Rasa Stratkauskienė, the new HR manager at NFQ Technologies, talks about the three main issues that are currently the „hottest“ in the IT sector and how to address them.
Challenge No. 1: Employee psychological state
According to a study conducted by researchers Paul Farmer and Dennis Stevenson, taking care of employee psychological health and creating well-being brings 4.25 times the return for every dollar invested.
R. Stratkauskienė notes that the topic of creating psychological well-being is relevant not only for IT, but also for all other organisations: „Given today’s context of war and pandemics, creating psychological well-being among employees is becoming, or at least should become, a priority for various organisations. Although these circumstances are independent of the workplace, employers need to be aware that poor psychological well-being affects employee motivation, engagement, and performance at work. Nowadays, employees expect support and help from their employer in difficult conditions, so employers must try to take this need into account and find ways to improve employees’ well-being,“ commented R. Stratkauskienė, „So far, we have been running various training courses and lectures in our organisation. We provide health insurance which includes psychological services. In addition, the NFQ People and Culture Department provides counselling for managers and employees who are facing difficulties at work. However, we see that more attention needs to be paid to this topic, so we will definitely create more initiatives.“
Well-being also depends on the internal circumstances of the employee’s work: the professional says it is important for employees to ask themselves: „Do I see value in my work? Do I want to keep doing it? Am I clear about my responsibilities? Do I feel supported and appreciated by my manager and the organisation?“ If these questions are not answered, the expert advises the employee to share his/her thoughts with his/her manager and the manager to respond and support his/her team member.
R. Stratkauskienė notes that managers are no exception – they are also faced with various difficulties and challenges: „When it comes to improving the psychological state of mind, at NFQ we pay a lot of attention to manager well-being: we consult them directly, invite them to join the Leadership Academy and the Leaders’ Club, where we help managers develop the competences needed to work with their team,“ R. Stratkauskienė shared her good practices.
Challenge 2: Improving employee competencies
In the tech sector, learning is a continuous process. Most IT organisations pride themselves on the opportunities they provide for employees to grow and develop their competences. However, due to the intense workloads involved, IT employees often lack the time to develop their competences on the job.
„The notion that it is only the employee who is responsible for his/her own professional development has long since come to an end. To be the best, IT companies need to meet the highest quality standards and deliver the most innovative solutions to their customers, so developing employee competences is important for both the employee and the company they work for. It is not only the training basket that is important here, but also the time allocated for the development of competences. Our organisation addresses this by optimising and clearly communicating the development process: career paths, position criteria. We identify the competences and skills needed according to the company’s needs and, of course, provide opportunities for training and development. NFQ team leaders have quarterly conversations with employees about how they are doing in their position, what their career goals are and how to achieve them,“ the expert shared her best practices.
R. Stratkauskienė also identifies mentoring programmes as one of the tools for improving employee competences. According to her, mentoring is one of the best ways to learn when you have highly experienced and professional colleagues working in your company. „At the moment, we are just launching a mentoring project at NFQ, which is aimed at helping to improve mentoring skills and strengthen competences. We also organise monthly Know-How teleconferences, where our employees share their field expertise with their colleagues,“ said Ms Stratkauskienė.
Challenge 3: Enabling a feedback culture
According to a study published by consultancy Clear Company, 69% of respondents say they would be more enthusiastic about their work if they felt recognised at work. One way to ensure this is by creating a culture of feedback in the organisation. But this is not the only benefit of such a culture. Giving and receiving feedback increases the clarity of work processes, allows employees to be clear about what to strengthen and what to change, improves communication within the team, and helps employees and teams to more seamlessly link their goals to the company’s objectives. A culture of feedback improves the psychological environment and builds trust within the team. It can be positive – encouraging a colleague’s behaviour – or corrective – pointing out what can be improved or changed. In order to enable feedback, it is important that people know how to give good quality feedback. Feedback must be objective, not intended to criticise but to help people to improve.
According to the expert, this culture should not be a formal questionnaire but a part of daily work, where feedback is given directly to each other at different levels. „At NFQ, we have been promoting a culture of feedback for years. Employees themselves say that feedback is useful, helps them to improve and they would like to receive more of it. Initially, we encouraged giving and asking for feedback by organising initiatives such as the Feedback Ambassador election. Now we see that feedback is becoming an integral part of the day-to-day culture at NFQ. We see an ever-increasing demand for feedback and are constantly looking for new ways to strengthen this initiative,“ said R. Stratkauskienė.