I read a great article this morning by Edward E. Lawler III in Forbes titled, “The Quadruple Bottom Line: It’s Time Has Come.”
I was particularly interested in Edward’s thesis that the missing measure for corporate sustainabilty is the way they treat their employees.
I believe the key to sustainability, the key to financial, social, environmental and customer success all hinges on the interactions and experiences of an organization’s employees.
Here is what Mr. Lawler has to say:
“Organizations need to be held to quadruple, not triple, bottom line performance standards. They need to perform well financially, environmentally, socially, and in how they treat their employees. How they treat their employees often gets included in the triple bottom line definition of the social category, but it warrants a separate and distinct set of measures and a high level of accountability. It is an area where the impact of organizations is measurable, significant, and may be quite different than the impact on the communities in which they operate.”
I think the most important thing leaders and organizations can do to support their employees is:
1. Enable them. All employees desire skills and competencies that will make them more marketable.
2. Remove obstacles to excellence.
As I have talked about repetitively, I believe we are entering an era where personalization and customization are going to be what every human being craves.
In addition, I have talked about the importance of keeping employees one step ahead of technology so they are able to create personalized service interactions.
Here is another excerpt from Edward E. Lawler III’s article:
“Work and organizations are going to be changing more in the next decade than they have in any other thanks to the development of computing and other kinds of technology. When incorporating the new technologies that are being developed into how organizations are designed and operated it is critical that the quadruple bottom line be the criterion against which change is conceived, implemented, and evaluated. Only if this is done are organizations going to perform in ways that warrant support by the societies that create them and allow them to exist.”
I couldn’t agree with Edward more!
Republished with author’s permission from original post.