The Silicon Valley Experience

An important perspective that businesses must start to embrace is to no longer stay in the transactional world.

Gone are the days when processes are structured in a linear fashion. We are in the new age of digitalization – where collaboration is highly valued, agility is demanded of individuals and organizations, and feedback used as a powerful tool in creating an effective workplace.

At Viventis, we have embarked on a transformation journey targeted to drive the Future of Career Creation. To be able to fulfill this vision, our decisions are guided by our six core values – Family, Grit, Career, Agility, Collaboration and Excellence. We have been inspired by global game changers who have disrupted the business landscape and aspire to become a catalyst of change in our own field.

Last April, I had a fantastic business trip to the US with my Marketing Director Ranvel Rufino. We visited San Francisco, particularly the Silicon Valley area – the mecca for disruptive technology, start-up companies, venture capital, and innovation. It was an exciting moment being in San Francisco to visit some of our strategic partners and discuss on the latest trends in business & technology.

The Degreed office was our first stop and we were personally welcomed by David Blake, Degreed’s Co-Founder and Executive Chairman. David is the epitome of a great leader – intelligent, passionate, ambitious, and leads with a purpose. Same goes for his Executive Committee who are the bright, young minds with the vision to change the future of education and learning.

As Viventis’ newest strategic partner, Degreed brings to the table a renewed perspective in advocating lifelong learning and empowering organizations to constantly learn, unlearn, and relearn in order to ignite the careers of their employees.

During our meeting, the team highlighted its pursuit of enabling skills for the future. More than an outcome of learning, skills serve as the building blocks of one’s capability and Degreed helps users target their competencies to develop personally and professionally. I gave a compelling introduction on Viventis’ vision in fueling the Future of Career Creation and sharing the successful roll out we had for Degreed so far. Lifelong learning is a critical differentiator to career success and that’s what Degreed and Viventis aim to accomplish as we help more organizations foster a culture of continuous learning.

Photo: With the Degreed Executive Committee. (1st row, L-R) Ranvel Rufino, Degreed Chief Marketing Officer Marc Eberhart, Chief Revenue Officer TJ Williams, (Seated) CEO Chris McCarthy, yours truly, Chief Learning Officer Kelly Palmer, and Co-Founder & Executive Chairman David Blake

To further strengthen our partnership, we are planning to bring David Blake to the Philippines as an opportunity to extensively promote Degreed – so watch out for this development in the coming months.

The LinkedIn HQ was our second stop and their office is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The whole office design is patterned after one’s career journey – which is fitting given the company’s vision of connecting professionals all over the world and helping them stay ahead of their careers.

LinkedIn has been a strategic partner of Viventis for 3 years and going to the place where it all started is such a momentous occasion. The company has been instrumental in helping our recruiters attract top talents through their revolutionary products. We were greeted by our good friend Eric Yee, Head of Channel Partnerships for Asia Pacific.

I had a great time catching up with Eric. We had an interesting dialogue on LinkedIn moving to talent intelligence, harnessing data and insights to the recruitment process in order to deliver a powerful and winning talent strategy. LinkedIn’s vision is something that I also want to do in Viventis in order to make more informed decisions using data and analytics. We also talked about what’s next for the Viventis-LinkedIn partnership to further empower the future of career creation.

Besides Degreed and LinkedIn, had the chance to visit the Ascendify office, a tech company contributing to the future of technology with their intelligent talent management platform. Roel Deuss, Director of Enterprise Sales and Business Development shared how the company is redefining talent acquisition through artificial intelligence.

Viventis shares their vision of leveraging on advanced technology to chart the talent’s career path and empower them throughout the entire recruitment process. Hoping for a prospective partnership with the company as we augment our talent attraction and career technology offerings.

For our last stop, we visited the office of the world’s largest accommodation provider – Airbnb.

I met up with Ana Cuellar, Airbnb’s Learning Experience Designer and exchanged some of Degreed’s best practices. Airbnb leveraged formal and individual learning by initiating a digital learning culture. Ana shared that through Degreed, Airbnb rolled out a global learning initiative to unite all managers with three main pathways that are aligned to the company’s mission – belonging & growth, clarity & accountability, and empowerment & sustainability. 300 managers all over the world were able to complete the program which resulted to an impressive learning time to value.

The trip was not just all about work. We injected a bit of fun side trips too, passing through the popular Google office as well as the Facebook HQ on Earth Day.

The experience may be short-lived, but it was packed with indispensable insights straight from the disruptive innovators who have redefined the way to do business. With the constantly changing landscape, these companies have built a confluence of challenger mindset and forward-thinking approach in order to attain success. These attributes must be emulated by all organizations to become future-ready and keep pace in the ongoing digital transformation.

Viventis still has a long way to go before being at par with the Silicon Valley giants. As we continue with our journey in propelling the future of career creation, may this become a stepping stone in placing the company on the map – an agent of influence to ignite careers and revolutionize the recruitment sphere. Who knows, as long as we are anchored on our “why,” our commitment, and our purpose, anything is possible.