The Highlights (4th Anniversary Edition)

Here is a monthly dose of news, updates, fun facts, and everything you need to know about Dev Partners.

Four years of building and sustaining relationships

September is a month that we at Dev Partners, have all been looking forward to yearly. This marks a significant milestone for the company which was first set up in September of 2015 by a handful of dedicated developers focused on providing honest and reliable services to partners.

The company was born from the immediate need of recruiting a team of high-quality developers for our first client. Having explored many other providers that did not quite deliver a satisfactory outcome, some of the company’s first clients were eagerly looking for a provider who can deliver high quality and loyal team based in the Philippines. During that time, the country already has one of the best workforce available in Asia. Filipinos are also known to be resilient, hardworking, and loyal. The goal was simply not just to provide work but to build and sustain relationships. The core value of the company is to treat clients as an extension of our family. Our aim is not to be the biggest or the lowest price, but rather to continuously impress and deliver on the family feeling for our select list of clients.

Fast forward to today, Dev Partners is one of the leading providers of quality staff in the Philippines. As we celebrate our 4th birthday, we would like to highlight some of the key milestones and achievements from 2015 to the present.

During the first two years of the company, we have grown together and achieved a lot of things together. On our third year, in 2017, we’ve proved that we continue to be strong as a team as we become one of the well-known staffing companies in the country. More training opportunities were provided for the developers and we welcome more people into the company.

The work from home setup, which has been an option for the employees since the inception of the company, proved to be very beneficial and it is one of the best decisions the company made.

In 2018, the Roland Torres Votacion Foundation or the RTV Foundation was launched as the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of Dev Partners. The foundation aims to partner with the community and stakeholders to provide free educational assistance to chosen scholars from pre-school to college, where the possibilities, opportunities, and dreams are all in the same ground through our Education to Employment (E2E) program.

For this year, our anniversary theme was "Dev Partners 4Ever Grateful.” The world is facing a crisis that is the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of businesses have shut down operations and millions of people from all over the world had lost their job. Still, we are thankful that our clients’ businesses remain strong. Some have been affected and unfortunately, we also had to let go of some people but the company is still intact. Everyone in the company also continues to stand by each other and support each other despite the challenges.

This year’s celebration was different. There is no party to commemorate the milestones and celebrate success. This year, however, is by far the most memorable. There are truly a lot of things to be thankful and the entire company is excited even more to what the future holds.

Training Update: Upskilling continues for the last quarter of the year

September marks the start of the so-called “BER months” where the Christmas season in the country officially begins. During this month, Christmas carols can already be heard in radio and television and decors can be seen in malls and other key places of interest. Filipinos love the Christmas holiday because it is a time where families get together to celebrate. It may be unusual and different this year because of the pandemic but the spirit of merriment is still very much present. For us at Dev Partners, the “BER months” means working doubly hard so we can celebrate hard as well by the end of the year.

September and October are still months of continuous effort in upskilling our developers, whether they are backend and frontend stack development, through learning and understanding the different DevOps operations. Both the QA and support team were also encouraged to participate in the training. The modules presented include teaching individual members of the team on how to transpile and bundle javascript correctly using Webpack, taking advantage of the Docker technology in their day-to-day tasks, managing source code with GIT, learning Kubernetes, Jenkins, and a lot more.

Recently, the 2nd Quarter of 2020 Upskilling Developers winners were also announced. The whole company extends their congratulations to the following developers:

Chemmy Lou Tutor - 98.93% (FE)

Phebe Sawan - 93.22% (FE)

Mark Gocela - 87.28% (FE)

Dave Rotaquio - 88.62% (FE)

Froid Miayo - 87.11% (FE)

The winners received a monetary prize of $500 each. This friendly competition serves positive motivation for everyone to participate and also aim to win next.

The latest employees survey results were in as well for October and again, it indicated the highest total satisfaction of the employees. Indeed, to drive individuals to improve their skills and for them to be happy working with their client has been and will always be where Dev Partners is great at doing.

FUN CORNER: Self-care during pandemic

We're six months into quarantine and we are still not really seeing the end of it. What will happen next? Will there be a vaccine soon? Will we continue to work from home and do Zoom meetings? What about meeting with friends and family?

Truly, the psychological, social, and even physical impacts of these things to our overall health have been very challenging. Most are stock at home and finding it hard to take care of themselves because of overthinking. But life has to move on and we still need to be strong in order to survive.

One of the best things that you should focus on while staying and working at home is caring genuinely for yourself. Yes, self-care is a thing and it is very important.

Here are some self-care tips at home during the pandemic:

Eat healthily. It’s easy to neglect to eat on time while you’re at home especially when you are multi-tasking with work and with home staff. But it is a must to eat healthy to keep your mind and body functioning properly.

Sleep early. Try to get at least 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night. This is basic but remains to be beneficial for your overall health and well-being.

Get out for fresh air. Pause once in a while and get out in front of your computer to get some fresh air outside of your home. This practice can get your productivity levels up.

Read good news. Reading the daily news can be stressful especially with all the things that have been happening around the world right now. Shift your focus by reading positive news to make you feel happy and inspired.

Find support. When you’re feeling down or even bored, don’t hesitate to find someone to talk to in order to uplift your mood and spirit.

Quote to Inspire

"In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich." Dietrich Bonhoeffer