Office Cultural Legacy

Almost everyone we meet who impacts our lives in any meaningful way will have, inherent in their personality, certain biases and, in social interactions will exhibit some evidence of the life they have lived prior to the time when we met them. Some people refer to this as 'baggage' which is a derogatory term but the same could be said for the good traits that develop in all of us resulting from our families, jobs, school experiences and relationships.

As the employer, I have to make decisions about hiring my staff and part of that process is to decide if that person will 'fit' in with my ideas, my expectations and work well within the office culture that I have created with the existing staff. There are objective ways to evaluate people such as the 'Big 5 Inventory Test' or the 'Stanford Shopping Mall Test' (see blog entry; The Happiness Scale) or, as the prospective employer I can look over their resume and see where they have worked before and try to draw conclusions based on what I know of the offices they have worked at previously. I can learn a bit about them based on their office cultural legacy.

Employees who come from very dysfunctional offices may require more time and patience than those who have been with a stable office for many years. A person will have embedded some of the attitudes and expectations of the previous management system and heirarchy and feel that that should be the norm in my new office. I recall hiring one woman a few years ago and going over with her in detail the typical day and what would be expected of her. She lasted only one day on the job because, (she later told me on the phone) she expected to have all day to talk with her co workers, to socialize and then expected to go out to lunch with her new office girlfriends every day as she had at her previous job.

As an employer, it is very gratifying to watch the office culture take on a life and an energy all it's own which is a direct reflection of the staff. Their energy, dedication and goal oriented approach to meaningful work as well as their friendship for each other makes our office a pleasant and enjoyable environment.

Cartoon Credit: Lawrence Gilson