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The answer is the same as the famous line spoken by Charlton Heston in the 1973 American dystopian thriller, Soylent Green. “It’s people. Soylent Green is people.”
While that line from the film is referring to a horrific outcome (spoiler alert: corporate cannibalism), we should use the words “it’s people” to convey a hopeful outcome of the recent pandemic: corporate compassion. That’s the biggest takeaway from the past two years, which definitively confirmed that business truly is a human endeavor. Regardless of how much tech or luxury office space you have, without talent that’s motivated, engaged and supported, you don’t really have a business.
When our real world became virtual (and then hybrid) at the flip of a switch during an extremely stressful time, caring for people took center stage for successful companies. It was at the forefront of their leaders’ responsibilities.
Human connection, which evaporated at the start of the pandemic, is good for business because it’s good for people. Too much tech dilutes the humanity we experience at work and needs to be counteracted with mega doses of human connection and cohesion. The pandemic taught us that without human connection, teams become less committed, less connected and less engaged. And this impacts business success big time. Employee loneliness costs U.S. business $154bn annually in lost productivity. Quiet Quitting is now decimating productivity and loyalty. And the Great Resignation is costing companies billions in hiring and retraining staff.
Before Covid, 75% of friendships started in the office. According to the Survey Center on American Life, “More than half of Americans with close friends say they met a close friend at their workplace.” And Gallup tells us that “having a best friend at work [which they learned is the # 1 predictor of engagement] has become more important since the start of the pandemic.”
Mark C. Crowley proves that the decision to engage with one's job comes from the heart, not the brain. In his leadership book Lead From The Heart he writes, “Research shows that workers want to feel valued and appreciated for the work they do. They want to be cared for individually and provided opportunities to develop and contribute at increasingly greater levels. Work has become exceedingly important to people and to their sense of meaning, significance and purpose in life. It’s simply irrefutable that leadership is failing specifically because it lacks heart.”
The bottom line: People truly are an organization’s most valuable assets, and they need emotional support. They crave more meaningful human interaction at work. That calls for a new kind of leader. One whose attributes include empathy, caring, inclusion, appreciation. And although leaders need to be equipped with a variety of styles to support the environment and task at hand, the dominant leadership style must be more coaching and inspiration and less command-and-control data obsession. The best return on investment is delivered by fully engaged, loyal and inspired employees. Collaboration, connection and cohesion are the three Cs of a successful workplace.
Employees are making their thirst for human interaction known as we fully enter the hybrid work model. This Microsoft study found that “84% of people would be motivated to come into work more frequently by the promise of being able to enhance connections with coworkers.” They’re not looking for the free sushi and pizza and all-day espresso bar. They’re hungry for something much more profound.
This lack of employee connection is having a disproportionate impact on managers, who have become the go-to people for providing emotional support for individual employees. Gallup learned that burnout—although high—has stayed relatively the same over the past couple of years for individual contributors. But among project and functional managers, it’s increasing.
Lorena Santana, Dean of the School of Business at CETYS University, puts it this way: “Social connections can be a powerful tool to increase belonging and loyalty to a team, facilitate sharing of information, and open communications toward problem-solving scenarios. A social connection can promote self-confidence as a result of frequent interaction among team members. The lack of social connection can lead a collaborator to be excluded from important decisions, it provokes not being considered for new tasks, and sooner or later, the employee will search for another professional opportunity.”
People. That’s what makes a business successful. The companies that adopt people-first policies, investing in emotional connection and support, will thrive—even in the face of adversity.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and co-creator of the Personal Brand Power Audit - a complimentary quiz that helps you measure the strength of personal brand.
