In this next series of Tech-Driven Business, William ("Bill") Newman, Industry Executive Advisor at SAP North America, rejoins Mustansir Saifuddin to discuss how Workforce Planning has evolved through out the pandemic. This includes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, changes in business operational styles, talent acquisition and retention, and how SAP is playing a role in this landscape. From not only supporting customers with their talent attraction and retention to providing access to education to expand the talent pool, SAP continues to be an important player in the tech industry.Bill has over 35 years of executive leadership, strategy, consulting, practice management experience balanced with extensive public speaking and higher education experience. A former leadership team member for Volkswagen’s IT division, he is the author of two books on enterprise performance and has worked with many OEMs and suppliers across the automotive industry. Connect with Us:LinkedIn:Bill NewmanMustansir SaifuddinInnovative Solution Partners Twitter: @william_newman@MmsaifuddinInstagram@billwine5YouTube@isolutionpartnersor learn more about our sponsor Innovative Solution Partners to schedule a free consultation.  Episode Transcript[Welcome to Tech-driven Business. Brought to you by Innovative Solution Partners. In this first episode of a multipart series, I welcome back Bill Newman of SAP listen in as Bill shares his thoughts on how workforce planning has evolved in the pandemic. There are so many moving pieces to the puzzle and Bill hits on what businesses of all sizes should be aware of. [Hello, Bill. How are you? [Great. Mustansir. Good to be back with you again. [Thank you. Thank you for joining us. It's been a while, so it's really good to have you back on our show. [Good to be back with you. Good topic to revisit now that it's been a little while, for sure. [I think today we will focus on workforce planning and DEI. That's what we want to talk about and get some real examples from you and how things have progressed over since our last conversation. So if you're ready, we can get into our questions. [Let's dive in. [Sounds good. So I know when you last joined me, we were in the midst of a pandemic, right? And looking back at 2022, what changes have you seen and where do you see us going? [Well, I think the biggest change is that we're all we're all back together again, right? We're all working. We're working differently. So obviously there's a lot of technology that has been provided to enable remote work that's become mainstream. And in fact, in many cases, it's de facto. Whereas prior to the pandemic, we would say, tell me why we can't get together face to face. The kind of the thinking now is, tell me why we can't do this virtually. Right? Everybody's kind of enjoyed not only do they have the technology to work remotely, many people have enjoyed the fact that they haven't had to spend two, three, 4 hours a day commuting or traveling. So if we need to, we will. If we don't, why should we? It's even gotten to a point where a lot of our customers have asked their employees, tell me what days you would be willing to come into the office. And no big surprise, very few people lift their hand on Monday and Friday because they would like to spend those days at least working from home to have a little bit more of a work life or life work balance. [But interestingly, everybody coming into the office on Wednesdays just creates the same traffic nightmare and parking anxiety that everybody had prior to the pandemic. So that's always an interesting facet. I think the way th