Your employees’ relationships with their work environment are just as meaningful as their home environment when it comes to mental health. Improving the work environment means improving productivity, retention, and growth — it’s as simple as that.

So, let’s optimize the corporate mission statement and revitalize the communal ethos. Let’s open communication channels of transparent optimism and patience.

Just kidding.

If you try searching for “improving company culture,” you are going to get plenty of buzz words and empty sentences. Most advice columnists in the corporate sphere offer the appropriate advice, but because it lacks context, it also lacks focus and application.

Let’s look at the two buzzword sentences above — which, unfortunately, are quite common.

This would seem like a great action to take as a company. You can use branding for marketing your understanding of social issues. However, your employees won’t buy into the branding change.

An ‘ethos’ isn’t actionable. A mission statement isn’t relevant. Instead, you need to purposefully choose actions that, on a first-order, affect your employees.

What does something like this even mean?

Just because management says, “my door is always open,” it doesn’t create goodwill if the employees don’t feel the change and don’t feel the safety of the open-door policy. Instead, you need to purposefully choose actions that, on a first-order, affect your employees.

A little repetitive? Maybe, but most changes are easy when they are in words only. However, suppose you are genuinely looking to make a difference to the employees of your firm. In that case, you need to invest in systematic alterations that affect the employees and management.

To better understand what these systematic alterations could and need to be, let’s look at what they aren’t first.

What is and what isn’t a company culture

You don’t need to live in Silicon Valley to know about the fantastic benefits that await employees at tech firms in the Bay Area. They are offered free lunches, gaming machines, sleeping areas, pet health care, and who knows what. But are these real?

In other words, are these perks a reflection of the morals and values of management, or are they a way to appease the masses with the intent of distracting them from the other unhealthy practices?

If you are going to make changes to create a healthy and sustainable work environment, you need to understand the difference between perks and company culture.

A perk is an object of instant gratification. It is something that is welcome but doesn’t necessarily reflect the realities of the workplace experience. Regardless of whether the employees use the perk, they are still subject to the oversight of company culture through management.

Just as the examples show, company culture should not and cannot be attached to physical comforts. Instead, company culture is a value placed on the employee by bosses.

So, let’s look at it another way. When you disappoint a spouse, relative, child, or friend, what do you do? Does buying them an expensive dinner or gift make the hurt disappear? Be honest.

Gifts to appease lack authenticity because they have no connection to the actual issue. Regardless of who was right or wrong, apologizing for the error is a selfless act that costs nothing. Yet, most people in positions of power fail to achieve humility and would rather spend corporate dollars.

Company culture isn’t a thing, but rather it is an attitude . If this is still a little esoteric, that’s okay. But to dig deeper, let’s look at what your company should not look like.

How do you identify an unhealthy workplace?

You might be asking yourself whether you oversee or work in an unhealthy environment. If you don’t know, it could be one of two options.

First, it could mean that your level or position in the firm is healthy. However, this isn’t and shouldn’t be representative of those above or below you. Second, it could mean that you are the unhealthy one. No one ever wants to hear that, but sometimes it is the reality.

If you don’t have an answer and want to better understand your employees’ environmental health, all you need to do is ask. Will it be uncomfortable? Maybe. Will it be useful? Absolutely.

Here are a few questions to ask to determine whether other parts of your business are emotionally and mentally healthy :

Do your employees or colleagues experience any verbal abuse, regardless of how slight?

Does your firm have problems communicating clearly and effectively?

Are there imbalanced workloads between employees or departments?

Do your employees or colleagues experience overly poor moods often?

If you or your coworkers can answer yes to more than one of these questions, you may have a toxic working environment. Toxic working environments lead to significant turnover, empty positions, poor performance, acting out, lack of cooperation and communication, and a general decline in business growth.

So, what do you do about it, and how do you improve your company culture?

The standard practices to improve the corporate environment

The standard practices taken to improve a work environment are actions necessary to solve personal life crises, just recast for the work environment.

Why does this work? Your daily routine relies on interpersonal relationships . Work is no exception. Productivity depends on interpersonal communication and trust in the communal wellbeing of the office.

If you’ve ever been to the doctor and they tell you to lose weight, do they accept your answer when you say that you aren’t working out, but you are “optimizing your inner values on physical movement?” Your doctor will probably tell you that words don’t matter when the numbers affect your life expectancy.

So, when you read the four steps below, take to heart the following advice. Don’t expect your employees to do all the actual work to change company culture. Change happens when management makes it happen amongst themselves.

1. Listen

Don’t decide what needs to change for your employees. If you start making alterations about actions without listening to the people involved, you’ve already lost. Instead, listen to what your employees need via any means necessary, usually collaboratively .

You could set up a confidential mailbox, have group sessions, hire an HR consultant to create surveys, or start a suggestion box. The method doesn’t matter. The point is to gather research on what needs to change. Then, let your employees make all the hard choices for you.

2. Decide

The worst thing you could do is not to decide. A lack of a decision is a decision to not care about the process. Your employees and colleagues will notice this and make a judgment based on this lack of action.

Instead, make informed decisions driven by the voices of the staff. However, your decision isn’t just to make a choice. Your decision is to live the choice and follow through via daily actions.

3. Act

If you don’t live the company culture that your employees want, you are offering empty promises that won’t change the nature of your corporate stagnation.

You’ve listened and decided. Now you need to change the way management interacts and oversees the staff based on the feedback given. Here are a few actions that might arise.

Solution: Fire them or get them business counseling. Either way, your lack of action will show that you care about their harmful attitudes more than the rest of the company.

Solution: Use this moment as a chance to reflect on those actions. Make the information available but provide avenues for alternatives in future instances. Make this a moment where past actions don’t prescribe future choices.

Solution: No corporate solution ever happens from the bottom up. If you need staffers to communicate more, you need management to start the conversation. Have management recognize what staff is doing on a day-to-day basis, not once a year.

Recognize work and devotion and appreciate the individual. If you appear interested in their work, they will open and communicate.

Solution: Hire people with different skillsets and place them in groups where everyone learns and grows as a unit. Pay your employees more than your competitors. Don’t give them perks but use the money for their salaries, paid time off, or better health insurance. Commit to building a community that is representative of the world culture and not a monoculture.

Finally, pay less attention to the bottom line and more to the bottom rung. Who is the lowest paid person in your company? Why are they the lowest paid person? What can you do to change that?

4. Repeat

Keep this cycle going. Show that you aren’t committing to change once, but rather you are committing to being better than you were yesterday. Change takes time, commitment, and determination. You may make the wrong choices. Own them and rework them until they are corrected.

Once you learn to live the change you seek, you will find your footing to grow your company beyond what it is today. All you need to do is to keep listening and learning from the perspective of your employees and colleagues.

How startups can lure developers away from the Apples and Googles of the world

We can all agree that starting and running a startup is risky business. From finding financing to creating your first product. Going from initial point A to point B is difficult in any journey and ultimately there is only that one thing that can make it happen – your team. But how can a startup compete for programming talent against household names in the industry, like Google and Apple?

The core driving force of any functioning business is of course its people. In the AI industry in particular, many startups struggle to win over talented developers, which often get snatched up by larger tech companies.

We spoke to four startups taking part in the EU’s X-Europe accelerator to find out how they attract top talent, with less resources than Big Tech giants. We’ve collected a variety of, not only useful tips and insights, but also a prognosis for the future of AI programmers in Europe.

There is a general lack of qualified developers in Europe

Above all internal difficulties there might be to hire the right people, there is one thing that startups cannot control – the general lack of qualified programmers in Europe and their migration to tech hotspots in Asia and the States. Many choose to seek opportunities outside Europe’s borders leaving the continent in a crunch. So, how can startups even try to hire talented developers when they’re fighting over a shrinking talent pool?

This is a continent-wide issue that is neither a quick or easy fix. Andrea Vezzaro, Operations Manager at Wavenure , an AI-based investments performance enhancer startup, recognizes this issue:

First and foremost, always keep an eye out for changes in average market salary for programmers in your area. Especially in the last few years these have fluctuated quite a lot, not just from country to country, but also city to city. If you’re not meeting at least the average expectations it’ll be difficult to attract talent, no matter the incentives you offer.

Know how to position your startup for the talent you want to attract

When surfing the web for job vacancies, some positions catch your eye more than others, don’t they? Besides the obvious pay and company status, there are other very attractive qualities you can add to a job description that will get talent to reach out to you and not the other way around.

Bots and Us , a data-driven robotics and AI company that provides full-stack robot systems for public spaces, has made it one of their primary marketing objectives to hire great talent. What better way to win the war on talent than mobilizing your marketing team’s strengths?

CEO of Bots and Us, Andrei Danescu explained to Growth Quarters how highlighting company culture, your current employees, and pinpointing your ideal new recruit’s characteristics will help to win over the perfect candidate.

– Andrei Danescu.

Capitalizing on Andrei’s insight, here is an actionable tip to keep in mind: Your social media channels can provide a window into your company’s culture for potential candidates.

If you want to attract problem solvers, share photos on your social channels of your team brainstorming/working on complex projects together. If you want to attract creatives, post some of your team’s most unique designs. Always share photos of your team building activities and company retreats.

The tradeoff between innovation VS brand and money

Knowing how to skillfully position your startup and job application is an essential start. However, the big question still remains. What can a startup really offer to an in-demand programmer that household names like Google and Apple fail to provide?

Frankly speaking, for developers in AI there is a trade-off between choosing a large tech company that can provide both a higher salary and a reputable name, or venturing off into the exciting yet certainly unpredictable startup world.

We asked this question to Liga Vinkele, CEO and Founder of Fintelligence . A Latvian-based startup providing AI technology that accelerates and automates adverse media screening. Liga’s tips, simple yet effective, clearly describe 3 fundamental reasons for programmers to join startups, and these are 3 things that every startup can provide.

Interesting product/idea

Impact – startup ideas solve significant problems in the market

Company shares – the developer is not only an employee, they’re a part of the company

Again, company culture is key. Large tech companies have the tendency to start following outdated and often suppressive social routines, leading to unspoken guidelines and a steep hierarchy. These are the kinds of environments that can breed toxic work cultures where employees feel they have to compete to get ahead or be the ‘favorite’.

A major startup advantage, on the other hand, are flat hierarchies and open work cultures which are still being shaped. Andrei Danescu summarized this idea in four words that speak for themselves, “ Impact and no politics ”.

Once you have them, how do you get them to stay?

Having tackled the issues of attracting and finding the right developers, the logical question pops up: how do you get them to stick with you?

Working for the sake of innovation is cool of course, but in real life we cannot eliminate the particle matters (money, career, stability). Hussein Al-Amine, Business Development lead at Fineon Exchange – an AI global powered marketplace for trade finance assets, shared multiple ways to get your employees hooked on the company.

Creating a diverse and inclusive work environment will open you up to a bigger talent pool

The AI industry is accelerating and so are the opportunities within it. But with only about 22% of the global AI workforce being women , losing talent to larger tech companies is clearly not the only pressing issue. With more women entering STEM and as a result AI, two birds can be killed with one stone; more programmers in the game for startups to employ and the opportunity build a more diverse AI workforce.

– Andrei Danescu

Inclusive environments equal great talent. People want to work in an open-minded and inclusive space, and those startups that can provide it will get access to a larger pool of talent. Of course, from the inside, it’s easy to assume your workplace is open and inclusive. But, if you don’t have diverse talent applying to your positions, being hired, or staying and moving up in your startup, it’s time to take a deeper look at your culture and how you can make it more inclusive. You could be missing the chance to hire great talent without even knowing it.

At the end of the day, money is great but, getting to work on cool innovative projects, avoiding corporate politics and bureaucracy, and actually working in an inclusive environment is way better. Sadly, there are a lot less companies that can offer this than you may think. Build a company like this and the developers will come.

Chinese startups are being starved of venture capital — which should worry the West

Through the centuries, China’s entrepreneurs accessed finance from family and friends through social networks known as guanxi . Even after the communist revolution, these networks helped to propagate a thriving small business sector that invested in local services and basic manufactured goods.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, when President Deng Xiaoping started to open up the economy, it didn’t take long to rekindle the innate entrepreneurial spirit that saw China’s traders conquer the old Silk Road. Following the ascendance of tech juggernauts Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, coupled with later market liberalizations , there has been an explosion of both local and western venture capitalists eager to find the next generation of Chinese unicorns .

China now has the largest venture capital market in Asia, second only to the US worldwide. This is all the more extraordinary given that the communist Chinese constitution did not formally recognize the legitimacy of private enterprise until 1988.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this vitally important source of finance for entrepreneurs was always likely to be under serious threat. Unlike banks, which can make decisions about business lending using automated credit scoring, venture capitalists and angel investors rely on meeting entrepreneurs face to face to judge whether their start-ups are investable.

Because China was the first country to be adversely affected by COVID-19, we decided to examine how this sector has been affected. This, we hoped, would help gauge what is likely to be happening to other economies now in economic meltdown. The results are not pretty.

What we found

We discovered that since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, there has been a dramatic decrease in aggregate levels of investors taking stakes in new businesses. Across the full spectrum of venture capital, from investments in brand new companies to those that are already profitable, we found a 60% decline in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019.

To put this into perspective, this is three times the size of the decrease during the global financial crisis of 2007-09. Some estimate that if a drop like this were to happen globally, approximately US$28 billion (£23 billion) in start-up funding could be lost.

When we looked at seed-stage investments – those typically dominated by the smallest and youngest start-ups – they almost totally disappeared in China during the first quarter of the year. There were fewer than 20 deals in total, representing an 86% reduction year on year. In other words, start-ups during this crisis have been all but starved of new finance.

China seed-stage funding 2015-20

The sectors that benefit most from seed funding in China are education, e-commerce, media and entertainment, healthcare and AI/robotics. Most of the money comes from local Chinese investors, and this is probably a good barometer of the areas of the economy worst affected by the crisis – education and entertainment above all.

In contrast, larger later-stage venture capital deals are being less adversely affected. This may be because many deals are funded by investors that are foreign-owned, often from places only hit by the pandemic later in the quarter. Significant foreign-owned investors include Sequoia of the US, Japan’s Softbank and the UK’s Baillie Gifford , as well as sovereign funds like the Qatar Investment Authority .

We also examined which areas in China were most negatively affected. Traditionally, entrepreneurial finance was concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, though in recent years, investors spread their nets across the country. Now, however, there appears to be a worrying retrenchment. Some provinces seeing the greatest decreases in investment are the same ones worst affected by the virus – Hubei, Zhejian and Hunan.

Worst affected provinces, Q1 2020 vs Q1 2019

The UK situation

The UK relies more on venture capital than most European countries, so our Chinese data begs important questions about what is happening closer to home. From our analysis, we detect a marked drop in entrepreneurial finance in the first quarter of 2020. Like China, the youngest and smallest start-ups are the ones most affected by the crisis, though other stages of the investment process have been hit too.

UK seed funding, 2015-20

From the chart above, the number of seed-funding transactions in the UK actually halved between the first quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2020. It could be that this was initially due to uncertainties caused by Brexit, then accentuated by the pandemic.

We can safely assume that the figures for the second quarter of 2020 will show further dramatic declines. The uncertainty suffocating entrepreneurial activity in the UK has already had a massive impact on the economy. Early figures show that the number of firms going bankrupt in March was 70% higher than the same month last year, while registrations of start-ups fell by a quarter. Clearly this crisis is unlike any in modern times.

The UK government has just launched a suite of support packages including the £500 million Future Fund and a £750 million fund to target support for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Importantly, these schemes depend on co-investments between the private sector and the public sector, which may mitigate the declines in private equity investment. But as long as venture capitalists and business angels are unable to physically meet up with entrepreneurs, this kind of finance is likely to continue to be thin on the ground.

This article is republished from The Conversation by Ross Brown , Professor in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Finance, University of St Andrews and Augusto Rocha , Research Fellow in Entrepreneurship and Technology Exploitation, University of St Andrews under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .