Two years after starting the company, I realized that I was not happy.
Although I am passionate about our mission to improve the accessibility of healthcare, I am still afraid of the daily experience of going to work. I realized that if I felt this way, the staff around me might also feel this way.
I admit that when Andros was founded, I hardly considered cultivating a positive work culture. As a founder, I can say that I have many ideas. Building a company requires incredible perseverance, agile thinking, and the ability to attract and collaborate with people who share your vision.
However, if you grind so hard, you will be exhausted, none of this matters. If you are overwhelmed by brain fog and work with exhausted team members who have lost confidence, your company cannot thrive. This is a mistake that leaders must not make: without a well-functioning team, you cannot expect to succeed in the company’s mission or grow your business. This is where culture comes into play.
On the day I realized this, I went to my team and started discussing what we can do to make improving our company culture a top priority. Our discussion produced a very simple understanding, which has formed the basis of all decisions I have made since as CEO: The two pillars of a successful company are business and employees.
Focusing these two pillars on balance has changed everything about how I run a company for the better.
When the conditions are right, we actually like to work
In the past 18 months, conversations about workplace culture have become more frequent and urgent. “The Great Resignation” Has been popular all over the country. In many cases, the pandemic has shown that the company’s leadership has failed to meet the needs of employees on a large scale.
In turn, workers who feel overwhelmed, undervalued, unrespected, and even unsafe choose to leave jobs that fail to recognize their needs as people and workers. All departments are in liquidation.
at the same time, When the conditions are right——Meaning that they have been satisfied instead of facing terrible consequences as a substitute——People Really enjoy work. Meaningful work itself can alleviate the anxiety that the pandemic brings to all of us.
So, how do CEOs and presidents cultivate an environment where their teams can thrive?
Find happiness inside and outside of work
As a founder, you must ensure that your company strives to achieve its goals without alienating the team members who make that goal possible. You must strike a balance between focusing on building the business and focusing on building the people that make it up.
This means supporting their projects in the workplace by providing them with the resources they need to do a good job, and creating opportunities for growth and professional development. If their interests start to change, please open up ways for them to explore new areas of the company. In this way, you can retain team members who are both loyal to the company and have a detailed understanding of multiple aspects of products and processes.
This is easier said than done. But we have developed a simple and scalable method to develop the skills and confidence of team members to take on more responsibilities and grow in their careers. The framework is the four Es of growth:
- Education-learning concepts or skills from a book or a class (our hospitality)
- Contact-Attend meetings with managers and/or executives to get in touch with skills or concepts
- Experience-use skills or concepts in your work
- Expectation-owning a job in a department or company
In any workplace, you will find someone who meets the challenge reliably and someone who avoids it. Reward for aggressive and responsible behavior, your employees will notice and react accordingly. Over time, you will realize that you are attracting top talent who want to be part of the ecosystem you created and give back to them.
In addition to supporting your team members as employees, you must also support them as people. A positive work culture also includes policies that allow your team to relax and pursue their passions. The lesson of workplace flexibility that we have learned in the past 18 months is unnecessary, but maintaining its positive impact should be a conscious choice.
Allowing team members to work anywhere means working remotely from home, creating more space for family life and community connections. It can also create a path to travel, so that personal accomplishment does not conflict with work. In either case, a sense of freedom will increase morale, thereby improving the quality of work.
Balance is the key. It sounds like a tug of war, but if you can feel the healthy tension, you are doing it right.
Prioritize workplace culture in the health sector
Maintaining the well-being of the team is essential in any field-but this is especially important when the work of the team affects such important and subtle things as healthcare.
Burnout is increasing in all departments, yes Especially obvious In the healthcare industry. The loss of labor caused by burnout has caused severe shortages, affecting the quality of life of remaining workers and the standard of care for patients.
Products in the field of medical technology aim to improve the quality of care while reducing the burden on providers. We strive to provide them with tools that make their work easier, and when our own team can go all out to produce these tools, we can do our best.
Your team will tell you what they need-if you know how to listen
The pandemic has drastically reduced the need for change. I am grateful for my liquidation of Andros-it came early. And I can use my dissatisfaction to benefit my entire team. If there is no empathy between me and my colleagues, this is impossible.
I hope that at this moment, there will be more opportunities for understanding and communication between senior executives and team members at all levels of the company, in order to create a culture that promotes finding happiness and a sense of responsibility in work and life.
Ultimately, workplace culture can be viewed as any other product. You work with your team and everyone can contribute. It evolves with the needs it is trying to solve, and it is always under revision so that it can be improved. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work—but noticing when something goes wrong—and correcting it—is itself a sign of a good company culture.
