The Future of Work: Leaning In

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To find out what both the present and future of work look like from a Research and Development leader's perspective, I had the pleasure of speaking with John Rogers, Chief Innovation Officer at CoreLogic.

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I'm the Chief Innovation Officer for CoreLogic, so I get to look after all the research and development for the company. We underpin the US real estate economy, so we're doing lots of fascinating research into climate risk analytics and thinking about how to move the needle for affordable housing within the United States, as well as other initiatives such as Generative AI and how voice interaction will work in the future.

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Obviously, COVID changed the landscape dramatically. We're basically five and a half thousand strong, with another three to four thousand in terms of third parties and vendors, and we went through different iterations and cycles. At first we tried to get more or less everyone in. And that, I would say, didn't work as successfully as we wanted.

We pivoted, we learned our lessons, and we're much more now in a hybrid mode with our staff and teams, which are based all over North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, so we definitely learned a lot of lessons.

Job type and role will dictate the number of times that we want people to get together, and we sometimes talk about moments that matter. We're firm believers -- and it took us a while to learn -- in just trusting people.

We also hired a Chief Communications Officer, and that's made a difference. We do huge amounts in terms of working for companies like Habitat for Humanity and Operation Hope, providing financial acumen to these different groups. That repeated drumbeat of communications from our Chief Communications Officer and her team is invaluable, because it just reinforces and paints the picture of what's out there when you see different teams doing things. That was one thing we put in place about a year ago, and it's definitely paying dividends.

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People generally work better together once they've met for a period of time physically, regardless of industry or sector. Without that, it takes longer for teams to gel and be productive and collaborative so they can invent new solutions.

We want to give trust and flexibility to our workforce, and we want to give every opportunity for them to get together. We're a distributed workforce, but we do spend a lot of time changing facilities, and rather than just saying that a person should come in Tuesday and Wednesday regardless, we really talk about the workshops, the events, the one-to-ones, and the staff meetings. We also make sure they understand that we do trust everyone and we trust that people will do the right thing. I worry that it's very easy to stay at home, and that's totally understandable.

I also worry that without human interaction, there's a possibility of becoming more siloed. There's a possibility that you're not quite understanding the context of what we do as a company in our market, which is real estate -- mortgage insurance, primarily -- and in government.

I've been fortunate in that I've worked in the four corners of the world from Pakistan, India, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, all the way through Europe, all the way through the Americas, and I've learned that there's a higher chance of success when the teams actually spend time together.

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There are cultural differences, and I always prep on local etiquette before I go to a new city or country. I'd also say that most people just want to do a good job, go home at night to see their partners, their family, their friends, and have a good time.

That's consistent regardless of geographic boundaries, religions, or experiences, and I've seen that everywhere all around the world -- everybody really just wants to do a good job and go home at the end of the day.

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We're definitely facing headwinds right now in the market, no doubt about that. We're fortunate in that we have a broad network of clients, from real estate companies to mortgage companies to insurance companies, and we're supporting them through these challenging times. We're also fortunate that with that scale, a lot of clients also turn to us in times of need.

I'd say we're fortunate that we're a trusted company to lots of financial entities, because it's definitely a tough market going through a tough time, and it's our job to help them.

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Because I run Research and Development, probably the most important factor is perseverance. You look throughout history, and most ideas get killed at least three times, so it's just recognizing what occurred and how you pivot with that feedback and make it successful.

Secondly, although we have huge numbers of ways to contact each other -- email, Zoom, instant messaging platforms -- I do remind my team to just pick up the phone sometimes. I know that sounds very basic, but as a society, we're getting immune to the deluge of information that we receive, and interestingly enough, sometimes when you go back to an old type of communication tool like just speaking to someone, that's actually pretty useful.

We're overburdened with too many ways to communicate, so I do encourage everyone to phone people more often.

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We're very fortunate because we have everything from sales marketing to operations to call centers to technology to data scientists, and we do a lot of rotating people. We also have lots of leadership programs, online courses, and external courses, so we've put a lot of effort into that.

In a company that's five and a half thousand strong with tens of thousands of clients, you could argue we punch well above our weight with the opportunities in CoreLogic, because we underpin that US real estate economy, which is worth over $40 trillion. It's just vast, absolutely vast, and we're small enough to be nimble and big enough to be needed in the markets we serve.

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Just to give you a really good example, we hire former military, and for the first 18 months they go on three 6-month rotations. We call it the LeaP program. They'll go from technology to product to operations, and they get an amazing view of the company and really good training. When they come out at the end, it's a feeding frenzy to try to hire them into the relevant groups. That's one example of rotation.

More personally, with the teams that I run, from science analytics technology and data, the more chances we have to get these teams in front of clients, the more chances we have of understanding context. I'm fortunate enough to run an R&D facility in Dallas called the Discovery Center, and we bring in big clients through that. They can tap into the innovative research and development that we're carrying out and vice versa, and it's a good opportunity for teams to meet clients.

It's not just sales and product but a wider audience. We collaborate with data scientists on the client side day in and day out, and that's a great learning opportunity for both entities. I've worked in call centers, I've worked in operations, and I love being out with a sales group. Empathy is massive.

We also do paired programming, so we have two engineers, one keyboard, and two screens, but basically they're working the same code. What you see over time is a workforce of hundreds becoming upskilled very, very fast because we rotate every day, every week, so engineers learn off each other.

So say you and I were paired programming. I'd be talking aloud about what I'm doing to solve whatever function we're building and software we're engineering, and my pair is critiquing and providing feedback constantly, so there's some interesting dynamics there.

One is the productivity goes through the roof because if you and I are pairing, I'm not on my iPhone surfing or being distracted. It's very concentrated, and you learn a lot quicker because you understand patterns, techniques, and technologies, and then you rotate around. The hardest thing is to keep hold of them [the programmers] because they're very good in an up market!

I led that group for five or six years, and that rotation, even within the group, means you don't have a staggered line where you've got a very top engineer, so all the way down, the workforce comes up pretty fast in terms of skill sets.

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I would say, please make the effort. Go and meet people. I know we want to provide people the flexibility in their lives -- it's very important -- but if we don't put effort in to meet people, I worry long-term, I really do.

I think there's a time and a place to meet new people, meet people from different parts of the organization, and meet different people from different sectors. If you can do it face-to-face, physically, there are just so many positives in that: trust, understanding different behaviors of people, understanding different motivations.

There's a lot to gain from that. I worry that maybe I'm the one with old-school thinking, but it's interesting that when we hire a lot of graduates, they're always keen to come into work.

So I think I'll just make a plea for everyone to lean in. I don't think people understand the impact of themselves when they're not there. For example, some people might not speak up in a meeting, and they say, "Oh, I didn't want to upset someone."

And I'd say, when you don't speak, that also has an impact on the audience. There could be someone in the audience wondering, "What are you thinking? Do you care? Are you up for this? Are you bought in?" I think people sometimes don't realize their own personal impact on the people around them.

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John Rogers is the Chief Innovation Officer at CoreLogic, which leads Research & Development on the biggest asset class in the world: the US real estate economy.?He has worked in all four corners of the world leading large transformation projects in finance, retail, pharmaceuticals, logistics, and airlines.?In his current position, he helped to develop CoreLogic's R&D Discovery Center facility and its Discovery platform, which allows clients that rely on data, insights, models, and answers to drive growth or mitigate risk on their book of business.

Gina Longo?is a Leadership Development Trainer and the owner of Gina Longo Consulting. A former airline Captain and flight instructor, she now takes her experience as a leader in the aviation industry into the corporate world, where she specializes in helping businesses solve talent development and employee retention problems.

? If you're looking to troubleshoot your talent development and/or employee retention problems, please visit?www.ginacall.com?to schedule a complimentary Cause-Analysis Consultation.

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This is the sixth (and last) in a series of articles on the Future of Work.