Two years ago, our Business Development Manager Eeppi wrote a blog post about his first month at Taiste. How has his perspective changed since then?
It's always a challenge for companies to describe to outsiders how working there is really like. When I joined Taiste in 2019, I had the benefit of being introduced to the culture "the old way" since in pre-corona times, we mostly worked from the office. Back then, I wrote a blog post about my experience as a Taiste newbie.
But obviously in two years, the perspective deepens. In this post, I shed light on what Taiste is like by comparing the company's values with what I've seen in practice. Hopefully, this will also help you gain a better understanding and perhaps even single out a few things you might like (or dislike) when thinking of whether you should apply to work here.
Before moving further, a little info about what I've been doing at Taiste during these two years might be in order. My main focus has been business development. This includes developing our outbound and inbound sales strategies, taking part in sales meetings and preparing proposals and contracts. Additionally, I've been supporting projects involving HR and marketing development. I’ve also been facilitating the company’s strategy work from time-to-time and also have participated in some projects involving software development and design.
Thus, I've had the opportunity to see what working here is like from many different angles and through the various roles of my colleagues as I've worked alongside them.
Taiste's values are defined in Working With Taiste, released both digitally and as a physical book in 2020. They are: Independence, Purpose, Mastery and Quality. For the official more detailed definitions, it's a good idea to check out the book itself. Here however, I will go through how I feel they are visible in our everyday work.
In my experience, this is the most definitive one of all our values. As a professional, you will be given a lot of independence in terms of how to manage your work and time. However, that also means that one needs to be proactive in solving problems. Help is always available but I still think this aspect of working here might feel daunting to people with less experience or those who prefer to have more guidance. There's no hand-holding, you're the captain of your work life.
You will be given a lot of independence in terms of how to manage your work and time.
...is a tricky one. A sense of purpose is a very subjective experience. In practice, it means you'll always have a say in what projects you want to join – if it doesn't align well with your interests and values, it's better to have someone else working on it.
On a higher level, it's hard to define one unifying purpose for a digital agency that works for multiple industries that all struggle with very different problems. However, what’s very clear is that everyone here is committed to delivering high quality, regardless of what project they're working on.
To be honest, in my own business development role I sometimes struggle with this. In terms of purpose, it would be easier to be selling a specific solution to a distinct problem that would remain more or less the same. However, I do get the opportunity to help both startups and established companies with their product development challenges – and that fits my personal idea of purpose well.
Many companies claim to only hire top talent. At Taiste, it's not just marketing talk. Everyone here is really skilful at what they do. On that note, one thing we still need to improve is to offer clearer skill goals for our team members. We are currently looking into ways of making competence and career development better intertwined to our daily grind.
The care that everyone working here puts into their work is of extremely high quality. In my role, this means that all our proposals and client materials are extremely polished. The same holds true for everything our teams put out.
This dedication also has its flipside. Sometimes, it has resulted in being overtly critical of ourselves. As we are growing rapidly, we also need to make sure that the our work methods remain scalable in the future as well.
There's an old saying in the tech world: "culture eats strategy for breakfast." It's hard to describe what that really means until you see a culture-driven company in action. Personally, I believe Taiste is one of those companies: placing culture and values above endless PowerPoint decks that define processes for every little thing. And in my eyes, it's working.
In the end, what matters is truly trying to live according to one's ideals. That's something I appreciate in any organisation's character.
Naturally, there are always growing pains. And in Taiste's case, they are not related to forgetting the values, but rather to the changing demands within a growing company. In the end, what matters is truly trying to live according to one's ideals. That's something I appreciate in any organisation's character.
Hopefully, I've been able to honestly convey what Taiste is like as a workplace from the perspective of values. If this sounds like a place you'd enjoy working at, check out our open positions and send in your application!
