Building a Strong Foundation: The FORT Values and Remote Work Culture of SYCARDA

Our goal at SYCARDA is to bring different groups of people together, no matter the age, to work and integrate ourselves and our talents to build a promising brand that can help propel other businesses forward. Our team consists of 47 - and counting - talented staff who all bring different attributes to the table. 

Our company revolves around the basis of four principles that we note as our “FORT values”. Our CEO Vernon Chua heavily emphasises these practices in our company’s culture as he believes they are the foundation to a successful and healthy work environment. 

The “F” in FORT stands for “Focus”. We as a team at SYCARDA, are focused in channelling our strengths and skills into the success of being the best at what we do. 

The “O” stands for “Openness”. We believe in open communication at every level. In order for our teams’ dynamics to work, we encourage outspokenness, and the notion of “If you have an idea share it. If you disagree with something, say it”. 

The “R” stands for “Responsibility”. Each employee at our company takes full responsibility in delivering every piece of work entrusted to them. We do not play the blame game, instead we own our mistakes and take them as learning curves, because that’s how we as a corporation choose to grow. 

Finally, the “T” stands for “Timeliness”. Our ability to deliver things on time at work enables us to then have the necessary time for our faith, our family and our friends. 

Post-pandemic, SYCARDA has continued to carry forward the partly remote work schedule for our employees. Undoubtedly the pandemic accelerated this habit among ours and many other organisations across the globe, however even as things have returned back to their norm, our company has taken a preference to the remote workforce routine. 

Primarily, we prioritise flexibility and work-life balance in our employees’ livelihoods. By implementing “work-from-home” days of the week for each of our teams, we have increased our employee satisfaction and retention. Moreover, it keeps the office occupancy at bay, without overstuffing the space and allowing more room for better facilitated conversations and meetings. 

With the normality of conducting online meetings, whether with clients or among the team members in a given project, we have found that there isn’t always a need to utilise our office space for meetings when they can sometimes be done from home. 

Recently, some members of SYCARDA prompted an idea to form a “culture club” in order to cultivate bonds and foster a stronger relationship between our employees. Since the formation, we have held weekly activities outside of the working hours, for any of our employees to partake in. These include weekly game or movie nights, badminton sessions or even just dinners together post-work. 

We are continuously trying to nurture a well-integrated team of people, so that no matter the background, or the specialisation of each individual employee, we are all acquainted and united as a company.