Since first opening its doors, DotActiv has grown its footprint and is continuing to grow on a daily basis. As of today, we have over 2000 users in over 110 countries. We have been fortunate enough to not only grow across national and international borders but also in our organisational capacity (staff complement and new job functions).
This growth has been happening both locally and internationally and both internally and externally. We are also currently looking at the opportunity of expanding our physical operations internationally. The fact that we have been able to adapt to remote working (as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown), is proof that we are ready to take it to the next level.
When our business grows, this often leads to growth opportunities for our current staff as well as our new recruits. But how exactly do we ensure individual growth within DotActiv? And what would be the natural growth path for anyone joining the team?
In this article, we unpack the way in which your DotActiv invests in your career growth.
1. In-house training, sponsored studies and study leave
To ensure everyone in DotActiv receives the same exposure to our software and how it works, each new employee is enrolled into our DotActiv Academy on their first day with us.
We have also recently made our DotActiv Academy available to the public. What’s more, you’ll have free access to the Academy’s Mastery Level 1-6, with the option to purchase 3 additional courses.
The DotActiv Academy was recently revamped, with the purpose of elevating our learning platform to become one that is more community based and focused on creating groups where people can interact with one another and provide feedback on their learnings.
Doing so provides you with an opportunity to manage your learning remotely at your pace. Our Academy is structured in such a way that it’s easy to ask questions on a forum, stay up to date on the news feed and search for any software related questions on the DotActiv PowerBase.
Above and beyond this, we also offer everyone within the company the opportunity to further their studies in a field that is related to their role. This would entail either a full study bursary as well as study leave or a contribution towards your total student fees coupled with study leave. We actively strive to encourage, develop and share knowledge. Therefore, we are continuously creating platforms for anyone at DotActiv to maximise their learning opportunities.
In turn, this value-added knowledge creates a working environment in which we can all actively contribute to the advancement of DotActiv as a whole.
2. Leadership and development
Now that you have started your DotActiv journey, where to from here? This is another factor that we pride ourselves on. Everyone’s development path at DotActiv is laid out for them either from the word go, or a little bit later on once they have become accustomed to their environment.
In the case of a space planner, for example, you may initially join us as a slightly more junior space planner. As you develop your space planning skills and become more comfortable with the client, our software and our general best practices, you might get the opportunity to move to a slightly more senior space planner or even an account manager position depending on the current vacancies. But don’t worry, we won’t just throw you into the deep end without providing you with further mentorship.
Leadership brings an organisation together to achieve success through three major leadership focus areas:
- Making strategy and giving direction;
- Aligning the organisation for executing strategy; and
- Growing the right culture and walking the talk.
Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things, but leaders are not always "managers" or in positions of authority. We aim to build our leadership capacity through the identification of leaders within DotActiv. As a DotActiv employee, you will receive a leadership personal development plan (PDP) which sends you on a self-exploration journey based on the results of a 360-degree review.
Every person's PDP is tailored to their leadership growth priorities that are specific to their level of work. The aim of this journey is to compare notes across various levels within the organisation to ensure that we continuously learn and build a strong and effective leadership brand.
Lastly, we have an annual appraisal review (that also discusses our job grading system and how you fit into it), where each line manager sits with their respective team members individually to discuss the review process. Here, you and your manager will discuss where you are currently performing, as well as areas of improvement and/or what steps you need to take to grow within the company. Thereafter, a Personal Development Plan (PDP) will be compiled based on the outcomes of the appraisal review.
3. Transparent job grading system
We have developed a structured job grading system that allows our directors to make objective decisions around job grading changes and salary increases. Movements within this system (albeit a horizontal shift within your current position or a vertical shift to a new job grade) are based on the experience and skills that you have gained during your journey with us.
The aim of this system is to ensure transparency when it comes to discussing your career growth path at DotActiv. For example, if you have little to no (relevant) employment experience, or have just completed your studies, you will most likely qualify for the space planner position or other positions relating to your first job grade, since that is the entry-level criteria for this job grade.
Another positive aspect of our job grading system is that it takes all of your experience, qualifications and skills into consideration. This allows us to strategically place you into the most relevant job band. Your job position and remuneration is determined by certain criteria such as experience and qualification. There are different bands/"tiers" in which you can fall which will then determine your job grade/position
Again, this is where transparency is important. If you feel you are able to justify that you have progressed to a higher band, we’d be more than happy to discuss your growth trajectory whereby your current and future journey can be plotted in detail and in a transparent way.
4. Encouragement of innovation, creative thinking and ownership
DotActiv aims to create a culture of shared knowledge and learning. We thus strive to create an environment that encourages independent decision-making to showcase the new skills and knowledge that you have gained.
At DotActiv, having individual differences is seen as an asset rather than a liability. We encourage our staff to give us feedback on how we can improve our current processes in place. New and innovative ideas are often paired with feedback and in this case, the more ideas, the better. We even have a dedicated avenue for our staff to log their "Ideas" to our directors, who then review the idea and provide feedback.
We want everyone to feel accomplished by taking ‘ownership’ of the work that they produce (whether it’s building planograms, creating content for DotActiv’s communication channels or rolling out a project plan). We believe that taking ownership of your work contributes to your overall job satisfaction and it applies to any employee, from the most junior to the most senior person in the company.
We believe that when someone completes a task, they should be able to look back at the work they produced with a sense of pride. At the end of the day, it should be a reflection of their creativity and innovation.
5. Exposure to various clients
As mentioned earlier, DotActiv currently services clients from all over the world. This means that we engage with multiple retailers and suppliers across various cultures, time zones, and languages on a daily basis.
This also means that you could potentially end up interacting with new clients from all over the globe. If the clients are local, there may be an opportunity to work for multiple retailers, allowing you to gain retail experience while still remaining a DotActiv employee.
DotActiv has a Rotation Policy that is handled with careful consideration and requires that certain criteria are met, as stipulated in DotActiv’s InsiderBase (a knowledgebase set up exclusively for DotActiv employees). Thus, in the case where you have the opportunity to work on different accounts, you won’t have to worry that your CV portrays someone who likes to job hop regularly. Instead, this policy creates the opportunity to become more adaptive and better equipped in dealing with changing environments.
Conclusion
These are just a few ways in which DotActiv invests in the career growth of our employees. If you would like to get to know us better, you are welcome to browse through our culture blog. You can also browse and apply for our available positions.
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