DECODING NEW AGE BRANDING & ENGAGEMENT

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1 DECODING NEW AGE BRANDING & ENGAGEMENT PAGE3 A recent TimesJobs.com survey highlighted that 77% organisations believe coding contests are an effective assessment tool PAGE5 Read the experiences of some organisations who have implemented coding contests for branding and talent engagement PAGE8 Are coding contests the new age engagement and branding tool? Industry experts share their point of view Find TimesJobs.com s career articles, expert advise and Jobs & Career section

2 (DE)CODING THE NEW AGE BRANDING & ENGAGEMENT MANTRA Emergence of Coding Contests Increasing recognition Over the past six decades, branding and engagement has come a long way. Organisations, today, are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to encourage and enable employees to demonstrate their skills and expertise. Coding contests have emerged as one such tool which is globally acknowledged as an effective branding and engagement tool. This has been corroborated by a TimesJobs.com survey, where 57 per cent of the organisations agreed that coding contests are an effective branding and employee engagement tool. Also, contrary to the common notion that these contests are more relevant for the IT industry, other key sectors are also taking note of it. According to the survey, over 90 per cent of the organisations in the IT/Telecom sector said that they will extensively be using coding contests in the future. In the same survey, an almost equal percentage of representative companies in the BFSI and Manufacturing sector also showed interest in using coding contests for engagement and branding purpose. Relying on specialists Many factors contribute to effective planning and implementation of a coding contest. It has to be user friendly, engaging and catchy. All the phases involve a lot of technological and creative intervention. Besides computing and infrastructure requirements, developing contest problems, scoring and judging issues, organisational and technical challenges also need to be considered. Arvind Ramachandra, chief architect, Altimetrik explained that the format of coding 2 contests is very challenging. The paradigm of real time coding makes it even more challenging. Organisations understand their limitations and thus, over 55 per cent of the organisations plan to implement coding contests through external/third party websites, revealed the TimesJobs.com survey. Since these websites specialise in conducting such contests organisations prefer to use their expertise instead of using their own resources. Some key elements that should be considered in running a successful coding contest include: Cover Trends Story According to a recent TimesJobs.com survey, over 85 per cent of surveyed employers plan to use coding contests for branding and employee engagement in the future. Organisations believe that these contests not only help them in assessing their own talent base but also position them as a place where talent is nurtured, encouraged and valued. Promoting coolness factor: Company coolness factor is vital as an organisation will not be able to attract top developers if they do not project a young and lively image. Respecting the community: While as an organisation your objective has to be defined, it should be under stated. Make the event fun. Let it be a healthy competition rather than an in-your-face branding or engagement technique. Owning it end-to-end: Make sure your organisation as a team owns the whole contest, even if it has been outsourced. Value to employees While coding contests are helpful for organisations, they also help employees in a big way. In a poll conducted by TimesJobs.com, 48 per cent of employees said that coding contests are great as a tool for learning and self assessment. Today s environment is one where good talent has no boundaries. Platforms such as coding contests will help individual coders to make a mark. This is also a good opportunity for individuals to assess their own strengths, said Nitinchandra Shende, head, Talent Management, Persistent Systems Ltd.

3 Benefits of Coding Contests oding contests are believed to be a highly effective branding and Cengagement tool. As a branding tool it is time and cost effective, said 57 per cent of the employers in a TimesJobs.com survey. Remaining 43 per cent believe that it has a higher reach and greater impact compared to other traditional branding tools, since it is not an explicit marketing tool. Coding contests have double benefits of being both a branding and an employee engagement platform. As an employee engagement tool it is found to enhance the creativity of participating employees, believe 40 per cent of the surveyed organisations. Employers reasoned that as the participating employees take up challenges in a competitive environment T he biggest limitation of coding contests is that they do not assess other significant aspects in an employee, pointed out 37 per cent of the surveyed employers. This includes soft skills such as communication skills and team work. Soft skills are deemed essential by most organisations these days. This has been indicated by employers across sectors in various TimesJobs.com studies. Coding contests are meant to unleash the technical expertise of an employee, but other crucial work aspects and behavioural factors are overlooked. The TimesJobs.com study pointed out that creating a coding contest is a challenge. N early 77 per cent of the employers believe that coding contests are a strong talent assessment tool, according to the TimesJobs.com survey. Since the process takes place in a live environment, the assessment is real time and thus, comparatively more logical and valuable, believe experts. This kind of assessment provides an instant insight into the current status and extent of knowledge and skills of individual employees. It further helps in understanding the training and development needs of each. It also acts as an they think of new ways of doing things/solving problems which enhances their creativity. Real time challenges bring out the best in every participant thus, helping in enhancing the overall productivity and output. Nearly 26 per cent of organisations feel that it is a strong training and development tool. It provides an open classroom where employees learn from each other. Such contests drive employees to take the initiative to learn and upskill themselves to perform better next time, without any intervention by the organisation. Today, since branding and engagement are the focus areas of organisations, coding contests offer the much needed solution to address these crucial aspects, at no/minimal cost. Limitations of Coding Contests As an Assessment Tool Nearly 29 per cent of the respondents believe that since many factors contribute to the effective planning and implementation of a coding contest (including user friendly interface, engaging and catchy theme, simple process), the task is quite taxing. If the challenge is too complicated it may result in lower participation and if it is too simple it loses its basic purpose. Developing an ideal programme is the most crucial aspect of designing and implementing a coding contest. The initial stages of planning and execution are the most crucial in deciding the final outcome of the coding contest and thus, are most challenging. effective pre-hire assessment tool, especially for technical positions. It provides an insight into how an individual will fit into a specific job by identifying their thinking and reasoning styles and their problem solving turnaround time. Assessments through coding contests enhances the hiring process by adding quantitative data to a typically unquantifiable practice. Contest scores and rankings serve as benchmarks to assess talent, especially in core technical areas. However, 20 per cent respondents also said that the assessment process in such cases was time consuming. 3 Highlights Trends What are the key benefits of using coding contests for branding and employee engagement? What is the key limitation of coding contests? Overlooks other relevant skills (soft skills - team/communication skills) Conceptualisation is a challenge 37% (has to be user friendly, engaging and catchy) Assessment is time consuming Limited scope (in terms of profile - can use it only to 29% hire programmers/ tech staff) 20% 14% 77% YES Are coding contests a strong talent assessment tool? 23% NO

4 Case Study The Amazon Experience Objective Good employees are an asset to every company. However, finding good ones is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is also equally important for an organistaion to become a brand of choice to work for. Branding is pivotal to any business. The increasing global shortage of talent driven by ageing population, increased mobility of workers, migration, declining fertility rate, technological advances and an increase in culture diversity in organisations are some reasons for increasing focus on employer branding. Amazon approached TechGig with an aim to hire great (not just good) software developers. Amazon sought candidates who had a minimum 1 year experience in software development. Solution Amazon had been exploring ways to engage with IT professionals to create brand awareness among candidates to become the workplace of choice. It had been working on brand building activities to lure and engage the top IT experts around the country so they could foresee their career with Amazon. Contests are one of the most important tools for creating buzz and engaging the community. They allow direct engagement of audience and deepens the connect with the brand on a higher level. Keeping the above in mind, Amazon decided to launch a contest on TechGig.com - Ninja Coder Challenge. It was launched on 19 Oct This contest was open to all software developers in India and was held in eight languages: C, C++, C#, PHP, Java, VB.NET, Perl & Python. Amazon faced a difficult problem with this contest. The contest had three levels. The first level had coding & MCQs and was conducted online by TechGig. It was open for two days. The application had a live coding environment where one could code and compile the code. The other two levels were conducted by Amazon itself. Statistics The contest saw more than 3660 submissions of codes, submitted by over 3650 IT candidates. Out of over 8000 registered users, 60 per cent users quit before submitting as the difficulty level was very high. The contest was targeted towards a broad level so participants were more from the 1-7 years of experience. However, people who solved all the problems correctly were majorly in the experience range of 6-8+ years. Of these 50 per cent of the respondents had upto 2 years of experience. The maximum number of contestants were from Infosys followed by TCS and Samsung. The contest had maximum participation from Bangalore and Hyderabad. Amazon gave away Kindle Fire to the first three winners and an opportunity for a job interview with Amazon. Feedback Overall, the Ninja Coder Challenge stood-out as a different offering from Amazon to target top developers and became a brand of choice among techies. Amazon could find 247 amazing developers through this method for the subsequent rounds. The Capgemini Challenge Objective Capgemini has so far organised four contests on Facebook, which were launched on 5 Apr 2013 and were live for three weeks. The first one was a coding challenge which was held in four languages - C, C++, C#, PHP and Java and had five levels.the contest saw more than 20,000 submissions of codes, submitted by over 16,000 IT candidates. Solution The contest had one question per level. Each question was of 100 marks. The application had a live coding environment where one could code and compile the code. A total of 10 test cases were used to score the coding problems. Each test case carried 10 marks with equal weightage. The total of all the test cases was 100 marks. Every user got maximum two attempts at every level. The final score for that level was taken as the highest score of both the attempts. The duration of each Powered by attempt was 24 hours. One needed to score a minimum of 10 marks to move to the next level. There were five levels in the coding contest. The second contest was a multiple choice test on technology related questions, and was again divided into five levels. The contest saw more than 19,000 submissions of codes, submitted by over 15,000 IT candidates. There were 25 multiple choice questions in every level and one mark was allotted for each correct answer. There was no negative marking. The third contest was again a multiple choice test on questions related to Business Intelligence (BI). This was divided into two levels and included BI tools such as SAS, Teradata and Informatica. The contest saw more than 2500 submissions of codes, submitted by over 2,000 IT candidates. The fourth contest was also a multiple choice test on questions related to the IT Infrastructure services and was divided into two levels. The contest saw more than 3000 submissions of codes, submitted by over 2,500 IT candidates. There were two levels in each contest and 25 questions in every level. One mark was allotted for each correct answer. Across all levels, the winner was one who scored the maximum marks in both levels, combined. In the event of a tie, the person taking lesser time was declared the winner. All the contests were run for three weeks and saw not only contestants taking part, but also sharing the contests with their fellow techies. Statistics The contest was targeted towards a broad level, so the participants were within the 0-4 years of experience. However, people who solved all the problems correctly were majorly in the experience range of 6-8+ years. Feedback The maximum number of contestants came from TCS followed by CTS and Infosys. Since the contest was open to Capgemini employees as well, there was a lot of participation from them as well. Prizes ranged from Ipads to tablets for the top three winners and gift vouchers for the early bird winners. To increase participation, Capgemini also offered prizes for referrals to their employees. 4

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6 Coding Contests as Employee Engagement and Retention Strategy Rajeeb Biswas director, HR and Administration, Q3 Technologies Rajeeb manages the HR and Administration functions at Q3 Technologies. He has an MBA in HR from IMT Ghaziabad and has over 10 years experience in HR with some of the leading IT organisations like ITIL, Aithent and Keane which is a CMMi Level 5 organisation. Prior to joining Q3, Rajeeb was the assistant manager, HR at Keane India Ltd. He has been instrumental in bringing about new and progressive HR practices into the industry and to Q3. He has worked extensively on HRIS, PCMM and 360 Degree Appraisals. Rethinking Strategy In a generation that is socially dynamic, it is important to understand how equipped are business and organisations, to cater to employee expectations in order to deliver quality outcome. The current generation is forcing businesses to re-think their strategies due to their energy, their social network and their tech-savvy culture. Thus, it becomes necessary to engage in critical employeecentric actions for motivation, engagement, collaboration, retention and performance. In a typical work environment, it is observed that employees are under-engaged. This is true despite employees seeming overworked with customer deliverables and deadlines. Acknowledging the difference between a disengaged and an engaged workforce and working towards the latter is crucial for business success. How should an organisation strike a balance? Few companies, have adopted gamification portals and collaboration and community forums to nurture healthy competition, habits of excellence and also build a culture of knowledge sharing and transfer. Tech companies have been challenging software engineers and developers to become competitive in their jobs, showcasing their technical and creative skills. Programming contests have been one such tool where employees are encouraged to participate and develop creative solutions which are tested for optimisation, execution time, complexity, error handling and other such parameters. New engagement platforms How are coding contests an important tool for employee engagement and retention? 6 Gone are the days where employee engagement techniques only involve excursions, outings, parties and events. Organisations are now leveraging the intellect and energy of the younger and more creative talent pool by opening platforms to the development community at large. This open approach encourages individual developers and companies to innovate and create products that solve problems and issues which might not surface in the conventional interactions of those companies workforces. The open approach not only motivates the users of the platforms, it also creates substantial value for the platform and subsequently for the platform owner itself. It is imperative to understand that employees are not cogs in the giant IT machinery. Such contests help them to identify free form ways of developing solutions, which will pave the way for an engaging work culture in the larger scheme of things. The focus on developing an engaged workforce as a means of improving overall business performance is hardly a new concept. But an engaged workforce that views such contests as career development/ advancement opportunities act as influencers to the organisation s success. In most cases, they also act as a platform to achieve the muchneeded technical aspirations among skilled professionals. Causes of disengagement in the workforce are aplenty and the onus is on the organisation to implement strategies that enable individual job satisfaction and ensure commitment to the employees. After all, a talented and engaged workforce is to an organisation s best advantage.

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8 Coding Contests Boosting Brand Value Through Talent Engagement Expert Speak Shiva Sundar director Human Resources Akamai Technologies India Pvt. Ltd Shiva Sundar is an accomplished Human Resource professional with over 20 years of experience in shaping the HR landscape across various MNCs. He is currently the director of Human Resources at Akamai Technologies India. Prior to joining Akamai he was with Samsung India Software Operations as head-hr, country HR manager at NXP Semiconductors and senior manager-hr at Infineon Technologies. What are the key benefits of a coding contest to an employer and to a candidate? Employer: A coding contest helps drive employee engagement internally through an intellectually stimulating, competitive and fun filled work environment. While externally in the employment market, it enables the organisation to generate a talent pool of highly proficient programmers which it can easily tap into, whenever required. It also doubles as a branding platform among the talent pool in the hi-tech industry. It is basically bagging two birds with one stone. Candidate: For a candidate it is an excellent platform to showcase his talent in programming and achieve fame at a national level. If a candidate qualifies for higher rounds in the contest, he will be a hot pick for multiple employers in the job market. Participation in the contest only strengthens his resume. Can we say glory and success go handin-hand? How do these contests help improve employee engagement and retention? Encouraging employees to participate in a coding contest is a very novel way of engaging and motivating talented engineering professionals. It sends a direct message that the organisation prides itself in promoting technical excellence, which is a major driver for retaining technical talent. How can an organisation use the scores/ranks to assess employee performance? Though the scores/ranks of a coding contest are not direct indicators of an employee s performance, it acts as a pointer that helps an organisation in identifying areas of employee development that need attention. This will help organisations to design various programs that will aid better performance by employees. Kulwinder Singh director - Global Marketing & Communication, Synechron Technologies Pvt Ltd As director Global Marketing and Communication, Kulwinder leads Synechron's corporate brand, marketing and integrated communication efforts globally. He drives the company's corporate positioning, public relations, marketing campaigns, employee communications and strategic marketing initiatives. What are the key considerations while designing a coding contest? Coding contests should be designed in a way that knowledge of basic as well as advanced coding concepts are tested. The contest should include common, famous computer languages. The focus should be on finding solutions to problems rather than suggesting syntax related errors. It should aim to test the logical skills of candidates and understand their capabilities of building algorithms. In addition, questions should be based on industry as well as coding best practices. What are the challenges in planning and implementing a coding contest? Location and time constraints are the biggest challenges in planning and implementing a coding contest. Participants of coding contest are spread across globally and work in different time zones. This creates a problem in organising a real time challenge. To address these issues, the initial rounds of a coding contest are kept online. This provides participants the bandwidth to take the initial test as per their comfort. Another challenge is keeping plagiarism to a minimum. This is addressed by creating unique problem statements and adding time constraints. How do you see the use and scope of coding contests evolving in the future? Coding contests are a great way to showcase employee talent as well as an organisation s technical capabilities. They also serve as powerful branding tools since organisations are able to position themselves as thought leaders and industry experts. Coding contests are a great tool to drive recruitment activities and help in building an effective network of technical experts. They also serve as great opportunities for employees of various organisations to come together and engage. In future, these coding contests may evolve into crowd sourced coding platforms where technical experts will get together and contribute to create better, enhanced solutions for industry s benefit. Disclaimer: Information provided in this newsletter shall not be reproduced, published, re-sold or otherwise distributed in any medium without the prior written permission of TimesJobs.com and a clear acknowledgement to TimesJobs.com. Contact: TJinsite, TimesJobs.com, Plot No 6, Sector 16A, Film City, Noida. Write in to editor@timesjobs.com Copyright 2014 Times Business Solutions Limited. All rights reserved.