Founding Operational Principles: Staff-First

We understand that success comes from our people, placing the interests of our staff as our core value driver. 

When we sat down,  we understood the success of our business was going to come through our people. 

We do complicated work.  

We solve complicated Data/ML Engineering problems. 

We’re also competing with top-end tech companies  like Amazon, Google and other notable high-end consultancy companies.

Because of this, it’s important that we’re well aware that we have to understand our people and do things differently. Hence this idea of a staff-first principle.

Of course, I don’t think this is unique to Teraflow. There are a number of companies that carry the banner of ‘staff-first’,  but what this means to us is placing our staff’s interests primarily as the core  value driver in the business.

It ensures that  we look after, empower and develop our staff to the right frameworks; to where they want to get to. 

We even put our customers second.   

Which is an important principle, because most organisations put their customers first. Often, allowing their customers to dictate how their staff need to behave.

We don’t think that this is the right way to do it. 

We believe that we need to be doing this the other way around. 

It goes without saying that solving our customers’ problems and creating value in our customers’ lives is essential,  but we also believe that staff that are truly engaged, that truly want to be where they are within the business and  doing work that they want to do is a highly important value driver.

Because when staff actually care  about the work and when they are deeply engaged, there’s value that gets created for  everyone in the system.

It’s a symbiotic relationship that translates into a win-win-win scenario. 

By putting our staff first and our customer second, we’ve changed the model.

We cannot put one individual staff member above any other staff member. 

That’s why it needs to be done within the interests of the collective.   

It’s an interesting philosophical framework to look at between the collective and the individual and the individual and the collective.

To make it work, we balance these two factors. 

That way, it helps us manage our culture. It helps us drive the way forward. It ensures that there’s a consensus amongst us as founders and the broader staff in terms of how we treat and engage with each other.

Have any questions or thoughts? Please drop me a message

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