Daniel Callaghan: Hello, and welcome. Thank you all for attending. My name is Daniel Callaghan. I'm today. I'm going to be one of your co-hosts for the next 45 to an hour. I'm joined today by my good friend, Charles Ferguson from Globalization Partners. I'll let him introduce himself, but it's our pleasure today to be speaking to you and thanks very much for all the team at the World Staffing Summit for giving us the chance.

Daniel Callaghan: Today's topic of conversation will be really how to double your revenue through helping your clients go global. And just to give you some expertise or let you know how we're apt to do that. But Charles is the Managing Director for Asia Pacific for Globalization Partners. Perhaps Charles would like to say some words 

Charles Ferguson: about that.

Charles Ferguson: Hey Daniel and thanks for the intro.

Charles Ferguson: And again, to reiterate thanks to the World Staffing Summit, Candidately for the opportunity to get together with this group of people and share some insights and ideas about what we're seeing across the marketplace, particularly in the talent acquisition space around all the trends that have really become amplified, particularly over the past 24 months with companies looking to go global, either through expansion or through finding talent and the global talent pool. So, Daniel, you're going to explain hopefully in some detail what, Veremark does, but the good news for everyone on this call on this event is that Globalization Partners in Veremark work in tandem to provide.

Charles Ferguson: Compliance tools as well as infrastructure that facilitate companies that you're working with to hire talent anywhere in the world where they don't have a preexisting legal structure or an entity structure. And in many instances as I alluded to just a moment ago, that could be because they're really keen to explore a particular market.

Charles Ferguson: Or it could be because perhaps you've helped them find talent someplace where they don't have presence and they want it to quickly attract and onboard and retain that talent. So our structure is in 187 countries around the world. And essentially it's a vehicle with presence on the ground.

Charles Ferguson: Both from a legal perspective and from a human point of view, we've got labor lawyers and HR specialists on the ground that help talent acquisition teams externally or internally to onboard the talent that you found, get them plugged into payroll and social benefits and take care of all of their.

Charles Ferguson: Escalations from an HR perspective that might be there, make sure that their their payroll is accurate and other social labor charges are well taken care of and certainly do their normal submissions like expenses and you know, request vacation time and all those various things while the customer continues to manage the day-to-day operations of the professional.

Charles Ferguson: So it's a really interesting model. It's called employer of record. And as I mentioned with Veremark and Daniel, give it back to you to kind of walk the crew through Veramark's solution set. But we work with Veremark to ensure that the folks that are coming on board our vehicle on behalf of the customer, Are verified.

Charles Ferguson: So over to you, Daniel, talk about that.

Charles Ferguson: Great, 

Daniel Callaghan: Well let's Charles mentioned, I mean, Veremark was founded with the mission of early, helping the world trust faster and just like we think that you and your clients should be able to find the right talent anywhere in the world. And that right talent should be able to find their dream jobs.

Daniel Callaghan: Wherever possible as well. You know, very mindfully, that you should have the complete confidence and security of knowing that person is exactly who they say they are. And they've done exactly what they've said they are. And in essence, we are a global preemployment screening platform that helps you achieve that in a modern day.

Daniel Callaghan: Slick beautiful interface to really bring, you know, simplicity and confidence. So that final step of your hiring process now just before we get stuck in, it'd be great to understand a little bit about the audience here. So we've got a couple of polls that we all would just love to get your thoughts on the first being the question really is.

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. And if you could quickly fill this out, do your clients ask you to hire internationally or are you predominantly, still focused on just hiring in the domestic market? Obviously you got a couple of votes being costed. There is great.

Charles Ferguson: Wow. 

Daniel Callaghan: So it seems pretty, pretty straightforward. We do live in a global age. It's not surprising our clients want to hire internationally and particularly across the Asia Pacific or even more so in Southeast Asia where it is a, you know, a fragmented collection of markets then, and makes perfect sense.

Daniel Callaghan: This is a follow on question to that is do your clients ask you to help them then get set up payroll or set up their international offices often? Are you recruiting those first people on the ground in those new markets? 

Charles Ferguson: Yeah. Particularly interested in some of what the feedback is on this topic, because these days I think that recruitment firms, executive search firms, et cetera, are working across a pretty vast landscape of.

Charles Ferguson: Types and different sizes of companies. And in many instances, those firms don't know exactly what's required to get into a new market. So they go to a good, solid, trusted recruiter and say, Hey man, can you help me get going beyond just talent? Can you do more than that? And I'm curious as to what. With the audience has to say about that 

Daniel Callaghan: So, I mean, one, one assumes it's a very, you know, natural segue and, you know, it's a step in the next part of the service chain, right? I mean, you can't place the person you can't hire the person until you're actually able to employ them ready. So, as a bolt on and as a bolt on offering, then thinking certainly, you know, one would see how strongly he could resonate.

Daniel Callaghan: Absolutely. That's great. Still four to one on the, yes from there. And then finally, mean, again, we're unfortunately living in an increasingly litigious world. Do you know, are you ever worried or are you, or your counterparts ever worried about the risk and complications from a legal or a compliance perspective in terms of getting it wrong. 

Daniel Callaghan: You know, I mean, we can touch on some of the penalties that happen when you do get it wrong later, but you know, certainly as a midsize recruitment agency it is a big ask to be aware of all of the employment legislations around all of the countries. 

Charles Ferguson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's something that I think.

Charles Ferguson: Companies and you mentioned mid-sized firms as an example, you know, it's a great advantage to be able to extend your reach beyond your domestic market number one, and certainly even more so, to offer a range of services that extend beyond just the, and I say, just knowing how difficult it is, but just the Targeting and the acquisition of the talent, getting the offer through and getting that person placed.

Charles Ferguson: So it's, there's a lot of ramifications and Daniel, I will talk about sort of how that has evolved quickly and dramatically in the regulatory landscape over the past 24 months, particularly because countries and governments are looking very closely at how they protect their labor. Given some of the disruptions that have happened in the economies around the region.

Daniel Callaghan: Oh, mean, it's even beyond that now, right? If you think about not only the domestic labor, but all the new types of employment agreements that are just becoming into fruition and you can see some countries being very almost well, you've got two sides of the aggressive coin, right?

Daniel Callaghan: You've got those who are being aggressive in a positive sense and saying, Hey, we want your digital nomads to come work from our beaches for the next six months. And then you've got others who are saying no, you know, you need to you know, making it even harder to get into, to protect the domestic labor force.

Charles Ferguson: Yeah. And we've seen that as you just mentioned, Daniel, it's really the speed at which those models in those sorts of stances are becoming mainstream. That is really fascinating based on the customers that we work with. You know, we're, I mentioned in my little preamble that we're in 187 countries around the world.

Charles Ferguson: We've grown you know, three to four times in our own. In the past 24 months, we're a 10 year old company, but what's been interesting has been the numbers of customers that come to us with these nuances in new requirements. Historically, maybe it was a mobility scenario and you'd move someone from one country to another.

Charles Ferguson: And now the good news, particularly for the recruitment industry is that companies are beginning to wake up to the idea of this war for talent being far more close to their neighborhood than they thought it was. And therefore they're really going out to get creative around the ways of means in which they are able to sort of locate and attract and then offer and retain this talent.

Charles Ferguson: And some of the landscapes that they're navigating through are truly daunting and can be perceived as protectionist. And some others, as you mentioned, are extremely attractive to the candidate. Because they offer this, you know, digital nomad or you know, temporary residency sorts of scenarios that make it really attractive.

Charles Ferguson: So, you know, let's get into that, but it's a really fascinating time for the industry and certainly for the candidates, because the pen is now on the candidates hand as it were. 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you've given us a great overview already of what globalization partners do and the vintages, it does have advantages.

Daniel Callaghan: It brings. Do you serve much of the recruitment market as it is? Or are you still very much working with the end employer? 

Charles Ferguson: No, it's a great question. We have a large sort of, install base if you will, of partnerships with recruitment firms around the world and that's constantly growing.

Charles Ferguson: So, you know, for anyone who's at this event today, you know, certainly feel free to reach out to us. And I say that Daniel because as you know, I had the distinct pleasure. He says tongue-in-cheek of founding and running an executive search firm for, you know, just shy of a decade here in, in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Charles Ferguson: Based on that experience. I know firsthand how difficult and challenging that market is either whether you're in the retail space or the contingent space it's not or an RPO, it's all got its challenges and opportunities, but as it relates to what we do, the employer of record, service. There are many firms that have reached out to us and said, Hey look, an example would be, we have this mandate.

Charles Ferguson: And we have been working on it for six months. We built the long list. We got the short list. We found the candidates. We ran the interview cycles. We've made the offer and come to find that our customer, our client doesn't have the ability, the legal way. To employ this individual in the country of origin, where we found this candidate.

Charles Ferguson: And particularly these days, given the dynamics of the pandemic, it's pretty damn difficult in most instances to relocate people these days. And if it's, if we all can agree that it's kind of a candidate driven market right now. And so passive talent is really holding the cons. Then we need to be able to offer a model that can attract and retain this talent either in place for the long haul or for a period of time, that's required until such time as we're able to transfer that individual to the mothership, wherever that might be.

Charles Ferguson: So for the recruiter and example, you know, I worked with one not too terribly long ago, who said I've been working on this gig for 12 months. The individual is going to be offered a package of $800,000. Right. In this particular instance, it was retained. They had 30% fees and the individual was in South Africa and the customer was in Japan.

Charles Ferguson: Right. So how do I get my money? And so we stepped in and said, okay, you know, we will hire the individual. We'll work with you to keep the fee structure palatable. So the customer doesn't, you know, run for the Hills and we are able to, in my mind, it's great because the candidate gets the job. They get hired as full-time employees.

Charles Ferguson: They get all the benefits that they would get as the full-time employee with the ultimate hiring customer. They got, you know, access to equity, et cetera, et cetera, that email address, everything that everything was there. What we provided for was the platform, the technology interface. And it was, you know, an HR on the ground to take care of them.

Charles Ferguson: And the only difference for them was the name on the payslip. Right. And obviously this particular recruitment firm was very happy because they got paid. And obviously, ultimately the customer was happy because as we all know, It can be very difficult to find the right person and they did.

Charles Ferguson: And we were able to help kind of close that loop, taking that analogy and plugging in the Veremark story into that, you know, Veremark would have verified the veracity of this person's background, et cetera, and make sure that everything was all the dots lined up and everything was clear and concise and report was produced, et cetera.

Charles Ferguson: And the entire process. Could be done through the partnership with this recruitment firm, without them having to make their own investments in that kind of infrastructure. And, you know, we even provided the locally compliant labor contract to ensure that the individual who's being hired is properly and compliantly employed.

Charles Ferguson: Right. Which for the customer could include your lawyers fees. All these different accouterments. So I think that's an example. There are others, but maybe that helps to frame a little bit of the opportunity for other recruitment recruiting firms. 

Daniel Callaghan: For sure. I would've thought that again there's the additional opportunity of helping recruiters therefore create almost new service lines as well.

Daniel Callaghan: Right. Because if I think about the world of recruitment as I know, you know, we are seeing a shift from sort of just the perm placement models to now sort of embedded talent and managing those obviously a massive growth in the RPM market, but equally there's a big growth in just the outsource. Delivery arm, right.

Daniel Callaghan: For specific projects. And you know, my understanding, again, these globalization partners would enable a recruitment company to go away, identify 20, 30 people for a project somewhere else. And then still very quickly offer that full contractor in terms of service to those clients. But then as almost again, as a more managed bespoke unit is what as opposed to even just a one-off.

Daniel Callaghan: And again, when you start getting into those. Meet your volumes sort of placements or longer term sort of offshoring type deal was then, you know, you really do. You can see a real impact on the top line.

Charles Ferguson: A hundred percent. And it's interesting as well. I mean, if it's a smaller firm as an example, or even a regional firm, the ability to confidently step up to the your prospective customers and say, look, not only can we do search anywhere in the world for you and help you tap into the global talent pool, but we can ensure that you can compliantly hire anywhere. We find talent anywhere in the world. So suddenly you are becoming an enabler, not only of origination and candidate profiling and the whole white glove service that recruiters do through to the offer.

Charles Ferguson: But you're able to extend that further to the onboarding and the ongoing HR let's call it administration. Cause I don't think that's a bad word. It's the plumbing, it's the stuff that, you know, it's interesting. And you, and I both know this working with so many startups in our own careers and certainly working with the startups as customers as well, that it's exciting and heady and sexy to think about.

Charles Ferguson: Shopping for talent in a country where you have no experience, it's exciting and sexy and heady to talk about expanding into a new market. What people don't often think about. And you alluded to this in your poll is what happens when you don't take the time to understand the mundane or the now aspects of compliance and regulatory environments and administration.

Charles Ferguson: And what are the impacts when you don't pay attention to those? Really fundamental things. It's like, are you going to design and build a house? And then after it's all built and it looks gorgeous, then you go back in and start late. As you just said, putting in the plumbing, like that, doesn't make any sense.

Charles Ferguson: Right? So you have to make sure. And I would suggest to the folks here on this event on behalf of your customer, You differentiate yourself when you can stand in front of your customers, say, yeah, we've got a great network. We'll find great talent for you. We'll make sure that they're, you know, the best that's available, but also can I offer you some advice and then walk them through some of the things that they should be thinking about in this new, truly global labor landscape that they probably don't know.

Charles Ferguson: So become an expert and become that voice for them. So they trust you and start to really. Know, drive all of their requirements to request to you because they see you as the expert. 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah, absolutely. Just put a comment in the chat section. Obviously we, you know, we'd love to get as many people involved in this conversation as well for the good and the bad of hearing your experiences of placing or growing globally.

Daniel Callaghan: So if you do have any questions that you'd like us to try and answer, or just general points, you want to comment on the conversation, then please feel free to write. Type them in that chat section. And then Charles and I will, we'll certainly get to them. Brilliant. I mean, from a, I mean, obviously we both get a pretty clear view of the global hiring markets.

Daniel Callaghan: I mean, and what are the sort of trends that you are seeing now from placements or from any hiring patterns that could help our audience find a rich vein of opportunity? 

Charles Ferguson: Yeah, look I think that some of the things that I would call out are going to be kind of like a. You know, and maybe you can start calling me captain obvious, right?

Charles Ferguson: I mean, these are things that are pretty, pretty straightforward, but I did mention more than once as we started that it is a candidate kind of driven market. I'm sure that all of our colleagues here on this event are experiencing and feeling that, you know, creativity and your strategy for how you're finding these more selective.

Charles Ferguson: Sort of reticence candidates is going to be something that you need to be thinking about and focused on. I would suggest to you that, you know, invaded as the case either by the virtue of the fact that people are looking for talent in other markets where they don't have a presence. Well, they're not operating and, or because they're finding talent in places like that, that the recruitment process is increasingly becoming more and more remote.

Charles Ferguson: So it's much more virtual when I was running my shop, you know, having a chat or grabbing a coffee or having a drink to meet either you know, doing some origination prospecting work with customers and, or screening and having conversations. Passive stroke more often than not in those days. Active job seekers were a constant part of my day from morning until evening these days, I would suggest that it's probably more often the case that you're behind your desk and really working on virtual you know, systems, tools and processes. So understanding that your candidates are also becoming more accustomed and frankly, expecting that kind of engagement. You just need to be thinking about those things from a trend perspective. I would also say to you that because of that, pivot more towards the candidate side of the equation, that you're starting to see much more Bold, Broader stroke moves around employer value propositioning, you know, the employer brand and the experience that they're trying to offer. So I think that it would be really important to help your customers or your prospects by helping them to understand what cultures and values and mission and vision are.

Charles Ferguson: They need to be putting into the market and into place, frankly, not just window dressing, but really designing in order to ensure that the environments that they're trying to create, which by the way, are remote cultures, right. Are aligned to the types of candidates that are going to be successful.

Charles Ferguson: Perfect example, man, you know, you could be an absolute rockstar sales person and a brilliant team manager in the traditional sense, you know, three years ago, but perhaps your background, your experience, et cetera, is such that in this new remote environment you're not trained yet or experienced or comfortable with the engagement style that's required in the remote virtual world that we're operating in now or this hybrid world we're operating in now. 

Charles Ferguson: So being able to help the customer to understand how to screen and look for, you know, teaching them how to fish, leading the horse to water and showing them how to drink it is often the case. I mean, I know recruiters are constantly dealing with the hassles or the challenges.

Charles Ferguson: I should say to be correct in trying to explain a market to a particular customer and help them to understand that the perfect candidate will never exist because you're always going to want to search more. Right. And so what are the 70 to 80% tile characteristics and experiences beyond core competency?

Charles Ferguson: Those are hallmarks of success in this new environment that we operate in. How do you dictate that? How do you determine it and define it and look for it and interview for it? I think it's incumbent upon us to recruit. In the industry too, to teach our customers how to do that, and I have ideas about it, but I'm sure you do too.

Charles Ferguson: And we can discuss that in this conversation. I think that's a great one. 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. Mean, I'm if you mentioned that this is a candidate driven market, right? The, how much, I sure it's instead a fraction of the percentage, but the, how much of you seeing the, sort of this remote. Mobility, should we be calling it right.

Daniel Callaghan: Actually being opted in for, by the candidates. So like, if I know I'm from the UK now, right. Or originally from the UK, but obviously living here in Singapore. But if I was in the UK now it's suddenly be a country I'd want to, you know, get out of, so I could still find a job for a UK or an organization.

Daniel Callaghan: But as a condition of hiring me, you'd say, look prior, well, you know, I want to work. Bali or I went to Singapore or France, even whoever happens and therefore is the candidate. Who's almost encouraging them to use globalization partners or EORs as such to make the placement to happen. Is that something you're hearing more of?

Charles Ferguson: We hear it certainly more now than we did two years ago. That's for sure. I mean, I think two years ago it would have been indeed an outlier or an anomaly, and now it's certainly a mainstream point of conversation. I'll give you two examples of where it's a variation on that theme, but it's, I think it's earthmane to your point.

Charles Ferguson: An interesting customer example. So one customer example was, or is still a customer. It's a customer that wanted to get ahead so I'm gonna use this term and I hate the term and I won't use it again. I'll try not to use it again, but wanting to get ahead of the great resignation. Okay. Now I won't use that again, but I'll discuss maybe what the drivers are behind that media feeding frenzy term.

Charles Ferguson: People have gone through some, to varying degrees of severity, some kind of trauma or disruption or significant change, regardless of who you are, where you are, what your position is over the past 24 months, we've all been affected somehow. And because of that, it's very democratizing or to some degree, perhaps an equalizing experience for most people on earth.

Charles Ferguson: So in that regard, a lot of people were forced. At least if they were information workers particularly were forced to blend their personal life, their home life and their work life together. And in doing so, people stepped back and thought, you know, is what I'm doing today. With my work, where I spend most of my time, an appropriate use and prioritization of my investment is where I really want to be.

Charles Ferguson: And I think everybody had that conversation, whether you're a CEO or a founder, or, you know, an intern you thought about this. And so I think this is a moment in time where people are starting to reevaluate. What's important to them, what their priorities are and what the values are. So given that.

Charles Ferguson: Yes, indeed. It is the case that a lot of people are making the decision that they wanna try something else, try something new. So there's a lot of movement in the marketplace. Now, if we can agree that all of us are experiencing some degree of this, I think it's appropriate for us to say, we want to get ahead of it.

Charles Ferguson: And we want to see if we can turn it into advantage as Winston Churchill, famously sled never waste a good crisis. Right? So here we are. Back to my point, the customer I'm referring to, came to us and said, listen, we know there's a war for talent going on right now. We have a very particular set of skills and competencies that we want to attract, but we can't find them in our domestic markets.

Charles Ferguson: So what we want to do is use your platform and we want to put our jobs out to the entire planet. Now we only have a physical presence in one country, but we want to be able to hire anywhere. And so their value prop to the, I guess the candidate base is. If you fit our values, missions, vision, and competencies, we will hire you regardless of where you live, regardless of where you want to work anywhere in the world.

Charles Ferguson: Now, that sounds like, yeah, sure. Okay. But when you peel that back the intricacies and the nuances of how you do that without getting into trouble, how you do that, compliantly, how you pay, you know, the labor taxes, how you ensure that you followed the correct procedures and processes to ensure your hiring within the framework of local government, et cetera.

Charles Ferguson: It's very challenging. Particularly if you don't want to go through the pain and suffering of establishing a legal presence in a particular market. So that was kind of one way that we helped this customer they've done exceptionally well. The other interesting model and this I thought was super clever.

Charles Ferguson: So customers in Montreal, Canada, And they had a very specific need for data scientists and they had, they attacked the market out in Quebec. So they went on a global search with a recruitment firm and they found some really solid talent in China and India and a country in the middle east that's alluding me off the top of my head right now.

Charles Ferguson: But my point is, number one, this company didn't have a presence there, but number two, in order to really come over the top and. You know, it's almost like, you know, bringing a battleship to a canoe race, right? With this offer that they made, they basically said to these candidates, we're going to, we're going to rent.

Charles Ferguson: We work, we're going to decorate it and make it look great. You know, like, our office here in Montreal, we're gonna use this platform called Globalization Partners to hire you locally in place. And whilst you're working for us, we're going to train you, et cetera, et cetera. But we're also, we're going to pay you Canadian salary.

Charles Ferguson: So we're going to, we're going to pay you like you're a local Montreal employee and whilst you're working and you're getting paid and getting trained, you're doing your work. We're going to kick off the immigration process for you. So within the next 12 to 18 months, we aspire to be able to take yourself and your family and move you to Montreal.

Charles Ferguson: And you think about that. Not only does this person get this incredible experience and you know, they're working for Canadian firms or the union paying Canadian dollars, but they're also In transition for when they land in the mothership area to not be having to equalize and the cost of living adjustments and all those types of things right there.

Charles Ferguson: They're ready to go. So I thought it was brilliant and of course they won. You know, of course they won the talent. I mean, it was a no brainer 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. I mean, a, it's only a couple of points you've mentioned there. So thanks Paul, for the question from the staff maker is, you know, what do you see as the biggest problems of hiring globally?

Daniel Callaghan: And how can leaders try to avoid them. But I think actually, Very kindly prepared a slide on sort of some of the ways we can educate or help guide our clients or all our clients through that sort of cultural yeah. That adjustment period. But you know, for me, I would have certainly, you know, that it's, you know, obviously you have the legal and compliance problem, right.

Daniel Callaghan: Which is, you know, which could be solved obviously for solutions like both of us But, you know, it's much more than that. I mean, it still becomes the embedding of the team the level of engagement and the adoption and really getting that cultural mix of interactions to, to chat and to harmonize that really become the key determinant of success because obviously, you know, talent is talent, but a team full of talent that operates as a team is really what everyone is trying to achieve. 

Charles Ferguson: 100% and that's either physically in the same room or distributed through the internet. Right? That's the ultimate goal for companies and, you know, Paul you ask a really important question, make a really important point. And I think that recruiters particularly are in such a unique opportunity to add some layers of understanding and nuance into the search process that perhaps, you know, the HR team or the hiring manager or however the structure is designed within your customer's environment might not have thought about.

Charles Ferguson: And it's a great opportunity for you to sort of, you know, show your ability to teach tailor and take control. Of the process and become an extension of their business. Cause you know, I remember very clearly as a recruiter, how many times I had to kind of position and sell of course my firm to my prospect customer.

Charles Ferguson: But once that was agreed to in terms and everything were fixed, it was about kind of selling the vision and the mission and the values and the strategy of the firm and the role to a passive candidate then selling that passive candidate fitness and applicability for the roll back to the customer and then getting the offer from the customer back to the candidate and having them agree and then getting through the logistics and the process of getting that individual put into place.

Charles Ferguson: And then, you know, we always sit back and burn incense at the altar of the recruitment gods and hope they make it through the probation period. They're off to the races, you know, hopefully that's how it goes down. But to the point that you raise in what Paul's asking about, I think there is, you know, this the strong international employee onboarding program is something that you should be able to hopefully provide to your customer to say, look, these are the things that you need to consider.

Charles Ferguson: As you onboard someone in a virtual environment and walk them through it. And before you get there before you get to the tailor-made kind of remote work policy and the training aspects and you talk about culture, cause these are not in a prioritized order. These are random. I put them up in six bullets.

Charles Ferguson: Just get them on the page. When you talk about company culture. I want to make a point and I hope it's not too off topic, but I think it's really interesting. Your customers come to you very often and they don't know what good looks like, and they probably, or maybe do not know what they want.

Charles Ferguson: They think they know what they want, but they'll give you a set of characteristics or competencies or skills that they think will fit as a recruitment professional. One of your opportunities. And I would say one of your obligations is to also, on top of that, provide your customer with a methodology to seek out and search through the types of hallmarks of success that you know, will probably have a higher probability of making it in this new environment we're operating in.

Charles Ferguson: So first and foremost, you know, with every customer, I would ask them. Please tell me what you know, articulate for me, what your vision value mission is as a company. First and foremost. And have you revisited that since the onset of this pandemic or is, or do you feel rock solid? It's buttoned up for the first order of business.

Charles Ferguson: The second thing is to go out and help them to find candidates who are fulfilled. The characteristics of a model I called dice. And that is a very simple acronym that I use because I'm from the tech industry in my past. And so everything's an acronym, right? Daniel. And so dice stands for the D is determination.

Charles Ferguson: And that means can this candidate show me ways and means by which. Exhibited determination to get through something difficult and come out the other side with either a lesson or with success, right. Which both are successful, right. That the second is insight, the I and the insight is. We're bombarded right now with just a myriad of channels of information, whether it's TV, radio, social media, you know, Tik Tok, videos, whatever the hell it is that you tap into the ability to take all that noise.

Charles Ferguson: And it. Something of value and insight is something that's incredibly important in a, particularly in a remote environment, the C is for curiosity, and that's an insatiable desire to constantly be seeking out new information and learning new things, which is super important for this re-imagining employee training point that I raised here.

Charles Ferguson: And the E is actually a double E one is engagement and the others empathy engagement means does this person have what it takes to at least on some level. Be able to engage with the team or be able to show engagement capability in a remote environment. And that's typically exhibited through some form of empathy, the ability to not always be like enough about me.

Charles Ferguson: What do you think about me, but really be curious about the experiences of the other folks on the team or the experiences of the leader or of the recruiter for that matter. So if you can train yourselves and your teams on how the determine candidates that have those profiles and then articulate that to the customer.

Charles Ferguson: In addition to their skills based competency base, you know, pedigree based job Rex and help them write good Rex, you're going to be very successful, right? Very successful technology tools. Leveraging Veremark for your backend screening and the sexy, slick way that they do that. It's great, it's a great experience.

Charles Ferguson: It's a great tool at any time you can, know, look, let's be real. Everyone now has a consumer grade expectation of experience, right? Everyone's looking for an internet kind of.

Daniel Callaghan: And if your company doesn't really provide that in a hiring experience, then you know, you're already on the back foot. 

Charles Ferguson: You're already exactly right, man. I mean, that's your first impression, right. And if you're doing it the old school way and sending Excel offers and you know, nightmare, just forget it.

Charles Ferguson: So technology is critical. Getting really creative with benefits. And when I say that it's not all about the money, you know, a lot of company started candidates are looking for, you know, companies with purpose and ESG programs and volunteering opportunities and opportunities to learn and re remote work policy you know, bring my own device or let me choose.

Charles Ferguson: There's a whole litany of things that you can provide that can differentiate your offer over competitive offers out there in the marketplace. So I digressed, but I just wanted to lay a couple of those out there off this slide and certainly to Paul's question this is meant to be for the recruiters to say, if you yourselves can kind of coach your customer on these six topics, you're giving them food for thought around how they themselves can retain, attract, and retain the talent.

Charles Ferguson: Your job is to help them find it and convince the candidate that this opportunity is the best opportunity ever. And then if you're able to then also provide them with ideas and methodologies to attract and retain, and then you can do verification through Veremark and you can do a model like EOR to hire anywhere in the world.

Charles Ferguson: You've just made your customer future proof. That's amazing. 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. It's only one way to become a strategic partner, as opposed to just a recruiter. I mean, obviously speed is of the essence when it comes to getting there that final step, does it take long to get set up on globalization partners? 

Charles Ferguson: We typically, when a recruiter brings us talent and knows, the customer is ready to make the offer.

Charles Ferguson: We have the compliant local labor contract. We can onboard in as little as four hours. Okay. Wow. So it can be very quick. And again, it's not, we do this all through our Global Employment Platform. It's a technology stack, so it's not a limitation of the technology. It's generally dependent upon the regulatory frameworks and designs of the country where you're hiring.

Charles Ferguson: I mean, Which you and I both know quite well here in Singapore would be that before you hire anyone, you have to be able to you know, qualify and quantify that you've put it through a process to ensure that you've considered local candidates as an example, Singaporean candidates, if you're offering one, that's great.

Charles Ferguson: But if you're not, if you're offering to a foreigner or what have you. An additional set of steps that you need to go through to ensure that you're adhering to a government policy. And so that's not a four hour process that can take a couple of days. Right. Additionally as I mentioned, we take care of the payroll and the labor taxes.

Charles Ferguson: So if there's a government sort of process and bureau that's required for the administration of social benefits and labor taxes, we are like anyone else dependent upon the cycles and the onboarding of the government. So we can't tell the candidate what to do. So we, but we're there for you on the ground and we're operating right.

Charles Ferguson: You know, thousands, literally thousands of professionals on our platform and payroll here in Asia Pacific as an example and thousands globally. So we typically, you know, in 187 countries, we kind of know how it works. But it's generally speaking very quick. And to your point, the key KPI that I share with my customers is you always want to be thinking about TTV Time to Value.

Charles Ferguson: You know, he or she who moves first and fastest is going to win in the war for talent. And the war for talent, frankly, is a war for your future. Because with the right people in the right market, you're going to come off the backside of this pandemic in pole position, which is crucial for success.

Daniel Callaghan: No visually. I mean, you're right. And there's so many nuances to getting the hiring right. Even just in the market by market perspective. Many, you mentioned Singapore here. Right. But if you're an international coming into Singapore, then you're going to likely actually need to apply for an employment pass or some sort of visa.

Daniel Callaghan: That's right. I think that's quite normal when you're presented with documents. And then again, you don't always get that. You're going to have to not only prove that you had a degree, but actually, that the university is an accredited university. Correct. Which can, if you hadn't done it, the first instance would just add a whole nother cycle to the application process.

Daniel Callaghan: A hundred percent. Veremark has actually recently been approved by the mom as one of the top verification, accredited verification specialists for all of that sort of visa process. So now we obviously helped them with a lot of their immigration checks as well. But, you know, again, it's just, you know, You don't want to run the risk of something going wrong, right.

Daniel Callaghan: Delaying the process. And I think when you don't want to run the risk of something going wrong and getting the company exposed, right? So again, similarly in Singapore alone, you're not really that you're not allowed to do criminal checks. And in Japan, you couldn't do criminal checks.

Daniel Callaghan: And in certain markets, you know, you have to have the like Australia, for example, where I know you guys are present as well And if the candidate asks to see their background checks and their references and so forth, they have the right to get that information and refusing it, or can again get you and your organization in a whole world of trouble, which, you know, could result in you discrimination claims or thousands of dollars in lawsuits.

Daniel Callaghan: So, Yeah, you do, you know, it was just that last mile and that local contracting part, right? I mean, that's the part where the rubber really hits the road from a legal component. 

Charles Ferguson: Yeah. Your point is so valid and so important. And at the end of the day, you know, two kinds of, okay. What's in it for me, points for the recruitment teams on this call in this.

Charles Ferguson: Number one, you know, that 9 times out of 10, if something goes wrong with any aspect of the recruitment process, they're going to be looking at you, right? That's what you mean about the recruitment team, right? Like you, you found this person, you convinced us as the right thing to do. We pull the trigger and now we're in trouble.

Charles Ferguson: And it's your fault period. Whether that's true or not, perception is reality. That's point number one point number two is let's just assume it's something as not inane, cause I don't want to trivialize it, but let's say as unfortunate as the person lied and through a Veremark check, we found out and we were able to share that with the customer and the customer decides to cease the employment relationship with this individuals.

Charles Ferguson: Well, the news flashes as you know, that they're there within the 90 day. Assuming you guys have all the folks out there have a 90 day guarantee there within the 90 guarantee. So guess what you get to do, you get to start over the search, right. And you don't get paid. So getting all of these sorts of processes, defined an outfront.

Charles Ferguson: Showing your expertise showing your experience to the customer before they embark on the journey, not scaring them off, but just being pragmatic, you know, have you considered X, Y and Z? Do you know ABC? We have partners that you can work with who will take care of this for you, and we can front it for you.

Charles Ferguson: We can take care of the entire process, but you need to bear this in mind. And by the way, did you know that just because you're seeking to operate in, let's say, you know, Hong Kong is an example. You could find talent in Shenzhen, in Shanghai and in Taipei in Malaysia. And we can help you find that talent and they can do the great work that you require in that market to prove the veracity of what you're able to do in that market.

Charles Ferguson: And once kind of verified that there's product market fit and the talent is good. Then go plant your flag and scale, and by the way, we're a recruiter that helps you get there. So we'll help you do that too. Right? I just think it's a massive opportunity for recruitment firms to really step out of the traditional ring and become a talent acquisition, you know, Superstore for your customers.

Charles Ferguson: I just think that's an incredible opportunity. 

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah. Absolutely. But we're almost up on time here. So, I mean, it's sort of just a, and do you think there's anything else that we haven't touched on today or does anyone else have any questions that they'd like to ask? We've got about five minutes or so left here, you know, around how we can help our fellow recruiters.

Daniel Callaghan: It maximizes the, you know, the opportunities that are in front of them or more in an equity minimize, minimize the risks around in making that placement or having a placement walk. 

Charles Ferguson: Know, look, I'll offer out one last suggestion to the folks on this call that they might want to think through, which is we have a.

Charles Ferguson: Sort of a specifically designed solution for the recruitment industry called GP recruit. You can see it on our website and read about it. What it means essentially is that it's very often the case that customers come to us and they say, Hey, look, we know you guys are the global employment platform.

Charles Ferguson: We don't have any talent. Already sussed out. Can you point us into the direction of where we could find the talent and then you could help us to hire them so we can explore this market or whatever. RGP recruit solution is such that we bring you know, very vetted and sort of trained in groomed our recruitment partners into this platform.

Charles Ferguson: And we provide them with pre qualifications. Served on a silver platter customers deserve, right? Like we have this customer Daniel from the United States, who's looking for the following things in this particular market. Can you please meet with them and suss it out? We take care of all of the pricing, et cetera, et cetera.

Charles Ferguson: It's all in agreement. And you guys just go and fill the role, right. And then we are onboard and you get paid. So. We don't do recruitment ourselves. We're not a recruitment company. We don't do recruitment. We don't do talent searches. We do onboarding right. And payments and nurturing and retaining the talent in question.

Charles Ferguson: So whether you're looking at us or you're just looking in general at opportunities to expand your business as a recruitment firm, do some homework and think about alternatives in this marketplace beyond. You know, getting your ducks in a row with the types of technology you're using internally to run your business, think about the partners that you want to work with to give you.

Charles Ferguson: You know, rocket fuel we all talk about outsourcing. We all know what outsourcing is in my experience. It's you are providing a service. That's your core competency. That's not their core competency, so they can focus on what they do and you can do what you do best, which is bring great people to them.

Charles Ferguson: And the more you can add value to that, the better off you're going to be in this very competitive marketplace. 

Daniel Callaghan: Great. I think, you and just sorta that ending note as well. I mean, talking about partners and if you are any of you are looking to sort of elevate your pre employment screening service, or even offer it as a bolt on or add on additional value added component to your existing clients, then much like, globalization partners.

Daniel Callaghan: We haven't quite got to 187 yet, but we have just brought it up to 180. So, you know, we are capable of handling your checks any, anywhere in the world. And we'd certainly love to be a value. I mean, for us, the you know, we're, you know, we're always trusted by some of the biggest brands in the world. And then, you know, many of the fastest growing companies did use us because of the speed and simplicity with which, you know, Veremark delivers the service.

Daniel Callaghan: So, with that final pitch and you know, I greatly enjoyed the last 15 minutes or so of the conversation. Thank you Charles, very much for having joined us today. And, you know, I don't know if you want to share your email address in case anyone wants to get in touch. 

Charles Ferguson: Yeah, look, please reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Charles Ferguson: Charles Ferguson I'm right there. If you go to linkedin.com/in/Charles Ferguson, that's me. And for my email is CFerguson@globalization-partners.com take a nap in between that. But globalization is with a Z, not an S for those of you who spell English the way it should be spelled, it's an S but with Z and I'd love to keep in touch and again, to Daniel, to your point, great conversation is always a pleasure to hang out with you and.

Charles Ferguson: Hopefully we've been able to add some thoughts, some food for thought to the folks who joined us today.

Daniel Callaghan: Yeah, absolutely. And likewise, if anyone has any questions or would like to get in touch with Veremark, please feel free to do so my man is on the screen now, so even easier. But you know, we're happy to help and see what we can do for you.

Daniel Callaghan: So thank you all for your time and attendance, and we look forward to hopefully speaking again so we can get in the future. So thanks very much. 

Daniel Callaghan: Thank you. Take care.

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