Creating A Consciously Meaningful Workplace

What I’m talking about is creating a workplace with a different focus and value than a more traditional business.

Some people call this a ‘democratic workplace‘ – operating a business democratically through things like transparency, listening, fairness and dignity, power sharing, employee choice and accountability.

Whilst I share this vision, I’m personally reluctant to use the ‘democratic’ name as it makes me think and feel about politics.  Politics is supposed to be democratic, but to me, it currently feels anything but that.  (However, let’s not go down that rabbit hole,  this post shall not be about politics!).  I don’t wish to get hung up on names or labels.

For me, it’s about creating a work culture with meaning and jam packed with common sense, where the people who work for us come first.  I currently have the opportunity to create this culture as my team is starting to grow.  Many of the thoughts and ideas come not only from my research over the past few years, but also from how I have been personally (trying to approach) working for the past 3  years or so.

There is nothing set in stone, but I have certain beliefs that would probably be core to our work culture.  Practically these will involve things like:

• We will not monitor work hours, or holidays, or sickness…
• Though we will strive for a 20 hour work week
• Everyone can choose their pay and terms of work
• Everyone can see any and all of our company finances at the click of a button
• We will put our health before wealth
• We will be family friendly
• We will be friends first
• We will respect each other, at every level
• We will focus on work that we love and brings us joy
• We will experiment
• We will embrace and learn from failure
• We will have fun
• We are all believers in what our company is trying to achieve….
• We will define together what we are trying to achieve…
• We believe in great ideas, but they are nothing without hard action from us
• We will strive for a sustainable and profitable business
• We will create awesome products/services that we are proud of

This is my first blog post on this topic.  I plan to openly blog about the things we do and achievements we make (or not!)

Stay tuned!