Tech Capital Partners Blog

At Tech Capital the investment team looks at three main things when evaluating potential opportunities – team, technology and market opportunity. It seems obvious that team is important because even smart strategy can be replicated. For companies this means that people are the prime source of competitive advantage. Given people provide companies with competitive advantage, I think it makes sense to stop and consider employee engagement for a minute.

Employee Engagement in Growth Technology Companies

Thousands of dollars are being spent by corporations annually to define employee engagement strategies, measure engagement through employee surveys and other methods, and track how successful engagement programs are at achieving desired results.  It’s understandable given the positive impact an engaged workforce has on both productivity and financial results. Watson Wyatt’s Global WorkAttitudes research, confirms that “when engagement is high, so is financial performance”.

I was surprised when I read the results of a Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study that found, “just 21% of the employees surveyed around the world are engaged in their work, meaning they’re willing to go the extra mile to help their companies succeed”. All this said, one of the things I love about working with early stage or growth technology companies is the passion of the individuals that I have the opportunity to work with. Without spending money defining an engagement strategy, employees are committed, passionate, and engaged.

Engagement to me means employees are committed. They understand how their contribution has a positive impact on the organization, and they feel a real sense of making a difference in helping to build a successful organization.

My thoughts on some engagement ingredients:

• Exceptional Leadership – engagement is driven from the top down. Great leaders have the power to both empower and engage their employees. Enough said.
  
• Collaboration – there are many things that can help facilitate an environment of teamwork and collaboration. Considering things like ideal team size, ensuring teams don’t get too large and become counter productive. Facilitating good working relationships between team members and across work groups is important. Finally, trust is key – of course something that can only be nurtured, not demanded.
  
• Empowerment – fostering an environment that encourages team members to share ideas and come up with creative solutions to unique problems. It’s important to ensure that the sense of empowerment is real. If employees are given a false sense of empowerment, they will soon realize their ability to elicit change is not backed by the organization and they will be less likely to push to drive the organization forward.
• Tools / Resources – hire smart people that have passion for what you are trying to accomplish and fit within the culture of the organization, then give them the tools they need to accomplish the task at hand.

Then stand back!

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