Culture & Grants

Culture is everything to The Grants Hub. For us, our values form the backbone of a healthy, long-lasting culture that enables people to thrive. Our team knows our values, discusses them, regularly rates them and prioritises them in all they do.

If we’re doing particularly well in a value, we celebrate this, if we’re not tracking so well in another, we invest time and energy to improve in it. In other words, we work hard to make sure values don’t just live on paper collecting dust!

Funding providers love a healthy culture too. Yes, they want to know that they are investing into a worthy cause, but they also need to have the assurance that it is backed by a strong set of lived-out values that allows funding to be used to its potential. But how do you measure culture? How do you convince a funding provider that your culture is thriving? That people are happy in what they do, collaborate and communicate well together and in turn produce great results? I don’t think the answers come easily…in fact I’d argue that a large part of culture is ‘felt’ and not measured. So as you submit that next application, how can you win the funding provider’s heart? It’s the stories that are told, the examples that are given, and the deeply embedded habits of how your values are brought into fruition that will do a lot of the talking.

With that said, I thought I’d share The Grants Hub’s seven Core Values, along with some recent examples of how I’ve seen each of them played out within our team. This is the stuff that excites me more than anything in my work; an alignment across our team in what we care about the most! It’s the kind of stuff we’d certainly be drawing upon if submitting a grant application. 

Excellence

The Grants Hub’s priority is to have people do what they do best. Our Developer recently came up with a problem and a solution for our team that will literally save us days of work, and better still provide members of The Grants Hub with quicker and more up-to-date solutions. We didn’t ask him to do it, he just did it because that’s what he does best! It was a great example of excellence he has in his field; excellence which benefited both our team and The Grants Hub’s members. It felt nice. It was an investment in both our team’s overall moral and our businesses’ culture.

Innovation

Late last year I had a chat to one of our employees about a new role she was moving into. We were keen for this person to really own it…to invest time into researching new and innovative ways we could do the role. We were blown away by what we received some weeks later. She came back to us with a bunch of ideas and models that we didn’t even know existed, now informing us on the way we do many things. People need time to innovate, otherwise there’s a danger that we fall into same-old-same-old. At the Grants Hub, we believe it’s about empowerment, opportunity and trust.

Flexibility

This past week there was a stage where four of The Grants Hub’s team members were all working at 10pm. It was totally unplanned. One employee was using her two weeks of flexible leave, another used her week’s flexi-time to knock off at midday and work an evening session. I’d had a rough morning and felt I could better plow through my work by knocking off early and working that evening, and our CEO… well CEOs always work at 10pm right! It was flexibility at its finest. Put simply, flexibility allowed everyone to produce their best. 

Reliability

Last December one of our employees’ properties was hit by the devastating bushfires throughout NSW. Everyone at The Grants Hub was clearly concerned and worried for their safety. Thankfully this employee is OK, although there was extensive damage to their property. We were blown away by the way they managed their workload and clearly communicated what was going on to the team. In these circumstances, the level of reliability given to The Grants Hub was exceptional, and we trust that our other value of Flexibility was provided in return.

Honesty

The Grants Hub’s two week Flexi-time allows employees to work from anywhere at any time. It’s a perk allowing people to travel and work on the run, or to keep it up their sleeve for whatever circumstances they’d like to use it for. This past month we had one of our employees use it. She self-managed her time, got work done and reported that it was so refreshing breaking out of normal work habits. Some people would say this kind of arrangement is open for trouble. But our strong alignment in values has brought about mutual trust and respect for one another. Whether it be time, money or giving each other feedback, honesty forms an undercurrent in all that we do.

Giving

The past two weeks have been pretty chaotic for me. You know when you reach that stage when there are so many red flags waving at you in your inbox that you feel you’re in a car yard? My wife Jessie, also at The Grants Hub, could see the stress building up. One evening she came home with a new T2 blend for me and simply said ‘here’s a little bonus for all of the hard work you do’. It was small…it was big. Directors, leaders, managers…we all need encouragement like anyone else; it helps all of us be our best…or sometimes just survive! But at the end of the day, it ensures we deliver what we say we will.

Fun

Late last year I was running a team meeting with a packed agenda. It would be fair to say I was in task mode, when the team fronted up and suggested we should have a chocolate ‘health’ allowance in order to increase employee productivity! We negotiated that each employee begin with an initial $10 to purchase their favourite chocolate, take a snap of themselves and write a short message as to how this sample chocolate allowance improved work performance. We had loads of fun around this, and I’m now proud to say that we have an official ‘Chocolate Health Allowance’ built into employee entitlements! Our value of Fun was well and truly lived out. And best of all, The Grants Hub’s employees drove it. It’s what we want. It’s what they want. We never want to underestimate the important of workplace moral and truly believe that it helps us be our best…plus it’s just fun!

Culture is an investment, and one that funding providers are investing into too. Positive culture drives our work and enable us to thrive.

When is the last time you looked at your values? Pull them out. Share them. Talk about them. Elaborate on them.

And most importantly, make sure you live them out.