COMPANY CULTURE IMPACTS SUCCESS
By Anna Guy
Even with counting Apple, Disney, and Tesla as customers, GSOFT’s says its greatest achievement is its company culture.
On April 12, 2017, hundreds of people gathered in Montreal at the first CultureFest event. Dubbed as the first event in Quebec dedicated 100 per cent to workplace culture—the improvement of—attendants were treated to guest speaker on topics such as Liberating your Organization and A Culture Centered Around Employee Happiness. The event was symbolic of the shift in workplace culture from being seen as a 40-hour-a-week obligation, to an integration of work, social life, causes and values.
One of the key figures behind the event is Simon De Baene. At 31 years old, De Baene is the leader behind the Quebec-based software development company GSOFT. Known for its tailor-made software, and vastly successful products Sharegate and Officevibe (more on both of those later), De Baene—along with cofounders Guillaume Roy and Sebastien Leduc—sees GSOFS’s company culture is its biggest accomplishment. Considering the company counts Tesla, Apple, and Disney amongst its thousands of customers in almost 100 countries, that is saying something.
“Our goal for CultureFest was to celebrate company culture because we believe it’s the key to a happy lifestyle,” says De Baene. “We want to shake up entrepreneurs, the managers, company owners, to wake up and understand that when you put human, you get amazing results,” says De Baene. “It is economically really good, but also socially the right thing to do to create stronger society and happier human beings.”
Officevibe
Who better than a software company to try to start the revolution. GSOFT’s team of over 200 employees created Officevibe, and employment engagement platform that “enables organizations to improve their work environment for the benefit of both managers and employees.”
At the core of Officevibe is an office-wide survey (only five questions at a time) that is sent out weekly to gage the sentiment at work. Employees can answer with the security of anonymity, so managers can have a real-time snapshot of employee morale at any given time. This information can go a long way to improving group and team dynamics, and, ultimately, workplace productivity.
“Officevibe provides real time dashboard to managers about things like happiness, relationship with managers, recognition, etc.,” says De Baene. The platform then provides tips on areas where there can be improvement. And that really speaks to the core of the product: improving the workplace. It encourages everyone from the newest team member to the company owner to strive for improvement, because the status quo could mean the death of a dream.
“This is a big thing for us because our mission is to have a positive impact on people’s lives at work,” says De Baene. “We want to influence the workforce to change their vision. Too many people don’t like their job, and we think that’s a big problem in the world that we are trying to help—and we feel like it’s the only way to build successful organizations in 2017.”
De Baene—himself a company owner—is not naïve to the fact that at any time, team members need only go a quick Google search to find more appealing jobs and work environments if they are not satisfied in the one they have. Listening and responding to the team’s and individuals is a great way to keep employee retention high.
Sharegate
From a microcosmic view of the workplace to the macro, GSOFT’s Sharegate software is used by thousands of IT professionals worldwide to manage, migrate and secure their SharePoint & Office 365 environments.
Put simply, Sharegate is a tool to help organizations access the cloud, which ultimately means huge savings of time and cost. People can create files and collaborate without limitation because Sharegate takes data, sites, workflows, everything, reorganizes and moves it all to the cloud. As one client puts it, “Sharegate absolutely makes us more competitive. It’s an outstanding tool to have when discussing migration with a client.”
GSOFT is making waves—and it’s all starting in Quebec. “We want to influence other companies to join the movement,” says De Baene. “First, we are looking for Quebec, then the rest of the world.”
