“Crossjoin’s Competence Center has grown over the years”
The European Commission has designated 2023 as the European Year of Skills. The goal is to promote lifelong learning and the development of important skills in the labor market. As an Architect & Academy Mentor at Crossjoin, and aware of the rapid changes in the market, how important will this year be for professionals, companies, and sectors?
The referred goal of the European Commission to promote lifelong learning reinforces what Crossjoin believes, that the challenge of training must be continuous in the information age in which we live.
Crossjoin has long been committed to the continuous learning of its employees, in order to ensure its growth and to provide our customers with the solutions that are best for their needs.
This need for continuous training arose naturally in Crossjoin, due to who we are and what we do. We are a company that optimizes the performance of information systems, operating in various sectors, such as telecommunications, health, automotive, insurance, among others, and in several countries, both in Europe and abroad. The adaptation and learning to new systems, platforms, work tools, multiple technologies, ways to communicate and better manage time and work is constant.
Our talents need to be constantly updated and up to date with market trends.
This year, the trend in IT continues to be disruptive technologies such as those associated with machine learning and blockchain, in addition to changes in the deployment model of information systems with the growth of “Software as a Service” and other cloud-based services. Based on this trend, Crossjoin invests, above all, in the training and development of its people.
Companies that do not yet share this mindset of constant adaptation and training will not be able to compete with other companies, where this awareness is already rooted and where they already put it into practice. There is a shortage of professionals in several areas and especially in the IT area, and as such it is necessary to develop new skills in professionals to be able to fill certain needs. The Z and Milliennials generations are generations where this adaptability is more normalized and where they themselves have sought constant learning, so it is necessary to support some companies to change the mindset by developing their people.
The aforementioned goal of promoting lifelong learning highlights that the challenge of training is continuous, in the information age in which we live, hence Crossjoin’s investment in the continuous learning and growth of its employees, in order to provide our customers with solutions that are the best fit for their needs.
Right is, long before 2023 was established as the European Year of Skills, Crossjoin was already walking hand in hand with the proposed goals for the coming months. As part of the company’s success, in what ways has the Competence Center been the key change in approaching multi-technological challenges?
Crossjoin’s Competence Center has grown over the years in its ability to provide, with its multidisciplinary team, best of breed solutions. In place of segregation by mission, the skills center allows for rapid scaling of effort when missions demand it, and facilitates the sharing of multi-technological and multi-project knowledge and experience. Additionally, it allows for nurturing and development of more junior staff, working side by side with more experienced team members. We believe that the Academy is also an essential factor in this approach, in that it trains the most recent arrivals at Crossjoin, equipping them with the tools, methodologies and working methods essential for their work in the Competence Center and, in the case of recent college graduates, in the world of work in general.
Currently, Crossjoin’s Competence Center has a strong connection with Universities and Institutes. Is it legitimate to say that this connection is aligned with the objective of the European Year of Skills to attract people with the necessary skills from other geographies, facilitating their mobility and the recognition of their qualifications? Why is this essential for Crossjoin?
Yes, it is aligned. Crossjoin has invested in recent years in Almada, which gives us a high reach in greater Lisbon and the district of Setúbal, and in Aveiro, with the creation of our Technological Centers. These centers aim to enhance the excellence of our Competence Center with the best working conditions, enable us to continue to grow our teams and allow greater proximity to Universities and Institutes.
Our teams are geographically dispersed; we have teams working in several countries, such as Chile, Canada, Belgium, and Portugal, working in person, remotely, and in hybrid form, which is why we are completely open to continue hiring from various geographies.
As for the recognition of their qualifications, it is one of our practices that regardless of geographic area, client, project, everyone follows the same career management practices. There is a career plan at Crossjoin transversal to all areas and there is an individual development plan, where each person knows how to progress and where the training needs indicated by him, or by his mentor, are specified. There are also definitions of expectations depending on the projects, as well as continuous feedback.
These practices are fundamental to Crossjoin, because we believe that personal and professional development, as well as continuous monitoring and the well-being of our talents is fundamental to their retention and engagement.
Furthermore, Crossjoin ensures that its purpose is to hire and build skills for the future in an area where there is a gap between market needs and graduates. What gap are we talking about?
The IT market continues to grow and there is a great need for qualified resources in all areas. Naturally, the most disruptive technologies, mentioned above, will receive special attention given the predictable growth in the need for qualified resources.
Besides the technological aspect, there is a big gap between recent college graduates and market needs, which is traditionally filled through years of experience. Our Academy aims to mentor recent graduates and masters, in order to more quickly give them the tools and enable them to fully integrate into the labor market.
According to the European Commission, in 2021, there were labour shortages in professions related to construction, healthcare, engineering and information technology. Two years later and, currently, with this focus on promoting increased, effective and inclusive investment in training and improving skills, do you think that, in Crossjoin, this shortage still exists? What needs to be improved?
While there is a need for manpower in the information technology market in which Crossjoin finds itself, training is not only a necessity, given the company’s continued growth, it is also an opportunity to enhance further growth.
This innovative mindset has also allowed Crossjoin to stay abreast of issues such as the ecological and digital transition. Do you see both of these as creating opportunities for people and the economy in the European Union? How has the company embraced these important fields for the European Year of Skills?
The continued shift of a large part of human activities to the digital world increasingly increases not only the size of the market, but also the relevance of our performance services, given the challenges of scalability of platforms and the increasingly important need for a latency-free user experience for an increasingly demanding world of technology users.
The green transition has not only been embraced from the point of view of internal practice (the company’s cars are electric and the Technology Park in Almada was built and decorated with sustainable materials, for example), but also raises interesting challenges from the point of view of IT at various levels, for example concern with the continuous growth of energy consumption of data centers around the world increases the global “carbon footprint” highlighting the need for optimization services, which often offer dramatic gains in energy consumption without loss of functionality.
The year 2023 will be, for everything mentioned here, dedicated to skills, training, people, innovation and sustainability. On this note, what plan has been drawn up for the coming months for Crossjoin?
Without going into too much detail I can say that Crossjoin has increased the number of employees by 50% in one year, and we don’t intend to stop there. However, we will as always ensure that growth is done in a sustainable way, hence our continued investment in ensuring that we are able to develop as many skills as possible, not only in the ongoing training of our Crossjoiners, but also by training newcomers in Crossjoin’s methodology, and in the necessary technological components, and inviting newcomers to help enrich and diversify our knowledge base.
Revista Pontos de Vista
by Beatriz Quintal
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