sariio
01 Team performance
What support do our people need from coaching?
People bring different goals and ways of working to coaching. Managers are balancing those needs with the rest of their role.
Explore coaching at scaleThe work preference layer
How do we support managers to bring out the best in their people?
Gallup estimates that managers account for at least 70% of the variation in employee engagement scores across business units. Yet middle managers surveyed by McKinsey spend less than a third of their time on people management and development.
Organisations depend on managers to turn investment in their people into capability across the business. Those managers need support themselves, especially when each person needs something different from them.
Sariio. The work preference layer.
We do our best work when we can ‘play to our preferences’. Sariio brings an understanding of how people prefer to work into the decisions, relationships and everyday conversations that shape an organisation.
It gives people language for what helps them contribute, helps colleagues understand each other and enables managers to adapt their support. For leaders, it brings the preferences of their people into view when considering culture, organisational change and how teams work together.
Sariio connects individual understanding with organisational capability, helping people at every level consider what they need from one another to do their best work together.
Where it makes a difference
What are you working through with your people?
These questions may involve a team, a whole organisation or the partners you work with. Which is closest to your situation?
02 Retention
Why are people leaving?
Pay, workload, relationships and support can all matter. Which parts of the experience do people want you to understand?
Retention
03 Culture
How do people experience our culture across sites?
Your organisation's values need to mean something in everyday work, across teams, sites and partnerships. How does that experience vary?
Culture across sites
04 AI
What will AI mean for our people?
As tools and roles change, leaders and colleagues have questions about the work that remains and the support people will need.
AI and your peopleThe work preference layer
What helps people do their best work together?
We do our best work when we can ‘play to our preferences’.
Sariio helps people recognise and explain the work preferences that often operate outside their awareness: how they work with others, think and plan, make decisions and get things done. Each person’s motivations and preferences are brought together in a personal MAP.
That might mean agreeing time to prepare before a meeting, trying a different way to share feedback or discussing how a new starter likes to learn. Try an action together and review what happens. Pay, workload, systems and management practice also shape people's experience.
What we believe
What do we know about work preferences?
Explore the thinking and research behind work preferences.
We do our best work when we can play to our preferences
Matching work to people’s preferences matters: Gallup found top-quartile engagement teams were 23% more profitable and 18% more productive.
Read the exec summaryClose the exec summary
- Gallup’s meta-analysis of 112,312 business units found top-quartile engagement teams were 23% more profitable and 18% more productive than bottom-quartile teams. (Gallup, 2020)
- Cerasoli’s 2014 meta-analysis of 183 samples, N = 212,468, found intrinsic motivation reliably predicts performance quality. (Cerasoli et al., 2014)
- Sariio MAPS reads 60 work-preference pairs on continuous scales and treats each reading as a snapshot, with people expected to retake it at least twice a year. (Sariio, 2026)
For leaders, look for practical ways to align tasks and collaboration with how people prefer to work, then revisit those preferences as roles and circumstances change.
What are work preferences?
Work preferences describe how people do their best work, and person-job fit correlates .56 with satisfaction and −.46 with intention to quit.
Read the exec summaryClose the exec summary
- Work preferences cover how people build relationships, think and plan, make decisions and get things done; everyone has a full set, and no preference is wrong (Foggin, 2026).
- Person-job fit correlates .56 with job satisfaction, .47 with organisational commitment and −.46 with intention to quit, but only about .20 with rated performance (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
- 6 in 10 fully-remote employees would look for a new job if remote flexibility were removed (Gallup, Hybrid Work Indicator).
For leaders, ask how people prefer to work alongside how they feel about work, then use those insights to discuss role fit and working arrangements.
The six steps of SARIIO
Self-awareness, Awareness of others, Resources, Intent, Influence and Outcomes.
Explore the six steps and twelve beliefsConsulting
Experience and insights for the work ahead.
David works with leaders and teams on retention, performance and organisational change, bringing experience and work-preference insights to the situation you want to explore.
He studied organisational leadership at Harvard Business School, with John Kotter as tutor and mentor.
His culture and integration work includes Nestlé UK, Mars Confectionery, the Deutsche Bank and Bankers Trust integration and the executive team at LV=. In contact centres he has worked on operations for Sitel, Inkfish, Everflow and Shadow Global. He built the first version of the work preference map in 2007, and 12,000 people across 40 organisations have used it since.
Consulting with DavidShadow Global, Cape Town
“Sariio strengthens our ability to have meaningful, data-led conversations with employer partners about candidate fit, while empowering our Shadows with greater insight into their strengths and potential.”
Nate Jacobs, Chief Operating Officer, Shadow Global
“For us to be sustainable, it's this kind of continuous improvement that would really support us. Sariio is an incredible tool.”
What earlier clients reported
Sariio’s first generation, Saviio MAPs, was used by Sitel, Sage, Nigel Frank International, SAM Headhunting and others between 2007 and 2012. Each started by mapping the people already doing the role well.
41 of 42outsourced technical advisers stayed to the end of a nine-month contract
27%above first-month target for new outbound sales agents
10%+lower annual attrition across five Sitel client campaigns
35%+fewer placement drop-outs at Nigel Frank International