She's only the cleaner!

I was asked recently to assist a hospitality business build a greater sense of teamship within their organisation. To bring people closer together.

Sitting down with the business owner I went through the rudiments of what they aimed to achieve, their expectations. It also gave me the opportunity to outline how I would manage the task using our innovative people wellbeing and insight tool, HumaniXs. My intention was to build them what we call a "fluid risk matrix". All businesses and organisations are in constant flux so having access to "warm" data is crucial if we are to bring context to experiences people are having due to the comings and goings of the most complex system within any business, people.

It was a relatively small business but every single person within it was a vital cog. That is when they passed this particular comment after I asked them if he they had included all the staff involved in the business.

They said this,

"Well, we do have another person but she's only the cleaner so I would not bother involving her!"

The seemingly throwaway comment immediately took me back to my time managing the Central Counties Air Operations Unit and providing air support to Staffordshire and West Mercia Police. The picture you see above was taken in 2008 at our base at Halfpenny Green Airport. They were magical times, and the whole team was like a family. Within aviation you soon come to realise that each person in the image literally keeps you alive as the safety required on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis is profound.

There is one person that immediately sticks out and she is wearing the green jumper. A small in stature figure and standing front and centre of the image amongst 14 other proud people. She was our unit's cleaner. Let's call her Jean.

Jean was the linchpin of the unit. She worked three mornings a week. Jean didn't actually need to work as her successful husband probably earnt more money than all those 14 other people put together, but she loved her job. Jean mothered all those who worked at the unit and probably spent more time making us drinks and chatting than cleaning. She even lodged nomadic pilots at her beautiful home in the countryside as the annex above the double garage was an ideal place for them to take time out and recover from busy shifts when living away from home.

Most importantly, Jean was a "safe pair of ears". We would regularly confide our problems to her as she listened, and when necessary offer us sage advice from a life lived. She was a vital "informal support network" and we all, without doubt, confided more in her than we did with our more formal peer and supervisory networks. We generally speak least about the things that matter most, but not with Jean. She knew everything as she saw every person on the unit. Jean was the conduit and glue across all the shifts. Countless times I sat down with a morning coffee in the unit kitchen with Jean and talked through personal dilemmas and you always felt a sense of relief and an unburdening once you had regaled your woes to her.

If you think about it, Jean played a pivotal role in flight safety! Allowing people to vent and share some of their most worrying concerns.

And here is the thing. Imagine a base or business without a Jean. Who actually keeps the premises "spick and span" for others to work in? How do the premises look when senior officers, clients or members of the public visit if it is not well maintained and loved? At best, the responsibility reverts to others "more senior" in the unit who may see it as an additional responsibility, a chore, which is "below them" and when added to their other seemingly "more important" duties that cleanliness soon deteriorates.

Thinking back, Jean was also a barometer, which may seem a very strange thing to say but consider this. How senior leaders at the very pinnacle of the organisation communicate and behave (including implementing policies and procedures) will inevitably be reflected in how Jean works. Her level of engagement, her resilience and her own behaviours will all be a reflection of what is happening at the very top. Conway's Law. So, if you wish to gain an insight into how successful your business and it's culture is monitor Jean for a while.

And here's the crunch! If you ever ignore the person who cleans your working space, ignore them at your peril. Just remember how vitally important a cog they are and the importance of the role they play. Jean did not just keep the premises clean she provided the most consistent and dependable pair eyes and ears possible.

This is the very concept on which our groundbreaking HumaniXs Wellbeing Assessment is built. It is your constant insight, the eyes and ears into your ever changing and fluid workplace. Most importantly HumaniXs opens up individual and personal dialogue that is so vitally important but so often neglected until it is too late. HumaniXs gets you ahead of the danger, becoming proactive rather than reactive to underlying and invisible workplace issues, whilst bringing people and teams closer together with a shared awareness.

HumaniXs, when deployed across a whole organisation will also enable you to figure out where the constraining factors and bottlenecks for success currently lie, allowing the organisation itself to quickly solve its own problems with its very own people. The answers are in the room when people start talking openly and in a safe environment, free from finger pointing and criticism.

Want to know how you can have your own Jean and unleash the power of your very own people, then get in touch for an informal chat.