The workplace has evolve so rapidly over the last decade or two and this can largely be attributed to technological advancement. It makes it difficult whether to place emphasis on people or process. Technology and systems have brought speed at the workplace and it’s almost taken the shine out of people. It is a major threat because we have experienced job losses. Sometimes it is surprising when businesses invest heavily into technology and “process” at the neglect of people – forgetting that it is the people who will implement these processes. Processes are made to ease work, minimize risk and increase productivity amongst others. This clearly points to the fact that there should be focus on people development. The interest, wellbeing, learning and development of your employees must be reshaped.
Organizations must have a culture that focuses on people – at its core, the Netflix company culture is about “people over process”. The company offers its employees generous benefits like unlimited holidays and an expense policy that simply requires people to “act in Netflix’s best interests”. While it’s not surprising that 70% of employees on Glassdoor would recommend working at Netflix to a friend, there’s more to their success than unlimited holidays. Netflix has on its website information that explains its mission, values and culture, including what behavior are expected of employees in order to become part of the “dream team”.
Revolutionizing corporate culture to centre on employee is one best way to get the best out of people especially in this media era, job applicants visit websites to acquaint themselves with company core values and culture before they decide to work with the company. This is showing how sophisticated the corporate environment has become – employees now have a choice to determine which organization to work with depending on their career focus and the employer’s policy on staff development, talent management and opportunity for growth.
The true inspiration behind the streaming giant may be unclear, but there’s no uncertainty around the values that make up the Netflix company culture. There is a conscious effort to get every employee to live that culture. As with many other companies that know how to create high levels of employee engagement, the Netflix company culture doesn’t revolve around cheap thrills and financial incentives. “Their version of the great workplace is not comprised of lunches, great gyms, fancy offices or frequent parties. Their version of a great workplace is a dream team in pursuit of ambitious common goals”. That will obviously create a strong team bonding and inspire a sense of belonging – the effect will be continuous increase in productivity and boost positive brand reputation. Businesses should place importance on people – human beings drive and effect change. Processes don’t sit in vacuum they are made for the easy accessibility of people. Over concentration on process over people will breakdown corporate culture that supports teamwork and team bonding.
Organizations rely on people for innovation, ideas and divergent opinion on issues. Effective collaboration is what is needed to enhance business development. A dream team ensure processes are reviewed and enhanced to reflect new trends of doing business. The result of this is a more flexible, fun, stimulating, creative, and successful organization.
Many organizations claim to have certain values, but they are mainly for show, they pay lip service to this well written values and mission statement they display in their offices. There should be conscious efforts by all employees to adhere to these. It demonstrates your believe in the business and your preparedness for growth. It enhances leadership skills and can facilitate ones promotion in his/her career. A clear road map on how to behave must be designed for employees especially the millennial generation employees whose experience may be limited to technology. They believe in technology and systems more than human interactions or placing premium on people – they cannot be blamed because they are a product of society and their environment and upbringing has influence on their mindset and behaviors
In many ways, at the heart of this “people over process” argument comes down to honesty. Companies must be built on tight-knit, performance-driven teams with a strong sense of ownership and loyalty. Managers must be encouraged to communicate regularly with their direct reports about their performance, show interest in their wellbeing – it will be refreshing if staff will ask how they’re doing in order to get honest, constructive feedback. A demonstration of these traits will put the interest of people first and show an appreciation of their contribution towards the business; that is treating people with respect.
This means that organizations should not be choosing values, mission and vision for the sake of it, they must genuinely care about them and mean to lead by example. Think about what you value in your best staff members and make these your company values – don’t just choose buzzwords.
Design a corporate culture that hires people who can work effectively as part of a team, avoid ‘superstars’ with bad attitudes or poor work ethics, they can be very disruptive and a setback. Behavioral traits must be looked at during hiring, look for soft skills such as empathy and emotional intelligence, ability to offer mature judgement, effective communication and try to envisage how the candidates will fit into the team you’re placing them with.
Employers can encourage ownership through flexibility and a slogan like “people over process” make use of people and data analytics to gather data and further identify the needs of your employees – develop and implement tailor made interventions considering the demography and what best suit them.
Many employers are gradually becoming process-driven because the right process will produce the right results, I guess it is so because dealing with people comes with its own issues and confrontation. Some of these confrontations can get personal and rough and may affect productivity but the human factor will always be important and come first at the workplace.
The spotlight should always be on people and not on process, people respond to business needs, drive and enhance process improvement. People attend to business needs and in many instances offer a holding response before such issues are finally addressed. People are emotional beings with affection, feelings and expectations that must be satisfied, placing value on them has an intrinsic effect that can motivate people and challenge them to their personal best. People are much happier, engaged and ultimately more productive in an organization that values “people than process”.
Source: Bright Ampadu Okyere/Peakon.com | Tel. #: 0244204664 |Email Address: hrtoday@gmail.com
