There is no point in hiring the best employees for your startup if you are unable to successfully engage and retain them.
At Appstrax our team is our main priority. As such, we put a strong emphasis in making our team happy. These are the top 3 strategies we use to retain our top talent:
Build Your Company Around Your Vision and Mission
As a founder, you have created a company to solve a problem.
You have the ambition to grow your company massively and continuously add value to people’s lives.
You have chosen to accept the risk because you truly believe the reward is worth it.
You wake up and go to sleep thinking and dreaming about your company. And you know you can’t do it alone, you need passionate, and driven people.
The only way people will be as committed to your company as you are is to make your dream, their dream, too.
Paint a clear picture of why your company exists and what you want your company to achieve. Be willing to create the vision together. Collaboration generates buy-in.
Visualize together the impact the company could have on your customers, on the community in which you operate, and in every teammate’s life, and brainstorm together ways to achieve that vision. Collaboration brings more innovative ideas and solutions.
At Appstrax, we all understand how our daily actions enable us to become the most trusted custom software development firm in Africa.
We know that all our efforts add incredible value to our clients as we empower them to bring their innovative ideas and technological solutions to life.
Whilst, we hope that their success will shape the future of our modern society. Our programmers share the hope and are motivated to use their expertise to make a change to our society
Working environments, where vision and mission are placed first, fulfill the self-actualization, esteem, and belonging needs of employees.
If your startup does this, and it provides a fair salary to fill employees’ personal needs, you will have a fully engaged and motivated workforce.
Create Realistic Yet Challenging Work for Everyone
To achieve your vision as an ambitious startup, you will constantly need to create stretch goals, that require your team to do difficult and challenging tasks.
In a tech team, it is essential to create stretch goals which are difficult to achieve but not impossible. Programmers are very optimistic individuals, they will tackle any challenge requested, and they will give it their best.
They get excited if they need to use a new technology or solve a complex problem. Leverage this and challenge them with hard tasks.
On the other hand, you need to ensure that challenges are achievable. By allocating enough time to a problem and giving your team mentorship, you enable your tech team to use their skills, their creativity, and to access flow, an incredibly satisfying estate where they utilize their skills at maximum capacity.
Another thing to note is that you need to give challenges to everyone. Sometimes it is easier to quickly fix a bug or to add a feature than it is to coach a junior or onboard a new team member into a project.
However, this might exclude people and prevent team members from reaching their full potential.
At Appstrax, we have a mentorship channel on slack where all senior devs, who have time, jump on a call and coach juniors when they are stuck on new tasks. We do not solve it, we give them the tools to do it themselves.
We also set clear and ambitious tasks for the team. Furthermore, we have flexible schedules so that each tech person in the team can allocate enough time to be fully present when tackling each challenge.
Build A Strong Employee-First Company Culture
As a founder, you are responsible for creating a culture where people love to work and where they can flourish professionally. A happy and motivated team is key for your company’s success and as such, they should be your number one priority.
As a startup with limited resources, it may be tempting to focus solely on creating value for your clients. If you follow this approach, by default you will start making sacrifices that often negatively impact your personal and team wellbeing.
On the other hand, if you focus on the happiness, productivity and efficiency of your workforce, by creating a healthy and empowering culture, the cumulative positive effect is felt by your clients. This is because your employees’ satisfaction and commitment to work will result in better service.
At Appstrax, our team and their well-being is our priority. We strive to build a strong culture where we constantly add value to our people (teammates, customer, and community).
We aim high and give our work our best. Furthermore, we emphasize collaboration and co-creation. We are trustworthy, honest, and giving.
We are proud of our culture. Not only that, but we believe that this is one of the key reasons why our teammates continuously invest their time to help Appstrax strive as the first-choice of forward-thinking businesses working to bring tech innovations to life.
Become A People-First Startup
As you can see, recruiting a retaining a talented team is imperative for your startup success. If your company is built around a strong mission, vision, and employee-first culture, people will likely stay in the company.
Be ready to invest your time and put significant effort in looking for and keeping the right people. Specially now when the ability to manage remote teams efficiently is paramount.
