Tag: #GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY: Six Fascinating Wishes for Choosing Employers

Part 7 – Community and empathy

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

The themes of community and empathy come up the most in my analysis material. This came as a slight surprise to me, but it’s not a miracle after all. We are social animals, and working life is not separate from “real” life itself, so why would working together at the workplace and bonding with other people not be important?

Corona time

The last couple of years we have been more or less isolated from friends, strangers, coworkers, and even family members. Thus, the longing to be together with others can rise to the top of the motivation list even for a slightly more introverted person.

Can we assume that the triumph of communalism in my analysis is due to this very unusual global situation of recent years? Perhaps. At the very least, it sounds likely that it played a role. However, I wouldn’t count on the fact that the importance of human-to-human communication would decrease without the impact of the pandemic.

Meaningfulness

Although work can be seen completely as a means of making money, in general, we still need some kind of connection with other people. The workplace, on the other hand, tends to be the environment where we spend a large part of our day, so it is understandable to want it to be pleasant.

Pleasantness probably consists of a safe atmosphere, a sense of belonging, shared interests, and similar things. Belonging and common goals also create meaning, which is very important to a person. The sense of meaning is also useful for the company in the longer term when more effort is likely to be put towards the common goal and this effort causes less mental load.

Empathy and business

Our recently held Nextgencloud Webinar covered the topic of competitive advantage of a business in this digital world. A culture of psychological safety emerged in the discussion as an important factor for achieving a competitive advantage, which leads to the fact that problems can be raised and thus also solved with the right tools.

If people are supposed to act coldly and rationally, you probably won’t get to this kind of culture. The right means for a culture that benefits the bottom line of such a company and the employee can be found, among other things, in the skills of listening and being present.

Summary

As I wrote above, the category of empathy and community, which emerged as the most important factor as a slight surprise, is actually not that surprising. In my own bubble, I have begun to perceive the world of thought of genuine humanization of working life to an ever-increasing degree, which warms my heart. Maybe there is hope in working life!

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY: Six Fascinating Wishes for Choosing Employers

Part 6 – Professional skills in the organization

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

In addition to maintaining and growing your own professional skills, which I wrote in the previous post, it is great to be surrounded by competent people. In this way, competence and professionalism develop together which benefits all parties involved. It is said that a group is more than the sum of its members. This saying can also be applied in the IT sector.

In my analysis of the characteristics important of an employer, professionalism in the organization turned out to be a separate category which was the fourth most important of the six categories. It includes the skills of the team, the skills of the supervisor, and the skill of listening to the personnel.

Teamwork and social skills

Team competence can be understood in at least two different ways. Someone might make a difference between soft and hard skills, I make a difference between different skills because “soft” skills are skills just like any other. Taking others into consideration and interaction skills is sometimes hard work, and when successful, the team members create the psychological safety I mentioned earlier, which again plays a key role in the success of an expert organization. Mindfulness of others is thus an important success factor in an organization.

Technical know-how all around

Technical professionals are also interested in the know-how of others. The environment for working is enjoyable when those around you know something that you don’t know yourself. This does not require a machine from which gurus of the same topic one after another rush into the yard, but people from different backgrounds. A junior coder can just as well have new and interesting tricks to teach a senior since they look at the field with completely fresh eyes. Here too, to the point of the reader getting bored, I bring up the importance of a safe atmosphere and a sense of security, so that thoughts and things can really be shared.

Foreperson and the skill of listening

Listening – or at least pretending to – is easy. Listening and truly internalizing the thought turns out to be difficult time after time. It is thus in itself a demonstration of skill to know how to listen to people and take actions based on that. An important skill, especially for a supervisor. One theme in the organization’s professional skills category is the competence of the supervisor, while another was the consultation of the personnel.

Even at a more abstract organizational level, consulting the personnel for important topics is a skill. This is the point when I stumble into my own words because my categories listed in the opening post regarding competence, empathy and community, and processes get mixed up when thinking about the topic. As a criticism of my own “research” work, I could already say at this stage that the categorization I have formed should not be taken as the final truth. Fortunately, finding the final truth is secondary in these writings after awakening thoughts!

Summary

There are many kinds of professional skills, and a unique cluster of them creates the skills for success. Others type out beautiful code at lightning speed, while others know how to tell the customer and other important parties how beautiful that code really is and how useful it is for you. Others, on the other hand, know how to understand different points of view, are skilled at the ways of respectful interaction and thus keep the whole group together. We should continue to take into account how important different backgrounds and skills are for the organization.

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY: Six Fascinating Wishes for Choosing Employers

Part 5 – Know-how and work tasks

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

The importance of meaningful work cannot be forgotten. In my analysis of an employer’s important characteristics, the answers in the Know-how and work tasks category summarize the technical professional’s desire to be useful and develop their skills when working on sufficiently challenging puzzles.

In fact, the challengingness and interestingness of the work tasks emerge as the most essential aspect of the employer’s offer as a single factor of a category, even though the category of skills and work tasks as a whole remains the second largest of the six larger categories. It is therefore clear that it is not at all secondary to think about what work tasks are done for pay, but rather that getting access to the strangest things and gimmicks can very well be a critical question when choosing a job.

Searching for meaning

Meaning in working life can come from simply being able to use the skills you know to solve various difficult problems. The concept of meaning does not necessarily have to be viewed as a plan of a higher power or through finding the purpose of life, but it may well emerge in a short moment as a result of a single success. However, I am not saying that meaningfulness in (working)life cannot also be found at a higher level.

In many cases, interesting and meaningful tasks mean being concretely helpful. For many experts, it is important that the solution made serves some person or group of people in a concrete problem. Preferably in one that is as revolutionary as possible. So, although coding is, in general, a very fun job, we hope that it also has real benefits for real humans.

Development in professional skills

In addition to solving real problems, the development of professional skills is important. Based on the data of my analysis, for a technical professional, trudging in place is often unpleasant, while learning new things is extremely meaningful.

Skills can be developed in many ways. The ways include courses online, courses in your own studies, certificates, internal company projects, sparring with colleagues, and of course, learning through your work. The organization should be able to offer a balanced package, for example, built from these pieces, sufficiently pre-chewed.

Of course, the aspect of psychological safety must be remembered in this package. Although learning something new requires (and is often desired on behalf of the expert) a suitable challenge, a hard challenge does not always lead to an optimal learning result. The best outcome in learning comes from supporting emotionally and providing enough information and support while the level of challenges is optimal. Not always an easy equation, but if prioritized it’s certainly doable by everyone!

Summary

The meaningfulness of work tasks can even be thought of as self-evident, especially when the issue has now been juggled a bit between my synapses. However, sometimes it may be forgotten or overlooked, even though it is a very simple matter. And as seen in the data, experts do not take it for granted. If it was already in mind beforehand, there would be no need to mention it separately in the conversation.

Where technology and customer choices are important in terms of strategy and business, current and potential employees must also not be forgotten. What I mean with this is that the maximum possible involvement of experts in these processes will certainly not go to waste but will be an asset to the company.

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY: Six Fascinating Wishes for Choosing Employers

Part 4 – Processes and organization

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

For a knowledge worker, the brain is the single most important organ in the human body, so in a well-functioning organization, its optimal ability must be maintained. One way to achieve this competitive advantage is to make processes, ways of working, and work tools as functional as possible. Even though the process and organization category was the second least prominent of the six categories in the minds of experts in the IT field in my analysis, it is still an important topic to discuss.

What processes?

I know I risked losing most of my readers when I mentioned the word process. I’ll make the situation even worse with a definition. Wikipedia defines the word as follows: “A process is a series of actions to be performed that produces a defined end result”. The first thing that comes to mind is that aren’t algorithms to some extent part of the definition of a process, in which case processes should be a matter of the heart for a software developer.

However, it has been proven that this is not always the case, so the topic requires clarification. The important difference here is probably between software and relationships between people. Processes and algorithms are therefore needed in well-functioning software, but interaction cannot always be reduced to the sum of its parts. Of course, machine learning algorithms are also working in this field (too), which have come quite far in the subject, but the HR department cannot be replaced with a software robot at least yet.

Processes in the right place

Processes must therefore be found in the right place in the organization. In general, employees appreciate when things work, so easy forms and timely surveys are working processes. When you pour your morning coffee not only on your lap but also on the computer and you need to quickly get a new one, it’s lucky if this happens with a pleasant form found in an intuitive place. Also, if you didn’t have to wait four days for your supervisor’s approval via e-mail to fill out the form, this sounds like an effective process!

Processes in the wrong place

What about the wrong kind of processes we talked about? They can likely be found where the matter would be more easily handled with normal interaction skills and the ability to take others’ emotional states into account. From where the process has been forced into place for the joy of creating the process instead of interaction.

For example, if an employee’s motivation and emotional state are measured with a multi-phase survey, we may have gone a little too far, if the same thing could be done in a more nuanced way by means of a short conversation. There is of course a place for a personnel survey, but not everything has to be in a numerically measurable form, but qualitative and informal discussions often lead to a better result. In organizing these, some kind of process is again good, so that the discussions will definitely be held!

Processes and ways of working as a hygiene factor?

In one of my previous posts, I wrote that, in my view, salary is in several cases a so-called hygiene factor, where lack of it evokes a negative emotional state/image, but at an appropriate level it does not evoke particularly positive emotions. The functioning of processes in the organization falls into this same pattern of thought, which certainly explains why it also came up relatively little as a category.

If something is not working in the organization, it is often noticed by the employees very quickly. If, on the other hand, things go smoothly and as promised or assumed, the days go on normally without any praise for the organization.

Summary

Processes can make an organization’s operations efficient and enjoyable at best. When they are found in the wrong place, they are irritating when, for example, the much-needed human dimension of working life is not realized in places where it could be realized. In management work, it is therefore good to understand this relationship, and no matter how much one would like to make everything efficient, as if computer-like automated, one should not forget the beauty of wandering and aimlessness.

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY: Six Fascinating Wishes for Choosing Employers

Part 3 – Autonomy and flexibility

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

We who do knowledge work are often in such a fortunate position in working life that we can influence our working hours and habits ourselves. For example, I may go mountain biking in the central park of Helsinki in the middle of a sunny working day, if only there is nothing agreed on the schedule and the work can be completed in the evening. This is just one example of a privileged position where I can define my working habits.

Forced to the office?

In various social media, in the “post-corona” era, there has been talk of a regression back to previous ways, when employees have been very strongly asked to go to the office just because that’s how it’s always been done. As if nothing had been learned from the corona era and all the lessons about hybrid and remote work had been forgotten. This is a negative example of the realization of autonomy and flexibility, although of course it must be understood, especially in relation to larger organizations, that some kind of policies must be made and also considered so that some employees do not end up in a non-equal position due to the nature of the work.

Community

One important aspect of visiting the office is of course community spirit, which actually also touches on my second category, community and empathy. Can a clear policy of visiting the office be justified by the promotion of team spirit? Do you have fun together when you are told to have fun together? Could be, but probably not.

Community spirit is built on voluntary togetherness and enabling. When a framework is created for a convenient trip to the office and being there, people will start to be seen there too. Of course, things are not that simple in reality, but please allow a little verbal jab at the old worlds of thought.

Trust

Fundamentally, enabling autonomy and flexibility starts from the image of human. For example, is it assumed that the employee will basically do what has been agreed upon and in the timeframe that has been talked about? Is it assumed that a person is fundamentally reliable and efficient even without supervision? Through trust, it can be assumed that internal motivation increases when the responsibility for doing things lies with oneself, and no one dictates the way things are done.

Responsibility

As a counterweight to trust, responsibility remains in the employee’s account, compared to a strong culture of supervision. This can also be seen as difficult in some situations when in addition to the more precisely defined work tasks, the employee’s day includes so-called meta work, i.e. preparatory work so that the work itself can be done well. No one tells you where to be, how to be, what to do, and what to look like anymore. You have to think about it yourself. Among other things, prioritization is ultimately a very difficult and time-consuming task at worst.

As I mentioned above, trust and responsibility increase internal motivation through the experience of autonomy, but tasks traditionally more aimed at managers spill over a little more into the everyday life of a knowledge worker. Knowledge work is thus always a balancing act with regard to optimal responsibility.

Foreperson work

The subject also touches my second category at least a little. In the category “Professional skills in the organization”, one subcategory is the competence of supervisors. For supervisors to make autonomy and flexibility possible they need to adopt a position where they know how to talk more deeply with those they manage and act more as an enabler than a director of work. This is not easy.

Summary

Autonomy and flexibility was, by the way, the third most prominent category when considering important factors in the workplace for software professionals. It fights in fairly similar ranks with other top-ranked categories of my analysis and is thus a very important part of the workplace culture in knowledge work. At least in software development and related tasks, enabling autonomy and flexibility has come to stay in those workplaces that want to compete for the best workers.

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY:  Six fascinating wishes for choosing employers

Part 2 – Salary

NOTE: If you wandered into this blog series for the first time, I recommend first reading my first post that elaborates on the whole series here

More or less surprisingly, salary was the category that came up the least in the answers. The same phenomenon can also be noticed, for example, in an informal conversation with a group of friends or on social media platforms. Led by the thinking and influencing work of millennials, meaningful work tasks has become one of the most important areas, leaving purely material aspects behind.

Is salary an insignificant factor in today’s working life?

From the above, can it be assumed that salary is a completely irrelevant factor in choosing an employer? Absolutely not. From my non-scientific research, it must naturally be taken into account that even though the answers related to salary were the fewest in number, in my classification it fights against entire categories compiled from several answers. As a single, precisely defined theme, compared to, for example, self-directedness or the functionality of teamwork, it came up in reasonably big amounts.

Similarly, the design of questions must be taken into account. They ask about the most important aspects of what the employer offers, which does not bring up all the assumptions at a level deeper. In many cases, it can therefore be assumed to be self-evident.

In view of these circumstances and considering the emphasis on importance in the meaning-speech of current working life, salary was mentioned surprisingly often.

Salary as an enabler of meaning

In my opinion, salary is often seen as a kind of hygiene factor. It is supposed to be high enough to focus on pursuing more important things in (working)life, but it does not add much value to most people unless the number to the assumed median/average is particularly high. Thus, when the salary is too low, it is seen as a negative thing, but when it is just high enough, there is no added value in the employer’s brand.

Work just for pay?

One point worth noting is also the view that arose as a kind of antithesis to the speech of meaning, that one goes to work only for the salary and that employment is seen as a completely instrumental means of accumulating financial capital. In this case, meaning in life is often found somewhere else, such as family, free time, and hobbies.

However, human nature is such a complicated thing that in the ideal scenario of meaningfulness of work, a person often also finds meaning elsewhere, just as in the scenario of completely instrumental work, there might also be moments of meaningfulness.

One can also consider whether doing work just for the sake of pay is really a swing of the pendulum to the other side or a fact that has always existed, which in our socially constructed reality has been forgotten in daily thinking.

Summary

Although salary does not appear as often as other things in the priority list of important things in the workplace, it must be at least at a reasonable level – even in those jobs that offer a strong sense of meaning. And for some, it’s still one of the most important things in the workplace, and there’s nothing wrong with that either!

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions:

#GOOGLECLOUDJOURNEY:  Six fascinating wishes for choosing employers

Part 1 – Where it all started

Hello! Perttu here.

I work at Codento, a consulting company specializing in cloud technology, software development, and data/AI topics, and my job description includes, among other things, finding the right talent for our clients. Everyone who works in the field knows that the experts are sometimes a bit hard to reach, and thus I also need to be able to justify what is so special about us so that it is worth joining our growth journey. 

How can I better understand what interests experts in the workplace?

The easiest way to start this reasoning would be if I could get a larger sample of information that I could analyze and find some kind of categories and indicators of what the people who talk to us are looking for from an employer. Of course, many parties have already done this and I have read through reports like this, but it is always more fun with your own material.

My own research starts to form

I started collecting thoughts about important issues in the workplace from all the conversations I had with experts – of course completely anonymously already at the level of raw data. Not surprisingly, the thoughts start to form categories, and by classifying the answers, an overall picture of what technical professionals want from an employer begins to emerge. To freshen up my sunny June days, I spent some time wrestling with spreadsheet software and breaking down smaller areas or themes into larger bundles.

Six fascinating wishes when choosing employers

I created six categories, which are ranked in order of importance based on the number of answers. According to my unscientific interpretation, these categories are the following in random order:

• Salary
• Autonomy and flexibility
• Processes and organization
• Knowhow and work tasks
• Professional skills in the organization
• Community and empathy

Come along for my series of blog posts!

In the following blog posts, I will discuss these categories, present my thoughts related to them and reveal which categories emerged as the most important in the discussions and thus at the highest ranks in the analysis. The purpose of these posts is above all to stimulate thoughts and discussion. So I am very happy to receive criticism, thoughts, experiences, praise, and objections! 

Can you guess what emerged as the most important category among experts? 

About the author:

Perttu Pakkanen is the Talent Acquisition Lead at Codento. Perttu is eager in making sure that people joining Codento will fit with the values of Codento and enjoy the ride with us. Perttu’s passion is to understand what drives people in their career decisions.

Contact us regarding our open positions: