a lot of importance to health and well-being specifically now in these times when you know that you need to make sure that while you are outside, while you're working with a lot of clients and meeting a lot of people, your immune system should be robust enough to ensure that, you know, you don't catch up this disease. So therefore, I make sure that I go to gym every day, you know, and that's one of the things that I do not want to miss. You know, sometimes it happens a couple of days in the week when it's too stressful and you don't want to have a physical stress coupled with the emotional stress that you have had in the workplace. So sometimes I miss that, but you know, most of the times I do. In the last two years, I think one of the things that I am myself proud of is that I've worked on a lot on my diet. I have improved the nutrition sort of weightages that I take, you know, the composition that I have in my food. It's full of protein, full of carbs and all of that and good carbs, right? I mean, so I've had consultations with good dieticians to ensure that I have diet which is full of, let's say, plenty of fluids and proteins and all of that. So having a good diet and the last two, three years have been very important for me to ensure that I focus on these two things. So eating well and exercising is something that I do while there are a lot of things that people can do and there's no end to it. But working in an organization, working in a field which requires you to do a lot, work a lot and work for long hours. At least I find ways for doing these two things. Well, thank you very much and you know, it was lovely to hear from you, not just about org design, but you know, also the linkage eventually when you think about how org design also makes a difference in terms of the well-being of the employee. And also one of my big takeaways from what you mentioned, Akash, is that the role of the employer has actually expanded to care about not just the employee, but also the context in which the employee operates. So, you know, whether it is caring for the family members or the place where the person is operating because without that stress is going to be carried by the employee. And I think the awareness has built up a lot. And from a time when the employees would say that, you know, leave all your emotional issues need to be left behind, you know, when you come into the workplace, the workplace is home now. So I think because view of the employees become far more holistic. So you really are looking at a workplace where you bring yourself to work. Thank you very, very much. I so appreciate you are doing this and you know, people will be in the comments. And if you get a time, you know, Akash will be lovely if you respond to those but thank you very much to our viewers for joining us in various places. I so appreciate it and see you again with yet another guest and Dreamers in Unicorn Season 3. Till then, take care, stay happy.