University Report: People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership at Xero

This report provides an analysis of Xero Limited, focusing on the critical elements of people, culture, and contemporary leadership. It examines Xero's initiatives related to performance, culture, and employee engagement. The report delves into Xero's diversity programs, recruitment practices, and efforts to foster a diversified workforce. It also explores the company's culture-related initiatives, such as employee empowerment activities and open communication channels. Furthermore, the report discusses Xero's engagement-related initiatives, including the total rewards system and its alignment with company objectives. By analyzing these aspects, the report aims to provide insights into how Xero manages its people, culture, and leadership to achieve its goals and drive success. The report also highlights potential concerns related to employee perceptions of certain initiatives.

Running head: PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
People, Culture and Contemporary Leadership
[PART B]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Table of Contents
Part B...............................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Performance Related Initiatives.......................................................................................................2
Culture Related Initiatives...............................................................................................................4
Engagement Related Initiatives.......................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

2PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Introduction
People, culture and leadership are the three essential elements of any contemporary
organisation. Effective management of these three elements results in increased productivity for
the organisation as well as its stakeholders. The people in a company usually determine the
success as well as failure for the company. They are the most important asset for a company as
they determine the level of experience for the customer. An organisation culture is comprised of
their believes, ideologies values and principles. Organisational culture controls the behaviour of
employees as well as those who are external partners. The leadership style of a company can
motivate its people as well as affect their morale badly. As researched by Hsieh and Liou (2018)
collaborative leaders believe in teamwork even in extreme cases such as in decision making. On
the other hand, autocratic leaders set hard rules and ensure that they receive the anticipated
following from its people. This study is also related to the three elements of an organisation as
discussed in the section. The study talks about the performance, the culture and employee
engagement in context to Xero Limited.
Performance Related Initiatives
According to the research of Cletus et al. (2018) diversity is an important part of
organisational culture in modern organisations. A diversified workforce is more competitive than
the workforce that lacks diversity. Through the facilitation of diversity programs, organisations
increase their chances of recruiting the best talent. They have access to more people as they can
expand their outreach to those people who were normally inaccessible or thought to be
unimportant for many companies.

3PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Xero limited is one of the very few companies to have received many accolades for its
efforts towards diversity and inclusion. Xero believes in giving equal opportunities to people
regardless of race, origin, sexual orientation, gender, etc. By being able to develop a diversified
workforce, Xero now has access to many skills across the globe (Barak 2016).
Xero has taken many initiatives to facilitate a diversified workforce. One of these is
its recruitment policy and practices. Xero work with seven different resource groups who
supply the company the people of diversified cultural and ethnic background, gender orientation,
etc. The company can reach these diversified people more efficiently as it supports direct
mentorship programs to encourage employee-to-student seminars and outreach. To justify their
stand on diversity, Xero has established many partnership relationships with contract employers
to ensure they have access to more people and that they create huge opportunities for these
people such as the veterans and individuals with disabilities. They also have a similar outreach
program to recruit minority employees from the local universities and colleges (Xero Accounting
Software 2020).
Measure
Whether these claims of Xero are true can be measured by seeing the workforce sharing
between male and female employees, etc. Two of the former CEOs of the company were women.
Currently, the global workforce of Xero comprises approximately 32% of its female employees.
The executive committee in the company comprises of around 40% of their female executives.
However, Xero itself considers that there is long to travel to facilitate a fully diversified
workforce. They believe that still a lot of work needs to be done as there is more space to fill to
fully close the gender pay gap (Xero Accounting Software 2020).

4PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Culture Related Initiatives
Xero has taken many initiatives about workplace culture. One of these is employee
empowerment activities. Xero believes in fostering and facilitating open communication
between the management of the company and its employees (Asx.com.au 2020). The evidence of
such practice can be found in one-on-one conversations and company-wide engagement
activities. In the opinion of Sergio and Rylova (2018), it is difficult to facilitate employee
empowerment as it requires more numbers of open two-way-communication, unambiguous
expectations and articulated goals. It also demands the existence of shared values as well as
clearly understood rewards systems by the employees. Employee empowerment is never a final
destination; rather, an ongoing journey. About Xero, open dialogue communication has always
been their priority. They have leveraged employee feedback surveys, employee engagement
surveys, the culture survey as well as the voice of the employee survey (Xero Accounting
Software 2020).
All these such as those mentioned above were done to strengthen the communication
channel between the company and their employees, ensure better relationship management with
the clients and be able to facilitate a motivating and very effective work environment where
people have never-dying desire to thrive on goals. With employee empowerment in place, their
goal is to tap into the knowledge, creativity and innovation, and enthusiasm of their people at all
levels of the company. As observed by Hanaysha (2016) the way Xero facilitates employee
empowerment is helping the company around the right plan with clear direction and access to the
required tools to get the job done successfully.

5PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Type of culture
After discussing a kind of cultural initiative at Xero, it can be said that they follow a
culture of empowerment (Proenca, Torres and Sampaio 2017). Employees of all levels are
given the importance regardless of their position or job ranks in the company. It is a kind of
culture where low-level employees don't hesitate to raise their voice for a problem they face and
the good things they want to be in the workplace. Employees' requests for wage increases and
position changes are given serious consideration by the management of the company.
Engagement Related Initiatives
A company that keeps its people engaged in their work will have more chances to
successfully achieve more numbers of new goals. Xero does many things to facilitate
employee engagement. One of these is the facilitation of the total rewards system. The total
rewards system in Xero includes several benefits and compensation offerings for their
employees. All these benefits and compensation offerings are effectively aligned with the below-
mentioned objectives of the company (Xero Accounting Software 2020):
● Drive shareholder value to support the business strategy and culture
● Align the interests of employees with the shareholders of Xero to implement a right and
the most feasible behaviors
● Attract skilled people regardless of their cultural, gender and physical orientation, and
nurture them with the best care to retain them and motivate towards the emerging
business needs of the company

6PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
The management team at Xero reviews these objectives annually to make the required
changes accordingly to the compensation and benefits programs to work more efficiently
towards these objectives. As with many global companies, Xero makes adjustments to these
compensation offerings and benefits according to the local market conditions, the regulatory
structure of the market and the business objectives. Like for many other companies in the world,
Xero also gives importance to performance both at the individual as well as the company level
(Smith and Bititci 2017). It is because of these there can be found a good synchronisation
between the integrated performance management system in the company and their compensation
strategy. Cultural behaviours such as these result in excellent business performance for the
company.
The likelihood of success
Since any compensation offerings are aligned with the shareholders' interest in the
company, there are bound to be concerns from the employees' side. For instance, there might be
a night allowance to ensure that the company has a sufficient number of people in the night shift
as required. The synchronisation between the night allowance and the count for the people in the
night shift can be a justified move for the company as well as its stakeholders. They will be able
to see their goals fulfilled in a few amounts of time. However, from the perspective of
employees, this initiative of the company may not be a good idea to go with. One or a few
employees may have concerns with the night shifts. Pushing these people to the night shifts just
for the sake of the shareholder returns and the economic benefits of the company will affect their
moral values for the company (Yunita and Saputra 2019). According to Dall’Ora et al. (2016),
such employees would perceive as being forced to be a part of the night shift. Nevertheless, it is
more difficult than anything else for the employer to rectify such perceptions.

7PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Conclusion
From the analysis of Xero as conducted in this study, a few important points to be of the
importance of a business can be identified. First, workplace diversity can be seriously facilitated
by accommodating programs that could be of significant use. For instance, organisations can
take the help of seminars and outreach programs to the universities and colleges to resource a
diversified workforce. Second, by giving more opportunities to employees to be vocal they can
be welcomed to give more suggestions. Most importantly if their concerns are addressed
effectively, the employees will get much-needed trust on the employer and will increase their
rate of suggestions in the future. Third, the total rewards system is the demand of the situation
for any major organisation in the world. However, it can be accomplished only if there are clear
objectives in place and employees have a good understanding of these objectives. Nevertheless,
any grievance of employees should be given serious concern to ensure they have full trust in
their employer and that they are effectively aligned to the objectives of the total rewards system
in the company.

8PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
References
Asx.com.au 2020. [online] Asx.com.au. Available at:
<https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20190516/pdf/445434h484j299.pdf> [Accessed 17 April
2020].
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Cletus, H.E., Mahmood, N.A., Umar, A. and Ibrahim, A.D., 2018. Prospects and challenges of
workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTICA–Journal of
Business and Public Administration, 9(2), pp.35-52.
Dall’Ora, C., Ball, J., Recio-Saucedo, A. and Griffiths, P., 2016. Characteristics of shift work
and their impact on employee performance and wellbeing: A literature review. International
journal of nursing studies, 57, pp.12-27.
Hanaysha, J., 2016. Testing the effects of employee empowerment, teamwork, and employee
training on employee productivity in higher education sector. International Journal of Learning
and Development, 6(1), pp.164-178.
Hsieh, J.Y. and Liou, K.T., 2018. Collaborative leadership and organizational performance:
Assessing the structural relation in a public service agency. Review of Public Personnel
Administration, 38(1), pp.83-109.
Proenca, T., Torres, A. and Sampaio, A.S., 2017. Frontline employee empowerment and
perceived customer satisfaction. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy
of Management.

9PEOPLE, CULTURE AND CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP
Sergio, R.P. and Rylova, M., 2018. Employee engagement and empowerment as gateway
towards retention: The case of Volkswagen group. Journal of Eastern European and Central
Asian Research (JEECAR), 5(2), pp.11-11.
Smith, M. and Bititci, U.S., 2017. Interplay between performance measurement and
management, employee engagement and performance. International Journal of Operations &
Production Management.
Xero Accounting Software 2020. Online Accounting Software – Free Trial, Free Support | Xero.
[online] Xero Accounting Software. Available at: <https://www.xero.com/> [Accessed 17 April
2020].
Yunita, P.I. and Saputra, I.G.N.W.H., 2019. Millennial generation in accepting mutations:
Impact on work stress and employee performance. International journal of social sciences and
humanities, 3(1), pp.102-114.