Great Place to Work

We had another “caravan” tour of staff from other offices through my workplace the other day. We’ve done four of these in the last two months and I love having the visitors here. As the “Grand Pooh-Bah”, my self-proclaimed title, I typically do a welcoming spiel and then my colleagues conduct a briefing on the function of the office and a tour of the workplace.

During my welcoming speech I say a few words about how I started in 1975 for $8,400 per year and now make TWICE that amount. It always gets a laugh. I point out that every place I’ve parked my car here in the last 34 years they have built a new building, and to watch out for where I park next.

My favorite part of the welcoming chat is talking about who we are, and who we want to be as an office. Though it is an extemporaneous chat from some bullet points, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to put some flesh on those Who We Are bullet points here –


The Chat

I want my office, and that obviously means the people in it, and that means especially me, to be a place of values and principled behavior. The Great Place to Work Institute has identified the essential values for a model workplace, and I have become a disciple of their model.

http://www.greatplacetowork.com/great/model.php

We try to live and breathe the Great Place to Work principles of Trust, Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, and Camaraderie. I’d like to take a moment to talk about each of those principles, stealing liberally from the Great Place to Work website -

Credibility - We have to be competent and consistent. No Duh! Talk the talk, and walk the walk. I have a hard time getting too excited about this one. It seems rather basic and obvious; essential, but obvious.

Respect - We build respect through our care for individuals. For an office of 23 individuals we have a robust budget of $20K for staff development each year. I’ve made that a priority. We budget another $16K for professional conferences. We rotate the staff attending conferences each year. Every staff member attends at least one professional development seminar or conference each year.

We are an office of involvement and collaboration. Each functional area has a group meeting once a month with managers and technical staff to review business processes and collaborate on constructive maintenance of systems. The technical staff meet bi-weekly. We have a full staff meeting alternating weeks with a smaller staff meeting. At our staff meetings we share every permissible detail of the budget and the operation of the institution. We are as transparent as we can possibly be.

We communicate openly and fully. Without open communications we appear to be, and perhaps are, in fact, devious. Our numerous staff meetings insure that we communicate often and fully.

Fairness - In all of our personnel decisions we want to exercise equity, impartiality, and justice. We do play favorites when it comes to hiring and promoting smart people, who work hard, do good work, and have good ideas. But, that isn’t playing favorites; that’s justice.

Trust - If we build an environment of Credibility, Respect, and Fairness, the Great Place to Work Institute says that we will have also built an environment of Trust. The Institute says that “A great place to work ® is one in which you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with.” We want to be that place.

Pride - Each of these values supports the other, and the end result is we have pride in the job we do. We also have pride in each other as individuals, as a team, and have pride in our organization and institution.

Camaraderie - Finally, we want to have fun. Who wouldn’t have fun working with (not for) an organization that actively, not passively, believes in these values. My colleagues exhibit this by “winning” every party we attend. Just ask them. This is the most energetic and involved group of people I have ever worked with.


When I say the words “working with”, it isn’t an accidental phrase, neither is the word colleague. These people are NOT my employees, as if I had some slavish or despotic control over them. We are colleagues here. We are all working together towards the same goals. We may have different roles on the team, but we are working together as colleagues on the same team.

Getting back to the Great Place to Work values, I think that by talking about these values repeatedly over time, in staff meetings and elsewhere, by keeping them in the forefront of our consciousness, we find ourselves measuring ourselves, and what we do, by these values. By employing these values at every opportunity I think that even the most jaded and skeptical employee is engaged.

If I were to suggest, or do, something that is inconsistent with these values, I have my colleagues to hold me to these standards. I’ve asked my colleagues to take me to task if I ever start doing the convenient or the expedient. My daughter came home from West Point with a platitude about doing “the harder right rather than the easier wrong”, and I hope that phrase will bring me up short if I ever stray toward the dark side.

During my chat I take great pride and pleasure in reciting from memory the Boy Scout Law: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Our visitors are visibly taken by surprise that I’ve memorized the Boy Scout Law. I recite it to my colleagues whenever the situation calls for it. I don’t think we can be reminded too often that we are trying to live up to the highest of standards.

We have a staff of 23 in our office. I am pleased to report that staff turnover has been light in recent years. The light turnover is an indication that my colleagues are relatively pleased with the pay, work, hours, benefits, facilities, and environment. Even so, given the amount of money we are investing in professional development and conferences, I would not be displeased if some of my colleagues left for “better” jobs.

I am from the sixties, and a bit of a hippy in spite of the short haircut. My generation grew up thinking globally and acting locally. Here is where I am at the moment, and Here is where I can make the world a better place. That may seem totally unrelated to what I am talking about, but here’s the deal -

I provide the best pay, work, hours, benefits, and facilities that I can to my colleagues. I provide professional development so that they can, should they wish, pursue another job. It is not up to me to decide whether this job, or that job, is better for one of my colleagues. It is their assessment that matters. I make that statement in my annual report to the organization:

When employees choose employment here, or leave for employment elsewhere, we celebrate these staff opportunities. Though we try to look out for the best interests of each employee, the employee is the better judge of what is best for them. The employee might have been looking for better pay, hours, duties, working conditions, or some other benefit. So when voluntary staff turnover occurs, we celebrate the occasion because it indicates that staff member has found a better job fit according to their wants and needs. If we truly want to make the world a better place, we are pleased to do it one employee at a time; be it in their coming, or in their going.



Well, that is the sum and substance of my spiel. It may seem long and sanctimonious, but that’s what happens when you believe deeply in what you are saying. I’ve gotten some compliments on my chat, and have had several folks ask if my office had any openings in the middle of the presentation. I think that is a huge compliment and proves that we are doing the right things.