How to keep your team happy

There are two things I really enjoy in my life,

Being surrounded by flowers, and – my team at Lichi Translations. These women are really special to me.

Now, as I was wondering one evening about combining these two very different but also very similar aspects of my life…I took the liberty of asking Lichi Translations’ Board of Directors –which just so happens to be me–and after a debate lasting well into the night, I (I mean we) decided that Lichi Translations team really needed a ‘bootcamp’ day.

And so, on a lovely spring morning we jumped in our chauffeured limousines and raced along southern roads to a legendary place where according to legend (and Facebook) Nature appears in all its glory.

You may remember that I’ve often written in this blog about our all-female team outings, like our trip to Nazareth during Christmas about four years ago, or the time we combined business with pleasure in our visit to the historical school in Mikveh Israel to meet a client (the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites). 

My mission is to go beyond our daily work and to keep us close as a family. 

These trips bear a striking resemblance to those family trip scenes, the ones with someone who is only interested in lunch, and the person who doesn’t understand why we need to leave the house or disconnect from screens; and even someone who keeps shouting from the backseat: “Are we there yet?” 

But to be serious, it provides a great opportunity to get to know each other a little better and talk about topics unrelated to work.

And let’s not forget business. When the team is happy, they stay with Lichi. These fun-days strengthen the bond between us, and the bottom line is: I want the team to stay with me for many years (the senior team member has been with me for 17 years!)

So what are these fun-days all about?

They are a wonderful, informal break from our daily routine, where we can enjoy the wonderful flowers and the sun, and maybe say hello to some passing sheep, clearly in need of the Company’s translation services.

Most of us just don’t allow ourselves the time–between work, children, cooking, cleaning–to get outside. As Dr. Seuss put it: “You’re off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so…get on your way!,” And if it can’t be arranged with your flesh and blood family, then it can happen with our second one–your Lichi work colleagues.

And since all our team members work remotely, we don’t have a coffee machine or water-fountain to chit-chat about important world events, like the last ‘Survival’ episode.

To view a video of the fields in bloom, please click here:

And there is something else.

In a sense, one can say we also went to visit a client. We recently translated the Shikma-Besor Tourism Association website into English. They urgently needed this translation before the Darom Adom (Red South) Festival, and we provided an innovative service, accomplishing their website translation through a technological integration – extracting the text automatically from their website to our translation management platform. Then we uploaded the completed translation back into their website (no copy & paste required). This service saved them lots of time and money!

Here is what their tourism coordinator wrote to us:

“During this project, there was a good and pleasant collaboration with Mor from Lichi in terms of schedules, the translator and polite conduct.

For us, this is a significant milestone in promoting the area and appealing to other language speakers. …

We are so happy that we have eventually made it, with your help.

So, beyond the pleasure of being complimented by clients, we had a fantastic day in nature, which was all about friendship, personal connection, and lots of fun.

And after enjoying those magnificent carpets of scarlet anemones, we can happily get back to work.