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Event Overview

Codegarden is a unique conference for an active Umbraco community to gather, share and improve their skills. For more than ten years, this has been an exclusive opportunity for the experts of Umbraco technology to tell the community about innovations in the industry, recent changes and upgrades.

Participation in the event is an opportunity to take part in the multitude of activities such as connecting with fellow Umbraco developers, building new contacts, learning new skills, acquiring new knowledge and sharing expertise. With a lively and friendly vibe, the event is a great opportunity to grow one’s professional network, discuss technical problems, interact with Umbraco colleagues and find inspiration for future endeavors.

Source: Umbraco.com

Umbraco is a free CMS available as open-source software that helps engineers create flexible, secure and scalable solutions varying from small applications to large sophisticated websites. The most notable characteristic of Umbraco is its user-friendliness, which allows quick and easy management of the system.

Along with the CMS, the company offers Umbraco Uno, Umbraco Heartcore and Umbraco Cloud solutions. At the moment, there are more than 700,000 websites using Umbraco, and the active community of users amounts to around 200,000 loyal adherents who always strive to make valuable contributions and improve the quality of the software.

Codegarden 2022 was an outstanding event, which helped us acquire new experience in Umbraco and hone our expertise. In addition to upgrading our skills in the technology, we also got acquainted with Danish culture and humor, learned numerous jokes about the Easter Bunny, and discovered that Shakespeare’s story about Hamlet is based on real events that took place in Denmark.

We were glad to see a venue full of people who are interested in this technology and support its further enhancement. It’s nice to realize how large the community is, how many people from all over the world work on it, develop it, help each other and share the knowledge.

Insights from Umbraco Developers

During the conference, Umbraco developers shared their vision of product development for the upcoming five years. Among the most impressive plans are the ambitions to:

• become the number #1 cloud CMS in the world
• ensure the growth and development of the Umbraco community
• increase the number of websites using Umbraco to two million
• provide technical support for all regions of the world 24/7/365
• improve the API and carry out a complete update of the backoffice
• develop the UI component library and add Headless features for all products.

Besides, there are plans to transform the CMS into a full-fledged DXP system, while still maintaining Umbraco use for free for small- and medium-sized projects.

Also, the concept of Umbraco remains a symbiosis of commercial cloud and open source solutions. Features implemented in cloud solutions are also later implemented in free solutions and everyone benefits from it as the product becomes better.

A new LTS master version of Umbraco 10 was introduced. It runs on Dot Net 6.0, ASP.NET Core 6 and C# 10 — the latest version to date. Additional support for a new type of SQLite database was introduced as well, which is great for small projects. All these changes make Umbraco the ultra-modern CMS today, which supports all the features of the C# language, being cross-platform and able to run in a container.

Many libraries used by Umbraco have been updated. The structure of the project has been changed, and plenty of files and folders have been moved outside of it, making the project cleaner and clearer. The following substantial features were added: history cleanup, item relations, two-factor authentication, external logins for members, telemetry.

A new approach to the updates was also presented. From this time onward, a minor version will be released every six weeks, and a major version every six months. This is an important announcement as it will make it more convenient to upgrade between versions — there will be fewer changes, so planning for an upgrade will be easier.

Moreover, the update of Umbraco will be tied to the update of .NET, which also releases a major version every six months. This means that the product will not become obsolete and will support all the latest features of both .NET and C#.

Reports of the Speakers

At Codegarden 2022, many speakers devoted their presentations to the additional extensions for Umbraco. Products such as Heartcore (Headless CMS), Umbraco Deploy (used for transferring/restoring data), Umbraco Form (service for creating forms) and Umbraco Cloud can make product development easier. These products are constantly updated, are well-supported, extremely user-friendly and, moreover, they have an amazing look.

There were also speakers from the community who have developed their own packages, many of which are alternatives to the paid solutions. The developer of the well-known packages uSync and Starter Kit also delivered a speech. uSync is a package that provides an alternative to Umbraco deploy. It is used to transfer content between environments. The speaker shared his insights into developing one’s own extensions, and provided useful statistical data on the topic.

I was excited by reports about the implementation of Blazor component and deploying Umbraco with the help of Docker and Azure. We are currently deploying an Umbraco project in Azure using containerization. The tips in the reports were very helpful. It was interesting to learn about options for implementing Blazor — when and how to do it, and when not to.

Since Umbraco is part of the .NET ecosystem, some speakers presented the latest features of the language in addition to the latest Microsoft developments. Speakers also devoted time to talking about the soft skills developers need to have.

They shared their views on how building habits can make you a better developer, how to improve your code using the documentation, on the difference between process and goals; they discussed how a systematic approach often leads to a better result, and talked in detail about how productive habits can be obvious, attractive and satisfying.

I liked the conference and the speakers very much. I hope Umbraco continues to grow and thrive, that it remains the same fast, flexible and stable CMS it is now, and that all the ambitious plans of the developers come true.

Apart from managing and securing data, hospitals need to provide top-notch care and treatment to create an optimal experience for patients. Let’s take a look at the uses of ML in healthcare and outline how you can leverage ML to improve healthcare delivery.

Machine Learning has emerged as a 360-degree solution that helps healthcare providers tackle all these challenges and many more. It enables better data management and helps providers make informed treatment decisions.

Digital Revolution in the Healthcare Sector

The digital revolution has influenced every industry, and healthcare is no different. In fact, many consider tech advancements in the medical and pharmacy sectors as the most prominent developments of the 21st century.

The health tech industry is booming and is projected to reach US$280 billion by the end of 2021, growing at a CAGR of 15.9%. However, some people still don’t fully understand the role of technology in healthcare.

So, let’s start by defining digital health first.

Digital health is connecting and empowering people to manage their health and wellness by providing accessible, on-demand, interoperable, integrated, and flexible medical services and support.

In a nutshell, digital health is all about allowing people to take advantage of healthcare services through digital technologies. The technologies used to facilitate digital health are collectively called healthcare technology.

A significant example of digital health is telehealth, which allows healthcare providers to administer non-clinical services online through telecommunications.

Some other aspects of digital healthcare are:

• Wearable medical devices for remote health monitoring
• Robot-assisted surgery (RAS) for increased accuracy and efficiency in surgery
• 3D bioprinting to automate the production of medical devices, transplants, and prosthetics
• Virtual and Augmented reality to treat stress disorders
• Data Analysis, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for data collection and analysis
• Electronic health records in place of physical registers
• Custom QR code solutions to store, share and track electronic data
• Blockchain for secure the handling of electronic health records (EHR)

ML Is Reshaping Healthcare

Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of AI that enables machines to learn from the data fed to them without explicit programming. The machines use underlying algorithms to “learn” from computational data and offer predictable outputs. This paves the way for several applications, such as the development of clinical care guidelines, clinical decision support, and automated medical billing.

Many ML scientists have developed algorithms to predict certain medical conditions in patients. Radiologists can also benefit from ML. Deep Learning, an application of ML, can assist radiologists in reviewing radiographs, MRI scans, and CT scans and make accurate decisions. Recordkeeping, data integrity, and predictive analytics are other areas where ML plays an instrumental role.

How Can Healthcare Providers Leverage Machine Learning to Improve Their Services?

Machine Learning is the technology of the future. It can help hospitals, clinics, labs, and other medical facilities make their operations faster and more accurate. But regardless of how revolutionary the technology is, you can’t derive value from it if you don’t know how to implement it.

Therefore, healthcare providers need to understand the applications of ML and how they can implement ML in their day-to-day processes. Here are ten ways you can leverage ML to improve service delivery and pave the way for a healthier future.

Diagnose and Identify Diseases

One of the key applications of ML in healthcare is disease diagnosis and identification, especially for hard-to-diagnose diseases. For instance, ML can help diagnose tumors and cancers in early stages or genetic diseases beyond traditional diagnostic methods. IBM Watson Genomics, a part of IBM Research, integrated genome-based tumor sequencing with cognitive computing to diagnose early-stage tumors.

Healthcare providers can also use ML to enhance medical image diagnosis. Some diseases can only be diagnosed by image analysis. However, evaluating imaging results with the naked eye is prone to error. You can use tools like InnerEye by Microsoft to scan thousands of medical images per hour with top-notch accuracy.

You can also use ML-based algorithms to improve radiotherapy outcomes. Medical imaging has numerous minute details that are difficult for a radiologist to see. ML algorithms can analyze various imaging samples to improve diagnostic results.

Predict Diseases Like Diabetes and Liver Disease

Machine Learning does a great job at diagnosing early-stage conditions. However, certain diseases are difficult to cure after symptoms are developed. ML helps predict these diseases, allowing healthcare providers to better manage high-risk patients and improve prognosis.

Diabetes is a common illness that affects around 500 million people, or 10% of the world population. Uncontrolled diabetes can damage a person’s nerves, heart, and kidneys and lead to other serious illnesses. Most people are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes only after they experience symptoms. Unfortunately, by the time symptoms appear, the disease will usually have already developed to an advanced stage.

ML lets you identify people in prediabetic condition. If they receive treatment at that stage, the advancement of the disease can be prevented.

The same goes for other deadly diseases like liver disease and skin cancer. Liver conditions like chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer are difficult to predict, and once they develop, they’re almost impossible to cure. You can use datasets like the Liver Disorders Dataset to predict these conditions before they begin to advance.

Increase Accuracy of Surgery

Some surgical procedures like craniectomy, aortic dissection repair, and bladder cystectomy are increasingly complex and carry significant risks. They require a high level of precision, and a minor human error can lead to life-threatening complications. Robotic surgery has solved this hurdle to a large extent.

Surgeons can use robots like the Da Vinci robot to perform surgeries with precision while focusing on fine details. Integrating ML with surgical robots can take robotic surgery to the next level. For instance, you can use ML algorithms to incorporate previous surgical data and metrics to enhance the precision of surgical robots.

A good example of ML-robotics integration is Mazor Robotics. The company combines AI/ML with robotics to minimize the invasiveness of surgical procedures associated with complex body parts like the liver and spine.

Make Informed Clinical Decisions

Natural Language Processing (NLP), an application of ML, allows you to collect unstructured data from health records and medical imaging and turn it into editable documents with actionable insights. This helps doctors see a clear picture and make informed clinical decisions.

Let’s demonstrate this concept with an example. Normally, patients make an appointment, consult a doctor, and describe the problems they have. Based on the information provided by the patient, the doctor predicts the underlying conditions and begins treatment. NLP can speed up this process significantly.

When making appointments, patients can mention all the symptoms/problems they have, and the system can use NLP and ML to propose a treatment plan and send it to the doctor. So, by the time the patient meets the doctor, the doctor will already know about the patient’s condition and the best possible treatment. The doctor’s role will only be to approve the treatment and make changes to it, if any.

Doing so has two benefits. Firstly, the process becomes faster and more efficient. This way, clinics can attend to more patients in less time. Secondly, it increases decision-making accuracy. When doctors attend to patients, they may miss out on some symptoms and possible causes of disease. Machine learning helps them eliminate such errors.

Reduce Readmissions and Length of Stay

The 30-day readmission rate is 18.3% among Medicare patients and 11.8% among uninsured patients. Readmissions are a major challenge for healthcare providers and can be significantly costly. ML-based tools enable medical institutions to improve care delivery by predicting which patients are likely to be readmitted and how to prevent this from happening.

The length of stay (the average number of days a patient stays in hospital after being admitted) is another area of concern healthcare providers need to address. Since ML-based tools help improve the quality of care, they can also assist hospitals in reducing the average length of stay.

Improve Recordkeeping

Storing and maintaining health records has always been a challenge for healthcare providers, but not anymore. You can use ML-based OCR recognition techniques to classify health records.

A major application of ML in recordkeeping is the concept of smart health records. ML-based tools like handwriting recognition technology by MATLAB and Cloud Vision API by Google enable the maintenance of up-to-date health records.

Almost all healthcare providers store patient information online. While this adds to efficiency, it also raises cybersecurity concerns. Patient records have always been a lucrative target for hackers, making patient privacy a major concern for medical institutions.

Machine learning tools can play a vital role in improving the security of patient records. These tools can leverage behavioral analytics to send clinics alerts if there’s an attempted data breach. This way, healthcare providers can act promptly if a security issue arises.

Offer Personalized Treatment

Personalization is no longer limited to brands offering services to their customers. Medical facilities can also provide personalized treatments to patients using ML and predictive analytics. Presently, most doctors take a one-size-fits-all approach by administering the same treatment to all patients exhibiting a particular set of symptoms.

ML-based personalized medicine enables doctors to suggest multiple treatments to patients based on their symptoms and past medical history.

Another breakthrough application of ML in healthcare is behavioral modification. Research shows that behavioral and lifestyle changes affect a person’s health. Therefore, it becomes essential for doctors to monitor the behavioral and lifestyle characteristics of each patient. You can use tools like Somatix to monitor your patients’ lifestyles in a passive and non-invasive way.

Automate Administrative Tasks

Lastly, Machine Learning can enhance operational efficiency in healthcare settings. Research shows that 83% of physician burnout occurs due to the lack of proper organization, boiling down to excessive administrative tasks. This mainly includes reviewing and updating health records.

ML-based tools can solve this problem. NLP tools can capture vocal phrases and turn them into accurate text documents. Therefore, a doctor can dictate points to the EHR, and the built-in NLP tool can transcribe it into text. As a result, the doctor can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time with patients.

Over to You: How to Get Started?

ML is an essential technology for healthcare providers. However, many hospitals have long relied on traditional operational methods. A move to digital, ML-enabled models can be challenging.

Hospitals need to start small by developing a team of professional data scientists, also known as hospital analysts. Work closely with them to evaluate your resources and how you can incorporate ML into your day-to-day processes. Once you establish the benefits of ML for your healthcare facility, you can scale its uses.

The technology industry has traditionally been male-dominated, but the gender gap in tech is closing. Over 30% of software engineers at SaM Solutions are women. We talked to some of them to learn how they ended up in IT and what it is like to be a woman working in tech.

How did you decide to pursue a  career in computer science? Was it your childhood ambition or a spontaneous decision to work in the field?

Volha: I didn’t like Literature, Art, History, and other humanities at school. I enjoyed Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science. Therefore, while I was still in high school, I decided I wanted to be a software engineer with a mathematical background.

Tatsiana: I am an engineer-geodesist by profession. Over time, I realized that I had no more opportunities to develop in that area. This was the main reason I changed my profession. The decision to work in the tech field was spontaneous. I just decided to try something completely different and not related to the profession I already had.

Maryna: I got into IT quite by accident. I was looking for a part-time job in my 5th year of university and managed to get a position in a private company. At that time, IT was not yet mainstream, and I did not understand that I was going to work at a product company as a technical support specialist. “An errand girl” — this is how I imagined my work.

Aliaksandra: I am a medical doctor by education, having graduated from the Belarusian State Medical University and passed a sub-internship in surgery at the 2nd surgical department. My internship was in otorhinolaryngology at the 4th City Clinical Hospital. After graduation, I worked as an E.N.T. specialist.

I was always interested in the tech area and spent a lot of time using the computer. In addition, I wanted to find a job in a field less stressful than medical practice. It began as a hobby — I would write an algorithm for how to complete a quest in a game — but then I got addicted to it. And I decided to take a risk, despite the skeptical opinions and indignation of people around me.

In fact, my initial plans were to go to Germany and work as a doctor. I even learned German to level B1. But I liked programming so much that I decided to risk everything and try my hand in this area. And had I failed, I would have left the country.

Have you ever felt a bias towards you because you are a woman in a male-dominated sphere?

Volha: I’ve been working as a software engineer for three years, and I’ve never felt any bias during that time. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you can design and implement an excellent solution to a given problem, you are a good engineer.

Tatsiana: I often experienced gender bias in other spheres, but not in tech.

Maryna: There has been no bias. Initially, I objectively lacked theoretical knowledge (since my education is not field-specific), so if there were points of criticism, they were not connected to gender but rather to my lack of experience.

Aliaksandra: I felt huge pressure during job interviews at some companies. It often came from tech specialists and project managers.

At one of the interviews, the first question I was asked was: “Girl, what have you forgotten here?” Although I was 27 years old, an adult, not a girl with no understanding of anything. The attitude of HR specialists has always been good.

I also felt pressure because I lacked field-specific education. For example, if graduates of BNTU, BSU and BSUIR were given tests with a 60% threshold, for me this threshold would increase to 80%. Quite often, my CV was not even considered because I didn’t have the required diploma. Perhaps that would make sense if universities provided the necessary practical basis for working in this area. But the reality is that graduates in any case need to attend additional courses or internships. I don’t quite understand the principle of such a “filtering.”

Looking at guys who changed careers like me, I would say that they are much more motivated than recent graduates.

At SaM Solutions, there is no gender discrimination and no ageism, which is why I liked the idea of working at the company.

Do you think that women have the same opportunities as men in the tech world?

Volha: I think that due to “discrimination” issues, women have more opportunities now. I find this unfair. For instance, in large companies such as Google or Facebook, it is easier to pass an interview if you are a woman. I think this results in losing talented men. The good idea is to look at a person but not at their gender.

Tatsiana: Yes, I believe that women have equal opportunities as men.

Maryna: Definitely yes, unlike in some other areas.

Aliaksandra: I think so. Girls are pretty diligent and meticulous, which is a definite advantage. And looking at the girls in our department, I would not say that their work is worse than that of the men.

Do you have a mentor, or who is your role model in the world of software engineering?

Volha: Unfortunately, I do not have a mentor or a role model. But I get inspired by the success stories of people who designed and developed something essential.

Tatsiana: Yes, of course! These are my colleagues who have been working on the project for a long time. Among them, there are both women and men.

Maryna: Yes. This person is the lead developer from my first job. I still ask him for advice from time to time.

Aliaksandra: It’s difficult to single out someone. During my short journey in IT, there were plenty of people who taught me — architects, team leads, other developers. At the moment, our Senior Developer Alexey Mukha helps me a lot. I really like that you feel like one team; you can always ask for help and be sure that you will not be ignored.

What are your biggest achievements in the workplace?

Volha: One of my biggest achievements is moving forward with the solution of using Computer Vision and Machine Learning in projects. I transferred the knowledge to the team and we succeeded. But I still prefer backend development rather than ML.

The other achievement is that I’m good at low-level programming, especially when it comes to designing and implementing algorithms. Unfortunately, many developers are not good at algorithms and data structures. However, I find it important to understand different techniques of optimizations at a low level and am always there to share my knowledge.

Tatsiana: It’s working with automated testing and mastering new tools for manual testing.

Maryna: I like that I have reached such a level of understanding of the subject area, tools and processes that I can already teach other people.

Aliaksandra: I haven’t been working long enough to have great achievements yet. When my first project in which I am team lead goes live, that will be an achievement for me. I also consider it an achievement when the guys under my supervision grow professionally.

Could you work in another sphere? If yes, which one?

Volha: I don’t see myself working anywhere else other than the software engineering sphere.

Tatsiana: I guess so; for example, as an architectural designer or a graphic designer.

Maryna: I think I could work in any sphere where you need to use your intellect, and it should be result-oriented, not time-oriented.

Aliaksandra: I can always go back to working as a doctor, but I believe that I am now where I belong.

What advice can you give to women considering a career in IT?

Volha: If you don’t have a technical background and education, please do not try to pass software engineering courses to become a developer (it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman). I find such courses a useless waste of money.

If you are a woman and considering a career in IT, then I think you don’t need any advice — everything will be alright.

Tatsiana: Do not be afraid to start moving in this direction: find a good training school and have a desire to continuously develop.

Maryna: Precisely to women? I don’t even know … good luck? I don’t think that IT is fundamentally different from any other job. If you are attracted to it, interested in it, are an achiever — welcome!

Aliaksandra: Avoid companies with sexist attitudes, even if they come from certain people and not from the company as a whole. Even if they hire you, it will be uncomfortable to work under the pressure of prejudice.

Don’t be afraid that things will go wrong. If you like this field, finding a job is only a matter of time and motivation.

Don’t expect any favors. You are hired as an employee and you will be treated the same as other colleagues.

In general, I think that it’s stupid to divide IT workers into men and women: you are a working unit and nothing supernatural is required here. For me, it was much harder to work as a doctor both physically and morally, including stress resistance. Now, I have a lower workload and practically no sleepless nights.

This article will explain the essence and importance of employee engagement and discuss methods you can use to make your workers highly engaged. We will also share our experience of improving employee engagement at SaM Solutions.

What Is Employee Engagement?

If your workers perform their duties well but do so automatically, without any enthusiasm or desire to improve, they are not engaged workers.

There are many definitions of the term employee engagement. We’ve compiled a comprehensive definition that better reflects the essence of this concept.

Employee engagement is the degree of workers’ identification with and adherence to their workplace. It comprises two aspects:

• Emotional connection with the workplace and team members, which makes a worker feel like part of the community
• Willingness to contribute to the company’s improvement and success, which is reflected in the employees’ commitment, enthusiasm, passion and motivation to do their best for the sake of the entire organization

According to the State of the Global Workplace report by Gallup, 85% of employees worldwide are disengaged, meaning that the majority of workers have either indifferent or negative attitudes towards their job.

Consequently, they bring little or no value to the development of businesses.

Employee Engagement vs. Job Satisfaction

The concept of employee engagement shouldn’t be confused with job satisfaction.

Job satisfaction implies workers’ happiness determined by the salary, schedule, security, benefits and similar factors at the workplace that a company can easily control. However, not all employees who work in satisfactory conditions can claim they have a high level of engagement.

Workers who are just satisfied with their jobs do their tasks properly and within their job instructions. They feel confident, content and comfortable in their workplace.

On the contrary, engaged employees go beyond their instructions, take the initiative and try to do extra tasks for the team’s benefit and common goals. They are always in search of new ideas and prepared to work overtime.

How To Estimate Employee Engagement

How can you find out which of your employees are engaged at work and which are not? First of all, you can easily distinguish between engaged and disengaged workers by their behavior. There are some typical behavioral characteristics in the two groups.

Engaged employees can anticipate future events and take measures in advance; they easily cooperate with teammates and prioritize the team’s needs; they can quickly adapt to changing circumstances; they are enthusiastic about learning something new. Such employees are comfortable with spending extra time and effort on work and always eager to participate in corporate events after work hours.

Disengaged employees only take measures in response to events; they prioritize personal comfort and find it hard to adapt to changing circumstances. They are not interested in learning anything new or spending extra time and effort on additional tasks beyond their instructions or schedule. Such employees are usually unwilling to participate in corporate events out of the office.

But it’s not enough to notice your employees’ behavior — you should realize the reasons behind it. That’s why it’s crucial to estimate workforce engagement levels within the company regularly. And feedback is the key to success here.

The most efficient way to collect employees’ feedback on various aspects of their work and measure their engagement level is to conduct employee engagement surveys. As a rule, an in-depth, comprehensive study that touches upon numerous issues is performed once a year. If you thoroughly prepare questions for this survey, you will get valuable data on your workers’ needs and desires and be able to improve the situation if needed.

You can also conduct smaller surveys more regularly to cover specific events, such as gathering feedback after an internal meetup.

Employee engagement surveys provide valuable information for managers and business owners on what goes right and wrong in an organization. At the same time, the very fact that a survey is conducted contributes to the improvement of employee engagement:

• Workers feel that their opinion is essential and that they are valued.
• Open communication is encouraged.
• If the given feedback is subsequently addressed, employees are inspired to work better.

You should analyze conducted surveys carefully and take their results into account for further decision-making; otherwise, they are useless.

Why Should You Care About Employee Engagement?

You might be surprised, but there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and an organization’s productivity.

The value of engaged workers can be explained by today’s highly competitive market and the necessity to retain talent. Managers from small and medium enterprises acknowledge that it’s more difficult to retain employees than hire them. So, if your corporate culture can’t ensure the necessary level of engagement, your company is likely to suffer from low productivity and constant staff turnover.

The following is a list of benefits enjoyed by organizations with a high level of employee engagement:

• Boosted productivity
• Mutual assistance and sharing of knowledge
• Improved quality of products
• Increased company’s profitability
• Better employee retention
• Reduced turnover
• Less absenteeism
• Higher sales
• Fewer conflicts and incidents

As you can see, the abstract concept of employee engagement has real tangible results for organizations.

Distributed Team Management during COVID-19

The importance of employee engagement has become particularly evident in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic. As many companies switched to remote work, they needed a working strategy to effectively manage distributed teams, support team spirit and keep employees engaged.

Most companies were not ready for the challenge and were forced to develop strategies on the go.

The task was a bit easier for software development companies because many of them have years of experience managing distributed teams, i.e. teams scattered across geographical locations and time zones.

SaM Solutions is not an exception. We can provide helpful tips concerning the development of engagement strategies that many companies can utilize, including those with employees working from home.

Five Tips to Increase Employee Engagement

Let’s get an understanding of what you need to improve employee engagement in your organization. First of all, you need a good strategy. More importantly, you need the commitment and participation of all managers and leaders to develop a comprehensive and effective employee engagement strategy and implement it in the workplace. They should work together to decide on and prepare the appropriate components, such as:

• corporate documents
• initiatives
• feedback opportunities
• communication tools
• management systems
• applications
• anything else limited only by your imagination.

The following tips will help you with the planning.

1. Don’t Overlook the Onboarding Process

The first impression of a person, as well as of a company, is crucial. A carefully considered onboarding process fosters a positive image of the workplace in newly hired employees.

It’s always a bit tricky for newcomers to settle in and adapt to unknown processes. That’s why HR specialists need to make the onboarding as seamless as possible. Here are some ideas:

• Talk about your organization’s mission and core values.
• Introduce colleagues and provide a mentor who will answer all questions during the adaptation period.
• Prepare a document with core information an employee may need (e.g., contact details of various departments, news portals, and the office layout).
• Motivate new employees by explaining the importance of their position to the company.

By doing so, you will make newbies feel that they are already a part of your company’s culture. This is the first big step in creating a positive attitude toward a job.

2. Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks

Employees get bored, irritated and, consequently, disengaged when they have to do odd tasks with no practical value or resulting in nothing.

Managers and heads of departments should optimize working processes in order to address inefficiencies, organizing meaningful work. They should also place employees in roles that are right for them. Avoid situations where you hire talented workers but don’t have relevant roles for them in your team, making them sit on the sidelines.

Remember that engaged employees are those who feel meaningful: they don’t work for the sake of work, but for the sake of the result.

3. Provide Professional Training Opportunities

Engaged employees require continuous professional development and career growth opportunities to remain motivated and bring more value to their organization.

Company management should always allocate part of the budget to professional training opportunities, such as:

• conferences
• workshops
• webinars
• online courses
• knowledge-sharing meetups
• passing certificates, etc.

This is how an organization shows interest in employees’ personal growth, improving their motivation, which contributes to its competitiveness. Workforce professional development is the best way to keep up to date and address the latest customer needs.

4. Appreciate the Achievements

Praise, reward and recognition are a must for improving employee engagement. These can even work better than pay increase alone.

It is the task for managers to track achievements and recognize the best players in order to recharge them with positive vibes. As you know, an emotional boost significantly increases creativity and productivity.

It is a good idea to conduct regular performance reviews for each employee: it’ll give you an opportunity to note progress, discuss current issues and define a plan for the next period.

5. Facilitate the Work-Life Balance Culture

The physical and mental health of workers is highly important for their performance and engagement. And it’s a company’s responsibility to create conditions that will give employees an equal opportunity to work, relax and deal with personal matters.

Organizations should consider the following initiatives to help support the overall well-being of employees and build a friendly atmosphere at the workplace:

• Flexible working hours
• Remote work opportunity
• Medical insurance
• Comfortable work area
• Relaxation area at the office
• Sports activities
• Corporate outings

The employees’ time should not be concentrated around work and it’s up to employers to create a balanced environment beneficial for everyone.

SaM MeetApp: Our Case Study of Improving Employee Engagement

Professional training and knowledge sharing are essential components of employee engagement. At SaM Solutions, we have always tried to provide employees with opportunities to communicate and exchange information and knowledge seamlessly.

Problem

In 2019, when our company expanded and we opened a second office in Minsk, we faced difficulties concerning communication and knowledge exchange. The negative feedback from our employees included the following:

• Specialists from one technical area but working in different offices had little communication.
• There was not enough information on current projects.
• Internal meetups were conducted randomly, and not everyone knew about them.

These factors became the trigger that led us to unify all activities at the company level.

Solution

In summer 2019, the internal SaM MeetApp project appeared. We developed the SaM MeetApp application (iOS, Android, web) as a platform for exchanging knowledge between employees and as the most comfortable environment for communication. It was more than an app.

These were our ambitious tasks:

• Create a platform for knowledge sharing and holding meetups.
• Organize technical communities within the company.
• Involve employees in the process of continuous knowledge sharing.
• Increase the awareness and attractiveness of the company in the IT environment.

The Four Pillars of SaM MeetApp

Communities. Tech communities help build horizontal relationships within a company and  trust among colleagues, and they create an environment of ongoing mutual assistance and development. We have identified five communities within the company: .NET, Frontend, Java, QA and BA/PM.

In each community, there is a chief specialist who is responsible for the development and training of colleagues. Chief specialists are the drivers of communities: they pick up ideas, draw up plans for training activities, stimulate other members, organize meetups.

Topics. Our hypothesis was that informal communication within teams will push employees to share knowledge on work issues. It would create an atmosphere of trust, making it much easier to involve employees in the work process. Therefore, on par with technical events, we began to hold meetings dedicated to travel, psychology and other topics selected and proposed by employees.

We conduct surveys, collect feedback after each event and monitor community chats to better understand our workers’ needs. Each employee can suggest a topic for a meetup.

Speakers. We encourage all employees to try their hand at giving a presentation. All our speakers are awarded with pleasant corporate gifts and given an opportunity to participate in external training conferences at the company’s expense.

If there is no internal expert on a topic, we look for an external speaker. So far we’ve had speakers from the USA, Great Britain, Denmark, Ukraine and Russia at our online meetings.

Promotion. We help each speaker with presentation and event poster design, send meetup announcements by email and via the SaM MeetApp application. After the event, we prepare post-releases.

Results

• 45% of our employees are actively using the SaM MeetApp mobile application.
• There are five active communities within the company. The .NET and Java communities comprise over 200 engineers.
• We’ve organized more than 70 meetups.
• Our employees have proposed more than 90 topics for discussion.
• More than 25 employees have tried their hand at speaking.
• Employees rate each other’s performance more positively now.

Conclusions

• The organization of webinars does not require significant financial investment, but it allows you to learn about best practices firsthand. An employee may not work with technology but might attend a meeting to understand whether it is worth delving deeper into the topic.
• Internal meetups facilitate knowledge sharing within the company and create a motivating environment for professional growth.
• People like “background” activities that they can join online or watch as a recording.
• Offline and online formats effectively complement each other.

P.S.

In March 2020, SaM Solutions switched to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this difficult time, it has become vital to maintain team spirit and engagement and help newcomers adapt. Our SaM MeetApp project couldn’t have come at a better time.

Why Opt for Visualization

Why do companies tend to step over the bounds of traditional written, audio and video data sources and go for data visualizing tools? It would seem that the modern human is far more advanced as to be affected by a colorful eye-catching image. And yet, psychological research shows that 90% of all the information that people perceive comes from their sense of sight. And the simpler the way the information is put, the higher the chances that it is processed.

Apparently, transforming analytical information into optical form facilitates its digestion and understanding and allows to uncover valuable data. This may work in companies’ favor if they leverage such a peculiarity correctly, as it allows enhancing business processes and improving employees’ performance. So, an increasing number of companies turned to data visual depiction, and big market players have developed their solutions for stats visualization, such as:

• Microsoft
• Qlik
• SAP
• IBM
• Salesforce
• Oracle
• Others

What Is Tableau Software?

Not only does the Gartner rate Tableau analytics platform highly, but there are numerous user testimonials that assert that its visuals are the number one in the market and consider this software the enterprise standard. What does Tableau visualization software do and why is it so specific that many businesses have come to incorporate it into their daily operations?

A powerful business intelligence tool for analytics visualizing, Tableau casts the results in numerous vivid forms to get better insight.

Healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, education, marketing, wholesale and retail, and other business domains have been already making an extensive use of the insightful data visualization performed by Tableau.

The solution’s functionality is not limited by the graphic information representation; there is also a heap of work under the surface. Indeed, the application makes requests to the cloud and relational databases, spreadsheets and OLAP cubes for the required statistical data, and then parses, categorizes and correlates it to generate a comprehensive analytical report. Tableau has both desktop and online versions, which enables access to software data in the cloud or on premises.

If your company seeks to improve analytics and get the most out of what data rendition offers, you must have your sights set on Tableau data visualization software. However, before being taken with its remarkable visualizing capabilities, learn the limitations of Tableau as they pertain to your business — check out our Tableau reviews.

The Pros of Tableau Software

Although the ultimate quality visualization of interactive data overshadows all other Tableau advantages, the list of the benefits that the tool brings to businesses is quite long.

1. Remarkable Visualization Capabilities

Of course, unparalleled capabilities of visualizing information is on top the list of Tableau software benefits. The application’s data visualizing quality is superior to what Tableau software competitors offer. Even the products of traditional business intelligence vendors, such as Oracle Data Visualization or IBM’s products for data rendition, cannot compete with the illustration and design quality that Tableau provides.

It converts unstructured statistical information into comprehensive logical results, which are fully functional, interactive and appealing dashboards. They are available in several types of graphics and are easy to use in business affairs.

2. Ease of Use

The tool’s intuitive manner of creating graphics and a user-friendly interface allow non-dev users to utilize the basic app’s functionality to the fullest. Users arrange raw data into catchy diagrams in a drag-and-drop way, which facilitates information analyzing and eliminates the need for the help of an IT department for pattern building.

Lay users can enjoy the capabilities that Tableau offers for stats parsing, such as dashboard development, etc., without in-depth training. However, to get into the solution’s capabilities,  deeper knowledge is a must. Also, the close involvement of IT specialists is a necessity if a company seeks to expand the solution’s functionality.

3. High Performance

Apart from its high visualization functionality, users rate its overall performance as robust and reliable. The tool also operates fast even on big data, which makes its powerful performance an important point in the list of the advantages of Tableau.

4. Multiple Data Source Connections

The software supports establishing connections with many data sources, such as HADOOP, SAP and DB Technologies, which improves data analytics quality and enables the creating of a unified, informative dashboard. Such a dashboard grants access to the required information for any user.

5. Thriving Community and Forum

The number of Tableau fans who invest their expertise and skills in the community increases steadily. Business users can beef up their knowledge on data parsing and reporting and get many useful insights in this community. Also, forum visitors are ready to help settle any user issues and to share their experience.

6. Mobile-Friendliness

And the last one in our list of core Tableau benefits, there is an efficient mobile app available for IOS and Android. It adds mobility to Tableau users and allows them to keep statistics at their fingertips, as well as it supports full functionality that a Desktop and Online versions have.

The Cons of Tableau Software

Despite its superior visualizing and designing capabilities and its other advantages, Tableau’s limitations are quite numerous, which is why they should be taken into serious consideration.

1. High Cost

Tableau is not the most expensive visualization software, especially compared to such business intelligence giants as Oracle’s and IBM’s solutions. All the same, the license is quite costly for most small to medium companies, which makes it one of the considerable Tableau’s disadvantages. Also, the software requires proper deployment, implementation, maintenance and staff training that come at a sizeable price. Therefore, its high cost makes Tableau the choice of primarily large businesses.

2. Inflexible Pricing

Tableau’s sales team is not flexible enough to provide a case-by-case approach for their customers. Ignoring the fact that each company has its own unique requirements to the visualization tool package, the Tableau sales model requires clients to purchase the extended license from the start. As a result, a lot of companies that use Tableau arrive at the conclusion that they don’t need all their licensed features. They would prefer buying a set of required ones and scale them if necessary.

3. Poor After-Sales Support

On multiple message boards, users complain that Tableau software lacks proper after-sales maintenance. If a customer has a software performance problem, the support team doesn’t settle the matter by investigating the problem’s root and eliminating it. The best they do is to advise purchasing a feature, which will compensate for their software’s shortcoming.

4. Security Issues

Since visualizing solutions manipulate some confidential data, the vendors draw special attention to security enhancement. Despite Tableau ’s deep concern for information safety, it fails to provide centralized data-level security. It just allows establishing a row-level security, which stipulates that every user has his/her own account. A great number of accounts increases the chances that the system may be hacked.

5. IT Assistance for Proper Use

Although the software allows for certain ease in its routine application, Tableau still requires significant involvement of an IT department in its further configuration and basic functionality expansion. Many operations require the creation of SQL queries, which is impossible without using the services of a skilled developer. Even though untrained business users may leverage the solution, they can not get the best out of it without the assistance of IT.

6. Poor BI Capabilities

As previously mentioned, the tool provides best-in-class information visual interpretation. However, it lacks functionality required for a full-fledged business intelligence tool, such as large-scale reporting, the building of data tables and static layouts.

Also, the solution has a limited capacity for result sharing. Its notification functionality is quite simple, and only an admin, not end-users, can configure scheduled email subscription. A piece of code in Python allows us to set robust trigger-based notifications, but the vendor does not support the option.

7. Poor Versioning

Only recent Tableau versions support revision history, while for the older ones, software rolling back is impossible.

8. Embedment Issues

Although the vendor claims that its tool can be easily embedded into any business IT landscape, in reality, the solution’s capabilities do not allow for a smooth embedment. Seamless Tableau’s integration into a company’s product is a real challenge from both the financial and technical points of view.

9. Time- and Resource-Intensive Staff Training

Basic use of the application does not demand hyper-focused knowledge in Tableau. However, the tool’s visualization potential is nearly unlimited, while the learning curve is incredibly steep for non-analyst users. Getting to know all of the tool’s capabilities without comprehensive employee training is nearly impossible. The learning part alone, on both the development and consumption side, may take weeks or months, before one can make the best use of the tool’s functionality and get an immense benefit from it. At the same time, it increases the cost of ownership significantly.

Think Through Before Deciding on Tableau

As in the case of any other software, there are certain advantages and disadvantages of Tableau. So, the first point is to perform the analysis of its pros and cons before purchasing the tool for personal or business use. The solution does its primary job, which is statistics visualization, admirably, and big players such as PepsiCo, Skyscanner and ExxonMobil have come onboard. However, its weak capability to handle analytical results in the way that many BI tools do prevents it from being the industry standard for many companies.