Patricia Pomies joined Globant -a digitally native company focused on reinventing businesses through innovative technology solutions – nearly ten years ago. She came with a background in education, and her journey was full of challenges. Eventually, Pomies switched to the digital transformation company and has loved it ever since. According to her, this kind of digital transformation has urged organizations to reorganize and change their business structure.
Reorganization is the key to adding value propositions to the company culture. Changing work paradigms with a customer-centric and user-first approach has led companies to adopt innovative and digital ways to stay ahead of the competition. It is, in many ways, there is a new world out there.
Pomies says that agility and innovation are the two key things that drive more potential clients and talent than anything else. This brings the cool factor to the company and provides a base for the people to grow and realize their dreams. She emphasizes that company-provided training enables employees to work and build their career paths.
“Let’s say you want to be a great leader,” she says. “That will require tools, support, challenges and training so that you and your team can succeed. It’s not in our interest to have people working in the same position indefinitely. At Globant, we want our employees – Globers as we call ourselves – to be in the driver’s seat of their own career paths. We leverage our company’s benefits as enablers for our employees, whether they be digital nomads, or at home supporting their families and kids.”
Benefits of a Customer-Centric Approach
Pomies argues that having an acute focus on employees has 360 benefits on productivity, client satisfaction, and even top-line growth.
“We have raised the quality bar. Our client-centric approach is expanding our work for them across multiple business lines. We are proud of that because this is made possible through the dedication of our Globers. Of course, other things need to be evolved, but this is something we are proud of as a team,” Pomies says.
Thought Process Behind Studio Approach
According to Pomies, how you organize your talent and create a vision is done by engaging with your people. Globant now has 35 studios of expertise to date and keeps adding new ones, all the while bringing in new talent to enhance engagement. They have different studios for different critical sectors, including the life sciences, automation, or artificial intelligence.
At Globant, Pomies and her team fully enable people to choose their pathways and decide which career options suit them best. There is an agile framework to build a “pod” or team. A combination of people or skills is added to a team with a leader. Every team establishes its own charter. Pomies says that people from different studios, like quality assurance or design, are made part of a pod with a leader.
“We have a tool inside Globant where once you are part of a pod, you make a game plan with your peers. And in such situations, you add value to the team and put a challenge in front of them. For example, a person who is new to AI, but has a curious profile, will bring innovative ideas and topics. So we give them the role of bringing innovation.”
Flexibility as the Core Value of Company Culture
Globant is known to have flexibility in its DNA. The flexibility adds value but also incentivizes and challenges employees to engage and grow. 360 feedback allows anyone in the company to give feedback to anyone else, be it a top-tier leader or an average employee.
However, Globant seeks not only to engage their employees through feedback, but another one of their core values: fun. “Having fun is the core part of our culture. Most of the time, we are thinking about how we can have fun while we are working at the office. We are always thinking and redesigning our strategies to deal with the challenges that technology brings,” she told us.
When it comes to technology it also leaves an impact on the culture of the company. New trends in technology encourage people to learn new skills and maximize their productivity. This allows people to enhance their expertise and open new doors in their careers. Pomies expressed that people who want to do the same job every day and don’t want to learn new skills continuously don’t usually last at Globant. The people who thrive are the ones that invest in their own skills and own their career path. Technology has not only enabled companies with smart solutions but also has facilitated the bringing forth of new ideas. The Globant team keeps themselves updated by sharing ideas with centennials to work together and improve company culture.
Work from Anywhere Brings Global Workplace Flexibility
Open career policy requires redesigning an approach to finding and retaining talent, and many other challenges accompany the method. Still, providing an open career path benefited Globant in terms of flexibility and provided people with better career selection opportunities. Here’s how Pomies sees open policies:
“This open policy is fantastic. Sometimes a Glober is not happy with the project he is working on and wants to change it. Sometimes, a Glober simply wants to change his or her job because of the team. This open career policy enables them to choose their team and work on whatever project they like,” she says.
Geo-cultural diversity is another aspect that creates many opportunities and adds diversity to the organization. Work-from-anywhere policies add diversity and expertise in the industry.
If someone wants to spend some days of the year in a specific country but also can work at that time, then this is one great option. If the timezone change is not affecting the working criteria, then this added flexibility option should be attached to the company’s working framework for others to follow. Pomies feels the framework of delivering work from anywhere in the world has added quality and value to work delivery.
“We launched this policy knowing people are curious and want to spend some time in different countries. People want to learn from different cultures. So we maintained a policy where people could work 90 days a year from anywhere in the world. We will cover their health insurance, and this allows flexibility and quality delivery of work.”
This added flexibility not only enhances the level of commitment but also brings agility. Pomies feel that adopting change is always a key to building a successful professional journey. This not only reinforces commitment but also helps in achieving a successful career path.
Pomies says companies need to provide their people with tools that create a sense of an autonomous environment. These tools enable people to realize their goals and develop an understanding of how this added flexibility can optimize the quality of their work output. With its focus on a human-centric culture, Globant has set a solid foundation to continually attract and foster top-tier talent in an increasingly uncertain world still functioning in between old norms and the new normal.
