People – A pragmatic approach from the shop floor

Today, we often hear expressions such as: “People are the center of organizational life”, “people come first”, “it’s all about people” or even “we are people centric”. workers, whatever we want to call them, are the central and even decisive element, in any organization, without which a company will hardly succeed. This is not new and I am sure that it will always be a reality. If an organization is a living being with its own identity, this largely results from the action of the various individuals who are part of it.. To this we will then have to add vision, mission, values, etc. It is fundamental understand people and understand where we came from, where we are and where we want to go. It will be with them that we will get there, or not.

Stop, listen and look

Said this way, it seems complex and only achievable through strong investments in organizational climate studies, consulting, etc. Or else only within the reach of organizations with large resources and dimension. We forget that, in Portugal, the overwhelming most companies are micro or medium sized. In other words, nothing has been done! On the contrary, I would say. As I am an advocate of the various tools – including climate studies – that allow us to assess the organization’s “state of health”, I am convinced that in this case too, the Smaller size can be an advantage.There are resources available to everyone that do not require anything other than: time, attention and listening skills.There is nothing better than “walking on the factory floor” or “through the office”, to notice many things. This one close and informal contact with peopleallows any experienced manager, above all attentive and capable of listening, to collect very relevant and extremely important information about “their” people. In these cases, it is more about sensitivity than scientific research.

The importance of looking inside

A good example of what I have just mentioned has to do with the search for talent or the “talent war” that is so often talked about these days. How often, in the absence of internal talent, do we go to the market in search of what supposedly we don’t!? And how many times do we come to the conclusion that a a closer look would allow detecting and developing this talent internally? This watchful eye is within everyone’s reach and may even be most effective in small organizations and with few resources, but with leaders who are concerned with developing their attention and listening skills. Therefore, let’s start by “walking on the factory floor or in the office”. The people are there and if they are the center, that’s where we should be. pragmatic approach that we adopted in module II of the European University’s Business Management Program (PAE) because we understand that tools and practices – including human resources – are not an end in themselves, they are just a means for us to manage better and to be able to attract, retain and developing talent in our organizations.Doctor Finanças Empresas and PHC Software launched the second edition of the competition for the attribution of a training grant in business administration. Consult the Contest Regulations for awarding the scholarship. José Rocha, teaches module II of the PAE, has a degree in Law, a postgraduate degree in Human Resources Management; has several years of experience in the areas of training, business creation and entrepreneurship and 17 years of experience as a Human Resources manager in the automotive sector. Tags #Doctor Finance and PHC Partnership, #PHC Software, #European university