Generational trends reveal the different priorities in job satisfaction and employee’s belief system, working in startups and with the younger workforce, I realized that there is a major shift in team dynamics.
If you are a young graduate and entering the job market, joining a startup can be intimidating. Here, I would like to discuss some vitals about the working environment of startup and the growth opportunity.
This is exciting to see something brewing: from product ideation to implementation, you will be involved in many phases and do the creative work to make it happen. This will be a great experience and your real learning will kick-off. In a larger organization, you will never get to see the entire overview of the project and integration.
Uniquely Diverse Experience: Startups are known for their innovative approach for problem-solving and they stimulate the workspace for the maximum idea generation. Working with startups will give you an opportunity to self-realization of capability generation.
Freedom to innovate: The golden nugget to grow fast is to innovate at a rapid pace, in an ideal situation in startups you have the license to show off your brilliance and people recognize it. A constant pressure to deliver results with fresh designs and new concepts to capture new market or consumer interest. The pride in growing the company and sharing in its uncertainty, creates a tight bond within the teams, to mobilize their resources for success.
Practical learning: You or your team is collectively responsible for the job done cost-effectively, of course, an illegal way is not acceptable :). You will make your hypothesis, best practices, testing environment, and do the POC. It’s an excellent environment for learning, whereas in a larger organization you are just a part of an activity and recognized for providing modular support to any project. Most of the startups working on cutting-edge technologies and the employees get the real, hands-on experience for complex problem solving and benefit realization on the projects.
Be your manager: Self-motivated and managed professionals are highly appreciated, get more opportunities, and elevated promptly as their performance is an effective tool in realizing the organization’s strategic goals.
1. Identifying core competencies. …
2. Clarity on goal setting. …
3. Steering from complexity…
4. Self-coach performance management …
5. Assert, self-branding.
Job Satisfaction: Startup works on the shared success model to motivate the employees for greater success. That’s why, it’s an attractive growth path for the millennials (also known as Gen Y), who tend to be more ethnically diverse and equipped with the latest technological advancements along with more Family-Centric, Achievement-Oriented, Team-Oriented, Craves Attentions and Job-Hoppers. Startups are providing more flexible working hours, working from home, shorter workweeks, a casual atmosphere, gym, and other health facilities, employee discounts and free services, free food (and sometimes drinks!).
The Challenges:
Workload heavy lifting: As the rewards and motivation are greater in startups you need to go that extra mile to achieve the same. The cost-effective approach of problem-solving can be achieved only when the lean methodology is implemented and you must prove to be a versatile performer with technical knowledge in multiple domains or technologies. This makes your workload humongous as compared to the large organization where you work at a granule approach of project execution.
Job Security: The uncertainty of the market, consumer demand, and regulations impact a lot to startups as compared to established organizations, like Covid-19. Startup’s ecosystem is very fragile and competitive in terms of Service Portfolio. According to “Startup Genome”, a study co-authored by Stanford and UC Berkeley faculty members, 90% of startups fail. A staggering 74% close down because of what the study’s authors called “premature scaling.” Another interesting conclusion from the study is that many investors invest 2–3 times more capital than should be necessary for success.
Survival of startup is a never-ending battle with technological changes, fierce competition and a few miss-calculated risk can have big repercussions with unprecedented adverse effects.
Work-life balance: Life in a startup is fun at work but need to work hard to achieve the desired goals. Employees work under extreme performance pressure to avoid losses due to the extension of project deadlines or reworks. The exhaustive working hours at the office can take a toll on your work-life balance and challenging at times.
The professionals, who are looking for an exciting journey of learning and self-development, can find jobs in a startup using many available job portals, and recently I came across a versatile startup portal angle.co for a comprehensive startup job search and their web app for salary calculation looks cool.
