There are many philosophical perspectives on life and the pursuit of happiness, but one thing that is as sure as the day is long is the fact that your company’s culture is directly tied to its organizational morale and its prosperity.  Simply stated: A safe environment creating a secure, stable and well managed team will engender a profitable bottom line.

Today’s landscape of mergers, acquisitions, health scares, stock market crashes and general uncertainty has begun a new evolution of imprinting on our psyches. An overlay of fear has begun to set in to those who cannot see past the fact that opportunity abounds for the individual that does not buy into the fear-based tactics employed by the media and governmental institutions. It is up to us as employers, managers and visionaries to create organizations that become that safe haven, the port in the storm that allows people to feel safe and thereby empowered by the source of their livelihood. 

When we feel safe we allow ourselves to accept our situational surroundings. When acceptance is reached the shields are lowered actual enjoyment blossoms. Enjoyment is the seed for enthusiasm that ultimately germinates prosperity.

We spoke in the last installment of “connection” and that the feeling of belonging quells the anomie that leads to individual and organizational depression, that being a “truth” that we will refer back to from time to time, we can make the not so quantum leap that a culture that practices the enrollment of people as more than cogs in the machine to be “handled” by the Human Resource Team is one that develops in to that safe space that allows for personal and professional growth.

A team dynamic that is truly open to a bi-directional communication paradigm with its members and exhibits a non-possessive behavior toward an individual’s actual “work to life balance” invites stimulated conversation in all veins and is one that propagates ingenuity and loyalty. 

Facilitating a balance is the key to creating culture. I believe we learned it all in Kindergarten when we were taught the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That being said, as managers we have an obligation to step back and look at any situation through the lenses of our subordinate as not a task, or issue to be handled, but as a person with who has needs that fall somewhere on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchical pyramid of needs.

Allow Katherine to go to her daughter’s High School swim meet on Tuesday afternoon without the concerns that she’s not going to get her work done, or even worse, that she is getting away with something. She will be so grateful that not only will the work get done, but her other tasks will reap the benefits of the new found love that came as a result as the humanistic approach to Katherine’s needs as a mother. It is simply a fact that the needs of the individual will ultimately outweigh that of the company if unattended to, so why not merge the two and create a space that allows for both in symbiosis?

Please do not mistake “Loyalty” for a life-long guarantee that a humanistic culture will create a staff of “lifers”, but what it will do is increase the happiness coefficient of your team for their collective tenure which will be prolonged and reimbursed in the form of new life blood recruiting. 

Here’s where you get to think outside the box: I humbly suggest to you to do everything in your power to not only grow your employees for their longevity with you, but to allow them to freely move on to another organization when their ability for fulfilment can no longer be met by your stewardship. Their fulfillment is by their design and humbly entrusted to you to nurture with the same benevolence your culture was created. Again, by design it will become a self-fulling ecosystem of prosperity.  

Written by: Jay Rubin, Managing Partner at Emspire