The impressive figures in the likes of a 21% increase[1] in profitability delivered by rising employee engagement serve as yet another reason why employee engagement matters so much. The next logical question is how do you increase that engagement? Although it should be obvious that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, on behalf of the ChangeHero team, Catherine Welsch shares insights into how its core values influence the workplace culture and help raise that coveted employee engagement rate.
About ChangeHero
Before we dive into our case study, let me introduce our project. With the service, users all around the world can make instant crypto-to-crypto swaps and perform a crypto purchase on ChangeHero in a streamlined, simple and secure fashion.
The simplicity of ChangeHero is actually a result of over 50 employees maintaining and developing the project. Another key characteristic of our team that largely influences the conversation is that 90% of our employees work remotely from various locations and even countries.
The crypto industry presents a particularly interesting case for insights into employee motivation and engagement for a few reasons. For one, although in recent years less so, cryptocurrencies are a politically and ideologically charged field of work. As a result, it is very likely that a new hire is already interested in the field and they are easier to engage. This is not to say that all of our team members are already highly involved by default!
At the same time, crypto finance is a rapidly evolving yet one of the less steady industries to work in. That includes both the volatility of the crypto market that influences the cash flows going through the projects and companies, and the regulatory uncertainty that can change employee prospects practically overnight.
Considering all of the above, as a fintech team working in the crypto industry, we face quite a few challenges connected with factors specific to this area. Which is why I think it can be insightful to share how we achieve new milestones[2] thanks to the high team engagement among other things.
Our Approach — Mission-Driven Motivation
I suppose it can be expected that instead of inventing the wheel, our leadership and HR went with the approach of scientifically proven efficiency: aligning motivation with the mission. The company mission, a relevant part of which states, “We are building an ecosystem of cryptocurrency products that gives equal opportunity for everyone to take part in the fintech revolution,” is not just for show: just like it drives our product-related decisions, it also informs the way our team work is steered and organized.
How so? The mission in itself may be abstract but the core values are not:
- Safety
- Transparency
- Innovation
- Simplicity and Convenience
Although applied to the product and to the team they manifest differently, those are very much still the founding principles that organize our work. Let me explain how in the following sections.
Safety and Security = Fearless Innovation
Starting with something almost self-explanatory, employees who are confident in their employment and psychological support deliver better results. After all, the foundational Amy Edmondson study[3] that gave a scientific proof of interrelation between interpersonal and structural factors and performance came out all the way back in 1999, when the crypto industry was in its hypothetical stages.
And like I have mentioned before, crypto is a high-stakes industry. The market itself accounts for trillions of dollars in value but loses or gains it in the millions almost on a daily basis. On top of this, an uneven regulatory landscape that is rapidly changing serves as another source of anxiety about employment and business prospects.
As a long-standing market player, ChangeHero has developed quite a few measures to mitigate those risks and ensure our team members feel safe and confident. First, since the high-stakes nature of the industry requires so, everyone is coached on web security and digital hygiene. However, the error reporting process is non-punitive to prevent discouragement and reduction in employee engagement. Secondly, a focus on compliance exemplified in the work of our legal team works toward creating the peace of mind for those employees anxious about the regulatory status of the field. Last but not least, the stable and negotiable flexible pay decoupled from the crypto market swings as a systemic factor contributes to the psychological safety, which in turn contributes to all levels of performance, including a 31% increase in innovation, as evidenced by the Google’s Project Aristotle.[4]
Innovation: Empowering Creative Problem-Solvers
The previous conclusion warrants going slightly out of order and explaining our focus on innovation next. After all, in an industry like crypto, innovation is a given. It is also is a prerequisite to staying competitive.
How does that translate into our teamwork and processes? You might have heard about the celebrated “20% time” pioneered by Google: a policy that allows employees to dedicate 20% of the company time to work on projects they are interested in. In our practice, many team members choose to dedicate this time to developing their skills with seminars and courses, appropriately compensated for by the company. The results are reflected in further rise in metrics, such as website traffic and brand visibility.
Like many teams in the industry, the ChangeHero team is no stranger to including AI in our workflows. However, as believers in intelligent risk-taking, we take the training route as opposed to replacing our teammates and downsizing. More comprehensive results on employee performance in the team are yet to be observed but support and coaching from the leadership remain a staple of our culture all the same.
Transparency = Unshakeable Trust
At this point, you would probably not need me to tell you about how transparency and trust further solidify psychological safety in the workplace. Granted, this core value is achieved through different means than safety and security, the result is still the same: lower anxiety, higher engagement.
All-hands meetings, albeit virtual, are not a rarity for our team. Team leads sharing the results and milestones with the rest of the company creates a positive feedback loop that bolsters confidence and highlights the waves every contribution makes across the whole project.
The career path is also something that quickly becomes evident for every new member of our team, ensuring employee retention spanning well beyond crypto market cycles. Having started in Business Development myself, I needed only a few months to understand and communicate to the leadership that as an author and content maker, my skills and contribution would prove to be more valuable. I also have quite a few examples of our team members taking these leadership roles in their own or other teams and departments. Personal experience may not be as unbiased or objective as large-scale studies, so take my words as you will.
Simplicity and Convenience = No Motivation-Killers
The ChangeHero team prides itself on the aversion to bureaucracy. It is one of the first things you learn about us through job postings! In this case, by “bureaucracy” we mean those long-winded back-and-forths between departments and teams that kill all motivation before any feature is shipped.
By empowering team leads to make responsible yet vital decisions, we also eliminate bottlenecks that would otherwise hinder progress. Responsibilities are distributed in a way that would let every team member cover for another if need be. It might not sound like simplification on paper but in practice, there is always someone to respond to any situation, which does make processes easier.
The ChangeHero team members have an extensive array of internal tools that make work more secure and convenient. From minor quality-of-life tools to feature-laden dashboards, the internal tools are given the same if not higher priority as any front-facing feature, ensuring no processes are interrupted. As for external tools, not only are they allowed but actively encouraged and can be paid for by the team’s budget, if justified. At any point, learning a new tool is a valid use of the 20% time.
Bottom Line
It just makes sense that in an industry like crypto finance, a mission-driven workplace is one more likely to survive and thrive. What worked for us is that the mission was not a nebulous stipulation but a set of concrete values that directly translate into actions and measures that tangibly improve customers’ and employees’ experience alike.
Nevertheless, as I have mentioned in the introduction, our steps are not a universal solution. It comes down to more than industry: no workplace is like the other due to the people. What I hoped to achieve with this piece is to help the reader come up with the values their own teams and projects embody and suggest ideas how values can be turned into actionable steps.
