Entitlement in a Start-Up Culture

So a lot of the time I talk to people about what I do and they reply with “ah yeah, making people happy that’s cool, I love our table tennis table, our free beers on a Friday, our free food. It’s all great.”

It is strange how often the idea of employee engagement and office perks are interlinked. Because we often think those small perks that we can add into the employee experience is what is going to keep our people excited to work for us.

The thing is often this strategy seems to backfire. Our people come to expect more and more from us and when, for whatever reason, the Christmas party doesn’t meet their expectations or the specific brand of craft beer is no longer stocked in the fridge they feel like they have been let down and valued less. More and more the war for talent seems to be being fought on the grounds of office perks. But whilst perks can be a lovely extra ultimately they do not really fulfill the gap we are trying to fill with them.

They are cherries, not the cake itself, and worse when we put all the emphasis on the perks people start to become desirous of having the best maraschino cherry one possibly could.

I think this is a really fascinating trend that many businesses struggle with. Because ultimately we are all looking for employees who care about us and what they can do with us rather than just ‘Free Food Fridays’ or Yoga. We don’t want them to take things for granted we want them to care. But we don’t want to go so far as to say “Just pipe down and realise how lucky you are dick weed.” Because whilst that is how we may feel sometimes, ultimately we know that we put those perks in a place for a reason and we want to create a win-win for everyone.

But really what we are saying by putting all the weight on perks is that the cherry is more important than the cake. And it’s not. Everyone loves a cherry but its not as good as cake. (hmmm… wait actually. I am not sure if I think that is true — But that is a whole other debate — cake vs cherry — for the sake of this metaphor, let’s say that it is).

How do we get here? Because we hire great people with initiative that are excited and care about the business (or at least hopefully we do) but somehow we end up with a bunch of entitled ‘children’ who we end up doing everything for and then complaining that it is not quite right. Which makes me think is it them or us?

Well, I think there are a few reasons and it is probably a mix…

Firstly, most of the time people just get used to having things a certain way. They don’t want that to change, they feel unsettled when it does, and worse than that they feel cheated when there is any implication that maybe they are just not that valuable to us.

Secondly, we often treat them like children. We do everything we possibly can to help, to make sure they don’t have to think for themselves. Again they get used to it and get confused when we stop or change the rules (note most people don’t like change).

Thirdly, expectations are rising. Apparently the Millennial generation (the majority of your new starters over the last 10 years) are more entitled than previous generations and have heightened expectations. Furthermore, I would argue that whilst that may be true the buck doesn’t stop there, as the world gets richer our expectations become larger and our entitlement bigger. So maybe we are just all more prone to thinking we deserve more.

And finally, in a lot of fast growing new companies (where a lot of these perks started) it almost became seen as a form of payment. The perks were a sign of appreciation when in the early days things were growing quickly and demanded people to give over and above, to work longer hours, to spend their free time trying to solve key problems, filling multiple roles and pulling all nighters. The kind of actions that make the free beer seem a token of appreciation for all they do.

When you add all of this together it isn’t surprising that this problem is so rife. Most businesses have one or other of these factors, if not all of them heaped on.

Then all of a sudden a pay check isn’t enough, we want perks and actually more often are expectations have moved so far up Maslows Hierarchy of Needs that we are all expecting self actualisation. This is a big ask of anyone.

So in the world of entitlement how do we create cultures that provide incredible experiences that don’t just come down to the free drink stocked in the fridge?

For me it all comes down to the cake (metaphorical not literal).

To know which particular brand of cake is going to solve your entitlement challenges you need to get to understand your people — in short, empathise.

Is the lack of perks making them feel devalued? Are they looking for a meaning in their everyday role that they are no longer getting? Why are they complaining about the lack of craft beer? Because trust me, no-one likes craft beer that much.

Empathy is one of the core tools everyone can use to combat entitlement — it is in fact how we all become less entitled. Because we understand where other people come from and what their experiences are and therefor have a lens through which to challenge our own expectations.

Next up, let’s give some perspective. Why are we where we are? Why are we no longer stocking craft beer? Is it money, is it because actually we would rather invest in strategy in learning and development, is it about taking a stance on the impact it is having culturally? Unless you let people know why things are changing it only induces anxiety, and anxiety isn’t good for anyone. This is all part of stopping treating employees like children and starting to involve them in the conversations, they don’t have to do everything but why not let them take responsibility for their own experience — it isn’t all up to you after all.

Finally, once you know what matters to them, I mean really matters, then design experiences and create environments that can foster that. If you don’t know what that is then ask. Yes, ask them. Ask them for more than beer recommendations, for what they actually think gives them career satisfaction, for what they really want, in a nutshell what they want their cake to look like. And then if it fits with who you are and your values design that with them.

Will this solve every problem? Of course not. But when we delve into this, we get closer to the building a culture based on meaningful ‘cake’, not just an actual cake.