Happy People Produce Quality

Filip Gydé, Senior Vice President at CTG Europe (Now President and CEO!) and a loyal CTG employee for almost (now more than!) 30 years, explains the ultimate lesson he has learned.

This year I will be celebrating my 30^th anniversary as a CTG employee. The most essential lesson I’ve learned throughout my career is that you not only need “vision” and “execution”, but you also need to integrate both and persevere. To have a vision without executing it is just empty words and images, and doesn’t lead to results. Likewise, to focus on execution without having a vision is like running very hard without knowing where you want to go. Integrating vision and execution means both need to be present in everything you do over many years, decades sometimes. It is hard work, every day. I’d like to share with you the best example of this lesson that I’ve come across in my 30 years at CTG.

Our HR vision at CTG has always been, and remains, “Happy People Produce Quality.” This theme has guided our business for decades. “Happy” means that we truly value and focus on our colleagues’ well-being in their jobs. “People” is obvious: in our IT services market, people will always have the leading role. “Produce” explains that this is not a “happy-farm”—we need to produce results every day. Finally, “Quality” is the main reason we win new clients and have many long-standing client relationships. We are thoroughly convinced that people who feel good about themselves in their jobs deliver exceptional results—and our success over the last 50 years demonstrates just that.

This vision was just the beginning. The execution is the real journey and is truly never over. It started with growing a company culture and core values that align with this vision. We translated these into our structure by creating the Competency Developer role to provide personal career coaching and training. We also assimilated these values into our systems, like our recruitment process, employee satisfaction program, and reward systems. And, of course, they are integrated into our sales and delivery processes, taking into account which people fit best on which projects and for which clients, and ensuring the support they will need is provided.

Because this vision is so deeply rooted at CTG, and the execution of this vision is literally everywhere, it has only become stronger over the years. It’s broadly and enthusiastically supported by employees at all levels throughout the company and welcomed by long-standing and new clients. It has become a main reason for new hires to join CTG and, because of that, with each new hire, the execution of our vision grows stronger. This kind of authenticity cannot be feigned.

Happy people produce quality…it’s in our genes.