Podcast | Best Christian Workplaces

S6E21: Why Workplace Culture is Mission Essential

Written by Best Christian Workplaces | May, 24 2021

Mike Johnson, CEO of the Yakima Union Gospel Mission, shares a one-of-a-kind story that you need to hear. Listen in, as Mike highlights the one thing that is mission essential for his organization's success.

 

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In this episode:

  • The Yakima Union Gospel Mission is dedicated to bring the unique hope of Christ to the struggling on the streets.” (03:50)
  • "For us, our workplace culture is mission essential. It’s literally our change engine" (06:54)
  • How receiving employees' honest, anonymous feedback helps to build strength into workplace culture (07:57)
  • Yakima Union Gospel Mission had a clear idea of their values but didn't know how well they were operationalizing them (08:10)
  • "What inspires people is how values are at play in their work." (09:38)
  • Yakima Union Gospel Mission made sure their core values were clear, with strong buy-in, and then implementing around them in every way at every level (10:02)
  • "We do role, not rank. There is only one rank in the Kingdom of God, and it’s Servant." (10:56)
  • If Yakima Union Gospel Mission hadn’t surveyed its employees, it might have been left with a little or a lot of subjective guesswork trying to figure out where and how to make its culture better (12:06) 
  • "Our core values are Love, Professionalism and Outcomes" (12:36)
  • "If we don’t measure our culture, we betray our values." (13:18)
  • Dealing with silos within an organization (17:58)
  • How to improve collaboration, communication, and onboarding (19:40)
  • What’s one way you’ve grown as the Mission keeps improving, as we like to say, on the Road to Flourishing? (24:11)
  • "The most important thing I can do is model our values and show our people that they matter" (25:55)
  • "Operationalize your core values or you will never be trusted" (31:33)

Read the Transcript

Read a complete, word-for-word transcript of the episode.

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