If people are a company's most important asset......

Picture the scene, the well meaning professional HR manager is proposing that the company spend x amount of money on helping their hard pressed managers cope with what is rapidly becoming the No 1 corporate health issue, work-related stress. 

The boss looks at the HR Manager and states, ‘We’ll never get it through the senior management team, they want more stress to make the managers work harder, they’ll never approve expenditure on this!’  

‘That’s just crazy,’ responds the HR Manager, ‘they don’t know what they are talking about’. 

‘What do you mean?’ says the boss, ‘I agree with them, we have to keep the pressure on, anything less and people start to relax, and that’s the last thing we need at this time!’

‘But I’m not talking about reducing the pressure and asking them to relax, the reason I want stress managed better is because we all need to perform at our best just now and stress reduces productivity and attendance for all of us.’

‘OK, lets get this clear, it sounds like we both want the same thing, it’s just that we aren’t speaking the same language.  What do you mean by stress?’ 

‘Maybe I can explain it another way, what in your opinion is this company’s most important asset?

‘You know my response to that, it’s our people.  If we lost our key personnel we would be in serious trouble.  We rely on their experience to solve the practical problems we face every day and it is them who understand the marketplace and our customers.  We need to stay one step ahead of the competition by understanding their needs and responding quickly when circumstances change.'

‘OK, after our people what is our most important asset?’

‘Well, we are a haulage company so I suppose the next most important asset is our fleet of trucks.  Without reliable vehicles we can’t provide the service we get paid for, so obviously they are very important to us as well.’
 

‘OK, consider this.  The optimum loading weight for a truck is 10 tonnes, at that weight we get the maximum use out of it and with regular maintenance it will serve us well, I think the average useful life of a truck is 10 years.  That’s not to say it can’t take 12 tonnes in an emergency, the occasional excessive load won’t do any lasting damage.  However, if we regularly load a truck with 12 tonnes after a while it will start to show signs of strain because it is being pushed beyond the operating limit it was designed for, it starts to show signs of stress, and that is when the damage can occur.

How would you react if you discovered the transport manager had been regularly loading all the trucks excessively for the last 6 months and as a result breakdowns and service costs had increased significantly?  Also, that because of this many of our long standing customers have been let down and are starting to take their business elsewhere?’

‘I would recommend the Transport Manager goes, he has been irresponsible, everyone knows the design specification of our trucks, to regularly overload them is asking for trouble.  He may have achieved some exceptional short term results but in fact he is damaging the business in the longer term.  He, more than anyone should know that you have to look after important assets.’

‘But the trucks aren’t our most important asset, are they?  You just said that our most important asset is our people, didn’t you?’

‘Yes I did, and I stand by that, our people are our most important asset, what’s your point?’

‘My point is that you are expressing double standards.  You are very clear about the importance of looking after our trucks but you are not applying the same concern to an even more important asset, our people.  One of the main causes of stress is work overload and all I am saying is let’s make sure we are not overloading our managers and that they in turn are not overloading their teams.’

‘OK, I get the message, but how do we know when we are overloading our people, what makes you think that they are not all performing at their own 10 tonne capacity.'

‘Well there are a number of reasons why I think most of them are averaging 12 tonnes and some are much higher than that.  Firstly, I could quote statistics at you, increased sickness absence, higher staff turnover, increased accident levels etc…  But the strongest evidence comes from the people themselves.  Not only are many of them telling me that they are struggling to cope, I can see it and I can hear it.  We have good people who rely on this company for their living, the business is very important to them and they care about it.’

‘OK, I get the message again.  I work here too, you know, and people speak to me as well, I can sense that many of our people are under pressure and worried.  But what good will stress management training do, it won’t increase market prices and it won’t reduce the overdraft, in fact it will increase it.  That’s how the senior management team will see it!’

‘There is a short-term and a long-term answer to that question.  The immediate impact of introducing a stress management programme will be very positive and will raise morale, which is much needed at this time.  It sends a message that senior management is concerned about the welfare of their people and are willing to help.  The emphasis for managers will be on having a proactive approach, it is much more efficient to spend money on preventing problems than it is on sorting them out.  A major outcome from this type of training is that it gets people talking to each other openly about the causes of stress by encouraging managers and employees to discuss the practical problems or circumstances.  The first stage in solving a problem is to acknowledge it exists and commit to finding a solution.

From the longer-term perspective we need to present it as an investment in our people.  The example I gave earlier about looking after our most important assets is a very powerful argument as the health and well-being of our people is directly related to performance of our company.   You have already stated that we rely on the knowledge and experience of our people to solve our operational problems and keep us ahead of the competition by anticipating our customers’ needs.  It is common sense that we need to retain these people, particularly when things are tough.  We need to recognise that society these days is much more health aware than it used to be and many employers, including our competitors, are recognising this by investing in health and wellness programmes for their people.  If we want to hold onto our most important asset we need to demonstrate that we are a good company to work with, this really isn’t a choice if we want to secure our future.’

‘Phew! When you put it like that we don’t have any option.  I need a summary of this conversation in writing as soon as possible with your ideas on a health and wellness programme.  I want to get the ball rolling on this immediately!’