Staying true to a start-up ethos: Why remaining true to your business’ roots is key to keeping clients engaged and weathering a pandemic
From the purchase of a single IKEA Flarke desk for $24.99 in 2006, to two offices in two cities, then to a diverse team of remote professional and support staff scattered all over Australia and New Zealand working in harmony through 2021, Nature has undergone a journey from simple start-up to multiple award-winning strategic insights agency.
Despite the change, we’ve made it our mission to keep one thing constant: sticking to the start-up ethos and way of working that we launched with, and that our clients and people love. It’s what sets us apart, and it’s what has allowed us to weather – in some ways thrive – during the pandemic and the multiple lockdowns that we’ve endured.
Letting our team in on the humble reality of our roots – like having absolutely no clients at launch, the single IKEA Flarke desk in my Richmond flat and the feeling of trading on borrowed time while having to service home loan debt – is critical as it helps our team understand that we are only as good as the people who make up our business.??
Yes, we’re all proud of our work, we’re hungry, we take responsibility seriously and we’re growth orientated.?But we’re also patently aware of the need to temper the appetite, engage with work in a balanced sustainable way, invest in our wellbeing, and look out for each other.?This has become even more important through lockdowns and in the windows of time between them when we are moving seamlessly between working from home and the office. It’s equally important when we need to work harder than ever to stay connected, ensure social capital levels are high and make sure informal communication isn’t replaced by the overly scheduled world of Zoom.
Nature has been able to remain a unique place to work, even through the lockdowns, and it has paid off. Our staff retention rate is above 95%, and our client retention rate is above both the research industry average and the broader marketing services industry average (which is approximately 70%). These are affirmations of our culture and staying true to start-up values and associated ways of working.??
For any business, the challenge of how to evolve and grow while keeping a client offering consistent is just that, a challenge. However, a number of key factors have contributed to Nature’s ability to stay true to our start-up mentality:
From the get-go, our values and their associated traits have been clearly established. They are not just words we associate with the company, but traits to live by.?As well evolving these values over time, we reinforce them and embed them in our culture by ensuring leadership by example and recognising behaviours that are in line with our values.?
In a business that sticks to start-up values and ethos, there’s an understanding that the ”brand” only gets us so far – it’s up to the people in the team to work together to keep it strong.?Without individual effort and great teamwork, the brand means little, and simply won’t keep the plane in the sky.
The team is exposed to the direction Nature is taking, and not left in the dark about it. Open feedback is welcomed and encouraged, both collectively and through individual communication channels.?This creates a powerful sense of ownership, enfranchisement, and the ability to influence given that equity-holder involvement in the business day-in, day-out means that ideas from the team are not just sought and heard but also acted on. The responsibility and ownership that comes from being able to influence not just one’s own career direction but also the company’s direction has an enormously positive impact on job satisfaction.?
We place enormous levels of trust in our team and show this through the freedoms we give them: intellectual freedom, working flexibility, dress for the day, no timesheets, freedom to influence and contribute.?A core part of the Nature way of working is having the creative freedom to address each client brief as unique and to design the right solution the problem at hand.?This is not just about abject rejection of black box thinking, but also charging all team members with creative responsibility and freedom to create, which returns dividends to our team in terms of intellectual stimulation as well as better results for our clients.
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The fact that freedom was built into our cultural DNA well before 2020 meant that during the many lockdowns of recent times we had already established trust with our staff, making the transition to full flexible and at-home working a natural step.?
Perhaps most importantly, we make sure our most senior people are approachable, always connected to the team and as far from hierarchical as one could possibly imagine. Most seniors are home-grown talent, so they know “us” intimately.?Having a non-hierarchical structure and style has been a fixture since day dot of Nature’s inception. Although today we’re a much larger agency with more levels to allow career progression for people of all levels of experience, we make sure connection points between the most senior people and least experienced are frequent and formalised.?
A start-up ethos means you look after your flock, your people, and that you always err on the side of generosity.?Being a privately owned firm in which there’s a closeness in the relationships we have with our people, great efforts are made to look out for them and after them.?This extends from our best-in-class parental leave policies and contracted incremental annual leave days through to additional wellness days, and perhaps moreover, a careful approach to workflow management wherein we temper demand for our services so as not to harm the wellbeing of our people.?All things not readily achievable in organisations that don’t walk the walk on start-up values.?When in doubt, always err on the side of generosity – remember your people are your life blood and underpin your success, so recognising this in as many ways as you can seems only fair.
We have always believed in encouraging team members to be themselves and to embrace what that brings. We try to always foster inclusivity to unleash the power of collective diversity. This extends to consistency and fairness in practices and processes, including recruitment and selection, onboarding and development, remuneration and promotions and social activities. It also means bringing one’s full self to work, and having cultural permissibility to be who you are, show vulnerability, and plot your own course.??
Our secret, which isn’t so secret anymore, is that we understand there needs to be?continual?investment into people and culture. This is a major part of our start-up ethos, and the foundation of the business you see today.
Even though we’re now a 15-year-old agency with a team of nearly 50, the start-up mentality is a core part of who we are, of how clients experience us, and how our team experiences working at Nature. Holding true to your start-up ethos has big implications for the experience of working your workplace and its output – the hustle, the connection to the work and colleagues and the opportunity to grow and to thrive from feedback can and will set your business apart.?Empowering your people to drive their own development, results in the development of the company as a whole. That’s a very powerful attitude for any business to adopt.
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Senior Consultant, Human Resources
3 年This. Ikea. Caring for your flock. Acknowledging your efforts Chris and Nature. Awesome.