Desmond Lim of Workstream: “How to create a fantastic work culture”

Don’t lose the human touch. At the end of the day, each employee of the company is a human being, with feelings, family, and wants to do well in her role. It is important to not lose the human touch, and remember that we are all humans with feelings and emotions. To help each employee get to know each other people we get together as a company for an offsite at least once a year, and hold multiple smaller team retreats throughout the year to make sure that everyone is engaged. To facilitate communicate among different teams and locations, we hold regular one on one meetings, have communication channels on our internal chat group for topics other than work, and regularly recognize each other on a weekly basis for the hard work that our team has put in. We learnt that recognition of the work of our co-workers is very important, and direct gratitude for the work that our co-workers has done on a weekly basis is very helpful to keep the morale of the team high, and to keep everyone driven and happy.

As a part of my series about about how leaders can create a “fantastic work culture”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Desmond Lim.

Desmond is CEO and co-founder of Workstream, a hiring automation platform for hourly workers, which helps companies to hire hourly workers faster using texting, AI and automation. Desmond is a former restaurant owner, who saw the challenge of hiring hourly workers before starting Workstream. He is a MIT and Harvard graduate, a former Product Manager at WeChat, and Investor at Dorm Room Fund. Desmond is an active angel investor, formerly represented his country in basketball, and was an infantry officer in the army. He is currently based in San Francisco, CA and has lived across London, Boston, New York, Singapore and Seoul.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Both my parents were hourly workers who did not had the opportunity to go to college. My dad is a driver and my mum would help him as he delivered goods daily from 530 a.m to 8 p.m. I grew up in my dad’s van, seeing how he worked hard to provide for the family. I was the first in my family to go to college and come to the United States, where I went to MIT and Harvard.

While in college, I was inspired by my parents’ hard work to pursue entrepreneurship, to create things — I started a Thai food restaurant. It was an interesting experience where I needed to build things up from scratch, to hire many hourly workers, and to put in long hours each day. Through my experiences of growing up with my family and running the restaurant, I experienced the challenges of hiring hourly workers and the manual process of recruitment for companies.

These experiences led me to start Workstream, to help companies to hire hourly workers faster!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

We are very intrigued by the wide range of job descriptions for hourly workers that companies from restaurants, retail, logistics companies and more share and post. They range from detailed job descriptions with a long list of requirements and needs to short ones with a couple of words like “Can drive”. We are surprised by the diversity of job descriptions and have came up with a standardized best practices of job descriptions, templates and more on our Workstream blog.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Currently, I am working on Workstream, a hiring automation platform to help restaurants, hotels, retail, and logistic companies to hire hourly workers faster and better. Over 60% of all workers in the United States are hourly workers — as a team, we are working hard to change the hiring process for companies, to make it more efficient, seamless and faster.

Workstream leverage upon texting, AI and automation to make the process better and today have worked with companies from Jamba Juice, Subway, Coupa Cafe, and more to help them to improve the hiring process by making it 4x faster to hire hourly workers, and saving them time, money and resources.

Ok, let’s jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?

I think there are a couple of reasons why more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. There has been a rapid change in technology tools and platforms in recent years. The constant technological demands and steep learning curves can be challenging, and workers are worried about keeping up with the rapid pace of change or having the relevant skills needed. Companies need to adapt and be faster, but the technology involved at work can be inadequate at times. In addition, most companies do not provide sufficient training, resulting in additional stress for employees as they are not equipped with the necessary skillsets to perform.

The other major reason is the relationship with supervisors and colleagues that workers have. Relationships at work is one of the most important, yet delicate issue that many workers in the US are also key reasons that could impact the relationship between supervisors and workers. It is difficult to master the relationship between supervisors and workers and that is often another reason for unhappinesses at work.

Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact a) company productivity b) company profitability c) and employee health and wellbeing?

When workers are happy, they are able to work more efficiently, faster, and better. On the other hand, when workers are disengaged or dissatisfied with their work or job performance, it often leads to poor performance or passive work to fill time.

I strongly believe that a happy workforce has a strong impact on company productivity, profitability and employee health and well-being. A happy worker will be able to work better as she will bring with herself more energy and positive feelings that will impact other workers. She will also be able to share her positivity with customers and other key stakeholders that she interacts with. She will be more willing to spend more time at work either in the office or at home, increasing overall put, and she will also be able to more efficiently complete her tasks. A happy worker is more likely to work in teams and reach out to co-workers for help or for feedback, and hence increases the likelihood that the job is executed well and on-time.

As workers spend over 8 to 10 hours each day at work, the happiness of a work will directly impact her health and well-being. If she is happy, she will be able to bring with her positive energy, have a more balanced attitude towards work and personal life, have sufficient time to rest and recuperate, and hence will have better health and well-being overall.

Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?

1. Don’t lose the human touch

At the end of the day, each employee of the company is a human being, with feelings, family, and wants to do well in her role. It is important to not lose the human touch, and remember that we are all humans with feelings and emotions. To help each employee get to know each other people, at Workstream we get together as a company for an offsite at least once a year, and hold multiple smaller team retreats throughout the year to make sure that everyone is engaged. To facilitate communicate among different teams and locations, we hold regular one on one meetings, have communication channels on our internal chat group for topics other than work, and regularly recognize each other on a weekly basis for the hard work that our team has put in.

We learnt that recognition of the work of our co-workers is very important, and direct gratitude for the work that our co-workers has done on a weekly basis is very helpful to keep the morale of the team high, and to keep everyone driven and happy.

2. Provide direct feedback early

Feedback is a gift. As a manager, I often try to self-reflect on a daily or weekly basis to see how I can be better. I am often thankful when others provide feedback to me and I try my best to create a company culture where workers feel comfortable receiving and giving feedback. With feedback, people will be able to improve quickly and iterate.

Recently, I was working with our marketing lead for our Workstream blog, and felt that there needed to be improvements made to the frequency of posting and design of our blog. I had a meeting with my marketing team, shared the overall vision of the company, and shared the reasons behind our frequency and design. In addition, I shared with the team my personal experiences in creating content and blog posts, and areas which I personally could have done better and asked for feedback. At the end of the session, we were able to move forward and execute faster and better.

3. Play as a team, don’t play alone

It is important for each team member to remember the importance of playing as a team, and keep the broader organization’s vision and goals before self. If a team is able to work together closely, it is able to function more efficiently, deliver a higher output, and also the team’s morale will be higher.

For example, our Workstream engineer team works with each other closely by having daily stand-ups to share their learnings and updates each day. They also practice pair programming, where they are tasked to check the code of a fellow teammate, and to provide feedback. We also have an extensive review process, where each member takes turn to lead the process and to review code. In addition, the Workstream engineering team records their learnings on the Workstream engineering blog, for each teammate to easily review and learn from each other.

4. Focus on goals and activity, and less on face time

With technological advance and more ways to track how work is being done, there is often more efficient ways of getting tasks completed then having to sit next to your manager. Face time is still helpful in communication, but it could often be more efficient to focus on goals and activity or metrics.

At Workstream, our entire engineering team is remote, and hence we have to focus on goals and activities and not on face time. With a remote team, our engineering managers has to focus on tasks accomplished and do regularly stand-ups daily, and it becomes clear how progress is being made as everyone is able to see progress on the same dashboard and metrics.

5. Come up with a strong set of company values and culture

It is very helpful to come up with a company culture deck as a team. Netflix famously open-sourced their company’s culture deck, which has been very helpful not only for everyone within Netflix to learn the norms, expectations and culture internally, but also for external parties or potential applicants to learn how it is like to work at Netflix. At Workstream, we came together as a team to clearly define the values, and culture that we like to align ourselves with, and constantly go back to them whenever situation arises when we have to make a decision.

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the US workforce’s work culture?

I think each of us have a role to play in making an impact in the US workforce’s work culture to be more inclusive, open and happier. For example, in our daily interactions with our co-workers, view her as a human being and try to make the best for the team and for each other. Try to smile more with each other, and try to think about different cultures, backgrounds and demographics whenever you are having meetings and discussions. It is important in our daily work and interactions to put the best foot forward and hence be able to make each person you work with happier.

How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?

I like to lead by example — to show my teammates the right way to execute and get things done by doing it on my own. For example, getting in early, being efficient, and being open to feedback.

Before jumping into my career, I played competitive basketball for over 15 years, representing my country and being captain of my team for many years. In that experience, I learned the importance of servant leadership, of being able to help your teammates succeed, and to put the vision of the team before self.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am particular thankful to my mentor, Eric Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom. Eric came from China to United States when he was 25 without speaking English, but grew to run the engineering team at Cisco, before he left to start Zoom. At Zoom, Eric’s motto is “Delivering Happiness”, where he focuses on delivering happiness to customers, teammates, and stakeholders.

He focused a lot on being a strong culture for the company, and he believes that it is the most important thing for the team to focus on. He has been very helpful as a mentor who has provided me with a lot of feedback, advice and help.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

As part of our work at Workstream, we believe in empowering people from different and diverse backgrounds to find work easier and faster. We work with restaurants, retail, hospitality, and logistics companies to help them find hourly workers faster and better via automation, AI and texting. We have been able to foster hundreds of thousands of job applications and feel very humbled to help people find jobs easier and faster.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.

This motto has served me well in my entire career, and I love to use this motto to share more. I came from a humble family background, but was able to create an impact today and help other people as I believe that as long as you stay humble and focused on the goal that you like to work towards, you will be able to achieve your vision and goals that you set out to do.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Say “Thank you!” to server, cleaner, driver or hourly worker that you met with today.

Over 60% of all workers or 70 million people in the United States are hourly workers — these workers empower our society on a daily basis. They move our economy forward, keep it streamlined and contribute in a way that is of utmost importance to us. Try saying a strong and friendly thank you to the next hourly worker you meet with on a daily basis!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success!