Third year at current job.
I’ve crossed into my third year of working in my current job. Those 3 years seriously flew by, and there was never a dull moment. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one company before, which speaks a lot about their staff retention and about their culture. During those 3 years, I’ve come across some interesting observations in comparison to previous jobs:
I don’t have to be scared at work.
I basically don’t have to dread going in, or be constantly in fear for doing the wrong thing. We embrace failure and learn from it. Previous jobs always had the “failure is never an option” mentality.
I don’t have to fear I won’t be able to provide for family.
This is a different one because I was in enterprise financial IT, where redundancies were a regular annual/bi-annual exercise. My current company - we value you, we’re growing, you aren’t going to be out of pocket because we are constantly improving everything.
Work can be fun.
Scooter in the office, really friendly directors, kitkats, and the team makes it feel like home.
Last job, I was allowed on BBC website. That’s the most fun you could have.
You can have nice things.
First day in enterprise: a very well used keyboard, mouse with a ball in it, CRT monitor, and had to order an adaptor to connect my laptop to it. I wasn’t allowed to ask for a new keyboard/mouse because of costs. The line manager at the time also said that it would probably be denied because of costs (which she had to approve).
First day: spared no expense and given the best of the best. I calculated the costs of it, and amounted to something like £5k worth of kit before I even sat down at my desk. Helped me get started from day one, rather than being shot down for asking for a new keyboard/mouse.
Side note - with current pandemic, it should be illegal to give you used peripherals, that’s just unhygienic.
Valued for the small things.
Enterprise, it’s every person for themselves, and if someone gets in your way - throw them under the bus because you need that pay rise.
On my current team, we do whatever we can to help each other grow and thrive. Without team, we don’t have anything. Collaboration and helping each other is the best way to help everyone grow. We have banter, we work hard, we help each other… we kick ass.
Treat staff well, they will keep the company operational.
This is a small thing but I remember in of my last jobs, there was a team night out arranged. Bit of social, fun, team bonding thing…
So how many people put their hand up for it… 2. Out of a team of 30, 2 people.
The team were burnt out and scared to have fun. In Infinity Works, almost the first day: everything was fun, and then they took us out to lunch, they had many socials. We ensure that we have regular team nights out to celebrate working hard. It’s part of the culture… and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Key takeaways
These are the few key takeaways to change up the work culture for the better. There’s very little point in making work hard, or not getting along with the people that you work with.
Alongside this I remember the time that before I left my first job, the culture was so bad that when I did hand in my notice, I was given a stark message from a work colleague saying:
“I think you’re making a big mistake leaving here.” Her take home message was along the lines of you are going to struggle when you leave.
The difference was, that team was setting everyone up to fail. The company I’m working in now is so nice that I feel like family. These are the people I chat to daily as well, and they never put me down. If I feel down, they do what they can to raise me up. This is the type of culture that you need to have in a work place, otherwise nothing will ever get done.
How many times have you ever been in a work situation where one person is arguing with another, and someone has to keep the peace? That’s a waste of time, and the less effort you have to put in to keep staff productive, the better. It’s the small things this company does that make it one of the greatest places to work.