People are our greatest asset. Really?

Actually, yes, they are. Last month, I described a true story of a company laying off 80 people (who had on average more than 20 years employment with the firm) in an economically challenged area due to leadership’s interest in higher profit areas. In asking for your responses, I wondered if money was the bottom line.

Across the board, the responses I received from this story emphasized the people first. Recommendations all focused on how to keep people employed …

• What are other products and services the plant could produce with the same people to generate more revenues?
• What are ways the people could all cut back to keep everyone employed while producing the same revenues (each person work one less day each week, cut back in wages across the board, etc)?

The bottom line is that people matter. Salaries and Benefits are a cost item on the profit and loss statement and how can we view people as assets when they are entered as costs?

My favorite response sums up a great leadership approach – ask the people how they could make the plant more profitable? This route is the winning road. As an executive faced with cost reductions, it is difficult to impossible to maintain team engagement when cuts are just passed on to them. When you ask people for their input you find innovative ways to make the reductions but, most importantly, you gain buy-in and investment in making the changes work.

Executives sit too much away from their employees and far from the customer. Decisions are made from tunnel vision – cut costs – rather than what is the right thing to do. Asking for input is not a weakness for a leader, rather it is a strength. Asking engages.

Unfortunately, many senior leaders focus on the bottom line with the wrong lens. There is more than one way to the bottom line other than slashing salaries and people – actually, the other ways to the bottom line are much more sustainable and effective.

Treating people as assets will result in higher levels of engagement with greater productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.

People are our greatest asset? They should be. People are the bottom line.

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