RAiN Chartered Accountants recognises the value of creating a thriving work environment for all by incorporating cutting-edge thought leadership concepts.  

Dr. Karen Puren, Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at the North-West University, provides the following valuable insights on how to cultivate a sense of place to make the workplace a unique, pleasurable experience and ultimately, to build a more prosilient workforce.

Unpack the concepts

The link between sense of place and prosilience with one’s work environment can only make sense if you understand what proactive, resilience and sense of place entails:

• Proactive: to take action by causing change instead of reacting to change when it happens. 
• Resilience: the capacity of a system (i.e. an environment, organisation, people) to bounce back from shocks and disturbances and adapt in the face of adversity, trauma, threats or various sources of stress.
• Prosilience is the merge of these two concepts: when proactive strategies or measurements are developed to strengthen the resilience of a system. In RAiN terms: Don’t wait until you get drenched by a downpour, pack your umbrella and put on those boots so you can dance (maybe even sing) in the rain.
• Sense of place refers to a unique “spirit of a place”. Organisationally speaking, the sense of place can be anything that makes that environment unique for people to flourish. In the case of RAiN Chartered Accountants, they create a prosilient workforce by considering sense of place.

Tailor the space for a strong sense of place

Organisations need to develop and offer individuals and groups in their workplace something specific, customised to their workplace context. Here is how RAiN Chartered Accountants specifically uses four principles to create a unique sense of place in order to develop a more prosilient workforce.

Flexibility 

• Meet different needs and preferences by acknowledging different modes of working and implementing a four-day work week to create a better work-life balance.

Creativity and synergy

• Proactively encourage open and cross communication between different sections internally to merge different perspectives, but also incorporate outside perspectives in the form of business incubators to develop new ideas and applications

Holistic thinking

• Expand on the core business of accounting by offering holistic packages that include additional services like strategy development, marketing, and business proposals.

Stronger space, stronger organisational outcomes

The results of continually building a stronger sense of place will, eventually, speak for themselves. These can include: (i) potentially less stress for employees, (ii) a more resilient group of employees, (iii) a platform for lifelong learning where employees can consistently learn from one another and from external stakeholders. In essence, a prosilient workforce and a more creative solution driven workplace.

Forward-thinking for organisational benefits

Incorporating sense of place and prosilience in a corporate environment like RAiN revolves around three main advantages: it fosters a sense of belonging to a unique group or environment; ownership is taken by employees because they can identify with the group on a personal level, and it assures long term sustainability due to the diverse range of accounting and assurance services the company provides.

Ultimately, a stronger sense of place can help anchor and empower employees to weather the storms of an ever-changing world with confidence. 

For more info on these concepts, email Dr. Puren at karen.puren@nwu.ac.za. 

Follow RAiN Chartered Accountants on LinkedIn. 

At Lunch spoke to Dr. Puren to find out more. Listen here: