“Work isn’t working; current business models are not fully reflective of our individual or social nature, or of these transitional times. This is the opportunity, not just to reinvent the workplace, but to reimagine the world of work.”
The Human Organisation Report
A new insight-driven report from sustainable business and behaviour change consultancy How on Earth, in partnership with workspace solutions provider Landmark, explores why being a human organisation matters now more than ever, as the corporate world starts to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Human Organisation report highlights how the current workplace model is based on bureaucracy and hierarchy, which stifles employee empowerment and creativity. The alternative is the human organisation, which has a clear purpose, freeing up employees to use their imaginations and skills.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
The report, which brings together and expands on the latest insights from neuroscientists, sociologists and leading business thinkers, showcases the biggest change in organisational culture in over a century, and outlines the nine characteristics that define human organisations.
It encourages businesses to ask themselves if they truly believe their success is down to their people. If so, then they should be ready to distribute power. To create a workplace where outsiders become insiders, where work is social, and where creative skills are core and everyone contributes to innovations.
“Building back after the pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to challenge traditional notions of what constitutes business, work and the workplace,” explains Tim Parr at How on Earth. “It’s time to take a step back and consider how human-centred our organisations really are, and how to shape the best solutions for both business and the workforce. Businesses need to respond to this huge shake-up in working life, and they should start by listening to their people. This is a moment of great transition, a chance for employers and employees to come together to not just fine-tune, but to reimagine a more fully human world of work, creating new energy to unlock previously untapped potential and accelerate positive change,” continues Parr.
The Human Organisation report encourages business leaders to ask themselves a set of questions, including:
- How did their organisation react to the pandemic?
- What have they learned about their people and how they’ve responded, communicated, collaborated and innovated during lockdown?
- What have they learned about trust and leadership? And how will they redefine working relationships and networks?
The Human Organisation report also explores the answers to a number of other key questions that can inform the way any business looks at its workforce and its ways of working, such as:
- What motivates people?
- How do they make decisions?
- How do we help them collaborate and innovate?
- How do we engage the natural creativity of employees?
- How do great ideas spread through a business?
- And how do we organise to become more fully human?
Why being human matters
A human organisation is more vibrant, more innovative and has a healthier workplace culture. It understands people and how they tick and enables and inspires them to be at their best. It understands our social nature, and how we all need workspaces that are shaped to encourage the key working activities of concentration, conversation, collaboration, exploration and reflection.
The nine characteristics of a human organisation are:
- They understand people: they know what makes their employees tick, and the workplace stimuli that motivate action.
- They understand our social nature: they value colleague networks and create workspaces that encourage conversation and collaboration.
- They define and live their purpose: they understand that defining and activating their purpose gives a sense of meaning to life at work.
- They define what they believe: they try to live these beliefs, and when they don’t they hold themselves to account.
- They understand context: they define preferred and probable futures and learn from customer and colleague insight.
- They have creative intelligence: they empower and equip everyone to innovate and encourage and reward curiosity.
- They are open to a diversity of ideas: they recruit for cognitive diversity as well as identity diversity.
- They distribute power: they give employees more autonomy, with traditional organisational hierarchies consigned to the past.
- They have a human leader: they are led by someone with integrity and authenticity, who balances decisiveness with empathy, and is open to transformational change.
The human workplace
The research is produced in partnership with flexible serviced office provider Landmark. Ed Cowell, CEO reveals why the business was eager to back such a ground-breaking report. “Planning productive workplaces is not as easy as it seems. As this report suggests, successful businesses know their people switch between modes of work many times over. It’s hard to create the right workplace for all of them. Landmark is working to reimagine serviced offices and deliver the most productive workspace for businesses.”
Cowell believes that the first step to building a human organisation is to make sure that leaders at the top of the business shape environments that encourage people to choose to do great work.
He reveals his top tips for creating a workspace that allows businesses to function as a human organisation:
- Businesses should choose leadership teams based on their ability to create great work environments
- If great environments are shaped by leaders’ actions, your leaders will be passionate. They will listen to and engage with their teams. They will build trust. And they will encourage a culture where new ideas and disruption is welcomed
- Design your workplace environment to enable a better way of working. Gone are the days of 9-5, the white desks and cubes
- Consider how you can create options for agility in the workplace, giving your people the freedom to switch between modes of work
The journey to becoming more human
Ultimately, this is a moment of great transition for business, and a chance not only to revisit or reinvent the workplace, but to reimagine the world of work. The Human Organisation report explores the latest thinking on one of the biggest challenges facing business today and provides insight to help every organisation understand where they are on their journey to becoming more human, and the opportunities ahead.
To read the report please click here…
