| Company Size | Industry | Challenges |
| 250+ | Software Development |
|
Hevo is an end-to-end data pipeline platform that helps data-driven businesses integrate all their data at their warehouse to fuel faster analytics and better decision-making.
Businesses have their data living in disparate silos across business functions like marketing, sales and finance. They struggle to answer strategic questions like ‘which marketing channel brings us the most customer lifetime value. Doing this in-house typically requires multiple data engineers to build and then continuously maintain custom data pipelines to integrate all the data in one place – typically a warehouse. Hevo lets businesses set up these pipelines within minutes without the need for any code or ongoing maintenance.
1000+ businesses across the globe integrate their data with Hevo to power timely, accurate analytics that turns their business decisions truly data-driven.
We had an interesting discussion with Vidit Sinha – Director of Engineering, and Anisha Sinha, Engineering Manager, Hevo Data, to understand how Hevo Data built a culture of instant recognition using EngageWith. Read On.
Can you tell us about Hevo Data and your typical work day?
Hevo Data is a B2B SaaS company. We are a no-code automated, unified data platform used by customers worldwide. Hevo Data is used by our customers to run their data pipelines and derive actionable business metrics.
Vidit: We were remote for a long time. We went Hybrid from April 22 and are currently continuing the hybrid model. My day is usually divided into 2-3 things. There are 1v1s with my direct and skip level reportees, following up on different programs I am running within my teams, and also a good part of my time goes into hiring and building my team. Apart from this, I am mostly into planning and brainstorming on the technical scopes, new releases and things.
Anisha: I typically spend my time on team interactions, stand-ups, discussions on any issues/bugs that need to be fixed, coming up with better coding solutions, and planning and execution of new feature releases.
That's great! From the perspective of a manager not related to HR, how did you perceive the employment engagement challenges?
Vidit: Hevo Data was probably one of the first companies to go remote when the pandemic stuck. We were remote for almost 2 years, which is also when we expanded the team. We went from 30 to 110 employees in the engineering department. As I was building the team, I could sense that we lacked a feeling of belongingness primarily because all interaction was over Slack or emails.
This created a team bond challenge, especially for new joiners. With team surveys and my 1v1s, we got the feedback that lack of recognition is a challenge. We needed to appreciate people publicly for the outstanding work that they put in. The team also said that the discussions were transactional compared to an on-site office.
Leaders across the world would agree that during the pandemic, the productivity was probably 1.5X, but it cut into the sense of ownership or belonging towards the company, towards the work. That was not an ideal situation to be in because, in the long run, it would create the challenge of retention.
How did you tackle employee engagement/ recognition before using EngageWith?
Vidit: We ensured that before joining, we had a buddy assigned to the new joiner to get them familiar with the work culture, our values and stuff. We had get-to-know-you calls which were completely informal. We could chat with the new joiner on things that were not work-related and sort of try to break the ice with them. Also, our employees started organizing small meet-ups in their city where the new joiners were included as well. So smaller cluster meetings helped know the teammates better. Apart from this, the leadership team also met for the planning of quarterly meetings.
You used another tool for recognition earlier, what made you switch to EngageWith?
Vidit: Yes. We used another tool for about a year to solve the challenge of employee recognition. The earlier tool that we used was buggy. A few of us like to write a few lines of appreciation explaining the why and how. I mean, when you recognize someone, it helps to write in detail about their contribution or achievement.
In the earlier app, we faced a challenge wherein the detailed written appreciation would not get posted, and you would have to type the entire thing again. That kind of defuses the moment for the recognizer. Also, EngageWith provided the option of recognizing more than one employee at a time, which helped our cause. At Hevo, we do not have the concept of an employee of the month, week, or quarter. We believe that it is a team effort that achieves success. EngageWith is very intuitive, and we have seen instant adoption at Hevo. Our employees love EngageWith.
What was the change that you saw in Hevo after using EngageWith?
Vidit: To start off, we definitely moved towards a culture of instant recognition and appreciation. It solved our recognition challenge really well. Anisha’s team is actually using it the most. And it helps me that I get to know everyone’s contribution on the org-wide channel. We have got into a habit of thanking our teammates every day. Our HR team also helped this cause when the kudos were displayed in our all-hands meeting.
Anisha: The EngageWith team created posters for us, and announcements were made on the general channel about this. Soon, this created a buzz, and we saw people adopting it as an important part of their everyday work-life. EngageWith called out not only the people who got recognized but also the top recognizers.
Do you think going forward, even if you shift to a completely onsite office, EngageWith would keep generating the same value?
Vidit: I think yes. In general, people are often reserved when it comes to face-to-face appreciation. We are pretty comfortable appreciating someone over a channel or text. So yes, EngageWith will definitely prevail no matter the mode of work.
How has your team taken to EngageWith?
Anisha: It was quite intuitive. It’s fairly simple to use. You just have to select the teammate, write the reason for appreciation, and add a company value. So, the team was quite excited to use it, and the adoption has been pretty seamless so far. It’s easy and quick to highlight someone’s contribution, and appreciation has become a habit.
