The rise of regenerative management

Is regenerative management the objective of current managerial transformations? You might be aware that since the lockdown, large corporations and SMEs alike have been redefining their values. They are re-evaluating them in light of recent events, giving them new meaning, or simply dusting them off.

This is what the e-commerce company I have been consulting with for several years recently did. Their reflections led them to adopt values that, although traditional, are powerful, as they embody the operational reality of their corporate culture: excellence, customer focus, collaboration, and agility. So far, so good.

But there’s more. They also wanted to introduce a fifth value—a value that doesn’t appear in typical examples of company values. It’s a value so uncommon and complex in its interpretation that it presents a challenge for managers tasked with embodying and transmitting it. Particularly because its connection to management is not immediately evident: eco-responsibility.

From eco-friendly management to regenerative management

For now, the board of directors, HR department, and managers of this company have defined eco-responsibility as all the behaviours linked to each employee’s individual role in sustainable development.

So, the managers find themselves needing to encourage their employees’ practices based on three criteria:

1. Reducing the environmental impact of their work, like cutting down on emails sent, the number of recipients, and printing on paper.
2. Choosing partners and suppliers who share eco-friendly values.
3. Sorting rubbish by using the right bins.

And that’s where the snag lies and where managers find themselves a bit stumped. What do you reckon?

• Is it really believable and desirable to assess your team members based on the number of emails they send, or whether they’ve chucked their printer toners in the right bin?
• Should managers be the ones to choose partners and suppliers with eco-friendly values? And how do they check and confirm that? This client is in the office supplies game, and there’s no Fairtrade equivalent for ballpoint pens.
• Above all, as a manager, what does it mean to be an eco-friendly manager? Excellence, customer focus, collaboration, or agility, alright. The connection to management is easy to make. But an eco-friendly manager? How do you go about being one, beyond the announcement on the company’s website? And how is this shown in practical terms?

And there, it’s indeed easy to get lost or pick the wrong focus and find managers keeping an eye on the yellow bins or tallying the number of emails sent each year by their team members.

In fact, to answer the question of what eco-responsibility in management is, let’s take a step back to understand the business model this eco-responsibility approach to management is based on. In a nutshell: “Regenerative company”.

Let’s talk about the new normal and the world of fragility

But before we discuss “regenerative” companies and “sustainable management,” I need to provide more context on the concept of the “new normal,” which until recently was described as the new “post-Covid” world. It turned out that this “post-world” seemed quite similar to the world before, until two events collided:

1. The rise of eco-anxiety, the feeling of worry and anxiety experienced by 75% of Australian people (according to the Climate Council); and
2. The concern about the widespread deployment of AI tools in all professional fields, particularly since the general public discovered ChatGPT.

Employees, whether managers or not, are now confronted with four vulnerabilities, each bringing its own set of concerns.

The world of fragility has 4 components:

1. The feeling of stable uncertainty that accompanies the instability of our skills and the fear of becoming obsolete due to the increasingly rapid obsolescence of our knowledge and abilities is pervasive. It’s no coincidence that there’s currently so much talk about impostor syndrome and soft skills. Human Resources Management is becoming personal and emotional.
2. The rise of constant anxiety, which manifests in our inability to predict what the future holds and prevents us from envisioning our lives, even in the short term. This necessitates a new mindset of continuous experimentation, value creation, and embracing failure. We are no longer in the era of strategic management.
3. The loss of meaning and direction in the face of a non-linear, fragmented environment. Our careers and lives are divided into ever-shorter periods. The linear paths of study, work, and retirement are gone. Now we discuss lifelong learning and redefining retirement. Atypical career paths are becoming more common, and trying to find meaning in them is missing the point. Meaning is not given; it’s discovered!
4. The discouragement arising from extreme paradoxes where everything and its opposite occur simultaneously, and one can no longer rely on past experience to resolve a situation when the situation encountered is new and inconceivable. Consider companies like Patreon and Amazon, which are laying off employees while recruiting.This “new normal” requires managers to be much more empathetic in order to recognize individual vulnerabilities, knowing that they, too, are experiencing the consequences. This contributes to the issue of psychological safety.The fragility lies in understanding that we are not mere spectators, as nobody is immune anymore! This calls for greater autonomy in your job, especially if you’ve been employed since graduation. If you’re a job seeker, you must also recognize that fewer traditional job seekers or people wanting employment are being hired. Now, you need to act as an investor in skills, developing them independently to keep up with market realities.One of the roles of a regenerative manager is to serve as a bridge between the present of your employees (and your own) and their future, all while navigating uncertain times. But first, we need to define what a regenerative company is. When I was invited to speak on this topic at the European Outdoor Summit this summer, I realized in hindsight that a definition would have been helpful. In fact, the regenerative enterprise concept is as old as VUCA, yet still unfamiliar to many business leaders and managers.

Definition of a regenerative business

A regenerative company not only focuses on preserving the environment but also actively contributes to its regeneration by ensuring its activities don’t harm nature today or in the future. It accomplishes this by improving the well-being and quality of life of every employee and striving for a positive impact on society.

In summary, a regenerative company:

1. Preserves and regenerates its natural, human, social, and societal environment through a systemic approach. This means it doesn’t just plant trees to offset its pollution!
2. Aims to enhance the well-being of employees in their work experience and their quality of life at work. In other words, management provides a work experience, and HR offers a path for skill development and soft skill professionalisation, not just a job. Employee recognition is also an important part of regenerative HR.
3. Possesses a strong and proven rationale that it considers more than just economic success. That is, it understands the value it brings to its customers and environment beyond mere “value marketing.” In a regenerative company, human resource management takes center stage on a manager’s agenda.In this type of organization, managers understand that their most valuable asset is their people. They recognize the importance of fostering a healthy, inclusive, and supportive work environment that empowers employees to reach their full potential.
4. Pursues performance and a virtuous economic model thanks to the previous points. This means it’s not a kibbutz – being profitable is essential to do good! Therefore, the company’s needs are not neglected for the sole benefit of its HR policy.

In short, a regenerative company aims to leave the natural, human, social, and societal environment in a better state than it found it! For such a company, meeting CSR obligations is the foundation! The same goes for “putting the human being at the center of the organization.” This promise, which we’ve been hearing repeatedly for years, is merely the starting point for a regenerative company.

The human aspect of the regenerative economy

In fact, many companies already have a talent management strategy based on regeneration without even realizing it. The numerous conferences organized to understand younger generations, develop quality of work life, manage skills, build career paths, encourage internal mobility, promote good engagement practices, rethink recruitment processes, and, of course, implement managerial innovation, are concrete examples.

Companies are increasingly abandoning traditional “people management” or HRM practices such as monitoring, control, and repression, or performance practices like developing their “human capital” just because it sounds better than “human resources management.” Instead, they’re adopting an approach that focuses on well-being at work, updating jobs and skills, and the overall employee experience under the umbrella of quality of work life. It emphasizes developing autonomy and empowerment to help their employees transition to an employee-centric status.

This new management model is gaining popularity in some companies. Not because it’s trendy, like management by kindness or hybrid management, but because traditional management, focused on performance and achieving objectives, can sometimes lead to feelings of exhaustion and disengagement.

That’s where regenerative management comes in, as the next step. In summary, you have three levels:

1. Traditional management based on leading by example, giving orders, and controlling employees.
2. Managerial innovation and leadership that focuses on developing autonomy and empowering employees.
3. Regenerative management centered on psychological safety and maintaining employability through the development of soft skills, coaching, and the acquisition of new strategic competencies for employees.

Regenerative management aims to strengthen the health, vitality, and creativity of employees by focusing on their strengths and passions, rather than their weaknesses. This management approach encourages employees to develop their potential and creativity while continuously seeking to reduce stress and burnout.

But it’s not only management that’s changing; the career paths of employees are evolving too.

The circularity of the talent wheel

I won’t delve into the employee life cycle here, but to summarize, it considers two systemic and strategic elements of the individual value chain:

1. The transition from a constructed career project to an experience playlist. Employment duration is shortening every year (please share any relevant data in the comments), and departures no longer always come with a signed promise of employment. Additionally, departures are less about disappointed resignations and more about employees who are content with their experience in their previous company.
2. The shift from a career with a beginning and an end to a circular experience. The cycle now features a beginning (recruitment) and a somewhat inevitable end (resignation or retirement). In France, around 17% of employees are “boomerang employees” who return to a company they previously resigned from.

The talent cycle is to Human Resources what the circular economy is to the economy. Management must now adapt to this new reality. Your employees are with you now but may leave happily and return the same way. The impact of your management practices extends far beyond your current team! Even when discussing the circular economy, skills have global limits, which calls for a completely new vision of career management, skill management, and human resources policy that considers an employee’s entire career, not just the brief time they spend with you.

Definition of regenerative management and its responsibilities

Now that we have all* the ingredients:

• The fragile world of the new normal,
• The responsibility of the company to go beyond CSR,
• The evolution of managerial models,
• The circularity of paths.

* Well, almost all of them. The ones that are missing are addressed in conferences. #epicteaser

Let’s mix these ingredients to understand the stakes of this type of management and the responsibilities of managers applying it. It’s quite simple; the three responsibilities of regenerative management are environmental, social, and economic.

Environmental responsibility

The question here is, “How can we create or recreate a stimulating work environment in which a climate of psychological safety prevails?” The objective is to offer a working environment that encourages employees to excel and continuously develop their skills, leaving a positive imprint on their increasingly long careers. In short, it’s about providing a dynamic, even exciting, work experience, not just monitoring your carbon footprint like the company I mentioned earlier in this article. The “psychological safety” aspect ensures all employees feel free to propose ideas, be themselves, and be vulnerable, knowing that interactions with their colleagues are constructive and they won’t be judged or punished for it. Yes, this is about inclusion and your ability to attract talent.

Social responsibility

The second question regenerative leaders need to ask themselves is, “How do I empower my people?” This touches on the foundations of managerial innovation and forward-looking talent management, which helps employees transition from order-takers to empowered individuals. You must ensure that when recruiting, you’re not only looking for employees for now, but also those who can take initiatives, assess calculated risks, and view failure as a step towards success. We are beyond professional sustainability as it’s not about accumulating years of work or experience, but knowledge, skills, and know-how to help your employees tackle daily challenges.

Take Lego’s example from 2015, when an employee made a €1.6 million mistake by creating a piece in the wrong shade of grey. He wasn’t fired because now, you can be sure he checks it multiple times.

Economic Responsibility

The question here is, “How can I make my employees antifragile?” This involves taking a step back from your employee’s career and looking at it as a whole:

1. There was a past that gave them the experience that motivated you to recruit them.
2. There is the present, where they are under your responsibility.
3. And, in the not-so-distant future, there will be an aftermath.

Regenerative recruiters (yes, they exist) ask their candidates, “What do you think you will do after working with us?” not to corner the candidate, but to find out. This responsibility ensures that your employee has all the skills and soft skills to face their future and even, using the concept of antifragility, that each crisis reinforces these skills. This is precisely what Arnaud Deschamps, the CEO of Nespresso, does when he brings his employees together each year to remind them that Nespresso’s success is, above all, a collective success, and this means that each Nespresso employee’s CV can be enhanced.

The objective of these three responsibilities can be summed up in a single phrase that encapsulates regenerative management: employees who join you should have more opportunities for development than they ever had in their past experiences, and they should leave your company even more employable than when you recruited them. You become a talent investment fund if the image speaks to you.

The result: employees who are committed until they leave… if they leave at all, because regenerative companies are rare when many are still learning how to measure their carbon impact or reduce greenhouse gases. #it’stime

Embracing the regenerative management evolution and its impact

Going beyond a strong employee value proposition, the rise of regenerative management and human resources represents a significant evolution that demands a clear roadmap! Imagine that from now on, you must consider not only the time an employee spends on your team but also their future. This shift changes the traditional managerial perspective and requires a change of mindset, just as former managers had to accept that an employee who leaves isn’t a traitor! #BlastFromThePast

But it goes even further than that! If candidates’ and employees’ environmental expectations towards companies continue to grow, lacking regenerative management will differentiate those who can recruit effortlessly from those who struggle. And trust me, you don’t want to be the latter!

So, if you already take into account your company’s attractiveness, employer offer, employee well-being, and engagement, you’re on the right track and likely a step ahead of your competitors. Kudos to you, but don’t stop there – you’re only at the beginning of regenerative management.

Why use regenerative management?

Adopting regenerative management is essential for several key reasons:

1. Employee well-being: Regenerative management prioritizes the well-being of employees, employee engagement; turnover, creating a psychologically safe and inclusive work environment. This approach fosters greater employee satisfaction through employee development, reducing stress and burnout, ultimately leading to increased productivity and higher employee retention rates.
2. Talent attraction and retention: Companies that practice regenerative management demonstrate a commitment to the growth and development of their employees, Career-development and Performance management, making them more attractive to top talent. This approach not only helps attract skilled candidates but also encourages employee loyalty and long-term commitment. It also promotes
   an real Onboarding process and a human resource driven organisation.
3. Adaptability and resilience: By focusing on employee empowerment and fostering an innovative mindset, regenerative management equips organizations to navigate the rapidly changing business landscape. This adaptability is crucial for thriving in today’s competitive market.
4. Positive societal and environmental impact: Regenerative management goes beyond traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR) to ensure that companies positively impact society and the environment. This approach is essential in meeting the increasing expectations of consumers, employees, and other stakeholders who demand sustainable and ethical business practices.
5. Enhanced reputation and improved competitiy advantage: Implementing regenerative management strategies can boost a company’s reputation as an employer and corporate citizen. This enhanced reputation can lead to increased brand loyalty, a more robust customer base, and greater opportunities for collaboration and partnerships.