Smart Dolphins continues to push knowledge growth in a hyper competitive world of talent warfare.
Without a doubt, 2022 will be another entertaining year in the world of business. This is top-of-mind for us as we are in the midst of our annual planning. As always, we are taking a step back to reflect on our culture, company positioning, value to our clients, technology standards and service deliverables.
A few questions that we have been considering in our planning include: How do we find and retain the best Dolphins and keep them happy and productive? How do we differentiate ourselves as a service-based company floating in a sea of generic competitors in an industry not well understood? How do we deliver more value to our clients? And how do we better leverage technology in our business lives and make it simpler in an intensely complicated world?
Some of our new IT support technicians
Many of our internal responses to these questions have been about driving “talent density” at Smart Dolphins. We have always and continue to have great employees who are knowledgeable and care about our clients. We plan to double down on this and continue to build this value into our brand and into our clients’ success in 2022 and beyond. How?
At Smart Dolphins we use individualized Dolphin Elevation Education Plans (DEEP) to drive our team’s professional growth. DEEP is a unique annual plan developed specifically by and for each Dolphin that helps them make steady progress toward both our company needs and their career path. The plan is shared with the whole company, reinforcing our culture of learning and growth. This transparency also brings individual accountability and collaborative opportunities that become more obvious. Driving DEEP success in 2022 is one of our top company priorities.
Attracting and developing talent is incredibly difficult in almost any industry. The IT world is doubly so for numerous reasons. The pandemic has accelerated the pace of change in the technology itself and this shift has resulted in the need for technicians to expand their expertise. Hybrid work has demanded greater security knowledge and tools. And of course, the talent pool is now globally increasing competition among employers to attract the best talent. This transformation that is unfolding in the small to medium sized business world means the IT dinosaurs are in trouble. IT professionals today require a wider (and ever growing) range of technical training, and they need to invest in professional development as technology evolves.
Moreover, talent density is intricately related to culture; talent wants to be around talent. This starts with a culture that drives learning. At Smart Dolphins, one’s passion for learning weighs heavily during the recruitment process. We will never stop filtering and driving this as it is at the core of who we are as a company. And, of course, our DEEPs help reinforce our culture of talent.
Intrinsically motivated learners win in the knowledge world. It is as simple as that. Our job as business leaders is to support and feed this DEEP need for talent.