The Human-Centric Workplace: Enabling people, communities and our planet to thrive

By Simone Fenton-Jarvis

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be a human at work? The answer to these questions should not be dissimilar - to have a purpose, to connect and to feel, and yet organizational cultures still do not embrace people bringing their whole selves to work. If we are not showing up, not bringing our whole awesome selves, we are not thriving; we are hiding.

The workplace and leadership are the root cause and fuel of so many societal issues, from wellbeing, the economy, inequality and the climate. Following the year of the largest remote working experiment, not many would argue against work not being somewhere we go but what we do and why we do it.

The Human-Centric Workplace is about highlighting that we can do better, and we must do better. There are numerous ideas and theories about how and why people are what make organizations thrive (or expire) and yet we still fail to ensure organizations are human-centric. Culminating with a playbook, The Human-Centric Workplace aims to inform, inspire and drive change through demystifying the 'how' to ensure our people, communities and planet thrive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LID Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781911671633

Book preview

Wanting to understand who we are, where we come from and how we evolved is part of what makes us human.⁴

What does it mean to be a human? A not-so-simple question that unwraps complexity that humanity continues to grapple with. What separates us from other species? What is our purpose? From poets, philosophers, anthropologists, religious bodies, scientists, politicians and artists to every person out there following a little gin (surely not just me?). Despite the efforts, the answers are diverse and nonconclusive, because believing in a single answer would create silos between the brain, emotion, the body and so forth; we must consider the many angles that make up the whole human.

Karl Marx believed that humans are social creatures and therefore can only develop within a society. Like Marx, Plato also believed that human nature is social, that we derive satisfaction from our social relationships, that we need others. Plato believed in souls, the immaterial mind and the material body composed of reason (the physical) and will (the emotional). For Plato, the soul was the source for everything we feel – love, anguish, anger, ambition, fear. And most of our mental conflict as humans are caused by these aspects not being in harmony. For Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BCE, to be human meant having a goal, to belong and to live a happy life.⁵

David Hume believes in perceptions of truth and moments of realization that alter consciousness. Ludwig Wittgenstein⁶ writes that it is our ability to think consciously, and to be human is to think – true, false – it does not truly matter. In the early 17th century, René Descartes, whose famous statement, I think, therefore I am implied only humans possess minds, whereas animals act on instincts.

Peterson⁷ explains how anthropologist Clifford Geertz refers to human nature as ‘unfinished’ because we require culture to complete us, to make us fully human. To be human is shaped by the interactions between individuals and their settings, between the natural and the social worlds. There can be no universal human, no human species-being in any true sense. Geertz concludes that culture, the symbols and structures, determine what it means to be human and thus without culture, there is no humanity.

What makes the human superior to field animals? ruminated King Solomon (10th century BCE). Humans are not the only species that walk on two legs, we do not have the largest brain and we are not the only ones who have Facilities Management functions – just check out how badgers create environments to live and to thrive.

Chimps kiss, laugh, lie, have in-group politics and have goals. Ants, wolves and dolphins show social traits and elephants cry and grieve. African buffalos even form a circle around a female giving birth to protect her from predators. We have become increasingly aware that all these human traits started evolving millions of years before the first human descended and that any human traits are advanced animal instincts.

There are many things that make humans special in relation to the rest of the millions of species within the animal kingdom: speech, our remarkable brains, opposable thumbs, we are the only species that blush, we remain in the care of our parents much longer than other living primates (my dad in particular!) and we have lives after our reproduction years have finished.

We are the only species to think about the long-term future.⁸ We are a remarkable species when considering that, according to estimations, 99.9% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct.⁹ As David Attenborough said regrettably, This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. There is little left for the rest of the living world.¹⁰ Humans have not only survived, but they also rule and have seen and driven the intellectual and technological progress beyond any other form of existence.

To be human is to experience life in all its colours and potential, the awe of being alive and the thrill of discovering what it means to be us, the greatest wonder in the world.¹¹

Ultimately, asking what it means to be human does not result in answers, only more questions. A question that once came from philosophy is now tangled in politics, justice, identity and every molecule of our existence. From connection, empathy, creativity and consciousness to laughter and love, the pure miracle of life and feeling alive, it cannot be fully explained, but it can be felt.

BRING YOUR HUMAN

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.¹²

In the early days of our 300,000-year human evolution, work was simple: we worked to eat and avoid being eaten. Meaning and purpose came from elsewhere, whether it was spirituality, art, religion or science. As humankind has evolved, our identities, such as parent, friend, nationality, religious beliefs, hobbies and our careers have become intertwined. Work is no longer about survival; work has become an extension of our identity.

Social connectedness, culture, belonging, purpose, the ability to think – these are not things that simply stop when somebody is working. Neither does our lifestyle, our responsibilities, worries, fears or anxieties. Yet somehow, we have been hooked into believing that when at work we must diminish such humanity and appear