Cleto, a sagacious manager of the company, is extremely busy looking at the payroll, the economic situation of the company is extremely good despite the crisis, but as costs decrease, the benefits for managers will increase by a desirable percentage.
Reviewing the document, he thinks: "with a decrease in the cost of the payroll, I could improve my annual benefits."
Cleto with his idea, will propose to the board of directors an aggressive "personnel adjustment program" to reduce the payroll of 325 workers, with this action, which will surely be approved, 60 people will remain without work.
It is noon and you drive through a city street in your car. The noise of the vehicles, the already daily black smoke from the trucks and the slowness of the traffic adds to the humid heat characteristic of the time. "It's going to rain," she thinks and at the same time she observes with some curiosity several groups of people who seem to have chosen a part of the flowerbed or the sidewalk to go on a picnic. The fact seems strange to him because that day is not Sunday and the place is very polluted….. He quickly looks again and realizes that he has been confused: they are workers having lunch.
These short stories show us two facets of an inescapable reality of the time we are living in: the great distance that exists between the idealism of considering the human being as the most valuable element of the organization and the reality in some fairly common companies, where it is simply a piece of information, a number, no more: a resource…
In this sense, it is clear that companies exist to earn money, and that people's contribution is remunerated, which compensates for this effort.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, the equation in reality does not work so simply, since what is perceived on paper as a "human resource" in practice, the understanding of people and their management, has to do with a number of factors that make it a complex task.
In all this, there is an inescapable truth, organizations require people to perform tasks.
Based on this simple fact, it is important to understand that in order for this to be carried out in an adequate way, it is important not only to establish rules and regulations, as proposed by the Administration, but also to know in depth the processes that intervene in the perception and sense of reality of the different members that make up the organization.
Without wanting to seem paternalistic, it is important to understand the social and psychological commitment that employers acquire with their workers; In this context, awareness of human needs should be the first step in seeking competitiveness.
Such an approach could give rise to thinking that the person in charge of human management is conceived as a social worker within the organization.
However, nothing is further from reality, from the moment we focus on the satisfaction of human needs, as a fundamental platform for the achievement of their productivity within work.
Overcoming the instance of the famous Hygienic Factors, proposed by Herzberg, one of the basic objectives of organizations, which want to improve their competitiveness, is undoubtedly the humanization of these.
Such an approach makes it important, if not necessary, to understand and understand the different groups of human beings that make up companies and the current moment that different countries live.
It is clear that human management must be present on both sides Company - employees, because in this way we will always find factors that promote complete satisfaction and harmony between the two, this would be the ideal situation.
Unfortunately, seeing the reality that the daily tables of work environments present us, there is much to be developed in this area, in this sense, we consider it pertinent to mention some human aspects to be developed, to humanize the work environment:
- In the first place, the development of human capacity in the different work activities, as well as the creation of conditions of job stability. The important task of transforming organizations into centers of learning and personal development, which will promote an improvement in performance Create in the members of the organization, the ability to respond to the challenges posed by change and the variables of the environment that promote it.Generate in the company, different degrees of communication and spaces that promote participatory processes that develop creativity and responsibility for common tasks. Introduce within the members of the organization, mechanisms that allow increasing their responsibility before it, through the making of ethical and participatory decisions.
The understanding, sensitivity, participation and inclusion of the different people that make up the organization, as well as their different ways of contributing to the production processes, will result in a cultural change that allows organizations to be more competitive and at the same time much more human..
Note: This article is part of the book «Human beings in the labor world», Guatemala.
