Culture as the Foundation for Sustainable Growth
Recently, AXA Engineers’ Founder & CEO, Mr. Anthony Nguyen, participated in an in-depth discussion on workplace culture. The shared insights reaffirmed one key point: culture is not an accessory to business, but rather the foundation that determines an organization’s ability to retain talent and unlock team potential. At AXA Engineers, culture is considered the guiding principle for every development decision, from managing daily tasks to handling incidents, learning, and spreading knowledge across the organization.
Encouraging Creativity and Embracing Mistakes
One of the most notable strengths at AXA Engineers is a culture that creates psychological safety, where engineers are encouraged to experiment and propose new ideas. Leadership emphasizes the principle of making mistakes then fixing them, meaning employees are encouraged to try boldly, accept errors as part of the learning process, as long as they are not repeated. This approach helps break down hesitation, motivating the team to take initiative in improving techniques and processes, particularly critical in the infrastructure design consulting sector, where continuous innovation and improvement bring competitive advantages.
AXA Engineers applies a systematic approach to incident management: instead of focusing on individual blame, the company identifies root causes, categorizes errors, and stores lessons in a “mistake library” for the entire team to learn from. Categorization (minor, moderate, severe) helps employees clearly understand the consequences of repeated behavior and adjust proactively, while turning each mistake into an internal training opportunity. This marks a shift from managing people to managing knowledge, transforming personal experiences into shared corporate assets.
AXA Engineers at Workplace Culture Masterclass 04 (Picture: Great Place To Work)
Flexible and Transparent Management
Recognizing that each business model has its own characteristics, AXA Engineers is considering adopting flexible working arrangements, including phased remote work options. To ensure performance when not all employees are physically present in the office, the company has implemented highly practical management practices: employees review tasks at the start of the day and report progress at specific timeframes, enabling the entire team to stay aligned with project status. This mechanism maintains transparency in progress while empowering individual accountability, which is particularly critical in a technical environment where timeliness and accuracy define output quality.
AXA Engineers views culture not as surface-level activities, but as a “bridge” connecting organizational goals with individual aspirations. When people feel safe to learn, empowered to experiment, and see that the company learns alongside them from mistakes, trust and engagement increase significantly. The outcome is not only lower turnover but also a proactive team that actively proposes improvements and delivers higher-quality products and services to clients. Incremental changes in evaluation, feedback, and knowledge-sharing mechanisms gradually build long-term differentiation for AXA Engineers.
Our Founder & CEO Anthony Nguyen is sharing at Workplace Culture Masterclass 04 (Picture: Great Place To Work)
Culture as a Continuous Journey
Culture is not a destination but a journey: AXA Engineers demonstrates through concrete actions that by embracing controlled mistakes, transforming lessons into shared knowledge, and building transparent work systems, even a growing company can develop a strong, flexible, and creative culture. This journey requires patience, consistency, and commitment from leadership to every team member. With the steps currently being taken, AXA Engineers is gradually transforming culture into a sustainable competitive advantage, where people are nurtured, ideas are encouraged, and real value is created for clients.
