the Field trip

Andrew Stirling is the Head of Product Compliance at Tanda, the world’s #1 platform for rostering, attendance, labour insights and workforce success, and a local Brisbane technology success story. Andrew has been in this role for 18 months, following him making the very bold decision to leave solid partnership prospects at a top tier law firm. We go wide with Andrew, with discussion including what prompted him to make this significant career pivot, the challenges and successes of his journey so far and the broad gap between the thinking of lawyers and software engineers and how he is successfully bridging that divide. We also dig deep into our respective views on what technology is doing and might do to the way law is practiced.

A great conversation. We hope you enjoy.

Find out more about Tanda at https://www.tanda.co/

'The Field Trip' also available in video at:  https://youtu.be/M0NPXTwBo-E

and as a written transcript at: https://www.fieldql.com/podcast-transcripts

Find out more about Field at https://www.fieldql.com

Overview

00:00 Open

01:43 Legal to non-legal career transition

06:59 Tanda and Andrew's product compliance role

14:50 From (employment) awards to code, and Tanda Paysure

18:04 Proactive legal services as a new market

22:24 Daily activities compared with private legal practice

26:40 From legal rules to algorithms

32:49 Transferability of legal skills

36:42 Learning new things

39:11 Rapid fire questions

42:03 Legal digital platforms

48:34 Value of information generated by legal process

56:31 Impact of tech on legal process

59:31 Future thinking - employment law

01:09:41 Andrew is obsessed with - great business books!

Alex Correa is one of the leading legal recruiters in the Brisbane market. She has built Alex Correa Executive over 10 years on a relationship first approach, mentoring countless lawyers through their professional journey.

In a conversation that aims to understand the trends technology is driving in the recruitment industry, Alex presents an optimistic view of the future for all knowledge workers by explaining how technology has allowed her to drive more energy into the mentoring side of her business. In finding freedom to leverage these more human skillsets, she has created new revenue streams and delivered outcomes that keep her, her clients and her candidates happier.

'The Field Trip' also available in video at:  https://youtu.be/FN94vM3224g

Find out more about Field at https://www.fieldql.com

Overview

00:00 Open

01:38 Work From Home And Remote

03:11 Elevator Pitch

04:09 Recruitment is about relationships

09:02 Career Coaching

15:51 Equally Yours - Diversity and Inclusion Program

20:21 LinkedIn, Recruitment And Employment Brands

23:27 LinkedIn Tips For Candidates

28:13 LinkedIn Positioning For Organisations

30:27 Lawyers Changing Jobs For Career Progression

37:32 LinkedIn For Recruitment, And Limitations

41:05 Automation of CV Review

47:08 Gig Economy And Legal Services

55:56 Rapid Fire Questions

57:06 Tiny Desks

57:46 Alex is obsessed about . . . beekeeping!

Jacqui O’Dea is the Chief Risk Officer of GPT Group, one of Australia’s largest diversified property groups with $24.5 billion of retail, office and logistics property under management.

Jacqui transitioned from Deputy General Counsel to CRO in March 2019, giving her about 10 months to prepare for arguably the biggest risk challenge of a generation. We hear how Jacqui skilled up quickly, gathered support from within and outside the organization, and has helped this major landlord navigate the challenge that is the pandemic.

Key observations for us from this discussion are how well Jacqui had managed a transition to a new discipline at a senior level, how well GPT has supported her in doing so, and how she has used her newness to the role as an advantage.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Dr Andrea Blake is a Senior Lecturer in property economics from the Queensland University of Technology Business School, and in this episode we unpack her post pandemic predictions. In sum: we are witnessing a critical shift of power from the city centres to the suburbs.

Andrea brings a wide range of real estate expertise to the table in this episode, with research in such diverse topics as the impact on rural land values of carbon sequestration to the outcomes of projects involving seniors living being created on school campuses.

But following recent articles about what she sees as longer term trends arising out of the pandemic on the real estate market, we thought we’d get her on the pod and dig a little deeper. And as we did so a consistent theme emerges – that of structural change being under way which will see a broader distribution of commercial activity throughout greater city areas and a stronger focus on local community.

'The Field Trip' also available in video at:  https://youtu.be/Xqun0z4gL_o

Find out more about Field at https://www.fieldql.com

00:00 Introduction

02:58 Andrea's work on intergenerational living

07:08 Quality of data and impact on valuations?

11:24 Andrea's future trend predictions

15:39 Suburban coworking?

19:33 Impact by industry sector

22:03 The shape of future retail

27:45 Office design of the future

32:35 What can employers do to bring workers back?

34:19 The impact of commuting, and public transport safety

37:04 Does a distributed city impact on economic power?

43:35 The role of regulation to manage post pandemic real estate industry

47:39 Higher education - what's next?

50:46 Andrea's drive for personal food security

Fiona Thatcher, Aaron Brooks and Barton Donaldson are three talented, aspiring young Australian lawyers working in London. As with most lawyers, since about March of this year, that work has been based at home. We hear a lot of commentary on how people are adapting their work around the pandemic but we wanted to hear from this younger cohort directly.

Fiona, Aaron and Barton talk of how life was and how it now is, the things they hope the pandemic has changed for good, and of a future of work they see that is not constrained by a physical office.

This was an eye-opening discussion for me which makes me ponder whether the rush to return to the office post pandemic is going to be as strong as many Landlords would like.

'The Field Trip' also available in video at:  https://youtu.be/DzmAzaA23dw

Find out more about Field at https://www.fieldql.com

00:00 Introduction

01:56 Guest bios

03:25 Work pre-COVID - people

08:27 Work pre-COVID - technology

18:39 Email vs DM

21:17 Working from home setup

29:36 Good internet critical

32:03 Perhaps fancy offices are overrated?!

34:57 Avoiding the commute - pivotal in WFH discussion

36:34The Workation TM 😉

43:52Virtualising innovation and socialisation

51:23 What to keep & discard from the pandemic?

58:38 Leaning new skills in pandemic

01:00:51 Barton's reliving his NBA roots

01:04:02 Fiona's writing a murder mystery

01:06:00 Aaron's learning acoustic guitar

Overview

Kernel Property is one of Australia’s leading tenant advisory firms, with a strong track record in working for professional services firms, particularly law firms. We speak with two of its Directors, Kai Schindlmayr and Steve Urwin, to discuss their perspective on the impact of the pandemic now, and how things might change in the future.

This is the third in a series of episodes focusing on emerging future trends in commercial real estate driven by the pandemic.

From the unfortunate lack of collaboration in current negotiations, to the concept of a fragmented office, to office pop ups in suburban retail space, to the future of face rents, we cover a lot of ground.

This was a fun and information rich discussion discussion, which we hope you enjoy.

Resources

More about Kernel Property: https://www.kernelproperty.com.au

Kernel Property recent podcasts & media: https://www.kernelproperty.com.au/news-and-resources

More about Field at https://www.fieldql.com

Timestamps

0:00 Start

1:08 Guest introduction

3:00 A collaborative approach to lease negotiation?

11:57 Current vibe in the CBD

15:35 Are Lease terms becoming more flexible?

19:54 The fragmented office

23:25 Will rent expenditure just reduce?

27:29 Impacts on productivity

27:54 Do decision makers lack empathy for their workforce?

33:01 Who should bear the risk of a pandemic under a lease?

44:22 (How) will office design change?

58:12 Repurposing suburban retail for office hubs

1:03:30 Will face rents survive?

1:07:44 Are we overmeeting’d?

1:15:22 Kai likes to Dunk!

Events Will Change.  How physical events will look different in a post pandemic world, with Jen Williams, Deputy Executive Director for the Property Council in Queensland.

This is the second in a series of episodes focusing on emerging future trends in commercial real estate driven by the pandemic

In this discussion, Jen shares a range of very relevant perspectives, including the PCA’s involvement in the pandemic driven regulation on commercial real estate and the outcome reached; how the broad spectrum of the PCA’s members are currently faring; how the PCA itself is easing its way back into the office (for now?); and what the PCA’s events business looks like now, and might look like in future, and extrapolating from there to how we will all engage physically in the future.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

4:27 What does the PCA do?

6:56 Pandemic impact on PCA membership

11:59 Pandemic impact on PCA itself

15:03 Will meeting culture change?

17:10 Virtual creativity is challenging

19:42 Virtual comms. tech will rapidly improve

20:22 Gaming tech to enter corporate communications

23:21 PCA's return to the office

26:44 CRE Mandatory Code of Conduct

34:19 Office building classifications 

38:43 PCA events - now and in future

46:04 How PPE for everyone might evolve 

49:13 Members want in-person events back now!

52:06 PCA Cities Committee

54:30 Jen has a green thumb! 

55:57 End

Observations and predictions on the impact of the pandemic on commercial offices from Mark Grant of White & Partners, a real estate advisory firm based in Brisbane.

This is the first in a series of episodes focusing on emerging future trends in commercial real estate driven by the pandemic.

Our conversation with Mark includes discussion of a broad range of changing elements in office design, from human density in offices unwinding, to the importance of lighting and acoustics to facilitate all those Zoom calls, to the criticality of in-person interactions for creative endeavours.

Timestamps

3.21 White & Partners moves back to the office

6.02 Current state of the market

9.46 Pandemic lease renegotiations

13.53 Office market breakdown - by location

15.24 Face rents will potentially come back

17.09 Influence of sublease activity

18.24 Pandemic impacts on demand - up and down

20.54 Creativity can't be done by remote

24.19 Pandemic promotes better work patterns

25.39 Tenancy layout changes - density et al

28.30 More thoughtful design in office space

30.51 High desk density will unwind

32.51 Meeting rooms - meeting is who we are

35.26 Videocon tech; acoustics and lighting

38.40 We need training to present virtually

44.10 Suburban focus - hub and spoke

48.46 Collab. leasing approach to persist

51.01 Mark's passion for the ocean

Bradley Price, General Counsel for Frasers Property Industrial, joins the podcast to talk about innovation within the legal function and the broader business. Frasers has a very impressive framework for driving innovation, which Brad shares with us, but three things from this discussion really stood out. First is the power of incremental innovation across the entire organisation. Small things matter. Second is the importance of involving the customer (both internal and external) in the innovation process. Third is how the process of innovation, where an answer is not immediately apparent, has challenged Brad’s legal problem-solving mindset and, ultimately, made him a better lawyer.

Timestamps

2:40 – Overview of the Frasers business: history (Australand) and current structure

5:10 – Brad is a man with a sense of humour

7:10 – The innovation spectrum

10:10 – Innovation at Frasers – a breakdown of the process

13:00 – A legal team ‘embedded’ within the business

15:40 – Physical office layout impacting on internal collaboration

20:15 – How innovative ideas are sourced and progressed at Frasers

25:45 – Customer input in the innovation process

29:40 – How innovation process has made Brad a better lawyer

31:55 –  Collaboration within Frasers at the international level

33:10 – Brad shows off his Spanish!

We are talking with Tim Franklin: lawyer, triathlete, coach, motivational speaker - a true multi-disciplinary human being.

We will talk about juggling professional pursuits, his passion for movement, his amazing feats whilst in quarantine (including a full marathon inside his apartment!), and how the world might see movement differently after this difficult time.

You can follow Tim at:

Instagram: @timmyrfranklin || https://www.instagram.com/timmyrfranklin/

This podcast was initially live-streamed on Sunday 17 May 2020, with a copy available at:

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4c8Rz_rzc