There was a time when the classic startup office might consist of ping pong tables, mountains of snacks and an in-house barista, all with the aim of winning employees over.
A remote working revolution, tech correction and AI explosion later, and the metrics for what makes a company attractive have changed. This is particularly true for scaling startups competing for talent against large corporates, who can outspend them on benefits.
Old school perks and gimmicks aren’t what keep employees engaged in the long run: purpose is.
Studies by Gallup found the percentage of employees who felt engaged overall, whether they had a sense of purpose or not, dropped from 23% in 2023 to 21% in 2024, only the second time on record the number has fallen. If you zoom in on just the employees with a sense of purpose, 50% felt engaged.
Isabel Naidoo, Chief People Officer at global technology company Wise, says the company ranks in the top 25% of tech companies globally for employee engagement. Other metrics she attributes to a purpose-driven culture are Wise’s net promoter score — which measures customer satisfaction and loyalty — of 63 (Bain & Company, which developed the NPS, says anything over 60 is a very good score) and the fact 70% of new customers come through referrals.
“That’s how much people love our product,” she says. “And why do they love it? Because people here are obsessed with customer outcomes — and we build the products and infrastructure to deliver them. We hire people who have that purpose, and we’ve built the rituals [to support it].”
We asked Wise’s people team for advice on creating workplaces and cultures that provide daily connection to purpose, even as a company scales.
Step 1: Screen new hires for purpose
Wise defines its mission as “building the best way to move and manage the world’s money” — essentially, creating an inclusive financial system consumers and businesses are happy interacting with. To serve that mission, Wise needs a workforce obsessed with customer satisfaction.
That means assessing candidates on how motivated they are to solve and understand customer problems.
“Strong candidates, particularly in engineering, often stumble because we don’t just focus on technical skills,” says Jerome Leclercq, Global Head of Talent at Wise. “We focus on how you build products and analyse customer insights first and foremost.”
The answers are often a good guide to how important purpose is to you.
Interview questions might include: What do customers care about and how do you know? What attracts you to our company? And what about the company you’re working at today?
“The answers are often a good guide to how important purpose is to you” says Leclercq.
Nearly 50% of Wise’s employees live in a country different from their nationality, meaning they have first-hand experience moving and managing money across borders, and the frustrations that come with that. In other words, the problems Wise is trying to solve.
Screening for purpose fit means new hires are qualified and personally invested, which in turn improves retention, Leclercq says.
Step 2: Align everything to the mission
It’s not enough to tell candidates your mission. Purpose needs to be systematically built into an organisation so employees see it in action.
It’s ritual based and any organisation can do it, just make sure you pick the right [rituals] that are linked to your product and service.
Wise runs quarterly planning cycles where teams prioritise tasks based on what will make the biggest contributions to the overall mission, sharing their decision process openly across the organisation. Fortnightly team calls are used to share new product features and the impact they’re having on customers.
“This is not stuff that’s costly,” says Naidoo. “It’s ritual-based and any organisation can do it, just make sure you pick the right [rituals] that are linked to your product and service.”
Twice a year Wise also hosts Mission Days, which bring together the whole team to reflect on how its progressing against the company’s mission, and where it need to focus going forward.
Focus on mission is also baked into performance reviews. During performance reviews employees at Wise are asked for feedback on their own and others’ contribution to the overall mission. According to Gallup, employees who receive this sort of high-quality feedback are 45% less likely to have quit after two years, and they are 65% less likely to be looking for other jobs.
Step 3: Create workplaces that reflect your values
This year, Wise opened or expanded offices in London, Tallinn, Singapore, Hyderabad and Austin. Each office has what employees expect or value — natural light, wellness spaces and easy transport links — but they’re also designed to support the high-performance culture Wise is aiming for. Even the sites were chosen based on how the local talent pool can advance the mission. Wise wanted product and analytics talent side-by-side, working together on real customer problems.
“We believe in the power of what we call a full-stack office,” says Naidoo. “Tech development is highly collaborative and the best way of getting our tech done is when you’re sitting side-by-side with somebody.”
Each hub has a mix of formal and informal meeting spaces, quiet areas for focused work and facilities tailored to local teams and their customers.
We believe in the power of what we call a full-stack office.
Wise also brings customers into its offices for feedback sessions on its product. The set up includes two rooms connected with a two-way mirror — on one side customers are interviewed both in-person and virtually throughout the full lifecycle of a product, and on the other product and engineering teams listen in and iterate based on the feedback.
Step 4: Beware the say-do gap
Getting a purpose-led culture right lets companies tap into their employees’ full potential. Get it wrong, though, and there are risks.
“When purpose became a buzzword a few years ago, [it introduced] this danger,” says Naidoo. “You say this is your purpose and people join, but if they don’t see any of the infrastructure, processes or rituals bringing it to life, they’re going to zone out.”
Our role isn’t to make everyone happy every single day, but if we’re making decisions aligned with our values, that’s what people look for.
Purpose-driven organisations need to close the “say-do” gap — where actions fall short of the stated mission — at every employee level.
“Our role isn’t to make everyone happy every single day, but if we’re making decisions aligned with our values, that’s what people look for,” says Hannah Saad, Global Head of Emerging Talent at Wise.
The company’s graduate scheme, WiseStart, puts new starters through programmes tailored to different functions, and over 700 people have gone through it. It’s good for the graduates, and it expands the talent pool serving Wise’s customers, says Saad. Graduates from previous years also deliver talks to new starters and host open Q&As with them about their experience.
“All of them said we delivered what we promised, that was music to my ears” says Saad.
When people experience that alignment consistently, “that’s how you get the real ROI,” adds Naidoo. “Do the right thing by your customer, and everything else will follow.”
