Maria Crawford: Nurturing Office Culture

by Maria Crawford

The following is a featured entry in our Share Your Story contest, which celebrates our 10-year anniversary with stories from past attendees.

The Mass Conference for Women inspired women in our office and had us asking, “How we can make our office a better place?”

We decided to start a group called the Culture Club that is open to all employees. This club talks about real work culture issues. Small tasks are addressed—like who is going to clean the fridge. Larger tasks are tackled, such as team building events and charity activities.

In our first year, our team of only 70, raised over $10,500 for charity. Although we’d worked together for years, we all got to know each other for the first time. The culture changed and the organization actually talked about and tackled issues that were elephants in the room in the past.

As we spent more time together, socializing and working towards a common goal, we became a better team and our work life truly improved.

Questions that were raised because of our attendance at the Mass Conference for Women relating to respect, work life balance, confrontation, and many other valuable concepts, were the start of a great in office organization that changed the way we work together.

Overall, the value of the conference is priceless.