In August 2024, the founders of Advancer Group (Advancer), Australia’s first AI-powered expert assistant for human resources (HR), needed a strategy that would best meet the varied interests and concerns of all potential stakeholders. Their goal was to help Australian managers and team members be more productive and efficient, thereby supporting business growth, by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with human HR advisors. Although the entrepreneurs had a plan for expansion, they still needed to persuade the executives at small and medium-sized enterprises to invest in Advancer’s products and services. It was therefore crucial for them to gain a deeper understanding of how to foster trust among their primary stakeholders.
In 2022, Australia-based property and home development company Douglas Family Group was full of internal conflict. The co-owned family business had recently decided that changes were needed in order to grow and secure a stable family income for the future. To that end, the company brought in non-family advisers and board members, and eventually hired a non-family chief executive officer (CEO). However, the organizational changes did not go smoothly, due to the myriad challenges of introducing external employees to a family business. Soon, family members and top management alike started to complain that the changes did not work and demanded that the previous CEO, a second-generation Douglas family member, come back to fix things. As revenue decreased and conflict spread, the family knew it only had one chance to fix things and save the company. What was the best course of action to get back on track?
Orange Sky Australia evolved as an entrepreneurial non-profit organization offering two primary services for the homeless: mobile laundering of clothes and engaging in genuine, individual, face-to-face connections through conversation. In February 2024, with 73 employees and roughly 3,000 volunteers spread throughout Australia and New Zealand, the company’s recent staff engagement data indicated a decline in well-being metrics since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, despite the strong positive organizational culture. The company’s growth strategy to double volunteer numbers within the next two years created additional challenges for how to recruit volunteer team leaders to manage and oversee daily operations as most volunteers did not want leadership roles.