At Cambridge, we speak of having love for our fellow employees often. This isn’t the romantic love, though today is Valentine’s Day, but rather, the sort of love that is built upon mutual respect, admiration, and encouragement to learn and grow personally. Our playbook even includes the phrase “We express unconditional love and high expectations while behaving with care, courage, integrity and respect.” It might not be instinctive to recognize love in the workplace, but when you are aware of it, we’d bet that it is, in fact, surrounding you. We are going to share some examples of how love manifests itself into everyday life in our workplace, so that anyone reading this blog may start to recognize and appreciate simple acts around them, or simply start to institute the simple acts themselves. 
- Colleagues clappingto show appreciation for each lean video– the 2 second improvements and the ones that took much, much longer.
- The men and women on the activities committee getting here 2-3 hours early on the days they cook breakfast to welcome new hires and celebrate birthdays.
- The workers looking out for safety hazards in the shop, recognizing that sending people home safe to their families is more important than an on-time shipment.
- Those who voice a Grateful Appreciation in the morning meeting– shoutouts to coworkers who helped with a task, gratitude for their spouse’s hard work/children’s health/parents’ help, appreciation for an incredible event they were able to experience.
- The volunteers that take out the trash, wipe down counters and clean the toilets so that their colleagues can have a clean and comfortable place to work.
Love in the workplace can also present itself when a working relationship has reached its end. There are thousands of examples of employees and employers who have acted without love at this moment, throwing accusations or reducing the other party to a singular act. However, when you choose to act with love, you can figure out how the parting of ways can be mutually beneficial, and leave room for both parties to take what they’ve accomplished, recognize their growth and move forward. When it comes times for an employee to be released from Cambridge’s employment, we try to arm them with a portfolio of the improvement videos they’ve created, along with guidance and/or recommendations on where their strengths could take them. When an employee chooses to take a position outside of Cambridge, we conduct exit interviews to gain insight on how to continuously improve. Either way, with these actions, we strive to speak compassionately and give the person the respect and dignity they deserve. These are just a few examples of how love can manifest itself. It starts with each individual knowing that they are treated with care and respect and grows organically with those actions until loving acts surround the organization.