Good Organizations, But Something Was Missing

On October 6, 2014, I started working for a new organization for the first time since I was 19 years old. Truth be told, I thought I would spend the rest of my career there. I was doing similar work to what I had done in manufacturing but this was for a family-owned business with just under fifty employees. My manager was the son of one of the owners and an absolutely amazing person. The work in that particular industry had some significant risks but it was nothing short of fascinating. And to top it all off, I quickly realized how much most of the management team truly cared about each individual working there.

I had responsibility for developing a handbook, which may have been the first one in company history (but I’m not completely certain about that), processing payroll, filling any open positions, onboarding the folks filling those positions, and assisting with performance appraisals and any disciplinary conversations. Since doing those things for a company with less than fifty employees took substantially less time than what I had just left at a site for close to 650, I also jumped in to help out with the company’s safety initiatives whenever I could. Working 7am to 5pm in an actual Monday through Friday role was like having a part time job in comparison - and that’s actually what led Cindy to push me toward starting our business a few months later, but we’ll circle back to that later on. 

As much as I liked the company, and as great as most of the management team genuinely was, I remember a feeling of everyone working toward the same basic goals but I can’t say that I was overly familiar with a core set of values that guided that work. I’m definitely not suggesting that they were doing anything wrong, just sharing that I couldn’t point to a solid why behind what we did. 

About a year into what I thought would be the last job of my career, an opportunity found me. I was offered a chance to serve as the Safety & Human Resources Manager for another family-owned business, but back in the construction field that I had started in before I ever had a driver’s license. Still doing very similar work to what I had done for the previous decade and a half, the workload was manageable even though I was juggling both responsibilities and for now nearly 100 employees. Again, I enjoyed the industry and I respected the majority of my coworkers. 

Before you interpret either of those references about “most of the management team” being great or “respected the majority of my coworkers” as me making a negative statement about those companies, I’d challenge you to name any group or organization where you’ve had a perfect relationship with every single person. In more than three decades in the working world, I’ve learned that the folks who say they get along with everyone all the time will likely lie about other things too!

Like in each of my previous two roles, I helped that organization write a handbook. In this case, we only released a revised edition but it contained some significant revisions. And like each of the other handbooks I had worked on for the other two companies, this one had a few pages early on dedicated to the organization’s specific mission, vision, and values. While I remember those being included, I can’t remember anything specific about them - or much about the ones from the other companies either, not even the one I had worked at for nearly twenty years…

Overall, I liked a lot of what I did in each role and I enjoyed the working relationships I had with the majority of my peers. But I can’t tell you that I truly loved any of those companies, mainly because I’m not completely sure that my values were in line with their values. I don’t share this to say I believe they didn’t have values, just to say that I can’t tell what theirs were - because if I had heard them at any point, it was only in passing and not nearly enough to develop a clear picture as to what those values looked to in practice or how the work I was doing fell in line with them.

Since moving into full time self-employment, I’ve helped a bunch of companies with safety and human resource related tasks, in spite of that not being what I find fulfilling at this point or it being where we’ve been focused. Each time I’ve worked on a handbook, helped with staffing, or even had a hand in safety meetings with the employees in those organizations, there’s almost always been some sort of reference to the company’s mission, vision, or values - but rarely have I heard more than a vague reference. Interestingly enough, the places where I’ve heard values discussed more frequently, and in more detail, have also become some of our favorite organizations to work with. I know that’s not a coincidence so we’ll pick up there next time!