By Antonio Zivanovic

The business or the people? The chicken or the egg?  Do you invest in the health of your workforce or focus on the bottom line?  These questions beg another – which approach is most important for a business to be profitable?

While attending the recent Up Close and All Business event with Kevin O’Leary at the BCHRMA Annual Conference, it became immediately evident that his primary goal in the business world was to increase shareholder value by focusing on the bottom line. Increase Profit Per FTE: money, money, money was the definite theme of the session. Beneath his bold, brash and seemingly heartless persona, O’Leary presented many very wise concepts to demonstrate his belief that a business does not come before its people; in fact, they are synonymous with success – one cannot exist without the other.

This link is critical to understanding the health of a business and its people. O’Leary demonstrates his faith in various leadership teams by investing to own more or less than 50% of a business. If he does not believe in the people at the helm of a business, he sets out to own 51% or more of the company, whereas, if he believes in the leadership, he does not require a majority position. He understands who has the necessary traits and is intrinsically motivated to increase profits without his assistance. Simply put, strong people in leadership roles (or in any part of the organization), increase the chances of success for a business and inherently lead to dividends for shareholders.

IBM’s ‘Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Office’ study notes that the emergence of advanced business intelligence technologies help uncover previous hidden correlations and patterns, and provide greater clarity and certainty when making business decisions. Progressive thinkers will need to seek out new technologies and reinvent their businesses as complexity in the marketplace increases at staggering rates. Business processes will need to be adapted to engage clients as part of the growth cycle; this will teach us about what works and what doesn’t work.

However, today’s leading companies are also firmly focused on the people factor as well, offering online resources and bringing health & wellness appraisal tools onsite to engage employees in meaningful initiatives that provide a return on investment. Many companies who engage in proactively enhancing the wellbeing of their people are commonly found in BC and Canada’s Top Employer listings.

A common misconception is that a business must be large enough to have expendable resources to invest in such initiatives. This is incorrect; large amounts of funds are not needed to support a full-scale health and wellness program. The truth is, most of these strategic health and wellness plans can be brokered through an employee group benefits consultants at no extra cost to the employer. Does this sound too good to be true? If this is not something you are receiving today, look into how your employee benefits consultant can help you help your people and how this can help your business. This is just one example of the innovative methods that can help your business keep healthcare costs from doubling every four to six years (as most do in the BC marketplace).

Regardless of industry, people are the most valuable commodity and will drive economic growth in the future years.  Manpower has identified a new world era, the Human Age, which will be an era of great transformation, radical change and new developments; business models will have to be redesigned, value propositions redefined and social systems reinvented. Global economic forces have strained existing models and systems to such a point of tension that they are no longer sustainable. These forces, in flux over the past few years, are now simultaneously converging, forcing societies and political and economic systems to adapt and corporations to evolve their strategies and structures.

Placing the altruistic side of us to the sideline for a moment, we need to ask ourselves one question. How do we minimize attrition rates? The answer is simple; we take care of our people in order to do what a business is set out to do – make money.

For a business to be successful, we need to educate, empower and inspire people so that they can be freed from the obstacles which prevent them from realizing their full potential.  We need to take a sincere interest in helping the people we serve.

Additionally, the driving forces behind the new fluidity of business development are emerging technologies, lofty client expectations and nimble competitors. How does a team plan for this?  We don’t – we cannot predict the future, but we can acknowledge the correlation between hiring creative people and profit.

Antonio Zivanovic is the CEO of Corporate Occupational Solutions Inc., Canada’s leading  workplace health & wellness services provider. Visit www.THINKCOS.com or contact COS by phone at 778-383-1110 or via e-mail at azivanovic@ThinkCOS.com

PeopleTalk: Summer 2011