Edwin van der Geest   •   June 2, 2017

At Incentro we are once again awarded as a Great Place To Work. An awesome recognition that focussing on happiness is the key factor for success. And yet, after receiving this recognition, we are not there yet. Because 1 thing is certain: the things we are happy about today, in a while we take that for granted and are not so happy about that. So we have to keep developing. I work in the Rotterdam Office of Incentro and love to tell you more about how we look further then the happiness of today.

Autonomous Offices

At Incentro, we are continuously in search for what makes us even more happy. And every Office within the #worldofincentro does that on its own way and pace. Because, we not only share our special culture over our offices, but also the principle of autonomy. Eckhart Wintzen and Ricardo Semler are important inspirators for us.

One of the most important reasons of the autonomous offices is that everyone within an office feels more connected with an organisation as part of a smaller group (read: office). You are not seen as a record between hundreds of colleagues and you are more engaged with the office you work for. If an office grows over 60 employees, we divide ourselves into two different offices. Just like biological cell division.

All offices have the same so called hygiene rules: We have to score at least a 7.5 on employee happiness and we need an financial healthy basis. But within those rules, the offices are completely free to follow their own path to Digital Happiness. Because of the culture within Incentro, the offices are connected to each-other. So we are very eager to help each-other.

Challenges

In the radio-commercials we call ourselves ‘ An IT Company’. And as such, we are now in the middle of a very hectic market. Innovations come by so often and customers continuously ask for adjustments in our service offering. There is so much demand for our knowledge. At the same time, there is a lot of demand for IT specialists, recruiters are trying there best. As developer, your LinkedIn inbox could be burning because of all the invites.

So on one hand a lot of demand from customers, on the other hand a lot of demand for developers/specialists. We are just in the middle of that. Magnificent! That means we need to keep ourselves sharp and we cannot sit still.

Self management as answer

In our Rotterdam Office our answer to these challenges is: Self Management. A lot is written about the term, by supporters and opponents. The term ‘self management’ is somewhat unfortunately chosen. Because in our definition it’s more about the team, not the person itself. Besides that the principles of self management are very powerful.

Currently we have 5 ‘self managed’ teams.