How Global Companies Can Attract And Retain Talent

The talent competition is tough, especially in the tech space. Talented engineers and designers have many options open to them. What can global giants do to attract the most sought-after talent to their teams? How can they create a hybrid work environment that is hard to resist?

Some of the issues leaders face in hybrid work environments are that employees feel less connected and managers feel that control is slipping. Maintaining a positive culture and keeping morale up is more challenging when things get tricky.

In recent years, global innovation centers (GICs) have become an increasingly important part of multinational corporations (MNCs)—such as IBM, Cisco, Deloitte and Glaxo Smith Kline, to name a few—as companies seek to remain competitive in a fast-paced and digital world. Since these large business units are often located in a different country from the HQ and have a particular set of tasks, they need to offer a different employee value proposition (EVP) to attract the specialized talent they need.

Before the pandemic, many companies relied on providing attractive work environments and accessible services to lure in top talent. Today, in a world where many people want to work from home, these perks are less effective. Many GICs are responding to this shift by offering more flexible, hybrid and remote work options, which can be a crucial part of their EVP.

Let's explore how you can learn from GICs' practices and leverage your hybrid work environment.

Get The Basics In Place

First, get your hybrid work environment right. How much face-to-face interaction do you need and want? What type of interactions does your culture require? Looking at your employee profile, how much flexibility is needed and desired? What kind of infrastructure do you have in place? What do you need to create the best hybrid work environment for your employees?

The second step is fully leveraging technology. Make sure you have clear guidelines on which software is used for what. Big companies use up to 50 different social and collaborative software platforms, which can get confusing. Try to reduce the number of platforms you use and clearly define what they are used for, e.g., email for more in-depth content, Slack for quick questions and coordinating meetings, etc.

Give your teams access to exciting technology to get their creative juices flowing and enable them to work most efficiently.

Thirdly, communication is now more critical than ever. Put some effort into achieving maximum clarity in your communication. Text updates are usually not enough; most people won’t read them, so think of efficient ways to do live updates at regular intervals. Make sure everyone has access to all the information they need.

Also, when speaking on Zoom, ask people to keep their cameras on whenever possible so that there is more of a connection. Leaders should set an example that others will follow.

Leverage Your Hybrid Work Model

When you’re offline:

When you’re at the office, make the most of personal interaction time, especially as a leader. Use this time to interact with your people face-to-face and build rapport. Nothing can replace meetings in real life for relationship-building. It’s also a great way to gauge morale, hear people’s ideas and create open and transparent communication opportunities.

So organize some nice "away days" or retreats to take your people on, and make sure they spend time together in person regularly. You need that real human interaction to keep morale up and your culture alive and thriving.

Offer some engaging personal and professional development opportunities. Let key people travel to conferences and events where they can engage with other industry leaders, offer in-person workshops on days when people are at the office and have some fun with team- and culture-building activities.

When you’re online:

Since most people are working remotely now—at least part of the time—you can create new cross-border collaborations. Get people from different teams together, and let them exchange their experiences, challenges and successes. Encourage cross-functional collaboration to accelerate innovation.

You no longer need to have separating lines between countries and departments; working online opens up a whole host of opportunities, and most MNCs should exploit these more fully. Allow yourself to be daring and creative to come up with new ways of working together.

Another thing that becomes easier online is mentoring across levels. Embrace both classical mentoring, where more experienced professionals mentor the younger generation, as well as reverse mentoring, where the more youthful generation mentors the more experienced colleagues on some of the latest trends in tech, etc.

Finally, give your team members access to coaches and counselors, provide mediators to help resolve conflicts and offer your leaders memberships to critical networking and mastermind groups for your industry. Opportunities for advancement and development are a big part of the EVP for most employees.

In Brief

In addition to offering flexible working models, GICs also provide a range of other benefits and perks to attract top talent, like opportunities for professional development, access to cutting-edge technologies and tools, and the chance to work on innovative and high-impact projects. Consider what other elements your global company can borrow from these centers to appeal to employees.

First published on Forbes.com in June 2023

Four Steps To Evolve From A Regional To A Global Center Leader

From support centers to centers of excellence and innovation, global centers (a subsidiary of a multinational corporation based in the United States or Europe in a lower-cost country such as India, the Philippines or Romania) have evolved and proven their resilience during the pandemic. How about their leaders, though? Have they evolved as far and as successfully? Let’s have a look at the expectations that MNCs have of their global center leaders and how well these expectations are met.

Global centers started out as development and support centers for MNCs. Straightforward jobs were outsourced to lower-cost regions while creativity and innovation remained at headquarters. As global centers grew, more and more of them evolved into centers of excellence with a focus on research and development, product development and design. Banking, financial services and insurance companies and professional services firms started expanding the scope to cover research, underwriting and consulting.

Recently, since Covid-19 forced a lot of businesses to start or accelerate their digital transformation, some global centers have started playing a role in facilitating these changes globally. These pioneering centers have acquired talent in emerging technologies such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, the cloud, blockchain and cybersecurity. This rings in a new age of value addition in global centers and makes global centers more attractive to so-called unicorns and other rapid-growth businesses. Gojek, Uber and Grab are examples of unicorns that have Global Centers in India.

In my coaching practice, I have identified four steps to help regional leaders transform into a global center leader:

1. Think locally but, more importantly, globally

Global centers are part of MNCs and as such must have a global perspective combined with local knowledge, not just of their own country but also the other countries where the respective MNC has a strong presence. A global center leader needs to think strategically when making decisions on which offices to allocate projects to, which locations to grow, etc. The issue at the moment is that global center leaders often feel they are competing with other locations.

It is time to think on a more global scale about what is best for the organization as a whole. Leaders need to prove they are thinking strategically and holistically. They need to show their understanding of the overall organizational health of the company and where/how they can contribute to improving that. They need to leave behind the mindset of pushing their own people and their location forward to instead look objectively at where the best opportunities lie for the organization as a whole. This requires them to network with their colleagues in other locations and to initiate collaboration wherever it might be beneficial.

2. Contribute at a strategic level

What does this look like on a practical level? It means going beyond delivering projects on time, at lower cost, faster and with higher quality—that is the baseline for global centers these days. Global center leaders are expected to go beyond the old "tell me what to do and I’ll do it better than any other center/team/person."

Nowadays the expectation is that global centers contribute to the future direction of the company, that they earn their seat at the table by going beyond problem-solving, that they take a more proactive role. Even MNCs want to create more agile work environments these days. Digital transformation is a fast-paced field where constant innovation is happening and there are countless opportunities for pioneering Global Centers to forge new paths. Guided by questions like “Where will the next five-year growth come from?” leaders can take the opportunity to anticipate, think ahead and contribute to shaping the future of the company.

3. Move from cost arbitrage to business growth

In order to execute that move successfully and develop a more entrepreneurial mindset, leaders need to strive to deeply understand their customers’ needs and pain points. Who is your ideal customer? What are they struggling with? What obstacles are they encountering when they want to engage with your product or service?

Leaders can start their exploration in their local market, participate more, join the relevant conversations, meet their customers and competitors. Then, expand into the international market.

Another opportunity is to keep abreast with the business, i.e., stay connected across sales, services, product management and engineering—locally and globally. Global center leaders need to move not only with the times but ahead of the times to stay relevant. What is the next emerging trend? How can you be one of the pioneers of it?

4. Expand your sphere of influence

Traditionally, global centers have promoted generalists. They have shied away from too much specialization so that employees could easily be deployed on a variety of projects. Once leaders get to a certain level, this is no longer sufficient. They need to supplement their generalist skills with some deep expertise, especially in strategic areas.

Being an industry insider and having a good overview of global trends and developments in your niche are vital for the role. What regional and global trends are there in your industry? Where is the innovation happening?

Combined with essential soft skills like networking and executive presence, this ensures they have the ear of the right people, allowing them to consult internally on various strategic matters and to get involved at the executive level. This, in turn, helps them build their reputation and thus their global influence, creating impact beyond their immediate function—a vital step toward professional growth opportunities.

Global center leaders are sitting on a potential gold mine, especially as the pandemic has not only changed the global workplace landscape but has also proven the resilience of global centers. If leaders understand how to leverage their advantage and onboard the right talent to evolve to the next level, they can grow their global centers exponentially.

This article was first published on Forbes.

How to Make Remote Teams Work

More and more people expect freedom in the way they work and want to get away from the limitations of a 9 to 5 job. They want to live a lifestyle that is better suited to them, their family circumstances and hobbies they are passionate about. Thus, remote teams, including freelancers, consultants, and even full-time employees, have become much more common, especially among the new generation of companies founded in the last decade or two.

Of course, a new style of working poses new challenges. Trust, culture, reporting lines and project ownership all have to be even clearer. New ways and tools to communicate effectively in these environments have to be cultivated.

The Case for Remote Work

While employee engagement is often cited as a reason to keep people in offices, the experience that remote-first companies have, interestingly enough, is that engagement – and as a result, productivity – is actually improved in well-run remote teams.

Some great examples of companies that work with remote (or distributed) teams across the globe are Basecamp, Zapier, and Buffer. These companies are regarded as some of the pioneers of the remote-first model, giving their team members the choice to work from wherever they are located, independent of a time zone.

In his TEDxMidwest talk, Jason Fried, co-founder of 37signals (the company behind the productivity app Basecamp), made a very good point that work is like sleep: We have to go through several phases to get to deep work, just like we have to go through several phases to get to deep sleep. If we are interrupted during the early phases, we can’t just pick up where we left off. We have to go back to the beginning and start all over again in order to eventually reach a deeper level.

We Need Student Organizers, not just Student Voters

That is why, he argues, office environments are not ideal for getting things done, because we are constantly interrupted. Tasks that are complex or creative in nature especially require us to have long stretches of uninterrupted work time, so we can enter into the fully focused deep work state.

Working remotely allows employees to turn off any potential distractions and just get deep into their work, to create and problem-solve in a way that isn't possible when constantly interrupted.

How to Make Remote Work Work

Since freedom and flexibility are becoming increasingly important to employees, companies that offer remote positions can make an offer that many can’t resist. Employees can work when and where they want to work. Working hours are often flexible, independent of time zones and office hours. In some companies, management goes as far as encouraging people to take time off. After all, healthy, balanced employees are more productive.

In the past, workers had to decide between living where they want to live or living where they could have a great career. Thanks to remote job opportunities, many now have the option to have their dream home in a quiet location and work in a dynamic and challenging environment at the same time.

Some companies even pay for standing desks and tech equipment for their employees’ home offices to ensure they have an ideal work environment.

The money companies save on real estate can even be used to cover travel expenses. Since remote-first companies look to hire employees with an entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic, their employees tend to be more adventurous. Hiring teams from around the globe adds another level to the diversity companies need. A wider range of needs and perspectives are taken into account.

Exchange and collaboration are facilitated by a multitude of tools that make it easy to work together across the globe and time zones. An added benefit of this is that someone is always working in any given time zone, so the company is always "on."

Of course, it is vital to clearly communicate what sort of response times are acceptable and how employees are supposed to communicate when working remotely.

On the one hand, employees should have uninterrupted work time as often as possible, which means asynchronous communication should be used often and effectively to keep everyone in the loop regardless of which time zone they are in.

On the other hand, more personal forms of communication are also important to build rapport with co-workers. This can be achieved by using more informal platforms like Slack as well as through personal connections via video conferencing. Especially when dealing with emotional subjects, written communication is very limited and limiting, as all the subtext that is so vital in human connection is missing. We need to hear the voice and see the facial expressions to get all the extra information that words alone won’t give us.

Similarly, it is vital for everyone to have a clearly assigned point person for human resources matters, a point person for each project they are working on, etc. While remote teams might not want to work within traditional hierarchies, it has to be clear to the individual employee how much ownership and decision-making power they have and whom to ask if they have questions or are in need of a decision that is outside of their area of responsibility.

In order to form deeper connections and open the channels for better communication, team retreats or away-days can really boost morale and motivation. Batchbook has a weekly all-company meeting, where remote employees join in via Skype. These events also help to deepen the connection to the company culture and values that guide decision-making. Even remote rapport is usually improved after a retreat, as people have a better sense of how to communicate with a colleague. Allow time in video conferences to do a little socializing, so people get to know each other on a more personal level as well.

This article was first published on Forbes.

In This Time of Crisis, Here's How to Find Your Rhythm

We are surrounded by uncertainty. We don't know what is going to happen next. We may feel unsettled and somewhat paralyzed by the chaos around us. It’s time to take control. It’s time to change your situation for the better – and maybe help a few other people too.

Right now, there is chaos, but with each passing day, we are going to settle into a new normal. It won't be normal we were used to before, but we will get into a new rhythm, a new lifestyle.

We do this every day of our life, especially as entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs; we adjust, we find jugaad, we deal with chaos. This current change is very big, but years of learning to manage change will help us get through. We are resilient. Everything is changing, but a new normal will eventually arise.

Finding a New Rhythm

If you are hearing conflicting versions of what is going on, it is simply because this has happened so quickly that there is no clear prognosis yet. It will take time. Give it time.

I think the key question here is, how quickly can we adapt to the present situation? How can we get into a rhythm for now? What can we do to work toward establishing a new rhythm for ourselves? In my experience, rhythm has to work at three levels.

Getting Yourself Into a Rhythm

It is only natural to worry about our health and the health of those we care about. However, if we take the worry to an extreme, it may affect us adversely. Some people may have difficulty sleeping. Their existing ailments may get worse. This is natural and expected. Some of us may look to sleeping pills, cigarettes or alcohol to manage this anxiety, but there are healthier ways. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you:

• Take breaks from watching, reading or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.

• Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals; exercise regularly; get plenty of sleep; and avoid alcohol and drugs.

• Make time to unwind. Try to do some other activities you enjoy.

• Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.

Slowly you will start to find your new rhythm.

Getting Others Into a Rhythm

Some of us are more resilient than others. When we see someone who is struggling to deal with the situation, our first reaction might be, “Why are you behaving like this? Get your act together.”

While this is understandable since we are all struggling right now, try to put yourself in other people’s shoes. Maybe they are not as experienced at dealing with uncertainty and change as you are. Maybe the tightly-woven rug of security has just been pulled out from under their feet. So, if you can, help others and guide them. When you guide them, you will also get the strength to guide yourself.

I remember the 1971 war in my country. I lived in a small township at the time. There was a complete curfew, no lights were allowed and all windows were covered with newspaper, so the aircraft would not drop bombs on the town. What I remember most about those days is people sharing food, grandparents sharing stories and everyone playing games together in the night.

During the day, kids studied in groups and fathers would go to the factory to make the steel required to feed the war machinery. All of this was our way of keeping things normal, helping each other. There were no counselors in those days, most problems were solved with a hug and an offer of food.

If others around you are not in rhythm, how will you be? So, if you can, step in and help them get into a rhythm, too.

Getting the World Into a Rhythm

With all that is going on, it is easy to get overwhelmed. There are many aspects we cannot control. There are larger forces — larger players — taking care of that. Now is the time to remember our sphere of influence. What changes are in our power to make? How can we use them to serve the greater good?

What can you do? You can help in some way. We are all here for a purpose. We have an important role to play. If you stay focused on being productive, many things can happen. Normalcy will return more quickly, your mind will be occupied with something useful and you will make a meaningful contribution.

Many people are now working from home for the first time. If you have never done that before, you may experience some teething problems. The internet might be slow, VPN may be slow, there may be interruptions from others in the house. We can handle this two ways. We can moan and complain or we can get creative and find solutions. We are resilient. We can make this work. We can do our part.

Do what you can. There are people giving free coaching. There are people serving tea to the guards securing our residences. There are artists performing free online concerts to help people relax. What can you do? How can you use your skills and talents to help?

What We Should Avoid

Some of us have gotten so used to the chaos that we have developed a “I don’t care” attitude. That is dangerous and something we need to change. Some people may say, “Everything is chaotic, so I will simply give up.” That’s not going to help. In a couple of weeks, in a month, how will you feel if you handled this time badly and wasted it? If you don’t have a laptop and cannot work, learn something new using your phone. Go on Coursera, or help someone else learn something new. Be useful; don’t waste this time. Find your rhythm.

This article was first published on Forbes.

How Leaders Can Prepare Themselves for Future Challenges

More and more people are joining the gig economy. This means top talent is more likely to work project-by-project rather than stay employed with one company for many years. It also means that leaders need to step up to provide engaging work environments in order to attract and retain top talent.

In a 2018 study on the gig economy (registration required), Gallup estimated that "29% of all workers in the U.S. have an alternative work arrangement as their primary job." By 2020, the number of self-employed workers in the U.S. is projected to triple to 42 million people.

Focusing on Soft Skills

Add to that the fact that with the rise of artificial intelligence, soft skills are becoming increasingly important. According to one Forbes contributor, "Soft skills are going to be hard currency in the job market as AI and technology take over some of the jobs that can be performed without people."

In an economy where the leader is more dependent on the expert in their team than vice versa, volatile leaders who treat their reports poorly will no longer be successful. The leader of the future needs to be emotionally intelligent and self-aware to be able to keep those engaged who can just as easily walk away and work somewhere else.

As a coach, one of the many tools I suggest is practicing self-reflection. For example, when you're upset, first ask yourself if you're being triggered because of an unresolved issue. This way, you can avoid blaming someone else for making you angry.

This practice gives you a chance to stop and consider your behavior (and mindset) from different perspectives. This raises self-awareness, which helps you become more congruent and aligned to the stated core values and culture, thus becoming role models for your employees in the best case. Even a little increase in self-awareness can lead to a lot of improvement in relationships of all kinds.

Leveraging Existing Strengths

The coaching process is deeply personalized. It identifies and then builds on the existing strengths of the leader. Take well-known TED speakers Simon Sinek and Brene Brown: They have very different presentation styles. For example, I observed that Brene often relates a lot of personal examples, while Simon used more examples from history or big business. One might inspire you to feel, while another might inspire you to act.

Nevertheless, they are both immensely popular, their respective TED Talks have been watched tens of millions of times, and they've gone on to publish several books each. That'’s because each of them built on their individual strengths and developed a presentation style that is authentic to them. As a leader, identifying and fully leveraging your individual strengths means you, too, can shine.

If you are not 100% sure what your strengths might be, think about the following questions:

• What do people ask your advice for?

• What are the tasks that easily lead you down the "rabbit hole," so you forget the world around you and lose track of time?

• What energizes you? Which tasks make you feel strong and capable as if you're standing fully in your power?

Disruption is key in a world where people are flooded with data every day. We need disruption to actually look up, engage and get curious. So rather than feeling annoyed by disruption, how can you leverage your strengths to create smooth transitions?

Discovering Blind Spots

Often, I've observed leaders become stuck when they have blind spots that keep them doing the same things over and over. Their colleagues might have resigned themselves to expect this behavior from them by now, but that doesn't mean it isn't holding you back. I've heard many conversations in succession planning meetings that go something like this: "Peter would be the ideal candidate for the position if only he listened to what others have to say," or, "Sarah would be so great for the job, if only she were a bit more aware of what she needs to improve."

It's important to develop new ways to solve problems, explore new ideas, go beyond the tried and tested, expand your mind, infuse new energy to change existing behavior and adopt new habits. As a result, you'll be able to work on those challenges you have always wanted to overcome, but couldn't.

From my perspective, what holds you back more than your actual skillset is your beliefs. We often don't even attempt something because we don't believe we can succeed at it.

You can discover your blind spots or dig up a limiting belief by getting perspective on your beliefs, motivating factors and decisions. For example, when you make a decision, stop for a minute and ask yourself what motivated you to make this decision. How many different possible viewpoints did you take into account?

Some aspects of this include absorbing new perspectives, widening your horizons, thinking and listening better, being willing to learn and overcoming career stagnation. When you open your mind, you suddenly see so many more options. What seemed impossible before is suddenly moved into the realm of the possible. This, in turn, improves your ability to think of solutions for yourself rather than rely on the tried and tested ones out there.

The more you succeed in tackling and solving problems, the more confident you become in our own decision-making.

This article first appeared on Forbes.

How to Succeed at Your Resolutions Any Time of Year

The new year is a time when we typically set goals and make resolutions to better ourselves over the coming months, to make this year "our year." But no matter the time of year we create resolutions, our follow-through on them is always the most important factor. Even if you are reading this later into 2020, it's in your best interest to continue to see how you can set yourself up for success.

Below you will find eight questions. Answering them and drawing a plan from them will significantly increase your chances of success this time. I recommend not just answering them in your head but taking notes of your answers, so you can do the follow-up described below, which will further increase your chances of success.

Gain Clarity on Your Motivation, Strengths and Obstacles

1. Why is this resolution important to you? What is the deeper motivation behind it? How does it pertain to something really meaningful in your life? Is this the best place to be investing your efforts for improvement and development right now or is it just the easy way out? On a scale from 1 (no impact) to 10 (life-changing impact) how great would the impact of this resolution be if you succeeded fully?

2. What steps have you taken so far? Have you made a plan? Thought about how you are going to achieve your goal? Done research on the topic to find out what others have done to succeed in similar situations?

3. What has stopped you from making progress? So far this year or when you previously tried, what has impeded your progress? Why didn't you succeed? How have you succeeded in other challenges? What has helped you stay strong and disciplined in the past?

4. How will you overcome these obstacles/challenges? What strengths and skills do you have that can help you? How can you best leverage them to your advantage in this case? What about your network and other resources you have available to you?

5. Is there someone who can help you? Could a mentor or coach help you succeed? Might your mastermind group, your colleague, co-founder, assistant or direct report help take on parts of the job to enable you to succeed sooner and more effortlessly? Might a family member be able to support you by temporarily relieving you of some of your responsibilities at home? The important thing is to have a conversation with the person or people who can help you. Together, you can set clear goals to make sure your expectations are aligned.

6. What will be your first step toward achieving your resolution? Have you made it as concrete and actionable as possible? How can you make it SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) so that you can actually evaluate whether you have succeeded or not?

7. How will you quantify your actions to track your progress? How can you make all your steps measurable? How can you keep track of your progress? How can you make this tracking process as effortless and efficient as possible?

8. What is the one thing that will change for good if you accomplish this task? What impact will this have on your life and work? How will it make your life better, easier, etc.? How will this one thing affect the bigger picture? What trickle effects might it have?

Set Yourself up for Success

Now, review your answers and draw up a plan.

• Mark a few major milestones. You could start by determining what the "halfway point" might be then drawing up two or three milestones respectively before and after.

• Define the first three steps in great detail. Make sure they are simple and clear. If they end up being complex tasks, break them down further. For example, if your resolution is to use your time better, you might have the following milestones:

1. Identify at least three time-wasters and three distractions.

2. Consistently work on my two top priorities for the day before I do other things.

3. By the halfway point, be 10% more productive (e.g. have 10% more billable hours/month) while working the same hours.

4. Have fewer distraction breaks; start and finish on-time more often.

5. Spend more time doing deep work.

Your first three steps might be:

1. Become aware of what pulls me out of deep work

2. Observe how I spend my time for one week, take a few notes every couple of hours

3. Evaluate my notes and see where I lose time and get distracted

• Keep yourself motivated by starting every day with five minutes of telling yourself that you are going to succeed. As soon as you wake up — while brushing your teeth or taking your morning shower — tell yourself, "I am going to succeed" over and over again, for about five minutes.

• Track your progress. Set aside 10 minutes at the end of each week to check in on your goals and set new ones for the next week.

Increase Your Chances Of Success

• Pace yourself, and you will get to your destination, just like when you're climbing a mountain. If you find after a while that you can do more, increase the load mindfully.

• Take a small action every day to maintain momentum rather than planning to take a big action once a week.

• Don't dismay if you don't succeed immediately. Just accept that it hasn't worked yet and try again next week.

• Reflect on what distracted or hindered you during your weekly progress check-ins. If you come up with an answer immediately, great, you can do something about it. If not, don't spend to much time here. Just continue with a more watchful attitude, and next week, you might have more answers.

This article first appeared on Forbes.