How start-ups can build a company culture

Corporate culture is key when it comes to start-up success.

Raju Bhinge, CEO, TSMG (Tata Strategic Management Group) believes that organisations need a strong corporate culture to be able to withstand any potential challenges.

“For organisations to effectively execute their business strategy, the organisational culture has to be well aligned with the strategy. Quite often, businesses underperform not because of poorly crafted strategies, but because of inadequate alignment of culture with strategy.”

From the top management consultants to CEOs of major companies, every successful head of business believes that building a strong corporate culture is key to winning in business.

Adi Godrej, chairman Godrej group, reaffirms this belief in that corporate culture being the lifeline of every organisation. Those that invest in it, reap the benefits for a lifetime.

"Culture is the DNA of an organisation. In many business decisions that we have made including acquisitions, "culture fit" has and will continue to be used as an important filter.”

It’s not about working long hours and making your employees go through weekends. It’s about having all employees under one banner and ensuring that they’re all on the same page. With this, an organisation is able to get the best value out of each employee instead squeezing their potential for every drop.

RMSI, hailed generally as a great place to work, has regularly topped the list of national corporate culture quality tests. Gagan Jyot, VP of human resources, truly believes that if you respect your employees and value their time, that you can attain excellence and creativity out of them.

“People are respected and valued, performance is nurtured, creativity and excellence are encouraged, leadership and teamwork are rewarded. The management team is simple, honest and highly approachable, which makes it easy for people to work together as one team and focus on the business and clients.”

In the US, the situation is drastically different than in India. Dr Pawan Goenka, MD of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, gets a feeling of being reaffirmed that a corporate culture is one that’s key to more productivity.

“In India, it is an accepted habit to work for 10 hours; in the US, it is an exception to the rule”

Jack Welsh (former CEO General Electric) agrees with the importance of corporate culture and attributes the success of the organiSation to attaining strong corporate culture systems.

“No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energised employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.”

In the Indian start-up space, many companies desire to have a strong corporate culture in their organization and are doing it their way. Its critical to them that their startup has strong company culture and allows every employee to fully express themselves.

Many start-up founders are opting for a flatter hierarchal system, where every employee can communicate and engage with any other. Chiming in with this philosophy is Harsh Shah, founder, Fynd. He believes that his start-up has benefited multifold from having a flat HR system where anyone can talk to anyone at any time.

“Our work environment is entirely different as we have multi-functional zones working together. Glass cabins make it sound-proof but see-through. You don’t feel working alone but in an ecosystem. For instance, we have had only 80 employees, but our productivity increased four times in one year and we can further boost it up to 10 times with the same staff.”

Having an open-door policy has also helped Shubh Bansal, Co-Founder, Truebil in many ways than one. With no bureaucracy or inflexible reporting structure, he’s been able to increase retention and get the best out of his employee base.

“Due to these innovations, we have had no attrition at all in managerial side and only 2% in back-office. A single office for the management as well as the call-centre on the same floor makes it easy for us to create synergy. We have no cubicles but have large tables to sit across — and that makes the difference.”

There are also multiple benefits from encouraging flexibility in systems. Ambika Sharma, CEO Pulp Strategy believes in letting employees have their time when they need it. It gives them freedom of expression and creativity in the workplace.

“We inspire employees to take control of their work and give them the freedom of expression, and personal creativity. Our policies and benefits are structured to enable work-life balance. For example, we give seven weeks off in the year including two weeks for rejuvenation/recreational leave. We allow for work flexibility and also allow for sabbaticals when employees need time off personally.”

Jubin Shaju, head-human relations, Chillr, agrees with the philosophy at Pulp Strategy. At Chillr, he takes pride in treating every employee like an entrepreneur of his or her own domain.

“We allow them to work even from home, with prior intimation. This has caused a lot of disruption in the traditional work culture as the employees now have a sense of ownership and flexibility to work for the best results. They are always ready to work.”

While most startups opt for making it easier for employees to interact with upper management, some take it to the next level by creating a family-style environment. Since a lot of startups go through periods of stress and jubilation, the ride can be a rollercoaster some time. Therefore, its key for startups to create some sort of family-like environment for employees to blow off steam and enjoy the work that they’re doing

“We work together like a family and apart from team outings, we also have regular brainstorming sessions and employee appreciation days. The second half of the day can be rather long and boring, so we try to maintain the energy with some light music. We understand the importance of work satisfaction and make sure that our team is happy.”

In conclusion, it’s up to you how you want to frame your startup’s company culture, however not doing so can have detrimental effects. Whether you create a startup culture or your employees do organically, as a business strategist your job is to create one that’s positive and nurturing for its employee base.