Siniša Medic, TNation on retention and the IT professionals deficit
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TNation, one of the leading professional outsourcing companies in Serbia, specializes in providing software development services. Headquartered in Belgrade, with offices in Denmark, UK, and US, TNation is a fast-growing outsourcing company. It comes to no surprise that such a company has many employees and need good practices to take care of their team. We spoke to Siniša Medic, CEO, about his experience with hiring and retention for TNation.
What are the greatest challenges that the Serbian IT scene faces and what are the steps you take in order to overcome them?
Finding staff is definitely a problem. It’s hard to find suitable people, and even if you do, they’re mostly unqualified. It’s also popular to change jobs, but I expect that to stop because people will understand it’s negativity. We, for example, avoid employing someone who stays at the same company for only a short period of time. It will be a problem when the state finds a way to deal with the problem of a huge number of “agencies”. That is when people will either leave Serbia and there will be even fewer resources, or they will start opening companies abroad.
When does the process of recruitment end? And when does the process of keeping the employees and motivating them to stay in the company as long as possible begin?
The recruitment ends with signing a contract, and the process of keeping the employee starts right away. We don’t have any different programs for new recruits, in comparison with the people that work in the company for a long time now. But we do have ways to award loyalty.
How should a company approach the career plan of Senior Developers in relation to the Juniors?
It’s harder with the Seniors. You can offer things to Juniors; you can show them some direction… The Seniors have gone through that a long time ago. Of course, I’m not talking about Seniors with five years of experience, as some people do nowadays.
What are you proud of as a company, when it comes to HR? What does success mean for you?
Professional success is only a small percentage of people that leave the company. A personal success for me is that most of the teams think of us as our friends.
