Week 1- City of Richmond Organizational Culture

I just finished my first week working for the City of Richmond, Human Services Department. The Human Services Department is headed my Reggie Gordon, who is the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer. I am lucky to have my internship in person, which has certainly impacted my experience and the way that I interact with my coworkers. Day to day interactions within the office and workplace are relatively informal. Each person in the office understands their role and works hard to achieve it. Furthermore, each person has a unique position, which allows them to be rather independent. However, I have noticed that every person, from my boss Mr. Gordon, to the secretary, to the financial officer, all interact with each other and run ideas and solutions by each other. I have noticed that it makes everyone more productive and comfortable since idea sharing is encouraged, even for me as an intern. Additionally, I think that this culture of idea sharing stems from the general context of the industry. Human Services is designed to create policy to instigate change for the City of Richmond. As a result, many different people in many different offices (homelessness, transportation, food security, etc) need to come together to work towards change because the change that we want to make is all interconnected. While Mr. Gordon “heads” these meetings and departments that come together, he does not act authoritatively. Instead, he tries to create a culture of (1) promoting ideas in tandem with (2) critical analysis. Mr. Gordon told me that his day to day work requires “putting out fires”, or dealing with major issues that arise on a daily basis. Therefore, some areas (ex. homelessness or crime) may receive more attention on some days than other days. As a result, he created these “expert cabinet meetings” every other Wednesday that are meant to draw all of the major city actors together to share updates, statistics, data, etc. about progress and change… this way, although some days may receive more focus than others, no topic is forgotten about, underscored, or underfunded. I value the attentiveness of Mr. Gordon and the fellow workers of Human Services and believe that the culture of idea sharing over authority is very beneficial for a government sector trying to create change.