Did you know that 77% of companies are improving employee experience to increase retention? As an IT recruitment company in Singapore, we believe that the secret to improving retention rates lies in knowing who you’re creating the work environment for. When you understand who your tech staff are at the core, and what they like, you can improve their job satisfaction and avoid the high attrition rates plaguing everyone else.
1. Understanding Tech Talents
Tech talents are unique in many ways. But contrary to what many think, this uniqueness is not just skill-based. There are specific attributes that make these guys who they are. Here are the major ones.
They are creative – tech talents are imaginative, creative and witty. They are almost always in problem-solving mode and see things from a big-picture perspective. They easily understand the scope of large projects and break down big problems to find the best way to solve them.
They are analytical – tech pros are analytical and objective. They think through processes and engage logic. They will analyze the pros and cons of different tools and processes, and stick to what is best. As much as they are flexible, change needs to make sense.
They are team players – techies like working with each other and developing solutions as a team. They love their communities and are eager to embrace younger talents and help them grow. Once in a team with the necessary resources, they will work happily and deliver results.
They are careful – they take time in the design stage to make sure there are no flaws before embarking on the actual building. Code will be inspected for readability, and everything from code to databases are backed up—they know that accidents do happen.
They are conscience-driven – most tech talents believe that they should do good. This is why so many of them sacrifice time and utilize their expertise to develop great freeware solutions. If a project gets in the hands of someone with a different agenda, they will leave.
2. Creating the Right Work Environment for Your Tech Talent
Now that you know tech talents a little bit better, it’s time to create the work environment that they will love. From what we’ve learned from techies, the below five things make all the difference in a job.
A. Company Culture
Work culture is a powerful tech talent magnet. If you want to keep the tech talent you’ve recruited, you must have the right work culture. Keep in mind that culture is more than casual dressing and games. Culture is really about living life at the workplace.
To make your work culture attractive, align it with your company’s mission and values. Mission-driven companies have 30% more innovations and 40% higher retention. When your tech pros get sold out on your mission, they will work happily, experience high job satisfaction, and you’ll keep them for longer.
Keep in mind that the ideal company culture depends on the type of employee you're hiring (e.g. Gen Z and Millennial employees). More information available in these articles below:
B. Autonomy
Tech talents don’t appreciate being distracted when they settle down to work. One hacker even lamented the poor design of a Singaporean hackathon where coders would be interrupted by “business people.”
To retain your top talent, it’s important that you allow room for autonomy and focus. When you have a project, just explain it to them, answer all their questions, and discuss your expectations. After that, give them space to work. Consider creating spaces for coders, designers, and even engineers, where they can put their minds to work without unnecessary interruptions.
C. Flexibility and Work-Life Balance
Tech talents don’t believe in the traditional 9-5 work-day; in fact, most workers today don’t. Here are some stats and market insights to show you that remote work is really the future:
1 in 3 Singaporeans feels more productive working from home
55% of managers believe they’re more productive working remotely
80% of employees looking for a new job want to be able to live anywhere
Basecamp, Quora and Shopify are among companies shifting to a permanent 100% remote work model. Spotify and HubSpot are implementing a hybrid model
In this era of remote work and remote teams, tech talents expect flexibility to be standard. They look forward to work-from-home days, flexible hours and friendly paid time off (PTO) policies. The more comfortable you make them, the more you’ll benefit from them.
D. Career Growth Opportunities
Every tech talent wants some form of career growth. Some want to move up the ladder and manage teams, while others want to grow by sharpening their technical skills further. Whenever you have a position to fill, consider recruiting internally. Apart from reducing your recruitment costs, you’ll also increase your retention rates.
Source: LinkedIn
This means that career growth opportunities should be personalized. The easiest way to do this is by creating diverse career paths and letting the talents choose which ones they want. You can also give them the freedom to choose which projects they want to be involved in, as well as opportunities to switch roles.
E. Interesting and Challenging Projects
Nothing thrills techies more than the opportunity to tackle a challenging problem. Top tech companies know this and that’s why they task them with creating all sorts of innovations. Some projects can even be used to give back to the society in the form of free solutions (think Gmail).
It’s important to keep your tech staff engaged with projects which stimulate their minds. This gives them an opportunity to utilize their skills and become better. You can be sure that the tech team at DBS enjoyed developing Singapore’s first cryptocurrency exchange that’s backed by a traditional bank.
F. The Takeaway
To thrive in today’s business environment, your company needs to be one that tech talents desire to work for. While this comes down to employer branding, the real work begins once those tech hires are part of your staff.
Most companies suffer from high attrition rates due to the lack of a comprehensive talent retention strategy. With an understanding of who techies really are, you can make your company an exception and gain a competitive advantage.
Contact BGC to learn more on how you can leverage on your work environment’s strengths to attract valuable tech talents and benefit from our vast experience in IT recruitment outsourcing.
Read More: How to Hire and Retain Top Tech Talent in Singapore