Here's Why Entrepreneurs Should Focus on Work Culture Before Chasing Numbers According to start-up entrepreneurs, keeping culture at the fore helps the company to grow
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As an entrepreneur, what should you chase? Revenue, profit or growth? The most common answer is growth or maybe, profit. But often, a factor that is left out or is last on the list is work culture.
Work culture of an organization affects other aspects important for an organization. A happy and relaxed work culture is the biggest motivator for employees. Employee productivity is always proportional to work environment. According to a study by Gallup, there is a category of workers called "not engaged'. The people who fall under this bracket "may be generally satisfied but are not cognitively and emotionally connected to their work and workplace; they will usually show up to work and do the minimum required but will quickly leave their company for a slightly better offer." Here are some start-up entrepreneurs who share their experiences of keeping work culture on the top.
Growth versus Culture
Aakash Gupta, co-founder and chief technology officer of robotics start-up, GreyOrange, says, "Keep culture on the top. If you are killing company culture because of growth, you will not get anywhere." He also adds that being a global company, they have to dabble several cultural hats. However, keeping culture at the fore helps the company to ensure that it keeps up with the demands of a global company.
According to Gupta, true success lies in building and sustaining a global work culture.
Enhancing Productivity
Pushkar Mukewar, co-founder and co-CEO of Drip Capital, believes when people are having fun, they are most productive. He says, "People are productive when they are in a happy environment." Mukewar also says he has stopped micromanaging and given greater freedom and responsibility to employees which in turns helps instill a sense of ownership among them.
He also has a solution for situations when employees are not able to perform, "I try to figure out if they could better fit in other parts of organization, and where we can leverage their skills better."
The Empathy Approach
We spend 80 per cent of our active hours at work. Bhavesh Sharma, Better.com's general manager in India, says life will not be worth living if these hours of work are filled with dissatisfaction, anxiety and stress. A good work culture for him is making that little effort to make the office environment a comfortable place to stay. He says, "It's the little effort that we have to make. Even a small conversation helps."
Sharma says a lot of times, his employees work in night shifts because of which they miss out on the things that can be done during the day. In such a case, the office arranges concierges to help employees. Another factor which helps Sharma maintain a solid work culture is being transparent. Transparency helps in making employees know their importance and achieve the larger goal of the organization.
