SANA COMMERCE

Q: How can a great workplace culture contribute to organisational performance?
A: Sana Commerce was established with the objective of being a great place to work. We were aware of what creates such an environment and set about establishing a unique culture that led to the formation of a high-performance workforce. With teams spanning five different continents, a lot of effort has gone into keeping it this way.

Our core values form the compass for creating a great culture at Sana and that’s what holds the organisation together while creating a sense of belonging amongst employees. The workplace ethos not only helps our organisational performance but also promotes innovation. As a result, we are able to attract high quality candidates and retain top talent. We also encourage our workers to continuously learn and perform.

Sana’s culture is evolving and we feel that everyone should always be their best selves; and all of this begins with our roadmap to success.

Q: In your opinion, what are the main components of a great workplace?
A: Trust and transparency are fundamental to a great workplace. And in order to build trust there needs to be a greater level of transparency. Decisions are made as a team and the decision makers evaluate and heed employees’ suggestions before implementing new strategies.

Further, we attempt to maintain a homely and passionate work environment. Opportunities are limitless to those who wish to motivate themselves to hone and showcase their talents. The management takes measures to discover any hidden talents of employees and helps them in their career advancement.

Sana also encourages employees to capitalise on their newly unearthed talents and passions by pursuing a career path that suits their capabilities rather than stagnating in their roles.

In short, we don’t believe that we’ve enlisted generic employees. Sana Commerce is the home of future leaders and it is the organisation’s objective to help them move to the next level.

Q: How have workplaces and their cultures changed in the last two years in the wake of the pandemic?
A: The strongest pillar of Sana’s work culture is the capacity to face challenges. COVID-19 ignited the rapid evolution of the work model within the company; and with the shift to working from home, our team proactively increased ownership of their roles to drive and maintain an efficient and productive workflow.

Working from home has always been an option at Sana and during the pandemic, a hundred percent of our operations were conducted remotely. We provided remote access infrastructure for our entire workforce even though it was not easy.

A homely and open culture has always been a part of our operational formula and this enriching ethos was transformed into the hybrid work model, which Sana follows even today. We continued online recruitment to source the best talent and brought on board interns from across the country. Monthly trainings, online celebrations and team outings were conducted while we cultivated new practices in the industry.

The management strongly believes in creating new approaches and methods to take care of employees, as well as retaining the finest talent in the industry by implementing its best practices.

Q: In your view, what is meant by a culture of innovation and how can this be instilled in the workplace?
A: Our culture of innovation goes beyond our technical spectrum and can be seen every day in each and every part of the workplace. Even though we are a tech-savvy, we believe that an innovative culture begins and ends with our innovation team as they find solutions to emerging problems.

The employees in our think tank are engaged in generating ideas and finding solutions in response to problems identified through our forums and discussions. They are hired to promote a growth mindset while the rest of the business has other issues to focus on. Our core values encompass being entrepreneurial, results driven, customer-centric and having a team spirit and learning mindset.

Our workers play fundamental roles and we place special emphasis on the ownership aspect. Entrepreneurship comes with innovation and since there are multiple solutions to a single problem, it takes a brilliant mind to discover the ideal resolution.

We believe that our team is geared to provide solutions to problems rather than linger on them indecisively. They are accustomed to stepping out of their comfort zones to do what the situation dictates.

Sana is moving to a tech driven organisational structure that creates an innovative environment and generates greater employee satisfaction. It is striving to achieve organisational goals that lead to the creation of a robust workplace culture.

– Compiled by Isanka Perera

Telephone 5115588  |  Email info@sana-commerce.lk  |  Website www.sana-commerce.lk