How employee engagement helps a startup overcome the hurdles of attrition

You’d think that someone tasked with building up a team and keep employee engagement high on an exponential scale in a candidate short market, one with long lead times, could be a bit tense or guarded. Yet Nina Khorasanee, lead recruiter of the Berlin-based start-up Relocately, couldn’t be further from it. Bright, nimble, open and grateful, she seems genuinely charged by the formidable task.  

Engaged with Customers

Relocately’s lofty goals include blending technology and world class service to ease magnificent stress of international moves. The company’s origins lie in the old world approach, with founding member Georg Königsmann’s being a veritable brand in his own right, having grown up in his family’s relocation business.

At the time of this interview, Relocately’s team has grown to more than 30 people. Back in October 2016, just three people sitting around a kitchen table started the business, sensing both tremendous neglect and tremendous potential in the market. They noticed that other ventures were intent on buying up assets that would only depreciate, and were focused mostly on domestic moves. Their background gave them a springboard.

The founders were inspired to modernize the industry, and not just by slapping a cleaner interface on an old world back end. Utilizing Königsmann’s extensive knowledge and network, the company could skip the phase of learning everything from scratch and go directly to the source: partner with specialists in the field who have 20 or 30 years of expertise, enabling excellent customer service from the get-go.

“Instead of trying to learn everything from scratch, why don’t we partner with people who are specialized and  have been doing this for the last 20, 30 years. We can partner with really strong partners and still be able to provide excellent service to our customers.”

The hands on service minded approach is woven into everything they do. Relocation is traditionally a very analog world, built on long-term relationships and a network of people with a deep knowledge of their local market. Finding the best balance of tech to these esteemed partners is yet another way of keeping the end user in mind.

“We were looking to influence how our partners work. We’re handing them applications that we make and say ‘ Hey, why don’t you try this?  I think this will work a lot better for you.’ We are on the back end working to influence how our partners work to create efficiencies that the customers don’t see. But it’s the stuff we are super excited about”.

So how to build out a team that can handle such daunting work? 

A Culture of Employee Engagement

“I would say our culture is very open. We welcome a lot of feedback. We action that feedback and we’re just very communicative. It’s something that I am proud about,” Nina offers.

Relocately’s interview process relies heavily on culture fit. Not just with the overall culture of the company, but drilling down even further into the culture of specific teams.

“Especially on the account managers side, the bulk of the interviews are taking place with account managers, with the team leases of account management who are also working with clients individually. So [candidates] are not meeting people who don’t have a strong sense of our departmental culture. So with all our interviews, you’re really just interviewing with people from those teams and from that department.  And I think that really helps because you know specifically the kind of cultural fit that you’re looking for on your team. And at every point in the interview process, we are always interviewing for culture. Some companies have a specific cultural interview and the rest will be based on other specific topics like their sales or this or that. But for us, culture questions are asked by everyone who participates. All of our interviewers are asking ‘How do you work with teams?’ and ‘Describe the circumstance’, trying to dig that out of them. We do it at every step of the process.”

Startups have notorious attrition rates because different employees are attracted to different phases of growth. A person who scores high on innovation might be really charged to get the enterprise off the ground in the beginning, but may not feel so as the team expands and more structured procedures are implemented. Inevitably, employee engagement goes down. At Relocately, the trope doesn’t hold true.

“Account managers are the ones doing the sales. They are the ones who do all of the customer contact and relations. And normally, it’s departments like these that have the highest amounts of turnover. And for us that’s not the case.”

Berlin’s Tech Scene

On the tech side, the search for talent in Germany is just as tight as in any other hub. A common tactic among larger startups is going above market to attract people from the US who are accustomed to earning a lot more than average incomes in Berlin. Early stage startups are not often able to compete with bigger players in this way for local talent.

“I always have the expectation, and now it’s pretty clear to everyone that finding talent in Berlin is very rare. So it’s probably just easier to start your search internationally,” Nina says, adding,” for us to go to Argentina, or eastern parts of Europe, find top talents and pick people who are just phenomenal at their jobs, but are maybe not looking for six figures.”

Berlin’s tech scene is very much in transition, accelerating to boom status owing to lenient visa policies, low overhead and political discord within the EU.

After the Brexit vote of 2016, Germany’s Democratic Party hired a van to circle the streets of London with the taunt “Dear start-ups, Keep calm and move to Berlin.”  Local lore has held that a startup business is being founded in Berlin every 20 minutes, and the city is ranked the 2nd best place in the world to launch a startup according to entrepreneur.com.

While the scene is still young, the way organizations are run reflects a universal sophistication with regards to the talent. Local startup practices reflect the larger global standard. Dwindling talent pools are an international phenomenon. Employee engagement is viewed as a best practice when it comes to productivity and fending off poaching and attrition.

“Employee engagement is extremely important and there is a huge emphasis on keeping your team motivated. You can see that in your business. I think it is really easy to prove that this is something that needs to be taken seriously here and because employees are expecting it, this is just the norm. So if you don’t, there’s 100 other companies who will be able to provide a better environment than yours."

In addition to all hands meetings that thrive on candor, the Relocately team takes pains to follow up personally at any sign of demotivation.

“In my experience, when there are a lot of changes going on, you definitely see it in morale,” Nina admits. “So when you notice, you have to take action. And have to go, “Okay, what’s up? Let’s have a cup of coffee. Let’s have a talk, and let’s figure out this next move. We recognize that you need to address this as quickly as possible, otherwise it will affect people’s performance.”

Relocately’s expansion shows no signs of slowing down. Nina lists further expansion in France, intra-European moves and broadening services in Latin markets as on the radar, as well as continuing to build partnerships in countries they already have a presence in. The entirety of the interview was laced with words like luck, fortune, and thankful, the kind of humility that one doesn’t necessarily expect from a startup with an exploding growth pattern. If the company’s incredibly positive customer feedback is any indication, nice guys don’t have to finish last.

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