Startup Founders Share Their Secret Sauce Of Keeping Employees Motivated The problem of retaining employees has been accentuated due to paucity of funds, thanks to the ongoing funding winter

This is an era of the Great Resignation and 'quite quitting', and so it becomes all the more important for startups to keep their employees motivated. The problem of retaining employees has been accentuated due to paucity of funds, thanks to the ongoing funding winter.

"Even during difficult times, founders need to take the right decisions to make everyone feel connected," said Ruchi Kalra, co-founder, OfBusiness, speaking at the India Internet Day event organized by TiE Delhi NCR on Friday. She added that even if the common goal of the company is stable, even if the path changes in between, employees will remain with the company.

Discussing challenges faced by leaders during turbulent times, founders agreed that it is important to keep the vision intact and take decisions which will make employees feel involved. "Founders should be friendly with employees especially during the earlier days because founders should realize that they need support from the employees who need to believe in the overall vision," said Saahil Goel, co-founder and CEO, Shiprocket, speaking at the same event.

One of the ways, the founders believe, to keep employees connected with the vision of the company is to build a culture wherein everyone is valued. "Laying boundaries and defining a culture is very important to create a great workplace. Every employee should be able to connect with the vision of the company," said Kalra.

And finally, if the employees believe that they are working to build a brand that is adding value to the society, they tend to stick to the company. "One should build a brand which the society can associate with trust. Founders should ask themselves if they are giving a superior experience to customers," said Niraj Singh, founder and CEO, Spinny.

This year companies witnessed mass layoffs. At the onset of these mass layoffs, Entrepreneur India had a word with Amit Ratanpal, founder, BLinC Invest, who shared that the layoffs were as a direct result of startups being unable to follow the anticipated growth strategy that they had in place in 2021. This is a reason why the overall funding scale has changed and the number of investment deals have definitely gone down.

Last year, when investments were at a boom, companies were offering lucrative deals to new joinees, some even put keys to luxury bikes on the offer table. In an earlier interview with Entrepreneur India, Unacademy's co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said, "Companies have had to take decisions to make their workforces' slighter in order to cut costs."

As a consequence of these decisions, 10,000 Indians lost their jobs till July alone this year.