‘Great Places to Work’ : Four consecutive years of certification for Srijan
How Srijan has managed to retain a “Great Places To Work” certification for four years in a row?
For the 4th year in a row, Srijan has been certified as a Great Places To Work company from India. This time we conducted the survey bang in the middle of the COVID year with pay-cuts and uncertainties abound in the business.
On this certification / recognition, i’ve been asked to answer the following three questions. I thought of responding to them as this post.
- How Srijan strives to keep up this conducive culture?
- How has it helped in retaining this certification over the years?
- What conclusions do we draw from this consecutive recognition?
How does Srijan strive to keep up this conducive culture?
I’m reading the question as “What all does Srijan do to keep this conducive culture?”.
For years, we’ve had a strong set of core values which we practice in our daily lives at Srijan. While a detailed post on the values is a topic for another time, here’s the five-core-values and an explanation of those in the presentation below.
- Be Authentic
- Be Responsible
- Be Vulnerable
- Be Long Term
- Be a Guru
All our values are practiced across three layers — with our customers, within the team and as an individual.
More than mission and vision statements, these documented and daily lived values is what determines our culture and continuously reinforces it.
Authenticity cannot be feigned. I would say this is the bedrock on which other values such as ‘vulnerability’ and ‘responsibility’ stand. Only on the foundation of authenticity can vulnerability and responsibility be demonstrated.
Let us take an example.
During the COVID crisis outbreak and the resulting lockdowns around the world, Srijan lost 30% of its predictable recurring business — either complete contract closures, hold-ups in customer spend or reduction in rates.
Over the years Srijan has maintained the financial discipline of focussing on 25% EBIDTA margins. This has led to a fairly good financial reserve. With the loss of contracts and the massive uncertainty of the future, we had to take cost-cutting measures, just like all other businesses.
One of the proposal was that we have enough reserves to dip into for sustaining ourselves through the crisis. However, my worldview is that businesses MUST NEVER dip into their reserves for running ‘operations’ (paying salaries, rents, etc.). We decided we would not lay off anyone, but that we would take pay-cuts across the board.
We took these decisions to all ~380 people of Srijan over a group call. There was no hiding of any facts or proposals. We shared that we have enough reserves to sustain us through the year. But that we have chosen not to dip into reserves and shared the reasons courageously and transparently. All of this was well-accepted. About 250 people in Srijan took pay-cuts of between 10% to 25% (about 50 people who were not part of pay-cuts or were in lower brackets came volunteering higher pay-cuts for themselves; this was heart warming).
As Srijan’s financial situation has improved and we’ve won contracts, we’ve started to pay off the pay-cuts as arrears — something that was not promised when we introduced them.
How has it helped in retaining this certification over the years?
When you keep practicing your core values genuinely, they become lived values across the company and tend to start percolating downwards in organisation hierarchy and puts into motion a ‘virtuous cycle’.
Trust index breakdown validates our thriving belief system.
What conclusions do we draw from this consecutive recognition?
That we’re consistent. That our belief in a strong culture as the basis of a great company is not a fad that comes and goes or not only an ‘employee engagement’ strategy. It’s an ‘authentic way of being’ which is visible across the company.
Infact, i would say, we believe and live our values way more strongly than how we advertise or speak about them internally or externally. Agile Coaches have told us that we’re among the best Agile companies they have seen and that we speak about our strengths and internal practices way too little. I am bringing up ‘Agile Methodology’ as without living ‘Agile Values’, Agile delivery remains a lie. Our values and core principles of agile companies have a strong overlap.
While i am constantly self-critical about how much we need to do to in our day-to-day behaviours to call ourselves, achieving a ‘Great Places To Work’ certification for four-years in a row and that too amidst massive organisational changes and in the middle of a crisis is no mean achievement.
