Start-Ups and Employee Expectations:My anecdotes

Something very critical I feel is/was missing in Indian start ups today is that culture of learning and development to emphasize that employees should grow wrt to their skills and knowledge. 

Sharing my thoughts below -

1. Founders/promoters should inculcate this to spread from top to bottom or like we always claim as 'flat'. Nobody better than founders to initiate this at the start of organizations journey.

2. L&D initiatives ( whatever small ) should be there right in the beginning and not when you're grown up a little more and then start. 

3. Traditionally majority are laggards to accept change.But, feels it's high time to constantly change to be relevant, make the change as a core value in the system.

4. Get rid of this nonsensical narrative like treating companies as 'families' and colleagues as 'brothers' and 'sisters'. It should be an alliance between employers and employees ( Courtesy - 'The Alliance' by Reid Hoffman et al ). Yes, agreed virtually it looks like a family but the word ' TEAM ' is more kicking as ever.

5. Expect to see employee loyalty ( if there's something like that these days!) coming as a result of their career advancement in the same organization itself. 

We need to make sure people take rational decisions when it comes to their careers and at the same time, not let be emotionally shattered or depressed during tough times like a lay off ( which looks inevitable these days ). Once the confidence and pragmatism build up they will pick up and move on.Remember something, this country has insane and various supply-demand gaps when it comes to talent. Employees should take up and learn, new and relevant skill sets by themselves

Go refresh your learnings and get new ones through online courses, they are plenty that is free.

Its time that employees act as change agents in the system and help improve and nurture more similar talents from graduates. I feel managers should also be entrusted with qualitative but measurable performance metrics like 'team learning score'.

This was an FB comment, a long one I know!. However, got few likes so felt it could be starting my first LinkedIn post and share my learnings/observations as I go by. Would appreciate for comments just to confirm if I should continue writing or NOT :)