What compels you to come to work each day and devote yourself to a project? Is it the pursuit of status? Responsibility? A six-figure salary? Or are you driven by something larger than yourself, some intrinsic desire to fulfill a greater need—a greater purpose?

In this webinar, economists Scott Parish and Aaron Hurst discuss how a purpose-oriented staff can be a company’s greatest asset. From their survey of 26,000 LinkedIn members across 40 counties, Parish and Hurst found that purpose-driven professionals have a leg up on their peers when it comes to leadership ability, performance, and tenure. What’s more, these workers are 47% more likely to promote their company and employers—making them an indispensable asset for boosting your talent brand.

But Parish and Hurst argue that you don’t need to be a non-profit or educational organization to inspire passion in your workers. The key is to reframe your employee mission around something larger than the product itself. Parish and Hurst use the online furniture retailer West Elm as an example. Though they’re perhaps best known for their selection of affordable, modern bedroom sets, West Elm’s employees are focused on something far greater than throw pillows: to create positive change both at home, and in the world. By gearing the hiring experience towards this purpose, West Elm attracts more talent, makes more hires, and develops a greater brand recognition. Parish and Hurst explain how West Elm’s method is easily transferable to other companies, as well—it just takes a diligent commitment to weaving purpose into every level of the hiring experience.

Parish and Hurst teach you the fundamentals of incorporating purpose into your talent management process, and explain why a worker’s first 90 days at a company are so important to their overall success. Their method is designed to help increase productivity and create a workforce that is driven to accomplish something greater.

Purpose-Driven Talent Can Boost Your Business’ Success

Resources:

Introducing our speakers: first up, Scott Parish

[00:00:08] Good morning or good afternoon depending on where you are in the world. And welcome to how to bring purpose and passion to your work. Naturally we would like to start by introducing ourselves and saying who we are and giving you a little bit more information about our organizations.

[00:00:27] So I am Scott Parish. I lead the product marketing organization for Mia and I'm based out of London England. I'm also the co-lead of our purpose program here addling 10 with Lauren Vestey.

[00:00:40] And when I think about the purpose of LinkedIn I want you to stop for a moment and think about the moment that you got your current job the job that you have right now.

[00:00:52] Just take a second and try and remember where you were who did you call right afterwards.

[00:00:56] What was that moment like. So I was in a hotel lobby when I found out that I got this role. I called my wife first. I said I've got the job. I can remember pacing back and forth excitedly on the phone and what this is and what you're recalling right now is the emotional experience of what it means to connect to opportunity. Finding jobs is one of the most impactful things that we can do for people's lives and that's exactly what the purpose of LinkedIn is to connect professionals with opportunities and we do that. Almost two million times a year treating two million of those incredible moments and I am completely inspired by that. I'm inspired also by the 117 thousand new grads we helped connect to their first opportunity. Never mind the current job that you have now. Remember your first job member the pride and the excitement that you got from that. So it's of the volunteers all the promotions all the dream jobs. That's what that's what LinkedIn is about. We're also in a really special place at the heart of a kind of talent marketplace. So every day we work with members people like yourselves 450 individuals seeking opportunities and we also work with tens of thousands of customers. Companies like yours which are looking to hire great talent and so we see both sides of this and we saw a purpose emerging as a really strong trend. We saw our members were looking for more experiences of purpose in their work. And we saw that more and more companies like yourselves were finding success by having a true reason for being that went beyond profit. And so this powerful trend inspired us and we wanted to help those professionals and those companies understand what purpose is. So in my opinion we're bringing three new things to the purpose movement. The first is that purpose has been discussed in the context of how it improves the consumer brand how it has better outcomes for businesses. But what we're going to focus on today and what our contribution here it is about what purpose means in the talent context what does it mean for talent acquisition what does it mean for human resources and for the employees who experience purpose at work. The second big contributions were bringing data. So we have the privilege of the world's first economic graph. We have a ton of data I think and we're using it and so are insights I think we'd like no other purpose research. So instead of just ideas and quotes were able to bring data and methodology and is imperative also have been driving as a data-driven approach to this topic.

[00:03:41] And finally we want to make purpose practical.

[00:03:44] So these ideas are not abstract they're not just for the noble few. We want to make purpose at work actionable and we want to learn from those people who are actually doing it. So that's a bit about me and about LinkedIn and our mission but I would like to introduce the guy with the coolest job title in the world. Economist Aaron Hurst.

Meet economist Aaron Hurst

[00:04:08] Thanks Scott. That was amazing and it's been so much fun working with you and the LinkedIn team on really building the case for purpose and helping people take action around purpose. My background as it relates to this work I was a social entrepreneur. I create organizations that are really around my purpose which is really empowering leaders to act courageously for people to do the things that they know you know are aligned with who they are as human beings and to be able to do that in a time where we desperately need people to act courageously. My last organization was the Taproot Foundation which was a social enterprise that was focused on empowering thousands and thousands of business professionals to donate their professional skills to help nonprofits help them with their marketing of technology. Their H.R. criteria and built a marketplace of 15 billion dollars a year of pro bono work happening around the U.S. and increasingly globally. What I heard over and over again from these amazing leaders was they found a pro bono work so much more rewarding than their paycheck job the paid job. And I realized that we had a fundamental issue in our workforce around purpose and left Taproot and started a new social venture called imperative to lead a global agenda around the research to really understand purpose because we study work for decades. But we haven't really studied purpose and how do we activate it and people teams and organizations and imperative really leading that research agenda and working with amazing organizations like LinkedIn at NYU. And we're building a technology platform that enables people to connect a purpose in their work. And it's amazing how quickly this is taking off. I mean really now is the moment for purpose. I've just been so incredibly inspired by the courage the courageous decisions that are being made at so many organizations to make purpose a priority. And we're seeing employers from LinkedIn to Etsy to MetLife the Department of Interior I mean giant government agencies Starbucks adopting our platform around really connecting people around us in their work helping people determine what is it that brings purpose to them to their teams a whole new way of working that's based around purpose some thrill to working with when you've been working the last couple of years last year studying their employees around the world that determines what is going on around purpose and just really inspired by the results Ascott of them talk about more than just finished a global study the first global study ever. I'm studying LinkedIn members to really understand you know how profits are showing up around the world and excited also be working with leaders at LinkedIn who are becoming part of our community of purpose leaders. So I said to share this with you and affordably help you guys dig in not just at the high level but really come out of today's call with some concrete actions you can take in the next week that's great.

Purpose is an experience, and everyone can have it

[00:06:56] OK. So let's take a quick look at the agenda today and then we'll jump in. So we're going to start with a definition of what purpose is and why it matters. We'll dig into it. We're going to give you the five trends that you just can't ignore the highlights of the research. We're going to talk about purpose driven companies and how they use purpose to attract select and manage talent and specifically double click on Westtown as a case study. And then throughout this we're going to have reflexion questions. So the idea here is to get as practical as possible so you have practical tips on what it means for your organization will conclude with some more resources. And then Aaron has a very special surprise and big announcement so please stick around at the end for that as well. First I want to start with the core element of purpose so purpose is an experience and anyone can have this if you think back to the projects the jobs the moments that you've had where you felt particularly engaged with a sense of purpose they contain these three essential elements. First of all you're having an impact on others. So you can directly connect the work that you're doing to how it's helping others. And really importantly is a sense of personal and professional growth. This is about you. So you were learning something that allows you to develop your own purpose.

[00:08:22] And third purpose doesn't happen in a vacuum.

[00:08:26] So you would likely on a great team. You're working with people authentically you have you're delivering through relationships and these are the core elements of purpose which help us understand and make some of our definitions. So I'm just so let's look at some of the definitions of purpose here. I want to start on the left hand side which is why we work and how we work and being purpose driven requires both a why and how the why is the core motivation behind our work. This is the big picture the how it is about how you behave on a day to day basis if you will the little picture and in my observation over the last few years working with different purpose organizations and professionals I think purpose tends to over investing the idea of why and sometimes forgets to focus on how we think that purposes this large aspirational idea of the big picture when in fact is best achieved by really focusing on certain behaviors in the now. In Britain, we have an expression you know "watch the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves".

Purpose-driven professionals choose work that matters to them, their company, and the world

And I think if you focus on the purpose how on how you're working really powerful why can emerge so we define a purpose driven professional looking at the way they work as a professional that prioritizes work that matters to them their company and the world over money and advancement. We'll get into this a little bit more. But remember that experience of purpose as well. So those are purpose driven professionals. They love that in spirit. That experience. In fact they live for it. So they're optimizing their career choices throughout their career at major ways to help deliver on those core elements. So they choose jobs that offer these experiences. Similarly purpose driven companies have an aspirational reason for being there goes beyond profit. They too are existing for more than profit or growth and shareholder maximization. And what's really important about these companies as well is that they're creating a really strong culture and an experience of purpose at work that leverages some of those elements. We discussed so how can you actually purpose your work. We're going to talk about these three big buckets today how to attract select and manage with purpose. When we talk about things like employment branding practical tips for job descriptions and we're looking at selection what are the best questions to ask to learn about people's purpose and to see also how it aligns with potentially your organizational her purpose on management. These are things like onboarding with purpose leadership development. How do you promote with purpose etc. and build that culture.

[00:11:24] But before we go there let's just take about 10 minutes and we're going to go through a crash course of the biggest headlines from the purpose research in for purpose that work in just a few minutes here. So number one purpose is an established segment of talent and it's based on why we work.

[00:11:46] So this is a well established psychological construct that has been validated through a number of academic and business research. And what we've learned is that we all work for a purpose achievement and money. So we need and we want all three of those things. But some professionals prioritize purpose. So they're primarily motivated this way. They had a tendency to view their work as a vehicle for fulfillment more than advancement and money. And so through a series of questions that asks professionals about why and how they work. We're able to segment them and that's exactly what we did in the world's largest study on this topic with 26000 LinkedIn members and we start to look at the results. And before we get a deep into the results I just want to touch on the importance of the idea of segmentation because I think perhaps controversially I would like to say that recruitment is notoriously bad at blending data together so I don't know how many times we've all seen the headline that the number one thing people look for when they're at work is money and achievement. We see this actually we publish this every year at LinkedIn as well. And it's true on average. But what's really important is that it's hiding important differences about the groups that are underneath it and in my opinion no other industry does this.

[00:13:09] I mean imagine if the automotive industry did this. We wouldn't have sports cars and minivans. We'd all be driving in a Honda Accord or something like that.

Purpose-driven professionals are the most valuable type of talent

[00:13:18] So I think it's really important to look at the differences and in our study we saw that purpose professionals didn't choose their job primarily on money or status. Instead they wanted information about the culture about the mission and particularly the products and services that they were going to make a contribution to the world through. So imperative in partnership with NYU in 2015 and in partnership with LinkedIn in 2016 has made some major discoveries about this purpose driven segment and primarily the headline is that purpose driven professionals are the most valuable segment of talent. They are 30 percent more likely to be high performers. There let they stay longer 11 percent longer. In fact they are 50 percent more likely to be in leadership positions. Are 47 percent more likely to be promoters of their employee employers. They report deeper relationships. They're more fulfilled at work.

[00:14:21] They have higher ratings of satisfaction in short purpose driven professionals are the cornerstones of talent.

[00:14:30] And this healthy orientation they have towards work. To view your work and enjoy the work for the work itself because it's a vehicle for your personal fulfillment. Turns out to have a direct consequence on results and as a result they're the most valuable talent. When we conducted the world's biggest study of purpose that was ever done with this survey of 26000 members we'll also learn that purpose is universal so it exists in every geography industry job function and generation and I think that this is really important because people feel that sometimes purpose is just for Bay Area hippie's or for not for profits or something aspirational and out of reach and that couldn't be further from the truth. It's really not about what job you're in or how you or what industry or country you're in. It's about how you approach your work. So even if you're an oil and gas let's say and in the Middle East yes it's true that you may have less purpose driven peers but even then about one in five professionals are going to be approaching their work this way. This is a universal construct that is more about humanity than than anything else. And Laura Vestey my colleague at Lentin here was recently published in The Guardian discussing the fact that purpose is also not a millennial construct. So when we do the segmentation and when you talk to people they think oh it's only young people that really want to have a sense of purpose and work that is not what the data showed. In fact baby boomers or older generations were more purpose driven than than millennials. So you can check out a report for a full breakdown on the segmentation of this really important group.

Purpose-driven professionals need activation at work—and some companies provide this better than others

The fourth big headline is that some companies are providing experiences at work that really empower. They activate these purpose driven professionals and they are becoming increasingly common and increasingly successful. So look at companies like Airbnb for example their purpose is to create belonging anywhere and they use that and they believe when you speak to them they really believe that staying in an airBNB helps you feel a sense of belonging and a connection to the community in a more authentic way. So staying in an RV and be property gets you closer to the community than staying in the hotel on the main on the main square. And that's allowed them to make some decisions that have cost them to go to the world's largest hotel chain in just a short amount of years or you can look at Tesla's contribution to green energy or organizations like Keeva who have purpose to help alleviate poverty through lending and definitions that these organizations aren't just having a powerful why they also have a how. For example they will send all of their employees directly to the frontline to interact with the beneficiaries of those loans so that they can even if they're working on a technology platform that they can directly connect their work to the impact that they're having. It's a really powerful purpose environment. And that's important. So we like to understand more about these purpose driven companies. And so we did some really big data analysis here. So anyone in H.R. or talent acquisition on the line I think you'll find this particularly important. So we compared a list of 500 purpose driven companies with 500 randomly selected companies on LinkedIn and we match them on their size and their industry so that we were comparing apples to apples.

[00:18:14] And this was a big data analysis. So this was over a thousand companies 3 million members almost a million jobs half a million hires.

[00:18:24] And what we found is that these purpose driven companies were performing better in talent acquisition outcomes at every stage of the candidate journey. So when you think about hiring we think about it as a candidate journey starting with awareness. Those companies were getting three point five times as many followers on LinkedIn as they were building a traction with their candidates.

[00:18:46] They were getting a third better email acceptance rates they were getting 30 percent more job supplies direct applications which was ultimately resulting in more hires. Also inside of that organization when we move from talent acquisition to talent management the engagement was better 20 they were 25 percent their employees were 25 percent more likely to be sharing company content and to be ambassadors of their organizations. And from a development perspective they were the employees that were inside the organization were better educated had more connections and were more recognized. So I just want you to imagine for a second the cumulative effect of what we've just said. So you get better talent. They perform better stay longer. They more likely to be in leadership positions and you get better results hiring that talent better talent acquisition outcomes. And this is really going to transform companies. So that's enough about the macro picture. That's the big data research. Aaron is now going to take you some really through some very practical tips on the micro level. So Aaron that's great.

Case Study: How West Elm attracts purpose-driven employees, and how it connects to the company’s success

[00:19:58] God love the way you presented an actual question for you before age or transition to the next section. I'm curious about your own experience working at LinkedIn who you know based on our research and studies Linkedin as a very strong purposeful player. What are a couple of things you think LinkedIn does right in terms of really fostering purpose in employees that you've experienced.

[00:20:19] Yeah it. It it's a great question. I think one of the things that links in due that's that that's quite strong is around that pillar of personal and professional development. So I think LinkedIn really gets the idea of tailoring and what that looks like in reality is that there's a lot of transformational stories from employees. There's a huge culture of learning in the organization not just because of LinkedIn and other things but just a genuine investment in personal and professional alignment. I think that's just one of the things that stand out for.

[00:20:57] That's huge in a lot of ways don't do that. You guys do that in a very authentic way and a lot of it I've seen it beyond just you know online learning but really giving people the opportunity to take on challenging projects are a little bit over their head and learn by taking things. Like all of a sudden you find yourself the chief purpose officer at work. So I think it's wonderful how well does that somehow. I want to tell you about an organization that I am incredibly inspired by it just west alum. They are a division actually of Williams-Sonoma them but they're very different than the rest of Williams-Sonoma. It's organization that has really invested in purpose and see it as key to their model. And you'll see the key to success in what you see if you ever go to stores they don't actually work. They just sit around in very comfortable chairs staring at the wall.

[00:21:45] And that is really the key. So that's really all you need to do. But if that doesn't work for you. Here are three key areas where I want to talk through what we have done to completely redesign their talent approach to focus on purpose. So with the first bucket that Scott was talking about attracting the right talent is really clear that they eventually want to have an organization that is almost entirely if not entirely purpose oriented people. They same purpose within their organization and they realize that purpose is key to having the right people that are the right team members. So if we adopted a player brand a discussion of what they do there's a lot more than just about selling furniture. It's a much broader brand that's about the impact they're having in the lives of their customers their supply chain etc. and regularly speaking contributing to the whole movement around purpose.

Reframe your talent branding to attract purpose-driven workers

But that wasn't enough they actually go down and help you with this in a few minutes actually went through and redid all their job descriptions. They realized that their old job descriptions were not telling the story of why William Sonoma is an amazing place to work and why it's a place where people can get a lot of purpose and they went through. And anytime someone to post a job they worked with their talent group and they had to rewrite the job description to define what are their relationships. This person is going to have what is the impact they're going to make and how are they going to grow and found that they got it much much more qualified applicants and people who are so much more passionate to join us. I'm just by reframing their job description then it went to looking at how is it selecting people and how can a screen define people who are purpose age and how do they screen out people who are likely not purpose oriented asking questions about people's background their approach to work I share some of those details shortly. They then once they hired someone realized how important first 90 days on the job are and redesign their whole onboarding process around purpose focusing in on how do you get someone who's purpose oriented embedded in a powerful way starting the very beginning of their experience so that that really is the foundation for their entire job on the management side.

They change the way they were communicating with folks to really amplify and tell stories around purpose and the impact of the organization not just financial performance. They redid their performance reviews to focus on the settlement of their employees not just how they scored on their sales numbers. They redesigned their talent development in the process of doing that even more now to really focus on how do we build the competency the skills that are aligned with someone's purpose that they can really develop in a way it's not just any specific job it is about their broader purpose. It is something incredibly creative that I'm very proud to be have been a part of which is they've actually realized that having Ngom purpose oriented people in management roles really was making it hard for purpose oriented people working for them. And they said you know we can't promote people who are not purpose oriented. So they created a whole review process and panel process for promotions where people really need to come and demonstrate. Many things are one of the main things is that they are a purpose oriented manager or a leader. That's sort of a prerequisite now to become a manager or a leader. And finally they've committed to annually measuring purpose they're not measuring engagement. They're not measuring satisfaction. And then some these are older measures are actually measuring the still meant to their employees. How many employees are purpose oriented and to hold themselves to improving every year on these key measures around purpose in their work. Second the sort of lofty poetic idea of purpose and we've worked with them to really break it down so that it's a science that changes every single aspect of a talent strategy.

Start with purpose-driven job descriptions to attract qualified candidates and frame goals early on

So in a sense you this is the opportunity on this call this webinar we can really think about how would you apply this to your organization in some small ways that are powerful these a lot of the exercises the shorter version that we do with our certified purpose leaders the people who go through our program who are change agents within usually talent groups who are working to transform their practices around H.R. and talent to adopt purpose.

[00:25:51] So think about job description right and typical job description has a nice blurb at the top typically then says here's the responsibilities here's the qualifications here's how much it pays.

[00:26:04] Send an email to the hiring manager perfectly fine but it doesn't really work as well for purpose oriented folks purpose training folks are looking for relationships impact and growth. These are three things they look for in terms of the jobs they pick. So really being able to go through your next job description that you post and think about these questions. Who are the people that he employed working with in the role regularly with people every day working with. And where will they be able to build a strong relationship to really describe to them what the job is going to be like in terms of the customers who interact with co-workers etc. It really helps them get a sense for what the relationships are going to be that they are going to have the opportunity to build separately. Help them understand the impact of the job it's not just about completing the task. Why does this role ultimately matter. What will the impact be on their teammates. How will it impact the rest of the organization. How will it impact customers. Help them see that their job no matter what that job is. How would you think about its impact on other people and organizations and on society in small ways. But to help define that impact. And finally growth but challenges and growth opportunities does the job provide. This isn't just about the ability to have classes and traditional forms of academic learning. What are the chances they're going to have to be able to try new things to take risks and to do things that may not be immediately comfortable to them but are really going to stretch them help to find those upfront. Once you have the person have applied for the job and you're in an interview with someone and you assume they're purpose oriented and you want to inspire them in a lot of positions it's a very tight labor market and being able to get someone to really want to work at your organization it's not just about telling the organization's purpose you need to personally as a hiring manager as the recruiter tell them authentically where you get purpose in your job. So some of the things you may want to reflect on and share in that interview who is someone in your work that really matters to you and why tell that story. Talk about the person your work that if they left tomorrow you would be devastated. Talk about the nature of that relationship what you get from them how much they matter to your work so inspiring to a purpose oriented person. Talk about impact. When was the last time you thought you were really made an impact. Don't look for the big wins. When was the last time it was today. Yesterday last week when was the last time you did something that made an impact and give you that extra bit of energy. Tell the kids read that story. Tell them about how that's one of you know policy examples of just little things that make you feel like your work matters and then growth. Think about when was the last time you were really challenged at work and how did you grow as a result of that experience. What did you do something. When did the organization give you the space to do something that really pushed you out of your comfort zone and enabled you to grow. Telling of story to a candidate is incredibly powerful and for purpose oriented people. These three things are the things they're going to close. Close them and make them want to work with you.

An employee’s first 90 days on a job help them build vital relationships and connect their work to a larger purpose

The next step is really around the onboarding and thinking about someone's first 90 days.

The research has been pretty consistent about saying yes so much of what determines success for an employee is what happens in the first 90 days. And it really proactively the hiring manager recruiter whoever you are in the process think about for this new person coming in. How are you helping them immediately build strong relationships. Who do they need to get to know who should they go have lunch with who should have coffee with. What questions do they ask. Puts them that every day they're meeting new people and not just having superficial interactions but really helping them connect impact. So a lot of times we set goals up front that are very tactically oriented and it's really important to help someone understand what drives them for a purpose standpoint to helping frame their goals for their first 90 days first year in the context of the impact they want to make in the world. Help them to think about why or the things that they need to get done tied to the image they want to see in the world. And this in a small ways big ways but helping them really cognitively connect the more they're going to be doing to impact and why the work matters.

[00:30:20] And then finally and this is probably the easiest one is just growth and when we start a new job after that moment Scott described it as more tolerant. You know say to get a job and started that job you immediately are drinking from a firehose you're dealing with so much new knowledge so much going on but being really thoughtful about how is it you really want to grow in those first sunny days. How can you help someone with that growth so they can do it in a way in which it's really going to stick for them and they really feel like they're not just learning how to do the job that they're growing as a human being.

[00:30:48] As part of that process finally when someone is on board with a fully up to speed it's the ongoing role of an effective manager and to really work with someone to help them constantly boost their relationships make an impact and grow. This is the center of where companies like West Elm are doing as part of their performance reviews are saying how meaningful were the relationships over the last period of time. Where do you want to invest more in relationships. Who would you like to meet. How would you like to change the way you're working to boost relationships and links in You've done amazing research on the sales front and how much focusing on relationships creates incredible outcomes. This is true of every job you've got to help people see that building strong relationships is part of being successful and managing to that impact you're really being able to work with someone to ask the questions about. Are they making an impact personally meaningful to them. Do they see the connection between their work and the impact it has on other people in the organization or do they feel obtuse if they could increase their impact. Where would they want to increase that impact. How would they know if they created that impact. These are the questions you should be asking as were setting goals. People on our team. And then growth you know really exportable what were the greatest learning moments in the last year. What are the moments where you really felt stretch and how do you want to create more of those in the next year. How can we create those kinds of opportunities and create that space for you. It's so critical to help people with these say that this is success when you have awesome relationships you know you're making an impact in you're growing you know that person's thriving. And you know as a result the team is thriving. And as a result the organization is thriving.

The key? Consider how you’re attracting, selecting, and managing purpose-oriented professionals

A quick summary of what we've talked about. And Scott did a brilliant job of sharing through a high level the keester really being able to actively purpose in your organization is really around thinking about how are you attracting the right talent. How are you selecting them and then how are you managing them. Right.

[00:32:48] We define purpose based on why we work. If you take away the money you take away the recognition what is that motivation for why we work to put that front and center. Secondly purpose oriented professionals are the most valuable employees they are the people that are the most in demand. We saw 37 percent of LinkedIn members are purpose oriented. These are the folks that you want to be out recruiting and optimizing your systems around 3 purpose. Professionals are everywhere. You can't say oh it's a call center job no purpose oriented people are going to want that. This is you know a job that is not going to be attractive to purpose and people are we can only do that in San Francisco. We have definitively shown that in every geography industry job function generation there are many many service oriented people.

[00:33:39] We can never sort of set a lower bar because of the geography or the specific role some companies provide experiences that work than a power professor and professional so purpose driven people purpose oriented people are the ones you want. But how much purpose they get out of the job and how much value you get as an organization is largely driven by the degree to which you empower them and you design your town's systems around them. And we know the purpose driven companies have better tone acquisition outcomes that are revenue outcomes across the board. Purpose truly is for that core ingredient that I want to hand it back to my friend Scott Hirotaka a little bit about some of the other resources that are available. You want to dive deeper in any of these areas and then we'll have a chance to do a Q and A in a few minutes.

[00:34:27] so just a few a few resources for you I'd recommend bookmarking Linkedin slash power of purpose.

[00:34:37] So as I mentioned at the beginning LinkedIn is at the privileged place of being in the center of a talent marketplace. So we work with both purpose driven companies as well as purpose driven talent. And so we've divided the site that way. Still you'll see a white paper called The Practical Guide to purpose at work and that's designed for purpose companies as well as what we call a portrait of purpose. Some of these case studies with best practices of perpetrating companies. You will also see on the purpose driven talent side the 2016 Global Report on purpose talent which we've been describing throughout the presentation today as well as eight really inspiring stories. You can hear advice and stories from from these videos including our speaker today. Aaron so at least for Aaron sake click on the one on the top left there on that Web site.

Focus on yourself: bring satisfaction to your work by considering purpose

[00:35:34] It's a life changing video.

[00:35:35] Scott That's right. Yeah. You can't miss it.

[00:35:40] And so just one last thought for me before I hand it back to you and then we'll start with some open discussion here which is you know purpose is going to have such an incredible impact on the world through organizations but the the very basic component of every organization is the individual. It's you. So even if you look at this material and you decide you know maybe that your organization isn't ready for that or you don't have that authentic purpose that's there. You know I would commit to doing something for yourself because one of the things that we've learned is that purpose brings satisfaction. So you're more likely to enjoy your own work being purpose driven and that is going to help you do a little bit of that as well.

[00:36:25] Thank you sir. Scott I have a confession to make. I did not notice that last night of the happy face and a sad face that it makes such a brilliant writer. I love that. I just don't know how I missed that before. But the point really is the main point. We want our businesses to be successful we want to make sure the economy is strong. But we also worse human being than we deserve to be fulfilled in our work and our research. Yes we've seen satisfaction satisfactions their wealth their ideas enables people to be healthier to live longer I mean are so many benefits to purpose just beyond the bottom line.

[00:37:03] But I've come to realize that there should only one thing that matters.It comes to a purpose that's really the statement purpose is a choice people decide how they want to approach their career whether or not they want to make purpose. You know at the core of why they work if it's an ethical choice everyday it's not a necessary to make ones that everyday when you show up to work saying you know what I want to be here. I want to make an impact. I want to have great relationships. I want to grow it's having the courage to say yeah to get paid fairly. Yes they need recognition. I don't have those things. It's a problem. But at the end of the day I work because I fundamentally believe work is a way to make a difference in the world to build relationships and to grow as a human being that even if I won the lottery tomorrow and didn't have to work maybe I would change my job maybe I'd do so different but I choose to continue to add value and to do things in the world that matter.

Choose purpose in what you do, and lead by example

And I really want to challenge all of you to make that choice to choose purpose in what you do to choose to come to work you know tomorrow. So you know I'm going to put purpose at the foreground and I'm going to help others by leading by example thinking about how I'm actually in a sense discriminate against percent of people in the way in which my systems for each town are set up because they're optimized for people who are about money and status. When our best people are purpose oriented I'm going to choose to really embrace having systems that are built for the people they should be built for the people who are adding value for themselves in the organization.

[00:38:25] Okay great thanks. We have a number of questions on the line for anyone else just listening please. Take those into the jackpot and we can start getting into the. I like this one why don't we start with this one. How can you screen for people gaming their probusiness to stop the organization from becoming really an exclusive cult.

[00:38:49] Good provocative question to start with I got a lot of different pieces to this so I don't think it's got rid of it. And I think to date we've prioritized money and status in the workforce. I think prioritizing what actually matters and bring people in who are there for the right reasons and don't have to have psychological challenges that prevent them from really showing up at work courageously doesn't create a culture that creates a workforce of people who really give a damn and who are there for the right reasons. The question of people gaming it I think of two different pieces to that I think we are as a science advances getting better and better at being able to determine if someone is purpose oriented or not. The early versions were easier to game but no one knew the game them. We're increasingly finding ways to make it so you can't game that piece and that we can do the kind of data analysis on psychometrics to figure that out. And I would also to say I would love to have people gaming to show that purpose is their orientation because that means that we're headed in the right direction we're creating a shift. Well it's become desirable. It's purpose and when we've done that I mean it's a wonderful problem to have to figure out how to stop gaming because it means that as an overall marketplace we've accepted that purpose is the right solution.

As recruiters, sometimes keeping company values close can help you find better candidates

[00:40:04] I think that as we get more sophisticated to with some of the selection criteria there are some questions that you can ask for example a good one which is you know tell me about what you would do if you won a million dollars. People aren't always always easy to gain that there are people who would go directly to the beach would never work again. There are others that would be pursuing something through their work. Aaron you'd mentioned to me once this question about you know I sometimes find myself feeling a sense of ah but worth it. You know how do you how do you gain a question like that. And so I think what we're working on trying to figure out what those what those specific questions are to add a bit more rigour in the meantime what are some of other organizations do Khiva for example are less transparent on their website about what their core values are. You know organizations often pick five values that really are reflective of their culture. Some organizations really public put them public Khiva for example has said that one of the reasons that they do that and keep that private is because they want to get an authentic read from the people that they're interviewing and then that allows them to kind of do an assessment as well. Suppose there are a couple of tips on the idea of gaining purpose so does the research support intrinsic vs. extrinsic interests influencing these three wise purpose seems to be only an intrinsic motivator.

[00:41:45] Another question Scott. I think that is at the core of what we're seeing in the research as purpose oriented people are people who have the courage and have the psychological strength to be able to put their intrinsic motivations first. And they don't need as much to ask the feedback through money and through accolades to feel like their work is good. So yes in many ways purpose oriented and transact are very very similar. I think it also speaks to the people who are not purpose oriented. They tend to be people who are looking for extrinsic motivation because they don't yet have the confidence to know that the intrinsic motivation is really what's going to them to thrive. So I think it's really quite rare to separate it in if you see candidates are people who are very extrinsically motivated. It's a good sign they're not purpose or entertainment. It's a good sign typically that they have something psychologically that's holding them up from having the courage to really trust their intrinsic gut.

Intrinsic motivators work far better than external motivators to drive performance in the knowledge economy

[00:42:44] Yeah. And actually this is triangulates well with some other research for example through Dan Pink. And the research about knowledge economy and what motivates people well in a knowledge economy and intrinsic motivation is just work much better than extrinsic motivators for the type of work that we're approaching today. There's almost nothing that my employer can force me to do that I don't get to without and with my own free will. Now in terms of creativity that is needed for that for this type of work. So for knowledge economy of work so I think intrinsic motivators are actually where we need need to be focusing. It's also a really bad H.R. strategy to pursue extrinsic motivation. If you're just going to sort of have your core value proposition for your organization be around benefits. That's one really easy to copy and all the research shows is that that creates a pop in in motivation and concentration which then may acclimatize to very quickly. So I don't think it's an effective strategy in the kind of knowledge economy in a competitive environment that we're in now. Next question is there a purpose driven language that people should include on their LinkedIn profiles. Suggestions would be appreciated. I love this question. We've been thinking for quite a while on how how we can identify a purpose driven professional through their LinkedIn profile. I would say this is absolutely something that I would mention in the in the summary. That first paragraph where you get to talk about yourself as a professional I would highlight how you know how. What's important to you. What kind of what and what you want to deal with with your career. How hard is to help others and really signal that you are purpose oriented. Some of the things that we've discussed internally at LinkedIn is whether or not we want to add something like a skills so that it would be even serviceable in recruiter for example and trying to get a little bit of movement around that there but there are a few ideas for now as a demonstrator Yeah I think it's such a powerful way to actually just rely on purpose resolves to pull out.

To own purpose, be explicit in your Linkedin profiles and applications

[00:44:54] I was coming out as purpose oriented and I would just go back to the questions that I was posing earlier on relationships impact and gross and a lot of objectives on their profile. That intro paragraph and just really say you're someone who's defined not so just by your profession but by the kinds of relationships you want to build. Describe that. Describe the kind of impact you like to make. Describe the kind of growth you're looking for and have experience before talking about language that will really have hiring managers who are purpose oriented to you. As someone whose purpose answered and if you know we've seen a lot of this with our purpose assessment start to rewrite their profiles to actually talk about their purpose drivers and how those are showing up in their works as a way of telling your story not through accomplishments status but instead telling it through impact relationships.

[00:45:42] Growth we have some great questions coming up here so try and ban these ones out quickly. So how important is it to connect clumsiest individual purpose to a entity organization's purpose and what's the role of team purpose in the whole equation. I'd say a very quick answer to this it's incredibly important to connect the individuals purpose into the organization's purpose and a good organizational purpose actually gets adopted by the individual. It's not that you want to overrun the individuals purpose. We are work for our own individual one. It's the ability for people to see their own personal purpose in the organization's purpose and to have that alignment that really that really gets some traction. In a study did you pass the data by industry. Do not for profits have a higher percentage of purpose driven workers vs. tech or something like that.

The majority of people in any industry—including education and non-profit—are not purpose-oriented

[00:46:50] You don't know what we saw General. There were some professions like education and healthcare nonprofits that were higher but none of them in the study we did in theU.S. were higher than just the majority of people in every sector under 60 percent purpose oriented and no short of no industry went below I think about 18 percent. She's right on that range. What's interesting is that while nonprofits education health care are at the top of the list still the majority people working there are not purpose or entered this to think about the fact that the next time you go to the doctor a kid goes to school. A lot of those teachers doctors etc. that are working are not actually there. First and foremost you know to make an impact. And I think that's a really scary thing is something that keeps me up at night thinking about how do we change our educational system to have more people with a purpose and how do we have the nonprofit sector set a higher bar for who they are.

[00:47:42] Yes. So the so there is some education not for profit topped the list in the top five as well were media and entertainment professional services healthcare and pharmaceutical and staffing and some of the five least purpose driven organizations were financial services and insurance architecture and engineering and retail and consumer products and oil and energy. But as Aaron said the differences are smaller than one might think. And it's also interesting to note that there are some industries where connecting their employees to purpose made the biggest impact on job satisfaction. And I think a very interesting lead everyone on the call today staffing agencies or recruitment agencies were the agent the industry that had this affect the most. So they had so purpose oriented talent in the staff and the staffing agency reported 70 percent satisfaction and non purpose oriented talent reported 53 percent satisfaction. And so that's the greatest difference where in this particular industry connecting those employees to purpose that work made a big impact. So if you're running a recruitment department you're listening to this right now definitely think about how do you frame the impact of the work of connecting people to opportunity similar to what we do through a service.

[00:49:02] Start with your own team. First as a recruiter than making sure your hiring purpose ends up folks and then once you've got that nailed start helping the rest of your organization do so what are some of the most unexpected barriers you've identified in holding back companies from prioritizing purpose I'll say the biggest one that I hear over and over again is really just the myth that purpose is about a cause and the people believe that they've got to have a cause behind the organization that has something to volunteering it hasn't been a philanthropy it's from a misunderstanding the purpose is a psychological approach to work.

It’s a myth that purpose is about a cause. Instead, it’s about how you frame what you do.

It has to do with how you frame what you do. And I think a lot of times signets about a cause prevents people from acting instead of realizing every organization has the opportunity to really embraced those that's helpful.

[00:49:51] So how are investors reacting to the purpose employee concept messaging from this constituency is largely profit focused. And I imagine that this could be a roadblock for some companies to hire more purpose in purpose employees. So first of all I think what we're seeing is that purpose is a competitive advantage in business. It is driving profitability if you're interested in that research. I would refer you to the UI Beacon Institute who has done some research specifically here on the profitability of purpose driven companies. So I don't think that these concepts are in conflict with each other but by any means. And as and when we think about the concepts that we've brought up here today getting better talent acquiring them better having deeper relationships with your customers. All of that is quite positive for some organizations that want to take us a little bit further. There is also something called a corpse. So this is actually changing the legal construction of the company in order to be able to pursue multiple objectives beyond just shareholder profitability. Several major companies are now IPO as before. For this reason. So for example Athey a very purpose driven company recently IPO as a B Corp and they so they have legal protection in this regard.

[00:51:19] So another question here.

[00:51:23] What do you regard as the difference between the formerly frequently used word of motivation and the buzzword of purpose.

[00:51:28] Now you can take that one.

[00:51:32] Yes he goes back to an earlier question I think purpose is largely about intrinsic motivation whereas the purpose efforts are about extrinsic motivations. So the motivation you could be motivated by money be motivated by status. But those are not sustainable effective sources of motivation for people psychologically. So what we're talking about is the fact that there's one type of motivation intrinsic motivation that's what actually really makes a difference from people or purpose oriented.

[00:52:00] OK.

[00:52:03] So I think we are going to I think we're gonna wrap this up now. I just want to thank everyone for joining us this morning. Thank you for taking the time this morning. We hope you've been able to deliver what we promised which was a practical and practical tips to a really powerful really powerful concept so behalf on behalf of Aaron and me.