Striving for a compassionate company culture? Here’s one company's heart-warming method of turning that dream into a reality.
There’s no one-size-fits-all way to create a positive company culture – different organisations are always going to follow different philosophies – but this home-care provider has found a heart-warming way to echo its own.
“Every few months employees are encouraged to fill out their dreams – personal or professional,” explains HR manager Kelly Quinn. “As a company, we grant those dreams on a quarterly basis so that employees are receiving some support in achieving their dreams.”
“It could be anything – taking a trip somewhere special, enrolling on a course related to employment, buying a house – the sky is the limit so they can dream about anything,” she continued.
Quinn heads up the HR department at home-care provider Nurse Next Door – she says the Dreams program champions a caring culture and feeds into the company’s core value; ‘admire people.’
Team effort
“One of our team members, Herbert Bossaerts, wanted to go to space,” revealed Quinn. “AXE was putting a competition on where they were sending one person from every country into space and our marketing department got wind of this and decided to help him out.”
Quinn says the entire Nurse Next Door team pulled together to produce videos, create marketing material and secure time on a local TV station – all out of kindness for IT manager Bossaerts.
Every girl’s dream
In a move that sounds made for the movies – HR manager Quinn says Nurse Next Door even dug deep to give one employee her dream wedding dress.
“One of our call centre staff members was getting married and she’d found her dream dress but couldn’t afford it,” explained Quinn, “so Nurse Next Door surprised her by giving her the money she needed.”
“It goes again back to the core value of admiring people and being interested in what’s important to them outside of work,” Quinn told HRM.
“You’re at work for so many hours so why not tie the two together?” she asked. “Traditionally, that’s not really done but why not look at it a little differently so people can achieve their dreams?”
