Creating and harnessing a workplace culture that benefits the existing team, as well as helping to recruit the talent needed to sustain the needs of the business and its growth, is more important than ever, says Lena Köpcke
There is a mantra in people and culture that your most valuable asset as a company is your workers.
That is not to assert ownership of ideas, creativity and time but to reinforce the notion that without a happy and cared for workforce, the output of a company will not deliver the results required to maintain growth and an upward trajectory.
Management cannot expect consistent results, minimal staff burn out and a positive reputation among graduates and potential hires, unless the existing team is protected, and their needs looked after by the leaders of the organisation.
Working in startups as well as large multinationals has shown me all sides of the discussion: how to rapidly scale a workforce as a startup goes from strength to strength, and how to look after a large pool of people at a multinational company whilst recognising the individuals within the organisation.
Our relationship with work has seldom been more tested than right now. We have experienced a mix of working from home, hybrid systems and – in some cases – have stayed at the office throughout. What is consistent, though, is that company surveys and the business sections of newspapers are reporting a spike in staff burnout and that workers feel as though they’re more ‘on call’ now than before.
A lot of the issues thrown up by these concerns can be remedied by establishing a workplace culture and finding people that are a good addition to your company.
As Chief People and Culture Officer at social network Fishbrain, this is a topic I grapple with for a living and I want to share with you some tips and ideas on how to foster, harness and develop a workplace culture that makes a company a great place to work.
This is by no means an exhaustive set of examples, but a pool of ideas and themes that should help, and remember: making a company the best place to work is not above anyone’s pay grade, as everyone can play a role in helping their colleagues make professional and personal leaps.
Trust, openness and transparency
The culture at Fishbrain could be described as very ‘European’: we operate on a basis of trust, openness, and transparency among our peers, as well as ensuring that we remain open to one another irrespective of title.
That is to say, that a new hire should feel as though they can approach a member of the leadership team, and that management can canvass opinion among teams and place value on everyone’s input. Beyond these base values, we also find four more are key to our culture and its continued positive influence on the company: passion for what we do, a desire to share wins with the rest of the team, making smart bets and backing your decisions, and innovating from within by encouraging colleagues to continually strive for improvement.
These values are central to Fishbrain’s continued success and come front and centre when hiring new people. In our advertisements and interviews, we repeatedly press potential hires on the need for them to be open to learning and adapting to these policies. We want and need people to sign up to these principals – so we’re open from the offset as to what we expect. This can be replicated by any company or startup: identify and set your values, fly the flag, and be upfront with your people (existing and inbound) as to what you want to see. Transparency and honesty are easy to preach but much harder to practice, it takes time, patience, and honesty.
Chemistry
Chemistry is essential to making hiring a success. Guidance that we have implemented – which has been successful – is involving existing staff in the interview stage.
Someone may be on the cusp of joining fresh off an MBA and find themselves in a social fika (a Swedish term for taking a break) with a programmer, or a member of the sales or marketing teams, to determine how and where they would fit into the ecosystem of the company.
Developing team chemistry amidst work from home and hybrid working is no small task, and therefore if a new hire comes into a team with a healthy rapport and natural sense of belonging then any potential difficulties can be, by and large, mitigated.
Learning and development
Earlier in this article I talked about innovating from within. We refer to this as innovating the core – to maintain continued growth and improvement, we ask ourselves how we can better ourselves and, in turn, how we can enable our colleagues to do the same. A lot of progress is made in this regard by pursuing continual internal leadership training.
The training has many benefits including instilling standards across our leadership team and encouraging the next wave of leaders, which leads to continuity and stability – highly sought after in the startup world – as well as fueling the ambition of team members. It is easy to say that a company or organisation promotes from within, or that they train staff to become leaders, but it’s hard to set in motion. Here, I always recommend having clear communications internally: explain why the training and course is happening, how much time it will take up, the benefits of participation, and finally, why it will be worth someone’s time in the long term.
It’s also key to make sure that people have the time to complete training – otherwise the benefits will be reduced as they become overworked.
Feedback
Another crucial part of innovating from within is the frequency with which you hold reviews, both formal and informal, but rather than the dreaded box ticking exercise it can become, or an awkward annual encounter with a colleague or two, it should be viewed as a crucial part of an employee feedback loop that leads to positive outcomes and tangible targets.
In my experience, the more positive the workplace culture, the more productive appraisals are workers feeling as though they can speak freely and honestly with their peers, people and culture in this example, make for encouraging conversations and productive goal setting.
Balance and enjoyment
Fishbrain is home to people from 35 different nationalities and with that comes 35 cultures, a multitude of unique stories and complex histories. It can be a challenge to comprehend the effect someone’s background can have on their relationship with work: do they come from a Scandinavian country with strong labour laws and workers’ rights, or from somewhere where it’s commonplace to work more than 12 hours per day?
How you manage and understand this is key to establishing balance and enjoyment of work. Ensuring connectivity among workers, and the exchange of stories and insights, can bridge gaps and inform one another of a colleague’s backstory, which may be highly revealing as to how they deal with work.
Doing good
Finally, try and use your company’s tools for good. Positivity is infectious and team members will feel the benefits of helping outsiders, and this will be reflected in the atmosphere of a company. For example, we recently connected with Pink Programming, a non-profit organization that organises coding events for the female, transgender, and non-binary communities, to enable their users to access our expertise in coding and product creation and management. Whether it’s economic consulting for charities, providing legal advice to marginalised groups or securing press coverage of a local fundraising drive for a good cause, every field has the immense power and resources to affect positive change.
Workplace culture can make or break an organisation.
It can elevate people to be their best selves, or cause people to withdraw from their duties and have a miserable time at work. This discomfort can be felt more acutely by some employees and it’s important that a company makes it their mission to remove barriers to a healthy and positive work-life relationship, and working toward someone genuinely enjoying their work. We spend so much of our adult life at work, it’s worth the effort to make it the best possible version of itself.
Lena Köpcke is Chief People and Culture Officer at Fishbrain, the world’s most popular social networks for people who love fishing.
The company has twice been named as one of Europe’s Hottest Startups by WIRED and before Fishbrain, Lena worked in senior roles across a range of startups and multinationals.
