People are the driving force of any organization, neither the buildings nor the machines. Organizations face 3 key challenges when it comes to humans:
- The ability to maintain a healthy & trustful relationship between the organization’s leadership and the fellow teams and employees.
- The ability to maintain workplace happiness, employee engagement and satisfaction.
- The ability to develop and nurture the employee’s sense of belonging to the workplace.
Employees develop a sense of belonging to a workplace when:
The workplace adds value to them, and they keep on learning everyday
The workplace invests in its people development, coaches them, trains them, involves them in shadowing activities in-field, educates them, pushes them to develop their skills, and exposes them to new experiences & challenges that forces them to stretch their capabilities and unleash their powers. People will then feel grateful to the company.
They feel heard & empowered
People can tell whether you’re truly listening to them or just acting as if you’re listening, true listening either leads to a relevant feedback/response in return, or leads to actions. Otherwise they won’t feel their voices matter.
Treated as partners not resources
People-Driven Organizations value every single member of the team, they capitalize on the employee’s strengths instead of reminding them of their weaknesses. They bring the best of out of people. Every employee is crucial for the overall output, and every employee is a special individual on their own terms, not just another resource filling a role. After receiving the proper training & coaching, an employee should be trusted to do the job, fully own it, and held accountable on the results.
Encouraged to express themselves & their opinions are valued
In many companies, we see employees afraid to speak freely and openly in the presence of their management, due to the fear of being judged, hammered or criticized, and these kinds of environments are like graveyards for all great and creative ideas. When leaders encourage people to speak out their minds, and treat them as trusted co-workers not subordinates, people start sharing their creative thoughts, and most likely these creative thoughts lead to initiatives or paradigm shifts that take the whole company to the next level.
Their personal values are aligned with the organization’s values
A conflict between one’s personal values and the values embraced by the company – the values that are actually being embraced in daily operations and interactions, not the values written in the employee’s handbook & presented in the company’s orientation session – makes an employee feel like a stranger, and they will face hard times trying to adapt, and might actually lose their original identity in the process which might even lead to depression.
They love what they do, their passion does not conflict with their job
People are happier and more productive when: they love what they do, they have enough space to practice their passion within the workplace, they have enough time to do what they love after working hours, or they found a way to mix their passion with their job. Make sure your people are in one of these four states.
They are accepted just the way they are without judgments or attempts of alteration
Unfortunately, when an employee reaches a managerial role through their effort and work ethic, they most likely tend to believe that their way to reach what they’ve achieved is the only way, and that every subordinate should just follow the same road and the same methodologies – “my way or the high way”. So they start unconsciously forcing their people to copy them in everything even in stuff that shouldn’t be copied, and they judge them when they act out of their own personality, creativity, or identity. People need to be accepted just the way they are, and encouraged to bring their unique personalities to the workplace; this encouragement impacts their overall productivity in an extremely positive way. A team needs to be more diversified rather than becoming a bunch of copies of their manager. Differences should be accepted & celebrated. The only thing that should be copied or duplicated are the end-results, not how we reach the end-results – as long as the employee doesn’t breach the code of ethics.
They have positive relationships and true friendships within the workplace
This might be the most important factor. The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Same applies to the workplace. The sense of belonging to the company starts with the sense of belonging to a group within the company, and having true relationships that matter anyway aside from work. People look forward to going to work everyday when they know they are going to meetup with their friends there.
“A workplace can become a great environment for people to stay and not quit, when it feels like home, when they find the appreciation and support they maybe didn’t get from their own families, when they find friends they can catch up with daily not every once in a while, when they find a leader who truly believes in them, helps them build their self-confidence and treats them as the next leader. People’s happiness at the workplace is not only determined by their salaries – it’s important though – but also by how much the company brings the best out of them, and transforms them into better human beings in general.”
