The world is moving from business enterprises to social enterprises. In this first episode, I introduce the concept of what is so-called “Social Enterprise”, where it comes from and elaborate on a few key trends related to it.
Episode notes:
- What is “social enterprise”?
- Why this shift appeared and 3 main influencing causes.
- Impact of financial crises in 2018.
- The modern definition of what is a successful business.
- What does it take to become a social enterprise?
- Few key human capital trends that are happening right now.
This first episode is a foundation for a few coming episodes.
Transcript:
Hello and welcome to my first tea and business lounge podcast. My name is Elaira and I am high potential coach and HR executive Today I will talk about about the profound shift that business leaders are facing worldwide. The rapid rise of what we call social Central. What it is why this shift here, and few human capital trends related? I’m so excited to talk about this topic because it’s such a hot topic and it’s so relevant to so many organizations in the change process they go through. So in a nutshell, the world is moving from the business enterprise to the social enterprise.
01:00
So what’s the difference between those two?
01:02
And what is the social enterprise overall that I’m talking here about?
01:07
Organizations are no longer assessed only based on traditional metrics such as financial performance or shareholder value for quality of the products and services. That’s what we called business enterprise. Now the the world requires and demands to expand those metrics. And this is where social enterprises come in. So organizations today I increasingly judged on basis on their relationship with a world with the workers, with their customers, with their communities and all other external and internal stakeholders, and as well on their impact on society, as large on the contribution. This is where Success of business comes from as well. These factors are super important to add on the traditional metrics of what successful business is. That’s what we call social enterprise. But let’s start from the root cause of it. So why has the ship appeared? And when did it start? The evolution of social enterprise was driven very strongly impacted by social, economical and political changes that were happening after global financial crisis, which happened in 2008. Despite of recovery in some parts of the world quite strongly and the other parts of the world maybe not yet many people feel really frustrated that financial gains have failed to improve individual lives. They fail to address social problems support, even political stability and mitigate such a strong boost of technology, unintended consequences, the technology is growing and the risks with it as well. So people start to question and challenge business and organizations to build a better overall holistic approach to the world.
03:30
There are a lot of factors contributing this arise of social enterprise, but it can be summarized to three main ones, three main shots. First one, the power of individual is growing, with millennials being in the forefront. And I’m laughing because this millennial topic is such a hot topic as well. Maybe worth the do another podcast itself, but in a nutshell, Millennials for those who don’t know Are people born between 1980 and 2000, and it is the most recent generation to enter the workforce. In fact, according to Deloitte data by 2020, Millennials will cover 75% of global workforce, which is quite shocking and huge, isn’t it? And actually managing millennials has become one of the key of challenges faced by most of organizations today, simply because they have a different outlook on what they expect from this job and what they expect from workforce and organizations in general. They question things they function differently. And 80% of millennials think that business success should be measured in terms of more than just financial performance. So millennials have quite a big impact. The second big factor is Very interestingly, people trust business more and the government in 2018 Edelman trust barometer reported that people worldwide please 52% Trust in business to do what is right, versus only 43% in the government. So it creates quite a pressure on organization to solve critical issues in society such as income inequality, health and care, diversity, cybersecurity, and so on and so on. And people look at the business to help them on that. At the same time. It brings a lot of possibilities for the business if they really take this trend and trust of people in the hands. And the third one is technological change. technological change has huge impact. To how society functions, but as well how the business is functioning, all the advanced researches and all the advanced technologies, in artificial intelligence, in communications, and so on and so on. It changes fundamentally how the business is done, who does it and how it influences society. So what does it take to become a social enterprise? In a nutshell, it is foundational to listen carefully, of all your external and internal environment and stakeholders, not only business partners and customers, but all the parties in society that influence your organization’s or is influenced by that’s really foundational to becoming and social enterprises. I guess by now you already have a feeling what are the demands and requests from people what are the needs in the workforce, though, let me state and break it down a few key trends in human capital that are happening. The first one that I want to talk about is personalized and individualized approach. The power of individual grows, organizations cannot deny that power. As I mentioned earlier, Millennials are coming with a strong voice and you just cannot ignore the numbers I mentioned. So organizations that want to be successful are really adapting their approaches to the workforce management reward systems, career models, and they are way more equipped to listen and respond to their employees fast. The main and fundamental shift in the careers and how the careers are structured are shifting from the typical career ladders to entrepreneurships from job descriptions to the experiences, most millennials have a lot of provoking ideas. And they want to test their ideas. And where they don’t find a job that’s so interesting and option that it can do that. They want to start their own company and test and implement those ideas. A lot of employers are encouraging their employees to contribute ideas and to be innovative. This is where the new term called intrapreneurship come from.
08:30
And that’s why a lot of companies are offering just to go and work in different department just tested out new skills, new projects, or shift in different directions so you know yourself better, you are much more covering that entrepreneurship concept where you are required to try out different skills that have way more holistic approach than just one specialized typical career ladder where you just rise up and nowadays People expect faster career growth and a lot of learning possibilities. They expect not once a year feedback about their performance but constant and regular feedback. So everything becomes more individualized, more tailor to employee and much more from the accountability plays from employee. A lot of self led development. A lot of self led trainings come from the employees and their own pace and their own rhythm, of course, in alignment with the manager and alignment with organization since flexibility is another big topic. So one size fits all doesn’t work anymore, and people are really adapting and tailoring from what’s relevant and how would be the fastest way to grow. Another trend of social enterprise is the influence of technology, artificial intelligence. robotics and automation has dramatically accelerated in the last years, as you may notice. And actually, it’s hugely transforming in demand roles and skills inside and outside organizations, people complaining that they cannot find a job or they finished great university great profession, which was very popular before, but now, they don’t find jobs like those roles are not in demand anymore. This will happen more and more. A lot of jobs are replaced by optimization. So for those people who are struggling with that, or thinking What should I do with my life, I want to mention uniquely human skills rather than technical skills, because future demand will require much more skill such as complex problem solving, cognitive skills, and social skills. Another very popular trend now in the organism his well being, not to be underestimated. Stress is one of the key sickness in the world in Netherlands is number one sickness second year in a row and this year percentage even higher, worldwide as well, numbers are not very much different. So this is huge and the world is changing and we need to adapt to that. The line between work and life kind of blurs. It’s more and more important to bring that topic in the organization’s actually employees are demanding that the mining that organizations expand their benefits to include wide range of programs for physical, mental, financial and spiritual health. And in response, employers are really investing in that part as society responsibility, but as well part of talent strategies This new error really demands a fundamental twist and how organizations do business today. And in addition, how they prepare for human capital challenges for the future.
12:13
It comes really from the core of it all, everything, how the business is structured, how it runs. So it does take time, especially if you’re medium or biggest heist organization, you cannot just turn the ship right away, where the world is going, where the demand is going. So with this, I really want to invite you to think about it and maybe it’s a good wake up call to see where the world is going and adapt sooner than later. Because if you don’t, it’s take is nothing less than your organization’s reputation, relationships, and ultimately, success or failure. And remember, if you Want to create a better world? It starts first with knowing and realizing what kind of world you want to live in. Thank you for being with me and listening it. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll learn something new today. That was my aim. I will invite interesting business leaders and society leaders to talk about trends of new world and how it impacts the business and how the business is changing. If those are the topics that you are curious about and interested in, register to be notified when the new podcast came out and till the next episode.
