Qualtrics: A tech company winning the war for talent

In our Employee Experience series, sponsored by Irish Life, we ask leading companies about their employee engagement initiatives and how they created the most optimal workplace for their staff.

PARTNER CONTENT IN ASSOCIATION WITH IRISH LIFE

What is Qualtrics?

Qualtrics is an Experience Management company whose technology helps organisations to “close experience gaps” – the costly differences between what employees and customers expect, and what’s really happening in the business. With its European HQ in Dublin, Qualtrics operates in nine countries on four continents.

It operates on being:

• Transparent: share ideas which lead to open debate
• All in: delivering whatever it takes
• Customer obsessed: fulfilling all customer needs and demands
• One team: winning and losing together
• Scrappy: smart, resourceful and always find a way to get things done

These pillars allow the firm to be on top of its game but also take pride in its work and value every single individual within the organisation.

Let Brian O’Driscoll, Head of Finance EMEA, take you through what Qualtrics does to enhance its employee experience.

Growing benefits packages for staff retention

Qualtrics’ Dublin HQ

“Being a tech company in Dublin, we’re in a really competitive battle for talent. We’ve grown our benefits package over time and we continue to add to it as the business grows.” said O’Driscoll.

He continued:

We’ve learned that just to stay competitive there’s a benefits ‘baseline’ – things like healthcare and catered lunches which people expect at any tech company. But beyond that we’ve tried to add more personalised touches to our benefits package that help encourage people to join.

As stated, within tech companies now, people expect personalised packages as a given, particularly within a global company. So how do you actually attract top talent?

When it comes to really attracting talent, though, ultimately benefits are just one part of it. We find that the biggest driver for our employees is that they are joining a fast-growing organisation where they have an opportunity to grow their careers. The benefits are attractive, but that remains the main reason people want to join.

Feedback is a key element as well, not just on the work at hand but everything else that goes along with being in a modern environment.

“As an employee experience company, we’re always looking to improve the experience for our staff, so we regularly get feedback on everything from benefits to diversity & inclusion and career progression.”

This provides important data that can be used on the fly to adapt to changes quickly and stifle problems that may arise in the future.

“Having this real-time data has allowed us to respond to what our employees really want whether that’s developing our culture or ensuring that our benefits set us apart as a place to work.”

O’Driscoll continued: “For example, this year we also introduced a new incentive we call an ‘experience bonus’ – it’s bursary is available to all employees who have been with the company for more than a year to allow them to have an experience they otherwise wouldn’t have had. We’ve had people use it to do things like trek the Great Wall of China or go skiing in the Alps and it’s proved very popular.”

Combatting the recruitment struggles 

As can be imagined, staff recruitment is very competitive in the tech industry in Dublin and Qualtrics has worked hard on structuring the attraction process to help candidates find the right fit for them. O’Driscoll said, “In today’s market, the talented employees are in the driver’s seat. Companies have to put processes in place to help candidates find their fit in their career and help them grow in the company.”

Speaking on Qualtrics’ high hiring bar O’Driscoll makes the case for what candidates now expect from employers: “Employees are asking for more from their employers – at Qualtrics we have a very high hiring bar which we are focused on maintaining. If we don’t provide them with an environment where they can grow their careers and be successful, they won’t be short of other offers so it’s mission-critical that we get that right.”