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Do your employees find in their work an opportunity to develop as human beings? Or do they only work for a salary or to fill their CV? What does the manager offer to allow the person to feel that they are evolving within the company and to contribute to a greater cause than simply filling out a task book?
The worker is above all a human being. His work is only part of what it is. As a human resources advisor, I believe that any business can make work more rewarding and encourage the personal growth of employees while respecting the specific capacities of its environment.
I invite you to consider the person in their full potential and therefore to listen to them with empathy to learn and understand how they want and can contribute fully to their workplace. People at work need to positively feel three main factors (feeling of competence, feeling of autonomy, feeling of belonging) in order to be able to reach a fourth, namely the feeling of being able to contribute. You will notice that I use the word "feeling" before each factor.
The manager (supervisor or human resources) cannot pretend to help the employee to feel these factors positively without having discussed with him to validate his feelings. This implies being willing to meet the whole person and not only in his “professional resources” dimension.
What does this mean in concrete terms? Here are some tips.
The feeling of competence
Here, it can be a matter of planning the workforce needs well and designing individualized training plans. These may include skills assessments, performance appraisals, and feedback meetings. But it is also a question of knowing the interests, passions or leisure of the person to allow him to highlight them with his colleagues or the company.
Example from life at KI-AI: My colleague Oscar is a poet and a fine cook. By recognizing it, it can enhance our meetings with poetic impulses, ask questions that bring me back to my feelings or cook a small dish for my lunch the next day.
Another example, taken from a client case: A person had an interest in teaching, but no role in the organization allowed him to promote this skill. We have added "informal" functions in this sense. During team meetings, this person now has the mandate to facilitate a co-development approach to the practice, and he also acts as a punctual supervisor following these meetings to help his colleagues to implement the improvements named in the meeting. This person can now update a personal interest in a way that benefits colleagues and the company on a win-win basis!
The feeling of autonomy
Do employees feel that they are trusted and that they can influence the way they work? Some of our other articles on leadership and management offer answers to this question.
However, some people may experience a loss of autonomy in the face of a strong corporate culture or collaborative work. It is important to understand this feeling and to come to understand, without imposing, how the corporate culture, once integrated, allows more autonomy.
The feeling of belonging
Do employees feel that they know their colleagues and are appreciated by them? Are they in line with the values of the organization? The more people share organizational values and common subcultures, the more they will develop a sense of belonging. For this, the organization must clearly express its values but also be attentive to the subcultures that emerge from the different sections of its structure.
To illustrate this point, let's take another example of success with one of our clients. This one has employees who hardly rubbed shoulders and who worked in two different territories. We structured these meetings to allow the employer to communicate their expectations and appreciation, and then to allow the group to collaborate on common issues. For each collaboration that required efforts against particular interests, we proposed to complete the task with a simple and festive activity.
The feeling of being able to contribute
Here, it is the opportunity that the employee can seize to improve his work, that of his collaborators and the company to reach objectives of corporate image, financial performance or organization of work. We can think of suggestion boxes, but also of causes that require collective commitment.
Example from my own experience: I launched a Movember campaign to fund research on men's health in an organization where the men were few but precious. Then we contributed to breast cancer research, then started a program to reduce our ecological footprint. These initiatives have allowed us to get involved with humor, simplicity, and collaboration. The team spirit was a winner and, individually, we felt like we were doing our part for the world… All of this created in us a sense of pride in our organization, which allowed us to take concrete actions and useful outside of its original mission. Our organization was able to stand out in its community thanks to these initiatives.
There are several organizations and programs that can be chosen to inspire and add to the positive image of the business. We can think of B Corp or Novae. The important thing is to choose implications that are not just corporate or related to the brand image, but which make sense for the employees, in connection with the corporate culture and therefore in agreement with the employer brand.
Personal growth in the workplace is much more than technical development or stress management. It is carried out through activities that are implemented following listening to the authentic potential of each and every one.
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