Below, you’ll find the script of a video covering the pluses and minuses of startup versus corporate environments. In our view, we’re exactly in the middle, with benefits from both worlds. So let’s dig in & see what our people behind the people have to say.
This is the first of a video series covering our HR processes, our mantras and our modus operandi here at Bytex.
Veronica: ‘Whether we’re speaking of product or outsourcing companies or anything in between, such as staff augmentation, they all can fall into one of two categories: startup or corporate.
Hi, i’m Veronica, i’m part of the HR team at Bytex.
Today we’re going to understand each of their pros and cons from an employee’s point of view, which will hopefully help you decide whether you’re a good fit for our team.
But before we’re going to dig deeper into that, we’d like to point out that each of these is a perfectly natural development phase of a company, and while they do bring different advantages and challenges to the table, they can also be found intertwined into medium sized companies (such as ours, wink wink).
Let’s dig in! Startups come with some classical advantages that are pretty hard to deny:
First and foremost, they provide a very flexible environment, where you can evolve along with the company and work on a meaningful project whose impact you’re going to see growing and amplifying along with your experience. It’s a wonderful thing to witness, the growth of something that you’re a part of.
Of course, given the limited resources of a startup, more experienced developers will be the staff of choice – as it’s much easier to innovate and to create a bigger impact once you’ve got some years of experience to help you navigate the muddy waters of development.
As a senior, a great advantage is that your word can weigh a lot and it can help significantly change things from the inside.
If you’re lucky enough to be one of (the most likely few) entry or mid teammates, you’re in for a treat – ahead of you lies a super opportunity for fast development because of the alert pace at which the company is evolving. It’s all natural here as well, and being dynamic is part of the hype.
If it needs mentioning, there will be a form of organization – startups are not the anarchic society they’re often painted out to be, but they’re not overprocessualized since being flexible and quick on their feet is one of their top priorities at this stage of development.
This translates into the flexibility and internal mobility of employees as well – if you’re looking to occupy a dynamic position, the energy of a startup is definitely something you might enjoy. It comes with lots of added perks in this direction, such as less micro management, smaller teams and generally a very visible team effort in any direction.
It’s also easier to celebrate victories and to keep morale high in this informal setting, where you’re much more easily observed, and performance is always praised.
Plus, being a part of the team has a literal component to it as well, as some of the startups offer stock option plans. These are a form of employee shared ownership, where people from the team typically acquire shares through an option plan vested for a number of years (in our case 4 years). They’re super suitable in startup environments because they’re very good motivators for the team. A stock that is worth $1 now, can be worth 50 times more in a couple of years, and the results of people’s involvement in the company growth are equally profitable for them as well. This sends the message that they’re part of the things they build.
Moving on to corporate, while more mature companies are perceived as a more impersonal workplace, they too have their own associated benefits that are worth taking into account:
Not every rule is a bad one. In a professional setting, it’s often quite the opposite. Having hundreds or thousands of employees with different cultural backgrounds, lifestyles and values can get very messy very easily. This is why corporations are places where the rules and procedures are a little more formal, in an attempt to keep harmony among very different people whose only commonality sometimes is working together. Done properly, it’s a healthy way of managing workplace dynamics.
On the salary side, there are definitely more benefits working in a corporation – the company is bigger, which means that it’s sustainable enough to pay more, but it also means that it gets very good deals in terms of extra perks packages, because of the purchase volume. And this applies to everything, from healthcare to having a PS5 at the office or a Google-like culture that we’re so acquainted with.
As opposed to startups, where there’s always a degree of uncertainty in everything (and by that we mean more than the *universal* uncertainties we live with), corporations have a clear general development direction set up for them, which every department works to actively enforce.
One other advantage would be that even corporations have some divisions with smaller teams, where people have more autonomy on their everyday workloads. However, even in these cases many processes and technologies can be older, as it’s almost impossible to change technologies that would slow down thousands of people at once.
If you’re the type of person who takes pride in being associated with a popular name, definitely there’s a benefit there. More brand recognition can mean many things, but for you as an employee it means that you can pitch yourself as being from this or that renowned company.
The security of a routine and a better work-life balance have to be mentioned as well. As corporations are overly processualized companies, it’s much easier to establish and maintain a pattern of work that’s predictable. However, if you’re looking for a little thrill from time to time and you find yourself searching for adrenaline in what you’re doing, things might get a little dull after a while.
Now that we’ve established that there are different advantages associated with both startups and corporations, let us talk to you about Bytex. We’re between one and two hundred employees, which makes us a very balanced combination of the two – we’ve got bigger and smaller teams, both with their own processes. We pride ourselves on being devoted to people culture, and one of the most important things our employees mention in the annual brand health survey is that people are one of the main motivators to work at Bytex.
We’re a staff augmentation company, which means that we’re offering two services:
- Teams of specialists to complement the existing teams of our customers
- As well as knowledgeable expertise when it comes to project and team management, as our people have already worked together and know to function like clockwork.
Also, over 95% of our colleagues would consider recommending us as an employer to their friends, one of the benefits of being in between startup versus corporate.
So check us out, see what we’re about and maybe let’s have a talk! Promise we’ll never ask where you think you’ll be in 5 years, so what have you got to lose?’
