The Humans Inside

Hiring system

In most traditional MBA style companies, you will find the regular HR manager sitting with you after checking your CV, asking about your experiences, measuring your technicality and knowing the expected salary you might be thinking of.

They will also ask typical questions like “how do you see yourself in five years” or other similar questions, after some time you might get a phone call or mail with your interview results, whether accepted or rejected.

Then you get your desk, a typical orientation program, settle down with a queue of tasks and deadlines to meet. voila you got a job! But this is not how we do it in Baianat.

Humans are the most important thing we have inside as they are our culture pillars. We could have followed the traditional hiring way but we don’t want “employees” we want “ family members” who would understand our culture and share with us the same beliefs and ideas.

Hiring another employee doesn’t require much than technicality, but hiring a family member requires further character and values investigation. While going through our interviews, we look for culture fits.

Our interviews are more like conversations or small chats, we don’t even look at your CV or ask you for any technicality. And we admire those who want to learn.

You are free to ask about anything that pumps up in your mind and we might ask you a few questions about your passion or your field of interest. Why did you choose it? How many books you’ve read in this field? And what shaped your knowledge? Was it all about practical experiences or you have put some effort reading, researching and learning more about it? And if you’re just a starter, we will love to know more about your “whys” of entering this career, and why specifically now not 2 years ago?

Through these questions we get to know each other better. You will know about our working hours, values and what we do, and we get to know you as a human being.

After we have this conversation, you can go to your desk, turn on your PC and start your trial period. During the first week people start forming impressions about the place and the work atmosphere, and either they find themselves and immerse with the group or find it something totally different than what they expected it to be.

In this case the choice is theirs, whether to shape up and embrace the place’s culture or simply leave the spot for someone else. There were many cases when applicants fell in love with Baianat culture, yet they couldn’t stay for the long term and chose to learn and leave.

Hire less, hire later

If you want to get something done, don’t hire people. Look for another way, you don’t need as many people as you think. If there’s no other way, then consider a hire. But you should know exactly who to get and what pains you expect them to relieve.

You should also consider the hassle that is going to happen within your teams, the disagreements, the adaptation to culture and the wasted time new hires might bring in. So hiring new people is always a strategic decision that requires certain procedures.

Hire people with multiple talents who can wear different hats. Create teams not silos.

It’s different to review a resume than to actually work with someone.

Team diversity

When a new project enters through our sales door, the first thing we do is check all the available individuals in all production lines and allocate the team responsible for the project.

Based on the project requirements we gather different people from different backgrounds and insights for a collaborative meeting as the kick start. The diversity of opinions, experiences and points of view is an essential element to a successful solution process.

Although sometimes it’s hard to handle all the different arguments arising because each group of people pulling the project to their side and looking at it from their perspective, but there is one thing that we all agree on. In order for a project to find massive success, it has to meet the end customer’s needs, not what the developers or design team finds suitable.

The only division that has a say, is mainly the business unit because who wants to make an application who gets no downloads and flat revenue stream!

When selecting teams we don’t only look for availability but also for qualifications and different mindsets, so before we proceed into any project design, branding, or development, we find it our responsibility to check the project business model and its sustainability over time.

For a project that is not durable, we always send back recommendation and offer our help in the brand architecture, starting with name changing and up to web services and brand identity.

Solutions are the team

Projects shouldn’t be a chore. Your passion or the lack of it will shine through. Keep it simple and manageable so you can actually enjoy the process. If your app doesn’t excite you, something’s wrong, and if you work for cash, it will come through the final product.

People can read between the lines, so if the team, working on one of our projects for clients or internal ones, is not in the mood and diving deep into the details, we encourage them to speak up as they will definitely not nail a project they are doing as part of their job description or because it has to be done.

If things are not going to be cooked with love they will taste bland for both us and our customers. Your teams need to work with tools they love.

Choose the fuse that gets people excited. You will generate excitement and motivation and a better product as a result.

Firing sucks

During hard times most companies do layoffs. Whether based on percentage of employees or performance reviews, and honestly, we hate that.

And this is why we have a different thought that doesn’t actually match very much with business concepts. But it does perfectly match with every human aspect we know. Once anyone joins our family, it’s a very sad event to see them leaving. And mostly, it’s their decision.

As we said, our culture is strong enough to face any poor behaviors. And it's the only reason for us to let anyone go away.

Time Culture: You reap what you saw

For someone to join Harvard he has to study for a certain amount of hours per day. Less time might cause them to fail their goal. And this is our perspective of seeing things.

Time is the most critical thing in Baianat. It is the most valuable currency in our dictionary. We believe that if people had to pay to get time they would have appreciated it more.

And for us, the time spent learning or doing something we love is a not a wasted time. We start our day at 10:00 am and end it 7:00 pm. We know that we are sacrificing a lot of things but we have made our choices already to build something great and remarkable. We’ve decided not to be ordinary however the cost of that is.

It’s all about believing and those who paid attention to time are the ones who managed to learn faster and better. It’s plain math for us:

You + 10 hours of learning ≠ You + 3 hours of learning.

Continuous learning

Being in a free work environment has guarantees. We don’t restrict your working hours as long as you focus for 8 hours per day and pay attention to your learning curve. It doesn’t matter how senior you are, there are always many updates and techniques to learn.

Most importantly, there are other fields to know about as well. In Baianat, we have our own version of knowledge workers. You get top master your career but also have snippets of what other teams do.

You will be on stage

This is what we tell everyone inside Baianat, “get ready for being on stage” from day one, as we hold and speak in many conferences and events, and hate one man shows.

Everything we learn should be taught. And this concept is the guarantee for us to keep learning and updating our knowledge base. It also motivates us to practice presenting our ideas and encourages a better brand understanding as we can’t talk about a brand without fully understanding it.

This practice also raise up the self-esteem of our players and promoted the spirit of further research. On stage, you can’t be surprised by a question or idiom you don’t know so players are always required to know their fields very well.

Succession planning

If someone can’t take a vacation for a week without troubles happening, then there is something wrong about the way the business is being managed.

That’s why in Baianat we encourage everyone to know about other people's work. This is how we can guarantee a well-natural form of succession planning. And since day one, as we consider that each member will stay forever with our family.

Baianaters Profile

We have a certain profile that differentiates us from any other company. The team players inside Baianat are passionate about what they do. They can’t resist thinking about the ongoing projects and the future shapes of their careers.

They link all the threads and everything they read to their field and try desperately to grasp all the information. The more they dive deep the more they realize how much on the surface they’re.

They are aware that it takes ages to master a career perfectly and ready to sacrifice and fight for the sake of doing this. They love what they do and put their souls into it.

They are master chefs because they are good people. They never seek money, fame or credit. They want the overall success of the project and the benefit to the end users.

They know that their values might be questioned, underestimated or accused to be an act of heresy, but they appreciate it anyways. They seek learning and believe that with each book, blog post, new experience or adventure they are adding something new to the puzzle of their character and personality. They care about humans and less about money, prestige and authority.

Baianaters are active creatures. You can find them running all over the place, making noise and creative mess. They question everything until they find the truth. They are not average and never surrender to half-solutions.

Deadlines

Everyone is here to do the thing they loves the most in life. Whether it’s strategizing campaigns, thinking of branding or even programming the next hit app, people take responsibility of what they do.

And since we don’t have leaders, you’re the project manager and the last person responsible for its success. If you really love what you do and exerting effort for the sake of producing something of high quality, it doesn't require having a deadline to motivate you.

Because if you can finish sooner than the agreed upon date, you will surely will. Not because of the client favor only, but also because you’re too excited about your project to be shipped and iterated again.

And surely you won’t hurry the process if it takes longer than the agreed upon time as perfection flows into their blood and flesh. Setting deadlines can hinder a man’s ability as well. Not having a deadline has the guarantee that people are doing their best to meet the target.

Everyone should interview

We believe that interviewing is a skill everyone should master, and while interviewing in the MBA style organization is only limited to the higher level of management, we believe that our interviews are done by all the members of our team.

As the for the first week, the new member stays and works close to the rest of the team. They get to spend time together and chat about different topics.

It’s not like we’re secretly assessing this person, but more like opening up to and showing every part of our culture. And as we have no formal interviews that require that much technicality, these interviews are more like “conversations” through which every team member passes a part of his knowledge and experience.

Last man standing (Filtration)

We have been running lots of interviews each year, many young people are encouraged to apply and learn but in the middle of the process they lose contact. This is when we know that this person’s passion wasn’t high enough.

We don’t have any measurements for filtration and we don’t actually select people based on anything but for their desire to learn, their passion to the field and their time and language. No technicality or years of experience with 10 endorsement letters. we don’t buy this.

We care more for the human characteristics than the well-refined CV made online with CV-builder that states how you can work under stress. We simply try it ourselves.

When applying for any opportunity in Baianat, by sharing the same values you’ve already passed half the process. Then comes the hardest part. Consistency. We didn't mean to initiate this and it was made spontaneously while we were developing an interview system.

Once we are done with the interview, the candidate is given the options to start directly learning their path or to leave and start learning from home. After a day or two we reconnect with them to see their progress and offer them to come spend some time with us.

Some candidates even suggest that before we do, and honestly we consider this as a favorable sign of enthusiasm. Some of them are already giving up as they didn’t find the field suitable or meeting their expectations. Others hate studying or taking this long path of learning before having a career.

And only a few gets the Bingo and understands what they’re about to get into and love it, although some of those sometimes also leave, but those who stay are a perfect fit for our culture. Which is exactly we are looking for.

Partners not clients

In our culture, we don’t have clients who are waiting to receive the agreed upon work and fly away, we have partners with ambitions and business goals that they aspire to achieve as much as we do, not people who are working for the sake of money or profits or day to day activities.

We love working with people who have visions. Those who can see the future of their business and are ready to take risks. Those who understand the meaning of a true partnership and collaboration not just a deal or a contract. Those who want to be different than the market and swim against the flow.

Partners that we can learn from and make us challenge ourselves and upgrade our skills to better collaborate. We look for those souls that match our souls.Those who want to walk the authentic way with us. Partners caring more adding value to the community than producing shallow products.

Tell the truth or we will tell it for you

In business world, companies try to look good in front of investors, clients and the public. They want to be always polished, prospirit and clean of mistakes. They do charity work and donate hours of their employees time to do good just for the sake of saying that ”we do CSR”. And use mantras like “ we provide the best customer service “ while they would leave you on the phone for hours before someone finally picks up.

At this point comes the real issue, for the sake of looking good, some companies turn into frauds and pretenders. Enron - the company that went bankrupt and caused an economic problem in US - had a list of values that clearly didn’t mean anything to them. Like “ INTEGRITY: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, we won't do it.”

In Baianat we do exactly the opposite thing. We don’t want to look so good, we just want to be humans. We look for criticism and mistakes in our work. We might even tell our partners that their part wasn’t manufactured perfectly and we need to redesign the whole thing.

We don’t care that much about how we look, as long as we are honest with ourselves and working for the best interests of our clients. It doesn’t matter what kind of consequences will happen.

Even if this means losing a valuable partner or going bankrupt because in creative technology field, you can’t hide anything. And most importantly, we see that our members deserve to tell the truth. And it’s also part of our transparent culture and open door policy as we don’t have anything happening internally that should be hidden from our partners.

And this is what we tell people inside “ If someone ever asked you to lie to the client, go and tell the client the truth or someone will do it for you”.

Know the wants, craft the needs

We approach new projects with great enthusiasm, especially if it’s in a new field that we didn’t experience before because we know that we will certainly learn something new during the process.

When working with new partners, we love listening to their ideas first. How they imagine their business? What makes them unique and how they plan to run their operations starting now and for the upcoming years?

We grasp all their ambitions and hopes and listen carefully to all their needs, and pay more attention to the small details they insist on. We gather all these information and consider their project ours. We give them our recommendations and how we envision them after many years. We encourage them to dream further and go beyond what they already have.

Then we start working on a solution that is not what they want, but what they actually need. We don’t just provide the clients with what they want because sometimes it’s not the best solution for them. They are not always aware of what's the best thing for their business and we perceive this as our responsibility, we think it’s an unethical thing to give them something they don’t need just because they asked for it.