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When offshore staffing company Penbrothers was founded 12 years ago, its founders aimed to give foreign companies new opportunities to hire Filipino professionals without uprooting new hires from their local communities. The company gave startups and SMEs access to dedicated remote teams staffed with high-level talent from the Philippines, helping slow the “brain drain” caused by professionals looking for better job opportunities abroad. What began in a 50-seat Makati office has since grown into a fast-growing company that has hired more than 5,000 professionals for 262 businesses.
The company’s growth and transformation reflects the shifts that have occurred in the offshore staffing industry throughout the years. Penbrothers started by recognizing the need for Filipino workers. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it recognized the importance of remote teams and restructured its business model around them. Today, Penbrothers is exploring the ways that AI can be used as essential assistants that can upskill employees and make them more efficient in today’s workforce.
Penbrothers’ early history shows its recognition of the need for Filipino workers. One of its notable early relationships was with Luxclusif, a Portugal-based B2B platform for acquiring, authenticating and reselling luxury goods. Luxclusif’s partnership with Penbrothers began in 2014. This relationship further developed in 2015, when Luxclusif began building an offshore team in the Philippines to expand its business operations.
For a company such as Luxclusif, Penbrothers was able to provide a sustainable way to hire offshore talent in the Philippines that complied with local labor laws. The team eventually grew from 16 to 79 members, and according to Penbrothers, the partnership resulted in an average 78% reduction in labor expenses for Luxclusif.
The company’s offshore staffing model would continue to serve as a cornerstone as Penbrothers gained more clients. Travel booking site Hopper was another one of the company’s early clients, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer writes that Hopper was able to scale its offshore team to hundreds of employees during the pandemic with Penbrothers’ help.
Penbrothers’ work with Hopper exemplifies the remote-first approach the company developed during the pandemic. More than half of the company’s business came from co-working space before the pandemic, but after social distancing caused the remote work industry to grow by necessity, Penbrothers learned the ins and outs of remote employment solutions. This approach paid dividends, as co-founder Gui Faria told the Inquirer that Penbrothers’ workforce grew by 276% from 2019 to 2022.
As Penbrothers looks towards the future, it has turned its attention towards the next digital frontier: artificial intelligence. In an article published World Bank Group, Penbrothers CFO Carlo Lim is quoted as saying, “On the impact of technology, we have noticed, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), more requests for training on AI tools and a higher interest in hiring talent that is already familiar with industry specific trends around AI.”
In response to the growing importance of AI in business workflows, Penbrothers has integrated AI into THE HUB, its in-house software that performs tasks such as screening candidates, onboarding employees, managing payroll, and other functions necessary for managing offshore teams. AI also aids the company with conducting candidate interviews and automating certain internal tasks.
Although the company continues to test new ways to integrate this new technology into its operations, it remains committed to ensuring AI enhances human work, rather than replacing it. “We embrace AI tools not as a way to replace human jobs, but as essential assistants that must be integrated into the workforce to upskill employees and make them highly efficient and competitive,” Penbrothers co-founder Nicolas Bivero said. “I view AI as a vital force multiplier, and we are actively ensuring that all the talent we hire is AI-enabled so they remain high competitive in the modern workforce.”
Penbrothers’ path is notable for how the company has evolved during periods when the industry was still figuring out what the new normal looked like. Being involved with clients such as Luxclusif and Hopper allowed the company to learn how international firms could assemble offshore teams on a large scale, and the pandemic made it realize how offshore teams can be run remotely. Today, AI has created another type of challenge for the firm: understanding how this new technology shapes offshore work. Penbrothers’ experience shows how merging technological and professional skills will be the next shift in the ever-changing offshore workforce.
