Australian company Wiley has been involved in food and beverage facility design and construction for a century this year, but these days the company also seeks to make a difference in the world.
Creating a better future for clients, consultants, subcontractors, and the community is a central part of the company's mission, according to Wiley’s managing director Tom Wiley.
“We are constantly evolving, and our latest vision is to create a place where people can come to discover and realise the best possibilities for their business, their projects and themselves, and as a result, we have a team of passionate, intelligent, future-focused people making a difference and creating a better way for our clients and the world.
“The company turns 100 this year, and has been family-owned and operated over four generations. I attribute this longevity to my family’s stubborn persistence and a willingness and desire to constantly evolve the business throughout the years and generations.”
One of these changes began eight years ago when Tom Wiley, who has been working in the fourth-generation family firm for nearly 30 years, took on the role of managing director.
“I wanted people both inside and outside of Wiley to understand our company values and what we believe. I also wanted us to more clearly document our culture and values, and then share them far and wide.
“While we have a very strong culture built over four generations of my family, and well-defined behavioural expectations, our culture also needed to evolve with the times. I believe that to grow the business, you need to grow the people. But leading the evolution of a culture is challenging, so I kicked things off with a deep exploration of our values,” Wiley says.
“We are a big believer in leading with values – and when I say values, I mean real values, not marketing values. I worked with every single person in the company at that time and together we work-shopped our values, and we settled on a few key goals, including having a future focus; empowering our people; putting quality first; maintaining a sense of community; and having integrity in all we do.”
According to Wiley, once the values had been defined, demonstrating those values was also important.
“I needed to lead the drive with the culture and set the example. Unless culture starts with the leader of the business, I just can’t see how it would ever work - you can’t delegate the journey we have been on so far - you have to live it together.
“I have had a strong interest in personal development and improving self-awareness over the past few years. This has resulted in unbelievable individual growth, as well as the empowerment of many at Wiley, and this is now becoming embedded across the company through our actions and behaviours, in our successes and even the way we manage failure,” Wiley says.
“Our leaders uphold our values and demonstrate our behaviours, and I also hope everyone at Wiley feels empowered to do the same up, down and across.”
