Being known as a technology enthusiast organisation
Let’s start thinking like an individual who steps into the sea of jobs and opportunities and is looking for a place that meets his requirements whether it’s financial, geographical, social or anything else which is personal. On top of that if this person is a software engineer who is a technology enthusiast, who is in the process of giving interviews in different Product and Service companies, may have some of the below expectations in his/her list before chosing a right place for him/her-
1. Competitive pay package
2. Friendly employee policies and perks
3. The correct work culture
4. A technically enriched and influential brand
Above items in the list are some of the few features which make places like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, etc the most cherished options for many. These companies may be the peak of influencing work places but there are many other players in the industry who are known for making the workplace a desired place to be in. You may be having your own such favorites. But what is the main ingredient that makes some companies so special in the wishlist/priority list of technology enthusiasts ?
In this blog post I will try to look for this very special ingredient with my own perspective, experience and influences. And this may vary, from person to person.
Becoming the home for innovations
For me it is the practice of developing a place where a product or products is/are made with the passion for best practices in technology, innovation, latest industry trends, focus on sound architecture, long term vision and sound enough product and project lifecycle methodologies.
Without pointing to some companies/organizations specifically, I would list down some of the common traits found in all of them.
- Freedom of creativity (need constant push and motivation)
- Freedom to share ideas (also inspire people to share ideas)
- Employee growth parameters linked to learning
- An environment which kindles the passion for learning
- Constant employee feedback mechanism and quick process to implement suggestions(obviously after filtering them)
- Flexible working hours
- Work from home (especially with reference to the current pandemic situation)
- Employee friendly policies and perks
- Policies related to health and wellness (very important aspect)
- Organisation should make efforts towards the health and fitness of people and must boost people for sports, physical fitness as well as mental & spiritual health.
- A strong, simple and robust hiring process.
Above are some of the many important traits of a successful, famous and attractive to employee companies. These things are very easy to be listed down but the real challenge is execution. Let’s try to see things from a deeper perspective.
Being known for your culture of innovation
Some cool steps which can be taken to create a culture of innovation and at the same time create the same image outside the company(these steps can be taken into the action only after understanding that this will not work like a magical wand, it will take years and years of hard work, passion and dedication to create the culture)
- Engage the technical people into discussions with the help of deep dive sessions, tech talks, webinars, etc.
- Make the organisation a home to open source contributors by pushing and encouraging people to get involved in such practices (people will need influencers in the beginning and then a time will come when this company will be known to create influencers)
- Help people develop the habit of writing technical blogs. Remember these things need to get published to outside world in order to get known as the technology loving and open source contributing organisation!
- Studies say that in the present times people find it easier to understand concepts/recipes by watching a video over just plain text (stats given in the image below)
- Actively take part in bigger and global forums. (Examples- ngConf, GraphQL conferences, technical community meetups like Google Cloud Developer conferences happening all around the globe)
- Help people to develop the habit of learning something in a sound way before starting to implement the same. This will eventually lead to having technical experts all over in your organisation.
- Start hosting technical events. Remember, to get known as a technology company, you have to stop just being the audience.
Disclaimer: In the above process, we should make sure to keep the environment inside our work place easy to breathe in. We should not simply force people or impose things upon them. Learning and innovation is a creative process and should be dealt with high level of compassion and with respect for people’s opinion and interests. Remember, everybody can’t and ought not learn everything!
Start growing physically, mentally and spiritually
In present days, just paying ok and having some technical project work is not enough. Now a days people are dealing with numerous ailments related to physical and mental health. The sedentary jobs we have are just making sure to make these things go worse. We should be the ambassador for fitness by conducting regular fitness sessions like aerobics, yoga and meditation. We should make sure we are projecting these aspects in our culture to the outside world.
Getting the hiring process right
Having a sound hiring process has always been a constant challenge for every company. On top of it the present era of work from home/ remote working has made the process even challenging! So it is very important to take this aspect of your company culture in consideration.
There are unending factors which can help a company to make a robust, concrete and at the same time a very flexible hiring process. But while we think of listing down some of those factors, we should keep in mind to design interviews in a way that projects a very good image of the company in front of the applicants. Few of them from my perspective can be below -
- Keeping it generic - focus less on programming language but more on concepts.
- Hands-on is what is really important, we can’t be sure of a person without having him tested on the grounds of actual code writing.
- Emphasize on use cases rather than direct questions.
- Don’t judge everyone with the same lens. We might lose good talent!
- Make the interview a real learning process for the individual applicants.
- It really makes sense to provide as well as receive feedback on the hiring process even if we are rejecting a candidate.
The social angle
In the present times, just working brilliantly but within a silo is foolishness! If we are doing great things then we must be projecting the same to the outside world. Some final points to understand this angle-
- Projecting our knowledge over technical topics/ technologies to the outside world via blogs, videos, participation in technical forums, hosting technical events, etc.
- Keeping an eye on the external forums like glassdoor. Not even a single negative comment should be under estimated.
- Keeping the attitude of contributing to open source projects, technologies or libraries and also being known for the same
- Project your developers as heroes to the technology community around us!
- Being active on platforms like linkedIn, twitter, youtube, etc!
- Remember- It is important to make some noise!
I hope the article has been able to address a topic which you might have been looking for, in the back of your mind. I am always open for suggestions and discussions. I am a passionate technical video content maker, I believe in sharing and helping the world in whatever way I can. My technical videos are published on my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU2ORXboj6_hQW1gnakzaVg
