10Eighty are sponsoring HR Grapevine Live this year, the theme is The People Revolution, Empowering People to Drive Change and Purpose. This theme is perfect for us and this piece in our series of articles suggests that high-performing enterprises should focus on understanding why work and the workplace should be structured to employees’ needs.
Tailoring work to the employee
Put your people first; the CIPD suggests that people and their needs warrant the same thought and consideration as other business outcomes, and people deserve a meaningful voice on matters that affect them. They believe that giving people a meaningful voice is a way of treating them as human beings, rather than as a means to an end.
In a rapidly changing workplace and business environment we need to look at job design and organisational structures from the perspective our employees. Just as consumers increasingly seek tailored, bespoke solutions, so knowledge workers demand such an approach to their work and career path.
Here are 10Eighty’s key messages:
- Put employees first – build the business around their needs
- Understand what is important to employees, what motivates them and what is it they like doing
- Harness the power of positive conversations to make meaningful connections
- Use mass customisation – tailor each job to the individual
- For sustained profitability and increased shareholder value you need to improve levels of employee engagement
Jacob Morgan, whose The Future of Work blog is a 10Eighty favourite, suggests that “The war for talent has never been fiercer, and in an effort to attract and retain the best and brightest, organisations have to shift from creating places where they assume people need to be to creating organisations where people truly want to be.”
Employability is the key
Good employees want to map a career path with their chosen organisation; they want managers who give them a voice and they want to see how their contribution fits into the bigger organisational picture. There is a greater focus on employability, partly because individual employees are finding it much easier to source new roles using social media, and because their expectations for personal growth and career development are increasingly important. The best employees are not willing to suffer a poor employer offering and an organisation’s ability to make their employees more employable will increasingly become a point of competitive advantage.
Skills shortages and talent pipeline are serious issues for organisations in every sector. The smart employer will focus on talent management strategies that empower employees, inspire high performance, facilitating and rewarding development and skills acquisition to enhance business outcomes.
Book your HRGrapevine tickets
