PlusOne – Marketing Musings

For the past twenty years many workplaces have operated on the principle that employees are like any other part of the company inventory. People have tasks and that is what they are employed to do. However, with the economic crisis, the value of good staff is seeing this view rapidly changing, and many highly successful businesses, ranging from the largest of corporations to firms of just a few people are finding a new and exciting method of doing business – organically.

Before we start to think the author has gone troppo, let me explain. While the hardware of a business is often important, without the people who make the business happen, most business would not last a week. The fully automated workplace is not a realistic alternative and increasingly staff are expressing the need to have their needs better met.

This is the new challenge facing many mangers. But what exactly is the challenge?

Essentially there are five major components.

1. Being able to relate to each other through effective communications. Communications occurs on many levels, and modern managers must accept the challenge of facilitating communication through all levels of the business. This may take the form of allowing more formal communications to take place with greater accessibility to all. Closed upper management meetings are often worse than not having meetings at all. This is not to say that all staff should have access to such meetings, but their input should be encouraged and acknowledged, and accurate feedback provided.

Honesty plays an important role in this process.

Communication can also take place in an informal way and can provide an important structural jump for workers in junior positions to have access to the most senior management.

2. Part of effective communication is management of conflict. Open and honest communication can often reveal deep seated problems which in turn can reduce the effectiveness of teams and work units. Effective dealing with conflict can also release new ideas and provide management with the opportunity to re-examine these issues involved with a fresh outlook.

Conflict of a significant nature can often require a formal process of negotiation to effective appease all parties, however disagreements over certain work practices can often provide a rich breeding ground for new ideas.

3. Of course new ideas evoke an often highly passionate response from those who are firmly encased within their ‘comfort zones’ and experience difficulty dealing with change. Even those who claim to be able to be ready adapters to new situations are often susceptible to the four stage cycle of dealing with change. Unfortunately organisations which do not change are those at greatest risk. As a result it has become an accepted norm that instead of merely accepting that change is part of the new workplace, better methods of dealing with change need to be provided to employees and management (including owners) to manage change for the betterment of all.

Change, conflict and communication all have outlets in perhaps one of the most important parts of an organic organisation, creativity.

4. No longer can the organisations exist relying on the ideas and thoughts of the chosen few without the creativity of all. Truly successful organisations are finding that excellent ideas come from the factory floor or the office junior who has a completely different perspective on the problems and issues facing the company. Often it is the workforce, those in daily contact with the public face of the business who are most acutely aware of the real issues facing the business.

5. All said and done the greatest challenge in any business is helping employees achieve their goals by encouraging and directing those needs along the same lines as the needs of the business. This is a critical step facing many organisations both large and small. It is a subtle difference in that unless the employee feels that company is assisting them, the employee will not fully assist the company.

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