Best Places to Work: THG Values and Culture In Action

Tis the season of Best Places to Work lists. Each has its own angle, lessons and tips for contenders to sift through, as well as its own declaration of the trend to watch this year.

A common theme in all is the importance of culture on employees’ opinion of their employer – and more research is showing that a positive workplace culture directly impacts an organization’s performance.

Throughout our eleven years in business, The Herald Group has changed a lot. We have grown to more than 25 employees, we have moved offices more times than I care to remember and we have implemented new approaches to how we operate from a business and employee perspective.

Our one constant, however, has been staying true to our culture of collaboration, development and accessibility.

We are not cutthroat or elbows-out competitive with each other. We share the goal of doing well by our clients and doing well by our colleagues. We all legitimately get along with one another and want to help each other. Now-annual traditions, such as bowling night, a Nationals game and a 5K charity race, provide fun opportunities for us to get to know each other better outside of the office.

Everyone at THG, regardless of title, is eager to answer questions, provide guidance or just spend time getting to know someone better – this goes for our partners as well. Through a revamped performance management system, prioritization of the value of feedback and personalized assessments of communication and work-style, we have focused significantly on developing our team while they are here at THG.

As we recruit new employees, we place a premium on how they will fit into our culture. Time and again, we see the value of that decision. Potential clients tell us that during our new business pitches it’s obvious we have a strong and sincere camaraderie. Clients value our commitment to true teamwork, as we help them achieve their objectives. Internally, it’s much easier to handle a stressful day or working late one night when you enjoy being with your co-workers.

Recently, I witnessed our THG values in action. One of our employees was out due to a personal crisis, and her client team had more than a dozen op-eds to write in five days. I went desk by desk to ask people if they had time to help draft an op-ed, even though it was on a subject new to them and they all had full workloads already. Not a single person even hesitated to say yes – a few even said yes before I could finish my request. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that we not only needed lend a hand for the client, but we needed to help our colleague so she didn’t have to spend one moment thinking about work and could focus on her family.

That is our culture in a nutshell, and that is why I firmly believe The Herald Group is the best place to work.