Amicus Digital, The Sydney Startup That Turbocharged Growth by Making Employees Feel Valued
Every morning, tech teams around the world gather together to have frank and open conversations about company-wide issues.
Social nights are expanding from team drinks to hackathons and meetups.
The above are just some examples of practices that have become the norm since candidates started valuing company culture progressing far beyond free drinks and ping pong tables.
According to Glassdoor, culture and values are the biggest predictor of employee satisfaction, at 22 per cent of the “pie”. Companies have begun to realise this and had to change the value proposition in their hiring efforts to attract the best talent.
That was the task in hand for Blair Cooke, Managing Director at Amicus Digital who has been on his own journey of hiring skilled candidates in Sydney.
Since founding the business with Jessie Mitchell in 2015, the Salesforce partner agency has grown 100 per cent year-on-year since foundation, more than doubled in size last year and growing to become the largest independent Salesforce Marketing Cloud specialist in Australia, hiring 25 staff.
The founding team have focused on hiring skilled (and in demand) candidates who excel in the Salesforce ecosystem. They’ve also prioritised diversity, and today 50 per cent of staff are women.
They’ve been able to do this by adapting their hiring processes to accommodate the culture shift.
We caught up around the realities of the shift, and where it’s having a real impact on day to day operations.
Salary isn’t the only motivation
Salary will always be a basic human need and Blair believes you should pay fairly. However, he argues it’s not necessarily the core motivator for candidates not actively hunting a new role;
“Although salary is an important hygiene factor, it is rarely the most important in a candidate’s decision to change roles. More often they are looking to be engaged, to do work where they can see the output of their efforts and know that their contributions are making a difference.
“Many of our team joined us because they buy into what we’re building, they like the way we work with customers and appreciate the flexibility we provide.” He explains.
Creating an intentional culture
A shared culture, a real voice at the table and a workspace where employees feel a sense of purpose and are communicated with transparently has been key to Blair and the Amicus Digital team.
It’s an approach which has seen employees think about more than the day to day core objectives of their role:
“We see our team as a partner in our success. They know they can challenge any of our decisions openly and without fear of retribution because we welcome their views and know we can only be better if we take advantage of the collective intelligence of the people that work for us. Transparency and openness are critical,” explains Blair.
But that’s not always an easy feat. People must believe in what they are doing to put their best effort. And Blair knows that: “The most important thing in seeking engagement from a team is to get buy-in. If the team understands what you’re doing and knows that their opinions are heard, it fundamentally changes their approach to work. They no longer have a “clock in, clock out” mentality but bring their intellect, their passions and their efforts to apply them to the cause.”
Moving beyond Perks
As much as culture has shifted beyond freebies, the Amicus Digital team have not completely steered away from material rewards.
Countless studies/surveys still show the value placed on recognition and reward, so Blair places focus on the value of the smaller, considered actions:
“A text message from your boss at the end of a tough day to thank them for their contribution, public acknowledgement of a job well done, small gifts that aren’t expected but surprise and delight the staff when they go above and beyond, a handwritten card on their first day at work or, listening and acting on their concerns” are just some examples of how being creative and unique is a better approach than randomly throwing money at a problem.
“It’s easy to give someone more money and tell them you value them but the proof is in the sum of your actions day after day,” maintains Blair.
Practicing what you preach
Unlike many businesses whose core growth goals focus around getting new clients, Amicus Digital realised fairly early that the cornerstone of the business is the team.
“The team always come first in every challenge we encounter and every decision we make.” explains proudly Blair. As a consequence, sometimes they need to make hard decisions to ensure the culture is not something kept behind closed doors: “We have walked away from business, chosen to slow down on selling, made “expensive” decisions because we felt it was in the best interests of the team. We’ve done this because we know that if we look after the team, they will look after our customers”
“As a result, Amicus Digital has grown to be one of the top two in our industry in under three years and it is all through the efforts of our team.”
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 293,189+ people.
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