Inspiration Mondays: People First

When I first clicked on this video, I was really not expecting to be inspired by it. It's about how things are packaged in some warehouses across America. I know, not that exciting for a title, really.

When I heard him say that this had to do with thousands of mobile robots, the first thing I thought was, "Oh great. Here's another story where people lost their jobs to robots."

But it wasn't.

It was about how someone thought of making their business work better, AND make working conditions better for his employees. And not only that: it improved their employees' quality of life.

He made the employee the centre of the solution, and everybody won. To quote something he says in the video:

We catch [them] on testimonial videos saying: "It's so stress-free that I've actually stopped taking my blood pressure medication."

I'm so glad that someone thought of a way to make money, but without, for want of a better term, screwing their employees out of a decent livelihood.

And not only that, I liked when he said this:

When you let things start to think and walk and talk on their own, interesting processes and productivities can emerge.

He was talking about giving this ability to the inanimate products themselves, but I think it also applies to the employees themselves. What I mean is: if your boss allows his or her employees to think and walk and talk on their own, the problems that need fixing tend to get fixed. However, if you put people into offices and command them to solve a problem and shut the door behind you, well, you're not really going to get the result you want.

Something to ponder, yes?