Businesses exist to make money. There is a lot to be said about the sense of achievement, purpose, and personal fulfilment that comes from running a successful operation, but in the end, people need to make money to live, and our businesses couldn’t exist without making profit. But should making profit be the sole goal of every organization? After all, there are rules that we need to follow, and a lot of peripheral issues like safety, the environment, and worker exploitation that always weigh heavily into our decisions. What if instead of making money, we ran our operations by putting people first, and attempted to drive profit by keeping our employee’s in mind? Slowly, businesses are starting to realize that creative capital is more valuable to an organization than money. Let’s try to look beyond the profit drive, and see how understanding the inner workings of your organization can help create value.
How does putting people first benefit a business?
Before we see how putting people first can pay dividends, it is important to see how decisions made only with money in mind are detrimental to a company. When you make a decision solely based on numbers, you take the human factor out of things. For example, with layoffs you need to assess how it will affect the company’s morale, the relationships between employees, their views of you, and their concerns about their job security. Not only that, but how your public relations will be affected. In today’s social media age, the old school way of thinking just won’t cut it. If you make decisions based on your balance sheet only, then negative PR can really put a dent in your bottom line.
Efficiency, Practicality, and innovation.
The most important notion to keep in mind here is that by focusing on your people first, you drive efficiency, practicality and innovation. It is widely known throughout business that a well-paid workforce is more committed, more efficient, harder working, and more proud of their job. By focusing on your employees, you give them more incentive to focus on your customers. They will work harder at their jobs, improving your sales and more importantly your customer service. On top of that, innovation in business is more important nowadays than it ever has been. Never has there been a time where technology has advanced so quickly. Money doesn’t innovate. You need dedicated employees to do that for you. Companies like Google are at the forefront of this movement, treating their employees more like high-profile clients than workers. Where most businesses cut costs on simple employee break rooms, Google provides free gyms, video games, meals, and medical care. In turn, their employees are dedicated to maintaining the company’s position on top of their market.
In order to determine where your company needs to focus its attention, you need to have a clear picture of its strengths and weaknesses . Many businesses pay a consulting firm to show them how to approach their operation in a new way. With the FoRSE Matrix System, you have an in-house consultant at your fingertips. It can show you all of the ripple effects of your decisions, and help you gain a clearer understanding of why focusing solely on profits is bad for business, and why you need to look beyond the profit drive. Put people first if you want to make money, innovate, and be successful.