As a natural part of Covid-19, several boards have had requests for reporting on how employees are doing, at home and abroad. It has resonated positively in these companies.
Because if you have a circle of owners who are interested in the human part of the business, it helps to give the employees the feeling of having ended up in the right workplace.
Loving attention increases job satisfaction and the attraction of talent.
Most people know that even though the board is kept out of everyday operations in several places – preferably with an outstretched arm – yes, it obviously has a lot to say, and that affects everyday operations.
I have read in several places that now we must return to everyday life, where the boards are withdrawing and are no longer as close as they have been. In some areas it can be useful, but in other areas in terms of human well-being it can be useless. Because there is a need for more love on the boards.
I would therefore like the boards to continue the present and caring style that Covid-19 has provided – and preferably even more of it.
Because if we are to succeed in scaling a culture of belongingness, where people dare to open their mouths and give sincere feedback, it is not enough for companies to create a cultural strategy with various initiatives and make all employees co-owners of the strategy. The board of directors should preferably show an active desire to ensure that the fantastic culture in which they have invested grows with the company.
The board should demonstrate lots of love for their investment, as if it was a child to be nurtured – because we are nurtured best by presence and sincere interest.
So dear board. Please, do not return to what was. Keep seeking out and be curious about how the employees who are going to drive your success are thriving; keep a close eye on the numbers of employee redundancies, the reasons for this and whether the employees who leave might want to return one day; search a sod deeper to understand the distribution key of feelers versus thinkers amongst your employees, especially at the management level, as well as the overall composition of profiles at all levels.
If, for example, there is an over-representation of analytical talent and an under-representation of entrepreneurial talent, then scaling must be intervened to ensure diversity. Otherwise, one risks not being able to retain and attract empathetic people who master the power of intuition and vice versa.
A company, consisting primarily of cognitively strong people, does not run a diverse workplace, because instead the weakness grows by what the spreadsheets do not come up with with its formulas, and which lack of intuition does not anticipate.
So a balance is needed in the form of an overview of existing employees before making a plan for the employment of future employees.
Insight here may seem too operational for a board, but the follow-up and overview will help with proactive discussions and interventions so that the baby grows properly. Unfortunately, the importance of hard-working people’s desire to walk an extra mile – because they can’t help it – and the cultural foundation needed is often reactively recognized, where nothing can really be done to recreate what was lost.
I therefore hope that more love in the boards has come to stay.
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