In a workplace setting such as a corporate office, the dynamics of the people and space can be greatly vast. In large corporations, there is a bigger network of people, but in smaller corporations, the few people may know each other better. It is in the smaller corporations I am more interested in discussing. Working for small companies has its pros and cons.
Small Company, Fewer Positions
In a small company (I’m suggesting around 30-50 people in the office), there are fewer roles and job positions, naturally. If one person joins the team or leaves the team, it’s a greater impact! If three people left a company of 30 people, that is 10% of the company gone. Smaller companies might have less turnover rates since there are fewer positions to fill. Fewer positions to fill mean less opportunity for new hires. Small companies, therefore, are harder to get into, from this factor alone. However, there are many factors that could affect a turnover rate, new hires, or new growth, but let’s focus on the size of the company.
Small Company = Big Family
When in a small company, it feels like a big family. Everyone works in sync with everyone, and even closer with their department members. There is a better sense of camaraderie, and even stronger potential for understanding each other’s communication styles.
At a small company I worked for, on any sunny afternoon our team would go outside during the 3 o’clock post-lunch drag. Out in the parking lot, we would kick around a hackysack for 30 minutes to have some fun, fresh air, a little exercise from sitting all day, and ‘reset’ our brain for when we returned to our desks. This was such a joyous (and healthy) occasion! It would strengthen our relationships with each other, we would learn more and communicate with each other in a fun way, and we would also get to hang out with a few other departments that we otherwise wouldn’t interact with on a daily basis.
On special occasions, interested team members would travel to nearby restaurants and food trucks together to try new foods for lunch hour. It made our daily work routine less mundane and more exciting! One summer, our writer became creative with our endeavor to try all the best burger places around, and named our group H.A.M.B.U.R.G.E.R. as a long acronym for a long title starting with Humans Autonomously Migrating Beyond Urban…. something something… relating to going out for burgers. These were fun times, and also made for fun email chains.
Positions with Many Hats
In a small company, there are still many things to do. With fewer people on the team, many of the team members have more opportunities to “fill many shoes” or “wear many hats.” Some people even got the chance to try new things! For example, I once knew an artist who worked for a AAA game company in Bellevue, WA. Talking to him, I learned that he spent much of his time working on rock textures for the game world environments (and was paid a great wage for it).
Another artist I knew who worked at a small game company was paid far less but got to build an entire environment. He sculpted, modeled, textured, lit an environment, set up the cameras, and even worked on some puzzles within the environment. I’m not an artist, but the guy who worked at the small company sounded like he had more fun, had ownership of his work, he had much to be proud of.
I was once a member of a two-person marketing team until the team grew to add more people. I was thankful to have had many different opportunities to try new things, learn new skills, and add experience to my repertoire.
Leaders of Small Teams
Much of the time, team leads of small companies would gain a great (or even complete) understanding of their team members’ skills, capabilities, talent, interests, goals, and ambitions. A leader would be able to see more of their team’s work, progress, and watch them grow and struggle. Leaders would know best when to push a member into excelling or have more compassion and grace for their faults. A leader would know their team members better and know when to move them forward or into a new position, when they are ready to tackle a new challenge.
Sometimes, when leaders change in a small team, the new leader would need to take some time to become acquainted with their members. But not all leaders care for their team in the same way.
When Leaders Play Favorites
When new leaders take charge, they can bring bias opinions of how they want to run their team. To a degree, this is a good thing! A leader may have prior experience (and preference) of how they want to engage with their workers, how the communication style should be set, or who they want to tackle certain jobs. All for the sake of success. I, personally, do not mind pivoting a process or a style if I see viable improvement points to achieve success or have better efficiency!
As someone who has had a decade of experience wearing different hats and has a diverse skill set, I will admit that it hurt when my leader hired out their favorite contract worker (their daughter, I later learned) to fill a job task that I was capable of accomplishing successfully, especially when I was the full-time paid employee. (The leader preferred a different style of working engagements, I suspect, but then again, it was their daughter.) I also suspected long-established perspective was not wanted since I had too many years of being so close to the product. Sometimes, it does make sense to bring in workers with a fresh perspective, but also sometimes, it would be wise to task an existing team member who knows the product and audience best and could technically do the work.
While logic and data may be necessary to understand how to accomplish a task or do something better, sometimes a leader only wants to hear positive enthusiasm. They overlook the negative feedback and data of a project and prefer to sugar-coat the constructive criticism from the results. No one wants to hear that a piece of writing was poorly written for the intended audience. But who is to tell the writer the difficult truth in order to make improvements or to grow?
A strong leader knows how to work with their team members.
I believe a wise leader would consider the advice offered to them, seek areas for improvement, and listen to the team members who work on the projects closely. But not all leaders of small teams want to get “down in the dirt” with their team members. Some leaders of small teams would prefer to distance themselves in their status and position. I respect leaders who are humble, confess errors and also be forgiving of others’ errors… but this is not a practice that is deemed “professional” in the corporate world. It’s just not done, however, I wish it was.
Small companies have such unique opportunities for relational workplace growth and cultivation. A great leader would see the opportunities to lift up their team members to strive for success, not only for the company as a whole but also for the individuals on the team.
There are many more factors that differ between large and small companies. Some factors are unique to that company, but general things like wages, work hours, team sizes, abilities to move around, career advancement, and special perks can contribute to an appreciation for the work within a large or small corporation.
Please share in the comments below! What are your observations working for a large and/or small company? I’d love to hear from you!
