Within the next three years, I want all employees around the world
to feel happier and more connected at work.
In large corporations, employees are often unhappy,
which can lead to burn-out and even sometimes suicide.
One of the main reasons is the lack of social engagement,
and this is what I want to fight.
I want to share my experience working in a big bank in Switzerland.
Don’t get me wrong.
I love to work.
But these conditions are very stressful.
I had little to no free time,
I cried often, and I was usually unhappy.
I wasn't really meeting anyone new,
and I was always with the same operants from my department.
At lunch, I would always eat alone in front of my desk
or with the same colleagues from my department.
So, I decided to change that.
I realized that if I wanted to be happy at work,
I had to get to know people from different backgrounds,
and understand how the company works.
So, I went to different floors,
and asked people randomly to have lunch with me.
They were very surprised, but most of the time they said yes.
Once, I had a legal issue
for the wealth management project I was working on,
and I thought that instead of looking on Google for one hour,
why not have lunch with someone from the legal department?
The next day we had lunch,
the problem was solved, and I made a new friend.
Colleagues from my department started to tell me,
"Marie, you just joined us and Ethan,
and you already know everyone.
Can I come with you so I can also meet new people during lunch?"
Of course I told them to join.
And at some point, I even had lunch with the president of the bank.
At the same time, I started opening a collaborative space in Paris
where people from different backgrounds,
like engineers, designers, and artists come together to meet and collaborate.
And my motivation for this project was simple.
I believe that everyone should have the ability to create.
So I was flying every weekend to make this project happen.
And I was very creative,
I had a lot of energy.
I thought that everyone should create.
Creation went exponential.
The more people meet, the more they discuss,
the more they create.
And I believe this model could also work in banks and large corporations.
So, I decided to leave the banking world and university,
in order to create an app,
where employees can meet and have the option to never eat alone.
When a company has many employees,
I see this as an amazing opportunity.
Let’s pause for a minute and think
that the true size of the company is not the number of employees it has,
but the connection between them,
because this is where the true strength resides:
when people connect with each other, they do things.
they create things, and potentially amazing things.
Big companies are starting to take care about this.
When people connect, they’re more productive and happy at work.
The benefits for employees and companies are simple.
It improves knowledge exchange
and collective intelligence to spark innovation.
It improves talent retention.
It improves employees' happiness and engagement.
It improves the internal professional network.
If big companies want to attract the future generation,
they need to create a workplace where they are happy and creative,
where speaking to your boss or to someone from another department
is a norm rather than an exception.
And for all of you who will soon graduate,
think about this:
what will your future employers do so that you’ll be happy working with them?
Thank you.