Last night was the 1 year anniversary of Our Very Own (OVO), the company I work for. We had a company presentation, then we went to a mini golf bar. It was a fantastic night, fun was had by all. It was in attending this that I realised how important company culture is. It can mean loving your job or hating it, it can mean liking the people around you or hating them. Company culture is extremely important to build moral, give everyone a chance to interact and to foster internal growth. Yet it wasn’t the free alcohol, or the free food that caught my eye, it was the way in which the presentation was handled. We all sat in this large meeting, come presentation room, on our first few drinks, while the founders ran a presentation, basically a year in review. They highlighted, what the company did well, what they learnt and what they did poorly. This self assessment is extremely important in a rapidly growing company, it gives everyone a picture of the direction we have come and the direction we are going. I personally believe this self assessment shows excellent character and future potential. As an employee it really fills me with confidence with hearing that the guys at the very top are still critical of their own performance. It shows that although the company did amazing, there were mistakes and their is improvement to be had. One of the most important parts of the whole presentation was the shout out to the people who worked the hardest over the last year. Highlighting exceptional performance within the company builds confidence, makes employees more loyal and just makes them feel good. Having the awareness to realise that yes you have a new company, yes it's extremely time consuming, yet you still take time to thank everyone, highlight the people who went above and beyond, shows real character and emotional intelligence. I know personally that not having being one of the people thanked for their hard work, drives me to work harder, it shows that I’m not working as hard as I could. I strive to be the hardest working person in the room, yet I wasn’t, that will be different at the next presentation.

The bar afterwards was filled with laughter, drinks and mini golf, which I won on the last hole. Taking your company to a bar, with free drinks, free food is such a great way to build moral, couple that with an interesting take on bars, in the mini golf and you have yourself a winner. My dad works for a government run company, they don’t have a tonne of money, they never get bought food, alcohol or anything, work lunches see the employees buying their own food and drinks. This unfortunate circumstance of working in the government sector really has an affect on moral, people don’t have the same level of attachment to the company, they are less likely to work as hard, they don’t put as much pride into their work. When an employee doesn’t feel valued at a company their work suffers and eventually they will leave. Yet when someone does feel valued at a company, their work improves in both quality and quantity, their happier and will stay there longer, if not forever. The little things, such as highlighting the hard working in front of everyone, the bar tab, going to cool places. All these little things have a huge impact on the team, a huge positive impact. It changes how you feel about your work, it turns you from an “I work to pay the bills” to “I work because I’m part of a great community”. This shift has more of an impact on your team than most people think, people respond to being called out in front over everyone for their good work, people respond to being treated as if the company actually cares about them. Company culture is extremely important, I don’t think the company could have done nearly as well without it. We will continue to grow at a rapid pace if our moral is high, leading to more work and more people being hired. I’m so grateful that the first full-time company I worked for has been this great.

Thank you OVO for the great party and I look forward to the next one!