July 05, 2018
July 05, 2018
Contributor: Susan Moore
Top organizations thrive with a team of enthusiastic application developers who are highly engaged and feel valued.
Cool startups and digital giants are vying for top app development talent, so for a bank or government agency, it might seem a big challenge to attract and retain the best.
In every industry, new players are entering the market. The more disruptive entrants want to make their mark by hiring high-quality software engineering talent, putting a strain on the available talent pool. Once enterprises manage to find and hire a quality developer, they're in constant danger of another company poaching their best employees.
A key characteristic of a thriving digital business is a workforce of enthusiastic contributors who are highly engaged. According to Gartner, more than two-thirds of the fastest scaling digital businesses will directly attribute their growth to an engaged and evolving company culture in the next five years.
Adrian Leow, research director at Gartner, says application leaders need to help evolve company culture into one that attracts and retains the right development talent to build an effective workforce.
“After working for three years on the same project with no possibility of moving off due to resource constraints, many developers feel trapped and suffer burnout,” Leow says. “When you go to work, you want to be part of a culture that provides meaning and purpose to what you do.”
However, application leaders often don't prioritize or know how to shape an organizational culture that’s aligned with developers' ideals.
"Attracting and retaining great developers comes down to understanding and listening to them," says Leow.
Provide them with challenging work and opportunities to grow both in their abilities and careers. Use cutting-edge technology for architecture, development and automation. And remember that they have lives outside of coding. Where appropriate, offer your developers the option to telecommute a few days each week.
Here are five steps to spur the growth of high-performing software development teams.
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