Thanks for joining and for the patience. This is Anna Jimenez and please uh make my camera full screen so you can see me well. Uh because I will be sharing the lights through the camera only. So I'm sure you have the weirdest um year of your life.So did I uh I was working from home every single day for the last year. But today here I am at the digital uh innovation lab at GFT where we drive the digital transformation for our clients in banking as you can see here um insurance um industry and, and uh uh in this journey of back to the future. I hope this inspired to you in the announcement. I said this is not going to be a, a theoretical session about the future of work, more a practical session where we share what we learn and I hope it inspires you and you can share your thoughts or comments in the in the chat. So um before I explain a bit to you about our journey, uh let me tell you about um GFT a bit. So GFT is an IT services company. We have more than uh 7000 employees in 15 different countries. Our headquarter is in Stuttgart, near the Black Forest.

But yet um the biggest country is Spain with uh 1800 employees locations. Uh or I better say in one hun 1800 different locations now that we are working from home. Um But um anyway, so in this journey of going back to the future, uh we went first through three different paths and I want to share it with you so you can see how we learn along the way. So the first one was the working from home initiative that we started in 2018. This was something that we started with days maximum per week. I know this sounds ridiculous now, but it wasn't at that time. So, uh and what we did was start and then expand and then iterate and the three learnings we can take from here is right. Don't give up. Don't be afraid to try. This project was tried before several times and it failed, but we tried again and we succeeded. Uh So don't give up. The second one is be smart and pilot. Piloting is a good thing. Our case, we um segmented our employee population, we slice it and we started with the easiest ones and then we expand and actually that was the reason why it failed. We're trying to do it for all the time and it was not a good idea. So we had to do it um step by step.

And the third learning I would say is find a group of motivated and result oriented people that can navigate this chaos because complex environments involve chaos. And you need this uh very assorted group of us to, to navigate the chaos. And that's why I'm here working in these projects. Oh Come with me to the second path. The second path was about flexibility and registry. He started this project in 2019. There was a Spanish government law that was um I mandating all companies to register all the work for, for all the employees. And this is what we have to do to as so many other companies when the employees are starting, when they are finishing work. And this was a bit annoying because you need to clock in, clock out. And what we did, what we did was using this um this problem to convert it into an opportunity and we implemented a very flexible schedule 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Our employees can um need to expect a mandatory presence from 10 to 4, but otherwise they can work more or less and the difference go to their flexibility balance um very good for them and they can, they can use it in their own and that we call this the tree or weak because you can move around a bit time in your schedule.

And the three learnings from here are transfer problems into opportunities as we did with this law, communicate, communicate and communicate. Effort is not wasted in communication, especially when you are doing a mindset change. And the third one is listen to your people. We ask, we actually in this project, we first did um pilot, it collected feedback from the people we adapted. We did a second pilot. Then we roll out after that, we did a retrospective and we are implementing changes. And the women or the female angle here is that um flexibility is good for everybody, especially for families, especially for women. Last year, we know that from studies that um statistics are telling us that women struggled last year, more than anyone. So when we were rolling out this project, COVID came in and we actually thought it was due to from us or country. And we decided to continue because it was a our, our employees, they are telling us 90 95% of the employees are telling us that they have improved their for life balance. And despite the pandemic, which is quite impressive. So the third path, it's about tools can change framework and you can change models, but you also need to change tools to support those changes. And this is what we did with our modern workplace that we changed from our old workplace to our um modern workplace.

We went fully to the crowd. We um uh we went to multi device and uh we went to collaborative tools right that we we needed in 2020 years. So the three learnings from this project at first, this is one of our help our clients to go digital and we did it also in the, the, the second thing is eight and re invent. So Grace Hopper once said the worst sentence you can say at in the or language we keep because it has, it has been done always this way. But just because you've been using some ask, it does not mean you cannot hear why you will get surprised of what you can do with. Uh for example, here in the lab, one of the things they had to do during the lockdown, this place is more designed for visits. But the team here helps they install cameras on the scene cameras. So now that you can do streaming like this 1 2020 and the third learning is uh find new ways of working now that we have this mother tool work in a different way and not work in the same way with the news, how we can use uh um have a conversation on male threads.

We can work collaboratively can be more asynchronous and we can of course use on camera when we need. And by the way, the female angle here, I think the conferencing is as women. Uh do you know that women get times more interrupted than men in the rock? And you need to raise your hand and also virtual are giving us some more at the space our seat and everyone has of three learning, three paths, nine learnings that um get us to the current path we are in back to the future. And what we did with this project, we started in 2017. Actually, we have consulted that we put on hold at the then COVID and kick us all. And uh what we did was a problem in Spanish. One of our learnings and second learning we apply is, and this is what they told us, they told us they want to work more with an average of 1.5 days. But some people still, I read most and al also something and this is a and hire people, but it's also a friend and hire people. Another feedback we got from the data collection is that answer to you r for all different spaces. And the third feedback we, it's surprising at, at 94 have no problem. Um So we had this learning and we had this consultation before and what we did then adapted to the new for Spanish, to align to our and to optimize the use and why not?

We also want applied concepts. The office is now a place to meet activities and not so much how we can combine well. Um And with people that is at home and we also were looking for a democratization. Uh And with that, we are looking for this kind of spaces um area of this, then some meetings, some allies to some places, privacy spaces because if you have an open space, have some some and local to collected data. And now we had to roll up our sleeves and we plan and do some real construction work. And what we did was to start again, real sliced. We didn't start with all the office time. We choose to uh Valencia and Barcelona. Here is an example of one of our blueprint prints of our, you see a lot of desks, um very few places and desk that are near to the window are typically assigned to the manager that kind of fun and stuff. And this is what it changed close to the window. There are some corridors, we have some um or collaborative test test that have a different order in the floor. So you can do um have some some small coffee corners also. Yeah, programmers do need coffee every day and we have lockers in um to store our things, right?

So um these are some pictures I do not want to bore you, but justice get some lockers called a Agora where you can meet with um some desk, some places to meet with others that are not there, the coffee corners and um some more socializing spaces. So um with that we had to do then another step, right? We have the offices, next thing to do one of our learnings is the pilot. So the pilot actually just started. Ok. Um, and we want the pilot to really be the test of the future of work. So we have some items that we have at home. There are some items that go and there are some items that you find at the office. Uh, but the biggest change or have a desk assigned or a parking slot assigned. And because we are digital first, so we are doing it with an application app where you can a desk or a parking slot. And when you get here, you scan the QR you check in, you can even locate your, where are they? Because they can be every day. And of course, it's in the cloud and it's multi design, they are very ready to go and just starting the pilot. What is the next? So come with me how this ends. And you can see now that we are just starting, as we said, a very cool uh also place we expanded the lab. And now with this pilot that we are doing is really right and to explore and we will have some learnings.

Uh One of the things that for instance, uh happened to us or happened to me is that, of course, I joined the pilot and a locker was assigned to me and funnily enough, my locker is here right on the top row where I'm very, very short and I hardly arrived to it. So this happens. It's our, our learning, it's our process and I'm sure we will have the right mindset and the correct attitude. My last take away for you first learning. We got try and don't be afraid to try. It's going to be bumpy, but it's going to be worth it. Oh, try your initiatives also with me. And so just to finish, thanks for joining. Very, very sorry for the technical problems. And if you want to know more about GFT, please find out in our group. Thanks.