HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
Hosted by Bill Banham, Pauline James, and other HR enthusiasts, the HRchat show publishes interviews with influencers, leaders, analysts, and those in the HR trenches 2-4 times each week.
The show is approaching 1000 episodes and past guests are from organizations including ADP, SAP, Ceridian, IBM, UPS, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Simon Sinek Inc, NASA, Gartner, SHRM, Government of Canada, Hacking HR, McLean & Company, UPS, Microsoft, Shopify, DisruptHR, McKinsey and Co, Virgin Pulse, Salesforce, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Coca-Cola Beverages Company.
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Podcast Music Credit"Funky One"Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
HRchat Podcast
The Global Talent Expansion Playbook with Walter Sabrin, Vensure Employer Solutions
Walter Sabrin takes us behind the scenes of one of the most remarkable growth stories in the HR industry. As Chief Talent Officer at Vensure Employer Solutions, he's orchestrated talent strategy through 94 acquisitions in just six years, transforming a company with modest beginnings into the world's largest private HR outsourcing firm.
The phrase "violent execution" might sound alarming, but as Walter explains, this term perfectly encapsulates the focused, competitive culture driving Vensure's explosive growth. This cultural alignment remains Walter's north star as he navigates talent acquisition across a global portfolio of brands, balancing aggressive scaling with consistent values.
Walter's journey from competitive tennis to talent leadership has profoundly shaped his approach to recruitment. The discipline, compartmentalization, and resilience developed on the court translate directly to talent acquisition challenges. "You're never as good as you are when you win a point and you're never as bad as you are when you lose a point," Walter shares, highlighting how this athletic mindset prevents the emotional rollercoaster many recruiters experience when deals succeed or fail.
Perhaps most fascinating is Vensure's near-shore hiring revolution. What began as 11 employees working from a house in Medellin, Colombia has exploded to 40,000 staff across 32 countries. This approach delivers approximately 65% savings on wages while dramatically expanding access to global talent. Walter candidly admits his transformation from American-centric thinking to recognizing the extraordinary capabilities of international talent when properly engaged and respected.
While embracing technological advances in recruitment, Walter makes a compelling case for the irreplaceable human element in hiring decisions. Despite the hype around AI and automation, he firmly believes that human intuition – the "gut feeling" that can't be replicated by algorithms – will remain essential to quality hiring.
Connect with Walter on LinkedIn or email him at waltersabrin@vensure.com to learn more about Vensure's approach to global talent acquisition and how their strategies might benefit your organization's growth journey.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show. Hello listeners, this is your host today, bill Bannam, and in this episode we're diving into the evolving world of global recruitment and strategic hiring with a guest who knows how to scale at speed. Walter Sabrin is the Chief Talent Officer over at Venture Employer Solutions, where he leads internal and external recruitment efforts across a diverse portfolio of brands. With a deep understanding of nearshore hiring models and a data-driven approach to workforce strategy, walter helps organisations tackle today's toughest hiring challenges while preparing for tomorrow's talent demands. Walter also brings a unique perspective to the world of HR, having transitioned from a career in athletics into one focused on leadership, culture and growth. Tune in as we explore Walter's approach to recruiting top tier talent, managing hyper-growth and building future-ready teams. Whether you're hiring locally or globally, leading a startup or scaling an enterprise, this episode offers powerful insights to help you attract, engage and retain the right people. Walter, it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the HR Chat Show today. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Bill doing great. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, as we always like to do on this show, let's start with a bit of background on the guest, on yourself. Can you tell us a bit about your role as Chief Talent Officer over at Venture Employer Solutions and, of course, what your team focuses on across the organization?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, I'd be happy to Bill. Like you just mentioned my title. I basically head up talent acquisition across the global. Mothership and venture really is like a mothership, because you ready for this, bill. Our company has made 94 acquisitions over the last six and a half years, so I head up TA for all of our what we call division partners all 94 of them, for all of our what we call division partners all 94 of them internal hiring, because we're in hyper growth and we've been for the last several years. We've acquired international staffing firms, so we now hire globally as well. So it's a big undertaking. We have a phenomenal team, but when it comes to recruiting, retention, talent acquisition, that's where my responsibility lies.
Speaker 2:Okay. So in conclusion, a pretty busy guy by the sounds of it, first off, the cuff question for you. I didn't warn you before we hit record today that I like to keep the conversation with the throw questions here and there. One thing that I just heard from you is that not only are you responsible for external facing uh, hiring and talent sourcing, but actually you're, you're instrumental in bringing internal talent into your organization as well, because you, because you're acquiring all these other businesses. What are some challenges of internal hires versus a more traditional TA recruitment role? What are some differences there?
Speaker 3:Well, I think, because we act somewhat like a private equity firm and we have all these portfolio companies, well, we still have to maintain a common culture, and that, really, what I would say is it's not necessarily a challenge, but we have to keep our eyes on the prize. When it comes to that, our culture is everything to us. So we're acquiring companies that may be in our industry, may not be in our industry. We've acquired payroll companies, technology, hr outsourcing firms, but whichever companies, whichever of the companies we acquire and then we go to hiring, we want to keep the alignment in our culture.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to tell you what our cultural motto is, bill, and it's a unique one and I happen to love it. Our motto is violent execution. Now, that speaks to me. I love our motto, I love our culture. It's exciting, it's competitive, but it also it gets the job done. But violent execution, to be honest with you, it's not for everyone. It happens to be a software term that I think we adopted. We didn't create the expression, but we've adapted it to our company and our culture.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at HRGazettecom. And now back to the show. Okay, so it's a software term.
Speaker 2:It's not heads rolling off platforms somewhere, not that kind of environment. Very good, so you've had a fascinating journey from athletics to talent strategy. Walter, how has your experience as an athlete influenced your approach to hiring and leadership?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm very grateful for several reasons on. You know, just as a teenager through high school, through university college, teenager through high school, through university college and even after that, being a competitive tennis player, I had aspirations of being the next John McEnroe with hair, you know, and I feel it served me tremendously well to take into my business and then my talent acquisition career. It's taught me discipline, it's taught me to compartmentalize my life. In other words, I could have some bad things happening, some extra good things happening, but when you step on that tennis court, you got to leave it. You got to leave it in the clubhouse. When you step on that court, it's all business all the time and it's pretty much the same thing you know when it comes to work, when it comes to, you know, showing up at the office, no matter what's happening outside the office, I got to leave it at, you know, outside the office.
Speaker 3:And the other thing that I am very grateful to have to have received what I feel from you know my tennis playing career is a short-term memory. You know you're never as good as you are when you win a point and you're never as bad as you are when you lose a point. So in my recruiting career, early on I would see recruiters next to me slam the desk and and need to take the rest of the day off because someone accepted a counteroffer. Or or they go out celebrating on a fourday binge because they made a great hire and just because in tennis it's a long journey, one point doesn't make a match. So whether you win a point or whether you lose a point, whether you make the hire or lose the hire, you got to get on to the next point. You got to get on to the next candidate. I feel that's been extremely valuable for me, for me and then also, as I've grown in my career, to share with my teams.
Speaker 2:And I'm guessing that you're also a proponent of healthy body, healthy mind as a mantra. Is that fair to say given your background?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100 percent, you know, not just like, you know, healthy. But you know, this is something that I feel is missed in the HR recruiting space. How about some practice? How about you know, even though you've been doing it for a while, you know you watch Rafael Nadal before he retired. I mean that guy, best player in the world, and he's out there practicing. He's out there practicing forehands and backhands and and recruiters and HR executives, you know? How about practicing improving learning? I mean, there's plenty of excellent podcasts. No, you know, just throwing a little plug for you, bill, but there's excellent resources out there that we should all be absorbing, learning and growing our games, even if we're good, very good or excellent, and especially when we're just starting out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I completely agree with that. I mean, I think that complacency can be a killer. I've had conversations on this show and in other places in the past with HR leaders who, frankly, have got to a certain level in their career and they've become a little bit comfortable and they don't push themselves out of their out of their comfort zone anymore and with that, leads to situations where perhaps they're not as open to innovation, as open to new ideas. And if that happens, then good luck, because your competitors are going to. She was ahead of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially in our ever-changing world. I mean one thing about HR you can love it, you can hate it, you can, you know, comment on it, but it's ever evolving, you know now, especially with technology, and yeah, I just find that, yeah, complacency can be a killer for your organization, especially if it's happening in the HR suite.
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Speaker 2:Learn more at disrupthrco. Okay, so now let's talk about near-shore hiring and global workforce strategies. Walter Venture has a strong focus on near-shore hiring solutions. What does that mean in practical terms and how does it help organizations expand their talent pools?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I got a great story for you, bill, if that's OK. About six and a half years ago, venture Employer Solutions we were a, I would say, a small to mid-sized growing company and we discovered an international staffing firm called Salvo Global in Medellin, colombia, and I was sent there to go check it out to see if this is something that venture could utilize. And literally, I get to Medellin, colombia. There's about 11 people there in a house, not even in an office building. They're working out of a house and what they do is they work. They live in Colombia and they work for a US company. Well, we thought that was a great model, especially because of the exchange rate, the cost of living, literally saving about 65% on wages. So Venture started to utilize this model more and more and more. Again, we started with about 11 or 12 people six and a half years ago, bill. Today. Today, salvo Global has 40,000 employees.
Speaker 3:It's been a whirlwind of a ride you know talk about I don't even know how to define it.
Speaker 3:I believe there will be white papers written about this.
Speaker 3:But what it has done, it's done a couple of things, for I'm just going to talk from a venture standpoint, not even from our clients, but from a venture standpoint, it has given us the ability to hire great talent, fantastic talent.
Speaker 3:You know, bill, I used to be one of those Americans who thought only in America can it be done this well, can it be done the right way? I'll admit it, and I have been converted because I have seen firsthand because now Salvo Global's in 32 countries around the world and I've seen it time and time again where people around the world can do it just as good, if not better, than our workforce and at the same time we're paying a lot less in wages. We pay much more, we don't pay minimum wage, we pay very well in those countries. But for a US company to be able to get excellent talent, where now you're increasing your candidate pool, like you mentioned, bill, I'm not going to say there's anything wrong with the US talent pool. However, there are some pockets of self-entitlement, there's some pockets of laziness, there's some pockets of, as you can imagine, in any industry, any type of role. So why not expand your talent pool so you could look at the best of the best, not just limited to the United States?
Speaker 2:Well, as a British Canadian, I would fully support that. But OK, so what you just told me there is you guys have grown exponentially up to tens of thousands of employees, it sounds like, and your employees are not just based in one locale, they're in lots of places around the world. With that, though, just me playing devil's advocate with that does come some challenges. Scaling at speeds does mean, for example, it can be difficult for new hires, new employees, to connect with the original why of of an organization, that the original dream of of the co-founders, of the original leaders. And then, if you add another layer of complexity when it comes to that connection, which is different cultural norms and values, if, if you've got employees in different countries, I guess that could potentially add a layer of complexity as well. So my question there is a question here is two-parter A, would you agree? And B, what can you do about keeping your folks aligned with the original vision of the organization?
Speaker 3:Yeah, bill, you know I'd love to tell you it's been easy peasy and no issues here, but certainly not the case. A lot of growing pains, a lot of cultural challenges as well as just logistical. You know hard skill type, you know of challenges. Technology, I mean all across the board, starting in, you know the house, la Casita in Medellin, and then growing into an office and then growing into seven offices in Medellin and then going into Bogota and then outside of into Latin America and then into places like Kenya and you know places like Egypt. And we are in Canada, we're in Europe.
Speaker 3:So talk about all of not just a work culture. I mean, we're talking just a lifestyle culture and I've been lucky enough to visit many, many of our offices and, yeah, I have to speak to people differently in the Dominican Republic than I may have to speak to them in Peru, and I have found that our company is excellent at listening first and talking second listening to the people, listening to candidate, listening to the individuals. You know that come in and then then kind of speaking and talking about what we do and how we do it. But you know, when you're in Kenya, look, work is work, I get it, but there are definite cultural differences everywhere we go. I feel that our flexibility has been tremendous. You know to bridge those cultural and work. You know type of differences.
Speaker 2:Something you said there reminded me of an interview I did last year with a lovely guy in the UK called Al Kingsley, where he said to me, Bill, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Speaker 3:And I think you just summed that up there, I love that one and I use it all the time. So yeah, I love that one and I use it all the time. So yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:Walter, what role does technology and automation play in managing high volume hiring while still ensuring that candidate quality is high and there's a natural culture fit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm glad you brought this up and I figured you would, because who's not talking about AI and co-pilot and chat GP? Who's not talking about? I mean, it's the buzzword of the last within 10 years? So in easily our lifetime, we're going to literally have robots powered by AI in our house. Those are the prevailing predictions. Look, we need advanced technology, we need machines, we need the automation part of the job to help us. You know for sure. So I want to be clear about that. We use some AI tools, we use some automation tools, you know for sure. But I'm going to go on the record here, bill, and I am ready if you want to bring someone else on for a future podcast, and for a future podcast I will debate anyone that the human element is going to be necessary forever in human being selection.
Speaker 3:Recruiting will always need the human element. There's just something about whether we call it the it factor, whether we call it the gut feeling. It the it factor, whether we call it the gut feeling, but I truly feel that we're always going to. No matter how much AI and automation we bring into the process, we're still always going to need, you know, us human beings involved. You know just a real quick. I remember I don't remember the year necessarily, bill, but when monstercom came around, I remember said that's it. Recruiting is over. Get into a different field, because they're not going to, they're going to go on a Web site, they're going to pick out a resume and they're going to make the hire. Who needs a recruiter? Who needs anyone to look anything over? You know. And here we are, 20, 25 years later.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to challenge you on that one, because I like to do that sometimes on this show. Okay, I agree with you that there are lots of roles where folks will need to have that in-person contact with a recruiter because they're highly skilled roles, for example. But would you agree that lower skilled jobs, perhaps a lot of the recruitment process for high churn hospitality for example, maybe that can be pretty much automated?
Speaker 3:Once again, I feel even right, hospitality, customer service, maybe some blue collar type roles yeah, I definitely agree that the AI, intelligence, the machines, will make the automation easier, better, faster, more efficient. I think that will create a whole other industry also for humans to be a part of. But I still feel, at the end of the selection, at the end of the quality control at the you know getting into the details of the quality control, as far as you know the metrics on retention and you know more hiring, I feel that there still will need to be humans at the controls.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, my job here is to play devil's advocate. I always like to hear from someone when they say no, we will remain relevant, Bill, fear not. We are already coming towards the end of this particular conversation. Just before we wrap up, I'd love to get some advice and final reflections from you. What excites you most about the future of work and talent acquisition as we look ahead to the next two to three years?
Speaker 3:technology, you know, keep them coming. I mean guys, you know, in Silicon Valley and wherever the nerdy tech guys sit, and guys and gals, you know, keep building, keep creating, because we need you, we need more help. So I certainly welcome. I can't even imagine some of the technology that's ahead of us. So I'm certainly very, very looking forward to that. You know, I'm also.
Speaker 3:We're still coming out of the COVID years. We're coming out of the great resignation and quiet, quitting and all those corny terms that has shifted the workers, the employers, the employees, and I'm really excited because I see a lot more listening from the employers, a lot more open and transparent communication to the employees, which I think was well needed to the employees, which I think was well needed, and I think pre-COVID there was not as much transparency going on. I feel the employees have risen or have grown in the level of respect that they are receiving from employers and I'm very interested and curious to see that that continues, where it goes and how it affects you know I'm hoping in a very positive way but how it affects the employer, employee relationships.
Speaker 2:Excellent and just finally for today, walter, how can folks connect with you? Is that LinkedIn? Do you want to share your email address? Are you all over the other socials? And, of course, how can folks learn more about Venture and all the work that you guys?
Speaker 3:do, and thank you for that opportunity, bill and, by the way, it's really really been a pleasure Great host, great conversationalist, and I hope to do this again at some point. So please call me if you ever need anything but Venturecom, and that's V like Victor E-N-S-U-R-E, so it's Venturecom, you can check us out. We are now the largest private HR outsourcing company in the world. Private HR outsourcing company in the world, second largest overall. We're very proud of that. Bill, you ready for this? I feel and I'm going to challenge your audience I feel that I may be the only Walter Sabrin in the world. So I'm easy to find on LinkedIn, I'm easy to find on all the socials, walter, I mean, who names their kid Walter anymore? So there's very few of us left.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:Sabrin, thank you, but it is old school and, sabrin, my last name was made up from my parents who came over from Europe, and they created the name. So I firmly believe I'm the only Walter Sabrin. My email is waltersabrinadventurecom. You could find me on LinkedIn and Facebook and Insta and I don't know where else, but I welcome any kind of contact, whether it's just to geek out, talking, recruiting or hiring or HR. You just want to say hello. You want to learn more about Salvo Global and venture? Yeah, please reach out to me and I'd be happy to have a conversation.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, I have very much enjoyed this. I will be reaching back out to you soon, walter, to get you on more shows that I'm involved with, because I've enjoyed my time with you today. Thank you very much, thank you Bill. Thank you and listeners as always, until next time, happy working.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit hrgazettecom.
