Frank Appel sits on a couch surrounded by delivery drones, augmented-reality glasses and package-sorting robots. It looks like the playground of a big tech company. That is the point.

Since the 56-year-old became chief executive of Deutsche Post DHL in 2008, he has sought to make the German postal service and international courier an engaging place to work. The humdrum activity of moving things from A to B can be boring. But to Mr Appel, his 522,000 employees play a critical role in forming the backbone to globalisation, or what he calls “the biggest peacemaker on this planet”.

“What drives people is not top-line growth,” he says, in an interview at DHL’s innovation centre in Bonn. “Our purpose has to be very explicitly understood by every employee. The more it’s understood, the better the performance of the company.” His core belief: when goals are mainly financial, purpose is often lost. Increasing revenue is a target that is meaningless to most employees.