Employee Retention

“Matthew was invited to share with us his story as an example of how millennials think and have different approaches. He was quite of an inspiration to us!” –Nadine E., Head of Leadership and Organization development, Unilever

Since I left IBM and joined Escape the City, I’ve helped thousands of people around the world find more fulfilling work and leave purposeless jobs.

Now, I’m focusing on the other side of the same coin: How can companies hold onto great people, help them grow within their organization, and make work a place of deep fulfilment, personal meaning and satisfaction?

What I Do
I help purpose-driven organizations understand why their employees leave and how to nurture and retain their future leaders.
CASE STUDY: Unilever & The DO School

CASE STUDY: Unilever & The DO School

THE PROBLEM:

Employee retention is a problem for organizations big and small around the world. Young professionals (and the young at heart) are increasingly jumping ship to start a business, try a new career, or discover more purposeful work.

HR directors at Unilever wanted to understand how they could better attract, empower, train, and retain the best leadership talent in to account for this growing trend and complex future.

Unilever partnered with The DO School to facilitate a 5-day design sprint to uncover a solution for their Future Leaders Programme. The DO School invited me to deliver a presentation on “Why people leave their corporate jobs to follow their purpose.”

MY APPROACH: 

Given my experience working for (and leaving) IBM, helping unfulfilled individuals find more purposeful work at Escape The City, and my team building workshops, I wanted to cover 3 key questions:

Using Escape The City’s 2015 study as a foundation, I shared the major reasons why people leave and the trends influencing those reasons.

I also compiled 5 themes of what the young professionals (and young at heart) are looking for – gathered anecdotally from personally speaking to thousands of people around the world on the topic:

  • Freedom (vs Dependency)
  • Authenticity (vs Bullshit)
  • Trust & Respect (vs Treated like Resources)
  • Purpose (vs Paycheck)
  • Awakening (vs Sleep Walking)

Next, I shared 3 case studies of companies that are successfully keeping and growing their employees: Lululemon, Buffer, and Bridgewater.

I closed with 5 provocative questions to help us rethink the problem. Instead of “How do we retain people?” what if the questions became: “How can we serve and nurture our people so we can grow together?” and related “How can we minimize the cost and complexity required to hire and train new people?”

After the session, I sent the Unilever team a 75-page slide deck with all of the talking points and further resources to help them as they uncovered a solution over the week.

THE OUTCOME:

It was an inspiring session on both sides. The team felt inspired by what I had to share, and I learned what purpose-driven companies like Unilever are doing differently as well. It was a stimulating conversation and we dug into the questions together. Stakeholders at the DO School were pleased as well:

“Matt went above and beyond for us – sending his talk outline to us the day beforehand, compiling a deck full of resources for us afterward, and engaging the entire Unilever team. It was a real pleasure to work with Matt.” –Matt Stewart, DO School

Is your company struggling to retain and nurture its future leaders? Get in touch.