Tech Recruiter Academy: Diversity in Recruitment

[Music] hello good morning everyone good morning good afternoon and good evening wherever you are joining in from I'm very happy to host the next uh tech recruiter academy uh sponsored by via developers the topic today is um diversity but we will speak differently about this topic today we are not going to consider it as a number it's not going to be a check box box it's not going to be a a problem for the tech recruiting um environment we will change a little bit the way we speak about diversity we speak about Sol we will speak about Solutions and that's why I have two amazing l this with me Moren and Marine uh they will tell us about themselves in a while but I just want to quickly share with you they have been there they have done that they know what they do and they will help us they're here to help us to walk away with some practical tips and let's not K ourselves folks it's not a it's not a smooth sailing we've got cultural gaps to discuss uh logistical headaches and then the whole remote work Dynamics to navigate I would like to hear from our panelists of course but I also want to hear from you just don't CH away uh ask your questions Enga and also share your experience engage with our panelists and with each other um you can use the question section at the is it right or left okay you'll figure it out I think it's on the right uh and before we start I would like to remind you again be nice to each other and use exclusive language so that everyone can feel comfortable um during this session good morning uh ladies I know that it's good morning for you morning I'll kick it out kick it out directly just tell us a little bit about yourself and what's your goal and what are you fighting for thank you an I gonna start my name is Marina lindaa um my name is a bit funny since I live in Spain name uh my name are two adjectives that actually State being dark Beauty uh which is inappropriate to call my name in the street so everyone calls me more in the end um I'm here because I am well we're talking about culture and as you can see I am already diverse since I'm German I was born in Keel um it's in the northern part of Germany I'm half Caribbean and on the other hand uh I'm a single mom I'm an entrepreneur I am a business owner I'm working in this environment for a long time sales expert and marketing expert as well so what shall I say diversity starts everywhere and this is um why I would like to give some insights today for getting ATI and also for hiring because I think we have a lot of information that might help people to overcome thresholds thank you Mora thank you Morena hi Anna hi everyone um very happy to be here with you today for this hour of insightful uh conversations I hope um my name is Marine Marine UMO I am part of the get notiz team um and um I think I I to a certain extent also represent uh uh of uh um diversity and inclusion my specialty is um on uh adult education and employability for um African youth um and I am the country director for um Kenya uh in our organization so um my goal is to help um African Talent African Tech talent to get into jobs dignified jobs dignified work um uh remote opportunities that can help them secure a better future and uh super passionate about uh bringing light to this very important topic um and focusing on diversity and inclusion um so yeah very excited about having this conversation with you Anna and Morena and everyone in the chat as well I'm also very happy to have you ladies and you bring amazing experience both personal and professional and I start start directly with my first question why is having different types of people important for an organization thanks Anna um I'll I'll uh kick us off and and take that one um I will say that um actually we say in an organization but I think organizations in their space are just like societies just like communities and having different types of people in Societies in communities and in organization um corporate organization and uh and startups and any part of the ecosystem is um super important I feel like it's something that we say all the time that we repeat that uh you know is is held as a as a North star um but it is always important to repeat it um and to understand why it's not just about saying you know diversity inclusion is important having more people is important but actually seeing um the the reasons behind it and the numbers behind it and so on so um I will say that uh uh having different types of people like you said in an organization but also in society um is for me something that first and foremost helps um Foster Innovation and uh creativity and resilience um we can see in all and I like to bring number and data into those type of conversation because again uh it's easy to say hey it's important to have more women to have more uh ethnicity represented um but what does that actually mean for an organization and so I will um encourage everyone to have a look at a study that was conducted on diversity in the workplace um by the consulting firm mckeny which has some really interesting data so they've been conducting that study for the past couple of years um and they pull data from different organizations that show that um companies that um have more than 30% women um in at every level of the organization um is actually going to perform financially outperform financially um most of their peers and that average is also the same for ethnic delicity so with an average of 27 um% of uh outperformance for organizations that have a fair share of ethnic diversity into their organization up until the top qual so I think it's very important to say hey when we talk about having different people it's not just having different people in one given sphere um it's actually having different people having women having uh people from different ethnicities having persons with disabilities at all level of um an organization is something that Fosters uh better results through Innovation through creative mindset uh through different perspectives as well because everyone brings in their own um their own perspective and uh and resilience so definitely extremely important I'm happy that we move away from the normal definition and the nor normal conversation when it comes to diversity and we kick it off with the business results because this is actually in the tech industry this is the industry of innovators and you really need different profiles in order to to to to drive this Innovation uh and I'm happy that you have a different definition actually of diversity uh would you like to share more Morena when it comes to your definition about diversity well for me diversity is the only opportunity for workplaces to to thrive honestly because um the embracing of unique perspectives and experiences helps us to develop and having a New Perspective from a different angle can help um to explore new Fields you haven't thought about so it's just like drawing a horse from two different positions you know you look at the front I look at the back uh we still draw the same picture but in the end um yes we should put it together and then we have maybe the opportunity using diversity to see the whole picture from all angles and become 3D so um my opportunity or my thinking it is that diversity increases all spectrums of a company not only uh later in the amount of money that you can make but also um the happiness in a company because you you just develop yourself you learn learn new things if it is culture-wise for example asking for what are you having for dinner yeah and you can share ideas this also helps to have a better understanding in a com Community which a company is if you want to be fair um the world becomes smaller and diversity hiring in the way we do it right now means opportunities creating to have a better understanding and well see everyone on eye level which currently unfortunately isn't happening everywhere yeah interesting how happiness and self growth uh kind of come together um into the picture and you ladies both mentioned Africa and African Tech talent in the beginning of our conversation uh so I would like to ask you what qualities to African African Tech expert have that could help with Europe's Tech shortage I mean you know that lack a lot of tech talent in Europe not only in Europe uh but how can this be handled via experts from Africa thank you Anna I uh will take it so um I think uh I'll Circle back to um what uh you said earlier like this conversation needs to be I think when we have the Dei conversation it always needs to be in the context of business um just because we know that it's also what is being heard um in the by companies by organization and so on so I like the idea of saying hey Dei diversity inclusion is super important for lots of reasons but it's also something that will bring something to the organization it will drive financial performance it will drive um having better results and so on so um in that in that space in that direction um we have a big uh focus on driving African Tech Talent um into European organizations specifically to bridge that Gap the business gap which is that we have a skills shortage at the moment we don't have enough Talent um in Europe and Africa is uh obviously the youngest and one of the biggest old the biggest uh continents um at the moment in terms of uh Workforce um and therefore it only makes a ton of sense to bring the two world together and make sure that um we leverage that African Tech talent pool into to uh organizations based in Europe so um a few of the reasons the the first reason for me would be first of all the the quantity of talent um I think in 2023 we had more than 750,000 software developers in Africa only so huge talent pool um that is clearly still being very much untapped um it is also a very young population and a very connected population that has learned to grow with um new tech and therefore makes it super valuable when they get into a remote job into a tech company um and then there are some very specific advantages like um most African countries especially the tech hubs like Nigeria Ghana and Kenya are native English-speaking population so super helpful for businesses um same time zone data privacy laws so we see it both from the and I emphasize on it's not just a good thing to do it's not just about skills but it's also um about um infrastructure and policy that um this that can be um leveraged um to support the need for Tech Talent within European organization so um I think we're seeing more and more that a lot of uh the Outsourcing uh business is uh moving away from India or at least is decreasing a little bit from India and going a little bit more into countries like Ghana Nigeria and Kenya and um those would be um for all the reasons that are uh that I've just highlighted you already answered maybe partially my next question but I wanted to see if you have brought us some interesting facts about the people working in Te in Africa sure uh I could give you some numbers maybe that might be interesting especially when it comes to entrepreneurship in Africa during the last five years Kenya for example has doubled the tech startups so it means there is a huge uh growth already and when you look at Ghana it's 75% during the last five years um over the same period so uh in South Africa even 120% that means there are a lot of people who dive deep into Tech have a good understanding and they create their own environment where they can Thrive and increase and have businesses which are serious so we are not talking about small businesses just uh doing small stuff we are talking about real companies growing there and um not to forget forget that uh Kenya is considered or Nairobi to be precise considered to become the new Silicon Valley um Europe invests a lot of money right now also into Tech in Nairobi for example um so it's not or it's more likely that we should consider this continent as a huge source and we get inti um do this for already eight years almost no it's eight right almost nine years um 2015 that we decided okay there is this huge gap existing of people working in Tech in Europe and um there are 60% in population in Ghana for example that is younger than 30 years so what can we do it is easy to bring knowledge and value to this company because they only need to have a computer and internet and electricity so it's the first generation that has the opportunity to upskills to learn and do something with his know and become a global player somehow and in this way they do and the only thing that is holding them back currently it's well a culture maybe not knowing about people not not having a deeper understanding and this is for example what I do for get inti I bridge I bridge between European companies and African um talents so there is a better understanding of cultural problem that might come up because of differences so it isn't a real problem it's just a not knowing and I hope to understand better and I think those numbers speak for themselves when you see the talents yeah absolutely and culture is a big p i mean Europe Africa those are two different continents but how can uh European businesses find Talent while also making sure everyone feels included and respected I mean do are those cultures so different and what is your experience with with this when you just take the talent itself means a blind recruiting for example yeah so uh you have not the typical bias behind it that means you do not see skin color gender uh where the person comes from that might be already a solution and uh also diverse interview panels could be helping means you have more people from different perspective I looking at it so um interviewing always is also a process process of personal likes or dislikes you have to work in the end with a person but when you have a better understanding for cultural differences um it's less only by bias but more by maybe really not fitting as a person not by culture you know I do not have to like everyone but if someone can do the job and is perfect I shouldn't choose just because the person is from Ghana that it is not a fit yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I mean just thinking about the opportunities that you mentioned in your previous comment that this generation for the first time they have the opportunity to do something to do something differently than the previous generations and what can be done uh basically to make sure that hiring remot to in Africa is fair and open to everyone so I would say um building on uh uh what has been just said so the it it's got to be from end toin process it's got to be from the beginning you're hiring someone you need to be super mindful you need to be very proactive when you talk about diversity um in the hiring process in the onboarding process and in the management process um I think saying that um you equal opportunities means opening a ro a role remotely and making it available to all is actually not the most inclusive it's not the most um Equity way of driving um uh your recruitment process and your hiring process and then your on boarding and management process just because um it is assuming that everyone comes to the uh comes to the interview with the same um with the same level of opportunity with the same um infrastructure with the same background um and and therefore it is already messing with the with the playground so I would say um for me something that is super important obviously uh through um uh the hiring process um is making sure that um when you conduct so when you post uh a job opening and it's actually going to be remote that's kind of the first thing that we see a lot so we see a lot of opportunities that say uh yes this is a remote opportunity but then you dig into it you speak to the hiring manager and actually oh yes it's it's a remote opportunity in Europe because that's where legislation is similar to our own country or that's where it makes more sense in terms of traveling and so on and so um talking specifically of Africa because we're advocate for African Talent um our our dire reality is that uh most of the openings most of the jobs that are being sold as remote jobs are actually European jobs uh for European citizens and it's pretty much the same thing in the US because of us legislation and so on so remote um I think again you have to be super proactive and mindful when you um I lost her for a yes I'm losing Marine right now as well um oh she come back uh but maybe Morena in the meantime you would like to kind of add something or very interesting when we were in our preliminary discussion you said I'm sitting into interviews with German companies I think you mentioned to make sure that we overcome the bias I think it's something very interesting for our audience yeah to overcome bias is uh well um you only can State something that you understand or that you're aware of and I guess I gave you the example with the laundry machine right and washing laundry you asked me about remember it yes exactly so let's let's see if you speak about doing a laundry in Europe it means mostly that you push a button and this is uh what you say I do the laundry is a five minutes job and then you take it out maybe takes a few minutes longer again and then it's done yeah uh when you say in Ghana I do the laundry it's a day job so because you have to collect it and you wash my hand so we start with small things or when you say it's a birthday party it's not that you give gifts but it's you have to house everyone so the house is full of people and you're are celebrating for a long time and um having those diverse differences um in culture can lead to misunderstanding when you do not know about them so if one of my team members says I have to do the laundry and it's Wednesday I say no you don't because I know exactly this person won't be available for the next four hours so um it's considered to be done in during the weekend and um there are more things of course you have to understand if there is a birthday and the per the person celebrating during the week well you should talk about it before so um make sure that you know about differences like um public holidays in Ghana even though you are a German company yeah usually our team members follow the German calendar but there are some public holidays that are very important to them it might be by religion or because it is something else but it is important so talking about this and including this into the work should be something that should be considered in my opinion to make it easy for both sides yeah to to make sure that the culture is inclusive actually uh because cultural differences they bring positives with them but they might bring some misunderstandings within the team and knowing them being aware about it is um is is something that actually um can help a lot okay not in Ghana the people aren't that outgoing for example so um you might have a seasoned developer a senior level who can lead his team perfectly but when he comes to the new company he doesn't speak up so people consider him being inactive but it's not true the person just respects that the others are there in the company too and he considers them telling him first in the beginning what to do not because he doesn't know better but he doesn't want to be rude and and cross people in the same time time and wants to understand first how the company runs so um it comes often that people say to me well but he or she is so quiet um we expect more outgoing and then I say okay I understand this I can talk about it but please um the person has their own has their own thoughts but maybe doesn't share it because it's in the culture not included to share all your thoughts so yes we have to train on both sides it's not only the German company that needs to understand it's also the candidate that needs to learn the culture of speaking up and having ideas and telling them yeah feels like a process actually feels like a real process and if there is a will there is a way apparently on how to overcome it well I really hope that we didn't lose Marine forever I am not certain I um I received a message so let me just check on it okay laptop froze joining in a minute I think this is quite precise so let's give her some more time but maybe you and I can shat on a little so yeah let's let's go uh let's continue with uh with the next uh question and I don't know whether you are prepared to answer it or Marine but I'll just shut it out and um uh see where it goes and how it lands with you what challenges do you think we'll see uh in how European companies hire African talent and how they can get ready for them actually um well it is a bit of the part I already said so it is a crosscultural training I guess that is requested um I can give you another example um I built a team in South Africa that is a few years ago and one of my best best seller with an extremely British accent he wasn't to be dedicted as not British at all um well we we once shared what are you doing over the weekend because remote work um an inclusive inclusive inclusivity is it a word yeah same yeah it is we are in community we speak English as we can you know exactly um so he shared his we weekend and I was a bit stunned because he is the eldest son of an official Crow and he shared a picture where he is the only guy of the whole crowd that studied abroad and everyone else is sitting there in an extremely tiny covering so it's built out of leaves actually and some fabric and they are most of the time naked and they have just some painting in the face so what I want to State here is I didn't expect this he is always wearing a tailored suit and he was very accurate speaking British English as I said and then I saw a picture of him sitting on the ground with his family and and eating out of a bowl with his hands and that was a picture that reminded me of hey this guy is working uh in an IT remote job but his cultural background is totally different and it was delightful to see that these differences in the work world aren't existing actually so it doesn't mean just because someone lives with his native folk uh that they can't do the job and that was a very important information for myself to understand that wherever a person comes from and whatever a person does in their nonprofessional life has nothing to do with the real profession so crosscultural training is something that is very important in my opinion and effective communication channels like what we do here right now um in also in writing that we include everyone no matter where they are is very important as well so educational institutions could be supported by European countries to get more people into jobs later they could even support the future talents um in Africa for example um I'm not sure if Marine is coming back so um part yeah we just go ahead and she will join us I mean this happens on when it comes to online edition so no worries about it uh if she can she joins if not uh we just go ahead and you take the burden of informing our audience about everything you know okay okay Marine is on the phone okay um yeah well then we move on here um Partnerships with African Tech hubs you were asking um where European companies could change to hire from Africa correct yeahh yeah how to get ready yeah Partnerships uh with African Tech hubs for example could be an opportunity as well so um the tech hubs are existing everywhere and in Africa as well going to co-working spaces is very common because uh they provide internet stable um connections and stable electricity and yes it is true that a lot of African countries still face power outs but there are solutions that can overcome this Pro this problem easily so those Tech hubs are existing or companies like at inti are existing providing um offices and help to make sure that everyone can work stable as if they were located in Europe we work with a lot of assumptions when it comes to I mean maybe not only in Europe maybe also in Africa and you brought some real examples and I really like them um is there anything else that you would like to add when it comes to what should European companies for example think about when hiring people from different cultures and with different skills I mean you already mentioned uh the the the electricity as a as an issue you mentioned the fact that someone can be a professional and adopts the culture of the company even if he lives with his own um uh family and uh he lives his own culture let's call it like this um can you give us more examples into it or any other ideas when it comes to like Europe Africa uh skills culture well and I see also that Marina has Marine has joined USA I mean I don't know which which of you would like to pick on to pick up this one but I will take it it's fine it's fine um well the cultural sensitivity should be considered and this is for both sides so um um when you hire in Africa they they don't use public transportation for example very often because it's very complicated and it takes hours the streets aren't very uh safe even if you are in a capital it can mean when it starts raining that it takes you three four hours to get to the office so uh Uber for example is well known um people take cars to get to work um um so it is just as you get to know other people and usually um well I I work a lot in co-working spaces and people from all over the world are there and we have bias situations where people have their own thoughts and the only way how to overcome it is by asking we have a German TV show uh that is called Sesame Street um well it's not German but we have Sesame Street and the song in German says um that you have to ask if you do not ask you will not get more intelligent so whenever you do not understand something you should ask and you shouldn't be afraid of asking because assuming doesn't lead to what you really need to understand my assumption can lead to Total wrong um situations like once a guy showed up to an interview yeah he was on his phone in a car in my opinion very inappropriate you would I think assume the same if it is a tech interview for a senior role so he was late he was on the phone he was sitting in the car um I thought oh no the other SES thought oh no as well but I asked him during the interview hey what's going on why aren't you at the computer and then he said yeah I well I have to bring my wife to hospital and uh I have my day off I planned it and now the interview came in and I didn't want to cancel and that you don't so but instead of stating this up front he tried to maintain everything on his phone and it didn't work so um but opening the door was just asking what's going on and then I could state it and say hello everyone um please let's reschedule I just learned that our interview partner now unfortunately has to go to hospital with his wife and everyone understood so if you do not ask and if you're not open to understand that there are people who try to make everything happen on the other hand then you will consider this person being unprofessional without knowing the person was quite very very professional and tried to solve the problem but the solving didn't see the situation yeah but lovely that you bring this as an example because I don't even think that it's a cultural difference it's a a matter of personality I mean we in Europe we try to be professionals most of the time without uh and we forget to be um humans actually it might happen to someone who is from Europe uh who is attending an interview in Europe it's even not cultural it's like uh but being aware about cultural differences probably make us even make us be more open when it comes to like people in general yeah people is exactly the reason why I'm here yeah I'm always interested in people behind the title I'm always interested in what really drives the person to do what the person is doing because this is well it's it's well people cut themselves off you know and then we are speaking about social and work life balance and so on but we do not have to two different lives it is all our Liv so um inclusiv inclusivity I really don't like this word it is um it's also the same with parents yeah being a parent is also currently in when you're working it's worse uh when you have a child when you are a single mother we can also go deep down into this one so what of my best colleagues I hired is a young mother of two children and when I hired her for get inti she was still breastfeeding the child was three months old and she wondered why I hired her and trust me she is the one with the most talent and she is the one that understands that her role is crucial and that she brings a lot of value to the company so um diversity is a lot but Marine I guess now you can listen and you can speak again right yes absolutely I apologize for this the joys of uh Tech and remote working I think it's a very good example of all the things that can go wrong when you work with a very diverse team and diverse location so sorry about that um Anna and Morena you're you're more than welcome to rejoin the discussion Marina if you have anything to add I also want to encourage our audience uh to make sure that uh you post your questions uh I I'll make sure that we have at least five to 10 minutes at the end of the session to uh answer to those um to those questions and I don't know Marina do you also want to want to add anything to what Moren said um I think Morena said it um very well and it's part of our everyday life and challenge is that we try to overcome but I would um reemphasize on um again when we talk about you know what may be some of those uh challenges and when we talk about diversity and inclusion in the workplace and in hiring um especially again um I think we were very specific in the in the scope that we looked at which is specifically um Africa um which is one narrow Avenue into the whole Space around diversity and inclusion but I I think um the the the question of culture fit which um I droned back in the conversation when Morena was touching about it and I think is a very very important one because we may think that you know hiring people from multiple countries from multiple Horizons is enough um it rarely is and actually if you're not proactive if you're not mindful about um the way that you bring up your team the way that the team is trained the way that uh the managers are trained and so on you will necessarily counter cultural differences um that are absolutely okay but will also hinder the working relationship if you don't um take care of it so uh Morena shared a very good example that was about you know hiring um a hiring situation we encountered but we also had other situations where um the hiring was actually made so we had European uh companies and European managers hiring uh um an African uh software developer if I'm correct um and actually um you would you would think that the hard part is over but actually it's not um and not because the person wasn't up for the job the technical job or not because the manager was not uh inclusive and didn't want to work with uh with this uh with this a new uh staff member but rather because they didn't have a common understanding of what was important um in the workplace and so for example um the the the software developer our software developer um was a really good Tech person excellent in in in programming and excellent in uh all technical Fields um but uh was from a culture where uh humility and um lack of rather fixing the problem rather than talking about the problem was was the way to go about it um but for the manager um it was really a problem because what they wanted was to understand where this person was going what were they fixing and so on um and that lack of communication was actually called out um to us quite a couple of time and hindered the relationship between the manager and the software developer and it was a really good learning point for us to think that just because the person got hired doesn't mean that the work stops there um and so I would say It was obviously on the software developer on the tech talent to learn how to cope with a different uh environment but it was also the manager's role um and to relate to what Morena said to probably ask more questions and to ask himself for themselves more questions about why is this person behaving this way rather than assuming oh he just doesn't like to talk um for instance uh so yeah I would I would say that um wanting to hire diversity and wanting to be an equal company doesn't just mean um going into quotas and you know having job posts that say that they are remote and so on it's like actually something that requires quite a lot of work internally um in order to achieve positive diversity I would say I couldn't agree more thank you I was about to say to say the same yeah I mean it really takes uh takes time and um um for for the results to be there to be in place uh but it's worth it it's worth it especially with the talent shortage that we are having in Europe and maybe also have some success uccessful hires some stories you can tell some successful stories about hires in Africa how it helped European companies how to these success stories show that having a mix of people helps the companies to do better in terms of financial results or innovation or whatsoever well um it is oh Marine would you like no absolutely go for it um yeah no we we can do it together if you want to I just wanted to say yeah exactly so um for example companies who are Financial uh financially maybe not as stable as they would like to be or they are Finance sensitive let's call it like this um have the opportunity to hire of course by near sourcing so what we do what on what we provide is um having the opportunity to have a great talent to uh really reasonable price for both sides um how is this happening um well the life cost in Ghana are much lower than in Germany for example so um to make sure when you hire from Ghana um that you pay a great income for this developer is easier than having the same level highered than Germany so to be precise um a normal Ghana in come currently hovers around 400 and then they are already on the wellp paid side so if you come with 400 to Germany you know that you can not even afford an apartment so um it means if you have a good hire and if I do not encount encourage people not to pay well what I say is life um costs are different and of course that means you can reduce your costs by hiring from abroad remotely for your company um and the other side still earns a huge amount of money more than they would earn maybe if they get hired in their own country so it's a win-win situation that is created here and also encourage people maybe to be open for diversity hiring not only because they want to achieve cultural so to bring to the topic that often often times company uh companies are having issues with like they pay at the market level but when it comes to Tech Talent you do not compete with the other companies who have open positions you compete with the actual employer of the person and this combined with the fact let's say that in Europe we speak different languages so you are St to a language in many cases um if you are not visible as a brand not a Famous Brand if you're in a small location and you want the person to come onside this limits enormously the talent pool uh and you can actually handle very well your internal budgets and still have some bring some great talent to your team by hiring in countries where the talent is um less expensive let's put it like this but the quality is still there and Marine I know that you also wanted to contribute to to this question in the beginning uh yeah so I I think um again Mara said it um very well what I would um emphasize because we talked a lot about the challenges but it's uh very important to also talk about the successes um and uh we wouldn't be here if if the if the business case um was not also a success for every developer that we struggle I say developer but it can be software engineer it can be um any sort of tech Talent um any any talent that we struggle to place and keep in a position position we have uh dozens that are actually um happily uh placed and very successful within their um organizations um and we get um super positive feedback and I think for us a a a good um kpi when it comes to success is the fact that companies um come back to us to hire more Talent um and that is the true token of um you know this is working and the person is um being um uh embedded in into uh the team and into the organization and is actually a good fit um so we're seeing more and more of those cases as we learn um and it's very interesting to see so we have a a special appetite uh given our our our history with uh German uh companies and German uh organizations um and uh Europe as well but uh with a special focus on on Germany and one would think that for example the language barrier um if you're looking outside Tech startups that usually have a very English uh speaking ecosystem um you could assume that you know it was a bit more of a difficult Market to penetrate uh for us um and we're actually it's it's quite the opposite we're seeing uh so many uh great results with the individuals that we place in uh German ummes um and I think that is really interesting to see given um the the the frame and given the yeah uh frame that might be different from again Tech startups where you usually you're used to having very International stuff and very room like different locations so um yes definitely lots of great success stories um in in that field uh uh which which make up for all the difficulties I would say and let's hope to even more uh to sum it up what's the role of Partnerships like with your organization in helping European companies higher remotely now Africa well the role is not only to help European companies to get into the untapped pool of talents but also to have a safe higher so get inti for example is a German African company so we brought as well well that sounds very biased now but the German work ethics into into this um which is considered to be uh constantly working being um always forward driven so yeah everyone knows about the German work ethic bias but we really use this because it's important for companies to understand um to overcome another bias that is existing unfortunately that African people do not want to work so um yeah so we have a lot of biases to overcome here but what we do is we ensure that um people who want to hire from Africa have the opportunity to do this with um compliance um what is the right term for this um local regulations I guess and cultural nuances are absolutely softened and the contracts we provide are German company German service comp contracts so um the legal side is very important for European companies that they do not go out hiring someone and it is after this false self-employment situation that a lot of companies faces when they hire a single person for long term so um we handle this as an employer of record situation that means we can even dive deep into to um the whole ecosystem and source for the right person if necessary and subsaharan area and provide after this this talent to companies when requested um what US differs from others is that Tech speaks with tech um that is one of the problems in my opinion I know I open another topic right now I do not dive deep since I'm time sensitive as well um but Tech hiring also has a a problem currently in Europe so when you speak to HR and you are not a tech company means your HR team isn't Tech sensitive they have no clue about tech at all maybe they know there are some developers they can't tell the differences so what we do is we hear the company out first and then our Tech Team speaks with their Tech Team to detect what is really mandatory for you so that everyone is on the same page and then we provide them the right talents after this so it's extremely timesaving for the companies as well not only um that they only speak to people who are a fit later for the role so they can choose from well they do not have to do the whole cycle of of recruitment let's say it like this so we cut it short for companies providing them the real Tech stack that is mandatory and make sure that when they move on with us that they have the right partner on site as well so we tackle everything that comes with hiring on our side and they get the service that they need to fulfill the task but the person is onboarded as their personal um as as if you hire yourself so we just take care of everything that is mandatory yeah it's full support real partner from what I'm hearing uh you mentioned the time I'm also cautioned about the time I just checked and I don't see any questions um from the audience um I'll give them a couple of minutes but if and if something pops up I'll ask you but in the meantime just uh one last uh question from me and it's more like um I don't know how to ask it but okay is there anything I didn't ask you but I want to to talk about would be my question you think it's important to share with the audience thank you Anna and it was really H super nice and again sincere apologies for the little Tech mishap I still have not managed to get my laptop back up and running and I'm working for a tech company so it's really ridiculous um but no I think we had a a very insightful conversation I again as a strong Advocate I want to reemphasize on um you know the notion that yes we talk a lot about diversity and inclusion those are Flagship words in in 2024 um I would say um but actually it has to be a a a mindful decision of an organization to look into what it means for you as a company to hire diversely and to be um to drive equity and uh inclusivity in your organization all all all Benchmark all um all decisions do not apply to all companies the same way and so you need to have a tailored approach and you need to be um again I love the word mindfulness but you need to be very mindful about what that means for your organization because otherwise it's like everything it's never going to work and it will just be what it is which is Flagship words and you know empty empty um empty promises so I again uh diversity inclusion especially when looking in the remote tech industry needs to be something that is driven by the company and for the compan and for the right reasons um in order to be successful so yeah I think those would be my my closing um remarks Morena do you have anything that you want to add only one thing of course we we're focused now in Africa because uh this is our home turf uh diversity is so much more so it's uh just before someone feels offended that we didn't tap into this field of course diversity means more but for us it was now the remote hiring process especially when you uh hire from um in Source in Africa so whenever you feel like you need to talk about more reach out and Marine I'm so sorry that you have to to handle this technical issue right now but you were very well audible in the end so hopefully uh you are not too stressed thank you so much marinaa Anna and everyone who joined in for for the conversation and I would like to encourage actually everyone to get in touch uh with morina and Marine um connect via LinkedIn connect via other social media there is a lot to learn there is a lot to be discussed uh if you want to continue the disc discussion just feel free uh thank you ladies very much for the conversation and with this being said I'll close this edition of our Tech recruiting Academy um it was amazing to have you on stage and um I hope that you will join us another time as well thank you Anna was a pleasure thank you so much Anna thank you both thank you everyone [Music] oh

[Music] hello good morning everyone good morning good afternoon and good evening wherever you are joining in from I&#39;m very happy to host the next uh tech recruiter academy uh sponsored by via developers the topic today is um diversity but we will speak differently about this topic today we are not going to consider it as a number it&#39;s not going to be a check box box it&#39;s not going to be a a problem for the tech recruiting um environment we will change a little bit the way we speak about diversity we speak about Sol we will speak about Solutions and that&#39;s why I have two amazing l this with me Moren and Marine uh they will tell us about themselves in a while but I just want to quickly share with you they have been there they have done that they know what they do and they will help us they&#39;re here to help us to walk away with some practical tips and let&#39;s not K ourselves folks it&#39;s not a it&#39;s not a smooth sailing we&#39;ve got cultural gaps to discuss uh logistical headaches and then the whole remote work Dynamics to navigate I would like to hear from our panelists of course but I also want to hear from you just don&#39;t CH away uh ask your questions Enga and also share your experience engage with our panelists and with each other um you can use the question section at the is it right or left okay you&#39;ll figure it out I think it&#39;s on the right uh and before we start I would like to remind you again be nice to each other and use exclusive language so that everyone can feel comfortable um during this session good morning uh ladies I know that it&#39;s good morning for you morning I&#39;ll kick it out kick it out directly just tell us a little bit about yourself and what&#39;s your goal and what are you fighting for thank you an I gonna start my name is Marina lindaa um my name is a bit funny since I live in Spain name uh my name are two adjectives that actually State being dark Beauty uh which is inappropriate to call my name in the street so everyone calls me more in the end um I&#39;m here because I am well we&#39;re talking about culture and as you can see I am already diverse since I&#39;m German I was born in Keel um it&#39;s in the northern part of Germany I&#39;m half Caribbean and on the other hand uh I&#39;m a single mom I&#39;m an entrepreneur I am a business owner I&#39;m working in this environment for a long time sales expert and marketing expert as well so what shall I say diversity starts everywhere and this is um why I would like to give some insights today for getting ATI and also for hiring because I think we have a lot of information that might help people to overcome thresholds thank you Mora thank you Morena hi Anna hi everyone um very happy to be here with you today for this hour of insightful uh conversations I hope um my name is Marine Marine UMO I am part of the get notiz team um and um I think I I to a certain extent also represent uh uh of uh um diversity and inclusion my specialty is um on uh adult education and employability for um African youth um and I am the country director for um Kenya uh in our organization so um my goal is to help um African Talent African Tech talent to get into jobs dignified jobs dignified work um uh remote opportunities that can help them secure a better future and uh super passionate about uh bringing light to this very important topic um and focusing on diversity and inclusion um so yeah very excited about having this conversation with you Anna and Morena and everyone in the chat as well I&#39;m also very happy to have you ladies and you bring amazing experience both personal and professional and I start start directly with my first question why is having different types of people important for an organization thanks Anna um I&#39;ll I&#39;ll uh kick us off and and take that one um I will say that um actually we say in an organization but I think organizations in their space are just like societies just like communities and having different types of people in Societies in communities and in organization um corporate organization and uh and startups and any part of the ecosystem is um super important I feel like it&#39;s something that we say all the time that we repeat that uh you know is is held as a as a North star um but it is always important to repeat it um and to understand why it&#39;s not just about saying you know diversity inclusion is important having more people is important but actually seeing um the the reasons behind it and the numbers behind it and so on so um I will say that uh uh having different types of people like you said in an organization but also in society um is for me something that first and foremost helps um Foster Innovation and uh creativity and resilience um we can see in all and I like to bring number and data into those type of conversation because again uh it&#39;s easy to say hey it&#39;s important to have more women to have more uh ethnicity represented um but what does that actually mean for an organization and so I will um encourage everyone to have a look at a study that was conducted on diversity in the workplace um by the consulting firm mckeny which has some really interesting data so they&#39;ve been conducting that study for the past couple of years um and they pull data from different organizations that show that um companies that um have more than 30% women um in at every level of the organization um is actually going to perform financially outperform financially um most of their peers and that average is also the same for ethnic delicity so with an average of 27 um% of uh outperformance for organizations that have a fair share of ethnic diversity into their organization up until the top qual so I think it&#39;s very important to say hey when we talk about having different people it&#39;s not just having different people in one given sphere um it&#39;s actually having different people having women having uh people from different ethnicities having persons with disabilities at all level of um an organization is something that Fosters uh better results through Innovation through creative mindset uh through different perspectives as well because everyone brings in their own um their own perspective and uh and resilience so definitely extremely important I&#39;m happy that we move away from the normal definition and the nor normal conversation when it comes to diversity and we kick it off with the business results because this is actually in the tech industry this is the industry of innovators and you really need different profiles in order to to to to drive this Innovation uh and I&#39;m happy that you have a different definition actually of diversity uh would you like to share more Morena when it comes to your definition about diversity well for me diversity is the only opportunity for workplaces to to thrive honestly because um the embracing of unique perspectives and experiences helps us to develop and having a New Perspective from a different angle can help um to explore new Fields you haven&#39;t thought about so it&#39;s just like drawing a horse from two different positions you know you look at the front I look at the back uh we still draw the same picture but in the end um yes we should put it together and then we have maybe the opportunity using diversity to see the whole picture from all angles and become 3D so um my opportunity or my thinking it is that diversity increases all spectrums of a company not only uh later in the amount of money that you can make but also um the happiness in a company because you you just develop yourself you learn learn new things if it is culture-wise for example asking for what are you having for dinner yeah and you can share ideas this also helps to have a better understanding in a com Community which a company is if you want to be fair um the world becomes smaller and diversity hiring in the way we do it right now means opportunities creating to have a better understanding and well see everyone on eye level which currently unfortunately isn&#39;t happening everywhere yeah interesting how happiness and self growth uh kind of come together um into the picture and you ladies both mentioned Africa and African Tech talent in the beginning of our conversation uh so I would like to ask you what qualities to African African Tech expert have that could help with Europe&#39;s Tech shortage I mean you know that lack a lot of tech talent in Europe not only in Europe uh but how can this be handled via experts from Africa thank you Anna I uh will take it so um I think uh I&#39;ll Circle back to um what uh you said earlier like this conversation needs to be I think when we have the Dei conversation it always needs to be in the context of business um just because we know that it&#39;s also what is being heard um in the by companies by organization and so on so I like the idea of saying hey Dei diversity inclusion is super important for lots of reasons but it&#39;s also something that will bring something to the organization it will drive financial performance it will drive um having better results and so on so um in that in that space in that direction um we have a big uh focus on driving African Tech Talent um into European organizations specifically to bridge that Gap the business gap which is that we have a skills shortage at the moment we don&#39;t have enough Talent um in Europe and Africa is uh obviously the youngest and one of the biggest old the biggest uh continents um at the moment in terms of uh Workforce um and therefore it only makes a ton of sense to bring the two world together and make sure that um we leverage that African Tech talent pool into to uh organizations based in Europe so um a few of the reasons the the first reason for me would be first of all the the quantity of talent um I think in 2023 we had more than 750,000 software developers in Africa only so huge talent pool um that is clearly still being very much untapped um it is also a very young population and a very connected population that has learned to grow with um new tech and therefore makes it super valuable when they get into a remote job into a tech company um and then there are some very specific advantages like um most African countries especially the tech hubs like Nigeria Ghana and Kenya are native English-speaking population so super helpful for businesses um same time zone data privacy laws so we see it both from the and I emphasize on it&#39;s not just a good thing to do it&#39;s not just about skills but it&#39;s also um about um infrastructure and policy that um this that can be um leveraged um to support the need for Tech Talent within European organization so um I think we&#39;re seeing more and more that a lot of uh the Outsourcing uh business is uh moving away from India or at least is decreasing a little bit from India and going a little bit more into countries like Ghana Nigeria and Kenya and um those would be um for all the reasons that are uh that I&#39;ve just highlighted you already answered maybe partially my next question but I wanted to see if you have brought us some interesting facts about the people working in Te in Africa sure uh I could give you some numbers maybe that might be interesting especially when it comes to entrepreneurship in Africa during the last five years Kenya for example has doubled the tech startups so it means there is a huge uh growth already and when you look at Ghana it&#39;s 75% during the last five years um over the same period so uh in South Africa even 120% that means there are a lot of people who dive deep into Tech have a good understanding and they create their own environment where they can Thrive and increase and have businesses which are serious so we are not talking about small businesses just uh doing small stuff we are talking about real companies growing there and um not to forget forget that uh Kenya is considered or Nairobi to be precise considered to become the new Silicon Valley um Europe invests a lot of money right now also into Tech in Nairobi for example um so it&#39;s not or it&#39;s more likely that we should consider this continent as a huge source and we get inti um do this for already eight years almost no it&#39;s eight right almost nine years um 2015 that we decided okay there is this huge gap existing of people working in Tech in Europe and um there are 60% in population in Ghana for example that is younger than 30 years so what can we do it is easy to bring knowledge and value to this company because they only need to have a computer and internet and electricity so it&#39;s the first generation that has the opportunity to upskills to learn and do something with his know and become a global player somehow and in this way they do and the only thing that is holding them back currently it&#39;s well a culture maybe not knowing about people not not having a deeper understanding and this is for example what I do for get inti I bridge I bridge between European companies and African um talents so there is a better understanding of cultural problem that might come up because of differences so it isn&#39;t a real problem it&#39;s just a not knowing and I hope to understand better and I think those numbers speak for themselves when you see the talents yeah absolutely and culture is a big p i mean Europe Africa those are two different continents but how can uh European businesses find Talent while also making sure everyone feels included and respected I mean do are those cultures so different and what is your experience with with this when you just take the talent itself means a blind recruiting for example yeah so uh you have not the typical bias behind it that means you do not see skin color gender uh where the person comes from that might be already a solution and uh also diverse interview panels could be helping means you have more people from different perspective I looking at it so um interviewing always is also a process process of personal likes or dislikes you have to work in the end with a person but when you have a better understanding for cultural differences um it&#39;s less only by bias but more by maybe really not fitting as a person not by culture you know I do not have to like everyone but if someone can do the job and is perfect I shouldn&#39;t choose just because the person is from Ghana that it is not a fit yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I mean just thinking about the opportunities that you mentioned in your previous comment that this generation for the first time they have the opportunity to do something to do something differently than the previous generations and what can be done uh basically to make sure that hiring remot to in Africa is fair and open to everyone so I would say um building on uh uh what has been just said so the it it&#39;s got to be from end toin process it&#39;s got to be from the beginning you&#39;re hiring someone you need to be super mindful you need to be very proactive when you talk about diversity um in the hiring process in the onboarding process and in the management process um I think saying that um you equal opportunities means opening a ro a role remotely and making it available to all is actually not the most inclusive it&#39;s not the most um Equity way of driving um uh your recruitment process and your hiring process and then your on boarding and management process just because um it is assuming that everyone comes to the uh comes to the interview with the same um with the same level of opportunity with the same um infrastructure with the same background um and and therefore it is already messing with the with the playground so I would say um for me something that is super important obviously uh through um uh the hiring process um is making sure that um when you conduct so when you post uh a job opening and it&#39;s actually going to be remote that&#39;s kind of the first thing that we see a lot so we see a lot of opportunities that say uh yes this is a remote opportunity but then you dig into it you speak to the hiring manager and actually oh yes it&#39;s it&#39;s a remote opportunity in Europe because that&#39;s where legislation is similar to our own country or that&#39;s where it makes more sense in terms of traveling and so on and so um talking specifically of Africa because we&#39;re advocate for African Talent um our our dire reality is that uh most of the openings most of the jobs that are being sold as remote jobs are actually European jobs uh for European citizens and it&#39;s pretty much the same thing in the US because of us legislation and so on so remote um I think again you have to be super proactive and mindful when you um I lost her for a yes I&#39;m losing Marine right now as well um oh she come back uh but maybe Morena in the meantime you would like to kind of add something or very interesting when we were in our preliminary discussion you said I&#39;m sitting into interviews with German companies I think you mentioned to make sure that we overcome the bias I think it&#39;s something very interesting for our audience yeah to overcome bias is uh well um you only can State something that you understand or that you&#39;re aware of and I guess I gave you the example with the laundry machine right and washing laundry you asked me about remember it yes exactly so let&#39;s let&#39;s see if you speak about doing a laundry in Europe it means mostly that you push a button and this is uh what you say I do the laundry is a five minutes job and then you take it out maybe takes a few minutes longer again and then it&#39;s done yeah uh when you say in Ghana I do the laundry it&#39;s a day job so because you have to collect it and you wash my hand so we start with small things or when you say it&#39;s a birthday party it&#39;s not that you give gifts but it&#39;s you have to house everyone so the house is full of people and you&#39;re are celebrating for a long time and um having those diverse differences um in culture can lead to misunderstanding when you do not know about them so if one of my team members says I have to do the laundry and it&#39;s Wednesday I say no you don&#39;t because I know exactly this person won&#39;t be available for the next four hours so um it&#39;s considered to be done in during the weekend and um there are more things of course you have to understand if there is a birthday and the per the person celebrating during the week well you should talk about it before so um make sure that you know about differences like um public holidays in Ghana even though you are a German company yeah usually our team members follow the German calendar but there are some public holidays that are very important to them it might be by religion or because it is something else but it is important so talking about this and including this into the work should be something that should be considered in my opinion to make it easy for both sides yeah to to make sure that the culture is inclusive actually uh because cultural differences they bring positives with them but they might bring some misunderstandings within the team and knowing them being aware about it is um is is something that actually um can help a lot okay not in Ghana the people aren&#39;t that outgoing for example so um you might have a seasoned developer a senior level who can lead his team perfectly but when he comes to the new company he doesn&#39;t speak up so people consider him being inactive but it&#39;s not true the person just respects that the others are there in the company too and he considers them telling him first in the beginning what to do not because he doesn&#39;t know better but he doesn&#39;t want to be rude and and cross people in the same time time and wants to understand first how the company runs so um it comes often that people say to me well but he or she is so quiet um we expect more outgoing and then I say okay I understand this I can talk about it but please um the person has their own has their own thoughts but maybe doesn&#39;t share it because it&#39;s in the culture not included to share all your thoughts so yes we have to train on both sides it&#39;s not only the German company that needs to understand it&#39;s also the candidate that needs to learn the culture of speaking up and having ideas and telling them yeah feels like a process actually feels like a real process and if there is a will there is a way apparently on how to overcome it well I really hope that we didn&#39;t lose Marine forever I am not certain I um I received a message so let me just check on it okay laptop froze joining in a minute I think this is quite precise so let&#39;s give her some more time but maybe you and I can shat on a little so yeah let&#39;s let&#39;s go uh let&#39;s continue with uh with the next uh question and I don&#39;t know whether you are prepared to answer it or Marine but I&#39;ll just shut it out and um uh see where it goes and how it lands with you what challenges do you think we&#39;ll see uh in how European companies hire African talent and how they can get ready for them actually um well it is a bit of the part I already said so it is a crosscultural training I guess that is requested um I can give you another example um I built a team in South Africa that is a few years ago and one of my best best seller with an extremely British accent he wasn&#39;t to be dedicted as not British at all um well we we once shared what are you doing over the weekend because remote work um an inclusive inclusive inclusivity is it a word yeah same yeah it is we are in community we speak English as we can you know exactly um so he shared his we weekend and I was a bit stunned because he is the eldest son of an official Crow and he shared a picture where he is the only guy of the whole crowd that studied abroad and everyone else is sitting there in an extremely tiny covering so it&#39;s built out of leaves actually and some fabric and they are most of the time naked and they have just some painting in the face so what I want to State here is I didn&#39;t expect this he is always wearing a tailored suit and he was very accurate speaking British English as I said and then I saw a picture of him sitting on the ground with his family and and eating out of a bowl with his hands and that was a picture that reminded me of hey this guy is working uh in an IT remote job but his cultural background is totally different and it was delightful to see that these differences in the work world aren&#39;t existing actually so it doesn&#39;t mean just because someone lives with his native folk uh that they can&#39;t do the job and that was a very important information for myself to understand that wherever a person comes from and whatever a person does in their nonprofessional life has nothing to do with the real profession so crosscultural training is something that is very important in my opinion and effective communication channels like what we do here right now um in also in writing that we include everyone no matter where they are is very important as well so educational institutions could be supported by European countries to get more people into jobs later they could even support the future talents um in Africa for example um I&#39;m not sure if Marine is coming back so um part yeah we just go ahead and she will join us I mean this happens on when it comes to online edition so no worries about it uh if she can she joins if not uh we just go ahead and you take the burden of informing our audience about everything you know okay okay Marine is on the phone okay um yeah well then we move on here um Partnerships with African Tech hubs you were asking um where European companies could change to hire from Africa correct yeahh yeah how to get ready yeah Partnerships uh with African Tech hubs for example could be an opportunity as well so um the tech hubs are existing everywhere and in Africa as well going to co-working spaces is very common because uh they provide internet stable um connections and stable electricity and yes it is true that a lot of African countries still face power outs but there are solutions that can overcome this Pro this problem easily so those Tech hubs are existing or companies like at inti are existing providing um offices and help to make sure that everyone can work stable as if they were located in Europe we work with a lot of assumptions when it comes to I mean maybe not only in Europe maybe also in Africa and you brought some real examples and I really like them um is there anything else that you would like to add when it comes to what should European companies for example think about when hiring people from different cultures and with different skills I mean you already mentioned uh the the the electricity as a as an issue you mentioned the fact that someone can be a professional and adopts the culture of the company even if he lives with his own um uh family and uh he lives his own culture let&#39;s call it like this um can you give us more examples into it or any other ideas when it comes to like Europe Africa uh skills culture well and I see also that Marina has Marine has joined USA I mean I don&#39;t know which which of you would like to pick on to pick up this one but I will take it it&#39;s fine it&#39;s fine um well the cultural sensitivity should be considered and this is for both sides so um um when you hire in Africa they they don&#39;t use public transportation for example very often because it&#39;s very complicated and it takes hours the streets aren&#39;t very uh safe even if you are in a capital it can mean when it starts raining that it takes you three four hours to get to the office so uh Uber for example is well known um people take cars to get to work um um so it is just as you get to know other people and usually um well I I work a lot in co-working spaces and people from all over the world are there and we have bias situations where people have their own thoughts and the only way how to overcome it is by asking we have a German TV show uh that is called Sesame Street um well it&#39;s not German but we have Sesame Street and the song in German says um that you have to ask if you do not ask you will not get more intelligent so whenever you do not understand something you should ask and you shouldn&#39;t be afraid of asking because assuming doesn&#39;t lead to what you really need to understand my assumption can lead to Total wrong um situations like once a guy showed up to an interview yeah he was on his phone in a car in my opinion very inappropriate you would I think assume the same if it is a tech interview for a senior role so he was late he was on the phone he was sitting in the car um I thought oh no the other SES thought oh no as well but I asked him during the interview hey what&#39;s going on why aren&#39;t you at the computer and then he said yeah I well I have to bring my wife to hospital and uh I have my day off I planned it and now the interview came in and I didn&#39;t want to cancel and that you don&#39;t so but instead of stating this up front he tried to maintain everything on his phone and it didn&#39;t work so um but opening the door was just asking what&#39;s going on and then I could state it and say hello everyone um please let&#39;s reschedule I just learned that our interview partner now unfortunately has to go to hospital with his wife and everyone understood so if you do not ask and if you&#39;re not open to understand that there are people who try to make everything happen on the other hand then you will consider this person being unprofessional without knowing the person was quite very very professional and tried to solve the problem but the solving didn&#39;t see the situation yeah but lovely that you bring this as an example because I don&#39;t even think that it&#39;s a cultural difference it&#39;s a a matter of personality I mean we in Europe we try to be professionals most of the time without uh and we forget to be um humans actually it might happen to someone who is from Europe uh who is attending an interview in Europe it&#39;s even not cultural it&#39;s like uh but being aware about cultural differences probably make us even make us be more open when it comes to like people in general yeah people is exactly the reason why I&#39;m here yeah I&#39;m always interested in people behind the title I&#39;m always interested in what really drives the person to do what the person is doing because this is well it&#39;s it&#39;s well people cut themselves off you know and then we are speaking about social and work life balance and so on but we do not have to two different lives it is all our Liv so um inclusiv inclusivity I really don&#39;t like this word it is um it&#39;s also the same with parents yeah being a parent is also currently in when you&#39;re working it&#39;s worse uh when you have a child when you are a single mother we can also go deep down into this one so what of my best colleagues I hired is a young mother of two children and when I hired her for get inti she was still breastfeeding the child was three months old and she wondered why I hired her and trust me she is the one with the most talent and she is the one that understands that her role is crucial and that she brings a lot of value to the company so um diversity is a lot but Marine I guess now you can listen and you can speak again right yes absolutely I apologize for this the joys of uh Tech and remote working I think it&#39;s a very good example of all the things that can go wrong when you work with a very diverse team and diverse location so sorry about that um Anna and Morena you&#39;re you&#39;re more than welcome to rejoin the discussion Marina if you have anything to add I also want to encourage our audience uh to make sure that uh you post your questions uh I I&#39;ll make sure that we have at least five to 10 minutes at the end of the session to uh answer to those um to those questions and I don&#39;t know Marina do you also want to want to add anything to what Moren said um I think Morena said it um very well and it&#39;s part of our everyday life and challenge is that we try to overcome but I would um reemphasize on um again when we talk about you know what may be some of those uh challenges and when we talk about diversity and inclusion in the workplace and in hiring um especially again um I think we were very specific in the in the scope that we looked at which is specifically um Africa um which is one narrow Avenue into the whole Space around diversity and inclusion but I I think um the the the question of culture fit which um I droned back in the conversation when Morena was touching about it and I think is a very very important one because we may think that you know hiring people from multiple countries from multiple Horizons is enough um it rarely is and actually if you&#39;re not proactive if you&#39;re not mindful about um the way that you bring up your team the way that the team is trained the way that uh the managers are trained and so on you will necessarily counter cultural differences um that are absolutely okay but will also hinder the working relationship if you don&#39;t um take care of it so uh Morena shared a very good example that was about you know hiring um a hiring situation we encountered but we also had other situations where um the hiring was actually made so we had European uh companies and European managers hiring uh um an African uh software developer if I&#39;m correct um and actually um you would you would think that the hard part is over but actually it&#39;s not um and not because the person wasn&#39;t up for the job the technical job or not because the manager was not uh inclusive and didn&#39;t want to work with uh with this uh with this a new uh staff member but rather because they didn&#39;t have a common understanding of what was important um in the workplace and so for example um the the the software developer our software developer um was a really good Tech person excellent in in in programming and excellent in uh all technical Fields um but uh was from a culture where uh humility and um lack of rather fixing the problem rather than talking about the problem was was the way to go about it um but for the manager um it was really a problem because what they wanted was to understand where this person was going what were they fixing and so on um and that lack of communication was actually called out um to us quite a couple of time and hindered the relationship between the manager and the software developer and it was a really good learning point for us to think that just because the person got hired doesn&#39;t mean that the work stops there um and so I would say It was obviously on the software developer on the tech talent to learn how to cope with a different uh environment but it was also the manager&#39;s role um and to relate to what Morena said to probably ask more questions and to ask himself for themselves more questions about why is this person behaving this way rather than assuming oh he just doesn&#39;t like to talk um for instance uh so yeah I would I would say that um wanting to hire diversity and wanting to be an equal company doesn&#39;t just mean um going into quotas and you know having job posts that say that they are remote and so on it&#39;s like actually something that requires quite a lot of work internally um in order to achieve positive diversity I would say I couldn&#39;t agree more thank you I was about to say to say the same yeah I mean it really takes uh takes time and um um for for the results to be there to be in place uh but it&#39;s worth it it&#39;s worth it especially with the talent shortage that we are having in Europe and maybe also have some success uccessful hires some stories you can tell some successful stories about hires in Africa how it helped European companies how to these success stories show that having a mix of people helps the companies to do better in terms of financial results or innovation or whatsoever well um it is oh Marine would you like no absolutely go for it um yeah no we we can do it together if you want to I just wanted to say yeah exactly so um for example companies who are Financial uh financially maybe not as stable as they would like to be or they are Finance sensitive let&#39;s call it like this um have the opportunity to hire of course by near sourcing so what we do what on what we provide is um having the opportunity to have a great talent to uh really reasonable price for both sides um how is this happening um well the life cost in Ghana are much lower than in Germany for example so um to make sure when you hire from Ghana um that you pay a great income for this developer is easier than having the same level highered than Germany so to be precise um a normal Ghana in come currently hovers around 400 and then they are already on the wellp paid side so if you come with 400 to Germany you know that you can not even afford an apartment so um it means if you have a good hire and if I do not encount encourage people not to pay well what I say is life um costs are different and of course that means you can reduce your costs by hiring from abroad remotely for your company um and the other side still earns a huge amount of money more than they would earn maybe if they get hired in their own country so it&#39;s a win-win situation that is created here and also encourage people maybe to be open for diversity hiring not only because they want to achieve cultural so to bring to the topic that often often times company uh companies are having issues with like they pay at the market level but when it comes to Tech Talent you do not compete with the other companies who have open positions you compete with the actual employer of the person and this combined with the fact let&#39;s say that in Europe we speak different languages so you are St to a language in many cases um if you are not visible as a brand not a Famous Brand if you&#39;re in a small location and you want the person to come onside this limits enormously the talent pool uh and you can actually handle very well your internal budgets and still have some bring some great talent to your team by hiring in countries where the talent is um less expensive let&#39;s put it like this but the quality is still there and Marine I know that you also wanted to contribute to to this question in the beginning uh yeah so I I think um again Mara said it um very well what I would um emphasize because we talked a lot about the challenges but it&#39;s uh very important to also talk about the successes um and uh we wouldn&#39;t be here if if the if the business case um was not also a success for every developer that we struggle I say developer but it can be software engineer it can be um any sort of tech Talent um any any talent that we struggle to place and keep in a position position we have uh dozens that are actually um happily uh placed and very successful within their um organizations um and we get um super positive feedback and I think for us a a a good um kpi when it comes to success is the fact that companies um come back to us to hire more Talent um and that is the true token of um you know this is working and the person is um being um uh embedded in into uh the team and into the organization and is actually a good fit um so we&#39;re seeing more and more of those cases as we learn um and it&#39;s very interesting to see so we have a a special appetite uh given our our our history with uh German uh companies and German uh organizations um and uh Europe as well but uh with a special focus on on Germany and one would think that for example the language barrier um if you&#39;re looking outside Tech startups that usually have a very English uh speaking ecosystem um you could assume that you know it was a bit more of a difficult Market to penetrate uh for us um and we&#39;re actually it&#39;s it&#39;s quite the opposite we&#39;re seeing uh so many uh great results with the individuals that we place in uh German ummes um and I think that is really interesting to see given um the the the frame and given the yeah uh frame that might be different from again Tech startups where you usually you&#39;re used to having very International stuff and very room like different locations so um yes definitely lots of great success stories um in in that field uh uh which which make up for all the difficulties I would say and let&#39;s hope to even more uh to sum it up what&#39;s the role of Partnerships like with your organization in helping European companies higher remotely now Africa well the role is not only to help European companies to get into the untapped pool of talents but also to have a safe higher so get inti for example is a German African company so we brought as well well that sounds very biased now but the German work ethics into into this um which is considered to be uh constantly working being um always forward driven so yeah everyone knows about the German work ethic bias but we really use this because it&#39;s important for companies to understand um to overcome another bias that is existing unfortunately that African people do not want to work so um yeah so we have a lot of biases to overcome here but what we do is we ensure that um people who want to hire from Africa have the opportunity to do this with um compliance um what is the right term for this um local regulations I guess and cultural nuances are absolutely softened and the contracts we provide are German company German service comp contracts so um the legal side is very important for European companies that they do not go out hiring someone and it is after this false self-employment situation that a lot of companies faces when they hire a single person for long term so um we handle this as an employer of record situation that means we can even dive deep into to um the whole ecosystem and source for the right person if necessary and subsaharan area and provide after this this talent to companies when requested um what US differs from others is that Tech speaks with tech um that is one of the problems in my opinion I know I open another topic right now I do not dive deep since I&#39;m time sensitive as well um but Tech hiring also has a a problem currently in Europe so when you speak to HR and you are not a tech company means your HR team isn&#39;t Tech sensitive they have no clue about tech at all maybe they know there are some developers they can&#39;t tell the differences so what we do is we hear the company out first and then our Tech Team speaks with their Tech Team to detect what is really mandatory for you so that everyone is on the same page and then we provide them the right talents after this so it&#39;s extremely timesaving for the companies as well not only um that they only speak to people who are a fit later for the role so they can choose from well they do not have to do the whole cycle of of recruitment let&#39;s say it like this so we cut it short for companies providing them the real Tech stack that is mandatory and make sure that when they move on with us that they have the right partner on site as well so we tackle everything that comes with hiring on our side and they get the service that they need to fulfill the task but the person is onboarded as their personal um as as if you hire yourself so we just take care of everything that is mandatory yeah it&#39;s full support real partner from what I&#39;m hearing uh you mentioned the time I&#39;m also cautioned about the time I just checked and I don&#39;t see any questions um from the audience um I&#39;ll give them a couple of minutes but if and if something pops up I&#39;ll ask you but in the meantime just uh one last uh question from me and it&#39;s more like um I don&#39;t know how to ask it but okay is there anything I didn&#39;t ask you but I want to to talk about would be my question you think it&#39;s important to share with the audience thank you Anna and it was really H super nice and again sincere apologies for the little Tech mishap I still have not managed to get my laptop back up and running and I&#39;m working for a tech company so it&#39;s really ridiculous um but no I think we had a a very insightful conversation I again as a strong Advocate I want to reemphasize on um you know the notion that yes we talk a lot about diversity and inclusion those are Flagship words in in 2024 um I would say um but actually it has to be a a a mindful decision of an organization to look into what it means for you as a company to hire diversely and to be um to drive equity and uh inclusivity in your organization all all all Benchmark all um all decisions do not apply to all companies the same way and so you need to have a tailored approach and you need to be um again I love the word mindfulness but you need to be very mindful about what that means for your organization because otherwise it&#39;s like everything it&#39;s never going to work and it will just be what it is which is Flagship words and you know empty empty um empty promises so I again uh diversity inclusion especially when looking in the remote tech industry needs to be something that is driven by the company and for the compan and for the right reasons um in order to be successful so yeah I think those would be my my closing um remarks Morena do you have anything that you want to add only one thing of course we we&#39;re focused now in Africa because uh this is our home turf uh diversity is so much more so it&#39;s uh just before someone feels offended that we didn&#39;t tap into this field of course diversity means more but for us it was now the remote hiring process especially when you uh hire from um in Source in Africa so whenever you feel like you need to talk about more reach out and Marine I&#39;m so sorry that you have to to handle this technical issue right now but you were very well audible in the end so hopefully uh you are not too stressed thank you so much marinaa Anna and everyone who joined in for for the conversation and I would like to encourage actually everyone to get in touch uh with morina and Marine um connect via LinkedIn connect via other social media there is a lot to learn there is a lot to be discussed uh if you want to continue the disc discussion just feel free uh thank you ladies very much for the conversation and with this being said I&#39;ll close this edition of our Tech recruiting Academy um it was amazing to have you on stage and um I hope that you will join us another time as well thank you Anna was a pleasure thank you so much Anna thank you both thank you everyone [Music] oh

Transcript for:Tech Recruiter Academy: Diversity in Recruitment

Transcript for:
Tech Recruiter Academy: Diversity in Recruitment