By Fatima Hussain
Everyone seems to be talking about building a people-first culture and its importance in the organisation's success. But what is a people-first culture and why are so many companies struggling to build it?
Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group, has attributed his success to people. Branson said: "When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people, people." Branson explained that creating success starts with bringing people together; it's the people who define the vision and deliver the results.
This means that organisations that prioritise the wellbeing, job satisfaction, and personal growth of employees over revenue and business success are likely to see more success in the long run.
Easier said than done, right? How do you put your people first? And why are so many companies struggling in this endeavour?
Return-to-office mandates and excessive workloads are all leading to higher attrition rates. With trends like quiet quitting gaining popularity, employees seem to be more disengaged than ever. So what can we do to combat this?
One solution that can help build a people-first culture is workplace coaching. Workplace coaching involves one-on-one sessions where the coach provides guidance, feedback, and encouragement to help the employee enhance their skills, overcome challenges, and reach their full potential. The focus is on fostering a positive and productive work environment, improving performance, and promoting continuous learning and growth.
This type of coaching not only benefits employees but can be immensely helpful to build leaders across every level of the organisation. With coaching, organisations can put their people first and help them address challenges, leading to overall higher satisfaction and engagement levels. This, in turn, helps organisations build a people-first culture. The challenge is: coaching can be expensive, so how do you make it available to everyone within the organisation?
Nicky Terblanche, leading AI coach researcher, states that coaching chatbots are increasingly used to scale and democratise coaching due to their cost effectiveness and 24/7 availability. Chatbots continue to grow in sophistication and complexity and can rival human coaches in certain scenarios.
With an AI coaching chatbot, employees can engage with their coaching chatbot whenever they have the need. This AI coach chatbot can answer questions, provide guidance and help unlock new perspectives.
So, is an AI coach the answer to developing a people-first culture? Not necessarily.
Nicky Terblanche mentions that human coaches still have the edge when it comes to 'thinking outside the box' and drawing on their personal experiences and judgment.
In fact, talking to an AI coaching chatbot can feel somewhat two-dimensional. Humans have emotional intelligence that AI lacks, and can analyse and identify a range of emotions, pinpoint patterns, show creativity and generate new ideas and concepts with their clients.
So if you are looking to build a people-first culture for your organisation using the power of coaching, should you leverage the power of AI? Or, should you use the tried and trusted method of human touch to empower your people? The answer lies in synergy.
What you need is the perfect balance between artificial intelligence and human touch to empower your employees. This is very simple to achieve. With the use of digital coaching platforms that leverage AI coach chatbots, you can help your employees engage with coaching for the first time. This can help you dispel any discomfort, apprehensions or hesitations that may be holding your employees back from working with a coach.
Once your employees understand the power of coaching using an AI chatbot, they can migrate to a human coach to gain a more advanced and human-centered coaching experience. In this way, an AI coach chatbot becomes the gateway to helping your employees understand the power of coaching and help them use it more readily.
To conclude, the key to building a people-first culture is to invest in your people, through the power of coaching. When you help your people overcome challenges, address pain points and help them develop into the best version of themselves, you will find an overall happier, healthier, high-performing workforce.