NearshoreNews 2013

Conscensia retains the skilled employees Myth: Outsourcing means a large employee turnover.Case: Read how Conscensia uses development opportunities to ensure content employees and a low employee turnover.

Five Danish quirks P. 6Read how the culture in Danish companies differs from the rest of Europe.

New client focuses on integrating its team P. 3Pragmasoft wants to outsource without the clients noticing a difference.

Conscensia opens office in Kiev P. 741 developers have already started in the capital of Ukraine.

No.

03Conscensia News MagazineEdition: September 2013

P. 2

P. 4-5

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A wise Dane heading a large international pharmaceutical company once said that Corporate Social Responsibility is not contrary to making money, but a question of how to make money. The same can be said about focus on staff retention. To invest in retaining employees is not an investment in nothing, but an investment in building and improving the knowledge it takes for us to continuously be able to deliver the right soluti-ons to our clients on time and at the right price.

This is of course also true for a company that deals in recruiting well-qualified software people abroad. The knowledge that is gained in our developers that are working dedicatedly on our clients’ projects is the very foundation for our clients being able to constantly expand their services, both internally as with external clients. You could say that focus on staff retention is actually even more important in relation to employees that are not located in the office in Denmark every day, because the at-tachment doesn’t just happen on its own accord.

We don’t believe that you, as a client, need to accept the very high staff turnover that you experience many places in the sourcing industry. This is why we at Conscensia spend a lot of time, effort and money on developing and retaining our emplo-yees, so that our clients can have teams that are in constant development, and that are constantly expanding their know-ledge about the client and their domain. Sourcing is not a question of delivering cheap development hours. Sourcing is a question of delivering quality and value at the right price.

It is a myth that this can not be done, which our very low staff turnover clearly shows.

When, like us, you’re dealing with outsourcing of software development, you meet a lot of prejudice against outsourcing, and what it is like working with a foreign software team. In this series of articles, we dispel the myths, so that dialogue can happen based on a joint context.

Focus on staff retention creates value

Leader Carsten Hansen, CEO

Myth: Outsourced teams have large employee turnovers

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Pragmasoft has been growing since the beginning of 2005, so when the IT development company started discussing outsourcing, it wasn’t based on wanting to save on salary costs. It was more based on a curiosity about whether outsourcing could be an effective way of getting the right com-petences onto the team. “We could see that many of our competitors started doing it, so that is why the thought came to us, too. But we are not like most others - we have many clients, and many different types of projects, so we don’t have something to just pass on to a third party. That is why we wanted to find a sourcing partner who could deliver some developing forces to become an integrated part of the Danish teams that we have,” says managing director Vibeke D. Hansen about the reason for choosing Conscensia.

Skilled developersFor now, Pragmasoft has hired two Ukrainian de-velopers through Conscensia. Pragmasoft views the first year of the collaboration as a pilot project that is to determine whether the company wants to focus on outsourcing in the future. “We are not counting on any big profit in our cal-

culations for the first year. It will probably end up with a profit after all, but that is not the most im-portant thing to us. This is about testing whether it could work in our way of running teams,” says Vibeke D. Hansen who has also defined the crite-ria for success:“Both we and the Ukrainian employees must feel like they have become an integrated part of the team, while our clients should not be able to see a difference in whether their business is dealt with in Denmark or Ukraine.”The collaboration started in April 2013, and the first jobs have been done.“It has gone really well, and easier than we had imagined. They are talented and fully on the same level as the Danish IT developers,” says Vibeke D. Hansen, who doesn’t see outsourcing as a funda-mental change in the organisation of Pragmasoft. “It is important to us that we are not changing our way of running our business. We have simply hired some new employees, and the fact that they are located in Ukraine is not of importance,” she says.

It is crucial for Pragmasoft to have their outsourced employees totally integrated with the Danish teams. This is why Conscensia’s vast experience in the field and consul-tancy about best practice became deciding factors in Pragmasoft choosing Conscensia as their sourcing partner.

”Success is when the client doesn’t notice a difference”

We were very happy with the cultural workshop that Conscensia insisted on us having in the start-up phase. It presented the opportunity to ask questions, and it opened up for us being able to talk about possible differences across the borders, without us feeling like we had to approach any taboos sideways. It also meant that we were well prepared when our Ukrainian employees came to Denmark to get to know our company, and it has actually turned out that we are not all that different when it comes to it, after all. - Vibeke D. Hansen, managing director of Pragmasoft

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There is an idea amongst many Danish companies that a high staff turnover is one of the factors that you have to calculate with if you are considering outsourcing parts of your IT development. It is true that there are many IT companies and many competent IT developers on the job market in a country like Ukraine, but with a targeted focus on staff retention, Conscensia has proved that it doesn’t have to mean installing a revolving door in your business. Staff turnover is only at seven percent, and this is primarily due to Conscensia investing significant resources in HR. Conscensia’s HR department consists of seven people, and two of them are Recruitment Manager Olha Radzishevska and Career Advisor Nataliya Kuksa. According to them, a lot of Conscensia’s success in retaining staff is down to working hard on giving employees good opportunities for development.

Appreciates personal relationshipsThe reason for Conscensia prioritising staff reten-tion is simply that it creates a direct value for the clients. “The longer a developer is attached to a cer-tain project, the more value he will add - mutual knowledge means, amongst other things, that you communicate more effectively. Furthermore, we can feel that our clients appreciate the personal relationships, so therefore we would like to keep them. It is also about us investing a lot of time in recruitment to find candidates with both the right technical and personal skills, and that is an inve-stment we would like to nurture,” says Nataliya Kuksa.

Team spirit more important than salary The key to efficient staff retention is to understand what motivates employees and what gives them job satisfaction. This is why Conscensia conti-nuously conducts satisfaction surveys.“This way, we always have our finger on the pulse, so that we know what is important to our emplo-yees, and so that we can continuously improve our effort. For example, we ask our employees what motivates them. Contrary to what many people think, salary is not the most important thing. Team spirit is. A good atmosphere in the team, so that you can go to work with a smile. The second most important thing is having challenging tasks, and a good salary then comes in in third place,” says Olha Radzishevska.

Danish clients are attractive If team spirit is to bloom, the outer settings must

Conscensia has a low staff turnover at seven percent, because the company prioritises good working conditions for their employees, and options for professional development. It’s all about retaining the best brains to be able to offer clients the best possible value.

Staff retention pays off for all parts

“If some of our employees indicate that they would like to build a career, as for example becoming team leaders, then we do whatever we can to offer them that opportunity. If it is not possible within the project they are currently working on, then we will look at ma-king changes across projects, so we ensure that we keep their knowledge in-house. The alternative would be that they would leave us to fulfill their ambitions in another place,”

says Olha Radzishevska.

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be in order, and Conscensia can offer their emplo-yees attractive working conditions. “We have a beautiful and modern office environ-ment that is decorated in Scandinavian style with lots of space and light. There are good meeting facilities, a good kitchen, and the possibility of taking a break from work in our fitness room. It is important for work satisfaction that the settings are ok,” explains Olha Radzishevska and conti-nues:“At the same time, it is an advantage that we can offer good working hours because the clients are located in Denmark, and not in USA where there is a big time difference. Ukrainians like working for North European companies because they gene-rally have bigger focus on people than many other places do. It is not “Developer 1” and “Developer 2” - the clients know the developers’ names and personality, and that is important to work satisfac-tion,” she says.

Opportunities for education Good development opportunities are significant to employees, and besides the chance to advance, it is also about making it possible for employees to improve their skills. This is why Conscensia runs internal training courses, both for the newly employed and for experienced employees. “We have a Competence Manager who arranges various training programmes. All new employees are trained in scrum, email etiquette, Danish culture and more, but we also run more general courses about new developments within IT tech-nology, so we ensure that we are well-prepared for the jobs of the future,” says Nataliya Kuksa.Many of Conscensia’s employees are experts in their fields, and they want to share their know-ledge. Therefore, employees from Conscensia sometimes take part in external IT events in Lviv, where they for example train others in Java.

“This also helps strengthen our repu-tation in the industry, so that we keep being an attractive workplace,”

says Olha Radzishevska.

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Conscensia’s VP Global Delivery Line Milthers tells us about some of the subjects to be aware of, in order to get the maximum out of your outsourcing.

The liberal Danish management style The Danish tradition for management, or maybe even lack of it, is one of the things you may find hard to understand as a foreigner. We have a flat structure where we see it as a clear-cut positive thing that we don’t need to control each other. But there is a risk of this being misunderstood. What we see as control, will in other places be seen as interest, and the lack of control could be interpreted as a lack of attention. This is why we advise our clients on how to find the right balance.

The obscure decision-making processes One of the consequences of a flat hierarchy is that the decision-making processes can be hard to see through for outsiders. When we have Ukrai-nian developers visiting Danish companies, they often say: “Wow, you have a lot of meetings!”. We discuss a lot, without anyone pushing decisions through, because we like to reach a consensus. This has some great advantages, but at the same time, it means that it can be hard to understand where the decision-making competences really lie. That is why we ensure that all of our Ukrainian employees have an understanding of this way of working, as well as doing a lot of work with our clients on making their decision-making proces-ses visible. This adds overview and transparency, benefitting both parties.

What part do the roles play? In Denmark, we don’t have a tradition for working with very detailed work descriptions, and in that way, we differ from many other countries. We are a small country, primarily built up around small and medium-sized companies where you, as an employee, have to cover a large field. Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally had large-scale operations, where employees have clearly defined roles. On one hand, we help our clients get the relevant roles put down on paper, and on the other hand, we have made it part of Conscensia’s corporate culture to help each other out when and where as necessary. In the beginning, there were not a lot of us employees, so back then it was needed, and that is a culture that we still nurture. It is one of the ways in which we influence our organisation in a Danish way.

The aloof Danes It is a prevalent perception among Danes that other cultures see us as open and welcoming people, but often, quite the opposite is true. When we have Ukrainians visiting, they often see the Danes as aloof. One of the reasons is the way that our working day is structured. At 4pm, a Danish office is pretty much deserted, as people have to pick up their children and drive them to football practice, or whatever else they may have to do. The fact that we often log on in the evening and work for an hour is not very visible, so to an outsider, it appears that we disappear from our colleagues as soon as we can. In Ukraine, the working day is longer, and if you visit the country, they will often have planned a lot of events - also for the evening - because they are so hospitable. When they then visit us, they might interpret the

When Danish companies have to work with employees from a country like Ukraine, we have a tendency to focus on them being different from us. But in the grand scheme of things, it is probably the Danish way to run a busi-ness that differs from the rest of Europe, and therefore, there is good reason to look at ourselves to understand the others.

Five Danish quirks

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fact that we have to leave mid-afternoon, as if we don’t want to spend time with them. That is why we very much recommend our clients to also go out for an evening and do something informal with the Ukrainian employees when they visit. It means a lot for the building of relationships, and it establishes a foundation for a much better col-laboration.

Trust is not a matter of course Denmark is characterised by a very high degree of trust, one of the reasons being that we historically

haven’t had a reason not to - we are used to living in peace and quiet. This is far from the truth in all countries, for example in Ukraine. In Denmark, we trust someone, until they break that trust - in Ukraine, you have to win the trust first. Luckily, that is not hard to do, but it is very important to realise that you have to create some activities where people can get to know each other a bit and build up relationships. This is also one of the reasons why it is important to prioritise the social aspect when Ukrainian employees visit Denmark for knowledge transfer.

Conscensia opens office in KievConscensia is now also able to service its clients from an office in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. On August 1st 2013, the company opened the new office, which right from the start contains all the service features that are in place today in Lviv.

The new client is specialised within Microsoft Dynamics, and Conscensia is thereby also ex-panding on the technological front. In the future, the office in Kiev will become an important part of Conscensia’s work with recruiting the best developers. “There is very good recruiting potential in Lviv, but after all, Kiev is that much bigger a place, that there is an even broader basis for recruiting the right profiles for our clients here,” says Olha Radzishevska.

“We had an enquiry from a company who had a num-ber of developers in Kiev, but who wanted a better service than what they got from their previous business partner. They have now become Conscensia’s largest single client since their developers have moved over to us. So we already have a strong foundation on which to establish ourselves in Kiev,”

says Olha Radzishevska,HR responsible at the Kiev office.

HeadofficeConscensia A/S

Hjulmagervej 55DK-9000 Aalborg

Tel. 8882 6262

info@conscensia.com

Development Center73, Heroiv UPA str.

Building 38, 4th floor79017 Lviv

Ukraine

Outsourcing with Conscensia A/S Conscensia is a company with wide-ranging experience and interest in outsourcing. We help you to launch a partnership between your business and our development centre over-seas. You quickly acquire your own development team as an extension of your current business.

Jylland/FynSteffen TrefferTel. +45 2788 6360

SjællandKim MikkelsenTel. +45 2788 6363