B Corps are a growing movement of over 4000 companies around the world. We are using the power of business as a force for good. To become a B Corp, a company needs to meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
As a Certified B Corp since 2014, MaCher commits to positively impact all stakeholders in our business. Strengthening the interconnections between our workers, communities, customers, suppliers and our planet, creates all the value in what we do.
Now in B Corp month, we wanted to share some of our stakeholder stories.
Our workers
Like many companies, the way our business operates today is different from how we worked before the pandemic. We used to think that we were quite flexible. Looking back, we realise how much more adaptable we could be.
Extending our culture to an online world
Over the past year, many of us have moved cities, states or even continents away from our LA head office.
We’ve invested a lot of time and training to keep our culture of care and trust with our remote workforce. Part of this has been our move towards a self-organised, or ‘teal’ approach. We’ve decentralized decision making and challenged our colleagues to be more responsible for their work and accountable to one another other.
Accountability needs significant trust and we have spent time practicing tools of self-management to understand one another. For example, now that we are all personally responsible for our work and deadlines, we can’t just push disagreements under the rug or call on ‘a manager’ to make decisions as we may have done in the past. We’ve had to take personal responsibility and come to solutions through discussion and compromise. We’ve also spent a lot of time learning to give and receive feedback in a respectful way that encourages honesty and listening.
A core part of building trust has been to share more about our own personal cultures and histories. I think we have all found this enjoyable as it has helped us understand more about why people think and act in the ways that they do.
Office-working is now a different way of working
Just last week, we all got together to work in our LA office. It was only the second such gathering of everyone in two years – the first in early December.
It was incredible to put some of this online training and development to a ‘in real life’ test. We all found that sharing our joys, ideas and creativity is so much more powerful when we are in the same room as others.
It is also a very different kind of work time however. Many of us felt that after such a long time of working on our own, for some tasks, a full and buzzing office can be distracting and unproductive! Those of us with deadlines spent time this week searching for quiet corners and unused offices to get things done.
What is the best way to work in future?
Getting the balance for the best way to work in future is now the tricky bit. We need personal and creative time to thrive and keep us strong for the future. But deadlines come at different times for everyone. Finding the perfect times in the calendar to come together need to be carefully navigated with when we need to be most productive. Happy in the knowledge that our culture is still strong, we’re still learning the best way to chart our direction this new world.
Please contact MaCher if you would like to know more about our journey to self-organization or if you have ideas you can share with us about how post-Covid approach to working has been implemented in your company.