Starups: The startup ecosystem in India has created lakhs of jobs in the past few years. According to the government, over 72,000 startups were registered in the country over the past six years (as of June 30, 2022) and they have generated around 7.68 lakh jobs in this period. The best part is that it has been booming despite a long-drawn-out coronavirus pandemic. Considering the increasing number of job opportunities, there's a need too understand what are the key things startups need to follow in the long run in order to build a strong organisational culture. A recent survey titled ‘Start-ups Employees Love (SEL)’- by a startup scaling platform xto10x - tried to find out what makes employees fulfilled at work, what are the things that need to be improved and what must not be ignored when building a strong organisational culture.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

“The SEL survey reveals key aspects companies must not ignore when building a strong organizational culture. Our aim is to highlight the impact of a strong organizational culture. It helps startups understand why a strong org culture is required and some points on how they can make it better," Neeraj Aggarwal, Co-Founder and COO of xto10x, told Zee Business.

Key takeaways 

Performance Management and Compensation influences happiness to some extent

- Close to 80% of startup employees felt adequately compensated for their efforts and contribution.

- Approximately 70% lauded people-friendly benefits at their workplaces.

- Start-ups who didn’t score highly in this area typically had outdated hike policies, poor Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) planning and communication around rewards, and lacked hygiene benefits like reimbursements and insurance.

Employees love it when their interests are valued over the company’s

- Nearly 85% of employees surveyed feel their organizations have employee-friendly policies that motivate them, but about 11% of employees in the ecosystem do not.

- Whether remote working or allowing afternoon naps, flexible employee-first policies contribute greatly to improving employee morale.

- There is a lack of internal parity of policies in startups. Different teams have different policies. Even logically designed policies that appear unfair on the surface can cause internal turmoil.

ALSO READ: Construction tech startup Project Hero raises $3.2 million, to expand business

Women in power make for happier companies

- Companies that have more than 40% women in their leadership teams had a better eNPS on average

- Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) among women employees was a stark 18 points lower than men.

- Greater representation of women led to more inclusive policies, more role models for women in the system, and signalled a lack of gender-bias up the ladder.

Employees with a sense of pride and belonging are happier

- 97% of employees surveyed were proud to be associated with their organizations because they resonated with the problems they were solving.

- Furthermore, 95% of employees trust their teams - showing a culture of support and growth.

- On the flipside, a decline in the “sense of pride” was also observed as startups scaled. Reasons for this include an inability to help employees visualize the impact of their roles, an absence of unique organizational identity, a lack of inclusivity, and stagnant career development paths.

The SEL study, which was done under the guidance of Binny Bansal, Saikiran Krishnamurthy and Neeraj Aggarwal, also found that high work volumes, inefficient working methods, and unsatisfactory implementation of leave policies are common culprits in this problem. It is pertinent to mention that over 50,000 employees across 150+ start-ups were part of the survey.