Recently, we have marked the first year since the establishment of HTEC’s development center in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. To honor the occasion, we look back on the growth of our regional team and all other relevant events that have taken place in the time since we made our first steps.
Humble beginnings
Every decent success story starts with humble beginnings. Our Banja Luka journey had started in a nice and cozy coworking space. Despite the fact that we were a small team without an office space to call our own, the initial team members were full of energy and positivity, understanding the ambitious vision and roadmap that HTEC Group had laid for the nearest future.
The coworking space has been our home for the first five months of our existence. In that time, we have established great relationships with other members of the coworking community, and we are certain that we will have the pleasure of calling some of them our colleagues further down the road.
The mission of growth
The initial team members have quickly begun working towards expanding the engineering team. The ongoing pandemic has placed countless obstacles before businesses, and we were not exempt, but dispute the well-known difficulties everyone has faced, our expansion has continued throughout the changing circumstances. We are proud to announce that our Banja Luka team currently counts 30+ experienced engineers and contributing team members, and that number is bound to grow even faster in the year ahead of us.
Aside from the personnel growth we have experienced, what also grew was the professional bond between team members. After-work hours were often spent together (at least before the era of social distancing), with the team devising different ways to have fun and become familiar and comfortable with one another. We were even able to overcome the irony of being a beer-first kind of team with a wine bar next door.
HTEC’s Banja Luka team honing the team spirit
Building a home
After a five-month coworking interregnum, our team was finally able to move into an office space of their own. Unfortunately, the pandemic had somewhat dampened the excitement, as it was difficult to get cosy with all the safety and distancing regulations in place, but after a while, we got into the groove and our new office space began to feel like home.
At the time we moved in, the team was still relatively small with only ten members. Our office space took up one building floor, and in the beginning, it felt enormous. Pretty quickly, as the team grew, the office space had expanded onto another floor and it would sometimes happen that we don’t even see some of our colleagues working from the other floor. It was a showing indicator of how our team has grown. Now we are beginning to wonder whether the entire building will be spacious enough for us in the near future.
Our move into a new office space did not come without its own unique challenges. For instance, we have spent months waiting for a coffee machine, and when it finally arrived we bought coffee beans instead of ground coffee by mistake. It is an ongoing situation, but we’re determined to resolve it, perhaps with a coffee grinder.
The interiors of our work environment are still a work in progress. As we continue to welcome new team members, we are adding details and touches in iterations, appreciating the journey rather than rushing towards the destination.
The makings of a team
Looking back on the past year, there are many obvious indicators of how far we have come, from our shiny office space to the sheer number of people we now call our colleagues. But the one thing that stands out more than the tangibles is the team spirit we have built over the course of a year. We are real with one another, we admit mistakes, we apologize, we give second chances, we have fun, we forgive, we are patient, and we love. There is a genuine bond between us, and that is something that we are all proud of.
The year that’s almost behind us has brought tremendous challenges, but for us it has also delivered a bagful of positives that have us optimistic and excited about everything that’s yet to come. We are looking forward to continuing to grow in 2021 and welcoming our new team members.
While we’re on the subject, we are actively growing our team, so make sure you take a look at current opportunities to join HTEC. Whether in Banja Luka or in any other of our offices, your career and your continued development will be in good hands. And we promise to have the coffee machine up and running!
This article was co-written by Milana Tarlać, Talent Acquisition & Employee Experience Specialist at HTEC Banja Luka.
