WHEN on Topic: Do small businesses really need policies and procedures?

Welcome to another episode of WHEN on Topic. I’m Stella Kasdagli, and as you may remember, this season of our podcast is dedicated to care responsibilities and their equal distribution. And of course, it comes to you thanks to CAREdiZO. What is CAREdiZO? It is a new project we are participating in under the European Commission’s CERV program, which aims to bridge the gender gap in care responsibilities by promoting equality practices at home, in very small businesses, and in small civil society organizations, with up to 10–11 employees. The project supports family-friendly policies, encourages men to participate in care work, and highlights the value of care in society -exactly what we ourselves have been advocating for all these years. Its activities include research, co-creation workshops, training programs, and the development of digital tools such as an educational game and podcasts, aimed at combating stereotypes and promoting equality. Our other partners come from Cyprus, Lithuania, and Bulgaria, and they are currently creating their own podcasts, which you may have the opportunity to discover in the near future. In today’s episode of our podcast, we are joined by a very dear guest, Anastasia Chalkidou, who is co-founder and CFO of Quantum Bits, a company you will be hearing much more about very soon. I will only say that she also supports many other small businesses and organizations in standing on their feet, growing, and becoming financially and technologically sustainable. That is why we invited Anastasia here today: to talk with her about what the journey looks like for a very small business or organization when it begins trying to formalize what it would like to offer its employees in order to support work–life balance and help them manage care responsibilities outside of work. How can this be done effectively, without dedicating excessive resources, without burdening either the organization or employees with unnecessary bureaucracy, and without creating a rigid system, something we usually associate with very large companies and that, as small business owners, we sometimes prefer to avoid? How can we move away from relying only on climate and culture and move toward policies and procedures that ensure equal treatment and an equal distribution of care responsibilities for everyone?
Let’s listen to Anastasia.

Stella: Anastasia, tell us a few words about the company you co-founded. What is Quantum?

Anastasia: First of all, thank you very much for the invitation, which I accepted with great pleasure. Quantum is an accounting and IT company, a collaboration between two very fundamental pillars of all businesses, regardless of size. It was founded about eleven years ago by myself and Giorgos Kaznetzov, after we returned from an important experience in Belgium, where we worked for two years, bringing with us all of our prior experience in our respective fields. I am an economist and certified auditor, and Giorgos is an IT specialist. So we joined forces wanting to create a services hub -an accelerator, I would say- for small and very small businesses and organizations, one that could offer a high level of service quality without incredibly high costs, and that would live through the experience of growth, because we were growing together with our partners, and that was the beautiful part.

Stella: And how many people are you now at Quantum?

Anastasia: We are now a total of 15 people. We are split between Athens and Thessaloniki. We have a fairly wide age range and different backgrounds, which essentially make up the accounting, IT, and operations teams, with operations touching both departments.

Stella: Let me add the disclaimer that Quantum has been a valuable partner of ours for -how long now- four years?

Anastasia: Three.

Stella: Three years. I should also say that the reason you are here today is because you have gone through the journey of building a business that is no longer very small -it is small, you have passed the number of 11- but at the same time you support, on a daily basis, other very small and small businesses. So you bring not only your own perspective, but also the perspective of many clients who have passed through your hands.

Anastasia: That’s true. And it was an invaluable experience for us as well. As I said earlier, we felt that we were growing together with our partners—not only our clients, but also the external collaborators we had for running the business. We exchanged experiences, and I I think that made all of us much better at what we do. We gained a better understanding of reality, and of economic reality in particular, partly because of our background and partly because the years we went through were difficult for many reasons and challenges. We learned a lot.

Stella: Sure. Drawing on all this experience -both your own and that of the businesses you have supported- and focusing on the core issue that CAREdiZO primarily addresses, which is the reconciliation of professional and private life for the people who work for us, with a particular emphasis on those who also have care responsibilities outside of work: where would you say that the ideal point is for a very small business or organization to stop relying on what we often say, “we have a good atmosphere here, we’re human, we can rely on one another,” and start putting things “on paper,” so to speak? To begin institutionalizing and clearly articulating policies and procedures related to leave, flexibility, working hours, anything that touches on work–life balance.

Anastasia: In truth, there is no point in the sense of numbers. That would help us, because we are people of numbers, but there isn’t one. What exists instead is complexity, a degree of complexity, and you mainly perceive it through indications.

Stella: For example?

Anastasia: For example, the difficulty of always being available to respond. Things need to move forward regardless of whether you are at a conference or a presentation, they still need to move forward. In accounting, we also have tight deadlines that are not set by us, nor can we shift them, and they carry costs if they are not met. So that’s where the realization comes in that some things are no longer easy to manage on our own. At the same time, people gradually join the team and bring their own particularities and dynamics. They have personal issues they are called upon to manage alongside their work. So, you begin to realize that this is no longer a one-man or one-woman show. You need to distribute responsibility, you need to share, and you need to put things down a bit, not to create additional bureaucracy, but to facilitate things and free people up to talk to you, and for you to talk to them.

Stella: From my own experience, I see two ways an entrepreneur can respond to this. One is to say, “Oh no, these people don’t work anymore, we can’t coordinate,” and put the blame on employees. The other is to realize that the organization is growing and needs a new structure and a new way of doing things. So where do you start?

Anastasia: For me, the key is communication. And communication is neither one-sided nor at a single level. It’s not that the founders sit down, write a policy, and say, “This is it, implement it,”

Stella: Take it…

Anastasia: As if the rest 12 people have no opinion or don’t live in this reality every day. That’s disempowering and doesn’t help with culture change or inclusion. So, first there needs to be a discussion around the maturity of the founders, to realize they can’t do everything on their own anymore, and we ourselves started on our own and the development was both rapid and with many issues to deal with. So, at some point we also came to realize that these things need to be addressed, we need to discuss them. Then there are the intermediaries, what we might call the management team, who act as buffers and are responsible for implementation and monitoring, and who receive feedback from both sides (founders and employees). Discussion at all these levels, and inclusion of the whole team is essential. When we decided to document these things, even something as simple as setting goals for the next year, we spoke with our collaborators, first the management team, and then the entire team. We set milestones for discussion, that we will talk about these two or three times, because there comes a difficulty of how long it will take us to make the policy. Maybe by involving more people…

Stella: Correct

Anastasia: Bureaucracies begin or we hinder development from some personal stereotypes that everyone may have. So, we set a program that we will discuss in these two phases of the year and decide after this second discussion. So, the more structured something is and the more inclusive I would say, the more we put the team into it, the easier it is to implement later. Without saying that challenges and things that we did not know or could not predict did not arise. But when we are aligned, we are all on the same page, we can deal with them more easily.

Stella: I would like you to tell me about these challenges. I recently received a comment from an HR employee from a larger organization than ours, but she made the point that, look at her, when a woman on our team is on her period and needs to go to the bathroom for a moment, she can raise her hand to signal to the shift manager and go. No further, blah blah. Why would I put this into a process that could create complaints. It could create sarcastic comments. It could embarrass people who were used to operating this way. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And not continue to rely on what has been working so far. So, what advice would you give to founders or executives who are hesitant to enter the process of formalizing a policy for fear of what kind of mess it will bring.

Anastasia: That we shouldn’t look at processes in isolation, and this actually touches on my work as well. So, it’s part of that area too. I’ll bring an example from work to see how similar the approaches are. When we tell our colleagues, “Okay, you need to keep documentation,” you need to have these supporting documents in your files in case there is a tax audit, a tax inspection, so that we can refer to them. For many people it’s difficult to accept all this archiving, even electronically, if possible, why it needs to exist, given electronic bookkeeping and all these developments.

Stella: Well, don’t ever hire me. I’d destroy the whole company.

Anastasia: I get it, on the one hand. But it’s also a form of prevention and, if you like, reassurance, peace of mind. It’s a form of care as well. Preventing stress when the time comes to referring to something, having it ready and being able to produce it. That’s how I see these processes within the team too. It’s not bureaucracy, it’s not something we want to box into rigid frameworks like the example you mentioned. On the contrary, we want to empower people who don’t have the courage to ask what applies in a given case. And there are many such people in our teams. They don’t feel comfortable asking, so they need to be informed about what they can do.

Stella: True

Anastasia: And feel free to do so. Or to think, “What a great idea this is,” whether they’re men or women in this example. To think, “What a proactive environment this is, I like the people here, and I like being part of this team.” So, it triggers many positive things, even though it adds one more step of communication or process.

Stella: Yes, for me this was a very pivotal moment in my development as a manager. When we received feedback from a team member who said, “I would like to know when I’m entitled to ask for this. When I don’t know, I find it difficult to ask because I’m afraid it might work against me.” That’s something I wouldn’t have thought of. And hearing it made me realize that it can work the other way too. It’s not only about a positive provision that helps me. Even if I see a restrictive provision, knowing about it and being able to plan accordingly, as an individual, as a family, is also very important.

Anastasia: Absolutely. And I would say it’s also relieving. No one needs to be put “in the spotlight, so to speak—using sports terms—just because they ask something. Especially in accounting, where I lead the department, the restrictions are even greater, because it’s less acceptable not to know what leave you’re entitled to. Someone might think, “This is part of my job, so if I say I don’t know labor law issues that I’m supposed to apply and advise clients on, I’ll be exposed even more.”

Stella: Exactly. Especially for provisions that don’t align directly with legislation.

Anastasia: They can be additional, employer-initiated, anything. And again, it touches work and finances, I like to say that it’s a social science.

Stella: It really is.

Anastasia: It belongs to the social sciences, and I like to emphasize that, because it touches so many different aspects. For example, that person might have to deal with an incident involving a client and will need the, let’s call it a heavy term, approach or way of communicating it. Because that too will involve an employee.

Stella: Right, right. You mentioned involving employees from the beginning of this process. What other stakeholders need to be activated for this process to move forward properly—whether because they have the knowledge, the experience, or whatever else?

Anastasia: I strongly believe in the power of networks.

Stella: Mmm.

Anastasia: So we actively reach out to our broader network of partners,not just clients, with whom we already have daily exchanges on labor issues or care-related matters, because they seek our advice or ask what the law stipulates, but also within broader collaborations. By nature of our profession, we work with a wide range of industries and sectors, so we hear many different stories and experiences. We want to hear them because they make us better. We discuss them internally within the team: “Look at that, great policy,” or “That was a huge distinction in X environment or Y.” And we get feedback from our team, which is easier to express because it’s a third environment, outside their own workplace. So their feedback flows more smoothly into what we discuss.

Stella: Right. And how important was the advice of a legal professional—a lawyer—in shaping these processes in your case?

Anastasia: Very important. Everything we draft as a policy comes from our own perspective, as accountants, IT professionals, a team, or from our experiences as employees. Having a legal advisor as the final review filter is crucial, because we can’t capture certain things with the same clarity. We add our own tone. Legal experts can make it more cohesive and more communicative. Not pointing to specific cases but focusing on the essence of the policy.

Stella: Right.

Anastasia: …of the policy.

Stella: That’s nice. I hadn’t thought of it that way. What was the biggest challenge for you personally, not for the business in general, but for you—in this process?

Anastasia: I struggled at two points. One I realized through real-life circumstances, and the other emerged indirectly during the process. The first was when I personally had to deal with a caregiving issue involving someone close to me, my mother, who became seriously ill and needed treatment for a period of time, and I was the one taking her to therapy. These were weekday working hours, so you can imagine the difficulty. It was also during COVID, which for us was a growth accelerator due to our involvement with businesses. The team was growing at a crazy pace, with new members joining constantly. At the same time, I was dealing with this situation and six months after giving birth to my second child. It was a lot. And at that moment, I realized we hadn’t anticipated something like this. It was our fifth or sixth year as a company, just as we were starting to grow, but we hadn’t thought about what would happen if the two of us leading the teams were unable to be present for any reason. That gave us a lot to think about and made us more attentive listeners to the team’s particular needs. That’s where the process began, leading to where we are now, having a designated person who acts as a link between the two teams, from operations, not accounting or IT, coordinating and helping us build these policies better and give the team the freedom I mentioned earlier: to share and not feel that work or the workplace is an obstacle to their personal lives, or an insurmountable wall when dealing with personal matters. We wanted to open these channels more and communicate earlier. We also had an incident in the team: someone from IT lost his father. He took the legally entitled leave, which he knew about because we’re an internal accounting department. But we felt he wasn’t ready to return. We spoke with him before he came back, offering condolences, but his psychological state was very poor. So, we collectively decided that he should take more time and return when he felt ready. He didn’t return directly to the office; he worked remotely first and then gradually returned. We saw this as a big success for the team, because everyone supported him. It wasn’t a unilateral decision from his department, it was something we all recognized and supported, even after he returned to the office.

Stella: And let me ask you something. Do such incidents, after a policy has already been created, lead you to modify parts of it or incorporate new needs you couldn’t foresee earlier?

Anastasia: Definitely. And flexibility is a key success factor for any policy, it must be reviewed annually. It’s a living thing, like the business itself. That’s what we tell all our partners about the policies we propose, regardless of whether they concern care-related issues or accounting matters. Nothing can be set in stone. It’s impossible, because it needs change and the way we work has changed dramatically in recent years. It bears no resemblance to how we started the business. So yes, at least once a year, there’s a discussion and recalibration of what we write and communicate to people.

Stella: Right. How has this whole process changed you and the company?

Anastasia: I feel a sense of entrepreneurial maturity, beyond just maturity.

Stella: A coming of age.

Anastasia: Exactly. We often say this with my co-founder: a business is like a child. Since we’re parents,the analogy fits. You start with it as a baby, fully dependent on you, just like the business depended entirely on the founders in the beginning. Then it enters childhood and has different needs. People join, it grows gradually.

Stella: You trust it to other hands.

Anastasia: Then comes adolescence, which is where we are now at Quantum. There’s an explosion of emotions and growth, just like in a teenager. That’s what we’re experiencing. Over time, we move toward maturity. But it starts with the two people maturing, us, who began this journey and along with us, the team. I believe that everyone who was part of this journey, even those who left, carry a piece of it. We recently celebrated ten years and had the joy of seeing many former team members join us. It was wonderful to see their growth and feel that they still carry this sense of connection.

Stella: And perhaps they’ve carried part of the culture they learned at Quantum into other workplaces as well. To close, if you were to give one piece of advice to a small business owner who wants to start thinking more strategically about employee support, what would you say?

Anastasia: Communication. Open up, don’t be afraid to share your own experiences, especially at the beginning, and listen to the community. Don’t be afraid to join networks of other entrepreneurs and learn. I’m privileged, because through my profession, I’m exposed to many businesses but that’s not the case for everyone. So don’t be afraid to open up. It’s incredible how common these issues are, regardless of size. That’s what I realized.

Stella: Anastasia, thank you so much.

Anastasia: Thank you.

Stella: And I wish us all a graceful coming of age.

Anastasia: Exactly. Thank you very much.

Conclusion: We hope you found today’s discussion with Anastasia interesting. We’d love to hear from you, what else do you think CAREdiZO could create to bring us one step closer to equality, both in and out of the workplace? We’re always here to read and listen to your suggestions, comments, and ideas. Follow us on social media, send us an email, leave us a review on Spotify, come meet us at WHEN Hub, and let’s continue the conversation so we can make WHEN and CAREdiZO even better for everyone.