|
Name |
Ben Gusich |
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Position at COPS |
Team Leader Administration |
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At COPS since |
2007 |
|
Age |
44,9 (round down!) |
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Hobbies |
Buy tools and never use them (for later?) |
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What connects me to corima is… |
… a rearview mirror showing COPS history |
|
In 10 years… |
… we will be somewhere completely different than we believe today |
corimamagazin: Hello Ben. From the point of view of a colleague who has known you for almost 5 years and holds you in high esteem, you are at COPS what in the military is called “the company sergeant” or “the mother of the company”. You take care of a lot of internal processes. Please describe your position and the scope of your duties to our readers.
„One of our developers once said, „You are the else in our if clause.“ I really liked that.“
B. Gusich: I tell new colleagues on their first day, „If you have a concern and don’t know who’s in charge of it, it’s probably me.“ That simplifies the list. I’ve taken on new responsibilities regularly over my 16 years at COPS, ranging from small roles officially required, like safety representative, to the 2018 new-grown need for a data privacy point of contact; from traditional IT project work to my current main responsibilities as team leader of Internal Administration: namely, ensuring accurate customer billing, as well as having daily contact with our system administration to prioritize necessary tasks. But, to follow up on the first sentence, I haven’t seen a complete list of these activities myself. One of our developers once said, „You are the else in our if clause.“ I really liked that.
corimamagazin: As part of these diverse tasks, you are also the „onboarding coordinator“ at COPS. This means that no matter which department the new colleagues start at, you will show them the steps of training and interdepartmental integration. Please describe the process for us. Is it the same for everyone?
B. Gusich: That’s another thing that came about. For a relatively long time, we were a fairly static group. Not only did we have little fluctuation, but we also had few new employees each year. But we have been growing continuously, and then we reached the point where we couldn’t just put new colleagues in front of a screen and amid other colleagues, but instead required an extensive explanation of the processes and how-tos. Digging through my old emails, I first see the idea become a concept in February 2017.
Since then, the process has continued to develop and now already starts during recruiting: where will the colleague physically sit, how will we technically equip him/her, etc.? This means that the purchasing process for hardware starts in good time so that everything is prepared and – this is important to me – tested and working on his/her first day at work. The first working day is full of COPS-specific info (what systems do we use, how does our time recording work, etc., just a lot of organizational stuff), this requires the full concentration of the new employees, who ideally are not distracted by technical problems.
Up to this point, the content is the same for everyone; at most, the language of enrollment can change. Of course, we’ve always had employees who hadn’t spent their whole lives in Austria, but now we have a handful who communicate with us exclusively in English. And with you, dear Stefan, we still had to speak original German back then 😉
For the department-specific training content, there are task lists that each „buddy“ (yes, we also adopted this designation at some point) has in mind and can check off one by one over the course of the first few weeks. From here on, I explicitly exclude myself, because the direct introduction of department colleagues has much more of a „by doing“ character than when this happens in a centralized manner. Questions and issues arise within the next few days anyway, and no one has yet defined when onboarding is actually completed. Which brings us back to your introductory comparison with the company sergeant. He doesn’t retreat either.
corimamagazin: On average, how many stations or training sessions do new employees receive in their first few weeks?
„Between 30 and 40 topics are covered there, and at least ten established colleagues are busy with our newcomers in these sessions.“
B. Gusich: The initial flood of information about internal administrative topics – and thus my area – takes place during the first two days. Depending on the department, the first info sessions with the buddy start then, who hands over the new employee for individual special topics by the hour to colleagues who are most familiar with the subject matter. To maintain an overview, a catalog of topics is handed over, which the new employee checks off him/herself when he/she has finished the topic, and thus also sees for him/herself what is still missing. If I had to give you numbers, I would say: between 30 and 40 topics are covered there, and at least ten established colleagues are busy with our newcomer in these sessions. In addition, of course, there are constant adjustments by the buddy. However, many topics take weeks to fully get them. That’s why the onboarding process isn’t completely over even after three months; I’d rather say it turns into a collegial exchange that lasts for a whole year.
corimamagazin: The new colleagues also receive „training/initial information“ from the Marketing and Sales department. In the process, they always reflect to us how valuable this onboarding process is from their point of view. What do you think are the main reasons for this?
B. Gusich: I think it has to do with the fact that we’re not a huge place with an HR department, seven levels of management and rigid processes. We can adapt our welcome phase to the background of our new colleagues. When I think about when you started with us five years ago, as a classic boomer who experienced the invention of the personal computer virtually live, and we have now reached birth years around the turn of the millennium, who no longer perceive the save symbol as a 3.5-inch diskette because they have grown up with USB sticks – then this demonstrates quite well that you have to adapt the communication of the content to the counterpart. And that’s what we do.
corimamagazin: Well-organized onboarding is an important aspect, OK! But is that all there is to good integration of new colleagues at COPS?
„We may be quite a noisy bunch at times, but when it comes to considering individual characters, we’re right up there…“
B. Gusich: Again, I cannot give a blanket answer. There are rather extrovert personalities (I don’t want to name names now, dear Stefan ;)) who quickly find their way. Introverted new colleagues, who perhaps already have a hard enough time in a one-on-one setting, need to be picked up in a different way. We may be quite a noisy bunch at times, but when it comes to considering individual characters, we’re right up there. I have to say that as collective self-praise. We have people who crawl into the home office at the first opportunity, and others who prefer not to miss a single day of physical presence – but everyone gets along with each other, and once we have a full house, no one regrets coming to the office.
The management’s initiative to once a month end the working day together at an after-work get-together has been very well received. They originally called it „COPS Member Meeting“ and shortened it COMe, which has been its name since. The first COMe over a year ago started with drinks and snacks in our upgraded office’s common area, over time we’ve come up with mottos to make it more diverse. First as a games evening, then as a big COMe Together with our colleagues from further away, once also with a cultural flavour and a trip to the Albertina – and most recently the COMe BBQ, where one of our newer employees performed his barbecue grilling skills in our garden.
Something like this goes down well, both with employees who have been with the company for decades and with new faces. With a drink in hand, you get to know your colleagues differently and, above all, more quickly than you would if you were only in contact with them during a day at work.
corimamagazin: COPS started out as a small Austrian company over 40 years ago. How international have we become in the meantime?
„If I were to say that our workforce is a classic Viennese potpourri, that would be a great understatement.“
B. Gusich: Vienna as a city has always been a melting pot of cultures. But if I were to say that our workforce is a classic Viennese potpourri, that would be a great understatement. From South America to Far East Asia to Greenland and Greece – we have covered a large part of the globe over the years. The fact that all these different people get along and understand each other, is a big part of our corporate culture.
corimamagazin: Which vacancies are we currently looking to fill?
B. Gusich: Of course, there is always a desire to expand teams in all areas, so my answer cannot be correct in the long term. However, the permanent favorites are the Consultant in the area of Business, IT & Process Analytics, as well as the senior programmer positions (C# and/or Angular).
„To answer the initial question: new colleagues get started very well with us!“
corimamagazin: A lot has happened in our onboarding process over the last five years. This is probably one of the reasons why our new colleagues are always in such a good mood. To answer the initial question: new colleagues get started very well with us! Ben, thank you for your commitment and this interview.