Tech startups with high-calibre investors and a global vision, face continuous make-or-break scenarios. From rolling out technology to recruitment; building brand awareness to ramping up customer acquisition, every link in the chain is under intense pressure.
There are always big problems to address and urgent, often unexpected, issues to resolve. This is simply the nature of doing business in a high-growth, cutting-edge sector.
Of course, success in this context generally comes down to building a talented, high-performing team prepared to share the corporate vision and make some sacrifices along the way. If you’re not prepared to work outside the typical Monday to Friday, nine-to-five, then this is not the working environment for you.
At Navro, we’re fortunate to have highly dedicated team members who are more than prepared to do what it takes to deliver for our company and its clients. As their employer, we are truly grateful for their dedication, but we are also aware that the risk of burnout needs to be continually front of mind.
Building the right workplace culture
The key to avoiding burnout in high-performance teams comes down to creating the right workplace culture; something that will vary from business to business given the unique demands of different sectors and business models. These are the practices that we have implemented and which we have found to be particularly beneficial:
1.Trust employees to work on their terms. Flexibility needs to be a two-way street. If you’re asking your people to give you their all, then you should allow them to work in the ways that suit them best.
This can be achieved by giving employees control over the hours they work, where they work, and how they go about their daily tasks. In doing so, you empower your people to take ownership and bring their best and most authentic selves to the workplace.
2. Promote proactive collaboration. High-performance teams thrive on effective and smooth collaboration. Think of new ways that you can help collaboration flourish in your business, such as by implementing cross-functional teams to work on cross-functional projects.
Experiment with a mix of professional, formal and social settings in one-on-ones, small groups, roundtables and larger gatherings to foster open and transparent communication. Finally, leverage communication tools like Slack to foster company-wide collaboration – we have a whole host of feeds and channels including a gratitude channel, wellness channel, Women of Navro, Neurodiversity and Cooking channel among others.
A company’s commercial success is inextricably linked to the varied experience of its workforce. Homogeneous teams and groupthink are known to stifle innovation and hold organisations back from achieving their goals. However, by building diverse and collaborative teams, organisations can create rich innovative ecosystems that will drive growth.
3. Champion leadership at all levels. All businesses utilise training to develop their people, and the concept of continuous workplace learning is becoming the norm in many organisations.
By taking this one step further high-performance businesses should also meet the broader needs of employees. For example, leadership training shouldn’t be restricted to those in senior roles, leadership skills are valuable at every level. By creating a leadership programme for every employee, at every level, in every role, you will be providing a platform for them to develop and fulfill their potential.
4. Give employees ownership of corporate values. Some businesses struggle to bring their values and cultural aspirations to life. Enabling employees to help create corporate values can help address this issue.
At Navro, all employees fed into a set of behaviours regarding how we were already working, but also would lay the foundations for the company to deliver on its ambitious goals. As a result, these values are a genuine reflection of the culture we’ve built together and what we see as the ingredients for continued success.
Building values in this way ensures that they do not exist in isolation and that they can be embedded in every area that touches employees, such as recruitment, performance management, training programmes, communications from the senior leadership team, and how the organisation recognises achievement across the business.
Building an employee-centred business
High-performance teams must foster a working environment that aligns with what highly skilled talent is seeking in the workplace. This comes down to providing genuine flexibility, a sense of purpose, open and transparent communication, personal and professional development programmes, and acknowledgment that people are human beings with other concerns and influences outside the workplace.
It is not enough to pay lip service to these goals. If they are to make a difference, the highest levels of the organisation must live and breathe these values and back these processes. Businesses that get this right stand to become an employer of choice for the very best talent on offer.
