Technology

Utah Business, July, 2008

Facing the ongoing challenge of securing a qualified workforce, technology companies are using unique methods to attract and retain top talent. At our annual technology roundtable, industry officials commented on the success and impact of state initiatives, while stressing the importance of an ongoing commitment to training and education in the state.

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Other issues discussed include pumping up the state's image as a place to grow a business and a career and the blurring lines between work and play. We'd like to give a special thank you to Richard Nelson, president & CEO of the Utah Technology Council, for moderating the discussion and Holland & Hart for hosting the event.

This is the second year that quality of workforce is the number one issue for our industry and state. What are your companies' top talent needs in terms of engineers, developers, other technical people or management talent?

CUPAL: Engineers for us.

J. NELSON: We are looking for management talent that also has a scientific background, which is a unique need. It's people that have graduated with a scientific degree and have some experience managing, as well.

KHANWILKAR: Medical device manufacturing, for me. Quality assurance.

HANKS: Product marketing.

GUILLORY: Engineers that have two-to-four years of experience so they are knowledgeable and come in and hit the ground running as opposed to having to be mentored.

What is your company doing to retrain underprepared talent?

SUNDERLAGE: We have a lot of workers coming in well educated and we will train them to the unique skills that we require.

HILL: We don't need to do very much retraining. I'm very satisfied with the colleges turning out engineering talent here. They jump in, they get it. We are pretty selective and we promise them they will use every skill they learned in college at our place. But when we get into the blue collar workforce, we do have to spend a little more time doing retraining. So those are the folks that have no college, usually no technical school education.

SLOVIK: We do a lot of retraining. Every week, one of our senior technical people does something called "lunch and learn" where they teach on some topic, whether it's a nasty bug that they found and how to avoid it or some algorithm that they came up with. Every quarter we do one-to-two days off site, where we do intense training and have tests and all kinds of competitions. The topics vary from very technical, things that they probably should have learned in school and didn't, to other things that are not technical, such as how to give presentations and how to be a good manager or good team leader.

What is your top method for attracting or retaining talent?

GOODRICH: We took a little different approach recently. Instead of going through the typical head hunters for high level positions, we contacted industry specific consultants that had national breadth and expertise and had them zero in on firms elsewhere where there were layoffs because private equity firms came in and there was a big downsizing going on with a major competitor. It was easy to bring people into Utah this time, which has been a challenge for us over the years. So this was a new thing, to take advantage of disruption elsewhere in the country through consultants.

HALL: One of the things that we looked at last year was when Fortune came out with its Great Place To Work type companies. Not having the pockets quite as deep as Google, we developed our own "great place to work" initiatives that looked at retaining and attracting talent from a holistic point of view. We tried to identify those facets outside of just compensation, which is certainly a big piece of it, to make sure that as our employees come into the organization and have an experience with us, that it is something that they enjoy. Whether it's movie Fridays or whether it's an opportunity for them to be more engaged with their clients at perhaps a different level, we found that by doing the simple things outside of just compensation, it has paid dividends in terms of being able to retain and attract folks we are after.

COLBERT: There's a unique individual that gravitates towards a startup; it's a "work hard, play hard" mentality. So what we have done to attract and retain individuals is we have a 12-inch powder rule. If there are 12 inches of documented snow at any of the resorts, don't play sick, just go ski. And what happens is individuals still work a full day. They hit the slopes and they are usually back in office by 1:00 p.m. That is an effective tool both in and out of state with individuals who want to come and enjoy the mountains.

GOODRICH: Did you say you have openings?

SLOVIK: Superstar employees at the beginning of their career want to grow. They want to learn. When I interview, I ask them, "If you could take a job for half salary working one-on-one with Steve Jobs would you do it?" And of course they say, "Yes. I would learn so much." I tell them, "That's what you need to be thinking at this point in your career. Find those people. It's not Steve Jobs, but there are a lot of other people you can learn from." And that's why we invest so much in training, because I believe the superstars will take less money if they think they are learning and growing and if they think they are being mentored.