“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
– Babe Ruth
We may have a small team, but it sure is a good one. Working at a company the size of GForce Life Sciences comes with a long list of benefits. I will start off with my personal top five:
- Interaction
I recently conducted an internal employee interview for an Associate Recruiter to join our team. She was looking for a role where she was able to interact with senior leaders often. Coincidentally, I had gotten home from lunch with the President of GForce about an hour prior. I went on to explain to her the relationship each of us has with our senior leaders. Not only are we on a first name basis, but we speak to them weekly, if not daily. These interactions are not always about work, but on a personal level where we can chat about family, friends, and life. It was not until I was explaining this to the interviewee that I realized how fortunate I am to be able to say that. Much of the corporate world does not even know the name of the person in the cubicle next to them, let alone can go out to lunch one-on-one with each person in their company.
- Culture
At GForce, each team gets together every day either in person or over video chat. Not only do we interact with our senior leaders, but we also have the opportunity to interact with every employee in the company. Whether that is a quick chat or an hour-long meeting getting to know them, I can genuinely say these types of interactions occur each day. Since we are small, we can all fit at the same lunch table and the same happy hour table. It makes for some great memories. Having the opportunity to work together this closely has made me realize that I feel comfortable and excited to spend time with each member of our company. This culture that has been created by our leadership team is unrivaled.
- Strengths
Because of this tightknit group, everyone’s strengths are recognized. Each person is in the best role for their skillset and their ideas are not only heard but taken seriously by management. If there is a way to enhance the way GForce is run, our leaders are there to listen to our suggestions and make the company better. Overall, the company realizes that each employee has different strengths to benefit the team and is able to set each person up to succeed.
- Opportunity
I get the opportunity to see what each team at GForce does. Every day I learn from our Client Partners and FinOps team and get to see what happens across the board in our business. If I ever do not know the answer to something, I can simply ask without scrutiny. Since we are so close and work together every day, I get a taste of what a day looks like for each employee. For example, we have started doing lunch & learns internally with other teams to learn what their roles look like, and to understand how we can seamlessly work together.
- Trust
I might have saved the most important for last. Life is crazy and you never know what is going to come at you (ex: this past year when all our lives were turned upside down). Having a group of individuals that I could trust and feel comfortable working with while going through a global pandemic made all the difference. Some days, the only interaction we had all day was with one another over video calls. As we all made our way through the pandemic together, we had (and still do) several happy hours, meetings one-on-one to check in on each other, mental health days, and an inviting space to reach out to if we simply needed someone to talk to.
I know working for a large company has its benefits too, but for me the five items listed above are what makes a small company stand out. After this last year, we can all appreciate the quality of personal interactions and the people who we choose to spend our time. Working for a company with those same values, filled with people I have had the opportunity to get to know, makes working for a small company very enjoyable.