Naris vs. Willem Lefferts: a quarantine success!

The battle to connect and preserve talent in Twente has been given a new challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic. We are currently living in a very uncertain time. Many companies have therefore become hesitant about taking on new (young) IT-talents. However, the surplus of IT vacancies is still a cause for concern. In this article we show how students can be helped, especially now that many are falling behind due to closed schools. Let us take a look at how Naris (a consultancy firm for risk management) in Enschede, is tackling the problem. They recently took action by bringing in a new IT-talent.

“Tuesday the IMF announced that the Netherlands could suffer one of the heaviest economic blows. One of ING’s chief economists said that our country will certainly be hit hard, but how long it will take depends on the resilience of our economy”. Says Teamlead IT and Development Dennis van den Ende. He anticipates on the next steps. “As soon as we can fight COVID-19 and the situation returns to normal, we want to be ready to assist our customers swiftly and professionally. Even if our customers are reluctant to place new orders, we will continue the preparations.”

“So the work continues as usual. Partly for this reason, we have decided to continue looking for new staff.”

Naris had switched to working from home before the government’s call, in order to protect her staff. An inventory list was set up so that colleagues could take home supplies. “It is important that everyone is provided with a good office chair or an extra monitor.” They have also made an attendance list for in the office, so they know exactly how many colleagues are in the office and for what reason. “Some servers, for example, can only be accessed from the office building. Or because the alarm has to be tested as a result of an ISO 27001 security standard. So the work continues as usual. Partly for this reason, we have decided to continue looking for new staff.”

And so, Naris hired several new colleagues during the Corona pandemic. Including an IT student from TalentIT who started a part-time job. After the introduction, he was able to start immediately. “One of our core values is commitment, but of course that goes both ways. That is why we find a short personal familiarisation period important. It takes about three days for a new employee to get used to the job. We were able to do that at the office. This includes explaining programs, installing the necessary applications, setting up e-mail and, of course, Microsoft Teams. It is easy to do this with a proper distance and common sense. Especially since there is no one else in the office, you have enough space left and from the fourth day you can switch to working together with Teams”.

“I am very happy that TalentIT was able to match me for a part-time job at Naris.”

IT-talent Willem Lefferts is happy with his new challenge: “I am now working in the development team of Naris. Where I write a number of tests for their program in NodeJS for Citra. I still have little knowledge and experience in NodeJS, therefore this is a nice challenge for me. Having experience is very important as a Software Engineer, that’s why I really like the fact that TalentIT has helped me find a job that perfectly matches my needs. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, I was helped quickly and purposefully. The communication was very clear, so I was able to get started within a few days”.

Do you want to help retain IT talent? Click here or contact us through e-mail: info@talentittwente.nl.