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This article is brought to you by Cornerstone OnDemand
Focusing on employees’ potential and development, the talent experience platform empowers people to be their most extraordinary – at work and in the world.
As a holistic talent experience platform, serving 100mn users spanning over 7,000 customers across 180 countries, Cornerstone OnDemand helps people unleash their potential and get ready for the future – particularly its employees, or whom it calls ‘Cornerstars’.
To bring out the best in people and encourage everyone to bring their authentic selves to work, Cornerstone OnDemand concentrates on building a culture and employee experience grounded in potential over performance.
“We believe that each one of our employees – or Cornerstars (as we like to call them) – can achieve success, realise their potential, and be empowered to take the reins on their own career through development and growth opportunities,” affirmed Himanshu Palsule, CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand.
To empower its Cornerstars, the company has put different employee-led initiatives in place to allow them to learn and grow. For example, during its quarterly ‘Cornerstone Development Days’, Cornerstars can host a session, or attend as many sessions as possible. The sessions range from personal development skills, such as life hacks, to leadership skills hosted by the executive team, to fun sessions like wine tasting, cake baking and more. This has not only helped foster a creative and interactive learning environment, but also provided internal networking opportunities across teams worldwide, and built a culture of learning with an “inside out” methodology.
To round up the employee experience, there are also other company-led initiatives, particularly the ‘Gig Programme’. This internal talent marketplace allows employees to explore internal opportunities to take part in short-term projects, or gigs, outside of their usual department, and explore new career avenues within the organisation, with full support from the leadership team. Since its inception in 2021, the programme has received more than 250 applicants and counting.
To Cornerstone, culture is built by people, not by one single individual or team. This is why the company has made intentional efforts to drive diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) beyond the workplace to create a place of belonging. This sees the hiring of its first-ever Chief Diversity Officer, Duane La Bom in 2020, branded email signatures for Pride Month, and more elaborate schemes like ‘Cornerstar Resource Groups (CRGs)’.
To better engage people in the company from diverse backgrounds, encouraging transparent and clear communication among employees, managers and executives is also important. Apart from internal social media and other communication platforms, various communication methods are unique to its company and culture, such as ‘Coffee with Cornerstars’ and ‘Live with Leaders’ sessions as a way to introduce Cornerstars on a more personal level as well as provide access to leadership.
Palsule believes to build the future of the workplace where everyone can reach their full potential, structural barriers that prevent sustainable growth in any organisation’s ecosystems must be brought down. “Recently we have formed a group of ‘Extraordinaries’ by our Cornerstars across the organisation, dedicating their time to break down siloes, empowering decision-making and further advancing our cultural strategy,” shared Palsule.
Meanwhile, good employee experience cannot be achieved without considering employee wellbeing, in which mental health is one of Cornerstone’s focus areas. This leads to a number of smaller, but no less important, offerings like encouraging designated Friday meeting-free or camera-off meeting days, ‘Pause & Recharge’ programme that offers one extra day off to Cornerstars each month during the summer period to allow them to “relax and have fun”, ‘Flexible first work model’ complemented by co-working spaces, an employee assistance programme, a ‘Wellness Day’, as well as ‘Cornerstone Care Fund’ to provide hardship grant to support Cornerstars during tough times.
Seeing the role of HR evolving over the past two years, Palsule believes the function is now at the forefront of being change leaders.
“As HR of Cornerstone, we are tasked with the mission to lead and drive the movement ourselves internally,” Palsule puts it. “We believe everyone can rise to be extraordinary and has the potential to change the world. This isn’t a moment, it’s a movement. Join us.”
Photos / Cornerstone OnDemand
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