People-Centric Leadership In Business (4 Big Strategy!)

Is your company people-centric in nature?

If you aren’t following current company culture trends, your business might be seriously lagging behind. Nowadays, the trend of putting the employees first proves to be extremely efficient and more and more businesses are adopting this strategy.

Happy employees mean that projects will benefit greatly in the quality department, and happiness ensures retention. In fact, with this holistic approach, businesses can retain their employees up to 3.2 times more than by using conventional methods.

Building a happy-employee environment is not easy though, that is why today we compiled a guide that will cover all the essential steps you need to take in order to make your workplace people-centric.

The Benefits Of People-Centric Leadership in Business 

In short, building a people-centric business will empower your employees and keep them motivated to work and give their 100 per cent for your business due to the safe work environment, cultivation culture, and support from the upper ranks such as leaders and managers.

A handful of the benefits that come with building a people-centric leadership in business are having:

• Better employer/employee communication and relationship;

• Healthier and happier employees;

• Safe and modern work environment;

• Highly satisfied customers.

The list of benefits goes on, but the main takeaway here is that when you have employees that are valued and happy, your final product will reflect that, which in turn will lead to satisfied customers. 

1. Be A Leader Not A Boss

People are different, but all of us want to engage on a human level. Establish personal communication with your employees and show them that you care for their careers. Share your story of how you achieved success and what path you took. 

Educate your employees on a deeper level, share crucial advice on topics ranging from money management, how to understand money, how they can make the right money moves to how a switch from a brick-and-mortar bank to an online bank can bring in so many benefits for their financial health.

2. Show interest in their wellbeing

You can’t expect your employees to fire on all cylinders if stress is affecting their mental health severely. Stress makes employees more prone to making errors and you might end up with a met deadline but a subpar finished product.

Think of ways to create a platform where your employees can share their feelings and help them handle stress better. If you really value your employees, you might set up a special surprise for them and send them on a vacation that you will cover.

You can treat your employees to a trip to Texas or Florida. Try to avoid hotels as you never know if the experience will be pleasant. Instead, go for 1 bedroom apartments in Austin or Miami that will provide the perfect comfiness and allow your employees to wind down and recharge their batteries.

Don’t worry too much about the expenses, they will all be covered by the improved quality of work your employees will produce when they are fully rested and in top form.

Back at the office, try to avoid unreasonable crunch hours as no one wants to work 12 hours shifts. Instead, think of ways to spread the workload and manage employees’ time. You can always use employee time tracking software to help you shape your decisions better when managing big tasks and projects.

3. Express appreciation

Culture is paramount and employees will appreciate the work environment if it is filled with it. If you can create a space where your employees feel valued and motivated to go again and deliver consistent results.

If you just finished a big project and it was a success, gather your employees and express your feelings about their contributed work. On the other hand, if you failed to reach a deadline or a project didn’t meet quality expectations, pick your team up by telling them how valuable their work is and motivating them to try again.

Try to avoid confrontations and be too liberal with the usage of PIPs as the added stress won’t improve work but rather further hinder their ability to perform at peak level.

4. Employ different strategies to motivate your team

Remote working has become extremely popular in recent years and it shows no signs of stopping down. Let’s be honest, 9-to-5 in-office working hours are ancient history.

Remote work shows that employees get more work done in less time and in addition to that, they are less prone to extreme stress levels due to the fact that they can work from the comforts of their own house.

Furthermore, everyone has their own biological peak hours during the day, some are morning people and some are night owls that prefer to work late. Let your employees curate their own working hours and allow them to create their own personalized work environment so that they can keep stress levels intact and offer the most during their productive hours.

What is a people-centric business?

People-centric businesses are where the future of work is headed and newly opened businesses implement it right from the start.

Here are some things to put in place for a people-centric business:

• Show interest in their wellbeing.

• Employ different strategies to motivate your team.

If you are looking for a way to improve your relationship with your employees and provide a superior customer experience, think about the people-centric business culture and consider incorporating it to your advantage.

I am Adeyemi Adetilewa, a media consultant, entrepreneur, husband, and father. Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Ideas Plus Business Magazine, online business resources for entrepreneurs. I help brands share unique and impactful stories through the use of public relations, advertising, and online marketing. My work has been featured on the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Addicted2Success, Hackernoon, The Good Men Project, and other publications.