Reflection Week 3- Organizational Culture

Going past my third week at FLIP National, I’ve become much more aware of the organizational culture of the non-profit organization as a whole. What I am reflecting on right now honestly resembles what I have noticed in my reflection on the leader/member relations, and for good reason.

My supervisor prides himself in building a caring bond with each fellow, and that is a big aspect of our organizational culture as a whole. Our supervisor knows who we are as workers, but also knows our story and narrative. Since the non-profit organization’s mission is to advocate for first-generation / low-income college students, each fellow often speaks of their own personal narratives in relation to this identity. In addition, when my team (Chapter Establishment & Development team) has meetings with prospective or established chapters, we also rely on our shared experiences and stories to do our job well. With all this combined, it makes sense that our culture welcomes personal connections and strong bonds. 

Given that this fellowship has always been virtual, we have a different way of demonstrating responsiveness than in more traditional in-person work sites. After all, FLIP National has fellows from all over the country. We have weekly zoom meetings or even more for check-ins, but we also largely accomplish tasks through working on shared documents and communicating through our Slack workspace. We routinely respond in our team channels, but are also required to converse with fellows and exchange messages amongst everyone every three days. These messages are often just updates on our lives or other informal conversation, so that bonding can be fostered amongst everyone. This is meant to emulate the experience of being with coworkers in person. 

The process of us being introduced to the organizational culture begins with an orientation when one first enters the fellowship. The orientation is about two hours long. Once assigned to a team, there are also steady trainings and meetings to help a fellow grow comfortable in the culture and dynamic of the organization.

While the culture of the organization is far more hospitable than how other work sites could be, there is always the difficulty of maintaining regular responsiveness in a totally remote, and largely somewhat asynchronous setting. While more zoom meetings can be done to make work happen in real-time, it can get overwhelming for fellows to attend too many of them. In addition, while there is a strong informal bond fostered between all the fellows and with our supervisor, it may at times make people feel comfortable in breaking standard work etiquette norms, such as responding on time or at times not following commitments to attend certain meetings and such.