We’ve been voted one of the best places to work in the world and we think diversity is the key!
We’ve been voted one of the best places to work in the world and we think diversity is the key!
Escape the City, a platform that gives people access to life-changing jobs and courses, set out to find the most progressive organisations to “escape to” in 2019. They had 13,000 nominations and over 4,000 employees voted. They judged all organisations against six criteria: Impact, Planet, Mission, People, Innovation and Mission.
LettUs Grow came out as the joint 21st best place to work. We are thrilled to be included in this year's top 100 list, alongside trailblazing companies such as Monzo, OLIO, Entocycle and Octopus Electric Vehicles.
It’s been quite a year of awards for LettUs Grow, but this one holds a special place in our hearts. Building such an incredible team is an ongoing mission. Sadly, there is a lack of diversity in the tech and engineering sector. A survey by the Kaspersky Lab found that over a third of women in the technology sector said the lack of gender equality in the industry made them uncomfortable. When hiring, we actively remove any gender-coded language from job listings and spend more of our recruitment budget in specialist places like Women in Engineering. We’re incredibly proud of the fact that we currently have an exact 50/50 split of men and women in our hardware team.
Diversity hiring is hiring based on merit only. It’s not just gender that poses a barrier to entry for many. Because of this, we take great care to ensure procedures are free from biases related to a candidate’s age, race, background, religion, sexual orientation and other personal characteristics unrelated to their job performance. We’re constantly questioning what qualities are really needed for a position. If not relevant to the role, we do not require a degree, rigid working hours or impeccable spelling. These “requirements” can stop incredible candidates from applying and prevent us getting the best person for the job. One of our senior employees could not finish his university degree because of severe dyslexia, yet we cannot imagine anyone more suited to the role. As a hobbyist, he’s been following vertical farming and building software for it in his bedroom since he was a teenager. He even worked as the CTO of another vertical farming startup. We’re lucky to have him.
During a recent appearance at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Food and Environment Meetup, Temi Odanye, a Mechanical and Systems Engineer at LettUs Grow, had this to say about how we’ve benefited from the diversity at LettUs Grow: “Eating food is something that everyone does, it’s a problem that affects everyone everywhere. We will need solutions that work for different people, groups, locations and cultures. Anyone from any background is already qualified to think about these challenges and suggest solutions. It seems obvious to me that the broader the range of viewpoints, experiences, ideologies and areas of expertise, the better a problem is understood.
“I’ve noticed this even on a small scale within LettUs Grow, the software team suggested some of our key hardware features and many of the new functionalities of our products were conceptualised by the biology team. Because of this, we work to include as many people at the earliest stage of brainstorming and technical design. A more diverse workplace will be better placed for success.”
The more entrepreneurial thinkers that put their heads together to generate solutions, the better our chances of sparking major changes in the food industry. The tech space is moving fast and we know from experience that new ideas and services can become reality quickly. Diverse engagement will lead to ideas that could deliver the paradigm shift that we need to fix our troubled food system.
If you’d like to find out more about our Escape the City win, you can check out our profile here and read what our staff had to say about their experience working for LettUs Grow.