Looking for Talent in Faraway Places and Helping them Thrive with Yoni Kozminski

 

Visit MultiplyMii to learn more!

 

 

 

00:20 Show Intro
00:54 Welcoming Yoni
01:37 MultiplyMii backstory
03:57 How to make "remote" workforces work?
05:41 Understanding the operational challenges in a biz
06:45 Creating the company wiki/book
07:28 Why is the Philippines a good place to source talent?
08:08 Glitch
08:40 6th largest number of English speakers
09:48 A lot of college degrees
10:02 Glitch
10:24 Moving from basic tasks to KPO
10:50 Not about "task lists anymore"
11:01 Glitch
11:12 Everyone is outsourcing 
12:12 Mistaken assumptions about outsourcing to the Philippines
12:29 The stigmas around outsourcing
12:34 Entrusting parts of your biz to remote workers 
13:25 Getting used to Zoom meetings
14:02 Language barriers not as big in Philippines
14:29 All the content and our marketing done in Philippines 
14:52 Glitch
16:52 How to build an outsourcing plan
17:09 Be very clear about the biz mission
17:47 Glitch
18:12 The need for a structured onboarding plan
19:21 Bart talks about an example for THG
20:04 The 4 Rs method
20:44 Autonomy - and accountability 
22:44 Why some companies shy away from remote
23:05 The weird juxtaposition of hiring 
24:06 If you do the pre-work you can more quickly step away
25:38 Treating talent the same, regardless of location
27:29 Understanding and appreciating other cultures
28:04 Filipinos are conflict averse
29:36 Advice on creating culture with remote workers
30:50 Core value: understand who you're speaking to
32:46 What is the values-bridge?
33:06 Glitch
35:13 Bart talks about remote at THG
36:28 Check out their website for their free resources on remote talent
37:30 The future of global and remote talent
37:57 Glitch
38:28 Thank yous
38:45 Outro

 

Yoni Kosminski: So all the content on our website and, our, web development, you know, the design work, the video, like, everything's done inside of the Philippines by my team. And when I'm showing people sort of the output of the work and the caliber of it, they're really taken aback.

Bart Egnal: Welcome to the Inspire Podcast, where we examine what it takes to intentionally inspire. I'm your host, Bart Egnal, president and CEO of the Humphrey Group. And if you've ever asked yourself how can you develop an authentic leadership presence or how can you tell stories that have people hanging off every word, well, then this podcast is for you. And it's not just for executives. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to influence and inspire others in their work, but also in their life. My guest on, today's episode of the Inspire Podcast is Yoni Kosminski. Yoni is the CEO and co founder of MultiplyMii. Did I pronounce it right?

Yoni Kosminski: Yeah. MultiplyMii.

Bart Egnal: MultiplyMii. And Yoni joins me from Tel Aviv. Welcome to the Inspire Podcast, Todd.

Yoni Kosminski: It's a pleasure, honor, and a privilege to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bart Egnal: It's my pleasure. It's nice to have a fellow podcaster on. I'm always excited to, get someone on who's a professional and you're kind of a serial entrepreneur, is that fair to say? And now, you've got a couple companies that have come together, so maybe just give us the quick backstory into MultiplyMii. And what's led you to this point in your career?

Yoni Kosminski: Perfect. Well, I'll start a little bit further back. So my sort of career building phase, or early career building phase, I think as entrepreneurs and business owners, it's always about perpetual growth. So we're always building. But I spent the first 10 years of my career in creative advertising, digital marketing, always from small agency, working with big corporate. So I worked in a company of 10 that grew to 30 with Sony, Mercedes Benz as clients, and then one in the US that was 15 to 40, and that was Medtronic and Snapchat and, you know, Mondelez, you know, a whole bunch of sort of large corporate brands. So my, my experience was really across the gamut of digital advertising, creative marketing, paid media, web development, all of those types of things. I'd seen what it was to work with, let's call it the big corporates. And about seven or eight years ago, I just stumbled upon talent that I didn't realize in the Philippines when I was helping grow an E commerce brand from 2 million to 5 million in 12 months that was acquired. And that was the genesis of MultiplyMii, which is a Filipino recruitment and HR business partner, operation that really helps people. Doesn't matter where you're at in your journey, if you've never outsourced before, if you have a degree of experience like that was how MultiplyMii came to be.

Bart Egnal: You know, the reason why I wanted to have you on is, you know, this business that you've, you've created, MultiplyMii, which, you know, really matches global companies with talent. In the Philippines, when we had our planning call, what became clear to me is it's not just that you kind of say, hey, you know, you need a position here, I'll hire them. You know, they're. They're below cost versus what you'd hire in, say, North America. What became clear to me is that both in how you run the business yourself and in the advice that you provide these companies for success, that is just a small part of it. It's really understanding the principles it takes to recruit, engage, onboard, and retain this talent. And so, look, we're in the world today where companies have gone remote. First, companies are going hybrid. Companies are working with global talent. And so I think the value that you can bring to your point is how do you make it work if you are, say, a VP with a, back office halfway around the world, how do you make it work if you're an entrepreneur recruiting roles in the Philippines, how do you make it work if your company is fully remote and you do have to onboard people. And so I think there's some great lessons you have. So anyways, we're jumping to the story, but it'll be a great conversation so back to your second company. And I know these two are kind of linked together.

Yoni Kosminski: Definitely, definitely. And, but, you know, as you said, you like having a fellow podcast. I feel like I learned a tremendous amount pre call, during the call that we have now. So, I'm really, really enjoying my fun together. It's really, really fun. So about a year after we started MultiplyMii and saw the success of that model effectively work for ourselves and that business that we helped to scale and ultimately sell, we stumbled upon. It's probably the only way that I can really, you know, I'm honest, came about Ascala. I interviewed, an incredibly talented woman out of the Philippines that had spent five years at Ernst and Young in the Philippines in a process improvement background. And on the back of her doing her first internal project delivery, what I understood was that it's such a complimentary offering to handle things like process improvement. So you know, if this is the first time you're hearing about process improvement and what it is as a, as a business model and a consulting practice, you know, effectively what, multiply what Aescala does and this is to Bart, your point where they, you know, really work beautifully together is that we'll come in and interview, understand and assess sort of the operational challenges that exist inside of a business. Obviously knowing that remote relationships are more challenging than those that are in office, you know, just by virtue of the fact that you're not able to jump over your shoulders. So we interview everyone, we shadow, we review, we understand the operation. We will then be able to build the process maps that really clearly define the core processes and process groups in each of the sub process. So the decisions and actions that are made inside of the business to build a holistic picture of that operation and start to provide guidance and advice on what are the functions that realistically you should be considering to build a systemized approach to, and build out all the SOPs, training, videos, documentation and everything that will really build fast paced enablement and onboarding and retention and you know, really sort of get you out of your business. And so that is, you know, that's the value proposition that Aescala looks to bring is to give you sort of your business in a very clear book, or company wiki and you can you know, effectively step away or have anyone understand what they need to do on a day to day basis.

Bart Egnal: So you have both this business that matches companies seeking talent in the Philippines with talent and you have a business that takes talent from the Philippines and puts them to work in global companies. So I think it's fair to say, you know, and you, you yourself are not in the Philippines, you're in, you're in Tel Aviv. So I mean you kind of are helping companies tap into talent and you yourself are tapping into talent. So I think, I think the first place for us to start is in the Philippines itself. I mean I've never been to the Philippines. I don't know a lot about the country and so I think it's worth you given us a plug like, you know, what should we know about the Philippines? Why is it such a hotbed of talent for global companies?

Yoni Kosminski: I warn everyone I'm very passionate about I'm very passionate about this. So if I'm getting excited and I'm sort of sharing a level of depth that you weren't Expecting, I apologize, go for it. But the long story is that the Philippines is a country that has 120 million people. So it's about a third the size of the US So already significant population standpoint. The next aspect of it is that for the last 30 or so years, mostly the US but other geographies as well, other first world countries have really been investing in the development of the Philippines. So just a couple of like noteworthy stats for those listening and interested to learn a little bit about the Philippines should take note of is that one English is more or less one of the primary spoken languages. I think the stat that I always find funny is that has the sixth largest number of English speaking people in the world.

Bart Egnal: Wow.

Yoni Kosminski: Just above, just above England.

Bart Egnal: No way.

Yoni Kosminski: So you know, in terms of English language, very strong. But, but where it gets really Strong is that 95% of people that work in the BPO, the business process outsourcing. So it's sort of a blanket term for anyone that's working in remote roles, locally based in the Philippines, have a college education. And where that gets really interesting is that all college education is done in English. So you're getting people that have grown up speaking English, you're getting this cultural evolution that's becoming closer and closer to the US And I think just a couple of other interesting stats is that about 20 years ago about 3% of the population there had a college degree or higher when they really started to invest in this BPO space. And today it's at about 13% of the population. So it's grown significantly. And each year, year on year, we continue to see more and more growth. So for a comparative to the US you're talking about 600 plus thousand people each year receive a college degree. With 120 million people, the US is producing 2 million a year with 350 million. So it's like, for like as a population perspective, more or less used to grow and where we sit in the world and I think this is, you know, I'm I'm building myself segues here. But one of the things that I really hope that people can understand and can leverage and achieve when we talk about remote talent in the Philippines specifically is that we've moved from basic tasks to, you know, some are referring to it now is like KPO knowledge Process outsourcing where we're talking about skilled labor, not virtual assistants to do baseline tasks. But we are talking about people that can come in and take accountability and responsibility for specific deliverable functions. You know like accounts payable and receivable and financial controllers and designers and project managers and operations managers. This isn't about building task lists anymore like it was 10 or 15 years ago. This is about having a geographically dispersed team that can achieve, well, be what I would say most people can, imagine. And this is more a plug for the Philippines and less about us as a business and you know, the impact that we're trying to have. Because the reality of the current state of the world is that everyone is outsourcing. And so I just hope that you get on top of it for, you know, I mean the obvious things and this isn't how we try to position ourselves but obviously 60 to 80%, you know, it's, it's about 60 to 80% of the cost of living of that in the U.S. so you know, the roles that we're talking about here will range from $800 a month to two and a half thousand dollars a month in terms of their monthly full time salaries. So you know, there's obviously that cost benefit, but you need to be reframing your thinking in saying I'm getting the cost benefit, but I'm not trading it off for low level talent, I'm getting quality.

Bart Egnal: So maybe that's, that's a good lead into what you know. So one mistake, and when you think about the assumptions, I mean you who are connecting the world to the Philippines, one assumption it sounds like that you're trying to correct or that people listening should correct is it's not just about task replacement. What would be another? If there were kind of two or three other mistaken assumptions that people typically hold about outsourcing to the Philippines, what would they be and why should people abandon them?

Yoni Kosminski: So if I were to look at some of the sort of classic stigmas attached to I would say first outsourcing and then more specifically the Philippines, I would say one, I think for a lot of people, the notion of entrusting parts of your business to someone who isn't sat in the same office or geography as you is something that can be daunting and concerning. And you know, I think one, there are plenty of solutions from data security and privacy protocols that can be rolled out when it comes to building really structured onboarding frameworks and management frameworks that really allow you to manage in not necessarily async, asynchronous like at different time zones, but from the standpoint that you can build in structures that will actually create more work output rather than less. And I think a lot of people who are not used to working with people, you know, on Zoom, which I think post Covid, I think it's, you know, I think everyone normally much more used to it but, but I think that that's one aspect of it and I would say too, you know, I touched on it before but it's this idea that you know, they're not going to understand any of the cultural nuance. They're not going to be able to, you know, am I going to understand their English level? you know, are these things actually going to be sort of viable for my business? And you know, I've made the joke, with my Australian accent. I think some of my team is clearer to understand to an American ear than even I am. So, so you know, that the, that the language barriers that a lot of people are apprehensive about are not there compared to you know, other geographies and that the capabilities are not these baseline tasks. And I think, you know, the aha moment that I often see particularly when I'm chatting with you know, agency owners or businesses that are in creative and marketing. Obviously given my experience I've built my own little internal marketing agency effectively. So all the content on our website and our web development, you know, the design work, the video, like everything's done inside of the Philippines by my team and when I'm showing people sort of the output of the work and the caliber of it, they're really taken aback and saying but I thought that I would need to be so prescriptive or I didn't think it possible. And I think that that sync time shift and you know, I'll end this, this monologue in, in saying that a, ah, big reason why we founded a business like MultiplyMii is that instead of trying to go back into E commerce, which I would have had to have either raised capital or you know, put in at least a couple hundred thousand dollars to get the business up and running with, you know, with what the cash conversion cycles look like in a business model like that. We've been able to bootstrap this business and grow it considerably in you know, five or so years. And you know, I think you sort of touched on it, but we drink our own Kool Aid. Like these are the things that have really worked for us and have made us, you know, a company of 85 plus minus team members, you know, working across multiple businesses that are driving forward, that are really building in just an incredible outcome for us. And that's really the gift that we hope that we're able to bestow upon people looking to build profitable businesses.

Bart Egnal: Yeah, I think you are like the proof of concept for your own business model. So you know, what I'm taking away is the talent level is there, the education is there, the processes can be created in the, in the, don't worry about the English. It's going to be maybe better than hiring Aussies. So definitely. So let's, let's talk about. You've made the decision. Let's say you're a business owner, you're an executive. The decision has been made, you're bringing in someone and it might be from the Philippines, it might be from another remote jurisdiction with cultural differences from where you're based. Now you've talked about the fact that you have kind of a rigorous set of principles that drive success. So let's go into those. and I think that there were a couple. You know, one is that I'm, if I recall, one was having a plan to get them to get that person up and running. Two is the critical nature of how you communicate with them. And three is kind of a uniformity of talent management. So let's go through each of those because I think they apply whether you are an entrepreneur or an executive so let's start with the plan. Take me into that one. What do you advise?

Yoni Kosminski: So when we talk about planning about building remote teams or talent in general, I think it's the same approach. Right. the first and most important thing is to be very, very clear on what the mission is, you know, at a business level and how does that flow onto the resources and the human resources more specifically that you need in order to achieve those goals. So the plan in my mind is defining those KPIs, defining the success metrics that align with the individual you are looking to bring on and working business backwards rather than talent forwards on, on, on who you're trying to bring in. So when we talk about it from a remote perspective, it's still the same. You're still building the mission. And success driver comes that this person needs to achieve in order to be successful in that mission. And you need to be clear on what attributes need to have in order to achieve the outcome in the mission where it starts to get. I would say again, these are things that you should be doing for locally, you know, sourced talent. But I think it is personified when we talk about a need for a very structured onboarding plan and having clarity on what early win successful projects look like and what are the time, the time and check in Protocols that you're going to roll out in order to keep everyone honest, not just the team member you're bringing on, but in many cases yourself. Coming back to the in office experience, you're not just going to sit and tap them over the shoulder and say hey, can you come have a look at this while, while you shadow me? Which I would. Whether you're sitting next to someone or not, I would highly advise against that as a structure because you draw yourself in to the delivery and you actually prevent yourself from you know, building that clarity that allows to someone to be set free through things like building a knowledge base, company wiki and all the sops that will actually guide them through a much more self taught experience.

Bart Egnal: Okay, so let's take, let's imagine that the Humphrey group comes to MultiplyMii and says, you know, we want to hire a new resource and you know we'll say you know our, let's imagine our our global delivery has grown and we want to hire a coordinator, someone who is, when we, when we sell a piece of training, there's the salesperson, there's the delivery people and then we have client experience corners who coordinate the implementation. And we want someone let's say in the European time zone because the clients are going to be European, the delivery is going to be European. What would you advise then on that? Working backwards from the business and then setting up the onboarding us to do to practice those things.

Yoni Kosminski: So if you are looking to bring on a coordinator, I would say the first thing is being clear on you know, what the scope of that role looks like and getting material clarity. You know there's a couple of different approaches. When we talk about billing, for example, a job description here, there's the four R's method that we like.

Bart Egnal: and what are the four R's?

Yoni Kosminski: So you've got role requirement, responsibility and results. And I think that that in and of itself starts to build clarity in saying okay for this person to be successful, these are the results, this is what's required of them and, and so on so you can get clear on who you're bringing in. But I would also invest really heavily in what that education, what that ramp up looks like. So you know we have what we call our seven C's onboarding framework internally. But working through that, working through that onboarding, that 90 day plan, you know, slowly but surely take the training wheels off and give them more and more autonomy. And a part of that is also having clarity in the accountability. So it's not Just about the results. But if you're to truly set your team member free, what are they accountable for? What, what do you point the finger at them or pat them on the back for if they succeed or fail? What does that actually look like? And I think that if you can establish those things relatively early in the first 90 days, you're going to see a huge success. I think. I can't remember the actual number of the stat, but the percentage of people that drop off in that first 90 days is considerable. That's usually where you realize you've gone wrong. And if you can expedite that so you create that force function in this planning, in either realizing pretty quickly that this is person, this person is going to swim, or they're going to sink, you're going to save yourself a lot of money. Generally speaking, forget where you're paying them. It's the, it's the costs attached to your time and your energy and your organization's time. Yeah.

Bart Egnal: And I think what's really, that's super helpful. I like your four R's and the seven C's. was it seven? Did I get that right? Yeah. What's so fascinating to me is you're sharing those things as imperatives for successful remote hires and onboarding, and yet they really should be the same things as we do for a typical in person or local hire. But I think the point you made was when we're local, we can get away with thinking that we don't need them. All right? We can get away with saying, you know, I'll manage by walking around, or the person will just come to the meetings. And so really, in some ways, you can't get away with that with remote. And maybe that's part of why people are reluctant to hire remotely, because it forces them to actually do that work of defining the role and building onboarding. I mean, so many companies, I think, don't have solid onboarding. do you think that's the case that people sometimes shy away from remote because it kind of is a forcing mechanism they don't want to participate in?

Yoni Kosminski: It's like, I would say that we see a considerable amount of failed attempts largely built into that type of problem. So they don't want to invest the time. You know, it's like this, it's this weird juxtaposition when you look to bring someone new on, where your whole notion of bringing them on is to free up your time and create, you know, a force multiplication of your output. And that's why you hire in General but it's one step backwards for two steps forwards. And I think for a lot of people they're not necessarily willing to have that critical time investment. And you know I would say from, from my personal experience and some more effectively, some less effectively, you know, multiple businesses concurrently. You know I would say at the, at the height of it we were running about four companies and now we're focused on, on two and having like material consolidation. It is that if you put in the time and the investment to build out that knowledge base to define the brief as clearly as possible with the mindset of I want to put every piece of information so that no one is going to come back and ask me additional questions. If you do the pre work and the pre planning what you'll find is that you can much more quickly step away so you still have the touch points and the relationship based nature of it. But if I'm hiring, you know, I think to use your example, a coordinator and let's say you get really busy and all of a sudden you need one for North America and you need one for the, for Europe and you're doing great in Australasia if you build that work. Once you know the way we approach, for example our consultants is that there'll be a two week async training component inside of Train your which is a knowledge base platform that we love to use where they can self administer and do assessments and then have check ins through the week where we're reviewing the assessments, we're giving them feedback. It's taking up two or three hours as opposed to sitting with someone for you know, 30, 43 weeks trying to.

Bart Egnal: Right.

Yoni Kosminski: It's, it's a it's a material difference in the investment. And so that's you know, I would say part of the secret sauce in how we grew from one consultant to 30 in less than 12 months because we were able to build these types of frameworks and have people self educate.

Bart Egnal: I love it. Yeah, I mean for us we use a lot of almost all of our deliveries done by contractors and so we're always welcoming new people and having that wiki is a great point. So the last thing I want to ask you about, and this is you talked about treating talent the same irrespective of where they are. Talk to me about first of all why people don't do that and how that manifests and then what you advise instead.

Yoni Kosminski: So I guess this could also be to one of your earliest questions here like one of the gross misconceptions I added in gross that, you know, the areas where people fall down is that they look at the world from the lens of my remote team and my local team or my VA or you know, the person that's just delivering these tasks and like, yeah, I'll just get a VA and you know, it's something that's obviously very close to my heart. I mean I, you know, I have a fundamental belief of, you know, equity for all people and that, you know, I'm not better than anyone else. And at parties I like to make the cocktails for the team. I enjoy a bit of hobbyist bartending but, but coming back to it, I think that people often because they're not in the same country, they're paid significantly less. They, they don't give the value to what is actually possible. And so what I suggest to everyone who's building remote teams is to one enter this arena from the standpoint in saying I'm bringing on this team member in whatever geography they are that's not my own because they are going to add material value to my business. The investment I'm going to make from a dollar amount is going to 2, 3, 4, 5, 10x whatever I'm spending. And so this person is important to the growth and success of my business and to really sort of bring yourself back to that. But I would say, you know, on the, on the, on the softer side or on the sort of the more interpersonal side, like I spent a lot of time trying to understand the Filipino culture on my end as an example. And you know, I've fallen in love from a cultural perspective. You know, I didn't call out in when I was giving my, my long history of the Philippines, but you know, the work ethic and just how central family is and gifting around Christmas, like these things are such important cultural drivers. You know, I would say like one of the, it's not, it's not a negative. One of the considerations when you talk about working with Filipinos is that when it comes to conflict they're, they're pretty conflict averse. So. And I think it's quite an Asian trait in general or at least like you know, Japan is very similar and a few other countries in the geography, you know, South Korea. And so you have to build a really strong degree of trust so that you can get healthy conflict inside of your organization. And these are aspects that you need to master and learn and understand. And that's a big part. When coming back to your question. M. I'm, Investing the time to learn about my team and the culture. And I think it's had a really positive effect, I would say, not just on us, but all the businesses that we get to work with because we're able to pass on that knowledge.

Bart Egnal: Right? Yeah. And that's a great segue to have. I know the last thing we're going to dive into, which is that you really do have to. When you welcome people from what I took away from you in that point, when you welcome employees on, it's not just saying, oh, you're going to be an equivalent member of the team. You also have to give if you want to get the most out of them, to understand where they come from. Right. And understand how they communicate. I mean, we talk at the Humphrey Group about audience centric communication.

Yoni Kosminski: Right.

Bart Egnal: That if you want to reach someone, it's incumbent on you to understand them and to understand where they come from so that you can influence and inspire them. And so what I'm hearing is that employers and managers, you can't. It's not just listening to them. You have to really get beyond that and understand culture. How would you advise someone to do that? I mean, I know you, for example, can go to the Philippines, you have your retreats there, you get together with your team. But let's imagine you have, an executive, a banking executive in Canada who is given authority over a Filipino team who is responsible for back office processes for the bank. How would you advise them to dig into understanding the cultural differences if they can't say, let's imagine even the first year they have no budget to go visit.

Yoni Kosminski: So I'll anecdotally share with you first that I got to the Philippines for the first time after working with the Philippines for close to 10 years and having a company there for about five or so.

Bart Egnal: Wow.

Yoni Kosminski: That's all to say, I mean, we launched just before COVID and so not the best time to be able to get to travel. Particularly the Philippines was shut down. We had had a retreat planned and it all went belly up. But what I'll. What I'll share, and it's actually, I would say, deeply embedded in our culture internally. And one of our core values is really to understand who you're speaking to. So for us, you know, one of our core values is comprehend before you recommend, with humility and curiosity. We seek to deeply understand before offering guidance or solutions. So you know that like how we approach this is through deep questioning and understanding and make the effort just like you would, you know, I Think you have to substitute aspects of the working relationship. You don't have the water cooler conversations or the, you know, as we would say in Australia, the knockoff beers, you know, on a Friday afternoon. you have to actually integrate that time and build that in. And so we really make an intentional decision to again, treat everyone as equals and ask the questions. And, you know, like, I know when team members have birthdays, you know, and their kids, like, everything that I would know about my team that sits in the office with me or remote, I'm really invested in learning. And so, I think generally speaking, the answer, you know, the short answer is just ask.

Bart Egnal: And also I'm hearing two things there. One is don't apply. If there are things that you can learn about someone by being in physical proximity, you have to be intentional to learn those things there. And secondly, you have to make an effort to understand the cultural differences. Some of that sounds like will just occur over time. You know, for example, your knowledge of the conflict, general conflict aversion and focus on family. Others, you can create space to intentionally ask, but it's so, it's, you know, some of that can happen quickly. Some of it, you have to put rigor in, and intention behind. Is that fair?

Yoni Kosminski: Very, very, very well put.

Bart Egnal: Another thing you mentioned when we were prepping is something you call the values bridge that you have to forge cross culturally. What is a values bridge and how do you build one?

Yoni Kosminski: So the way we, again, we look at the world, like if I look at what our mission is, it's to be that bridge between, you know, first world and emerging world talent being the bridge to helping build, I would say degree of codependency. When we talk about the necessity today to, compete in an unfair playing field. And so when we talk about that building the culture bridge and making sure that we build that alignment, you know, obviously today we're fortunate that we, you know, for the second time this year, are flying to the Philippines and we'll get together with our entire team. But through the nature of, you know, deep questioning and meaningful curiosity, you know, we've learned a lot about the Philippines and so establishing, for example, again, I live in Israel. my background, I'm, you know, I would say, Jewish, like in terms of, you know, secular. But, but Christmas, obviously not a big thing for us. It's, it's, it's. It's enormous for the Philippines. Like, the idea of doing raffles and giveaways and like that at a Christmas party is you know, I would say, like quite a central pillar to our company culture. we raffle off like tens of thousands of dollars of.

Bart Egnal: That's great.

Yoni Kosminski: Of gifts in, you know, in December. And, you know, everyone's really excited about it. So I would say coming back.

Bart Egnal: So you've really merged rather than saying, hey, you know, I'm, I'm an Australian who's moved to Israel, who's Jewish. This is the culture you've looked at. Your population said, this is what matters to them. So I'm going to embrace that and bridge, I guess that's the values. Bridge. Right, Bridge and mesh our, culture into what matters for you.

Yoni Kosminski: I also love Christmas.

Bart Egnal: So do I have. I'm one Jewish parent, one Christian parent. We do it all.

Yoni Kosminski: You get it all. You get the best of both worlds.

Bart Egnal: That's right.

Yoni Kosminski: Ah, that's cheating.

Bart Egnal: And this year Hanukkah, comes very late, so. Yeah, that's super helpful, Yoni. I mean, I think what your advice shows is there is talent, and the talent is probably far more advanced than you think, whether it's in the Philippines or other countries. I mean, we're blessed to have great talent from Latin America. And they are, same thing, strong equivalent members of our team. They've taken on more senior roles and we're so grateful to have them. We've moved to fully remote the Humphrey Group in Covid, and it's really evened everything out in the sense of whether you're in Toronto, Vancouver or Mexico City, it is one team. And some of the practices that you've talked about are very, much help. But there are others I'm, taking away. And I think that everyone listening could take away, like the wiki, you know, the, you know, the four R's, all these kind of foundational practices allow you to almost to standardize and bring people on board and help them be successful, and tap into this global talent. And also then bridging culturally, making sure you invest the time in your people to create that high engagement. So it's, it's a clear recipe and obviously, you know, you are eating your own cooking, as they say, and enjoying a lot of success with it.

Yoni Kosminski: Definitely, definitely. I'll share with you before we, you know, move on to the next section or wrap, is that we actually have a whole host. Like a big part of my personal philosophy, our philosophy, it's, it's about how do you add value first? how do you, how do you, how do you, you know, it's the gift of giving without the expectation of reciprocation. We've got a host of free resources on our website. I would say like one of them that might be relevant to the listeners. We have about seven or 800 pre built job descriptions following those four hours framework. So I can send you a link to that. We also have a job description builder, where you can answer six questions and based on the, you know, the methodology, you know, we've effectively been able to create you know, a GPT prompting experience that allows you to get that out as well as the comparable prices of talent in the Philippines, the US for the top hundred roles that you could explore, but what you should be paying them, not about us and our fees and things like that. So just a couple of free resources that I'm happy to share.

Bart Egnal: Yeah, let's put those in the, in the show notes. I think anyone listening who is managing or thinking of hiring remote talent will benefit. So if there was as, as we wrap, it's been great conversation. if there's one thought you leave people with about the future of global talent and remote talent, whether it's in the Philippines or elsewhere, what would that be?

Yoni Kosminski: You have to be, you have to be taking it seriously or like you are already. But you know, leveraging talent we're not in life and business are not fair. And for those who are getting on these emerging world talent, you know, whether it's Eastern Europe or the Philippines, or Pakistan or wherever it is you're going, this is what you're competing against. And so if you can be at the forefront of cultivating strong capabilities to actually recruit and build sort of this, you know what I think will later just be called like an augmented workforce and stop talking about it as remote versus local and things like that. I think that you know, now's the time and you should just really look to explore how you can, you, you can get into that, onto that journey.

Bart Egnal: And well, and this is a, a super helpful way to start opening the mind. So Yoni, I want to thank you for coming on the pod. It's been a great conversation and thanks for sharing your expertise.

Yoni Kosminski: Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Bart Egnal: I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Inspire podcast and the conversation that I had with our guests. And hopefully you left with some really practical, tangible tools and tips that you can use to be more consistently inspirational. If you're enjoying the pod, I'll ask you a favor. Please rate and review it. I love the comments, appreciate the reviews and the visibility allows others to discover the pod. It's really how word of mouth has spread the Inspire Podcast to so many listeners and helped us keep making this great content. Stay tuned. We'll be back in two weeks with another inspiring conversation. Thanks so much for listening. Go forth and inspire.