One of the interesting debates in recent weeks has been whether the explosive growth in remote working will open up global pools of talent to employers in ways we’ve not seen before. Recruiting across borders can present many challenges, so what should employers be taking into account and planning for?
My guest this week is Lucy Williams, the former Head of Talent Acquisition at Visa for Central Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Lucy has extensive experience of recruiting across several continents and has some very insightful learnings and advice to share.
In the interview, we discuss:
• The challenges of recruiting in a different geography
• International internal mobility
• Managing hiring manager expectations
• Different hiring practices and recruiting challenges
• Building an employer brand strategy in multiple countries
• Job boards and recruitment marketing
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Transcription:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast is provided by shl. From Talent Acquisition to Talent Management, SHL has the people insight to help you build a talent strategy that achieves outcomes like increased productivity, internal mobility, engagement and leadership diversity. SHL brings transparent AI technology, decades of trustworthy data science and objectivity to help companies attract, develop and grow the workforce you need to succeed in the digital era. Visit shl.com to learn how you can unlock the full potential of your greatest asset, your people.
Matt Alder [00:01:01]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 294 of the Recruiting Future podcast. One of the interesting debates of recent weeks has been whether the explosive growth in remote working will open up global pools of talent to employers in ways we’ve not seen before. Recruiting across borders can present a number of challenges. So what should employers be taking into account and planning for? My guest this week is Lucy Williams, the former Head of Talent Acquisition at Visa for Central Europe, the Middle east and Africa. Lucy has extensive experience of recruiting across several continents and has some very insightful learnings and advice to share. Hi Lucy and welcome to the podcast.
Lucy Williams [00:01:53]:
Hi Matt, thanks for having me.
Matt Alder [00:01:55]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Lucy Williams [00:02:01]:
Sure. So my name is Lucy Williams. I am a former Head of Talent Acquisition for Visa Inc. And I’ve just returned to the UK after 12 and a half years in Dubai.
Matt Alder [00:02:11]:
Tell us a little bit more about your story. What have you been doing for the last few years?
Lucy Williams [00:02:15]:
Well, I relocated to Dubai As I said 12 years ago with a recruitment company I was working for in the uk. I’m initially thinking I would be there only for a couple of months and then come back home, but it turned out to be a great experience both professionally and personally and providing provided me with the opportunity to travel and experience many different cultures. During my time there, I recruited for various roles across the Middle east and Africa within telecoms, technology and financial sectors before joining an RPO implementation project at HSBC as a Recruitment Manager for the Middle East. And in my last role I spent about seven years at Visa where I was predominantly building up the talent acquisition function across Central Europe, Middle east and Africa. I then left in March last year, took a year out to travel across Europe, America, Asia. I then came back to Dubai, was grounded there due to the COVID pandemic, but I’ve been keeping myself quite busy helping with a hospitality startup which has certainly kept me on my toes. In a startup environment, you need to be self motivated, passionate, resilient and ultimately accountable. And this experience has really taught me how to stay motivated in a remote setting with a team of just three people, which, for somebody who’s used to being in an office, surrounded by people and thriving in that environment, it’s been quite a nice new experience for me.
Matt Alder [00:03:39]:
2020 has been the craziest year for, for everyone. And on the show we’ve been exploring the implications of some of the things that are happening for the, for the long term. And one of the things that’s been flagged up quite a lot is that the rise of remote working as a sort of prolonged or as a permanent thing will mean that employers are able to sort of tap talent markets in a way that they’ve not been able to do before when they were sort of tied to offices and that kind of thing. Is that something that you think is going to happen from your experience of working across lots of different global talent markets?
Lucy Williams [00:04:18]:
I certainly do hope so. I think once you get past some of the practical and emotional challenges such as working time zones, social engagement with peers and remote onboarding, the benefits are huge. If I think about my experience, as you said, working across multiple markets, sometimes you’re going to be hiring for a country that doesn’t issue work permits to foreign nationals and you’re looking for a skill set that isn’t necessarily available locally. If companies start to open up to more global talent, you now have access to a pool of talent that you weren’t perhaps considering before. And from a candidate perspective, if you are in a country that you’re not able to relocate from, you now have organisations and roles available to you that weren’t there before. That said, I think we all need to be mindful of the impact that remote working may have on some people. It isn’t for everybody and it doesn’t work for all roles. Remote working isn’t new, but the current employment situation has resulted in a lot of companies finally realising that people can be productive without micromanagement and flexible working arrangements are now on the agenda. So I think, to summarize, I do think that more companies will tap into global markets they haven’t considered before. However, they need to have the tools and resources in place to engage and collaborate appropriately with staff to ensure that a person working remotely doesn’t, doesn’t feel disadvantaged compared to an office based employee.
Matt Alder [00:05:43]:
Absolutely. And I’m keen to sort of look into some of the practical logistics of this Kind of hiring based on your experience. So what are some of the important considerations for recruiting across countries and cultures? I mean, give us some of the examples of some of the challenges that you face doing that.
Lucy Williams [00:06:01]:
Yeah, quite a few I think. First of all, you have to be aware of the specific nuances, the labour laws and also the candidate expectations for each country that you’re recruiting for and not assume that every country opposites in the same way operates in the same way, or even every continent operates in the same way. The majority of challenges I faced occurred when trying to move internal talent across the different regions and countries. So for example, in South Africa you need to adhere to the Employment Equity Act. So as an employer you need to create and adhere to a long term hiring plan that ensures you are hiring across different ethnicities within South Africa. Meaning it can be challenging to hire an expat. Generally you will need to get work permits for foreign nationals in, in a lot of these countries there can always be a way around this, but the focus should really be on hiring local talent. And when doing this you really need to understand Canada expectations locally. So if I give you an example, in Nigeria a lot of companies will offer a low basic salary but high cash benefits. In some cases the benefits will make up 90% of the total salary, which then gives the employee a higher net income as not all benefits are taxable. So if you are looking to offer a package that is made up predominantly of base salary, you need to do a net comparison of earnings instead of a gross comparison, which we found at first a little challenging because we’ve always put together a TGC which which comprised mainly of base salary. And when you’re offering a candidate there, they’re always going to look at what the net is, not just what the total salary is.
Matt Alder [00:07:39]:
So I can imagine that working with hiring managers while recruiting people to work for them in other countries is also a big challenge. How did you manage their expectations around that and what advice would you give to employers who are in the same circumstance?
Lucy Williams [00:07:56]:
Well, I think working for a global company, I worked with hiring managers who weren’t familiar with the region. So you could be dealing with a function lead based in America, for example, who would assume that hiring practices were the same as that in their own country, which is fair. So to manage their expectations, I’d always ensure that they were made aware of any challenges and any diversity needs as early as possible. So ideally before the job briefing, if not possible, then we’d always have that conversation during the job briefing and when putting together the sourcing strategy, so there weren’t any surprises down the line. And as I said before, I think the challenge is some hiring managers come with candidates in mind. They might have somebody internally that they want to move and it’s not always possible. So always, always have that conversation as soon as possible. My advice to any organisation looking to expand into a new market would be to really take the time to research the hiring practices and connect with recruiters on the ground to learn about any nuances prior to finalising any kind of plans. And also make sure that you have a budget in place for sourcing talent in locations where traditional methods might not be viable. I think this is also essential, having the budget there.
Matt Alder [00:09:11]:
Can you expand on that a bit in terms of what you mean by traditional methods not being viable?
Lucy Williams [00:09:16]:
We would generally look for talent across your traditional job board, such as LinkedIn indeed, etc. Whereas they’re not always utilised or even available in some of these countries. So for me, I’d always budget for agency spend in some of these countries. So, for example, we were hiring three people in Cote d’ivoire. We only had an office of two people, so I knew that referrals weren’t going to be an option for us. Job boards weren’t really utilized there. So my money was best spent using an agency in market who understood the fintech industry. So I always made sure, when we’re doing the workforce planning, when I knew where the roles were coming, is just making sure that there’s budget there or if I’m using a job board that isn’t part of our psl, obviously that you’re going to have to pay per post. So that’s what I mean by that.
Matt Alder [00:10:11]:
Tell us about some of the things that you’ve learned from working across different countries.
Lucy Williams [00:10:15]:
Yeah, I think. Well, I’ve been quite fortunate. My previous roles have enabled me to travel to countries across Middle East, Africa and Asia. And it’s really given me a deeper understanding and respect for different cultures that I perhaps didn’t have before. I was once asked to work on a short project in Iran, which meant traveling and staying there alone, something I was quite apprehensive about to start with. But when I got there, I was blown away by how welcoming the locals were. I had all these preconceived ideas, you know, all these fears, but it turned out to be a great experience and it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and taught me to embrace the unknown, which has really helped when, when, when traveling and obviously hiring different nationalities and cultures and having a better understanding of them, it really helps you connect with candidates from different areas.
Matt Alder [00:11:04]:
So, from the perspective of employer branding, this has always been a bit of a challenge and a bit of a debate about how that works across sort of multiple countries and multiple geographies. How should employers be thinking about their employer brand in this global context?
Lucy Williams [00:11:22]:
I think you need to look at the market that you’re targeting, whether that is, you are looking to expand in a specific country or whether you’re looking to hire from a specific country. The approach of having one career page doesn’t really work in these markets. People want to see people that look like them, they want to see their cultures present, they want to see that companies are really embracing inclusion and diversity. So I would always say do the research, connect with organizations that can help you get an understanding of your brand awareness in that market and build a strategy around that. Don’t assume that people understand who your company is and what you do. Make sure that you have specific career pages or a website that caters for different markets and different cultures. So I would say make sure that whoever you’re marketing to, that you’ve actually done the research to understand what people want to see and what they expect from organisations.
Matt Alder [00:12:30]:
What role does technology play in this? Are there any sort of key differences or considerations across different geographies that people should be thinking about?
Lucy Williams [00:12:40]:
Absolutely. Especially job boards. I think it’s fair to say that the majority of recruiters rely on LinkedIn to source a lot of their talent. However, in the Middle east and Africa, there is a low usage of this as a hiring tool. And in Russia, LinkedIn is actually banned. So you really need to get creative as you’re working with some of the developing markets who are, whilst they’re making great strides when it comes to technology, they’re not necessarily as advanced as the Western world. So really ensure that you have a good employee referral scheme in place. And as I said before, make sure that you’ve built a really strong employer brand in that market so that people are actually driven to your own career page. And you’re not just focusing on passive candidates. You also need to research which local job boards are being utilised for the type of role that you’re hiring for in that country. In the absence of LinkedIn, you’ll find that some of the different countries use various different job boards and just make sure that you’re using the right ones.
Matt Alder [00:13:38]:
So, final question. What’s next for you? Tell us about the new challenge that you’re looking for.
Lucy Williams [00:13:43]:
I’ve been back in the UK for a couple of months now and whilst it’s been great to enjoy the summer and spend time with family, I’m definitely ready to take on a new role and would like to focus my search within Europe for my next role. I’m eager to join a progressive organisation where I can embrace diversity and use the skills that I’ve learned to further develop a talent acquisition function. An inclusive company culture is also very important to me, so I’m looking to join a company that demonstrates this, shares my passion for developing people and ultimately recognizes talent acquisition as an integral part of the business.
Matt Alder [00:14:19]:
Lucy, thank you very much for talking to me.
Lucy Williams [00:14:21]:
Thank you Matt. It’s a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:14:23]:
My thanks to Lucy Williams. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts on Spotify or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram. You can find the show by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search through all the past episodes@www.recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the podcast. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
