You may have heard of The Motley Fool. It provides financial advice and guidance to many people around the world. You would think that any company in the financial space would be conservative, buttoned-up and down right working in the '80's. Not so! In fact, The Motley Fool is the only company I have spoken with or have heard of that actually has a chief collaboration officer. So, that's who I spoke with on this latest episode of The Future of Work Podcast, Todd Etter. Recently, Glassdoor ranked The Motley Fool as the No. 1 company in America to work for based on their size (around 300+ people), so I wanted to learn what Todd and his team were doing to create such a desirable place to work, and to give you a hint, it as nothing to do with remote working. In fact The Motley Fool hardly has any remote workers at all, and everyone comes into the office.
With worldwide engagement rates at 13%, creating an environment where employees actually want to show up has never been more crucial. In a previous article I explored the No. 1 factor that is causing disengagement around the world, which is the fact that we live in 2014 and work in 1975. So, without further adieu, let's turn it over to Todd to see what he's doing to create such a unique environment and corporate culture.
What you will learn in this episode
- In depth look at The Motley Fool’s core values – collaborative, innovative, fun, honest, competitive, and motley.
- How these core values are ingrained in how employees work.
- What it's like to work at The Motley Fool
- Perks and incentives working in a very unique organization. How these benefits were created.
- Schedules of employees – Do they have to come to the office, or can they work anytime, anywhere?
- How the company uses games for business activities like meetings and annual reports.
- Privacy and security - How open is The Motley Fool with information within the organization?
- Tangible results of working "the Motley way" - Are these things meaningful or silly?
- What can medium-sized or larger organizations learn from what The Motley Fool is doing?
- Advice for other companies wanting to change their corporate culture, or to be able to do what The Motley Fool is doing.
- Role of management in creating this kind of desirable place to work
- How Motley Fool balances and structures its organizational chart.
- Overview of two Motley Fool’s programs - Pick Your Own Device (PYOD), and internal recognition and rewards program, You Earned It.
- Turnover or retention rate in the company. Are people more productive?
- Advice for managers, employees, and companies on what they should be doing, and what they should be thinking about.
Jacob Morgan is a keynote speaker, author (most recently of The Future of Work), and futurist. You can get the first 30 pages of his book for free as well as weekly content on the future of work by subscribing to his newsletter.
