Ziga Zupanc Luknar, SENIOR Brand Manager

Fantastic beasts colleagues and where to find them

Insights in byrd’s work culture, values, and identity

Allow me to take you on a mental exercise – as human beings living in a contemporary world, we are bound to spend roughly 90 000 hours at work over a lifetime, which amounts to about one-third of our total time of being alive. If we add burnout, stress, and other pitfalls caused by work-life imbalance to the mix, it’s safe to assume our job can make a huge impact on our quality of life. Apart from all that work-life balance jazz, company culture is also changing the way we think about work and urges us to consider how can we conduct business for the better. Just imagine being stuck in a workplace with long working hours, disconnected management, and migraine-inducing deadlines with close-to-zero impact on your professional development, and the guy sitting next to you is willing to throw you under the bus for his 5 minutes of fame climbing the corporate ladder. Yeah, that’s a truly unnerving scenario, worthy to be turned into a modern-day thriller directed by Stanley Kubrick himself.

This is why company culture matters

Spine shivering aside, company culture is finally taking the center stage in the business world; great company culture became a key component of a successful business. Without having a cohesive c-level strategy for company culture you risk turning your colleagues into unhealthy and unengaged employees that are a drag on productivity and innovation. But negative effects of having bad company culture don’t stop here - 46% of job seekers cite company culture as very important when choosing to apply to a company and 35% of workers say they would pass on the perfect job if they felt the company culture wasn’t a good fit, whereas 15% of job seekers already turned down a job offer because of the company’s culture.

The reason why company culture is becoming so important is that we’re in a candidate-driven labour market. It’s not the nineteen fifties anymore and people don’t need their job to be right around the corner. In their quest to find their dream job (and employer) people are willing to relocate, commute, or even work remotely for their chosen company.

In addition, cultivating a great company culture is important not only for employee engagement, happiness, and retention but also for plotting the blueprints for a successful business and growth. In this sense, company culture is as important as having a well-thought-out work-life policy in place. So, what about byrd and our take on work culture?

For example, my childhood demons resulted in unusually dry humour, coffee addiction, and constant need to bash modern politics, and I reckon those things aren’t really considered as a strength.

To stand on the shoulders of giants

There is no point in beating around the bush – the startup industry is notorious for long working hours and a results-driven style of work. In this regard byrd is not much different - aggressive growth and constant expansion to new markets on a global scale come at a cost of feeling understaffed to take on all the challenges we want to tackle. Due to that, you really need to be comfortable with wearing multiple hats, and having high levels of motivation to fight on the front lines is a necessity at byrd. Those are the typical startup challenges, but they are still challenging nonetheless.

But when there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity for growth - and with this, I don’t mean to go down the usual trope of proverbial “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, as I’m not sure to what extent this statement holds true; for example, my childhood demons resulted in unusually dry humour, coffee addiction and constant need to bash modern politics, and I reckon those things aren’t really considered as a strength.

Notwithstanding, change for the better is possible and byrd is actively trying to better itself; be it with flexible working hours and unlimited home office or regular team events, free annual public transportation tickets, and gym subscriptions for all employees. There is still a lot to improve, but we are determined to set the work-life standards high as we know that the company’s most valuable asset is the people we work with.

Core values either make or break the company

However, what byrd really does great is how it maintains its company culture with the core values, values that go all the way back to the very inception of the company.  In a nutshell, our values revolve around four pillars: teamwork, trust, communicating solutions, and delivering customer enthusiasm. In verbatim, we nurture a company culture that is built upon shared passion, camaraderie, and collective hard work, and this is what is enabling us to pursue our mission; to revolutionize the logistics industry.

Having well-defined values supports the company’s vision, shapes the culture, and reflects what company values are and are the essence of the company’s identity. Having values that no employee feels any connection to will implode the company, which holds especially true for startups, where you often have to transmute stress into a passion; and you can be passionate only about things that you care for.

Have you heard about the byrd?

Being a marketer, I’ve recently entertained a thought of how to spread the word about the byrd, or rather, our awesome company culture and values that we follow, in a bid to attract top-tier people to join us. This brings us back to the beginning and the opening title; fantastic colleagues and where to find them. Well, it seems that the answer is that you don’t search for them, but rather, you make sure they find you.

So, how do you make sure those magical creatures find you? Well, I’d bet my money on sharing stories about the people you work with, things that your team managed to achieve despite all odds, highlighting the little things that made you smile on a Monday morning, and reflecting on how being a part of something meaningful made you grow professionally and personally. It’s like you’re composing a song that’s unique to your flock, resonating through the forest and captivating those who care to listen. And those that recognise the song and find it familiar, will seek your flock out. However, this isn’t a one-man-band operation. This exercise works best if your fellow colleagues all contribute to this song as well. Enter #byrdistheword. ; our platform that’s made for byrdies to share their stories about their awesome team, creative colleagues, expertise, and all other bits and pieces about what it’s like being a part of a logistics startup.

Corporate identity go brrrrr

Since I’ve joined byrd, most of my work revolved around building a comprehensive corporate identity and harmonising all marketing activities and materials that we use to present ourselves to other businesses. Being a B2B company, having a consistent voice, well-constructed message, mission statement, and visual presence are paramount, just as having a positive reputation in the industry. However, if one wishes to avoid turning a company into a shallow advertising hook made for fishing naïve business partners, one must put people at the core of the above-mentioned activities. So, if people are at the center of those activities, marketing, and human resources intertwine on the topic of brand management, rendering company culture, work-life policies, company values, and the people you work with, one of the main sources of corporate identity. Building bridges between businesses and people is only possible if you’re sincere with how you go about managing the brand. Only then you can aim to create meaningful synergies and lasting partnerships.

It is all about people. Always is and always will be; and byrd is my attempt at creating the brand that is built by people, for people.

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