The 5 success factors of smartive

It's 5:52, the first coffee has been drunk. The brain is slowly waking up and thinks: What is today? Ah yes. Cool. And it tells the mouth: You could pull the ends up right now! I smile because I'm very proud of where we are today with smartive and how far we've come. We have been on the road for almost 10 years - always with the aim of becoming the best employer. We want people to feel comfortable and have fun here.

That's how I've been since the beginning. I can count the mornings on which I wasn't motivated to work on one hand. And there are good reasons for that.

Hiring the right people

The people have to be right for it to work. We now have 26 smart people working for us and every single one of them contributes to our success. We follow the principle that we don't look for people on demand. We hire those who fit in with us. Even if we may not be able to put them to productive use or utilize their full capacity immediately.

For me, this is one of the most important tasks in a company. You have to make time for it. You should also constantly reflect on yourself and adapt and improve the process where there is still potential.

Only three people have left us since the start - so something is going right 🙂

Making decisions in the right place

For us, it is important that decisions are made where they have an impact. There is no need for management to decide whether server A or server B should be purchased after an employee's pitch deck. There is also no need for the CEO to decide whether the ski day should take place in Arosa or Zermatt and whether it should be a 3- or 4-star hotel. On the contrary: unnecessary overhead leads to resentment.

There are also more important decisions that don't involve a franc amount. Thilo has explained how this works in detail (and it works really well!) in the Blog post "New Work & Innovation - The Advice Process" described.

Focus on transparency

All of our employees know how much money we have and how our assets are developing. In my view, the important thing is that you don't have to ask anyone for this information, you just have to call up a dashboard. It is the basis for making decisions: "Can we afford to buy furniture for CHF 15,000?" - everyone should be able to answer this question. Of course, you can consult the Finance role for advice, which will help you make a decision. But you don't have to.

Wages are also openly visible. The ratio between the lowest and highest salary within our company is 1.6. There is nothing to hide. Moreno has already described this in detail: "The matter of money: putting wages into a formula"

Defining common values

It is important to have the same basis for making decisions. That way we avoid unnecessary discussions about principles. To be honest, it took a lot of time and effort to identify the values and put them into words - but it's worth it. What is also worthwhile is getting external help.

We have agreed on the following five values:

• The well-being of our employees is more important to us than profit.
• We trust each other because we all strive for the best solution.
• We are constantly learning new things and are always asking ourselves how we can do our work even better.
• We actively ask for advice and take the time to help.
• We give everyone the freedom to develop and encourage individual skills.

This makes it easy to decide whether we want to afford a code retreat or prefer to pay out the CHF 10,000 as a bonus.

Involving employees in the company and its success

Well, things are going well. We are in the black and making a profit. And it is not the management that has earned this money, but the employees who are responsible for our success. What does that mean in concrete terms? In the last three years, over 50% of the company's profit has gone directly to employees as a bonus. That can be as much as 2-3 months' wages.

And shareholdings? Yes, we have that too and it's important to us. After a year at smartive, you have the opportunity to participate. If you receive your bonus in the form of shares, you even get 20% on top, as we appreciate it when employees believe in us (and in themselves 😊). The shares remain in the company by means of a pre-emptive right - this is ensured by a so-called shareholders' agreement.

All of this helps us to create a place where we really enjoy working. And that is one of the most important things. Because our customers, our environment and we ourselves feel that.

We are also happy to receive further tips, discuss or write about topics in more detail. We look forward to your feedback.