Local corporate services firm prioritises staff health and happiness

With a good number of years invested in their career, employees in their 30s are usually settled in their jobs and enjoying the financial rewards of their hard work.

But when he hit the big 3-0, Mr Darren Ku felt exhausted as an employee and pondered the meaning of life.

"I was pretty burned... on some nights, I was working till 5am. And I was questioning why I was working so hard," says Mr Ku, now 41.

Fast forward to 2022, Mr Ku is founder and business director of home-grown accountancy and corporate services firm Venturer Group - and committed to workplace happiness. "Happiness is one of the keys to a fulfilling life and as we spend half of our lives at work, we need to ensure that our workplace is a happy place," says Mr Ku.

The company is an Honouree for the Business For Good 2021/2022 awards, under the Business For Good category. Venturer Group Corporate Solutions was recognised in this category for being a business that successfully implemented innovative business models to create a social impact.

Formed in 2018, Venturer Group began restructuring in January 2021 to chart a new, digitally driven growth pathway. This came after deep contemplation over the future of the company in the face of increasing competition and technological disruption.

Under Mr Ku, who believes his employees are "key stakeholders" of the company, the management team put in frameworks to help foster kindness and fairness in the workplace.

Team leaders were appointed to design bonding events such as fitness classes and informal sharing sessions. The company also purchased standing desks and introduced digital signatures to boost employee productivity.

Venturer Group even implemented a "happiness" survey. The first Workplace Happiness Survey, conceived by the Align Group and the Singapore Human Resources Institute, took place in January last year.

The survey looked at 28 factors including fairness and a fair salary, as well as feelings of optimism and gratitude.

Venturer Group achieved overall scores of over 80, beating the national average of 67. This surprised Mr Ku, who was pleased to note that his employees were already satisfied, even before the survey.

Caring for the 'ecosystem'

Under Mr Ku's watch, Venturer Group has shed its mum-and-pop image and rebranded itself into a forward-thinking, tech-enabled corporate solutions expert.

Venturer Group's chief commercial officer Serene Loong says: "We have engaged developers to automate some of our accounting processes to take the grunt work off the table and to minimise human error, so our staff can focus on building customer relationships."

Like many companies, Venturer Group felt the strain of the pandemic's impact, with some clients missing or delaying their payments.

Despite the challenges, the company offered its services at cost to its Singapore-based clients on a case-by-case basis, during the heightened alert phase in mid-2021.

It also overcame these odds to be named one of Singapore's Fastest Growing Companies in 2022, an annual ranking of companies put together by the Straits Times and German-based statistics firm Statista.

Mr Ku believes in leveraging his position of influence for the Venturer Group ecosystem, of which includes clients and suppliers, in addition to employees.

"A good corporate should be a steward of the resources that are given to us, including manpower. The philosophy is to extend this beyond our staff, and if we can, we want to bring this to the customers and suppliers as well." says Mr Ku.