“Undercover Boss” and Workplace Culture
There’s been a lot of hype about a new reality show slated to premiere in early February entitled “Undercover Boss.” The premise is simple: a corporate CEO goes “undercover” to take on entry-level jobs within his/her own organizations. After we looked beyond the show’s questionable authenticity (namely, how undercover can you be with television cameras following you around?), we realized how grateful we are to work at Commongood Careers, an environment where this sort of social experiment would never fly.
How so, you ask? Because the culture of Commongood Careers embraces transparency and communication. It would be a really unusual situation for our CEO (or any member of our senior management team) to not be involved at some level with the work of the entire team, including entry-level staff. Every strategy we pursue, every project we work on is communicated to all staff through bi-monthly staff meetings. We have a number of internal working groups that represent a cross-section of all staff levels, from entry-level to executive. Our workplace culture is so non-hierarchical that it isn’t unusual to see our CEO fiddling with computers, cleaning the refrigerator, or answer the phone.
So CBS can save their workplace experiments for re-deploying corporate big-wigs to the mail room or assembly line. Like so many of our nonprofit clients and partners, we’re happy to have fewer barriers between the executive suite and front office.
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