(light music)
Here we go again.
Coffee.
Shower.
Train.
And work.
Isn't that a bit of a cliche?
Yes.
But I've seen so many people around me
feeling depressed or anxious just thinking of going to work.
So they switch to another company,
hoping that things will be better elsewhere,
before moving on again a few months later.
Every day is the same day,
and they just dream about making their getaway.
Weekends, holidays, even retirement.
(train shrieking) What the fuck?
When we are caught in this infinite rat race
we forget to ask ourselves the real questions.
So why do we even work?
We work to eat and to live.
It's as simple as I work to eat and to live,
nothing else left to say.
But when we talk about living,
there are so many more things to be said.
I want to have fun at work,
to spend my days with people I love and care about,
and I wanna feel useful.
But is that even possible?
Why should I get up five days a week to go to work?
And why should I join one company rather than another?
I'm off on a new adventure
to find answers directly from people
who already found their motivational drivers.
And we have quite a trip ahead of us.
(airplane whirring)
(dramatic music)
It's very hard to give a definition of work
and the relationship with money isn't clear.
When you ask some people, I asked my daughter recently,
why will you work, why would you work?
And she said "for money."
But it's unclear whether that defines work.
Is it activity for which you get paid or not?
Money itself is not the purpose, it's a way to purpose.
It is the increasing expectation
I think that employees have,
they want more out of their work life
than simply a paycheck.
I spend most of my awake life here at work.
So it needs to be something that fulfills me.
When you connect with a company
that you feel passionate about
and that you're doing the right thing,
it doesn't feel like work.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
(light music)
The first thing you want from a job
is to be happy to get up in the morning and get after it.
Maybe it's because you're happy
to spend time with your colleagues
having great conversations and having fun.
Or maybe you don't have to go to the office
because you've found your own work life balance
by working remotely.
In a nutshell, our working environment plays a big role
in how we picture our work.
There's something really nice about being an employee
is that usually you have colleagues
and you're surrounded by people.
And sometimes they can even replace your family.
And this sense of belonging
that you get by working with others
whether they are your colleagues or not by the way,
is something that provides a lot of satisfaction at work.
And those little signs,
the little cues that you get from others,
whether it's just hi how are you and see you tomorrow,
this little see you tomorrow
that's something it's much more important
than we think it is
because it says you have a future with the group.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
We believe in having fun at work right,
it's part of the Ben & Jerry's ethos.
When the guys are in business
the first year from 1978 to 1979
they said "we have to come up with a slogan
"so that people understand what our business is."
And at that time they had the belief
of being a better company.
So Ben's was his quote was
business has a responsibility to give back to the community.
Jerry's quote was if it's not fun why do it?
Oh yeah there's a if it's not fun way do it
it's like a mantra here.
Like if you truly are not having fun at what you're doing
there is no point for you to be doing it.
And if you get the chance to talk to other people
you will see that that rings true.
Even with our name titles
like we're saying our title at work,
you could have a regular boring business title
but the idea when you meet with people
and you say "I'm from Ben & Jerry's here's my title"
they're always going man Ben & Jerry's
you guys have a good time.
When I was working here 25, 30 years ago,
a truck would back up with blueberries.
And we would shut down the offices
and we would all go out and help unload blueberries
because it was fruit, it couldn't last all day long,
so we said it was a priority.
And that idea of working together
was a pretty magical thing right, pretty unique.
When you're a small company, when you grow that way
to be able to still keep people involved,
it takes more work and takes more effort
but it's something I think we're really dedicated to.
But we've never lost that fun in what we do.
We're constantly joking with each other,
playing little pranks on each other,
it just makes it fun to show up
to know that you can have fun and you can goof around
and still get your job done.
But it definitely makes the hours fly by a little faster.
My wife told me "hey they're hiring for summer tour guides,
"why don't you see if you can get a job there?"
So I think the reason why people come is varied.
I think the reason why people stay is culture
and how they're treated and what the company's all about.
That's been my experience here.
I definitely planned on this being a short stop
on the map for a summer and then onto something different,
and then 12 years later I'm still here.
When you connect with a company
that you feel passionate about
and that you're doing the right thing,
it doesn't feel like work.
Right it doesn't feel like effort,
it feels like I am excited to come to work
and to do the things that we get to do.
And so that's the thought
in terms of like why choose a company?
If you can find one that motivates you
and one that you connect with personally, go do that.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
I don't have to be someone I'm not.
So I get to come up here and be myself.
I'm originally from Puerto Rico,
so like I'm American but I'm from the Caribbean.
So Vermont is a very different
culturally a very different place from home.
I feel like at Ben & Jerry's I get to come as myself.
I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not,
I don't have to hide my accent,
I can just be 100 percent myself.
(upbeat music)
Perks you get at work
are also an important part of the working environment.
One of the funny ones at Ben & Jerry's
is getting three pints of ice cream a day.
That's what dreams are made of.
But there's also one kind of perk
that some companies are starting to offer their employees,
and I know that it's something
that some people can only dream of.
An unlimited holidays policy.
Let's return to France
and meet with a team at OpenClassrooms
to find out more about it.
The company started
when Matthew and Pierre were only teenagers
and they wanted to offer online courses.
Since then they've come a long way,
and they now have a team of hundreds of people
dedicated to making education accessible to all.
Couple of years ago we decided
to implement this unlimited pay holiday policy.
And we wanna make sure that you will take this time.
And it's not like oh yeah it's there
but there is social pressure not to take it right
because this would be bullshit.
So we implemented the bonus of 1,000 euros
every time you take a vacation
that is longer than three weeks.
So the company tells you
"take more than three weeks every year
"and we will pay you 1,000 euros to do so
"because we believe it's gonna be good for you.
"And because it's gonna be good for you
"it's gonna be good for the company
"and for the rest of the organization."
This is not something basic.
It means that you don't have to worry anymore
if you have to pick one day off
to attend a personal matters, or if you need to rest.
You don't have to worry about this.
So as long as you perform on the long-term basis
it's okay right.
(soft music) (birds chirping)
A great work environment
is not just a beautiful office space
where people will find wonderful canteens
the way Silicon Valley companies
have defined great work environments over the past 20 years.
A great work environment today in for a lot of jobs
is flexibility in the way you approach
time and space at work,
especially in services, especially in knowledge work.
A lot of people want to combine their own work spaces,
some people want to live close to the mountains
and go ski every weekend,
others want to be next to a beach
and go surf every weekend, whatever.
The flexible way you can approach work and space,
that's your environment.
(crickets chirping) (soft music)
I got to know this area during the pandemic.
I thanks to OpenClassrooms I was able to work for here
for about two months.
I fell in love with the area.
It just brings together everything that I like to do
in my own personal time.
Cycling.
Walking.
In the nature.
Hiking.
The sea is not very far.
So I thought when I was there last year
that I would love to live here maybe one day.
It allows me to still continue
to do the job I was doing before for Classrooms
having the impact that I've had so far,
but also do the things that I like.
This is a picture of work.
(Roxana laughs)
So we're a remote first company,
not the remote only company.
So we still have offices and we're in headquarter in Paris,
we have offices also in north, in London, in New York.
We wanna give
the freedom, the choice to our employees.
We want also to be closer to our students.
All students study online,
so it feels only natural
that we collaborate and we work online to some extent right?
I only agree.
Asynchronous communications are the new norm.
Even me, I've never commuted to an office,
and I work remotely every day.
And most of my friends working in the service industry
tend to do the same.
That's a pretty attractive working environment isn't it?
But I wonder if it's the same in every industry.
What happens to people who's jobs can't be done remotely?
I went to the middle of the UK
to a Saint-Gobain glass factory.
As you can imagine,
someone has to be there to keep the machines running.
(birds chirping)
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
(machinery whirring)
A nice website, good salary, good benefits,
and a clear mission can help to bring people in.
But what really makes people want to stay
is the experience they have once they're in the company.
I've spent more than 20 years
working in manufacturing industry,
so I've seen how it creates long-term relationships,
friendships, and bonds between employees.
I think some of that
is because we are so beholden to the process,
the manufacturing process is so important.
And when you get technical hiccups or difficulties
it's really important that everybody comes together
to solve those issues as quickly as we can
so that we can keep making our products
and keep supplying our customers.
It's very important
that within the course of your working day
it is not 100 percent about work.
There is actually time for conversation,
just to spend some time with people,
to talk about what you did at the weekend,
or what TV show you're watching.
And that's fine, it's a really really important part
of how people connect with each other,
and absolutely needs to be encouraged in the workplace.
(light music)
So it feels like the first motivational driver
is to create a good work environment.
(people clapping)
It seems obvious that we should all have friends at work,
have fun, and enjoy flexibility.
But I think it's good to remind people
that this is the foundation.
Because a lot of companies
already fail to provide this kind of environment.
But a great working environment isn't enough right?
We still need to enjoy what we do, the task itself,
and that's the second motivational driver.
And on that topic, I love Laetitia's analysis.
She recommends reconnecting
with the values of craftsmanship.
Usually when I speak about craftsmanship
I tend to speak about craftspeople,
and self-employed people, and freelancers,
but in fact the values of craftsmanship, autonomy,
responsibility, creativity, can be compatible
with being somebody's employee.
We've inherited this world of work
where the head and the hands
were separated in a violent way.
So you had those people in charge of thinking,
designing the processes, the engineers, the thinkers,
and then on the other hand you have the people
whose soul job was to execute a task
and to do it in a very reliable way
in a very repetitive way.
And this is a very violent thing for most people,
this is not the way we would naturally approach work.
Naturally we our intelligence
is as much in our hands as it is in our head.
And a lot of people today
want to reconcile the head and the hands.
And it can mean working with your hands
or using your hands more,
but it can also mean basically making things.
And that involves the head as much as the hands.
(light music)
Woodworkers, chocolatiers, ceramists,
they all know how to reconcile the head and the hands.
To better understand Laetitia's theory
I met with a craftsman whose work I have admired for years.
He is based in Chamonix Mont Blanc, surrounded by mountains.
(upbeat music) You can imagine how much
I was looking forward to meeting him.
Peter makes modern free ride skis out of wood.
And he didn't choose the worst place for his studio did he?
So I got the idea strangely to make a modern free ride ski
with the solid ash core.
Using the ash in its finest quality
to make something as performant, modern,
but also with that traditional material.
It can only be done on a very small scale,
like on a craft scale.
Basically it starts from the tree, from the log,
where I'll take a log that I've chosen in ash
and I will start looking at the grain
to see where I can put the core material,
what I can use to make the ski.
Because every shape of a ski,
every size of a ski will be different
and it will create the kind of action
the ski's gonna bring to us.
It's kind of like making a car.
If you make a truck or if you make a sports car.
It's a challenging process
because there's always another step to start and to prepare.
It's never ending.
When you've assembled one you go into the finishing process
of the ones that were assembled before.
So it's kind of like a dance.
But if that intensity is not brought
in every single step of making the ski,
even the ones that are very tedious,
the sanding, the emptying of the wood chips
when the dust collection's (drill whirring) full.
I mean people don't see a lot of the steps
that are just kind of grueling carpentry,
you know maintaining things, but that's super important.
And I think that that is also the interest of it you know?
(light music)
So craftsmanship's not solely
for people working with their hands
in the strictest of sense and making things with wood.
It's also just basically being at peace with who you are
and using all of who you are at work.
It's not just about thinking
what kind of benefit you're gonna make of something,
it's about what how the object's gonna be used,
how it will last, how the people who are gonna use it
will create that sentimental tie with the pair of skis.
Well most of our clients are very passionate skiers,
love the mountains same as I.
So I start by ask them what they like to do,
and where they ski.
And very quickly I understand
what they're interested in the mountains.
I mean some people are really looking
just for free ride pure powder as much as possible.
Some people are skiing in the resorts
and also powder skiing, kind of a mixed use.
And some people say no we're really mainly
with the family on the slopes.
And I think that that's satisfying
and very special where you can make an object
that someone actually can use for a long time
and they fall in love with.
On our level of production a very small,
maybe 100 pairs of skis at most a year,
we're able to bring that quality
to the people I make skis for, and that's a great pleasure.
(light music)
Oh.
I don't count the hours,
I've never counted the hours that I work,
but often they're very long days.
Long days because there's always something else to do,
long days because that allows you
to be even more prepared for the next day.
In the craft process
often it's really cool to glue things together at night
so that the next morning you can continue the next steps.
So often they're really long days.
But since I enjoy what I'm doing it's not really a problem.
I don't wear a watch, I never have,
I have a biological clock.
And it's more about going from each step to the next
in that whole fabrication process.
So creativity's not just being Picasso,
creativity is having finding a unique solution to a problem
and using your head to find it.
So a lot of people who work in finance, or in accounting,
and work on Excel spreadsheet you do not usually associate
an Excel spreadsheet to creativity,
but it's actually usually very creative.
And if you've done a little bit of mathematics
you know that it can be super challenging
to find a unique way and a unique path to solve a problem.
And Excel is a tool to do that.
I definitely think we can find creativity
in every realm of work.
And the most important thing
is that when people choose to do something
they're passionate about it and interested in it.
That has just as much creativity in every moment
as I do when I'm making an object or a ski.
Creativity can be found everywhere
and that is what makes the world a beautiful place.
Everyone I think has creativity in them.
(upbeat Latin music) Some people don't maybe
admit it or think they're creative.
Wow.
Peter truly represents the craftsmanship spirit.
I now have a better understanding of it.
When you see a beautiful object, a wonderful piece of art,
to get to this end result
you need to bring so much intensity to your craft.
And I agree that we are all creative,
we just express it differently.
After such a meeting with Peter
I needed to see if people working behind computers
could really connect with the values of craftsmanship.
I took a plane to meet with a team at Mindera.
They call themselves software craftsman.
Software craftsmanship.
Well building software is like building anything else.
It can actually be a form of art.
We use software everything on our phones, on our computers,
and someone built it.
It's not just something that appears out of thin air,
it's not made by a computer, it was made by a person.
So the idea of when you're a craftsman
a normal craftsman where you're working with wood
you would build like some furniture,
and on the back if you're a real craftsman
it would look as good as on the front.
So something that no one would see normally.
And I would look at software craftsmanship like that.
So the code itself, the process itself,
it's carefully made.
And it's just not looking at the results,
the process as a whole is part of the result.
And sometimes it's just when you do something simple
that solves a very complex problem, that's beauty.
The way people write code
is very different from each other.
And you can also see traces of their own personalities,
the way they organize it, the way they document it.
Yeah so I think you need to be proud of what you're doing
so I think that's a key thing.
And I think if you're not proud of what you're doing
you're probably gonna end up just doing it for the money.
To be proud of what you're doing
you gonna put a lot of you into whatever you're doing.
So that means that if you have more autonomy
you're gonna put more of yourself into it.
You're gonna be more creative in building stuff,
you're gonna be responsible for what you're doing.
So I think I see a lot of those values
in as needs to create craftsmanship.
Autonomy, creativity, responsibility,
these are the values of craftsmanship
that the members at Mindera are able to find
in their day-to-day jobs.
They have a pretty unique approach to management,
as they don't really have managers.
So we work
in a different way, we do not have management.
We work in a collaborative way,
all of us together making decisions together.
And this I believe is different than many companies.
So we not have one person making decision for all of us,
we together make the decisions.
In our culture we really don't control people's time
as long as just they are delivering what they need to.
I think that's something important.
I would also never control my team
just to make sure they are working
from nine in the morning to five.
If they want to go for a break and surf,
everyone is free to do that,
as long as you are just doing your work at the end.
We have a flat hierarchy.
You don't need to go through all the levels
before you need to take a decision right?
So you don't have a boss.
Some people at work here kind of reached me
and said you want to join us?
Told me about the company itself
and I found it was like a anarchy communist style thing,
it was kind of confused me how you don't have managers,
how do you kind of do things?
Who tells you what to do?
Where are the borders?
That's what fascinated me.
Like I want to know more.
Is this real?
Is this just corporate nonsense
that you just speak out just to kinda get people on board?
It's real.
So we don't have mangers in the work,
we don't think we need managers.
And for the past seven years we didn't need them.
So we just needed people, autonomy, and build up on that.
The first time I got here
I asked so what's my job description,
what I'm supposed to do?
And the thing they ask me was what do you want to do?
So I just started seeing what everybody else was doing
and I start giving input on my first day
on how (light music) well maybe we can change this,
or maybe you can try and change that,
on the first day I got here.
Here I have ownership of everything I do.
If I decide to do something, well it was me
who decided to do it. Sole project.
Or it was like a group decision, a team decision,
and it was very democratic, everybody voted,
let's do it like that.
And you feel like you have ownership of the process,
and that ownership makes me feel like
this company belongs to me too.
The reason why many people stay here
is because of the culture definitely.
That's the main reason why I'm here.
You could offer me double of the salary
and I don't see myself moving.
(upbeat music)
All right so we've seen that a company
can grow without managers, but you can actually
also have a similar work environment with managers.
Most companies aren't ready to get rid of them altogether.
But the role of a manager is to create an environment
where everyone feels safe taking initiatives,
speaking up, and the manager is there to facilitate that
and to provide recognition.
It's relationship of trust.
And I think it's why I'm here today,
to me being trusted (birds chirping)
and believing in my own capabilities.
Giving me autonomy is what helps me
perform well but also is going to be my main driver,
knowing that I can also be authentic but my true self,
that I won't have to add any filters to how I say things
is really really important.
And I do have this in my relationship with my manager.
I think it's hugely important for us to
encourage autonomy within our workforce.
There are lots of opportunities for it.
We want people to really share
in the success of the business,
and through that to find that ability
to solve their own problems.
It's very rewarding to actually be able to spot a problem,
find your own solution, do your own analysis,
and be able to put that solution in place,
and also be recognized for that, hugely important.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
We've discovered a few motivational drivers
to find meaning in work.
Of course you need a great working environment,
colleagues who will become friends.
The trade offs are still important, flexibility too.
Then you also have to like what you're doing,
the task itself.
But is there something more to work?
If I'm ready to offer
the most precious thing I have in my life, my time,
eight ours a day, I wanna make it worthwhile.
I want to contribute to projects that matter to me,
I want to feel useful.
When companies were created initially
it was for a mission, it was not to make money.
Making money was a mean to the mission.
Yeah so we define the mission of OpenClassrooms
a couple of years ago, not from the get go obviously
because in middle school when we were 11 or 13-years-old
we had no idea what even a company was frankly.
The intent behind the project was not to build the company,
it was to help people.
(birds chirping) As a kid actually growing up in Romania
my parents chose to send me to a school
because I did not have access to education
where they seemed to live.
So they send me as a kid
to a different city
which was quite far from where we used to live.
And that meant a lot of effort for them
but also for me as a kid.
And so that makes me realize now as an adult
how difficult that was to have access to great education.
So when working for a company that's mission driven,
I have this in the back of my mind as I work
in various opportunities whether it's partnerships
or just creating new relationships,
that my action will eventually impact
individuals like myself
how did not have access to traditional education.
So I think that's just the main driver
in everything that I do.
The best days that I have are the ones
really directly connected to the mission.
Like I talk to students, or clients,
and you see really directly
the impact that we're having on their lives.
The father of one of our students shared his sons story.
And actually his son was incarcerated,
and we helped him to get trained as a developer.
And he found an apprenticeship contract thanks to us.
And because of this contract he managed to get out of jail.
And then you connect that to your job
and you're like wow this is impactful,
this is something that useful for people,
and you're really impacting people's life very dramatically
and it makes you proud.
What I see is it's more and more important
to the people who come and interact with us
and apply to come and work with us,
that there is a very clear purpose
that we can articulate what our place is in society,
what we are trying to do for the world, for the planet.
I know that those products stand for quality,
but also sustainability, and they're so strongly linked
to our purpose of making the world a better home.
So it makes me feel really proud.
In fact when I go the homes of my friends
and they're maybe having some work done
an extension done in their home
I always have a look at the class.
And if it's Saint-Gobain glass I'm always really proud.
And I feel it makes me want to tell them
about the product that they have in their home.
Also in the manufacturing industry
you see what you're doing, it's there in front of you,
you're making something, it's real, you can touch it,
you can see it being applied in the outside world.
The people who do something whose end result
is very clear whether it's tangible or not,
they don't need to sit around a table
and discuss what is our purpose, do we have a purpose,
or what is our mission?
Should we follow the mission and accomplish the missions?
Usually the more you talk about it the less obvious it is
and the less,
the more bullshit it tends to be
or the more fake it tends to be.
So I'm not saying that it cannot be something complex
and not obvious,
but usually through your actions and your work
you do not have to think long and hard
about what the mission is.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
(upbeat rock music)
Here we are.
And that's why we crossed the Atlantic.
Even if the mission
isn't clearly linked to your products and services,
you can still unite the companies staff members,
their clients, and their suppliers
around a set of shared values.
And take a stand on issues that matter.
And in that area, Ben & Jerry's has been leading the way.
Yeah we started with this idea
of having a mission because of those co-founders.
There is a Ben, there is a Jerry,
they're still employees at Ben & Jerry's.
And when they started this whole thing over 40 years ago
they were just two young pals in their 20's
that were looking to they both loved eating food
and hanging out together,
so they said "let's get together
"and make a business around food."
And one of their favorite foods was ice cream.
So right those guys who started the business
believed in not taking advantage of somebody.
Right their thought was we don't like the thought
that most businesses make money
profiting off of someone being marginalized.
And so the idea, how do we run business in a different way
was something that Ben and Jerry really promoted.
There's a lot of businesses
that are kind of purpose washing,
right that go I wanna do something good so you'll like me
and make that part of their marketing.
That's not what Ben & Jerry's does.
Right we try to take an issue that we care about
and act on that, because it's important to us
and because it's part of our values,
it matches our values that way, it's not about marketing.
So sometimes we'll take a stance on an issue
that may not actually
help drive the sales part of our business,
but to Ben & Jerry's
that's not we don't make decisions that way.
Right in my 30 years of being here
I've never sat in a meeting
where someone goes let's not do that
because it's gonna hurt sales.
In 2016 we were probably, as far as I know,
the first big company to come out
and publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
(people chattering indistinctly)
Are a result of deliberate government policy.
If Jerry and I had been black
there never would have been a Ben & Jerry's.
I can tell you that the phones
over here in this part of the office,
our consumer care line,
they rang off the hook for three weeks.
We had thousands and thousands of people
contact the company who opposed our decision.
And described the Black Lives Matter movement
as a terrorist movement, as anti cop.
And so if you're our CEO, yeah,
and you've got your consumer care team
who typically day-to-day are answering phone calls
because people didn't get enough cookie dough
in their ice cream
or they got too much cookie dough in their ice cream,
they're taking calls from very angry and upset people.
There are many corporate leaders I believe
who would look at that and say "we made a mistake,
"that was a mistake, we're an ice cream company,
"we shouldn't have done that."
And I think what's different about the leadership here
is they look at that and I think they understand
that we must've done something important
to engender that kind of response.
When we go into a new country
and we take a stance on some controversial issue
like supporting same sex marriage.
And we'll say for 30 years we've been supporting
the LGBTQ community here in the US.
Where if other countries don't know that,
we come in and they go why is an ice cream company
getting involved with gay marriage
and being supportive of that?
When they understand our history
that it's something that's been important to us
and something we've acted on,
then it makes a lot more sense to them.
I think once you set that expectation
as Ben & Jerry's has done,
now people expect us to take a stance on issues,
to get involved, and try to grow our impact
so it's not just about our own supply chain.
Recently we had the chance
where we've been suffering from a labor shortage
like everyone globally right?
You don't have enough employees.
And so our manufacturing facility
said "we need some help to make ice cream."
So they reached out to people in the office
to say "can you come jump on the line and help out?"
So when I was there on the line working for 12 hours
and you're watching pints go by 300 pints a minute
that are coming by and just going by so fast,
when we're doing flavors that you know
like our chocolate fudge brownie ice cream
that uses brownies
from the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers New York.
Right they employ homeless people,
they give 'em job skills and training,
and you go every time one pint goes by
you know what you're doing is helping that mission.
Right that really makes it impactful
I think when you're working on the line
as opposed to just sitting there
saying all right I'm gonna be looking at the clock
and waiting for when my shift ends.
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
I think it's important that corporations be a part of
supporting change in society.
Our society is wrestling with massive issues right,
from women's rights to LGBTQ rights, to climate change,
to racial justice.
For better or for worse and it's often for worse,
corporations are the most powerful entity in society,
they have great sway over people, over policy makers,
governments, and institutions.
And so the question is,
how are companies using that power?
And to be clear,
they do wield that power.
We do it publicly.
Right we tell you what we believe
and we tell you the kinds of policies and change
that we wanna see in the world.
The way it happens most of the time
is corporations have lobbyists and lawyers
and they spend in political campaigns,
and they influence behind the scenes,
so you don't really know what they stand for.
(Emmanuell!e speaking French)
Our consumers who know that we have this social mission,
that we use our company
to advance social change in the world,
those consumers are measurably more loyal,
about four times more loyal
than consumers who just think we sell them ice cream.
Those consumers who know what we do
are less likely to buy Häagen-Dazs when it's on sale
two for five at Walmart right?
And so if that works for us it can work for any company.
And I think the other important thing
that whether you call it having a purpose,
or being values lead,
it is an incredibly powerful motivator for employees.
I don't think I would ever work a company
that doesn't have a clear purpose.
You do what you gotta do to put food on the table obviously
and if you're in the position
where that's what you need to do
then you do what you got to.
But as far as what I would wanna do
and what would call to me,
that's a big part of why I'm here at Ben & Jerry's,
it's a big part of why I've stuck around.
And if I were to ever leave here one day
for whatever reason,
I would definitely be looking for a place
that had a similar sort of mentality
where they're not just here for the bottom line
or to make money for shareholders
but we're here to make the world better.
(people chattering indistinctly)
But I've been part of the Ben & Jerry's Foundation.
I've been able to go and actually talk face-to-face
with the people who are impacted by the decisions we make
and the things we do
as far as funding various organizations.
And I keep that in the back of my head.
So as we're fighting through issues on the production floor
or struggling with waste or whatever we might be doing,
in the back of my head I can always remember
it's part of something bigger
and it's making an impact in the world.
And that kinda colors things in a really positive way.
Even if you don't agree
with a particular position we may have
on the criminal justice system,
that's what's important about Ben & Jerry's.
No matter where you sit in the company and who you are
there is a way for you to connect
with the mission and values of the company.
(light acoustic music)
(Emmanuelle speaking French)
Ultimately it's not that difficult
to find meaning in work.
Between the working environment,
the way we achieve our goals, complete our tasks,
and the company mission we contribute to,
we are all able to find our own motivational drivers.
Of course, not everything is perfect
in the larger companies we visited,
but even in smaller ones each experience
is completely different.
And there's no one size fits all.
So why do we even work?
For all of it.
To learn new things, to meet with people,
to feel useful, to keep us busy.
What else do you wanna do,
sit on the beach and watch the days go by?
But hey trying to find meaning doesn't have to be painful.
There's no point in pushing the reflection too far.
The most important thing is just to enjoy the ride.
This is how I imagine the future of work,
enjoying our days out there.
(energetic music)