RiverLife Weekly #29: My Workplace Is My Mission Field

By God’s grace, I have the privilege of owning a business with offices in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, employing 73 people.

I see myself as having been given stewardship over these circles of influence and seek to develop a corporate culture based on biblical principles and values. Colleagues are to be treated as family; my wife, Lina, and I are the parents to ensure their development and welfare.

We consider each person not just for what they can contribute, but as a person valuable to God to be developed to his or her full potential. We envisage our future as having a common destiny resulting from our composite efforts. We aspire not only to honour and respect one another, but also to love, embrace and care for one another as family members.

We have defined roles and responsibilities in terms of standard operating procedures, which are continually refined as we discover ineffectiveness or problems along the way. No one is dismissed due to his or her lack of performance. Instead, we will counsel, provide skills training, and mentor the colleague to have a sense of responsibility for the family’s long-term success. In our history, only one person was asked to leave due to criminal dishonesty.

As a team, we work towards improving the attitudes and skills of our colleagues and the company’s processes. Profit maximisation is not the main goal; instead attitude, skills and process excellence are the goals, whilst sales and profit are byproducts. We believe that good people with good skills will produce good results. We do not hire perfect staff, but we help each one to understand that we must aim and work towards perfection.

The company is far from perfect and still faces many human-related problems. The key is that we believe in one another and aspire towards delivering customer satisfaction, both internally and externally.

It is our prayer that the Gospel is demonstrated and made real at work by the way we treat people, and we invite God’s manifest presence into life situations by praying with colleagues whenever the opportunity arises. The Christmas story is unashamedly told in different forms during our annual Christmas party in Singapore and we openly give thanks for God’s grace for sustenance in our business.

Elder Tay Tat Seng