[tonysuper]

So, for those of is trying to start companies, how do you create an effective work-place environment?

It's obvious from articles like this that you can't just dump a bunch of cash on slides and ping-pong tables, but it also isn't fesable (for most companies) to have 4-hour workdays. How can you balance the need for breaks with budget concerns?

I'd really appreciate somebody with experience in the area weighing in.

[7Figures2Commas]

1. Hire qualified people regardless of where they came from and what they look like. In other words, be careful about falling into the "culture fit" trap that is responsible for a lot of the "I can't find candidates" complaints at startups. Diversity is healthy, and when you don't have a homogenous workforce, you're far less likely to end up with a bunch of 20-something "go-getters" who aren't yet wise enough to understand that output (work product) matters way more than input (hours worked).

2. Be careful about perks that have social implications and/or require employees to spend non-work time at work or with co-workers. A lot of the perks startups offer today, such as catered lunches/dinners and frequent group outings, send the message that you're trying to build a family, not a company. Many people have a life outside of work and these "perks" ask/require employees to give up what should be their free time.

3. Don't ignore management. A lot of startups eschew basic management practices, mistaking management for bureaucracy. The reality, however, is that a healthy dose of competent management is one of the best ways to promote productivity and avoid time-wasting dysfunction.

[VexXtreme]

The whole "culture fit" concept is a direct result of corporate hubris. When a company mentions "culture", I don't walk, I run for my sanity.

[ryan90]

This statement couldn't be more wrong. Sure, corporations blow it out of proportion, but culture fit is so incredibly important.

[bane]

Yes please, culture fits are terrible ways to hire. You end up with lots of carbon copy version of what you wish you were.

It usually degenerates into a bunch of hip young guys with lots of hair product and eclectic playlists.

Build for diversity and you'll get surprisingly awesome skillsets on your team.

[bravo22]

I might get downvoted for a reply that essentially says "this". But I strongly agree with everything you wrote. It has been my experience as well.

[Kalium]

It's easy to denigrate, but culture fit does matter. A brilliant new hire that can't work with your current team is going to lead to problems.

[7Figures2Commas]

"Culture fit" is a nebulous term that is commonly used to justify the short-sighted practice of hiring people who look and think alike. This is inevitably detrimental in even small teams, and furthermore it doesn't scale as teams grow.

Smart companies look for professionalism, not "culture fit." True professionals can work very effectively with different kinds of people, including people who they're not likely to become friends with. Professionalism works in small teams, and it scales.

If you're finding that more than a few well-qualified candidates "can't work with your current team" it's worth considering that the problem is with your existing team, not the people you're adding to it.

[hw]

> "Culture fit" is a nebulous, oft-abused term that is commonly used to justify the short-sighted practice of hiring people who look and think alike. This is detrimental to even small teams, and it doesn't scale as teams grow.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that 'Culture fit' = hiring people who look alike. Having an maintaining a good work culture where individuals on a team gel together, much like an orchestra, is extremely important and not to be cast aside. Sure, a candidate might have a PhD from MIT and is smart, but if that individual is quiet, has difficulty working in a pair (assuming pairing is part of the culture), and is adamant about working in a silo and going hero mode, having that candidate on your team might just be disruptive.

Having said that, I do think culture fit shouldn't be the only or the veto decision when it comes to hiring. It should however be a part of the overall decision. And yes, if you're not hiring someone because they don't like Fight Club but your team does, then calling that a 'culture fit' problem is dumb. It's not about hiring people who only think alike, but hiring people who have the same / similar philosophies when it comes to doing their job.

[001sky]

"but if that individual is quiet, has difficulty working in a pair (assuming pairing is part of the culture), and is adamant about working in a silo and going hero mode, having that candidate on your team might just be disruptive."

Re-read the part about being a professional. Then you will see why this is a straw-man construction.

[woah]

Straw man. You just described someone with qualitative deficiencies (not being able to pair) as an example of poor culture fit. This is not what most people mean when they say culture fit.

[bryanlarsen]

You're right, but I suspect that "culture fit" is a lot easier to find than "professionalism", especially if you're ignoring older candidates.

[001sky]

Smart companies look for professionalism, not "culture fit." True professionals can work very effectively with different kinds of people...

-- This is an excellent comment

[bane]

You can't. If you create a dynamic work environment with a constant influx of interesting problems to deal with, you lose the 8-by-5 solid employees with families you make up the framework of lots of successful companies. If you optimize for them, you can't get the spotlight rangers looking for hot problems to work on and recognition to go along with it.

If you cater meals, some employees will want to skip out and take the salary bump instead, others don't mind losing out on pay for free weekly massages.

Free beer? Non-drinkers feel left out. Game room? non-gamers hate it. Ping-pong, foosball, pool tables, free gym? You'll find somebody who it alienates.

You have to pick what you want your company to be and commit to it. Where would you want to work? Build that. You'll find the right people to populate it, but try to keep it open to diversity of styles and ideas.

Your best employee will probably be somebody completely different than you.

[hueving]

>If you cater meals, some employees will want to skip out and take the salary bump instead, others don't mind losing out on pay for free weekly massages.

This is a false dichotomy. If a company is so broke that offering a few free meals will impact their salary pool, they aren't going to offer the free meals at all. Anecdotally, every company I've worked at that offered free lunch paid more than any of the companies that didn't offer free meals.

[bane]

I'll still trade you 3 "free" meals a day for that money into my salary. I can use that money better, and it's a stronger negotiating point for me at my next job (while total compensation package is not).

[hueving]

The point is that it doesn't work like that. You could make the same argument about all of your office supplies, computers, and office space. "I'll take the extra bump of salary rather than you paying for the office space I will occupy." "Fire the administrative assistant, give us the extra salary, and rotate us all through phone/email/mail company correspondence duty."

They are perks designed to make working there more pleasant and efficient (if you eat there your lunch commute is gone and you are likely to converse with coworkers). They have nothing to do with your compensation.

[bane]

> You could make the same argument about all of your office supplies, computers, and office space.

No you can't. You can't make the argument because one set of things is strictly needed for you to do your job, the other is not.

[cli]

>If you create a dynamic work environment with a constant influx of interesting problems to deal with, you lose the 8-by-5 solid employees with families you make up the framework of lots of successful companies.

I have no experience with these things. Why would this be the case? Is it because "a dynamic work environment with a constant influx of interesting problems to deal with" implies longer work hours?

[bane]

Lots of very solid, very good employees don't want to be rockstar programmers. They want you to define a desired end-state, give them a due date in a few months and leave them to solve it within the bounds of their regular job hours.

If you think of an orchestra, it's like all the nameless people in the violin section vs. soloist. Optimizing for rockstars is like optimizing for soloists and that rarely works well.

They're your steady soldiers, getting the job done at the pace you set. They can be used to set organizational tempo, long-term goals, etc. They're the ones who will work for your company for 10 years and not complain too much.

But they also recognize that they're working to live, not living to work. Lots of startups want their employees to be obsesses with their work, they want all the employees to do things together, live together, marry each other, they want them to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner together.

Lots of employees find that a huge turnoff, because frankly, they have better lives than what any startup can offer.

[realrocker]

"Culture fit" is quite stupid. A fair amount of conflict is key to fiery technical debates and keeping out the complacency. Imagine if the parliament worked like that. Hire people who would own a responsibility and have the ability to execute it too. Everything else needs constant gardening.

[jobposter1234]

In the several startups I've worked at / with, the technical debates were not an input to whether or not the company would succeed.

A culture where everyone worked to the maximum of their ability and where the sum was greater than the parts, those places tended to do pretty well.

[pliny]

Either hire or avoid hiring 'culture fits' or do some amount of hiring 'culture fits' and some amount of avoiding them.

[ryan90]

Speaking from experienced (startup that's made 3 hires, going on our 4th), is you have to find "culture fits". People who share your appetite for work, who want to be a part of the vision, and that you can stand spending a lot of time with. We'll never win the perk war, but we are the only company just like us, and look very hard for the people who will get along with us.

[VexXtreme]

I think you'll find that most people will "get along" with you just fine if you're a decent person, pay well and don't ask them to sacrifice a too big portion of their life. If they're competent and willing to work hard, everything else is noise and bullshit.

[ryan90]

Yes working hard and competent is the bulk of it. But we've met people like that we simply wouldn't bond with. Culture fit is hugely important, and if you hire a cultural misfit, it's much more difficult to fire them.

[VexXtreme]

Since the concept of "culture" is so vague and no one using it seems to be able to describe what exact set of criteria it represents, it appears to be whatever a hiring manager wants it to be. If you don't like someone's skin color, religion, cultural background, the fact that they don't like drinking or going to team-building trips every weekend, or you just don't like the color of their shirt, it's easy to reject them on the grounds of not being a "culture fit". Who cares about their professional skillset when you're obviously looking for a paid buddy.

Curb your hubris and start treating people like human beings. I've worked for a number of "world changing" startups managed by 20-something year olds like you and the fact that it always devolved into a high school popularity contest made me sick to my stomach.

[woah]

I hope that their "appetite for work" matches your appetite for giving out equity. If not, you've just hired a bunch of people with bad judgement and no social life.

[ryan90]

We're pretty generous with equity.

Nobody works themselves to death, but we all push ourselves to get as much done as possible. If you want to be a founder, or early stage employee, you're going to have to work harder than the average 9-5er.

[woah]

Totally. Sounds respectable then. I just think that founders need to be very clear that the work vs reward relationship is going to be very different for them vs their employees, unless the employees have very significant equity approaching cofounder levels.