The Surprising Lessons from Building a Great Place to Work

Turns out they are not so surprising after all

Okay so yes, I’m absolutely amazed, thrilled and so SO proud about the fact that we — Ascentic — a young startup-going-scaleup in Sri Lanka made it to the list of Best Places to work in Asia. ASIA! Competing with prominent organizations in China, India, Japan and Korea, just to name a few. Below are three of my unsorted and unpolished reflections on what it takes to scale an organization that has the ambition of being a truly Great Place to Work.

Lesson 1: It’s Not Rocket Science

The great thing about participating in the Great Place to Work survey is all the valuable intel it provides on what you do well (and not so well). Based on the feedback, what Ascentic does well are really the most basic things. People like being listened to and heard. People appreciate when their organization truly cares about their opinions, ideas and suggestions, being able to walk up to anyone in the organization with an idea knowing it will be well received. People like to have a healthy and sustainable work-life balance, being able to mix a successful career with family life. A lot of what makes Ascentic a good place to work has very little to do with big adventures and over-engineered office layouts — and more about being a human-centric organization that puts its people first.

Lesson 2: You Have to Chose Carefully Who you Work With (and Not)

In Ascentic we have, not many times but a few, terminated customer engagements due to the fact that their values and ways of working are not aligned with what we believe in. Profitable, good customer engagements, that turns out not to be constructive or sustainable for our crew members. As a consultancy service where our team members work heavily with external customers, the culture of those organizations will have a big impact on the workday of the team. So for the longterm sustainability of our company and culture — the uncomfortable decision of ending a customer engagement is sometimes the best way forward.

And just to be clear — this is a very, very rare scenario. In the absolute majority of cases, we are fortunate enough to be working with great people from organizations that fully share our view on what a healthy, productive and sustainable work culture looks like.

Lesson 3: Chose Wisely Where You Spend Your Energy

To foster a positive and inclusive culture, where people feel that leaders across the organization listens, your leaders have to have time and energy for being those empathic and listening leaders. Being open to different perspectives and a good moderator in discussions with polarizing opinions requires energy — and you can’t expect your leaders to still have that energy left after a long day overloaded with work. Create that space for your leaders — and yourself — to ensure your organization’s openness and empathy will not be stifled by something as trivial as stress and lack of energy. Clear away the clutter and tasks that waste their energy, to make sure your crew has the mindspace and positive energy left for what really matters.

The Bottom Line

So, to sum up my top-of-the-mind thoughts on what it takes to scale an organization into a Great Place to Work: it’s not rocket science — it really isn’t — but it does require a fair deal of determination, hard work and sound prioritization to make sure you won’t deviate from your vision. In the end however, it is always worth the effort.