The Future of Work with Workday Co-CEO Chano Fernandez

Workday's co-CEO, Chano Fernandez, talks with CXOTalk about his company’s growth, the future of work, and the importance of culture, diversity, and inclusion.

40:32

Jul 30, 2021
20,516 Views

Workday’s Chano Fernandez is in a unique position to discuss the changing landscape of our workforce, remote work, and the future of work. As co-CEO of Workday, Fernandez leads the company’s journey to provide software that helps organizations manage and grow their workforce.

The wide-ranging conversation with Chano covered these topics:

Chano Fernandez is co-CEO at Workday and is responsible for the entire customer relationship, which spans acquisition, services, customer success, and customer support. He is also a member of the company’s board of directors.

Transcript

Chano Fernandez: I believe diversity just makes you better because it makes you richer in terms of the different points of view you have. That can only make your culture much more open-minded and much more inclusive.

What do customers expect from Workday?

Michael Krigsman: We're discussing the future of work with Chano Fernandez, Co-CEO of Workday. Chano, what do your customers want from you or expect from you as Co-CEO of Workday?

Chano Fernandez: Of course, representing the company, but what they're expecting is a business-trusted partnership. What does that mean? They're clearly expecting us to help out with innovation.

They're clearly expecting great customer service and support. They're clearly expecting us to be really honest and truthful in terms of delivering what we commit to, obviously, provide a great service, as I said, and being open and proactive with them, but also listening in terms of when they provide us feedback on where we should be investing and which areas they really need help.

Last but not least, Michael, as I mentioned, we're privileged to manage key assets for our customers (their people and their money), so they're expecting thought leadership from us in those areas. We're sharing with them some best practices because we just have the privilege to interact with many customers in these areas, plus our own experts. That's what they're expecting.

Michael Krigsman: You're a software company and so, of course, at the core, you're delivering software, processes, features, and so on. However, what do your customers expect in terms of leadership and guidance around those best practices and around where the world is going, and what they should be doing as a business?

Chano Fernandez: Yeah, the world, Michael, is changing so much right now, and we have so many broad topics that we're trying to address. We've been, and we still are, in the middle of a social crisis, a health crisis, I would say an economic crisis in some of the verticals, clearly, or the industries. Clearly, the economy is recovering.

They're expecting that we have a point of view as well, of course, as a partner, broader than just the technology itself. Where do we think things are going? How do we handle things around ESG (employee and social governance and responsibility)?

How are we thinking about talent and the workforce talent that is out there? Many of you have been hearing about this great resignation and so many other topics.

How are we thinking about climate and climate change? What are we doing as a company? How are we supporting those endeavors – if we are?

What about diversity? What are we doing? How are we seeing it? What are the things that we're putting in place and practices? Would technology help or not help?

What about skills and how we are attracting them and retaining talent these days? How are we handling those things?

It's a number of different broad topics that I think they're just expecting good conversation, as I said before, to share some points of view from our own direct intel, but also from the opportunity that we have in engaging with many customers across many different industries on some of these dimensions.

Michael Krigsman: Many of your customers are the largest organizations in the world, and so when you're talking with them, to what extent do they want to engage with you around the points of view on these various topics, again as distinct from, "Well, your software does this," or "Your software does that"?

Chano Fernandez: When we're having executive conversations, it's more the discussion, Michael, that if you're going to help me out to digitally transform my company and you're going to be an enabler of that process, what exactly does that mean? What should be the dos and the don'ts, the learnings that you have from other organizations?

How do I get ready to make it successful? How do I measure it when it is there to make it successful? What should be the talents, skills, and resources that I should dedicate in my company to make that happen?

Then that will drive to broader topics, as I said before, in terms of critical topics around the world of HR and finance. Hopefully, these days, a lot around the world of HR because there's been a lot in that area. Clearly, all of us are managing and handling these changes and COVID as a whole, employee engagement, and mental health. Clearly, as well from the thought leadership, particularly, and what are we reflecting as well on the inputs we have and the solutions we have and we're building on the software.

Hybrid work and work from home

Michael Krigsman: You mentioned HR. When we talk about HR and where work is going, the impact of the last year on how people work—whether they're in offices, hybrid, and then it goes far deeper than that—can you share with us your thinking on the future of work? I think it's a topic that affects pretty much everybody.

Chano Fernandez: First of all, clearly, we all lived it this year. Some of us still today here from home are living it. The world today is much more virtual and much more remote.

It's much more diverse than it used to be and we're all aiming to make it much more diverse, too. It's much more really employees looking for full-time engagement, is looking more for contingent or hourly or freelance engagements than it's been before. People are looking for much more flexibility than they were looking before and looking at things differently.

We're looking as well in terms of how we attract talent that's more skills-based than experience-based, more than really what is your curriculum or academic pedigree that you're bringing to the table.

If you think about clearly much more digital than it used to be, much more technology-based as a whole, of course, to enable some of these conversations and meetings, and really rethinking as well, even when we're just thinking what is the role of the offices and the role when companies are going back; we say back to work but back to the office. What is the meaning that we want to give and provide to those offices and those experiences and those moments that matter for our employees when they get together? How is that different for how we enable that from what it was before the pre-pandemic?

I think some of these trends and characteristics, Michael, that were there, they're just being accelerated. Usually, during a period of crisis, not many times new trends appear, but some of the trends that were there, they tend to get accelerated and that's what we're seeing right now in that future of work.

Michael Krigsman: In a way, it's kind of mirroring digital transformation that the changes in the pandemic have accelerated workforces that were present already, very much like digital transformation. Where do you see this going over the next three, six, nine months? What are your customers telling you about how they're responding to this very confusing pandemic environment that we're in right now where there is just so much uncertainty?

Chano Fernandez: I would say, in the short term, you look at the period between three, six, to nine months. Again, we'll see what happens with this Delta variant across the world and how harmful or challenging it is or it isn't, as the vaccines are doing their work.

The most thing is, how do we transition back to the office? How do we think about that? We, for example, in Workday, what we've done, Michael, is, first of all, we thought about employees in different groups: the ones that will work permanently remote, the ones that would be always in the office, the ones that we call seldom, sometimes in the office, and the ones that we call mostly, many times in the office.

As I was saying before, we're thinking offices for what we call moments that matter, which is more for networking, innovation, and collaboration. If you're just going to be doing your own work or through Zoom, honestly, there's not much of a point to go there.

Those are many of the conversations that we're now taking back to our customers is, how do we make that happen, how that transition should be taking place, and how do we succeed through that transition? Let's not forget it also has an important impact on every company's culture and what they want to make out of that one.

There are more particular decisions how companies are thinking what are my cultural goals and what do I want my company to be and to mirror. Based on that, how I want my relationship and my values being reflected on the engagements I have with my employees.

How Workday builds corporate culture despite hybrid work and work from home

Michael Krigsman: One of the issues that I've heard people raise repeatedly about hybrid work—and even more so working from home—is how do you bring new employees in? How do you get those new employees to feel like they're a part of the organization? How do you impart the cultural values to these folks? Just in general, how do you bring a level of spontaneity to the office in this new environment?

Chano Fernandez: I think it's one of the hardest ones, Michael. Imagine you were a new employee and imagine you are even more in earlier years in your career, even just coming out of college with a couple of years of experience. But even if you are a bit more, let's say, with more broader experience. You'll be getting into a new company where, at the beginning, we'll want to create our own best potential impression and show what we can bring in terms of value. You're going to do that fully remotely.

Of course, you're going to build that networking fully remotely, which makes it much harder – I anticipate. I don't know. I don't live it myself, but I talk to people, of course, that have joined.

In terms of even just reading people and behaviors and how they act to just even not having the opportunity to see them act with everyone in the room, which is also those attitudes, those behaviors are the ones as well that are making the identity of a culture. You don't have that opportunity to do that. You get onto a video conference like this one and you just talk. Let's go on to talk about what we are here to discuss, and then let's leave because we have the next one.

Just building up those trusted relationships and that networking and just being able to get really believing what it is that's the culture and how people behave and have more informal chill-out or relaxed conversations around the corridors in an office, you don't have that opportunity. If you're much earlier in your career experience, I think it's just much tougher. Also, I believe the opportunity for you to be coached—sometimes you can learn a lot around a coffee machine or just going with someone for grabbing a sandwich or lunch—and having an opportunity to ask other questions that usually you're not going to be asking through Zoom, that is harder, definitely, for more of the new employees (remotely) than it is doing it at the office.

When you talk, and I've been talking recently with some of our latest innovations that we're building onto the software, I always am asking our software engineers how it is doing collaboration, doing it remotely, especially when you are innovating, bringing a new product. In many cases, like the one we were just talking about, it also involves some other partners like doing it with Microsoft or with Google and creating APIs (I mean connections and integrations) with those partners.

They tell you it is doable, but it is just harder because our ability to get, as a team, in a meeting room and do a flip chart, put it all together there, get people to hand over the thing, and brainstorm with one another and there is good software to do it remotely, but it's not the same. That's why we're strong believers that, for collaboration, innovation, networking, and onboarding new employees, it's just harder.

It is doable, we're doing it, we're managing it, we're learning a lot, I'm sure we're doing it much better than when we started, but it is fair to recognize (at least our point of view) that it is just more difficult. I feel a little bit sorry for the new employees that have to go through that process because it must be hard.

Michael Krigsman: We have a very interesting question on exactly this topic from Sarah Climaco. Sarah asks, "How has Workday continued to foster company culture while employees have been working remotely?"

Chano Fernandez: We tried to do our best. Have we done the best we could? Honestly, I don't know of everything we should have done. I don't know, Sarah.

First of all, we've been trying to communicate, communicate, and communicate. What that means is obviously you try to show who you are as a company, who you are as a human being, as an individual. We've been trying to lead even more so with compassion and empathy. That has been much more relevant during this period.

What that means, Sarah, is that we've been and I think we always have tried that at Workday and, hopefully, we've done successfully. We have tried more to understand (you as not just a professional, but as a human being) what are you going through and how can we help? Without going into the details of how we've been helping, we've been really putting a number of programs in place to try to help our employees.

Clearly, there was a health part, but obviously, there was a mental health part as part of the health one. There was an economics part. We've been trying to do our part in helping them from a health perspective and from an economic perspective of what we could and tried to be very close.

To give you one example, in my case, I've been doing a number of what you could say as skip-level calls, which is (especially during last year) talking not just to my direct reports but people one or two levels under, just to see how they were doing, how they were hanging around. I'm catching up on if there was something that we were not doing at Workday that we could be doing to help them out – not with another purpose when calling them. People have been very appreciative of that, those calls. Clearly, it also gave us an opportunity to listen. Certainly, there are other channels to consider, like maybe this is what we should be doing or we're not yet doing but we've got this great feedback from a number of employees discussing.

I guess, by different means, of course, mostly remote, but sometimes a phone call is better for this than a video call in terms of how people will talk to you. Even if you're doing it just through a walk, and you get more informal and relaxed. If I'm looking to you, actually in your eyes, and you might be saying to me different things, but that's what we've been trying to do.

My expectation, our expectation, I would say, but mine personally is if I'm doing that, hopefully, people will see me as a role model in some of these tasks. I'm expecting my employees and my direct reports will be doing other things on top of or maybe different things. Hopefully, that will replicate and people will follow.

Importance of culture to Workday’s CEO

Michael Krigsman: You're co-CEO of the company. You're a busy guy. You have to worry about the financial markets, your customers, company growth, and all of these things. This issue of culture, how important is it to you personally and what do you see as your role in the shaping of culture and the outcomes that you want from having the right kind of culture?

Chano Fernandez: I would say for us it is critical. It is our legacy or the legacy I got as part of being co-CEO because the company was founded on strong values and a great culture by Dave and Aneel back 16 years ago. Of course, as we grow, we have the legacy into how do we make that culture even better; at least sustaining, to be honest, because as we do grow, it just doesn't get easier.

Clearly, what is the culture? At the end of the day, it's our entity. It's the way we are able to retain our great talent. It's the way we're able to represent our brand. It's basically the behaviors and the attitudes, collectively, of we as employees and what we represent. It's of tremendous importance and relevant as well for employee engagement and employee productivity.

Obviously, companies that have a good culture and the right culture, that also folds and has an impact onto your balance sheet, your P&L, and your financials. Clearly, we have a very simple saying that we've not seen companies that will have happy customers without happy employees. That's why we always say no doubt that employees are our value, number one.

If we get happy employees, the rest will be much easier. That connection with customers and customer satisfaction, that innovation, and that willingness to do the best thing for your company because you truly feel a sense of belonging of part of that company and you want it to succeed.

How important is employee experience to Workday?

Michael Krigsman: I think these days we hear so much about the importance of employee experience, but it was your co-CEO and the founder of Workday, Cofounder of Workday Aneel Bhusri, who some years ago made the point to me – he was a guest on CXOTalk – saying that in order to be successful with our customers, we first need to be successful with our employees. I'm paraphrasing, but it's essentially what you just said as well, I think.

Chano Fernandez: I think it's something that I also learned when I joined Workday. I felt it. I think, during these years, I've been digesting even more the importance of it and really do our best to protect, as I said, and enhance that culture because it truly, truly creates an impact.

You just have to see how helpful our values and our culture have been for Workday to navigate difficult times like last year, again, when everyone is trying to do the right things, clearly, as a management team for our employees, our employees for their peers, and then last but not least, of course of critical importance, all of us for our customers and trying to see how can we help to go through these times where we all know we need to help, but we're here to play the long game. Right now, the most important thing is helping each other and bringing shoulders together to navigate through these times. Clearly, our values have been helping us out to navigate through these last 12, 15 months.

What is a purpose-driven enterprise?

Michael Krigsman: I think this culture topic is resonating because we have a number of questions that are stacking up now on LinkedIn and Twitter. Number one, this is from Lisbeth Shaw. Lisbeth says, "There has been recently this meme regarding purpose and the chief purpose officer, so purpose in relation to culture. Any thoughts about this notion of the purpose-driven enterprise that we hear so much about recently?"

Chano Fernandez: Purpose is tremendously important and you see when any company gets potentially a new CEO or co-CEO in place. I'm not saying in my case because I'm coming clearly internally within the company and you might see less so that because, of course, I've been a part of creating as well our purpose before within Workday.

The first thing you're going to do is try to shape the strategy, try to create a vision, and try to create a purpose. A purpose is, of course, us aligning together towards that North Star that we want to achieve.

At Workday, we want to create that brighter Workday for all. The "for all" is really important in terms of appealing to that diversity and basically everyone, not just a few of us out there. I think it's the rallying cry for getting employees together in terms of what is that north vision, what is that North Star that we're all navigating towards with the vision, but that is bringing us together.

Then, of course, you as an employee have a sense of inclusiveness and belonging as well towards that purpose or you don't. I think it is very important, "Does it resonate with me, and is this something that drives me towards action and towards feeling attached in terms of doing, try things, or creating impact on progressing towards achieving this purpose?"

Michael Krigsman: We have another question from Arsalan Khan, who is a regular listener and asks great questions. Thank you for that, for listening, and for your questions, Arsalan. Arsalan says, "The pandemic pushed people to rethink their culture and how they work. But now companies are pushing employees to come back to work even though they have been productive working from home. How do you handle resistance to folks who don't want to come back to work in the office?"

Chano Fernandez: What the pandemic made us do at Workday is more thinking about our business model. What are the areas that we felt that our business model is very resilient, are great, and what are the things that maybe we should consider to shift and adapt.

We thought that our values and our culture were right. Of course, culture, you always need to be working on it. As I said before, I shared some of the things that we did to work on it.

We are not aiming to push employees to come back to the office. We're expecting and we want them to come back when they feel safe and they feel happy to do so.

Of course, we believe that our culture and we are best when we are able to connect and it's a culture of connectedness, as I said before. But we are providing a significant, long-term period of around six months (after summer or so) for people to transition back to the office.

Again, the future right now is uncertain from a health perspective and what is going to happen. I'm talking with the information we have today that we will be in a position to do so at that time. Hopefully, we can achieve that goal.

More than pushing employees, I think if you believe in that culture of connectedness, is hopefully some employees will realize what they are missing by not connecting with their peers. Of course, again, when they feel that it is safe to do that, and they feel comfortable in doing so because that is tremendously important. I'm very respectful of how everyone and when everyone is feeling that way.

I think that if you are able to create those moments – the pizza Tuesday or taco Friday or just coffee Monday (whatever you want to call it), not every day being one but just to give you an idea – where I went back to the office and I just had a good time. I didn't realize what I was missing because I got to have a chat with Michael, and I got to discuss with Sarah. It was just fantastic. You realize what you are missing.

Of my own experience, here's one example. A month ago or so, I went back to my London office because we had our significant partner event, our Altitude event. I had to do a recording there.

There were only three people in the office that were helping me out with the event. I had IT and some of the real estate managers, and I had a great time in terms of just discussing with these three people.

I said, "That was good." It was a remote event, but just not doing it through Zoom but just having a discussion there and then going down and just grabbing a coffee. Again, it's a simple thing but I realized I miss this.

Let me tell you. When I came back home, I felt happier. I'm maybe a person that gets energy from people. I felt more energized.

Again, this is not our aim to push anyone. We're providing a significant transition period. We want people to feel comfortable and, of course, they feel that it's safe for them to do that, and that's very important. We care a lot about our employees as human beings. If they don't feel that way, they shouldn't do it.

I think it's more important, like, "Yeah, I fully respect that remote can be great and you can be really productive." I'm also a believer, to be honest (a personal opinion), long-term 100% remote, I don't know what it would mean from a mental health perspective for many people because I believe we are social animals. We need to share some of our emotions and have some social connections at some point. I think that just helps for everyone to be happier to get some sort of different energy.

How does Workday measure achieving cultural goals?

Michael Krigsman: We have a very interesting question from LinkedIn. This is from Tim Mikhelashvili. Tim says that he has interviewed organizational change specialists and researchers as part of his podcast. He asks, "How do you quantify company culture-related behaviors and track them over time, and how do you integrate culture and behavior along with performance into your KPIs and your metrics?"

Chano Fernandez: First of all, how do we measure or how do we see the health of our culture? Maybe the best way to illustrate it is with an example, Tim.

Back in 2016, we were a fast-growing company, so we were hiring a significant number of employees per year. We realized – I'll tell you how we did so – that our culture was basically deteriorating.

We looked at some of the data, and we saw that more than 50% of our managers were either new managers in Workday, people that had been promoted, or they were maybe experienced people from the outside but new managers within Workday.

We were growing so much that, again, keeping great culture when you have a lot of growth is not easy. You always have to keep a continuous eye on it.

How did we realize that our culture was deteriorating is question number one. I said simple things. We saw that people were not saying, "Good morning," or smiling when you were at the lift, or it was less than we were used to seeing. We saw that someone was in the parking lot and was dropping a paper and maybe was just not picking up that paper.

I love the definition of culture that culture is how people behave when no one is watching or no one is looking. I love that one.

What do we do about it? We decided to do a people leadership summit with all of our new managers between 600 and 800. At that point in time in 2016, '17, there were around 800 new managers per year.

We got them together for two days, in person, and we were just talking about culture and values in action. Honestly, that may seem (and I thought that maybe it was going to be) a little bit fluffy, but it was so well done by the people ... [indiscernible, 00:29:31] our HR organization, in terms of the examples and really all of us as a management team participating that the feedback even from very senior managers was very good.

We understood, and we hoped that all of them understood what it meant to lead within Workday and with Workday's culture. With that, we feel that people will be doing the right things and making the right decisions for our customers, for our employees, for the company as a whole, and definitely has an impact in terms of how we are performing.

I would hear many times – again, more anecdotal but very important – that especially at a certain point in your career, people join companies because of culture – a very powerful reason why you attract talent. I would say that Workday attracts talent maybe because you appeal to innovation and good culture. Of course, some of these metrics – yes, we measure them – and some of these examples, Tim, hopefully give you an idea of how we think about it.

Diversity and inclusion at Workday

Michael Krigsman: We have another question from Twitter, a really interesting one, and this shifts the topic a little bit from culture to diversity and inclusion, which is so related to culture. This is from again Sarah Climaco. She asks, "What diversity and belonging efforts are you most proud of at Workday?"

Chano Fernandez: I would say I'm proud of our journey, but we certainly cannot be complacent and we need to do much more. Obviously, without going into much detail, we've done (many companies have done) significant investments, especially in this last year, and even ahead of the unfortunate incident last year with George Floyd and some others on the Asian side, but clearly even before that.

Last year, we decided to take even an increased action-oriented stance, and we allocated 20 of our brightest employees across many different groups to work together across our different lines of business around belonging and diversity and basically help us out in terms of what else we should be doing that we are not doing. As I said, there are a number of actions we've taken.

We set, as well, some goals for ourselves. Just to share them here with you, there are more, but some of the critical ones are: we aim to increase 30% our black and Latinx population by 2023, and we aim to double the black and Latinx managers by 2023, and others of Asian or underrepresented minorities as a whole, as well as part of our goals, and we have a number of initiatives in place.

We put some of those as well in our software with products like our VIBE Index and VIBE Central. VIBE stands for value, inclusion, belonging, and equity. Again, I won't go in much detail what these products mean. We're doing it very intentional—and I think intentional is the right word here—effort on trying to avoid any bias on our products, especially those that are more recruiting-wise.

We've done, as well, a significant number of training with our managers in terms of how we recruit and how we avoid the bias and doing and taking some actions on how you have more blind CVs and, of course, those based on skills. We're doing what we can.

Last but not least, we've changed our real estate strategies and we're opening in places like Atlanta, for example, in the U.S., and some others with the aim that that will help us to attract talent that would be more diverse because we believe that talent is everywhere but opportunity is not.

Michael Krigsman: How do you think about the measurement of these diversity and inclusion efforts you mentioned a little bit earlier?

Chano Fernandez: We gave ourselves these goals I mentioned a couple of times. We have a number of them. I mentioned about the black and Latinx, underrepresented minorities.

We have as well VIBE Central, which is a dashboard from all the measures that we look into and, clearly, like in the social kind of mirrors, the number of promotions that are going to the different ... [indiscernible, 00:34:03] and minorities, and so on and so forth.

We measured, as well, for example, when we worked on a program with GEAR UP. that is an organization where we help some people that are coming from more underserved backgrounds and underprivileged ones where we're helping out to invest in training them on some IT skills during six months or a year. Also, veterans, and also maybe females that may have, unfortunately (for family reasons) been away from work for 15, 20 years period (maybe to help out to raise a family).

We try to give them opportunities, coming back to Workday, investing in training. So, we measure, of course, how much progress we are making in each of these programs and how many people we're hiring, recruiting, or promoting that are coming more from diverse backgrounds. Yeah.

Michael Krigsman: What is the relationship between diversity and inclusion and the culture of the company? How do those fit together?

Chano Fernandez: I think they go hand-in-hand, Michael, because I believe – very simple thinking – diversity just makes you better because it makes you richer in terms of the different points of view you have. That can only make your culture much more open-minded and much more inclusive in terms of everyone is very respectful of their opinions, their backgrounds, the different points of view, and just enriching how a minority may think in terms of how a very diverse population will think and will see things. Of course, we're expecting that we will go A) in our innovation B) on our engagement and relationship with our customers, and on the service that we provide.

Michael Krigsman: Let's take a quick question from again Arsalan Khan. Chano, I'll ask you to respond to this relatively quickly. Arsalan says, "A company's culture begins with hiring and job descriptions. How should job descriptions change considering this evolution in how people are working and the future of work?" so the impact on job descriptions and talent hiring.

Chano Fernandez: I think it's going to be more a skills description, as I said before, than a job description. We're already on that journey. We provide, as well, solutions that help customers there.

What matters the most is exactly what are the skills required for that particular role and for you to be successful in that one. It's a bit of a change from what it's been traditionally.

Michael Krigsman: What is the mark or the imprint that you personally would like to leave on Workday as the co-CEO?

Chano Fernandez: I would just like to be seen as, "He was someone that was a good role model, one I know here in terms of an ambassador of our culture. He definitely helped out with the team on our journey to the $10 billion," which is our big milestone. We're around half of that right now.

"He just clearly left great talent behind that's really fitting well within the company." I think if you leave great talent behind that fits well within the company, you leave the company in pretty good hands, basically, to continue the journey and great people to contribute in many different ways.

Michael Krigsman: We have one more question that's popped up from Twitter. Why don't we take one more? This is from Constance Woodson who says, "How can diversity and belonging become a thread within company culture and not a forecast for the future?"

Chano Fernandez: I believe this is a journey where we need to commit long-term. It's kind of viewed as a hype right now.

It's got to be a bottoms-up investment. When I say a bottoms-up, at the end of the day, I believe you're going to have to focus on activities that will just fill the pipeline of diversity as a whole from the bottom, meaning that earlier obtaining your people in their careers, making sure that you do have programs in place and you nurture those and invest in those that will allow that talent – as I said before, talent is everywhere but opportunity is not – to join companies and to join the workforce of the future.

What I would like to see is that all of us are just doubling down and keep our efforts steady and increase during not just the next one or two years, but whatever happens in the next 15, 20, 30 years. Hopefully, if we do so, that would not become a topic of discussion anymore because, since we'd be balanced, most of those companies will be already diverse by itself. By definition, you always would need to look at things that you need to do to balance out some pockets, but it's not like it is so unbalanced that it is the headline of every single day.

Michael Krigsman: Okay. With that, I would like to thank Chano Fernandez. He is the co-CEO of Workday. Chano, thank you very much for taking time to be with us today.

Chano Fernandez: Thank you, Michael, for inviting me. Thank you, everyone, for joining and for your questions as well. Thank you so much. Have a great day and have a great weekend.

Michael Krigsman: Everybody, thank you for watching, and especially those people who asked such great questions. Before you go, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button at the top of our website so we can send you our excellent newsletter. You should tell your friends and check out CXOTalk.com.

Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Chano Fernandez. Have a great day. We'll see you soon.

Published Date: Jul 30, 2021

Author: Michael Krigsman

Episode ID: 715