For IT professionals, searching for an enriching IT career may seem like finding a needle in a haystack. IT positions can often feel like a solitary experience in front of a computer screen. Even if you are lucky enough to find a position that challenges your skillset, you may be left wanting more collaboration and mentorship in your workplace. Finding an enriching IT career that supports collaboration and mentorship has been amplified with the recent rise of hybrid work.
At Elantis, we understand the benefits—for both businesses and employees—of creating a corporate culture that supports job enrichment. This is why we have developed a culture that reinforces the importance of collaboration and mentorship. In order for Elantis to provide the best possible support for our clients, we strive to provide a space where our employees can flourish with enriching IT careers.
How the “Two-Factor Motivation Theory” Supports Enriching IT Careers
American psychologist Frederick Herzberg is largely known for inspiring business management through his writings and research. Herzberg’s “Two-Factor Motivation Theory” highlights the main contributing factors for a satisfying (or dissatisfying) job experience. Herzberg discovered that employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction were dependant on two different, mutually exclusive sets of motivators. Motivating satisfiers for employees include things like recognition, responsibility, opportunities for advancement, and personal growth; whereas dissatisfiers include things like salary, workplace environment, and relationships with colleagues and supervisors.
Another way of looking at the Two-Factor Motivation Theory is to view employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction as two separate conditions that do not operate on one spectrum. It is not enough to simply focus on doing the right things; we also have to focus on not doing the wrong things. Improving the ‘satisfiers’ in Herzberg’s model will help increase your rate of employee satisfaction, while improving the ‘dissatisfiers’ will decrease the rate of dissatisfaction.
How Elantis Creates Enriching IT Careers
Along many of Elantis employees’ IT career paths, employees have celebrated the fact that Elantis provides the challenging and meaningful work that many IT professionals are searching for. At Elantis, employees are given the opportunity for continuous learning and development as part of exciting projects for enterprise clients, and they are empowered to make a lasting impact on many different areas of the business.
We believe that approximately 70% of our learning at work happens through on-the-job experiences; 20% happens through coaching, mentorship, and relationships; and 10% happens through formal and self-directed training. The 70-20-10 development model encourages a richer, more balanced development path that ensures we have both the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to support our clients, our employees, and our company.
One of our core values is to focus on people. We offer a variety of ways to build connection, promote work-life balance, and celebrate together. Some of our most memorable moments happen during Elantis Experience, a weekly meeting with all staff where we share updates on projects, kudos and thank yous, and perhaps most importantly – memes. This fun and interactive Friday afternoon ritual helps our team relax and decompress after the week’s activities. On top of providing meaningful work that positively challenges our employees, we embrace the importance of recognition for a job well done.
How Elantis Focuses on Collaboration and Mentorship
A recent study has shown that over 75% of people have said that mentoring relationships were extremely important to their career; however, only 25% of people have been offered mentorship opportunities at their workplace. This disparity indicates that many businesses only focus on improving employee satisfaction without focusing on eliminating employee dissatisfaction. Other studies conducted over the past few decades have shown that formal mentorship has a vastly positive impact on an individual’s performance, self-perception, and mental health.
At Elantis, we understand that at the core of employee dissatisfaction is the absence of meaningful connections and support in the workplace, and a culture of collaboration and mentorship lay the foundation on which meaningful connections are made with colleagues, team leads, and the workplace itself.
This is why we encourage employees to collaborate and support each other everyday, and why we encourage mentorship (both inside the organization and externally). Our culture of mentorship begins early in an employee’s career at Elantis. We recently started assigning an “onboarding buddy” to every new hire. The onboarding buddy acts as a go-to person for questions; introduces the new hire to our culture, values, and communication norms; communicates expectations of the consultant role and team interdependencies; and socializes with the new hire to foster connection. The onboarding buddy has a leadership and development opportunity, while the new hire receives mentorship and guidance to help them flourish at Elantis.
This all spawns from promoting a growth mindset at Elantis, where all lines of communication are open and employees are given the agency to put their career into their own hands and live another of our core values: own the experience.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can find an enriching IT career at Elantis, contact careers@elantis.com to connect with our Team Talent Consultant or take a look at our current job openings and apply to join our growing team!
