Nurturing Professional Relationships | Insight

What does working at a company have in common with a romantic relationship between two people? There are seemingly not many similarities, but as we all know – appearances can be deceiving.

Imagine a person who is browsing job advertisements. Among the available options, there is a company that seems like the perfect match. Its website looks attractive: they share the same core values and the business area the company operates in seems interesting. The person’s heart skips a beat: it may be his dream job! Feeling a bit intimidated and, simultaneously, hopeful – as if he was inviting a beautiful girl on a date – he decides to send his résumé. Picture how happy he is when the recruiter calls him back and invites him to a job interview. When they meet, the recruiter listens attentively to what the person has to say and notices that, indeed, it may be the candidate for whom they have been looking. Soon after, they sign a letter of intent and a job contract. Together, they start a new career journey.

The metaphor of a relationship between those two who sign a job contract, and then, start a long-term cooperation can be continued even further with comparison of those steps to getting married, honeymoon, and living together. However, what shall be taken into consideration is how to prolong this honeymoon period? How can the company guarantee a consultant’s or employee’s job satisfaction while working together for many years?

Needless to say, there are several things about relationships, both professional and romantic ones, that we all expect. Most people enjoy celebrating special occasions: couples typically spend their marriage anniversaries together. They thank each other for the time they spent together, they appreciate each other, and express how grateful they are not only for those beautiful moments, but also for difficulties they managed to overcome. They also like those little gifts, nice surprises, and the feeling that they are listened to and trusted.

Having this in mind, the similarities to professional relationships are clearly visible. Appreciation for our daily work, engagement, input, and successes, supportive attitude towards the challenges we encounter, and mutual trust are what we all value at work.

Romantic and professional relationships – what do they have in common?

At 7N, we have always valued and strived for long-term relationships with our consultants and employees. Thus, we delineated the five areas we recognize as important aspects of work satisfaction – and we continuously invest our efforts in nurturing them. How do we do it?

Fulfillment in a long-term professional relationship

Communication

It is our belief that maintaining an ongoing dialogue with our consultants and employees is crucial. Not only do they receive regular newsletters and video updates from Vice Presidents, but also numerous invitations to upcoming social events we organize to create opportunities of meeting in person, strengthening relationships or creating them with those who have just joined 7N. As we speak about new consultants, it is definitely worth mentioning that they are invited to online onboarding meetings with Vice Presidents who elaborate on our company’s history and core values, as well as explain the role of a 7N agent in more detail.

Development

When asked for the reason for willingness to change their job, Europeans most frequently indicate either the lack of – or unsatisfactory level of – development possibilities. Some companies are hesitant about providing extensive training opportunities. They ask themselves a question many have asked before: ‘What do we do if we invest in skills of our employees and, at some point, they decide to leave our organization?.’ The perspective adopted by 7N is just the opposite: ‘What do we do if we do not pay attention to the development of our consultants and employees and they decide to stay?.’ Following this line of reasoning, we organize countless trainings ourselves and, simultaneously, provide the access to external workshops, conferences, and other industry events. It is our ambition to facilitate knowledge-sharing: we established the 7N Inspiration Team, a community of 7N Consultants and Agents who share their in-depth knowledge within a variety of IT categories. Finally, reflected in The Secret Code, our strong conviction is that soft skills are equally as important as technical ones. Thus, we invest in creating both harmonious and well-balanced development paths.

Well-being

Life is not a bed of roses: it is impossible to always be in a good mood, but at the same time we do our best to make our consultants and employees happy. We recognize the importance of caring for mental health and well-being. As a result, we guaranteed the access to a psychological support and personal development platform. In addition, as already mentioned, 7N organizes multiple social events such as Kick-Offs, parties, dinners, photography competitions, cooking events, etc. We also recognize the importance of these little celebrations and gestures such as donuts or chocolates on Fat Thursday and cosmetic workshops on International Women’s Day.

Physical activity

Mountain biking, the relay marathon, 7N Summer Olympic Games, sailing trips, badminton meetings, and football matches – these are just to name a few initiatives we undertake across 7N. Physical activity has great influence on how we feel – both physically and mentally. And as you already know from the previous section, happiness of our consultants and employees is something we strive for.

Asking for opinion

At 7N, feedback is of utmost importance. Ongoing 7N agent care includes regular catch-ups with each consultant. Together, they discuss the project flow in which a consultant is engaged, potential challenges, and ways of overcoming them. Finally, we conduct two annual global surveys: Voice of Consultants and Voice of Staff. Based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric, they help us set the path for further improvements and future initiatives we undertake for our consultants and staff.

And they lived happily ever after

What are the effects of caring for long-term relationships? It is difficult to describe feelings with numbers, but let’s give it a try.

When it comes to employees, the NPS for 2022 equals 65. As far as consultants are concerned, the NPS for 2022 equals 60 (in a scale ranging from -100 to 100). And what about those who decided to leave 7N? They receive a boomerang as a gift and are welcome to join the 7N Alumni community.