The current generation will forever remember the week of March 9, 2020.
That week, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The U.S. government declared a nationwide emergency. States began to shut down to slow the spread of the illness. And according to Google Trends, the term “remote work” vaulted to its peak popularity, a four-fold spike from the prior month.
Popularity of the term “remote work” continues to hold steady. In fact, it just neared its March 2020 peak again earlier this month. Search for it today and you’ll get almost 92 million results. (Almost four billion if you remove the quotes.)
Workplace Values that Drive PRworks
At PRworks, we work remotely. But more important than where we work is how we work. And that is rooted in our firm’s core values.
Whether your organization is still navigating workplace changes brought on by the pandemic or has settled on adjustments for the moment, your organization’s values are a tried-and-true guide to drive your decisions and actions.
Here are ours:
Integrity – Integrity is everything. Whatever services are delivered or products are produced, an organization that cares about its team members, clients and community (and reputation) must live and breathe integrity. To us, this means acting ethically and fairly, and communicating openly and honestly.
Trust – The outcome of acting with integrity is trust, which is critical to healthy relationships inside the workplace and out. As a team, we put trust in each other and invest ourselves every day to earn the trust of our clients. This means doing what we say we will and by when we say we’ll do it – keeping our promises.
Respect – We believe everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. We listen to each other. We are mutually respectful of each other’s time (professional time and personal time). We encourage each other to freely express ideas, perspectives and opinions, knowing that we can do so without worry.
Collaboration – When we are working in-person or when we are working physically apart, we are one inclusive team. We have regularly scheduled times for collaboration, and we remain flexible to engage in collaboration on the fly. We support and value each other to collectively solve problems and achieve goals.
Education – We are committed to life-long learning. Even if we are doing something we’ve done a hundred times before, we keep ourselves in a learning mode. When we need to learn something that is entirely new to us, that’s when we really dig in. We value learning because it is how we improve, adapt and innovate.
Values Make for a Good Place to Work
How do these values apply to our model of working? For our team, our work culture, these values are the glue that keeps us grounded in our work and grounded in our relationships – wherever we are.
They have also guided team conversations about re-adjusting to more in-person activity based on our individual and collective needs and level of comfort.
We are now getting together in-person more frequently – and enjoying it! But we are mindful that, irrespective of our physical location, we communicate openly and honestly with each other; we trust each other; we respect each other; we support and value each other; and we teach and learn from each other.
This is what makes for a good place to work. This is what makes for good workplace relationships. This is what makes for good work for our clients.
Google Trends shows that interest in the phrase “workplace values” ebbs and flows week to week, from not registering on the trend chart at all to an occasional jump, followed by an immediate drop down to zero again.
For our team, “remote work” isn’t a trend. “Workplace values” isn’t a trend either. Our values are what make us tick, wherever we are – everywhere we are.
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