Corporate Vision Issue 5

CORPORATE VISION / Issue 5 2018 11 “Maintaining a uniform company culture across our multiple locations is certainly difficult, but we manage it. It requires discipline, commitment, and – of course – hiring the right people. “In fact, all staff are directly hired by or through Rick Hammell, our CEO. From the moment they join, they all have his full support, and because of that, they’re all on the same page. Also, we make sure to maintain a scrupulous awareness of our strengths and weaknesses: we want to know where we’re doing well so we can build on it, and we want to know where we’re falling short, so we can correct it. It’s not all rigorous process improvement, of course: a keen sense of fun is essential to any company culture, and we try to ensure that employees enjoy our workplace environments. “Although we’re now an international business, we know how important it is to think globally, but act locally. We’re an American business, but we don’t want to be an Americanised one when we’re operating in the UK, Spain, or Hong Kong.” Helping Businesses Expand Globally g Contact: Dany Rastelli Company: Elements Global Services, 42 Corsham Street, London, N1 6DR, UK Telephone: 0203 405 8282 Web Address: www.elementsgs.com Staying on the topic of the staff, Dany shares EGS’ approach to hiring new team members, and how they attract the very best talent in the industry to their company. “The first rule of creating a global business is simple: hire local. It might make sense to parachute in high-fliers from a different office at first, but if they don’t understand the region they’re operating in, they won’t get the best results. Hiring people who speak the cultural language is all- important – as is attracting them by highlighting the company’s potential to disrupt its field. You want to offer good salaries and a positive culture, but you also want to present the company as an intellectually exciting environment. “Also, of course, we make sure not to hire anyone who doesn’t have the full support of our CEO. Rick’s been involved in the interview process for every one of our hires, and that isn’t going to change soon.” Bringing the interview to a close, Dany reveals the developments within the industry that he foresees, and the firm will adapt around these. “More players in our space will adopt the EOR model. As previously mentioned, we’re currently one of the only providers who offer this, but we don’t expect to be for very long: the challenge is to keep innovating and keep providing superior service even as competitors attempt to muscle in on our territory. We’re more than up to it. Plenty of companies that pretend to provide full end-to-end EOR will be weeded out by the rise of genuine EOR businesses. The quality of service across the industry will therefore rise. “It’ll come just in time, as well: rising geopolitical volatility will serve as a real barrier to companies looking to explore new markets – and EOR services will allow them to avoid setting up registered entities in potentially fraught regions. This will considerably mitigate their risks.” Moving forward, the future for EGS looks bright, as Dany explains how the firm will have doubled their workforce, as well as starting to branch out and establishing themselves an international brand. “By the end of 2018, we intend to double our global workforce from 50 to 100 employees. What’s more, these employees are going to be very busy because EGS fully intends to make a significant impact across each region of the world we operate in. Lastly, we’re perceived in some quarters as a primarily American company, and we intend to move further and further away from that. In future, we’d like to be thought of as a truly international brand.”