Saving human energy, the challenge of the 21st century?

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Helping its employees to make good use of their energy by facilitating access to the right information at the right time: a lever for economic performance. To encourage the sharing of ideas between employees and with third parties and thus create synergy: a lever for innovation.

Who hasn't felt discouraged and exhausted at the mere thought of opening their mailbox?
Who has never been caught unawares, unable to react correctly when faced with a partner, a colleague, a competitor, due to a lack of critical information?
Who - on the contrary - has never got lost in the amount of unsorted, unverified information available in his organisation?

Here are some of the issues that sum up one of the greatest challenges facing companies and their employees today. In a world that is more open than ever, where information flows instantaneously and where it is vital to take into account the entire ecosystem, we are in fact too easily overwhelmed.
The consequences are easy to identify. According to the "Fifth European Working Conditions Survey" of the European Foundation of Dublin (European Commission), France is in the top 3 "stressed" countries of the EU. The mess that this represents on a daily basis is difficult to quantify, but undeniable.

At a time when mastering, even saving, resources, energy... give rise to words and deeds, what about the safeguarding of human energy? Less fatigue, less stress, less interpersonal tension, promote better productivity, optimal use of collective intelligence and greater creativity. A major advantage for both the company and the employee.

Traditional recipes are no longer enough

Concrete recipes already exist to enable the company to save the energy of its employees, so that they can combine efficiency and peace of mind. Of course, there is the working environment (good lighting, space, comfortable sound volume...) or the services made available to staff, internally or in the immediate vicinity, to make their lives easier.

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But in this digital, mobile and instantaneous universe in which we live, this is no longer enough. The thing that most helps an employee, allowing him or her to really focus on the essential, is immediate access to the "right" information. That is to say, the information they need to make decisions, to act, to be ahead of their competitors; the information that enriches their thinking and broadens the scope of their knowledge. Finally, it facilitates innovation, the keystone of companies that are constantly developing and reinventing themselves. It is precise, verified, non-redundant, accessible, in "zero click" mode.

Technologies that address these aspects already exist and all have collaborative and social aspects in common. Better still, in addition to facilitating access to information, they are also evolutionary; they learn from the choices and preferences of the individual, in order to provide him with filtered, ready-to-use information, without him having to explain his real needs every day. This capacity for evolution is central in a context where a company is anything but a fixed structure. It evolves from day to day and the expectations of its employees are also gradually changing. The tools must therefore take this into account.

Collaborative and RSX to make better use of energy

Of these, collaborative business networks offer the greatest benefits. They are at the heart of business issues and interpersonal relationships. Their objective is to create business synergies and increase the power of the professional communities that use them.
By combining these networks with intuitive access to relevant information, ideas are shared better, and the capacity for innovation and strategic discoveries multiplies because the accuracy of information and its non-redundancy are verified - without wasting time. Employees thus have greater comfort in sharing their thoughts and enriching them with those among their peers who will be most concerned and capable of bringing value. De facto, the energy of these employees is preserved and even increased.

The good news is that companies are becoming aware of the issues of efficiency, development, social climate and innovation that this imperative of safeguarding human energy covers. The 2013 edition of the International Values Index, produced by the Wellcom agency, highlights the very strong increase in the "Innovation" value in companies to differentiate themselves from the competition and the appearance, for the first time, of the "Community" value in the ranking. The latter concerns both internal (employees) and external (customers) dynamics.

Indeed, if professionals understand that optimizing human energy through a more refined use of collaborative tools is a strength, the idea that it is also an asset outside the company is gaining ground. The strategy of relevance and "zero click", applied on external social networks (RSX)* offers a strong optimization of their sales processes: a user, customer, returns to a platform when he knows that the information presented to him is of quality. One of the fundamental criteria of this quality is the relevance to his or her areas of interest. Theme by theme, it is therefore possible to capitalize from a business point of view on the same approaches that have made its employees more efficient and zen in its organization. By deepening the analysis, it even appears that customers become sources of innovation, facilitating the permanent adaptation of the company.

At a time when every organisation is seeking to rationalise its investments, measures that promote the saving of human energy are more than just a line in a company's CSR policy or a simple business opportunity. Watching and acting to control the human energy expenditure of its ecosystem is a real necessity. Acting to encourage sharing within the company and with its customers is a formidable lever of synergy.

* RSX are tailor-made social networks, designed by companies to federate a community around their activity, on an external thematic platform that they master and on which they can rely systematically to develop..

Florian LeblancExecutive Vice President, NYC, Entropic Synergies & Viviane Strickfaden, CEO VS Management

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