“You cannot change the people around you. But you can change the people that you choose to be around.” UNKNOWN
During Strategic Planning sessions, companies would gather their leadership team & select employees to seek their take on how to do better, boost efficiency, be agile, and achieve sustainable growth for both short term & long-term. Among those to be determined are strategic internal investments. Using the right lens combined with a reliable gut feel of what is truly needed & impactful, the path to becoming successful becomes is being defined by the output & its implementation.
Most common that I’ve had the pleasure of evaluating, challenging or recommending strategic investments were on process optimization, technology integration or leveraging emerging technologies, operational transparency or real time data accessibility, quality & compliance, customer experience or feedback, innovation, Research & Development and employee development among others.
As in any investment, strategic internal investments are costly. The average cost can vary widely depending on the size, industry, and geographic scope of a company. Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises would typically depending on focus like cost management systems, basic automation, employee training, and digital tools required thousands of
For Multinational Corporations (MNCs), it is a typical range for their internal strategic investments to allocate millions. For established MNCs, the intangible turns of such huge investments are all worth it. Investing on operational excellence, global ERP systems, AI-driven analytics, R&D hubs, sustainability programs, facility expansion and cross-border compliance systems are top priority.
For Philippine SMEs, there is significant investment on better management accounting practices, automation & digitalization that aims to improve company’s cost efficiency among others.
I remember listening to a company founder who proudly declared that building his company took “blood, sweat & tears”. I thought to myself “whose blood….whose sweat…whose tears was he talking about? In a high pressure work environment, I can just imagine how stressed employees might have been. But then again, maybe it was those challenging situation/s that made the company successful. Was it all worth it though? For the company founder, surely it was all worth it. But for the employees….maybe yes or maybe not at all. This was when I realized the equal importance of investing in good feelings.
To a certain degree, business stability or profitability, is parallel to a toxic work environment & a stressed work force. In making sure targets & goals are achieved, high level pressure may have to be “gladly” exchanged between stakeholders. This is actually very damaging both mentally and physically for employees and to the company as well because it ultimately leads to unnecessary discord.
Discord may see the start of employees being excluded. HR keeps becoming simply unreachable and a “cordon sanitaire” shields management from getting hold of honest feedback. When employees feel unheard, they feel undervalued and insignificant. Any sense of helplessness & alienation between colleagues and to one’s immediate supervisor or isolation of company management is concerning. concern. Such situation marginalizes employees & isolates management. When dots become disconnected, problems start to arise.
One thing I’ve learned is when a stressful situation is experienced first-hand, it creates a lingering a bad feeling. If unaddressed, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth that is hard to ignore nor forget. And the worst is when the perceived perpetuators are the one’s immediate supervisor, HR or management itself. Somehow it comes across as being tolerated. Helplessness from within may push employees take drastic steps like seeking external support. Always ready to intervene are either government regulatory bodies, workers groups & federations or legal professionals.
For many HR professionals, the difficult task of balancing between the needs &/or wants of employees against the goals of the company, often find themselves in a uniquely isolated position. While walking a tightrope of confidentiality, fairness and empathy, HR needs to be decisive which some unfairly describe as outright being inconsiderate, unsympathetic & self-serving. This results to a sense of professional loneliness.
Expect employees who cannot get HR or management support first seek support from allies within the organization who may be able to advocate on their behalf and help address the toxic behavior. Ideally, the allies of employees should be their immediate supervisors &/or HR. Unfortunately, a toxic work environment prevents that. This is when the endeavor to gain the sympathy & support from colleagues and other stakeholders is by magnifying unresolved the shortcomings.
Though the HR department plays the lead role in addressing workplace problems, in reality the help of the immediate supervisors or department managers is most crucial because they are the first point of contact for employees. They are primarily responsible in handling & resolving complaints and concerns even before elevating this to the next level for proper disposition.
Admittedly, whenever faced with unsavory situation in the workplace, those in management & HR included, tend to get defensive because they might feel employees do not really have a reason to feel bad. “Is there still anything we need to do? Have we neglected to give anything more? What more can we do? What more do they want?”.
Easiest of course would be sweeping these under the rug instead of doing a deep dive of the situation. Though convenient, it is classic shortsightedness. Any bad feeling that emanates from the workplace can be caused by a multitude of factors. It could be bad communication channels, conflict avoidance instead of resolution, approachability image of leadership team, disregard for true diversity and Inclusion, non-compliance or perceived ineffectiveness of HR etc. To intentionally lose the opportunity to help resolve such issues is negligence. The humility to admit that there is something wrong is understandably difficult to do.
Here are some simple ways in investing on good feelings in the workplace based on things we’ve done & experienced:
Celebrating with a purpose, specially anything that is about employees. Showing people that they matter in on their birthdays, personal wins, or anniversaries actually are still appreciated. It does not to be the popular cake or a fancy coffee mug. Just a quick shoutout in company social media or chat thread will be truly impactful. Making recognition a habit make employees feel that they are seen by their managers & leaders.
Make sure employees hear directly from HR and execs present about wins, changes, shared goals and problems & challenges during regular communications meetings.
On-the-Floor presence is as important specially for leadership team as scheduled communications meetings. Visibility is everything. It helps prevent being tagged as either “assistant owner or God’s chosen ones”. Regularly walking the floors to connect people gives the to check what goes on with employee.
Companies & HR should veer away from being merely built for policy enforcement but first & foremost for employee growth & development. Championing opportunities for employees & their family members lead to better engagement.
Humor can help diffuse any tense situations or bring down barriers. Laughter in the mix is always a game changer because it helps to humanize top management & employees. There is always something that is commonly amusing & funny.
A supervisor or manager, HR or top management should be models of emotional intelligence. The way we handle stressful situations set the tone for the company. An angry leader begets a frightened team.
Creating safe spaces is also important to ensure psychological safety.
The presence a reporting mechanism that ensures non-retaliation is effective in getting honest feedback from employees. Preferably those run & manned by third party service providers adds a layer of protection for any whistleblower. Anonymous reports should be acted upon, be they downright trivial or quite serious with the same sense of urgency & importance. Any caller must informed of the progress of reported incident from initial action taken to result of investigation until sanction. Inviting honest feedback encourages open communication channels and builds trust but you need to protect sources as well.
Aside from an “open door policy”, it is also about time to do listening without any walls. In between is making sure that employees can ask about anything, no ifs no buts, trust and confidence in each other is built because it shows accessibility.
Investing in good feelings is the golden opportunity to make the immediate supervisors, managers, HR or top management not just focus on profit but on conflict resolution, labor-management collaboration, or even retention campaigns and a better work environment.
As an OrgDev practitioner & a respectful workplace advocate, investing in something intangible as good feeling though cheaper in terms of cost is more valuable in terms of impact. To ignore the opportunity to engage employees positively while trying to grapple with a diversifying global market, evolving workplace practices and changing worker demeanor & preferences, is costly. Grab it & own it.
When employees start seeing themselves as worthless or unappreciated, any of the much vaunted above standard compensation & benefits, a world class facility & amenities, freebies & perks etc. become insignificant, unappreciated & irrelevant to employees.
Makes one wonder why some minimum wage workers in other industries have remained happy, completely dedicated and loyal to their company in good & hard times. By merely holding on the good relationship & good feeling built through the years, they’ve had with their colleagues, supervisors & leadership team, they are holding on to the promise that things will become better, eventually. That is good ROI right there.
Investing in good feeling, requires hard work & the involvement of all stakeholders. This makes it a strategic internal investment in itself because everybody should be invested in it. It is a big bet to place. Though it is a gamble, it is always worth the try. In some instance, it might work immediately or might take more time to be felt, but with patience & perseverance, one will almost always one hit the jackpot – a good feeling in the workplace.
GOOD MORNING HARDWORKING PEOPLE!
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