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Recent years have demonstrated the growing awareness of the importance of incorporating technological aspects into the strategic decision-making of companies. Even though nowadays, business and technology are inextricably inseparable, many companies are not prioritizing a tech strategy for their business, as many believe that other aspects are more important to focus on to get them to success. 

Eventually, they realize that technology is a key element for any company to achieve its goals; however, trying to incorporate technology in a hurry and without proper strategic planning, will lead to a complicated execution and unexpected results. 

Without a technology strategy plan, your business can easily fall behind the competition, so it only makes sense to implement technology as a core part of a successful business strategy. This is why it’s crucial to start thinking about a tech-enabled strategy for the upcoming business year. 

What is Technology Strategy?

Technology Strategy simply refers to implementing technology and IT solutions at all levels of your business planning. This is, rather than considering technology on its own and delegating it only to the direction of a CTO, it is considered a core piece of all aspects of business operations.

Now, what does a technology strategy look like? A solid technology strategy consists of a business plan with clear principles, objectives, and tactics for using technology to achieve organizational objectives. It may define specific IT solutions, identify staff members’ responsibilities for managing these technologies, scalability possibilities, and, most important, how these technologies will align with your business’s objectives.

There are many types of technology strategies, depending on the company’s nature, technological capability, and overall business strategy and goals. Still, they can usually be split into three core categories:

Why is Tech Strategy Development Important?

As already mentioned, technology plays a crucial role in the day-to-day operations of today’s businesses. Today, more and more organizations realize the importance of incorporating a tech strategy into their internal process to keep their business working. But why?

Defining a technology strategy enables a company to be fully prepared for the future and in line with its business goals in general. Still, the importance of having and adopting a technology strategy also impacts the organization’s present. 

A solid tech strategy can help in enhancing customer service and customer experience, supporting interactions with vendors and other business partners, increasing sales and even enabling workers, and improving productivity. No matter the nature of your business, implementing a technology strategy correctly and maintaining it at the core of your planning will help you build on what you’re already doing to streamline operations, add flexibility, and allow your team to adapt to changing circumstances.

Now that is clear how a technology strategy can pay off for your company significantly. Here are some big benefits of incorporating technology into your business strategy.

Benefits of Technology Strategy 

1. You can focus on the right technology

The rapid growth of technology has led to countless products and IT solutions. When a company implements technology as a business strategy, the team knows what they are trying to do; they have the right data to drive their decisions and look for the right solutions to meet their needs. In other words, having a technology strategy can help you make informed technology choices easier and focus on the right tools to advance your business.

2. You can boost your productivity

Technology strategies can indeed help drive productivity by providing companies with accurate data on sales numbers, ROI, and other vital information for the business to grow. Still, it can also help increase productivity at the individual level. From bots that automatically send reminders about deadlines to apps that offer visual data on a project’s progress, implementing a technology strategy at all levels of your company can help boost everyone’s productivity. 

3. You can enhance collaboration

With so many people working remotely nowadays, technology strategies are a great way to enhance collaboration between team members. Tech solutions such as Slack and Zoom can help everyone to organize and stay connected at all times. 

But, technology strategies are not limited to internal processes; they can also help with customer collaboration. From heatmaps that track UX in your webpage to bots that serve as shopping assistants, implementing a technology strategy with your business strategy can help your client’s experience while interacting with your services or product.

4. You can scale up and down

Scalability encompasses all solutions that can be easily modified and scaled up whenever needed. Still, it also refers to the possibility of modifying and updating a company’s existing solutions to help them meet new business challenges. Therefore, scaling upwards or downwards depending on the demand can help companies sort out any obstacle by adding strategic resources where they are needed. Adding technology strategies lets you scale your technology along with your business, anticipating needs and implementing strategies ahead of time.

5. You can improve security

As technology and software development expands, so does the complexity of risk and threats; therefore, cybersecurity development is in a permanent state of evolution and expansion. Making technology a core part of your business strategy adds cybersecurity tools and training throughout your organization. 

The benefits of implementing tech-enabled business strategy services are plenty. From having technology tools that make teams’ life easier to having the ability to scale up and down your team as needed, it is a great strategy for companies to succeed in their projects and don’t fall behind. 

Are you ready to explore what a tech strategy looks like? Talk to us, and let us help you build or extend your development team easily. Let’s ride the tech wave and make great things happen – together.

Surely you have heard it before, a company is truly only as great as its people. Well, let us tell you, that statement is as accurate as it can get. Beyond a juicy client portfolio and growing revenues, a talented team is a key factor for any company. Talent will not only support your business in achieving its goals, but it also will give you a big competitive advantage. In other words, a talented team will ultimately be the deciding factor in whether a business fails or succeeds.

Now, the tricky part is how to identify talent and, more important, how to leverage that talent. As some extraordinary talent is easy to spot, not all of us are born geniuses or prodigies. Just as not all swimmers are Michael Phelps or all entrepreneurs are business geniuses like Steve Jobs, most great workers have innate talents that need to be identified and nurtured. Therefore, the enormous importance of empowering talent.

Talent empowerment is crucial to strengthen your workers, but it also has plenty of advantages for your company:

benefits of empowerment

Once you have identified talented individuals within your company, you should waste no time empowering them. Here’s what needs to happen in your workplace:

1. Ask More Questions

Just as businesses try to understand their customers and address their pain points, a company must understand what their talented employees need for better learning opportunities. Just offering your employees random learning and development opportunities won’t cut it. To leverage talent, you need to give your employees the necessary amount o time and resources to learn in desired areas and facilitate them with the right tools to help them advance in their careers. 

Before providing them with countless opportunities, find out what motivates your team and the skills they’re most comfortable with, as well as what they want to improve, and provide the opportunities they’re looking for. 

2. Trust your employees

Make sure your employees feel empowered and have a sense of authority by trusting them. There’s no point in hiring talented people if you won’t let them do their job; trust your team and take advantage of the inversion you made by hiring talent. Recent research found that empowerment and authority are lacking in companies where trust and accountability are weak or absent. On the other side, in companies where workers feel trusted, workers feel empowered to take on new challenging tasks and develop innovative ideas to benefit the business. 

Companies that decentralize the decision-making process and allow employees to contribute benefit from multiple perspectives. Instead of delegating to take unwanted work off your plate, delegate with the intent to grow and develop the capabilities and responsibilities of your employees.

3. Increase leadership capability

There’s no better way to empower talent than to increase their leadership skills. To do so, start by giving your employees autonomy over important assignments. It’s fine if they don’t follow the same process you usually do; by delegating, you are giving your talented workers the agency to complete the tasks differently and to feel like the owners of the whole process. To do so, relinquish from micromanaging and accept that there are many ways to achieve success. 

Also, when possible, include your talented team members in decision-making and goal-setting. Involving them in these important processes and being open to hearing their ideas and input will help your employees feel they are a fundamental part of the company and empower them to take ownership of different projects and tasks. Not only can being receptive to new ideas help empower your employees, but it can also open up your organization to innovative ideas.

4. Open your communication channels

Having healthy communication with your employees is key to a successful work dynamic. For example, having frequent feedback will help your workers to identify the areas that need more attention and will encourage them to keep the behaviors you seek. As a manager, give your employees time and opportunities to connect personally with you. 

Try always to set up clear goals for everyone on the team and let your talent know what you are expecting from them. This will make your workers more confident and feel more empowered to make decisions on their own.

Finally, from an “always open door” policy to conversation platforms, ensure there’s always space to address all employees’ concerns and needs and let them know about the process and results. Be accessible, open, and straightforward as you interact with your employees, and you’ll see how your relationship improves, making them less likely to leave. 

5. Enhance the Employee Experience

Successful companies do not treat their employees as mere workers but as human beings with whole lives outside of the workplace. Therefore, it is understandable that each of them goes through multiple situations that can impact their performance within the workplace. Even the best employees need help from time to time, so make sure you’re offering plenty of support. Whether professional or personal, proving that you’re on their side when they need you is one of the most important things, you can do. 

Focusing on your employees is key to understanding your entire work environment from your employees’ perspective and helping you identify where you can harvest talent and the areas of improvement and growth. But will also help you make your employees feel valued and more empowered in the office. 

On that note, implement mechanisms that improve your employees’ experience. You can achieve this by maintaining a flexible work environment, allowing your employees to work in their preferred environment at their preferred hours to decrease stress and increase productivity. You can also advocate for a professional and personal life balance by establishing healthy working hours.

Be creative and bold, whether in training, employee wellness programs, health insurance, or flexibility; as long as you maintain clear communication and become aware of what your employees need, you will come up with the right tactics to make your employees happier and boost talent.

We hope these five tips will help you settle on a solid road for your company’s talent empowerment. Finally, at Intersog, we are happy to help you spot the right talent anywhere in the world. Let us find you the best IT talent. From recruiting, screening, interviewing, and onboarding, we take care of everything, so you focus on what you do best, growing your business. 

It is true what they say, a company’s greatest asset is its own people. Think it this way, in life, nothing is permanent, from marriage and financial success to financial troubles and breakups or even pandemics; circumstances can easily change, but your inner circle of people (family, friends, or both) will be at your side no matter what. Well, your company’s team is like that family; clients will come and go, and the road might get a little bumpier sometimes, but a solid team will help stay with you no matter what and sort out any situation.

On that note, a talented workforce will be the competitive difference your company needs to stand out from the rest; in other words, talent will ultimately be the deciding factor in whether a business fails or succeeds. The talent of your company will be the wheel to keep your business running; for example, studies have shown that high performers are 400 percent more productive than average ones, and in highly complex occupations —like software development—high performers are an astounding 800 percent more productive.

On that note,  it’s crucial to make sure that you build an amazing company culture that separates you from other businesses. In this article, we will give you some useful tips on how to attract great talent to your team and how to use that talent as a competitive advantage.

How to attract great talent

As the economy and job markets are almost back to normal, we are currently facing fierce competition to attract top talent to fill highly skilled positions. In this sudden need for talent, workers have the upper hand, and companies that prioritize their employees’ happiness and motivation will be the ones to win the battle. Here are three tips for your company to stand out and attract the best talent out there.

Employee experience

Try to implement mechanisms that improve your employees’ experience. You can achieve this by maintaining a flexible work environment, allowing your employees to work in their preferred environment at their preferred hours to decrease stress and increase productivity. Factors like benefits, compensation, and job responsibilities will always be important, but a good employee experience will always take precedence and make your company stand out from the crowd.

Open PTO

Open Paid Time Off (PTO) is a new concept where employees are provided with the freedom to take time off when needed as long as doing so will not disrupt business. We know, in theory, this might sound risky, but in practice, workers in this model rarely abuse this policy. Open PTO contributes to happy workers while it rewards productive use of work hours, not only attracting new talent but contributing to retaining it as well.

Nearshore

Nearshore gives you the advantage of accessing larger pools of tech talent, expanding your reach to attract them. By doing it right, nearshoring developers can be a fantastic way for businesses to improve efficiencies and increase their bottom line. We recommend you start by finding a local partner that is well-established in the region; this will help you spot the best talent right away and save you time and resources. 

Using talent as a competitive advantage

Now, for a business to succeed, it is not enough to attract and retain talented individuals; there’s no point in having talent and not using it to your advantage. Here are five ways for you to leverage your talented team players and turn their assets into a competitive difference.

Create a talent planning and recruitment strategy 

It’s important for you to have a clear understanding of your company culture and incorporate your values, mission, and norms from the very beginning of your talent selection process. Try to avoid hiring for an “aspirational” culture. 

It is important for your true culture to be accurately descriptive of your website company or fully disclosed during your interview processes. This will save you both time and money as you will be able to screen the talent that aligns with your company. The talent fits in with your culture and is likely to stay for the long haul and be more productive day by day. 

Focus on your employee experience

Good employee experience is crucial, for it not only determines the intent of a talented employee to stay with the organization but also their productivity and engagement. If your workers’ values align with your strong Company Culture, your employees will be more likely to work harder, be more productive at what they are doing and remain with the company for a long time.

On that note, maintaining your talented workers engaged is crucial to boosting your team’s productivity, as your workers don’t have the sense of simply “putting in time” to be paid; instead, they are invested in doing their work well and even thinking of ways they can improve how they perform their duties on the job. A highly engaged workforce offers several benefits to an employer, for example:

Embrace technology

Technology is central to every aspect of the world, and talent acquisition is no exception. A company at the forefront of the latest technological developments will boost its talent with the right tools and achieve an important competitive advantage.

Technology not only does it enable your company to make the most of the benefits provided by the latest innovations, but it also makes your workers more engaged with their job. Well-applied technology within your organization can help to boost your company’s talent, separating it from the rest.

Provide meaningful development

It’s not all about promotions and salaries. For some, benefits are as important to employees as money. Many employees consider opportunities to grow and learn even more important than more PTO or salary raises. But just offering employees with random learning opportunities won’t cut it. To leverage talent, you need to give your employees the necessary amount o time and resources to learn in desired areas and facilitate them with the right tools to help them advance in their careers. 

Find out what motivates your team and provide the opportunities they’re looking for. This will help you improve employee development and boost your company’s culture.

Measure, review, and recognize

Having healthy communication with your employees is key to a successful work dynamic. For example, having frequent feedback will help your workers to identify the areas that need more attention and will encourage them to keep the behaviors you seek. As a manager, be accessible, open, and straightforward as you interact with your employees. Give your employees time and opportunities to connect personally with you, and you’ll see how your relationship improves, making them less likely to leave. 

Goals should always be clear to everyone on the team, and your workers should be confident that, if they do their job correctly and contribute to the company’s mission and success, they will be recognized.

Finally, from an “always open door” policy to conversation platforms, ensure there’s always space to address all employees’ concerns and needs and let them know about the process and results.

We hope that these tips can help you improve your company’s internal dynamics and leverage your talent into a competitive difference. At Intersog, we are happy to help you to find the right talent and to use it as a corporate differentiator.

As the pandemic fades away and the world returns to normal, the economy and job markets are rapidly growing. In this context, businesses are currently facing what is known as a “war of talent.” This fierce competition to attract employees to fill highly skilled positions has become a recurring nightmare for HR teams worldwide. 

However, attracting great talent is not enough for a company to succeed; talent retention is as important for companies to win the talent battle. Why? 

According to LinkedIn, 56% of organizations struggle to keep high-potential and top-performing employees. People leave jobs for new opportunities, as simple as that. But, failing to retain talent goes beyond losing key players of the team; it also reflects in a company’s finance as the total cost of losing employees can be twice their annual salaries. 

And who is the number one offender when it comes to losing talent? Concerns about a lack of advancement opportunities and a feeling of professional stagnation. For example, currently, 23% of employees voluntarily leave their jobs due to a lack of development and training. 

Here are five easy strategies on how to retain talent so your HR team can get rid of the nightmare of losing tech talent once and for all.

Promote Growth

It’s not all about promotions and salaries, for some benefits are as important to employees as money. Many employees consider opportunities to grow and learn as a reason to stay at their job. According to LinkedIn, 94 percent of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it simply invested in helping them learn.

But just offering employees with random learning opportunities won’t cut it. To retain talent, you need to give them the necessary amount o time and resources to learn in desired areas and facilitate them with the right tools to help them advance in their careers. Find out what motivates your team and provide the opportunities they’re looking for. This will help you improve employee engagement to build a healthy work environment.

First, focus on helping your employees to establish a career path within your organization; this will allow you to know their aspirations and choose training accordingly to help them achieve their goals. Once their path is clear, make self-directed learning available like webinars, schooling, training, or in-person events. 

Other growth opportunities you can look into to improve your employees’ experience with your organization include:

Whatever you might choose, make sure to demonstrate appreciation for all your employees´ work and assure them there´s enough space for them to grow within your company.

Improve Communications

As in any type of relationship, having healthy communication with your employees is key for a successful work dynamic. As important as your external communications might be (with agencies, clients, stakeholders, etc.), focusing on having a clear understanding within your organization might be even more critical for retaining happy workers. 

Remember, your employees must feel safe about communicating their feelings within the company. Therefore it is important to establish proper communication channels and keep improving them. From an “always open door” policy to conversation platforms, ensure there’s always space to address all employees’ concerns and needs and let them know about the process and results.

Empathize

Successful companies do not treat their employees as mere workers but as human beings with complex emotions and lives outside work. Therefore, it is understandable that each of them goes through multiple situations and experiences that can and will impact their performance within the workplace. Even the best employees need help from time to time, so make sure you’re offering plenty of support, whether professional or personal; proving that you’re on their side when they need you is one of the most important things you can do to retain talent. It is vital that you take advantage of your communication channels and connect with your employees from a place of empathy. 

Remember, great managers, make employees feel supported during day-to-day operations. By leading with empathy, you can understand and accept when your workers are not operating at their best; understanding and working within the external situations hampering their performance might be the best way to create a safe place where people want to come to work. Give your employees time and opportunities to connect personally with you, and you’ll see how your relationship improves, making them less likely to leave. 

Listen to Feedback

Frequently giving feedback to employees is part of being a great manager, as you can’t expect employees to modify where they are lacking performance if they aren’t aware there’s an issue. Giving honest feedback can be daunting, but it’s key to a healthy culture. But what happens with your performance as a manager? How can you know where to improve to make your employers happier?

The best way to know what your employees need from you is to ask them and then listen when they respond. To receive honest feedback, it’s crucial to have a strong culture of respect and open communication policy within your company. 

Asking your employees to give direct feedback can feel intimidating for them, therefore make sure you are using all the right tools for them and assure them that doing so can only bring benefits to the company. For example, a good option is conducting regular surveys. This tool will assure your employees of anonymity and help you gain valuable insights into what the employees think and feel without them feeling exposed. Keep your surveys simple and connect with your employees as much as possible to get honest replies and eventually improve the employee experience.

Focus on Employees

This might sound like a no-brainer, but focusing on your employees is key to understanding your entire work environment from an employee’s perspective and helping you identify areas of improvement and growth. Having an employee-focused culture has become even more critical since remote working became the new normal. 

Try to implement mechanisms that improve your employees’ experience. You can achieve this by maintaining a flexible work environment, allowing your employees to work in their preferred environment at their preferred hours to decrease stress and increase productivity. You can also advocate for a professional and personal life balance; you can do this by establishing healthy working hours or even making available mindfulness programs and mental-health resources for your staff. 

Be creative and bold; training, employee wellness programs, health insurance, or flexibility, you name it. As long as you maintain clear communication and know what your employees need, you will develop the right tactics to make your employees happier.

There is no need to fail in retaining top tech talent. We are here to help! Contact us and learn more about our staffing solutions. Let’s ride the tech wave and make great things happen – together.

 

If we know something for sure is that talent matters. It is not by chance that Steve Jobs used to highlight the importance of building teams of top-notch talent. In his words, a small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. He was right; studies have shown that high performers are 400 percent more productive than average ones, and in highly complex occupations —like software development—high performers are an astounding 800 percent more productive.

It was also Steve Jobs who said it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do, and once again, he was right. The importance of hiring top-notch talent relies on more than just performance; it’s about the engagement and quality that talented assets can bring to a company. This is why nowadays, talent is highly valued and scarce; therefore, it the difficulty in attracting, retaining, and replacing it.

As the economy and job markets are heating up, we are currently facing what is known as a “war of talent,” aka an increasingly fierce competition to attract and retain employees to fill highly skilled positions. In this sudden need for talent, workers have the upper hand, and companies that prioritize their employees’ happiness and motivation will be the ones to win the battle. But you don’t have to go to battle alone! We have gathered three useful tips to help you in your quest to attract top-notch tech talent.

Focus on your EVP

According to the Harvard Business Review, 41% of employees in the global workforce are considering resigning from their roles, and 36% of those leaving their roles do so without having their next job in place. Therefore, it the importance to focus on your Employee Value Proposition, also known by experts as EVP. Simply put, EVP is the set of assets and benefits you can offer your employees in return for their skills and experience.

Remember that today’s workers not only want to feel invested in their job, but they also want to feel that their employer is as invested and shares their values. On that note, it is crucial for you to have a stronger EVP than your competitors so that you can attract and retain the best talent. Don’t know where to start? Focus on these three assets to make your EVP a game-changer while attracting talent.

Stand out from the crowd. Most employees have four fundamental requests on their wishlist, a great job, a great company, outstanding leaders, and big rewards. Therefore, most companies will base their EVP offers to resemble these needs, which will ultimately make most EVPs resemble and therefore be difficult to catch the eye of job seekers. We recommend you to stand out on one dimension (while not ignoring the others); if a legend leads your company, use that to attract talent, or maybe you can offer great benefits and focus on that. 

Target your audience. Having an overall EVP for the general audience is a great strategy; however, the game changer is creating an attractive EVP to win that 5 percent talent that will deliver 95 percent of the value. For example, if you are trying to attract developers, focus your EVP on offering creative tasks and a rapid career progression.

Be realistic. You should always work on the most attractive EVP you can. However, be sure not to promise things you won’t be able to deliver later on. Employees today won’t base their trust solely on what you promise them; they will research, from social media to reviews on sites such as Glassdoor, how it is to work in your company. If they find out your EVP is unrealistic, they will turn their attention to someone that delivers.

Nearshore

Since talent is so valuable and scarce, you might think companies would know how to find it and where to look for it. Well, think again. As the global tech industry keeps booming, American companies rely on a continuous influx of professionals and the growing number of job demands. On that note, nearshore has become an increasingly common practice for many companies in recent years. By doing it right, nearshoring developers can be a fantastic way for businesses to improve efficiencies and increase their bottom line. 

Nearshore gives you the advantage of accessing larger pools of tech talent, expanding your reach to attract them. For example, turn your eyes to Latin America; the region has become one of the main hubs for tech talent and software development for companies that are looking to find outstanding talent. Due to its ever-increasing number of tech graduates and new developers, LatAm has become the perfect place to look for engineering talent. From proximity to the U.S. to an extended young workforce, hiring developers in Latin America has plenty of advantages for your business.

We recommend you start by finding a local partner that is well-established in the region; this will help you spot the best talent right away and save you time and resources. 

Share your Success Stories

It is true what people say, “a good reputation is more valuable than money.” Therefore, if you want to attract talent to your company, it is crucial for you to build a strong reputation within the industry. A great way to do this is by sharing your employees’ success stories inside your company. To do this, you can ask current team members how they have transformed their careers at your company and the valuable assets they have at work. 

Don’t be shy to share on social media, articles, and blogs all the testimonials that could highlight how amazing your company culture is and its outstanding leadership. You should focus on how your organization is invested in its workers and all the learning and development opportunities it offers. Celebrate the tools and technologies that help your employees grow and share how they have moved forward in their careers; remember, your employees are your most valuable resource.

Don’t get left behind in this “war of talent” follow these tips, and you will be on the other side of the staffing game. We know it might sound kind of daunting, so we are here to help! Contact us and learn more about our IT staffing solutions. We will be more than happy to introduce you to how you can build your ideal software development team and boost your product’s growth.