At The Bagg Group, we know the value of creating a supportive work environment where collaboration and team spirit is fostered. Having interviewed thousands of A-level candidates over the past four decades, we have seen how people remain committed to achieving great things at organizations that show they value their employees.
We live the advice we share with our clients. At The Bagg Group, it’s everyday practice to pull together to help each other meet professional and personal goals. We work hard as a team, and we celebrate as a team. And this month, we grieved as a team.
For all of us who work outside the home, many of our waking hours are spent at our workplace. Sometimes, more waking hours than are spent at home. Colleagues become our daytime family – how often do we turn first to a colleague when we get a win or disappointment at work.
We lost a workplace family member when Andrene Graham was tragically killed on January 27, 2012. Clients, and candidates, who worked with Andrene Graham, a Senior Relationship Manager on Joanne Boucher’s team at Bagg Technology Resources, have joined us in feeling the loss.
Andrene, like all of us, saw her job as being about making life better for people. She never lost sight that matching a candidate with a company meant people had a person they could trust to do a terrific job, and a new employee had a terrific job that would make their days more satisfying. Andrene’s smile every time she placed a candidate was infectious.
Grief, as we all learned last week, in the workplace comes with its own challenges. For the outside world, it’s business as usual. Commitment to clients can’t be put on hold. We don’t have the opportunity to bring the world to a stop while we come to terms with our loss.
At The Bagg Group, it was our time to discover what it means to really support each other and keep the lines of communication open, in good times, bad times, and painfully sad times.
Bringing in on-site grief counselors on Monday helped us give voice to our feelings and catch our breath. There was time-off to attend memorial services and a workplace wake at a Keg restaurant to celebrate Andrene’s life.
We had a company-wide talk with the grief counselor Dr. Warwick Cooper later in the week with arrangements made for individual and small group meetings. We brought in a massage therapist to offer stress-relief massages. Finally, we made available company-sponsored, confidential, resources for support for anyone who wished.
Andrene, a single mother of five, was always about helping others succeed. In her name, we are starting an initiative that we know would have her blessing — a scholarship fund for single mothers within the black community.
As well, we continue to talk, to remember and to share. Andrene brought a spark to the workplace that we treasure and will now keep alive in her memory, each of us in our own way.
In our time of grieving, all of us in The Bagg Group recognized what a workplace really is. Work is what we do to meet our goals, but the workplace is a forum where we can exchange ideas, collaborate, count on each other to put our best selves forward, and create a history together.
Our waking hours together is valuable time well spent. That is what Andrene confirmed for us.
When we have details of a family trust fund that directly and exclusively benefits Andrene’s children, as well as the scholarship fund, we will share the information.
