Poor Environment = Poor Performance
Before coming a social-entrepreneur I was doing accounting for a few different companies. I didn’t mind accounting and for a beginning accountant I wasn’t bad. I was once looking for a job and found an opening for an accountant at a ski resort. I thought that would be a very cool place to work.
After a few interviews I was hired. I was excited for an opportunity to work in what I thought would be a great environment. However, it wasn’t. I was given a cubicle in the basement of the resort. This basement was where the majority of the people worked. There were no windows. I could have been working in an underground bunker for all I knew. There was some office space with windows and views of the canyon, but not for my department. (Which made things even worse.)
Four or Five siblings inherited the ski resort from their late father. I remember all the talk about how the kids argued between each other and money was the biggest issue between them all. (I think I was actually told this in my initial orientation with my superior.) That was my environment. I worked in a bunker for some rivaling siblings.
The most interesting thing to me, looking back, was that it really hurt my performance. I didn’t like where I worked and I performed poorly. The work environment could of been a lot different and that would of helped the performance of everyone.
I excelled in my previous jobs and my following jobs, but the work environment that was not a positive environment was where I failed as an employee.
A culture is so huge for performance. If you see people that are not excelling in their job, maybe the first question should be what is their work environment and is it geared towards allowing employees to excel.
At this ski resort, if the owners would of shown how they care about their employees and cared about giving back to the world, instead of fighting over the millions of profits, it would have been a completely different place to work. You never know, maybe I would still be working there.
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