In an era where technology is advancing at a breakneck speed, the potential of AI to revolutionise HR and people analytics is undeniable. Yet, the challenge for HR leaders lies is how they can effectively harness these innovations to drive real value for their organisations. How can they keep pace with the rapid advancements and ensure that AI is delivering tangible benefits?  

To discuss this ever-important topic, on this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, host David Green sits down with Armand Sohet, Chief of Sustainability, HR, and Communication at AkzoNobel. Armand is a dynamic and forward-thinking leader with an impressive background at GE, THALES, and Novartis, bringing a wealth of experience and a fresh perspective on AI’s impact on HR. 

Listeners can look forward to: 

• Armand’s reflections on how technology has reshaped the HR landscape over the years. 

• An in-depth look at the AI applications currently employed at AkzoNobel and the significant enhancements they have brought to HR processes. 

• Real-world examples demonstrating how a data-driven approach to HR has led to substantial cost savings and efficiency gains for the organisation. 

• Strategies for measuring the productivity impact of technology within HR teams and overcoming the generational challenges of tech adoption. 

• Projections on the future landscape of HR discussions as Gen Z continues to integrate into the workforce. 

• The intriguing question of whether we will ever fully understand AI. 

This episode is packed with insights and strategies for HR leaders aiming to stay ahead of the technological curve and drive meaningful change in their organisations. 

Support for this podcast comes from Crunchr, a platform that integrates an HR data lake with state-of-the-art people analytics. Whether you're an advanced user or just starting out, Crunchr's generative AI co-pilot helps you unlock insights with ease. advanced user or just starting out, Crunchr's generative AI co-pilot helps you unlock insights with ease. 

You can learn more by visiting  www.crunchr.com

[0:00:00] David Green: The insights that we can derive from advanced technologies, such as AI, are revolutionising the HR and People Analytics landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities that enhance organisational effectiveness and employee experience.  However, with technology advancing at rates faster than a bullet train, I find that HR leaders are finding it challenging to keep pace in effectively integrating these innovations into their strategies.  Speaking to Chief People Officers across the globe, I often get asked questions on how organisations can gauge whether AI is really delivering value, and how they can measure the impact of all the new tools at their disposal.   

To discuss these topics today, I'm delighted to welcome Armand Sohet, Chief of Sustainability, HR and Communications at AkzoNobel to the Digital Leaders podcast.  Armand is a forward-thinking HR leader with an extensive background heading up HR functions at GE, Thales and Novartis.  With his role leading Sustainability, HR and Communications at AkzoNobel, I'm eager to understand his view on how AI is being used in the workplace, and how it's transforming HR practices at AkzoNobel.  With that, let's get the conversation started with a brief introduction from the man himself.   

Armand, welcome to the Digital HR Leaders podcast.  I'm looking forward to our conversation today.  Before we get started, can you briefly introduce yourself, your role and also your career journey to where you got to today?   

[0:01:57] Armand Sohet: Yeah, thanks a lot, David.  I'm really happy that you host me for the podcast.  I start with the question, "How did you get to where you are today?"  Let me explain.  I was a student walking down the streets, many, many years back, when I bumped into someone.  And that someone happened to be my supervisor when I was an intern the previous year.  And, it's been a complete surprise.  And he told me, he said, "Well, I'm looking I'm looking for someone for the summer, someone who could automate the human resources function.  Would you be available for three months?"  And I said, "Well, that's perfect timing", because I needed a way to make some money, and I said yes and did the internship for that company.  And just because we're talking about analytics and technology at the time, few auditors would remember these, I mean only the old guys like me.  But we were still working with Microsoft Disk Operating System, you know, writing instructions.  And, it was even before Cobalt, just to give you an understanding.   

So anyway, it was a small company, 200 people, and I think that it worked well, the database and everything was in place.  And at the end of this internship, he said, "Well, if you'd like to have a job in HR, pick up where you'd like to start".  It was an affiliate of a big, big company, now it's Stellantis, the car company.  And he said to me, "Where you want to start and when you want to start, and you get a job".  So, I've been extremely lucky.  I said, "I have my military duties to do, but in 14 months from now, if it's okay, I'd like to work in a factory to really learn human resources".  That's how I started.  Everything else is just history, sales, strikes, unions, leadership, talent development, poor performance, and in different types of companies, automotive, pharmaceutical, defence, aluminium, electrical firms, and now the paint industry.  And I'm working, you introduce myself, I'm doing HR, Communications, Sustainability for AkzoNobel.   

AkzoNobel is a fascinating company, one of the leaders in the paints and coatings business.  And what we do, and that's our motto, "We paint the future", and I love it.  It's really the incredible world of paint that we have in that company.  We have 35,000 employees, close to €11 billion revenue.  That's about me and the journey.   

[0:04:37] David Green: That's really great, and it shows the power of serendipity, those occasional chance encounters.  It's led to a whole career.   

[0:04:46] Armand Sohet: The reason why I say this because it's really funny.  I will long remember this thing and yeah, I've been extremely fortunate, extremely fortunate.  When I think of how hard it is for the younger generation to find the first job and to find something, I was really lucky.   

[0:05:03] David Green: So, let's start with HR technology, particularly in relation to HR.  It continues to be a hot, hot topic.  As someone who's been in the field for some time, how have you seen the evolution of technology impact the HR function as a whole?   

[0:05:18] Armand Sohet: I've seen a lot in terms of impact.  And when I think of the major developments, I really see five.  The first one was the personal computer.  That was the 1980s and 1990s.  The second one was internet.  The third one is not exactly technology, but it is, but it's social media and the impact of social media on HR and the corporations.  Then big data has been really a major shift for me.  And finally, AI.  he most significant development for corporations, in my view, remains the personal computer, when I think of the magnitude of the impact on corporations.  However, the most important development for HR, and again it's my personal view, is big data.  And I know it's funny because big data is not a revolution in itself.  It's a development, but it's a development that has made things accessible that we could only dream of before that.   

I remember, it was around 2012 that I discovered the ability to aggregate that, and slice data with an incredible data analytics tool. I used to call it kind of Excel on the steroids.  But typically, for the auditors to understand the impact on HR, and I had these examples.  It's a vivid example of there.  Because when we released the first version of the big data in our company, we got a standing ovation for all the HR business partners in India, in Singapore, in China.  And one of the person he said, "Armand, why didn't you release that vision earlier?  It would have made my life so easier", because that person had had a very difficult business review with the CEO of the company.  That's the usual thing for HR business partner.  There is one piece of the agenda when they have to talk about the FTs, FTs' evolutions, OHPs or talent, and the time they dedicated to these preparation for the business review was nearly always creating slides and finding numbers.   

So, the way my HR guys, and I think it was stuff they were just doing, all this, trying to get to get the numbers ready.  And when the presentation D-Day was there, if they were asked a difficult question by whoever, CEO, CFO, business guys, they couldn't really get the answer, because the time they had spent was really about gathering data or creating slides and not analysing.  And the shift with big data has really been that people could, all of a sudden, dedicate all the time into analysing, and it made them much, much stronger in these business reviews.  That's one of the many, many examples of what big data brought, and that's the reason why I think it's been a major shift in HR.  

[0:08:23] David Green: What's your perception of what AI is going to do for HR as well?  And then maybe, as part of that, are you able to share some specific examples of AI applications that you're currently using within HR at AkzoNobel, and maybe how they've improved your processes as well?   

[0:09:37] Armand Sohet: What I see has a big impact, it's not only for the function, but it's probably for the company, it's essentially today in the field of writing, summarising, translating and queries.  That's what I see.  There may be some other applications.  In other words, as much as big data is really about numbers, about org trees and everything, the AI is something that really is helping you in the world of messaging, in the world of describing things way more, at least at my level, than getting to the numbers.  And very often, people said, "What does it mean specifically?"  And I would give you an example, which is probably more for the communications department than for the HR department.   

A couple of years back when I was hiring someone in my team, in communications, I would only really recruit an English native speaker, either American or English or Australian.  But by definition, I wouldn't trust fully someone, even someone having good command of English, to be in the role or in the lead role in communication.  When I think of, the last two years, I think that's a requirement that I released it.  So, I said now we can recruit people who are not native speaker because they can -- I mean, of course you need to speak English, but you don't need to have this extreme finesse, because you can compensate this with the finesse of AI.  So, you see, that's very specific, and it has a direct impact on some of -- I mean, it's broadened the scope of the talent pool.  But that's really an example because that's a live example, because I really said two years ago, I remember this, I said now we don't need to have that kind of restriction any longer, we can compensate.   

We have a platform called Eletive, which is an opinion survey, which is a Swedish startup doing these opinion surveys, and they're utilising integrated AI.  And you can see that in the analysis of the comments.  We have 35,000 employees.  Not necessarily all of them will leave a comment, but you can easily end up with 50,000 comments.  And if you're a CHRO, you really want to see what people think.  The integrated tool you have in Eletive is helping me to see a bit more than just the insight about opinions we were getting.  So, I see these fields clearly impacting communications, probably even more, I think of imaging and queries.  We have, most probably like many of the companies, our own chatbot which is helping us to determine everything related to the company.  And by the way, most of the questions asked by our employees are related to HR vocations basically, where to find information.  It's interesting to see the trends and the questions raised by people.   

[0:12:44] David Green: Really interesting.  And actually, I should have asked actually at the outset, it's interesting that your role combines HR, Communications and Sustainability.  I don't know if you can talk to that a little bit, Armand, in terms of why those three things together and what that means in terms of the role, and how that benefits AkzoNobel? 

[0:13:06] Armand Sohet: You know I said earlier, "Paint the future", is the purpose of for company.  And we have three important pillars when we think of this.  One is sustainability, and it's the most important one.  We are recognised as a sustainability leader in the paints and coating industries.  We are the only one having an AAA rating with MSCI as an example.  So, sustainability is really at the core of what we do and who we are.  We have one strong element with services and one strong element on communities, collaboration with communities.  We have incredible initiatives.   

I have an example of someone in India, as an example, who was a former junkie, we've got through rehab thanks to the painting initiatives we're doing.  So, we have tons of examples like these.  So, with the three pillars and having them coordinated with HR, because there are lots of connections, makes lots of sense.  Think of putting incentives as an example.  I think we're probably, to date, one of the very few companies having incentives for the top 300 executives, including the CEO, CFO on the entire carbon chains, I mean, one, two and three.  So, we have the entire value chain, and we have an incentive for all the 300 executives on these, because we have a commitment, excellent commitment, to reduce our emissions in 2030 by 50%.  So, it's easier to combine the strengths of the company to get to the objectives we assign ourselves in terms of sustainability.   

As for communication, you see that when you think of employer branding as an example, you can do more with the communication department in terms of simply running than probably you could do just as HR.  So, there's lots of connection there.  And that's the reason why I think it makes sense to have these three elements together.   

[0:15:03] David Green: How have you seen people analytics technology impact the evolution of your role as HR and your role as CHRO within the business? 

[0:15:13] Armand Sohet: The basis of communication is to adapt to the language of the person you're talking to.  And in the language of the boardroom, the language of an executive committee is the language of numbers.  And you said it earlier, but I couldn't agree more.  And what I think, a tool like Crunchr helps you to communicate in the language recognised by executives, being business leaders, CFO or CEOs.  And it means that, people analytics technology enables the HR function to put very precise and striking features against ideas and initiatives.   

[0:15:55] David Green: And I think we talked about how it's the language that the business leaders speak as well, so I mean it obviously helps elevate the conversation for us as HR leaders, HR professionals.  And a big part of HR empowering the business, HR empowering themselves, is delivering value that impacts the organisation's bottom line.  And I'm just wondering, have you found that the movement towards that more data-driven approach to HR, has it benefited AkzoNobel in cost savings, and if so are you able to share any? 

[0:16:33] Armand Sohet: Yeah, and I will absolutely.  And not only for AkzoNobel, I think that it's been the case for the last two companies I worked for.  But just for everyone to remember, it's not necessarily true for all companies, but I've been working mainly for the last probably 15 years for industrial companies.  And the staff costs accounts for between 20% and 30% of all costs.  So, it means that as HR, we have a direct control on this 20% to 30% base.  And I will give you an example of things that probably would have taken months and months of analysis to bring some savings to a company.   

There is something that the OD, Organisational Development in HR will look at, which is called the span of control.  So, span of control is a bit of jargon, so sorry for this, but it means just the number of employees reporting to one single manager.  So, you have five, you have six, you have seven, you have eight.  It's a critical element, span of control, because if you have too many managers, or too little employees reporting to a manager, it means that's the efficiency is low, which is one; the costs are high; and on top of this, you create layers in the organisation.  So, it means that the people, if you have one person reporting to one, it's not fully motivating.  So, you need to get to something which you don't have a magic number, it depends on corporations, but somewhere between eight and nine potentially for a company like our companies is a good number.   

But how do you bring that conversation to the executive committee?  Well, when you have the data analytics tool, this is done immediately.  When I said immediately, it's just like you press it and you said, "What is my average span of control today?  And what if I would gain one point?  What if I would gain two points on direct reports per manager?"  And immediately you can say, in terms of base pay, how much you would save for the company.  That's the type of thing that again, we can do today.  We're doing it.  I think it took me probably -- you need a bit more than just seconds; you need to craft the message to understand what you want to do, but it's the type of thing that data analytics is bringing to the table.  And if I think of my last company, in a year when we had an €80 million saving plan for a company of €3.5 billion revenue, we made the plan only driven by data analytics, because you can define the plan and you can track the plan, and you can give the accountability to each of the business leaders.  That's absolutely brilliant.   

[0:19:20] David Green: And that example around span of control and having the technology to support you with that, that's one of the reasons why companies make the investments in these types of technologies, of course, because it's the promise of productivity gains.  I'd love to hear your take on this and how you measure the impact of technology on productivity within AkzoNobel, but also within HR as well, because it's a topic everyone's talking about.   

[0:19:44] Armand Sohet: Yeah, I know.  And it's really a fascinating topic indeed.  I don't know if you know someone called Robert Solow.  He's an American economist and as well, I think even got a Nobel Prize many, many years back.  And he's known for the Solow paradox or the paradox of productivity.  And he said something, I think it's his most famous quote is, "You can see the computer age everywhere, but in the productivity statistics".  And by the way, today, people are referring to this again to say, "Will AI make that change?"  So what he said, he said we have all this technology, we have all these things, however we don't see productivity gains for the companies.  And I agree with Solow, that's the thing.  What I see, I've seen incredible individual gains for some individuals' understanding in some areas, but collectively I've not seen it, and I will give you an example.   

I go back to my first story, being a student and automating the HR functions many, many years back.  At the time, my supervisor who helped me to move into the world of HR said, "Hey, my assistant doesn't want to use a computer.  She will be on vacation.  Can you automate the job because it takes her seven hours to just make a kind of manual dashboard for the FTs of the company?  I said I'd do this, I installed the computer, I developed something, it was not called Excel at the time, it was pretty simple in my view.  And that task moved from 7 hours to 15 minutes.  That's the reason why I said the power of the personal computer, in terms of impact, is still one of the greatest, because that's immediate.  It took me not even a week to get there.   

So, I thought because the assistant was going in retirement, that my boss would take it to not replace that position.  Remember, it was still the kind of three productivities everywhere, but it's not what happened.  He recruited someone else with different skills and giving some of the tasks, because this one was done.  But it is something I've observed over and over and over.  So, the question of productivity does exist, of course, but you need really to have a willingness to drive your costs down if you want to see that productivity materialising.  That's really my thinking.  And you need to make sure that all the productivity is not consumed by your internal bureaucracy, processes, forms.  And HR is not the last to do this; finance as well.  The ERP system has developed the bureaucracy in a way that is just incredible.  So, you really need to counterbalance all these elements if you want to visualise your productivity.   

So, yes, I believe in it.  But my observation over the years is the same as Solow, I don't see truly the bottom line.  What I see bottom line is the drive and your appetite for driving costs down.  As an example, there is one indicator that's been there for more than 30 years probably, which is the productivity of HR.  And we said, how many HR do you need for the employees max?  Back around the year 2000, the first time I get familiar with this notion, it was probably 1 HR for 85 employees.  And at the time when people were selling technologies in ERP, people said, "Oh, we'll move to 1 HR for 150".  But guess what?  Today, and I've seen the last report from Gartner as an example, we had 1 HR 75, 1 HR for 80.  So, in terms of productivity, HR for employees with decreased.  So, we are less efficient that we were 20 years back.  I'm just putting specific numbers that you can really find, and pretty readily available, to say that yes, that's a tricky question! 

[0:23:52] David Green: How do you address the challenges of integrating new technologies across diverse age groups?  And it's not just age, I guess, it's also willingness I guess sometimes from people within the organisations to adapt to a new tool.   

[0:24:56] Armand Sohet: Yeah, and I'm always fascinated with this tendency that we have to look at people through the lenses of generations, because that's not the way I see it.  When I look at technology, again based on my own experience, if I had to see, I mean a couple of factors which are helping, it's always willingness to learn and curiosity and the degree of discipline or appetite.  This is way more important than your age group.  And I will give you an example, because you can think of someone who is probably below the age of 30 today and working in our company.  But by the time he's left the world of universities, or whatever, coming into the company very quickly, he becomes as well in the same trend.  And if I'm asking some people, and I try these, I said, "Could you please create a digital image for that particular thing?" or, "Can you give me a summary insight of that document I've read?"   

It's not necessarily the people you would support who are the most familiar to the tools, "We can do it", it's probably more the people who have an appetite or way of thinking.  That's really observations, because I'm doing tests from time to time on these type of elements.  So, if I had to say something, the key thing to make technology adopted is simplicity.  That's what Nintendo really clearly understood at the time with the Wii platform, because that's what it says.  It says, "Why are the senior people not using games?"  Because it was too complicated.  It was a world that you couldn't access because the senior people would put their own mental barriers, and Nintendo decided to break it, I mean to the point it became the Blue Ocean Strategy in terms of books and everything.  You remember this, it's probably 20 years back, but that's nearly the same.  The simplicity of use is the key, and I will give you last example with social media.   

The first time I tried social media, I was fascinated with this, it was around 2004.  I said, "It's cool".  And I bought the first licenses from a small start-up and I said, "Let's go for it".  It's been a complete flop.  The company was not ready, it didn't work, but I said, "Okay", and I tried again in 2010.  I said, "Technology is better, we'll do it".  It's been a flop again.  And I tried the third time in 2017.  It's been a complete success.  That was with Yammer at the time; why?  Yammer was integrated, the social codes had changed tremendously.  I was far too early in 2004.  People wouldn't dare to post things or write things without the consent of the company, you had kind of policies for everything.  2017, the technology was there.  You didn't need to have passwords, you didn't have restrictions in terms of pictures and megabytes, which was the case until 2013 probably; small things.  But then, the adoption went viral, I mean for people being 20 or 60, or I mean that's my view.  So, make it super-easy and people use it.   

[0:28:24] David Green: And I think what you've highlighted, Armand, is that importance that it's not just about the technology, it's about ease of use, but it's also about the change management element of this as well.  If you want people to use it, you have to make it easy for them.  But then in your role as CHRO, you have to role model that as well, and then so does your direct team, and then others are more likely to follow that as well, aren't they, and adapt the way they're working to use the technology? 

[0:28:54] Armand Sohet: Yeah, exactly.   

[0:28:57] David Green: So on that note, if we think about maybe that culture of continuous learning, maybe more Gen Z coming into the workforce as well, what do you think HR professionals will be -- what will be some of the key topics that we'll be discussing in the next decade?   

[0:29:15] Armand Sohet: It's a good question.  One fine morning, I woke up and I was invited the next evening for, I don't know, it was kind of a conference or something.  And I said, "Well, I mean we've been talking about Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, but we're at the end of the alphabet.  What will the HR function be talking about in the next ten years?"  So, to your question, they're running out of topics, we're at the end of the alphabet.  And then I discovered that we had Gen AI.  So!  And with AI, we are back to the beginning of the alphabet.  So, I think for the next ten years, we'll be talking about AI.  And it will be a fascinating topic because today, we don't know exactly what it is.  And I remember that now that it's a reality, take home office, hybrid work, or the ability to adjust the way we interact today would have been -- we couldn't have imagined this like in, let's say 2004, that the date when I had my first interview with, what was the name?  Skype.  So, it worked already, but it was cumbersome, it was complicated, it was breaking all the time.   

So again, when I think back of 2004, the couple of things we knew, like home office, but it couldn't work because the technology or the mentalities were not there.  But we've been talking a lot about this without having true elements of experience.  And I think by the time AI will have fully been onboarded, we'll move to the next topic.  I don't know, probably it will be something else.   

[0:30:55] David Green: Yeah, which we can't predict yet at the moment.  But maybe, continuing on the AI theme, Armand, and if we think, what is the role of HR around helping organisations?  And maybe it's two elements to it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.  I guess organisationally, we need to support the company with the shift towards AI and looking at what that means in terms of workforce planning, what that means in how are we going to work; clearly, data can support that conversation, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.  And then the second part is, what does it mean for our HR programmes that that we deliver to employees and managers within the organisation?  And yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on those two areas really related to AI.   

[0:31:42] Armand Sohet: What I hope, looking forward, and what I hope all these technologies will provide, is a simplification.  Let's take another topic in HR which is really critical for many people, stress, wellbeing.  I mean, that's a piece emerging.  Someone was asking me that question about stress yesterday and saying, "What are the programmes around stress?"  I said, "You can have programmes to fix stress, but you can as well look at where it's coming from".  So, you may have different sources.  Sometimes it's coming very often directly from your boss, because your boss is not really the right manager or the right leader you could expect, and he's not making the work motivating enough.  Sometimes, it's your colleagues.   

But there is as well a large fraction of this frustration that I see in the workforce for years now, which is the ability or the lack of ability to make an impact on the things you have there.  And at every level, "Can I control my environment?  Can I make an impact?  Is it simple?  Is it simple to do a job with some success factors; yes or no?  Is it easy to get an approval from my manager; yes or no?  Should I delegate these to a manager and say it's accountability, or should I on the contrary make that task invisible so that the manager is focusing on the customers instead of just focusing on internal processes?"   

So, when I think of the role of human resources today, in the next years, it should be to make sure that all this technology, all the things we're doing are aiming at making the life of people much easier to navigate in a company in a much easier way, so that all this burden that I can feel through the opinion surveys, through feedback I'm getting, so that this is decreasing.  So, to some extent, I would advise HR guys to merely measure the complexity of an organisation.  I don't have an index for this yet, but I'm thinking about it.  All the time you break things down, you make it more complex, you add time, you add complexity for people, people are less effective and they're more tired.  That's what I think HR should be doing, utilising technology in everything it tries doing.   

[0:33:58] David Green: Last couple of questions, Armand.  Firstly, AI is developing, we've talked about it quite a lot today.  It's developing rapidly.  We think two years ago, we wouldn't have been talking about gen AI, and now we are and now everyone's talking about it in our industry.  Do you think we're ever going to fully understand it?   

[0:34:16] Armand Sohet: No!  My answer is no, I don't think we will understand it.  I'm not even sure we understood some of the past technologies already.  When I said "we", I'm talking about users, but even some of the people working in that field.  And I think that if I think of the IT departments today or people who being specialised in computer sciences, I doubt if they understand exactly all these kind of sequences.  And I think this will be even more complicated to grasp fully in the future.  It doesn't make me super-anxious.  I don't think I'm describing a kind of catastrophic scenario, like Terminator, when you see the machines taking control over the world, but there is an element of something that will escape us.  But it's already the case with many other technologies.   

It's not something that is new with gen AI in my view when I think of it.  There's always been a part of mystery.  You know, this superpower that it's giving, these are superpowers.  But there is part of the mystery of the superpowers, and that's probably the reason why you have so much anxiety around the topic.   

[0:35:47] David Green: Yeah, it's the unknown, I guess, which gives the guess the anxiety I think as well, isn't it?  So, this is the question of the series, Armand, and I'm going to ask you a follow-up to this as well, but I'll start with a question.  So, we're asking everyone in this series of the podcast, so there's five episodes, how can HR leaders use analytics to uncover and address inclusivity gaps within their organisations?   

[0:36:12] Armand Sohet: I know you're saying inclusivity, but I start with diversity to start with.  Big data is typically something that is tremendously helping an organisation to close that gap.  Gender diversity is something that you can easily isolate.  You can give targets to people, you can explain, you can build the indicators that will help you to get to where you want to go.  As an example, we have a target to get 30% female leaders in our top 300 leaders by the end of 2027.  That's, a commitment.  That's as well an incentive that we put in the long-term incentive plan for the 300 key leaders of the company, so we're serious about it.  But we can track this, and we can as well put other elements, like how many people are we recruiting just a level below?   

As an example, we know that if in the company we have somewhere around 27% women, and we want to increase the seniority at 30%, then you need to hire slightly more women at just the level which is a feeder to that senior executive level.  And that's something you can measure.  You can give target, and it's happening today, and we're getting to that.  That was for diversity, and it's pretty specific.  That's an example.  Increasing this is more qualitative, and I think on this, that's where AI can play an incredible role because that's capturing the sentiment of a company.  I was talking about opinion surveys earlier, but there are some other tools.  It's much easier for AI to answer questions on inclusiveness to see what are the perceptions through the comments, through the people.  And it helps as well to close that gap.   

Opinion survey is really a good place anyway to be because you have specific questions about diversity and inclusion.  So, we directly ask these to people, but we can, with AI, analyse the sentiment in a much better way.   

[0:38:15] David Green: And then, just a follow-up to that really, as a CHRO or having the CHRO responsibility, along with sustainability and communications, how does people analytics and platforms like Crunchr, how does it help you as a leader in your role?   

[0:38:30] Armand Sohet: It's fantastic.  I think I'm a lucky person because the heavy lifting has been done before I joined.  I mean, the last two companies I had to design, to build, and to go through all of these very complicated steps of understanding what is FTS; what is there; how you organise?  All this has been done.  When this is done and you put an element like Crunchr on top of it, then you have everything available.  The only thing that you need to do in a role like my role is to make sure that you make sense of what is available.  And that's probably where experience matters, because you have so many data available that you can be lost in this ocean of data.  But if you know exactly where your priorities lie, you can put Crunchr the service of delivering your objectives.  

In our case, I said earlier, simplify, develop, empower.  That's my three priorities as HR for the next three years.  I know that I can use Crunchr on each of the three.  I can use Crunchr to define the degree of simplification, I was mentioning span of control; develop, I can see exactly if we are recruiting people from the outside or if we are developing them from within, which is one of my key indicators, build versus buy, and I want to get to a level of 70% of all promotions being done internally.  And this is something I can measure and empower, which is probably less with Crunchr with engagement and what I was referring earlier.  But all these are tools which helps you to define or redefine your objectives, to track them, and as well to embark all the leaders of the company with you.   

[0:40:13] David Green: That's really good.  That's a great place to end it, I think, Armand.  I love that; simplification, development, empowerment.  Thank you so much for joining me today, Armand, and sharing your time and expertise with listeners.  Before we part, can you let listeners know how they can follow you on social media and maybe find out more about AkzoNobel?  

[0:40:32] Armand Sohet: For me, LinkedIn, that's my place.  That's where you'll find me.  That's usually where we where I interact with people outside the company.  And for AkzoNobel, the website of AkzoNobel is pretty easily accessible.  You have as well the LinkedIn page.  That's just where I would advise people to go to get a better flavour of the stories of the company.  That's where, as simple as it is, I would advise people to get to know us.   

[0:41:00] David Green: Well, thanks very much.  Really enjoyed our conversation, Armand, and hopefully next time I'm in the Netherlands, we may bump into each other at one of these conferences, perhaps?   

[0:41:09] Armand Sohet: Yeah, and many thanks, David, it's been a pleasure.  And, talk to you soon again, I hope.