Last week, many major news outlets ran a story about an office retreat that turned into a nightmare in Colorado where a team of coworkers was hiking. On the trek, it appears that the employees not only left one of their teammates on their own to make it up and down a mountain climb, but they also took their belongings left to mark their path down, causing the lost, lonely hiker to spend a stormy night on the mountain before being rescued. Yikes. I can't even begin to imagine what Monday back in the office was like for everyone involved.
Separately, The Washington Post ran a story in the weekend edition entitled "Has everyone at work lost their minds?" The story highlighted everything from the toxic nature of politically charged colleagues in our current hyper-partisan environment to clipping one’s toenails in the office to stealing lunches from the office refrigerator to using social media to air leadership grievances. It's almost like we've forgotten a little bit about what it takes to coexist and behave well, and I shudder to think of how some behaviors have similarly transpired on the home front. Remember those rules that we all learned in kindergarten? Share, play fair, say you’re sorry when you hurt someone and clean up your own mess?
These stories gave me a cause for reflection over the Labor Day weekend, when we celebrate the social and economic achievements of Americans workers. Think about the number of hours a week, a month and annually you spend with those you work with - even in a hybrid working situation. That tally of hours is likely more than your waking hours spent with those you love. So, being in a respectful and even fun work environment has value beyond things that can be tallied by numbers.
Here at NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, while we are not perfect, we always strive to be better. Better for our team, creating a better culture and acting better towards one another. I think those are easy ideals to fulfill.
We have started a regular cadence of surveying staff on our work environment and then committing ourselves to taking some concrete action to improving ourselves based on the feedback. This last go around, we found that each of our departments scored very well among their own employees, but creating a sense of collaboration and trust between different teams is a place where we need to devote more time and attention. Frankly, I was not surprised by that finding, given our hybrid environment for the past few years. But it’s thinking through the ways we can maximize staff outings, collaboration days in the office and even the work between our teams in Arlington and Asheville, N.C. More mindfulness is needed there for sure, but I am making that a focus point for our executive team for the year ahead.
It was fun to see some collaboration in practice when our Arlington staff recently hit the Washington, D.C., Spy Museum for our staff outing where we did a scavenger hunt. Not only did we have to work in random teams, but we had to coordinate and listen to every member of the team while running between tourists and exhibits! Events like that are always such a good reminder to me of why I value liking the folks I work with - it makes those times under stress and pressure that much more manageable.
Finding things to celebrate can also make a difference. I appreciated Mano Koilpillai, our chief financial officer, hosting an event in honor of her team and our recent clean audit. The effort was no small task given the number of operations and trusts we run. The celebration was worthy of that work, and it was nice to have the entire team in that day to join in the festivities and share pizza and goodies. Sometimes it truly is just the little things like catching an eclipse, sharing a staff meeting or some friendly competition!'
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.” – Margaret Mead.