A few weeks ago, a visitor to our Munich office asked me how to hire and retain good engineers. It’s a tough question to answer because there is no step-by-step plan to convince people to spend the majority of their daily waking hours on your project or company. Especially if they should be invested in it for a few years.

What I learned from recruiting and being a People Partner for multiple start-ups and big companies, is that sometimes a great company culture or a competitive salary doesn’t yet by itself lead to accepted offers and happy colleagues. It can certainly help, but there are tons of companies out there that are offering the same thing.

At FINN, I started with an engineering team of six people and we had ambitious hiring goals. As a start-up, we didn’t have a big name or an endless budget to attract engineers. And a nice culture and fast pace only keep you engaged for so long. Still, we managed to grow the engineering team from six to 66 in 18 months, and at 4% (in 2022) we have a very low turnover rate. So what sets you apart as an employer, and what should you look for as an employee in a company?

How can being a flexible employer help you hire a team of kick-ass engineers?

My answer for employers would be: make sure you know your employees and the context in which they are able to do their work best. What was crucial for us was to make sure that FINN is a company where a diverse team can feel they belong and experience purpose. With a sustainable business model and taking over social responsibility, you can already have a great foundation. However, what I found out from over 600 interviews last year, is that a major reason why people are looking for new jobs is that they lack recognition, appreciation as well as flexibility from their current employer.

Additionally, we came to the conclusion that flexibility meant different things to different people. Some people work best in their home office outside of an open-plan office or co-working space, others need people around them to be productive. Some colleagues preferred to stay at their place of living, while others were excited about the opportunity to move to Germany to work in our Munich office. Some candidates had responsibility as primary caregivers for children, relatives, or parents and needed a flexible work schedule.

We stopped trying to find a one-size-fits-all solution and instead decided to be flexible regarding the preferred mode of working that fits our colleagues best. We introduced a couple of working models in the past year, namely, the possibility of working remotely from (almost) anywhere —including our Munich office—and working part-time at 24 hours or 32 hours per week.

Why did we introduce these working models to our Engineering team?

We introduced these flexible working models to our Engineering team, first of all, because it widens our talent pool. We are not only advertising our jobs to people who conventionally want to work in an office for 40 hours per week. The demand for flexible working models is especially high for women, as well as engineers who have to make room for private obligations next to their professional careers.

Instead of adding to the stress of having to do all of it next to a 40-hour-a-week office job, they are flexible enough to actually create a real work-life balance. Now we can also hire engineers that want to spend more time with their families, people pursuing their studies next to their careers, or people who want to leave room for hobbies and for exploring the world.

Second, it allows us to hire a more diverse team. For a while, demand for women in engineering as well as for senior engineers has been high in the job market. Positions and programs are specially advertised to these groups of employees, as we do with our Women in Tech program for women engineers. What always concerns me is that initiatives are staying on the surface and mainly have the goal of attracting these groups of employees to the companies, instead of making them stay. From personal experience and discussion with women engineers, access doesn’t solve the problem of feeling out of place in an industry dominated by men. Not being taken seriously, being discriminated against, or being excluded either from the team or from opportunities became shared experiences when I started interviewing women engineers for our Women in Tech program.

What creates a sense of belonging is to be appreciated and heard when you have a different perspective – be it a different background of studies, career path, personal situation, location, or nationality. And it actually helps us challenge ourselves as a team, to be more productive and innovative and build a better product for our customers. Having different working models enables us to get these perspectives into the company and lets us succeed continuously. Therefore, we are training managers and colleagues to collaborate with colleagues of different backgrounds, working hours, and locations to make sure that your personal development and career can grow at FINN.

So how are remote work and flexible working hours implemented at FINN?

When applying for a position at FINN, we are asking you for your preferences regarding your location as well as working hours. You can choose between 24, 32, or 40 hours per week. Regarding remote work, we are offering flexibility for our full-time positions, as long as it’s within +/- 3 hours of the Central European time zone. The only condition you still need to fulfill is to have a working visa and residence permit at your intended working location.

Once you are at FINN, you have the flexibility to switch working hours as well as locations. To change working hours, we need a notice period of 3 months to make sure we can plan our team’s capacity for projects. For remote work, we have a cool-off period of 12 months to deal with the administrative effort to change working contracts and move countries. Further, we make sure that we can accommodate different locations and schedules with our “digital-first” policy, which focuses on connecting remote employees to our colleagues in the office, in addition to offering guidelines to promote work-life balance and set boundaries between your professional and private life.

Lastly, what should you look for in a company as an employee?

My answer for employees would be: make sure you are finding a company that cares about you. You can do so by discussing your preferences regarding remote work or working hours in the interview process.

You can also specifically look for companies that are offering it on job boards that are specialized in advertising remote jobs or flexible working hours.(And we are also hiring 😉)

It sure can narrow down the choice of your next employer. However, it will also enable you to not treat your job as a duty, and actually feel a sense of belonging at a place where you are spending a major part of your time.