André Costa joined Crossjoin at the end of 2019 and he is part of our team in Canada, working directly with our client – the major telecommunication company in the country.
It’s the first time that André is part of an international project, but this desire had already accompanied him for a long time. In the recruitment interview, he immediately accepted the challenge: “That’s what I’ve always wanted, because I think that the more diverse the experience is, the greater our learning, skills and values are and easier it will be to find solutions “out of the box”. At the same time, we will develop soft skills to deal with various cultures and mentalities.”.
Before taking off to Canada, André Costa had training in our Competence Center, whose purpose is to integrate new Crossers in our internal procedures, techniques and methodologies. It prepares Crossers to respond remotely to a client’s challenge. This training has proven to be very useful both in its integration with the customer and in the remote work that we all face today.
When he arrived in Canada he was surprised by the size and layout of the facilities (he got lost several times inside) and the friendliness of the team and Canadians in general.
The main difference he noticed compared to Portugal was the fact that foreign colleagues often have lunch in front of the PC with food almost always in packages. However, the balance between free time and working hours seemed to be highly respected, something that is not very common in most companies in Portugal.
During the two months that he has been in Canada, he shared a house with another colleague, and whenever the weather conditions allowed him, he would try to get to know the city.
As for professional experience, he says that:
“Working directly with the client has allowed me to understand more deeply the client’s whole context, what their needs are, what is their background and what their progress is. It is a more complete and richer experience and, in my opinion, allows me to offer more value to the client. It is particularly interesting and rewarding to see the faces of relief and satisfaction of managers when we offer possible solutions to issues that have been unresolved for a long time. Working in another country has made me leave the comfort zone and make contact with other cultures and other procedures that will make me grow a lot both professionally and personally.”
André was enjoying the experience very much, until it was interrupted by the pandemic situation of COVID 19 and André had to return faster than he was supposed to.
“I thought that it was very impressive how quickly they managed to get the entire Crossjoin team to safety. I’m proud.” Says André.
Crossjoin was one of the first companies to implement remote working to protect its employees, customers and family members.
However, the experiment is not over, it has only increased the distance.
André is working for the same client remotely and explained to us that the adaptation was not difficult:
“On one hand, some tasks were already done remotely and the training at the Competence Center prepared me to respond to challenges from a distance, on the other hand, my team organized quickly, we have regular meetings, they help me a lot, I always feel supported.”
Once this situation is over, André will return to Canada and continue his longed-for international experience.
Thank you André for your sharing.
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