How Ubisoft Upskill for the Future
In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I’m joined by Andrew Saidy, Vice President of Global Talent at Ubisoft. With nearly 20 years of diverse HR experience, Andrew brought an exciting perspective on evolving talent strategy.
As Andrew shared, “The world has changed. We’ve been hiring for the last 30-40 years based on your education, years of experience. All that is changing.”
At Ubisoft, skills are becoming the currency for hiring, mobility and promotions rather than solely relying on degrees or tenure. This skills-first approach leverages AI assessments and Eightfold’s talent platform to access diverse talent aligned to business needs.
However, Andrew cautioned that you still need human oversight. As he put it, “AI should augment, not replace recruiters and managers.”
Andrew also emphasised the importance of leadership support and communication when launching an internal talent marketplace, given the magnitude of change it brings.
With gaming demanding high creativity, he discussed the strategic value of employee wellbeing and maintaining an empathetic, caring culture – especially with hybrid work.
I highly recommend tuning into Andrew’s forward-thinking talent insights and tactical ideas for HR leaders to drive innovation.
Episode Highlights:
Adopting a skills-based approach to hiring, mobility and promotions to access more diverse talent
Leveraging AI ethically in areas like skills assessments to enable skills-based talent strategy
Getting leadership support and effective change management when launching an internal talent marketplace
See Greatness Everywhere
Powered by deep-learning AI, Eightfold’s unrivalled Talent Intelligence Platform shows you what you need, when you need it. Whether you’re finding or developing talent, their skills-driven approach backed by unparalleled talent insights enables the outcomes you need to stay ahead.
🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript
Andrew 0:00
The talent Marketplace is a win win for the organisation and for employees because on an organisational level attrition goes down. So you keep your best people instead of them going on LinkedIn and finding a job outside. They're looking for a job within your organisation which is great.
Chris Rainey 0:23
Andrew, welcome to the show. How are you?
Andrew 0:24
I'm very well how are you?
Chris Rainey 0:25
I'm good. It's strange to see you. I feel like we've we've met so many times, but only virtually right, finally. But it feels so normal, don't you think? Like I was like, we've always seen each other in person, even though we've only ever seen the virtual reality hybrid working. It's 2023. Yeah. Was you surprised to how tall I am?
Andrew 0:43
Yes, I was.
Chris Rainey 0:44
You never know. Right? I
Andrew 0:45
know. On camera. You just see this work? And it's? Yeah, I was like, Oh,
Chris Rainey 0:49
yeah. How's life anyway? House? I was fine. Everything's good.
Andrew 0:52
life's great. Paris, and of summer.
Chris Rainey 0:56
It's how long you've been in Paris? Well,
Andrew 0:58
I've been in Paris since 2020. I moved during the pandemic. And it was pretty tough for the first part. Yeah. And then you know, Paris is back to being an amazing city. It is.
Chris Rainey 1:08
Yeah. Was it a big culture? Shock, like different from where you came from?
Andrew 1:12
I was in Boston before I was in Boston, with Schneider and Dubai before that, and stint in Paris. So it was not it was not all new.
Chris Rainey 1:22
You've been around and you've been using my house? Yeah. And
Andrew 1:26
I spent a lot of time in Paris in my previous jobs. So with Schneider and Baker, Hughes and other companies, so it was fun to go back to Paris and actually live.
Chris Rainey 1:38
Yeah, before jumping to the poco. Somebody tell. Tell us a little bit more about your background, and your journey to the role that you're in now? Well,
Andrew 1:45
I've been in I've been in HR for almost 20 years, I've been alternating between centres of expertise. So everything from talent acquisition, talent management, leadership learning, rewards, and HR business partnering. So I've done the whole gamut HRBP, HR director in charge
Chris Rainey 2:02
no conversation about as a chef or just get that one?
Andrew 2:05
I did. I did I did rewards. So it's like everything in HR, you really did almost 20 years. Today, I manage talent at Ubisoft, the global talent function. So talent acquisition, talent management, learning, and everything in between. And it's a lot of fun gaming. It's fun
Chris Rainey 2:26
to say that, like I assume it's a game but everyone knows who Ubisoft is. Maybe she gives them a bit of background about to get about the company.
Andrew 2:33
Yeah. I mean, Ubisoft is one of the world leaders in gaming. And that's what we're most known for. But we also do other things other than gaming, like TV shows, and move some movies and arcade games. So it's it's quite a lot of gaming adjacent, but mostly gaming. Some of our biggest games I'm sure many of your viewers have seen and heard of I know that you have Yeah, like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry and Rainbow Six and others
Chris Rainey 3:03
must make your life quite good in terms of attracting talent into the business.
Andrew 3:08
That is true. I think I'm very lucky with our employer brand. We have a very strong employer brand. We keep working on that I part of my team is also working on employer brand and our EVP and all of that, but I have to say in terms of name recognition, every time I'm somewhere and I say I'm from Ubisoft, a lot of you know eyes start shining and which is
Speaker 2 3:32
funny I said to you before we hit record, I was going to surprise you that we're gonna play some games and you're like No, is that like an unspoken like you got you have to be good at playing games to work in the company as well.
Andrew 3:42
Like you know what? You don't you don't it's just that that's one of the questions that I asked in in my interviews like do I have to be a gamer because I'm like the 80s and 90s gamer I'm not a multiplayer I like work you know, gaming on my own. I like games that have a start and an end because I feel like I'm have some gratification in the game. Yeah, there are a lot of our games that are like that, and it's a lot of fun. But I like gaming on my own. I don't like you know, multiplayer player versus player or open world games. Yeah, I feel like I'm definitely subpar when it comes to that. And especially you being a gamer for so many years. I do not want to take on no competition. I'm
Chris Rainey 4:23
so glad I didn't say out loud it made you feel really uncomfortable. make a game out of this live stream. It's a LinkedIn and made you a bit more festival. Something I know you're really passionate about we spoke about this before flying is skills. You said to me skills everywhere. And I'd love to hear about how you seeing how you've seen this impact and evolve the employee lifecycle and journey.
Andrew 4:43
Sure, you know the world has changed. The HR world I'm sure you're always interviewing HR leaders, they're telling you pretty much the same or HR world has changed for the last maybe 3040 years we've been hiring people based on what's your education, how many years of experience you have in this special specific field will all that is changing. Because today if you have 10 years of experience in coding, that means nothing, because what you were doing 10 years ago is not the same that you were using five years ago. And it's definitely not the same of the newer technologies that are happening two years ago. So what we want to do at least at Ubisoft is to make sure that we use skills as a currency. This is your currency to get into the organisation, we're hiring more and more based on skills, what are the skills that you have? What is the competency level in these skills, but also in terms of promotion? Also, in terms of internal morbidity? Today, when we're moving people around, we're not looking at how many years of experience they have in something specific, we're looking at, you know, what are the games that you shipped? What skills do you have in this function, and that's, that's your key. So it really is using skills as a currency. What we would like to do down the road is maybe one day also use skills as currency in terms of pay. But that's a bit further down the road overall, how do we use these skills everywhere for the growth of the lifecycle of an employer super
Chris Rainey 6:07
interesting, like because I told you a quick story before we when we hit record about my background, because I went, I was in a company for 10 years, and it was required, you needed a degree, yes. But I said, I don't understand why you need a degree to be good at these skills. And the HR manager was a bit stunned, didn't know what to say, at the time and ended up working there for free just to prove, even if I don't have a degree, I can pick up new skills, and I can execute on that. And I was there for 10 years. And they still didn't change that policy.
Andrew 6:37
Yeah. And I'm pretty sure that still exists everywhere. I can see some intern jobs posted online where you need two years of experience and a master's degree. Why
Chris Rainey 6:47
is that? Why do you think that that just distilled a case? In my opinion,
Andrew 6:51
two things, one comfort zone, this is what we've always done. And I think for many HR people, but also many business leaders, this is the way and we don't want to do any other way. And there's not a big imperative that has happened, that pushes us to change that, you know, when COVID happened, there was this imperative to start working more from home work remote, and all that. That has not happened for hiring. And I think there's also a bit of this is what we have on the inside. And we just want to replicate. You know, Chris is a great talent. He has this sort of education
Chris Rainey 7:26
show as you go and look for that in right. So what does that mean for diversity as well?
Andrew 7:31
Well, not great diversity, because you end up and that is something that at Ubisoft we're trying to get away from, in order for us to hire more diverse candidates coming from maybe different educational backgrounds. Because when you're hiring for maybe a developer or a programmer, you do need some form of education or technical education. But we're trying to diversify even the sources of this technical education, not the same types of universities not the same types of Institute's in order for us to get a more diverse candidate slate Yeah, the more you hire based on skills, the more you see that diversity flourishes, because some of the barriers are no longer there.
Chris Rainey 8:14
Yeah. What does that mean, from a technical point of view, what was what we free to steps that need to become a skills based organisation? Or you're taking various
Andrew 8:22
things one first started with the strategy when we came together as an HR leadership team, when we came together with the business and said, you know, what is working? What is not working? How can we enhance what we already have? Ubisoft is a very diverse and inclusive organisation. This has been there for a long time, how can we rally diversity plus hiring the best skills because at the end of the day, that's that is what we're looking for. Yeah, the best talents out there. First, we need to have a skills as a currency as part of our one of the pillars of our strategy, too. In our job descriptions, you start seeing a lot more skills. These are the hashtag, this skill hashtag the other skill that is on our ATS that is on LinkedIn, you start seeing that also internally, because we want to push to hire based on skills, our hiring managers have been trained to look more for skills rather than you know, the typical, what is your education? How many years of experience you have? Because that's not very indicative of how great are you going to be at your job? Yeah, but if you have the skills, and we can assess you based on the skills, then you're going to be great. I mean, one of these example the examples that I can give you is we currently use a tool called dignity. And it is an assessment tool for coding and programmers. And it's online and it verifies the level of skills. And, you know, programme I'm gonna ask you, how do you measure so that's great. Well, that's it basically instead of actually saying to someone, well, how many years of experience do you have? We just send them a kind of an A assessment and they do it and it is AI proof. So, you know, you can't cheat your way into it. If that's the first question that a lot of people ask us, like, oh, but maybe AI can do this job, it typically can't. That's one of the different ways that we're trying to make sure that this lives up to where we want it to be. Did
Chris Rainey 10:18
that influence your ATS decision? Or did the current one already fit that model? We like in terms of how you? How does it identify skills and like the CV and a cover letter or in just the onboarding process? Yeah,
Andrew 10:31
the current one already had part of that. And our recruiters are trained to use it. We use smart recruiters
Chris Rainey 10:39
Nice. What did that train into? Like? You mentioned training? What did that look like? Was it in person online? Like what what were the things that you did? When you
Andrew 10:46
look at, you know, talent acquisition as a function, or recruiters in general, there is a lot of work to get sourcing to find people, what we're trying to do is to shift this part from recruiters into technology. So using skills and using matching of skills through the tools that we have whether external or internal, recruiters have a bit more time on their hand in order for them to coach people, managers who are hiring managers. That coaching is in person that coaching is through, you know, online learning that coaching is through some of the tools that we have. And that is changing the role of the recruiter, going from a sorcerer or an interviewer and to a hiring manager coach into someone who supports the business, a business partner. Yeah, a business partner.
Chris Rainey 11:35
Yeah, I'm sure they're much more energised by that as well. Yes, most? No, but I'm saying like you, I'm sure many of them don't miss the admin. I mean, like on the HR side, you don't get any HR leader, but like, I really loved doing all that manual work.
Andrew 11:48
Yeah, no, I don't think anyone misses the admin, that's for sure. But this is a big change. Yeah. And change is always hard. So our head of talent acquisition and the team are, are accompanying this change and trying to make sure that you know, people are okay with it, and they have what they need. So that's why I said most it's for some people changes harder than others. What about
Chris Rainey 12:10
internally? How do you have a talent marketplace that you use? What does it look like? Yes,
Andrew 12:16
we do have a talent marketplace. And as one of the first people to have ever launched as our marketplace, it would have been weird for us not to have one. So this is my third talent marketplace. After launching. Yes, wow. After launching the one at Schneider, which was one of the first with Unilever, and then launching the one with Seagate. And now this is my third at the at Ubisoft, we use eight fold, which goes back to what I was telling you about skills everywhere. eightfold is renowned for using skills for the matching and they have a huge taxonomy of skills that were, you know, piggybacking on. Also
Chris Rainey 12:53
you could benefit from the whole of the day to day, the day to day appointment I have already right.
Andrew 12:58
And they also work with the gaming industry a lot, which supports us in our functions and in our different parts of our organisation.
Chris Rainey 13:08
Why eightfold because you're going through free different companies experience different platforms. I work with a lot of those companies. Why eightfold? I'm always interested in Oh, what was that decision made that choice?
Andrew 13:17
You know, I think it was very much neck and neck. And I think a lot of these organisations offer similar functionalities and and things on offer. Why eight fold specifically is for this taxonomy of skills for using skills everywhere. It felt like eight fold when we when we together with it, and the business and HR when we looked at what really brought us over the line was skills, not necessarily the user experience, not necessarily how it looks or not necessarily some of the functionalities, but more the philosophy of skills everywhere and the huge taxonomy of skills that
Chris Rainey 13:57
they have love that. How has that been received internally? Well, we
Andrew 14:01
are still in some of our pilots. Okay, we launched HR it. So two very large global functions, we launched in one of our global sales functions. We have recently launched three very large studios. The reception in itself has been overwhelmingly positive. I mean, we launched one studio recently, and in 24 hours, almost 50% of the studio was already really logged and created their profile created. Yeah, we've known for some time through our listening strategy and our you know, surveys, that this is what our employees want. They want a platform where they can find what's you know, what jobs are there and network.
Chris Rainey 14:44
I have to ask some more questions because you've been on this journey, and what advice would you give to people to consider in creating an intelligent internal tenant marketplace?
Andrew 14:52
I get that question quite a lot.
Chris Rainey 14:54
Well, shouldn't they be doing?
Andrew 14:56
Well, what maybe they'll start with what they should yeah. So first, definitely leadership support. Yeah, in all my three experiences, leadership support was so important. The CEO, the head of HR, the business leaders, they need to understand what this change is, because that is going to shift things that it's going to like turn things upside down for many people, especially people, managers. So leadership support is really crucial.
Chris Rainey 15:22
People always say leadership support, oh, but how good is this
Andrew 15:27
case, you know, business case, the talent Marketplace is a win win for the organisation, and for employees, and it is one of, you know, many, but maybe few, I don't know if one of many or few but where it is a win win for the organisation and employees, because on an organisational level, attrition goes down. So you keep your best people, instead of instead of them going on LinkedIn and finding a job outside, they're looking for a job within your organisation, which is great. There's definitely a business case in terms of spending and budgets, because every time someone leaves, there is a recruiting cost, there is a ramp up cost, there is attrition cost is usually quite high. The business case is you want to save money and keep your talent, and especially in terms of competition. I mean, you as an avid gamer, I don't need to tell you that when some of our people leave and go to a competitor. That's not great. We want to leave our talents, you know, keep them at Ubisoft. And I'm sure many companies want to do that. So when you monetize that, and you you show the value of that in terms of money, and how much you're going to save then business leaders listen, the normal listen, I normally do this, and they say, Well, yeah,
Chris Rainey 16:43
let's do it. Was that? Was it something else you're gonna say? Because I use going through your list? And then I got you often. Yeah,
Andrew 16:48
I mean, business business support is definitely number one, the right partner is definitely super important, because that's a long term partnership where you need to be on the same page, both on philosophy, but also technically and technologically. So that's, that's super important. And number three is do not underestimate. And maybe that's also what you shouldn't do, do not underestimate the magnitude of change. This is a big change companies have been doing the same thing when it comes to internal mobility for I'm gonna say 100 years maybe. And that is going to change that it is going to empower employees, for them to be in the driver's seat and to really manage and lead their careers. And that could be perceived as this empowering some managers, which in reality is not the case. But it could be the talent holders, right, a talent hoarder. It's like, oh, I have a versus a superstar. I don't want to let him go.
Chris Rainey 17:44
Yeah, I think someone said it was a talent moving in from talent importers and exporters in Korea in the organisation. Correct.
Andrew 17:51
And I know I mean, at Ubisoft This is one of the things that we appreciate a lot in our managers and our leaders to act like owners and grow talents for the entire organisation. If you if you have superstars and you keep them on your team forever and ever. Yes, you will ship a game. But these people will not stay forever leave, they will leave. So and I think that a lot of our strongest leaders understand that. And they are becoming talent exporters.
Chris Rainey 18:19
Yeah, that took me a while was a manager to get into my head. Because I used to when I used to lose some of my top talent, I were like, oh, like I get really frustrated. And then I realised I was also I was in the same role myself for five years. And that's also why I left. So when I kind of looked back on it, oh, this is also why I left because I was on the same row. And I was told, you know, Chris, you're great in a row of making bringing in millions of pounds in sales sort of business, and they were like, We don't want you to move anywhere else, but stay where you are. And I was like, Well, I'm leaving then. So it's like, you're gonna leave, you're gonna lose them anyway. If you don't if you don't do classic, what's some of the mistakes you see companies make with
Andrew 18:58
talent marketplaces, going too fast, too quick, as in,
Chris Rainey 19:03
like, putting everyone involved in creating Yeah,
Andrew 19:06
or not, not really thinking it through and not understanding, you know, every end. Because I've been doing talent marketplace. Yes, for so many years, I have a lot of companies coming and asking me for consulting and counselling. And what I see is that a lot of companies want to go super fast. And that typically doesn't work. Because it is a big change. You need to prepare for the change, you need to implement the change, and then you need to make sure that you know, reinforce the change. And that doesn't happen by you just clicking that go live. And this is not about the tool. I know we talk a lot about this whole marketplace as a tool, but it's not about the tool. The tool is secondary. It is about the change. It's about the you know this new concept of mobility. It's not the tool and a lot of companies think that you know if I buy the right tool, everything I'm going to be fine.
Chris Rainey 20:01
I see that all the time in every tool in the HR space. And whenever I'm talking to leaders on the show, it's always the actual execution part, the strategy part that they the change management part underneath they don't they underestimate right? And it's ongoing. It's not like a couple of months is ongoing, continuous change. It's interesting to see companies rolled out what what about, what did you find that to be the most effective way to launch launch strategies? Do you think? Yeah,
Andrew 20:30
one of the things that was very successful and this is something that we did, for example, at Schneider is to have ambassadors or talent marketplace ambassadors at Schneider, we had about 80 locations. And we had about 2000 Ambassadors Wow, in location, and their job was to evangelise to tell people about the change that is coming to create town halls, to support by answering the you know, frequently asked questions, ambassadorship makes it closer to you, rather than you know, there's a big phone notification from the top down. It makes it like this is happening in, you know, my local contact local context. Yeah. So that was very successful. How do you find those people volunteering, you we just send calls for volunteers and HR supports and location and we say this is a big change that is coming in, do you want to be part of that we go to ERGs. Because you know, employee resource groups, whatever the ERG is, are typically a great place to start. In addition to that, you need comms partnership, and you need leadership comms partnership. Because what we've seen and this is, as I said, for the third time, what we've seen a lot is when you get communication from your leader, you are more likely to click on it and open it and read
Chris Rainey 21:51
with some posters from HR. Right? This is another Hey, not necessarily
Andrew 21:54
from HR or like an unmonitored
Chris Rainey 21:58
mailbox or from your leader. Yeah. And also, I'm sure like, you want to be spoken about in like the town halls and stuff like that. Yes. Often, former US leadership team, of course, as well. This isn't like a HR initiative. It can't be seen like that. Right? It's a business there. Yeah. True. And
Andrew 22:18
actually, you know, the, I'm glad you say that. Because when we when we at Ubisoft, when we're looking at launching, these launches typically come for a business leader. Yeah. So when we launch in a studio, the studio managing director sends an email to the team or the studio managing director has that as part of his or her townhall, and then we send an email to the team. So it always comes from the business.
Chris Rainey 22:43
It may seem like a small detail, but is huge difference. I agree coming from those people, as opposed to hearing about it from like, an email from the HR team or on the intranet or however, you know, and it's probably mixed between 10 other messages that they may they may receive. I can't really go for any podcasts about talking about AI. At the moment, what are some of the ways that you're seeing AI utilised in HR, but also the talent strategy?
Andrew 23:11
You know, I can't have a day without talking about AI. It seems like that's everything everything everyone wants to talk about all the time. I think AI has been in HR for some time, when you talk about top talent marketplace, it's been there for six, seven years. And AI is the one doing the matching and whatnot. But AI is also happening elsewhere, I think you can see you know, chatbots now, HR services are relying on AI a lot, especially for larger companies, where some of the questions that you get how many days of holidays Do I still have that does not require shouldn't a human being to answer you could do that through AI. So I see a lot of servicing happening through AI. A lot of development is happening through AI where AI based on where you are today, what skills you have, and what skills you want to have is suggesting a learning path for you is suggesting coaching, mentoring, networking, so all what could help you in actually getting to where you
Chris Rainey 24:14
are, oh, that's happening also within the talent marketplace. Most marketplaces,
Andrew 24:18
a lot of them. But it's also the interoperability of that because you know, you're not going to be in most cases, you're not going to be doing the learning on the talent marketplace. So it's going to take you somewhere else. And this is where some of the LMSs have really stepped up in terms of AI in terms of suggestions. Of course, there's a lot of AI and learning not in terms of tools but in terms of content. I'm sure like Ubisoft many companies out there are starting to look at upskilling their teams in AI especially generative AI, this is something that you know, my team at the moment is definitely looking at Yeah, and looking into how what programmes can we launch and how fast can we do that? In order for all of our employees, especially those in more production roles, like shipping games? How can they use AI in order for us to ship faster, better quality, etc? Yeah. So everywhere.
Chris Rainey 25:16
Do you have any guardrails that you've put in place with a team?
Andrew 25:19
Yeah, I love that question. And you know, when I reflect back, if I go back to the talent marketplace, when we started wanting to launch a talent marketplace using AI at Schneider in 2018, that was one of the questions of our CHRO. And our CO CIO, who said, you know, AI is using machine learning, which means whatever you feed it, exactly. And it learns, how are you going to guarantee that we're not going to have you know, a lot of engineers who are male from a certain age, and that is where you look at technology to make sure that you know, bias is not seeping in that. If it is, then it is curated. So that that is important. And that brings me to the guardrails, one, you need to monitor AI, you can't just let it go, and then see what happens. It does need to be monitored and to in the uses, it is so important for you to also not just rely on AI, this is a lot of what we tell our managers, because some of our managers say, Okay, so the matching is going to be done by the talent marketplace based on skills. Yeah, but how do I ensure that the person actually has the skills that are on their CV, they didn't want to write because anyone can do anything? And we say, well, the tool is just helping you with the matching. But you're still in control of the interviewing, you're still in control of assessing the skills. No one's gonna get hired just by AI. I mean, from a legal perspective, that's not you. Let's not even go there. Yeah, no one's gonna get promoted, just because AI said, you know, she is the right person for this role. There needs to be, you know, checks and balances. Yeah, so that's one in terms of guardrails, too, I think there is, there is a need for us to keep assessing. There is a need for us to say, okay, how can we make it better? Because it is a continuous improvement? That
Chris Rainey 27:16
I think there's a reason why people call it copilot is they're not to replace you. It's your copilot agreed, right? And it's allowing those recruiters to spend more time having valuable conversations, yes, and doing those things, uh, freeing them up to have much more value add time to do virtual tasks as well. And that's also going to create a much better candidate experience. So it's empowering leaders.
Andrew 27:39
Yeah, I think so. And I think it's important for us as leaders, and as HR leaders to think about it as such, because what we want is to hire and promote the best talents and have the right people in the right place. And as you said, I mean, at Ubisoft, we get more than a million application and a million CV per year. Wow, for a company our size, that is a lot. And that is a testament to our employer brand. You can't have recruiters go through these. I mean, in many cases, there needs to be a layer of and that is great. Because at the end of the day, we're going to end up finding the best talents in the right place. At the right time. You can't only rely on people to do that. But then the interview is going to happen with a human being. The assessment could happen with a human being. So it is a co pilot,
Chris Rainey 28:32
also I want to talk about is it's been a wild ride Alaska for three years. And you know, I know a big part of your workforce is also remote hybrid. How will you kind of making sure you can create a culture of well being in a hybrid distributed work?
Andrew 28:47
I'm very happy asked about that, because well being is one of our top priorities at Ubisoft. And it's also one of our strategic priorities. We know very well that if our people are doing well, we ship games and we ship great games, we work in a creative industry and I'm you as a player of our games, you would understand that you need creative people to be healthy and happy and you know excited about coming to work. So yes, a lot of people are working remotely. We have a hybrid model in pretty much everywhere that we operate. In some places, there is a lot more people at the office and some others, there's a lot more people at home, we are trying to find our balance, there is no guidebook for that there is very much a test and learn approach and each one of our locations that are very different. You know, the studio in Singapore is not the same as the studio in Montreal or a smaller studio in Bulgaria. They all have different needs. The culture is very different. So we're really trying to make sure that it is a local approach. What we also want is to have more people interacting because also for well being sometimes it gets lonely. Yeah. And you being remote five days a week, you know for or weeks a month, and so on. Eventually you start feeling lonely and you start needing this need for interaction and meeting people. And we all know that we ship games better and easier when we come together. Now, we've learned a lot from COVID, where most of us were bound to be at home. And even through we shipped great games. It is a test similar and we need to get to a place where the equation of hybrid working well being and shipping grade games is balanced. That's that's like the trifecta.
Chris Rainey 30:35
Yeah. I love the fact that you said it is a strategic imperative. Like you said, it is like it is well being in the past was kind of, in many companies, it seems like a nice to have that we have these apps, and we have these things, right? It's very fluffy. But it has a direct impact. In your, in your case, use days shipping games, right, which is how he made money was also it's also a good not just the right thing to do. But it's also a great business. And I don't think people really make that connection enough.
Andrew 31:04
And and for us, I mean, yes, both things you said are true. But for us, it's also a question of culture, and what type of company, we as leaders want to build, and continue building and our company is founded on this culture of kind and caring and, you know, supportive of our employees and the gamers and their safety. So it is also pretty cultural for us to say, this is what we support.
Chris Rainey 31:32
Yeah, I know, it can be intense as well. Right? I follow gaming really closely. And I noticed us a lot of pressure in in gaming companies to get games shipped, of course, and pressure from the time and from the community, right. Like people like me and I for numbers, right? We're like game, you promised the game will be shipped on this date. Yes. Right. So you've got literally millions of people saying, Hey, where's our game? You
Andrew 31:55
know, I are gamers are very, very loyal. Yeah. And they want us to be shipping games as fast as possible. And that has an impact on our people, or employees as well. I you know, a lot of times I get like, where's Conan bones? Where is the next Assassin's Creed? Yeah, well, it's coming yet. That means that a lot of people have to be hard at work to get it out.
Chris Rainey 32:22
Mr. Paul, like you said, You got to have a balance, because otherwise you just gonna, we're just gonna disagree, we're just gonna burn out, you can't be creative and be like that, at the same time, those two things don't go together. That's what I know about personally, because of my sort of struggles with mental health and stuff like that, like it's very difficult to be creative and locked in and like, you know, really thinking outside the box, when you're stressed, stressed out and you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, you're burned out, totally doesn't work. And you
Andrew 32:48
know, strategically I think it's also a question of continuity. We don't ship only one game, you know, we ship 10s, sometimes 10s per year. So it's not like when you ship the game, you're, you're done. Now, we also need
Chris Rainey 33:02
that point. Exactly. The DLC releases. You got, like, so much. So
Andrew 33:08
we use the beginning almost to be at their best. All the time. Yeah, just until they ship a game because there's always another game to ship.
Chris Rainey 33:16
That's a good, that's a good point. I don't think people realise that once. You know, there's games that that I'm still playing that came out years ago, the same game. I'm still playing, and it's still being updated. And solving this still auditions, Ubisoft, I hope Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely for the ego. What parting advice would you give to the HR leaders of tomorrow, there'll be sitting in your seat one day,
Andrew 33:41
test and learn. I, I come from an HR background, through my various experiences that is very much into test and learn if it hasn't been done before. That's not an issue. Let's be the first to do it. And I do feel that some not to say many HR leaders out there prefer to be in the more like, what's the word I'm looking for? Tried and tested? Yeah, the tried and tested, the safer the safer path. And I'm not saying you should take risks like all day long. But in this growth, mindset, you need to test to learn, you need to try new things you need to things that you thought might not work might work today, because today is different than 10 years ago. So that's one big advice, which is, you know, try new things. Or at least let people on your teams try to challenge the status quo challenge the status quo, definitely. That's one, two, the world is changing, and businesses are changing. And in some cases, HR could be seen as far away from the business, be a stronger business partner by understanding the changes that are affecting the business, especially with AI especially with generative AI, especially with the economies of the world that are shifting and changing. That's that's maybe another advice And three, and that may be joins number one and two. Don't be afraid of technology, technology as you said, as a co pilot, it's something there that is meant to support. It is not replacing us as an HR leader or the HR community, it is augmenting what we do. So that we could be like HR 2.0 Yeah. So yeah, I think these are the the advice. Well, it's
Chris Rainey 35:25
enough like next time you got I'll come visit you in Paris. So definitely,
Andrew 35:29
we could play some games so definitely, you know, you're gonna love our our offices. We have wonderful headquarters about in Paris and on every floor we have multiple gaming. Gaming lounges. Yeah. And of course you can play all of our games for free so so you're welcome
Chris Rainey 35:49
to head I've got commitment now camera, so you call it Well, listen, I appreciate you coming on the show. It's been it's been great to get to know you over the years. I know it's the first time we've met and like I appreciate all the support you've shown us and the community and you've always been great at giving back on our events and now here in person and I wish you all the best. It's
Andrew 36:06
great talking to you.
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Richard Letzelter, CHRO at Acino.