EPILOGUE

In February 2018, after Kronos (for the first time!) was honored as one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For by the consulting firm Great Place to Work and Fortune magazine, an employee posted a note about the award on one of his personal social media channels. As he recounted, he had joined Kronos two years earlier, leaving a company that he felt “extremely passionate about, with products I believed in.” Since then, when acquaintances have asked about his decision to leave his former employer to come to Kronos, he’s replied, “I couldn’t be more proud or happy to work . . . at an amazing company with an outstanding culture that allows us all to WorkInspired.” Responding to this post, another Kronite added: “I feel the same way. After working for [several other] corporations, you quickly realize what a special place Kronos is. I am proud to work for Kronos!”

Think of it: an employee feels so excited about his company and his work that he takes it upon himself to communicate his feelings to his network on social media, reinforcing our culture and values, enhancing our reputation as an employer, and helping in our recruitment efforts. Another employee feels so passionately that she publicly endorses his message. Both employees compare our company favorably with other top companies for which they’ve worked. How remarkable! And how humbling.

When I started at Kronos as a 21-year-old, I never imagined I would be here four decades later as CEO, much less that we’d build a culture that would impact employees and their families so powerfully. I’ve written this book because we’ve created something special at Kronos, and I want to share it with the world. I’m convinced that organizations in any industry can follow our lead and create high-performance environments in which people love to work. The principles and practices I’ve presented here haven’t been easy to implement, but with concerted effort, we’ve made so much progress! We don’t just talk about treating employees well. We actually deliver on it. Not perfectly. Not all the time. But as well as we can, and with an eye toward doing even better. We’re committed to treating people as human beings, addressing a broad set of financial and emotional needs, so that employees feel both empowered and inspired to do their best. And when they do their best, when they’re fully engaged, magic happens.

You don’t have to implement every best practice I’ve described to improve engagement in your team or organization. Start with a few and go from there. Draw inspiration from our techniques and modify them to fit your existing culture. And apply the same approach to your own behavior. When you’ve mastered a few of the behaviors I describe, try a few more. Work on practicing them every day. Your employees might not respond right away, but stick with it. As motivational speaker and author Simon Sinek has observed, “There is no event, no [one] thing that I can tell you [to do that will make] your people trust you. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s an accumulation of lots and lots of little things.”¹ I wholeheartedly agree, and it doesn’t just apply to building trust, but to engagement generally. It takes many small, seemingly insignificant actions, performed consistently in the course of daily work, to foster the principles—humility, caring, open-mindedness, concern for the next generation—described in this book.

Staying focused on “people strategy” is the work of a lifetime. And as leaders of people, we have so much to gain. I can’t tell you how joyful I feel when I hear what working at Kronos has meant to our employees. Over the years, my satisfaction as a leader has had little to do with the revenue our company has generated or the accolades we’ve received. It has had everything to do with the impact we’ve had on people. I’ve watched careers blossom. I’ve watched employees raise families and achieve their dreams. I’ve watched employees happily retire after enjoying long, satisfying careers. I’ve watched customers and partners achieve new levels of success because of the care and attention given to them by our inspired workforce. All of this is immensely gratifying—far more than fame or fortune ever could be. When you create a culture in which everyone loves to work, you set in motion a positive dynamic of inspiration that is all-encompassing, that produces remarkable business performance, that improves the lives of your people, and that draws you in, too.

Ultimately, the impact of engagement is enormous, much bigger than we often imagine. And so is our personal impact on those whom we manage and lead. What if employees and former employees were going out of their way to rave about your culture? What if they loved your company so much that they couldn’t imagine ever working anywhere else? What if they consistently pushed your company’s performance to new heights? And what if they inspired you so much that you wanted to stay at your company for the next 40 years? Take care of your people, support them, inspire them—and they will.