WEBVTT

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Within the next three years,
I want all employees around the world

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to feel happier
and more connected at work.

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In large corporations,
employees are often unhappy,

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which can lead to burn-out
and even sometimes suicide.

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One of the main reasons
is the lack of social engagement,

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and this is what I want to fight.

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I want to share my experience
working in a big bank in Switzerland.

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Don’t get me wrong.

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I love to work.

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But these conditions are very stressful.

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I had little to no free time,

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I cried often, and I was usually unhappy.

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I wasn't really meeting anyone new,

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and I was always with the same operants
from my department.

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At lunch, I would always eat alone
in front of my desk

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or with the same colleagues
from my department.

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So, I decided to change that.

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I realized that if I wanted
to be happy at work,

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I had to get to know people
from different backgrounds,

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and understand how the company works.

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So, I went to different floors,

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and asked people randomly
to have lunch with me.

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They were very surprised,
but most of the time they said yes.

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Once, I had a legal issue

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for the wealth management project
I was working on,

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and I thought that instead
of looking on Google for one hour,

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why not have lunch with someone
from the legal department?

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The next day we had lunch,

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the problem was solved,
and I made a new friend.

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Colleagues from my department
started to tell me,

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"Marie, you just joined us and Ethan,

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and you already know everyone.

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Can I come with you so I can also meet
new people during lunch?"

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Of course I told them to join.

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And at some point, I even had lunch
with the president of the bank.

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At the same time, I started opening
a collaborative space in Paris

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where people from different backgrounds,

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like engineers, designers, and artists
come together to meet and collaborate.

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And my motivation
for this project was simple.

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I believe that everyone
should have the ability to create.

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So I was flying every weekend
to make this project happen.

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And I was very creative,

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I had a lot of energy.

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I thought that everyone should create.

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Creation went exponential.

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The more people meet,
the more they discuss,

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the more they create.

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And I believe this model could also work
in banks and large corporations.

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So, I decided to leave
the banking world and university,

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in order to create an app,

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where employees can meet
and have the option to never eat alone.

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When a company has many employees,

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I see this as an amazing opportunity.

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Let’s pause for a minute and think

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that the true size of the company
is not the number of employees it has,

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but the connection between them,

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because this is
where the true strength resides:

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when people connect
with each other, they do things.

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they create things,
and potentially amazing things.

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Big companies are starting
to take care about this.

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When people connect, they’re
more productive and happy at work.

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The benefits for employees
and companies are simple.

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It improves knowledge exchange

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and collective intelligence
to spark innovation.

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It improves talent retention.

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It improves employees'
happiness and engagement.

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It improves
the internal professional network.

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If big companies want
to attract the future generation,

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they need to create a workplace
where they are happy and creative,

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where speaking to your boss
or to someone from another department

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is a norm rather than an exception.

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And for all of you who will soon graduate,

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think about this:

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what will your future employers do so
that you’ll be happy working with them?

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Thank you.