Ever since the global pandemic of COVID-19, I think more now than ever before about the numerous places that people gather whether it’s for personal or professional purposes. Looking back on a time where our ability to just freely go to places we have become so accustomed to suddenly vanished it created a new dynamic for us to operate under. Now, just a few years removed and with our daily lives returned to a more normal flow I think about the “why” constantly when examining the places people choose to not only go, but stay.
Personally, I think most about spending time with numerous family members at their homes whether it be for an afternoon cookout, a movie night, or even just a home cooked meal that I can’t ever seem to get right when I do it. On its surface, I know why I initially go and choose to spend this time, but now I seem to have a much bigger focus on what motivates me to stay hours after the grill has been closed up, the inflatable movie screen packed away, and the dishes have long been cleaned and put away. My motivation to stay is this established sense of community, camaraderie and enrichment that I receive by being around those who believe in that value.
This time I spend, it’s the genesis for fulfilling conversations, gaining valuable insight, furthering my knowledge in new skills, and both providing & receiving valuable support that in turn allows me to grow. Often, no matter what iteration of gathering I attend, the topic of work and professional development always serves as a staple of conversation.
Throughout today’s landscape of work and professional development, I’ve noticed a disconnect between employees and the companies they work for when it comes to finding that similar motivation to stay in their current position. In fact, in 2022 a record 50.6 million people quit their jobs and 70% of all job separations were due to voluntary quitting (CNBC, Applauz). While that number did drop in 2023, there is still a sense of “job hopping” that is consistently taking place.
In an industry with extremely high attrition rates, sometimes as high as 30%, it is clear that software developers have a tendency to jump from company to company sometimes in a short amount of time.
All of this is to say, why can’t companies seem to establish these kinds of connections with their employees when they come to work? Is it even possible in today’s landscape to provide an environment that motivates employees to stick around for 5, 10, even 15+ years like the days of old?
EC Group dared to take those questions and answer them, resulting in an average developer retention rate of 95%
I was able to sit down with members of the EC Group leadership team including CEO Mike Sudyk, SVP of Technology Arun George, and SVP of Human Resources Daniel Jacob to really unpack just how their success of retaining developers has come to fruition. With EC Group the focus is the entire spectrum between two solid pillars.
“The definition I had for employee engagement and retention is an emotional and intellectual connection that we are able to create between the employees and the work they do with the people that they work with. As well as with the organization they are working for. When somebody walks in. How can we give them a comfortable welcoming culture where they feel excited to come in on Monday morning to the office? Intellectually? No, engage them with how they feel and that what they do adds value to them. And also they add value to the product or the services that they’re into. ” Daniel Jacob, SVP of Human Resources
The construction of these pillars, emotional and intellectual connection are easy for someone to visualize especially when talking about something like employee engagement and retention rate. However, visualization is one thing and execution is another.
Using these two pillars to foster employee engagement helps set the stage for an employee to feel a sense of belonging from the very start of their professional journey with EC Group. In fact, the company believes this process begins the minute someone walks into the office for the first time.
The Emotional & Intellectual Connection
“So our plan was, how do we make them feel the first hour that day in the organization? How do we make them feel the first day? How do we make them feel the first week and the first month and the first quarter?” Daniel Jacob, VP of Human Resources
Talking with EC Group it’s even more clear that they want their process to be applied in the first minute of someone walking into the office where they are greeted by Gerry, the Office Manager going on her 19th year of working with the company. Greeted with a smile and words of encouragement, the positive environment is active as soon as someone arrives.
These kinds of detailed action plans focused on creating a welcoming office environment for each individual employee may seem like a daunting task, but in talking with EC Group you cannot help but see the passion for people across all levels of the organization’s leadership including Daniel Jacob’s most recent TEDx Talk, that it doesn’t quite feel like a “task” at all. In the end, it’s just the right thing to do.
Working with the intellectual side of things is an undertaking in itself. With so many ways to provide employee enrichment through different types of learning, it can be difficult to find a pathway that truly resonates with employees. The most common being online learning modules.
“My wife works for one of the Top 5 IT consulting firms and we learned that it’s supposed to have a wonderful learning management system. So the people we spoke with said, ‘Oh you’re gonna join Accenture, they have a ton of programs where you can continue your learning’. So when my wife went through that, She’s learning a ton of stuff but it’s all recorded. She learns it in their online portal as part of an internal certification.” Arun George, VP of Technology
This method is popular across numerous companies and industries. It’s a linear learning progression that does execute a knowledge plan for people to increase their skills. However, watching module after module en route to a certification seemed to run counter to the goals of EC Group and their pursuit to inspire employees. That’s why they took a different approach.
“What I see here over the last 10 years is that the learning process is a collaborative learning environment. So you sit in the same room together and then you learn, you share your learning and then there is interaction amongst fellow employees. You are intellectually growing yourself as you are increasing your emotional connection to the teams and the organization.” Arun George, SVP of Technology
Each new EC Group employee is assigned two key resources that both serve as catalysts for the emotional and intellectual connection. A buddy and a mentor. It’s essentially an instantaneous process that someone on their first day has two established co-workers who are there to collaborate with as they get up to speed in their new role.
This kind of process takes an extremely significant level of trust from the leadership team to be able to have employees serve as a guide for a new hire so quickly. EC Group’s leadership has overwhelming confidence in their employees’ ability to serve in these positions because they have seen the results that come from a lack of micromanagement.
Setting a foundation of comfort and connection within the office inspires the confidence among all of the employees to undertake initiatives to further their professional development.
The CAMEL Factory | 100 Days of Learning Growing An Emotion & Intellectual Connection
A perfect example of establishing these connections with employees across the organization is EC Group’s CAMEL Factory initiative that took place between March 15th, 2023 and June 22nd, 2023.
The primary objective of the CAMEL Factory was to ignite interest and awareness regarding AI and ML technologies among the team of employees. By creating a learning environment it allowed their team to become genuinely interested in the technologies as well as curious to experiment. Overall this approach created a way for employees to champion these solutions well into the future.
Upon the completion of this initiative, the results were astounding. Over 700+ hours of training was conducted through 65 total sessions. Not only did 9 sessions include industry experts in AI and ML but 24 EC Group employees were raised up to become trainers in these technologies. Overall, 66% of employees participated in the CAMEL Factory initiative.
This kind of in-depth employee enrichment and collaboration is almost unheard of in today’s landscape. With the rise of remote work, side hustles, and much of an employee’s skill growth needing to come from personal time, EC Group makes it a priority to show employees that they are just as invested in their development as they are in the work they are conducting.
“We intellectually engage our employees, where their credibility is very high out in the market. And we emotionally engage them to inspire them to continue with us for years to come.” Daniel Jacob, SVP of Human Resources
The level of commitment to the enrichment of employees translates to confidence, success and trust amongst EC Group customers.
For United States based companies who are employing software development teams, they are currently facing more challenges than ever before with regards to putting the most qualified team together.
“Historically, the main type of customer that we would get is they’re struggling with attracting and retaining developers, right? So the retention piece is really key. So, I’d say that consistency is really what they’re valuing, right? And it’s huge when we can speak to all the things that we’re doing for the retention, that speaks volumes.” – Mike Sudyk, CEO
I think back to my experiences early in my career in a variety of positions where I had internal motivation to grow and learn but the environment wasn’t conducive to that kind of development. EC Group understands the time that it takes to establish these emotional and intellectual connections for their employees and the successful retention rate proves it is worth the investment. That allows them to pass along an extremely high level of value to customers looking to augment their software development team with a trusted qualified developer.
“That’s what we do. We will try to bring you a team that wants to stay. And that’s when we bring up these initiatives. As Daniel said, intellectually and emotionally they are growing and they are being connected to the organization. That’s our formula to keep them interested for a long time and providing the most value as possible” – Arun George, VP of Technology
Arriving for the job, but inspired to stay. EC Group is cultivating an atmosphere built on enrichment, productivity, family and support.
EC Group boasts developers who have been with the company long enough for their children to be born, and grow up through years of school. One developer in particular has been with EC Group for 18 years and has worked across numerous client projects.
By establishing a foundation of emotional and intellectual connection, employees not only feel valued but they always feel heard. It is apparent that EC Group’s leadership is providing the professional and emotional support to further development but what arguably resonates the most with employees is the sense of independence they have with regards to their work.
“Where so often organizations are delegating that people trust the process to in turn be trusted themselves, we make sure to do it the other way around. We instill trust from the beginning as we want people to be able to manage themselves. We always do have checks and balances, but the important thing is they know that they trust it because we try to make them understand independence means responsibility.” – Daniel Jacob, VP of Human Resources
Where there are often so many stories of employees dreading when Monday arrives and they need to return to their office. EC Group has done considerable amounts of work to ensure that their office is an environment that employees are excited about walking into. Not only is this a place for developers to work on fulfilling projects, but it’s an environment that will allow them to upgrade their skills and further their own personal and professional development.
It truly is the professional manifestation of the motivation many people have for spending time in environments. For me, it has always been those cookouts, movie nights or home cooked meals. While the premise of going was always there on the surface. I stay longer and longer each time knowing that I am growing through a collaborative sense of community and enrichment. EC Group has now created this for an employee to understand they work in a place they are cared for, heard and given numerous opportunities to grow which fuels their average developer retention rate of 95%.
In a time where developers are commonly looking to jump from company to company, EC Group has proven that if you invest in the growth of your people, they will invest their careers right back into the company that believed in them.
