Article by Francesca Sacco for PME magazine. 10.04.2023
The awakening of ecological awareness has infiltrated all areas of life. Right down to the management of work teams.
It's a trendy idea. The concept of sustainable development is closely linked to the collective awareness of the need to preserve the environment. This obvious fact has gradually become part of political, economic and social life. In recent years, "sustainability" has become an integral part of the jargon of employers' social responsibility. Environmentally conscious companies have become sustainable - as have marketing, public institutions, cities and every product we buy.
What if this theory also applied to human resources? In a society that is becoming increasingly aware of the extent of psychosocial risks in the workplace, this question has caught the attention of Frédéric Meuwly, director of Actitudes in Vevey. "I was impressed by certain initiatives, such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Ellen McArthur Foundation and the Solar Impulse project, and I wanted to understand what kind of 'magic' certain teams were able to achieve by being efficient on a human level too", he explains.
As early as 2005, convinced of the similarity between the original definition of sustainability and the working groups that stand the test of time, the consultant set out to identify the criteria for a successful team. Drawing inspiration from the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 model, which sets out 17 global sustainable development goals, he identifies 18 drivers in total, which can be worked on in a structured way. In 2020, Frédéric Meuwly formalized his methodology in a book entitled "Les équipes durables", which has sold over 1,000 copies to date - a figure synonymous with bestseller success in the French-speaking market.
"The teams that move faster and better? Those with a better collaborative dynamic."
If you do a search on the Internet, you'll find that for several years now there has been a wealth of methods, training courses and workshops relating to "sustainable" management. Almost invariably, the expression is taken in a rather broad sense, encompassing corporate social responsibility, environmental resource management and control of the ecological impact of processes, as well as prevention and promotion of health in the workplace, for example. However, Frédéric Meuwly's approach focuses specifically on the success factors of teams: supportive management, clarity of roles and processes, a feedback culture, group cohesion, continuous learning, staff stimulation and recognition, etc.
This methodology is particularly attractive to SMEs and public or semi-private institutions. It is also the subject of two in-company masters programs, currently underway at AlpWatt Sàrl and Romande Energie, as part of the HES-SO Executive MBA program. Client companies and organizations include the RWB engineering firm, the Réseau santé de la Sarine, Firmenich and the Etablissement d'assurance contre l'incendie et les éléments naturels du canton de Vaud (ECA).
In addition, Frédéric Meuwly was invited by Swiss Leaders to present his approach in a public lecture and webinar to the association's members.
At Firmenich, more than 2,000 employees have already been trained. "The idea that it was possible to apply sustainability factors to team management convinced us, as we have inherited from our long history as a family business a particular sensitivity to environmental issues", explains HR Director Guy Zehnder. RWB in Porrentruy is equally enthusiastic: "Our aim was to develop our teams' ability to mobilize knowledge from the field. This requires skills that our managers don't necessarily possess, as they are originally trained as engineers. This approach was a first for us, but after a workshop we were already able to set up internal peer coaching", says Samuel Beuchat, the company's director.
For Ornella Macheda, HR Director at Réseau santé de la Sarine, the experience has helped strengthen bonds of trust. "That's what we wanted, because if relationships are good, people are more willing to get involved in the running of the teams. So we started by training all our managers, adopting a micro-project approach to aim for rapid, measurable effects. We wanted to avoid falling into the trap of those initiatives where you never see the end or even the results! In the end, everyone who took part decided to continue, and the approach was renewed."
In his career, which began in the pharmaceutical industry with a background as a young engineer, Frédéric Meuwly quickly noticed that it was difficult for a team to develop on a human level too, in addition to meeting numerical targets. He believed in the traditional rule that 80% of success is attributable to quality and only 20% to teamwork. "Experience proved me wrong! Indeed, I saw teams getting bogged down in a counter-productive dynamic even though they had been assigned a promising project, while others were making better and faster progress, thanks to a better collaborative dynamic."
