Reimagined Workforce - Workforce Transformation
How Nick Kennedy, Alicia Roach and Adam Gibson are raising the Strategic Workforce Planning profession globally
- Nick Kennedy, Chair of the Workforce Planning Institute
- Alicia Roach, Co-Founder of eQ8
- Adam Gibson, Head of Strategic Workforce Planning for EY
The Reimagined Workforce podcast is brought to you by Workforce Transformations Australia Pty. Ltd.
All opinions expressed are the speaker's and not the organisations they represent.
If you have a story about a workforce transformation to share and would like to be a guest on this podcast, please contact us at kathhume@workforcetransformations.com.au.
Connect with Kath Hume on LinkedIn
- Nick Kennedy, Chair of the Workforce Planning Institute
- Alicia Roach, Co-Founder of eQ8
- Adam Gibson, Head of Strategic Workforce Planning for EY
The Reimagined Workforce podcast is brought to you by Workforce Transformations Australia Pty. Ltd.
All opinions expressed are the speaker's and not the organisations they represent.
If you have a story about a workforce transformation to share and would like to be a guest on this podcast, please contact us at kathhume@workforcetransformations.com.au.
Connect with Kath Hume on LinkedIn
Hello everybody. Welcome to a very, very special episode of the Workforce Planning Institute podcast and the Reimagined Workforce podcast. This is a true collaboration with some great experts in the workforce planning industry globally. We are joined tonight by Nick Kennedy, who is the chair of the Workforce Planning Institute, alicia Roach, who is the co-founder of Equate, and Adam Gibson, who heads up Strategic Workforce Planning for EY. So welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.
Alicia Roach:Thanks for having us. I'm excited for this conversation.
Nick Kennedy:Great to be here, Kath. Great to be on this side of the fence as well.
Kath Hume:Yeah, I know I'm jealous. Okay, great to be on this side of the fence as well. Yeah, I know I'm jealous. So for the context of the conversation and for listeners, this conversation is about the Certified Practitioner Program for Strategic Workforce Planning, which people might be thinking. I haven't ever heard of this before. Maybe, maybe not, but we really wanted to provide some background information around the evolution of this certification program, why it's come to fruition and what you experts and gurus have done to make that happen. So I was wondering if we could start with you, alicia. Could you tell us about what the purpose of the certification program is?
Alicia Roach:Yeah, it's certainly a labour of love for us on the call.
Alicia Roach:You know, we're all experts in this area, dedicating our careers and our life's work to this space called strategic workforce planning, and I think it's really exciting because it's been a space, I think that has been I still call it emerging.
Alicia Roach:It's not fully matured in that it's not embedded in every single organisation yet there's still a lot of confusion as to what strategic workforce planning is versus other types of workforce planning and there's a kind of mishmash out there in the world of all things SWP.
Alicia Roach:So for us this is really exciting because it gives us a way to level set exactly what strategic workforce planning is and a way for individuals who are interested in it who also, similarly, have been working in it, you know, are interested in getting started All of that gives a way to kind of really create a uniform basis for exactly what it is, how you can become a part of it and how we can recognise those individuals and their contribution to the field in different ways. So, whether you're just a beginner all the way through to experts or evangelists, as I think we all have been called before, you know, it gives a basis to really create an understanding, a shared understanding and a community as well, which I think is really exciting about this absolutely, and I think that community is something that really, it's like this magnet that draws me to, that's for sure.
Kath Hume:Adam, can I talk to you? Can you talk to us about the reason for the certification? Why have you taken us down this road?
Adam Gibson:so the certification is something that I've been pushing for, trying to investigate, for about five years, um, and you know it was great that it was exactly the same thing that was on nick's mind. Um, you know, and so many others and you know, and alicia being part of that conversation and helping shape this has been absolutely key for us. What it does is sort of two things about it. There is that community part, which you've just mentioned and that people get to set themselves for a baseline. So, as Alicia was just saying, this is new. You know, this is new for a lot of organizations. This is new for a lot of organizations.
Adam Gibson:This is new for a lot of people um, it's embryonic in terms of the quality and standard that we're, that we're at now. Um, so people doing this may not know whether they're good enough. People who are doing this may not know is what I'm doing fit for purpose or am I just kind of like how I was doing at the start? I was just fumbling around in the dark going well, it does this work. Does this work? This provides a level set to go. You are at you. You know you are now at the standard that we would, that we would say that you're a practitioner. So, for an individual, they know that they are doing the right thing and continue to develop. It gives them that clear sense of feedback.
Adam Gibson:But there's also and this is probably the bigger driver for me is this impact on organisations, but also on the craft, when people have just done one single course and say, oh, I can do strategic workforce planning.
Adam Gibson:Like, just done one single course and say, oh, I can do strategic workforce planning.
Adam Gibson:Or perhaps they were in charge of someone who is in charge of someone else and that was the person doing strategic workforce planning, but they had strategic workforce planning in their job title and then they get hired by another organization to do strategic workforce planning and they do that badly well, that impacts the craft because you've got an organization who says, well, strategic workforce planning doesn't work here. We have to accept that as this embryonic body, it's different. If you brought in an HR person, you brought in a finance person and they made a mess of it, you go well, everyone's clear on what the standard is and this person hasn't met it. But for us, we get tarnished every time someone makes a mess of things. So it is so key for us to have that standard that we go this is, this is what we mean, this is the global standard. As a practitioner, as a leader and the individuals and organizations and industry and the craft of workforce planning knows what that looks like I think, adam, you've just reminded me.
Kath Hume:I remember a long time ago I listened to your episode of the Workforce Planning Institute podcast and I remember you talking about that. You were early in your career. You created your own processes because there wasn't anything else, and then people started asking you for what you were doing and there was that validation there for you that hey, I might be onto something, and I think that's really important for those of us in this space. If you are working in isolation, which strategic workforce planners often are, let's be honest to have that tribe and I think that what you said about the community, alicia, is really critical in being able to reach out and say this is what I'm doing, am I on the right track? But how good now that we've got this certification. But to be able to back us up and say I've really got evidence behind that, I know what I'm doing here.
Alicia Roach:Because I think, as Adam said as well, it's a bit of a damaged brand SWP because it has been kind of done differently, done maybe not truly strategic workforce planning. Like we've got some customers that can't even call it strategic workforce planning in their organisation because it's just been ruined the brand. And so I think I penned an awkward letter to strategic workforce planning a few years ago which I created a blog post about, but it was yeah, can I rebrand you to something else, my poor, damaged friend. And I think what Adam's said is hit the nail on the head how do we kind of create that baseline and that quality kind of and that education of people so they feel confident that they are doing strategic workforce planning?
Kath Hume:Because so much of it is confident and you're going to be dealing with so many stakeholders and it's really critical that you go in there feeling that confidence so you can have those conversations. Excellent, all right. So can you tell me, nick, I'll go to you. Can we you talk to us about the criteria that's been established and maybe you can also talk to us about how you came up with that criteria?
Nick Kennedy:yeah, okay. So I guess one of the ethoses behind the Workforce Planning Institute is that we ask more than we tell. So, acknowledging what both Adam and Alicia have said so far on the podcast, strategic workforce planning is a relatively young discipline. So to go out and say you know, there are people around who know everything is is you know and they're right and their way is the right way, is is not, is not accurate. So what I thought was well, why don't we get you know the best in the world to to provide input into you know how to recognize and acknowledge the experienced practitioners in the space, how to recognise and acknowledge the experienced practitioners in the space, how to acknowledge the global education programs that we know are decent, have the right rigour and assessment associated with them, and how do we wrap that up into a process that will allow people to traverse different pathways and have their experience or their education recognised globally? So I think, if you think about the dynamic here, the need or the demand to use a very pertinent phrase for strategic workforce planning is exploding and will continue to explode, but the enabling infrastructure behind the profession hasn't kept pace with that, so it hasn't grown at a slow rate like other professions, have over hundreds and hundreds of years right. So we have to pedal and pedal and pedal really quickly to catch up and make sure that the community has something to hang its hat on. To catch up and make sure that the community has something to hang its hat on, so it has something to say.
Nick Kennedy:Well, here's how we recognise a robust set of criteria to acknowledge people as accredited practitioners. So that's split into five main areas, kath, and really you need to satisfy four of those. So you can either look at the pre-existing qualifications so we've got our three main programs out there that we've had a look at the syllabus for or some of us have been involved in the design of, and we said if you've come from one of those, you might need to do a little bit of bridging. But basically you know that is half the battle, that is half the credential. Now, if you haven't done that study and some of those are master's programs and they're a fairly significant commitment you may well have the practical application and the experience within strategic workforce planning to fall back on. So you can either have done the education or you can have done the work, and so you know it's really either of those that we look at first and foremost to say well, you know, will your experiences stand up to, you know some assessment or what sort of education pathway have you come through, um?
Nick Kennedy:So the qualifications piece is easy, you know. Have you got the? Have you got the, the degree from the university of new south wales in canberra, or the accreditation from the cipd, or the masters from the naval business school, um, and that's pretty cut and dried. The experience is a little bit more complex. So we have a set of criteria that we will use to assess a practitioner when they come through the program. So that's really around their personal accountability, and Adam touched on that before. Are they doing the doing or are they a really small cog in a very large wheel? Or are they managing or are they leading, or are they not actually getting involved in a hands-on capacity?
Alicia Roach:Or they've hired consultants.
Nick Kennedy:Exactly their track record of success. So not only were they successful, but but how are they measuring that? Um, the the validity of the strategic workforce planning approach? So is it either a known approach and methodology or is it something that is logical? Um, how have they used data and analytics to inform the process? And then then that brings in to play things like demand forecasting, understanding, supply, all those key metrics as well as the other generic data analysis, and then how they engaged stakeholders and acknowledged that strategic workforce planning is a business planning process. So that's really how someone's experience is assessed.
Nick Kennedy:And then really, depending on whether you want to be acknowledged as a leader, you can present a capstone project that says you know you've done something, end to end and lead a function. That's optional. And the other thing we really want to understand is the practitioner's commitment to the space and their contribution to the space. So how do they help others? How do they share knowledge? Do they plan on hanging around for a reasonable period of time and acknowledging that not everyone's going to spend a whole career in SWP? If they don't, how are they going to stay connected to the space?
Alicia Roach:Not buttons for punishment.
Nick Kennedy:like us, Exactly right Slaves to the profession, not buttons for punishment like us. Exactly right Slaves to the profession. That's right. So that's the overview in terms of how it's assessed. There is an option where, kath, you can come and do some learning and get certified along the way. So through our pilot program, we identified a pool of people who'd expressed interest, who didn't have the practical application and hadn't done the qualification. So we reached out to the CIPD, who is one of our qualified pathway practitioners, and said why don't we arrange to have interested parties come into our process and then leave it temporarily and do your accredited program and then come back through? So those practitioners get access to additional coaching and support through tutorials that they don't normally get through the online self-paced CRPD program. So that's a really nice collaboration that's come out of it and it means that it gives people more options in terms of getting the post-nominal.
Kath Hume:I like that. It's so personalised that people can come in and tailor it to their need. Is there anything around timing? So what are your expectations around timing? I guess that depends on where people are starting from yeah, it does.
Nick Kennedy:Um, you know, having your um experience assessed and then going through a process that involves an interview and involves a few little checkpoints, but but nothing overly time consuming. That that can happen, you know, in in a number of of months, um, realistically, there is a bit of admin that sits behind this stuff, so it's probably not weeks, um, and it would have to be a pretty cut and dried case, um, and then, of course, if you're going to do some of the education along the way, then that that takes a lot longer. For example, to do the cipd's course is around 70 hours of learning, adam, you know this better than I do. You've, for example, to do the CIPD's course is around 70 hours of learning, adam, you know this better than I do. You've got 12 months to do that. So that's an example of what it could take to go through the process.
Kath Hume:And I'm interested. So you're the Global Certification Committee. Why a global qualification or certification? What's the importance of that?
Nick Kennedy:I might throw to Adam or Alicia on that one.
Adam Gibson:Just look at who you've got on screen. You know it's morning for some of you, it's morning for me, it's evening for all of you. You know we are a global group. You know. You sort of see. You know, just look at, you know where the Workforce Planning Institute plays in terms of, in terms of its conferences. We are, you know, we are a global practice, we are a global community. So, you know, let's set that, let's set that global standard.
Adam Gibson:I think by doing so we can be really clear, because you do, we do hear this from some areas of oh well, in our area it needs to be slightly different. We're special and it's like no, you know, if you get right into the niche, yes, you're not going to use the template from them over to you, it's just going to annoy your stakeholders. Fine, get that. But the approach, the method, the framing, it's all you know, it's all broadly the same and that's what has been a helpful baseline for all of us when we've put this together of, you know, even doing this across different organizations in different parts of the world. We're all pretty clear on these. Things need to exist for you to be able to call this strategic workforce planning. If not, it's just bright ideas club, maybe with a bit of data thrown in and I think the reality is these days.
Alicia Roach:You know, uh, geo doesn't matter. Like you can be in a different country I'm split between austin and australia I could be anywhere in the world and working for a customer, people work from anywhere. So having something that recognises the mobility and the reality of where work is today just makes sense. You know, we can't just go this applies only in this country, as Adam said. That just isn't the case. It's a uniform kind of approach.
Alicia Roach:We're doing a discipline called strategic workforce planning and so having geospecific instances of that just would be nonsensical. So for us it really makes complete sense to create the global standard here and the bar that people need to reach, and I think it's so exciting. As Nick said, it just gives that global baseline for everyone to be clear on, and I think we want it to be something that, as Nick said, it's a post-nominal, you get it at the end of your name and it's recognisable, and organisations looking to enter this space or hire or whatever, can instantly see and get that credibility and recognition. Oh, we're hiring this person from Brussels, or we're hiring them from Mexico or wherever, and we know that they've been through a rigorous process of certification, and that's the power of this yeah, and that transferability, like I like that you'd be able to pick it up and move to another country and have it recognized.
Kath Hume:Um, there's not many qualifications that you certifications that do that. I don't think it.
Alicia Roach:It's hard, yeah, like I'm a chartered accountant but that doesn't translate directly to the US or the UK without some sort of adjustment process. And, yeah, I think for this profession, this is just such a huge leap forward.
Kath Hume:I was talking to someone the other day but I was just saying how interested I was when we were doing some planning during COVID and talking to other countries and just being quite fascinated by oh actually it's all the same problem. There's nothing. Yeah, there's things that are contextualised, but really workforce challenges are workforce challenges and the process and the ways we solve those challenges doesn't really have a great deal of variability.
Alicia Roach:That's so true and Nick and Adam can attest to. Nick's been running these global strategic workforce planning events and we're getting you know hundreds of people in the room doing strategic workforce planning from all across the globe. And it's like therapy because literally people are facing the same challenges, the same things with data or stakeholders or whatever, and it's just honestly like so warming for me to be in a room with all these people facing the same things, doesn't matter where you're from.
Kath Hume:Yeah, do you know? The other thing? You've all, I think, mentioned how this is an emerging field. What really amazed me was the difference in maturity from the 2021 conference to the 2022 conference so I'm talking Australian ones but the maturity level in that 12 months was phenomenal, the gains that has been made. So I think the timing is right to be putting this out there so people can get on board, because I think I worry about organisations that might not be have their focus on this and might not be making it a priority. So on that, actually could you talk to me maybe, alicia, because I know I think you can probably talk to this in your sleep and probably do but just the organisational benefits of strategic workforce planning. So why do we want to embed this in our organisations?
Alicia Roach:Yeah, it's a great one, and one that I'm hugely passionate about and I think is why I'm still here in this space, despite the aforementioned challenges because, at the heart of it, strategic workforce planning goes to what I think is the most fundamental question for any organisation what's our purpose and what's it going to take to achieve it? And that to achieve it part is recognising that the workforce is the execution vehicle for your strategic, your transformation and your operating imperatives, and so SWP creates that inherent link, so that we are creating that connection and we are ensuring that we can achieve what we need to as an organisation, because the reality is, success is not guaranteed. I think it's like 13% of organisations achieve their strategy, which is scary. 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail, and these are all the things that organizations are so focused on, and and a lot of the reason that they don't hit the mark on these things is because they haven't created that connection, which is why strategic workforce planning is so important.
Kath Hume:And one of the things I'd be interested to hear maybe you can talk to us, nick, about having a plan versus implementing the plan, and how important it is to see it through to fruition. So, nick, do you see that we're getting better at that?
Nick Kennedy:I do. I think what we've seen in the program so far is that there's still an opportunity to nail down the measurement piece. I still think that it's not easy measuring strategic workforce planning at a meta level and you know there's no one metric. I certainly think we're seeing more conference sessions from large organizations around execution, strategic workforce doing. You know those sorts of things. You know we are seeing successful initiatives start to happen. I think the challenge is really around how do we measure this effectively so that we know we're doing it right yeah.
Alicia Roach:Hmm, it's a huge one, because the thing with strategic workforce planning that we say is upstream thinking. So the analogy we use, which is a little evocative, but if there's people floating down a river drowning and someone's there getting them out and rescuing them, you get a pat on the back and you're a hero, you've done the urgent problem of the day, you've solved the problem. But the person that steps back and goes, hang on. Why are people coming into the river in the first place? That's a change in mindset, a different way of thinking. And then the person that goes and stops that and puts in safety nets or whatever, it then becomes hard to go.
Alicia Roach:Well, who are we actually saving from falling in next year? It's kind of necessarily almost intangible because it is upstream thinking and it is looking to the future. And strategic workforce planning is going well. We're making sure you've got the right capability, the right capacity, the you know in place for you to do what you need. But going back and going well, would we have not had that if we hadn't done strategic workforce planning? You know, three years down the track, it's kind of hard to go. We're going to pinpoint this exactly on strategic workforce planning for a job well done. So it's kind of a tricky one, but you know there are ways to prove out the value. But it is tricky. It's a lot more obvious when it's not, there isn't it than when it's there and it's being done right.
Nick Kennedy:I mean, the lack of noise is an obvious one, but there aren't as many indicators that it's going right as there are that it's going wrong.
Adam Gibson:There's probably two points I'd make on it. The first is we've got to recognise, almost before Nick came along with the Workforce Planning Institute, we were existing from a conference position solely within the people analytics space, and we've got to remember that much of people analytics is about the clever, not what was the result in the workforce. There are a few presentations that were about that are. Let me give you five minutes on how we cleverly solve this to look at the workforce impact. The majority of the conversation is this is how we unpicked and solve this problem, which is the really, really interesting bit, but you rarely get to the delivery part. The clue isn't in the title strategic workforce planning.
Adam Gibson:For so many years people have talked about okay. So therefore the point is in the plan. You know that we've got a wealth of books behind me there are that are around, you know that describe strategic workforce planning. You know, across many decades, um, and the reason I wrote that was purely because you know was a we're stopping at the plan and it's not about the plan. The point of strategic workforce planning isn't to create the plan point. Strategic workforce planning is to create the workforce that delivers the outcomes, and for so long we've just sort of stopped a plan again. That's that's what this certification does. It creates that baseline you know nick was sort of saying about. You know some people might go well, I've done this, I've done this course, I've done strategic workforce planning a bit. Can I be a practitioner? And one of the things that we'll check on is well, to what extent has this been implemented? Has have you delivered this? How is this tracking? And if people like scooby--Doo right, we're wrong, then we're going to be like saying there's a bridge you need to cover.
Kath Hume:And providing them with the tools and the support to be able to do that. Have you got any plans to expand it or have you got any updates coming?
Nick Kennedy:Well, I think there's a great opportunity to uh refine, uh the approach and the criteria as we go along um to a degree. I also think that there's a huge opportunity to get um some simulation and some gamification involved. So, you know, there are emerging products that we're looking at I'm looking at at the moment that look at creating a simulated SWP scenario and give the user an opportunity to try a few different iterations of that until they line things up. So I think we'll see that creep into not only the Institute's training in a lighter version, but the three of us will get together and see whether there's merit in having something. That's forms part of the assessment where you've got to, um, you know, review a scenario and and play around with a few bees and see how close you can get to to the optimal response I've got a gamified product that does just that, oh wow.
Kath Hume:Here's one I prepared earlier. You have it. That's fine, and we talked before about the emerging trends, so we're seeing lots of maturity. What's on the horizon next? Where should we be looking? What should we be turning our attention to in terms of strategic workforce planning?
Adam Gibson:Shall I just say AI planning. So I just say ai, um, look, I mean this. This is going to be the, this is going to be the, the push there's. Look, there's the impact of ai on workforce and what that means for strategic workforce planning. The second, the second bit, is going to be how does the art of strategic workforce planning change in light of generative AI? I think this is one that people are going to play with to see whether there's any merit, whether there's any merit behind it, and it will either take off or it won't. I think what I've seen already is the ability to use generative AI to help with scenario formulation. I've done that. I think that is helpful, reminded of these views that, um, ai isn't, you know, isn't in, isn't the intelligent thing, um, and therefore you're not quite necessarily getting the right answer, but I think it's. You know, we can't, we can't progress and not talk about ai being a trend.
Kath Hume:Yeah, I think it's a really interesting call out when you said, um, it's an art. So I think it's that human element that we need to bring. And what I find interesting about strategic workforce planning and part of the attraction for me is alicia I think it was you who mentioned it was data science initially and it's evolving and, um, it's such a comprehensive set of skills and capabilities that you need to bring to this profession. And so, yeah, ai will support us, I expect, and let's see what happens in how that will. And I love the idea of the scenario generation Adam, but I think it's never going to replace us because of that art side of things.
Kath Hume:We really need that creative thinking to say, okay, but what does that mean? And having those really rich, robust conversations with stakeholders to understand why we care about this. And Alicia, we talked about strategic workforce planning is all around. What's the purpose of our organization? Why do we exist? That's at the heart of what we're trying to do, so we really need to have those humans in the space, albeit supported by the AI.
Alicia Roach:Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think it's, yeah, art and science kind of comes together in this beautiful discipline and I think the AI is such a great enabler and I think it'll really create some efficiencies in SWP itself, which is so exciting. And you know us at Equate, we're leveraging that as we speak. But I think, for me, where I kind of see a lot of it going is, you know, the dream is that every organisation is doing strategic workforce planning one day. You know it's not misunderstood anymore, people understand what it is. They see the power and impact and it's a must-have, must-do.
Alicia Roach:But to that end end, it needs to be dynamic, um, and I think not just a um, one-time, one-off project. It needs to be something that reflects the dynamic world that we live in, the constant change, the, the fact that you wake up tomorrow and something's on the news feed that could impact your industry or something's happened. We need our workforce plans to be equally as dynamic. And I think that's for me, where I, you know, really see the impact and power of SWP and it moves organisations from that knee-jerk reactivity which so many are in. We see the headlines every day about these knee-jerk decisions that large orgs are making and it's damaging to humanity. And I think getting organizations to lift their gaze out of this kind of mo? Um, to think differently, to do the upstream thinking, to have the different conversations, uh is is where it's at. So, yeah, it's an exciting time.
Kath Hume:I think too, Nick, if I can go back to a point you mentioned around it's harder to see what the impact of good strategic workforce planning is, but you can definitely see it when it's not there or not being done, and I think that's going to become a differentiator as we move forward and an increasing gap between the people who are prioritising it within their organisations and ensuring that the people who have the responsibility for it have got the qualifications and the certifications that they need to have the consistent and standardised approach.
Kath Hume:And I do worry about those organisations and the people in them because, ultimately, for me, my love of strategic workforce planning is that people end up in jobs that they like and enjoy and feel like they're contributing to something that's meaningful to them, and I think that you know that's where I really feel like the work that you're all doing is really contributing to. You know you talk about humanity, Alicia. I feel exactly the same way. This is, it's kind of our bit. We spend so much time at work in our lives. How beautiful is it that this profession enables us to make a difference in people's lives, in their working lives.
Alicia Roach:It's so cool. I was on a webinar today talking about the future of performance and, and you know, just in that conversation, in creating the future of performance and and you know, just in that conversation, in creating that alignment of people and purpose, it's like the individual good and the collective good become one. You know we're united and we're moving in the same way and I think that's just such a an inspiring place for organizations to aim. And I would love one day you know where people you know it becomes an EVP. Swp becomes a differentiator for talent. People go. Well, I'm not going to go to this organization where they do layoff after layoff every month because they've got no strategic workforce plan. I'm going to go to this other organization where I can see that they're doing it because they've got these people, you know, or with this certification or something like that, like, like. How cool would that be?
Nick Kennedy:A bit of a mouthful, Alicia, the SWPE VP, but I'm sure we'd get past that.
Alicia Roach:Go for it whatever, Totally a thing.
Adam Gibson:Look, we've got to remember on all this that you know I'm not arrogant enough to think that an organisation that doesn't have accredited people doing strategic workforce planning can't get some things right some of the time. There isn't anything that exists now that didn't start as people doing the work before it became a profession, before it became credentialized. So what we're doing is no different from. You know, people were doing finance related things before finance became a profession, before people created accredited certifications and accreditations around finance. So it is the way of all things and, yes, without having any of that framework and guidance, some people can get some bits of it right some of the time. We all, we all get this, but we all get the value of. Well, let's help the people who are going to be spending the majority of their time doing this get more of this right more of the time, because we all recognise the value that that creates.
Kath Hume:Excellent. Well, I do think we are running out of time. Does anyone have any last concluding thoughts before we wrap up?
Nick Kennedy:um, oh, because I think it's um. You know we're, as you know, we're open to sort of conversations with with um potential um participants around this. So you know you can have a conversation with the workforce planning institute around what the best pathway is for you. So you can submit a CV without any obligation, have the team review your background, have a conversation with you and then come back to you with a tailored recommendation that says we think the non-qualified pathway is perfectly appropriate for you, we think the get qualified pathway is your best option, and so on and so forth. So's important to realize that the program is open to members. So you do need to be a professional member of the institute to apply and then, when you're successful, your membership's upgraded. So those are commercially available on the website. But we can't obviously leave this membership category commercially available because otherwise you could just buy it and there's your post nominal, um. So you know, join up um, but you don't need to be a professional member to have that initial conversation.
Kath Hume:So, um, you know there are details on the website where you can book a call, so it's pretty easy to go through um what the process is with one of our people and I will add those um, the links, the links to the website into the show notes and I'll also add your LinkedIn profiles for anyone who wants to follow you and I strongly recommend that people do, because if you really want to be at the cutting edge and understand where this industry or profession is going, these are the people who you need to be watching in this space and very inspirational all three of them as well. So thank you very much for your time and thank you for all that you do for the rest of us and for leading us and making us feel like we've got some capabilities to follow in your paths.
Nick Kennedy:Thanks, Kath.
Alicia Roach:Amazing. Thank you Thanks.