Employees are People

Employees are People, not just Resources.

Some managers say people are their greatest resource, but they only see the employee as an engineer or an accountant; not the whole person with additional strengths and desires.

We typically only see what is on the surface. Looking at an iceberg, we see there is more below sea level than above. People are the same. If we know our employees well enough to know what is below “see” level, we will find untapped strengths and passionate desires. When we allow an employee to do the work that matches their strengths and passions, we will have people with high job satisfaction that love what they do and are not easily persuaded to leave for a different opportunity.

To make this work for our business we must consider another concept. Everything is changing as time goes on; customers’ needs, technology and employees’ knowledge and desires, etc. I think of these ongoing changes as similar to multiple rivers merging into one; which in the business world is our business plan. We can either control the merger of the changes with forward planning or live through the turbulence that will happen in the “rapids” as these changes intersect.

The missing element in most organizations is merging these two concepts; the iceberg concept and the flowing rivers concept. For maximum results organizations need to recognize the employee as a whole person and let them fit into the flow.

If we take our current organizational chart, truly understand our employees and use the current business plan as a starting point and then project the future needs, we can see the gaps and guide the “flow of the rivers” into the future. There will be modifications along the way, but our people and our customers will be happier as we reduce the potential turbulence.