The Perfect Office? — Part 1 (Culture)

The perfect work environment: does it exist? What creates perfection, and how do we build it? These are questions that owners and employees ask often, yet we’re still here in 2022 and there is no one structure adopted by the masses. Truth be told, the concept is harder executed than spoken of. In this post I’m going to focus on one of the core tenets of the “Perfect Office:” Culture.

For me, this is the most important of the cornerstones of the “Perfect Office, ‘’ and if I may offer a “hot take,” a company that isn’t putting culture first is an office that isn’t worth working at. Yes, it seems a bit brash and bold to say such a thing, but when you realize that all actions in your company are children of the culture you realize the statement above to be true.

Let’s take some time to look at Bob’s office (this could be your office!) that values profits over culture. Bob has been working at ABC Finance for about 5 years, and though he isn’t the boss, he isn’t on the ground floor either. He comfortably takes home a good living wage, has access to some discounted benefits (paid by him) and gets about 10 days off a year (including sick leave). Does this sound familiar to you? Even if not, this isn’t really inspiring anyone is it? It’s not, yet this situation seems more commonplace than not. Back to Bob. A typical week in Bob’s life starts with the everyday lack of motivation to “want” to go to work. He regrettably leaves the comfort of his bed due to poor sleep, puts on dress clothes (to likely not interact with anyone outside the office) and heads to fight for a good parking spot (since parking isn’t paid for by the company). Bob’s day hasn’t even started yet, it already looks like he isn’t set up for success. The body of his day is spent milling through emails from coworkers and clients, on and off of phone calls that are procedural in nature (all those account executives got to sell you products) and generally meaningless, and chatting briefly with coworkers that pass by. A strict hour-long lunch is the only time in Bob’s day he feels he has for himself, yet with a client first attitude, he’s often left with little to no time. If he does get time, he comes back to a litany of urgent emails that are just someone asking someone asking someone to do something that the first person could have done, but they are too busy making the company money. Bob’s day ends at 5 and he goes home to do everything all over again…and again…and again. Aside from the occasional lunch with the boss and a small bonus at the year’s end, this is Bob’s life.

At what point in Bob’s life do we see culture? Well, at no point. Some shallow gestures of paying for lunch might be the best he gets. It doesn’t take much to see how if any part of Bob’s day was better it might translate to better, more efficient, more enjoyable work. Let’s dig into that a little more. Say that in Bob’s office, they have a time once a day for 20 minutes where everyone can do whatever they want but are encouraged to be social with the co-workers with a focus NOT WORKING. That time could be the break that he desperately needs, or a time where he could build comradery with his co-workers. Either way, a powerful element of humanity is now part of his daily routine. This simple gesture can lead to many things aside from an improvement of mental health. For example: Bob talks to his boss and discusses the impacts of struggling with parking and gets a close spot (this just saved him 20 minutes in the morning). Or perhaps he expresses his grievances about seemingly pointless work apparel and is allowed to dress more casually (saving him 20 min in the morning getting dressed). I could keep going, but in this scenario due to a culture shift, Bob has regained an hour of his day. Over the course of a year, Bob has gained 260 hours of his life back. Knowing this, Bob now wakes up a little later, more well rested and motivated to go to work since he’s not starting his day overdressing and fighting for a parking spot. A stressful day can be broken up with his guaranteed 20 minutes of non work and an hour lunch.

It’s easy to see how such a small gesture can have such profound effects. Now imagine this concept and bring it to the forefront of how a company runs. Well then you would have Silicon Mountain Technologies! Here we value our employees above all else and in turn the employees value the company for more than a paycheck. From my personal experience, I wake up everyday loving that I get to come to the office. I love that the people surrounding me are equally as motivated to be here, I love having the freedom to do work at my own pace which makes me work harder, and I especially love that I have no boss (yes, no one here has a boss). We have a game room (we can use at anytime of day), we have a pantry full of snacks and drinks (yes there is actually adult beverages in our office), we are encouraged to leave early or come late if that’s what makes you avoid traffic (although we can work from home at any point so there’s no need to stress about traffic). It’s the summation of all these things and more that makes this place an amazing place to work and everyone knows it.

Now you may wonder, how does any work get done with all these freedoms? Well in short, it gets done passionately and very efficiently as the mental and physical state we have cultivated through culture creates the best worker. We’re not sitting there wasting “brain space” thinking about not being at work or mulling over why something at the office or in your day sucks. It’s that same feeling that you get when you’re on vacation and you’re not worried about anything but it’s 5 days a week at your “job”. Take this perspective and go back to Bob’s life. We saw how a small positive change in culture made a huge difference in his life. Imagine how much better it would be if he had a culture like SMT at his office. It would be amazing for everyone and the profit driven company might actually see more profits ironically.

I implore you to try and affect culture change at your work space and see the difference and experience the benefits of a culture rich work environment. If this blog post inspires you to make a change, leave a comment below about what you want to change and then come back and let me know how it improved your office. In the next post I’ll elaborate more on the concept of not having a “boss” and working in an autonomous work space.