sariio
An organisation can grow, invest in technology and remain clear about its purpose, while its people still have questions about what those choices mean for them. Will they have the support the changing work requires? Will their experience influence decisions? When several teams are involved, who can help them get something done?
Leaders care about those questions too. They need the organisation to deliver, and they want people to experience the commitments they hear from the leadership team. The distance between an intention and someone's working day is where that ambition is tested.
Five messages recur in that discussion: understand the impact of the work, put people at the centre of technology decisions, build trust, remain adaptable as the organisation grows, and make collaboration simpler. They belong together. Each asks whether an organisational commitment makes sense in the circumstances of the people expected to carry it out.
1. Purpose needs a connection to the work people actually do
Who benefits when this work goes well? In a service organisation, that question can reach beyond the immediate customer to the colleague learning a profession, the household supported by a salary and the community in which the employer operates.
The Philippine IT-BPM sector illustrates the scale of that responsibility. Its industry association, IBPAP, reported 1.82 million direct jobs and US$38 billion in revenue for 2024. At that scale, decisions about employment and development matter beyond an individual business. IBPAP, 2025
Purpose also has a more immediate meaning. Adam Grant's field experiments with fundraising callers and lifeguards examined what happened when people understood the benefit their work brought to others. The studies found changes in performance or helping behaviour, with responses also depending on individual characteristics. The research supports making that contribution visible, rather than assuming a statement of purpose will mean the same thing to everyone. Grant, 2008
For a manager, the conversation might begin with what matters to the person about the work. For an executive team, it includes whether employment, progression and investment decisions reflect the purpose the organisation describes. Both levels matter. Our article on impact sourcing explores the relationship between employment opportunity and commercial work in more depth.
2. Technology should be judged by how it supports the work and the people
An organisation deciding where to use AI has several legitimate questions. What can the technology do? What will change for customers? What will people need to learn, and where will their judgement still be required?
Research can inform those decisions without settling them in advance. A study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics followed the introduction of an AI assistant among 5,172 customer-support agents. Access to assistance increased issues resolved per hour by 15% on average. Gains varied between workers and were greater for those with less experience or lower initial performance. Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, 2025
That is evidence about a particular use of AI alongside people. It gives leaders a reason to examine assistance as well as automation, and to consider who benefits from an intervention. An average improvement does not tell a manager what every person needs.
The same consideration applies outside customer service. Someone learning a new system may need time to practise. A colleague with experience may want room to question an automated recommendation. A team may need clarity about responsibility when advice comes from a tool. Those are questions about the work and the relationship, as well as the software.
Putting people first means including those questions in the investment decision and returning to them after implementation. Time saved is useful information. So are the quality of the work, the support people need and their ability to exercise judgement.
3. Trust depends on what follows the conversation
People can understand why an organisation needs to change and still want to know what that change will mean for them. Managers can care deeply about their teams while balancing demands they cannot all resolve themselves. Trust matters most when those realities meet.
A conversation gives both people a chance to explain what they know, what they need and what is within their influence. Its value also depends on what happens afterwards. Was the concern considered? Was an agreement kept? If something could not change, was the reason explained?
McKinsey's 2023 report on a global survey included 706 qualifying middle managers. Respondents reported spending less than a third of their time on talent and people management. Their accounts of how they spend their time make those competing demands visible. McKinsey, 2023
The leadership question is what those managers need in order to support their people. That can involve time, authority or help from another function. It also involves understanding that support which is useful to one person may be different from what another wants.
A person who wants to prepare before a discussion and a colleague who prefers to think aloud can both be committed to the work. Recognising that difference creates something practical to discuss. It does not establish a judgement about either person's ability or intentions. Work preferences provide language for that discussion.
Our view that organisational culture is language and behaviour brings the question back to what people experience repeatedly. A commitment to trust becomes credible through those experiences.
4. Scale becomes useful when people can act on what they know
Size can give an organisation resources, specialist knowledge and the ability to invest. A smaller organisation may have shorter routes between a question and a decision. Neither description tells us how responsive a particular business will be.
The useful question is where knowledge and decision-making meet. Can someone close to the customer resolve an issue within clear limits? Can a team explain why an established process needs reconsidering? Can a leader hear about an emerging concern before it becomes an organisation-wide problem?
These questions apply to an international service business and to a department within a university, an energy company or a public body. They concern the way the organisation works, not a preferred headcount.
Consistency remains important. People need clear standards, responsibilities and safeguards. Within those requirements, there may be several reasonable ways to prepare for a meeting, organise a discussion or contribute to a decision. A common standard need not require identical support for every person.
For leaders, that raises a question about their own preferences too. An approach that helps one executive make a decision may place different demands on the colleagues preparing it. Being explicit about those differences can help everyone consider what the work requires, including where adaptation is needed on both sides.
5. Simpler collaboration needs attention to the boundaries between teams
When a customer issue or an internal project crosses several functions, each team may be doing its part carefully. The difficulty can lie between them: a missing explanation, an approval whose purpose is unclear or a decision that everyone believes belongs elsewhere.
A study of 61,182 US Microsoft employees examined the shift to firm-wide remote work in early 2020. The researchers found a more siloed collaboration network; Microsoft's account of the research reports that the share of collaboration time spent with cross-group connections fell by about 25% relative to its pre-pandemic level. The setting matters: this was a major change in working arrangements at one company. It highlights the importance of examining connections across teams when work changes. Yang and colleagues, 2022 · Microsoft Research, 2021
Simplification asks another question: what could be removed? Across eight experiments, Gabrielle Adams and colleagues found that people often overlooked beneficial changes involving subtraction. Prompts to consider removing something, repeated opportunities and lower cognitive load made such changes easier to identify. Adams and colleagues, 2021
For an organisation, the application is worth exploring with the people doing the work. Could two teams share the same information instead of requesting it twice? Does an approval still serve its original purpose? Would clarifying one decision remove the need for several meetings?
The aim is to make necessary work easier to complete while preserving the safeguards it needs. Listening across boundaries helps distinguish an unnecessary step from something another team relies on.
Where Sariio contributes
These five commitments extend from the individual to the whole organisation. People want to contribute and understand what is changing. Colleagues need to work across differences. Managers need to support the people they are responsible for, and leaders need to consider how their decisions are experienced across the business.
Sariio is the work preference layer. We do our best work when we can ‘play to our preferences’. It brings an understanding of how people prefer to work into the decisions, relationships and everyday conversations that shape an organisation.
That gives the individual language for what helps them contribute, colleagues a basis for understanding one another, and managers insight into how they can adapt their support. For leaders, it brings people's preferences into discussions about culture, change and how teams work together. Pay, workload, systems and management decisions remain part of that wider picture.
The question is one people can ask at every level: what do you need from me to do your best work, and what do we need to achieve together?
The Play Book explores the thinking behind that question. If it connects with a decision your organisation is considering, talk to David.
Sources and further reading
- IBPAP (2025), 2024 Philippine IT-BPM industry results. Industry-association reporting of direct employment and revenue.
- Grant, A. M. (2008), The Significance of Task Significance: Job Performance Effects, Relational Mechanisms, and Boundary Conditions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 108–124.
- Brynjolfsson, E., Li, D. and Raymond, L. R. (2025), Generative AI at Work. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2), 889–942. Figures here use the published journal version.
- McKinsey (2023), Stop wasting your most precious resource: Middle managers. A global survey of managers, including 706 qualifying middle managers.
- Yang, L. and colleagues (2022; published online 2021), The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 43–54. See also the research team's explanation.
- Adams, G. S., Converse, B. A., Hales, A. H. and Klotz, L. E. (2021), People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature, 592, 258–261.
Frequently asked questions
What does people first mean in an organisation?
People first means considering how organisational decisions affect the people doing the work, alongside the outcomes the organisation needs to achieve. It includes useful support, fair working conditions and opportunities to contribute. The practical test is what people experience in everyday decisions and relationships, including when priorities compete or the organisation is under pressure.
How can technology support a people-first organisation?
Technology can support a people-first organisation by helping people access knowledge, reduce unnecessary work and make informed decisions. Its value should be assessed through the quality of the work and the experience of those using it. Involving employees in decisions about its use helps leaders understand what support is useful and what concerns need attention.
How does an organisation build trust at work?
Trust develops through repeated experience of what people say and do. Employees and managers need opportunities to explain concerns, ask for support and see what follows. Clear expectations and decisions that people can understand matter alongside respectful conversations. Listening becomes credible when people can see how their contribution has been considered, including when a request cannot be met.
Can a large organisation remain adaptable?
A large organisation can create conditions for adaptability by making decision responsibilities clear, keeping relevant knowledge accessible and allowing teams to raise issues across organisational boundaries. Size provides resources and reach, but does not automatically determine responsiveness. Leaders need to examine where decisions wait, how people share information and which matters genuinely require wider approval.
How can leaders simplify work and improve collaboration?
Leaders can start with a piece of work that crosses teams and ask where information, decisions or responsibility become unclear. People doing the work can identify duplicated requests, unnecessary approvals and missing context. Simplification should make the work easier to complete while preserving necessary safeguards. Reviewing the experience together helps establish whether the change was useful.
How do work preferences relate to organisational culture?
Work preferences give people language for discussing how they prefer to prepare, decide and contribute. Those discussions can inform relationships, management support and how teams work together. Culture includes what happens repeatedly across the organisation, so preferences offer one perspective alongside working conditions, incentives, systems and leadership decisions. A preference does not by itself explain behaviour or establish the cause of an outcome.