Re-creating culture: A look back on 2022

January is upon us and, as ever, being met with surprise of how quickly the past 12 months have flown by. Reflecting all the way back to the start of 2022, the return to work on 3rd January 2022 was not filled with the usual office buzz of the team regaling tales of family dramatics over the festive period, whilst sharing the last of the Christmas chocolate and simultaneously complaining of overindulgence. Instead, the office was quiet, the city still felt silent and the memory of how things ‘used to be’ continued to become increasingly distant.

Much of 2022 has been about recovering our team spirit and restoring the culture of togetherness. At Avamore, we are company of 27 and that number came from around a 60% headcount increase across 2020-2022; a positive message for any business navigating the COVID challenges but not conducive to building the environment which we believe to making Avamore a great place to work. The average age of people in the business is relatively young with most of the management team being promoted from entry level positions. That acceleration in growth is largely derived from the exposure people have been given to the business; the original co-founders made a concerted effort to operate an open-door meeting policy and having detailed discussions in the office, this encouraged learning by osmosis, a true feeling of belonging in the business and joint determination towards a common goal.

The impact of COVID therefore meant that this strong sense of culture we had worked so hard to build was diluted when we did return to the office. The intangible benefit of simply being around each other versus the proof that you don’t actually need to be sat in the same space to be effective meant that it was difficult to justify a mandatory office schedule. We therefore needed to work hard to find a way for people to want to come back in; for us, that wasn’t about enticing them with free snacks or introducing a Thursday drinks trolley, it was going back to our core values of creating opportunities for learning, opening the pathways for growth and generally being a nice place to work; no egos, no hierarchy, just a group of individuals working hard for themselves, for one another and for the business.

We could see this approach taking effect when we conducted our mid-year ESG survey. Responses from the ‘Social’ section indicated that the team believe Avamore to be a diverse and inclusive workforce with an approachable management team; commentary around the general working environment was positive with a particular focus on Avamore operating a meritocratic ecosystem and promoting equal opportunities through lateral moves and internal promotions. Following feedback across the entire survey, we have also found room for improvement to ensure even greater staff retention by since introducing a formal application for funded training and development to meet individuals’ desire for personal growth.

As we head towards 2023, for me, maintaining this culture that we have recovered is a key focus area. Our greatest asset will always be our people and it’s no accident that the blend we have created simply works. It’s taken a lot of time to find out how we can make that happen but now we’ve been able to put our finger on it, we are going to keep at it. 2023 is filled with endless opportunities, we have big targets to hit, and even bigger plans to make sure we achieve them, ultimately though, we know that at the heart of it our people are what’s going to make the year a true success.