I live by the belief that People are not “human resources” and they deserve a graceful workplace. Here is the manifesto that drives both my work and my organisational consulting practice:
- Right to a vision: People have a right to a vision that is articulated in a clear and consistent narrative. People invest a significant part of their time and energy in their work and they need to be working towards a vision that they understand and find meaningful and aligned to their personal system of values.
- Driven by a moral compass: Organisations have a soul and, as such, they need a moral compass. People in an organisation need to have a common set of values and common cultural norms that they all respect. The leaders have the obligation to relentlessly live by, preach, teach and enforce the moral norms of their organisation.
- Respect for People: People are more important than organisations and they always take precedence. We do not believe in “client first” but in “our People first”. People that are respectfully treated will give their very best both to the organisation and to our clients. We respect and care for our People the exact same way we respect and care for our families.
- Our business is hiring: The first and most important priority of our business is to identify, recruit, on-board and delight the right People. The right People are those that, first and foremost, share our values and vision; we hire for character and develop skill.
- Unconditional fairness: Fairness is not optional, circumstantial or negotiable; fairness should be an unconditional cornerstone of our business. Fairness should be practiced towards our People, our clients, our providers and all our community.
- Full transparency: All the inner workings of our organisation should be fully transparent to all our People. Especially decisions that have impact on the values, vision and the well-being of our People should be made as openly and transparently as possible. If we hire People that we cannot endorse with our full trust, then our hiring practice is wrong.
- Liberty to perform: Our People are mature and confident adults that should be supported to perform at their best, free from any artificial constrain. Fixed working schedules, mandatory office presence, strict organisational structures and audit-focused HR practices are examples of the industrial-age logic that is nowadays obsolete and ineffective.
- Once with us, always with us: We invest our energy to recruit and work with the best People that we treat as family.
Our People are talented individuals that work with us as part of their ongoing professional and personal journeys – as such, we actively encourage them to seek relevant opportunities for their development within and outside our organisation, actively maintain strong relationships with them after graduating from our organisation and actively welcome them back in any role that is relevant and useful to both them and the organisation.
If you feel that these principles resonate with your own values, use them to build a humane workplace for your own People.