Technology takes talent. Whether it’s hardware or software, behind the lines of code and high-tech circuitry are people who bring digital innovations to life.
At Telnyx, a VoIP service provider for businesses, CEO David Casem says recruiting the right technical talent, engaging and retaining them is the most difficult task of running his company.
That’s why Telnyx leverages their work environment to help attract great tech talent.
A SOURCE OF MOTIVATION
Most of the 57 employees at Telnyx are engineers, and everyone’s days are long —12-hour workdays are not uncommon— and involve a lot of focused, individual work.
Telnyx competes for talent against the big-name tech companies. They can’t outspend these recruiting rivals, so they use other means.
“How do you intrinsically motivate people?’ Meaningful work. Setting up people to succeed. Creating a great environment where people spend the majority of their weekday waking hours. The work environment has a direct influence on what people produce.”
“How do you intrinsically motivate people?” asks Casem. “Meaningful work. Setting up people to succeed. Creating a great environment where people spend the majority of their weekday waking hours. The work environment has a direct influence on what people produce.”
He says start-up companies often buy bare bones furniture “to impress their investors that they’re doing things economically. I think that’s penny wise and pound foolish. If you amortize the cost over five years, you make all your money back and more, when you take into account the total cost of your most expensive resource, your people.”
Casem isn’t blue-skying. He learned early on to measure how the workplace can help his business. “We’ve always been crazy about metrics as a company,” he says, so when Telnyx installed a pair of workstations with height-adjustable tables and ergonomic chairs a few years ago, they conducted an internal study to determine if the team benefited from the new furniture.
“We saw empirical evidence that an improved work environment made a huge difference in productivity.”
