Start: This Frenchman from New Zealand is revolutionizing the business world

After starting his career as a naval officer and spending nearly ten years in numerous locations around the world, Vincent Voillard pursued an MBA in Melbourne and then joined the consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. Large companies in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. In 2017, this French expat in Auckland joined Fonterra as Director of Group Strategic Capabilities. An outstanding role that allows him to prepare 22,000 employees in 25 countries for the development of the business. A task that finally opens his eyes to a major challenge that many companies face today. Confront.. Accomplish.

Hi Vincent, can you introduce us to FutureWork Studio?

In 2019 with my co-founder, joanna JusticeWe decided to release it Future Work Studioto help large companies and governments adapt to technological and societal change and understand the impact this is having on the way we operate.

In the various roles I have held, I have always tried to improve the way teams work and people collaborate, and above all how to reduce bureaucracy (red tape) to a minimum, so that people can truly achieve 100% of their potential and thrive at work.

Concretely, what does it consist of?

our platform (www.hiveapp.ai) allows companies to have instant access to all the skills, experience and knowledge of their employees and also allows for skills to be increased on the job within the company but also within a group of companies.

Concretely, it allows any employee to access or share their knowledge and experience, work on projects and learn new skills. This allows everyone to better communicate, grow, discuss, and work on problems outside of their day-to-day work.

Who are your customers? How does the cell benefit from it?

We have two types of clients: companies or groups of companies that want to maximize the hidden potential of their employees and allow them instant access to knowledge, talent and expertise internally to be able to solve more problems and deliver more projects. internally but also in order to create a connected and more motivated workforce.

Or large cities or even entire sectors of activity – such as the energy sector, which includes all its electricity and gas companies New Zealand Inside the Energy Academy – who use winter To share their skills and capabilities, train their employees and solve problems together such as reducing carbon dioxide emissions in full cooperation and guidance by employees.

idea winter It is really the separation between a person and the position a person occupies. In a company, everyone has a job or role, but employees have many more skills, knowledge, and experience than they use in their roles. The concrete question is: How can we use all the talent we have within the company and not just the talent needed to play a role?

How many clients do you have today?

Hive was launched less than two years ago. We have about twenty large groups in New Zealand And Australia And we start expanding Asia from the southeast. We are in discussions with customers to launch the Hive in the US and Europe later this year.

How do companies interact with you? Did COVID punish you or, on the contrary, make the task easier?

Business leaders and their management committees immediately understand our vision and the rapid impact of it winter It can generate for its employees. With some companies, we publish winter In a couple of weeks, it may take longer with others as they align their teams internally or some aligning the Hive as they launch their own transformation.

With regard to Covid, this focused on accelerating digital transformation which was deemed necessary but not urgent. Connecting remote employees, finding out where they can access their skills, their passions, giving them opportunities… This helped us.

We talk a lot about resilience these days. What is your vision for the business in general?

In terms of flexibility, I think ‘Where do we work from? It’s no longer a big problem. Now we have to solve the problem of ‘What are we working on?’. The question arises of the variety of tasks and projects that each employee performs. How do you keep people motivated? How can they train and use all the assets they own, so they can develop in their careers in a more independent way, without waiting for their manager or HR department to guide them? Work is constantly changing, you have to find a system that allows people to pivot and do other things. This increases productivity.