What Employees Really Want !
Neil George
Managing Director. Dad. Harper Collins Author. Football, health, travel, art and wine enthusiast. Leading positive change for People, Organisations and Brands across Global FMCG corporations for close to three decades.
As 2017 draws to a close, I wanted to reflect on what I learnt in the past year - leading a young, passionate, well educated and ambitious team. There were many learnings but one particularly stood out as the most insightful and relevant for the future of our work places. And that is - what employees really want, when they walk in to the workplace.
While the learning was for all of us to see in our everyday work lives, I truly stumbled across the insight in the last quarter of this year. Let me explain. My team was extremely busy in the last quarter of 2017. Why ? The Oct-Dec quarter (like for most FMCG firms across the world), is usually one that is extremely busy. The combined pressures of closing the current financial year and preparing for the new fiscal year keeps all employees on their 'stretched' toes during these '90 days of madness'. While the pressures built up in the background, we decided to activate three 'unplanned' projects in October. First, we decided to partner our brand with Mood Indigo - Asia's largest cultural festival (https://moodi.org/) organised by IIT, Bombay. Second, we decided to announce our Nivea Men sponsorship of the Real Madrid football club in India ( https://www.niveamen.in/highlights/Local/in/NIVEA-MEN-Real-Madrid). And finally, we kicked off work for our annual offsite meeting at an exciting location (lets just say Wah Wah land !). So the problem, simply defined - Who will work on these 'on top' projects ? Who, in their right minds would take on the responsibility of working extra hours on these projects ?
Problem. Actually No Problem. We had employees volunteering to work on these excitng 'once in a lifetime' projects. In fact, we had to select the groups working on these projects because we had so many 'shows of hands'. And as these teams kicked off their workflows, I was pleasantly surprised to see the enthusiasm and watch all the after-office hour meetings to bring these projects together. Our young employees were clearly relishing the 'work'. They were not just liking this work, but loving it !! One team member quipped 'All during my time at University, I never had the chance to attend the Mood Indigo - the passes were so difficult to get...now this is the chance of a lifetime to work on the event as a project leader'. Another football enthusiast whispered to me 'Working on the social media plans for Nivea Men Real Madrid sponsorship is super fun. You have to see some of the fan reactions on Facebook'. I recollected with great fondness, some of the projects I had undertaken in my first year at P&G. And all those wonderful memories came flashing into my eyes. I had taken part in some similar 'exciting' projects early on in my career and had loved them myself !
I think the message is quite obvious. We are energized by projects that we are passionate about. Photography, sports, food and wine, creating products, meeting people. At work, it is no different. Our employees want to fuel their passion while they help our organizations grow. It is up to the leaders to ensure we 'light the fire' (to borrow an expression from Jim Morrison) for our employees. Let us take some time to match organizational goals with the passions of our employees. And then let us watch from the rear as our young employees bring in fantastic results for the company, and for themselves.
I am keen to hear your feedback and experiences around this topic. I wish you and your teams a fantastic close to 2017 and a wonderful 2018 ahead full of passion and success. Thank you for taking time to read my little piece.
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6 年good one neil; but what of organizations who may not have such opportunities to provide and little resources to spare to invest
Managing Director | Colgate-Palmolive ACI Bangladesh Pvt. Ltd.
6 年Superbly articulated Neil. In fact this applies to all facets of life. I do see these when I teach my daughter and what works is techniques to create interest and link with core subjects content. What you probably giving lesson is - Think your team members like a human and a consumer from marketing nurturing lens. Life needs purpose, personalization & precision and both is possible only when one has passion. Something has to keep ignoring and we should be on hunt ??
MBA HR & MCIPD People leader.
6 年Absolutely geared and kicked about project wah wah land :) thank you for the amazing opportunities !
Totally agree with you Neil. Well written too. The philosophy I read about a couple of years ago was Dan Pink’s piece on employee engagement - Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose are the three key factors. I can see instances of all three factors in your three projects. Well done to you and Team Nivea.
Marketing Manager - Confectionery at IFFCO Group
6 年Nothing is more inspiring than if you get to pursue your passion in the course of your work and then of course being led by an inspiring leader.. you make the 90 days of madness seem like super fun!!