Everyone at nonprofit network Generation works remotely. That’s a global workforce that never meets. Gillian McKenna, Chief People Officer, gives an insight into ensuring the organisation works together.
Generation is on a mission to change education to employment around the world.
We operate in 17 countries, and my remit is to oversee the global hub of the organisation. The organisation has been running for around 11 years now offering training and job placement to get people into work and to support careers that might otherwise be inaccessible for them. Since we were founded in 2015 we’ve seen 155,000 graduates from our programmes, 81% of graduates are placed within 3 months and our work has helped people generate around 2.5 billion dollars in wages. This is not just about running education programmes but understanding what happens to recipients of our programs *our alumni) in the years after they graduate – are they employed and can they meet their daily needs. We’ve found 73% attain a living wage or above.
I joined the team 5 years ago having already been working for an international company. Generation works 100% remotely – I’ve never met my boss in person. We have 95 colleagues across 23 countries so while it’s not a large head count it is very complex from a people perspective. I lead a global HR team based in USA and UK.
Managing a global workforce means making sure everything is equitable and that we’re listening to everyone.
When I started at Generation the organisation did not have the best set up for the kind of workplace it was. We therefore started to engage with Employer of Record (EOR) providers which made things more straight-forward and opened up the opportunities to attract more global talent. In some locations employees are directly employed by us, but in others it’s indirect. However we offer equitable employment opportunities, and everyone needs to feel engaged to the same extent.
Recently we’ve been updating the global employee handbook, and we’ve needed to make sure that each employee location is aligned to local labor laws and all the other globally applicable elements of life at Generation.
we need to ensure what we’re doing in one place comes across in the same way somewhere else.”
Working in this type of fully remote global organisation means having to deal with a level of ambiguity around the world, but we just roll up our sleeves and get on with it. Also because we’re in the not-for-profit sector we need to be creative in what we offer to our people and very focused on the things that matter to them whilst still driving forward our mission and creating impact.
As part of this we carry out pulse surveys among employees covering employee satisfaction and and wellbeing. We aim to do this twice a year and it means we can demonstrate how things are developing and changing each year. We track the results from our surveys and take action to create the best employee experience we can. With people located in many different countries we need to ensure what we’re doing in one place comes across in the same way somewhere else and our teams feel engaged and a valued part of our mission, not left out.
If you want to create a unified global workforce you need to get the culture right.
We’ve worked hard to build and protect our culture. We are intentional about how we show up for one another, treat each other, and live our values.
