IMC ANNUALREPORT 2020 - Flipbook - Page 34
11 PEOPLE AND CULTURE
IMC ANNUAL REPORT 2020
“At IMC we work hard
to give our people the
support they need to
grow and to realise
their full potential.“
In that stressful and uncertain
environment, IMC’s team culture
was an important factor. At IMC,
everyone is encouraged to support
each other, and as a firm and
individually we initiated numerous
online activities to enable and
encourage social contact.
Our efforts not only facilitated but
accelerated our recruitment drive,
increasing the firm’s headcount
to more than 800 by year-end.
Anticipated business growth
supports a continued hiring drive.
An extensive online database
was created of materials and
information, and webinars,
chatrooms and online interviews
became mainstays of recruitment
efforts as lockdown restrictions
barred access to traditional hiring
events, such as university job fairs.
When it became clear that
the lockdown would impact our
summer internships, we hosted
‘virtual’ programs in each office. The
programs, running between ten and
12 weeks, were attended by a total
of 87 technology and trading interns,
a mix of mostly finance, maths and
computer science students.
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Thanks to creative workarounds,
interns were able to enjoy the
full IMC experience. Key to the
program’s success was the planning
and preparation of study materials,
and the intensive engagement of
IMC traders and technologists, who
invested time and energy as online
mentors to ensure interns got the
most from their experience.
we find it. So, while wholesale
change is unlikely, we do expect to
continue to have a flexible approach
regarding working locations.
Among the measures of success
of the internship is that the projects
undertaken by interns are impactful
and are expected to contribute to
improvements to IMC systems when
put into production.
Our achievement in managing
through this health crisis with
minimal disruption to recruitment
or training, while, at the same
time, exceeding hiring targets
and finding innovative ways to
leverage teamwork and keep our
culture intact, speaks volumes for
the enthusiasm and dedication of
our young, agile, and tech-savvy
recruitment and training team. It
was a unique test of a culture built
on the ability to respond and adapt
swiftly to change and challenge,
and which, in 2020, really came
into its own in the most testing of
circumstances.
In many ways our switch to digital
learning hastened a development
that had already been underway
at IMC, and which will, we believe,
lead to still greater efficiencies in
training and leadership programs
going forward. For example, in the
accelerated use of digital techniques
and remote learning, we continue
to identify better ways to allocate
our resources and therefore improve
productivity.
To further boost self-learning, we
have launched a pilot project with
LinkedIn Learning. This fast-growing
platform has a library of more than
6,000 courses covering a wide range
of technical, business, software and
creative topics. We are making this
library available to our people, while
also building our own content library
on the platform.
Perhaps the most valuable metric
of our success in managing through
the crisis is the feedback of interns
and trainees. They were positively
surprised at the content and energy
of the internships and training
programs, and overwhelmingly
enthusiastic about the firm and its
culture. The internship led to more
job offers from IMC and a higher
acceptance rate from candidates
than in 2019.
As the pandemic slowly recedes,
we are now thinking hard about how
we work and connect in the future.
IMC has never been rigid in terms of
its approach; its culture promotes
freedom and responsibility, and we
believe in supporting talent wherever
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