Stravito Leads the Way in the Startup Community: Prioritizing Employee Well-being

Navigating the Shift to Remote Work

During the pandemic, the Swedish startup company Stravito noticed that not all employees were comfortable working from home. Transitioning from a typical office-based company with 70 employees tied to offices in Stockholm and Amsterdam, everything changed overnight when everyone had to work from home. While the new remote work setup was well-received by the majority of the staff, Sarah Lee, the founder, and Chief of Staff at Stravito, realized how challenging it was to gauge the mood and well-being of the employees.

A New Approach to Employee Well-being

One specific incident was eye-opening. ”An employee reached out and revealed that they were not feeling well at all, and it had been going on for a while. I thought, ’How did I miss this?’ So I immediately realized that we needed support to monitor how our employees were doing in a time when everyone was working behind screens,” Sarah recounts. 

As a software company whose service is used by global corporations, Stravito takes pride in its service being ”as user-friendly as Netflix.” Therefore, user-friendliness was a key factor when Sarah was looking for a new provider of an eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) service. Besides the standard survey questions, Sarah wanted to find a service that could easily identify when an employee was not doing well. By chance, she received an email forwarded to her from the company Lägereld, which offered to present their product. This sparked her interest, and after a few meetings, Stravito decided to choose them. 

”What stood out about Lägereld was its ease of use. Their simple, streamlined survey solution requires minimal time for both employees and recipients. When an employee rates low on questions about their well-being, that person is immediately offered the opportunity to book a session with a psychologist. Without the employer needing to know who it concerns. It gives me confidence to know that there is a lifeline our employees can always reach out to if they need help, without feeling they have to jeopardize their privacy,” says Sarah. 

Sarah Lee, Founder and Chief of Staff

Innovative Strategies for Mental Health Support

The ability to identify employees who may not be comfortable or willing to share their well-being with their manager was crucial in choosing Lägereld. As an employer, you receive the results of how your employees are doing at a group level. If someone has chosen to seek support from a psychologist at Lägereld, the employer covers the cost. This way, you can find out how your employees are doing. The employee seeking therapy has the option to remain anonymous. 

”Previously, in the office environment, we could check in with employees face-to-face and discover when someone wasn’t feeling well or didn’t enjoy their work. The new remote work brought about uncertainty and fear as an employer not knowing how our employees were doing. With Lägereld, we, as a company, feel secure in knowing that we have it under control,” says Sarah.

 Sarah emphasizes that a key aspect of Lägereld’s service is the ability to get a general sense of how people are doing, but also to see how it looks in individual teams, and different regions, and how it evolves. The positive feedback is shared by employees as well. The response rate is good, with a general response frequency of around fifty percent, often rising to sixty percent. Clicking through the answers to the six questions takes employees about 30 seconds. 

Stravito has been using Lägereld for a year and a half. Every month, they measure employees’ Enjoyment, Motivation, Pride, Workload, and Relationship, parameters predetermined by Lägereld. Everything is rated on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest. Sometimes, the reports have shown temporary dips, for example during a reorganization or when a manager leaves. However, Stravito generally maintains consistently high scores, with an average of over 4 points on all parameters. Sarah believes that the stable high results are largely due to meticulous recruitment and ongoing efforts to build and develop the organizational culture. 

”It’s not that we hire people and make them happy. We are very careful in the recruitment process and hire capable individuals who contribute not only with their knowledge and experience but also their personalities, diversity, and willingness to collaborate.” 

Prioritizing employees’ well-being and having action plans are generally considered important by most company leaders. Unfortunately, in the startup world, these matters often fall by the wayside. When growth, fundraising, and recruitment need to happen simultaneously and quickly, personnel issues are often sidelined. Sarah and the other founders of Stravito have extensive experience in building companies. The company’s values were established during Stravito’s first year in 2017 and have remained the same since: ”Simplicity first,” ”Own it, do it,” ”Embrace diversity,” and ”Smell the roses.” With Lägereld, Stravito can ensure and feel confident in building a stable and successful company with a culture and working environment where employees’ well-being is not neglected. 

”The greatest success with Lägereld is definitely its ease of use. I invest minimal time and effort but still receive a monthly report on how our employees are doing. I don’t have to handle distribution or compile data but get a ready-made report. Our employees can quickly access professional help if they need it. No company builder can say they don’t have time for this convenient service. If your employees aren’t well, how can your company grow?” says Sarah. 

Stravito’s average scores on Lägereld for the past 1.5 years:

Enjoyment: 4.5/5.0

Motivation: 4.2/5.0

Pride: 4.2/5.0

Workload (3,2) (3 is optimal)

Relationship: 4.5/5.0

Overall well-being: 4/5.0