People Are the Most Important Resource

       Increasing numbers of business people find that the key area for applying spirituality is in how employees are treated.  Simple things can be very powerful, says Marc Lesser, founder of Brush Dance, as he learned to take a few minutes each day to appreciate someone, to thank them for a job well done, or just to listen to their concerns.  Generosity with your time can be as important as generosity with money. 

      Southwest Airlines, one of the only airlines staying profitable after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Their secret?   They say that people are their most important resource, and they mean it.  Company policy is to treat employees like family, knowing that if they are treated well, they in turn will treat customers well.  They have a “University for People” and their policy is to hire people based on their attitude and then train them for skills, rather than the reverse. Unlike other airlines, negotiations between management and employees for pay raises and benefits are much shorter and easier as both sides come to the table wanting to hand write a win/win contract.  They have been named many times as one of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

     Aaron Feurenstein, CEO of Malden Mills in Lawrence, MA, which produces popular Polartec fabrics, believes labor is the best asset a company has.  He says a company has an equal responsibility to its community and to itself, and since his town has high unemployment, he kept all 3,000 employees on his payroll after a major fire destroyed three out of its four factory buildings.  Workers repaid his generosity with a 25% increase in productivity and 66% drop in quality defects.

    Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, with stores all over the world, purposely built a soap factory near Glasgow, Scotland because it was an area of high unemployment, urban decay, and demoralization. She made a moral decision to employ the unemployable and put 25 per cent of the net profits back into the community because she said this is what “keeps the soul of the company alive.” 

    10,000 Marriott International employees worldwide dedicate a day of service to their local communities each year in their “Spirit to Serve” program. Timberland, the popular New Hampshire based shoe company, pays employees for 40 hours of volunteer work annually.  Ohio-based Zero Casualties Inc., an urban apparel maker, donates seven per cent of its profits to inner city charities.  The company has crated a marketing campaign based on its values of “no drugs, no violence, no racism.”

     Medtronic regularly invites happy customers to attend meetings with employees to tell them how their medical equipment helped improve their health or saved their life.  This inspires the Medtronic workers and gives their work a deeper sense of meaning and purpose because they can see how it really helps people.

     IBM funds childcare centers at 60 of its locations.  Intel offers 22 weeks of maternity leave. The Men’s Wearhouse, one of Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to work for, supports homeless men in re-entering the job market.

    Tom Chappell, CEO of Tom’s of Maine, which produces soaps and toothpastes, stays mindful of profit and the common good by giving away 10% of its pretax profits to charities. Tom’s gives employees four paid hours a month to volunteer for community service, and uses all natural ingredients that are good for the environment.  After studying at Harvard Divinity School, Chappell re-engineered his business into a sort of ministry, saying, “I am ministering--and I am doing it in the marketplace, not in the church, because I understand the marketplace better than the church.”

     Saturn auto manufacturing says the key to their success is their experiment in corporate democracy and participatory governance.  Empowered teams make most company decisions.  

     60 Minutes did a television show on SAS, a billion dollar computer software company that has low absenteeism and only 3% turnover, which saves them $80 million each year in training and recruitment.  Their secret?  A no-lay-off policy, 35 hour workweeks, flex time, and on-site amenities such as a gym, a medical clinic, and massage therapists.

    Spiritually oriented materials on personal change have been used in employee training for several years at the Bank of Montreal, and Boatman’s First National Bank in Kansas City regularly provides spiritually oriented trainings for its top executive group. 

    Consulting firms using spiritual approaches are doing a booming business. The Enlightened Leadership International in Colorado has been teaching top executives at major companies such as GTE, Georgia-Pacific, and Lockheed Martin how to focus on what’s positive, instead of  the problems, because our beliefs create what we experience. Other major firms such as The Covey Leadership Center and The Centre for Generative Leadership teach Fortune 500 executives how to align their company’s mission with their deeper values.  

     Managers and union workers of Southern California Con Edison attend sessions called “The Heart Shop” with pianist Michael Jones to cultivate compassion for each other, creativity and a new intelligence of the heart. Boeing set up a series of weeklong trainings with poet David Whyte for 600 of its top executives to unleash feelings, take risks, and be excited by change--instead of terrified of it.

     NYNEX established an Office of Ethics and Business Conduct to encourage employees to live by a set of core values: quality, ethics and caring for the individual. This new focus led to increases in profits, productivity and product and service quality, as this affected how the company is perceived by customers and stakeholders.  

    Judy Wicks, founder of the highly successful White Dog Café in Philadelphia, uses her restaurant as “a tool for the common good”, raising money for the hungry and sponsoring seminars on racism, the environment and social change. Thanksgiving Coffee Company invests a share of its revenues in community development among the Central American villages that grow its coffee beans.  It pays Fair Trade prices for coffee from small farmers cooperatives, which is often three to six times as much as regular prices.