IQ Interview: Chris Carder, President of ThinData Inc.
By Bruce Powell
In building ThinData into one of Canada’s leading e-marketing solutions providers, Chris Carder never abandoned his core values of integrity and putting people first. When asked if he would meet with a down on his luck friend-of-a-friend looking for work, he not only agreed, he went out of his way to help that person network into a dream job. A year later that person played a key role in helping ThinData land the marquee client that jumpstarted their climb to the top of the Canadian marketplace, and helped lead to their eventual acquisition by $2.4 billion Canadian marketing and communications giant Transcontinental Inc.
We sat down with Chris to learn how ThinData hires and retains top talent that share these same values.
Questions:
IQ: Does ThinData have a unique people strategy?
TD: ThinData definitely has a unique people strategy, and it guides the way we treat our employees each and every day. Our belief is that you can put your people ahead of money and still be winners. Essentially it means you don’t have to make financial decisions more important than people decisions in order to succeed.
When we were looking at potential partners for our acquisition, one of the requirements was that none of our employees could lose their job as a result of the acquisition. If the parent company was going to eliminate any positions or people, then they were automatically ruled out, no matter how junior or senior the person losing their job was. We felt like we wouldn’t be able to celebrate that milestone if we knew it was to the detriment of one of our own. In the end we chose Transcontinental because they shared our same values and allowed us to mantain our personal culture while at the same time providing all of the benefits of partnering with a large, multi-billion dollar company.
We believe in maintaining an extremely high level of integrity in our company. We take pride in ‘doing the right thing’ when it comes to business decisions – after all, core values are what a company lives everyday, not what’s written in employee handbooks. Each and every person at ThinData believes in the fundamental goodness of our story and helps live out the inherent values in it every day.
IQ: Can you describe ThinData’s Hiring Process in a little more detail?
TD: Well early on, I was involved in every hire the company made, but as we’ve grown, I’m only involved in the hiring of more senior people – Director and VP-level positions. The reason I can do that is I trust, and more importantly KNOW, the people doing the hiring ‘get it’. They truly understand what our company is about and the type of person that will succeed here.
As far as process goes, we don’t do anything too different. We use multiple rounds of interviews to ensure we get a good consensus on a candidate. If the people interviewing are ever unsure, I’ll always suggest they ask a candidate back in to sit down with two or three people on our team who have no formal interview skills and just ‘hang out’. This informal setting can reveal a lot about a person, especially if they’ll be a good ‘fit’ for us. We always have a shortlist of candidates who are technically qualified, but we let cultural fit be the deciding factor.
One of the really important parts of our hiring process actually takes place after the chosen candidates have been hired. I take the new hires out for lunch where we get to know each other a little better and I share the ThinData story and the values that have gotten the company to where it is today. I feel like our story is a really good one, and is a great example of how focusing on being a good person both in your professional and personal life, will lead to success. It lets our employees know we chose them because they’re talented people, but also because they’re good people who have integrity – and that they’re now a part of the ThinData story themselves. This really makes people want to do everything they can to live up to the standards we have in place.
IQ: How do you keep such a high level of retention among employees?
TD: I think it really goes back to treating each and every person with respect and placing our employees above financial business decisions. We treat all our employees as if none of them NEEDED the job, and they could all make more money somewhere else tomorrow morning if they wanted to. If someone does a great job on a project, I take the time to write them a personal note recognizing their work and thanking them for their continued dedication.
As an example, when we moved offices we maintained 100% retention. To do this, we started by drafting a survey to see what things mattered most to our people as far as office location. We then compiled a top ten list of office location ‘wants’, and had the move committee present options that offered all of them. If a location didn’t include all items in our top 10 - things that are obviously important to our employees, then that option was out. This approach works because you’re giving people the things they want, but you’re also showing them that their input and the things important to them matter to you.
One thing I’ve noticed is many times people leaving isn’t as much a retention problem as it is a ‘winning’ problem. People want to work for successful organizations, and be involved with a company they’re proud of – a company who does great things and is a leader in their field. We work hard at being a great company, and the result of us finding our stride and succeeding has been much better retention.
IQ: How do you attract top talent to your company?
TD: I think we’ve done a good job of creating an employment brand that truly represents the people in our company and what we stand for. That’s probably the best way to find people that will be the best ‘fit’ for your organization - create a reputation and clarity around what you stand for so it draws the right people to you.
As mentioned, we tell our story to all new employees, but we also tell it to people outside the company as well. We’ve found it really resonates with people, and does a great job of communicating what we’re all about in a very non self-serving way.
Our values also play a big part is helping us attract great people. By letting your values guide your actions and being genuinely good people, things tend to work out in a serendipitous way. A while back we were looking for a person with a very specific technical background – there might have been five people total with that background in the city. We managed to land the candidate because his wife saw that I had done work for the White Ribbon campaign – a cause she was passionate about and something that made her confident that we were the right company for her husband.
IQ: How have you built the strong employment brand you have today?
TD: Our employment brand has been built quite naturally – it’s really the result of going about business with a sense of integrity and sticking to our values. The message about our company has spread by way of our employees passing it along voluntarily. When you do good things or things that most other companies don’t or won’t do, people like to share that and tell others. Kind of like the ‘winning’ thing with retention – people want to be proud of where they work, and if they are, they usually tell others about it.
Our employees also do a great job of passing our values along to new employees as well. Back when we were smaller, I gave a small speech to the company and mentioned specifically that even how you treat visitors in the lobby says a great deal about your company. I’ve never repeated that speech since, yet we’ve grown to many times the size and every employee here today understands the importance of little things like that. Today, people still constantly mention how friendly and welcoming people are when they’re waiting in the lobby here – that’s a result of that small group of twelve people spreading and instilling that value in the newer people.
ThinData’s Top 3 Tips for Hiring and Retaining Top Talent:
- Value Alignment - Find your defining cultural element and make it more important than someone's resume. Great cultural fit should be more important than an extra year of experience.
- Clarify who you are and what you stand for so it draws the right type of people to you - you can't expect top talent to understand your employemtn brand if you don't yourself.
- Make your 'people' decisions the top priority and it will always be more than about just money for your employees.
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Bruce Powell, Managing Partner, established IQ PARTNERS as a leading recruitment firm to help entrepreneurial companies hire beter, hire less, and retain more.
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