The dream of every job seeker is to work in a Startup or company with a cool and amazing work culture where you serve yourself you desired lunch with facilities like a coffee lounge, a hang-out spot for barbecue, a game zone, a gym for workout and possibly a bar and a swimming pool. Putting up these facilities in a workplace seems ridiculous right? Well, making the workplace feel like home has become the “new normal.” The likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook and many other tech companies have set this standard.
According to Fortune Magazine, one of the key criteria that ranked Google No. 1 among 100 best companies to work in the world is its amazing work culture. A Googler explained that: “The company work culture truly makes workers feel they’re valued and respected as a human being, not as a cog in a machine…”
In a survey by Glassdoor on the 2016 Best places to work in the world, all the responses from employees puts work culture as a priority in ranking the best companies or startups they have worked with.
As a startup, the secret to attracting best talents and by extension, scaling and tuning in huge revenue return is to have an amazing work culture in place. Below are five steps to achieve this with a minimal budget.
Create an aesthetic Workspace design:
Under a little budget, a Startup founder can create a unique and fascinating design that tells a story about the startup and its product. A creative interior decorator can be brought in to create this aesthetic design that gives a first and lasting impression. He or She will think out-of-the-box to reflect the vision and product of the startup in the design. Irrespective of the size of the workplace, a well-crafted design will bring life and make the workplace feel like a home for employees. Here is Anakel, a Startup in Lagos, Nigeria, bringing nature and aesthetic design to the workplace that reflects an amazing work culture:
Everyone must be a stakeholder in both success and failure:
To be candid, this is easier said than done. This is because every human has the natural instinct to always take credit for success or at least be mentioned as a key player that facilitates the success of a project. So what happens when “Shit” happens? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
To build an amazing work culture for a startup, the input of every team member must be appreciated. The defining factor here should be the value added by every member of the team to ensure the success of the project and not the result of the work done. While it is great to appraise key performers after the end of a successful project, it is also very important to compensate other members to make them feel it was a collective effort. When things go bad, especially when market reality hits back at projections, trust me shit like this happens everywhere, everyone must take responsibility for the failure instead of trading the blame game. With this culture of value in place, every member of the team have a sense of belonging and nobody is afraid of taking initiative.
Avoid Micro-managing/close monitoring:
As work progresses, it is common to see project managers or team heads constantly double-checking on team members to ensure work is going on at the expected pace as well as identify any variance from the expected outcome. This is not entirely wrong in some sense. However, this is not a healthy work culture as it puts pressure on the employees and strangulates innovation.
According to a report by Harvard Business Review, experts say — Micromanaging dents your team’s morale by establishing a tone of mistrust—and it limits your team’s capacity to grow. It also hampers your ability to focus on what’s really important.
These key points should help you build an amazing work culture in your startup! Have you got some thought about this topic?? Kindly drop them in the comment box, I will be glad to read your views.
