Businesses must promote culture of love to foster employees’ productivity - Odunaiya

The growing economic uncertainties and their toil on citizens have necessitated the need for companies in Nigeria to embrace a culture of love in the workplace to foster employees’ productivity, Cynthia Odunaiya, head of human resources of Greensprings School, has said.

Speaking about the 14 Days Acts of Kindness, an initiative introduced by Greensprings School in celebration of Valentine’s season, Odunaiya said companies need to maintain an open-door policy for all staff and ensure a fair hearing for everyone because it enables the companies to get feedback directly from employees.

The seasoned HR professional said that initiatives, like the one organised by the school for Valentine’s season, are needed in the workplace to ensure that employees experience love and happiness, as this will motivate them to put in their best and ultimately increase productivity.

According to her, three things matter in every organisation, the people (staff), the product and the profit, adding that in all these, people are at the centre; hence, the work environment must be warm and comfortable for them to thrive.

Odunaiya said the initiative was aimed at reinforcing the love and kindness shared in the school community.

She said the staff members were encouraged to engage in deliberate acts of kindness towards their colleagues and loved ones from the 1st to the 14th of February.

She said there is a need to come up with exciting initiatives that will make them happy and promote bonding among colleagues.

“At Greensprings, we have several initiatives and staff engagement to ensure that our employees feel heard, loved and respected. Some of them include regular wellness talks and health checkups through our HMO partners; long service recognition awards; most valuable employees of the month; birthday shout-outs and surprise milestone celebrations.

“Generally, we maintain an open-door policy for all staff and ensure fair hearing for everyone, because this enables us to get feedback directly from employees. There was a time when we noticed a gap in workflow, and we organised a session with employee representations from different generations comprising Generation X, Millennials and Gen-Z. After meaningful deliberations about the ways of work, we modified our policy to be more suitable for the diverse generational needs within the organisation,” she explained.

Odunaiya further said that the human-centric HR initiatives of the school are in line with the school’s motto while tasking other companies to promote a culture of love in the workplace.

“We do all these because we want everyone in our organisation to feel heard and valued. This helps us to sustain our service culture, thus aligning perfectly with our motto, which is ‘In Love Serve One Another.’ Organisations can take a cue from this to ensure that they have a culture of love as this will greatly improve employee productivity,” she added.

Cynthia Odunaiya is an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management and a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Greensprings School is a leading British international school with three campuses in Lagos.