Written by Rakuten Blockchain Lab's Fergal Downey
Fergal Downey, Vice President of Engineering at Rakuten Blockchain Lab, writes from his own experience, about how to best establish a good company reputation.
When you set out to grow your team, your task is to convince people to leave their current jobs and come join your team with the expectation of something better.
Prospective employees don’t take this decision lightly and with so many open positions for software professionals right now, you need to help them visualise what they can expect from a role in your team. The reputation of your team within the relevant community is therefore of critical importance. Before you can have a reputation however, you need to establish an identity and create awareness of your team with the technical community you are targeting.
Whilst the approach you take to building this awareness differs between different kinds of organisations such as a start-up versus a Belfast based engineering team for a well-known multinational brand, some elements are common. It is important to establish a local name.
This might seem obvious to the start-up as this is key to the identity of the company, but not so obvious for a remote engineering team. A local name such as Rakuten Blockchain Lab, Aflac NI or Liberty IT helps to demonstrate your local investment and reassure candidates about your future plans for the team.
Once you have established your name, you need to get it out there. There are numerous channels available, and a combination of channels will reach the widest and most diverse audience. Social media, such as LinkedIn is pretty much entry level, but it is only as good as the content you share and can be difficult to engage a large audience.
You and your team members need to join, present at and host local technology meetups; you need to have a stand at the university career fairs, give guest lectures to undergraduates, hire placement students and sponsor final year projects; you need to publish relevant articles in local media channels (such as www.syncni.com); you need to nominate your company or projects for local tech awards; and you need to participate in and/or sponsor local technical conferences. These promotional activities help to create your team identity and reputation, making it easy for everyone representing your company such as your current team members and employment agencies to deliver a consistent message.
Having a good reputation however will only help with the hiring. Reputation is how others perceive those things about your team, whereas character revolves around what is truly important to the team and he moral fibre that determines what it is like to be part of that team. The number of open positions and the diversity of roles available in the local market and beyond (with remote working now a reality) makes it increasingly difficult to retain the best people in your team. If the character of the team does not align with new team members, then they are unlikely to stay.
I believe that for the most part, people leave your team when they are not happy with their current situation for some reason. This happiness is different for everyone and may be different for the same person at different times in their lives. I would like to a suggest a model that infers happiness for software engineering professionals as the intersection of technology, relevance, and environment.
Software engineers like to be working with modern programming languages & technology stacks. They like to be working on projects that are relevant and meaningful. They like to work in a pleasant and rewarding environment. Environment is very broad and includes, compensation and benefits, the physical office and flexible working arrangements, but also less-tangible things such as team culture, support from colleagues and management style.
All three attributes are required for the happiness that keeps your team together. For example, the environment might be great, and the projects are relevant, but if the technology is legacy, then sooner rather than later, team members will look elsewhere. Similarly, if the technology stack is modern and the projects are relevant, but there is a toxic culture or one where new members find it difficult to have an influence, then again, people won’t stay long.
Getting this balance right is not easy as there will always be legacy technology to deal with, there will always be “support” projects and there will always be a new company in town offering more money and a pool table in the cafeteria.
You must know your team members well and know when things are out of balance for them. You must find growth or diversification opportunities such as team leader for the legacy project, trouble-shooter for processes slowing down development or opportunities for people to get out of their comfort zone and take on a new role.
When a team member is offered an opportunity outside of your team that aligns with their own career objectives that you are not available to offer, then be happy for them and hopefully their time in your team played some part in them securing this opportunity.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2021 edition of the Sync NI magazine. You can download your FREE copy and sign up to receive future digital editions here.
