Something I think Carousell did well early on was hire fresh graduates from local universities. This was probably partly, or perhaps majorly, a financial decision, but it had the side effect of filtering for enthusiasm and passion. Many of these hires started out as interns doing their school internships, and many of them transitioned into part-time employees during the school term, then later full-time employees upon graduation.
Carousell had a remarkably high retention rate during the first few years. I attribute this to a few factors.
Firstly was the culture. The company consisted of mostly young people within the same age range. Company events were common, and people genuinely wanted to participate. The founders invested quite a lot of effort into establishing a fun social culture within the company.
Next was the interesting work. This is often the case with startups; they’re centered around some novel idea, or at least a reimagining of an existing idea. A fresh graduate would find the work even more interesting, given their lack of experience in the field. The work is also more dynamic; I found myself switching teams every year or two, moving into different domains and working with new technologies. This kept things fresh enough for me to stay on.
Another was high public perception. At the time, Carousell was Singapore’s darling. The public was excited to use the app. Correspondingly, employees were excited to be building an app for such a large user base.
These factors led to there being some really passionate people working at the company. I’ve known a few who would happily stay in the office till 10PM or later. There was no expectation to do so; they simply enjoyed their work. People would enthusiastically volunteer to host events such as recruitment drives at local universities, or Carouselland. Certainly I’ve been one of these highly motivated individuals.
I believe that these early employees played a significant role in shaping Carousell’s success. Whether intentional or not, the company managed to hire and retain some really invested people.
For the individual employee, I don’t think having this level of personal investment into a company is sustainable. Eventually I started to feel the onset of burnout. I was able to recognize it and start taking steps to mitigate it. Burnout manifests in everyone differently and the “solution” will differ for each person so I won’t dive too deeply into this topic. For me it was a matter of not being so invested in the company, instead focusing more on my own personal goals.
Companies are wise to the idea that passionate people tend to invest more of themselves into the success of the company, often at the expense of their own personal life. It’s exploitative.
I’m sure most leaders aren’t conspiring about how to get people to work overtime for free. Most won’t be happy to learn that one of their employees is feeling burnout as a result of their passion for work. Having employees with passion is a good thing, and companies should be rightly celebrated for managing to hire and retain them. However success breeds failure; leaders in such companies need to actively be on the lookout for the mental health of said passionate employees.