sariioThe work preference layer
Sariio is the work preference layer. It draws on preference data to enable people to shape their own contribution and commit to doing their best work together.
Featured Article
Digitisation and AI make personalised reporting possible across an organisation. Sariio applies two of the Six Ds, disruption and democratisation, to enable people at every level to shape how they contribute to the strategy.
In Disruption: A Force for Good?, David Foggin applies Jean-Marie Dru’s framework to people testing and asks why interpreting a report became a specialist task.
Where it makes a difference
These questions may involve a team, a whole organisation or the partners you work with. Which is closest to your situation?
01 Team performance
People bring different goals and ways of working to coaching. Managers are balancing those needs with the rest of their role.
How Sariio works in coaching02 Retention
Pay, workload, relationships and support can all matter. Which parts of the experience do people want you to understand?
Retention03 Culture
Your organisation's values need to mean something in everyday work, across teams, sites and partnerships. How does that experience vary?
Culture across sites04 AI
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
We do our best work when we can ‘play to our preferences’.
A myMAP puts a person's work preferences into words, including how they prefer to prepare, decide and contribute. Colleagues can compare similarities and differences by mutual choice, then discuss what those preferences mean for the work they share.
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
Playing to our preferences is the first of the twelve beliefs behind Sariio, and the reason the work preference layer exists.
What helps each person do their best work? A myMAP provides language for discussing work preferences. How do they like to take in feedback? Do they want the detail first, or the big picture? Do they think out loud, or on their own first? Those answers can help people discuss what they need from coaching.
Says who?
The research backs the instinct. Across 172 studies, how well a person fits their work correlates .56 with job satisfaction and .46 with their intention to stay (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson).
The article explains how work preferences can inform decisions about tasks and collaboration.
For leaders, look for practical ways to align tasks and collaboration with people’s work preferences, then revisit those preferences as roles and circumstances change.
Work preferences describe how people do their best work, and person-job fit correlates .56 with satisfaction and −.46 with intention to quit.
For leaders, ask people’s work preferences alongside how they feel about work, then use those insights to discuss role fit and working arrangements.
Why coaching
A clear goal, time to reflect and a chance to review what happened give people something practical to work with. The research below explores coaching and feedback in the workplace.
The feedback sandwich was built to ease managers’ discomfort, yet evidence links praise-led feedback to weaker results; over 38 per cent of feedback effects were negative.
For leaders, keep feedback specific to the work, put the key correction first, and give praise separately so it feels sincere.
Retention
In Gallup’s study of 717 U.S. employees who left voluntarily, 42% said their manager or organisation could have taken action to retain them in their roles.
Who you'd be talking to
David Foggin 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.
About 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.”
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.
