EU Diversity Month is about raising awareness about the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and across our societies. It is about the representation and visibility of different groups, where diverse perspectives are valued and integrated into the work environment.
EU Diversity Month celebrates efforts by organisations to help build equal and inclusive environments for the benefit of all. This initiative is part of the European Commission’s commitment to fight discrimination and promote diverse and inclusive workplaces.
So, what does this look like at Multitude and what does it mean for our firm? Multitude and its independent units employ over 700 people in 19 countries, from 26 locations and have 42 nationalities. We believe that all Multitude employees have a story to tell, can be a role model and influence the firm’s culture through the Multitude’s values of customer centricity, entrepreneurial spirit, candour, respect, and winning teams.
To celebrate and explore this theme, we sat down with our Chief HR Officer, Shaun Vella.
Shaun Vella, born in 1984, joined the Company's Leadership Team in November 2020. Shaun joined Multitude in 2019 as a seasoned HR professional having worked in various senior HR roles with leading hospitality and manufacturing companies such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Kempinski. Shaun is the Group’s Chief HR officer and holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and an Executive Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Malta.
1) With such a diverse and cross-border workforce, how do we approach inclusion at Multitude?
We are committed to create an inspiring and open environment where each employee feels valued, feel that they can make an impact, and most importantly have an equal opportunity to deliver their best to thrive and grow within the organisation.
Our approach to inclusion mirrors our group mission, where inclusiveness is at the core of what we do. This is reflected in our product offering enabled by our diverse workforce of over 40 nationalities in 26 countries.
We pride ourselves in the diversity of our teams and the multicultural experiences that employees bring to our teams. Diverse teams enable us to look at problems from different perspectives and produce the right answers for our customers. This also enables us to attract talent from all over the world that fit into our culture driven by our values.
Our focus is on fostering an environment that empowers employees to be authentic and feel respected and valued for their unique contribution. We want employees to feel that they are heard and can really contribute to shaping the future of digital banking and finance.
2) Tell me about your last experience recruiting, interviewing, or hiring an employee. What techniques did you find most effective in finding the right person for the job? Is this done manually?
We look at the recruitment process as the first part of the employee journey, and irrespective of whether the candidate ends up being hired or not, our aim is to provide a positive experience. We have tools that support our hiring managers coupled with periodic development to be able to take lead of the process for their teams.
We all have at some point, or another been through a hiring process and know that as a candidate in the process one would expect to have timely communication throughout the process. Even if one is not a fit for the role, we still believe that they can still have a positive experience. To that end, we drive for a sense of urgency and ownership with our hiring managers to always take the time to get back to candidates and keep them informed, regardless if its good news or not. This is also embedded in our company values of candor and respect.
We thrive on automation, in the recruitment part, even though we have tools that support the process, hiring managers invest a lot of time to find the right fit for their teams. It all starts with a clear understanding of the need, and what the role’s focus and objectives are. This is the most critical part, to ensure that we have proper understanding of the business needs and how this role will support that need.
The talent acquisition strategy would vary depending on the role, team, and location. As with everything and especially with talent acquisition, proper time needs to be invested to carefully review the CVs and prepare for all the interviews. Respect is important in the hiring process, and we appreciate the fact that candidates take time off or make alternate arrangements to sit for an interview, so the least we as hiring managers can do is take the time to prepare as well and really understand if the candidate is the right fit for our team.
The key is to prepare well and be genuine and transparent so that the candidates get a good understanding of the role, the expectations, the team, the culture, how one can impact, and its overall dynamics. Once this is clear, the sky is the limit for the successful candidate, irrespective of the role or background.
3) What do you see as the most challenging aspect of a diverse working environment? What steps have you taken to meet this challenge?
As an organisation we thrive on diversity, so we see it as an opportunity rather than a challenge. It is a matter of having an understanding, of what works best for some teams and harnessing that to drive innovation and creativity.
Being present in several countries with individuals with different backgrounds, it is important for our leaders to be culturally sensitive, to be able to harness the full potential irrespective of the background of the team.
We also work to ensure that our policies support a diverse and inclusive culture, such as our equal opportunities policy which supports the groups aim to ensure all employees have equal access to opportunities, and that our culture enables inclusivity and fairness.
Open dialogue for us is key, where we encourage all employees irrespective of role or location to be open, transparent, and candid. We want them to feel the support from their teams, and seek support from business units, functions and HR whenever needed.
4) How is Multitude placed to find the best talent in the Fintech industry? How do we look at career progression?
It comes down to finding the right match in the end for Multitude. We at Multitude have a wider scope and vision on how we can do things differently, because of our enterprise agility, fast-moving and high accountability, and high trust environment. For this to work, our people need to feel included.
We are always challenging the status quo; and we are firm believers that people from diverse backgrounds, with different identities and experiences make our company much stronger. We source and attract our talents based on the positions and where the talent is and not tied to locations which enables us to expand our search.
We encourage internal mobility for all roles and to that end are investing time in defining and mapping out the Multitude career progression. The scope is to have full transparency in how one can have inter-departmental mobility and make progression to the next challenge clearer and more attractive for our own talented people.
5) How have you seen productivity and innovation at Multitude and how we think of talent and hybrid working? Thinking of the office, remote and hybrid working models, where do you and Multitude stand in this and how are we approaching this going forward?
As a company we are big on employee feedback, and from several surveys, and feedback from management, we can see that the hybrid model is the best of both worlds. We can clearly see that working in this model has improved our work life balance, where productivity has increased especially in operational roles. Over 57% of our people feel more productive, and 35% feel that working in a hybrid model did not impact their productivity.
Leaders and employees have adopted well to this way of working, and in recent findings 99% of our workforce feels supported and trusted by their team leader working in a hybrid. We have learned different ways to communicate to employees and collaborate.
Over 75% of our employees would prefer to work 1 or more days from office. With this in mind, we are in the process of redesigning our office setups in all our locations, to foster collaboration and innovation with flexibility and adaptability in mind, to rekindle connections and knowledge sharing.
Each company’s journey is a personal one as it is driven by the company’s culture. There is no one size fits all approach. For us, we see that the hybrid way of work is here to stay. Having a culture where people feel they have a voice and can make a difference, and this is where Multitude’s strengths are.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is intended for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to be, and should not be taken as, professional or financial advice.