The need to change
First let’s take a step back. There is a reason why this is AllPhi’s mission and it’s not because we needed some marketing catch phrase. There was a problem that needed solving. AllPhi in its first years was mainly focused on its mission at the time which was ‘Software as a result of effort and involvement’. Management would see software as our most important goal and as the company started growing, consultants became unhappy. They didn’t feel like they were supported enough and they would disconnect from the company which resulted in people leaving AllPhi. Customers weren’t too happy about that either, and so on… Things certainly needed to change.
It was during the second half of 2018 and even more so in the first months of 2019 when I, as an employee, really felt that AllPhi started realizing that this approach was not the right way to go. There was a need for management to shift their focus from this customer-centric organisation to an employee-centric one.
And that’s what they did. They opened up to feedback as an employer, started questioning themselves, they started listening to all employees, their needs and how they could support them.
Let’s get to work
This meant there was a lot of thinking and strategic planning to do. In order to improve AllPhi, they changed the entire mindset of what AllPhi used to be. Management started defining a new employee-centric strategy and also questioned the structure of their own team. They started opening up to suggestions and started embracing involvement of all employees, including the consultants, in a necessary and important part of the decision making process.
One of the key suggestions was that AllPhi didn’t have enough technological expertise in its own management team. And our employees were right. Because the lack of expertise, management was unable to make the right decisions and therefore guide the company in the right direction. Therefore they hired Regional Unit Managers with a proven track record as technical consultants. Thanks to this change they finally understand the needs of our consultants and know how to support them in the right way.
Also, the leadership style has changed a lot. The concept of what used to be “boss” has now clearly shifted to “leader”. Our management now focuses on the personal development of each individual that is employed at AllPhi. Creating a safe and stimulating environment for everyone has become the most important priority. This resulted into people feeling more appreciated by, and connected to AllPhi. We can now be proud of AllPhi’s achievements because we were all involved in them.
Where we are today
Thanks to the involvement of our consultants:
We have an actual AllPhi Academy that provides insights and education about .NET technology for all our consultants. Read more about this here.
We now have a brand new Car Policy which is completely designed by our own employees.
We have an internal educational program for graduates that are starting on the job.
We have our employee evaluations once every four months, instead of the usual once every year, to provide everyone with timely and relevant feedback.
These are only a few examples to show the impact of that change process on the organisation. As a result our consultants are happy and feel comfortable in their jobs. The amount of employees leaving AllPhi is at an all time low, not to say almost zero in the last year. Also, we can all feel a real family like company culture, now more than ever. Spontaneous events and gatherings (digital these days, because Corona…) are being organised by employees and I can only establish that people are clearly connected not only to AllPhi but also to each other.
It was during this intense process that management also thought about how they could write this new mission down in just one sentence. When AllPhi was undergoing and implementing all these changes, it was clear what they intended and how they had to approach everything. But it was more than halfway through the process that this intention, this mission, was eventually written down.
‘AllPhi enables the next generation software developers who will change and build the world of tomorrow in which we live, love and work’.
Carry out the mission
It is now time to let people know who we have become and what we stand for. AllPhi’s strategy now is focusing on their employees and consultants. So we as a team established that – for all external communication, social media and our website – .NET software consultants are our most important target audience.
And that is why we really needed to update our website. We needed to make sure that it was aligned with our new mission. Also, we want to give everyone who visits the AllPhi website in general the right information of what we do and who we are as a company. The content of the entire website is now up-to-date, more relevant for our target audience and insightful for people who want to know more about AllPhi.
Thanks for making it through this blog, feel free to take a look around on our website and discover AllPhi for who we are today and what we have to offer. Have a great day!
