Case study: how MYTONA conducted an in-team event for self-development of employees

The other day, an intra-corporate event started at MYTONA for the second time. It’s called MYTONA Heroes. In it, the participants set themselves a goal that they have long dreamed of achieving, and after seven weeks they achieve it. In your column on App2Top.ru the company told how and why it was held for the first time a year earlier.

How and why did it all start?

The MYTONA team based in Yakutia today employs more than 900 employees distributed across six offices (in Yakutsk, St. Petersburg, Ivanovo, Vladivostok, Singapore and Auckland). However, now most of them work from home.

A year ago there were 600 people in the team. And, just like today, MYTONA understood that activities within the company are necessary so that employees from different parts of the world feel like a team. One of these activities was the MYTONA Heroes event.

He faced a difficult task. To help the Mytonians realize their potential, achieve personal goals that they had previously constantly postponed. And create an atmosphere of constant development in the team. Not only professional, but also personal.

The history of the event began with the words of one of the HR managers: “Why do I always put my personal affairs in the back drawer?“. So he decided to quit smoking, simultaneously motivating the guys in the department to also take up the fulfillment of their goals. After that, the idea was born to extend the challenge to the entire company. Everyone liked the idea — a design document of the project was instantly written and received an apruv!

How was the event held?

The challenge was announced in a corporate blog. It was noted that it will last four months. Anyone could take part.

86 people announced their desire to participate. Then during the week HR specialists recorded interviews with them, where they discussed their goals and how they could be implemented. During the interview, each participant was given control points that he had to reach.

Then a special channel was created where participants shared advice and support with each other. Many had mentors who taught them hard skills (for example, programming or drawing). During the challenge, the company has developed a powerful atmosphere of mutual assistance and support.

The corporate blog regularly published the progress of the challenge, talked about the intermediate achievements of the guys. Of course, it was hard for some guys. Several people even left the challenge. But most continued to achieve their goals.

Event results

90% of the participants reached the final and realized their goals. Here are just some results:

• one of the guys completed a module on machine learning, which he tried to finish for three years (now he successfully uses the module in his work);
• another “Maytonian” learned how to implement interfaces into games on his own, now she is one of the leaders of the UI/UX department;
• “balancer” has written a mobile application that helps to get rid of bad habits;
• a whole group of children raised their level of English language proficiency by one or two steps (most started at elementary and pre-intermediate levels);
• one of the game designers learned the basics of 3D modeling and animation in Blender, and even created a short video (now he uses the knowledge when creating sketches and design documents);
• the artist learned to animate in Spine.

But the employees were not only engaged in self-education within the event. They also struggled with excess weight and bad habits:

• 12 employees quit smoking (two of them have been smoking for 16 years);
• 15 employees lost excess weight (a total of 95 kg.);
• 7 employees ran a mini-marathon (10 km.) and a half-marathon (21.5 km.);
• 2 employees learned to sit on the splits.

But that’s not all: one of the employees learned to swim, five learned to play musical instruments, one wrote a book, the other was able to gather more than 10 thousand followers on Instagram.

In other words, the tasks for the next four months were set by the Mytonians completely different. And most of them managed to achieve them within the framework of a single event.

The awarding of the participants took place on the first day of our annual MYTONACON conference, when the whole team meets together. Participants received statuettes in the form of a leaflet from the company’s logo. The statuettes say: “You are a hero!”. And now they are standing on the tables of the guys, reminding them every day that they are capable of anything.

A little more about the results

Lena Timofeeva
“We are very pleased with how the event went.

Not only the goals of the guys were realized, but also our own. For this reason, this year we decided to re-launch MYTONA Heroes. Now it is even more important and relevant for the company, since we have all been working from home for several months. And the event is an additional and pleasant reason to communicate more, and it will also help diversify our self—isolation,” said Lena Timofeeva, HR Director of MYTONA.

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This case became one of the winners of the “Game Dev HR Awards 2019“. This is the first annual award dedicated to game recruiting and HR work in the industry. It is conducted by the HR platform for job search in the gaming industry Talents In Games together with the organizers of the White Nights Conference.

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