Agile Engagement. Richardson Todd

work is actually encouraged. Turner happens to have seven of his own. They offer unlimited paid time off to all employees, under the rationale that employees can manage their own lives and should be able to see their family members stress- and guilt-free.

      Turner says, “Most companies get the employee relationship backward. They fear you'll leave at any moment, so they end up making you feel trapped. I try to create an environment where they can thrive and feel they belong, that they're not just a replaceable cog” (Smith, 2016). All of this culminated in Mainstreet being named Best Place to Work, among a host of other workplace accolades (Smith, 2016).

       Case in Point: Everlane – Fashion

      Taken from Everlane's career page, this call exemplifies Everlane's unique cultural style as a new apparel company: “Dear rule breakers, questioners, straight-A students who skipped class: We want you” (Factories). Everlane is a new apparel company that is rocking the fashion industry with an emphasis on radical transparency, top-tier strategy, and innovative processes. They sell quality pieces that on their own would be appreciated, but they also feature each of their factories on their website, where consumers can learn about the employees and production (Factories).

      Over the 2015 holidays, they had a pay-what-you-choose sale, in which customers could choose a price point ranging from covering pure cost of production to supporting long-term growth (Kahn, 2015). They tout the merits of knowing your factories, knowing your costs, and always asking why, and they tap into the transparency, sustainability, and responsibility ethic deeply ingrained in younger generations. After studying computer engineering and economics, their CEO left a job in venture capital to found the company at age 25. They attract employees from Google, Goldman Sachs, J. Crew, American Apparel, Yelp, and the like. Everlane is a quintessential example of talented people taking proven models and disrupting an industry. From 2013 to 2014, their sales grew 200 percent (Ransom, 2014).

      Dig Deeper

      In the end, culture is not about having the coolest gadgets or the best free snacks, nor is it solely a HR problem. It is about engaging your employees and creating the optimal conditions for them to thrive. It may look different at each organization, but done right, engagement renders tremendous business results.

      Part II

      The Workplace of Now

      Chapter 5

      Workplaces without Borders: (Or, Why the War for Talent Has Gone Global)

      There is a good reason why culture and engagement are part of our everyday vocabulary, but our grandparents' generation probably never spoke of them during their careers. They talked of things like loyalty, dependability, and opportunity, all of which are still part of the culture equation, but in varying degrees than in the past. The workplace of now differs greatly from the workplace of just 20 years ago. It was a different time and place. Society valued different things. People behaved in different ways.

      For one thing, our increasingly globalized and freelance economy means that talent is now borderless. Consider the movement of people.

      ● In 1990, the world had 154 million international migrants (generally defined as people who reside in a country in which they were not born) (Engaging and Integration a Global Workforce, 2015, 13).

      ● In 2000, we had 173 million international migrants (244 Million International Migrants Living Abroad Worldwide, 2016).

      ● As of 2015, that number had grown to 244 million (244 Million International Migrants, 2016).

      And about half of those international migrants reside in only 10 countries. The United States alone houses 20 percent of international migrants, followed by Russia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

      Let's frame it another way. In 1990, all of us in the world put together took 400 million trips abroad annually, including all business, touring, studying, and everything else (Exploding Digital Flows in a Deeply Connected World, 2016). In 2016, we have nearly tripled that to more than 1.1 billion.

      Or consider the growth of emerging economies. In 2015, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (the BRICS countries) claimed 30 percent of global gross domestic product (BRICS, 2015). Toss in the other developing economies, and together they accounted for 42 percent of world merchandise trade and for 35 percent of trade in world commercial services (Engaging and Integration a Global Workforce, 2015, 8).

      What's more, the World Economic Forum's latest 2016 survey on “The Future of Jobs” projects that by 2030, Asia alone will account for 66 percent of the global middle class and for 59 percent of middle-class consumption (World Economic Forum, 2016). We are seeing the world's economic center of gravity shift away from North America, away from Europe, and toward emerging economies that are emerging as hubs of talent, entrepreneurship, and consumption.

      So what does this mean for us? It means the workplace of the future looks unmistakably different than the workplace we know today. We need to expand our thinking of where and when work gets done and who does it.

      But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, take another trip back in the culture time machine. Picture this: you step into a fresh morning and determine what the day will hold. You commit yourself to useful and collaborative work. You achieve the mighty and intoxicating realm of flow. This is a professional dream, right? Welcome to the surprisingly alluring workplace world of 12,000 years ago, when people mostly foraged wild food for sustenance. According to renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who coined the notion of “flow”), our hunter-gatherer ancestors may not have had it too bad, professionally speaking (Kawamura, 2014). People used their skills to collaborate with others in service of clear goals, and they received immediate, actionable feedback.