Social Enterprise

MANAGING PEOPLE IN A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENT: THE SAME OR DIFFERENT AS MANAGING PEOPLE IN A COMMERCIAL ENVIRONMENT?

“Social Enterprise” is a term highly differentiated into the framework of what we know as “Business World”. Social enterprises are born as a consequence of market failures and they are continuously growing in size and quantity because of that failures repetitiveness. It’s a fact that the markets are not perfect as opposite as it has been said by many scientist through years, it is important to remark that, when I write about market imperfections I don’t mean macro-economic variables as inflation, monetary issues and so on… The real market failures that provokes the need of social economy consolidation are the micro-economic ones, those referred to the companies (and also governments), more precisely their incapability of affording social problems and injustices. The need of social enterprises in today’s world is a real fact, and also the need of people that understand this lack of values and commitment, this is actually about what I’m going to focus on this essay: People on social economy. Almost every issue in a company, as for instance resources or funding, differs between commercial or social enterprises and the ‘people’ is not an exception, moreover the main factor in the social economy is the human capital thus, it is one of the principal points that establish the difference between both kinds of “businesses models”.

When talking about managing people in a social enterprise we can refer to a wide variety of “people” that every company (either social or commercial) has to take into account. Those people can be employees, bankers, lenders, partners, investors, volunteers (in the case of social enterprises) etc... Managing those groups of stakeholders is one of the most difficult aspects faced by the organizations and even more for social businesses. As I have said before, social enterprises don’t move through the same paths as traditional or commercial ones, they go beyond the conventional patterns of the business and then, their people managing is quite complex. The main task for a social entrepreneur or manager is to spread and share the company’s values and mission with every person that affects to the company or is affected by it, almost every social enterprise is based on people, in solving injustices or creating a better world for those “people” then ,I can affirm surely that, differing with many commercial enterprises, Human resources management is the most important operational department in a social company constituting one of the main factors for achieving competitive advantage in the sector.

I’m going to focus my essay on the Human Resources Management for a while, one of the most interesting points for analysing social enterprises. It is a really enthusiastic labour to try to achieve a goal cooperating with people that shares your values, that fight for and are interested in the same causes that you. The social entrepreneur trust in what he does and in what his company is created for, but probably you would think: Well, it is not the fact of being a “social entrepreneur” that means this, every entrepreneur is passionate and motivated about his project. Right, if not, it would not be a successful entrepreneur. Nevertheless, the definition of “successful” is not the same for both of them, the social entrepreneur wants to change the world anyhow, in any dimension, creating not just “a money machine” because his goal is not just to get profits and this is why it is commonly said that, while commercial managers/entrepreneurs try to serve shareholders, social ones try to serve stakeholders.

“If you want to get different results, you have to try different things” it is a phrase I have heard many times and that fits perfectly with the social entrepreneurs ambition, they share the same passion and love for its business that any other businessman or entrepreneur in a commercial economy, however, they have different values, their companies are impregnated by different missions, missions related on changing the usual patterns of enterprise and for achieving this, and that’s why they achieve different things, different situations that are always focused on creating “a better world”. But a social entrepreneur can’t do this alone, he/she need a team that shares his/her beliefs.

The base of a social enterprise human resources are the employees and volunteers, on the one hand it is really difficult to manage a team where there are many hierarchic positions and where the difference in salaries is quite large ( volunteers don’t receive any monetarily feedback as workers or managers do), nevertheless, following the whole company values, the workers and volunteers of social businesses motivation is not limited just at earning a high salary, they do what they do for extra-monetary reasons, as I have said before, they are passionate about achieving its social goals and this cooperation and unity is, in my opinion, the main factor of succeed in a social enterprise. This rapport between the human team in the company creates positive synergies that makes every difficult and turbulent situation easier and that creates a good atmosphere into the company. This doesn’t necessary mean that managing people in a social enterprise is simpler than in commercial ones, it is just different. It is different managing workers than volunteers, it is different managing disable people (as we saw in AlterEos) than highly skilled employees and so on…

It is also different recruiting people for social enterprises and commercial companies. Usually social workers can’t ask for the same salaries as commercial ones do, they have to understand that they are not working for a full-for profit firm and that there are priorities on there. Often social workers are young people, they have not many experience neither in the sector nor in the labour world at all but this is not an inconvenient for social economy, moreover, that are good news that younger people with fresh mind and ideas are interested in the sector and understanding the lack of values and undertaking in the economy nowadays.

It's also important to make reference to the communication behaviours in both social