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In my recent blog post I explained how Lab Digital invests in one of their biggest assets: the team. Part of this investment is a partnership with A Great Place To work who recently conducted an audit of our company culture. I’m very proud to tell you we are now officially certified as A Great Place to Work!
But what’s this culture fuzz all about? And why is this topic so important for us right now? In this blog article I’ll tell you more about the why and what, to become, and above all remain, a great place to work!
Culture, it’s an interesting topic. When a group of people comes together, a culture emerges. You have to deal with norms, values and habits. With the right people and the right attitude, a company can achieve more than it dared to dream; but consider for a moment that the opposite can happen as well. It is a weird phenomenon that two similar organizations with a different culture can achieve very different results. It shows the importance of people.
Earlier this year, Pim Vernooij (Founder/CTO) proposed participating in an audit conducted by A Great Place To Work. Pim said:
“We realise that converting vision and ideas into actual action still has a lot of challenges that we do not (yet) know. We want to learn this. And of course we would like to know how we are doing at the moment, where we stand.”
The momentum for this audit was important to us. We are growing fast (we have built a team of more than 45 people and more than half of our growth took place over the past 18 months) and so far much of the organisational development has been organic. In order to be able to grow further, we want to establish a solid basis in terms of policy and structure for the near future. Laying down that foundation, before the organisation gets too big, will save us a lot of potential effort of necessary changes later. Also, by starting now, we are able to create a policy from the ground up and are not ‘forced’ to change an already existing culture, which is a lot harder to do.
And that’s where A Great Place to Work came in. Part of their audit was the writing of a ‘handbook’ in which we had to explain how we deal with topics like i.e.: personal development, assessment, recruiting and listening. This already made us really think about our foundation. By collecting all the necessary information and write it all down, we were able to get a very clear picture about everything we do and why we do it the way we do. Besides of that document, an (anonymous) employee survey took place that provided us with feedback on how everyone is experiencing our company’s culture. This helped us learn if there was a match or mismatch between how we see our culture vs. how the employees see it.
All these insights combined led to an extensive roadmap to let us really focus on the most important topics to work on in the upcoming months and years. The fact that we also received the Great Place to Work certificate was a nice compliment and confirmed that we are already doing a lot of things right!
But that’s not where the story ends. In our opinion, investments in culture are as much about attention as they are about money. Although having a ping pong table, funny meeting room names, or a slide in the office seem very cool, we shouldn’t think this alone makes us that awesome employer you really want to work for. Having the right tools to do your job, a full fridge, a great Christmas party and a good salary is what every company can offer, none of these things really build your culture.
Niels Smits (Founder/Managing Director) said the following about his view of people within our organisation:
“We have the explicit wish to offer an environment at Lab Digital that actually facilitates people in their whole being, ambitions and personal development. We want Lab Digital to make these people’s lives a little better and, of course, we want them to enjoy their work. And, frankly, we have learned that if you pursue this and it happens, it will have positive effects on the regular processes within an organisation. I’m beginning to understand (feel) more and more that a ‘beautiful’ culture is perhaps the most important lifeline of a company.”
We think it all starts with meeting the intrinsic needs of every single one of our employees. Give them the ability to learn and grow, to be themselves and feel safe. Create a certain freedom and trust them with the job or tasks they need to complete. Or so to say; let them feel they are being valued for everything they do. After all: you spend so much time being at work, you should make sure it’s the best it can be. Of course nobody’s perfect and we still have a lot to learn as well, but we think a belief in this concept helps in making the right decisions and improving bit by bit.
But how, you might think? In the first period of our existence, the time when we only had a small team, it was all about taking care of every single individual. Paying attention to their feelings, strengths and weaknesses and by having a positive attitude along the way. We try to keep up with this now we are bigger. We don’t want our employees to become ‘just a number’.
As you can read, the development of the beautiful culture Niels’ talks about is so important in the core of our organization’s existence, it just deserves a lot of attention. And it’s not only the vision of Niels and Pim, it’s my vision as well. That’s why I find working for Lab Digital so interesting, it all comes as second-nature to me. Ultimately, we as an organisation want to be a place where people enjoy working, can work in the most optimal way and, above all, want to continue to work for. Only by building on our culture can we do so.
Personally, I really look forward to what the future holds! As far as I’m concerned, the focus is on the right subjects in terms of organisational development and it’s very cool to contribute to these developments. In my opinion, building this culture, is (professionally) one of the most beautiful things there is. There is a lot to do, a lot of energy, a good vibe and everything we do makes this place (even more) a Great Place To Work! ;)
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