Well-being: Is it an Over Looked Employee Need that is also a Recruitment Benefit?

“There are two things people want more than sex and money… recognition and praise.” ~Mary Kay Ash
________________________________

For years companies have widened their nets to capture new talent. New BMWs, country club memberships, travel perks and other benefits have been used as incentives to attract new talent.  However, well-being benefits are becoming a “higher-value” to many young “millenniums”. So what does “well-being” mean to business? That varies to the needs of each corporation, its perception of the value for new talent and their contribution to the organization. It also addresses the needs of existing employees, as well.

The Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission found the following objective measures necessary in measuring human well-being along the lines of the “eight key dimensions”: 1) personal income, consumption and wealth; 2) mortality and morbidity; 3) educational enrollment, graduation rates, years completed, standardized test scores and expenditure on education; 4) time spent on personal activities including paid and unpaid work, commuting, and leisure time; 5) measures of housing; 6) political voice (freedom of speech, dissent, and association) and governance (corruption, accountability, democracy, universal suffrage, and non-citizen rights); 7) social connections (volunteer work, civic engagement, and the amount, nature, and breadth of connections generally); 8) environment (econsystems health, access to environmental resources, individual exposure to pollutants); 9) personal insecurity (crime, accidents, natural disasters); and 10) economic insecurity (job security, illness and health issues, and global economic trends).1

Mark Kinver is an environmental reporter for BBC News. He recently wrote a thought provoking article about well being and discussed often overlooked employee well-being is not commonly considered a company benefit. I encourage you to read his recent article by following this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25682368

Footnote: 1 Sen, A., Stiglitz, J. E., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress. Paris, France: The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.(pgs  41-44)

______________________________________

Owners, Executive and other Leaders are investigating a global world concerned about Sustainability, that type of understanding can be difficult to obtain. In early December 2013, I published my second book entitled “Building a Bridge to Benefits”. If you are interested in reading about the book or want to purchase copies today, here is the link to CreateSpace, an Amazon company, go to: https://www.createspace.com/4532590
______________________________________

Contact information and Services
A Certified Sustainability and Quality consultancy
•    Sustainability and Quality Consulting
•    Sustainability and Quality Workshops
•    Sustainability and Quality Speaking Engagements

Jarvis Business Solutions, LLC

Toll Free: (888) 743-3128
Email: Ralph.Jarvis@JarvisBusinessSolutions.com
Web site: http://www.JarvisBusinessSolutions.com

Read Full Post »

Doris Kim Sung: Metal that breathes – TED Video

Published by TED. Doris Kim Sung is a biology student turned architect interested in thermo-bimetals, smart materials that respond dynamically to temperature change.

“[Skin is] the first line of defense for the body.  Our building skins should be more similar to human skin.”       ~ Doris Kim Sung

Modern buildings with floor-to-ceiling windows give spectacular views, but they require a lot of energy to cool. Doris Kim Sung works with thermo-bimetals, smart materials that act more like human skin, dynamically and responsively, and can shade a room from sun and self-ventilate.

Related articles

• Architect Doris Kim Sung’s “Metal That Breathes” (core77.com)
• TED: Doris Kim Sung: Metal that breathes – Doris Kim Sung (2012) (ted.com)
• Four very fresh ideas about air conditioning (ted.com)

Read Full Post »

Corporate Social Responsibility: Distinction or Distraction? – Repost

Published by Newsweek, August 09, 2012, Steve McKee is president of McKee Wallwork Cleveland and author of When Growth Stalls: How It Happens, Why You’re Stuck, and What to Do About It.

Is it more socially responsible for U.S. businesses to protect American jobs or provide employment for impoverished people in developing countries? To shun genetically modified foods or endorse their role in ameliorating malnutrition? To power their fleets with petroleum or use electricity generated by coal? More …

Related articles

• Consumers Demand Sustainability Results, Survey Says (environmentalleader.com)
• 7 Ways it Pays to Build a Socially Conscious Startup (forbes.com)
• Four Emerging Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility – Repost (jbseventhorizons.wordpress.com)
• Ethical Business Commitment through Corporate Social Responsibility – Business – Organizational (rawbusinesslaw.com)
• Social responsibility vs. Personal responsibility Repost (guiltygovernment.wordpress.com)

Read Full Post »

Four Emerging Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility – Repost

Four Emerging Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility, published by TriplePundit, bringing you the latest thinking on CSR, social media, and more. Written by Alison Monahan who is a web developer, turned lawyer, turned entrepreneur. She runs The Girl’s Guide to Law School and co-founded the Law School Toolbox.

New Media and CSR: Communicating Corporate Good, moderated by TriplePundit’s very own Nick Aster, identified four major emerging trends in Corporate Social Responsibility in a free-wheeling discussion between:

• Chris Miller, Director of Corporate Consciousness for Seventh Generation
• Christine Diamente, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Alcatel-Lucent
• Mitch Baranowski, Co-founder of BBMG
• Dale Hart, Partner at Methodologie

It’s CSR 2.0 — rife with risks but full of opportunities.

Here’s the bottom line: Four Emerging Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility

Key notes:

• Your brand is decreasingly under your control
• Transparency is terrifying, but authenticity is the reward
• CSR is a business imperative

Read Full Post »

We have a heritage of Sustainability: Part 2

English: Portrait drawing of Henry David Thoreau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Appreciation of our planet and our “nature” has been around since the first caveman watched a “shooting star” pass along the heavens. For every one person that feels a close link to nature, the wildlife, the countryside; there is always a contradictory group of people who think of nature as a resource to plunder, destroy, abuse and show only ambivalence to preserving its habitat.

In the 1850s, it is apparent Thoreau witnessed the same behavior. As a writer, philosopher and student of nature, as well as, an observer of man’s conduct, he was often puzzled what he considered “right” as opposed to popular beliefs. Please read what Thoreau thought about:

“When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here – the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country… Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all it’s warriors…I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.”   ~ Henry David Thoreau

Obviously, those old patterns are still in conflict with the “right thing to do”.  A contemporary made this observation:

“We are living on the planet as if we have another one to go to.”  ~ Terry Swearingen

Perhaps lessons about nature will be more focused when temperament, knowledge and direct costs to the public are more openly identified and discussed throughout the media world we live in? Is it truly ignorance, or is it apathy, or is it lack of understanding? In any case, unless we learn from our experiences, improve our environment and make prudent shifts to live within the means of our resources, then, perhaps we will have to find another planet to live.

Related articles

• Henry David Thoreau: 12 quotes on his birthday (csmonitor.com)
• “It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.” – Henry David Thoreau http://t.co/tDji2xCS (tpr2.wordpress.com)
• Henry David Thoreau’s 150th death anniversary marked (bostonherald.com)
• Henry David Thoreau on Defining Your Own Success (theatlantic.com)

Read Full Post »

We have A Choice, Really? Part 3 of 3

The Future Is Our Choice
The 21st century will be a century of change, transformation, new ideas and innovation, and discoveries that will enrich our society.  We have entered a new industrial revolution.  An industrial change that acknowledges our environment, our current generation’s needs, our need to revisit best practices, our business need to transform and prepare our legacy to meet the needs for succeeding generations.

We currently have, in place, a budding Sustainability industry that will continue to grow, mature and expand in the next 20 years. This is not a siloed approach,  but an integrated solution approach that is tailored to fit each organization’s needs.

Ray Anderson, an industrialists and sustainability pioneer, once said; “I also believe that it doesn’t happen quickly … it happens one mind at a time, one organization at a time, one building, one company, one community, one region, one new, clean technology, one industry, one supply chain at a time … until the entire industrial system has been transformed into a sustainable system, existing ethically in balance with Earth’s natural systems, upon which every living thing is utterly dependent.”

Ideas will come from man-kind and “nature” will show us the path.  We will see a dance between Technology and Science that will build our economies as nothing before.  and Technological arrays, will focus on issues resolution through the use of technology. From science, biological and “natural” views, will focus on how to restore our environment. It will continue to build on array and matrix foundations, which will holistically support industries, countries and the world in the transformation to a sustainable planet.

Technological arrays will interconnect technologies for remediation of Sustainability issues (i.e.,  Transportation, Traffic, Internet, Water Purification, etc.). Environmental matrices will produce biological and “natural” views will make solutions for converting waste to bio-nutrients for the purpose of environmental restoration. This is a long-term mending and nurturing strategy to restore our planet.
We also have that heritage reflected in what Theodore Roosevelt said over a century ago; “To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.” We are at a crossroad to decide what direction we want to go.  Should we continue with the current direction with a dismal future or we decide to take another route that eliminates waste, understands how the environment natures us, transforms our businesses, industries and countries into sustainable societies for future generations of mankind? We do have a choice.

The Choice Is Ours To Decide
In this century, business will be the true catalyst for pragmatic Sustainability transformation.  This is a systematic approach of eliminating waste, improve efficiency,  addressing customer needs, and recognizing corporate social responsibilities. Sustainability is a systemic framework to address economic, environmental, social and technological issues, to create a sustainable world and avoid declining ecosystems and the extinction of mankind as we know it. The business community has begun to implement Sustainability and has proven that change can indeed be profitable.

What do we need? The wisdom to recognize our changing world, the understanding of the actions we need to make, and knowledge that hesitation will only prolong the consequences of a poorly appreciated and abused  resource, Our Earth.

Related articles

• Overview and Impact of Megaforces (jbseventhorizons.wordpress.com)
• Embrace Big Process Thinking To Drive Business Transformation (blogs.forrester.com)

Read Full Post »