GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
CULTURE IS KING
An internal review at Wellington recruitment agency TalentForge has revealed the organisation has no official wellbeing strategy, and the culture they’ve nurtured is largely based on employees smashing back jars together on Friday afternoons and occasionally complaining about candidates.
The findings emerged after HR attempted to formally document the company’s culture for an award application.
What began as a search for policies and frameworks quickly uncovered that most staff simply enjoyed leaving work at 4.30 on a Friday and getting on the piss next door.
Senior Recruitment Consultant, Ben Ralston, said he was initially surprised by the findings.
“I always thought there was something a bit more sophisticated going on behind the scenes.”
“You hear people talking about workplace wellbeing programmes and resilience frameworks and all that. Then you realise our version is just six people drinking and chatting shit about Linkedin punishers.”
Ralston said the arrangement had been working effectively for years.
“If someone’s having a rough week, you buy them a beer. If someone’s had a good week, you buy them a beer. If someone lands a placement, beer. If they don’t land a placement, also beer. It’s a robust system.”
Office Manager Stacey Murray said attempts to introduce more structured initiatives had fallen flat.
“We brought in a mindfulness consultant once.”
“Half the office asked if ‘Mindfulness’ was a new CRM platform and the other half were already at the pub.”
Workplace culture specialist Dr Hamish Fletcher said the agency had inadvertently stumbled across a model common throughout New Zealand workplaces.
“A lot of organisations spend thousands trying to manufacture culture when culture is often just whether people enjoy spending time together after work.”
“Obviously there are limits to that approach, but it seems to be out-competing the old mindfulness webinar approach.”
TalentForge’s leadership have so far expressed no desire to formalise their piss-drinking into any kind of actual HR document.
More to come.
