What defines a great team culture? Our Aura vision is to create a workplace where people are happy coming to work, where individuals feel they are valued and contributing to the overall success of the business…whilst also having fun!
Our culture is a huge focus for us as an organisation, is key to both innovation and resilience and is undoubtedly crucial to our future success.
We know that a healthy work culture is key to attracting new talent and retaining our fabulous team Aura! So, this was our starting point when the UK team convened in a meeting space in central London earlier this month.
As we arrived from our various corners of the UK, the walls of our meeting room were adorned with the life maps created by the team. These life maps were sharing some of our personal and professional journeys, hopes and ambitions for the future. Over coffee, we chatted as we learnt more about each other and shared some lovely team news in one particular case!
Then we got going with the main session. Greg opened the day, setting the scene around the marketplace and our performance to date. It was a great opener and a great way to show the team where we are halfway through 2023.
Harriet then refreshed the team on our brand pillars. We spent the next few hours very openly and honestly appraising our behaviours, working practices and interactions versus those pillars – Visionary, Responsible, Honest, and Collaborative. From there we shared ideas and suggestions about what a great culture means to us as a group of individuals.
How might we ensure that team interactions, behaviours and working practices are those we agree we want as a team? The work we do each day is highly pressured, and it would be easy for toxicity to creep into our working lives.
How do we ensure that on the inside we’re what we portray on the outside? How do we treat each others as individuals? What’s our language of success? What are our challenges in the here and now?
We agreed as a group that we would create a safe psychological space where people are encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas! We promote diversity of thought and inclusivity of all team members and their opinions.
Sarah Kroon, Aura
The session was fantastic, and there was positive participation from everyone, thank you, team!
Our thinking informed the creation of our ‘aura every day charter’. A physical manifest of the rules of engagement, representation of the behaviours that embody our values (perhaps a little inspired by Ted Lasso, IYKYK).
Our final activity led by Gill, was pledging our personal commitments on things we would start, stop and continue doing to bring to life the culture we all aspire to. It was a great opportunity to reflect and set some clear personal goals.
Our US team also took part in a virtual session to enable them to share their thoughts, contribute to the charter and pledge their commitments.
We are very proud of what we’ve achieved together so far and look forward to developing the roadmap and building on this in the future. There isn’t an endpoint, we commit to continually reviewing and improving to ensure we create a truly great Aura culture.