Latest news with #peoplefirst
Forbes
03-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
You Can't Declare A People-First Culture: You Have To Earn It
Ricardo Madan, Senior Vice President and Head of TEKsystems Global Services. Plenty of companies claim to be 'people-first,' but far fewer can back it up. That's because workplace culture doesn't come to life through company rebrands or bolded statements on careers pages. It shows up in real actions and experiences: how people are supported, the opportunities they're given to grow and the consistency of those experiences across the organization. Without a meaningful commitment to your people, even the most talented teams struggle to stay engaged. So, how has our company, TEKsystems Global Services, retained over 90% of our people? We earned it. The Blueprint Behind Our People-First Culture People are the heart and soul of any organization, sustained by the leadership, systems, decisions and daily behaviors that influence how employees grow—and how customers experience your business. At TEKsystems Global Services, we've grounded that approach in four commitments: beginning with a customer-first mindset and carried forward through intentional investment, authentic leadership and shared accountability. If you want to build a culture that drives high performance and helps your people thrive, take a page from this playbook. People-first is more than a talking point. It's a business imperative rooted in purpose. To truly be people-first, that purpose has to extend to both employees and customers. When you put the customer at the center of everything you do, your business priorities, opportunities and challenges come into sharper focus. Once employees see how their work drives real impact for customers, you can better invest in them as leaders ready to carry that purpose forward. That's how a people-first approach becomes a long-term business strategy: by enabling your team to adapt, grow and lead in today's rapidly changing tech landscape. This belief is reflected in our mission to become the No. 1 transformation partner for our customers and the No. 1 career destination for our people, neither of which is possible without the other. People are your most valuable asset. Invest in them accordingly. Our company reinvests nearly 50 cents of every dollar earned back into our people. That includes compensation and profit sharing, but more importantly, it means ongoing, structured investments in training, upskilling and development. In a world of constant change, this approach keeps our teams sharp, adaptable and ahead of the curve. That doesn't mean we throw money at every flashy certification. If a development opportunity doesn't meaningfully serve our employees or customers, it doesn't make the cut. For example, a Six Sigma Black Belt or the latest agile management certification might sound impressive, but if it's not directly tied to solving a real client problem, it's probably not worth pursuing. Our people development investments always matter—and are guided by the customer-facing challenges ahead. When training is done right, it has a measurable impact: 59% of employees say it improves their overall job performance, and 51% say it gives them more self-confidence. And while it's easy to say, 'We're investing millions in AI training,' the real challenge is delivering role-specific upskilling that cuts through the hype. This is especially true with rapidly evolving GenAI tools and techniques, where substance matters more than splashy declarations. By making people readiness a business imperative, we equip teams with future-focused skills that support long-term career growth and help them evolve in lockstep with customer needs. It's one thing to train employees to manage and lead for results. It's another to equip them to lead with presence, empathy and purpose. We believe the best leaders do both, driving business outcomes while supporting people through uncertainty, change and complexity. This leadership capability is especially important today, and even more so in tech. We're seeing disruption across economic, social and personal spheres, and leaders must help navigate the volatility for their teams. Beyond dashboards and KPIs, leaders require emotional intelligence and situational awareness. Good leadership is the culture that holds everything else in place. That's why we invest in programs like TGS Converge, our immersive leadership development experience. The initiative prepares managers to lead holistically, keeping teams grounded while driving material results. When leaders are supported in building soft skills and emotional intelligence, they create space for others to bring their best selves to work, without losing focus or accountability along the way. At the end of the day, it's not snacks or swag that keep people engaged. While we all like a pizza party or branded hoodie, when have those ever sparked real motivation or inspiration? What truly drives engagement is whether people see real opportunities to grow, believe in the direction of the company and trust the leaders guiding them. A supportive company culture means being honest about what growth requires and then creating an environment where people are trusted to rise to the challenge. Growth is most sustainable when built on co-investment. As leaders, we provide tools, training and access, but our people have to put in the effort, too. It takes shared time, energy and follow-through to turn resources into meaningful career development. That's what mutual accountability looks like in action. Whether it's upskilling on new platforms or experimenting with emerging agentic technologies in sandbox environments, our people are expected to lean in, learn and take ownership of their path forward. That mindset is how we sustain a high-performance culture, without burning people out or losing the human side of our work. The Payoff Of Putting Your People First Building a people-first culture that works and lasts requires intentional investment, leadership that shows up consistently and shared accountability at every level of the organization. When your people are empowered, supported and challenged, they grow in ways that ripple outward—fueling innovation, raising the bar for those around them and shaping what's next for the business. A people-first culture is a long-term commitment to making sure your employees are equipped, trusted and motivated to do their best work. And it's a business strength that's earned every day, not assumed. What are you doing to earn it? Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Forbes
01-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
13 Ways HR Leaders Are Using Tech To Make Human-Centered Decisions
At a time when human resources teams are flooded with data and new tools, adding technology to your tech stack is easy. The real challenge is applying it with empathy and using it not just to automate tasks, but to enhance the human experience. Smart HR leaders are using modern tech to help them uncover hidden patterns, gather and analyze feedback at scale and personalize decisions that affect people's lives and careers. To that end, 13 members of Forbes Human Resources Council share how they're blending tech with the human touch to make smarter, more people-first decisions in their organizations. 1. Provide Support To Improve The Human Experience We're always focused on supporting our leaders and care providers to improve their experience. Beyond traditional technologies such as performance management, engagement surveys and learning, we are implementing AI for things including people data and insights to enable real-time decisions. Data and insights are essential to the business, and technology at scale is key. - Nakesha Lopez, Advocate Health 2. Understand How Colleagues Interact With Content Technology that provides feedback on how colleagues interact with content provides great insight as to what content resonates within an organization. By understanding open rates, click rates and time spent on content, we can learn what messaging is meaningful to our colleagues as we lead. - Dave Barnett, DeVry University 3. Make Better Leave And Accommodations Decisions HR teams leverage leave management platforms to make better leave and accommodations decisions while the tech does the heavy lifting. By automating calculations, tracking and forms, technology gives HR the time and clarity to focus on what humans do best: make nuanced decisions, provide compliance reviews and real support when employees need it most. - Seth Turner, AbsenceSoft 4. Detect Sentiment Patterns We're using advanced analytics, sentiment analysis tools and employee listening platforms. Rather than relying solely on numerical data, we've incorporated AI-driven analytics to detect subtle patterns in employee sentiment, engagement and feedback to identify emerging trends, pinpoint potential issues and make informed decisions grounded in empathy, psychological safety and employee well-being. - Britton Bloch, Navy Federal 5. Identify Innate Skills We use technology backed by scientific insights to better understand people's innate skills and abilities to help inform decision-making. That approach makes it possible to see people for who they really are, with the aid of solutions built to accelerate processes like hiring. - Caitlin MacGregor, Plum Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify? 6. Bring Strengths Profiles Into Digital Workflows We combine technology with personalized insight to bring a human lens to decision-making. By integrating strengths profiles into digital workflows, we help leaders look beyond metrics to understand what truly drives each person. This leads to better decisions about team building, development and engagement, aligning business outcomes with individual potential. - Jaka Lindic, e2grow 7. Translate Invisible Labor And Equity Gaps Into Better Policy We use technology to surface what performance reviews often miss: invisible labor, capacity strain and equity gaps. But data alone isn't wisdom. We translate patterns into policies that restore balance and fuel trust. When tech is led by strategy—not novelty—it becomes a mirror, not a mask. That's how we make better decisions without losing sight of people. - Apryl Evans, USA for UNHCR 8. Validate Ideas With AI-Sourced Research Using AI as a quasi-AI prompt engineer allows you to obtain backup material quickly and efficiently as a supplement to your thought leadership, rather than leaning on AI to think for you. In addition, AI is a tool to provide peer-reviewed studies on an idea you may have. This leads to validation of your thesis through external third parties while providing differentiation from your peers. - John Pierce, John Pierce Consulting 9. Run Pay Equity Analysis With A Human-Centered Lens Using pay equity software to run organization-wide pay gap analyses helps us to identify focus groups and recommend objective criteria-based adjustments. Technology lightens our analysis load, allowing us to focus on addressing suspected individual pay issues with transparent communication and refining our pay strategy through a fair, human-centered lens. - Hayley Bakker, beqom 10. Build AI Agents From Real User Feedback We build AI agents that help us figure out our clients' pain points for both hiring managers and candidates. We even check what might annoy them when they use our platform. The personas we use in our AI agents are based on real feedback, not guesswork: We interview restaurant owners, hiring managers and job seekers to create detailed profiles and track preferences in topics, tone and more. - Milos Eric, OysterLink 11. Look At Your Data Holistically To Tell A Story We leverage tech like total rewards software, engagement survey software and analytics tools that marry the data together to tell a story. This allows our HR staff to surface real-time data, then layer in more meaningful context from employee feedback and manager insights. It's about using tools to inform, not replace, human judgment so decisions are data-backed and people-first. - Stephanie Manzelli, Employ Inc. 12. Personalize Employee Development At my digital banking company, we use AI to analyze survey sentiment and better understand employee experiences at scale. This allows us to focus more on strategy, combining data and human insights to guide our decisions. Technology also helps personalize development, supporting individual growth in today's transitional work environment. - Julie Hoagland, Alkami 13. Amplify Human Judgment So People Can Focus On What Matters I use AI not to replace human judgment, but to amplify it. It cuts through the noise, surfaces what matters and lets HR and managers focus on the moments that drive real impact for both our people and the business. - Jamie Aitken, Betterworks
Travel Daily News
03-06-2025
- Business
- Travel Daily News
Vision Hospitality Group promotes O'Mally Foster
Vision Hospitality Group promotes O'Mally Foster to chief people officer, reinforcing its people-first strategy, cultural transformation, and purpose-driven hospitality leadership. CHATTANOOGA, TENN. – Officials of Vision Hospitality Group, Inc., a Chattanooga-based hotel development and management company, announced the promotion of O'Mally Foster to chief people officer. In his new role, O'Mally will continue to uphold the organization's core values; lead cultural transformations during periods of growth or change; reinforce Vision's shared purpose; promote internal career advancement to cultivate talent from within; leverage people analytics to track engagement, retention and cultural progress; and align HR policies to actively advance the organization's mission of environmental stewardship, community service and cultural respect through its people practices. 'Since he joined Vision in 2017, O'Mally has been integral to our growth, most recently serving as our senior vice president of human resources,' said Mitch Patel, founder and CEO of Vision Hospitality Group. 'O'Mally's promotion marks a pivotal moment in our five-year strategic plan, underscoring Vision's unwavering commitment to our purpose-driven mission: to be the best, most respected hotel company in America by putting people first, leading with a purpose and delivering exceptional performance.' With over 30 years of hospitality experience, Foster joined Vision Hospitality Group from The Chattanoogan Hotel, where he served as director of human resources. He previously held similar leadership roles with respected hotel companies such as Noble Investment Group and Benchmark Hospitality. Foster exemplifies the company's mission of service to the communities through his volunteer work with United Way, the American Heart Association and Chattanooga Cares, as well as through his service on the Chattanooga Downtown Council. 'It has been my mission to consistently champion a workplace environment rooted in respect, inclusivity and purpose, and that remains my focus moving forward,' Foster said. 'Our people are our greatest asset. When they thrive, so does our company. As we look ahead, our strategy focuses on enhancing lives—not only for our associates and guests, but also for our investors and communities. By prioritizing people-centric leadership and aligning our culture with operational excellence, we are poised to continue to elevate guest satisfaction, achieve market share leadership, and deliver strong financial returns.' 'O'Mally's unwavering dedication to Vision Hospitality Group's culture and people has been nothing short of exemplary,' Patel added. 'Throughout his tenure, he has consistently championed a workplace environment rooted in respect, inclusivity and purpose. His people-first mindset has been a driving force behind numerous initiatives that have empowered associates at all levels to grow, contribute and thrive. By fostering open communication, cultivating leadership and reinforcing Vision's core values, O'Mally has not only strengthened the organizational culture but has also deepened the company's commitment to enhancing lives. His leadership continues to inspire a collective pursuit of excellence that resonates across every corner of the organization.' Headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Vision Hospitality Group was founded in 1997 by Mitch Patel. With a diverse portfolio encompassing over 40 hotels affiliated with esteemed brands such as Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, and InterContinental, Vision Hospitality Group continues to push the boundaries of hospitality excellence.
Gulf Business
11-05-2025
- Business
- Gulf Business
How people-centric businesses are winning in the Middle East and beyond
Image: Supplied Companies that prioritise people — whether employees, customers, or other stakeholders — are positioned to outperform their competitors in nearly every aspect. Investing in a people-first approach strengthens creativity, enhances loyalty, and drives long-term success. Fostering an environment where employees feel empowered and motivated leads to innovation, lowers turnover, and improves customer experiences. When companies empower their teams to take ownership and pursue innovative ideas, they gain a significant advantage. Microsoft and Google have built cultures where employees are encouraged to experiment and contribute new ideas. Creating an environment where employees have the freedom to innovate allow these companies to consistently lead in product development and industry trends. Employees who are trusted to take risks and think creatively push the boundaries of what's possible, enabling businesses to stay ahead in competitive markets. In the Middle East, Emirates Airlines demonstrates the power of investing in people. The company's commitment to employee wellbeing has fostered a strong culture of trust and support, which in turn fuels its reputation for exceptional service. Such investment in people contributes to Emirates' ongoing success, helping the airline remain a global leader despite an intensely competitive industry. The culture of employee empowerment at the airline plays a key role in the airline's ability to innovate and maintain a strong presence in international markets. Creating loyalty through a supportive work environment for people Employee retention is one of the most significant benefits of a people-focused culture. High turnover is expensive and disruptive, draining valuable resources. Companies that create an environment where employees feel valued and engaged see reduced turnover rates and greater overall stability. A people-powered approach strengthens loyalty, ensuring that employees remain committed to the company's long-term goals. Almarai, a leading food and beverage company, demonstrates the benefits of prioritizing employee engagement. The company's commitment to developing its workforce through training, leadership programs, and a supportive work environment has created a loyal and motivated team. Almarai's commitment to reducing turnover has helped the company grow while maintaining strong, long-term relationships with its employees, ultimately contributing to its success as a regional leader. Internal culture strengthens brand reputation A human-centred approach impacts more than internal operations — it shapes the company's external reputation as well. Employees who are engaged and motivated become natural ambassadors for the brand. Their enthusiasm and dedication often translate into better customer service, which strengthens customer loyalty and reinforces the company's brand values. Emaar Properties in Dubai has similarly benefited from a strong internal culture. The company invests in employee development and fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation. This focus on internal culture has contributed to the company's reputation for excellence, particularly in the real estate sector. Emaar's employees take pride in delivering high-quality developments, and this passion is evident in the brand's ongoing success in the global market. Employee engagement boosts financial performance Research has consistently shown that companies with high employee engagement perform better financially. Businesses that invest in their people enjoy higher productivity, better customer satisfaction, and stronger profitability. According to a 2024 McKinsey report, companies that prioritise their employees' performance are 4.2 times more likely to surpass their competitors, achieving an average revenue growth that is 30 per cent higher and experiencing 5 per cent lower turnover. Businesses that prioritise employee engagement are also more resilient and adaptable, with a workforce that is motivated to contribute to the company's success. In Saudi Arabia, organisations aligning with Vision 2030 are increasingly recognising that the key to long-term success lies in developing human capital. Focusing on employee well-being and professional growth, these businesses set themselves up for sustainable growth and greater competitiveness in the global market. Leadership plays a critical role in employee empowerment Effective leadership is essential in creating and maintaining a human capital strategy. Leaders must act as mentors, providing guidance and support while empowering their teams to succeed. Transparent and inclusive leadership fosters an environment where employees feel confident in contributing their ideas and working collaboratively. This kind of leadership encourages adaptability and drives innovation, which is crucial for business growth. Mohammed Alabbar, founder of Alabbar's leadership style encourages creativity and collaboration, empowering employees to take ownership of their work and contribute to the company's growth. Investing in people isn't just a strategy — it's the strategy that will drive long-term success. The future of business lies in leadership that places a strong emphasis on human capital, creating supportive and inclusive cultures where employees are motivated to contribute to the company's overall trajectory. The writer is the CEO and founder of CLAN Investment.
