Organizational Culture of The City of Richmond

Even though it is fairly early, after working one week working for the City of Richmond I have been able to observe the culture of the organization pretty closely. I have really enjoyed every aspect of my work within City Hall. I am a Mayor’s Fellow, working under a financial department portfolio as an operations manager. On a daily basis I do in depth research, service reports, conduct surveys, present findings, offer brand development ideas, and attend board meetings for different departments of City Hall. The City of Richmond is a devoted organization that encourages a high quality of life for its residents by providing a great deal of services. The portfolio that I work for is located on the 10^th floor of City Hall. Some of the people on the floor have cubicles but the majority of the employees have offices. I have become accustomed to the work-life solely because of my wonderful co-workers. The average age of the employee’s here is around 42 years old. The majority of the people that I work with are older in age, but what they lack in youth they make up for it with worldly knowledge and experience. The work hierarchy starts with the head of the Financial department, and then branches off into different work portfolios that are manage by different administrators.

They have a system imbedded within the organization that encourages workers to achieve more. Similar to the Transactional Leadership approach the organization incentivizes behavior and work accomplished with a tracking system. They implemented an employee onboarding campaign which allows employees to acquire different training certificates. The completion of each training is recorded into a working log and it counts for or against employees when they are up for a promotion, a raise, or a bonus. There are also monthly gatherings and events that are held to honor and reward employees for their effort.