It’s the end of December and naturally a time to reflect on the past year. I joined InterWorks in May. and the few months since then have been intense but exciting. My latest video above only shows a glimpse into my experience with InterWorks Europe. And there have been plenty of changes along the way. We opened an office in Dusseldorf, and the London team moved into a new and more spacious office. The company reached a record number of 201 employees across all departments! Overall, it’s been great to see the team grow at such a fast pace.
Growth Isn’t the Goal
It’s important to mention that growth has never been a primary goal at InterWorks. As someone who previously worked in a fast-paced environment, I’m especially amazed at how InterWorks is not only growing so quickly but also, and more importantly, how it improves along the way. To quote our CEO Behfar Jahanshahi, “We must be sure that we’re getting BETTER as we continue to get BIGGER.” To put these words in context, I’ll give an example of the onboarding process.
Above: InterWorks US Company Summit.
How We Onboard
From day one, the new hires dive right into the deep end of InterWorks’ culture. They are immediately part of the InterWorks family and this holds a great deal of significance. InterWorks ensures we understand how to do business according to the company’s high standards. There is a certain way in how we communicate and who is responsible for what.
Communication is especially important considering we have people working all over the world, even though it means you may not see your co-workers for months on end depending on the project. Every InterWorker knows that he or she has the immediate support from the company whenever called upon. Our Director of Employee Experience, Brandi White, wrote a great blog post about InterWorks’ onboarding process that I encourage everyone to read in order to understand us a little better.
Why We Do It
It’s easy for us to get excited about the technology that we use and the work that we do. It’s incredibly rewarding to help our clients visualize their data, discover business insights, help them to build solid data architecture and find the most efficient solution that corresponds with their needs. Our priority is to deliver the best work for the best people and build long-term relationships with our clients. Quality and passion is in everything we do. To gain a comprehensive view of InterWorks’ culture, read Behfar’s recent interview with Underdog.NYC.
Above: InterWorks EU Summit in Morocco and no, the camel is not a part of the team just yet.
InterWorks EU Highlights
This year was full of exciting events and I definitely recommend listening to our 2017 recap episode of Podcast Your Data! for all the highlights. In Europe, we had events such as the Tableau Conference on Tour in Berlin and London, Alteryx Inspire Europe, EXASOL Xperience and we even launched our own event series called Data + Insight + You. We enjoyed many Data Discovery days, plus we attended and presented at Tableau User Groups and Tableau Tiny Talks. It’s great to be an active participant in the data community while also contributing, leading and encouraging others to do the same.
My personal highlight of this year are the colleagues from whom I continually learn from. I can always count on being challenged and supported by my fellow InterWorkers. It is an absolute honor to be part of a team consisting of the best people who do the best work for the best clients. Let’s make 2018 even more amazing together.
