201 - TZL - Raouf Ghali

Raouf Ghali [23:47] Sure, Randy. Randy, the good part is that we as an organization went through a lot right before the pandemic. I talked a little bit about selling off the Claims Group, going through a restructuring and tightening the belts and really cutting down on a lot of our overheads. In 2019, we had a record year of new bookings, and as we thought we were about to take off the pandemic hit us and hit us, like everybody else, with a complete surprise of how fast things turned out to be. But luckily enough, we had endured a lot of difficulties a year and a half ago, so we were pretty lean on our overhead. We also were very fortunate on the fact that probably Ninety percent of our construction was deemed as necessary construction so it did not stop. We had about Ninety percent of our workforce secured and stayed on. We did certain cuts. We tightened the belt on a lot of things that we could do without. And by doing that, we looked at very efficient ways of how we can continue working. We couldn't go back to the office. Our IT was very, very fast in adapting to the times, and we created hubs where we could work from home much faster than anybody else could do. We actually closed down all our offices. I think we were one of the first firms. If you remember, the pandemic hit around March 15, 2020. I think by March 20/22 the following week, I had closed offices all around the world to keep ourselves safe. Unfortunately, one of our colleagues died very early on during the pandemic, which saddens us, so we were happy that we took all the measures, but we have come out much stronger. We kept our cost very lean and we substituted some of the losses that we got because of the pandemic with finding new ways, new services, new ways to be able to support existing and new clients, and we've come up pretty strong on all those.

Randy Wilburn [26:44] So, a couple of questions that I have for you then based on this. Has anything changed based on how you're going to work at Hill moving forward in terms of your workforce? Will you allow more remote work? Again, as you said, you haven't really missed a beat? Are there things that you've implemented during the pandemic that you're going to continue to do post-pandemic?

Raouf Ghali [27:12] Definitely, we will allow people to be working more from home for two reasons. One, I feel it's a more efficient way of working. We've learned that there is efficiency by allowing people to control their time more when they can work and how they can juggle their private life and personal life with work. We created an environment where we're saying Fifty percent on average we'll be working from home and Fifty percent in the office. You need some office time because you need team building. You need to be able to mentor some of your colleagues and employees as they come up in the ranks. And having One Hundred percent just from home I don't think is a very good workable environment. Having one hundred percent only in the office is also something that I think the millenniums would not really like and we want to attract the best talent

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