Family Values in the Workplace
"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." -Andrew Carnegie
One of the bad things about living in big, crowded, impersonal cities and working long hours 5 or 6 days each week is that we don’t spend as much time as we would like with our family. Weekends are never long enough. Vacation time is never long enough. And family get-togethers at holidays, such as Thanksgiving, or reunions every few years is certainly never long enough to spend the kind of time we might ideally want to spend with our loved ones. In today’s world of hustle and bustle, this is a challenge that many people never resolve. We tend to accept that in most cases this tension can only be relieved if one chose to sacrifice life-long ambitions, dreams of success, fame or fortune, and focus on family life.
However, one of the good things that can come from living in cities, working long hours, and never having the opportunity to spend enough time with family is a workplace where colleagues create a community of common good. In this environment, the potential for a development of the feeling of family is a real possibility. There is group of people supporting each other and working together to achieve a shared and common goal.
The definition of family other than its primary meaning of parents, their children and other blood relatives, according to dictionary.com is, "a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and frequently live together." It could be argued that in the workplace, colleagues “live together” in a loose sense; we spend generally 8 hours, 5 days a week or more together, creating ample time to socialize. An additional attribute of the unit includes collaborative efforts to achieve pre-determined outcomes in order to share in the benefits of growth and increased profits/rewards.
TLA Consulting is a company that does more than just talk about being a family–starting with our CEO and working your way through to all other members of staff–we also walk the walk! Transparency is the first operational tenet of our company, and we take this principle to heart both in our relationship with clients and with each other. We look out for each other; support, encourage and celebrate each other in our professional and personal pursuits; cry and laugh together; communicate honestly; respect completely; and build up, never breaking each other down.
Team spirit; mutual respect; positive feedback and support; speaking truth to power; vision-casting; acceptance of differences and celebration of diversity; married to a passion to help each other to be authentic; and being as accomplished and amazing in our personal lives, as we are in our jobs or careers is truly the TLA family experience. We believe that working in an environment that makes one feel appreciated, acknowledged, and celebrated compensates to a certain degree for never having enough time to be with one’s primary family members. These are the characteristics of family that can be replicated and embraced in any workplace to recreate the feeling of family.
One of the great things about TLA is that it extends and complements rather than diminishes family. It is a pleasure to be at work, and this feeling of well-being and underlying contentment is inevitably communicated to every client that we help in person or by phone. It is impossible to be in our office and not experience a positive, caring atmosphere. The TLA Team takes real pride in being professional as well as personable, warm, and welcoming. After all, clients are invited to come in as guests to be served. It is our hope they will return and bring others with them over and over again as members of the TLA Family!
