Five years at ASOS — what nurtures loyalty?

This month, I reached a significant milestone in my time at ASOS — five years. It seems like an ideal opportunity for some reflection on the lessons learned.

Along with the praise and kudos for achieving this, there are a number of benefits that come with it too; extra holiday, a cheeky bonus, drinks with the top brass, even a different colour lanyard (pictured), which brings VIP treatment at the infamous bi-annual parties.

But what is it that motivated me to reach my longest duration ever throughout my career so far? I don’t think it was just these rewards…

One destination, many journeys

I know there’s a common trait working in tech (especially in hubs like London) whereby people get an itch after a few years, lose the initial excitement and seek alternative roles elsewhere. Through the years, I’ve had a variety of positions in different departments across ASOS Tech. I believe this has been one of the influencing factors as to why I’ve stayed at ASOS.

The essence of what I’ve aimed to deliver has always stayed the same; I’ve always been focused on the core Web journey, trying to deliver the ultimate customer experience for our target ‘fashion-conscious 20-somethings’.

From our initial splash into regular content, integrating our first official CMS to rebuilding our core checkout journey as a more scalable solution; creating rapid prototypes as multivariate tests, to delivering the first React solution in the refactored My Account web app, I’m very lucky to have worked across such a broad range of projects with different end goals. Fundamentally, it’s always been about improving the full user experience for our customers though.

These values are also evident in the people that work at ASOS. Many people outside the business have asked me, ‘why work at ASOS?’ and it often come down to the shared passion towards doing what’s right for our customers along with the mutual buzz from doing this. There’s a real energy around the office that we’re all working towards the same goals and, for a company the size of ASOS (with more than 4,000 employees), that’s quite an impressive achievement.

Nurturing talent

My role has also evolved through the years, joining as a UI Engineer, then moving through the ranks to become an Agile Delivery Manager, supporting our Web team. This recognition has naturally influenced why I’ve stayed, but I’m not alone.

There are many other colleagues who have strived for ‘continuous improvement’ and received accolades for their efforts. Nurturing in-house talent brings so many values and, as someone who is passionate about education, it’s refreshing to get this support in my place of work. Endless training resources are combined with regular opportunities to learn (the last Friday of the month is dedicated to personal development in our Tech Develops initiative) which, again, encourages loyalty towards working in ASOS Tech.

Share the love

I’ve long been a fan of community events. Going back to 2005, I took the initiative to arrange a local meetup with fellow geeks from around the Midlands called Multipack. This was a monthly session where we met in an elected pub to talk Web tech. Fast forward 10 years and I introduced a similar initiative at ASOS, bringing together like-minded passionate folk around the business to talk about the latest tech in Web, ideally over a few drinks. This quickly extended to a public arena with our quarterly ASOS Web Community events where we invited public and internal speakers to demonstrate something they were passionate about. Again, having these opportunities in a thriving environment is a huge influencing factor as to why so many people are staying loyal to ASOS. We have such an exciting place to push ourselves, be creative and learn in a collaborative space.

It’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint exactly what it takes to create a harmonious working environment, which ensures happy, loyal employees, but I think these three factors are important: variety of work, career progression and skilled communities.

What attracted you to your job and why have you stayed there? I’d be curious to hear some other factors that influence your company loyalty. Are there any common areas? Get in touch by tweeting me or even writing your own post tagged with #companyloyalty.

Who am I and what do I do?

I’m Si Jobling, an Agile Delivery Manager (former Web Engineer) at ASOS.

I tend to tweet a lot and love to arrange community events as a platform for others to talk.