Risk: "Employees

Without employees, there is no value creation and no business success. Companies consider employees to be their most important asset, and often also their greatest risk, because they can have a significant influence on the development of the organization. Their effectiveness in achieving goals can be immense, depending on their function, commitment and radius of action - in both a positive and negative sense. On the one hand, their potential enables them to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities, but on the other hand, they could fail or misbehave contrary to the objectives of their organization.

People are not perfect. However, they consciously or unconsciously take advantage of opportunities and - they avoid dangers. The downside of every success is that there are always "human errors" everywhere. In addition, the world of work is currently changing so rapidly that the entire value creation process is being called into question. This raises the quintessential question: Will the employees of organizations remain a significant risk potential - or will new, smart processes and technologies take over the majority of their complete tasks?

Influence of people on the organization
Employees at all levels of the company influence developments. Who is not familiar with the success stories of small, motivated teams that produce innovations?

"Artificial intelligence is increasingly found in everyday work ."

who will make the company go down in history as a result? And who has not heard of the departure of individual key people and groups, with the subsequent collapse of business?

Success stories or not, the issue of "employees" ultimately varies greatly depending on the size of the company. In the day-to-day life of mainly mature companies (of medium size), it can be observed that the various organisational departments tend to respond selectively (with individual actions) to the trendy, mostly risky activities. This gives the impression that in many places short-term activism reigns instead of continuous, sustainable guidelines being adhered to and processes being stringently designed. In contrast, the management of smaller companies often have a more direct relationship and exchange with their customers and employees and much faster decision-making processes.

Large companies have entire specialist groups and analytical tools to counter the systemic weaknesses of their size in the area of risk. Individual organizations, however, do not always follow a path adapted to their risk situation. Basic information on "Human factors in risk management" has already been reported in MQ 02/17. We know: People act differently, make mistakes and do not always act correctly. In this context, the focus must now be placed on the "employee" as a resource that is difficult to predict but nevertheless decisive and creates value. In opportunity management, the actual risk aspect of "employees" is neglected. Its potentially desirable influence on the achievement of the organization's goals - i.e. its activities that contribute to the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities - are usually already taken for granted and expected. The actual potentials are hardly considered or valued in terms of opportunity management. Targeted measures to promote the entrepreneurial activities of all employees are visibly aimed more at the larger companies, which then also market these as a success factor for their company.

Risk aspects "Employees" with potentially damaging influence are known to every organization. They can be assigned to the following hazard areas:

• Failure or departure of key personnel, Staff shortages
• misconduct contrary to the objectives of the organisation
• Loyalty, motivation and/or Health aspects
• inadequate organisational structure and management suitability
• insufficient adjustment to the level of the developments

Failures and unproductivity
Absenteeism and unproductive attendance are a costly problem for companies. Accordingly, companies are keen to understand the factors that cause employees to take leave or become unproductive.

Paolo Marini of Zurich Insurance discusses this topic on the basis of international studies. He concludes that a closer look at the data shows why neither problem is easy to solve. Reducing absenteeism is not as simple as promoting healthier employees.

Human error is caused by a wide range of factors, is often systemic in origin and can rarely be isolated to an individual or group. If variable human behaviour is to be systematically analysed and taken into account in risk considerations, the illustration in Figure 2 is used to establish the damaging influences of acting people.

These considerations on the potential causes of observable misbehaviour are supplemented in the analysis by a socio-technical systems approach.

Responsible management takes the potential influence of its employees on the business result seriously and analyses the systemic conditions of the organisation in the required breadth, taking into account the values of experience. It manages the company with a view to reducing risks and increasing opportunities and uses suitable instruments in the design of the organization, processes or technology.

Loyalty risk "corruption" and the use of smart control instruments
If we take the example of the misconduct "corruption" (see also Infobox) from the area of loyalty risks, the cause of corrupt behaviour is more likely to be found in the conscious, deliberate acceptance of a breach of applicable rules than in the case of oversights, errors or, as is often claimed, a lack of knowledge on the part of the actors. Once an organisation has ensured that the necessary rules are clear, i.e. communicated, understood and documented for all employees, measures of effectiveness control are increasingly taken. In setting up these systemic controls, digitalization, which is already very mature today, is becoming increasingly interesting, generating specific applications and raising new questions.

Smart technology and the remaining influence of employees
Artificial intelligence systems are increasingly available to support everyday work. They are trained to perform very specific functions and use their "special knowledge". Machines provide the right answers to the questions and rules set by humans, can provide information and knowledge quickly and very transparently, agree on decisions and derive a common language.

Automation and technical networking increase the complexity of working and living environments. The increasing speed of work ("digital transformation") can overwhelm us humans.

Where do new digital achievements lead? What will become of the "human success factor"? Will smart technology eventually go so far that people lose their influence on developments? Will we soon have to include artificial intelligence in the "employees" risk group?

To date, the "employee" is a potential success factor
People have "general knowledge". They think broadly and recognize correlations. Even if the interfaces between people, organization and technology are becoming increasingly complex for us, machines and artificial intelligence will remain our instruments for the time being.

Hopefully, people will continue to ask the right questions, be able to interpret answers in the breadth of their experience, and at all times show commitment and responsibility in the true sense of the word as "co-workers".
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