Every business has its goals, and that is to generate and eventually increase their profits. Management alone cannot achieve this but with the help of their employees, it is possible. We, as employees have our duties and responsibilities to accomplish and by doing so, can help our company reach its goals. Everybody must have the necessary skills and know-how to achieve this and also a need for employees to be passionately committed to change, share a common vision, mission, values and the work is considered to be its own best reward. That is why after months of planning, discussions and preparations, TWASP finally launched its CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE PROGRAM last 07 February 2009.

The program, led by Ms. Tetz Beltran from Management Vision Inc., provided the employees the opportunity to develop the right attitude, values and skills through alignment of their day to day job operations to the company’s vision, mission and corporate direction. The program was conducted informally with a lot of employee participation. Attendees were reminded of the company’s mission and vision and were presented with (6) company values namely: Commitment, Sense of Ownership, Sense of Responsibility, Teamwork, Frugality and “Malasakit”. After the talk, Ms. Tetz asked all the attendees to write specific instances in which they could show examples of showing the said company values in the office. After compiling everything under each value, the attendees were then divided into six groups for them to summarize the compiled samples and show them to the others creatively. After the fun activities, Ms. Tetz gave her last points on the program and then announced that lunch is served. Some picture-taking happened after lunch.

To integrate and further ingrain the program to every employee, each department came up with their own set of policies and rules that each employee has to uphold. Apart from that, HRD/Admin department also introduced its year-round activity wherein all employees must participate. Each month (starting March 2009), four (4) randomly picked employees are chosen to reflect on a weekly reminder and send it to everybody (thru email), so that others can reflect on it and be aware. Reminders were based on a handbook entitled Towards a National Culture of Excellence written by Dr. Jesus Estanislao. According to Dr. Estanislao, “these reminders are necessarily general in tone so they can be used by people in different situations, from different backgrounds, and of different ages. But being so general, these must be made more specific by the efforts of each individual to apply them to one’s personal life. There can be no substitute for individual initiative: first to live the virtues and to abide by the values, and then to spread them by example in the environment where one may live, work or play”.

We asked some of our employees on what they have learned and how the weekly reminders affect their life and their work. Here are some of their answers: