The project was not only in line with our values but also provided an opportunity to develop new skills for the team members and brought together people and departments that usually do not participate in commercial projects, such as Marketing or People & Culture Teams.
Knowledge sharing in practice
The value of knowledge sharing in Apptension is not just a nice-sounding phrase. Currently, 9 regular meetings supporting this value are happening in the company, conducted 90% by our employees and managers, with the support of external specialists.
Among them, we run:
- Coffee breaks – in-house peer-to-peer presentations on professional and lifestyle topics held once a month.
- Knowledge shots – once a month, we train and develop our soft skills with an external trainer to be able to cooperate and act as a Team even better.
- Product Challenge – a monthly, creative meeting that addresses a given business problem, conducted by our Head of Product Design, during which participants face real business challenges.
- Town Hall – a monthly gathering during which the Heads of the departments, together with the Management Board, talk about the status of works, ongoing projects, and financial condition to broaden our employees' knowledge.
- DevTalks – meetings dedicated to technology, technical knowledge, and technological news from the market.
- QATalks – meetings focused on developing testing skills.
- DesignTalks – creating products is our specialty, so we learn about this process from the perspective of product design specialists during Design Talks.
- Project Recap – cyclical meetings of project teams (Devs, PMs, QA, Design), during which we get to know our colleagues' projects and find out what challenges they encountered and what they learned.
- POZTech Talks – video podcasts we create with 2 other Poznań technology companies – Bitnoise and STX Next. Our experts share quite a lot of design experience and technical knowledge – a real feast for technical people.
Impact
The form of the tool, name, scope of functionality, and visual aspects were influenced by many of our employees – those involved in the project both directly and indirectly. The name of the tool and the logo were chosen by our social council, i.e., all willing employees who collaborate on a dedicated corporate channel. In addition, continuous improvement means a channel dedicated to the development of the tool was established where all employees report their needs, comments, and errors in the application.
Tool objective
The project aimed to create a centralized knowledge center. Enlight acts as a knowledge repository for the entire organization, enabling employees to quickly and easily find the information they need while reducing the repetitive effort of searching for missed topics and, at the same time, providing one reliable source of knowledge. Thus, it supports faster onboarding of new employees into the organization, ensures that knowledge and know-how do not leave out the organization, supports the implementation of development goals, and improves TOP-DOWN communication.
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What we wanted to show and solve with the tool
Clients come to Apptension for our knowledge, expertise, and solutions for their ideas. They expect us to know the latest technologies, be able to run projects, present ideas innovatively, and implement projects according to the assumed deadline and budget. They need specialists, which we are. In the minds of many recipients/candidates, Software House is associated with the quick implementation of projects for clients. With our actions, we want to dispel this myth. We want to show that we use the tools we create for our clients and know how important it is to invest in internal development.
Enlight is our next internal tool (which was created during 11 years of our activity), after Wishlist – a crowdfunding platform where each employee gets PLN 50 worth of votes from the company every month to spend on the realization of group dreams, and Sparky – a tool that supports proactivity in the organization and allows you to collect points that can be selected for many different prizes.
Building a competitive advantage and Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is crucial for our company, so information about our tools in job offers and during recruitment arouses admiration among recipients. In addition, our company focuses on developing employees' competencies to meet the market's challenges and maintain the reputation of a leader in the industry. Enlight helps in this process by positively influencing employee retention and magnetizing those who want to join.
Result
In 30 days and with 7 people, we created a panel for the users with descriptions of events and a panel for administrators.
Benefits
- Immediately after the end of the project, project participants entered projects where they could use their new knowledge and skills on a commercial scene.
- EVP SUPPORT (employee/employer) promotion of the company as such, which has its own tools that were created as part of bottom-up initiatives, use in recruitment/job offers / SM
- Centralization of the knowledge center
- Support for the company's OKR "Make a great place to work."
- Consolidation of knowledge (multiple possibilities to return to the materials: recordings + presentations)
- Support for internal communication: TOP-DOWN (one place to find information about the company's situation → which strengthens the sense of security and information in a world of uncertainty and crisis)
- Protection against loss/outflow of knowledge from the organization (after employees leave, their knowledge remains for current and new employees)
Use for development and onboarding purposes
- Building internal motivation: implementing employees' projects and their ideas into the company's culture.
- Implementation of the goal of the hackathon and the knowledge sharing company value in the practice of the company
