Coming “Home” to a Culture of Engagement
What creates a culture of engagement and inspires commitment in the workplace? We asked Anthros CEO and Founder Anurag Dandiya to share his reflections on this topic.
Your employees must know what’s in your heart. It all comes back to your passion, and what set your story in motion in the beginning. You depend on your employees to shape and carry out this vision so they must live and breathe this story too.
Friendship is one of the greatest gifts of life. Nothing makes me happier than when I see friendships develop on a team. If team members are committed to one another, if they share that kind of support and trust, then commitment to the company follows. I always encourage this. If you build an enduring community, that is one key to a company’s success.
Transparency lays the foundation for engagement. At Anthros we huddle every day and there does not have to be an agenda of checking off boxes for it to mean something or contribute to the success of Anthros. It is about openness. It is about creativity. It is time to share what’s personal as much as what’s “professional.” There are no secrets, no hidden agendas, no partialism as these are traits I eliminate quickest.
I do not ask for perfection, I ask for evolution. Not for the purpose of performing better in a job but to develop as an individual. To become a better father, mother, son, daughter, friend, spouse, partner. This sense of growing as an individual and in unity as a team inspires commitment. At Anthros it is what drives our constant pursuit of process improvement. Perfection is a by-product of this evolution.
Going to work must be like coming home. It is the people that are the essence of a company, just like it is people that are the essence of a home, a family. Not the lamps or the curtains or the color of the walls. That means your team faces challenges together and makes sacrifices together. Sometimes it means they fail together. But there is a bond there that goes beyond a job description or a paycheck, that brings team members back home again and again.
When I reflect on the culture of Anthros, these are the things that stand out to me, but this is a culture that developed over two decades. It didn’t start here. It didn’t become this overnight. Many of these lessons were learned from failures, from mistakes I’ve made, or mistakes I’ve seen leaders of billion dollar companies make, which led to those enterprises being acquired or sold. Culture, like leadership, is learned over time. I know now what it means to be responsible for a team.
About the Author
Anurag Dandiya is the Founder and CEO of Anthros. He founded Anthros as a human resources firm rooted in relationships to allow organizations and leaders to focus on building their business and legacy. Anurag has been in the human resources and Professional Employer Organization (PEO) industry for more than two decades and is known for his willingness to re-engineer the service delivery model to meet client needs. As CEO of Anthros, he leads a handpicked team of professionals that provide the best in client-focused human resources management and business and brand consulting.
