Meaningful Workplace Transformations 101: Ep. 39 of Red Sky Fuel for Thought Podcast

Meaningful Workplace Transformations 101: Ep. 39 of Red Sky Fuel for Thought Podcast What You’ll Learn in This Episode:·     Trends that have influenced the need for increased focus on the employee experience and meaningful work·     What steps an organization can take to maintain the alignment between what they say and what they do·     A framework for building trust with employees August’s episode digs into the subject of meaningful transformation and why it’s increasingly important for organizations today to think about how to connect the values they espouse with what their employees experience day to day.  Host Linda Descano, CFA®, EVP, Red Havas, starts by asking Hannah Caldwell, principal of Gate One, a London-based business and digital transformation consultancy within the Havas network, to define what “meaningful transformation” means. A “meaningful transformation” is a business transformation that delivers a step change in the impact and results delivered for the business but that’s also meaningful for the individuals involved in that change — it’s about making it really matter to employees to ensure that it lasts, says Hannah. Hannah cites the statistic that 70% of large transformation projects fail; she then explains why that’s the case: “One of the key reasons why those big transformation projects fail is the human element. Fundamentally, it’s not organizations that change; it’s people that change — or in some cases, they don’t. If people don’t believe in the vision that leadership is sharing, if they don’t trust leadership, they’re not going to adjust to new ways of doing things or make the effort required to create a step change in the way you operate, regardless of how brilliant the strategy and rationale is.” Linda and Hanna’s exploration of meaningful transformations dovetails with Havas’ new 2023 Global Meaningful Brands™ report, “Welcome to the Me-conomy.” The report, which serves as a playbook for how brands can be meaningful in people’s lives, was the subject of our May podcast episode. Says Hannah, “A lot of companies are increasingly aware of the need to connect meaningfully with their customers on issues they care about, such as sustainability and supporting Pride, but this has focused more on attracting customers. We’re now also seeing a complementary desire to focus on the internal side: what employees experience and the internal culture as a measure of whether organizations are authentically living the values they say they stand for.”