It seems simple enough to look at workers as whole human beings (i.e. people that have things going on outside work).  Yet based on a recent Gartner study, there’s a big gap in the way executives believe they’re treating their employees and how the people feel their executives are actually performing.

Flexibility, trust and a sense of purpose are all things executives believed they were providing to their employees, mainly based on their own experience of having those things so readily available themselves.  But employees felt very differently in all of these areas, believing they weren’t listened to or provided the tools & flexibility needed to succeed.

People today are voting with their feet.  They’re leaving organizations that don’t care enough, or listen enough, or include them enough.  They’re leaving to go to leaders that care and organizations that are human-centered.

Human-centered leaders care about their people first.  They don’t care about them as mere workers, they care about them as whole human beings.  They take the time to learn about the individuals on their team, what makes them tick, what helps them fail and learn, what prevents them from being their best and what matters to them most, beyond even work!  People-first organizations focus on removing obstacles and creating an environment in which their people can be their best.

This gives human-centered teams a clear advantage in today’s world for one reason: they get the people.  People want to work for human-centered leaders.  People want to stay with people-first organizations.

If you want to attract and better yet, keep good talent, it starts with caring about your people as human beings, not just workers.