Eleanor Gooding on managing redundancies in a human-centred way

[00:00:00] Sarah: Speak to the Human is a podcast that explores how we build connections with people in their professional work. It's about the human experience at work and about how to foster that connection and belonging to support people and their organizations to flourish. I'm your host, Sarah Abramson, and I'm looking forward to you joining me in hearing from our brilliant guests.

[00:00:29] In this episode, I talk with Eleanor Gooding people and culture director at Boost Drinks. We're tackling the topic of redundancies and how to do them well by keeping humans at the heart of everything. It's of course a tricky and emotional topic, and that means it's often one that people avoid talking or even thinking about very much.

[00:00:50] We start off by talking through the amazing work Eleanor did in developing a positive culture at Boost Drinks, including implementing a people manifesto. Then we move on [00:01:00] to the more recent story of the company being bought out and going through job losses, and she explains how that foundational work on culture became so vital for supporting people through the change.

[00:01:12] Obviously, going through redundancies is incredibly difficult, both for people being made redundant, but also for leaders and managers. So how can you think about approaching the whole process in a way that is sympathetic, considered, and supportive, and leads to better outcomes on both sides? I found this conversation really insightful and valuable, and I'm sure you will too.

[00:01:35] As always, please do drop me a line with any suggestions for future guests.

[00:01:47] Hi Eleanor. Thanks for joining us on Speak to The Human. So you and I met back in the summer at our in-person event in Cambridge. Speak to the human. Where you joined our speaker lineup, and I know you had a [00:02:00] real impact on people in the room. You provided lots of thought provoking ideas and a really interesting structured approach to how to build, um, and nurture a, a really positive organizational culture, as well as sharing some very meaningful personal input, which I, I know we all really appreciated.

[00:02:18] And since then, things have changed substantially for you and that that will give us kind of the main thread of our conversation today. But, um, before we get into that, um, it'd be great to have a bit of background about you and the roles that you've worked in.

[00:02:33] Eleanor: Hi, thanks for having me here today. And, uh, yeah, I absolutely loved speaking at the event in June and I really enjoyed the other speakers that you had there as well.

[00:02:42] It was such a positive day, so I'm really chuffed to be asked to be on this podcast.

[00:02:46] Sarah: Oh, that's fab. Yeah,

[00:02:48] Eleanor: yeah. No, it's, it's, um, yeah, it was a really great event. So, so yeah. So a little bit about me. I will. Try and keep this as a concise, somewhat linear history. [00:03:00] I actually left school with the idea in my head that I was gonna be an artist and I took a, um, a foundation in art and then I got sucked into a bit of traveling.

[00:03:13] One thing led to another, I, I don't really think I was the right fit at the time for education. And I ended up moving to Canada and I went to art college there for a bit. I started working in retail and then I kind of spent years flitting back and forth between Canada and the uk and all that time I worked in retail and I did move quite quickly into management, managing quite big teams at sometimes.

[00:03:40] And uh, it was really good actually 'cause I kind of cut my teeth on the front line of people management. And I think that's been really, really important to my whole career. Um, and it's, it make, I've never forgotten what it's like to be. In front of customers on the, you know, the front row.

[00:03:58] Sarah: Mm. So [00:04:00] important.

[00:04:00] Eleanor: Yeah. So, so it was really good. And I worked for some big brands at the time that did really good training programs, and I just started leaning towards training and development. And then I got an opportunity in one of the companies that I worked for to train everybody in customer service, which I made up the training, uh, and, and it went really well.

[00:04:18] And then I kind of budgeted up with my manager and managed a cultural change in that whole business. And I kind of looked back at that and say, well, I don't know if I was equipped to be doing that at the time, but it worked really well and it really kind of gave me an opportunity to leapfrog my career over into hr, which is where I spent years.

[00:04:43] I, I worked in companies both in the, in Canada and the uk. I've worked in companies and also consulted with companies, most of them SMEs. So I ended up joining Boost Drinks in Leeds, which is a functional drinks [00:05:00] company, um, in 2018. And I was the first people role, obviously they were doing people stuff before I joined, but they didn't have a dedicated role.

[00:05:10] So I've been there ever since in the people and culture director role. Mm-hmm. When I arrived at Boost, my mandate was that the leader, the owner, founder, Simon Gray, wanted to work on a cultural agenda. He was really bought into it, but didn't know what he could do or how to do that. So I came into a business that on the, from the outside, it looked like, and I think it felt this way inside too, a place where people love to work, where they were doing really fun things where people got to make an impact in their role.

[00:05:47] But it was like many businesses, especially SMEs that grow organically, it was a place where, where the culture had grown kind of like a garden. Um, and the [00:06:00] culture just was what the culture was. So there were some kind of norms and things that went on there that were really healthy and vibrant and lovely.

[00:06:08] And other ones that probably meant that the company wasn't necessarily as efficient as it could be, or people didn't feel as empowered as they could, or we didn't have the mechanisms to deal with problems as well as we could and so on. So I led the process of kind of defining the culture that we wanted to have to deliver on a long-term vision that Simon had for the business.

[00:06:33] Mm-hmm. And that's what we worked on for several years. And I can't take credit for everything we did. I mean, to have a leader that was bought into that agenda in the first place was invaluable.

[00:06:45] Sarah: Yeah, I remember first meeting you, we met at a conference in Manchester last, that's right. Last year. And, uh, you were with Simon, but I remember you talking about him actually, I think after he'd, he'd, he'd gone.

[00:06:56] Um, but saying like how [00:07:00] significant it is working with a leader who is open to change, open to input, or somebody that makes suggestions and they're received positively and willing to kind of give something a go or, yeah. And, and that kind of mindset, that kind of attitude gives you the opportunity to, um, to explore things, to, you know, to try things out, even if you then backtrack on them.

[00:07:25] Eleanor: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, do you know what, that's such an important piece of the puzzle and, and it's one of the things where, you know, I do speak at a fair few events, and it's one of the things over the years that I get asked again and again, which is how do you get your leader to buy into this? So if your leader's already bought in and.

[00:07:42] Um, knows what they don't know and is willing to be open and listen. It is, it is. That's where the magic can kind of happen, I think.

[00:07:51] Sarah: And it's been very interesting. So I, I heard you speaking at that conference in Manchester that just mentioned, and then you did a version of that talk and you came to Cambridge as well.

[00:07:59] And, [00:08:00] uh, you took a, a very, very sort of considered and quite structured approach to developing culture, which was fascinating to sort of see it broken down into those stages. Did you conceive that from the beginning or is it kind of reflecting back on what you did?

[00:08:14] Eleanor: I think it was somewhere in between.

[00:08:16] Mm-hmm. Uh, there were some things that I had done in the past that I knew I should do upfront. And so one of the first things that we did really early on in my days there was to define what we wanted the culture to be like. Mm-hmm. And, and it's always got to be strategic. You always have to be saying, you know, who is gonna own this?

[00:08:35] And, and, you know, why are you doing it? What you trying to achieve? So we, we did define the culture. Early on, according to the vision that we had. So, you know, if we want to achieve this vision of being the chosen brand in functional drinks or whatever we were playing around with as the vision at the time, if we, if we were aiming for that, then what kind of culture would deliver on [00:09:00] that?

[00:09:00] And we thought about that for a long time. It was a piece of work that took quite a long time to actually put in place to get right. And part of it was because we knew what we wanted to do with it. We knew we wanted to make it a piece of work that everybody could share and be part of and participating.

[00:09:18] Because if everybody was participating it in it, we might actually achieve it. But it's an aspirational piece of work. The piece of work that you come up with, the description of what you want your culture to be like is you have to be somewhat down the road to achieving it. Before you can roll it out to people.

[00:09:41] 'cause otherwise they'll see it as such a far off thing that doesn't feel like something that they can relate to.

[00:09:47] Sarah: Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:48] Eleanor: You know? So we kind of had to wait for the right moment and figure out exactly what we wanted that to look like. But anyway, so once we had that created, it's something that the whole [00:10:00] leadership team needs to buy into.

[00:10:02] And then you can start to roll it out into the company and say, okay, so if we want to be this place where people can thrive, where everybody adds value to the business, where everybody can be themselves genuinely on a day-to-day basis where we can celebrate the good things and learn from the difficulties, you know, these kinds of statements, you can instantly, you could probably write a list of things.

[00:10:26] Ah, okay. Straight away to say, okay, well if you want it to be a culture where people can thrive, what does that mean? Mm-hmm. And you know. If you want it to be somewhere where people can continuously learn, what do you have to put in place for that?

[00:10:39] Sarah: Mm.

[00:10:40] Eleanor: You

[00:10:40] know, and, and I think, you know, so it is, it, I'm very careful with my words, especially when they're written down.

[00:10:49] And I try to look at the implications of those and the opportunities and those from every angle. And, and yeah, so, so there were things like that we put in place. And another thing [00:11:00] we did, although we did this further down the line, but I probably would do this the other way round if I was doing it all from scratch again, is we, we put in what we called, uh, the People Manifesto.

[00:11:14] We, we didn't love that name, but we couldn't think of a better one. Um, essentially I had several pieces of my work that I was doing, like the culture definition, and we had our values in place already, and I was expanding that program and I kept coming back to the fact that there was something in the background missing.

[00:11:31] And it was that I was making assumptions. About what I wanted our philosophy or approach to be when it came to people decisions and what we were trying to do overall. So we did a piece of work that, that then sat behind everything else that we did, which, which said these are what our be beliefs are when it comes to our people.

[00:11:56] So an example of one of these might be we, we believe that [00:12:00] your employment should be a rewarding experience. You know, we believe that being a high quality employer is worth the effort. You know, those kinds of things. And then, so the beliefs was the first part of that. The second part of that was, this is what you, we will pledge to you.

[00:12:17] So it, it will be, you know, we'll strive to be the best employer that we can be. We will work with you on problems and challenges and treat you first and foremost as a human being. You know, so it was things like that in that bit that we pledge and then there's the, 'cause there has to be a give and take.

[00:12:36] 'cause we're not a charity. There was what we expect from you. You know, we expect you to buy into our vision and help to deliver it, you know? Yeah. And it's things like that, that then you can come back to. And they're so useful in so many circumstances because then, then everybody understands that it's really transparent and it helps you as a leader because you can use it to guide you during [00:13:00] tricky situations.

[00:13:01] Sarah: Mm-hmm. And

[00:13:02] Eleanor: it helps everybody in the team because we've had people come to us who said, well, this is what our manifesto says, and this doesn't feel like what my experience is right now. And you, you have to dig deep. You have to really look in the mirror and go, yeah, do you know what you're right. So maybe we should do things differently.

[00:13:19] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:13:20] Eleanor: So that was really rewarding.

[00:13:21] Sarah: I think people really appreciate that kind of clarity. And sometimes clarity isn't there, it's absent or it's. Things are just not clear enough. So having something that's that clearly spelt out. Yeah. And available to people to see not just this kind of mysterious management philosophy that exists behind a door and you're sort of second guessing.

[00:13:42] I think that's really, really valuable and I think people appreciate it. I'm just, I would sort of slightly backtrack on the, the, what you've said about the culture and developing the People manifesto. It's really interesting. I'd, I'd like to sort of understand what your process was for doing it. Were you mainly [00:14:00] working with Simon on that?

[00:14:01] Were you consulting with people in the business as well? Or were you sort of try coming up with something that you were then gonna test and had you had a chance to draw on other examples that you'd seen? Or did you feel like, because I think it's actually unusual to be this explicit and clear. Um, I think, yeah.

[00:14:18] But had you seen other examples or were you sort of inventing something that you. Felt you wanted.

[00:14:25] Eleanor: Yeah. Do you know what I'm, I think it's a really good question and I'll, I'll, I'll answer that in a second. You might need to prompt me. Mm-hmm. But I think you've, you've just touched upon something that I don't want to lose in this, which is that, that importance of the clarity, and maybe it's a bit unusual to be that clear, and I honestly think the amount of times that I've, I've probably done five talks in the last two years where I've talked about the, the culture definition, but especially the people manifesto.

[00:14:51] When you can tell what people think by the questions they ask at the end of it, or the feedback that you get afterwards, I think it's scary to do [00:15:00] that, especially for bigger organizations. I think they, they think, well, yeah, but if we say that, then we're gonna have to do that. And what they don't realize is that those things exist anyway.

[00:15:12] You know, like we had assumptions, so if you, if you looked at the leadership team within Boost, there were six of us. For the majority of the time I've been in the company, we all had. A range of interpretations. So there was a scope, a scale probably of our understanding of these things, but we were more or less in the same ballpark.

[00:15:33] But what we had to do there was to narrow it down and go, well, this is, this is what we are actually gonna put the stake in the ground and commit to. And, and if it was too scary or too specific, we had to make it a bit bigger and a bit more open so that it could encompass a variety of different situations.

[00:15:49] Sarah: Did you find that in itself, sorry, this is like, did you find that in itself a positive process to go through? Absolutely. To put your heads together because

[00:15:57] Eleanor: you don't, I think, I think sometimes we just don't [00:16:00] realize these things are assumptions in the background, but of course they are. Yeah. You know, you, you are gonna make big assumptions about what really matters to the business and how you want to go about things and, and that exists in every business.

[00:16:10] And do you know, one of the things is it's different in every business. Some businesses might be about literally making as much money. As they can, as quickly as they can. And that's okay. That's a perfectly legitimate business approach. But in turn, there will probably be things that are assumptions in the background.

[00:16:31] Like they might not be spending that much money on their, on their people, and that might be okay, but what they might get in return for that is, you know, high turnover. So they need processes to be able to do that, but those things are all legitimate and they all exist. And, and so I, I, you know, one of the things you will have heard me talk about this probably twice, is understand the nature of your business and be okay with it.

[00:16:57] The nature of your business is, is [00:17:00] slow moving, really high quality? Great. If it's really fast turnover, you know, prepping a business to sell or just quantity over quality, that's fine, but just understand it and then go, okay, well what do we need to do to deliver that? How do we need to treat our people to deliver that?

[00:17:17] And. I think for me, those assumptions will all exist in, in the background and it, why wouldn't you, why wouldn't you go back and do that process?

[00:17:28] Sarah: Mm, I think that's so true. And uh, we are in a, a very interesting position of working with lots of different companies at ION with the work that we do. And you absolutely have to tap into the culture that exists in different organizations and it can be wildly different that if you try to run a type of approach or campaign or make assumptions that are valid in one organization and apply them to another, it's just not gonna work as effectively.

[00:17:59] You really have to [00:18:00] get into the skin of what are the values, what are the, what's the culture like here? What's gonna sit well with people?

[00:18:05] Eleanor: Exactly. Exactly. And I do come from a background of best practices. 'cause the company I worked for before Boost was an an HR that. Ordered an HR certification, and I got to be really nosy and go round and look at what a lot of big brands in the UK were doing for their people, which is a brilliant, brilliant job if you're nosy.

[00:18:26] Um, but, but what I have absolutely seen over the years is that a best practice for one company is poison for another. And, and that, you know, so, so yes, it's great to have things that we know work in one situation, but they don't have to work in every situation, and that's okay. So,

[00:18:41] Sarah: yeah, absolutely. So let me bring you back to that kind of, uh, idea of how you approached it and, and, um, thought about a, a way to design, you know, how to develop the, the culture and the people manifesto and what that looked like for you.

[00:18:55] Eleanor: Yeah, I think that, um, they, they were both pieces of work that [00:19:00] were primarily done by myself, Simon, the CEO, and Kirsty Burkes, who's, uh, the boost non-exec director. And she'd also worked in Boost before she was non-exec director. So she knew the company really well, but what we used were a, a combination of lots and lots of different things.

[00:19:20] So we, we are a company that, especially for an SME with a quite a small headcount really, we, we surveyed our people a lot and we would often throw in extra questions. Um, and we've surveyed them on what their, our values meant to them, on what tools they needed, what was working, what's not working. We've got them to work together in groups before about how to bring our vision to life.

[00:19:46] We've, we've done so many pieces of work that were collaborative with the whole company where we had a load of information. So I actually had quite a lot of things already there to go, we don't need to ask this again, 'cause we've already asked this. We already know [00:20:00] this. And then there were, there were places where we didn't know things, so we would often ask them.

[00:20:06] Or also there were times when we said, actually. It's okay for us as a leadership team to, to make this decision because ultimately we are leading a company and we're responsible for the decisions. Yeah. So it was a combination of those things, but really nice collaborative pieces of work. But the really important thing was, was the leadership team had to be able to get behind it collectively.

[00:20:29] We had to, and secondly, it had to resonate with the, the actual whole business. So mm-hmm. If we showed them something and they went, uh, we either had to bring them round to say yes, but this is why, or we had to say, we haven't got that right. And how

[00:20:45] Sarah: did you do that? How did

[00:20:46] you know

[00:20:47] what they thought

[00:20:48] Eleanor: we asked them?

[00:20:49] Mm-hmm. And it, it's, it is, it is that simple. Sometimes you, it is a boost, has a really lovely culture where people can come forward with stuff, ask [00:21:00] questions. We have suggestion box, which is anonymous online thing that exists all the time. And there's a physical one that's also can be anonymous in the office too.

[00:21:09] I think, you know, it is an SME with a headcount of about 35 because we mm-hmm. We outsourced our manufacturing, so quite a big well-known UK brand for functional drinks, but quite a small headcount really. We just knew how people were feeling most of the time. Um, and especially, you know, through COVID years and stuff like that.

[00:21:30] We just did a lot of surveying and we would apologize for that, but we'd say, look, we are doing things with these.

[00:21:35] Sarah: Do you think the same kind of thing could work in a larger organization? Yeah. But listeners that you know, are, are in bigger organizations and really want to understand what people think, do, can that kind of approach still work?

[00:21:47] And how, how might you do that? Yeah.

[00:21:48] Eleanor: I mean, I think, I think everything that I talk about and the things I've done are scalable if there's a will to do it.

[00:21:53] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:54] Eleanor: I think it just, the bigger the organization, the more I think [00:22:00] complex the piece of work gets. And I've seen companies that have done stuff like this, um, not necessarily the exact things that I'm.

[00:22:07] I've been doing a boost, but I've seen companies do be really peopley on a large scale and get it right. And I think, I think that it, yeah, I think you just have to think about it carefully and you have to be realistic about what can be done and what can't be done. You can split it down and do it almost in departments, but you have to make sure those departments all link back into the same harmonized overall experience.

[00:22:35] 'cause otherwise, you know, you're gonna get a tug and a push and a pull across companies, um, where it's not consistent. But I think ultimately for me, it would come back to what's your approach that you're taking here? And I am, we chose a boost very early on. I, I did get hired as the head of HR and we chose very quickly to change it to people and culture director because we [00:23:00] were genuinely believing that we were having a people and culture approach, not.

[00:23:03] A traditional HR approach, a new traditional HR approach has tended to build, build from the bottom up and be quite a process driven, um, function that kind of answers the needs and supports the needs of the business. And in a people and culture approach, I would say it tends to be quite a strategic down

[00:23:25] Sarah: mm-hmm.

[00:23:26] Eleanor: Uh, approach where you are putting your people and your cultural management at the heart as part of your business strategy.

[00:23:37] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:37] Eleanor: And I think that's, that's a subtle difference. And it, and, and you know, I've had this kind of debate with a couple of people in the past about, well, strategic HR can be strategic too, but I do think there's a different approach if you are actually embedding your people and culture as a strategic priority for your leadership team and therefore cascaded out through your business at whatever size that business [00:24:00] is.

[00:24:00] You'll get a different approach than if you are acting as a service function that is answering to business needs. And there's not one that's right or wrong, I'm just saying they're just different.

[00:24:11] Sarah: Yeah, yeah. No, it completely makes sense. As a, as a difference and a a different way of, of thinking about them.

[00:24:16] Um, so things have changed substantially for you over the last few months. Yeah. And we wanna explore those topics together, um, and particularly talk about redundancies. Yes. And bearing in mind all of the things that you've talked about and, and how, I know you've said how much that foundational work has been crucial to the, the, the period that you've gone through.

[00:24:42] So it would be fantastic to hear about all of that. Yeah. Um, let's start with the, the story of what's happened over the last few months. Yeah.

[00:24:50] Eleanor: Okay. So, so the context leading up to the LA to this year was that we kind of felt like we really, we really. Kind [00:25:00] of got to where we wanted with the, with the culture management, you know, it was quite a few years work.

[00:25:05] It makes it sound like it was really bad. It wasn't. It was, it was good to start with, but we just, it wasn't where we wanted it to be. But we got to a point where people loved coming to work. We felt like all of the behaviors in the business were acceptable or great. Um, and what I mean is that people could be, and were aligned with our, our behaviors, our values, our vision.

[00:25:30] They understood that it was a give and take with the people manifesto. They were trying to help be part of the culture and understood that they had their heads. But the parapets, they were responsible for their own role, you know, delivering something that helped us as a business. So every single person could, was asked in their review, for instance, how do you help us achieve our vision?

[00:25:50] And they could say that. And they couldn't have said that years before. So we hit this lovely point and, and we. It kind of peaked when we said, right, you know what, we're gonna go for an accolade [00:26:00] now. So we applied for the Times, best companies to work for, and we, we achieved that the first time we Oh, amazing.

[00:26:08] Which was brilliant. So that was kind of May, June, 2023. Mm-hmm. And one thing that happened in the end of 2022 was that Simon actually sold the business. Um, it was sold to a, an established company who's got a great reputation. And it was a business decision that I think it shook people up a bit, but it was all business as normal, business as usual.

[00:26:33] And so I think once everybody got past the, the, the initial surprise people understood anybody in Simon's position would've done what he did. And yeah. So life continued really, really well. And then the beginning of 20 this year, 2024. Mm-hmm. The company that bought us. Put a proposal on the table to integrate Boostings into their drinks [00:27:00] portfolio, which meant that our company was at risk and everybody's roles were at risk of redundancy.

[00:27:06] Um, I do want to say that this, I don't, in anything that I'm about to say, I don't ever want to question or be disrespectful in any way whatsoever to that decision because do you know what It's business decision. And I don't think any business that would've bought B strings at some point would've, wouldn't have looked and gone, well, there synergy's here, so there's too many to not do this.

[00:27:30] Um, so, so just because it wasn't great for people at Boost doesn't mean it wasn't a savvy business decision. And I think, I just wanna make that clear. But yeah, so, so that was the proposal and um, it was one of those things where I think with hindsight, people in the business said, well. It, I'm not surprised, but I am surprised at the same time.

[00:27:56] You know, this was always something that maybe could happen, but we didn't expect it [00:28:00] to actually happen. Um, I'd say, you know, you and I were chatting about this before the, um, before we started recording this podcast. The first thing that happened was, I knew about this obviously before the team knew about it, and I had the same reaction that anybody who was really highly engaged with their job, who loved coming to work, who loved the team, who loved my job, you know, I, I didn't feel like I was finished the things I wanted to do in the business.

[00:28:33] Um, I had the same reaction that anybody would have in that situation, which was shock, fear, grief, anger, all of those things. I mean, absolutely. And you know, I've, I've shared, I've shared this quite openly in the past that. I am neurodivergent, um, I'm autistic and a DHD and I'm not somebody who copes with uncertainty well at all.

[00:28:59] Mm-hmm. [00:29:00] And I was suddenly facing uncertainty, um, in a highly emotional situation that was going to result in loads and loads of people also experiencing these emotions and uncertainty. Yeah. And I, I, I'll be honest, I started to crash really quickly because I, I just don't operate well in situations where I dunno what's gonna happen.

[00:29:22] And also, I dunno if, you know, this is the way it happens, um, Sarah, but often what happens in situations of redundancy like this is that HR gets the news and has to go out there and do a lot of the legwork. And then when they finished, then they, then it happens to them at the end. Right, and I, I could read the proposal.

[00:29:45] I understood what the proposal was, and a proposal would result in our, on our, in our operating business closing. And so I knew that it applied to me, and so I very quickly realized, Hey, I'm spinning out of control myself here, and I've [00:30:00] got to lead this, and I've got to lead it positively and well. So I went to our mother company and said, please, can you, can you sort this out for me first?

[00:30:10] Because if you want me to go out there and be able to do this, I need certainty and I need to know where I stand.

[00:30:16] Sarah: I think, like I said, when we were chatting before we started recording, it reminds me of the oxygen mask on an airplane. Is that Yeah, absolutely. That moment where you realize. If you look after yourself first, then you've got a better chance of being able to lead and manage through something that's going to be challenging.

[00:30:31] So, um, the self-awareness that that's taken at that point when everything's feeling overwhelming is really good. Yeah.

[00:30:40] Eleanor: Yeah. And it was important, and I think I've got something that's been going round in my head, which is, we as employers these days, we expect a lot from our people. We, we want them to engage.

[00:30:53] Like every employer wants a situation where everybody in their team can engage with the business. But, but those are [00:31:00] such easy words to say. And when you actually pull that apart, what does that mean? I mean, you are asking for people's time and their skills and their attention. You are asking for them to care.

[00:31:12] But I actually think that people don't say this, but people can love properly, fall in love and have a, an actual connection with their job. Where, and it's not just their coworkers, it's, it's the whole, they bought into the entire thing. And that's the situation that we were facing. That's what I felt the way I felt, and that's why I knew I had to be in good shape to help other people through that.

[00:31:36] Sarah: That's so interesting. Yeah. And I'm, I suppose it, it really is true. It's a, becomes a part of who you are, doesn't it? It's part of your identity. And when things are going well and you've thrown yourself into the, to the job and you love your colleagues and you are really invested in the work you're trying to achieve, very difficult then to feel like you're somehow gonna be severed from it.

[00:31:57] That's such a, it's quite [00:32:00] actually traumatic. Yeah. You know, aside from the kind of practical level of how am I gonna carry on earning in a few months, it's actually, there's an identity thing attached to that too. It, it's

[00:32:10] Eleanor: grief. I mean, I, I honestly think it's grief and you go through the stages that you do of, of grief.

[00:32:16] I mean, I've already touched upon some of those, but, um, and I think that this is where the. This is where I felt that I wanted to talk to you about this today.

[00:32:28] Mm. As

[00:32:29] Eleanor: the topic that was foremost on my mind is because if we expect people to engage in this way, and then we end up in the redundancy situation for whatever reason, then often it's just, there's a, it's almost like the business will often kind of step back a bit, um, because you have an, an emotional situation where people have engaged and they're very human.

[00:32:54] But then you have to go through a process that has to be legally driven. You have to have [00:33:00] certain stages and steps to it. And I'm not talking about those steps today other than, you know, I can give you a nutshell for what we had to go through. But, but then what happens is that whenever a conclusion is reached or even during the process, it's like we suddenly step back.

[00:33:21] And it's like we suddenly behave in a different way because there's this really awkward, uncomfortable, unhappy situation and that's awkward and uncomfortable and they're happy to deal with. So, you know, like when somebody dies and nobody says anything because they don't know what to say or they, they say what they think they should say and then they try and think, well, I've said that so I'll just get on with it.

[00:33:41] 'cause they won't want me to talk about it. I, I feel that's what a lot of companies do and I was absolutely determined not to do that.

[00:33:49] Sarah: So how did you approach it? How did you keep that human focus at the center of what you were doing?

[00:33:55] Eleanor: Yeah. Uh, it's a good question. Um, I think, okay, there's a couple of things.

[00:33:59] [00:34:00] So you, we had to get prepared and the, our mother company was absolutely brilliant with that. We had a, a person who was supporting me on, in the background with a right here's, here's our process, here's the materials, here's this, what do you need? You need letters, you need do this. And, and I had to do quite a lot of that.

[00:34:20] Work on my end to make it kind of boost. Like, but what I quickly realized is the what had to be done in that way. And, and those are things like, and I'm not sure how familiar you are, but there's a proposal is put forward, then you have to have a period of consultation. Um, and you know, there, there could be that the collective one there and as twos and froze with that and you have to elect reps and it's, it's quite a complex, very unboosted like process, but it has to happen.

[00:34:48] Then you get into individual consultations and then you come to conclusion. So that, that's the nutshell of the process. But the, how we did that I realized [00:35:00] was, oh, we can still be boost like in the way that we do that. And so, you know, one of the things that you can do, for instance, was in these situations is that you can deliver that news to your direct reports and you can delegate it.

[00:35:14] So we could have got the, the. Other people. I could have got other people in the leadership team or our next level of management down our controller level. I could get them to deliver these consultations with the people. But as a leadership team, we just felt that was wrong. That was not, so, I was determined to get as in front of as many people as I could myself personally.

[00:35:37] And our non-exec director, Kirsty, put her hand up and said, I'll do those with you. So we did the majority of them together. There was a few that we couldn't do just 'cause we couldn't get the logistics to work out quite right. Um, we tried to do everything face to face. Um, and what the approach that Kirsty and I took was, we are gonna deal with whatever comes through the door and we're not gonna make this [00:36:00] about us.

[00:36:00] We're gonna make this about them. We are gonna make sure that they have as much or as little time as they want. We're gonna ask them how they're feeling, first and foremost, all the time. We are going to, if they want to cry, they can cry. If they wanna rage us, they can rage us. We're not gonna try and make it better.

[00:36:17] I started to call this process, this approach, I started to call it looking in the face. Mm-hmm. And I feel that what happens is a lot of companies don't want to look in the face because it's, it's scary or unhappy or all the things I said before. And I was absolutely determined I was gonna look every single person in the eyes and say, yeah, this is absolute I can, I swear, yes you can.

[00:36:42] This is shit. This is shit. Yeah. We all love this. None of us want this to be happening, but it is happening. I'm not gonna shy away from it being happening if you don't agree with it. Let's talk about that. If you're scared, let's talk about that. It's so

[00:36:55] Sarah: honest. It's so honest, and it's giving people the [00:37:00] respect that it's acknowledging that it's difficult, it's emotional, it's horrible actually.

[00:37:07] And it isn't something that you can just give somebody a form and a piece of paper and some information and then send them out of the door. It's actually, it's really. Well, it's human. Exactly.

[00:37:17] Eleanor: And it's like, and when they do go out the door, what do they need to do? Does that person need to go home?

[00:37:22] Because one person might need to go upstairs and, and work with everybody else. Somebody else might just wanna put their head down and on with it. Somebody else might need to go home. So it is kind of like, you know, I, I did talk about this before in the talks you've seen me do, where our approach to a lot of decision making at Beast has been what I call the gray square.

[00:37:40] And there are parameters outside of which are unacceptable or not negotiable, but within that, we, we've got the leeway to, to make decisions. So we could do things like say, look, if you need to go home, go home. Okay. You know, is it, are there things we could do? Do you need to stop this right now? Do you need to come back later?

[00:37:56] Do you need to, you know, so we've got that [00:38:00] flexibility. And I think that helped a lot too.

[00:38:02] Sarah: How much of yourself did you bring to those conversations? Like how, because that the way you've talked about them, they're very honest conversations. But you, especially in a small company, you must have been feeling emotional yourself when you're talking to people that you, you know, with everything that you've been through that you care about and you've got a relationship with them and there's probably friendships in there too.

[00:38:22] And how much of that did you allow to show, and how much did you try to sort of stand back a bit? What was it like? Do you know? I've, I've

[00:38:31] Eleanor: always made a point of leading by example with being okay not to be okay. If we were asking people to, you know, as part of our manifesto and cultural definitions, if we were saying, we want people to be able to be their whole selves here, we have to be our whole selves.

[00:38:48] And so from day one, I stood up and shared things that were going on in my life with people as a group. Collectively, I've set the tone for saying it's okay to not be okay. [00:39:00] I think that that is really, really important. Um, but I do think, you know, if you are, if you are asking people to be their whole selves one minute and then they come into a room and you know, you, you have to know who they are and understand it.

[00:39:14] And, and we've done some, sorry, I'm not, I am answering your point, but what I wanna say is, so for instance, we, we started some DEI work a few years ago, and off the back of that, there was someone in the team who identified that they had a disability and they are quite a private person. And they very publicly on in, within our company, shared half an hour after that the, the session ended, they shared about their disability and they, they said it was a life changing moment for them.

[00:39:42] Sarah: Wow.

[00:39:43] Eleanor: And you know, honestly, it's easily in my top 10 favorite moments. Mm-hmm. Ever as a professional. When I read this thing they shared with everybody, I cried 'cause I was just like,

[00:39:51] wow.

[00:39:51] Eleanor: Oh my God, we've changed up person's life. We have, we've, we've, we've, they've suddenly realized they've got a disability that they've been trying to not [00:40:00] look in the face for a while and not share, and, and couldn't feel proud about or anything.

[00:40:05] And, and they just, it just flicks a switch for them. So when you are, when you are in a situation like this where you are sharing, you are leading, you are saying you need to be able to be vulnerable. You have to, I think, walk the line really carefully because you need to not lose that. You need to be open and vulnerable.

[00:40:26] You need to be able to say, yep, it's quite hard as well for me to, but it's not about me. But you, you know, you have to realize that you've got people who might be really, really vulnerable coming through the door and you're gonna have to look after them. So I do think I gave a lot of myself, again, I don't, I hope this isn't oversharing, but right before the, um.

[00:40:53] I think it was right. Yeah. It was right before the proposals were announced, my stepfather died.

[00:40:58] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:58] Eleanor: And that was, you know, that [00:41:00] was one of those moments. I mean, that is a life moment that matters. And I think going through that and then a week later, finding myself standing next to Simon as he announced this proposal, and people in the room shocked and crying and, and you know, our hands shaking as we're holding the piece of paper that we have to run through this legal jargon on.

[00:41:19] I'm, I'm there thinking, do you know what? I've got a bit of perspective, which is that the things that matter are people and life and jobs as attached emotionally. As we get to the best ones, jobs come and go, business decisions happen. That is the world. Um, so I, I kind of feel like I was in a really strange head space going into the whole thing.

[00:41:46] I. And I, I did give, try to give enough of myself, but not too much. If that answers your question. Yeah,

[00:41:53] Sarah: absolutely. It really does. I think also this is the moment. I mean, it's, it, it, it's, it's good to hear that about [00:42:00] having the bigger perspective too, but also this is the moment where, or, or any really challenging time when things get difficult.

[00:42:10] That's the moment where the work on values or the work on DEI or the work, talking about culture, developing culture, engaging with people properly, that's where it reveals whether that has been done authentically, meaningfully rather than, yeah, we're, we're a company and we're putting out our values, so it all looks good on the website.

[00:42:31] Yeah. You know, or, or we've got to have a DEI statement.

[00:42:35] Yeah.

[00:42:35] Sarah: Have you done it? Yeah. Really meaning it, and if you have, then you can draw on it for this. Yeah. I know you've talked about that a bit before. We, we've chatted. We chatted a bit before the event when you were going through, um, thinking about this and planning it, and you were saying that the groundwork that you'd done in the culture and values was really helping you in those moments.

[00:42:59] Yeah. Um, [00:43:00] and you've talked about this a little bit, but are there other ways that draw you were able to draw on the values and culture work that you'd done? Um, in the conversations and then in the rest of the kind of time that you had Yeah. Together before the company closed?

[00:43:13] Eleanor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely.

[00:43:15] We, I mean I think that, that you've hit on a point. We, I think we realized, I think we knew we had done it well anyway. And I think that it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Because when you've, when people genuinely feel like they've gone, oh, I can be myself in this job, and then they are facing, losing that job, that's devastating.

[00:43:37] And for some people more than others, I. And we had a real range of feelings. There were some people who were like, yep, things like this happen. I'm fine. This has happened before. You know, I'll be fine. And there are other people who, who literally couldn't see a future for themselves. So I think you do have to be very, very careful.

[00:43:57] But also, you're absolutely right. The [00:44:00] strength of what we had permeated everything that happened next. So the cons, the group collective consultations, we had to elect reps and that process. And then the work the reps did throughout the business. And they did do a counter proposal. And do you know what we did?

[00:44:21] A third of the company have gone and joined the mother company. Mm-hmm. And there were some jobs initially, but there seemed to be more jobs after the counter proposal, the strength of those relationships. The strength of that work, I don't think we would've got through it. And I will tell the whole story, but I don't think we would've got through it all in as good shape as we did if we hadn't done all that work and been in as good shape as we went into it.

[00:44:44] Sarah: Mm-hmm. Amazing.

[00:44:46] Eleanor: Yeah, so I think the thing, the really, really big thing that I kept coming back to was we are still boost, and one of the absolute things that I've always done, which goes back to that gray square, is we don't know the answers, let's work them out together. So mm-hmm. I think that myself, [00:45:00] Kirsty Simon, the leadership team, I think we were feeling our way through a lot of these things and I'd go, look, I know this, we have to do this bit legally, but what should we do in this situation?

[00:45:11] You know? And you're feeling your way through it and going, does this feel like the best decision? Because I don't think there's a clear black or white one here.

[00:45:19] Sarah: Um,

[00:45:20] Eleanor: so

[00:45:20] Sarah: there was a lot of that. It's very, very interesting sort of seeing some of the ways and hearing from you some of the ways that you have.

[00:45:27] Supported people. Yes. Um, and helped them. And, um, I've seen that you did LinkedIn posts Yeah. That were, was a campaign that you did by Boost to say, I can't, what was the, what was the title of that campaign? That was h Come Hire. Yeah. Come our

[00:45:43] Eleanor: team. So there's a couple of things there and I think I probably should give a little bit more context of as to what happened between there.

[00:45:49] So we went through all the consultations. The proposal was confirmed as going ahead, so everybody got paperwork done. And then we were asking people to work until the end of October, December, or even [00:46:00] January. So this is a live process as we're speaking, right. The bulk of the company has just either gone over to their new jobs at our owners or they've left just so, um, I'm still employed by Boost at the moment, but mm-hmm.

[00:46:14] By the end of the month there won't be. So, so that's, that's where we got to. And what happened during all of that was we had to make decisions that I led, but I didn't make all the decisions on my own. We had to decide as a leadership team when to put our foot to the pedal to go, we still have to deliver this business here and when to go.

[00:46:35] This is not the time to say these things and do these things. We need to give people that chance to go and do what they need to do. So, so, but we knew at some point we would get back to a point when we needed to say, okay, everybody knows what's gonna happen to them now and we need to decide to move on.

[00:46:52] And if you can't move on positively, you need to come and talk to us because we will help you. And if you really, really can't, we'll need to make a [00:47:00] different decision. But it is the time that we pull things back. So at that point we launched what, um, I branded it up and called it our, at our Best for the Rest campaign.

[00:47:14] And that was a program of the support. It had three elements. It had the support that we could offer people for the rest of the time that'd be employed. It had things to boost our culture so we could. Really enjoy and stay motivated for the time that we had for the rest of the time together. And also some socials as well.

[00:47:33] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:33] Eleanor: So those are the elements in it. And we launched that. It was really well received and yeah, people were hurting and people still had these fears and some people more than others, but people were ready to get on with it. And so, yeah. So one of the things that I was determined to do was to say, why do we have to leave people to go and find jobs on their own?

[00:47:54] Why can't we leverage our collective networks and try and help them? And, [00:48:00] and why can't we have our people's backs on this? So offering references above and beyond what might be legally required. Um, just helping people. Um, yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, so we run a campaign on LinkedIn where we would work with somebody to create a reference.

[00:48:16] From that reference we would pull a little profile of them and then our, our brand LinkedIn. Um, account would share, be like, right, today we're profiling, you know, Emma. And, and then it would be like, here's what role Emma's looking for. Uh, here's a bit about her. If you wanna get in touch, here's our LinkedIn.

[00:48:35] Or if you want more information about this campaign, reach out.

[00:48:39] Sarah: You know? Yeah. I just think that's absolutely fantastic because you didn't have to do any of that. And, you know, if you were being really hard nosed about it, there's not a particular incentive for the company as an organization to, to do that.

[00:48:53] You know? And in an era where we've seen people getting sacked by text message and Oh no. [00:49:00] Things like that, that just absolutely terrible. I know that having that kind of, um, depth of genuinely caring for people and going the extra mile to really meaningfully look after them, it's, I mean, it, it's says so much about you, I think, and about Simon as leaders, but.

[00:49:20] Also that you meant it with all the culture stuff that you talked about. And um, yeah, I just think it's, it's fantastic. Did it, did it change anything for you about how you thought about things? How did it sort of feel going through that process yourself?

[00:49:35] Eleanor: Yeah, do you know what, I was quite nervous about the, the process because I was wondering, kids are, you're in this weird situation where you've been bought by another company and you are, you know, there are checks and balances that have to be met, but you're still a standalone unit.

[00:49:51] But, you know, so I wasn't sure if what we could do or couldn't do, and I just thought, well, I might just say this is what we're going to do and see [00:50:00] if I got any pushback. And it didn't. All I got was a, you know, the CEO of our mother company was like, I've never seen that done. That looks great. And I thought, okay, brilliant.

[00:50:08] So that, that appears that we have backing there. Um, and, and I think, I think what it, Simon's got this really, this phrase he uses. He's used it for years. If you say, right, I need to do this. I need some money for this piece of training or something, he'll, he'll ask his questions and then at some point he'll say, why wouldn't we do it?

[00:50:30] Right? Like, why wouldn't

[00:50:31] Sarah: we love that question?

[00:50:32] Eleanor: And, and I think more than anything else, see this whole process, I've come out with a why, why don't companies do this? You know? We've had so many people get in touch and go, we absolutely love that campaign. Why aren't other companies doing it? And I don't know, because now we are doing it.

[00:50:48] It feels so obvious.

[00:50:50] Sarah: Yeah. But also so much better for you as leaders to come away from something that's been difficult. You know, there's no getting away from it. It's [00:51:00] really, really hard to go through something like this. But feeling like you can hold your head high and say, I did everything I could think of.

[00:51:07] Yeah.

[00:51:08] Sarah: To make this better. Yeah. More manageable, more in tune, more sympathetic, more supportive for the people I work with. Yeah. And yeah, I just think that's, that's fantastic. Yeah. Can I ask you, um, obviously there's gonna be people listening who are, some of them may be managing redundancies, some of them maybe not yet, but it, it perhaps is in their future that, that they're gonna need to tackle this kind of thing.

[00:51:34] If you could distill down kind of two or three really key things for them to think about, what would, what might those be?

[00:51:42] Eleanor: Yeah, I would just say if you're, if you're leading through a process like this, take the time to make sure you are in good shape for it. So if you need to sort out your own circumstances or get some kind of clarity about what's gonna happen to you and when I would, I would push for that, first of all, because if it's the oxygen must that you said, [00:52:00] if you are not in good shape, you're not gonna be able to lead this to the highest standards you possibly can.

[00:52:04] You know? The second thing I would say is just look it in the face. You know, don't try and make it better. But don't ignore it either. Like I think the norm, Sarah, from what I know and what I've seen in all my years of working, I think the norm would be even companies that are really compassionate and careful about what they do and really try and put people first.

[00:52:30] They often just neglect them. After that decision's been made, the person might be working a notice period, um, and then, but they're just left to it. They're expected to come in and do their day job each day, and that is just crushing. And it doesn't have to be like that. You can check in with people regularly.

[00:52:47] You can see how they're doing. You can ask how their job hunts going. You can ask, can I do anything for you?

[00:52:52] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:53] Eleanor: Anything you, you know, the

[00:52:54] amount of times I've gone round and said to people, even, you know, this week, if you want [00:53:00] anything else that I can do, you need to tell me now before I leave.

[00:53:04] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:53:04] Eleanor: So, yeah, so I definitely do that and I would just say collectively as people, practitioners, we need to do better. Right? Yeah. We can do more. You know, this can be done on scale, it can be done with or without money. It's kindness and creativity and, and, yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:20] Sarah: I feel like there needs to be some sort of collective effort to share this experience, this learning, because it, I dunno, it's just, it's a level up.

[00:53:29] It it, I dunno, it's just, it's decent. It's, it's so much better. There's so much food for thought here and, um, I really appreciate you, you giving us that story and, um, you know, helping us to piece it together. Think about it from that, that human point of view, but join the dots with the work that you did before.

[00:53:50] All of that with culture and values and, uh, you know, I really hope that people listening are, are finding that as valuable as I'm finding it, as an insight into how things can be done. [00:54:00] Yeah.

[00:54:00] Eleanor: Can I, can I, I'd, there's one thing I'd like to add here, which it, it's going into kind of a slightly uncomfortable territory, but.

[00:54:07] Um, you know, we talked earlier about how we knew our people were feeling and how we know, you know, if we, if we were getting things right, the last, the last couple of bits that we did, uh, like we made sure that we, we tried to acknowledge and announce. So, so when people got roles, all the people were going to the mother company, we tried to make it a moment of that and say the, all of these people have managed to secure roles and we know that you might not have a role and you might be feeling really scared, but we still wanna, you know, put our hands together and cheer on our friends who have got jobs.

[00:54:43] And then each time, and this wasn't my idea, I dunno, but it appeared, a bell appeared and every time somebody who was leaving secured a job, the bell would get rung and everybody was start cheering and they go, who is it? Who is it? Who's got the job? And then, you know, so we, we could celebrate that going through it.

[00:54:58] And then, and the last day [00:55:00] was Halloween, so we, we made the best day we could of it. We had lunch together, we did pumpkin painting. We came in costume for those who wanted to, we had a bit of a quiz, you know, we tried to make it as good as we can, and we made a kind of yearbook for people. We printed up a, a kind of yearbook and we had everybody's profile in the back and we had empty pages at the back, and the last couple of hours of the day was like the last day of school.

[00:55:24] And everybody was going around going, okay, who's, who needs to sign ELs? Who needs to sign? You know, so andSo. Oh, that's so cool. And we, and we all got to write, you know, I've loved working with you, all these things. And it was just such an ab it was just such a lovely thing. And then we went home and yeah, there were tears as people left.

[00:55:40] And then we had a really big party the next day and got really drunk and that was great.

[00:55:45] Sarah: It, it speaks volumes that you were able to wind things up with something that felt like a celebration given what everyone's been through. Yeah. And I think, I think I'm gonna embarrass you. I think you had a, a special award that was, uh, yeah.

[00:55:58] Sort of recognition of the [00:56:00] work that you've done. This is what

[00:56:01] Eleanor: I was saying. It goes into uncomfortable ground it that we, at our Christmas, um. Party every year we always do a values award and we have five values, and we would get people to anonymously nominate people for those values and say, why. And then the person that who got the most votes overall, or it would just become clear who the overall beast spirit winner was.

[00:56:23] So I, I opened this up and said, right, not gonna be here till Christmas. Let's do this at our leaving party. Um, I encourage people to, to take part in it. And then two nights before, so I think it was maybe on the Thursday, the Tuesday, and we were, last day was the Thursday. I, I was like, oh God, I haven't even opened this up.

[00:56:43] And I opened up and pulled all the results out and I, well, my husband came in and saw me sitting, crying my eyes out and was like, what's going on? What's happened? And I was just going, James' comment after comment after [00:57:00] comment about me. Oh, and I'm gonna cry now. Just, I think as people, practitioners, sometimes we don't know if we're getting it right or not, and we can get less feedback than other people, because I think we are the people who chase the feedback all the time.

[00:57:17] Yeah.

[00:57:17] Eleanor: And, and I, I did end up winning the Boost Spirit, um, award. And, you know, even though I knew that was coming then on a night, I I, when it got announced, I just thought, I'm gonna start sobbing and I'm not gonna stop because it, I, you know, it goes back to your point about how much of yourself did you put into this?

[00:57:38] I think I realized at that moment quite a lot.

[00:57:41] Yes.

[00:57:41] Eleanor: Um, but I did think that this is one of the proudest moments of my career being able to do this process as well as it could possibly be done. And yet it wasn't perfect and it was a absolute shitty situation, but we did it as best as it could be done.

[00:57:55] And I'm,

[00:57:55] Sarah: yeah. Yeah. I was going to say congratulations, but it seems [00:58:00] a bit trite. I mean, it seems like there ought to be a different kind of word that captures that. I mean, that's, so do you know what, what mom said so well deserved? And the recognition of that from your colleagues in such difficult situation is, is huge.

[00:58:12] No, go on. What did you mom say? It like makes

[00:58:14] Eleanor: sense to or not, but she just said that will do. Pig.

[00:58:20] I love it if you've seen the film, babe. You know what I'm talking about.

[00:58:23] Sarah: So I'm gonna, I mean, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us and talk us through all of this. I think it's been just, you know, wonderful, incredible to hear the story, um, and really, really valuable and setting an e example for how things should be thought about for things that we should, you know, all be really trying to get to grips with.

[00:58:48] But I wanna ask a last question that I ask of. All the interviewees on, speak to the human, speaking to you as a human el Um, what's exciting you at the moment? I know that's an awkward question [00:59:00] because you're about to change you, your work, um, but what are you looking forward to and what's motivating you about the, the future?

[00:59:09] Do

[00:59:09] Eleanor: you know? I have

[00:59:10] Sarah: shared that

[00:59:10] Eleanor: I'm neurodivergent and uncertainty is not good for me. Um, but, and I don't know what I'm gonna do next. I haven't looked for a job. Um, I've, I've got the opportunity to take a couple of months off and I think I need that, a need to just decompress. 'cause this year has been full on, um, personally and professionally.

[00:59:37] So first of all, I'm looking forward to getting some sleep. I'm looking forward to not doing anything, um, for, you know, a while. Um, but I, one of my, one of my favorite. Values at Boost has been that there's opportunities in everything. And I think that that's the value that I got the most comments about in, in the [01:00:00] awards.

[01:00:01] Um, because I did. I do think that we have gone through this and it's morphed into us going, this is a rubbish situation, but there is an opportunity for everybody in this somewhere. We've just got to help them find it. And it applies to me too. So I think that there's an element of me that says, right, yeah, I need to get a little bit of sleep and I dunno whether I'm gonna go and seek employment or whether I'm going to do consulting.

[01:00:24] 'cause I've done that in the past as well. But I do feel quite excited about the future and I'm actually, I'm having a word of myself on a daily basis to just say, it's okay to have this uncertainty for now because there's gonna be something really good around the corner. And I, I, you know, when I really do think about it, when now and then when I see a, a company that I go, oh, I'd love to get my teeth into that company.

[01:00:50] Um, so yeah, so I think for me it's very personal and that's what's getting me excited is to just to say there's gonna be something exciting around the corner. I just dunno what it is [01:01:00] yet.

[01:01:00] Sarah: Definitely. Well, I mean, that's brilliant and I really wish you the very, very best with it. And given hearing all the things that you've talked about, I'm sure that you, whatever comes your way, you're gonna make the most of, bring some fantastic thinking too.

[01:01:16] And I'm, I'm, I really wanna find out what that is. I wanna talk with you and keep, keep in touch to find out what your next adventures are about. Absolutely. We

[01:01:25] Eleanor: can

[01:01:25] Sarah: do the

[01:01:25] Eleanor: installment, the adventures of l

[01:01:27] Sarah: We should, yeah, well we should definitely, yeah, we should, we should follow up with, with another episode in the future and, and find out, you know, where things have taken you and, um, how you're gonna tackle that next challenge.

[01:01:38] But, um. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate your time and it's been wonderful to talk, so thanks so much. Thank you. Um, I hope everyone listening has, has benefited from this conversation as much as I have. Um, and look forward to you tuning into future episodes. Bye for [01:02:00] now.