Business owners. Founders. Entrepreneurs. Ask yourself this question: Where would you be without your people?
“Nothing,” is the correct answer.
Yes. Insert appropriate scream.
Did you know that being “people centric” as a business owner – when you INVEST in caring about your teams and helping your employees grow – results in 3x the revenue and sales versus those who view people as a commodity? 💵💰💵
People-Centric Equals People Over Profit
Culture. Inclusivity. Diversity. Empathy. An emphasis on PURPOSE over PROFIT (trust us, emphasize purpose and the profits will come!). These are all parts of what it takes to be a “people-centric” organization.
As a recent Forbes piece maps out, the C-suite needs to start asking themselves: ‘“How do I start creating that sense of purpose so that people want to excel at doing this?” By examining and thereby tapping into the core drives of their workers, leaders will inspire their teams to put meaning and intention into their work. By positioning purpose as a priority, people-centricity will become a natural, dominant characteristic of your organization.”
We wanted to talk more about this way of approaching business – especially in the wake of Covid-19 and the insane change and resultant stress employees are feeling today.
So, we went to one of the best.
Hilda Gan is President and Chief People Officer of People Bright Consulting, an HR management consulting firm that delivers customized HR solutions.
And she’s our guest on the 4 AM Report this week!
We talk about:
💫 Building strong work cultures, and creating strong, healthy foundations with your people.
💫 How to face uncomfortable discussions head on.
💫 The power of the pivot (👈👈👈 UGH, there’s that word again! 🤣) when faced with unexpected change. 🦠😷🦠
💫 And knowing your company’s VALUES, and matching (‘ish) those values when hiring.
Read on for more!
The Big Pivot in Times of Change
“When they announced [the lockdowns] back in March all of a sudden, I said, wait a minute, I’m human resources, everybody is going to be wondering what they need to do with their people, how many are they going to lay off, etc.? Are they going to keep people? And I realized that I had a key role to play in helping businesses, particularly the small to medium sized business owners. And within one week, my team and I said, ‘Okay, we can do this, let’s develop a webinar that will help the small to medium sized employers figure out what they need to do. Give them information about the government’s changes, the grants, the subsidies, give them the Human Resources side of what it’s like to work remotely, what do you need to do going forward. And we started with twice a week – and got tired after five weeks of doing that, because there was so much going on! (laughs) But I’m proud to say that, you know, we set it down to once every two weeks now, and we’ve done 29 episodes on how to manage your employees – how to strategically manage. My background, it’s not just human resources. I was responsible for the business operations of the company, seven offices across Canada. But I really want to help people and I have this expertise, not only in how to manage a business, but manage the HR side of the business.”
People-Centric Businesses Prevail
“People are procrastinators when trying to make the right decisions, they will try to avoid anything that’s confrontational or anxiety producing. And all of those decisions can be difficult conversations. Do I shuffle around the shifts that people work? Make people reduce their hours? Lay off some people? Those are all difficult conversations. [Owners] need to think strategically, then they have to execute that and communicate that and communicate it in a way that doesn’t impact negatively on the rest of the people at work. Because it’s about making sure that you keep the work culture as positive as possible. I often talk about stress. My word of advice for people is to get to know your staff. For example, when you know that this person is a young single person who’s working remotely, they don’t have human contact. They truly are in isolation. Versus the family of five people with three kids at home – each of them are stressed, but they’re stressed in different ways. And if you as a manager, have the nuances, a few touch points that help you in your decision making, that lets them know you care, and you’ve connected to them. So, it’s building trust, and it’s building a stronger work culture by thinking about people and moving it together.”
Map Out Your Mission, and Know Your Vision and Values
“I think what people need to do is find out what they’re passionate about, find out what they’re really good at. And focus on doing that well. Stop trying to do it all with business. And a way to stop doing that is really have a mission, vision, and values. And, I know, that’s a dirty word. I come from a corporate kind of environment as well, you know, knee deep in organizations, where you blah, blah, blah, for three days, and you have this document that says, ‘I will create the utmost best workplace in Canada for 20 years!’ Impossible. But as a business owner, with two to 10 people, guess who gets to make the mission vision values? You do! You are the business owner, you get to decide what your mission is. What are your values? And what is your vision of that. When you create the mission, vision, and values, you actually create a platform to build everything, to build your client. And to take the clients you want based on that. [To build] the type of HR program you want, and the type of operations you want. Having that mission, vision, values, so important. And hiring people who have values that are similar – they don’t have to be 100% – but they have to be similar in discord. If I can help you, as a business owner, make it a better place to work, it’s going to increase your profits, it’s been proven that people who are business owners who are people centric, that invest in caring about people, helping people grow and nurturing, them actually yield two to three times the revenue and sales of their counterparts who think of it of people as a commodity. So, my secret sauce is if I can influence business owners, they in turn, make it a great place to work. And people love to come to work and they’re less anxious.”
PREACH! 👆👆👆
There’s lots more from Hilda in the actual episode, so shift gears for 20 minutes and have a listen.
If you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem during this Covid-19 economic uncertainty, or if you have a guest idea on the topic, let us know. Drop us a line at c+p digital.
And as always, sweet dreams…well, hopefully!
