Karima-Catherine Goundiam is the founder and chief executive officer of digital strategy firm Red Dot Digital and business matchmaking platform B2BeeMatch.
I started my career in the corporate world, and in 2015 I became an entrepreneur. I founded my company and grew it from the ground up. And in 2020, I launched another product, a business matchmaking platform. Although my companies are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), I’ve worked with big companies and institutions. Along the way, I learned that many things work differently in the world of SMEs compared to the corporate world. If you’re considering working with an SME or a startup, here are some things you should know going in.
Pace and workplace culture
What I quickly learned is that SME culture is really different from large organizations. SMEs are more flexible and nimble. They can rapidly adapt and pivot. I’ve encountered SMEs that don’t or can’t do this, but if an SME is healthy, it adapts quickly to the market. As an employee transitioning from a big company to a small one, you need to decide if you’re more comfortable with a slower pace or one where things change fast.
In a large company, the person at the top is likely 10 times removed from you. If you’re happy working a 9-to-5 job and appreciate the stability of working for a large entity, remaining a corporate employee might be a great idea. In contrast, SMEs tend to have a strong culture that will come from the founder or owner, if they’re still around, or from a family member or someone else the founder has chosen. Regardless, the culture will depend on the leader. If you need to feel like part of a family with a purpose, SME life may be right for you.
Ask yourself: what pace is best for my well-being as an employee? What kind of culture would I thrive in?
Autonomy versus a well-defined role
In an SME, you may not get paid training because the business might not be able to afford to support you in your learning. And if you make a lot of mistakes they might not keep you, because they can’t afford those mistakes. However, you may get a lot more on-the-fly learning opportunities, and your job title might not always apply – you may be asked to do a lot of different things, show a lot of flexibility and wear many hats. You may have more autonomy and creativity, and be able to make more impact on the business, because there’s less of a gap between you and the person leading the company. What you do really matters.
Bigger companies devote more resources to employee training, performance reviews and support. Your job will likely be more defined and structured; there’s a bigger sense that you might step on people’s toes if you deviate from your job description, and there are more politics to navigate. If you’re underperforming, you may also be able to hide it for longer in a big organization.
Ask yourself: Do I need more support or more freedom? More direction or more creativity?
The question of job security
Job security is generally seen as stronger in large organizations, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Layoffs are common; the bottom line rules. In a big company, even if individual managers care about their employees, those employees often become numbers for the company as a whole. There’s also usually a drastic pay gap between a large company’s CEO and its low-level employees, with predictable consequences on employee morale and investment.
To work with an SME, you have to be comfortable having fewer resources, less job security and a higher level of risk. However, in a healthy SME, in general, there’s a more human dimension, more consideration for workers as people and often more efforts to keep staff employed and adapt to lean times in other ways.
Not every SME has the same culture, of course. Some are awful. If you’re in a toxic SME, everything that happens in a big organization is amplified by 100, because responsibilities are less defined, there are fewer HR policies and if you don’t get along with the leader, you’re probably not going to last.
Ask yourself: Do I value a workplace with deeper pockets or one with bigger hearts? They’re two different kinds of security, and you need to choose the right balance for you.
It’s your call
You can find opportunities in companies of any size. The ultimate question is: What are your career goals and where do you feel you have the best chance of achieving them?
This column is part of Globe Careers’ Leadership Lab series, where executives and experts share their views and advice about the world of work. Find all Leadership Lab stories at tgam.ca/leadershiplab and guidelines for how to contribute to the column here.