It has been more than a year since the pandemic that sent nine-to-fivers packing their desks and relocating to dining tables at home. As regulations lift and workplaces open, companies are now trialling new combinations of working remotely and from an office.

Some have recalled staff back in separate groups, while others are on staggered schedules. Whatever the specifics, one thing is sure: the hybrid model is dictated from top leadership – leading the charge to get as many workers back to their seats as quickly as possible – and hastily implemented in a cut-and-paste manner down the chain of command.

Perhaps that is not surprising, speed has never been more important for companies seeking to bounce back. Despite what others may have you think, there is no shortcut.

Without strong leaders on all levels, these return-to-work models do not make reliable guides.

One hybrid model doesn’t fit all

There is no definite standard of what hybrid work should look like, and of course there is none. It depends on the industry in which the company operates and its corporate structure. Similarly, there should not be one be-all-end-all hybrid model across the departments within your organisation.

Say you impose a split-team work arrangement; your Sales Division will continue to bring in steady business, but with less hands on the loading docks, your Warehouse Crew can no longer keep pace with operational demands. Some workloads may decrease, while for others their workload may increase.

Also Read: Why remote working is the future for startups

Considering a hybrid work model also extends beyond just departmental functions. Individual work style strengths also play a part. If there’s one thing we learned from weeks of defaulting to online communication, it is that some people take better to working from home. Put them back within the confines of a cubicle and they lose their spark.

Conversely, employees who benefit from meeting in-person cannot be expected to achieve the same efficiency from behind a screen. Ask any seasoned worker and they will tell you that remote work is the silver lining of the pandemic. But for those who are on the learning curve or even promotion-list, zero physical proximity with their higher-ups will stunt their progress.

In fact, the knowledge that was once accessible is now siloed in emails and chats groups. New hires can forget about shadowing their managers without flouting the 2-metre rule.

One hybrid model doesn’t fit all and forcing it to work across the entire organisation will lead to decreased productivity and poor employee experiences.

What has leadership got to do with it?

Top management earns their stripes by making big calls for the company. But when it comes to running smaller units, the real decision-making power lies in the hands of team leaders and project managers. It is up to you to align your operations with the type of hybrid model that best fits the team.

The team leader decides how these distinct modes; remote and onsite work, can integrate to advance the company’s goals. At The Little Black Book, we have worked hard to provide what we call a blended hybrid structure. We are a mix of team members who prefer to be in the office during work hours and those who only come back as needed.

Also Read: Are your influence skills ready for remote work?

In addition to daily check-ins, we hold weekly face-to-face meetings. Or in this case, facemask-to-facemask meetings. Team leaders are empowered to delegate growth, not just tasks, make operational decisions and establish working norms. Working norms ensure that your downlines are clear about what is expected of them.

For instance, we ask our remote team members to give notice of any extended time away from the laptop during the workday. Even without a punchout clock or timesheet, your team has the structure it needs to function seamlessly.

This type of decentralised decision-making allows greater autonomy within departments or teams, and thus greater productivity. For rigid bureaucratic types, the blended hybrid model might sound too ‘work when you feel like it’. However, it is not about pandemic-proofing the office, setting everyone loose and hoping for the best – it starts with company culture.

Time to adapt your work manifesto

It is time for leaders to rethink performance metrics, which in this post-pandemic reality, is not about how long an employee stays behind after everyone has clocked out. For a blended hybrid model to work, the focus should be on measuring work output rather than hours. Rewrite your cultural manifesto into one that values communication, practices fairness and assumes goodwill of its team members. And even more crucially, include this in your culture deck: remote work is a competitive advantage.

The pandemic will soon play out, but we believe that the hybrid work has a permanent place in the employment mix. Approach this new framework less like an interim response to the pandemic, and more like an opportunity to grow your organisation globally. With a blended hybrid structure in place, your internal teams will have access to remote-ready talent from all over the world – but not otherwise possible if you continue to run top-to-bottom.

Every organisation should look beyond operating in survivalist mode and plant the seeds for long term success. After all, as your organisation continues to recover from the pandemic, the very nature of how its department and teams work will evolve.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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In my first startup founded in 2016, I was a student entrepreneur who had to figure everything out independently. Running a company is tough, even more so when one is a student who has to juggle everything.

Along the way, I’ve received plenty of help from individuals and institutions, whose only request was for me to pay it forward to the next generation of founders (besides buying them coffee).

And paid it forward I have. Since then, the kindness I’ve received was paid forward in various capacities, such as:

• being a NEXT50 mentor, a TRIVE pay-it-forward programme
• speaking on student entrepreneurship, e.g., TEDxNUS, Clubhouse, etc
• mentoring in local and international innovation challenges, e.g., hackathons, innovation sprints, etc.
• being the CTO-in-residence for the venture builder program in the Singapore University of Social Sciences

Mentors who contribute their time and energy, despite having highly limited amounts of them, will agree with me on this: it is fulfilling to assist, guide, and discover the next generation of awesome folks who will change society.

However, the tipping point for me came when I was involved in an entrepreneurship start-a-thon in the first weekend of May this year.

Long story short, I felt that my time was completely wasted with huge opportunity costs incurred due to a lack of professionalism of the organising team. Apart from my anger with the team, I am angrier with myself for not listening to my instincts, even though the red flags were present.

As such, to help fellow founders out there who are passionate about mentorship in events, I’ve compiled a short list of red flags so that you can decide whether it’s worth your time to pay it forward.

Red flag #1: The organising team moves slowly

You can tell how organised an event will be based on how quickly a team moves. How does one tell whether a team moves quickly or otherwise?

One such sign is how the team spends the time in between first contact and subsequent engagement of the mentors.

For example, let’s say you indicate your interest a month prior to an event. Instead of contacting you immediately to either accept or reject your interest to mentor, the team only engages you five to seven days before the event.

Also read: What you should expect from your startup mentor

What was happening in the three weeks between first contact and second contact? Who knows, but it’s irresponsible to leave someone hanging until the last minute when the mentor might have to shift things around to accommodate the team’s poor organisation.

To a busy entrepreneur, one week is not a lot of time to change plans just to accommodate the timing provided by the team.

Time is a resource that you’ll never get back once you lose it. If the organisers don’t respect their own timeline, don’t expect them to respect yours either.

Red flag #2: Poor communication

Organising an event requires multiple stakeholders to be in sync and aligned, and it is impossible to do so without poor communication.

As such, a red flag to watch out for is how well the organising team communicates with you. A lack of communication/lack of coordination in communication is a precursor to things messing up, be it before or during the event.

A good team over-communicates and ensures that you know exactly what you need to do, and when you have to be there. On the other hand, a poor team does the opposite and leaves you in the dark.

Apart from communication between the team and you, watch out for signs of poor communication between team members as well. The most telling signs:

• repeated messages to you
• slow replies with scant details
• lack of coordination amongst team members
• having poor email habits

If you catch yourself asking why it’s so hard to talk to the team or find yourself confused, it’s time to reconsider your participation in the event.

Red flag #3: You ask yourself “what’s going on?”

A mentor’s job is to go into pre-arranged sessions and support the participating teams in their bid to create the next big thing. Thus, the onus is on the organising team to ensure that this happens smoothly. In fact, all of the thinking should have been done for you by the organising team.

Also read: Meet Mentor For Hope, the startup mentorship programme that will donate 50K meals for those in need

At any point in time, if you have to take the initiative to ping the team to get updates or are in constant doubt, you might have to be mentally prepared for things to go awry.

In fact, if you have to guess what’s going on at any time, it’s probably not a good idea to stick around the event.

Conclusion

That’s all folks, the three red flags that one should look out for.

Organisers, if you read this and you felt like the red flags applied to you, please commit to improve for future events. Organisers-to-be, I hope you share this piece amongst your team members as a cautionary tale as you organise your events. In fact, these red flags are meant for all kinds of events, not just startathons, hackathons, or any -athons.

Fellow mentors and individuals thinking about helping out in hackathons/events/challenges, I hear you that it’s important to contribute time to the ecosystem. Use this list of red flags wisely in the future as you decide how you want to contribute.

At the end, I hope this piece will lead to a change in how events involving external mentors are run. As for me, I’ll be taking a break from paying it forward unless it’s a warm referral or a request by trusted peers and just focus on hustling.

Founders, you should focus on hustling too unless the reasons to mentor are extremely compelling and the organising team respects you and your time.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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As the leading full-service telecommunications company in the Philippines, Globe plays a vital role in connecting a sprawling archipelago of over 7,600 islands and more than 100 million people. But building a successful enterprise is just part of the picture.

We knew that to bring digitalisation to the wider nation — one that is brimming with opportunity, yet also struggling with poverty and limited resources — we had to start from home and transform the company’s own digital culture before expanding this to the wider nation.

A fresh start for building a vibrant future

To start, we launched Globe’s new digital identity on a collaborative cloud platform. As an investment that would shape the workflows for thousands of employees, we wanted to make sure the platform we chose was the best fit.

We organised a competition between two leading cloud providers, who were invited to demonstrate features of their solution on five different floors in our old office. Our leadership team also included a site-creation challenge in which team members built 62 project sites on the competing solutions, working with features that required no prior IT background.

When put to a company vote, Google Workspace was the choice for more than 75 per cent of participants, with its primary factor being its powerful, easy-to-use cloud-based features.

Google Workspace was introduced to our workforce of 17,000 people in only four months, and we began with utilising messaging and communication platforms including Gmail, Hangouts, Meet, and Calendar, before moving to productivity and collaboration apps such as  Drive, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Sites.

Accelerating business process automation with a no-code platform

We use a lot of manual processes to serve our customers, and are embracing digitalisation as a business to embed software within those processes, or use software to create end-to-end processes.

Globe’s adoption of AppSheet, an intelligent, no-code platform that enables teams and individuals to create workplace apps, helped accelerate the organisation’s digital transformation program.

In Q2 2020, an AppSheet ‘hackathon’ was held as part of our adoption strategy, and we invited all our employees to join and conducted workshops, and then we gave them eight weeks to complete their application on top of their usual workload. 

AppSheet enables Globe employees to build and iterate apps and, best of all, since they are typically the end user of an app, they understand precisely what they need; there is no need to pass information from business analyst to project manager to developer.

The agility to create business process automation is the significant value we see for AppSheet. By enabling employees to build apps to automate internal processes without support from the business’s IT operation through AppSheet, we were able to centralise costs and implement internal automation processes that were not previously prioritised or accepted when business cases were submitted. 

As Globe’s Chief Information Officer, Carlo Malana shares, “we’ve always been on the lookout for grassroots innovations among our employees at Globe, and this is something that we’re very keen on cultivating for our people. AppSheet gave us this flexibility — it is the perfect tool to mine these innovative minds, and allows us to quickly execute and transform how business is done and improve how we serve our customers.”

Also read: Better workforce management leads to greater customer satisfaction. Here’s how Google did it

The success of the no code hackathon made a very good impact in showcasing our employees, the winners, and the applications they built using AppSheet. We believe we were able to get those early adopters to provide their insights and support for our program.

Post-hackathon, we also engaged Google Cloud to run an enterprise workshop to assist with the deployment of AppSheet. They also provided a success manager and account manager, and supplied AppSheet documentation and ongoing premium support, to assist with the training of hackathon participants in the transition to developing critical applications in AppSheet.

Since then, Globe has expanded the number of no-code apps developed using AppSheet from 59 created during the hackathon to 350. From the five-day enterprise workshop run with Google Cloud, we trained 450 employees, 180 of whom are now app creators.

The final objective of federation through AppSheet is to enable Globe’s workers to undertake their own business process automation. This means enabling citizen developers to use APIs and other tools to integrate with goal systems such as our customer relationship management systems. Eventually, we aim to integrate all our platforms and enable rapid prototyping through AppSheet.

Moving forward, we also hope to continue building skills internally through training and workshops delivered via Globe’s University campuses, and to collaborate with Google Cloud to enhance its capabilities in areas such as monitoring.

Adapting quickly during a pandemic

This forward thinking in employee training and empowerment proved to be especially helpful during the pandemic that prompted lockdowns in the Philippines. We needed to adapt quickly and at scale, with AppSheet helping the business make the necessary adjustments.

For instance, our store specialists had challenges managing customer visits during the pandemic. To overcome this, the team created an app to enable customers to reserve time slots to attend stores, enabling them to complete their visits quickly and efficiently.

Furthermore, Globe’s human resources team automated a process that enabled employees to claim internet, electricity and other resources required to work remotely during the pandemic.

Business process automation speeds up

Based on a review of 25 launched apps, Globe’s business process turnaround time has been reduced by 79.8 per cent since deploying AppSheet.

Prior to that, we had to create a business case to justify the development of each app and then prioritise the work. Going from prioritisation to production would take about three to six months, depending on the complexity of the app.

Now, a skilled citizen developer can deliver a complex app in two to four weeks and a more straightforward app in a week or two. There is less of a need for testing and less of a need to create documentation – we can shortcut directly from idea to development.

The no-code development platform allowed our citizen developers to utilise its machine learning capabilities to build richer, more intelligent apps; for example, a hackathon team used AI and machine learning features to deliver competitive customer experience speed test estimates using AppSheet’s predictive model. They can also use spreadsheets as a common, easy-to-use data source for apps.

Furthermore, with AppSheet’s seamless integration with Google Workspace, employees without coding backgrounds can also create AppSheet apps directly from Sheets, eliminating the need to search drives for the correct data sources.

Creative solutions in the cloud

These cloud tools are key to Globe’s ‘zero back office’ project. Our aim is to eliminate all internal paper communications, for everything from expense approvals to gym reservations.

Also read: A hyper-intelligent workforce and the future of work

At the same time, these allowed us to strengthen our security policies, adopting single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, mobile device management, content compliance, and other features, while also storing all employee data in a secure cloud environment.

Furthermore, as Globe moves away from slide-based presentations for monthly and quarterly reports to dashboards that provide near real-time information and a single source of truth, we use other Google Cloud features to unlock the power of data through visualisation, insights, and storytelling.

We have a dedicated team using Google Cloud BigQuery for data analysis to support its enterprise office group and marketing services hub, while Google Data Studio enables employees and groups to track performance for everything from completion of mandatory tasks to organisational KPIs.

Our close partnership with Google Workspace and Google Cloud enables our team to strive towards making Globe’s vision a reality.

This article was co-authored by Francis Pugeda, Head of Emerging Technologies &  Red Jaques Bernaldez, Workplace Technology Portfolio Head, Globe Telecom.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. This season we are seeking op-eds, analysis and articles on food tech and sustainability. Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

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Nano Technologies (Nano), a Vietnam-based fintech startup that allows workers access their wages immediately, has raised US$3 million in seed capital.

Existing investors Golden Gate Ventures and Venturra Discovery led the round with participation from new investors FEBE Ventures, Openspace Ventures, and Goodwater Capital.

For Vietnamese wageworkers living from paycheck to paycheck can lead to financial distress due to sudden expenses. This further leads to debt traps of microloans with near to 300-500 per cent year interest rates just to make ends meet.

To solve this problem, Dzung Dang, an ex-Uber executive, and Thang Nguyen launched Nano.

The six-month-old company empowers low-income workers to access earned salaries anytime and anywhere to take care of daily expenses without having to wait until the next payday.

Through its payroll app called VUI, workers can not only get their pay before payday but through it they can also keep track of work attendance, announcements (from the company), and learn basic personal financial management concepts– for free.

As of now, the company claims to serve more than 20,000 employees from employers in Vietnam including GS25, LanChi Mart, and Annam Gourmet.

Also Read: Former Carro COO’s financial wellness app GajiGesa bags US$2.5M seed for Indonesia expansion

Nano has also recently taken part in Y Combinator’s accelerator program.

In a press statement, Chi Phan, the CEO of LanChi Mart, said “On-demand salary via VUI is an obvious idea and practical HR initiative that LanChi team is pleased to roll out to our employees as a new voluntary benefit. VUI provides a much-needed financial lifeline from LanChi to our employees, keeping the employee morale up during the pandemic and reducing attrition rates post-Tet,”.

“Given the ubiquity and acuteness of the cashflow mismatch problem for the working people, more frequent payroll is not only good for low-income workers but also a tactical yet underappreciated initiative that employers could deploy to stand out in the labour market. This model also eliminates the need for black market credit at small ticket sizes,” Dang added.

The employer-sponsored salary advance model has been adopted by thousands of employers in the US, Europe, and Latin America.

Walmart, the largest retailer globally has adopted this solution since 2017 for their 1.4 million workforces with over US$300 million of bottom-line impact annually.

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Image Credit: Nano

 

 

 

 

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As a foreign company, how do you grow in a hyper-local market such as Asia?

Smule, a Silicon-valley headquartered karaoke app company, is one of the few that has made a mark in the region. According to Musical.ly, Smule not only has 40 million users globally but also 20 per cent of its user’s hail from India.

Although being the pioneer of the social music-making trend certainly played to its advantage, its unique features such as Live Jam, integrated lenses powered by Snapchat, AutoRap, and more within its app quickly turned into a hit, especially among teenagers.

In an interview with e27, Smule CEO Jeff Smith said; “Innovation is what sets us apart from the competition. We were the first to launch collaborative singing worldwide and in Indonesia. We have many new features in the works, all designed to provide our community with the tools they need to sing and share with friends and fellow singers around the world.”

To further learn more about its growth strategies and its future plans, particularly for Indonesia, e27 speaks to Smith in an interview.

Below are edited excerpts:

Smule was one of the earliest karaoke apps that started when there were far fewer apps similar to it. What drove its adoption? Was the growth entirely organic?

From the very beginning, we set out to connect the world through music.  The combination of our technology, relationships in the music industry, and dedication to our community helped us grow, gain recognition, and build trust early on. Most of our growth in the Southeast Asia region has been organic. 

Also Read: Tencent leads US$54M in music app startup Smule to help it expand footprint in Southeast Asia

During your early days of growth and expansion into Southeast Asia, what were some of the challenges that you faced?

One of the challenges that we faced was the diversity and bandwidth of devices across regions such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Our goal is to give people the best experiences like high-definition video versions of their songs, which turned out not to be very practical. Things like the size of our application, the amount of bandwidth it takes to download, were also affected.

We had to be very aware of our limitations, and that’s one of the reasons why we came up with fully audio experiences in those regions. And part of that is because audio experiences are beautiful, you do not always need videos, sometimes just using ears and not our eyes is something that we underappreciate.

And plus, a lot of the phones that are used in those regions are not as sophisticated in giving us information that allows us to correctly identify a language, and sometimes the phones also have bugs. So that’s another challenge that we have to face.

What are some differences that you have observed in American users compared to users from Southeast Asia? 

Unlike the US, where two-thirds of Smule’s community members are women, most of the community members from Indonesia are men.

My own theory is that the western culture hasn’t really lent itself to the men feeling as empowered as the women in areas around the arts leading to this gap.

Another big difference is the level of social engagement. In the US, a common form of a song is a solo, unlike in Indonesia where it’s much more common to do a duet or a group performance with someone else.

And then finally, our Indonesian users, are spending 70 minutes a day, compared to the US, which spends only 30 minutes.

Can you shed some light on the patterns of user engagement of the Indonesian audience?

Our Indonesian community is one of the most active and engaged in Smule. Time and time again we hear our users join Smule for the singing experience but stay for the incredible friendships and supportive, positive community that’s built and sustained through the shared experience of singing together.

For many of our Indonesian users, that comes in the form of joining groups that keep members engaged by hosting concerts, live meet-ups (when it’s safe), and weekly challenges to celebrate and share members’ voices and talents. 

Keeping our community at the forefront, we’ve built unique programs and products to deliver on our promise to bring people together through music. These include recurring programs like our bi-weekly challenges and timely campaigns tied to cultural moments and holidays like Ramadan and Independence Day. 

Also Read: Vewd CEO: APAC users more likely to use ad-supported streaming services compared to North American users

What will drive the next phase of the company’s growth in Indonesia that can add another significant number to the user base?

We’ve been fortunate to partner with Timesbridge in India and experienced impressive growth as a result. We’re considering similar strategic partnerships in key regions, including Indonesia. By working with local companies that understand the landscape, we’re able to break down language and cultural barriers to deliver a better, more localized experience and explore new channels and media we otherwise may not know or have access to. 

In addition to partnerships, we’ll continue to expand our Partner Artist program, which currently hosts nearly 60 Indonesian artists. We look forward to bringing more artists on board in the near future

How are you going about brand partnerships and monetisation in Indonesia? 

We’re open and interested in exploring opportunities in Indonesia. We had a collab planned for 2020 but unfortunately, it was postponed due to the pandemic. The hope is that we can see it through but we’re still working through some details.

Regardless, we’re dedicated to growing Smule in Indonesia and are eagerly working to identify the right local partners to reach new audiences there.

We have also have filed patents for some of our features in Southeast Asia to maintain our status as a frontrunner as a social-music app.

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Image Credit: Smule

 

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