Emphasis on wellbeing: Listening to employees’ concerns and providing tools and resources to mental health services.
When it comes to designing the future of work, one size fits none. Discovering success isn’t about a hybrid model or offering remote work options. Individuals and organizations are looking for more freedom. The freedom to choose the work model that makes the most sense. The freedom to choose their own values. And the freedom to pursue what matters most. We reached out to successful leaders and thought leaders across all industries to glean their insights and predictions about how to create a future that works.
As a part of our interview series called “How Employers and Employees are Reworking Work Together,” we had the pleasure to interview Andres Garzon.
Andres was born in Quito, Ecuador, where he was raised with an appreciation for cultural exchange. After graduating from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, he worked for a number of companies in the US, before earning his MBA from Fordham University in New York City.
While a student, he noticed there was a shortage of good programmers in the United States and an abundance of talented programmers in South America. So he bet everything on South American talent and founded Jobsity — an innovative company that helps US companies hire and retain Latin American programmers.
Today, Jobsity´s headquarters are in New York and it employs over 450 team members distributed across 14 countries, including Ecuador, Colombia, Brasil, Argentina, and more. Jobsity generates over 20 million annually by supplying talent to prominent clients such as Zebra Technologies, Koch Industries, Socialive, and McGraw Hill, in a wide breadth of industries including fintech, health tech, real estate, SaaS, and enterprise.
Jobsity’s impact is not limited to its economic success, however. Andres has built Jobsity with a central goal: not to build a company that makes revenue, but which helps people. He’s created programming schools that take talented people without formal education, teaches them to code, and then employs them as part of Jobsity, and as such he’s built a company culture based on caring, development, and growth.
Andres is an Endeavor Fellow, and a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization), where he’s able to leverage a worldwide network of company founders and leaders to ensure Jobsity continues to be a place where people come to do great work, be themselves, and change their lives for the better.
Jobsity is the leading nearshore staff augmentation partner of choice enabling U.S.-based businesses to scale their software development operations by connecting them with the top 3% of nearshore developers. Founded in 2012, Jobsity developers are experts in a variety of languages, frameworks, databases, and more. Operate in the same time as the U.S., and share the same commitment to excellence. Jobsity has placed nearshore developers for companies such as: Socialive, Intuit, Zebra Technologies, FreshBooks, Havenly and many more! With Jobsity, you can leave your worries about hiring and retaining costly developers behind. Learn more at www.jobsity.com.
Thank you for making time to visit with us about the topic of our time. Our readers would like to get to know you a bit better. Can you please tell us about one or two life experiences that most shaped who you are today?
Thank you for the opportunity! The funny thing is that the two experiences that immediately come to mind happened years apart but within the same New York block at Broadway-Lafayette. The first thing that came to mind was when working at a cafe spot at the time, and I saw an ad for a marketing role at Bear Sterns. After completing three months of training, I was onboarded to the marketing team. To my surprise, I learned that Bears Steans operated on a staff augmentation model. This was new to me at the time and was my very first exposure to staff augmentation. I saw first-hand how it benefited both the employee and employer.
The second experience that is responsible for shaping who I am today can be traced back a few years later while pursuing an MBA degree. Having worked in the business for a couple of years, I quickly came to the realization that one of the greatest business challenges of our time is recruiting and retaining top talent in the technology sector to accelerate digital transformation and innovation. The world’s biggest companies struggle to keep talent and it is very problematic for smaller enterprises.
The idea for what would eventually become Jobsity, the company I founded, came from a job interview for a programmer role. In the interview, they said I was rusty on my programming skills. That’s when it sparked a transformative idea! I thought to myself, well I may be rusty but I know people in Latin America who can do the job. After the interview, I called a programmer I knew and asked if was interested in working with US companies — luckily he said yes and the rest is history.
Let’s zoom out. What do you predict will be the same about work, the workforce and the workplace 10–15 years from now? What do you predict will be different?
I’ve provided tech talent to companies for a decade. The things that I’ve seen for the last 10 years that will not change will be that workers care about what they do, they want personal connections to their team, they need to find meaning and value in their work, they need to grow, and develop as people and professionals. Values like hard work, discipline, creativity, and teamwork will always be important in workplace settings.
In regards to what will change, I think it’s safe to say that technology will be the driving force behind the changes we experience at work. For example, before the pandemic, most people had never used Zoom in a professional setting, and through necessity, it is now the go-to video conferencing solution for distributed teams across industries. In the same vein, we’ve seen how productive the workforce can be while working from home so I believe that we will see remote work continue to grow in the future. Additionally, although virtual reality is still very much in its infancy, I predict that VR is going to bring another seismic shift to how we work and will be used in a variety of aspects of business, work, and leisure.
What advice would you offer to employers who want to future-proof their organizations?
Future-proofing an organization is a difficult task to achieve especially in the long term. The way I’d tell employers to think about their organization is to think of it as one of their kids. As a parent, you do your best to teach them right from wrong, instill important values and teach them traditions that they can pass down to their kids. But there comes a point where you’re kids grow up and they’re on their own. You can only hope you taught them enough to get them through life’s biggest challenges.
The same is true for organizations and startups, you should try to instill a workplace culture where people are happy and love what they do. If you don’t lay a solid foundation early on for workplace culture, someone else will, and it may be to the detriment of your company.
The Great Resignation showed us that the balance of power shifted from companies dictating where, when, and who could work in their offices to workers deciding what works best for them.
To future-proof, companies need to adjust to the new realities and expectations for today’s and tomorrow’s workforce. They will need to have a focus on enhancing the employee experience to attract them, professionally grow them, and build a solid relationship with them because they shape brand reputation.
What do you predict will be the biggest gaps between what employers are willing to offer and what employees expect as we move forward? And what strategies would you offer about how to reconcile those gaps?
As your question acknowledges, the companies that will successfully navigate the talent wars are aware of the expectation gaps between employees and companies and the focus on closing those gaps is paramount to managing the future workforce.
From the employee perspective, they expect employers to place a high priority on compensation, benefits, PTO, work-life balance, the importance of the work itself, and good relationships with direct managers/ colleagues.
As an employer, it is imperative to address this expectation with an open mind before writing a job description and starting the recruiting process.
Another piece of important advice for employers is to carefully assess how “senior-level” the talent needs to be for each role and team. In my experience, too frequently companies will request employees with 5 to 8 years of experience when in reality, much of the job can and should be handled by a staffer with 2 or 3 years experience. Don’t forget, what matters more is the overall team dynamic; blend senior talent to coach and counsel with the junior talent to learn, grow and execute.
We simultaneously joined a global experiment together last year called “Working From Home.” How will this experience influence the future of work?
WFH is here to stay! Technology talent was the first wave of remote workers but the pandemic accelerated this trend. The world understands that this can be done. At Jobsity, we had no issues when the world transitioned to working remotely because we’ve been remote since day #1! Admittedly, one of the challenges of remote work is the lack of physical interactions with colleagues, which is hard to duplicate digitally. Despite the lack of physical proximity, the future of work will aim to instill a sense of community with physical events like annual in-person company gatherings, offsites, and retreats. This will help decrease the likelihood an employee feels siloed or lack a connection with colleagues and supervisors.
We’ve all read the headlines about how the pandemic reshaped the workforce. What societal changes do you foresee as necessary to support a future of work that works for everyone?
Even as we move beyond the pandemic, as a society, we need to remain flexible! It’s been amazing to see how the adoption of remote work has enabled working moms (and dads) to be more present and available for their children and families. Additionally, remote work has allowed individuals to be happier and experience a true work-life balance.
Employees wanting work that is meaningful and aligns with their values, along with a clear work-life balance are what I predict as necessary to support a future. Whether you are a parent, seasoned professional, or a young graduate entering the workforce, work can be a place that works for everyone no matter your background or current circumstances.
What is your greatest source of optimism about the future of work?
The reason that I launched Jobsity was to solve the talent crisis that U.S. companies faced and elevate the professional and personal lifestyle of Latin American developers. It has been tremendously rewarding for me and I am so optimistic about the next 3, 5, and 10 years. The ability for employees to spend more time with their families with remote work promotes a better lifestyle. Employers around the world have proven that their workforce can work from home quite effectively. It very much changed the physical form in which we work. Regardless of how or where we work, one thing that will always remain is the values we place on work; being a team player, collaborator, working smart, etc., these values will not change.
Our collective mental health and wellbeing are now considered collateral as we consider the future of work. What innovative strategies do you see employers offering to help improve and optimize their employee’s mental health and wellbeing?
Work and wellbeing are intertwined and employers understand the cost of workers leaving the workforce or missing work due to mental health issues. As the world recognizes the reality of maintaining mental health, employers will be more proactive and thoughtful about the wellness of the whole person. A trend that I’ve observed across companies is we are now starting to see employers providing employees access to therapy services. With the pandemic having accelerated the adoption of telehealth services, employees can quickly schedule a meeting with a therapist or counselor right from their phone. Employers who are willing to provide mental health services to their employees will find that workers are happier and healthier leading to more productivity and lower turnover rates.
Another strategy I’d recommend is bringing in a motivational speaker to talk about their life experiences. At Jobsity, for example, we have a monthly speaker series where we invite a successful person to give a speech to our employees. In the past, we’ve had individuals from various disciplines ranging from sports to business. I’m always excited to hear that our employees come away learning something new every time.
It seems like there’s a new headline every day. ‘The Great Resignation’. ‘The Great Reconfiguration’. And now the ‘Great Reevaluation’. What are the most important messages leaders need to hear from these headlines? How do company cultures need to evolve?
Those headlines tell the story about how work changed so dramatically during the pandemic. At first, huge numbers of people left work for family, health, or other reasons. Many others stayed with their employers but due to shutdowns, work was reconfigured. The physical return to the office is slow and will likely never return to the traditional model of M-F in person. People and organizations have evaluated what works, what doesn’t and what needs to change. It’s not so much a “Great Resignation” as it is a “Great Reshuffling”. People expect more from their jobs. The current and emerging workforce now expect to be treated and compensated fairly and work with companies that align with their own values. The most important takeaway for leaders is to start an open dialogue with their employees and listen. The most successful companies of the future are going to keep the employee experience top of mind.
Let’s get more specific. What are your “Top 5 Trends To Track In the Future of Work?”
- 1. Increased Remote Work: Remote work is prevalent in all industries now. A study by Gartner showed that 48% of employees will work remotely at least some of the time in a post-pandemic world. Not only is remote work here to stay but it is how we’ll continue to work in the future.
- 2. Emphasis on wellbeing: Listening to employees’ concerns and providing tools and resources to mental health services.
- 3. Talent shortages: The talent shortage will continue to be an issue in the software developer world and beyond. The best way to mitigate the effect of the shortage is for companies to start training programs, particularly for junior talent.
- 4. Companies will be more complex: Remote work vastly opened the talent pool. While this is a good thing, when you have offices and distributed teams in different countries it can be difficult to implement an efficient payment system, for example. Companies will need to find solutions to these kinds of issues so that they can continue to benefit from a wide talent pool.
- 5. Resilience: If we learned anything from the pandemic it’s that a company must be flexible and resilient. According to Gartner, “55% of organizational redesigns were focused on streamlining roles, supply chains and workflows to increase efficiency. While this approach captured efficiencies, it also created fragilities, as systems have no flexibility to respond to disruptions.”
I keep quotes on my desk and on scraps of paper to stay inspired. What’s your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? And how has this quote shaped your perspective?
My favorite quote is from Eliud Kipchoge. He is the only person to achieve a sub-2-hour marathon, and said the following, “Remember, only the disciplined ones are free in life. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions.” I’m a runner myself, so I try to think about this quote in the context of running a company. I must confess, I’ve always struggled with discipline but I force myself to be disciplined because I believe that it’s one of the most important character traits to possess if you are a leader of a company.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He, she, or they might just see this if we tag them.
One person I’d love to have breakfast with is Shaquille O’Neal. Throughout my life, I have taken the lessons learned from sports and applied them to entrepreneurship. Since his NBA playing days, I’ve been extremely impressed with the companies Shaq has invested in as well as his business acumen. He is seemingly in every other commercial that I see and he is also very charitable so I’d love to bend his ear on how he sees the business world, and of course to talk about his time with the Lakers.
Our readers often like to continue the conversation with our featured interviewees. How can they best connect with you and stay current on what you’re discovering?
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Thank you for sharing your insights and predictions. We appreciate the gift of your time and wish you continued success and good health.