I have been in recruitment industry for just over 20 years and have met thousands of people in very well paid jobs working, for the most part, in large corporates. Notwithstanding how much people are paid, many of them are still unhappy with their job and environment they work. I believe specialisation has a lot to do with this. In large corporates everyone’s role becomes much more specialised. You get pigeonholed.

While this might suit some people, many people want a job that provides more than just a pay cheque.

Beyond the basic needs a pay cheque represents (Food, safety and shelter), our desires through work, switch to stuff like wanting to belong, to feel like we are making a difference and to hopefully realise our potential through personal growth.

We would all love to feel that our job either increases satisfaction or reduces suffering for our clients by delivering a terrific service or product. What we do has impact and impact delivers meaning.

So in a smaller business, when you are not pigeonholed, you recognise this as a tangible environment for feeling like work can be a lot closer to meeting these needs; It can be a place where your voice counts, you have influence and can have direct impact on the customer. What’s more – you can be you and find that work can be fun.

It’s been proven anthropologically that the happiest tribes were no more than 100-200 people combining their efforts to thrive. That’s a modern day medium sized company.

If you pay attention you will find people have realised this and are already acting on it.

Big business has already started to realise this potential shift and the part they can play in this new paradigm. I reckon in the future big business, with their customer insights and distribution scale to share, could be a platform for SME’s to succeed and big business to stay relevant.

That’s a long way of saying we wanted to build a platform where more people can access opportunities that create more meaning in their lives.