In 2014, WNDE’s leadership continued its commitment to support the goal of fostering a united and collaborative firm culture by founding a “Connectedness Committee” with the mission to strengthen relationships through periodic and regular activities involving everyone from staff to partners, and ultimately to improve and maintain employee morale. Most recently, we had a fun afternoon outing through our mentor program with our staff outside of the office for a half-day on a Friday. Prior outings have included an Angels baseball game, a trip to Disneyland, a tour of a chocolate factory, taking Amtrak to the Del Mar Fair and an adventure conquering an escape room.
The Connectedness Committee was created out of the results of an employee survey seeking to determine areas in the firm needing improvement. In addition to other changes starting with the revamping of the mentor/mentee program and scheduling, the committee continued to focus on aspects of improvement and turned its attention to developing other activities. Such activities included holiday parties, monthly calendars of activities, catered dinners during busy season and numerous team-building activities. including a Newport Harbor Duffy Boat Scavenger Hunt (pictured in the second photograph above), a Newport Dunes Family Beach BBQ and trips to Dave & Busters. Upcoming summer events include monthly birthday cookies in July and August, a Second Harvest Food Bank community service event in July (a previous Food Bank visit is pictured in the top photograph above), our annual water balloon toss and an audit department appreciation event in August.
While WNDE has had a historically low turnover, feedback from our staff indicates such events continue to help keep WNDE’s morale high. If you’d like to suggest an event or activity for the Connectedness Committee, please send me an email or come and talk with me, as I’d love to hear from you. Our goal is to continue to improve WNDE’s working environment, which will help us to be a more successful firm overall.