“May you live in interesting times” – an old Chinese expression that may sound like a blessing, but it is far from being one. In fact, it’s a curse, a fearful commentary on uncertain times.
Exactly a year ago, in warm June, Rite NRG was born. It’s been so far the biggest project I have ever created. After one year of work, I can say that it is definitely something to be proud of. Something that has brought both satisfaction and some failures to learn from.
Rite NRG was created to turn fifteen years of IT experience of each of the company’s three founders (Maciej, Michał, and Rafe) into a service that will allow our clients to grow – rapidly, and in a steady way. We found that the key and our distinguishing feature is to come up with a framework that is focused on so-called culture fit. Proper matching between the Rite NRG team and the client’s team is a way to drive extraordinary results. Yes, the bar has been set high from the very beginning, but we knew that it’s the only way and that half measures are not an option for us. We wanted to utilize our experience gained in collaborating with Agile organizations, SCRUM teams, and even military units, as well as in project management for both small and enterprise companies.
But our roots date back to 2017 when Your Extended Team was set up as a staffing agency. It was in fact the very first well-planned step in the journey that eventually took us to create Rite NRG. Already then we knew that we would like to do a rebranding and repositioning at some point, but life takes unexpected turns and soon we faced the unimaginable question: of all the possible moments, were the COVID times just the right time to do it?
Risk: a chance, a threat, an opportunity
Risk management tells us that each and every risk can be turned into an opportunity as well as into a threat. What Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia noticed was a great chance for success when they were setting up Airbnb. Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick assessed the market and saw that creating a ride-hailing company might be one as well – and they came up with Uber. Many well-known companies came to life during the global economic crisis in 2009, like Whatsapp by Jan Koum. And even here, in Poland, we have observed the impressive growth of InPost, an innovative logistic firm created by Rafał Brzoska, a company that saw huge demand for its services during covid. What I’m getting at is that interesting times are tough, true, but they might be just the very reason to pursue a business idea. The times of change are always the times of tests for the companies, but also of new perspectives and opportunities.
We noticed that instability caused by covid might actually be quite a good time for us to introduce our unique product to the market. Most businesses switched to remote working at the beginning of the pandemic, and often their biggest concern was how to sustain organizational culture when working remotely. That is why at that point we decided to finally create and introduce a product that had been shaped by us for 15 years – a product that guarantees a reliable way of delivering IT solutions and addresses clients’ fear of losing their organizational culture. We proposed a solution that, in an agile way, combines issues related to project management and software development and competencies in the soft area (cultural fit, proactivity, creativity, inclusion, etc.).
According to HackerRank, Polish programmers are one of the top three best-skilled software developers in the world.
After one year, we can see that the chosen direction was the right one. Fast-growing organizations need access to a bigger talent pool, and they are looking for skilled technical partners who are both experts and able to integrate into the culture of the company. And speaking of skills, Poland was chosen for our location not without a reason – according to HackerRank, Polish programmers are one of the top three best-skilled software developers in the world.
Software developers are usually introverts and individualists. In Rite NRG, we came up with a culture fit framework that leverages their skills and at the same time addresses differences between the client’s team and our own. As a result, one integrated team is working together towards one strategic goal.
Around 90% of the problems in IT are caused by poor communication that creates friction and misunderstandings. Our culture fit framework is a solution that answers that problem as well by integrating the members of the team coming from both sides: the client and Rite NRG. By creating one team that works together hand in hand, the team dynamics get significantly improved: the number of miscommunication cases is lowered, people reach out to each other more often, and they speak openly about daily challenges and successes. Each and every team member feels ownership of their tasks, but also of the common strategic goal. What does it take to make it work? Great energy brought to the table by everyone in Rite NRG – energy that is directed into delivering extraordinary client experience.
“Take Care Of Your Employees And They’ll Take Care Of Your Business”
A people-first mindset is one of the key elements of our culture fit framework. We want to give our employees a stable, reliable base that will allow them to spend their energy on their tasks and the client. This is why from the very beginning we’ve chosen to focus on the right staffing process (link), and, as a result, on the right people, as well as on the onboarding process (you can read more about how we do it here). Also, the topic of well-being is not an empty expression for us (here’s the well-being article series). Employee experience is no less important to us than candidate experience, and so we’ve taken care of all the details in the whole process, too, like preparing some exciting welcome packs for the people we’re inviting on board. Both in business and in life in general, sometimes it’s the little things, too, isn’t it?
Studies show that over 70% of the employees are disengaged, according to Gallup. For a company, it’s nothing else than a loss of competencies that could be utilized, the energy that could be directed, and business opportunities that are potentially lost. Instead of closing our eyes to reality, we decided to take matters into our own hands and see if things can be done differently. The result? We’ve managed to help our clients grow faster. We’ve focused on the right culture fit and team integration. We’ve taken care of our employees’ energy so that they can deliver an extraordinary client experience. Everyone knows that nobody wants to leave a great and well-integrated team.
How will 2021 end for us? We do not know yet, but we are really excited for what the future months are going to bring – our data show that we are looking at an about 300% growth YoY in 2021. This would be a satisfactory outcome, for sure also a confirmation of the great quality of our service, and finally a really good prognosis for the future.
