14 Aug Human Capital: #1 Form of Waste in Business
“42% of the average company’s intellectual capital exists only within its employees’ heads?” – Thomas Brailsford
Opportunistic Considerations
A recent report by the Deloitte Consulting Firm titled Global Human Capital Trends states:
“Organizations today are increasingly judged on the basis of their relationships with their workers, their customers, and their communities, as well as their impact on society at large—transforming them from business enterprises into social enterprises.”
“A social enterprise is an organization whose mission combines revenue growth and profit making with the need to respect and support its environment and stakeholder network. This includes listening to, investing in, and actively managing the trends that are shaping today’s world. It is an organization that shoulders its responsibility to be a good citizen (both inside and outside the organization), serving as a role model for its peers and promoting a high degree of collaboration at every level of the organization.”
There were over 11,000 world leaders, CEO’s and HR representatives, who provided input into this study which created this insight from a global perspective. As small business owners, many of you have the opportunity to capitalize on these trends and fill the niches identified. Are you and your business poised to accept the challenge? Does your company invest in training personnel or build their competencies to be agile and change ready?
Furthermore, in the 2018 Small Business Profile Report by the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy:
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- There are over 30.2M small businesses within the US and these businesses employ over 58.9M people.
- The firms with fewer than 100 employees have the largest share of small business employment, which have created over 1.9M new jobs.
- The largest growth was seen in small businesses with fewer than 20 employees with over 1.1M jobs (58% of total growth).
- Over 8 million are minority or woman owned businesses.
- Over 288,000 are small business exporters
Common Thread
The common thread for both of these articles is People, your investment in your Human Capital. Did you know Human Capital is the largest wasted resource within companies, despite their company size or revenue generation? People want to be valued, trusted, and respected and their productivity is directly correlated with their feeling of appreciation. The larger the company the harder it is to understand and meet the needs of each individual person.
Therefore, it is no surprise the largest growth is within the ‘under 20 employees’ segment. This segment allows people to work in small team groups and provides an easier communication format through face to face interaction. However, it is still important to understand the individual and team dynamics to build for growth. Does your infrastructure and company culture create an environment of collaboration, communication and problem solving?
Human Capital
Humans are individuals whose needs are defined by their upbringing, their environment and their tolerance for risk or change. It is an individual preference and it is about being different than the person they are interacting with on a daily basis. People do business with people they trust, and without a mutual sense of trust people avoid each other. This leads to hostile working environments, stress and sickness with both the employees and the organization. The Deloitte report also states, “Today, the definition of wellness has expanded dramatically to include a range of programs aimed at not only protecting employee health, but actively boosting performance as well as social and emotional well-being.” Does your company address the performance of the individual and the collaborative value for the team? Is the social and emotional well-being of the employee identified and being met?
Business growth relies on the relationships built within the company culture and it has to balance the needs of the employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, networks, other business owners, referrals and testimonials. To build trusted relationships means they have to be healthy, collaborative, and personally enriching by taking care of your people and building a cohesive network for company growth. What guiding principles does your company have in place to foster a culture of relationship building and problem solving?
At the end of the day, a socially responsible company takes care of their people, has processes (guiding principles) to empower the social and emotional, and educational well-being of the relationships needed to become and sustain a successful organization. You need all three components to ensure a balanced approach to business growth. Wouldn’t it be helpful if you knew someone who could help you create an environment of employee empowerment through trust, collaboration, and problem solving?
LEGO® Serious Play® Method
The Leading to Unlock mission is to “Unlock the Potential within People, Processes and Organizations.” We specialize in the use of the LEGO® Serious Play® method which is a thinking, communication and problem solving technique for groups. The value of the LEGO® Serious Play® methodology allows groups to ‘play with purpose’ using LEGO® bricks and the patented clutch power. It helps the group see the entire system they are part of and it gives them perspective to the team’s role, individual relationships to each other, and the team culture they want to create. This method creates the time and space in which employees can immerse themselves in exploring possibilities, create imaginary ‘what if’ scenarios and requires no decision making.
Contact Gail Kulas, she can create a session specific for your needs.