It was bit of tradition. Once month the entire Navman crew would get together in the staff canteen for rundown on company activities and goals. These days it happens once quarter and the company has to hire North Harbour football stadium to fit everyone in.
It’s one of the challenges of growth. How do you ensure that the weight of success doesn’t crush the kind of culture that inspired and contributed to it? Not bad problem to have, maybe, but it’s one that Navman’s executive team consciously work at.
“We make real effort to hang onto the things that have been part of our culture because that’s who we are – it’s part of our makeup,” says the company’s chief operating officer Jim Doyle.
Navman’s success story is pretty well documented in New Zealand. An electronics company set up in 1988 to specialise in marine-based navigation systems, it has become recognised world leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of GPS-based products.
These now extend from sea and land-based systems to sports and personal health applications. Applying high-tech solutions to mass markets helped spur its rapid growth.
Doyle joined the then 10-year-old company as general manager in 1998 and has been running to keep up ever since. Over the past eight years, staff numbers have grown from around 40-50 to 750 globally (more than 600 in Auckland) and $3.5 million annual turnover has burgeoned to healthy $400 million.
Acquisition by the US-based Brunswick Corporation last year has provided greater global reach and more growth impetus. Operationally, it’s been big stretch and there’s no sign of slowdown.
In March this year the company officially opened $4 million worth of newly expanded site at Auckland’s Northcote. But already it’s bulging at the seams.
“I can remember coming over to look at this space four years ago – and at that stage we were sharing the building with another company,” notes Doyle. “So I was looking at half of it and thinking, this is huge, we’ll never fill it.”
Now they’re spreading out back into the neighbouring building that was their original site.
“We might eventually turn this into Navman Street. Navman suburb,” Doyle muses.
The people challenge
That rate of expansion inevitably creates challenges. One of the biggest, says Doyle, is putting the right people in the right places. Finding them is far from doddle.
In talent-scarce market where unemployment has dropped to historic lows (the past year has seen New Zealand top OECD unemployment ratings), Navman has had to work smart to secure the talent it needs.
“The reality is that New Zealand doesn’t have enough of the people we’re looking for, hence the need to become more versatile in our recruitment,” says human resources manager Christine Canfield.
The first person to fill that role in the company, Canfield arrived three years ago when staff numbers had already swelled to 180. Since then, they’ve quadrupled and the company is pulling skills in from around the world.
Being an accredited employer with the immigration service has helped extend Navman’s talent pool offshore, says Canfield.
“That works well for the company in terms of being able to respond quickly to manager and business unit requirements.”
Having overseas offices (Australia, the the United States, the United Kingdom) is also useful, says Canfield.
“When it comes to interviewing people, you can get to know them remotely and get good feeling for the candidate before going through formal selection process. Another thing we do is look specifically at the industries our products are targeted to. So if we’re looking at product managers, we check if there’s an offshore institute or association that has regular newsletter we can advertise in. We do lot of that quite specific targeting.”
In growing her own team, she’s made sure that human resource advisers actually sit in the relevant business units so they not only know the skill sets needed but what the team fit is.
“Whilst we do have providers to bring the talent to us, we do most of the recruitment process ourselves when it comes to technical interviews, reference checking, personality profiling and so on.”
It’s all part of ensuring the company doesn’t lose too much of its original character. As Doyle says: “It’s not just question of having the appropriate skills but the appropriate attitudes to enhance the culture. As we’ve gone from being small, entrepreneurial, hands-on style company to more corporate being with more people and more management, we have to ensure we don’t lose our cultural roots.
“There are lots of people we turn away who’ve got all the skills but haven’t got the right attitude.”
The cultural roots have certainly become lot richer. These days the company boasts at least 18 nationalities from places as geographically dispersed as India, China, the Philippines, Croatia, Taiwan, France, the United Kingdom, America and South Africa.
It all adds some serious zest to Navman’s annual “cook-off”.
“What we do is stop work one afternoon and teams of people cook their own traditional food and we have bit of party,” explains Doyle who, as his accent suggests, was part of the Scottish team – complete with kilt.
Such traditions are cherished as representing the heart-and-soul piece of Navman’s makeup. The cook-off started as bit of fun, with management playing chef to the staff, and grew from there – not unlike the erstwhile canteen briefing.
Formalising what works
Building fun into what has always been work-hard, play-hard culture used to be easier, says Doyle.
“As we’ve grown bigger, it’s become harder. You can’t say – let’s all head to the canteen for discussion over beer and pizza. It takes you away from that sort of spontaneity.”
That hasn’t stopped Navman doing the things it sees as unique to its culture – they just require bit more planning.
“We used to get everyone in the company together once month, explain our current focus, key objectives, what’s happening in the markets – so everyone had good information,” says Doyle.
“Then the canteen got bit cramped. We had to get microphone with speakers and there were bodies everywhere. At that stage, we had to ask how we could maintain the same approach.”
As result the monthly meetings were restricted to different company sectors. But every quarter the entire staff is bussed over to the North Harbour football stadium for morning tea and information sharing.
“It’s not the same because you used to know everyone’s name plus that of their spouse and their children. Now if people pass my office two or three times I think ‘well, they must work here’,” says Doyle wryly.
Another upsized tradition is the monthly VIP award – recognition given to anyone in the company deemed to have made worthwhile contribution as nominated by co-workers and chosen by committee of five previous awardees, says Doyle.
To begin with the VIP earned valued carpark by the front door and couple of movie tickets. Then $1000 spending spree was thrown in – this could be spent on anything the VIP decided the company needed – with the proviso that it would benefit more than two people.
“As result, we’ve got few espresso machines, microwaves, BBQs, internet access in the canteen – all sorts of positive things. That’s been part of the culture for long time and we make an effort to keep it up,” says Doyle.
The trick is building small company dynamism and engagement into bigger entity. To help foster this, the company holds regular forums to share technology updates and it encourages creative input – employees who’ve generated new ideas are recognised at an annual dinner.
While the company’s growing size and reputation helps attract staff, it also makes its staff more attractive. stint at Navman looks good on the CV and there is bit of poaching, says Doyle.
“We do get other companies targeting our people so it’s an ongoing challenge to both find and retain the right people. As we continue to grow there is also balance betw
