Episode 2: Global Working – Careers in a Global Company

[Music] Welcome to Making Waves, Real Stories, Real Leaders, and the Forces shaping global shipping. I'm Aya Rubin. And. Today we're diving into the people behind the management, how a global company like Zim hires, relocates, motivates, and retains talent in over 100 countries. With me are two leaders who shape that strategy every day. Karen Ibrahimov, who leads global talent, acquisition, mobility, and employer branding at Zim. Hi Karen, hi. And Lee Ares, the data-driven mind behind Zim's global compensation strategy and people analytics. Hi Lee. Hello. So let's get started. Um. Karen, you've been at Zim for 17 years. What inspired your path into global HR? And what does your role look like today? Well, actually I didn't plan it to be in a charm. Coming from a financial background, it was more natural to go to work in a bank or business analytics. I started in Zim as a data analyst. I'm working behind the dashboards, the budgets, and headcount. I started to fall in love with HR, people behind the data. And we developed a strategy, developed a project that helped the leaders to lead the business, and it's really fascinating. So you touch so many fields, and I understand that I also can bring a good value to a HR, coming from different fields and bringing a different perspective. But also, HR gave a lot to me and helped me to understand how people and the data can connect. So at that time, 17 years back, it was not natural to come from a financial background to HR. But today I see that it's really common, and you can see many people coming from a financial or data-driven background and find a place. In HR, you can influence negotiation, you can influence workforce planning, and many other fields, and help the data to build the strategy. So would you say that it's your passion, something in you that made you connect with this field more? What do you think it is? So it started with really behind the scenes, then understanding how the data influence people helped me to develop in this field. So I had an opportunity to lead few projects, such as to build the attrition model, to be part of the reshaping of the organization, the organizational structure, then to lead mobility. And then I saw how you can influence people work and business decisions when managing people better. And finally, I had an opportunity to lead the down-to-acquisition, which basically helps you to bring the best fit talent into the organization, and to help the business finally better way up. Okay, it's interesting. We would want an example, but we'll get back to you because we want to ask Clea as well. You lead Zim's compensation strategy and analytics. How do you turn data into HR decisions? What's behind the numbers and the data? So first thing behind the numbers are the people, of course. Today what we focus on is really learning the people from data. We collect data about the different headcounts in the countries. We collect data about attrition, reasons why people leave. For example, efficiency of countries and a lot of data. And when we connect it all together, we really can see a picture. We can see trends. We can see a warning flag. There's a lot of things that we can take into actions. And this is what we do. We learn the people. We learn the data. And from there, we go and do something to improve the organization. So can you give us an example of something that you found out and you basically took from the data and you put it down to the people and actually changed it in real life? Yes, of course. So we had a country in America's region that we saw slight increase beginning in attrition there. And we wanted to make sure before it becomes a bad trend to focus on it. So together with different functions in HR, like the training and learning and development, together with the country management, we really asked the questions. We asked why did employees leave and really built together a plan that takes all these items into account and really gave them employees what they need in order to stay at sea. If it's the branding, if it's training, if it's mobility plan, everything together really gave them the solution. Yeah, I understand. You were listening to the people. The data and the people. Karen, your personal experience with the relocation gives you a unique length. How does that influence team's global mobility approach? How did you take what you experienced and brought it here? So coming from two different cultures, I think it made me more sensitive to people needs and to the differences of the cultures, which often we don't pay attention to much and can significantly influence business decisions and people reactions sometime and can be interpreted in their own way. Yeah. So I paid focus from start, from the first steps of mobility, of relocation, to what are people needs. How the culture that they're planning to move will influence their day-to-day work, how their management style will fit to the new culture. If it's hierarchical, culture versus more open and flexible culture, so we really put focus on it. Okay. So the sensitivity, the understanding behind the idea of moving from one place to one culture to another. Absolutely. Lee, how do you use data to identify challenges before they become problems? So when we look at the data every day when we come to the office, we look for changes and normalize that we see in the data. And we start looking if we have trends for things that we didn't see before. And the minute that we see something, we are not familiar with something that doesn't align with what we want the business to go, this is the place we start really taking action. If it needs to do more analytics, if it needs to ask more questions, we really try to take everything and understand together with the management what we need to do in order to stop this trend. Now maybe this is a positive trend, this is also something good. And then we can go and encourage it more. If we see, for example, that the country is really decreasing the voluntary leaves. So we understand we are doing their good and we can learn from that. What did we do there in order to really do it in different locations? So we look at the trends and ask and look for what is happening every day in order to make it to actions. Karen, how does Zim attract the right talent across different continents and cultures? Maybe it's similar a little bit to the question before in a sense of that you bring your sensitivity to it, but how does Zim as a cultural policy attract the right talent? No, actually it's quite a wide field. First of all, I believe when you work in talent acquisition, you need to be really multidisciplinary. You need to be a salesperson, customer service person, you need to be analysts and a partner and psychologist and more than everything you need to be to understand the business needs, what the managers expecting and how you can bring the best fit person to the right position, to the right culture, to the right team. So you can't build one strategy that will work everywhere. Of course, we are entering on our vision and values and this will guide us, but it's only the direction. The rest you need to adapt to the local needs, you need to find people that will bring their value. to the team and to the managers. Each one of them has really unique legal aspects, local requirements, the markets. So you need to analyze all of it and to find the best way how to bring the Z factor into our work, they today work. And more of that, you need to look on the new generation, the Z generation and to understand how they choose the company, the next company, why they will come to you and not to your competitors. - So do you have these answers? Can you share with us? - What are they looking for and why will they come? - Yes, actually in the last year, we had trainings with the managers, how people see today the recruitment world. Once it was a company's market today, candidates market and some of the candidates that are coming to organization and they're already asking about when they will be promoted and how they will get their benefits increased and managers sometimes reluctant, you know, you didn't start yet, you're already asking for some benefits. But if we understand this generation, what drives them to success? We can get most creative, most interesting people that for them sustainability is important to be, to influence the world is important, to change the world and they will bring, and tire them into the company if you understand how to attract them. So do you attract them by explaining or giving examples of how Zim is working with sustainability and looking forward and innovations and green, is that what you do? Do you have others? Do you wanna share something that you do? - Exactly, so in each our step, the recruitment process is quite a long process. In each step, we check constantly with my team how we can make the recruitment process more innovative, more agile, more diverse, more digital, because this is what we understand those younger generation need. So if you look on our career page, you will see that we change it significantly, we have our AI first recruitment bot, Zoe, she joined our team just one year ago. She is welcoming the candidates at the first stages of their journey in the recruitment process and show how the company is being in the leading positions in all the steps not only the business, but also the HR topics. - Yeah, well, she's got the Z-factor. - Absolutely, she's absolutely the Z-factor. - What are the challenges of building a unifying employer brand across very different markets? - This is our favorite topic, actually. First of all, it's a topic that we manage together between a few units. So already it's a teamwork and it can't be not successful. So just in the recent year, we lead the employer branding in Hong Kong, United States, and now developing it in Israel. You need to understand what is the local candidates are looking for. So for example, US culture, working culture is more timory and it's right. And we promote the same values like innovation or digitalization in business, which are the core values of our company. But through the teamwork and through the common goals achievement, when in Hong Kong, the culture is more how I would develop my career path, how I will be able to achieve personal rewards, then all the employer branding will focus on the topics that are rather important to the candidates. So it's a hard work, as I said, entire team working on it together to understand what are the needs, what we need to improve, and more of all, it's coming through our employees. How are employees? See the company and how they share our company outside. - Nice. - And I'd like to add also that from our perspective from the compensation and benefits hat, the culture is very, very important because at the end, we have one global strategy, but we need to make it tailored fit to each country. One country, the compensation is important, the other one, the benefits are important, and the third one, the branding is important. So we really need to understand and learn the countries, learn the culture and focus on what is important to really be competitive and really retain our talent after we bring them, we need to retain them and they want to be here. So really we need to focus and understand and learn each country. - Yeah. Can you walk us leads through how platforms like HR data management systems, like Tableau, support day-to-day leadership decisions? - Yes, of course. So I think one of the main things in the dashboards that we have, first of all, it's real live data which you can get decisions at the moment. And I think we really have one language when using the dashboard. Everyone is looking at the same tool and in a global company, it's important. We have one language to all. So we have the KPIs there and we have the actual data, what is happening versus the KPI and the managers, including my team and globally all the management it seems. Can see what is happening in their country real time. If it's the country is very efficient and employees are working very hard and over time so they can have a warning flag, okay, we need more headcount here. If they see a tradition is raising, they can start together with us asking the question, what is the reason? So real live, we can really understand and prevent the situation getting worse. - Yeah. Which takes us back to your previous answers. So according to the data, you can forecast and see what's coming and how to handle it. - Yes. And on top of that, we have also started to use AI. Today AI is a big word, but it really is something that we work with. And with the AI, we already established a platform using Tableau and learning the history, why employees left and this is helping us forecast who is going to live. So we really can learn from the past and the history and machine learning what is going to happen and prevent it. - And who is going to come? - Exactly. - What makes relocation succeed or fail? And if you can give us examples because you told me a couple of examples before. - Relocation, it's quite a challenging process, not only for the employee itself, but also for the family. - Yeah. - We saw, I always share with people that are planning to relocate in the company. If your spouse is happy, we will all be happy. So we try to give holistic approach to this process, starting from preparations, all the legal aspects such as taxes and work permit, but most important is the preparation of the family, of the children to help, to look for the house, for the school, to understand the entire process if it will work out. But also connecting with the families during the relocation period, celebrating the holidays together even sending some sweets away from local, when they miss it at relocation, visiting during the vacations, and the office discussing the challenges collecting all the data and improving constantly. So data also here is a must, but the personal approach is the weaving one. - Yeah, so it's the both. And between you two, we're talking about 5,000 people that work in them worldwide, globally. - Yes, and people are moving between different cultures, different countries, and you need also to understand when people are moving between countries if it will be successful. And if we identify the challenges, we need to prepare the process. and going to different culture, how he will adapt, how he will manage the team, and to make sure that his work will be successful. Even the strongest managers in the one culture can have really big challenges. So we make sure that it will not happen. I think in the last years, all our relocating families were quite successful. What other challenges have you come across, people mobility? And if you can give us an example? Absolutely. So of course, legal and operational challenges we face every day. From work permit, taxes, complication, and it's never the same. Because if someone is moving from Italy to US, from US to Africa, or from Brazil to Japan, it will be not the same challenge. We had, for example, a business case, it implicates the business eventually. So we had a business unit moving from Jamaica to Miami because of the operational and legal challenges of managing experts. So it's one example that shows you sometimes HR can really implicate the business decisions. And it's crucial to pay attention on. We want to make sure that all our employees are safe working within all the regulations. And we need to forecast the head and to see if we will have any challenges. There are some countries in which you cannot be expert, modern, five years. So the work permit might take one year. So so many different aspects that you need to take into account. The school might be not near the office that you are planning to move someone. So many many aspects to take into account when planning someone relocation. Wow, I really hear the personal touch and the listening to the person and his needs. It's very personal. There's a data. The data that it's very, I mean, it's massive. 5,000 people is a lot of people. But it's alongside the amount and the it's huge. It's so strong. And then the personal touch and the understanding of each person. It's really nice. I can hear it from your from both of you when you're talking and you're explaining about the thing. So it's very encouraging. Lee, you mentioned before when we were speaking earlier, attrition trends in Thailand, how did analytics help them respond effectively? And you said that Karen followed it, which is another example of data and then personal. So I actually in Thailand, but we noticed for a while that we have their relatively high attrition rates. We taught for from statistics and analytics that we did that first of all is from like the benefits and compensation. So really implemented a massive plan. But we saw that the trend is keeping. So in this case, what we did really collaborate again, me and Karen and Karen went to Thailand and really started asking the employees what is going on, why are people leaving and really understanding what is happening there with the people. Because we see that the data, what the data gave us, we learned that there is a problem there. We tried to resolve it by what we think is right according to the numbers, but it was not enough. So in this case, it's exactly what you said. So we had a personal touch together with the data and now Karen can add, but we have a new plan in place that is more on a different aspect from what we had till now. Maybe you can add a little bit. Yeah, so as we said, there is nothing like a personal touch, right? So we together with our regional HR went to Thailand, met with the employees from different groups. The most senior employees met with the managers, we understood why those data staying with us, why those that left us, what were the reasons. Where we can do quick wins to make sure that the employees see the difference and the plans that are changing fast. We understood the market, where is the challenges might be, you know, sometimes the market is not strong and are not enough candidates outside. The benefits are increasing and we need to check. So we really reviewed holistically the entire plan, we trained the managers how to talk with the candidates, how to be a salesperson of your job, of your company. I think that's why people are interested to come to your company, you need to understand that. So what will be the employer branding side where we need to focus on these directions. So all of it together brought us a plan in which all of us involved from the country manager to all the HR fields and it's working. So an example of something that you learned there, whether it was good or bad, it doesn't matter, it's important to know because everyone has good and bad stuff in every situation. First of all, I learned that we have an amazing team in Thailand. The employees are really smart and creative and agile and I could see that the Zee factor, you can see it everywhere. And you see the global office, it's insane, you really feel the same environment. Second, people really behave to their job or may see their job as the most important and they really wanted to help us to enhance this brand and to bring more people like them into organization. And to succeed. So we have a good team and I'm confident when you have a good team, it's already you already. So I think this was the main discovery and also personal touch. We let the people talk and share their insights. Sometimes you want to base on data to see the challenge but you want to discuss with people to understand the results and the solutions. Just to say of course now we are using the data to see that the plan, there is an improvement to see how what Karen learned, how it's coming to life. Can you share with us what's in the previous years to now you've seen that the data really accomplished. So I think one of the main achievements we accomplished using data is really to see that our attrition trends decrease significantly. We can see between 2023 to 2024 about 25% decrease in voluntary attrition meaning employees are staying, we are retaining them, we are giving them the tools and the managers the different tools they need to keep their employees with that. And it means the data is working and the data together with the personal touch is getting us to this achievement. The managers see the business contribution of the HR team not only managing the regular HR processes within the life of the employee, the life cycle but also contributing really to business achievement. Getting the right people to the organization to the retention and to developing those employees within the company needs. Very nice. That's great. What's, it's for both of you, it's our last question. What's one principle you live by when leading people in a global environment? And I would add just from the heart, like what's the one principle that leads you always? I think if you can combine data, people and business understanding, you are the winner. That's the key. I agree with Karen and I can add that really listening, taking the numbers and asking the questions, not just deciding based on it and connecting everything together makes you have the full picture. Of course, with the business and understanding the business, everything together gives you the right way to go. That's the key. Well, thank you so much, both of you. We've definitely learned the importance of data, but also people and the combination of the company. of really aligning the two together. One cannot go without the other, especially not in big organization like Zim. And the personal touch is very, it's very dominant and important. Thank you so much for both of you for coming here. You've been listening to making waves, real stories, real leaders, and the forces shaping global shipping. If you enjoy this episode, follow rate and share the podcast. See you next time. - Thank you. - Thank you. (upbeat music)