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BUSINESS WITH A
DIFFERENCE
Here
are a few things that start-ups do differently from the rest of
the
corporate world
Start-ups
speak a different corporate parlance and it's most evident in the way
they
treat their employees. Be it something as simple as the seating
arrangement
or something as game-changing as an open communication
system,
start-ups believe in breaking conventions and pushing long-defined
boundaries.
1. A
NON-HIERARCHY
Hierarchy?
What's that again? Startups believe in a flat structure where
authority
is no bar for innovation and growth. “We have a non-hierarchical
system
and open communication in terms of talking to people because a lot
of our
work is very dependent on collaboration in every sphere,“ says Sid
Taparia,
founder, VoxPop.com, an original merchandise retailer. He adds,
“Because
of the way large companies are structured, a lot of communication
is
siloed and takes time to go around.Start-ups are more flexible, nimble and
react
faster to changes because of open communication.“
2. A BEAN BAG
CULTURE
Forget
cabins, cubicles and straightbacked chairs. Start-ups want you to lie
back
in a cushy beanbag and get cracking on your laptop. “With no cubical
environment
adjoined by the bean bag culture there is much transparency
between
all individuals sitting together on one floor. This gives a sense of
being
together and working together,“ explains Neeraj Jain, CEO and
co-founder,
Zopper, a hyperlocal marketplace.
3. HIRING
`BUILDERS'
Unlike
established companies, a start-up offers lot of scope for shaping and
sculpting.
So they look for people who can `build' the company. “Any company,
start-up
or otherwise, must always look for people who are `builders' and must
try to create an environment of `building
culture', as this helps in unlocking the
hidden
potential inside employees and contributes in chiselling out the
organisation's
success story.One of our employees, apart from his full-time
function
as a marketer, has also started his own homemade food service to
cater
to other office employees. He is currently receiving nearly 60-70 orders
from the office every day,“ says Sandeep
Ghule, CFO and head HR, TranServ,
a
digital solutions company.
4.
RELATIONSHIPS BEYOND WORK
Start-ups
move away from the anonymous culture in many big organisations
where
individuals are only known by the work they do. “I honestly think the
biggest
differentiator at a start-up is the relationship between employees, and
between employees and their managers. We all
sit together in an open floor
plan which keeps communication open and
ensures that issues are escalated
and
resolved quickly,“ says Sanna Vohra, founder and CEO, Indear.in, a
wedding
planning and shopping portal.
5. QUARTERLY
PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Start-ups
believe in on-the-spot recognition for those who are result-oriented.
Sounds
like a dream? Amit Sinha, VP business planning and people, Paytm
says,
“We have quarterly performance reviews as opposed to the traditional
annual
ones. Our KRAs are also dynamic as opposed to annual in other cases.
Our
PLIs are evaluated and paid out on a quarterly basis.“
And
this also means that employees must work faster and harder.
6. ESOPs
Although
Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) are not restricted to
start-ups,
smaller companies are likelier to offer it as an incentive to balance
out
packages that do not match up to larger companies.“ESOP is one powerful
tool,
through which founders are able to retain key employees, and they are
being
made party to the success story,“ says Deepak Dhamija, co-founder,
Aristotle
Consultancy, a virtual financial advice portal.
6. FUN
FRIDAYS
In
most companies, team outings are an employee initiative and rarely
transpire.
That's not so in start-ups.
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Ankita
Shreeram
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ET27OCT15
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