Leading with Excellence with DHL

Michael C. Bush (00:00):

So joining me on the stage, some of the top leaders at the number one World's Best Workplace, DHL. So eighth consecutive year on the World's Best list. Third time to hold the number one spot. Nine out of 10 workers say DHL is a great place to work. And we're talking about over 125,000 employees in over 220 countries and territories. Actually, they work in places that are neither. They just work everywhere. 88% of the employees say people are encouraged to balance their work life and personal life, which is incredible with your demanding business. 86% of your people say management involves people in decisions that affect their jobs through their work environment with 125,000 people in 220 countries and territories. That's incredible. 88% say management genuinely seeks and responds to suggestions and ideas. So that's the listening strategy in action. Congratulations and Fadz as the leader of HR for this remarkable organization, what's it feel like for your people when they hear that they're number one? 

Fadzlun Sapandi (01:10):

Wow. Michael, thank you very much. When I actually recall the day that when John called me and says, we are number one, and I was home with my daughter, I'm like, “yes!” And she says, “what's it mommy?” She's nine years old. And I says, “my boss just called to say we are number one.” And she says, “but you are always number one.” And I'm like, “oh, my biggest follower.” So I wanted to tell that story and why it meant so much to me and the people that work together with us, it's not only that is the workplace that is great for them, but the people lives that they impact their families, their friends, and when they feel proud to work with us. When you think about it, 70% of our workforce are frontline workers and they work through conditions of hot summer, cold winter and all the things that you mentioned earlier. 

Fadzlun Sapandi (02:08):

And they feel valued. They feel that they've been heard and they gave us their trust and we gave them the trust to look after our people, our local teams in the country. And it also means that the journey that we are on is impactful for them and they're grateful to be with us. So I think it is the pride that our people have, the purpose, our company purpose of connecting people, improving lives, resonate with them. And we live through it. And we live through that moment and they appreciate that so much. So we're so proud of it, and I'm so proud to meet all the great companies that I've interacted with. So I'm very pleased that we're impacting the community and our people. 

Michael C. Bush (02:54):

DHL is undoubtedly the most global company in the world. There's nothing close to DHL. And so John, how do you feel the people react to number one, and what does it do for your business to be the number one workplace in the world? 

John Pearson (03:08):

Yeah, so I think it's great for our business because it's great for our people. And some of the things DHL runs a little bit on some one-liners and some phrases that we just repeat, repeat, repeat, and get through to all the people in 220 countries. And one of those is that this is not a senior executive high fiving exercise. This is an award for all, won by all. As soon as we win it or as soon as we come second or third, I remind our senior team, we say, this is not us guys. We didn't win it. The whole company won it. Now the fact that this is an award for all, won by all, makes people very happy. And right now Andrew Williams, who's in the audience, is organizing a trophy tour just like the trophy tour we take for Manchester United all around the world when they won trophies and they won trophies. 

John Pearson (04:07):

But Andrew is taking to 29 countries in his region, the trophy. And as we get into a station and we got into Las Vegas station yesterday, we did all the celebrations, the photos, the handing of the trophy, and those guys really felt that they were part of our success. And we'll go to India, we'll go to Thailand, we'll go to China. And that's how you involve all the people that won. And I think the last thing that what it does for our business is we have a simple formula, as you know better than anyone, Michael, p plus Q equals G people plus quality equals growth. So when we win the award, which is an award for all, won by all, we've got the people pillar of our business firmly in place, and if we're doing the things on quality, we will get the growth. But here we're just talking about people. And we know that as we win that award and as we win it in more awards, more people are showing they trust in our company. And I never forget the first thing in the first summit I came to in San Francisco, you put up a figure that 72% of people do not trust their country. 71% do not trust their government. X percent do not trust their company. Well, that was our opportunity to take that bar up. I really appreciate that journey we've been on, and I'm sure everyone's sitting here. 

Michael C. Bush (05:42):

Yeah, you've definitely taken that bar up and that's good for everybody as a part of the movement. DHL is one of those companies where people will say, well, we can't do it. And I'm like, if DHL can do it, you should be able to do it. Okay. Because of the challenging dynamics of your business and the fact that your business, your people are where it's really hot and really cold, not like U.S. hot and cold, globally, really hot and cold. And Thomas, can you first let people know something about your role? Because for U.S. companies, it's very unusual actually. I don't know that it exists kind of group responsibility at a board level. So help people understand first, then I have another question for you. 

Thomas Ogilvie (06:27):

So first I think when you want to be a great place to work for all, then you need to have a proper people representation in the board of management. So perhaps that's something some of you might pick up in the future and just looking left and right. I mean, we are a company of 600,000 people, five very strong business divisions ranging all the way from 40,000 people to 200,000 people. Each part of our business is 10 to 20 billion in revenue. So that's huge. 

Thomas Ogilvie (06:54):

And at the end you have a group CFO who brings together the financial part. I think there's this magic triangle of C-E-O-C-F-O and CHO that we are established like Fadz and John are doing for Express on the HR and CEO side. And there's Joe, the CFO, who's not around. And we have the same magic triangle on the corporate side. And I think this is something where we ensure on one hand side as much consistency as needed because ultimately HR is getting more and more into a governance role when you talk about compliance, when you talk about training, when you talk about adherence to certain regulations and standards. And at the same time, it is also something where you need to provide degrees of freedom, where you have perhaps a framework like I'm health and wellbeing, but ultimately it's local execution. And that's something where Fadz and the other colleagues in the HR board exactly work with me on finding the right balance. And I think that makes us stronger together. 

Michael C. Bush (07:51):

Well, something that you've always been focused on is helping your people navigate through external pressures, things that happen in the world and outside of the business to take care of their wellbeing. What are you doing now to help 'em during these unprecedented times in terms of some of the external pressures? 

Thomas Ogilvie (08:11):

I mean, if you look around the world, you can argue we didn't start a fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning. And that's something where we had it over lunch. People are people. And I think it all goes back to some basic human needs that you can make people proud, resilient, and also confident. Because if you're not confident that tomorrow will be better than today, then you lost hope and then you will not thrive and then you will not engage for more. And I think what we try to establish is that we want to be an employer people can rely on and relying on means that we want to take away a little bit the burden or the fear of the day-to-day life. We want to have a safe workplace. We want to provide a decent working environment, proper salaries so that people have in a way from the basic needs, shelter and money to have a living from. 

Thomas Ogilvie (09:04):

But it's more than that. It's about having great colleagues, being part of a team, having not only the impression, but being sure that you have an impact on what we offer as a company, that whatever a colleague does in customer service, in HR, in delivery, that this has an impact on our global kind of service delivery, which is this human need for achievement. And ultimately, there's the last question about how can I evolve? How can I develop? And if you look around, there's a very powerful and posh and pushy kind of attitude in Asia because in Asia, people are truly confident that tomorrow will be better than today. And you can feel how this also drives energy. And I think that's what we need to achieve to give people these three things, to have reliance, to have a great team where you can have an impact and the belief that tomorrow will be better than today. 

John Pearson (09:56):

Can I just add on to something Thomas prompted me to think about? And when you talk about the 120,000 employees, we like to say an exact number, 120,463, because every single employee is important. And it reminds me again, when we started our journey with Great Place To Work, Michael and your team, you're just added “For All.” And we, as you know, turn that into, we want to be a great place to work for all, not for a few, not for many, for all. And people said, John, no, you'll never get to the stage where everyone in DHL Express is happy. I said, I don't think it's so stupid. The managers should be pretty happy. And if you have great supervisors and the supervisory level, we should be obsessive about. If you have great supervisors, you can have great frontline. And then I started thinking for all, not for a few, not for many, for all is a noble aspiration. And we've really built that into our culture. So when we find one person a little bit behind, we look left and right over our shoulder during the pandemic to bring everyone together as one. And we can really feel as a team, we can get to that feeling where everyone thinks we're a great place to work, for all. 

Michael C. Bush (11:25):

And you made it to the stage, my friend. Yeah. So Fadz a question. I know you're personally passionate about creating experiences for employees where you send your people home happy and able to contribute to their families and their communities. Can you talk more about this idea of thriving and how you're helping people thrive as the people leader? 

Fadzlun Sapandi (11:46):

Yeah. So it's the concept of great place to work for all together with great colleagues. Our aspiration is to have a great place where everybody thrives. And John and me, we have had unfortunately in the recent past, our colleagues that we work very closely together have actually passed away. And that basically brought us to the whole concept as well in looking after that oneself, our people, our employees, what does that mean to that person? So we have built up a program where wellbeing is not a benefit, it's an essential part of our lives. And so as a board, we've committed to providing countries where we have issues with preventive healthcare, your annual checkup, that for some of us it's taken for granted and for many other countries it's not available. So as a board, we've committed to provide this for our people so that they can go and get their health screening based on WHO standards. 

Fadzlun Sapandi (12:58):

And with that, that is the first one, knowing what they have. And then it is the lifestyle that they have, whether is it physical, mental, financial wellbeing that throughout the course of yesterday, today many of the companies talk about. So the first pillar is really looking after oneself and what it means to me as an individual, as a mom, as a wife, as a husband, or as a person that is just coming into work. So being that self. And then we talked about what does that mean for a high-performance culture? It's just not about results. It is about providing that psychological safety where it's okay to speak up and we seek feedback for improvement, for development, for opportunity to grow. Interestingly, in the CHRO lunch that I attended, there was the conversation that Holly had is when people say it's a feedback culture, but when you start off with I'm here to give you feedback, you're kind of like, Ooh, is that one? 

Fadzlun Sapandi (13:57):

And when she said that, it is true because people are in different stages where feedback and the way they speak up, they need to feel safe, they need to feel comfortable. So we have implemented programs to make sure that our leaders are equipped to manage that, our people are equipped to understand that we value and we seek their input for improvement. And last, but certainly not the least, is having great colleagues and having a best team because we work together every single day that we need to be happier when we go home than we arrived. And John always says to me is Fadz when you come to work, I want you to be happier when you go back to your husband and daughter. And indeed that's what it means to all our people as well. And you want to add John? 

John Pearson (14:40):

Yeah. I think that we had some leaders speak really authentically about health and wellbeing and Fadz just reminded me of the key point. Someone a few weeks ago said, what's the biggest part of your job? And I can give all the blah blah and say operational quality, but the senior line officer of DHL Express, the biggest part of my job is to send people home happier than they arrived in the morning or to ensure people don't leave work unhappy. Now, why? It doesn't sound like a very good thing to leave people, let people go home unhappy. It's much more than that. If people leave work unhappy or unhappier than they arrived at work, they take it out on the people they find in their home when they open their front doors. That leads to more domestic violence. That leads to wives and husbands being beaten up. 

John Pearson (15:37):

That means to kids not being treated well. That leads to more alcoholism. And that's not going to happen on my watch. And our job, our job, and it's not a stretch of the imagination at all. Our job, Thomas, myself, Fadz and Andrew and the other members of the global management board are perfectly within the range of our competencies and capabilities to make sure we're building an organization, we're communicating messages, we're having fun. We celebrate when we travel that they have a good supervisor. And that's the key. The good supervisor should stop the guy or gal going home unhappier than they should be. And then someone at home cops that. It should be me that suffers the wrath of that guy or Fadz as head of HR or someone else. It shouldn't be the wife or the husband or the kids. And it is simple. It's not just vanity and saying, we have this no blame. 

John Pearson (16:42):

This is part of a great place to work for all, not for a few, not for many, for all. People should go, yes, it's Friday, but on Monday. And I tell my kids this, that yes, there's got to be 80% to my children. I say this, if you are not celebrating Monday to at least 80, you've got to be realistic, to at least 80% to at least 80% of when you're celebrating Friday, go work at a different company. You've got five long days ahead of you and you should be really, especially in the great months of European summer as we're heading into a North American summer, you should be in May the 15th going in on Monday thinking you've got a great week ahead of you. That's if you're working from work, by the way. 

Michael C. Bush (17:28):

I love that. Love that. Also love Fadz where you started, which is the DHL point of view that wellbeing is not a benefit because benefits can come and go, but when it's in the fabric and institutionalized it can't come and go, won't get evaluated one day. Thomas, this idea of making a great team better, can you talk about that and the initiative and how it's affecting the Group and Express? 

Thomas Ogilvie (18:00):

Of course. And I think this is also the strength of having five strong business divisions inspiring each other. So that was something taken up by John and Fadz initially. Thinking about that it is not only about individual development. So we spent a lot of time in HR on what is the best training program for a certain role for a certain person, but ultimately it is teams and it's senior management teams who make difference because there is some collective leadership, there's a collective leadership shadow, and it is also something when you work together from the top as an effective team, this goes a long way in terms of collaboration and the effectiveness and efficiency of everybody in this organization. So that was something picked up and expressed initially to say, we need to double down on a program where senior management teams collectively learn together. What can we do to meet the demands and requirements of tomorrow to not only be great leaders for today, but great leaders for tomorrow. 

Thomas Ogilvie (19:05):

And this is something unheard of because having this team development was not institutionalized at all with us. And I think what we have now achieved, and it is rolled out throughout Express, it makes people proud to be part of the team. It gives a completely different reflection on what does senior management teams need to achieve. And now it's being adopted by our other businesses and there are other things that are invented there and then taking over. And we try to leverage it the best way that we can. But again, this is something, credit to my colleagues left right to me. So thanks John. Thanks Fadz that you brought this up initially. 

John Pearson (19:43):

And it really did mean Fadz and I and Andrew and five or six or seven other members of the team went down to Cape Town to do a review of the business. We took two days out of our schedule, the Saturday and the Sunday, we ran the last module of MAGTB, making a great team better. And we were vulnerable. We put ourselves in vulnerable positions with how much we wanted to talk about ourselves, how much we wanted to talk about others. And we explored all those aspects and we're very happy to share this in more detail. But all those aspects of working as a team and making sure that the team is effective running a country and the individuals will be more effective as a result of the team being effective. And so much of HR practices and HR policies and individual and development of training is pointed towards individuals. And this was the time to get the team together and we role modeled that. We were one of the fifth or sixth countries to get going. And now basically more than half our world, but much more than 80% of our revenue from 220 countries has been through it. We're still working through the smaller markets. 

Michael C. Bush (21:00):

And Fadz, the world's complicated and at DHL, everyone cares about the people, but I think you probably care a little more just because of your role and the weight and the responsibility of it to have so many people going home happier than perhaps when they started the day. Sitting here at this point in 2025, looking forward the rest of the year, what's at the top of your mind? When you're in the CHRO round table like yesterday, what are you searching for? What are you trying to look and learn about to add more value to take care of your people? 

Fadzlun Sapandi (21:40):

Yeah, I think it is about the continuity and being constantly delivering what we say we do. And I think the round table that I had yesterday and the great exchanges that I have with the other companies, we are looking at from skills of the future and how does that landscape evolve with AI and technology and making sure that people addressing those fears and having those conversation, what it means and what it doesn't mean for them. And I think in a situation where it's evolving and it's so quickly, we need to address that and make sure that we stay close to our people and speak to them. 

Michael C. Bush (22:21):

Re-skilling AI.

Fadzlun Sapandi (22:22):

That's right. 

Michael C. Bush (22:22):

Coming to the workforce. Okay. So just a couple more questions, Thomas. There's a group of companies that comprise the DHL Group. DHL Express being one of 'em. DHL Express really doubled down on their work with us and got to the top. Was everybody really happy in the whole group that DHL Express shot to the top? Has that put a sense of competition? What's that like? Especially in your role. Some parts of the group, which they were number 100 maybe, so it's easier for them as they start to move and think about moving up as a group. 

Thomas Ogilvie (23:01):

I mean, first I'm very happy that we have with DHL Express, the number one greatest company to work for, the great place to work within our group. And of course that triggered some aspiration also to get on this pathway. I'm even more happy that we are now going to bring this together in the next year's list than to be just one DHL altogether. And for me, and I know my colleagues are pretty competitive, I know that many around here are pretty competitive. It's not about making number one or two or three on the list. That doesn't matter. It matters that you care about your people and you don't compete against others. It's like playing golf. You don't have any, you play against, you only play against yourself. And I think that's something that we need to double down on. And what we do now, cross division lead together within our group that we just want to do what John described. We want to be everywhere, a great place to work, not for some, not for many, but for all. And I think that's the best thing we can get out of it. And I'm very proud that everybody buys into this. 

Michael C. Bush (24:05):

Yeah, well, great golfers play against themselves. Some have the competition, but we're really excited about what's going to happen. John, take us home. Some final thoughts that you'd like to share just to pass on in terms of maybe advice for people who are trying to create the kind of culture that you've been able to do. 

John Pearson (24:27):

So maybe a couple of things. If you imagine a dartboard, you may call it something else in the U.S. That's the beautiful thing about different countries they call different things, different things, but I like to think the people are right in the middle of everything we do. And the gentleman from the Marriott said that my predecessor had customer in the middle, but I know that if I move customer to 25 points and put people in the middle and authentically support that middle of the dartboard aspiration with all the things that we do after hurricanes, after bushfires. When I took over this job, my predecessor Ken Allen said, John, we're in 220 countries. There's a crisis somewhere every day. And there is. And we look after those people. So our people really believe in Acapulco, in Afghanistan, in Fiji, that we look after them. And when you've got that, customer will get everything. 

John Pearson (25:27):

Then I think my second word would be focus. The name of our strategy is focus ,the name of every brochure we've produced since 2010 to now, nine of them is called the focus brochure. And I think the thing we like to think is the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And my biggest worry is if people start not keeping the main thing, the main thing and start bringing in other ideas. We've got our ideas, we know those ideas work. I don't want a different strategy. We've got one. It's called the focus strategy. So keep the main thing, the main thing, the main thing. And lastly, there's nothing common about common sense. So really keep things simple. 

Michael C. Bush (26:19):

Please give a warm thank you to the world's number one best workplace, DHL.