software engineer Archives - Irvine Technology Corporation

Widen Your Search and See Your Team Surge Forward

You look around your software engineer team. It’s a good team, but it lacks something that could make it a great team. Diversity.

Diversity is linked to:

Better performance
Increased profits
Greater creativity
Increased innovation
Escalated business growth
A strong competitive stance for the most talented software engineers

As well as these industry-beating advantages, a report by McKinsey and Company identified financial advantages to companies incorporating ethnic and gender diversity into their workplaces.

Now you want to know a little more about how diversity can improve your software engineer team before developing your hiring strategy.

Diversity Is the Key That Opens the Door to Outperformance

You want your team to excel. You want your business to develop with new solutions and ideas. You don’t want to merely survive; you want to thrive and surge ahead of your competitors.

If this is the case, don’t fear a clash of individuals in your team. Diversity brings together a galaxy of ideas in a culture you create as a team and company. Here are five benefits that diversity delivers.

1. Diversity Improves Your Bottom Line

Your software engineering team must be innovative to empower business growth. The tech industry thrives on change and creating solutions. When you have a diverse workforce, you have a diverse set of minds and perspectives.

Diversity has a direct impact on the forward motion of your business. A study by BCG revealed how companies with more diverse teams enjoy 19% higher revenue, because of innovation.

Diversity is not just a factor you should consider, but an integral cog in generating revenue. The more diverse your team, the bigger your bottom line is likely to be.

2. Diversity Improves the Collaboration of Your Software Engineer Team

Candidates want to work for a company with a diverse culture. Though thought processes and individual cultures vary greatly, diverse teams feel safe sharing ideas and varied views in an environment where diversity of opinion is encouraged and respected.

With such a free-flow communication channel between software engineers, engagement is high, which results in increased productivity.

The result is innovative and successful results as a team, delivering faster and higher-quality outcomes together. With new perspectives and experiences brought to the table, personal learning and development also soars.

3. Diversity Reduces Your Employee Turnover

Your software engineers will thrive in an environment that allows them to do so, no matter ‘who’ they are. As they develop and learn from their colleagues, and progress professionally, they’ll likely stay with a company who supports them. Your team will suffer less employee attrition, and morale will strengthen.

With reduced employee turnover, you’ll reduce the expense of hiring costs to replace staff. This allows you to invest more back into the business, developing your software engineering team further and sharing your financial success with your employees.

4. Diversity Is Great for Your Culture

Improving diversity in your organization must not be misunderstood as a compliance obligation. This will not enhance your culture.

A strong culture expresses the genuine and transparent belief that gender, race, religious belief, background, and so on, are not barriers to personal and professional growth, enhancing team performance.

When you create a powerful culture that welcomes diversity, you encourage all team members to develop greater understanding and empathy. This enhances collaboration and promotes sharing of ideas and experience, enhancing individual and team skills.

5. Diversity Improves Your Employer Brand

You nurture your employees. You care for their thoughts and ideas. You want them to succeed, as individuals and as a team.

In return, they want to work for you. You’ll see the most talented software engineers wanting a long-term career in your company, where they feel they can develop in a supported, fast-moving, competitive environment.

Your diverse employer brand will also, in turn, promote business from clients. They will reap the benefits of your more innovative software engineering team, and will want to do business with an organization who promotes diversity.

Get Started on Creating a More Diverse Software Engineer Team

The benefits of developing a more diverse software engineer team are well documented. You should experience improved engagement and performance, higher employee retention, and an increase in innovation and creativity. Your bottom line should improve, and your employer brand will attract the most talented candidates for your open vacancies.

Don’t miss out on incredible software engineers. Widen your search for the best candidates from a diverse pool of talent, benefitting from our help to find them.

We’re an award-winning information technology and staffing solutions provider. We want to understand your business and cultural needs, and we’re here to help you hire the tech talent you need for your diverse software engineering team. Contact Irvine Technology Corporation today.

Advice to Help You Decide Your Next Career Move

Many software engineers have the career goal of working in contract jobs. Certainly, the money that you could earn as a contractor is attractive. And you should have greater flexibility to arrange your work around life, rather than your life around work. However, contract work is not best for all software engineering professionals.

In this article, we examine the difference between contract and permanent jobs. This will help you decide which is best for your life and career objectives today.

What Is the Difference Between Contract Work and Permanent Work?

Contract work is time limited. Often, you’ll be hired to work on specific projects. Contract periods are typically three, six or 12 months. Companies hire contractors to fill skills gaps they have, cover leave, to work on specific projects where short-term specialization is needed, or to help upskill existing staff.

As a permanent worker, your job is full-time with a fixed salary. Your tax and other deductions are taken from your salary before you receive it.

The Pros and Cons of Contract Work

The major draw to contracting is the money that you can earn. Because the company you work for does not have the legal obligation to provide benefits such as health insurance and pension provisions, nor are they responsible for your tax an unemployment insurance, they can (and do) pay contractors higher hourly wages.

You’ll also be your own boss, with flexibility between contracts and a better work/life balance. However, when one contract ends there is no guarantee that you will walk into another. Additionally, in poor economic conditions, employers often lay off their contract staff first.

Here is a summary of the main pros and cons of contract work:

Pros of Contract Work	Cons of Contract Work
Larger salary	Your job security is not guaranteed
You are your own boss	No employer benefits such as health and pension
You have flexibility between contracts	There’s no career ladder to measure your progress
Your skills are appreciated	Administration of paperwork (and tax) is your responsibility
You can benefit from a wide variety of work (and so will your resume)	No guarantee of work
Better work/life balance	You must market yourself
You stay out of office politics	You are easier to lay off

The Pros and Cons of Permanent Work

Job security and employer-provided benefits are the two major advantages of permanent work. Your employer will also pay for your training. You won’t need to market your skills (unless you want to change jobs).

While the opportunity to progress will provide a measure of success, career progression is not always assured – especially if there are few internal promotion opportunities.

In exchange for the benefits of permanent work, you will forego the higher earning potential of contract work, flexibility, and choice of work, and are likely to be drawn into the game of office politics.

Here is a summary of the main pros and cons of contract work:

Pros of Permanent Work	Cons of Permanent Work
Job security	Lower earnings potential
Regular salary	No choice of the work you do
Employer benefits such as health and pension	You may get paid leave, but it is limited by your employer
A defined career path	Personality clashes and office politics
Training and development opportunities	You must conform to your employer’s work hours
Lenders prefer permanent workers	Your salary increases are determined by your employer
Employment protection	Your skills may not be fully appreciated, and you may not do work that most appeals to you

How Do You Decide Between Contract and Permanent Work?

Before deciding whether contract or permanent work is the right course for your career as a software engineer, you should take time to assess your current needs and your future goals. Consider what quality of life you want today, your longer-term life goals, and how you could best achieve these objectives.

As a contractor, you could set up as your own or operate through an agency that offers contracting and consulting services. If you choose the former option, you will have the added responsibility of marketing your services and the additional paperwork requirements. If you work as a contractor or consultant through an agency, you benefit from many of the advantages of contract work and some of the advantages of permanent work – such as ‘employer’ benefits and 401(K) provisions.

If you are at the stage of your career where you are undecided as to your next move, contact Irvine Technology Corporation today. We’ll help you with your perspective, and can introduce you to some of the best permanent and contract roles available in software engineering.

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5 Reasons Hiring for Diversity Will Improve Your Software Engineer Team