A Shepherd of Black Sheep

When T4G (originally known as Technologies for Growth, the company name has since been shortened to T4G) appeared on the Best Workplaces in Canada list for the sixth consecutive year in April, it was hardly surprising that its CEO extolled the strength of its people.

“The quality of our teams defines the quality of the solutions we deliver. Everything stems from the calibre of the people at T4G,” said Geoff Flood, the company’s founder and President, in a press release announcing this prestigious recognition.

Typically, a company’s participation in the Best Workplaces program is championed by a VP of Human Resources. That’s not the case at T4G, probably because it doesn’t have one and never has. There’s never been a formal organization chart drawn up either.

“We don’t have a hierarchy,” Geoff explains, “but it’s not anarchy. We have a very deep process for people to understand their roles and how these link to the strategic objectives of the business. We publish online everyone’s role and their personal commitments, and have systems in place to ensure that there are ample opportunities for interaction.”

This interaction is key, because T4G’s nearly 275 employees operate out of six offices in Canada and one in the U.S. They work within high-performing teams that provide technology and digital marketing solutions for customers across North America, often solving complex problems that customers’ in-house teams aren’t equipped to handle. From analytics to software development and digital marketing, content delivery and mobile solutions, and more, T4G teams cover a wide range of disciplines. For example, an award-winning website for New Brunswick Tourism (T4G is its Agency of Record), delivered a Content Management System that dynamically generates content based on user profiles and uses web analytics both to evaluate the site’s performance and to influence future campaigns. Another project, for Cadillac Fairview, one of Canada’s leading real estate leasing companies, involved developing a solution to assure the quality and accuracy of millions of digital messages published each year via email campaigns, web updates, and articles. In both cases, T4G’s staff was up to the challenge.

Finding, motivating and keeping the very best talent are challenges for most companies. Geoff argues that the challenges are even greater in the technology sector, where competition for the top talent is particularly fierce.

A high staff retention rate and its longstanding status as one of the Best Workplaces in Canada are just two indicators of the company’s success in the talent wars. Here are some of the strategies Geoff and his team have employed to get there.

Locate Where Smart People Want To Live

The standard model for companies is to set up shop where their customers are located. T4G’s approach is to assemble high-performing teams in the communities where people want to live.

“We choose a location because it has an environment that attracts bright and creative people,” Geoff explains. “We build teams in these communities, and then have the teams service customers across North America.”

Currently, T4G teams operate out of offices in Halifax, Moncton, Fredericton, Saint John, Toronto, Vancouver and Saco, a suburb of Portland, Maine. The concentration in the Atlantic region makes good business sense, but it also reflects Geoff’s roots. Born and raised in Saint John, N.B., he’s an ardent supporter of the Maritimes region and knows first-hand that it is home to a highly trained, creative, and tech-savvy workforce. Its high-quality postsecondary institutions are educating a wealth of talent, with many graduates electing to stay and work in the region. Vancouver and Toronto are more obvious choices, given the depth of their talent pools. The company’s team in Maine had been orphaned as a result of a merger and its members were looking for a new home. “We happened to know about this group, and when the opportunity presented itself, we hired them,” says Geoff.

Some employees operate out of home offices as far as 200 kilometres away from the closest T4G office. Unlike Yahoo, which recently pulled the plug on its employees working remotely, T4G accommodates such preferences. “We don’t care where people work or when they work,” Geoff says. “We only care that they get the job done and do a great job while they’re at it."

Find The Smartest Black Sheep And Others Will Follow

When Geoff uses the term ‘black sheep’ to describe many of his employees, he means it in the nicest possible way.

“We often look for people who are operating outside the norm,” he says. “They tend to think differently. They’re doing great things and have the track record to show it. They’re the ones who are in the thick of things, whatever their technical specialty.”

Most of the recruiting is done at the local level, with team leaders constantly on the lookout for top talent in various technology specialties. It’s a given that prospects are able to check off all the boxes regarding their core technical competencies. What elevates prospects to serious candidates are passion for technology, a proven record of achievement (people who can, or intend to, ‘write the book’ on their specialty) and the likelihood that they would be a good fit with the company.

Once on the team, these black sheep often attract others to join the company. “They often have direct access to other talent whom we might like to hire,” says Geoff. “We’ve found that for the best of the best, nothing less than working with others of the same calibre is acceptable.

“We look for high-performing teams already in existence. They might be in other companies — not necessarily technology companies — and they’re looking for a new home. We’ve made deals in which we’ve taken a team out of a company’s IT department, and brought it over to our side, while still maintaining the team’s work for that company, which has then become our customer. It’s a win-win-win situation, for the customer, the employees and for us.”

In some cases, high-performing teams themselves have knocked on T4G’s door. Some had worked in the IT department of a large corporation and found the experience stifling. Being surrounded by like-minded people, those who get excited about technology, is the environment they crave. And it’s an environment T4G delivers.

Know How To Hold 'Em

Employees at T4G rarely settle for being merely ‘engaged’ with the company. They are several levels beyond engaged; they thrive on solving problems and are excited about technology’s capacity to change the world. “They really do live and breathe their work,” says Geoff.

They’re also given the freedom to do what they do best. “Team leaders run their businesses from the top line to the bottom line, and everything in between. They do their own thing while we provide the platform on which they can operate. We take care of all the administration and overhead, all the stuff that gets in the way of doing what they do best.”

While there are plenty of opportunities for staff to get their technical juices flowing when delivering services and solutions to their business customers, many crave an additional fix. That’s one of the reasons the company launched Geekfest six years ago.

T4G’s Geekfest hosts take to the stage in 2013.“Geekfest is like a science fair for grown-ups,” says Geoff, “but it also produces real-world, practical outcomes. It’s a competition that enables our employees to apply what they know to solving wickedly difficult problems, and some mundane ones, too. It’s a way to celebrate the passion and the joy that our people have for building things, creating new things, making ideas work, and changing the world.”

Employees from all T4G offices can participate, and the event is equally popular with the company’s customers. More than 300 spectators turned out to watch competitors duke it out last year, when the event was held at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. The 2012 winner took home the $10,000 prize for his application that tracks hospital ER wait times.

Do The Right Thing

Day-to-day empowerment is another cornerstone of the company’s corporate culture that appeals to its employees. Embedded in that culture is the notion that, when in doubt, employees need only do the right thing.

“We believe in this as a guiding principle,” says Geoff. “Not only is it the morally and ethically right way to behave, we also think it’s a very efficient way to run any organization. If you and your employees apply that principle to any given situation, you’re not going to need a set of rules, policies, procedures, hierarchy, and bureaucracy. All that nonsense just gets in the way of doing what we need to do.”

Doing the right thing extends to the company’s commitment to give back to the community. Through its charitable organization, Future Focus Foundation, it has committed to raising the equivalent of two per cent of its annual revenue for children’s education with the objective of helping children succeed. Beneficiaries include Portage Atlantic, a residential treatment centre for youth with alcohol and drug addictions, and Pathways to Education, a charity created to reduce poverty and its effects by lowering high school dropout rates and increasing access to postsecondary education for disadvantaged youth.

“We’re involved with the organizations we support,” says Geoff. “It’s not just about writing a cheque, it’s about investing our time and money in organizations that have superior track records, organizations that are making a difference and changing the world.”

Charity may begin at the top, but it’s embraced by employees at all levels of the company. The company’s news section of its website has more postings about the fundraising activities of its employees than it does corporate press releases. From a dragon boat team in Saint John that raised $8,000 for a local hospital, to a team in Toronto that built a playground from the bottom up in a depressed neighbourhood, T4G employees have more than taken up the cause; they’ve embraced it.

Geoff’s corporate bio on the T4G website opens with a quote, variations of which he repeated often in the interview for this story: “We do think, naively or not, that we can change the world.” It’s a tall order, but with a zealous workforce of nearly 275 like-minded, equally passionate employees who think differently, it’s probably just a matter of time before they do.