How Employee-Led Committees Enrich Outside-Office Lives
In its traditional context, work-life balance refers to the boundaries employers and employees put in place so that emails, phone calls, and other work obligations aren’t constantly bleeding beyond normal business hours.
At Logical Position, we take pride in the results our work-hard culture brings our clients, but we also understand our jobs do not encompass our entire lives. In our view, a healthy work-life balance is about more than just limiting intrusions into our employees’ non-work lives. It’s also about creating an environment that rewards our employees’ hard work and dedication.
Beyond offering flexible schedules with early start and end times, we foster work-life balance by investing in our company culture. Through activities and events that are fun, fulfilling, and educational, we set up our employees to learn new skills, give back to the community, and engage with each other outside their day-to-day work responsibilities. This all begins with our employee-led A.C.E.S. committees.
Employee-Born, Employee-Led
From the beginning, A.C.E.S. has been an organic outgrowth of our inclusive approach to employee engagement. In 2015, an employee in our creative services department had an idea for a more organized structure to get groups of employees together. She brought her idea to the executive team, we loved it, and further developed the concept into the four A.C.E.S. areas which form the quadrants of LP’s core cultural pursuits: activities, community, education, and social.
Committee members in each group plan and execute office-wide activities for LP’s 500+ employees spread over nine offices nationwide. The Activities Committee plans outdoor outings like company ski and hiking trips. Corporate give-back efforts like this year’s Boys & Girls Club Back to School Drive are coordinated by the Community Committee. The Education Committee creates informational and personal development events like first-time homebuyer classes, wine tasting courses, and tax preparation and financial planning events. The Social Committee organizes company parties like Logicalpalooza — our annual summer barbecue.
Volunteers Drawn from All Levels
The four A.C.E.S. committees are made up of volunteers from all departments and all levels of our organization. At the beginning of each year, we ask for interested team members to apply for committee participation, with the goal of getting a diverse mix of new people and established employees working together to plan our events.
Each committee has a point-person who sets the meetings and plans the agenda. These leaders have typically been involved in the A.C.E.S. program for a while, allowing for greater efficiency and a sense of continuity. Each point-person reports to the A.C.E.S. Council, which is comprised of members of our senior leadership team. The council discusses new events and ultimately determines what gets approved.
Our branch offices are involved as well. Each branch has its own A.C.E.S. ambassador who coordinates the activities of an A.C.E.S. committee for their location. These branch committees plan two or three annual events the offices can get involved in on a local community level, in addition to our company-wide events.
ACES Engages and Connects Our Employees
Over the years, we’ve found that our A.C.E.S. committees benefit both its members and our employee community at large. By participating in A.C.E.S., committee members gain a voice in the company and the ability to contribute to the culture, no matter their seniority level. Committee work also gives our employees the chance to collaborate on projects and achieve something a little bigger than if they just worked on their own.
The cultural calendar — which is the result of our A.C.E.S. committee work — allows our employees to select activities that might be fun, enlightening, or uplifting, yet completely disconnected from their work as digital marketers.
Perhaps most importantly, by investing in A.C.E.S. and in our larger company culture, each of our team members has the chance to pursue personal growth alongside their own professional development. While at the same time, facilitating deeper, more meaningful interactions with their fellow co-workers and leaders.
After all, we spend a significant amount of our lives at work and give up a lot of ourselves in the process. This is one way that Logical Position reinvests some of that energy back into our workforce, and in the end, helps our employees flourish in every facet of their lives.