3 Leadership Skills SaaS Companies Are Getting Right
(& How You Can Implement Them Too)
The SaaS (system as a service) industry is interesting to watch right now. Companies are bursting with new ideas and innovative ways of solving problems with software that will change the lives of others. From dating apps that can help you find your person to a software suite that can help you track a fleet of trucks carrying your inventory, the limit really stops at your imagination. What’s even more fascinating is how the influence of SaaS startups has changed the corporate culture and what employees expect from employers.
This creative workforce has upended the status quo: fewer cubicles, catered lunches, beer on tap, foosball on breaks, and meditation rooms when you need to chill out. SaaS companies are competing with one another to draw (and keep!) the best talent, which is creating a leadership revolution because the only true way to keep your employees happy and loyal is to embrace what conscious business and leadership are all about. These are the top three leadership skills that SaaS companies are getting right, and how you can implement them too.
Investing In Your Employees In Uncommon Ways
It’s normal to train your team for their position, and it’s common for you to pay for skill-adjacent training that can help your team perform their duties better. But what about investing in your employees in other ways? The knee-jerk reaction is to say no to anything that doesn’t appear immediately related to the hard skills of the job. SaaS companies have taken another approach.
One of the most important things in today’s workforce is that their job gives them the opportunity to grow personally and professionally. They don’t want to feel stagnant. What SaaS companies get right over and over again is training their teams in things that may not look like they deliver an ROI, but nourish the minds, hearts, and bodies of their employees. Employees are getting support with areas like communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, burnout prevention, high performance, meditation, relaxation, healthy living practices, and more. What this is creating is a workforce that has the ability and tools to prioritize habits that increase their creativity, help them solve problems more efficiently, maintain their work-life balance, and develop healthy team dynamics that lead to bonded, high performing employees. All of this makes your employee’s job more enjoyable and develops their loyalty to the company.
Another uncommon way you can invest in your people is through creative remote working and vacation policies. Shawn Anchor (2015) wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review stating, “A positive, engaged brain improves important business metrics…when the brain can think positively, productivity improves by 31%, sales increase by 37%, and creativity and revenues can triple.” Research repeatedly shows that vacations are important for your employees to be more productive, creative, and engaged with their work — particularly when they feel vacations are supported by their employees.
SaaS companies have implemented some remote working and vacation policies that give employees more freedom, which builds trust between the employees and the company. Some examples are:
- Flexible remote working opportunities, where employees can spend some of their time in the office and some of their time at home (or elsewhere).
- Unlimited vacation policies, where employees can take as much time as they need off.
- Vacation stipends, where the companies have reported paying employees between $2,000 — $6,000 to go on vacation (the money must be spent on vacation).
- Internal holidays, where the company creates additional holidays for their people to give them extra paid time off.
- Paid company vacations, where employees and leadership can vacation together without the work, and the company foots the bill.
What this type of investing in your team does is create a culture that praises and accepts rejuvenating so that your employees are happy and fulfilled, while being more productive and profitable. It’s a win-win, especially because employees are usually afraid to take time off because they’re afraid it will hurt their promotability. Then their productivity goes down, their health suffers, and you have a disengaged employee on your hands. By embracing vacation and remote working opportunities that truly support your people and investing in their wellness, you earn their loyalty and increase their engagement.
Creating Active Support Protocols For Employees
Asking for help is tough. Even when one of your company values is collaboration, your people will struggle to ask for help when they need it, especially if they think it’s something that can be easily solved if they weren’t missing something. What happens is your employees hit a wall, and they don’t know how to resolve something. They may or may not know that asking for help can solve it quickly, which makes asking for help harder because they don’t want to feel stupid.
This is why employees need to have a culture of active support so that true collaboration is fostered and employees can stop fearing punishment for needing a little help. Active support is when leadership actively goes out to the floor to support their team. They check-in to see what’s going on, how projects are progressing, and offer their help to the team. This gives leaders the chance to see how their teams are doing while making sure employees have the support they need. Leaders are able to build stronger relationships with their teams this way, which can give employees the confidence to reach out for help when they really need it. Active support protocols are great for productivity, efficiency, team morale, and building loyalty between your employees and your leadership.
Inclusion Efforts
SaaS companies prioritize inclusion because it’s the only way to build long term loyalty. If your people feel like they don’t belong at the company or on their teams, then their likelihood of staying is limited. Think about it this way. Your employees spend a third of their life working. They want to make that time as enjoyable as possible — and to be clear, enjoyable does not mean 100% happy all of the time. Your employees desire to be challenged and want to see themselves making progress. The key here is for your people to feel like they’re part of something important, that they believe in. That’s the piece that makes all the difference.
Here are some ways you can make your employees feel more included and solidify their place in the company:
- Onboarding programs that help new hires become part of the company in a positive way so that their co-workers will accept them with open arms.
- Rewarding inclusive behavior from other employees.
- Creating bonding opportunities for your employees, such as retreats, training, or get-togethers that allow your teams to connect as people.
- Showing your employees the direct results of their work, so they can understand how their work is affecting the company at large (this includes any philanthropic efforts the company does).
- Giving everyone the opportunity for their voice to be heard in meetings (some people are afraid to state their ideas without being asked — give them the floor to share).
All three of these leadership skills are simple. They require you to consider your people and create a culture that values wellness, support, and camaraderie. These are the secrets to great and effective leadership that will build true loyalty in your employees so that you retain your top talent and crush your goals together.
