AI could automate 70% of Adobe’s remote role chief and HR chief work on his playbook without mass layoffs

COMING SOON: GLORIA CHEN, CHIEF OFFICER OF ADOBE

Forbes spoke earlier this year with the tech company’s longtime executive about its new Founders Tower building, how it avoids company-wide layoffs, and what the concept of employee experience means in a workplace where evolution.

You recently led a rewrite of Adobe’s corporate values. Why?

I was sitting in a meeting in late 2021, exhausted. AND [Adobe CEO] Shantan [Narayen] he turned to me and literally out of the blue said Hey Gloria. Have you ever thought about our values ​​and if the time has come to rethink them? We were about to enter our 40th anniversary. We knew we were going to enter a phase where we were really looking for new ways to work. And we have grown tremendously. Like a third of our workforce joined during the pandemic.

There are so many disruptions going on in Silicon Valley. How are you working to try and address these issues, as the social contract may be changing for tech workers?

It’s about psychological safety. It’s about that environment where people feel that strong sense of belonging and security that helps them to be the most innovative and creative. We know that we must constantly review our priorities, reallocate resources, make organizational changes where necessary. But we also know that there is, at its core, a humanity in everything we do. And I think that’s something that takes years to build and an instant to lose.

You said in a interview that Adobe is committed to no company-wide layoffs, while many tech companies have repeated shifts. Isn’t that a risk?

We come from a very strong position. We always try to be very disciplined about our hiring, our resource allocation, our investments. So mass layoffs? This is not part of our playbook. That’s not to say there aren’t places where we need to examine, on an ongoing basis, how we run the business, what our various needs are, and [how were] balance between different organizations. But this tool declare thousands of people [redundant] and this is an assignment that has been entrusted to the organization? It’s not in our playbook and we do everything we can to avoid going there.

You opened Founders Tower when many companies cut back on office space.

Our employee experience team was already starting to look ahead to the future of work when we were planning it. If anything, the pandemic has only helped accelerate what they were already planning, which is people using physical space differently. It’s not just floors and floors of cubes where people show up to work at their desks. We have 400 different workspaces: town halls versus collaboration spaces versus team meeting areas.

Employee Experience EVP is part of your title. What does that phrase mean to you?

I haven’t found the words yet, but what I’ve been thinking about a lot is the sports analogy of building winning teams. It’s not just about creating a great experience for the individual employee. He is putting together a great team through our recruitment. It’s the conditioning, it’s the training, it’s the training, it’s the field environment. It’s all of that. No one ever said exercise was fun. But doing it in service of being a winning team instead of just creating the most lush and decadent experience for people? I think that’s where the future is going.

FACTS + COMMENTS

Office housework is a term for the largely thankless tasks that contribute to the smooth running of a workplace, such as organizing parties, ordering food, or taking notes in meetings:

• 29%: How much more likely women are to report doing housework in the office, than white men
• 48%: how much more likely women were to volunteer for a task that benefited everyone, than men
• A man who doesn’t help is busy; a woman is selfish.: Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and organizational psychologist Adam Grant noted in this 2015 piece.

VIDEO

Related companies founder and managing partner Steve Jangone of the more recent additions to the Forbes Midas Listshares is about people, culture and his investments in San Francisco startups.

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STRATEGIES + TIPS

Many tech workers say they spend four hours or less on focused work. that’s how optimize your working day.

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Sensation overwhelmed? Reduce these hidden waste to stay productive.

QUIZ

In a recent survey of tech workers, only 25% of respondents said they worked eight hours or more every workday. Which part did he say to spend four hours or less on concentrated work?

1. 60%
2. 45%
3. 25%
4. 15%

Check if you have it right here.

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