Over the last three and a half years, Christine Serion has been instrumental in building a culture of employee engagement at Tideworks. Christine is a seasoned executive assistant, having worked in administrative roles throughout her career. She is critical to the admin function’s success at Tideworks because she makes everyone feel welcome and valued.
As the person who plans all company-wide meetings, connects global staff and supports senior leadership, Christine’s colleagues often call her the brains of the operation.
Building Strong Teams from the Ground Up
Christine wears multiple hats as an executive assistant at Tideworks. On any given day, her responsibilities start with answering emails and problem-solving for staff at every level in the company. Some of her day-to-day responsibilities include:
- Fielding employees’ general questions
- Creating presentation deliverables and stepping into a presentation to take notes
- Facilitating any necessary travel arrangements for senior leadership and/or guests
- Scheduling meetings and planning company events
But that’s just where her work begins.
Christine is also dedicated to team-building and creating engagement programs that engage staff throughout their employment at Tideworks. For example, she is debuting a swag box for new hires because it was important to her that new employees feel valued right from the start.
Christine’s work impacts all employees across Tideworks. Per one of her colleagues, she “plans every company-wide meeting we have, across all of our global locations.” This means connecting people from all over the world – both in person and virtually – for critical all-hands meetings.
Through Christine’s efforts, everyone’s time at Tideworks is easier and more enjoyable.
Initiatives to Connect and Engage the Workforce
Christine thrives on bringing people together. One example of this is the empanada day she coordinates, which allows staff to celebrate together with delicious food and connect about their lives in and outside of work. While it used to be reserved for the Seattle campus, Christine made it her mission to involve as many office locations — and people — as she could in the most recent event.
Her approach extends to the planning and management of events, as Christine is constantly crowdsourcing ideas for engagement programs from the very staff who will take part in them.
Christine has also shepherded new and existing employees through the challenges that COVID and work-from-home mandates brought upon the workforce. She organized virtual events that helped employees feel connected to each other and valued by their coworkers and leadership.
One example is the virtual chocolate tasting, which she says people keep asking her to repeat.
Other virtual events have focused less on eating and celebrating and more on coming together to do something active, like running a 5K, or something expressive, like virtual painting activities.
Most importantly, Christine has sought to use all tools at her disposal to bring employees together. When Microsoft Teams made breakout rooms possible, Christine set up virtual coffee breaks where staff members could break out of a larger call into groups of five or less for more organic discussions. This allowed for coworkers to have meaningful conversations and bond.
The supportive culture at Tideworks is what drew Christine in the first place, and she’s worked to build upon it since the day she got here to the benefit of everyone she works with.
The Culture of Employee Engagement at Tideworks
Christine believes that the senior leadership team at Tideworks plays a pivotal role in fostering an engaging team environment. When describing their collaborative approach, Christine says, “They have weekly meetings, [and] their in-office seating situation makes it so that they can just blurt out any questions they have and talk to whoever’s around them for support.”
Tideworks’ senior leadership uses an open door policy — “there are no doors, literally” — and weekly touch-base meetings that Christine believes keep everyone in the know about what’s going on in the company.
She values this culture of openness and mutual trust that Tideworks president Thomas J. “TJ” Rucker has built, as she always feels comfortable approaching him personally to discuss work-related issues.
Christine has also been pivotal in establishing this culture through engagement groups like DEI Pathfinders or Tideworks’ affinity groups like Our Space, which facilitate inter-departmental connections between female and non-binary identifying employees.
Christine’s Journey to and Within Tideworks
Before joining Tideworks, Christine was a stay-at-home mom for about seven years. When her second child was one and a half, Christine felt the need to spend more time outside the house. While speaking with a friend who works at SSA Marine, Tideworks’ sister company, Christine mentioned her interest in rejoining the workforce. Soon after hearing about an open executive assistant position at Tideworks, she applied, interviewed and joined the team.
One of the biggest draws was how comfortable Christine felt with everyone on the team right away. The welcoming environment at Tideworks eased her transition back to work, “I just enjoyed everybody that I met, everybody that I talked to,” said Christine.”Everybody had a lot of positive things to say.”
Although she had a lot of support at home, Christine was glad to have a supportive boss in TJ. She says, “He was very flexible in knowing that I had two young kids at home.”
Christine has since worked to extend the same support to all new and existing employees.
She says, “I just feel very welcome. And I feel like I belong. I think everybody should feel like that at their place of employment.” And she’s worked tirelessly to make that a reality for everybody.
Empowering Employees, Empowering Success
Christine is genuinely motivated to help people across the company. “I just love the ability to help people,” she says, “and it doesn’t have to be just the senior leadership team. It could be anybody.” She prides herself in being the go-to person to simplify all employees’ work lives.
But assisting is far from the only impact Christine has had on everyone at Tideworks. She’s helped build a culture that empowers success in every department and across the organization.
When asked about her future career plans at Tideworks, Christine said she is interested in building employee engagement in any capacity possible for new and existing staff. She enjoys helping everyone feel welcome, “making their day a little easier, a little brighter,” every day.
Christine’s advice for those who want to join Tideworks is to take advantage of the community environment at the company. Everyone at the company is “in the same boat together,” and Christine works hard to make sure everyone’s voice is heard — just like she feels hers is.