1. COMPANY
   

TALENTED  (https://talented.fi/en/ )

2. SEMINAR’s focus

What will the future of work look like? We want you to create a service for individuals working in the IT field. The session is for our future experts in the IT world – no matter what is your background. We want your thoughts and ideas to enrich the picture of the working life in the future. What will peoples’ careers look like? There will be all kind of possibilities in the constantly evolving field of IT now that remote and hybrid work has become a norm.

3. DESCRIPTION

Talented’s purpose is to improve work life by being a bold worklife pioneer and the only player in the IT business who understands both – people and technology. In our vision experts in the field are happy in their work, and therefore companies thrive in their businesses. Thus our philosophy is happy talents make businesses thrive. We help businesses to recruit the people they need and talents to find employment opportunities they desire. Talented was founded 2016 and has been growing steadily since. Today Talented is part of Witted Group which employs over 300 IT professionals.
Talented Growth’s mission is to help our clients grow by being better IT-employers. We’ll support job seekers by finding them happy jobs!

To know more about Talented listen to their podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/0Bbakx1HA8lak63khYsRDW

4. CHALLENGE

Skilled Computer Scientists and Engineer professionals are a valuable asset worldwide across industries. Currently,  there is a high demand for these skills in the marketplace. The high demand of professional ICT skills sounds as a positive situation for those holding these skills. However it also brings some challenges, e.g. high rotating personnel across companies can be costly, sustainability and scalability of products can be affected, it consumes time and energy, can create resentfulness in some individuals, requires constant training investments and some companies might not be able to cope with high rotations in key areas.  On the other hand, we argue that rotation in a workplace offers the possibility to avoid boredom, encourages development and one can identify where one fits best. There are many aspects relevant to  today’s  workplace, which affect experts working in the IT field beyond rotation of personnel or salary, such as meaningful goals, authentic tasks, flexibility of work (from remote working, to amount of hours), etc.

Universities prepare their curriculum focusing on transmitting to students the foundation of knowledge and skills needed for the marketplace. However in the complex and fast changing world we live in, it is also important to open a dialogue to reflect what is required in the workplace to support professionals working in new technologies. Future experts need to constantly be learning novel skills, solving challenges, often working in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams, understanding customers, developing artifacts, while also looking for a balanced life.

If you are a future expert who wants to work in the IT field and, simultaneously, ponder about what kind of services would you need to support your growth in the workplace, this seminar is for you. You can decide to be an entrepreneur or an employee or both. Whatever is the path you decide to take, a relevant question to make is: what services are needed for you when joining a workplace, and when advancing in your career?. It is relevant that you explore and reflect upon what will enable you to keep growing as a professional in your field, support your community and, in this case,  support Finland to grow. In this session we will discuss diverse aspects that you need in your work-environment, which might not be related to learning new algorithms, but are directly linked to support you to have the proper space and environment to enable you to contribute with your expertise in a workplace.

The main question we will address in this seminar session is: How do you visualize your workplace in the IT field in 5 years?  In 10 years?   To answer these questions we need to reflect upon a multidimensional array of possibilities that we have as an entrepreneur or an employee, from the perspective of a fresh graduate to a senior professional, from working remotely to needing a workplace, from being in a company that focuses only on IT development to being in a company that has an IT department. What would you like the companies to offer you? and what would be your commitment with the companies?, etc.

5. DAY and SCHEDULE

Friday 25 of March from 11:00 hrs to 16:00 hrs.

Agenda
11:00 – 12:00   Lunch offered by Talented and visit to their facilities
12:00 – 12:30   Presentation
12:30 – 15:00   Team work
15:00 – 16:00   Presentation and close up

6. LOCATION

The session takes place at Talented facilities
Address
Linnankatu 13 A-B 33, 7th floor.
20100 Turku

7. ENROLLMENT

Please fill the following form for your enrollment to this session: https://link.webropol.com/ep/talented22

Enrollment closes on Wednesday 23 of March at 20:00 hrs.

8. PRE-ASSIGNMENT DUE

There are multiple options on how someone in the IT field can contribute to the workforce. Sometimes, due to the multiple possibilities we have it is not easy to find a path, this might be connected with the Paradox of Choice explained by Barry Schwartz.

In this seminar session we will build a concept of our future workplace. We have the option to express how we think the work related to IT field should be offered. The task, is not trivial, and simultaneously relevant for each one of us. To prepare ourselves for the session let’s do the following pre-assignment.  The report of the pre-assignment should be submitted by 24.3.2022 and it consists of three tasks to help you to prepare for the session.

TASK 1.

1. Decide your role
To help you to think in the workplace of tomorrow start by defining if you want to be an entrepreneur or an employee in the field of IT. Of course in real life you can change that role at any time. However, for this pre-assignment to decide a particular role will help you in the follow up reflection.

2. List of workplace requirements (define each item and explain why the item is important)
Once you have decided if you want to be an employee or an entrepreneur in the field of IT, the next  step is to think what is important for you in the working life? What do you want to get out of your work? List all of the aspects you think should be considered by a future employee or entrepreneur in the field of IT.  To detect what aspects will affect your work life  make a personal list, define each time in your list and explain why that aspect is important. Examples of items that can be in your list:

• Social and human experience in the workplace, connectivity with others….
• Values
• Freedom, trust, ethics,…
• Administrative, organization structure,…
• Technologies utilized in the workplace, …
• Benefits, salary, retirement savings, investments, taxes support, …
• Work location, remote work, hybrid possibilities, …
• Sustainability and social impact of the company, type of work,…
• Money / compensation
• Continued learning possibilities in the subject matter you want to work, e.g. VR, metaverse data processing, audio codecs, video data, 5G, open source, additive manufacturing , cyber-physical, beyond industry 4, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, safety and security, blockchain, e-health, NFT, digital twins…
• Other….

Define each item of your list specifying what does it mean to you and what aspects are included in the particular list item.

Once you have defined each item on your list, write how these items play a part in your work in the future.

Task 2. 

From the list you sketched in Task 1 select three items for further reflection. For each one of the items you selected from your list for further reflection, explore what conversations are linked to them either through research papers or industry conversations (e.g. industry blogs, white papers, etc.). Write down your findings from this research and include the relevant references.

Task 3.

Finally after task 1 and 2, write a brief text about your visions on the ideal future work in the IT field for you. Include in this text what you perceive is missing, what is needed to be done and what are the opportunities that you foresee.

Report:

Write the outcomes of the three tasks in a file, preferably a PDF file, and submit your report to Carolina Islas caisse [@] utu.fi  with the subject line:  TALENTED pre-assignment.

Your file name should be:  TALENTED_pre-assignment_YOUR-NAME