Oyster, a global employment platform, seeks to revolutionize the world of work by breaking down barriers to remote work and providing equal opportunities for talent across borders. The company's mission centers around creating a more equitable world through increased access to employment opportunities. As a global company, Oyster aims to pay individuals based in emerging markets more than the average local salary in their respective countries or regions. Moreover, its commitment to fairness and equal opportunities is demonstrated through its innovative global compensation strategy, asynchronous work model, and Oyster Total Rewards program, ensuring competitive benefits for its global workforce.

In this interview, Tony Jamous, the CEO and co-founder of Oyster, sheds light on the challenges companies face in hiring and managing distributed teams, while sharing how Oyster's platform streamlines global employment processes and supports employee well-being and professional growth. He emphasizes Oyster's mission-driven approach, envisioning a future of work that is resilient, diverse, and globally accessible, where talent and ambition triumph over geographic location. With Oyster's pioneering efforts, Tony aims to empower individuals from emerging economies and redefine the landscape of modern work.

Oyster exists to try to create a more equal world through increased access to employment opportunities. As a global company, we aspire to pay those based in emerging markets more than they would receive earning an average local salary in their country or region. One way we have tried to be thoughtful in our approach to fairness and equal opportunities for talent across borders is by creating a global compensation strategy that acknowledges the complexity of paying and providing benefits for a global workforce.

Another way we ensure fairness is through an asynchronous work model. As different countries have different average working hours, observe different holidays, etc., an async work model allows our people to work when it’s best for them, and take off when they need to, no matter their location. Additionally, through Oyster Total Rewards, which is the first truly holistic approach to compensation and benefits, ensuring they are competitive, compliant, aligned with budget, and—most importantly—meet employee expectations, we’re able to guarantee equal perks for our people around the world.

Organizations often don’t realize how complex global employment is—especially when it comes to compliance and hiring for multiple functions, levels, and modalities in various countries and currencies. Oyster is a partner for our customers in reducing this complexity. We help them manage the global hiring process end-to-end, so there is no need to hire individual lawyers, accountants, and payroll specialists in every country where you plan to have an employee.

Being able to take care of these employees once you’ve hired them is important too. With our platform, companies can design a compensation and rewards strategy for their global teams to help them meet their employees’ needs and expectations. Finally, we help companies stay agile in their talent strategy, enabling them to bring both full-time employees and contractors on board, compliantly and in 180+ countries.

Oyster is a mission-driven company focused on overturning the status quo and creating a more equal world of work. We’re building software and resources that enable companies everywhere to hire, pay, and care for talent anywhere. Oyster takes care of your global employment needs in 180+ countries—from hiring compliantly to providing localized benefits—so you can focus on building an all-star team to drive your mission forward.

In addition, Oyster is opening a world of career opportunities for global communities outside influential clusters while simultaneously increasing employee-centricity and reducing inequality and climate impact. Emerging economies shouldn’t have to remain emerging, and our latest Global Impact Report highlights the strides we’re making to this end. We exceeded our goal to bring $50M into emerging markets by EOY 2022 ($53.6M) and reached a historical high of 28% of users in emerging markets. We will double down on our mission to elevate talent from global geographies, giving people everywhere access to better and more stable work.

Oyster is async-first, which means that employees are encouraged to work in their own time zones instead of trying to work in everyone else’s. We call this philosophy “follow the sun” and it’s based on a trust and a belief in our colleagues’ ability to carry work forward without the need to be online and available around the clock. When you trust your colleagues in a work context, it’s much easier to trust and relate to them in a human context as well. That’s why our “follow the sun” philosophy encourages boundaries for the wellbeing of our highly distributed workforce.

We also believe strongly in continuous feedback. We use a platform called Pando that enables managers to give feedback, discuss career growth, and conduct employee assessments on an ongoing basis. This process is very important to us as a remote company. When someone joins Oyster, we want them to feel that we are invested in their professional growth — that we’re supporting them on an ongoing basis, not just once a year.

People often make these arguments about remote work without first asking whether workplaces truly support remote workers. Firstly, work must be accessible for everyone. If you’re building a highly distributed team but failing to make sure that work is documented, visible, or conducted transparently, that’s a problem. That can be isolating, which is why inclusive systems and processes are important. We also believe strongly in making socializing a part of the work. That may look different on every team, but the idea is that culture and connection need to be intentional, especially in a remote setting.

Our tools help us a lot in building connection. At Oyster, we have a variety of thriving Slack communities. Oysters tend to connect organically on interests like gardening and gaming, and even parenthood and pets. People want to build community, and they’ll always find a way — whether they’re in office together or 3,000 miles apart. I love that our teams have been so proactive and lighthearted in how they’ve chosen to build friendships and find communities at work.

A company’s future success — and the future of work — depends on our ability to let go of the past and reimagine our workplaces to reflect the changing times. It’s time to create resilient, agile, distributed workforces that lead with transparency; diversify talent; are empathetic with their customers and people; offer purpose, autonomy, and flexibility.The future of work demands we answer what it means to be a great employer.

“Work” has the potential to transform into an altogether more human, better supported, and more globally accessible experience for all. Oyster is forging a new path in the modern world of work by getting companies excited about global hiring as a force for thriving workplaces, meaningful working experiences, and a more equal world. Building distributed teams is a proven strategy for growing companies. We’ll continue to pave the way to a world where people can succeed on merit of their talent and ambition, rather than their location.

What: Oyster

Where: Nicosia, London, New York, San Francisco

More Info: oysterhr.com

Who: Tony Jamous is the CEO and co-founder of Oyster, a global employment platform that aims to remove the barriers to remote work and distributed hiring. Shaped by his upbringing in Beirut, Lebanon during a violent civil war, Tony is passionate about empowering talented individuals from emerging economies through access to global career opportunities. Tony was previously the CEO of CPaaS provider, Nexmo (now Vonage), before exiting in 2018 and launching Oyster with co-founder Jack Mardack in early 2020. With Oyster, Tony hopes to make it easier for companies everywhere to hire people anywhere.