Financial Leader Interview: Penney Frohling

Welcome to our interview series where we speak with Financial Leaders exploring how businesses today are able to leverage the time of their talent to everyone’s advantage.

My name is Isaac Feiner and I am the Founder of Lifepoint Healthcare. I am also privileged to sit on the Executive of The Association of Medical Insurers & Intermediaries as an Executive Committee Member. If you’re a Financial Leader and would like to be interviewed please get in touch via my LinkedIn profile.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Penney Frohling Partner at EY, Angel Investor at Angel Academe, Committee Member of the London Playing Fields Foundation, Trustee of The Passage & Co-Founder of GOTHAM Notting Hill the architecture practice.

Our chat was fascinating and covered a variety of topics such as employee happiness, work life balance, how companies are maintaining their priorities with regards to the health and wellbeing of their employees whilst maintaining profitability. We touch on COVID 19, social distancing, home working, trends and challenges employers may face with the return to an office environment.

Isaac Feiner: Hi Penney, It’s a pleasure to have you on here.

Penney Frohling: No problem, it’s a pleasure.

Isaac Feiner: Fantastic. So, effectively, this interview is about allowing other directors and senior finance professionals across our networks to consume some content that can really help them with their businesses and give them food for thought. The subject of our discussion is related to ‘time’ and how we deal with employees and manage our businesses in the right way. I've also got a wonderful selection of other business leaders that I'm going to be interviewing over the next few weeks, and it will be a collection of different angles perspectives from varying industries and positions.

Penney Frohling: Sure. That sounds wonderful.

Isaac Feiner: So, the first question that I have for you is this. In your position, given the fact you are involved in advising many different clients, of varying sizes in different sectors, and obviously, within your own organization as well, you are able to see what's going on across a wide spectrum of companies setup in very different ways.. What are your thoughts and how do you see organizations leveraging the time of their employees to the business advantage whilst maintaining their thinking, mindset and priority with regards to the health and wellbeing of their employees, all whilst maintaining profitability and balancing all these areas together?

Penney Frohling: Yes exactly. So, how do corporates and different clients manage work-life balances? The term "work-life balance," I think, started becoming very popular seven, maybe even ten years ago, where people have become very, very sensitized to making sure that people's personal lives are kept in balance, for want of a better word, while they're working. I mean, obviously, management consulting, and particularly strategy consulting, when you're in a client-facing role, you're there to serve clients, which often results in extremely long hours. So, I mean, I have a project running right now where a couple team members of mine were working till four and five in the morning.

Isaac Feiner: Oh goodness. That’s a late one.

Penney Frohling: Which is a very, very extreme example, and not the kind of situation that we want to be in, but sometimes we are in those situations. And the very fact that people talk about work-life balance, people's personal lives, means it's quite high on the radar screen.

Isaac Feiner: Sure.

Penney Frohling: And we are very, very careful about making sure that people's personal lives are taken into account, that there is flexibility. When there are very difficult projects that require long hours, people are given time off for holiday time. People are also measured on how they treat their teams, so there's a whole series of metrics. So, if you're getting upward feedback or 360-degree feedback, work-life balance, how teams are treated is also a very important metric and taken very seriously. So, I mean, it's a bit of a very roundabout way of answering your question. I'm not quite sure I'm answering it directly. But the fact that it is embedded in corporate core metrics and you're measured on it and you're aware of it, and it is in all of our corporate nomenclature and the way we manage projects, I mean, that's a pretty telling thing.

Isaac Feiner: Yes. You see, there's a heavy focus on trying to make sure that the time of the employees, the teams and the people working are being maximized to the business advantage commercially. But at the same time, you see, across the board, there is a heavy focus on wellness at the same time, and it's obviously a balancing act trying to get that right. Some organizations do it better than others. Some organizations, I suppose, are larger, and therefore they're able to have a more dedicated approach to it. I'm sure you work with a variety of different-sized clients across the spectrum. Do you see more of a focus with larger businesses? Or do you tend to find that smaller ones are also having this shift towards taking into account the wellness of their teams and their employees alongside the profitability? Or do you think that the smaller businesses have a longer way to go?

Penney Frohling: Well, I typically don't work with smaller companies (3-5 employees/ up to a million turnover) but I don't think you can make generalizations. I think it depends on the industry sector, right? So, if it's a small company, it's a small retailer, it's a small accounting firm. Businesses like that, because they're smaller and more personal, unlike a large corporate that pays big employee benefits or has HR departments, and as part of their employee benefits they offer yoga, or they offer mindfulness, or they give access to corporate psychologists and that kind of thing, a small business doesn't have the deep pockets to do that.

But is that necessarily necessary? I don't think it is. I think the root cause of problems becomes when you're not sensitive to the hours that people work. So, you can't ask a small business to pay for all of that kind of stuff. But nor do I think it's necessary that they should, because they should be on top of it because they're just smaller and more personal anyway.

Isaac Feiner: Yes, it's much easier in a smaller organisation to look after your people, to be aware of what's going on with them, to gauge and sense their emotions and have that sensitivity across the board. I see it very clearly because there has been a healthy shift in wellness mindset. I'm in the health insurance & wellness industry and I see there is an ongoing shift towards mental health awareness and providing the assistance when employees need it. And it goes a long way. It really goes a long way.

Isaac Feiner: Given that we are currently experiencing it as we speak, how do you think the whole COVID 19 situation, will affect things in terms of people working at home? Some people might like it, and some people might hate it as they don't like to be isolated. Moving forward do you think there'll be more flexibility for those that want it and prefer it in the future, or do you think companies will come out of this and then they'll revert back to how things were? At present it seems all the rage to be discussing flexible working because presently there is this large-scale home working experiment going on.

Do you think we will regress from that, or do you think it will push forward and companies will change for the better, in that sense, where it's suitable for the person?

Penney Frohling: Well, I mean, a couple observations. Have companies realized that you can have a lot of your staff work remotely and your business won't fall over? Yes. I think a lot of companies have realized that. And I think a lot of companies have responded very, very quickly to giving their employees laptops and connectivity and getting them online, whether it be call center workers, or whether it be customer service individuals, or just line and staff jobs, whether they be finance people or IT people. I think they realize that people don't need to be working in close proximity to actually get their jobs done.

Penney Frohling: So, will this situation, and the fact you have so many laptops and firewalls and Microsoft teams, make it much easier to work remotely? Yes. Will COVID, because everybody is still so frightened and many people don't want to get on public transport and come into work, will that continue to influence behaviors? Yes. Probably through the end of the year, I would say. I think it's going to be an interesting six months. However, all the feedback that I'm getting from clients and the people that I work with is the mind numbing routine of being at home every day, not going to the office, not getting out, not being able to go to meetings, not being able to see people face-to-face. There's a whole human element and camaraderie that people are really, really missing.

Isaac Feiner: I agree with you.

Penney Frohling: And that is very, very important. A lot of people are feeling very isolated. And there's a lot of people who are highly extroverted that really need the human interaction. I think they're starting to have quite a tough time. So, you know, I mean, will there be a better balance of people being able to work from home? Yeah. Am I finding that the majority of people like the way they're working? I think, universally, pretty much 99.99% of people that I talk to don't like it and want things to get back to a more normal way of working.

Penney Frohling: And that's very consistent with what I'm hearing from clients, as well as from my colleagues and members of my own direct team.

Isaac Feiner: I validate that. I see some people are enjoying it to a degree. There is like you say, a camaraderie, a creative element, a social element that is missing. Personally, I'm now sitting in the home office where I started the business, and I quite enjoy being in my space to get on with what I need to do. But, like you say, I'm also quite extroverted in that sense and I like my social interaction and I find that there is a buzz, a growth that happens and an energy that just does not exist to the same degree when you are remote working.

Penney Frohling: That's lacking, yes.

Isaac Feiner: Looking further ahead, what trends do you see when it comes to businesses protecting their employees and their employee time to support and grow their businesses? Are there any trends that you've noticed that might happen?

Penney Frohling: What time frame are you talking about? A year? Two years? Three years?

Isaac Feiner: Let's say the short term, so one to two years.

Penney Frohling: When it comes to well-being?

Isaac Feiner: Yes, well-being, being better employers and just looking after their staff overall. Whether it's packages, whether it's various types of support. Are there any trends that you see coming up? There's more of an awareness now, you see, of never before, and some companies are going to be really doing well at this and they're going to be noticed. Some companies are noticed to be looking after their people, and some won't be riding that wave to the best of their ability. And I just wonder if there's going to be a shift, and any trends that you think might come about as a result of this. Do you expect to see things happening differently, or do you think things will sort of remain the same?

Penney Frohling: Well, I mean, you can't get away from the whole COVID impact and employees being very concerned about social distancing and if people are going to get ill, so I think that kind of stuff is going to shape a lot of how employers are going to react. And it'll probably manifest itself in a couple ways. I think employers will probably become their own testing centers because they have to. And they're going to need to because the things that are being imposed by social distancing are just simply not practical. So, not being in lifts at the same time, that's just not going to work, right? You'll prevent people from being able to come to the office because the queues at the lifts are going to be so long.

 Isaac Feiner: Right.

Penney Frohling: So, I think they're going to have to do their own testing. We already at my firm are keeping databases of people that have had the virus, just because it's important to us. We want to know who's been ill, have they recovered, are they okay? So, we're keeping databases of that, so that's very important. I can imagine contact tracing, so that will be on phones. And all of that is tracked and retained, so I would see that changing a lot. There's basic stuff around hand sanitizers and how offices are cleaned that started well before the lockdown that's made very public to employees, so that they feel the comfort level of conditions in which they're working. That's quite important.

Penney Frohling: And I think there's a heightened sensitivity to connecting with teams, making sure everybody's okay, and being flexible in terms of if people want to come to work or not come to work, or want to work remotely because they're uncomfortable taking public transport. I think there's a very heightened sensitivity to that, specifically, and I think that's probably going to shape the next year. But we already have all kinds of health, mental health, gym memberships, physical checkups, access to physios. We already have all of that stuff, right?

Penney Frohling: So, that's already in place. Maybe people use it more, probably. That's what I think is going to probably change a little bit.

Isaac Feiner: I hear that. With a lot of the large organizations, a lot of them do have things in place already, whether they're employee assistance programs or the health insurance products that give them various benefits, cash plans, mental health and well-being etc. I've found that the trend is that a lot of the companies who didn't have things in place previously have been contacting us to say, "Right. We want to put something in place that can help and assist our employees." So, we're showing them options, whether they're mid-range options or the fully comprehensive options, whatever it is that they need. But there's definitely an awareness about the health and well-being, even if - even if - it's just the fashionable thing to do and they want to be seen as being a caring and loving company. That's also something that I find happening.

Isaac Feiner: But definitely, because it's the done thing, and if you're not giving it to your employees, and they've got a friend who's in a similar position at another firm and they know that they do get those sorts of benefits and it's helping them, obviously that changes the situation as well, because obviously there's employee retention to think about. It all leads down to happy employees and a happy more profitable company right? It's an all-encompassing thought process of the directors and people contacting us. And of course a lot of them really care. They really want to make sure that people are given the right support and have the right mental health support and everything else alongside that.

Isaac Feiner: My final question is this. Again, looking further ahead, what challenges do you see when it comes to these trends that we have discussed about health and well-being and companies putting in place things, and all the COVID-related elements of it? What challenges do you see? You've touched on challenges already about whether it hinders people coming back into the office and how that's going to be managed. Are there any other challenges that you can see when it comes to these trends?

Penney Frohling: So the provision of all of this stuff or the impact?

Isaac Feiner: Any challenges, yes. It's all very nice in theory to have all these things put in place and to have to try and do everything that we've discussed, but what challenges will there realistically be, do you think?

Penney Frohling: Well, I guess you’ve got to set them up the right way, so that they don't cost huge amounts of money and then people don't take them up.

Isaac Feiner: Right. That's a really good point, actually, the cost of things as well. So, whether it's the cost of actually getting the sanitary side of things sorted and also, obviously, the cost of putting in place the right products and the right provision. A lot of companies can't afford it, and that's a big issue. They want to do things, but they can't. So likely the larger organizations are going to be a bit more protected on that front.

Penney Frohling: Yes.

Isaac Feiner: Is there anything else that you feel that you could share, with regards to the challenges on the future trends?

Penney Frohling: Well, I think it's cost and employee uptake, and I think there also tends to be a huge thing around privacy. I think a lot of companies are very well-intended. I think inherently there's a lot of suspicion, sometimes around programs and tracing or tracking, or health and things like that, where the companies are encroaching on privacy and personal lives. There is a risk of crossing the line a little bit between the personal and professional that you need to watch.

Penney Frohling: And I think that whole privacy thing, data privacy, if you're doing testing in the office, who has access to the records and the results? So, I do think you need to be quite careful around things like that. I see that as a major stumbling block. I think there's an element of trust around if you're tracking all this stuff but then it's fed to an insurance company and the insurance company is using it for its underwriting. What does that look like? How does that work? That could be a bit of a double-edged sword because it's also important for how you're negotiating at an aggregate level, what your fees and premiums are. From an employee benefit standpoint, I think that's going to be quite a big thing.

Isaac Feiner: Absolutely.

Penney Frohling: So, those are the big things that I would say I think are probably the most material and most important.

Isaac Feiner: I think you're making some very, very good points. Privacy is going to be a big issue, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I'm really grateful that you've taken the time to share your thoughts on this.

Isaac Feiner: Thank you for your time today and for sharing your thoughts and ideas. It's been a pleasure seeing you.

Penney Frohling: You too, take care.