Endeavor Talks with Tony Jamous
The benefits of Remote Work
Tony Jamous emphasized the advantages of remote work, such as attracting diverse talent and improving work-life balance by reiterating that “For people, it [remote work] gives them this freedom and flexibility to design their life the way they want and reduce all the unnecessary stress that comes from work.”. The discussion underscored the importance of trust, productivity assessment, and understanding team dependencies for remote teams.
Tony explains how his company ensures the productivity of employees during remote work: “At Oyster we use a system called objective key results where we set the hourly goals on a company level, team level and individual level, and we don’t care how many hours your spending to do your job, what we care about is are you hitting your goals…and that’s massively empowering for people.” which has shown to be very effective.
Tony stated that “It [remote work] is a win-win when it comes to economical impact”; it is beneficial for both employees and employers. Tony explained that employees benefit because “Remote workers that work for companies abroad record a 20 to 50 percent increase in their pay compared to jobs locally”; while employers’ advantages lie in cost reduction since “if you hire people outside of tier one cities where we have these expensive offices … you actually reduce your headcount cost by anything between 60 to 40 percent while paying people life changing salaries.”
OysterHR’s social impact
Beyond Oyster’s practicality as an innovative solution for talent acquisition challenges faced by entrepreneurs and company entities, it has a positive socio-economic impact on emerging countries. Tony stated that with the creation of Oyster “Our goal is to send 1.5 billion dollars of foreign direct investments into emerging economies by 2024 and we’re on track to achieve that goal.” Oyster’s impact is not limited to socio-economic benefits but environmental benefits as well considering that “If you disperse people on the planet, you have the opportunity to reduce your impact on the environment”.
The Lebanese factor
Tony also recognizes the potential of global employment to create opportunities for Lebanese talent. “I’m a mission driven entrepreneur so everything I look through is through the eyes of the mission whether it’s setting up the strategy of the company or whether it’s overcoming challenges… Lebanon had a role to play in it in my upbringing and the fact that I was able to see that there’s great talent here and not having access to the opportunity was one component of that drive.” stated Tony whilst talking about his relationship to Lebanon and how it shaped his entrepreneurial journey.
About OysterHR
OysterHR is a global employment platform on a mission to remove barriers to cross border employment so that every talented person can have access to a great remote job. The platform enables employers to offer local full time employment without the need to set up a legal entity or deal with local payroll or benefit providers, allowing growing companies to tap into the global talent pool and offer their remote workers around the world a great employment experience.
OysterHR is on a mission to make the world a better place by making it possible for any talented person in the world to realize their full potential through fulfilling, fairly-compensated work. The company achieved Unicorn status just 2 years following its launch after raising a $150M Series C at a $1B+ valuation.
Tony Jamous was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2021.
About Endeavor Talks
Endeavor Talks is a series of discussions organized by Endeavor Lebanon with Endeavor Entrepreneurs and members of the Lebanese entrepreneurial network. Their purpose is to shed light on the Entrepreneurs and give them a platform to share their journeys, talk about their experience, convey their knowledge and interact with the local community through Q&As.