46
BizVoice/Indiana Chamber – May/June 2017
CULTURE CLUB
Festering worms.
That symbolic phrase turned out
to be quite pertinent in framing
what separates a great employer
from those that are merely okay
or possibly struggling internally.
BizVoice
®
talked to representatives from
four companies that have made the Best
Places to Work in Indiana list multiple times:
• Chris Campbell
, president of First
Bancshares (parent company of Centier
Bank) at
ccampbel@centier.com,and
Chrisanne Christ
, senior partner at
Centier Bank, at
cchrist@centier.com• Mark Chamberlain
, CEO of Lakeside
Wealth Management Group, at
mark@lakesidewealth.com• Tom O’Neil
, president of OfficeWorks,
at
toneil@officeworks.net• Casey Stanley
, vice president of product
management and marketing for Ontario
Systems, at
casey.stanley@ontariosystems.comAs for those worms, Christ gets the credit
for the visual: “If there’s a can of worms festering,
let’s pop the lid and let’s deal with it!”
That mentality of not being afraid in the
quest for continual improvement is a
characteristic the companies share and
demonstrate throughout the discussion.
‘You matter’
An organization won’t get very far in the
Best Places evaluation – or be viewed as a
desired employer in general – if its workers
don’t feel valued. And there isn’t a secret
weapon to making it happen; a varied
approach is what’s in order.
Empowerment is one avenue for Lakeside,
based in Chesterton.
“Every decision that gets made here
doesn’t have to come from me, and I want
them to take the bull by the horns and make
decisions, and take projects and run with
them. It’s rotating leadership,” Chamberlain
explains. “They don’t need to run everything
by me. That’s not what we’re about. If that
happens, the dynamic then is this company is
only as smart as I am, and that’s an extremely
limiting thought process.”
Offers Stanley, “I was speaking to our
people service leader about culture and her
take was the big stuff is easy; the one-time
stuff will often get attention and be taken
care of, but it’s a sustained effort around the
little things that make a difference for us.
“Attention to detail and ongoing little
things help build those sort of lasting
emotional bonds and relationships that matter
at the end of the day,” he surmises.
“That translates to volunteer time off; an
on-the-spot bonus program where someone
ROUNDTABLE
By Rebecca Patrick
Building and Growing Outstanding Workplaces
“She (a co-worker) had a violent type
of cancer that she wouldn’t have known
she had if she had not gone for these
(company-provided wellness) screenings
and the doctor hadn’t really encouraged
her to keep up her exams.”
– Chrisanne Christ