This story appears in the March issue of Utah Business. Subscribe here. 

The H-1B lottery, designed to attract skilled foreign workers to the United States, has faced growing concerns in recent years about potential misuse. Recent findings by the Biden administration revealed that some tech companies may have been regularly manipulating the system by sending in a flood of bogus applications. This far-from-isolated incident exacerbates delays for legitimate applicants, making it harder to secure positions.

“The abuse with the H-1B lottery has been, primarily, certain companies putting in names of hundreds of employees even though there were no jobs there. Sometimes the person whose name was submitted didn’t even know a company was submitting their name for the H-1B lottery,” says Phil Kuck, an immigration lawyer at Dentons Durham Jones Pinegar.

But why apply for visas if there are no jobs? This past year saw a historic number of registrations. According to the New York Times, most applications came from a handful of outsourcing companies, overshadowing smaller companies’ attempts to bring on foreign workers and pushing many American jobs offshore. 

Kuck gives two primary reasons why the lottery has become a target for gaming. One, there are very few other legitimate pathways for immigrants to work and stay in the United States. Two, the rampant abuses of the system by companies who benefit from it had, for many years, gone unchecked. The cat was out of the bag, and other companies were following suit, almost as if the corruption was becoming business as usual.

The problem stems from the relatively low barriers to entering potential employees into the lottery, including minimal application fees and the lack of oversight to verify that employers putting forth candidates had actual jobs available for them.

“Regardless of the legality of these practices, they were certainly skewing the results of the H-1B lottery in the favor of those companies and individuals that employed this scheme,” Kuck says. “A number of companies, particularly software companies, had a practice of submitting the names of hundreds of ‘prospective’ employees even though there were no—or very few—jobs available, without consequence.”

The visa system has already faced criticism for inequity. Immigrants who come into the country on H-1B visas often find themselves stuck in positions that don’t honor their talents or offer career growth commensurate to their American-born counterparts. Their ability to switch companies is curtailed by the cumbersome visa process, as joining a new company means beginning the visa process all over again. Companies have been known to take advantage of this power imbalance, keeping employees beholden to them—with plateaued salaries and curtailed growth opportunities—while their American-born peers rise through the ranks or move more freely between companies and positions.

Immigration lawyers and other advocates have been pushing back against the system’s exploitation. In 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began reevaluating the process, proposing changes that may help remedy these abuses. These changes include increasing the application cost, implementing more oversight into the process and investigating companies that engage in H-1B fraud.

“Most importantly, perhaps, is that registrations must now be in the name of the foreign national, and USCIS will not recognize multiple registrations for the same person from multiple companies,” Kuck says. “This was bafflingly not the government’s prior policy or practice.” Since each person will only have one chance of getting selected in the lottery, it will result in a fairer, more balanced lottery overall.

However, there are some casualties to these new changes. Since USCIS is flagging individuals suspected of immigration fraud due to submitting multiple applications, individuals put forth without their knowledge may be exempt from the H-1B lottery altogether. 

“There is already some significant litigation on this front moving forward,” Kuck says. “If any immigrant or companies sponsoring immigrants run into this issue, they should be advised to seek the assistance of an immigration attorney to resolve it.”

For companies worried about the perception of fraud or adhering to the rules, Kuck recommends following the guidelines carefully. 

First and foremost, only apply to the lottery for those individuals who are a good fit for an available job opening. 

Don’t get tripped up by bureaucratic snafus. Triple-check to ensure you’ve supplied the correct information to the lottery application, as incorrect information can further delay the process.

Allow ample time for the H-1B lottery application once the individual you entered is selected to prevent losing out on a critical worker. Filing early after selection from the H-1B lottery is the best practice.

With Downton Daybreak on the horizon—the new sports and entertainment district, replete with a ballpark, megaplex, open-air arena and ice skating rink—Daybreak, which first began development in 2004, is continuing to evolve and up the bar for other Utah communities.

Perhaps it’s no wonder master-planned communities like Daybreak are cropping up all over Utah. Also called green towns, planned communities or new cities, master-planned communities (MPCs) offer what many Utahns are searching for in a new home—community. 

With organized events, social clubs and communal spaces geared toward strengthening the bonds between neighbors, MPCs provide opportunities for connection that more conventional neighborhoods lack. With that sense of camaraderie comes the promise of security, reinforced by features geared toward safer living, such as gated areas and community-wide security systems. 

The eco-friendly living options are also appealing to Utah residents (over half of whom are concerned about environmental issues in the state, such as lack of water and poor air quality). Many MPCs, such as Daybreak, Desert Color and Utah City, profess to be dedicated to sustainability. Pedestrian-friendly and bikable master-planned communities help residents disrupt their reliance on cars and reduce air pollution. By deliberately focusing on meeting residents’ needs locally, MPCs also help minimize resource-guzzling travel. This localized approach is not only more convenient for residents, but it also aims to help reduce their carbon footprints. 

Often boasting resort-level amenities such as parks, pools, fitness centers, walking trails, golf courses and recreational spaces, MPCs bring a level of luxury and convenience that is appealing to many buyers. 

“Lots of buyers prefer MPCs because they are generally seen as a bit more hands off,” says Cody Steck, a Salt Lake City real estate agent. “They require less landscaping and other land maintenance, look nicer, and create continuity between the houses. This more uniform look in the neighborhood creates a more pleasing place to live.”

“There is also a large portion of buyers who prefer living in newer areas and value new roads, new sidewalks, new stores, which makes MPCs very appealing for them,” Steck explains.

With Utah’s economy booming, its infrastructure stable and its population growing, developers also often prefer MPCs to other forms of residential development, Steck says. They are smart to tap into this hunger for community, safety, sustainability and luxury.

“MPCs are easier and more efficient to build because you are planning out dozens of lots all at one time, on a completely open piece of land,” Steck continues. Because of skyrocketing land prices and increased building costs, MPCs offer efficiency. Developers can increase density and keep housing prices reasonable while still turning a profit. Master-planned communities provide a long-term vision for growth that hodge-podge real estate development lacks. While smaller real estate projects are often derailed due to lack of funding or unforeseen circumstances, MPCs often have decades-long plans for incremental, sustained growth that is beneficial to residents, developers, and nearby towns and cities. MPCs can also be a boon to the state, helping bring in revenue and encourage job growth.

These communities may also be leaders in providing innovative solutions to the problems that Utah wants to tackle. Desert Color, one of the MPCs taking root in St. George, is facing the region’s water shortage issue—and questions about the community’s water usage—head-on. The solution: A recreational water park. The park will tap treated, private well water, too brackish for regular consumption, before funneling it to irrigate the town’s greenways. In thinking outside the box, Desert Color is a community dedicated to desert living and creating a new model for sustainable desert growth.

Utah’s new, developing and established master-planned communities 

• Brio, Washington, UT: This 194-acre MPC is the only one in Utah to make “Where to Retire’s” short list of 50 best master-planned communities in the U.S. Developed by Cole West Home, Brio is dedicated to resort-style living, offering pools and outdoor fireplaces in many of its homes, which are fully sold-out.
• Desert Color, St. George, UT: A 3,350-acre MPC built around an ethos of sustainability, diversity and empathy. The community, built by Clyde Companies and backed by Blue Diamond Capital welcomed its first resident in 2019. It is continuing its expansion and will feature residences, shopping, dining, entertainment, commercial, retail, hospitality and recreation. 
• Divario, St. George, UT: This 730-acre MPC will include nearly 3,200 residential units to be built over a decade. Developed by LDC, Inc., Divario will offer a variety of living options, from mixed-use apartments to single-family homes. 
• Downtown Daybreak, South Jordan, UT: A nearly 200-acre mixed-use development that will serve as a regional hub expands the existing Daybreak master-planned community. Overseen by the Daybreak Communities development company, Downtown Daybreak is projected to be completed in 2025.
• Herriman Towne Center, Herriman, UT: This 370-acre MPC includes a mix of retail, recreation and residential space, all within a walkable community. The core of the community boasts a city hall, county recreation center, county library, elementary school and community park.
• Rosecrest, Herriman, UT: A 2,500-acre MPC overlooking the Salt Lake Valley with over 300 acres of open space. Developed by Momentum Development Group, Rosecrest has been growing since 1999 and includes everything from starter townhomes to luxury homes.
• SkyRim Project, Hurricane, UT: This 38-acre MPC will include 519 total residential units and 76,419 square feet of commercial space. The multifamily and commercial development, backed by NAI Excel and developed by Steward Land Company, will provide needed housing to the area.
• Utah City, Vineyard, UT: This is a 700-acre MPC committed to being sustainable and pedestrian-friendly. Developed by Woodbury Corporation and Flagship Homes, it will have 2 million square feet of restaurants and retail space with 3 million square feet of commercial and hospitality space—all on Utah Lake’s shoreline.
• Wildflower, Saratoga Springs, UT: A 1,200+-acre MPC, designated Utah’s first active family community, Wildflower will boast over 3,000 housing units, along with amenities that encourage fitness and recreation, such as hundreds of acres of trails, parks and open space. Built by Edge Homes, Lennar and Toll Brothers, Wildflower features a variety of housing options, from townhomes to luxury single-family houses.

Dr. Chelsea Shields | Photo by Jon Hague, Courtesy of TEDxSaltLakeCity

This article features hand-picked marketing experts who will present at Utah Business Forward. With five distinct tracks covering entrepreneurship, international business, marketing, people & culture and strategy, this dynamic event will be hosted on November 16, 2023, at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Click here to learn more about the event.

In an early episode of “Mad Men,” Don Draper pitches to the cigarette company Lucky Strike. He tells the tobacco execs, “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.” 

Draper goes on to describe the philosophy defined in the 1960s through the 1980s, an era sometimes referenced as “the Golden Age of Advertising.” This kind of mass-market messaging worked well for companies in that era, partly because consumers had more faith in the vision of contentment and ease that companies were selling.

“Do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear,” Draper continues in his pitch. “It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is okay. You are okay.”

Dr. Chelsea Shields, owner of the Brandthropologie Agency, a customer experience research and performance brand strategy company in Salt Lake City, says this old-school philosophy no longer works for today’s marketers. It’s not because people stopped buying stuff in the pursuit of happiness—that trend is still going strong. 

It’s because of one massive shift since the days of “Mad Men”: loss of consumer trust. 

“There used to be trust in the family, trust in the government, trust in medicine, religion, corporations, brands, military—you name it,” Dr. Shields says. “There was trust in our infrastructure and our basic social systems. There was trust in almost everything we did. All of that is gone.”

The research proves Dr. Shields’ point: consumer trust has plummeted, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent Gallup poll, confidence in major institutions, including banks, big business and tech corporations, has steadily declined and particularly tanked in the last three years. 

Without trust, companies can’t sell the masses a bright, shiny, homogenous picture of happiness. They struggle to sell anything at all. 

Lack of trust is not the only hurdle facing post-“Mad Men” marketers. During the Golden Age of Advertising, mass marketing was the name of the game. And it was a game with fewer players on a smaller field.

“It’s not as easy as it was in the 1950s and 1960s to get consumer attention,” says Melissa Garcia, expert-in-residence at the Product Marketing Alliance. “Back then, a shampoo company might have had a handful of other major competitors. They just had to make their product seem sexy and fun to stick in customer’s minds.”

In short, companies could succeed with a business-first mindset. Garcia says that businesses still try to rely on mass-marketing tactics, but today’s landscape is much more complex. That shampoo company isn’t just competing with other brands of shampoo. It’s competing against every Instagram ad, email newsletter and retargeting ad vying for customers’ attention. 

“That’s the biggest challenge in marketing. You’re trying to position your product in somebody’s mind, to create a memory, to connect to a need. When there’s so much out there, at some point, a customer isn’t going to have anything left to view your ad,” Garcia says.

In this new age of marketing defined by increased competition, fragmented attention and decreased trust, how can companies connect with customers?

Melissa Garcia

Know thyself—and thy audience

First, move away from a business-first, mass-marketing mindset. Today’s marketing needs to be real, bold and simple to cut through the skepticism and the noise. 

To create authentic content, businesses need to know who they are and who they are talking to. If a company isn’t anchored in its values, differentiators and mission, its messaging may come off as insincere or hackneyed. 

Dr. Shields compares this generic marketing to scrolling through Tinder. There are a hundred profiles of singles who claim to be fun, kind and in love with hiking. Who will stand out from the crowd? 

“The photo of a guy sitting at a drumset with the caption, ‘I love to rock.’ He may not be for everyone, but everyone will immediately understand who he is,” Dr. Shields says. 

A company who knows who it is will be as easy for its ideal customer to understand as the rocker. It’ll produce marketing rooted in what the company has to offer, its differentiators, and what it stands for. Once a company understands who it is, the company can understand who is most likely to swipe right.

Who that ideal (real) audience is may be surprising, says Michelda George, founder and CEO of Versatile Image. She emphasizes the importance of market research and talking to customers to dig into who they actually are—not just who the marketing team thinks they might be.

“Don’t be afraid to ask your customers questions to truly understand them,” George says. “You have to earn people’s money and trust by getting them on a deeper level. Your business is here to serve people. Those people are human. They have real-life scenarios, real-life challenges. They have real-life thoughts and feelings.”

Garcia agrees. “It’s about making the customer the hero,” she says. “Jump on some calls, listen to some sales calls, ask questions. Talk to your customer service teams, to your sales teams. Really understanding what your customers’ pain points are is critical to delivering an experience that speaks to them.” 

In short, once companies know who they are and who they are talking to, they can say something directly to their audience—and mean it. 

Be bold on purpose

As customers have grown less trusting, companies have grown more cautious. They are afraid to use their marketing to make a statement. “Everyone is out there saying the same thing. To establish trust, you have to say something different,” Dr. Shields says. “Be bold, but be bold on purpose.”

She gives the example of Amazon’s “Stress Less, Smile More.” It is simple and easy to read, remember and repeat. It is a universally desired sentiment around the world. It gets at their primary value of convenience but from the customer’s primary benefit point of view. “Amazon is great at making the customer the hero. It’s always about them, not the company.”

There’s a common misconception that marketing messages aren’t getting through because people are distracted, George says. But, in reality, consumers are paying a lot of attention to companies like Amazon who are doing it right. They are choosing how to spend their attention just like they’re choosing how to spend their money. 

Garcia says an integral part of grabbing that attention is personalization. “Once you become the expert on your customers, you’re able to deliver highly relevant, timely and meaningful content to the right people at the right time through the right channel with the right messaging.” 

Michelda George | Photo by Ori Media

Tap the power of artificial intelligence

The tricky part of this kind of highly targeted, responsive messaging is that it takes a whole lot of work. Don Draper performed his advertising magic and devised the Lucky Strike motto on the spot. It was sent out to their audience (America) over two channels (magazines and billboards).

In contrast, a personalized omnichannel marketing campaign requires as many unique messages as there are audience segments and as many different variations of that message as there are channels. 

A bespoke shampoo company, for example, may have a hundred defined targeted audience segments (curly-haired moms of teenagers, fine-haired single 20-somethings in urban areas, etc.) that they reach through 30 different channels (email marketing, Instagram sponsored content, YouTube ads, TikTok influencers, text message campaigns, etc.). 

The sheer labor involved in such a campaign is many magnitudes greater than Draper’s. Michael Smart, CEO of MichaelSMARTPR, points out that one impediment to genuine, targeted storytelling is simply time. Marketers often have competing obligations, such as a demand for commodity content, production-based marketing goals and the repetitive maintenance of an omnichannel strategy. These tear them away from implementing the ideal practices. 

Today’s marketing teams simply can’t do it all alone. “A single marketer only has so much storytelling energy,” Smart says. “Finding a story takes time. When they have six blog posts to write in a week, stopping to sift through a hundred customer stories often isn’t possible.”

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in. While AI cannot (yet) write the kind of personalized, empathetic and nuanced marketing messaging that today’s audiences need, generative AI is a goldmine for analyzing data, streamlining busywork and giving marketers back some of that valuable creative time. 

“I can take the support chats, feed those into the AI, and have it identify what patterns emerged. I can have it pull customer quotes based on themes, common use cases and satisfaction level,” Smart says. “By saving time on research and pinpointing the most valuable data in seconds, I’ll have more time to write the stories that matter.”

Garcia values the power of AI and machine learning in assisting directly with marketing personalization. “Over time, through collecting and analyzing customer data, these tools can prescribe an experience. This makes our marketing less reactive.”

When George looks toward the future, she sees marketing evolving into a democratizing societal force. As AI saves people time and money and as more companies begin to tell real, raw stories, she sees competition giving way to more cooperation. This, in turn, will help to reestablish consumer trust. 

“Marketing is an opportunity to connect. Looking toward the future, it won’t be one-size-fits-all,” George says. “There will be room for everyone to grow. We can all win.”

Michael Smart

We’ve come a long way in the past eight decades when it comes to autonomous vehicles. Tesla Autopilot, Ford BlueCruise, and GM Super Cruise are commercially available cars with some autonomous features, such as steering, braking, and accelerating in limited conditions. Waymo, which grew out of Google’s self-driving car project, currently has self-driving taxis that can operate autonomously in certain circumstances. And TuSimple has a fleet of self-driving semi trucks in operation now along supply routes in some regions.

But those caveats—in limited conditions, in certain circumstances, in some regions—are signs that fully autonomous vehicles are not yet a reality. There’s still a long road to travel before consumers can nap or watch a blockbuster on their evening commute. Despite decades of advancement, autonomous vehicles still aren’t quite safe enough for the general public. Federal regulations designed specifically for autonomous passenger vehicles were only put in place this year. Waymo, Tesla, and TruSimple vehicles have all been involved in crashes that make consumers uneasy. While elements of automation promise to alleviate human errors that lead to injury or death on the road, the tech isn’t quite there yet.

That’s where companies like Spark.ai, Quantum Computing, Inc., and Ephel come in to close the gap between the dream of autonomous vehicles and reality.

“The world is complex and constantly changing," says Michael Kohen, founder and CEO of New York-based Spark.ai, which grew out of Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company acquired by Amazon. “It’s really difficult to build an AI system that works well 100 percent of the time. You wouldn’t get into a self-driving car that was 95 percent accurate. That last five percent is ‘make or break’ for most autonomous applications."

Because AI lacks cognition—that human ability to use common sense, intuition, previous experience, and learning to make split-second decisions—self-driving cars continue to come up against situations they don’t understand. This confusion can lead to stalls and delays at best and crashes or malfunctions at worst. Spark.ai solves this problem by making human cognition available to AI in real time. 

Say an autonomous vehicle encounters an unfamiliar section of the road. It detects orange flags and cones everywhere, people waving their arms in the middle of the street, and unfamiliar signage. The car is confused and doesn’t know how to operate in this situation. With Spark.ai’s technology, the vehicle can call a human to assess the situation. This mission specialist can identify the car in a construction zone in just a few seconds and decide on the safest path forward.

It’s not just self-driving cars that can benefit from occasionally putting humans back in the driver’s seat. Kohen believes that empowering artificial intelligence with human cognition can be a game-changer for any industry trying to overcome plateaus in their AI.

One of the areas where autonomous vehicles outshine human drivers is in their superior senses. These days, autonomous vehicles are equipped with an array of cameras, radar, and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors, which allow them to navigate conditions that would be tricky for humans, such as driving through a fog bank or navigating a pitch black highway. However, the number of sensors required for an autonomous vehicle to have total coverage of road conditions and complete situational awareness was inefficient and cost-prohibitive. That is, until now. During BMW’s Quantum Computing Challenge, Virginia-based quantum computing company QCI reduced the number of sensors needed for nearly total situational awareness in autonomous vehicles from 400 to just 15. Fewer sensors enable autonomous car manufacturers to create safer vehicles that are also more efficient and cost-effective.

“Now, sensor capabilities can go beyond what the average human can do," says Bob Liscouski, CEO of QCI. “And quantum sensing can be one of the factors that get us there. Quantum computers have the ability to unlock things that people only dreamed about. I remember, as a kid, driving along the highway and wondering if I could just put a sensor in the car and just let the car drive by itself. And just look at us now."

One type of sensor that is key to safe driving in low-visibility conditions is thermal cameras. These cameras can detect heat signatures, which allows them to see in the dark and through fog, smoke, and dust. They’ve been instrumental in increasing the safety of autonomous vehicles, especially due to their skill at detecting humans and animals on the road.

However, thermal cameras have their limitations. They can be expensive, need a lot of power, and often produce low-resolution images. This is where Ephel, a Utah-based, open-source imaging solutions company, comes in.

Elphel invented a new kind of 3D thermal imaging using Long-Wave Infrared sensors, for which it won a 2022 Utah Innovation Award in the hardware and electronics category. This new technology makes it possible for autonomous vehicles to perceive the road ahead more accurately and have more time to detect and respond to potential hazards.

Olga Filippova, VP of Elphel, believes this technology may help put autonomous vehicles on the road and help out our current supply chain issues. “One of the first applications would be for trucking,” she says. “Semis require a longer distance for braking. They are also constantly on the road—driving in all conditions, through snow, dust, fog, and darkness. Our technology could help put more autonomous trucks with the kind of sophisticated vision that would feel safe for everyone."

Filippova says it’s becoming easier to see a future in which autonomous cars will feel safe for all. Kohan and Liscouski share this vision, though they recognize the path may be winding.

“Advancements in AI and quantum computing are accelerating the autonomous vehicle industry,” Liscouski says. “We’re doing things that we never thought we could do, and it’s important to remember that can have both positive and negative impacts."

One trend Kohan is particularly excited about is that companies are more honest now about what it will take to get autonomous vehicles and other robotic applications to market. “They’re admitting the capabilities are not quite there, not yet," he says.

Filippova is unsure when autonomous cars will take off and is already looking ahead to the next innovation in consumer transportation. She paints a picture of the future lifted from the 1939 World’s Fair: “We’re working with NASA, who predicts that in ten years, we all will be in flying cars."

Amin knew that snacks made people happy, and in April 2020, people were in serious need of anything that sparked joy. So, STADIUM started SnackMagic, the corporate snack box service catering to work-from-home employees and virtual event attendees. They scaled the business from $0 to $20 million in just eight months. 

Amin turned to international talent to meet the global hunger for snacks. “It became a priority to hire the top talent from across the globe who understood their region’s diverse tastes," Amin says. From Bangkok to Barcelona, SnackMagic’s remote employees select, source, and stock custom snacks with regional preferences in mind.

SnackMagic isn’t alone in tapping international talent to facilitate major business pivots in the face of Covid. The pandemic brought about a seachange in terms of remote work, with 59 percent of employees still working from home all or most of the time. With employees freed from the cubicle, many companies like SnackMagic, Reach, and Kosy Office are looking across the globe to find their next perfect hire. They are also finding innovative ways to tackle the unique challenges of a global workforce, such as time zone differences, communication breakdowns, and culture building.

Kosy Office co-founders Yanis Melatta and Sam Meurs, a virtual office space for remote teams, first connected on Reddit at the beginning of the pandemic. While everyone was talking about the challenges of remote work, Melatta and Meurs were looking for solutions. They founded Kosy Office to provide remote workers a virtual space for collaboration, spontaneous conversation, and quick check-ins—all the hallmarks of in-person work that can build a thriving company culture. 

Kosy Office was a fully-remote, global company from the start. Melatta, who lives in Canada, and Meurs, who lives in Belgium, worked together for 12 months before they met in person for the first time. Today, their team is also split across Ukraine, the UK, the US, Poland, Spain, and the Dominican Republic.

Work hours are one of the trickiest aspects of a workforce that’s as distributed as Melatta’s. How do teams find the time for collaboration when living in different time zones? At Kosy Office, Melatta requires teams to have 4-hour windows of collaboration during each workday. To facilitate this overlap, they focus their hiring on the time zones running from the East Coast in the US to eastern Europe.

Amin also prioritizes a thoughtful approach to time zone differences. “Being aware of your team’s various time zones means everyone has a seat at the virtual table," he says. Amin uses an online time zone management tool to assess everyone’s availability easily. He also runs quick polls over Slack or via emails to let employees worldwide weigh in on the right day and time for crucial meetings. For team members who can’t make it live, he shares recordings for later viewing.

Cory Pinegar, the CEO of Utah-based Reach, the largest call center provider for dental practices in the United States, solved the time zone issues by heading south. By focusing on Latin American talent, Pinegar avoids time zone issues altogether.Reach first turned to overseas talent during the pandemic to reduce labor costs. Unable to see a profit on the insurance verification wing of their business, Pinegar started hiring contractors in Brazil and Argentina, where competitive wages were lower than they are in Utah. Soon, they saw their profit, but the change to the company culture went beyond dollars and cents.

“We believe that business can be created without borders," Pinegar says. “Not only can we scale in a cost-effective way, but we’re filling talent gaps, too. Our business runs so much better because we can find top talent anywhere on the globe."

Pinegar credits their success with a global team to one thing: clear communication. “We’re really intentional with how we run our communication channels," he says. “There’s not a bifurcation between overseas talent and US talent. We’re a unified team." Reach gives global candidates English language fluency tests to ensure language differences aren’t a barrier to success.

Melatta similarly finds that communication is all the more crucial for remote companies. He built Kosy Office because he believes spontaneous interactions are the cornerstone of the most productive and efficient teams. He encourages his global team to have the kind of conversation that might, at first glance, seem “unproductive"—that morning coffee chat, the pop-in question, the quick catch-up. This is often where the most work gets done.

Similarly, Amin invites new global employees to write meet-and-greet emails to their team. Though they may not carry the weight of a customer email or a meeting agenda, Amin finds them invaluable for fostering communication and collaboration. “These emails tend to focus more on new employees’ hobbies, pets, and favorite foods, which is terrific because it helps everyone get to know each other personally," Amin says. “People are more likely to collaborate better and reach out with questions when they feel more familiar with their coworkers." 

This hints at one of the most ineffable challenges of managing a workforce distributed across the globe: creating company culture. Company culture is not only built in the relationships between employees but also in a company’s ability to respond to its employees’ needs. 

“A remote, international culture needs to be built even more deliberately than an in-person one because it won’t happen organically," Melatta says. To intentionally create culture, Melatta is mindful of how company culture may mean different things to different employees.

He starts with culturally-aware benefits packages. For example, many countries give their residents healthcare coverage, making a company-sponsored health plan pretty worthless. Melatta works to customize each benefits package to regional needs. “If fast internet isn’t easily accessible in a region, for example, a stipend for a coworking space could be more supportive for an employee than a healthcare package," Melatta says.

Recognizing cultural or religious festivals and holidays is another way to build an inclusive benefits package. “Apart from the fixed national holidays we have in Canada, I like to give employees the day off to celebrate the events that are important to their culture or religion," Melatta adds.

For Amin, openness and transparency are the cornerstones of global company culture. “We share the good and the bad with everybody," Amin says. “This makes employees feel comfortable being themselves and sharing their backgrounds and work challenges and solutions. It brings out the best in people when they don’t have to worry about what people think."

All three companies believe their diversity is a source of strength, bringing new ideas to the table. 

“When you get different people from all over the world, you get many different perspectives," Pinegar says. “It’s the best way to innovate and the right way to move a company forward."