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Back in the 1980s Jack Hoang came to Canada from Vietnam by way of Thailand with little more in his pockets than a dream: to start his own business. Twenty years later i3DVR International is considered a leading designer, manufacturer and supplier of digital video technologies for the security industry with employees in the US, Vietnam and Korea. And the secret to its success can be summed up in one word: immigrants.
i3DVR has a straightforward hiring policy: get the best person for the job, no matter how long they’ve been in Canada, what country they came from or what school they graduated from. Applicants are evaluated on their experience and the skills required for the job.
“As long as you have the skill, as long as you can show you’re actually out there to do a job, you’re in,” says Ayesha Samji, i3DVR’s HR administrator.
 Take research and development, for example. All the positions are filled by immigrant software engineers. Because at i3DVR, the ability to write and develop computer code is more important than language skills.
This is not to say that English isn’t important. The company after all is customer-centric. So new employees are encouraged to improve their English on the job with on-site ESL classes once a week, paid for by the company. R&D team members regularly meet face-to-face to practice their verbal communication skills. And there’s very little arm-twisting involved.
“The willingness (to take language courses) is unbelievable because people have families, people have prior commitments but they do stay that extra time,” Samji explains. “It’s not part of your job description but its something you want to do. I think being a smaller organization and having that family touch, it’s the ‘want’ that’s there. It’s you want to do it rather than you have to do it.”
With markets in North America, Europe and Asia, i3DVR’s understanding of that marketplace is key. “It’s extremely important that with the global diversity that’s actually growing externally, that it’s important to have it internally for any organization,” Samji says.
i3DVR has 65 fulltime employees at its Toronto location, 120 worldwide. And 63% just happen to be immigrants and who just happen to be the best people for the job.
“It’s not just your skills and it’s not just your résumé and it’s not just your experience,” says Samji. “It’s just you as an individual that counts as well.”
Not surprisingly this year i3DVR was selected as one of the Best Employers for New Canadians. And it all makes perfect sense because this is the business that Jack built.
“Jack has actually developed it such so that we can hold hands and go through the war together,” Samji says. “And I think that comes through his experience and through the hardship that he’s been through.” |
