“Workplace culture” didn’t really become a buzz phrase until around a decade or so ago when start-ups really started to gain more recognition and influence across the world, shortly after the dot-com bubble burst.
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Before the start-up era really took off, when one thought of “workplace culture,” he or she thought of skilled labor and professions that required specialists. Or he or she thought of a more traditional hierarchal office environment where employees worked to earn their employers more profits as they attempted to climb up a hypothetical ladder to reach professional success.
Now all of this has changed with the birth of “startup culture” and what it means to the workplace.
What is a ‘Start-up Culture’?
According to one Wired article, a “start-up culture” should embody an organization’s core values, mission, and talent strategy. And it should examine an organization’s identity, growth strategy, and relationships.
Basically, an organization’s culture should encompass its work, why it does what it does, and it should rely on its internal and external teams to carry out its goals and mission.
It is about much more than simply generating profits and promoting services or making products to sell. Overall, what was once known as “start-up culture” is now becoming synonymous with what we think of when we consider “workplace culture.”
How Start-Ups Are Influencing Workplace Culture
Following the practices of certain influential start-ups that ended up reaching new feats of success, workplaces are now looking to their employees for guidance and feedback.
Because start-ups are small, founders and leaders tend to work very closely with their teams to generate ideas and develop new products and services. And larger organizations are beginning to see how that will benefit them, too, as well as their workplace environments.
Workplaces, in general, are now becoming hubs for innovation because employees are offered more flexible schedules and work environments and are empowered to use information and data on their own terms for the betterment of their teams and to become more efficient and productive with their everyday work tasks.
Workplace cultures, in general, are beginning to truly embody start-up values and practices that focus on the power to share a central vision and to collaborate on that vision by remaining flexible and agile.
Tips and Best Practices for Implementing a Start-Up-Inspired Workplace Culture
If you’re interested in implementing a start-up-inspired workplace culture, you can:
- Develop an agile workforce.
- Request employee feedback often.
- Implement technology that promotes communication and data sharing.
- Consider flexible work options.
- Be inclusive and focus on diversity.
Succinctly put, how we understand workplace culture today is already beginning to embody the traditional start-up culture.