Penbrothers: The ‘black sheep’ of offshoring that champions ‘employee obsession’
To be labeled the “black sheep,” usually of a family, is not typically something one would aspire to, given the term’s negative connotation in everyday conversation. But when it comes to being a growth champion in the business of executing companies’ rapid remote expansion, Penbrothers carries the title of “black sheep” with pride, as they offer an unconventional approach to the traditional offshoring model, “done with flair”—an approach that has opened a host of employment opportunities to Filipinos and enabled startups to consistently grow in a global scale, despite the pandemic.
Since its establishment in 2014, Penbrothers has been helping startups scale by enabling them with the right remote talent and flexible hiring and HR solutions—while also ensuring that these employees receive reasonable salaries. To do so, they had to be just as entrepreneurial as their clients. Penbrothers offshores talent for their clients and employs them within their company, but manages all stages of talent sourcing, onboarding, employee engagement and local compliance, allowing them to fully integrate their teams into their respective company cultures.
Founders Gui Faria (pictured on the left) and Nicolas Bivero (pictured on the right) started Penbrothers in 2014 for founders like themselves and are continuously helping build and scale teams all over the world.
“It all boils down to people. We are obsessed with our employees. It starts by working together with the client to make sure we find the right people, and then work in symbiosis with clients and employees alike to make sure productivity, happiness at work and growth is at the core of everything.” explains Penbrothers co-founder Guilheme Faria.
It’s a system, adds Faria, that worked amid—and despite—one of the world’s worst crises, when COVID-19 caused global business to be temporarily halted.
“Like many other companies, we faced our own set of challenges due to the pandemic,” says Nicolas Bivero, co-founder. “Business slowed down, and companies were conservative with their growth. But, at the same time, as companies adapted and remote work became more accepted, this accelerated our growth and even validated our vision to be able to provide remote opportunities at a global scale.”
Penbrothers employees’ celebrating one of their monthly remote events outside of work to boost morale and camaraderie.
To date, Penbrothers has over 1,400 employees in the Philippines working for global startups, one of which is the popular online marketplace Carousell. Penbrothers spearheaded the Singaporean company’s rapid expansion in the Philippine market, scaling their business development and marketing teams to 20 people in just 3 months through seamless recruitment, HR and payroll management services, as well as office space solutions. They enabled Carousell to enter and test the Philippine market, until the latter decided to incorporate their business here.
Penbrothers likewise supported the online software development of Gamesys in their expansion in the country, helping them grow their team to over 100 in just a year. These involved employing high-level tech talent such as full-stack developers, QA engineers, data analysts and service desk engineers. They even created customized offices for Gamesys.
Sheridan Office located in Mandaluyong that is fully secure and sanitized. They offer flexible amenities to serve teams working in a hybrid setup.
And even in the face of a pandemic, travel booking platform Hopper was able to accelerate its employee growth to the hundreds, thanks to Penbrothers.
“We are proud to have impacted the lives of not just our employees, but their families, too, by providing them the opportunity to work for unique global companies that they otherwise may have not had the chance to. ‘Global reach to local impact’ is what really drives us,” Faria says.
More than their nontraditional approach to offshoring, Penbrothers’ success is also fueled by its in-house technology platform called The HUB. The platform allows clients to screen candidates, onboard employees with ease, manage payroll and benefits (and other HR functions) and engage with the community using just one software. The HUB uses AI and business intelligence tech along with cloud-based microservice architecture for scalability, and has the highest security and data privacy measures in place.
“What makes this unique is that, using information we collected within the system, we are able to address and better predict client’s needs more proactively,” Bivero says. “Our Research & Development/Innovation, Transformation and Product teams are constantly collecting user feedback and market insights to make Penbrothers the No. 1 offshoring provider using its remote talent management platform.”
As they move toward greater goals this year, Bivero and Faria say Penbrothers’ focus will be “employee obsession”—their dedication to their culture that is empowering, exciting, growth-focused and psychologically safe. The company is investing on learning and development initiatives that will help build careers for the individuals that join their team, which includes community-building initiatives like mental health sessions, workshops, events and online learning for upskilling.
“Penbrothers aims to emulate a people-first culture. That in turn, employees prioritized as whole individuals and given the right resources and opportunities would result in a positive and profitable workforce.“ Faria says.
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