With the paradigm shift of working remotely in a distributed setting, how do recruitment businesses create a cohesive culture for their employees? In this episode of the Resilient Recruiter, my special guest Boris Epstein shares how he managed to build a company culture consistently aligned with their values while rapidly growing his business to 150 people in three and a half years.
In line with the 4th of July Independence Day celebration, hear how values and company culture, recruitment service differentiation, and value proposition development can give a sense of independence and self-sufficiency to your recruitment business.
Boris is the Founder & CEO of Binc, the technology industry’s dedicated flexible recruiting team. Winning best workplace awards two years in a row, their clients include big names such as Paypal, Tesla, Airbnb, Pinterest, DropBox, just to name a few.
Episode Outline and Highlights
- [3:00] Binc’s service model and what makes it effective
- [11:46] How to create a cohesive culture when your employees are distributed.
- [17:58] Values alignment – how to infuse your business values with different levels of accountability.
- [20:10] Shifting to a remote culture – how to train your people while promoting camaraderie in a distributed setting.
- [29:00] From startup to 150 people in three and a half years – how to manage a very fast level of growth
- [37:04] Boris shares their current challenges during the coronavirus pandemic economy
- [43:11] How to maintaining your culture in these challenging times
- [50:23] Boris shares best practices in recruitment differentiation
Building Your Business Culture with Values
Boris strongly believes in building a cohesive culture despite his business model, on which employees are distributed in different locations. How do you create such a culture? Values development. For Boris, consistent alignment with your values creates a strong sense of unique business culture. As Boris puts it: “Values are really big. To define our values it took quite a bit of time, it took almost nine months to define our values. The right words, the right level of resonance. Then once you define your values, it’s ‘what are the ways we can make these values visible?’ How are our values visible in business development? How are our values visible in our review and promotion cycle? How are our values visible in our client engagement? Once you go through that exercise, you could very clearly see, oh this value is very visible here. This value is not very visible here.”
Recruitment Differentiation – How to Develop a Clear Value Proposition
To stand out from competitors, it is important to have a unique value proposition. This is something that is not easy, otherwise all recruitment agencies would have a clear value proposition. So what advice would Boris give to leaders? “Our philosophy from day one, from 18 years ago, … was to offer a differentiated alternative to growing technology companies. So we always wanted to offer something differentiated… We think the status quo is something to fight against in perpetuity.” He added, “In general, you have to acknowledge what it is that the market wants. You have to acknowledge what it is that other people in the market are already doing. You have to acknowledge what your assets are. And from those assets, you have to go through a very creative exercise to explore how you could position your assets. Through that, you can land on something distinguished.”