In this highly competitive start-up industry, the most important aspect of a successful business is its technical team. Technical teams are unique, and different strengths, personalities and backgrounds can lead to a fusion of ideas that can bring successful results, giving your business the edge over others.
In order for your technical team to be the best, you need to hire and keep the best talent, reward and share in their successes and fully invest in your team.
4 ways to nurture and grow your tech team
Happy Staff = High Retention
You know for a fact that happy staff are more likely to stay longer, and you know that your technical team is the most valuable asset to your business.
So, by creating an environment where everyone genuinely enjoys coming to work every day, you’re on to a winner and everyone is happy. It’s said that a team that is engaged and happy is less likely to take sick leave and they are also more likely to be innovative, productive and creative which all lead to a successful business.
In order to keep your technical team happy and motivated there are also a few other ways this can be achieved;
- Fostering innovation – Stay alert and look out for moments of innovation, it’s in a technical team’s nature to explore new and innovative development working practices. However, your team might not see their solution as fantastic, which is why you need to reward anything that is adopted as a new project best practice. If you are getting better results due to a change in practice, then that’s definitely worth celebrating!
- Communicating effectively – You know that communication is important on all levels of projects and when the team know why something is happening or being changed, they are more likely to feel included and motivated.
- Help to handle stress – Stress in the workplace is a major cause of unhappy staff and can be an unfortunate consequence of working in a technical environment. By creating the right balance where all employees have the same view of the project and are able to manage their work effectively makes it easier to track progress and support your technical team.
Keeping your employee retention rates higher reduces time and money spent on your recruitment- it’s a no-brainer. But how else can this be achieved? Take a look at our recent article about ‘How to retain tech talent’ which covers some factors to consider to effectively retain your talent.
Reward and share the successes
If your company is profitable its reasonable that the technical team that helped to achieve such should share in its success. But we know that often money can be a tight resource for many start-ups and tech firms and regular pay rises may not be possible.
But it’s not all about money – there are low-cost rewards that are equally effective and show your employees how important and integral to the business they are.
- One to one coaching
- Flexible working hours // Remote working
- Generous annual leave
- Time off to volunteer
- Encourage team spirit through social events, incentives and team outings (which might come at a small cost)
These are just a few options for benefits that can be offered to your technical team, but the options are endless and only limited by creativity, to effectively reward your employees and keep them engaged and happy.
Invest in your best
Investment in your team is worth its weight in gold if you treat your employees the way you would want to be treated. This can only reflect well on your business as a whole and there are a few ways this can be achieved;
- Align your work with the values of the team – employees find it hard to stay motivated if they don’t believe in what they are doing.
- Treat them as experts – your tech team are experts in their field, so treat them as such! Encourage them to contribute to industry debates, community conferences, tech meetups and to share their knowledge internally too. (Along with senior members mentoring junior team members).
- Nurture skills – Technical competencies must be nurtured, developed and expanded upon, hold sessions to learn new programming languages and create projects for your team to add to their portfolios.
Recruit smart employees
Recruiting smart employees means recruiting technical talent that is right for you and your business, in short, this can be a tricky thing to achieve without spending endless time in your search for the ideal candidate. So how can this be done without losing time and money on recruitment? – An excellent attraction strategy that considers;
- Technology and product – are you using the best technology to attract the technical talent your way, are your projects substantive and fun to work on?
- Salary – are you offering the right salary for your role? Have you considered comparing your offering to competitors in your industry?
- Hiring process – implementing the right hiring process from the get-go is crucial to attracting the best software testers, test analysts and keeping the right employees in the long run.
- Employee brand and culture – it’s not all about bean bags and ping pong tables, it’s about showing why you’re a great company for great technical talent.
- Extra Benefits – find out what motivates your potential candidates and incorporate them into your offering.
To find out more about how to use an excellent attraction strategy to grow your tech team and what you can be doing to ensure you have the best hires, read our article 5 steps to attracting software testers.
Considering these 4 ways to nurture and grow your tech team not only makes sense when it comes to the success of your business, but also because your team are a group of hardworking people that deserve it.
To find out how we can help with your hiring strategy which includes, attraction, selection, and retention, get in touch with us!