Why I am Happy When Our Employees Leave

This past month, we have about 8 employees leave our company (that’s about a fourth). Some of which have stayed with us for almost 3 years and some as little as 3 months. During the last all-hands, it was quite emotional for us, and it definitely was for me personally. This weekend, after doing the firefighting for the week, I finally have time to write down my thoughts and why I was actually happy about the situation.

It’s about their careers, not your company

At an early stage startup like ours, the tasks are never-ending and the pressure is paramount. This gives people who joined, an accelerated career path where they are most likely going to take care of lots of things, learn a lot and become very valuable not only for your company but also to others. To give you an example, Tika who started off working in our food team, and later moved to our marketing team, handling the community of our customers. She eventually ended up being our copywriter. A few months later, she found a new opportunity as an UX copywriter at Traveloka, one of the four unicorns in Indonesia. It's about her career, and not just our company. Knowing that we're part of her journey, we are very proud of what we have achieved together.

It’s a fitness and a fit test

Nothing could explain a startup journey better than a-day-in-life-as-an-entrepreneur (and early employees) chart and the startup curve. With all the hypes of a startup, the ecosystem also attracts many people who want to work in a startup purely because it is trending, not because of the learning, mission and experience.

Most people also misunderstood startups with tech companies. Many applicants applied to our company and other local unicorns, and I realized they are probably not going to survive because being a startup encompasses the ups and the downs. It takes a lot of mental fitness to stick through and continue doing what you believe in.

We also drew some people who are probably going to be very successful at big companies but not at our stage. The best mentorship at a startup is your own curiosity, and the ability to do so many things and learn quickly. Some also learn from working closely with the founders. So, when people told me they were leaving because they needed more structured mentorship or being told what to do, I am very happy. I have done my job of helping them explore their career!

It’s an opportunity to stop and rethink

Every single time when someone left our company regardless of their role, we take time as a company to reflect and ask if the way we’ve been doing something has been the most productive or even sometimes necessary. Most of the times, we discontinued the roles, and try to approach it differently. This gives an opportunity to refresh and renew. If robots/AI are going to disrupt us, we might as well disrupt ourselves before.

It’s a push for us to think about our people

We take time internally to think about why people are leaving. Is it because of our culture? Is it because of the pay? Is it because it’s not exciting? No one company is perfect, this is a time for us to think, and make sure we fix any outstanding problems that we might have not thought of. For us, we have implemented a lot of new things after learning from some employees who left.

It's about building the network of our "extended" family

I told everyone single member who left that loving Kulina doesn't mean they have to always help us from the inside. We're building this network of supporters (or extended family members) who are all over. The world is so small, so we will eventually end up working together anyway. We now have that network of people at many of the companies (food, travel, logistics, etc.) we're partnering with, and they're the ones evangelizing Kulina to the rest of the world. They're helping us from the outside!

It’s time to level up

I have personally been fortunate enough to learn first hand early on in my career from Amazon about "raising the bar." We have given a mantra to everyone at the company to always hire “someone who is better and smarter than us.” With this mindset, we’re confident that these roles would be filled with new perspectives who will challenge us to the new level.

This is why I am happy when employees leave our company. Yes, I’ll miss the cool team (family) members who departed but I am also excited to work with 26 new faces we have hired in the past 3 months. We might not be able to give high salary. We might not be able to give all the benefits. But I guarantee it's going to be an experience of a lifetime! And we’re hiring, so head over to career page and tell us more about why we should work together.

Casper Sermsuksan

Head of kuFamily