What Does Company Culture Mean in SUSO?

Author: Gracjan Jamroszczyk, Account Manager

Many companies declare they are people companies, yet frequently it ends up precisely at the declarative level as there is no effort in building a genuine partnership relationship with employees. There is this famous quote by John Deere that we like to recall in SUSO: “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything” and that’s exactly what SUSO does when it comes to company culture.

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

I believe companies really interested in the partnership relationship should take care of it from the very first moment, simply by having salary ranges in their job offers. This is what immediately caught my attention when I was contacted by SUSO’s HR.

There are dozens of recruiters out there sending mass messages on LinkedIn claiming they have a perfect job offer for me based on my profile. If they really got to know my profile, they would know how important salary ranges are for me and would not send me offers without them.

This single salary range hint already let me know that SUSO was exceptional, and their organisational values were something more than just empty words.

Your Feedback is More Than Welcome

A few weeks later I joined SUSO and immediately got into the whirlwind of onboarding. The process was smooth and understandable but the more knowledge about the company, operating procedures or tools I gained, the more areas for improvement I kept finding.

So I started to design a new onboarding process – no one actually asked me to do that, I just thought I could arrange its elements a little better as a freshman and I was just personally curious about the outcome. When I finished I showed it to my Team Leader Paulina Krakowiak and she liked it. I guess in some companies this is where the story would end, but not in SUSO.

Long story short, my insights were appreciated to the extent that they were incorporated into the new company’s OKRs (Objective Key Results – yes, we have something like that because besides our normal everyday work we want to develop ourselves and become better and better). And you need to remember that I was on my probation back when I started to design this new onboarding, which means SUSO didn’t have a problem with listening to a total newcomer.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

A flat structure is defined as an organisational structure with only a few layers of management, with a short chain of command. For me, the most visible example of this aspect in SUSO (and probably one of my favourites) are the Monthly CEO Catch Ups with our CEO, Will Bagnall. 

These are calls during which he provides us with detailed updates and news about the company:

• A summary of our progress for the current objectives.
• All the necessary stats about how we’re performing as a company.
• The directions we’re heading i.e. new deals, new clients and new recruits.
• A celebration of both company and personal achievements. Last month, it was my turn to be in the spotlight, because of a successful DISCOvery Month that I carried out for one of my clients

Why do I like it that much? Because this way we know that our CEO is not some kind of mysterious elusive creature like Nessie or Yeti, but a living person interested not only in his spreadsheet’s numbers. It’s a feeling that you’re not just a meaningless cog in a machine but again – a valued member of the team. Finally, that’s what makes the difference between being managed and being led.

In Conclusion

SUSO company culture is first and foremost people’s first culture. I presume every colleague of mine will have their own definition of it, which is why I recommend reading Artur’s “From an Entrepreneur to an Account Manager at SUSO” or Konrad’s “My First Month As an Account Manager at SUSO”, where a lot of elements of this culture are also accurately described, such as personal budgets for training. 

If I was to sum this up, I’d say this culture is designed for people to flourish and I’m happy to be a part of it, or even co-creating it.