A whole new ball game

Comfortable: Practices to keep key staff were pioneered in the IT sector.

As 2010 was drawing to a close, things couldn’t have been going better for serial entrepreneur Martin Kosasih. Virtunet, the business he founded in late 2008, was booming on demand for flexible and affordable computing. In an industry notorious for endemic skills shortages he had attracted a team of highly skilled technicians and his company’s rapid growth had secured him a place on BRW’s fast starters list.

Then disaster struck.

In December 2010, his business partner left, taking some of Kosasih’s most precious assets; his staff.

Until this point, business for Kosasih had been a matter of focusing on customers and service delivery but he suddenly realised his success as an entrepreneur was largely based on his capacity to find, train and hold onto great people.

“Getting the right people is a key to success in this industry,” Kosasih says. “I learned from my mistakes and spent the past six months rebuilding the team and implementing a process of peer review which keeps everyone engaged with the business.”

The process adopted by Kosasih involves regular peer review sessions in which staff are encouraged to point out positive and negative attributes of the different team members and more importantly identify how these attributes effect them personally.

“We can then use the information gathered to better understand the team culture, strengthen the positive attributes and at the same time work on the negative ones,” Kosasih says. “This way we encourage constructive criticism and personal growth within the team.”

The need to focus on staff development and acquisition in the IT sector has led to a phenomenon whereby companies actively identify themselves as great employers and look for ways to keep staff engaged and motivated.

IT companies featured strongly on the BRW Best Places to Work list published in June, taking the top five spots and 20 of the total 50 places.

In fact many of the best practices when it comes to staff retention and satisfaction were pioneered in the IT sector. Flexible work arrangements, training and education, paid maternity leave, onsite child care, participation in charity and community organisations are all commonplace in the sector, resulting in some very happy, and increasingly loyal, staff for the companies that get it right.

However, it takes more than pay and perks to make great teams and great managers, according to Adrianna Loveday, workplace psychologist for Randstad human resources consulting division.

In previous decades, employees were driven to take on or stay in work to fulfil fairly basic needs such as earning a salary and basic security, according to Loveday. The workforce in the 21st century is more focused on higher order needs such as personal satisfaction and will select one employer over another based on what they are able to achieve on a developmental level.

“The average person isn’t driven to stay or leave a company based on salary, they are looking for personal growth and satisfaction,” Loveday says. “The same principals apply to any industry and leaders from all sectors are able to develop the emotional intelligence needed to understand those around them.”

Part of the challenge for entrepreneurs like Kosasih, according to Loveday, is that they become managers because they are talented engineers or sales people but rarely will have the opportunity to develop the skills needed to manage and motivate staff. They will also move into roles and organisations where they feel inspired and valued, and are looking for motivational leaders rather than competent managers.

“A lot of what we do with managers and leaders is around developing their leadership capabilities,” Loveday says. “It takes a minimum of three months to break old habits and develop the skills needed to really motivate and engage staff, but it can be learned.”

According to the chairman of human resources firm Talent 2, Andrew Banks, entrepreneurs such as Kosasih unwittingly can find themselves at the mercy of an ever-more rapidly moving workforce, made up of individuals who are seeking out opportunities to develop. As the trend intensifies, Banks says managers will need to improve their human resources skills because the ability to find and hold onto staff will become strategic to most organisations.

“It’s no longer about hiring and firing staff, it’s about which roles will be internal, which will be outsourced and how do you integrate learning and development into the roles of your staff,” Banks says. “Good human resources strategy is simply part of good management practices, it’s a necessary part of the role of senior managers and of every aspect of the company from branding all the way through.”

Having learned his lesson the hard way, Kosasih is now focused on developing the skills he needs as a manager to ensure the eight engineers in his newly formed team are happy and engaged with their current roles.

The peer review process he has adopted for Virtunet is providing him with the feedback he needs to improve his own skills, as well as the emotional bond his staff need to feel they are an important part of the business.

“Like many technology companies, people are Virtunet’s most important asset and a lot of my focus is on how to strengthen the team.” Kosasih says.

BRW

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