PEOPLE AT THE CENTER
The triple bottom line 1 for the sustainable development of a business involves the integrated assessment of economic prosperity and, as we have seen inell’latest article on the subjecto, environmental impact. Whether it is multinationals or start-ups, to complete the triad there is the share capital: the people.
Consumers, investors, workers in which both directors and collaborators are included. In the United Nations 2030 Agenda there is a lot of talk about living and working conditions, in a general framework of eradication of poverty and hunger in which a a every human being can be assured the possibility to reach the full development of their potential with dignity, equity and within a healthy environmento (2..
There is no doubt that a remunerated, secure job that meets a person's skills can make a decisive contribution to his or her well-being. The lack of this causes certain negative consequences but the same negative effects are encountered when there is an occupation but it prevents the reconciliation of work times and times of family and social lifele (3..
Let us return, therefore, to an unfortunately always topical question: the work-life balance.
THE PROBLEM IS THERE AND YOU CAN SEE IT
The theory ofgood design it teaches us that if the problem gets noticed, there is probably something wrong with it. The bad design, in fact, it makes evident its inadequacy to our needs so as to attract our attention, while when something is well designed, it is practically invisible 4.).
Agood work organization should work without making life difficult for its users and for this to be possible it is first of all necessary to recover a human dimension.a.
The problem is well exemplified in the work situation of mothers in Italy. In our country,the progressive increase in female participation in the labor market has not been accompanied by a parallel and simultaneous process of social transformation and redistribution of the workload within families.. Almost half of working mothers admit that they experience the difficulty of reconciling work and family commitments 5. The same situation is found elsewhere, and it is starting to directly affect fathers too: the increase in men's involvement in family life and in childcare, as well as the diversity in the typology of households, is leading more and more workers / fathers to feel that, if the problem can ever be solved, men must actively be part of the solution 6.ne” (6).
The care of children and parents is an issue that hides an enormous threat to the productivity of workers, the conquest and the ability to retain talents and the competitiveness of businesses.se.
These are the results of research from Harvard University which highlights the costs and economic and social efficiency of a system that ignores the life dimension of workers, showing thatche an alternative is not only possible, but even advantageousa (7..
WORK TO MEASURE YOUR LIFE
Companies that insist on not valuing the human dimension will continue to manage parenthood with difficultyand to pretend that the relational sphere of each of us does not go beyond the walls of the company, that there are no partners, children, parents, friends, animals that require our commitment and our time. A system that pretends that all this does not exist, or that it is not important, simply ignores reality.à.
An organization of work that does not take into account the dimension of life has the same characteristics as bad design: it works badly, it screams its inadequacy making our life difficult and continues to pose the problem of reconciliation between private and professional life.
From design we learn that if the problem persists, perhaps it means that we are approaching it the wrong way and that an alternative, more life-friendly path is worth considering:a way in which the person assumes the central role, which presupposes the analysis and listening to the real needs and interests of the workers, the understanding of needs and limits, a planning of the rhythm and evolution of the working path able to support everyday life, events and changes that are part of the life of all of us.oi.
The challenge, in this sense, is played oneffort to change mentality: being able to free oneself from methods and tools typical of traditional management, such as the evaluation of productivity according to the time spent at the desk, the presumed flexibility as an exceptional and good-natured concession, the management of ordinary and predictable events such as maternity and paternity as situations of crisis.isi.
Realizing the disruptive potential of accepting commitment - cultural rather than economic - translates into a more positive corporate climate, an improvement in the quality of life of workers and greater involvement, but not only:o: the ethical imperative is actually a strategic imperativeo. Starting now to work with people in mind will make human capital the real central pivot of the company's sustainable development, a determining factor in building value over time and enjoying a fundamental competitive advantage for many years to come..
(1 Triple bottom line, accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental or ecological and financial people, planet profitsfits)
(2 Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns, United Nations 20155
(3 BES Indicator Sheets, Environment - www.istat.itt
(4 Donald A. Norman, The Design of Everyday Thingss
(5 Having children in Italy in the 2000s, Istat survey 20144
(6 Young People Are Going to Save Us All From Office Life, Claire Cain Miller & amp; Sanam Yar, The New York Times September 17, 20199
(7 The Caring Company, Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman, Managing the future of work, Harvard Universityy
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