#80: Pritesh Mittal on why organizations should treat employees like their most valuable customers

 “Your employees should be your number one audience, especially as you scale.” 

On this episode of The Shape of work podcast, we have Pritesh Mittal, Co-founder and COO of Growisto, an E-commerce marketing and technology company that helps brands grow their businesses online.

Having worked as the founder of two ventures, Pritesh shares the significance of organizations treating their employees like their most valuable customers.

He also shares:

• How scale changes a manager's responsibilities
• Why is it important to define and document your company's core values before promoting them
• Steps to improving workplace communication through transparency and accountability
• His biggest piece of advice for the first-time startup founders

Challenges in employee retention:

Pritesh responds by saying that consumers and employees are two different things. As a consumer, one will use the same products over and over again. The needs will not change. However, an employee’s needs keep changing. People tend to get bored in the same company, or these companies cannot match their requirements. Hence, people try for new companies. Thus the factors of trust, culture, and accountability are important. Even if the employees leave, the average time increases with the implementation of these factors. 

Employees as the face of the company:

Pritesh tells his employees that there are two customers: the actual client paying for the product/service and the team members delivering for them. They become the face of the company.

Often, companies give less importance to the candidates not working in the companies. They need to understand that it is the team that will communicate with these clients. If the employees perform, a company scales up. 

Can a culture of ownership help in an organization’s scaling process?

Pritesh partially agrees with the above-mentioned fact. However, he states that the needs of the companies do not change irrespective of their size. The only difference that prevails is transferring the motivation and discipline of work. When the company is small, the employees have a direct reach to their founders. The passion and dedication of the founders can motivate them to work. However, as the company grows, more people are required to transfer that impact (for example, middle managers).

Attracting the right talents for the company with a well-defined culture:

According to Pritesh, culture is not the only factor that should be considered while hiring. There are two aspects to be focused on

1. Foundation: The company should build the basic principles and fundamentals of the company and then documenting them. Documenting the vision and core values offer people something for reference.
2. Marketing: Once these values are set, the company needs to market them correctly.

Changes in the hiring pattern:

Hiring patterns revolve around the demand and supply of the talent pool. It does not matter where the employee is working from till they are delivering within their working hours. Another reason why the hiring patterns have changed is the funding. Pritesh says that the demand for developers has increased, but the supply is still the same.

Follow Pritesh on LinkedIn

Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast host: Lokesh Gautam

Get highlights of this episode in our blog.