A Guide for Human Resource Professionals | Page 19

A GUIDE FOR HUMAN RESOURCE PROFESSIONALS | 1 9

instead created an environment that
celebrates and leverages people’s
differences and their similarities. 
“We are in the tech sector and it
tends to foster people who are more
into thinking, problem solving and
collaboration, so there’s a natural
flow among the people regardless of
age or background,” says Kelvin Ng,
the company’s director of business
operations. “There’s huge mutual
respect for the guidance of the other
because neither would be successful
without the other.”
While technology feels almost
obsolete the moment it hits the
market, Global Relay’s management
and team are not so quick to dismiss
it. On the contrary: the company
values its symbiotic relationship with
cutting-edge innovation. 
“We hire a lot of co-op students
in their 20s. The methodology
they’re taught these days is an ‘agile
development’ process. So essentially,
every two weeks, they add a new
feature to their application. That’s
how they’re taught to develop and
evolve technology,” Roy says.

“The older employees, who
came from such organizations as
Thomson Reuters or Nortel, are the
infrastructure builders. They look
at the world from a very different
perspective. So the young guys are
building apps with agile development
and the older guys are building
platforms over a couple of years.
They’re building the platform that
creates the environment that makes it
possible for the younger guys’ apps
to be successful.”
It is not just behind the scenes
where an age-diverse workforce is
a plus, says Shannon Rogers, the
company’s president and general
counsel.
“Everyone here has that
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone is
very smart so it doesn’t matter how
old you are,” Rogers says. “We have
common things we’re building and
we’re better off together. That’s why it
works so well.”