The Future of Worker Wellbeing
A Conversation with Isaac Oates, Founder & CEO of Justworks
A Conversation with Isaac Oates, Founder & CEO of Justworks
“Although I’m not sure that I could verbalize it all yet, I have learned more in the past 6 months than I have in the last 7.5 years on what it means to be a leader and have people look up to you in an environment where you really don’t know which way is up.” — Isaac shared with the Human community.
As the workplace continues to evolve, leadership teams are becoming increasingly intentional about the cultures they are building and adapting the support they offer. Isaac Oates built Justworks to make life easier for entrepreneurs and small businesses, enabling them to focus on their teams and optimize the benefits they are offering them so that they are not stifled by navigating administrative and compliance tasks.
To kick off the Humans in the Wild Future of Work cohort, Isaac joined Heather Hartnett and the Human Ventures community for a conversation on The Future of Worker Wellbeing. Heather and Isaac discussed Isaac’s journey founding and building Justworks, his philosophy around culture, the future of work, and more. In case you missed the event, we have shared the full conversation below, along with a few highlights.
A few key takeaways from the conversation:
Establish your values early. It’s easier to build it into your culture when your team is smaller and then watch it permeate through your culture as you grow.
Choose benefits that feel like the most value to your employees. If you make a benefit available, you’re saying to your team that I see you and I support you. The past 6 months have shown that in the end your company is your people and you play a very key role in taking care of them.
Build early trust with your customers. Make people really glad that they took a chance on you. In the beginning, they’re buying you — not your product.
If you are a founder that is fundraising, try to see past the power differential. An investor is someone you’re going to work with for a very long time and it is a two-sided decision.
