Heavily financed start-up struggling to establish its product // company culture // working environment
Was macht dein Arbeitgeber in Corona-Zeiten gut?
Motivational top management is examplatory. Technology is awesome. Technical home office setup for all ready (but got limited to 1 day/week before Covid breakout...). Besides that, lately, the course of how things went in the tech team, there are really not many positive things.
Was macht dein Arbeitgeber in Corona-Zeiten nicht gut?
Strategic changes seem to be made without any (valid) consulting of the department/team in question. C-level management is too alike, there seem no productive controversy anymore (and it always seem that there was never a really productive one). Communication and transparency of situation and decisions is very filtered. Decisions that should be taken in one department seem to be taken by another department. Insurance people and tech folks are rather spreading more and more from each other than moving together. Showing real and valid career opportunities to people.
Was sollte dein Unternehmen in Corona-Zeiten (anders) machen?
A startup must be agile and change its focus/scope. However there should be some shades of grey and not only black&white solutions for as good as everything in the company. Management needs more transparency, again, it rather moves into top-down ruling and informing on their decisions. Finding the strategy that is really wanted to go with but talking to your people (it's still feasible, there are <60 left).
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Usually friendly and fun relation to most people. However, continuous feeling of 1.5 years momentum of "we're on the edge of win or fail right now" followed by open announcements that "there was no real pressure yet..." does not yield in a truly positive atmosphere. Lately it felt like people were "recommended" to leave if they're not ready for the situation.
Kommunikation
Struggling to get transparency into the company and the teams, especially in tech team a change of the management turned open, transparent communication into top-down micro-management.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Speaking mostly for the Tech team, there is a strong feeling of helping and supporting each other - especially witting the older folks. However, when I left I had the feeling that the new management tries to split this feeling and shield newer people from it.
Work-Life-Balance
For a start-up, it's been fair - more work intense periods but usually no permanent very very late evening work, also eg Parental leave was to my understanding granted to all who requested but as it's a startup with very seldom equivalent backup for the responsibilities and tasks once on leave.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
High expectations have been going with the company ever since, mostly top management and managers struggle to transfer this into positive actions except motivational speeches and public company representation. Strategic planning is reversed and adjusted too often, quarterly OKRs are forgotten once written, management is hick-jacking between complete laissez-faire and micro-management. From the beginning a lack of trust and respect from top management people (eg humiliation in all-hands meeting a la "Don't you all have no pride?!").
Interessante Aufgaben
In the past years building all from scratch was very interesting, very up-to-date technologies and stack, also insurance as a product is very complex and interesting. But it mainly depends on which area of responsibility you were assigned to.
Gleichberechtigung
In theory and communication highly equal employer, however my feeling was always that most male believe to be superior over their female counterparts. In general female lead positions are rather underrepresented in counting.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
There is only one guys ~50 and very few 40+, I believe. However, these folks are treated like anyone else.
Arbeitsbedingungen
After moving into an office with natural sunlight, the environment became way better. Equipment has been great, especially for tech. However, there are rumours to ban Linux for dev... startup perks like drinks, fruits, breakfast bar.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Separation of garbage and a product features to donate parts of the revenue. Nothing extra-ordinary but more then regular.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Salary in the tech team is rather below raising Berlin market prices. Also with a shadow shift that seem to aim on getting rather cheaper personal in other locations. For other departments, I am unaware of the salary level. Perks are regular pension schema, health app, regular (but increased) number of holidays, stock options (that seem only beneficial to the very first folks), nothing that substantially pops the payment.
Image
Fresh image of a new, digital, cool brand. Wearing the company hoody I've got recognised, positively recognised, several times when being off-line interacting with the products' target groups.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Personal growth plan was rolled-out, stopped, re-initiated aka no constant plan... Very few people get promoted to positions with a real change (and stay much longer). In my entire time I was not able to join any external educational event like conferences (paid by the company) while business people seemed to constantly go to such.