Australian bosses are more likely to pay higher wages for curious minds

Imagine that! Seven in 10 Australian bosses are more likely to pay higher wages to workers with high levels of curiousity and an ability to think outside the box.

New research from global software corporation SAP has found it pays to be curious with seven in 10 Australian business leaders (72 per cent) likely to pay above average wages for workers with high levels of curiosity.

Most business leaders agree a culture of curiosity will help them better tackle challenges, adapt and grow post-pandemic, and the Capitalising on Curiosity research conducted by YouGov for SAP reveals 91 per cent say their organisation values qualities associated with curiosity:

● Three in four (77 per cent) believe they purposefully hire people with a curious mind;

● 54 per cent say most or all of the employees they have promoted in the past 12 months have high levels of curiosity;

● Curiosity traits most valued are an ability to listen (43 per cent); innovativeness (39 per cent); and an ability to think outside the box (38 per cent).

SAP managing director (ANZ) Damien Bueno says organisations value people who understand data and apply curiosity.

“Asking the right questions at the right time, being confident to seek out data and draw conclusions, leads to better decision making and, ultimately, enables organisations to be bolder,” Bueno says.

Blake Garrett, who came up with the idea for his School Bytes company while still in high school.

Sydney-based Blake Garrett, founder and chief executive of school accounts software company School Bytes, credits his curiosity about how to help staff frustrated at printing, folding and mailing accounts and permission slips to parents with helping him launch his business in Year 12.

He now encourages it as a core value in his own workplace.

“We hire people who have that sense of curiosity … who we believe can maintain School Bytes’ positive reputation in the ed-tech ecosystem and who can continue our history of innovation to deliver new and enhanced features,” Garrett, 24, says. “We would be willing to pay an employee more if they had a curious mind, as we see it as a precursor to fostering our company culture of innovation and collaboration.”

Imogen Low, 24, co-founder and chief technical officer of NOW.ai, says employees stand out if they have “a thirst for new knowledge and an excitement for always testing your limits”.

She dropped out of university to teach herself coding and satisfy her curiosity about AI and machine learning before working for SAP and now runs her start-up out of New York with $8 million in funding and 15 staff.

Imogen Low, co-founder of tech start-up NOW.ai.

“By the time I was 18, I had designed and developed technology systems that had won national and international innovation and technology awards,” she says. She says her curiosity helped her progress through the ranks of SAP in Asia where she worked on augmented and virtual reality systems, big data projects, machine learning models and blockchain technology, which eventually lead her to starting her own company.

“Having an innately curious mindset leads you down new paths and to new possibilities that you could never imagine.”

Low now hosts a weekly “unbounded exploration” sessions to inspire curiosity and creative out of the box thinking. She also hires “naturally inquisitive individuals”.

“I ask candidates to talk about projects outside of their formal education or professional experience that they’ve pioneered for themselves to satisfy their own curiosity. I ask what the candidate is learning, or reading, or interested in. This is to get a sense of unique perspectives and competing ideas they could bring to the team.”

“Some of our most successful hires have been ones with entire portfolios of personal projects they have undertaken, or ones who have even tried running their own businesses.”

Originally published as Australian bosses are more likely to pay higher wages for curious minds