The Good Wages Initiative certifies, celebrates, and showcases Marion County employers that are committed to providing full-time employees both a wage of at least $18/hr and access to employer-sponsored health insurance. EmployIndy launched the Good Wages Initiative in April 2022 and now has 58 partner employers, including Kainos. We spoke with Mike Hitch, Kainos’ Vice President of Delivery for the Americas Workday Practice, and Kristin Hilleary, Marketing Manager for the Americas Workday Practice, about the organization and why it decided to join the Good Wages Initiative.
Kainos was founded in 1986 as a partnership between Queen’s University Belfast and Fujitsu, a Tokyo-based IT company. Throughout the years, the company has developed under two different business units – digital services, which focuses on custom app development and has a strong partnership with the UK government, and, starting in 2011, a Workday practice focused on deploying Workday’s cloud-based HR and Finance tools globally to organizations of all sizes. Kainos also supports Workday customers with a product suite designed exclusively for Workday, including an automated testing tool, an automated audit tool, and a data protection tool.
Mike describes the company as very employee-centric, guided by three principles: “Be a great employer. Delight our customers. Run a profitable and sustainable business.” Mike emphasized that being a great employer is the organization’s number one priority, and all decisions about how to move the company forward must be made while keeping the impact on employees top of mind. To attract and retain talent, Mike says, “We look for people with an entrepreneurial mentality, especially here in the Americas region. We have the best of both worlds: a long history and strong balance sheet and fast growth that almost makes it feel like working for a start-up. It creates an opportunity for individuals to make a difference here; we look for people who are going to do that and not someone who just wants to be a cog in the wheel somewhere.”
Describing the organization’s approach to culture, Mike shared that the company’s core values are geared toward being a strong team and being open, honest, and creative. Mike said that culture means different things to different people, but that he focuses on empowering people to be a part of something bigger than themselves: “It’s about creating a welcoming environment that people want to be a part of and can thrive within.” Kristin added, “Our tagline is ‘Thinking beyond limitations,’ and I think it emphasizes a company approach of failing forward, which was highlighted during my interview cycle. There’s an expectation that you should be failing, because if you’re not failing then you’re not trying something new and innovating.”
Mike got connected to the Good Wages Initiative after connecting with EmployIndy about their larger workforce development goals. Mike shared that while they easily qualified for Certified Status with the Good Wages Initiative, it rings true to who they are as a company, what they stand for, and reflects their values and supports their value mission. When asked about what he hopes the Good Wages Initiative does for Kainos, Mike shared, “Especially here in the Indy area, Kainos is not always the most well-known yet, so we’re excited to have opportunities to show who we are and what we stand for. Good Wages is an avenue that will help highlight our brand in a manner that closely aligns with our values.” Mike added, “In the tech industry, more specifically in the Workday ecosystem, it’s an extremely competitive market for talent, and any opportunity to highlight where we stand apart is really advantageous to us. We offer competitive pay and benefits, and being able to highlight that is important as we hire new folks.”
In the Workday space, we compete with about 35 global partners, and Mike shared that while being competitive in terms of pay and benefits is important, Kainos also wants to bring something more to the table, focusing on work-life balance, balance in terms of travel expectations, and the opportunity for employees to really build and grow their career. He added, “Our goal is to provide more than a paycheck and be much more than a job for employees to go to.” Kristin, who has been in the Workday ecosystem since 2013, echoed Mike, sharing that her experience at Kainos really delivers on its value promises and that her time at the company has been a breath of fresh air.
Mike shared that Kainos’ fast-paced growth is both the biggest success as well as the biggest opportunity facing the company. The growth has provided opportunities for employees to grow and step into leadership roles and the company has expanded its footprint without losing its focus on quality – Mike says the company is able to successfully “punch above its weight belt and deliver great expertise to some of the world’s largest companies.” He closed the interview going back to company values and prioritizing people and customers: “We’re a fast-growing region. When I started three and a half years ago, we had less than 40 people in our Americas region, and a number of them were on international assignment from the UK. Fast forward to now, we’re north of 350 people across the US, Canada, and Argentina, and as a result of that we’ve had a lot of people move into new roles and into leadership roles allowing them to grow themselves along with the growth of our company. We’re focused on ensuring that we continue to deliver consistently for our clients while making sure we have the right opportunities for our team along the way.”
To learn more about Kainos, visit https://www.kainos.com/.
To learn more about GWI, visit https://goodwagesindy.org/.