TCG: Core Values Core to Employee Happiness
By Monelle Taylor, Marketing & Communications Specialist, TCG
Core Values
The president and founder of TCG meets with every new employee before starting work to explain the history and goals of the company, our six core values, and how they came to be. The values are:
1. We are intelligent
2. We prove our value
3. We invest ourselves in the project
4. We are collaborative
5. We are fair, honest, and open
6. We value our families
Throughout the remainder of orientation, new employees are encouraged to ask questions, yet most do not. After all, many have never before met the president of a company they’ve worked for. However, that spirit quickly changes as employees see the company’s dedication to fair, honest, and open communication. By the next quarterly all-hands meetings at which the president shares TCG's balance sheet, profit and loss statements, and other information about the strategic direction of the company, questions and answers are traded fast and enthusiastically. Not all questions are work-related. Some questions are about current events, philosophical musings, or an everyday observation. The president answers them all. To incentivize this curiosity, the group that asks the best question (according to the president) is rewarded with a stack of $2 bills.
Our commitment to core values carries into how we reward each other. Fully armed with the knowledge of the company’s core values and the practice of rewarding notable work, each employee is given a Bonus.ly account to award points to co-workers who exhibit the core values. Bonus.ly is a platform whereby staff can give micro-bonuses to their colleagues and publicly acknowledge them for exhibiting the company’s core values. Thus the core values of the company (listed below) are reinforced, shared, and integrated into the culture. At the Annual All-Hands Meeting, point leaders in each category are acknowledged and given an additional gift for their extraordinary work. Bonus.ly points can be traded in for gift cards at major retailers, or the cash value can be donated to a charity. Some employees have accumulated enough points to trade it in for an extra vacation day.
Telework
One of the unique aspects of TCG that has, in part, shaped our culture is that fact that employees are completely dispersed at various client worksites or they telecommute. TCG’s model is that everyone works from home unless needs from a client require them to be on site (usually for security reasons or for the occasional meeting). This has significantly helped staff manage their work-life balance and meet the needs of their family, while still being successful at work. For example, eliminating the commute to work, which in the DC metro area averages 62 minutes per day, frees up time for staff to start preparing dinner, go to their kids’ game, or meet other personal responsibilities. Plus, it helps staff get to know their colleagues on a more intimate level. You might get to meet someone’s dog or cat during a video chat, or see how they’ve chosen to decorate their house.
Because staff are dispersed, TCGers may go a long time without physically seeing each other. For that reason, the company sponsors several social activities throughout the year so that staff get facetime with each other. And since these are social activities, not professional meetings, staff tend to relax and let loose when they do get together. For example the company started “TCG Sprees”, an arrangement whereby any TCGer can host a social event and have the company pay for it, up to $1,000. TCG sponsors one TCG Spree a month, and recently started TCG Charity Sprees for those employees who want to get together in favor of a good cause. Each Spree gives us a chance to have new experiences, try new foods, or learn about other cultures. Since sprees are selected and organized by staff, the actives represent a wide range of interests. Our most recent sprees have taken us deep underwater for scuba diving lessons, high in the mountains for wine tasting at vineyards in Northern Virginia, to DC restaurants for a Turkish cuisine tour, and to Francis Field in DC for a few rounds of bubbleball. Charity Sprees have included volunteering at a local pet shelter, cleaning the Potomac river bank, and meal packing for families in need.
Additionally, once per month, the Employee Happiness department hosts “Lunch with Dan,” a gathering of up to 10 TCGers from various parts of the company to meet for lunch with the president of the company. Staff get to meet colleagues that they would not normally interact with, and they are encouraged to ask questions of Dan about...well, anything!
The downside to staff working from home and having and having flexible schedules is that they tend to work more than they would if they were in the office. This sounds like a win for managers and productivity, but it does have deleterious effects. Staff can easily burn out and may start to resent the work or the company. To mitigate this problem, our Vice President of Employee Happiness monitors timesheets for everyone in the company, and flags those employees that consistently work more than 40 hours per week. She’ll work with that person's manager to see what can be done to lighten their load and reduce and potential stressors.
This focus on work-life balance has not gone unnoticed by employees or the community. The results of a recent anonymous employee survey conducted by a third-party show that 100 percent of TCGer say “I am able to take time off from work when I think it's necessary,” and 99 percent of staff say that TCG “is a psychologically and emotionally healthy place to work.” Additionally, TCG has been recognized by goDCgo and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments for our outstanding telework program.
The Employee Happiness Department
Yes, you read correctly; we have an Employee Happiness Department. Not only that, it’s led by an Executive Team member, which reflects the company’s deliberate and strategic decision to make the well-being of employees, in and out of the workplace, a priority. The Employee Happiness department organizes social and team building events, plans activities for staff and their families, administers TCG’s many perks, facilitates the company’s social intranet site, and participates in career reviews with staff and their respective managers. Their work has helped to foster a sense of community among staff that are dispersed geographically and across projects, and demonstrate to the staff that the company appreciates their contributions.
Members of this team meet with each TCGer at least three-times per year -- during their annual career review, once on their birthday, and on their un-birthday. Birthday and un-birthday coffees are just a chance to check in to see how things are going, discuss any specific interests they might have professionally or personally, if they have any concerns they can discuss it at that time. Since the Employee Happiness Department is represented in the Executive Management Team, the sentiments of employees are heard by those charged with the management of the company. In many ways, this department is both the keeper and a reflection of the company culture. They are the embodiment of TCG’s core values.
The results of their work have helped land TCG on some of the top workplace lists, including Entrepreneur and Culture IQ’s Top Company Culture list, The Washington Post’s Top Workplace list, and Fortune and Great Place to Work’s best workplace for technology, medium and small businesses, and women lists. Additionally, TCG’s voluntary turnover rate in 2017 was only 10.4%, which is below the national standard. And even if employees leave TCG, sometimes they come back! We’ve had several former employees who left to company later come back. One such employee left for a promotion, but ended up returning because here at TCG he felt appreciated, whereas at the other company, he felt like a cog in a wheel.