What are the pros and cons of working for a smaller organization?

What are the pros and cons of working for a smaller organization?

Hi, I’m Janet Granger, talking about the pros and cons of working for smaller organizations.

I’ve talked separately about working for an agency versus working directly for a company, and I also, in a separate question tackled the pros and cons of working for a larger organization. If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend listening to (or reading) those questions, also. 

I’m talking here about working for a smaller organization, with the pros and cons. 

The pros of working for a smaller company 

If there aren’t a lot of you there (at a smaller company) – there are fewer people to get the work done. The good news about that is, you know that you have impact. You can see the difference that you’re making. You understand the part you play, typically, at a smaller company, and the importance of what you do. 

You can see where your part, if your marketing is part of the bigger picture, of sales, and all the other functions. So you can feel like you really make a difference – because you do. And that can be very rewarding, on a personal level. 

One of the other big pros about working for a smaller organization is that you know you can create the processes. You can make things up on the fly, usually. If you think of a better way to do something, you can try it  – or you’ll be given the latitude to test it, pilot it, whatever. That’s great, as you’re constantly able to raise the bar, when it comes to doing things better, differently, learning new things, finding new ways etc. Again, that can be, on a personal level, very exciting and fulfilling. 

If you’re working for a startup that’s been funded, for example, or a company that’s growing, or you can help contribute to that growth, your career can move along much more quickly. You can advance, and that’s very exciting because you’re not competing with as many people. You’re going with the company –  you can see how and where the company needs to grow. Again, if the company is moving quickly and you’re part of that, it’s really fulfilling and exciting. 

And it can be great for you, from a monetary perspective also, if you’re working for a startup that grows and grows and does really well. 

There are some cons however, especially if they’re not a venture that’s been funded. 

For example, smaller organizations just don’t have a lot of cash; they don’t have a lot of money. And it can be very frustrating, even if you are funded, by the constraints of what you can do with the money from a marketing perspective. 

Marketing tactics like social is “pay to play,” there’s Google Adwords, there’s just so much content you can develop. A lot of your energy needs to be going into not just creating (marketing) but basically sending traffic to a website (or a location or a platform or an app). Not having the dollars to do that can be very frustrating.

In some cases, when you’re working at a smaller organization, one of the cons is that – if you don’t get along with one or two people in the organization- it can make a really big difference because there aren’t that many of you. Especially if there’s somebody on your team that you don’t like, or your boss, you don’t have a lot of options, in terms of you know transferring to work to another area, or working for someone else. 

If you have a very small team, you’re dealing with that person a lot – maybe every day – and you’re stuck. It can be extremely frustrating, if you’re in a place where you’re doing more of the work, or there’s an attitude problem, etc. 

The bottom line is, in a smaller organization, each individual has much more impact. Which means, if you don’t like people, it can be very difficult, or if you can see that senior managers are making decisions that aren’t necessarily good for the company, it can be very upsetting. You may know better – but they are who they are – and they get to do what they get to do. 

The last “cons” of working at a smaller organization is: you’re pretty much on your own when it comes to developing your career and ongoing learning and growing. There probably isn’t a budget for you to upskill all the time, or go to conferences, or listen to thought leaders. Which means that you’re not just working hard at your job – where everything you do counts – but you also have to find time (maybe on your own time) for yourself, to grow your skill set and, possibly, your career. 

In some cases, you may have to leave to get to up-level yourself. That can be upsetting, but sometimes that’s the case. 

Life is about choices and sometimes you have to work at both (large and small organizations) to figure it out. I worked at both, to figure it out. 

I’m Janet Granger, answering the question: “What are the pros and cons of working for a smaller organization?”