Officespotter

Although the blog was initially created to showcase unique and extreme office designs, we have since moved forward, and would like to delve deeper and show you the everyday lives of companies. For instance, at evosoft, interior design is not the key. Naturally, the fitout is just fine, but in any new office the minimum is for there to be new furniture, with enough space between tables, as well as a comfortable work zone for employees. The prominent difference at this company is the way they treat their workforce.

To better introduce the company’s positive atmosphere, we visited their countryside offices in Miskolc, instead of the larger HQ in Budapest. The Miskolc office was opened a few years ago, and currently employs 50 people. Zoltán Gönye suggested this office as opposed to the HQ because of it’s location in the center of the city in a brand new office building, as well as the youthful and enthusiastic team working here really portrays the entire company well.

The company almost exclusively creates software for its mother company, Siemens, which in turn utilizes the specialized software in its propelling- and automatization technology, medical imaging technology or high speed rail technologies. In a nutshell, it’s a large group of software engineers, seperated into rooms by division, on two floors of a new office building.

It’s unusual that in a 3-400 person company, just how much energy is needed to keep the company community together. The different divisions are approached in different ways to develop and preserve their sense of loyalty toward the company.

At evosoft, the need for an in-house communication channel began from the quality management department of the company. It’s this department which can easily get into conflict with the software developers, as they are potentially the ones who halt the progress of a nearly finished product for the programmers to reassess. They were the first ones to have to show the programmers that they are all working towards a joint purpose, and they mustn’t view the Quality Management department as an enemy. From these first steps grew, over the years, the in-house marketing department.

At companies of this size, team building accounts for only a small portion of building team spirit. Motions such as a continual idea competition among employees, with the winner actually having his or her idea carried out, are much more important. Just to give you an idea of what this means: one employee was fed up with the time it took for his computer to boot in the mornings, and came up with the idea to connect his computer to the magnetic card security system, so that when he ran his card at the building entrance, his computer would begin startup. Anyone at an ordinary company would just blink at the mere thought of this, but at a high-level IT company such like evosoft, they found the means to implement the idea in no time. All selected ideas, as well ideas pending are discussed in the in-house magazine edited and distributed by marketing.

To give you all an even better idea of the companies we visit, from here on we will enquire as to the allowed internet usage at select companies. The differing facebook policies are also good indicators of the freedoms allowed at companies, so we’ll be sure to include that in upcoming posts as well. At evosoft it’s very simple: everyone has up to 500 Megabytes of internet usage per month. Naturally, any professional or training activity goes onto a white list, and doesn’t count into the 500 Megabytes. We find the system very effective, although we know you can’t implement this at any old company.

The office is unique mostly from a Miskolc viewpoint. The circumstances are quite tidy and modern, but our regular reader won’t exactly gasp from the sight. The company has however indicated that their Budapest offices will soon undergo a large scale renovation, and if we like what we see, we’ll get a chance to show you that as well.
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