Hiring spree

Keeping the company culture intact

Published on November 22, 2004 By Draginol In Business

The #1 reason that Stardock has done so well is relatively low turn over.

On our games, everyone who worked on The Corporate Machine (2000) is with us on Galactic Civilizations II plus new people.

On Object Desktop the leads on WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, ObjectBar, WindowFX, and so on are all the same. Which is pretty meaningful given that some of these were released in 1999.

And so we keep growing and growing.

This month we brought on 4 new people into the office. Next month we have another 2 people scheduled to come. In January we have another 2 people scheduled to start. In February we have another 2 and in April we're targeting another 2.

Fast growth is pretty exciting. But it's also scary. How do you maintain the company culture that keeps turn-over so low? How do you keep the place so enjoyable and so fun that people want to work well? Especially when we make sure that everyone is aware that they don't get paid as well as they could elsewhere. That's right, none of us make as much as we could working somewhere else. We trade a bit of money for having a much better working environment.

But when as companies grow, it becomes more difficult to keep the place fun and neat to work at. That's going to be a real challenge.

Comments

oleteach

on Nov 23, 2004

I am sure that it has to start with the boss who then selects people with good attitudes toward leadership, teamwork and high work ethics. Congratulations on the growth of the company and for providing all of us JU with a place to post our thoughts.

Lotherius

on Nov 23, 2004

People pay money to feel good. They pay money for games, movies, leisure activities, comfortable chairs, etc... So what's different in accepting a job that pays you a little bit less in return for being able to look forward to going to work every day? It's like buying happiness - which is what people do all the time. It sounds like a great bargain to me.

Dan MacDonald

on Nov 24, 2004

I've worked at a few smaller companies. The last one I was at was a great place to work, about 15 employees and we all worked together like friends. We did get new hires every now and then. When we did the company owners would encourage us to include other the new people. It also helps to have an employee who reaches out to people, like the guy who organizes where everyone is going for lunch. If that guy reaches out then it's a lot easer to include new people. We were a company of 20-30year old male developers, primarily not married (though I am). We added a 38 year old woman as a project manager an introverted guy who had English as a second language. If the employees do enough lunches together eventually everyone will find a common ground where they all mesh. In fact the only reason I left was to become a full time independent game developer (my first love), but I still do contract work for them from time to time.

IanTyger

on Nov 25, 2004

Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software) has an article on this somewhere in his archives, comparing Amazon-type companies to Ben&Jerry type companies (his terms). Stradock strikes me as a B&J company according to his lights

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