We recently caught up with members of the IT Concepts team: Pinakin Patel, CEO; Jon Hammond, Chief Innovation Officer; Tom Swerdzewski, Chief of Staff; and Brianne Brodeur, Chief Experience Officer. A recent Elev8 GovCon honoree, the team shared with us their insights on behavioral competencies, partnering with industry and government, coming from a place of knowing, leadership focused on inspiration, and innovation from within.
Growth Focused View of Culture
Experiencing significant growth over the past year, IT Concepts (ITC) has taken a deliberate and focused approach to developing and maintaining its culture to serve the company now and into the future. Starting as many companies do with a list of core values, the team quickly came to understand culture goes a lot deeper than words, stretches further than its own company walls.
“We’re driving a culture that touches the full lifecycle of our business, from our employee experience to our customer experience.”
Simple and Focused
In 2022, ITC invested in the Chief Experience Officer role and team. This team oversees and supports the continuous integration and alignment of enterprise and team processes, policies, and engagement. As part of that office, ITC recently implemented its High Touch Program, which focuses on understanding the customer and then building trust. “We teach everyone – from Contracts to Service Delivery – design thinking so they can have the critical conversations, to build understanding at a deeper level, grow trust in every relationship, and deliver success.”
On the internal side of culture, ITC pays attention to teambuilding activities, virtual and remote, and ensures there are programs for reward and recognition aligned to ITC’s growth mindset. They engage staff on a variety of social media platforms, and as well, launched the ITC-app – CECI (Collaborate | Engage | Connect | Inform) because they understand that staff work on customer-sites and cannot always get to the ITC communications via email. They are working hard every day to ensure they meet staff where they are today and where they want to be tomorrow.
“We focus on the whole employee and bring in programs like Boulder Crest’s Struggle Well. We support our employees outside of the workspace, to give them tools and techniques they can use throughout their lives in whatever they face.”
Total Experience
Moving from 110 employees to 300, ITC determined that culture really is a collection of moments and built by how they make employees and customers feel at the end of the day. “Our culture is a reflection of the experience we provide to our employees and customers. It’s a result of a thousand touchpoints together. Everything we do impacts our employees’ and customers’ perception and their decision to keep coming back or not — delivering exceptional experience is the key to our success.”
Leaning into the lessons shared in Edgar Papke’s True Alignment, ITC works to align the customer experience, employee experience, leadership, and strategy – starting with brand intention. As the company grows and sets its sites on future growth, this means looking ahead at where they want to be and ensuring every action supports that goal.
“Our brand and intention have not changed but how we go about it evolves as we grow. We may have moved from an in-person gathering to a virtual piano bar to reach our international staff, but we are staying true to who we are, simply adjusting the pattern for delivery.”
Driven to Inspire
This senior leadership team shares a common approach and understanding – that their job is not to manage but to inspire. “We understand ITC’s success is in ensuring our people succeed. No sheer force of will allows us to do it all ourselves. By hiring great people, ensuring they have the tools they need, and being here to guide, support, and set frameworks, they are able then to run and achieve their own success.”
Those great people may be diverse, may be focused on different things but all share a growth mindset that will allow them to grow and evolve as ITC does. “Passion is something we look for when we hire. That passion that says someone wants to learn and explore, is willing to grow, means they won’t become frustrated or find themselves locked into a role that we outgrow as we change as a company.”
Behavioral Competencies and Career Development
Beyond seeking specific behaviors in employees, leadership is also expected to have behavioral competencies, behaviors that exemplify core values and what it means to show up with them daily. Defined at a high level and relatable, these competencies drive a trickle-down effect. “We are always ideating on how we do this better, on how we continue to build great people.”
Alongside this a career development framework continued to evolve and improve. “We hold true that we are humans providing services to humans. This framework is tied back to our culture, brand, and focuses on how we help grow and measure our team.”
This place of career development also includes an internship which has seen many people stay on in a part-time capacity while finishing their education, cementing their skills, and ties to ITC.
A Place of Knowing
Underlying efforts to drive culture, to maintain connections with a growing team, and a growing client base, ITC leadership is focused on ensuring they maintain a level of knowing about each employee, their families, their histories, and interests. “It is hard to be part of culture unless you can see yourself in it so that means knowing the team, having them weigh in on interests and direction. We may set a framework in place but it is up to everyone to fill it in.”
The same place of knowing is true for customers. “We are continuously driving to deeper levels of understanding. We do our homework so that we walk in knowing who we are seeing, their objectives, and their challenges. Sometimes the conversation may be whiteboarding what their office should look like because they want to be proactive, other times it may be a technology discussion or planning for three years out. Whatever the conversation, ITC is prepared and ready to deliver.”
Innovation from Within
Driven by a desire to always bring it back to the people, the ITC Chief Innovation Office (CINO) hosts internal Pitch Days allowing employees to bring forward and then develop ideas. Ideas that have come out of these events are still used within the company today and many evolved to a next level of use.
“One of these pitches is now live in both the Apple and Google App Stores for ease of download, connecting ITC at every level with communications and other important ITC-level information – e.g., rewards, links to SharePoint, timekeeping apps, recording trainings, etc. Another is an internal chat bot with a semantic search feature for FAQs with in-depth answers.”
Partnering with Industry and Government
For ITC the most successful projects involve collaboration, with larger partners they can learn and grow from, and with smaller businesses where they can share experience and knowledge. “Where partners have aspirations to grow, we want to help. Why wouldn’t we share what we can? There is plenty of work for everyone to win and grow. From the customer view, we ensure what we undertake is a shared journey, making it a win-win for everyone.”
Noting that it takes time to know partners and customers, at the heart of it all is people. “It is never ITC working with company X but the people on each side working together. The personal relationship is key.”
Giving Back
ITC is driven by a triple mindset of community, company and individual. As the company has grown, that commitment has grown, extending to supporting individual team members and the organizations that mean something to them, and through an annual giving back campaign focused on where the greater team decides to give. “What matters to our people matters to us. We are fortunate as a company to have experienced growth and carry the responsibility to give back with us each day. Touching communities where our employees are, ensuring they know where we have contributed, and why, just makes good sense.”
The ITC team says it took a while to understand who they were, the kinds of work they wanted to engage in and go after, to hone the focus. From the time that was all understood, the work has been on maintaining and staying true to all of that, including the company’s values and culture.
About ITC
In 2003, IT Concepts was established with a simple yet important promise to “deliver technology concepts that work.”
We do what’s right for our customers, committing personally to your success, leveraging our agility and passion to deliver results. We put concepts into our name because delivering impact starts with a challenge, an idea, an intention, and a plan. With award-winning services and unflinching dedication to the country and customers, ITC is committed to teamwork, innovation, and collaboration. This collective energy has attracted and grown our diverse, talented, and dedicated team of technology experts who think big, embrace change, and focus on maximizing impact.
IT Concepts’ core values – customer-centricity, teamwork, driven to deliver, innovation, and integrity – ensure we work together to be the best, realize objectives, and make a positive impact in our communities. We intentionally created and sustain our ITC culture that embraces change, experimentation, continuous learning, and improvement. We bring our design thinking problem solving approach that challenges assumptions, prioritizes curiosity, and invites complexity to deliver innovative, efficient, and effective solutions.
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