Until 7 PM that day, 15 March had been as normal a day as any at Qubiz. Meetings, emails, work, lunch break, ping-pong, meetings, emails.And just before we left the office, in came an email that would make the day special.
On March 15, Qubiz was selected as National Winner in the Workplace and People Development category in the European Business Awards, acknowledging us the best workplace in Romania.The European Business Awards is the biggest cross-business competition in Europe, designed to support the development of a stronger business community. Going on strong for 11 years, the current edition of the contest garnered over 110.000 entries from 34 countries.Out of all those, 2898 were identified as “Ones to Watch” in an excellence list published back in December. 105 Romanian companies made this list, including Qubiz. Recently, a panel of independent judges including senior business leaders and academicians evaluated each of those companies and elected 8 of them as national winners for various categories (e.g growth, innovation, strategy, workplace & development).
If you consider the odds, the chances of being selected were lower than 1%.Winning this title wasn’t about luck. Ever since we started - 10 years ago - we have strived to provide the best work environment.For us, a good workplace starts with good working conditions: proper equipment, adequate compensation. It also includes interesting, challenging work and lots of opportunities for growth.Professional development is another important part of a good work environment. To this end, we set up an internal system that helps colleagues get closer to who they want to be and what they want to do. To help them get there, we constantly support them by investing in hard and soft skills training sessions, materials, and periodic performance reviews.Since work isn’t confined to the time spent at the office, we go the extra mile to make sure we take care of our colleagues even beyond office hours. From sports facilities to private health insurance to periodical company retreats, we aim to make life outside of work a little better, too.All of this is backed by a strong, healthy organizational culture. Honesty, trust, respect are our core values - we treat everyone the same, no matter what. While autonomy and proactivity are highly encouraged inside Qubiz, stuffy hierarchies or micromanagement are not - we’re a pretty flat organization. When it comes to business (read: developing software), we work hard. Yet we know when to have fun, too.
While culture eats strategy for breakfast, people can make or break a company. In 10 years, our team went from 6 to 160 people and our retention rate has constantly been over 90%. Our colleagues really enjoy the company (pun intended).How do we know that?Check out the Digi24 Oradea footage - it features what some of our colleagues say about Qubiz.
Winning this title means that we’ll go on to represent Romania in the last stage of the competition on 22-23 May in Warsaw, Poland. There we will attend a final round of judging and a gala for all the awards winners. There are 23 other winners in the Workplace & People Development category, so fingers crossed!Until then, we’ll keep doing what we do best: create high-quality software and take good care of our colleagues. And since we’re celebrating 10 years of Qubiz - we’ll also be planning the celebration.
If you think all we’ve mentioned here is too good to be true, you’re invited to check it out for yourself. We have offices both in Oradea and in Cluj-Napoca - so it's up to you. Don’t be shy - drop us a line and come visit!P.S. - We have some cool job openings - check them out here!