46. Integration and employment with Anali Guzman Molina

How come so few Swedish IT companies hire people from abroad, even though they’re desperate for skilled developers? Anali Guzman Molina is the founder and CEO of Emigreat, a company automating the process of relocating foreign workers. In this week’s episode, she talks to Henrik about the importance of integration and inclusion, while contemplating her own experiences as an immigrant in Sweden.

Links

• Reach out to Anali on LinkedIn

• Visit Emigreat’s website

• Learn more about international migration on the UN’s website

• Akut brist på IT-kompetens, an article from ComputerSweden

• Anställa utländska medborgare i Sverige, an article on Verksamt.se

• Why it’s time for Sweden to fully accept English in the workplace, an article on the Local

If you don’t have time to tune in…

HE: Hello and welcome to the Let’s tech-podcast. My name is Henrik Enström and the company doing this is Codic Consulting and Codic Education, and today I’m here with Anali Guzman Molina, who’s the founder and CEO of Emigreat. Welcome.

AGM: Thank you so much, Henrik. How are you?

HE: I’m good actually. Good to be here, and the topic today is around integration and employment, here in Gothenburg region mostly, I guess. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you want to start up Emigreat?

AGM: This might be a long story, so I’m going to try to keep it short. So, I’m originally from the Dominican Republic. I came to Sweden in 2015 to study a master in Chalmers in international project management. I come from a background that is architecture and I decided that I wanted to move from architecture and go to more project management, but project management in IT. So, I began taking courses about UX research, sustainable developments, stakeholder management and so on. When I finish my education, it was really hard for me to find a job.

HE: How was your first experience moving here, since that’s kind of what we were talking about?

AGM: It was rather easy, I would say. I did have to call the university admissions at 3:00 AM for a week, because they were only open at 11, but coming as a student was quite straightforward and I got into Chalmers. I received a Fulbright, a scholarship from Chalmers, called William Chalmers. And basically, I arrived in Sweden the 22nd of August, and it was raining the whole week and it was a welcome to Gothenburg.

HE: What a memory you have. [skrattar]

AGM: Yes, it was quite impacting.

HE: So, you had a good … I mean, realistic first experience with rain all day, all week?

AGM: Completely. And in that moment, I was living in USA, before I moved to Sweden, I was living in California, I had to go to Washington DC to actually get my residence permit card to be able to travel to Sweden. But besides that, I think everything was very interesting. I was very excited. You know, young and fresh in Sweden and also coming …

HE: Around what age did you move here?

AGM: I was like 23, 24? Yeah, almost 24, so six years ago. And basically, I started the course. Because it was international project management, it was a really good mix, half and half of Swedish that were local students and also include like those who come from outside Chalmers university. Half of the class was international, so it was a quite diverse group.

HE: Was it what you expected beforehand?

AGM: I think that it was different from what I expected, but I think for the better, not the worse. Yes, the courses were very connected to how you work with project psychology and how you deal with international projects in terms of right now we are going into globalisation, and you’re thinking about maybe you have team members in different places on the world.

“Diverse teams and diverse companies, are performing better all over the world. McKenzie did a report that 25 percent are more likely to be more profitable than the rest of the market. ”

HE: Yeah, and that’s very relevant right now.

AGM: Yeah, and it was really relevant. I remember my first paper I did, about how to build trust and motivation in virtual teams and that was 2015, there was no corona. So yeah, I also was part of like Chalmers students for sustainability. I was involved in all the things possible. You know, it was time for those parts. And then, that kind of involvement is when I start working with social integration and social inclusion.

HE: Yeah, what can happen if you don’t work with social inclusion like in your experience from Chalmers in welcoming people?

AGM: So, I’m going to tell you what happened that got me to work on that. So, the class that I was coming from was a very diverse class, so half locals and half internationals. And because of that, and everybody that was going to that master was in an international mindset and we were always very cohesive. And you could see the results, or in your reports, or the grades, how we presented, everything was very like cohesive. But then I took a course in another department, where the ratio was 10 to 90. So, there were 90 percent locals and then 10 percent internationals. What happened was that, when there was time to do groups, there were two occasions. One was that the teacher did them, and then he forced one international through each of the group and it was always like this part about the international had to mash their work habits and everything of the other 90 percent. And then, the other one was that everybody could choose which team to make. It was like, all the locals were together and the international were all together.

HE: Why do you think that is?

AGM: It is part about contacts and it is part about how comfortable people are, and it’s part about what it means to be inclusive. A lot of people talk about integration and integration was … when I discuss integration is that when you can be part of a society. That’s integration. So, there are things that makes you put there and it’s probably like what the teacher was trying to do when he put one international in each team. The inclusion is when you actually are part of the team in the terms of everybody which are like a middle ground. So, they reach an agreement: “This is my way of working, and this is my way of working, and then we’re going to put together away to work forward, together as a team.” And that’s the big difference when we discuss about inclusion.

So, social inclusion … a lot of people are now working towards diversity. I know that I’m going way out of subject from the university, but diverse teams and diverse companies, are performing better all over the world. McKenzie did a report that 25 percent are more likely to be more profitable than the rest of the market. So, that means that you need diversity and diversity can come from different perspective. It can come from genders, and it can come from ethnicity, but also for social. So, you can be two people from Gothenburg to have different cultures, because they have different mindsets and then they have differing experiences. So, that is also where diversity comes into play.

And when you talk about … they always have this saying. So, they say: “Diversity is being invited to the party and then inclusion is asked to dance.” But we have been discussing about this subject and for us … or what we have come to as the conclusion, as a team in the companies, is that inclusion is also being part of the party committee. So, you’re being part of dancing but also being part of the organising. So, that’s what we had to begin seeing in inclusion, and then we have to aim for a society that is more inclusive than integrated.

HE: But if we return to that experiment or those different ways of dividing into teams that you said before, where you were either forced to be one international or not. What did you take back from that?

AGM: So, basically what happened was that when those teams were made, the results of their projects were completely different. So, for example like some of the projects were with a Swedish company and those who were only internationals could not get hold of any company. Therefore, they were missing that part of their report. And another one was that it was very sidelining, so we were trying to do internationalisation. So, the mindset was connected to what we think is normal. Here in Sweden it’s quite normal to be able to talk with an authority, but maybe in other places in the world it’s not. So, that kind of perspective began to being demonstrated based on the teams with the different configurations.

HE: Yeah, but it sounds a little bit like the one where you forced the selection and the one where you didn’t force, that none of them worked really well?

AGM: No.

HE: So, how do you get people involved in the organising committee? I mean, what should the teacher have done?

AGM: We think it is something that should not be forced. If I told you an experience based on the same program, the one that was 50/50, they actually had a teacher who took the time to let everybody get to know each other. So, even if you were an international or local, you had a day where it was a kickoff and then everybody got to talk about themselves. There was like a speedtalk where everybody was discussing with each other.

HE: And this was before any team division then?

AGM: Before any team division. And then, they will say: “Okey, now switch and then learn.” And then he also paired us, two people, one local and one international. And that was forced, but then it was to talk about each other’s lives. So, there are a lot of activities that can be done to actually make the team feel ready to start performing as a diverse team and not as a segmented team, but that always have to start in the beginning of the process, and this is kind of what they call the onboarding in any company.

HE: Yeah. So, the onboarding is super crucial to get people involved, integrated and included?

AGM: Exactly. And you know, we see onboarding as getting into the job and what you have to do. The work culture and then some tips and tricks, that’s what onboarding is most of the time. I did my master thesis about onboarding and that’s why I’m so passionate about it and I think that Emigreat was the end of all my life. It has been coming to this point.

“Diversity is being invited to the party and then inclusion is asked to dance.”

HE: Yes, if we go into Emigreat. What is the normal workday for you there?

AGM: Do you want me to start saying a little bit about what Emigreat is?

HE: Yeah, let’s do that.

AGM: So, Emigreat is actually an onboarding for countries. So, if we want to have it in one sentence, it’s onboarding for countries. It is a software that works as your advisor and as your assistant and it’s all-in-one platform. And we say that is an advisor, because it will tell you what, when and how to do it. And it is an assistant, because it will do things for you. And we call it all-in-one platform because it actually connects people in the ecosystem. It connects the service provider, the nonprofit organisation and the government, but it also connects the company. So, every person that is part of the consistent of an immigrant going to a new place, is going to be part of the software itself.

HE: Is it like an app and you register there?

AGM: Yeah, so we are creating an app. We are actually going to be releasing our MVP now.

HE: Okey. So, now it’s a website and then it’s going to be an app as well?

AGM: Yes, a web app.

HE: Okey.

AGM: So, progressive. And basically, of course at the beginning we cannot have everything done. It’s a startup, but the aim is that we can create a methodology that can work all over the world. So, we are starting in Sweden and then later on, we want to explore other countries as well.

HE: Nice. So, if you want to move to Sweden, how are you helped by Emigreat?

AGM: So, when you are going to move to a new country, the first thing that you do is going online and you Google: “How is this and that going to be? What are we going to be doing?” And we are switching that a little bit, because you can only Google what you know. And for example, insurances and unions, is something that is very strong in Sweden, but not in other places in the world. So, you don’t even know how to Google about that.

HE: No, that’s true. Many people know that we have high taxes. That’s something I’ve heard.

AGM: Yes, everyone is: “High taxes”, but I was like: “Yeah, but it’s like taxes compared to what?” So, basically what we do is a little bit different. We start with the questions who are you, where do you want to go and what is your purpose of moving? So, when you actually twist it around, you get information and get things to do based on your own profile. So, it works a little bit like Netflix recommendations. [skrattar] So, basically basing on your profile and all these milestones that you are going through, you’re start getting either more information or less information. Because you don’t want to be overwhelmed. You don’t want to read things that doesn’t apply to you. So, that’s what we’re creating.

HE: It’s an app, but do you also for example help with people’s applications or is it more focused on the web app?

AGM: So, basically you are able to do everything inside the application, but it will be for example creating only one form. It’s kind of a smart form. So, if you already have put your password, you don’t have to say what is your name and what is your date of birth again.

HE: So, maybe you’re thinking: “Maybe I’ll move to Denmark, Sweden or Norway”, and then you can just register once?

AGM: Exactly. So, it’s all based on this information that you reused through your life, but then, what is it you are opening up for the authority when it comes to it? So, that’s what the assistant does, and the advisor is the one who tells you: “Ok, now you’re outside of Sweden. Don’t worry about getting a personal number, because you first have to get your permit.”

HE: But is the advice like a smart program or is it a person?

AGM: No, it’s a program.

HE: Okey. That’s usually how it is now adays, so I kind of expected that.

AGM: Yeah, we always have to say that it’s a virtual assistant and a virtual advisor, because everybody thinks it’s a person.

HE: Yeah, it could be at some point.

AGM: Yeah, and that’s actually how it works right now. So, when you’re moving to a new country and if your company can afford it, they will get a person that assist you. And the problem with this is that it becomes very costly, because you are comparing a consultant that has all the knowledge towards helping you. And the people that are actually moving … 70 % of them are between 18 and 39 years old, which means that, 1) they might not have 10 years of experience, or 2) they are not in a senior role. So, those are the ones who are moving the most and those are the ones who the company might not pay the cost of a relocation expert. So, what we’re building is an expert system.

HE: Nice, I understand the idea.

AGM: Oh, you understand it. [skrattar]

HE: [skrattar] If you’re listening to this and your part of an organisation that wants to employ someone from abroad, how can they be assisted by your platform?

AGM: At the moment there are two parts in the platform. The assessment, can I hire an international? A lot of smaller companies or startups don’t even know if they can or don’t know how to start.

HE: Yeah, there is always this ambiguity towards choosing someone from abroad, because sometimes it can take a long time. But I have a feeling that many companies and organisations might be too afraid to choose someone from abroad. Especially, if you see within the EU, it’s actually super easy. You can start working immediately and you have to do some small applications and forms. But of course, from abroad outside the EU is a little bit more difficult.

AGM: Yeah. The thing is that these kind of values, or core values…. if you actually begin removing those barriers, then the company … as they have there their web application as an advisor and assistant, they will be okay hiring somebody from abroad. It doesn’t matter if they are from outside EU or from the EU. Getting a bank account could be hard for them or getting a personal number - “how do I do those things?” So, we want to remove those barriers to make it easier to hire internationals. But also, it’s for the sake of creating more diverse teams. Because a lot of companies want to start growing to different places, the globalisation and so on, but then they lack the insights or an understanding of how they work in those cultures.

So, being able to hire somebody from abroad or somebody with an international mindset. In Sweden, 20 percent are foreign born, so there are already people here who are internationals. We are dealing with one part of the problem, the bureaucracy part and the cultural part. But of course, there is another big part of it. That is, how will that person feel or perform when they come inside the company? And that’s not really a scope at the moment.

HE: Like the onboarding and all that.

AGM: So, we are part of the onboarding, but also from a cultural perspective. So, for example, why do Swedes queue and why is it important to make a queue? We have a discussion about all these things and it’s a part of the e-learning. We want to encourage service providers who are like: “Now I have an international. How do I retain them? How do I make the whole team more cohesive?” It’s not only having the person but is also how they interact with each other. And one of the bigger questions is speaking Swedish or English.

HE: Yeah, that one is common. We have certainly had customers or companies that we worked with, that felt that they could have someone who doesn’t speak Swedish. But in the end, we find that many companies prefer someone who speaks Swedish. That’s a bit unfortunate, of course. How do you feel about that?

“We want to remove the barriers to make it easier to hire internationals.”

AGM: We had a whole discussion in Halmstad, because a lot of companies were saying that the English is the main language, their corporate language, but they wouldn’t hire a person because they were lacking the Swedish language. So, right now something is happening everywhere in the world. I think that Sweden is a little bit more advanced in the sense that everybody speaks English. If you go to Italy, France or Spain …

HE: They can be even more stingy that you need to speak the local language, yeah.

AGM: Yes, it’s going to be hard, but I think that Sweden also must reflect on how they want to grow. Because for example Gothenburg is growing quite fast, and I always say: “My city”, because even if I’m not from Gothenburg, I feel that I’m a local in Gothenburg. I say that my city is growing, and my city is changing as well. So, if we are changing the speed of what we are doing, we’re going to have to be more comfortable and more international. And we’re going to have to be comfortable as well to hear more English being spoken.

So, we have to evaluate as a company, what is important. Also, most international are also willing to learn Swedish. And there is SFI and all these things, but for example, you say: “Okey, we’re going to do Swedish fika”. We have case studies where companies have had language cafes, for example. So, then they have fika in different languages. In Emigreat, we have lunches in Swedish, which is challenging for me, because I’m still learning Swedish, but half of the team speak Swedish and the other half want to learn Swedish.

HE: That’s really good. When we started Software Skills, which is the first company that I started doing recruitment in IT, then one of the ideas was to be good at hiring people abroad and get them here, and then we also had this idea with coding tests and all that. But sadly, what we found, was that many companies were not prepared to take the risk that it would take a long time and find people that didn’t speak Swedish. So, that’s something we always try to be pushing for but it’s actually pretty difficult as a recruitment company.

And I mean, today in Codic, we have several people where some don’t know Swedish so well and some know it partially and some know it better. And we have like scale there, and we’re going to do a Swedish course that start next week to get them together and have a teacher who teach them in Swedish. Because many people want it and then there is different opportunities like SFI and all that. But sometimes, you need a kick in the back to get started.

AGM: Yeah, and I want to say that language is part of the inclusion. Because a big company here in Sweden that I’m not going to say the name, but everybody knows, with automotive … they’re very big in hiring internationals. But if you have a team that have ten people and then one person that doesn’t speak Swedish comes in, that person feels alienated, because it’s it’s the 90/10 difference.

HE: It’s a social inclusion thing. You don’t want to feel that you’re a problem for anyone else.

AGM: Exactly, you don’t want to feel that it’s a problem and then maybe you don’t feel that you can contribute. So, in a team of five, which is normally the size of the team, if there are four Swedish speakers and one English speaker, then the English speaker will feel alienated and then the team will not perform with that skill. Or the person will feel like they need to leave. And that’s happening a lot. There is a lot of problems right now connected to retaining people and the talent shortage. So, I think that we have to really evaluate the smaller size teams.

Even us a startup, we say that if you are startup and you have … let’s not go into various diversity in ethnics, but let’s talk about gender diversity. If you have four males and then one female comes in, there will always be a power imbalance. When we are recruiting the third person in a team, we have to ask those questions: “Are we being diverse in our recruits also?” And then those barriers are about trying to take out the barrier of the bureaucracy, so that doesn’t come in as a factor for not hiring. So, then you say: “Okey, I’m going to treat everybody equally until I find a person who is the best for the position.” That’s where we want to go.

HE: That’s the laws also. That’s interesting. So, we’re getting towards the end here, but I will just quickly address a hot debate in Sweden which is integration, and it is a bit related. I mean, there are people in Sweden that are afraid of losing their jobs to workers from abroad, sadly. What do you say to that line of argument?

AGM: I think we really have to evaluate which jobs we’re talking about? There is a talent shortage. 76 percent of the companies in Sweden are saying that they cannot find the skills that they need. There is a mismatch with the skills that are inside Sweden, because there are also graduates of universities who are not finding jobs as well. So, there is a disconnect. But for a person from abroad to take a job in Sweden, there is a lot of requirements in terms of being part of the talent shortage. But if we go into the list of talent shortages, it includes most of the jobs. So, what we really have to evaluate is that we have to re-educate. The unemployment rate has gone down now after covid and employers are hiring like crazy.

HE: Absolutely, yeah.

AGM: So, unemployment has been going down. So maybe we need to re-educate the unemployed for those skills who are needed.

HE: I think it’s pretty clear that there is a strong demand for software developers for example and we can’t train them fast enough.

AGM: Exactly, and this is the thing, we cannot train them fast enough and things are changing. For example, the green steel. The green steel is an area where it takes three years to be trained, and it needs to happen now. So, they need to bring those people from abroad. That doesn’t mean that in three years there won’t be positions for those who are being trained at the moment. It’s not about taking the jobs of another. In reality, there is nobody taking anybody’s job. It’s about the economy of Sweden being an export economy, which means there has to be more people coming in for it to grow.

If you have a growing economy, it holds all the aspects. It is not only within IT, because an IT job also generates a job for the service industry, hospitality, and for the finance services. So, we have to see how the whole ecosystem works and what is necessary for the country as a whole. And right now, we’re writing a report about this talent shortage connected to international recruitment but also internal recruitment of internationals. So, I will let you know what happens after that. [skrattar]

“I started Emigreat to contribute. I didn’t just want to be complaining about the topic. I wanted to take action towards how to solve this issue and how tech can enable this issue to be solved. ”

HE: Yes. So, Let’s tech-podden is obviously about IT, you can say that economically it’s in our interest to try to get more people to move here. And then there’s a larger debate of course in other fields also. And if we go to integration, wow do you think Sweden can become better at integration, or maybe even looking at Gothenburg and your own experience?

AGM: Something we have reflected upon in our trajectory with Emigreat, is that asylum seekers have higher integration than non-asylum seekers. They have a person assigned that will help them. They will have like an educational…

HE: What do you mean with higher integration there?

AGM: They will have more efforts put into place from the authorities for them to get integrated into society. For example, they go to a course about Sweden. They actually go to language courses and so on. So, one of the things that we are discussing is that right now, what we want to offer those courses about integration to the Swedish society for work permit holders. And also, for dependence of the work permit holders, because that’s the biggest issue. A lot of people think that it is the work permits and the person who’s got a work permit, but Sweden is one of the top in the world, but what they’re lacking is the dependence. Let’s say that you move Sweden and then you are in a job… you are getting yourself interested in the society, but then your partner is not. Then there is an unhappiness in the whole family.

And what we have also seen is that Sweden is not competing with Sweden, but against Estonia, against Canada, against USA for high-skilled talent. So, we have to start discussing these topics on inclusion, integration and the job searchers in terms of: “Why do we need to change and what are things we can do to change?” I started Emigreat to contribute. I didn’t just want to be discussing and complaining about the topic. I wanted to take action towards how to solve this issue and how tech can enable this issue to be solved.

HE: It sounds very good. So, maybe a final question. What do you think the future holds in terms of immigration and integration? If you look 10, 15 years ahead, what do you think the situation will be?

AGM: I think that we’re still going to have countries in 10 to 20 years. A lot of people ask me those questions, like: “Are we going to have one passport? Are we going to have one country and one language?” I do not believe so. I think that we are richer when we have diversity in all cultures, but I think that we’re going to have to re-evaluate these barriers in terms of countries and in terms of companies because we are going towards a more globalised world. And right now, 4 percent of the population is international migrants.

So, we had to really evaluate this, and I think in 10- or 20-years people will start choosing where they want to live based on their values. So, I moved to Sweden, because I like the balance of sustainability, about equality and development. So, those were the values that I look for where I wanted to live. So, that was my choice and I think that that’s what’s going to happen because when you have a higher education and you have those skills that are needed, it will be easier to find a job, but it would also be you deciding: “Where do I want to go?” And I think that that’s what I see for the future.

HE: Nice. Thank you very much for coming here, Anali Guzman Molina.

AGM: Thank you so much, Henrik, and have a great time.