The European Business Review - July-August 2019

70 The European Business Review July - August 2019

People Management

importance of career paths, both in meeting the

enhanced expectations of the modern worker and

creating a sense of agility within the company.

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We sit down with each team member and map

out what they want to achieve, as well as the

amount of responsibility they want to assume.

Some team members want to lead projects; others,

particularly those with young families, often want

nothing more than to organise a talk or event. But

whether someone wants a step up, or a step down,

we try to make it happen.

The idea is to ensure that everyone is constantly

reevaluating their goals, and the company struc-

ture adapts to its people. We don’t want a rigid

old-fashioned hierarchy, where long-standing

employees are stuck in high-level positions and

blocking the path of people ready to take over.

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We use it as a basis for our quarterly dividends,

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a baseline from which to gauge special achieve-

ments. If someone goes above and beyond the

objectives outlined in their growth path, they’re

likely to receive a bonus. But it’s not really about

the money; the growth path is a key part of the

structure we’ve built for the company.

Two-way responsibility

A lot has been written about the bossless workplace,

the growing shift away from top-down management

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on self-responsibility. We don’t think it’s quite that

exaggerated - you’re always going to need leaders to

preserve the values of the organization. But we’ve

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in which people are given ownership of their ideas.

At Mobile Jazz, we don’t have dedicated project

managers. Like a lot of tech companies, we’ve

found that agile working requires pop-up teams

for each new project, each with its own leader

chosen on the basis of skill, not title. This carries

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are, the more successful your projects will be - but

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each member of the team and encouraging them

to push for leadership roles.

We expect everyone to react positively to this

structure, and assume responsibility. If an urgent

email comes in from a client, we expect someone

to jump on it even if it’s not their direct contact.

But we also reward our team, and let them know

we trust them. Each member is given the right to

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want. If they want to take a break and it won’t disad-

vantage our clients, then it’s ok for us. If they come

up with an idea for a great piece of software, we’re

happy to let them build it on work time.

Combined with this, we’ve developed a program

called MJ University, which is designed to comple-

ment the Growth Path. We ask team members

what they want to learn, and pay for them to study

the appropriate course. This has clear advantages

for us, as we’re constantly up-skilling our team

and getting the jump on new technologies. But the

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Our culture of trust has played a massive role

in retaining our people. Studies have found that

a majority of employees identify trust as a key

reason to stay, or leave, a company. Mobile Jazz

is living, breathing proof of that correlation.

The evidence also suggests that workers who

are treated like adults are more likely to go the

extra mile for their company and act as an ambas-

sador, both internally and externally. This creates

a virtuous circle, leading to a vibrant atmosphere

which everyone wants to be part of.

Strong culture

Yet perhaps the most important part of our

strategy is the culture we’ve created. Today’s

young workers - the ones who make up the bulk

of the tech workforce - are strongly motivated by

mission, the desire to work for a company with

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desire as much as possible.

We’ve been lucky enough to work on several

socially focused technology projects including

Worldreader, an app that promotes literacy in the

third world, and MyMoments, an image-editing

software for vulnerable people. To complement

We don’t want a rigid old-fashioned hierarchy,

where long-standing employees are stuck in

high-level positions and blocking the path of

people ready to take over.