In the past few years, corporate America has faced unprecedented challenges with employees working remotely. Enter LivePerson and their extraordinary culture of meaningful connections. LivePerson began prioritizing connections with their employees and between their Fortune 500 clients and their customers over twenty five years ago – when the rest of the tech industry was still focused on “human resources.” As such, it’s no surprise that LivePerson was recently named to Newsweek’s most recent list of America’s Most Loved Workplaces, two years into the pandemic. A few months prior, Inc. named LivePerson “One of the Best Led Companies.”
One of the keys to their success is LivePerson’s unprecedented customer service platform – Conversational Cloud™ – which enables Fortune 500 companies across every business sector to build meaningful and dynamic relationships with their customers remotely. The platform is so outstanding in fact, LivePerson was recently named the #1 most innovative company in artificial intelligence by FastCompany. Warren Buckley, Global Head of Channel Optimisation, HSBC recently commented on the platform as “being able to easily blend human empathy with intelligent automation which has been crucial to our success.”
Another key to their success is LivePerson’s fundamental truth: customers need to be seen, heard, and valued which can only take place working with a customer service rep who “owns” the process. This is the fuel of “meaningful connections. Unlike many of its competitors, LivePerson has devoted significant time and energy to making this “meaningful connection” with their employees first, under the assumption that authenticity starts at home. How can a company convince their clients that they are addressing their issues if they can’t convince their own employees of the same?
The process started over a decade ago when LivePerson drafted its core values of “Be An Owner,” “Help Others,” and create “Meaningful Connections.” In other words, every team member understands that it’s their responsibility to “own” their piece of the business, engaging customers, clients and team members in a meaningful way. Those
principles became the North Star of what LivePerson refers to as the “future of work” plan. Internal resources such as Tim Storey, LivePerson’s Chief Corporate Coach are called upon to reinforce the principles outlined in the plan.
As the pandemic took hold, more than 200 LivePerson colleagues around the world volunteered to update this plan aiming to recreate the collaborative process in light of remote work. The plan boiled down to four pillars:
- Social Health. Human beings need connection. When that doesn’t happen organically, because their employees aren’t working in the same space, companies need to develop a culture of humanity and inclusion intentionally. In the company’s vision, this pillar combines its core values to “help others” and “create meaningful connections.”
- Growth Mindset. This is more like moving fast, testing and learning, trying new things…We don’t want managers we want leaders….Managers manage existing processes, leaders create new ways to do things to grow the company exponentially!
- Systems Thinking. Remote work reduces interactions between people on different teams. LivePerson’s strategy included an emphasis on breaking down silos to ensure that cross-departmental collaboration continued for the good of the whole organization.
- Health and Well-Being. The pandemic altered every worker’s mindset, elevating health and well-being to a paramount value for work life. The relative success of remote working – defying the doom-and-gloom predictions about lower productivity and morale – proved that working from home can bring a lot more stress. Recognizing that, LivePerson made sure that respect and concern for every team member’s health – and happiness – was inculcated in the company’s culture.
With these four pillars in place, the People team has been focused on making sure they inform all remote-working practices, from virtual town halls, to water cooler Wednesdays, special meet-ups, and a laser focus on internal communications. Thanks to this intentional strategy, the company has not only survived but thrived in the ongoing pandemic – continuing its 20-plus year run of success at the top of its industry.
