Pearls form inside mollusks; oysters, clams, mussels, and so on. Mollusks are not unlike their gastropod and cephalopod cousins (e.g. snails and slugs for the former, and squid and octopuses for the latter), and all of these have several traits in common. For today’s purposes, the big trait to focus on is a mollusk’s defense mechanism. According to the Natural History Museum, marine oysters and freshwater mussels make pearls through a natural defense mechanism designed to ward off irritants like parasites, excess sand, and other threats in many of these creatures’ brackish habitats. In this case, the oyster or mussel slowly secretes materials to create nacre, or “mother-of-pearl” that encases the irritant(s) and protects the host.
And from that defensive pressure comes the pearl.
Now, you may be thinking something like “This ain’t Nat Geo. What’s the point here?”
Simple. The point involves Oyster, a global employment company that works to bridge gaps between companies and the world’s top talent “so everyone, everywhere, has the same chance to prosper,” per the team at Oyster. Creating a more equal world of work (by building software and resources that enable companies to fairly hire, pay, and care for talent, wherever they may be), Oyster continues to believe in distributing real-to-life work opportunities that improve the health of people, communities, the environment, and local economies.
To that end, in the words of management consulting firm Korn Ferry, “by 2030, there will be a global human talent shortage of more than 85 million people.” (For a sense of scale, that’s roughly the population of Germany.) Left unchecked, we’re talking trillions of dollars in unrealized annual revenues, completely lost. So in addition to the needs for further education, training and upskilling of existing workforces, support in other forms must come.
Support, you might say, such as a defense mechanism against global hiring challenges like skill gap determinations, extensively drawn-out hiring processes, and purposefully complicated applications meant to “weed out” candidate types that actually alienate a large number of talented, suitable applicants.
An industry defense mechanism – a tool – that puts healthy pressure on companies to either take existing practices that are good and amplify them, or pressure that, instead, urges teams to action smarter approaches to talent acquisition and sustainable global employment experiences as a whole.
Perhaps a smart tool that we’ve been hearing (and writing) about for months on end, at this point:
AI.
So, that’s how all of this comes together. (Admittedly, a bit of a stretched metaphor, but it still works.)
Oyster (the company, not the mollusk) has launched a new tool; an AI-powered chatbot that readily answers queries about global hiring hurdles and remote work regulations.
And, inevitably, the name that was picked by Oyster for this chatbot?
Pearl.
(Of course.)
Pearl is Oyster’s new virtual hiring assistant that can guide teams through hiring forms and complex processes using country-specific insights leveraged efficiently by artificial intelligence. Pearl takes Oyster’s wealth of accrued knowledge and service records and can help organizations gather additional information for quick and compliant hiring in more than 180 countries, enabling teams to make more informed decisions that aren’t hindered by traditional global employment barriers. Pearl makes data-driven decisions more consistently possible, especially when even active compliance professionals may not be fully aware of every specific requirement in every country where specific workers can be potentially employed.
Additionally, by applying AI to resources like Oyster’s Global Hiring Guides and Remote Work Regulations, Pearl gives users a more intuitive and personalized experience when seeking answers on everything from benefits policies to taxes and more – rather than having to painstakingly search and read through large amounts of static, outdated, or hard-to-find information. Pearl’s AI keeps it simpler.
“Organizations often don’t realize how hard global employment is until they have to be responsible for it – especially when it comes to hiring for multiple functions, levels, and modalities in various countries and currencies,” said Michael McCormick, Oyster’s SVP of Product and Engineering. “It’s very exciting to leverage AI alongside our insights in a chatbot that can help navigate the complexities of global and remote employment in a compliant, easy-to-use way. What’s more, we’re extremely passionate about applying these learnings to structured and proprietary datasets that allow us to build a robust knowledge engine that truly automates how companies hire, pay, and care for their employees around the world.”
Start a trial of Oyster’s Pearl (currently in beta) by clicking here. It can answer questions like “What is the standard probation period in France?” or “What information do I need to know before hiring in India?” or even “How can I access a wider talent pool in the U.S. and what roadblocks should I be aware of?”
Even under pressure to evolve as global employment barriers evolve regularly, Oyster is confident that Pearl will help.
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
