The London Business Journal Volume 2 Issue 5, 2015

Page 15

Human Resources

www.londonbusinessjournal.co.uk

Humans Build Successful Businesses By Zufi Deo and Rachel Sparks

recorded in IT systems. Their contrast to seeing work as an know-how has meaning. It inhumane experience they have allows a company build a to endure to pay the bills. sustainable competitive advantage. A simple way to help your This is all great. But, we live in a staff in this direction is to use cutthroat world where the more social engagement tools like trained and experienced staff will dance. Yep ! Heard it all before I be poached by others. So why hear you say. Thats what you do would we as business owners in night clubs. This is my office make this investment only for space so why should I have a others reap the rewards? These nightclub environment in my are are valid and standard business? A simple answer is questions business owners ask that it helps the staff feel human. themselves all the time. So how By the way no one is suggesting can we organise businesses in a loud music and free drinks - just way that allows us to treat our the social environment bit. It Treating staff as an asset staff as humans while we still helps them relate to each other. means we have to invest in It allows the staff to bond with and develop them. We have to recoup the investments we make sure their needs as human make in them - after all we are each other. The more the staff businesses? can relate, talk and share knowbeings are understood and how with each other, the more motivate them using carrots as A simple solution is to look at creative a business becomes opposed to sticks. There is a business as a collection of and this means the more always the inevitable time lag people. This means when innovative the business between knowing and doing people join your business they becomes. Naturally staff something about it. Let's be retention rates go up and what honest, we are nurtured to see do so because they share the the impact on the cost base first. same vision and values as you the staff generate together do. This means they join your delivers value for the business. business to support you in When we see our staff and Let's not forget the embedded look at the cost base, we are realising the vision. This is achieved using the values and know-how in people can only still using the old industrial be shared voluntarily. The mindset - where the staff were standards you have set. This encourages them to look beyond more they interact with each treated like machines. Here their own daily needs and treat other the more likely they are to they were expendable in the share this deeply embedded same way machines were. This their jobs with more meaning. starts to change with the rise of This isn’t to say they don't have knowledge. So making the office the service sector and staff are bills to pay or have these kinds environment people-friendly of concerns. It's to say once they does help the business. It does treated as knowledge assets that add value to the business. start to come to work to achieve not even need much more something as a team they investment! They are seen as holders of deliver greater value. This is in deep data that cannot be Zufi Deo and Rachel Sparks are the Co Founders of SparkZ Ignite, a startup that uses dance as an action based medium to help build high-performance teams. For further information visit: www.sparkzignite.co.uk There is a paradigm shift going on. In the same way the UK has become a service oriented economy. The way organisations are structured is fast changing as well. Services are people orientated. This means as we make a mass migration to services we also need to make our businesses more humane. For instance, the days when employers treated their staff as a cost on the balance sheet are numbered. Now staff are seen as an asset.

Volume 2 Issue 5, 201 5

www.londonbusinessjournal.co.uk

15


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