Company Culture: How we improved it by learning from our mistakes

This year, for the first time ever, we ranked Number One on the Best Places to Work list put out annually by the Ottawa Business Journal, a business publication in our home city of Ottawa.

I am proud of this achievement for two reasons.

The first is that the ranking is created largely through employee engagement surveys; in other words, employees have a major say in the results. (In-depth employer questionnaires are also considered.)

The second is that we struggled for a while with our eNPS, or employee net promoter score, which measures employee satisfaction. Our eNPS rating has since improved, which is another reason we’re at the top of Best Places to Work list.

I want to talk here about how correcting some mistakes in our approach got us to the top of the Best Places to Work list – and how improving our work culture is helping us grow.

The mistakes

The mistakes grew out of desire to grow quickly when we got our A-series funding a few years ago. I chalk them up to my own lack of experience.

There are six mistakes that I want to highlight:

1. I hired managers who weren’t the right fit
2. I completely removed myself from the hiring process too early
3. We didn’t act on employee concerns quickly enough
4. We terminated people too quickly
5. We didn’t communicate as effectively as we could to employees
6. When hiring, we touted our perks, not our values

1. I hired managers who were a bad fit

We’ve always been clear we wanted to build a strong corporate culture based on values like leading with transparency, keeping things simple and getting sh*t done. (I blogged about our early efforts a few years ago.)

Our culture started to go downhill when I hired the wrong leaders. Some of the people I brought in weren’t fully aligned with our core values, and others didn’t have the right skill sets for what we needed at the time.

I made those hires because we were growing fast and needed people quickly — and I didn’t fully understand what I needed in leadership yet. In many cases, it wasn’t their fault; it was mine.

I’ve since learned that strong leaders raise the bar for everyone around them. They attract great people, set clear expectations, and build trust within the team. When leadership standards slip, it affects the entire organization — performance drops, alignment fades, and frustration grows on all sides.

To correct it, we had to make some tough decisions and realign the team around our values. Today, I’m proud of where we are — a group that’s focused, motivated, and ready to build what’s next.

2. I got out of the hiring process too early

Once we started growing and I had hired some managers, I figured I could withdraw from the hiring and recruitment process.

In retrospect, I see that not only did I pull out too soon, I also pulled out too far.

I guess I was naïve. I just trusted the new managers I had hired.

Before giving them my trust, I should have spent time with them calibrating expectations and aligning on core values and what we were looking for in job candidates.

And I should have done job interviews with them, at least at the start.

Making sure you are on the same wave length in this regard is very hard; I find it very difficult to put into words what I’m looking for in people.

But the more interviews you do with your management team, the more you align – until eventually you almost know instinctively, without speaking, whether a candidate works or not.

Only when you are fully calibrated can you let the managers handle the interview and recruitment process on their own.

Our early hiring mistakes were very painful for me; I still have some PTSD about the whole thing.

I’m now back in the hiring process, at least for senior hires and customer-facing roles.

By the way, I think there are some advantages to having the CEOs be part of the team interviewing people for jobs. It shows the candidates that you care about your culture, and it gives them the chance to meet you before they start. I have people now who are telling me I should further remove myself from hiring, but I just think it is too important.

3. We didn’t act on employee concerns quickly enough

A company’s eNPS rating says a lot about how employees feel.

Our rating started out high, but it dropped significantly when we were having our hiring issues. To get it back up we had to respond to the concerns employees were raising. Our mistake was not responding quickly enough.

We’re now back on track.

We fully share eNPS results with employees, we take note of any concerns that come up, and we act on them.

We’re also better at talking to employees to see how things are going. This provides better feedback than just relying on performance assessments.

Because about 40 per cent of our staff work outside Ottawa, we have also really improved our efforts to make remote workers feel included.

We have a number of employees in places like Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal. If we do an employee activity in Ottawa, we try our best to organize similar activities for our employees in those cities.

And Sarah Crandlemire, our Senior Director, People Ops, chairs a culture committee that helps build and maintain our corporate culture. That committee really helps keep remote employees engaged.

Business leaders don’t create a company’s culture; the employees do. A CEO can only shepherd things along by creating the conditions for a great culture to emerge and by leading by example. We’re doing that now by addressing employee concerns.

4. We terminated people too quickly

I’ve always heard it said that if you’re going to terminate someone, it’s best to do it quickly. Hire slow, fire fast they say.

But the termination shouldn’t come as a complete surprise to the person being let go.

We moved too fast for a while.

Instead of quick terminations, we now give problematic employees a performance improvement plan. It lets them know their job is on the line if specific things don’t improve. Radical candor is a blessing in this case, because it lets everyone know exactly where they stand.

5. We didn’t communicate properly

We were not clear enough with employees about certain fundamentals, for example our vision for the company, our strategy, our goals, and the things we are driving toward.

This is something managers need to share with employees. And employees need to know that if they aren’t clear on any of these things, they should ask.

We’re doing a lot better with all of this now.

6. We touted our perks, not our values

As I noted in a blog on Knak’s 10th anniversary, in an effort to recruit staff when workers were in short supply in 2022, we emphasized the perks we were offering instead of pitching to people with the right skills and mindset. As a result, we attracted people interested in the perks, not our mission.

We’ve now changed our approach.

Instead of trying to attract as many applicants as possible, we focus on trying to attract people who share our values. Instead of highlighting how many vacation days Knak offers, we stress that we value hard work and smart people.

It’s made a difference.

A strong culture leads to better performance

Now that we’ve corrected our mistakes, Knak is in a much better place.

First of all, we can attract better talent. It’s easier to recruit now that we’re recognized as a great place to work.

Second, I think our stronger culture is behind our recent successes.

We’re having our best year ever financially. Is it because our employees are more satisfied? I think so. I believe it’s no coincidence that the years we’ve appeared on the Best Places to Work list (this is the first year we’re on top) were our best years financially.

In other words, I think there is a 100% correlation between how happy your employees are and how well you do as a company.

Everything starts with culture. If your culture isn’t good, it’s harder to make good products, keep customers happy and grow.

Our challenge now is to keep our culture strong and healthy. We’ll face challenges as we grow, but I’m determined to keep things on track.

I just wish I’d known all of this five years ago!