Teamwork. It’s a hugely overused buzzword that we hear every day – but in a small business such as ours it’s more than just a word: it’s a way of life that represents the backbone of the business writes Findlay Leask, Managing Director of Caber Coffee.
Like all small businesses, we have fewer resources and a smaller workforce but an ever greater need to punch above our weight in challenging and competitive trading conditions. So how do we do that? Teamwork: the ethos, not the word.
As a family-run business, we have a unique approach to how we do things and fundamental to our operations is the importance of looking beyond job performance and focusing on supporting whole individuals, not just employees. Investing in their wellbeing, personally and professionally, creates a culture that fosters loyalty, motivation and long-term success and working to achieve the right work/life balance enables people to wear all the hats that their life requires. It’s about much more than offering competitive salaries: it’s about creating a supportive and compassionate work culture where people trust and feel trusted.
Our experience shows that, when a team works together effectively, we can successfully carve up tasks based on individual and collective strengths and leverage that close-knit standpoint to achieve smoother operations and reduce bottlenecks resulting in increased productivity and better commercial performance.
Everyone brings their own unique and valuable perspective to what we do and, being a small team, there are always open lines of communication that allow sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings. Of course, it does also mean that when our colleagues face the toughest of times in their personal lives, we all feel it and walk their path with them. By knowing our people as exactly that, we can support them as best we can as compassionate employers but, more importantly, as fellow caring humans and that’s where the fundamental difference lies. How does this manifest itself, exactly? Well, like any family unit, we pull together, no more so than recently when, for many reasons, the whole team has needed to use our individual unique strengths and knowledge so that, to our customers, it’s business as usual. Over the last few months, we’ve lost two colleagues, and another was seriously injured in an accident. Thanks to the whole team the business carried on just like the graceful swan analogy – serene to all onlookers but, boy, we were certainly paddling like fury under the surface.
During the inevitable difficult times that life throws at all of us, we know from our own story that a tight team means, more than just keeping the projection of “business as normal”, we also have better knowledge of the people around us to be able to lift them up, be there for them as a friend, and sometimes just know when it’s time to press the pause button, put the kettle on, lend them an ear and check in with each other over a cup of coffee (of course).
Oh, and before you feel the need to ask, no, I simply couldn’t be prouder of them all.
To find out more, visit www.cabercoffee.com email info@cabercoffee.com or call 0845 302 4600.