"How do we retain the people [we need] to enable the company to run?"
This is the challenge Karissa Bussard, global HR leader for the digital technology function at GE, set out to solve a year and a half ago. What she and her team came up with was, as she puts it, "a simple strategy" that included prioritizing the creation of a "boundaryless connection" for their global workforce — in other words, a way for their employees to connect and build relationships, even in a mostly digital work world.
Employee connectivity is being focused on for good reason: workers want it, and it's excellent for business. Almost half of workers cite an unmet desire to work with people who trust and care for each other as a reason to quit, according to recent data from McKinsey. A report from Harvard Business Review and RedThread Research revealed that organizations with more connectivity among employees are 5.4 times more likely to be agile, 3.2 times more likely to have satisfied customers, and 2.3 times more likely to have engaged employees.
"You can't have an inclusive culture without networking and mentoring," says Dave Wilkin, CEO of 10 Thousand Coffees (10KC), an all-in-one mentoring and networking platform that GE partnered with to build connection within the organization. "Relationships are how the most successful people have thrived. I would encourage any manager to look at relationships as a core element of how people do work, and not a 'nice to have.'"
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For GE, helping employees build networks and strong workplace relationships would require tech-driven solutions. With 6,000 employees spread out across 120 countries, the people Bussard sought to bring together were, in many cases, worlds apart. Further, the aim was to connect employees at all different levels based on commonalities, regardless of job title. Working with 10KC helped GE automate the entire process.
"Typically connection, particularly in the pre-COVID world, happens at a water cooler or through someone you know," Bussard says. "How do we break down barriers and hierarchies to enable people to connect? At the time it was focused on retention; now it's much more focused on helping people network."
The platform offered by 10KC appealed to Bussard because it aligned to on-demand self-service, she says. The software is embedded into whatever communication platforms a company already has, and offers a variety of programs in addition to mentoring, including onboarding, DEI, and management. The algorithm-based connectivity program allows organizations to use over 50 dimensions that connect people based on preferences, and without the biases that can exist when the process is done manually by HR, managers, or people choose connections themselves.
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Recognizing the platform's appeal to current and prospective employees, companies such as IBM, Thomson Reuters and RBC have also incorporated 10KC into their people strategies, Wilkin says, and employers go as far as to list it under their job benefits and perks section when posting open positions.
"It matches people throughout the organization by focusing on what they have in common, and it's really self-driven," says Bussard. "[This] allows for introductions to happen that would have never happened [otherwise.] We have individual contributors at the more junior levels of the organization who are mentoring senior executives because they have things in common."
The feedback from those at the company who have used 10KC is overwhelmingly positive, with data from the first pilot program of 200 participants showing an 85% opt-in rate and each participant reporting that they got something out of it and would do it again. The follow-up to the initial pilot, which was opened up to everyone, saw similar results of high engagement and NPS scores, and Bussard's team began sharing the results, which led to the program's implementation in other organizations across GE.
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Bussard says the program has helped to enable an increase in diversity. Corporations often focus on recruiting to hit diversity targets, but they're failing to establish a sense of belonging for these hires in the first 12 months, leading to turnover, says Wilkin. An internal survey also indicated the creation of more connections, a more inclusive environment, and lower attrition rates in 2022.
"The diversity and network of employees is critical to their performance. It's also the root cause of innovation," he says. "We can't just rely on the old-fashioned way, or the way executives might have done it to get to where they are today. A lot has changed in the last 20 years, so we should apply those technologies to create smarter, more efficient ways to replicate the right relationships."
For GE, the mission to attract and retain top talent with a strong company culture will expand even further as more of their businesses adopt 10KC, and usage continues to grow at a significant rate, predicts Bussard.
"If you can get culture right, everything else takes care of itself," she says. "Leaders have to make people their number one priority, because they are doing the work, and ultimately that is who is going to deliver on strategy. Figure out what matters to them, give them the tools and resources to activate engagement, and you're going to reap the benefits."
