2020 results: Natalia Kalinina from Banzai Games about the main thing for the year

Natalia Kalinina, HR Director at Banzai Games, shared HR trends.

Natalia Kalinina

How was 2020 for the company?

Every year we try to take a new height. This one was no exception, despite the pandemic. Together with our publisher Nekki, we launched Shadow Fight Arena, which became the first in a series of fighting games with real PvP. The program for creating Cascadeur animations also continued its development, this year entering an open beta test. In addition, after the prototyping stage, the announcement of Spine, a team action in the cyberpunk setting, which should become the most technologically advanced project in the history of our company, took place.

But, like everyone else, in the spring we faced the question: how to maintain efficiency and continue development in the current conditions. It was especially painful for us, because in the fall of 2019 we just moved into a new office, which we managed to love, and there were a lot of plans for the development of which. However, since March and up to the present, we have been working remotely. Health comes first.

We already had sufficient experience working with remote employees, so all the necessary tools for this were already in the works. Plus, a transition plan was developed that prescribed each stage of work for those employees who knew about the removal only by hearsay.

Yes, to create even more comfortable conditions and eliminate problems, we regularly interviewed employees. The guys gave feedback, which allowed us to respond quickly to difficulties. To be honest, we also made the decision to extend the full removal together. I think this unity in the face of a common problem has allowed us to continue our work quite effectively in the new conditions.

But I'm not going to say that we live under a rainbow, they say, everything is just perfect. For example, employees in many cities did not just work remotely, they had complete home isolation. The impossibility of many previously available entertainment and recreation methods could not but affect people. What did it lead to? The guys burned out, some deadlines were broken.

There were a couple of cases when an employee "burned out" because, faced with difficulties, he could not solve them in the usual way. It seemed to him that with a little patience, everything would resolve itself. It was a big mistake. One of these ways for everyone is spontaneous communication. But the opportunity to "hook up with tongues" with someone not from your team, to share what was painful turned out to be impossible under the circumstances.

The hardest part was for those who were used to solving all problems on their own. Such people perceive the manifestation of discontent as their weakness. In such cases, serious efforts had to be made to see the crisis in time. It's much easier to do this in the office. I am glad that more often than not it was possible to take control of the situation in time and help the employee by keeping him in the company. But, unfortunately, there were cases when a person left the company after all…

We considered each case not only as a special case, but also as an experience with which we can improve the efficiency of existing processes for the future.

What new trends in your niche do you consider worth paying attention to?

2020 dictates its own terms. Now the boundaries between a remote and an office employee are blurring, which, accordingly, affects the search for specialists. If earlier a conditional programmer who is ready to discuss only the remote format of work was considered by a certain percentage of companies, now even those who have never taken remote workers before are knocking on his door. It turns out, on the one hand, there are more options for searching, on the other — the competition for such personnel is as high as when searching for people in the office. And here the work on strengthening the strength of the HR brand and marketing activities comes out on top.

It is also clear that most companies are setting themselves increasingly ambitious goals. And of course, this affects the requirements for the professional level of candidates — they are getting higher. This also applies to us, since in Banzai each new project solves complex technical problems (artificial intelligence, cool bot, real PvP, cross-platform, etc.)

What new market trends would you note in general?

And here I will write again about the pandemic and the removal. Now an employee does not have to have any difficulties to make a decision to change something (up to the company). It seems to me that the lack of impressions is pushing for this step. When home and work merge into one, informal communication is minimal, when there are no work calls, and you know in advance what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. And everything seems to be fine, but something is missing, a person begins to look for something to fill this void. And finds... a new job. Fortunately, this issue is easier to solve than burnout. And even having an employee with an offer on hand, you can still fix everything.

Realizing this, we began to pay even more attention to the issues of informal communication in the company. We have always loved to carry out various activities, but here we did it not just for fun. This year we have held two game jams and are planning a third one after the New Year holidays. Its main goal is to give people new experiences, to give them the opportunity to communicate with those with whom they do not overlap in their work processes, as well as to try themselves in those tasks that they do not face as part of their work routine. As a result of both games, we received excellent emotional feedback and a lot of very cool projects.

We also regularly host various gaming tournaments. This year there were competitions in Heroes III, CS:GO, Overwatch, tried out online poker, and also regularly played Mafia and various quizzes. Next year we will definitely keep these activities, we will make them even more interesting.

We love contests, interest chats — all this allows us to relax, maintain informal communication, plus it is a wonderful tool for onboarding new colleagues.

As a result, many employees wrote in the annual survey that they had a successful year. Many thanks to my colleagues, it would have been impossible without them, the feeling of teamwork this year was stronger than ever.

What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2021?

As always, at people. We have a lot of plans. We continue to develop current projects. A new one has started. Even one secret one has been launched, about which we are not ready to tell anything at all. Every year we reach a new level both in terms of creative challenges, process optimization, and professionalism. We make games that we love to play ourselves, and we are looking for those who would like the same.

Next year we will definitely still be living under the shadow of covid, so it seems to me that it is important not to wait a little longer and everything will return to normal. I believe that everything will be great, but in a different way. I hope we will manage, keep the current pace, and we will succeed in everything planned. Plus, no matter what, we do not give up the office. We will return to thinking about and developing various office chips that have been on pause this year. So, for example, we will supply a vending machine with cool prizes and achievements for points that employees will earn by simply doing their job and participating in the social life of the company. We finally want to equip a large attic on the roof for recreation and parties — we will be happy to celebrate the victory over the pandemic and return to the cozy office with our beloved colleagues!

Which third-party game releases are you interested in this year? What kind of attention did you pay specifically as a gamer?

For me, undoubtedly, Among Us. Many of my colleagues fell in love with this game, and at home, thanks to the children, not a day goes by without searching for a space traitor. And I also discovered the Monument Valley puzzle. The game was released a long time ago, but I fell in love with it this year.