Six Questions That Can Help Build a Better Workplace
I sat in the back of a room at our company’s recruiting event last November fielding questions from young, exasperated college students looking for their first step into the working world. Many were deciding between IBM and other consulting firms. A few were deciding between consulting and other industries altogether. There was one common denominator, however, that married every student there: Everyone was curious about our company culture.
There is nothing more disquieting than being the person who separates an optimistic college student from a large life decision — every student there was trying to find their ideal workplace and it was impossible to provide a “one-size fits all” answer about our company culture that would seem to satisfy everyone and would not be self-serving to our own company’s recruiting goals.
There’s a hard truth about culture — while part of it exists as a reflection of the company, a lot of your perception of a company’s culture depends on your own involvement. Most company cultures are satisfactory. They provide for an employee’s basic needs. At the end of the day, it’s a two-way street. While IBM markets a culture of innovation, it means nothing if you don’t innovate. While companies market support systems and mentorships, these often have to be found and cultivated.
In my experience, I’ve found the best workplaces aren’t necessarily places where happiness is guaranteed — instead they are places where happiness has the opportunity to be created. They have a combination of challenging work, interpersonal dynamics, role clarity, and open ideas. Here’s what I’ve found I ask the most:
Does the team value everyone’s presence? Great workplaces understand the connection between embracing presence and employee morale. Peter Thiel once mentioned that the success to his employee engagement at PayPal was that no two people were doing the same thing — providing everyone with atleast one unique area of responsibility allowed them to feel their presence in the company and have a personal investment in sharing ideas. Taking a vacation at any point in your career is not only a blessing, it’s also a mini social experiment. It’s a moment of clarity to see how much you’ll be missed. Great workplaces encourage vacations but also provide every member of the team enough value that their responsibilities are clearly outlined.
Does the title matter in the long-run if you want to contribute? In the past few months, while my official title was “Functional Testing Analyst”, I was able to dabble in development, data migration, product management, UX, marketing, and even product ideation. The best cultures recognize your role but don’t constrict your personal growth or desire to learn. In many of my projects at IBM, the role was simply a formality — the real test was to see how well you understood which gaps needed to be covered.
Are there support systems within the company? Many people are unhappy at their first jobs or new jobs. It’s not a surprise. Jobs come with uncertainty and even the best companies in the world deal with individuals who face personal stress, existential crises, identity management issues, and lack of direction. The best cultures have active support systems that not only allow open feedback to problems but also allow individuals to vent and share personal barriers to progress when applicable. While there is an incentive to keep life and work separate, having personal issues at home that preclude proper and healthy workflow requires support. Not every support system needs to be a formalized mentorship program but simply having people available to discuss non-task communication is a healthy addition.
Is there flexibility in expectations? People who often praise the work-life balance of their companies are not necessarily praising work schedules — they are praising the flexibility of expectations within their company culture. This all rests on trust. Do you trust others within your company to get work done if they are at home? Do you trust people to meet deadlines? Working a half day on a Sunday to get off early on a Tuesday once in a while requires the same amount of work — companies who cultivate trust through proper expectation management tend to have higher employee morale. Trust has to be earned but, when won, streamlines the workplace. While flexibility shouldn’t be abused, it can be the difference between a great workplace and one marred with fear of stepping outside the lines.
Are the employees consistently marketable? Every month or so, I’ll put my resume up on a couple of job sites and test its value. This is less about job applications and more about seeing how many months in a row I’ve had the same information on my resume. The best cultures subconsciously make you more marketable through a combination of new responsibilities, skills training, and leadership opportunities- these aren’t necessarily given but are fostered in an atmosphere that allows and encourages growth. Richard Branson once said: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t.
Is the work challenging? Challenging doesn’t have to mean accelerating the advent of sustainable energy by creating a solar-roof-with-battery product. It simply means a culture that provides an environment that encourages critical thinking, active learning, and large questions instead of one that simply makes you transmit information without deriving meaning from it. While millennial retention studies focus on emotional qualities of engagement, having a big question or intriguing workflow can be one of the biggest drivers of retention. People aren’t leaving for Facebook, IBM and Google because they are providing free food or large benefits — they are leaving because Facebook, IBM and Google love big questions with no straightforward answers. In the show Silicon Valley, the employees of Pied Piper can likely find good opportunities at large companies — instead, they are driven by Pied Piper’s vision to build the world’s best compression algorithm.
While not every successful workplace asks these questions and is successful despite it, I have found a pattern in my own career where my favorite places to work had a combination of challenging work, interpersonal dynamics, and role clarity. Next time you’re in an interview and want to learn about a company’s culture, ask specifically what experiences the employee has had in these areas and you might be surprised at how much more you learn.
As Aristotle once said: “There’s no point in having a ping-pong table or free gym memberships if these only used as justification for misery.”
Kushaan is an IBM Consultant based out of Washington D.C. His interests are rooted in strategy consulting, entrepreneurship, social media, and the intersection of technology with social impact. He enjoys blogging about life, career insights, social technology, and hacking the corporate environment. If you liked this post, follow him on twitter: @kushaanshah or click “Follow” at the top for more posts on Linkedin.
