How can companies lure IT professionals?

This question is asked to me very often. Often. As the question of motivation and ways to retain employees.

“Create competitive conditions,” I reply as with a textbook.

And what does “competitive conditions” mean? There are tennis tables, there are English courses, there is a flexible schedule, a pool has been built, strippers have been invited to corporate events. What else?
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Here I will answer from the textbook on marketing: "Create a brand." How? And here you need more detail.

More locality

Domestic companies (both outsourcing and grocery) do not enjoy the great support of IT people (read, they have low loyalty and low brand value). In simple terms, this means that the conditional “23-year-old seigneur” doesn’t matter where to work - in Ciklum, GlobalLogic, Luxoft or SoftServe. Here is the last hundred dollars in the end becomes crucial when choosing the next employer.

Again. The average IT person does not care which company to work for.

If you compare even with Russia, then there things look better. Many really dream of working in Yandex, Mail.ru or Vkontakte. Those. many may prefer less money but a "dream company." And now let's see what percentage of the use of Yandex (against Google) and Vkontakte (against Facebook) in Russia. Dependence see? It should be added that in Ukraine, Yandex positions are not as good as in Russia. Again why?

People tend to love local companies, local brands, local products. “They are inclined to love” does not mean that everyone will love or choose a local, but less quality product. But other things being equal, the local product will have a better chance of success.

Ukrainian outsourcing companies (and the same Yandex) are not perceived by most of them as domestic companies. Again, the companies themselves are trying in every way to be "Western." Thus, the local product with the English interface will almost 100% lose to the similar product of the conditional “John Smith Company”, which will provide the interface in your native language. Yes, a small market, there is no critical mass of a paying audience, you will say, and you will be right. But tell it to Yandex or Vkontakte.

What is the conclusion? Need to become more "local." But there is no need to speculate on the national idea either, since the result is likely to be deplorable.

Products

I will not discover America if I say that most of our IT is outsourcing. Such companies need to start producing their products. Mobile, web, social projects - it does not matter, it is important that I can go into an AppStore and see several applications (not necessarily commercial ones) released under the brand Ciklum or Luxoft.

Who will do this? Employees of the company - perhaps full time, perhaps, like Google and Microsoft, at the expense of 20% of working time.

Is it not profitable for companies? People are not enough, and then still throw money away? Well, we are talking about strengthening the brand, and this is not free. In addition, companies spend a lot of money for simple specialists, for buns, etc. What is stopping the marketing budget from shifting towards product creation?

There is another nascent trend - many people who have gained experience in outsourcing companies leave and build their companies or startups. For outsourcing companies, this is a big loss, and they see their competitors in start-ups (if they don’t see, then it’s their problem).

But why the desire of the best employees to create their projects can not be supported at the company level? You will get an even more motivated employee, his loyalty and ... product. Ah, will he work hard on his product and not fulfill his service obligations? Well, expel such employees. There is no lossless transition period. Oh, you can not expel employees for incompetence and carelessness, because spent a lot of money and effort on it? Ok, keep him going and watch him continue to bring losses to the company.

And if someone nevertheless ripens and leaves the company, despite all the manna, then, being loyal, he will lead three people to his place as himself. If not immediately, then after some time. Do not believe? OK.

Grants, non-core events

Companies, at most, can sponsor an IT conference. They can also organize a chess or football tournament. For more fantasy rarely enough.

We look to the west - we see iPhones, Windows in various product placement series, companies are advertised at football stadiums (Nokia Lumia advertising between Mercedes and Red Bull advertising), give grants for research and training of promising students / scientists, help to organize recreation areas, libraries for ordinary people. Red Bull took the man into space, from where he safely jumped .

What we see is advertising in minibuses (!), Faceless banner advertising, events in the style of “held, and well, but we had cookies”. But the organizers of one of the local TEDx for several months can not find at least one sponsor for the event. Recently, a representative of a well-known company wrote that current events lack new ideas. Well, TEDx is exactly the place where new ideas are born, and it is the event that allows you to talk about the cool ideas of a great audience. Did I already say that the organizers have not been able to find a sponsor for several months already?

Boy, do not bother to bring new tennis tables.

Training

All companies, as one, say that they teach students, as well as conduct regular trainings for their employees.

Either I am an idiot, or the skis do not travel, but during the whole work practice I have sometimes seen some pitiful attempts to establish an internal corporate educational process. Which kept, as a rule, on enthusiasm, without money and awards.

What is the reason? Who take to teach? Developers, of which at best one out of ten can not only do, but also tell, one out of a hundred can also teach. To organize the workflow, companies invite consultants and hire scrum masters. Why do companies believe that HR can cope with the organization of the educational process in their free time? Very pleased with the company, which have their own training centers and staff of trainers.

Let's take as one more example the prestigious competition Imagine Cup, which is held by Microsoft (last year the team from Ukraine won in one of the nominations). Let's look at the participants this year. 7 out of 9 finalists are graduates of the STEP Academy (Respect, so that they do not speak there). I am silent about the fact that there are very few university representatives, including national ones. But where are the teams Ciklum, Epam, Luxoft and the like? These companies employ a huge number of graduate students. Why not create a team and declare yourself at an international competition? This is a great experience for young people, and even the opportunity to receive international recognition, as happened with the Ukrainian team last year.

Look beyond your ipad

A few years ago, I spoke with various companies about local communities and events. Many just laughed and sent me away. Now all IT companies do, help to do, sponsor or take part in events. This has become the norm in just a few years. And those companies (I will not name them specifically), who understand the prospects of this direction, are now included in the list of market leaders.

Several years passed, and the events were transformed into pech-heaps and hackathons. It was very difficult for the company to go to this experiment, but in most cases these experiments were successful. Now everyone is doing hackathons and this again became not interesting.

The main message is to start doing something that others will start to do en masse in 1-2 years. And start doing it right now :-).

Strategic development? No, I have not heard

I see some companies trying to increase loyalty among employees. Someone gives ipads for recommendations, someone - buns for articles on Habré, someone organizes interest clubs.

I, in principle, am glad, because many people and companies still have an understanding of why they need to increase brand loyalty, but there are still problems with architecture and concrete implementation :-).

But the main thing is to start, and there you see, it will work out.