Picture an organization of any kind, be it a small non-profit organization run by five team members or a large multinational corporation with thousands of employees; now take away the people. What do you have left? Not a whole lot.
You may have envisioned the organization’s physical resources as what was left behind such as empty buildings and quiet offices, or its financial resources like the money behind the business, but no matter how great an organization’s physical or financial resources, or how successful its product or service, it is clear that no organization can thrive without its foundation and its blood – its people.
People are an organization’s strongest resource. They are the intelligence, the skill, the decision makers and the energy behind the success (or even failure) of any organization. World renowned companies like Google are respected for their innovation and the quality of their service, but it is Google’s people who come up with its new ideas, develop its services, and decide how to handle its challenges; they are the brains behind the machine that fuel the organization’s advancement. Google’s ideas and concepts may be easily duplicated and implemented by competitors, but the actions of Google’s employees are inimitable; and the same applies to every organization.
People are an invaluable resource to organizations, and so businesses of all kinds are becoming increasingly selective with the talent they bring into their teams. Recruiters and Human Resources professionals’ major job is to ensure that interested job applicants have the right experience, attitudes, ability and decision-making skills that fit an organization’s culture and in turn, help drive it to success. Employers cannot afford to simply fill positions; they must ensure that positions are filled with the right people and that these right people are there to stay. This means employers are responsible for taking special care to ensure that their employees are satisfied and happy with their positions and work culture, no matter how major or minor their role.
With people being such an invaluable resource to organizations, many businesses are moving towards “people-driven’ strategies that focus on the long-term satisfaction of their people as a stepping stone to the organization’s achievement. This requires developing a compelling vision, a strategy for achieving it, as well as incentives that ensure that people work toward that vision as a team.
Are people-driven strategies working? It seems so. In the 2012 report by BC Business on the Best Companies to Work for in BC, Hootsuite ranked as the #1 business to work for as a business with more than 100 employees. Hootsuite’s CEO Ryan Holmes explained that this was achieved by emphasizing the organization’s “employee-centric” approach which includes quarterly employment-engagement surveys that ensure that his employees are motivated and involved reaching in Hootsuite’s vision.
One employee at Hootsuite described the organization as feeling like a “functional family”, another discussed how Hootsuite went out of its way to keep one of its unhappy employees rather than let him go, by transitioning him to a new role that was a better fit for his personality. Maybe this employee-centric approach is a factor behind why Hootsuite is approaching a business value of almost $500-million? They must be doing something right by making people a priority.
A natural need to collaborate is essential for the survival of humankind, and much like the world functions in that way, business too was created by people, in collaboration with people, for the purpose of serving people. Without people, business too could not survive. Offices, buildings and money have little chance of serving anyone alone and so it is essential that we understand the major role people play in organizations. Just like a heart cannot beat without flowing blood, an organization cannot live without its solid team of talented, dedicated and engaged people.
Sylva Sivz. 