Q: How important is employee engagement in nurturing a forward-thinking workplace culture?
A: Fostering a great workplace culture has been our main priority from the beginning since it creates a successful business. Happy employees produce high quality services and solutions, not only in the present but over the long term as well.

A stressed and burnt-out team causes myriad issues for the organisation, which can be prevented by ensuring that the staff is content. Moreover, it’s essential that these initiatives continue to evolve to suit the changing needs of employees and adapt to the present situation.

What worked yesterday might not work out tomorrow. For example, the pandemic has showed that it’s not possible to rely on past methods and expect them to fulfil employees.

Overall, our commitment to employee engagement pushes us to constantly ask ourselves how we can become even better, and design a more attractive, healthy and sustainable workplace in the future.

Q: In what ways can a great workplace culture contribute to Ascentic’s performance?
A: A great workplace culture and company performance are interrelated.

We form teams of great people and consultants who assist our customers. If these employees are stressed, exhausted or unhappy with what they’re doing, it will have a direct impact on the quality of their work.

Therefore, we ensure that our people are allocated tasks they find interesting. We’re mindful of their workload and encourage a healthy work-life balance as these are vital to enhancing employee performance.

Q: What are the main lessons you have learnt from participating in the Great Place to Work Sri Lanka survey?
A: We gained a broader perspective of what makes a better workplace. It showed us that most often, we have a limited view and consider only a few aspects of a great workplace; but this survey helped us realise that it encompasses more elements.

It has inspired us to push beyond our existing paradigms to transform into a great workplace and at the same time, garner recognition for how we’re investing in this direction.

Q: And what is the role of senior management in promoting an open and engaging culture to attract gen Z employees?
A: Senior management plays a huge role in this aspect – especially with the younger generation of workers.

We can prompt our employees to communicate anything they consider to be important but unless the company leaders and team managers act out and live these values, they will remain meaningless.

Therefore, we need to instil this philosophy when grooming our next level leadership so that they’re aware of the type of workplace we envision. This applies to recruitment as well.

The management team has to actively encourage and welcome new ideas and suggestions, regardless of who they are from – even if they originate from a junior level team member. We aim to cultivate this mindset in our leadership training.

Q: Could you briefly outline how companies and their cultures have evolved since the pandemic began?
A: The pandemic has been a great challenge for any organisation; but for us, the changes in workplace practices made no difference since we’ve been following a flexible work from home (WFH) policy since the beginning.

This means the tools, processes and practices that enable a WFH model were already in place. However, restrictions on meeting each other and the lack of social interactions are the downsides of the pandemic.

We’ve been reinventing our methods for interactions in such a manner that people feel connected and continue to engage with their colleagues outside the work setting – viz. online games for a virtual environment to meet and have a little fun to make up for not being able to be physically present in the office.

Given this, we were extremely pleased and even slightly surprised to find out that the trust index for our organisation increased this year compared to the results from 2020. We are excited to learn that we’ve grown despite the adjustments the pandemic brought about. This means that our methods are working!

Q: How can a culture of trust and transparency improve business?
A: Our company is passionate about this subject and even has it as a topic of discussion at our webinar sessions. We need to nurture a system to ensure the various perspectives of our employees are heard and valued.

Hailing from various backgrounds and parts of society, we have team members with different mindsets in the company. We won’t gain the entire benefit of hiring brilliant minds if we don’t seek their inputs. When we collectively seek a solution, we gain a wider representation of society.

For example, software engineering is a complex arena with numerous tools, techniques and approaches. So hearing both the juniors’ (some of whom will have tried out the most recent methods) and seniors’ (who are likely to have knowledge related to a wide range of technologies) inputs, and combining them, makes for more solid decision making.

Placing everyone’s views on the table helps us weigh our options and make well-rounded decisions.

To make this a reality, we need to cultivate an environment where everyone feels confident enough to contribute their ideas. This requires an atmosphere of trust and inclusion, and will result in better performance.

INTERVIEWEE DETAILS
Anna Kalm
Co-founder
CEO
Patrik Alm
Co-founder
Chief of Happiness
COMPANY DETAILS
Telephone:2870183
Email:hello@ascentic.se
Website:www.ascentic.lk