Best Workplaces, Employee Engagement , Employee Recognition, Start-ups
Key Takeaways:
- 95% of employees at the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups say management trusts them to do a good job without watching over their shoulders.
- 90% say management keeps them informed about important issues and changes, giving them the context to act like owners.
- 93% feel their efforts make a difference at work, and 91% say their work is more than "just a job."
- 94% say management recognizes honest mistakes as part of doing business, and 91% say their company celebrates people who try new and better ways of doing things.
- 5.5 times the revenue growth: that's what Great Place To Work® research found at companies where employees can try new things and help develop new ideas.
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Intrapreneurship happens when employees feel and act like owners, and it starts with trust. At the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups, 95% of employees say management trusts them to do a good job without watching over their shoulders, and 91% say their company celebrates people who try new and better ways of doing things, regardless of the outcome. Here’s how these start-ups turn every employee into an owner, and how any organization can scale that spirit as it grows.
The early days of a start-up are full of excitement and enthusiasm. People pull together and do whatever it takes to get the job done. A customer service rep spots a pattern of complaints. Rather than issuing refunds, they sit down with the product team and brainstorm how to improve the item. The finance team notices a sharp increase in accounts receivable. Rather than sending another set of late payment notices, they sit with the sales team to uncover the root cause.
Start-up cultures don’t expect people to prioritize policy and bureaucracy, or wait for permission to innovate. They empower people to use their judgment, think critically, make decisions, and act quickly.
This is intrapreneurship! Where employees feel and act like owners, they care about the organization’s success, and clearly understand their role in that success.
What is intrapreneurship?
The practice of behaving like an owner while working within an established organization.
What is an intrapreneur?
An employee who proposes new ideas, takes initiative, and challenges the status quo to help the company achieve success. Where a traditional employee asks, “How do I complete this task?” an intrapreneur asks, “How can we do this better?”
Intrapreneurship tends to come naturally to start-ups. Teams are small, people often have direct access to the owners, the goal is clear, and everyone is figuring it out as they go. But then something happens as companies grow. Processes stiffen, siloed thinking emerges, people avoid speaking up or taking risks, and the layers of bureaucracy smother the start-up spark.
The good news? This ownership behaviour (a.k.a. Intrapreneurship) is not a function of company size or lifecycle; it also manifests within great company cultures. It is rooted in trust, nurtured by organizational leaders, and designed to encourage innovation and business success for the long term.
Trust and Intrapreneurship
Why is employee empowerment important?
Empowered employees use their judgment, take calculated risks and look for better ways of working instead of waiting for permission. That only happens in a culture of trust, where leaders grant real autonomy and employees know leaders will have their backs.
Unsurprisingly, trust is at the root of intrapreneurial behaviour. For employees to feel free to make suggestions, ask questions, stretch limits, and take risks they need to work in a culture of trust and respect. If they fear reprisal from making a mistake, they avoid risk taking. If they feel micromanaged, they will wait for permission instead of actively seeking solutions. If they don’t have access to information, they will do what is safe and expected rather than exercise their judgment.
This trust is a two-way street and it allows intrapreneurship to flourish:
- Leaders trust employees enough to step back, stop micromanaging, and grant genuine autonomy over budgets, timelines, and projects.
- Employees trust leaders to have their backs when a well-intentioned initiative or calculated risk falls short of expectations.
How The Best Start-Ups Leverage Trust and Encourage Intrapreneurship
How do start-ups encourage intrapreneurship?
The best start-ups build trust first. Leaders keep people informed, hand out real responsibility, connect everyday work to company success and treat honest mistakes as part of doing business, so employees feel free to try new and better ways of working.
When leaders build an environment rooted in trust, a logical progression emerges linking transparency and responsibility to feelings of pride and ownership which fuels innovation and performance. The Best Workplaces™ for Start-ups are clear examples of how building a culture based on trust is allowing intrapreneurship to thrive in Canada. Here is how they are doing it:
They keep their people informed
- 90% of employees say management keeps them informed about important issues and changes.
- 93% say they can ask management any reasonable question and get a straight answer.
Transparency starts the process. Provide the “why” behind business goals, financial status, and current challenges. When employees understand the context and can see the big picture, they are less likely to complete tasks blindly.
They give their people responsibility
- 95% of employees say management trusts them to do a good job without watching over their shoulders.
- 93% say they are given a lot of responsibility.
Informed employees feel trusted and empowered. They make decisions, take risks, and lean into the responsibility they are given.
They build engagement
- 93% of employees feel their efforts make a difference at work.
- 91% say their work is more than “just a job.”
Responsibility helps employees see the direct impact of their efforts on company success. This validates the work they do and transforms their job into a mission.
They instil pride
- 94% of employees feel a sense of pride when they think about what their organization has accomplished.
- 95% are proud to tell others where they work.
Recognizing the tangible impact of their work instils pride in people. They have a deeper connection to the work, treat the business like it’s their own and make decisions they can be personally proud of.
They encourage innovation
- 94% of employees say management recognizes honest mistakes as part of doing business.
- 91% say the company celebrates people who try new and better ways of doing things, regardless of the outcome.
This pride is reinforced by leaders who support their people to try new things. When a culture rewards creative problem-solving and views failure as a stepping stone to success, the sky is the limit in terms of new ideas.
They enjoy bottom-line success
Encouraging intrapreneurship translates to real results. Trust improves, engagement increases and innovation thrives. In fact, Great Place To Work® research has found that when employees have the opportunity to try new things and participate in developing new ideas, their companies see 5.5 times the revenue growth of less inclusive peers. A compelling reason for pursuing intrapreneurship and all of its benefits at any stage of growth.
Intrapreneurship at Scale
How can a business encourage intrapreneurship?
Make it safe to fail, free up time for new ideas, share information openly and build clear pipelines for feedback, so employees in every corner of the organization know their ideas are welcome and will get a response.
Can corporate structure kill intrapreneurial spirit? Yes!
Does it have to? Absolutely not!
We have Post-it Notes all over our desks because 3M allows engineers to spend 15% of their time on passion projects.
We have orange fingers from eating Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and other spicy treats, in part because Frito-Lay’s open-door perspective encouraged a janitor to pitch his ideas directly to the CEO.
The next great idea may be brewing within your hallways, so how can a business encourage intrapreneurship?
Take the shame out of failure
- Assure employees that it is safe to fail by creating a culture where failures are seen as opportunities to learn and experimentation is part of professional growth.
- Encourage teams to share lessons they learned from projects that didn’t hit their targets.
Make space for new ideas
- Assess workloads with an “innovation” lens and recognize that if their calendar is booked with transactional work, there is no time for anything creative.
- Schedule innovation days or times of the week, and intentionally get people out of their silos and working cross-functionally.
Share information – the good, the bad and the ugly
- Make transparency the default setting and reserve “need to know” for only those instances where it is really necessary.
- Regularly ask people to identify challenges the company is facing. If they can’t answer, that means information sharing is not robust enough.
Encourage feedback
- Design clear pipelines for feedback so when an employee has a great idea or improvement suggestion, they know who to tell and how.
- Close the feedback loop every time to let people know their ideas are valued and indeed worthy of consideration and a response.
Intrapreneurship may come most naturally to Start-ups but it is not reserved for them alone. Indeed, any organization can create the conditions for intrapreneurial-thinking among its employees. It does take courage to trust people with information and give them autonomy to make decisions, but that trust is returned with a deeper connection to the business and a more vested interest in its success. This intrapreneurial spirit, where people feel and act like owners, encourages great ideas to be found, and boardroom-level decisions to be made, in all corners of the organization. The Best Start-ups know this, and no doubt their intrapreneurs are already scaling it for continued organizational success.
Does your organization have the necessary elements for intrapreneurship? Find out how our Trust Index™ Survey can help. Certification as a Best Workplace™ can show you where trust is already fuelling ownership and innovation in your culture, and where it needs work.
Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups
These Canadian start-ups prove that a great culture does not have to wait until a company scales. To qualify, organizations must be Certified™ by Great Place To Work® within the past year and identify as a start-up in their Culture Brief, then they are ranked on their employees’ Trust Index™ survey scores. With 95% of employees saying management trusts them without watching over their shoulders, these workplaces show how trust turns every employee into an owner.
Tools & Resources
- Employee Survey: Measure whether your people feel informed, trusted and free to try new ideas, using the same Trust Index™ benchmarks behind the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups.
- Culture Consulting: Find where processes, silos or bureaucracy are smothering initiative, and build the transparency and feedback pipelines that let intrapreneurship scale as you grow.
- Employee Engagement: Help employees see the direct impact of their work, so pride and ownership turn everyday tasks into a shared mission.
- Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups: See the Canadian start-ups where employees feel and act like owners, and the culture benchmarks that prove it.
Feedback
How does your organization encourage people to try new things and act like owners? We’d love to hear what has worked for you, and which topics you’d like us to explore next. Have feedback? Fill out this form by clicking here.
Get Certified 
Intrapreneurship grows where trust is high and people feel safe to try new things. Certification gives you validated employee feedback that shows where your culture already fuels ownership and innovation, and where to focus next. Get Certified today, then find out whether your organization belongs on the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups List.
People Also Asked
What are some examples of intrapreneurship?
At 3M, engineers can spend 15% of their time on passion projects, an approach credited with giving us Post-it Notes. Everyday examples matter too: a customer service rep who works with the product team to fix a recurring complaint, or a finance team that partners with sales to find the root cause of rising receivables.
What are the characteristics of an intrapreneur?
Intrapreneurs act like owners. They propose new ideas, take initiative, use their judgment and challenge the status quo. They care about the organization’s success, understand their role in it, and ask “How can we do this better?” rather than waiting for permission.
How do you encourage employees to take risks at work?
Make it safe to fail. Treat honest mistakes as part of doing business, ask teams to share lessons from projects that missed their targets, and celebrate people who try new approaches regardless of the outcome. At the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups, 94% of employees say management recognizes honest mistakes as part of doing business.
What role do leaders play in intrapreneurship?
Leaders create the conditions for it. They share the “why” behind business goals and challenges, step back from micromanaging, grant real autonomy over budgets, timelines and projects, and back employees when a calculated risk falls short. They also close the feedback loop so people know their ideas were heard.
Why is experimentation important in the workplace?
Experimentation is how new ideas get tested and improved. When it is treated as part of professional growth, with time set aside for innovation and cross-functional work, employees learn faster, solve problems more creatively and bring forward ideas that can move the business forward.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the difference between intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship?
An entrepreneur builds and owns their own business. Intrapreneurship is the practice of behaving like an owner while working inside an established organization: proposing new ideas, taking initiative and challenging the status quo, with the organization's support behind them.
How can I be an intrapreneur at work?
Start by asking "How can we do this better?" instead of "How do I complete this task?" Look for patterns beyond your own role, work across teams to find the root cause of problems, share ideas through your organization's feedback channels, and treat projects that miss their targets as lessons worth sharing.
Why does intrapreneurship fade as companies grow?
As organizations scale, processes stiffen, silos form and layers of bureaucracy build up. People stop speaking up or taking risks and wait for permission instead. Leaders can protect the start-up spark by keeping information flowing, granting real autonomy and making it safe to fail.
What are the benefits of intrapreneurship?
Trust improves, engagement increases and innovation thrives. Great Place To Work® research found that companies where employees can try new things and help develop new ideas see 5.5 times the revenue growth of less inclusive peers.
What role does trust play in intrapreneurship?
Trust is the foundation. Leaders need to trust employees enough to step back and grant autonomy, and employees need to trust that leaders will back them when a calculated risk falls short. At the Best Workplaces™ for Start-Ups, 95% of employees say management trusts them to do a good job without watching over their shoulders.
How can I tell if my organization supports intrapreneurship?
Ask employees whether they feel informed, trusted with responsibility, proud of their work and free to try new ideas. An employee survey such as the Trust Index™ measures these experiences and shows where your culture is ready for intrapreneurship and where it needs work.
