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Select and develop empathetic and Jonathan Ip, ACMA, CGMA, Hong organisation futures, which means a
inspiring leaders Kong-based senior director of strategy and deep and enduring focus on learning.
To take your organisation to the next level, operations at Salesforce, which was ranked Great organisations know developing
it’s essential to invest in leaders with key tenth in the 2022 top large “Best Places to their employees is good for the business
traits and skills like empathy, active Work” in the US, said Salesforce leadership and the individual, and they
listening, transparency, and vulnerability. does a great job of exhibiting these implemented employee development
“In our studies of highly engaged behaviours. programmes at all levels. Garrad
workforces, trust in leadership, or [its] “Achievements and wins are always suggested organisations make sure
ability to guide the business to success while celebrated publicly, and team members are they’re empowering their people to
creating an environment where people can called upon for recognition of their constantly develop and learn new skills
be healthy and happy, is always the most contribution and achievements,” Ip said. to avoid stagnation, which can lead to
significant driver of employee engagement,” The pandemic helped to highlight the disengagement.
said Lewis Garrad, who leads Mercer’s career importance of transparent and open “I think it’s useful to really explore
business in Singapore. “When it comes to communication by leaders, according to what gets employees energised and
doing leadership well, selecting the right Evan Buck, CPA, CGMA, senior director and excited at the individual level,” he said.
leaders is the most important thing, as once head of internal audit, compliance, and “What does the person find meaningful
a leader is in charge, they are extremely enterprise risk management at DocuSign and interesting to learn about and why?
difficult to remove.” (ranked 27th among the 2022 “Best Places Sometimes an assessment of employee
In many organisations the selection to Work” in the US). These traits are values and personality can help with
process is flawed, Garrad said. “People especially effective at creating a great insights about this.”
often believe that bold, aggressive, and workplace during times of crisis. Garrad added that managers can use
confident leadership styles work best, “Sometimes we don’t know the answers technology to forecast in-demand skills
even at the expense of [intelligence],” he to questions, and it’s OK to say you don’t in order to focus investment in areas that
said. “But the data from scientific know,” Buck said. “For example, if you’re will be increasingly essential.
psychological studies continuously going to pause an office reopening, and At DocuSign, Buck said managers help
reinforces the notion that intelligent, you don’t know the return date, instead of team members figure out how they can
thoughtful, humble leadership works best giving an arbitrary date or trying to evade be doing “the work of their lives”, by
in the medium to longer term.” the question, say, ‘We don’t know, but setting aside time throughout the year to
Many employees at “Best Places to we’re going to evaluate it and make the outline individual career goals. They
Work” have humble, thoughtful leaders best decision as an organisation, so we’ll then take those goals and build out plans
who consistently celebrate team member value any input into that discussion.’” for the next one, three, five, ten, and 20
success, practise open and honest years (as applicable), allowing for as
communication, and demonstrate care for Help employees unlock their potential much flexibility as possible. If team
individual employees, according to the Garrad said great places to work are able members want to grow in a particular
DDI surveys. to clearly connect employee and area, Buck will try to assign them a
project that requires existing strengths
and covers areas of interest for career
growth.
“People are looking for a way to
express themselves, and we want to
empower and engage them to do so,”
Buck said.
Hire people who will contribute to
your ideal culture
Great people want to work with other
great people, which means you have to
start hiring employees who will
contribute to your ideal culture.
“Interestingly, many organisations
have moved from thinking about ‘culture
fit’ to looking at ‘cultural contribution’,”
Salesforce, a cloud-based Garrad said. “This means trying to find
software company people who share the values of the
headquartered in organisation, but who would help to
San Francisco, is ranked continue to build and develop the
tenth in the 2022 US culture in a constructive way.”
“Best Places to Work” Buck said that creating a great culture
from Glassdoor. begins during the recruitment process,
when companies need to look for not