The world is full of jobs in the modular building industry, but which are the best companies to work for? For that matter, which are the best companies to work for, period? There are many ways to determine what constitutes a great workplace environment, and here are a few touchstones by which a healthy company culture can be measured:
- Authenticity: An authentic team is an original team, and customers love originality. Dr. Nina Burrowes, author of The Little Book on Authenticity says “True authenticity doesn’t require you to tell anyone else what your values are, because everyone will be able to see your values in the way you live your life. When you are fully authentic you don’t reveal your chosen values, you become them – you live them.” This concept becomes very powerful in the workplace… it’s the spark that creates synergy within a team.
Along with authenticity comes honesty. If a team is not honest within themselves, how does this translate to the consumer of their goods and services? It doesn’t. When trust is broken, it can rarely be gained back. Great company cultures always maintain a level of transparency, regardless of how difficult that is. Authenticity, honesty, and transparency are all signs of a company with high integrity.
- Health: Mental and physical health are valued. Let’s face it – when we’re taking our last breath, the likelihood of us saying, “I wish I would’ve pushed myself harder to work more hours at my job” is unlikely. Great employers understand that what brings us to work every day is the paycheck, but what keeps us coming back is feeling valued. One of the most proactive actions a company can take is to make sure their people are feeling mentally and physically fit. This can best be seen when providing employees with great health insurance, mental health days, team building retreats, and good old-fashioned respect and space when a coworker needs some time off to get well. Health is wealth, and a company that recognizes this fact is rich.
3. Optimism & humor: A collective positive attitude keeps things in perspective. Laughter is the best medicine! It produces endorphins, a natural antidepressant for human beings.
Barbara Plester, Ph.D., a senior lecturer in the School of Business and Economics at the
University of Auckland in New Zealand and author of Laugh Out Loud: A User’s Guide to
Workplace Humor, tells Thrive Global in a recent article, “With stress and burnout at
peak levels across corporate America, humor might be the underutilized resource we
need at work …humor can also create bonding and camaraderie and break the ice
between people.”
In addition to creating a happier work atmosphere, humor can bring other benefits that can directly affect the bottom line. As author/entrepreneur Peter Sims stated in his book Little Bets, “A playful, lighthearted, and humorous environment is especially helpful when ideas are incubating and newly hatched, the phase when they are most vulnerable to being snuffed out or even not expressed because of being judged or self-censored.”
Bronze sponsor Aries enjoying their time at the Socorro ISD Foundation for Excellence in Education Golf Tournament benefiting their scholarship program.
People thrive in a positive environment, and when challenges arise (as they inevitably will) the collective team attitude is what will carry a team through. Or not.
4. Mission: A decisive vision unites. One of the biggest obstacles that society faces is our inability to choose from the multitude of options presented to us every minute of the day. It’s hard enough being a consumer trudging through oodles and oodles of product and service offerings. Thus, the company’s ability to set forth on a clear, concise path is so important. If a business has no roadmap, how will they lead their customers down the right path?
In the Forbes article The Importance of Having a Mission-Driven Company, entrepreneur/journalist William Craig explains how high-performance organizations are linked to being mission-driven companies. Mission statements must reflect commitment to higher social good for the community they serve, both local and global. Authenticity and transparency build trust.
Trustworthy organizations are 2.5 times more likely to function as a high-performance organization with revenue growth than lower performance organizations. Eighty-one percent of those working for companies with a strong mission stated their stakeholders hold trust for their leadership team, whereas that number was 54 percent for organizations without a strong mission.
“Besides keeping everyone on the same page, a strong team mission ensures alignment across our entire company. We operate within two distinct sectors of the modular building industry; the workforce housing side and full turnkey modular building. A defined approach to all we do unites and complements both sides to the greatest degree possible,” says Katie Roman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing – Workforce Housing at Aries.
5. Friendship: The best teams are made up of people who like each other. In a recent article by Software Engineer and Lecturer Tiago Boldt Sousa, he explains the value of company events and retreats. “The important part about doing this is to emphasize and practice the idea that everyone’s voice matters in the company. We’ve gathered an excellent team of brilliant, capable, highly qualified people. Every single person on our team is an invaluable and irreplaceable asset to our company. And we will be most successful if every single one of them is engaged and vocal about company direction.” He goes on to cite a study by The University of Warwick which found that employees that are happier are up to 20% more productive.
Most would agree that truly enjoying the company of your work associates is like a cherry on top of the sundae of life. When employees forge authentic friendships, they have an additional motivation to perform well and empower each other. The inner-drive to make a deadline to help your friend is stronger than delivering an assignment to help a boss you don’t particularly care for. Healthy competition can exist in place of a negative cut-throat atmosphere. Empathy and kindness prevail when team members encounter life challenges such as sickness, personal tragedy, and accidents. People don’t mind going the extra mile for those they sincerely like.
“I must admit,” says Katie Roman, “Sometimes I wake up excited. Literally excited. I’m working a job that I enjoy with people I like spending time with, and a company that brings space solutions to the world. Our mission solves problems and brings people peace of mind. How can I not love my job?!”
Choose a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
About Aries – Aries offers full turnkey solutions with exceptional customer service and robust financing options. We pride ourselves on combining product quality, design expertise, technical and financial innovation and strategy that has already established us a first choice to customers. Contact us today at 888-995-8560 or reach out to your local sales associate here.