With the city experiencing a start-up boom and the state itself involved in attempts to turn into an ‘enabler’, it was just a matter of time before the start-up ‘office culture’ triggered a trend.
Welcome to ‘offices on the move’ — there’s no 9-to-5, no casual Fridays and strictly no cubicles. There’s just one rule — there are no rules.
And gathered at T-Hub, founders of various start-ups told DC just how their work culture is now making a big impact in India. Paritosh Sharma, Head channel partnerships, PayUMoney says, “It’s the feeling of ownership people are working for. And there are no ego issues — in a start-up, people are very clear about their contributions and they trust each other completely. The only thing that matters is the deadline.”
The founders cite the example of Wordpress, which has people working from across 140 countries but with no office. “We are working with a start-up which has a team of four and their product is ready and live but all four key team members live in different cities. The work still goes on,” says Paritosh.
There’s also a turnaround in how they are approaching traditional office timings. “The question should be when do you get home?”, says Mohammed Abubakr, founder and CEO of bookmeds.com.
“An interesting trend on the rise is that no one is looking at experience or age anymore. For example, in my start-up most of the staff are older than me. So, you have to build a conducive environment where everyone is comfortable with each other. My marketing manager, who has 30 years of experience, can turn to me and say he’s been out on the field even before I was born. When they join start-ups, they don’t unlearn their skills, they unlearn the notion of working in a “company”.”
And Paritosh, whose company has over 800 employees, adds, “As a start-up grows a culture needs to be brought in place, with the start-up’s own core value is still in place. We are not really killing off HR. It’s just that there is no B-to-B or B-to-C... there’s just H-to-H — Human to Human.”
Then there’s the end of that ‘working week’. “There are no differences between the days,” says Varun Reddy, marketing manager of Zoomcar. “Staff look forward to a Monday as much as much as they look forward to a Friday. For example, if we have a rough day, you can be sure the evening will be all fun.”
Ahmed Kaludi, COO of Magazine3 says with a laugh, “Sometimes, we start work at 10am and sometimes, we start work at 10 in the night.” Rajat Shahi, founder and CEO of Hackmania and community manager at Zify explains: “Consider this, there’s no particular ‘bring your pet to work day’ because well, there’s no ‘don’t bring your pet to work day’. So, there are no rules like those. In fact, I mostly work over the phone. Even our programmer actually codes on his phone.”
Those wise words suggesting we keep professional and personal lives separate are also out of the window.
“Our business is personal,” says Abubakr. And Mohammed Kaludi, the CFO of Magazine3 says, “There’s an office rule that we eat lunch together.”
Paritosh has the best example to suggest how much of a change these start-ups are bringing to work culture in India. “Every 15 days, we ask the employee what they have done for both community and family. And this will count as we create relationships withing the company and beyond!”
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