NoCo Petter: Organizational Culture

Handbook

April 22 2019

DeeAnne Zuhlke, Frank Mancuso, Sam Flowers, Dolton Davidson, Caitlin Stoddard, Jamari
Logan
 Mission Statement:
“While making connections, we not only want to build relationships with the
animals but also with our fellow coworkers and the community. Through the
creation of diversity, respect, and endless amounts of opportunities, we will thrive
to encourage everyone to flourish and achieve their goals...one paw at a time”
 Get out of the Kennel
“Health Days”

 Once every two months you can use at any time

 Don’t abuse this privilege or opportunity, make sure your responsibilities are met

 Excludes Monday’s and Friday’s due to our mandatory meetings, celebrations, and events
scheduled for those days

We value member health because we value our employees and the unique contributions each
member brings to our organization. We believe to thrive as an organization it is our employees
that foster new ideas, create the motivation to continue success, and engage in their job task that
will increase growth in our organization. We understand that through our journey together we
need a day off to recoup, refresh, and revive. By having this “Get out of the kennel” health day,
we are honoring the overall wellbeing of our employees. To have the opportunity to take a day
off when needed can go a long way in your physical, mental, emotional, and relational health.
Services we provide supporting mental, physical, emotional and
relational health:
Resources available:
 Animal therapy- Employees can take one twenty-minute break a day with one of the dogs in our
shelter with the option to interact with the dogs, by walking, playing or brushing the dogs. This
will helps employees to relax minimize stress. Allows for connections to be made within our
organization.
 Counselors- will be provided to all employees and volunteers as a need to need bases. (will
have flexible hours from office/home) <- optional volunteer counselors
 Gym-once you have been hired and finished training you will have free access to our on-site gym
facility. The facility will be open at 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
 Reaching out to our Human Resources Department
 Working through Burnout
Techniques: Employees, Staff members and Management;
 Compassionate Communication practice- will be implemented between employees and
managers; this form of communication helps coworkers communicate their needs more
clearly. Which will provide stronger relationships and help meet the needs of the
employees in an organization.
 Emotional Intelligence- allows the ability to increase and develop trusting relationships.

 Mandatory questionnaire bi-weekly- questions regarding how everyone is feeling and

what if any changes need to be made. You will have the opportunity to list possible
solutions as well as give positive feedback to what is working so that management and
HR can have access to any issues or can continue to implement what is working through
the feedback that employees provide. This allows for our employees to feel valued and
encouraged to share ideas and provides employees to have a voice in the organization
they work for. These questionnaires are confidential and will be given to the human
resources supervisor.
Empowering our employees to “Make the right decision; not the easy one”. By incorporating
open communication between departments and throughout the organization during meetings,
biweekly questionnaires. Along with practicing compassionate communication practices and
emotional intelligence communication, we can meet the needs of not only the organization
but our employees with strong relationships bonds that allow employees to flourish. While
making connections with the customer and within the organization.
 PAWfect Parties, Rituals, Celebrations and Awards:
FURocious Rituals:
- “Pow-wow” huddle for NEW hires/interns- on the first day for our new family member
we will have a morning huddle/meeting (pow-wow) welcoming them into our family and
celebrate the new addition
- Meetings- Mandatory Monday and Friday meetings prior to the work shift (roughly 30
mins before start time). Monday’s meetings will involve weekly goals and expectations
for everyone to achieve and what our end of week accomplishments should look like.
Friday’s meetings will be an end of week overview of what we accomplished or need
improvements in. The Friday meetings will also show statistics of what is working and
what needs improvements such as sales, everyday tasks, and goals the team has set since
the beginning of the week (ex: getting 50 adoptions in a one-month span)
- Our “Three E’s wall” (Enlist, Encourage, Empower)- employees will have the option of
sharing how they have personally felt/seemed empowered or encouraged by filling our
post cards and placing them on our employee wall known as the “Three E’s”. Employees,
staff, even customers will be able to see our stories we share
- Music/Big Board – a sound effect aka “The RUFF” will go off every time a dog gets
adopted. By having this every member of the team will know we just made a sale and a
family hopefully very happy with their new addition to their family. This will also include
our “big board” which is in our main office. The big board will have our current dogs and
status.
- Anniversaries- each full year every employee, staff, and management will be recognized
for their commitment, dedication, and longevity with our company. We will make formal
announcements through our P.A. system or through memo (can even include it on our
website/employee section) showcasing this amazing accomplishment
- Pup-Friday- once a month you can bring in your animal (preferably dog) to work on a
Friday shift that is chosen by a vote from employees
Raise the RUFF Celebrations:
- Birthday Pot Lucks- last Friday of every month where we celebrate all coworkers’
birthdays for that month
- Community Day Bark-b-que- Once in a year, last Sunday in July we will have a day for
anyone who adopted one of our animals to bring their family, friends, and pooches to our
facility’s outdoor events location and celebrate. It is a catered event which will also
include many other activities including games, crafts, and much more
- Furr K- Fundraiser for our company, hosted every year in the morning on the last
Saturday in June which involves a three mile walk around our facility located in Golden,
Colorado. Sponsors and volunteers will be present with food, drinks, and other activities
for everyone who participates
- Happy Adoption Day Recognition- three years out from when our customer adopted one
of our dogs, they will receive a card and gift card (coupon) to Petco or any pet store that
is a partner of ours. Employees and staff will also partake in a celebration showcasing
everyone’s hard work and dedication to getting our dogs to loving and caring families.
This will include a catered lunch type of event of the employees choosing through a vote
regarding where the food will come from
Round of APPaws Awards:
- Employee of the month- Three quarters throughout the year each department can choose
one person to receive an award for hard work and dedication. Each department will have
their own criteria and goals set for co-workers to achieve throughout each quarter
- Who Let The Dogs Out Award- sales based award in which every 2 months the employee
who sells the most dogs will be recognized for this accomplishment
- One Last Treat Award- retirement based award given to the employee, staff member, or
management member who is retiring. It is one of many ways to say thank you for all the
hard work, commitment, and dedication put into their career with the company especially
during the ruff times.
 Drawn physical layout of our “NoCo Petter”, explanation how this embodies our
values:

Although our building is just stunning … I

mean look at it ITS BEAUTIFUL, what is
most important about our building is the
people inside. By having an easy accessible,
handicap friendly structure, this is an
example of the values we share with not
only our team but with the community as
well. Our values for health are extremely
important. By having our gym available at
all times for our team members only, this
can be seen as an embodiment of how
important we take our physical health
seriously. Our branding is our identity and
we should be proud of that. By having this
building we create this aspect of loyalty,
pride, and a sense of bonding and
connection.

Layout Descriptions:
A- “The Pound Pond”
B- Main Office
C- Gym for NoCo Petter employees only
D- Vet Clinic
E- “The Dog House” (where our dogs/puppies are located)
F- Outdoor “meet and greet” station where customers can interact with their animal in an outdoor
setting. This gives them a sense of what the animal’s behavior may be like when taken home and
is another opportunity to create THE BOND
“Outdoor Employee Section”- employee area for breaks, celebrations, and events
“Community Event Location”- where all community celebrations, events, will take place
 Connection between our brick and mortar and visual organization:
 Virtual organizations- a network of independent firms that join together, often temporarily, to
produce a service or product
 Virtual organizations do not represent a firm’s attribute but can be considered as a different
organizational form
 Allows for that connection between customer and employer

 (ex: UNC website- seeing the students happy, at a particular location)

 (our visual buildings w/ exact locations, address, and descriptions of what they are and what their
purpose is for making it easier on the customer when needing to reach out
Connection is the key word. Taking an simplistic approach to our visual organization not only makes it
easier for the customer to feel connected with us, but it also helps maintain that sense of relationship.
With our brick and mortar space, we also took a simplistic approach in having four connected buildings
that are recognizable and easy to access. By having both our buildings and visual organization simple, the
customers will appreciate our layouts especially when it comes to making their match that could
potentially change their lives forever. This connection we share gives us our identity, informs, and guides
everyone to what our organization values.
 Organizational Goals
1) To enlist, encourage, and empower each other

2) Bringing the community together

3) Making connections between animals and people

4) By allowing for different needs between the customer and our dogs, we strive to create that formula

for diversity for everyone.

5) Demonstrate Complete Transparency

6) To provide a new “family member” to a loving a caring home

By incorporating these goals, it will help us to establish satisfaction among employees and
customers in our organization.
 References:
Know the signs of job burnout. (2018, November 21). Retrieved from
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642
Pertaining to this article it corporate a type related stress towards humans and how to spot
it right on. Having physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced
accomplishment and loss of personal identity will create you to have a burnout and won’t be able
to function.
As a group we provided this information into our work giving us the ability to establish
and understand what burnout means. Which being a leader or manager of a company we believe
you should recognize job burnouts so you can approach and understand there situation.

Martic, K. (2018, December 19). Top 10 Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace

[INFOGRAPHIC INCLUDED]. Retrieved from
https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/244/top-10-benefits-of-diversity-in-the-workplace-
infographic-included
Diversity in a workplace ensures a variety of different perspectives. With the employees
having different characteristics and backgrounds it will create that unity between all the
employees. This will create everyone to understand each other and learn each other’s skills and
what type of experience they have within the company. Also this will increased creativity, higher
innovation, faster problem-solving, and better decision between the diversity in the workplace.
As a team we united this into our paper giving examples on how this will help or
company and atmosphere between the employees. This will give us a large amount of customers
but also a diverse type of group coming in which is what we aiming for.

Therapy dogs bring joy and healing. (2018, August 01). Retrieved from
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/pet-therapy/art-20046342
Pet therapy is Animal-assisted therapy which help people recover from a long day or to
cope with health problems. If somebody has a heart disease, cancer, or mental health disorders
this will help them feel better and it will put more joy into their hearts. With that being said it
will create more nursing home residents to have animal therapy creating that enjoyment with the
people.
Using this article provided us to make sure we include the animal therapy. With the
animal therapy will create more healthy people pertaining to them being happy and enjoying the
animal’s presence. Working all day will create the job burnout which having the animal therapy
will help the people cope better to and that’s something we incorporated into our paper.
Review of Textbook Chapters 11&5:
Chapter 11 is about emotions inside a workplace. The chapter consists of what kind of roles
of emotions takes place in an organization and how some organizations address the emotions.
The chapter explains what is the role of emotion in professional relationships. Emotion well-
being can affect an employee’s job and the employee is not mentally focused to work because of
the emotions that he or she has. There are several factors as to why an employee is having
emotional issues: office relationships, anger towards another employee, gossip, sexual or
different kind of harassment, and talking about topics that should not be heard. Another factor
that creates emotions in a workplace is burnout. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and
mental exhaustion and emotions can trigger burnout while working. There are several ways for
an organization lower the chances of their employees from having a burnout: interaction
strategies will allow the employees to be involved with the decision making process so they can
determine policies, work day and job requirements. This will also train management on how to
use coping skills when providing social support. Also by giving the employees a break from their
job can limit burnout because they will be able to relax for a little bit. There are several ways to
cope with burnouts: find out what is causing the burnout, approach the situation differently and
work through the negativity of the stress. The chapter relates to our handbook section because we
do realize that burnout is a real thing that can affect employees overall performance.
Chapter 5 is about Cultural Approach and how every organization has its own culture.
The chapter talks about how each organization want all of their employees to be a part of a
shared culture. Sharing values, rituals and symbols. Also there are two different views towards
culture in a workplace: The older view is the organization has culture but it remains the same
despite the cultural changes. The new view is the organization are cultures and an organizational
change is a cultural change. The chapter mentions organizational identity and it is constructing
through practices where all members can engage in and the communication is producing the
organizational identity. The chapter also mentions about perspective vs. descriptive cultural
approach. Perspective is the idea of an organization culture can be built from top to bottom. It
consists of strong cultures such as: values, heroes, and rituals. The descriptive a different from
perspective because it can be built from bottom up and it is complicated. The chapter also
provides Schein’s Model of Culture and it had three steps to help organizations to know about
culture. Behaviors and artifacts - what we see and hear, espoused values - what the employees
have to say about the organization's values and basic assumption - change is a good thing. This
chapter relates to our handbook section because we value culture and we care about what kind of
culture the employees come from.
Miller, K. (2011). Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes (6th ed.).
Cengage Learning.