Professional growth of employees - what it is and why it is needed: we communicate with Dodo Pizza, Icons8 and Evil Martians

Last year, we launched an assessment of employers at My Circle, where employees can evaluate companies by 12 qualities - from comfortable working conditions to the company's contribution to improving the world, and based on the results of evaluations of companies, we published the IT employers rating a little later.

Now we wanted to find out, and how do companies understand the qualities for which their employees value them? Therefore, we decided to make a series of publications on the My Circle blog about the main criteria for evaluating employers. To do this, we will select the companies that received the highest score for each of the criteria, and ask them to answer a number of our questions that will help us reveal how companies see this criterion.
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In the first issue, we discussed Professional Growth with Dodo Pizza, Icons8 and Evil Martians and tried to find out how they understand it, how they support it and why employees value it for this quality.

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Icons8 develops software for designers: designer of realistic photos Moose, graphic editor Lunacy and, of course, design icons.

Evaluation of the company on "My Circle".

Ivan Boyko (Founder Icons8)

We have an employee who came as an icon designer, but besides that she organized the shooting process, had a hand in collages and tagging, and in working with partners. Now she is assembling the designer of illustrations, and I'll smash myself into a cake so that she will not be bored anymore.

I ask the candidates how the company can help them, and I seek the maximum number of common interests. If interests are, you need to pick a person team: accomplices from related specializations, mentor-old man, wards-new, in which the blood boils.

We all need to surround the person with touching care and wait patiently for the result. Maintain when experiments break down. Rejoice small steps. Introduce to other people within the company. And all the time to give feedback.

Professional growth is not required. It may be personal, it may not be for the company, but simply for itself or even as a recipe for boredom.

Unlike professional growth, challenge is always needed, even in ordinary things. For example, the photo team has a monotonous task of tagging photos. But we noticed that taggers like to make headlines. We specifically made it so that you can add a few headers. If the photos have 4 or 7 captions, it is not because it is necessary for business. This is simply because taggers are carried away. And it is beautiful.


Moscow mitap Icons8 five years ago

Sergey Chekmenev (Support Specialist in Icons8):

I worked in various teams both abroad and in Russia. The trouble of modern business is that he no longer sees the value in man, as such. A person is an impersonal appendage that is driven and intimidated by rules, superiors, regulations, KPI, etc. Working in one of the IT companies in Dallas, I acutely felt this spirit of modernity. The project constantly recruited 30% more employees than required. People were constantly hired and constantly fired, not because they could not cope, but only because a new employee appeared who showed N percent more KPIs. Such an approach does not develop, but suppresses. Both professionally and humanly.

And in Icons8, the atmosphere is unique because of Ivan’s sincere desire to reveal each employee, help everyone find and realize himself, and ultimately become a happy, harmonious person. This I have never seen. Ivan does not put employees in a rigid framework, but gives an opportunity to try himself, he is ready to help. He is experiencing ups and downs, joys and sorrows, in each employee emphasizes human dignity. Minimum formalism and maximum confidence. And the whole team functions as one well-adjusted organism: cohesively and harmoniously.

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Dodo Pizza is the largest chain of pizzerias in Russia, which already has more than 460 pizzerias in 12 countries, and combines the classic pizza business with IT-technologies.

Evaluation of the company on "My Circle".

Vitaly Pomozov (developer at Dodo Pizza):

In my understanding, professional growth is primarily associated with the growth of competencies. Growth can be both in depth, sharpening their skills to the maximum, and in breadth, studying different technologies and ways to solve problems within their position.

The IT world is developing rapidly, and if you do not grow at a time when there are so many changes around, you experience stress. The company is growing rapidly, new countries are opening up, orders are growing, and we need to develop the system according to the needs of the business and not forget about the growing load. The lack of professional growth contributes to high staff turnover, which degrades the quality and sustainability of the system.


Mitap MskDotNet Community, December 2018

Boris Goulay (developer at Dodo Pizza):

“Dodo” seriously invests in the development of employees and perceives professional growth not as a way to increase productivity, but as a way of non-material increase in loyalty.

We allow to adapt new technologies and tools for use in the company. This gives the company an increase in productivity and product quality.

On the other hand, uncontrolled adaptation of hyip things will lead to defocusing and support difficulties. Therefore, it is important to establish clear rules for adaptation: if you want to bring something new, first “sell” it to your teammates. Then tell about it at the general meeting (devForum). Then try and tell about the result again.


Anton Deryagin, EMEA franchisee lead

Vitaly Pomozov:

There are many opportunities for professional growth in Dodo. There are strong colleagues who have something to learn, while people are open and help each other. Themed schools and clubs, such as the Dev School, React School, QA Club, Dev Forum, Scrum Master School, to which we even invite eminent speakers. Another company sends employees to mitapy, where you can listen to other professionals in the area and chat with them.

IT people are quite ambitious people, for them professional growth is an intrinsic motivation that is much stronger than an external one.

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Evil Martians distributed open-source team of engineers makes product development for startups and large companies in the West and in Russia.

Evaluation of the company on "My Circle".

Roman Shamin (art director at Evil Martians):

“Professional growth” for me is when the company does not interfere with work and creates conditions for learning new knowledge and skills. The best way to ensure professional growth is to give employees the freedom to make decisions and make mistakes. It is impossible to force this: it is impossible to make one grow up who does not want to grow.


Anton Lovchikov, Alyona Kirdina, Nikolay Sverchkov at the “Productorium” conference in Kazan

Sergey Ponomarev (timlid in Evil Martians):

We are working on complex tasks and are developing in the process. None of the employees have the opportunity to be the “smartest guy in the room,” who has been doing the same thing for many years, albeit the best. It is not surprising that our company was highly appreciated for its professional growth.

Jaroslav Markin (co-founder of Evil Martians):

The distinguishing feature of Evil Martians is work with open source projects and participation in community life. All employees, including executives and designers, can program; future colleagues will learn about us from open-source projects and presentations at conferences, and even in the very process of hiring, a person will sooner or later be offered to create a new open-source project or modify an existing one.

Working in the Martians is not easy - we have adopted the notorious "Brazilian system." We give beginners an environment in which it is impossible not to grow - both in commercial projects and in the community - but this will have to work: to plan time correctly, to be able to ask questions and learn new things with the maximum speed.

Polina Gurtovaya (frontend developer at Evil Martians):

In Evil Martians, employees treat each other as adults who can make decisions. My colleagues respect their time and mine and I get more experience in less hours. Inside the team, we are happy to share our experience while working on projects (interactive reviews, pair programming), and this happens without “obliging” and is not limited to the specialization of employees (for example, the Beks love pairing with fronts).

The coolest experience is the one that you want to share with others.

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Find out how the valuation service at My Circle works in this article , and rate your employer right now. And here - all the companies that have already received their assessment.