Prôr, hon. Pobl! Rydw i weld yn fawr. Rydw i'n fawr, a'n gweithio i chi'n gweithio yng Nghymru fel y maen nhw, y hwnnw i'n gweithio i'r gweithio i'w fflockdown. Felly, rydyn ni'n gweithio i chi gael gwisitwch ar gyfer y Prifysgol ymlaen ystod yma, y lluniau'r hynny'n cymrydiau i'r oedd ychydigol yn fawr sydd iawn i chi i gael o ysgrifennu i'r amser ac i'r newydd. Maen nhw'n ddweud bod chi cael gyllunio'r sgol beth o'i ysgriffaen mewn gyfer y gweithlo'r ddomyn. Mae'n du o'r cwm fryingwun maen nhw'n gweithio'r tiffodol yw dros 10 a 12 ydych yn arbennig ar eu cwmpasau collegau. Mae'r cwm yn ddwyddo i'ch gweithio'r Cwyrdd hefyd, oherwydd i'r cyfryd ffordd, dwi'n ddwy i'r lleol, ac mae'r hoffodau o gweithio'r dd� changer llunio'r arweithio, ein sgol i'n ddod addressio'r llunio, will return fully after Easter. Now I am very conscious that I have spent the last few briefings talking about schools and colleges, but I can see from many of you on social media that you would like to know what this all means for our university students, so I would like to focus on them today. As always, I am delighted to be joined by Dr Chris Jones, Wales's Deputy Chief Medical Officer, and Dr Jones will now talk through our public health indicators with the focus on our higher education sector, Dr Jones. Thank you Minister. A summary of considerations for allowing a return of higher education students to in-person education for the summer term was presented to the Welsh Government technical advisory cell on Friday the 12th of March, and I would like to share some of the key points with you today. So for higher education institutions, all the papers indicate that good adherence to the non-pharmaceutical interventions that we are familiar with, washing our hands, keeping our distance and wearing a mask are the best strategies for minimising cases, especially adherence to self-isolation when that's appropriate. All our universities have implemented robust interventions and we have not seen significant transmission in the teaching and learning environment. So as the minister has said previously, our universities are now as COVID secure as possible. There is also strong evidence that the majority of students because of their age are less susceptible to severe clinical disease than older people. I'm also pleased to say that there appears to be little evidence of community transmission from student populations in Wales and that data indicates low case rates in the student population in Wales. I'm now going to turn to show you two slides. The first is the incident rates for coronavirus that we publish every day, and as you can see there continues to be a steady and consistent fall in the weekly rates of new cases of coronavirus. Here in Wales we've fallen from the peak of over 600 cases per 100,000 people back in December to around 40 cases per 100,000 people today. This is really encouraging, particularly given the presence of the new variant and is the very positive result of everyone's efforts and sacrifices. The next slide provides an update on the progress of our vaccination programme. I'm very pleased to report that now more than 1.1 million people in Wales have had their first dose of the vaccine and that over 264,000 have also had their second dose. So this means that over 35% of Wales population have had their first dose vaccination and nearly 10% are fully protected after two doses. I can also report that we're still on track to reach the next milestone of offering vaccination to everyone in priority groups five to nine by mid-April, providing vaccine supplies remain on course. Minister. Thank you, Dr Jones. So what does this really mean for our university students? Firstly, we have to remember that our university campuses have been open since early January and students and staff who need to make use of their campuses to complete their qualifications have been able to do so. On Friday, the First Minister announced that Wales has moved from stay at home to stay local. Our key message for students and staff in higher education is the same. Stay local and work or study from home if you can. Only attend your place of work or study if you cannot work from home. However, in line with our commitment to prioritise education, the rules do allow a person to travel outside their local area for education reasons. Students and staff who need to make use of on-campus learning or work can access campus facilities such as academic libraries, study spaces, studios or laboratories. So, from the 12th of April, it is our expectation that all students can return for blended learning for the duration of the summer term. And indeed, universities have planned for more teaching and learning to continue in the summer term than is usually normal in the academic cycle. To support in-person teaching to resume as safely as possible, we have also strengthened the availability of testing at universities. Students will be offered tests before they return to university and twice weekly lateral flow testing will be available for all students and for staff who cannot regularly work from home. I am so very grateful to students for maintaining high levels of compliance in difficult circumstances. No other generation has been asked to endure such a different university experience, and I know that your university experience this year has been very different from your expectations and that you've missed out on many of the social aspects of life at university. But in making those sacrifices, in doing what you have done, you have helped to keep the virus under control. You've reduced the risk of catching and spreading the virus and this will have certainly have saved lives. If we all continue to work together and to remember to follow the basic rules to protect ourselves and each other, I hope that we will be able to keep taking steps forward at each three-week review throughout the spring. So thank you, thank you for your help and your patience. We've been able to keep Wales safe, but we've also kept Wales learning. Diolch yn fawr. We'll now turn to questions, as always, from our colleagues in the media and we're going to begin this afternoon with Bethan Lewis at BBC Wales. Good afternoon Bethan. Good afternoon Minister. More pupils are going back to school today, but schools overall are very different places to what they were a year ago with contact groups and from now face coverings in class for over 11s. Those are difficult to introduce, they're also difficult to lift those measures. What criteria do you have in place? What process is there for eventually lifting those measures? Could you both respond to that question please? Of course Bethan, and as always we will rely on the well-established mechanisms we have for advising ministers in this regard. So that is the collective work of SAGE and SPYM, working and providing advice at a UK level. That advice then becoming to be scrutinised here in Wales by our technical advisory cell and that cell has a subgroup that specifically looks at issues relating to children and education and they then provide advice for ministers. So we will keep these measures under review. We recognise that they are significant and could tell that normal educational experience and as soon as the advice is that we can move away from some of them then we will do so. The evidence is changing all of their time. If you look at for instance in America most recently over the weekend they've been talking to moving to a three foot environment within schools so we keep looking at that international evidence as do our colleagues in SAGE but Dr Jones I don't know if there's anything further you'd like to add. I mean I think it's accepted that say for public restrictions and controls it's to some extent easier to put them in place than it is to relax them and I think that will be the case for some of the schools measures as well because many of those were put in place even before we had the more transmissible version of the virus. So I don't think we're going to be able to say that there's going to be a given level of infection or transmission that will trigger a change. I think it will be continuing advice as the minister says based on levels of transmission levels of vaccination just a lot of different indicators taken in the round but as always we're going to be very keen to keep control of this pandemic. We do not want to release any measures that are going to increase the transmissibility and place the public under greater risk. Back to you Bethan. Thank you. On a different issue minister have schools got a bigger role to play in addressing some of the issues raised by the death of Sarah Everard? Oh my goodness Bethan can I take this opportunity to put on record my deepest sympathies to the family of Sarah what they are enduring is unimaginable but can I say that I believe that we are really well placed in the education system in Wales to address these points? Only last week we saw the passage in our national parliament in our senate of our groundbreaking new curriculum which will mean that every child in Wales will be entitled to relationship education and I honestly believe that exposure to high quality education that looks at respect, consent, our roles as individuals in a safe and secure relationship is really important and will create the societal change that we need for the longer term and I'm really pleased that in Wales we've taken that opportunity and really pleased to see commentators throughout the United Kingdom referencing our new curriculum as a really really valuable contribution to this wider debate we have to have about keeping women and girls safe. We'll now go to James Crichton Smith at ITV Wales. Thank you minister. What was your reaction when you saw the scenes on Clapham Common at the weekend and how it was policed? James I don't think anybody that watched those scenes can't have been shocked by what they saw but can I say how grateful I am to women and men in Wales who over this weekend also carried out vigils to mark the death of Sarah and the wider issues that that death makes us confront as a society and the police that oversaw those gatherings in a really respectful way. We have to remember we're still in the middle of the pandemic and we need people to be cognisant of that but I would commend both those that wanted to have their voices heard this weekend in Wales and the police for the sensitive way that that was handled. Thank you and for many women gyms offer a safe place to exercise in light of the concerns raised around women's safety will you consider opening gyms sooner rather than later? Well James isn't that the crux of what we're trying to address here? Isn't it a damning indictment that women don't feel safe to be able to exercise alone and the answer yes is to as soon as we're able to open gyms because they are important places for many people but the Welsh Government has recognised this only a couple of weeks ago when we changed the rules to allow two people to exercise together because it was precisely representations that were made by many women who felt that they could not take advantage of the ability to get out and exercise especially in the winter months when the evenings obviously draw in much earlier but the fact that we have to say we have to open gyms up because that's the only way of keeping women safe tells you how far we've got to go as a society to make sure that women can't women have to make those different choices that perhaps men have to make because of fears and concerns. I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add Dr James about gyms. Well James the decision about when to open gyms is a ministerial decision and generally is considered as part of the kind of wider package of measures that may be brought into place at any one time. Gyms are not entirely without their risks those risks can be mitigated to some extent but gyms are also quite a variable entity with some very big environments with good ventilation and good social distancing and others much smaller where these things are difficult to put in place but in the end these will be decisions for ministers and I'm sure they'll consider the context that's emerged over the weekend following Sarah's tragic death. And then moving to Abbey Whittig at Wales online. Good afternoon, sorry Abbey. Good afternoon minister. This is a question for both of you really, I don't know who wants to answer it first but obviously as older pupils returned this morning following you know the younger pupils they've already been seven primaries in south Wales have told children to self-isolate two in Denbyshire are we simply going to go back to the last term in out of school or are you confident that the masks and the testing in in high schools is going to be enough and returning to primary schools there was a primary school in Denbyshire that shut entirely after one case two weeks ago is that appropriate for a school to shut entirely every single class just for one case? Well Abbey what we have seen is a small number of cases appear in school this was this is not a surprise this is not unexpected and local test and test trace and protect teams and local public health officials are advising schools and local education authorities of the steps that are necessary. We have put in place additional safeguards to make schools as COVID secure as possible but as I've always said there are also issues around the behaviour around schools that's why it's really really important as we move forward that parents don't misinterpret the fact that more children are able to go back to face-to-face learning as a return to normal. There is nothing in our experience over the last three weeks when foundation phase pupils have been in that has made us think that we cannot proceed with the important steps that we're taking today but clearly one of the reasons why we're having a phased approach to schools face-to-face learning return is that we can monitor the data really really carefully. Well I think my answer must be very similar to that of the ministers really the cautious and incremental approach we've taken to getting children back to schools reflects the fact that we know that schools create the circumstances for some transmission so since primary since the foundation years returned we have seen some cases in schools we have seen some clusters around schools some of those clusters are related to clearly to events outside schools household transmission events but overall I can assure you that there is no particular signal in relation to primary schools and overall the rates of infection in the youngest pupils are very low. Back to you Abby. Thank you. Minister you've talked before about the need for some sort of catch-up or re-engagement for pupils after all this disruption. I just wondered if you could update us on what plans and discussions there have been around the academic year next year and the summer holidays and I'm thinking in relation to the question asked earlier are we still expecting pupils in schools and perhaps students in universities to be wearing masks and taking tests from September is next academic year going to look similar? Well Abby with regards to ensuring that we address the interruption to children's learning you'll be aware that recently I made an announcement of an additional £78 million to schools and colleges to ensure that they have the staffing structure and the resources that they need for the next academic year to support children with their learning. There are no immediate plans to change holiday school dates for this academic year as to what schools will look like in September oh my goodness me Abby I have learnt over this last year not to make predictions. Clearly we will want schools to to be as back to normal the old normal as possible but it's impossible at this point to say where where we will be with some of the COVID security measures that we've had to put in place. As I said in answer to Bethan earlier these issues are kept under constant review and we will take all the steps necessary to as I said throughout this pandemic to maximise face to face teaching and to minimise disruption and whilst these measures can help us minimise that disruption they will they will continue but clearly if they are no longer necessary then I will be the first to be very very glad to see us to advise schools of that fact. Shall we now go to Peter Gillibrand at LBC? Good afternoon Peter. Good afternoon Minister, Joachim Vowd. You've spoken a bit about the tragic case of Sarah Everard and it's raised a lot of questions about the safety of female students, young women. Are you going to start fresh conversations with universities so that students feel safe when they come to study in Wales? Thank you very much Peter. We need to have a general conversation as a society as a whole of what steps we can take to make sure that girls and young women and women as a whole can feel safe in their communities. Peter I know as one of myself and as the mother of three teenage girls that the lived experience of many many women demonstrates the need for us to make safe changes as a society and clearly being safe and a sense of well-being is a prerequisite to a good educational experience whether that be in high school or whether that be in university. That's one of the reasons why we're changing our curriculum. That's one of the reasons why we're introducing a whole systems approach to supporting well-being both in our schools, our colleges and our universities. That's why we've made additional resources available to universities and I can absolutely guarantee you Peter that ensuring that we have a really good student experience is the bedrock of a successful higher education system in Wales and I have to say previous surveys carried out of student satisfaction in Welsh universities have shown that Wales has the best levels of satisfaction anywhere in the United Kingdom but we cannot rest on our laurels. One incident is too much and you can be assured that we'll continue to have conversations with our vice-chancelors and with our NUS here in Wales to ensure that students have the experience and nobody's education is blighted by a fear of or the actual perpetration of crime. Joch, Gwynni Dogg. This one maybe is more for the deputy chief medical officer. Over the last year we've had, well more than a year pretty much now, we've had a big focus on case rates and going up and down. When will the vaccination effect take over the focus on case rates? Basically when do we need to stop looking at the case rates seeing as more and more people now are getting vaccinated and as you mentioned there more and more are getting fully vaccinated against this the pandemic. Dr Jones. Yes, thank you. I mean the vaccination programme clearly is rolling out at remarkable pace and it is one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world, in the UK and Wales is kind of right up there in terms of its rate of reach through the population. All adults should be offered the vaccination by the end of July is the current target but that still will mean that they will not be total control of the pandemic at that point because the vaccines are not 100% effective, not everyone will have the vaccine or can have the vaccine and for a long time until we get to July very few people will have had both doses. So even after July and after July there will still be half a million children who actually are not vaccinated. So even once the vaccine programme has completed the rollout through all adults there will still be a risk from coronavirus. The vaccine programme is increasingly important to us and provides increasing protection but it won't be a complete level of protection and it won't enable us to be completely free of concern. The virus is not going to disappear as a result of this programme. Thank you Dr Jones. Now over to the national and Nicholas Thomas. Thank you minister. Question first for Dr Jones please. England's chief medical officer has warned another surge of infections will be likely later this year at some point. How likely do you think that another wave of infections would be and given the success or the progress of the vaccination programme that you've just talked about, how protected will we be not just from the virus but also from the need to have full lockdown restrictions like we've had over the past year? Yes, we recognise that this is an extremely transmissible infection and we also realise that relaxing restrictions will increase potentially the risk of transmission. It feels like controlling this pandemic is like trying to control the speed of a car in which the accelerator is stuck to the floor and the only way you can control the speed is by applying the brake which is what we do with lockdown measures but as soon as you relax your foot on the brake the car will accelerate off again and we do know that if we relax too much too quickly we will see a surge in cases and another wave and that is why Welsh Government and the ministers in Wales are showing considerable caution and trying to assess the effect of any changes that they make. The vaccination programme as I've indicated is important in this but it's not going to provide us with complete protection. This is still going to be a problem going forwards. We will certainly have to watch out for the risk of a further surge after the summer and we'll also have to consider whether still some of the social behaviours that we require, hand hygiene, social distancing, mask use may still be needed in the autumn. Back to you, Nicholas. Thank you very much. To go back now to the issue of violence against women, the First Minister said over the weekend that we have so much more to do to end violence and abuse against women, let us ignite the fire for change. Minister, you've already touched on how education can play a role in this but what else is the Welsh Government doing now to fuel that fire and turn those words into action? Well, as you said, education has a really, really important role to play to this but we really need a whole government approach both in the areas where powers are devolved and of course as a government it's many years now since we passed land breaking legislation with regards to violence against women but it's also about the promotion of equal rights for all of our citizens and I'm sure members will have seen recently a new advertising campaign asking people to speak out when they see people treating other human beings in a way that is simply unacceptable but there are lots of things that we can do collectively across the piece from ensuring that access to housing, the environment in which we're living in promotes safety but as education minister I truly believe that ensuring that we are raising our children with respect for one another, understanding what a healthy relationship looks like and when to seek help if you're concerned but also when to speak out and that's what we really need people to do because so many of these incidents that blight women's daily lives it can be challenged and we really need people and allies to challenge those behaviours when maybe it's a crass joke or a you know really pointed comment you know it's that it's that low level of daily experience that young women and girls are living and women are living their lives by you know that's the start and we all have a role to play and it can't be about government it's about all of us knowing that we have a role to challenge and take steps in our own daily lives that can can make a difference and last but not least we're going to the leader and Andrew Nuttall Thank you minister so as we are now sort of approaching the one-year mark from the week when school closed in the nation sort of lockdown do you have a message to concern students right across the educational spectrum from primary schools like up to universities and their families who have struggled but the homeschooling and any other aspects like exams people were worried that exams may sort of determine their future now no doubt spanning into years beyond COVID how far into the future have you sort of planned to incorporate the impact of the pandemic into education in Wales? Thank you Andrew well indeed it is a year ago this very week when I made a statement to the senate on that we would have to close schools for face to face teaching and it has been an unprecedented year but throughout that period I have been overwhelmed by the commitment of our teaching professionals at all levels to support children and students to carry on learning the absolute resilience of children and young people themselves and the forbearance of parents who have supported their children throughout this entire period my message to them is thank you for everything that you've done and as we return to more children and students getting back into classrooms and lecture theatres is that we stand ready to support you at this time to re-engage with your learning and to ensure that you have a bright future this isn't a council of despair we are moving forward with a profession that knows how to address the interruption to education it's our job as a Welsh Government to support them to do that that's why we've been announced an additional £78 million but I just want to say thank you for what you have done and to look forward with confidence knowing that the educational professionals the length and breadth of the nation stand ready to ensure that you have a bright future thank you and given that all pupils are hopefully back in their classrooms after the Easter break on April 12 do you think that teachers and teaching assistants and the school staff are safe to return as well if they've not had any sort of vaccination order just partially on their journey to be fully vaccinated do you think that vaccination should play a role in when school should fully be open? Well of course there's been a huge amount of debate about which groups in society should receive a vaccination first and in what order and as you know the initial groups of 1-9 that are set out by the JCVI aim at preventing harm to those people who are most likely to suffer really badly from Covid end up in our hospitals and for whom there is the highest risk of dying and fortunately all the studies that have been carried out to date suggest that as a professional group teachers and teaching assistants are not at risk as a result of their profession of course individually there will be teachers and teaching assistants that have been vaccinated because they they're either their age group or because of a clinical condition that they have JCVI have subsequently looked at where we move from the middle of April with a next cohort and again they've been very clear that we should do this on an aged based profile because that's the best way for for addressing risk and critically it is the best way of getting the vaccination programme rolled out quickly. The NHS know generally how old we are and as Dr Jones reminds me on a regular basis the NHS is not good at knowing what we all do for a living and therefore we can get to more teachers and teaching assistants more quickly if we do it by age than if if we actually disrupt the programme by trying to do it trying to identify professions but Dr Jones we've discussed this on many occasions. We haven't asked this a lot and I thought your answer was excellent Minister. Thank you very much well given that commendation by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer I think we should bring today's press conference to a close thank you once again for for everything that you're doing as we take these very important but cautious next steps as we begin to unlock. Diolch yn fawr. Thanks Dr Jones.


Hey, welcome back, big one. Jacken has posted a question. So when God is giving us a divine favor to a people, especially he does, but other people think that we are men, so we ought to be even secure about ourselves, for themselves. That gives confidence, so that we will be able to start doing this because people wish we were not going to do anything to prevent this table. Yeah. So Jacken, that's a good question. I would say, what did Daniel do? What did Joseph do? He looked at scripture. When God's favor is upon us, we will definitely see our leaders would be more favorable towards us, not because of what we're doing, but it's God's help, or the fact that we are working out. Always remember that we are not able to control other people's thoughts and emotions. So my responsibility will be to give my best to the humanization that I have. It is their choice to believe whether or not that a leader deserves all leaders. That is their choice. We cannot control their thoughts as well. But what you can do is, you can just take all of that. When the victory came that if you worship any other leader, if you don't bow down to God or any other God, we will put you in the light and stand.  No, why did you come up with this thing? He just acted normally. He just said, this is what I will do. There's no comment that he'll argue and fighting causing any problems with his colleagues. He was minding his own business. His colleagues had a problem with that. But I'm sure that would have just been a problem. Same thing with Joe's. It was the favor of the quarter fund initially, the favor of the leaders then. But it was not like Joseph was going to prove people. He just knew. So the Bible says that while he was in the prison, God favored him. So we cannot control what people think. One of the things we can do is, now, we know that God's favor is on us. We should not overspot it. I said, oh, this is how I am. I will say what I want to say God's favor is on us. So we just learn to walk in people with him. But there will be times you just don't have to explain anything to people. As I always say, choose the values you fight. We'll come and say a hundred times. Then you choose the value you want. So in this case, what I would do is I would try to be giving my best for the organization, from a different world, from a different world to know that God is on our side and the favor that I fight for my youth is because God is holding on that favor. And people like me, people like me, I cannot do anything about it. But I'm going to be normal and respect and love them and feel them well as my colleagues. That will not change. That's what I hope that answers your question. OK, we want to use the power of a gentle response We have two more points that we can get in the next chapter. Next one is keep gossip and strife out of your work environment. Proverbs 17 and verse 14. Let's read. The beginning of strife is like releasing water. Therefore, stop contention before it thoroughly starts. Very, very dangerous in an organization. It can literally bring down the morale. The whole organization can crumble into pieces. There's something called as office politics, and we've heard it a lot. I mean, if you worked in a corporate, have you worked in the corporate sector? You have? OK. I'm sure most of many of us online also have.  It's not like devil is targeting you. It is common. It's there everywhere. Office politics is going to be there. But one of the things that you and I can do is when there is things like gossip or strife that is happening. Number one, stay away from it. Stay away from gossip. If five people are talking about something, talking about a leader, talking about why somebody left an organization, stay away from it. You don't need to know it. You don't have to keep talking about it. It's not going to help you in any way. What will we know by gossiping? Nothing we'll know. And at the day, we've spoken so much, and we are tired. No use, right? But keep gossip and strife out of your work environment. When as much as possible, when you see a sign, OK, this is going to be a topic of gossip. Stay away from it. When you see a sign that this is going to cause strife between me and my colleagues, stay away from it. Now, if you're leading an organization, you set the principles initially. If you are working in the organization, then this is something that you have to deal with. Is there going to be strife and gossip in a church? When you're leading a church, there'll be strife. There'll be gossip. Don't say who started the gossip. I want to know who's that person. I want to know. Just leave it. So choose what you have to do. People will gossip. People will cause strife. Choose. But as leaders, there are some places where you will have to resolve matters. But otherwise, stay away from it. Show troublemakers the door. That means tell them that's the door you can please leave. Proverbs 22, 20. Read that. Let's read that. Proverbs 22, 10. Passed out the scoffer and contention will leave. Yes, strife and reproach will cease. Here, there are two categories I reminded of. You can have a person who's not performing, underperforming, right? And after many reviews, many meetings, giving them opportunities, giving them strategies, giving them tools to become better, you see there's no improvement. What do we do? Maybe one, two, three warnings, show them the door. Okay, I don't see improvement. Now the second option, second is you may have a person who's high performing, right? 95% in everything. But causing trouble, causing strife, causing gossip, starting rumors, or a person who is always talking rudely to the colleagues, to his colleagues, not interested in listening to the managers and leaders. You can have that, he's a performer. What do you do? Give him also one, two, three warnings, show him the door. If there's no improvement. Remember, character also is important. Just because somebody is performing and he has a, if he has a very bad character and you don't see improvement in that character, not right, he has to be, he or she must leave. But you can, and the other side, you know, you can also see people who are not performing, but they're got a very good character, right? And they're willing to learn, keep them, give them more and more opportunities, right? Remember the organization or the team supersedes the individual. That means just because one person is performing very well, doesn't mean you keep him even though his character is bad. No, the team is important because this one person can cause a spark of fire to the entire team. The entire team can get into trouble because of this one person, right? So the organization supersedes the individual at all times, right? So we come to a close in this chapter, time on people, processes, performance and rewards. And even as we, you know, we deal with people and we establish processes. Remember, processes happens over time. When you start an organization, you may have five, 10 people working with you. You may not have a process in place, but over time, processes are established and then performance and rewards are given to employees. Okay, let's get into chapter nine. I was just talking to some of the students here. I think we may need to go a little faster just so that we can complete the portion. So, but feel free to stop me at any time, right? We have questions. Okay, workplace relationships. Now, 40, 50 hours of our life is in the workplace, right? Eight hours into five, okay, nine hours into five, right? 45 hours a week is in the workplace. What are we doing there? Are we robots sitting alone there and working? No, there are people and we work with them. So let's look at a few scriptural truths to help us build good workplace relationships. Now, if I don't have a good relationship with my boss or my colleagues, I wouldn't want to work there.  Again, the same story. Yes or no? But if you have a boss who's just encouraging, no, not troubling you every time, okay, Monday, let's go. And so how do we build good workplace relationships? Let's look at a few points. First one, maintain love. The basics of human relationships. Let's read, first Corinthians 13, four through seven. Love is patient and kind. It is not jealous or conceited or proud. Love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable. Love does not keep a record of wrongs. Love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up. And it's faith, hope, and patience never fails. You know, sometimes we get into the office and we forget about the human side of things. We get focused on tasks, deadlines, meetings, all of these things. And we forget that we are dealing with people. And each person has their own story. Each person has their own challenges. Each person have their own, you know, things that they're going through in life. And very important is to walk in love. People may be highly skilled, highly knowledgeable, yet they may be feeling lonely. People may be in the top positions, yet they may be feeling suicidal. Yes? Remember that when you're working in an organization, we have to be kind, we are not to be jealous, we are not to be conceited or proud of the knowledge and skills that we have. Don't keep a record of the things that people are doing against you. Forgive, forget, don't applaud or support anything, anyone who's doing wrong. Never give up on your colleagues. Be supportive, believe God for the best. Never stop loving them. Now the question may come, how can I love them when they did so many, you know, they treated me or they did so many things wrong? The Bible says that God rewards or God is the one who justifies us. So it is our responsibility to walk in love and forgiveness. So in an organization, remember if you see a guy who is in the top management, or you get to a place of high ranking in an organization, don't forget to walk in love. Even when you look at, I remember when I was working in one of these corporate circles, we had this head of global development. So he was head of the global entire world, a certain department. So he is a high ranking guy. And I remember him very well, very, very genuine person. And we were all entry level, maybe entry or level two. But this guy was a very genuine person. He would come to office and he would strike, he would always talk to the lift guys. Those who operate the lift would always talk to them. And he would come to these cafeterias. He will stand in the line and we will all be with these, you know, food trays and he's come here. Why is he come here? But now I understand why he did all of this. And he was not a believer. He loved his job and he loved the people that he worked with. He was just a normal person, but he was head of global development.  And he's, he, even now people talk about him and we talk about the augment, we talk about him. Remember he did this? Remember he came for, he would eat in our cafeterias. He would catch the regular cabs. He had the opportunity of, you know, just having a single cab for him dropped home. He would say, no, no, I will go on a regular cab with the regular folks. And that's a powerful example. When we walk in love, we, we let our guards down. We say, okay, I may know, you know, things which are very high or very big, but all that goes out the door because I'm walking in love. Very simple, right? And you and I must develop this ability. Second point, when you have the opportunity to bless someone, do it. With random acts of kindness, it may be something very simple, learn to help people, right? When you have the opportunity to bless them, bless them. Next one, be sensitive to people's feelings. You know, emotional intelligence matters. There's something called as EQ, which is emotional intelligence. That is to recognize and manage your own emotions and react and respond correctly to the emotions of others, right? Emotional intelligence.   And the manager says, oh, I'm very sorry to hear. When can you finish the report? What will you say? What will you say? You'll say this person has zero EQ, right? No, you wouldn't do that. Okay, you'll say this person has zero EQ, right? Now the person, this employee is going through a hurt, an emotional hurt. It doesn't matter to the manager, but as a manager, he must be able to simple empathize with the person, right? Not ask, when will you finish the report? So are you working today? When will you finish the report? No, right? Your EQ affects your interactions with your people, with your colleagues, right? Your performance, your leadership skills, your EQ is to be sensitive to people's feelings.  They'll come and say, hey, I don't feel like working today. I got up from the wrong side of the bed. Very upset today, angry at everything. It's too hot, breakfast is cold, lunch is not good, tea is cold, everything is going wrong in the morning. You come to office also angry, right? As a manager, this person may come and say, hey, I don't want to work, getting so upset here. So as a manager, what will you say? You better work. You want salary work? We shouldn't be that way, right? We need to empathize with it. Okay, I know you may be going through a rough day. I've gone through those rough days also. Just start working, you'll get used to it. In two hours, you'll feel better. We'll go have a coffee after some time. That is better. I'm saying you want salary work, right? So EQ, emotional intelligence is very, very important. Right? Be sensitive to the people around you. Here's somebody up, especially when people need an encouraging word. Words make a lot of difference. We talked about this. Yes, our words can really impact people. It can impact situations. It can impact the things that we are going through. So use good words, right? Cheer somebody up. Sometimes your colleagues may be going through a very difficult time. They're going through challenges. They're going through, I remember this one colleague who had, you know, he was always upset, always sad. And after a long time of just being with him, I got to know what was the reason. The doctor said that he will not have a son and not have a child. And so he was devastated with that news. So he was always very sad and very, either he's very sad. He'd be quiet or he'd be very angry. But no one bothered to find out what was his problem. Our managers didn't bother to find out. But I was spending time with him and he opened up with me. And I remember I was too young to understand few things, but I didn't have a good solution for him. But what I did say is, hey, don't worry. I know that this is a difficult time. But it was somebody that he could relate to. And so whenever I saw him, I knew why he was sad. But people didn't understand. People call him grumpy, angry. I knew it was something personal in his life that was affecting his work also. And it's a big deal. Narad unable to have a child.  We talked about that, right? Please don't forget to say, don't forget to say, please. Thank you and sorry. You know, these are the golden words, right? That we always say, please. Thank you and sorry. Now we teach our children this, right? Every time I give something to my kids, I say, what must you say? Thank you. And when they, they're walking by, they, by mistake, they kick any of our leg or they trip and what must you say? Sorry, right? Then they say, can I get dinner? You give them dinner. What do you want to say? Thank you. Not sorry. Thank you. Okay. So why do we do that? That's simple, basic etiquette, right? That we must have. And sometimes when we get into the office, we forget all that. No, thank you. No, please. No, sorry. You have to do it. No, right? Learn to be kind, demonstrate kindness. Be an encourager even of those you don't like. Oh, this is the tough part. While most people tend to compete and outdo and perform when you step in, be an encourager, right? Be an encourager. The first thing that came to my mind was, I remember I told you we had, when I was in the call center, we had these contests that would happen, right? And so there was this one guy, he was brilliant on calls, right? So what I would do is in my break, I would go and sit next to him. I would say, don't come here, don't come here. Because he had his own way of getting all the leads. And so I wanted to learn from him, but I would go and sit next to him. He said, hey, don't come here. Because he was the best. I was maybe third, right? There was another guy who was there. This guy was top, right? He would come and he would put that headset. You can't hear what he's saying. And he'll do something on the computer. It's a lead. And we'll be struggling for one lead. Ten minutes we're talking. No, sir, no worries. You'll get it. Don't worry. This guy, he gets it so easily. So I used to go sit next to him. Initially he would say, go, hey, don't sit here. So I went away, but then after a few days, whenever I would go to him, he would say, OK, go and sit.  He'll tell me, I'm going for lunch at one o'clock. So he'll come back by two, right? So then I'll make sure that I do finish my lunch before or after so that I can go and sit with him. So I would go, right? And then I'll sit with him and watch him. He's taking the calls and he would work and watch and learn. And he began to show me some ideas. So you do like this when they say, I don't want to give credit card information. You say this, they'll give it to you. And I tried it. Next thing I know, I'm getting the leads. I started becoming the second best. Now this guy is still making 70, 80 leads in a day. We are at 4550. Second best is 4550. The best is 70, 80. So I'll go and sit next to him again. Tell me, you're doing something else. What is it you're doing? Right? And so I began to learn and he began to share everything with me. Right? And they came upon, we were doing 75, 80 leads in a day. There were months where, you know, me and another friend, we beat him. And some of the months that I was able to beat him and he was a good competition, healthy competition. But you know what he would always tell me? He would always say, I knew that you'll do well. Very sweet guy. He's not a Christian. He's not a Christian.  He had some 45 gods on his table and but a very sweet guy. And he would very genuinely encourage me. And I remember as he was exiting out, he said, I think I should give this best reward to, you know, Paul from the other team. And I was so humbled because he was, he was brilliant in his work. Right?  And I can share so many stories at ABC that people have encouraged and, you know, it's enabled us to be better in what we do. Right?  Don't wait to get into an organization. Then start being an encourager here. Somebody leads worship. Pastor Francis is leading worship. Encourager, right? People who are, you know, probably praying well. Say, I feel that you are, you have this wonderful gift of praying. Continue to build on that. Or I see that you have good communication skills. Continue to build on that. You're encouraging them, right? Remember, even enemies can be turned around. Proverbs 16-7, when a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.  Those enemies also will turn. Right? Be careful who influences you. Proverbs 27-17, please read that. Verse 27-17, yes, iron, serpents, iron. So, a man serpents the countenance of his friends. Friend. 1 Corinthians 15-13, don't walk the fool, bad companions ruin good character. This is, these are two verses that I always make my kids read. Say, read it. So, they open the Bible, Proverbs 27-17, as iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friends.  So, I tell my kids, choose the right friends. If you choose bad friends, you'll end up doing bad things. You choose the right friends, you'll end up doing good things. Iron sharpens iron, right? In the workplace, this is applicable not only for children, but even for adults. In the workplace, keep a healthy professional distance from those who have negative influences. Have you seen people? Everything is going well, but they'll find something negative. There are experts in that, right? To find something negative.  But one person will say, but the sweet was little watery. Everything else is good. Yeah, people will find the negative in the best of things. Number one rule, stay away from them. Say, okay, I know this person says something. So, better move away. And so, there are many times that I've walked out of conversations from people who are negative many times. Just walked out. I said, where's Paul? He's not there. Why? Because I don't want to waste my time.  Because iron sharpens iron. If you have somebody who's only talking negative, you will feel negative. You will keep doing what is the instruction. Everything will be effective. But if you take time being with people who can challenge you and feel you are iron sharpens, you will get better. Whatever it is. Next one. All your long ranges incorporate exposureizing problems like 18 to 22. Let's read that. Roach, I was 18 to 22.  Pretty and graceful as a deer. Let her charms keep you happy. Let her surround you with her love. Son, why should you give your love to another woman? Why should you prefer the charms of another man's wife? The Lord sees everything you do. Wherever you go, He is watching. The sins of the wicked are a trap. They get caught in net of their own sins. Remember, we talked about religion. In an office, there will be male and female. You cannot say I want to stay away from sins. So I will join an all male organization or all female organization. That pioneer will say, you please start your own organization, which is all male, all female. There are males, there are females. Now, especially in the corporate, we have corporate outings, corporate picnics, corporate gatherings, corporate parties. Now, it's very easy to move from a place of workplace relationship to having emotional intimacy. Now, especially if you are married, when you're married, and you're, see, there's two things. One is adultery, one is fornication. Adultery is when you're married and you commit sin with another woman.  Now, when you're married, know your boundaries, set boundaries. These are the things I will not do. It is set, right? So, for example, if you're married and you're working in an organization, say, I will have people in my team. They may be, if you're a male, I will have girls, females in my team. But maximum will be a shake hand. Maximum conversation will be at the office surrounding people, right? Not in private. Now, if I'm married, I will not take my colleague alone for lunch. Why? Because I'm married. I must remember that I have a wife, I have children in my home, and I must maintain my integrity, right? It says here, know your boundaries, stand by your priorities, and hold on to your Godly standards. Some of us may feel, okay, it's 2024, people will understand. People will understand. God also will understand, okay? But the enemy will make us over-understand. Meaning, he'll keep saying, that's okay, that's okay, go, that's okay. You never know what you'll get into, right? So for example, I may be driving, and I may see somebody, right, who I know. And I know, okay, they're going to office or they're going to a certain place. I will not bother. Why? It's not my responsibility. What about God's love? God loves me still. That doesn't change. I'm protecting myself. I'm protecting myself, right? Now, this is important because we got to know your boundaries. I understand what you're saying. I have to help, but not at the cost of my family. I may have right intentions, but the devil doesn't have right intentions. He may have wrong intentions. What you felt was, okay, let me just drop them there. The devil can turn it into something else. So you and I need to be wise on what we do, know your boundaries. Especially now, I'm talking, this is, if you're seeing, this is a church setting. But look at in the corporate sector, you got to stay away, right? The moment I became a believer, I told myself, I will know this is all too much. Okay, but you have the choice, but this is some things that I did. From the time I became a believer, I worked in the corporate. I went for parties. I went for, you know, picnics, right? Two things I never did. Number one, I told God, God, I will never indulge in drinking or any of the things that they are doing. I will never indulge in it because you brought me out of it. I'm your child. I know that you are watching me. So I've never indulged. Let them drink, let them fall on the road. That's their wish. I will not do it. So I went for parties as a leader. I had to go. So I went, I would see them drinking. I would see them smoking and all of it, but it never affected me at all because I knew God is watching. Did they come and give me a ball? Take ya. Take. Nobody is there. It's okay. Nobody is there, but take. Why are you worried? You're not even married. What do you do with your salary? What do you do? It's okay. Nothing wrong. It's just one bottle. You can have it. It's okay. You're not married. We are married with children. No, it's okay. God is watching. I have to honor God. That's one.  When I get married and only then I will indulge. It was decided in my heart. It was something that was set. So whether women around in offices, yes. Whether opportunities, yes. But I decided in my heart I will not. And so these are things that you must do. Many times in the workplace, this is before marriage, there are people who have come and said, can you drop me? I said no. I said no. I can't.  There's a reason for it. Maybe old school, but there's a reason. I had decided that nowadays generation is very different. I'm not like I'm very old, but you know, it's very casual. When it's very casual, God can take it and turn it into something else. Sorry. And the devil can take it into turn it into something else. And so you've got to be very careful. What does the Bible say? Watch out.  So know your boundaries. Recently I was talking to one girl and she was part of our church. And we were talking and she said, she's married. I know that she's married and all that. She said, you know, we're all going to meet for a coffee. I said, yeah, please carry on. I think somewhere five or six in the evening, we finished Life Group. And so we're all going for coffee. No, no, it was not a life group, but it was just they were all meeting. So we're all going for coffee. And I saw there were only guys. And I said to you, said to the girl, you're going with all these guys for coffee. That's okay. I said, please carry on. So I want to ask her, what about your husband? He knows, he understands church people, you know, but it's wrong. It's not something, of course, I know this generation is, you know, see the devil doesn't change through generations. He's the same. What he did, how he tempted Jesus, he'll tempt him right now. So you and I must be careful. Know your boundaries. Okay. I won't spend too much time there. Honor your boss. 10 point, right? Proverbs 27, 18. If you care for your orchid, you'll enjoy its fruit. If you honor your boss, you'll be honored. Honor your boss. And the next point says, even the one who is harsh, you may have a good boss. It's easy to honor them. What about the harsh boss? I've honored them also. It's even harder, right?  Meaning if a boss is ill-treating you or is harsh to you for no reason, pray and ask God to intervene. And God can move upon this person's heart, right? Psalms 103 verse 6. The Lord judges in favor of the oppressed and gives them their right. So honor your boss, even the one who's harsh. Next point, develop workplace etiquette and cultural sensitivity. Okay, we'll do this and we'll stop. Proverbs 23, 1-2-3. When you sit down to eat with someone important, keep in mind who he is. If you have a big appetite, restrain yourself. Don't be greedy for the fine food he serves. He may be tricking you, right? Proverbs is really interesting, right? Good workplace etiquette is important, right? It makes people easy to relate to you, right? Using those, please thank you, sorry, very important.  When somebody is talking to you, don't be looking here and there. That's basic etiquette, right? You're talking to somebody in the workplace, you know, you're standing in line for probably to get into the lift. Don't just come and just go into the lift like that without standing in line. Have you seen that happening? They'll come, they'll come and go inside. So what am I standing here for? So that's basic etiquette, right? And then simple things, right?  So you may have people who in terms of, you know, culture, you know, they may want to, you know, different cultures, right? I know of people who wanted to remove their shoes and work was to honor them. I don't say why are you removing your shoes? It's not like you'll become best performer, right? So learn to apologize when you make a mistake. What may be accepted in one culture may not go down. In another culture, avoid religious, being religiously offensive to people, right? In an organization, you may have people from different, you know, religions who never offend their religion or their culture, right? It's their beliefs, their systems. You and I are called to minister, share the gospel, but not to offend them, right? So when you're meeting with senior leaders, walk with wisdom, do your best to take your rightful place. Don't try to put yourself in the spotlight or to promote yourself. Let others promote you. Let others put you up, right? Let's do, we may put the shame then, otherwise, right? Okay, we'll stop. I don't know. So what we do is, we become your next class, and then we get into chapter 10. Okay, any questions? Sometimes we are talking about not involving worships or don't sit there or don't hang out more with people who have negative. And sometimes walking away also makes it strife. Walking away, like from that group or when we are in, when we are part of discussion and when it's going in another way, walking away makes it strife, it makes us in the spotlight. So how to deal and how to, like, come out from the gospels and all, how to walk out in a wisely way. So the principle, you have to see what scenario it is. Now, let's take two scenarios. First scenario, Bible college, right?  And you feel that example, okay, this is just an example. Or just say college, right? There's one person who's always, you know, negative, always talking negative. You can just tell the person, hey, why are you always negative? Don't do that. Because you're in a certain level of understanding between each other. And if there's no change, you can just tell them, hey, excuse me, I need to go. And you just walk out. It's all right. Because one is what your attitude and your, what you are doing matters more than what he thinks, he or she thinks, right? So you can excuse yourself and just go. And normally when you excuse yourself, nothing is going to happen, right? Now, if you're in a place of leadership and you see it happening, right?  What you can do is you tell them, okay, see, avoid this. Avoid being negative always, because what you're doing is affecting the others, right? But I would say in the corporate, what I have done is I've excused myself. So we were all having tea. Suddenly the topic comes up on, hey, remember what she said in the meeting? And then they keep talking. I said, hey, I finished my tea. I'll carry on. That's it. Very simple, right? Or, hey, I think I got to make a call. This move off, right? That way you're protecting yourself, right? From negative influence. They may have many things. They may feel bad in all of it. You can't control that. Your priority is to control your thoughts and the people that you are with. So, yeah. I know these things are hard. But as leaders, I learned some things very, very hard way. And I decided that you cannot please everyone. You cannot please everyone all the time. You cannot please people, whether in ministry, whether in... You can do your best, but not everyone will be pleased with that. So our responsibility is to do our best and give it up to God and let God do his work. Right? Okay. So we'll stop here. We will continue from next class. Thank you, everyone. Have a good week ahead. God bless. See you next time. Next Monday.


This tutorial is sponsored by 3d.sk human photo references for 3d artists and game developers Check them out by using the link in the video description below Okay, so what we need to do now is get the first up pose created Right, so as you can see this walk cycle is coming together So they're making a change every three frames So if we have a look here We've got one four seven and the next thing that we need to look at it's creating a pose on frame 10 And you can see this is our up pose. So that's what we're going to create. So let's move to frame 10 Okay, the kind of distinguishing thing about an up pose is that everything is at the highest point in the walk cycle So the way that we're going to do that is we're going to start by moving the hips up I'm going to go as high as we can without breaking anything So then what we'll do is we'll work on the front foot a little bit So the first thing I'll do is remove the foot brake because we don't need any of that So I'm gonna set that to zero and then what I'll do is I'm just going to move it back a little bit Just to create this sort of shape that one and I'm going to change the foot roll Just so that it's kind of facing that way and then just a little bit more Positioning work needs to happen here. So I'm just going to make sure that's raised up ever so slightly Yeah, so that's the kind of shape that I want to go for On the front leg On the back leg though, I'm just going to increase the foot roll and the foot brake a little bit Because what that will do is it'll allow me to Raise the hips up a little bit more Without overextending anything like that So I think that is what I'm going to go with for my up pose so With that pose done what we're going to do is just select both feet and we're just going to press s To set keys and everything just to rule out any of the problems that we've had in previous steps And then in the next step, we're going to create the second up pose