I have been inspired by Tom Mellor’s post on LinkedIn last week to think about how our team is evolving and how attitudes towards building teams have changed.
There has been much hype in recent months about the “Great Resignation”, and although we at SYKE have been impacted less than some of our peers, we’ve also seen good people choose to move on. With the last two years of disruption in the job market it seems that many pundits have forgotten this phenomenon happens most years in January…
Personally I am not one to lament when talented individuals move on, rather choosing to see it as an opportunity to make sure that our teams are fit for purpose and re-align where necessary. With our approach to global teams we’re able to recruit the very best and most talented individuals, regardless of where they’re based in the world.
Tom and I spent a great deal of time in our delightful quarantine hotel in November discussing how to grow the SYKE Team in a way which is sustainable, profitable and, above all, maintains the culture of the business we’re trying to build.
Our approach to global teams was summed up nicely by Tom in his post so I won’t reinvent the wheel and will reproduce his comments here:
“SYKE’s approach to these global teams is different. We are never looking to build “near-shore” or “offshore” delivery teams; in fact these terms are banned in SYKE! We are building global teams because we know there are exceptional people in every corner of the globe and if we only recruit in one place, or two places then we will hamper our team development which will limit how we deliver to clients.
“I fully believe everyone we recruit should be capable of becoming the CEO … Thinking about the bigger picture of your role, your team and your client relationships alongside delivering exciting projects is how SYKE has grown to where it is today. Everyone should be prepared to step up at any point whether that be to lead a project, manage a new client or deliver training to another team. 200 future CEOs working together in everything they do is a formidable force.”
My choice in the early days of SYKE not to have any physical offices was, of course, massively vindicated when the pandemic struck. But even without that global attitude shift I think I made the right choice. Tying our teams to a location like Leeds, London, Delhi or Cape Town, would cut out swathes of talented individuals who can help us make SYKE the amazing place it is to work today.
If you’re interested in joining our rapidly growing, global team of talented individuals, you can view all our open positions at syke.tech/careers/
Alistair founded SYKE in 2016 after developing a passion for legal technology. He was formerly Head of Contracts and Data Protection Officer for the UK retailer, ASDA. At ASDA, Alistair designed and implemented a digital contracting tool which reduced the average contract cycle from 17 days to just 5 days. Alistair thought there was a need for legal engineers to be an interface between legal teams and emerging legal tech. So, in 2016, Alistair left ASDA and formed SYKE.
