#techtrification

We used the neologism ′gentrificacion′ to describe a painful process. Under this label, people living in an area are forced to abandon their current or native residence due to the increase in the cost of living, mostly driven by the rental price of the dwelling, being forced to establish their lives in areas farther away from their current residence.

A few days ago I found on twitter the label ′#techtrification′ as a synonym for ′#gentrification′ applied especially to the techie sector. I would like to maintain the meaning of ′gentrification′ as it is regardless of whether it originates from tourism, new residents' salaries, real estate speculation, etcetera. And on the other hand, I would like to define the neologism of ′techtrification′. I would define it this way: a process in which new companies establish themselves in a city willing to hire the best talent by offering the best salaries and breaking the city's salary references. Local companies cannot absorb the wage increases and lose employees to the benefit of new entrants. In the developers’ sector, it is known as the wage bubble. I have been able to live a couple of them (the year 2000 and 2007) and in 2019 we are back to being the same. But I would like to differentiate ‘techtrification’ from the wage bubble by the imperative fact that the new entrant lands in a city from scratch and increases wage costs suddenly in a short period of time, while the usual wage bubble would have a slower growth curve as a result of less aggressive competition.

#Techtrification happens in most big cities with industry and the need for developers to develop and implement business ideas. From San Francisco to Tokyo through Barcelona. Uber, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and many startups of different sizes are bidding to hire the best. Each company uses different techniques to achieve the goal of hiring developers and then retain them.

This process forces companies to an unstoppable career in wage increases and to create ingenious initiatives with social benefits of all kinds. Wage increases are doomed to failure, although they stop the loss of employees in the short to medium and long term are not sustainable for most companies. If you are Netflix you might hire the best, however, even Netflix loses engineers.

Allow me to emphasize the fact that the loss of employees is rapidly accentuated, in the first week the first employee leaves, in next 15 days two employees and before ending next 30 days, four more employees leave your company. During these days many emotions have happened in the technical team: people comment on the movement, salaries have been whispered, job interviews are scheduled, the focus on the project is lost, there is a debate about who stays and who goes, etc. Those who have left, who are usually the best, will be missed quickly. Those who remain will ask for wage increases to take advantage of the gaps created without assuming risks on new jobs. And finally the project, we have no doubt about it, will deviate in time and costs.

How can we minimize #tectrification in our equipment? Although it is a simple question the answer is neither unique nor obvious. Let me share my observations with you to deal with it. I will divide my assessments depending on the size of the company. 

In case of being a large consolidated company:

• Even if you can hire the best and pay the best wages there will always be someone bigger with more resources. Be humble and understand that this risk affects everyone equally.
• Even being willing to pay the best salary, a new employee will forget his salary conditions as quickly as the first problems appear: human relations between equals or with the hierarchical superior, frustration for not fulfilling the expectations, commitments agreed in the selection process that later are not fulfilled, and so on.
• To keep the employee loyal you have to concentrate on what really matters to him as an individual and not what the company needs. There is a lot of literature about the unpaid salary based on professional recognition, being listened to, the work environment, having references to learn from, being promoted, having a responsibility, learning on a daily basis, having new challenges, a comfortable and relaxed workspace, teleworking, and so on. All this is great, but competitors are doing it too.
• A key part of avoiding rotation is the figure of the manager. It is the person who must manage the career of the individual, in our case the developers. A good manager must make up for all the shortcomings that a large organization cannot give to the employee. Set personal objectives that keep the employee aligned with the project, support their technical decisions, give them tools to improve their personal self-knowledge, be aware of their own limits, have a training plan aligned with the wishes of the person - even outside the strict scope of the company - and above all invest time in listening and that he can see that their concerns have been understood and solutions are being created for him.
• Watch out for comments from former employees of the organization on social networks or specialized sites such as Glassdoor. A bad review is much more expensive than hundreds of dollars spent on Adwords.
• From space to innovation. Do not reserve the right to innovate for just a few employees. Allow anyone to invest time in proposing ideas and convincing other employees to implement them. Innovation is a powerful resource, don't spend it like a fad or an empty word, you must provide mechanisms and resources that allow new ideas to emerge no matter how implausible they may seem at first.
• Create a structure of values, principles or code of conduct that allows any employee to know if he or she is aligned with what is expected of him or her. They are a powerful tool for eliminating difficulties or prioritizing jobs. Doing anything that contravenes these principles should be discarded by anyone in the organization.

On the other hand, if it is a startup at the growth phase:

• Don't compete for the best talent. The best are very expensive. Depending on which phase you are in, the best will not want to come or will come under very harsh conditions. You must be able to hire people who fit the company's current situation. In a startup one has to be willing to do whatever is necessary to run the company's business, otherwise, tensions will be created that will have no solution because expectations on both sides will not fit.
• Provide autonomy to your developers. Large companies have structured processes that do not allow technicians to develop their full potential. There are unnecessary bottlenecks. Even if it generates some noise in your equipment, it is better to allow technicians to test new technologies than not to force them to be subject to an immovable technological framework. Each technician must be able to deploy a new feature in production responsibly based on a common procedure for all.
• Trust your technicians. Generate the space needed to fail fast and learn fast. No matter if we make a mistake, we must make a quick mistake and try again. There is only one rule, it is not possible to fail the same for the second time. Share knowledge, software engineering work goes far beyond coding in a programming language. It's about interacting with people, knowing their pain and being willing to help them solve their problems.
• Continuous learning, make sure the team learns daily. From technical issues to business rules. If they don't learn, they don't grow but grow, you can be sure that you will lose them as employees in a short period of time.
• Work side by side. Keep your team very close together in one room. The easier it is to work together, the synergies appear, the easier it is for people to inspire each other. Take advantage of eating together as many days as possible, even bring prepared food from home and share it. 
• Maintain a healthy culture. When the structure is small, usually, everyone knows everyone. It's common to know how your classmates think, what their habits, virtues and shortcomings are. Take advantage of this situation to encourage good habits.  Be sure to maintain a healthy culture in the organization based on personal and daily effort, mutual respect, listening to the ideas of others and putting them before your own ideas, debate and not argue. The debate is healthy, the discussion is forbidden. 

Let me end with a general rule for any company, no matter the size of the organization, whether it is the first employee or the 2.000 number: the Greek language has the word ′agape′ to define unconditional love. Use it with the people around you on the team. Love your employees or collaborators unconditionally. Even if it's difficult at many times. Even if you are in a very complicated meeting with enormous difficulties in reaching an agreement. Even if you feel abandoned or betrayed by your collaborators, love them unconditionally. Because no one wants to work with someone they don't love. It is impossible to spend a minimum of 8 hours giving the best of yourself if you are not loved and you do not feel respected. There are many organizations that can't and won't love their employees the way an employee's direct manager does. The only way to create a strong structure and be resilient to the threat of #techtrification is to treat the employee with unconditional love.