India’s start-up sector has been booming despite a long-drawn out pandemic and immense uncertainty. As of June 30, 2022, over 72,993 start-ups have been registered by the Indian government, growing from just 471 in 2016. This presents a very encouraging picture for the startup ecosystem in India.

Seeing this opportunity, Binny Bansal, Saikiran Krishnamurthy and Neeraj Aggarwal founded xto10x with the aim of helping growth stage start-ups to scale simpler, faster, and more efficiently. The founders of the company possess a deep understanding of the challenges startup companies face – scaling, funding, and employee satisfaction.

Since inception, xto10x has worked with over 250 growth-stage start-ups across business design, organisation design and hiring, OKRs, people and culture, customer experience, operations, branding, and more.They surveyed over 50,000 employees across 150+ start-ups in a detailed culture study titled ‘Start-ups Employees Love (SEL).’ Seeking to understand what makes employees fulfilled at work, what their organisations excel at, and what needs focus/improvement, xto10x’s SEL survey reveals key aspects companies must not ignore when building a strong organizational culture.

An overview of xto10x’s survey

The SEL survey revealed a wide range in the key measure of employee happiness: the employee Net Promoter Score® (eNPS). eNPS is a way of measuring how employees feel about their company and the organisational culture on a scale of 1 to 10. High eNPS scores are an indication of high levels of employee satisfaction.

The survey found that eNPS ranged  from 97 to as low as -3, showing that while some have cracked the secret to employee happiness, there’s still some work to be done within the ecosystem.

Here are some other takeaways:

• Only 15% of companies surveyed scored over 70 on eNPS. The average for the majority of start-ups was 50-60, an indication that startups are headed in the right direction but there is scope for improvement.
• Teams are a company’s greatest asset, and its strongest competitive advantage Organisations that scaled beyond 100 employees saw a drop in eNPS scores – indicating a disconnect between the company mission and added layers of hierarchy leading to subcultures.
• There are always exceptions to the rule – Leegality, a document infrastructure platform for Indian businesses, achieved the highest eNPS of all startups surveyed: 97! They achieved this despite a 1.7x growth in size, by focusing on performance management, manifestos, and rewards.

The secrets to employee happiness: surveyed and confirmed

1. Managers can make a huge difference to morale

• The study measured the Managers Recommendation Index (MRX) – a metric that checks how likely an employee is to recommend their manager to their friends.
• As MRX declines, the overall eNPS also falls.
• 20% of managers had a negative MRX score.
• Issues like not valuing opinions, unfair treatment, lack of technical competency, and empathy were given as reasons for a low MRX score.

2.Employees with a sense of pride and belonging are happier 97% of employees surveyed were proud to be associated with their organizations becausethey resonated with the problems they were solving.

• Furthermore, 95% of employees trust their teams – showing a culture of support and growth.
• On the flipside, a decline in the “sense of pride” was also observed as startups scaled.
• Reasons for this include an inability to help employees visualize the impact of their roles, an absence of unique organizational identity, a lack of inclusivity, and stagnant career development paths.

3. Better balance is needed between work, life, and mental health

• Over 20% of startup employees feel that they completely lack work-life balance.
• Additionally, the lack of work-life balance negatively impacted their mental health, according to most respondents.
• When employees feel physically and mentally fatigued, their productivity levels drop significantly.
• Moreover, they are not happy at work, resulting in high attrition rates.
• The SEL study found that high work volumes, inefficient working methods, and unsatisfactory implementation of leave policies are common culprits in this problem.

4. Women in power make for happier companies 

• Companies that have more than 40% women in their leadership teams had a better eNPS  on average
• eNPS among women employees was a stark 18 points lower than men.
• Greater representation of women led to more inclusive policies, more role models for women in the system, and signalled a lack of gender-bias up the ladder.

5. Performance Management and Compensation influences happiness to some extent Close to 80% of startup employees felt adequately compensated for their efforts and contribution.

• Approximately 70% lauded people-friendly benefits at their workplaces.
• Start-ups who didn’t score highly in this area typically had outdated hike policies, poor
• ESOPs planning and communication around rewards, and lacked hygiene benefits like reimbursements and insurance.

6. Employees love it when their interests are valued over the company’s

• Nearly 85% of employees surveyed feel their organizations have employee-friendly policies that motivate them, but about 11% of employees in the ecosystem do not.
• Whether remote working or allowing afternoon naps, flexible employee-first policies contribute greatly to improving employee morale.
• There is a lack of internal parity of policies in startups. Different teams have different policies.Even logically designed policies that appear unfair on the surface can cause internal turmoil.

7.Fast and autonomous decision making can boost morale

• Over 15% employees feel their organisations have ineffective decision-making systems.
• 14% feel that they do not have autonomy to make decisions.
• Startups that rated low in this area suffered issues like slow decision-making processes, opaque decisions, prioritising short-term outcomes, and lack of empowerment.