Learning to cope with new business climate ahead

When Dublin was announced as the host city for the 2016 Great Place to Work European Conference, our aim was to ensure that all attendees would come away feeling well equipped to deal with a business climate that was beginning to become ever more uncertain. The conference took place on June 16th, just as the twin perils of Brexit and Trump were about to come into focus on the horizon, only one week before the Brexit vote took place and one month before the major party conferences in the US.

While both seemed to be outside risks at the time, the conference set out to help delegates in preparing for a future that was becoming difficult to predict and to do this by demonstrating the importance of building resilient organisational cultures through a relentless focus on the development of high trust.

The importance of systems that develop positive high-trust feedback loops is central to Airbnb’s architecture; Dublin site lead Aisling Hassell spoke about their method of reviewing the guest experience “frame-by-frame” to ensure that no bottlenecks manifested themselves within that flow.

This was reiterated by Harvey Norman Ireland chief executive Blaine Callard, who focused on the importance of balancing standard procedures with an innovative mindset – in practical terms, “rather than having rules, have guidelines”. The best way to empower people throughout your organisational structure is with transparency of information that allows you trust them to make their best decisions.

Fitness expert Karl Henry spoke to the importance of wellness as a factor in the ability to make good decisions, as well as the capacity to have clear targets against which all colleagues can measure their progress. Pat Henry broadened this approach to stress a holistic approach to wellness that takes the employee’s personal circumstances into consideration and recommended that we did not neglect the time for reflection within a fast-moving culture.

Given its recent operations in the Mediterranean Sea, Cdr Ken Minehane of the Naval Service was well placed to reinforce just how important it is to manage the emotion impact of your crew and to make use of organisational values to amplify the focus and dedication of employees who have bought into your mission.

More lessons were brought to us from the waves when explorer Manley Hopkinson told us about his experience leading a novice team to success on a round-the-world boat race. When every crew is operating with the same tools and resources, the key differentiator can only be your people and your ability to inspire them. This is reflected in the approach of Gareth Lambe and Fiona Mullan at Facebook, an organisation that is completely mission-centric in its goal to make the world more connected. They told us they did this by creating a more connected company and specifically hiring not just for cultural fit, but for people would be be active culture contributors.

Emma Birchall shared her research from the Future of Work Research Consortium, showing us the expected impact of technology and demographic trends on the workplace. (For more insight into Birchall's research, see elsewhere in this supplement.) One of the key trends will be the rise of the millennial demographic, who were the central topic for Michelle Lock of Bristol Myers Squibb. She outlined that they gave priority to organisational values much more than other demographics and needed to feel they were making a difference to be fully engaged.

Joshua Mitchell from Regeneron covered similar ground, emphasising that the organisations that would succeed were those that shifted their focus from "engagement" to "meaning" – capturing the passion and purpose that enables employees to do their best work.

This has been the key focus of David MacLeod’s work with Engage for Success who guided us through his experiences when he was tasked to increase engagement in the UK public sector. His research determined the key enablers of organisations that are successful at engaging their teams, a consistent strategic narrative, people managers that focus on engaging relationships, the strength of a clear employee voice, and consistence and integrity at leadership level.

Much of 2017 will be spent passing through a very narrow channel, with the shadows of Brexit and Trump looming over our ability to make plans for the future. The themes that emerged at the 2016 conference – consistent and inspirational leadership, an authentic sense of mission and values and a focus on supporting employee wellness to empower performance – will be ever more important to our capacity to make business decisions.

We now live in a world where uncertainty has now become a certainty, and this is what will be central to this year's event. Join us at our next conference this September to acquire a framework for Dealing with Uncertainty.