“Fantastic work culture” with Claudio Erba CEO of Docebo

Docebo is a learning platform company that is changing the way people learn with artificial intelligence, empowering more than 6 million users at 1,500 organizations in over 90 countries.

Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’m an entrepreneur by accident. I was teaching at the University of Florence and my students needed a place where they could download PDFs of each lesson. Along with Fabio Pirovano, Docebo’s co-founder and CTO, we created a place where I could upload my lessons and additional materials. After its launch, we published the script online and potential customers started calling because they wanted the software. Following that, we went a step further and created a company. This was in 2005, no business plan, no investors, just a few guys with an idea.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

One of the upsides of being an entrepreneur is that you will have a lot of interesting stories to tell over a beer. One of those stories takes place during a business meeting in a military base in the desert…in a tent (I can’t disclose where in the world). I was having dinner with a sheik, I also once won a bet to get an espresso coffee at 3am in Shanghai, asking a random guy that spoke only Chinese. I got a free upgrade to the 5,300 square foot Royal Suite in the Indian ocean, and I met a VERY FAMOUS music group in a business meeting without realizing who they were.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Docebo offers the world a training tool that helps employees learn in a more efficient way. Employability, re-employability, and re-skilling are the major topics of this decade. We are working to automate a lot of the existing training process and set the stage for the needs of reskilling with the help of artificial intelligence. Our platform algorithms are designed specifically for learning. We’re now finding new ways to use those algorithms, and with our dedicated internal team of AI experts, we’re really changing the way enterprises are training their people, by letting the employee take the lead.

Ok, lets jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?

When it comes to workplace happiness, I’m constantly reminded of the Gini index; workplace quality is increasing, jobs are really interesting, and a lot of jobs can have a real transformational impact BUT the middle class can’t afford to buy a house. Imagine, for example, a very high-paid programmer in San Francisco is getting paid what would be considered an extremely high salary in any other city, but can’t even buy a 500 square foot apartment in the city where he works. This kind of uncertainty drives frustration and stress, and a workplace that adds to that stress and frustration inevitably leads to people indicating a certain level of unhappiness. When companies just focus on getting work done, rather than lifting their employees up, they offer no relief to this situation.

Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact A) company productivity B) company profitability C) and employee health and wellbeing?

We need to take a holistic approach with workplace happiness. If employees are unhappy, they will leave, and employee churn can have one of the most fatal impacts on a company’s success. When employees leave due to unhappiness, it has a negative impact on productivity and profitability, especially when they churn early in their tenure due to a crappy onboarding process. Churn causes the need to hire new people, properly train and onboard them, and set them up to be proficient in their roles. In order to provide real value and reach their full potential, employees need to stay at their company for long time, and to do so, they must be happy.

Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?

Have lunch outside of the office with the team at least once a month. As a CEO, I have a routine of going out for lunch with different teams once a week, and to also have lunch with new hires once a month to get to know them as people, rather than just employees.

Focus on work/life balance, and always remember that employees are much more than just people helping to grow the business. They’re parents and humans with passions and interests. Give them time to be parents, athletes, artists, musicians — whatever it is they love to do when they’re not at work in order to cultivate their passion, their human soul. This can be done with small things like reducing your employee’s commuting time by implementing a work from home policy.

Make sure family always comes first. There are experiences that change your life — one is having a child. Staying with your child in the first month of his/her life is something very important, and to be able to do that knowing you are backed by your company is very nice. At Docebo we are very proud to offer 5 months of paid parental leave in every office, from our Italian office to our office just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We have inherited this from European traditions for maternity/paternity and we are really proud to be able to offer the time. We have a similar approach with other less joyful events as well. For example, we strongly support our colleagues that are sick or in a burnout phase and encourage them to take the time they need. It’s important that our employees know we’re there when shit happens.

Create more opportunities to learn. At Docebo, we have an initiative called ‘Lunch & Learn’ where every 15 days in every office we organize a lunch and give employees the opportunity to speak about something they think is important. Creating dynamics around food (and wine, and coffee, etc.) is always a success.

Make time for new hires. Understanding who a new hire is as a person is very important and helps us maintain culture in our offices. I make an effort to personally interview nearly all of our new employees, getting to know them as people and making sure that they will mesh seamlessly into the culture of our offices around the world.

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the US workforce work culture?

Entrepreneurs and business leaders have lost the ability to ask “why” we do something. Leaders should always start by questioning, “why do I choose to work?” If the answer is found at a personal level, where the leader personally has drivers such as money, ambition, or business growth, the answer is easy — a better work culture is more capital efficient. BUT what happens when we ask this question at a societal level? The bigger question becomes what personal goals do we all have in common for our society? If we find the answer, we will also understand how to change work culture, and I’d assume the answer will probably not have capitalistic intentions. For me, I’d like to see society ensure every person feels safe through free healthcare and free education options, as well as a minimum Universal Basic income. In this scenario, work will become an expression of art and creativity and will create value for everyone.

How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?

- Paternalistic

- Honest

- Too transparent

- No filters

- Unpolite

- Not politically correct

- No bullshit

- No frills

- Experimental

Blend it, a bit of salt and pepper, eat when still hot

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mom, for sure. When I was young, she led our family through any challenge we faced and saved us. She also was the person that always trusted me.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I am a strong supporter of doing charity on a community level. The more you support initiatives that impact where you and your employees live, the greater and more genuine impact you can have, because the initiatives are not diluted by complex business structures or goals.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Karma is a bitch” and this is very true, I try to always have credit in Karma points.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Free Education, Tier1 free Healthcare and Universal Basic income for everyone. Empowering everyone to learning and removing the stresses around their basic wellbeing encourages people to be their very best self, everyday.