Established corporations often highlight the development of a robust culture over the years as a key factor in ensuring ongoing success. However, CEO and business founder Ryan Carroll emphasizes that the scenario is markedly distinct for startups.
In his article for Newsweek, Carroll states, “Fast growth often means an influx of new employees, making it difficult to maintain a cohesive culture and shared values.” He further highlighted that during rapid growth, there may be poor internal communications and fewer resources dedicated to culture-building initiatives. His recommendation is for leadership to prioritize aspects like regular communication of core values through frequent, ideally weekly, meetings. Additionally, fostering a learning culture, promoting work-life balance, organizing retreats for decision-making and celebrations, and instilling mutual support and encouragement among employees are crucial for the success of the enterprise.
Built In New York spoke with Mike Kaupe, the global director of sales engineering for HiBob about this. Kaupe shared that the HR-industry firm founded less than a decade ago, uses similar strategies to build and retain their workforce of 900 employees. The majority of the company’s staff work remotely, but as Kaupe told us, they celebrate their people and accomplishments through surveys, quarterly “recharge” long weekends, and an annual party for all employees at their regional offices. The company currently has 17 job openings in several fields including data and analytics, customer success, development and engineering, and marketing.
“Job seekers should know that culture is more than a buzzword to us,” Kaupe said. “It is the foundational component of how we work, play and live.”
HiBob helps mid-size company HR leads to attract and retain talent with a data-driven platform made for global, remote and collaborative organizations.
What is notable about working at your company? What differentiates it from other places you’ve worked?
Most notable to HiBob is our mission toward “connection.” Our founders knew that creating another HR-tech company in today’s environment wasn’t only about how the company operates. It’s about how they connect with their employees, how those employees connect with each other, as well as the connections they make with their customers. This is why our mission is to help organizations transform how they operate in today’s modern environment with connection being the key ingredient.
One way we encourage and support connection is to have our employees create, contribute and share our company values. To do this, we surveyed everyone to learn what was important to them. We found more than 120 employees from all our offices prioritize collaboration, which helps enhance our company values.
Unlike other HR-tech companies, you won’t find profitability as one of our values. Yes, profitability is critical, but it is a by-product of employees feeling like they belong and contribute to the success and significance of the company. For example, one of our six values is “Bring Me, Win As We.” This empowers everyone to show up as their authentic self, to strengthen connections, to be innovative and encouraged to have an exponential impact.
What do you think job seekers should know about working at your company? What would get them excited about joining the team?
Job seekers should know that culture is more than a buzzword to us. It is the foundational component of how we work, play and live. For example, each quarter the entire company takes a long weekend where employees are celebrated and encouraged to rest and recharge. In addition, each year everyone around the world travels to their regional office to celebrate being a company. We affectionately call it "Bob's Birthday" to celebrate when HiBob was founded. These investments toward our culture have proven to be invaluable.
We want others that also crave building exceptional things.”
Job seekers should also know that we’re not perfect and we don’t strive to be perfect. We strive to build a culture where everyone is heard, appreciated and given an opportunity for personal and career growth. For instance, one of our current initiatives is to continue building connections for remote employees. We can do this by allocating more funds to support regional meetups where employees can work and play together. Ultimately, job seekers should know that our desire is to welcome others that add to our culture and not just fit into what we’ve already built. We want others that also crave building exceptional things.
