D2 Business The Boston Globe MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019
found.
Meanwhile, the number of
Fortune 500 companies with
international operations in-
creased by more than 18 per-
cent from 2008 to 2017, accord-
ing to a Globalization Partners
data analysis.
These increasingly spread-
out teams have a much differ-
ent dynamic than those under
the same roof. Communication
is rarely face-to-face. Instead,
meetings are recorded and
comments are detailed in writ-
ing sothey can be easily under-
stood and viewed at all hours.
People working on the same
project may have schedules that
rarely overlap.
They also have to adjust to
cultural differences. What
might seem like harmless ban-
ter in Ukraine, for instance,
may be considered politically
incorrect in the United States.
At the same time, having a
diverse staff provides a global
perspective and boosts creativi-
ty and efficiency, according to
Globalization Partners. When
emergencies arise, a team try-
ing to fix an issue late into the
night can pass it off to co-work-
ers who are just starting their
day on the other side of the
globe.
The access to a much broad-
er pool of workers is also a plus.
As one local executive for a
Florida-based global software
firm put it: “I would rather hire
top talent in India... than be-
ing forced to hire a C-plus play-
er in Florida.”
But managers and co-work-
ers must be attuned to the
needs of their remote col-
leagues in order to reap the
benefits, said Nicole Sahin,
chief executive of Globalization
Partners.
“Sometimes I think it’s a lit-
tle bit ‘out of sight, out of
mind,’” she said.
Globalization Partners,
which also puts foreign workers
on its payroll and contracts
them out to companies to ease
the burdens of setting up a new
outpost, has seen a steady in-
crease in international growth
among the more than 700 orga-
nizations it serves in 170 coun-
tries.
But these companies are not
always aware of what it takes to
manage a highly remote work-
force. Some have complained,
uWORKFORCE
Continued from Page A1
for instance, that their far-flung
teams were not fully engaged in
conference calls, Sahin said —
“and then we realized they were
dialing in at 3 a.m. and trying
not to wake up their family.”
Cultural differences can also
create problems.
Americans are more likely to
question authority than those
in other cultures and don’t real-
ize they may not get this kind of
interaction from foreign work-
ers, said Neal Hartman, a se-
nior lecturer at the MIT Sloan
School of Management who
specializes in cross-cultural
communication.
In some Asian cultures, for
instance, people will say yes
when they don’t actually mean
yes, Hartman said. “If you’re my
American manager, I don’t want
to appear that I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” he
said.
Globalization exploded in
the 1980s, as the world opened
up and companies realized they
could save money — and attract
business — by expanding over-
seas. Trade wars and new tariffs
may put a damper on interna-
tional growth in the short term,
Hartman said, but the challeng-
es of employing people around
the globe are here to stay.
DataRobot’s first interna-
tional employee was its fifth
hire, in Singapore, in 2013. To-
day, the Boston-based creator of
a machine-learning platform
for data scientists has 800 em-
ployees, nearly half of them in
countries as far away as Austra-
lia, Japan, and South Korea.
When the company opened
its Ukraine office in 2015, it in-
corporated its Kiev developers
into teams around the world to
keep them from having a “con-tractor mentality,” said Ulises
Reyes, vice president of engi-
neering, who is originally from
Mexico and works out of the
Munich office.
“We definitely wanted to
avoid the situation where we
had an offshore team where we
kind of threw something over
the wall and had them com-
plete it overnight,” he said.
To deal with language barri-
ers, and to keep US workers
from dominating discussions,
teams mostly communicate in
writing, Reyes said. But if a
problem isn’t fixed with three e-
mail exchanges, workers are en-
couraged to jump on a video
call to hash it out face to face.
At TripAdvisor, which has 39
offices around the world, em-
ployees in the Needham head-
quarters are on calls with co-
workers so frequently that all
the private offices on Heather
Nickerson’s floor are reserved
for that purpose. Nickerson, se-
nior director of product for the
traveler-focused Experience
team, manages 25 people scat-
tered from Los Angeles to Lon-
don and regularly interacts
with employees in Sydney, Lis-
bon, Hawaii, and elsewhere.
On Nickerson’s weekly call,
scheduled at varying times to
accommodate people in differ-
ent parts of the world, present-
ers include a picture of them-
selves, and new employees
share a fun fact. When one
worker revealed that his dog
had a large following on Insta-
gram, a number of people
asked for its handle.
“You see someone’s animal,
you don’t even live in the same
country as them, you’re able to
follow along and learn about
someone’s life,” Nickerson said.Mary Wells, a 25-year veter-
an of the global workplace,
oversees a marketing team of
30 people on four continents
from her home near Boston and
pays close attention to the is-
sues distance can cause.
When her employer, the
Florida enterprise software pro-
vider ASG Technologies, ac-
quired a company in India,
Wells realized that one of her
new employees there, a woman
in her 20s, was staying at the of-
fice late at night to participate
in Wells’s weekly town hall
meeting, and then riding her
bicycle home. So Wells let her
start working from home, and
her productivity went up.
Wells is also aware vacation
allotments vary among coun-
tries. France, for instance, man-
dates at least six weeks off a year.
“I know it feels like so-and-
so is out for 45 days,” said Wells,
addressing an imaginary dis-
gruntled worker. “How do I
keep my person in Pittsburgh
motivated, as well?”
Wells’s staff is so widely dis-
persed that she holds her week-
ly town hall meetings over
Skype, with roughly 50 people
dialing in from nine countries.
To keep people engaged during
the 90-minute virtual meeting,
she runs a tight ship, starting
promptly at 9:30 a.m. every Fri-
day and requiring guest speak-
ers to rehearse their presenta-
tions ahead of time.
If she realizes someone isn’t
paying attention, she joked, she
may take it out on the person’s
fantasy football lineup: “I might
threaten to take away one of
your players.”Katie Johnston can be reached
at [email protected].Asfirmsgo
global,it’sa
newworld
ruta said when we met in a cof-
fee shop in Cambridge. “I feel
like the little person nobody
wants to pay attention to.”
Particularly frustrating were
her dealings with Amazon,
which is increasingly depen-
dent on drivers like the one
who hit Furuta’s car, indepen-
dent contractors who zip
around in their private vehicles
toting packages for about $20
an hour. As of last year, there
were 8,000 Flex drivers in Mas-
sachusetts picking up packages
at distribution centers to make
“last mile” deliveries.
And with Amazon’s planned
250,000-square-foot facility in
Braintree, that will mean ever-
more delivery drivers on area
roads.
The warehouse, in an indus-
trial park on Campanelli Drive,
would be a key link in Amazon’s
growing distribution network
in the Boston area. The 24/7
operation would make possible
more same- and next-day deliv-
eries to much of the city and its
southern and western suburbs.
But back to Furuta.
Here’s what happened:
After the crash, Furuta con-
tacted Geico, her insurer,
which told her she would have
to pay an upfront $500 deduct-
ible if she filed a claim. But if
she filed instead with the other
driver’s insurer, Progressive,
there would be no deductible
because that driver was pre-
sumptively at fault.
Progressive accepted her
claim, sent her to an adjuster,
and approved several thousand
dollars worth of repairs to her
2014 Honda. But then, days be-
fore the repairs were to be
made, Progressive called a
time-out. It told Furuta it had
uTHE FINE PRINT
Continued from Page A1
discovered that its insured driv-
er, Mercedes Duran, had violat-
ed the terms of her policy —
and thus voided it — by driving
for Amazon without telling her
insurer. (I knocked on Duran’s
door and left a letter asking her
to contact me but heard noth-
ing from her.)
Progressive suggested Furu-
ta file a claim with Geico, her
own insurer. But what is strik-
ing to me, after several days of
research, is that Progressive
never suggested she file a claim
with Amazon, which has ample
insurance for its drivers —
strictly limited to times when
drivers are actually making de-
liveries. (Similar to Amazon,
such ride-sharing companies as
Uber require drivers to have
personal insurance but provide
coverage for them when they
are on the job).
I would assume Progressive,
as one of the biggest players in
the auto insurance business,
knew of Amazon’s insurance
policy (or would have checked
the Amazon Flex website, as I
did). Yet it inexplicably said
nothingaboutittoFuruta,pret-
ty much washing its hands of
the whole matter.
So Furuta went back to Gei-
co, which covered the repairs,
but demanded the $500 de-
ductible from her, also without
mentioning that she look to
Amazon for coverage.
Instead, Geico told Furuta
that she could attempt to recov-
er her $500 from Duran by tak-
ing “legal action” against her.
Geico itself had a claim against
Duran, for the thousands it had
spent to repair Furuta’s car,
plus her medical bills. Furuta
experienced headaches, nau-
sea, and stiffness in her neck
and shoulder after the crash.
And Geico wasn’t happyabout Furuta’s mounting medi-
cal bills. In an Aug. 6 letter, Gei-
co ordered her to submit to an
“independent medical evalua-
tion” by a doctor hired by Geico.
“It felt like I am being pres-
sured to discontinue my treat-
ment,” Furuta said. (When inju-
ries occur in accidents, the
medical insurers of the injured
typically look to off-load re-
sponsibility for paying bills to
the insurers of whomever is
deemed at fault.)
Furuta made repeated at-
tempts to get Amazon to pay for
the crash, with no luck.
I made a round of calls to the
corporate offices of Progressive,
Geico, and Amazon. Progres-
sive and Geico responded by
telling me or Furuta that they
would, belatedly, open claims
against Amazon (Geico wants
to be reimbursed for the cost of
the repairs it has already paid
for). They refused to respond to
my questions about exactly why
it had taken so long.
Several days after I first con-
tacted Amazon, the retail giant
cut a check for $500 to cover
Furuta’s deductible, pledged
full coverage of her other ex-
penses, and acknowledged a
customer service breakdown,
which it said was being dealt
with within the company.
C’mon, corporate America.
Do better by the “little person.”
...I think we can finally close
the books on L’Espalier, the
Back Bay gourmet restaurant
that closed abruptly on Dec. 31,
leaving scores of people stuck
with expensive gift cards they
could no longer use.
One of them got the ball roll-
ing on getting a refund within
hours of the closing by com-
plaining to me: “It this legal? Isit ethical? Could you look into
this?”
In the column that followed,
I wrote that no state regulation
dealt directly with this kind of
situation but that the way own-
er Frank McClelland stiffed
card-holders certainly didn’t
seem right.
That’s when the office of At-
torney General Maura Healey
stepped up, citing the state’s
consumer protection law, Chap-
ter 93A, which outlaws “unfair
and deceptive” practices by
businesses.
After weeks of tough negoti-
ations, Healey’s office and Mc-
Clelland struck a deal under
which McClelland agreed to
make $11,400 available to card-
holders.
Ultimately, 66 people made
claims deemed legitimate by
Healey’s office for a total of
more than $15,000. That meant
card-holders would get about
75 cents on the dollar of the
amount owed to them.
Earlier this month, checks
began arriving at the homes of
card-holders. One reader wrote
to me how “pleased and sur-
prised” he was to get $221.09
back on his $300 gift card.
Squeaky wheel gets the oil.Sean P. Murphy can be reached
at [email protected].Leftintheditchbyautoinsurers
the expansion will be extend-
ed by the shift in monetary
policy,” Constance Hunter,
chief economist at KPMG and
president of the NABE, said in
a statement.
In other words, the Fed’s
willingness to keep credit
flowing — confirmed with its
quarter-point rate cut on July
31 — probably keeps the
economy moving forward
through next year.
That would be good news
for workers, management,
and investors. It would also
benefit Trump as he runs for
reelection next year. A reces-
sion before November 2020
would seriously hurt the pres-
ident’s bid for a second term.
Recent economic data
show manufacturing declined
for two consecutive quarters,
and business invesment soft-
ening.
But consumers remain
confident and are continuing
to spend, which is essential,
since our purchases account
for more than two-thirds of
economic activity. In July,
retail sales rose a faster-than-
expected 0.7 percent.
“I think they’re mainly
feeling what’s going on in the
labor market — people are
getting jobs and real wage
growth is a little higher than
it has been,” said Megan
Greene, the NABE’s survey
chair and a senior fellow at
the Mossavar-Rahmani Cen-
ter of Business and Govern-
ment at the Harvard Kennedy
School. “We see the same phe-
nomenon in Germany right
now. The economy is circling
the drain, but if you speak to
regular Germans about it theyuEDELMAN
Continued from Page D1haven’t noticed because un-
employment is low and their
standard of living hasn’t suf-
fered.”
So what could trigger a re-
cession before 2021?
The list of threats has be-
come familiar: tariffs and the
trade war; recessions in key
economies such as China and
the aforementioned Germa-
ny; a decision by Britain to ex-
it the European Union with-
out a divorce agreement. (The
NABE survey found 60 per-
cent of respondents anticipate
a no-deal Brexit or a “hard Br-
exit,” which could entail some
kind of transition agreement.)
And we can’t rule out a shock
from a military confrontation
with Iran or North Korea.
“Often, a recession results
when some widely held belief
about the world turns out to
be false,” Neil Irwin of The
New York Times wrote over
the weekend. “In 2001, it was
that a technology boom
would fuel the economy and
the stock market indefinitely;
in 2007, it was that the hous-
ing market would never melt
down across all regions at
once.”
These days, Irwin said,
events are undercutting our
belief in progress — “that the
world will only become more
stable and interconnected
over time, and that trade, cur-
rency and diplomatic rela-
tionships can be counted up-
on.”
That’s a scary proposition.
Unfortunately, it’s an entirely
reasonable one, too.You can reach me at
[email protected]
and follow me on Twitter
@GlobeNewsEd.ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Looking
across the stock market, it’s
hard to find a company that
isn’t vulnerable in some de-
gree to the US-China trade
war. Stocks of companies that
do lots of business with China,
such as chip makers and other
technology companies, are
obvious candidates for inves-
tors to sell when trade worries
rise. They have fallen more
than the rest of the market
whenever President Trump
sends out a tweet or speaks
about tariffs.
But investors are also look-
ing beyond these first-order
effects as they pick out which
stocks look susceptible to the
trade war. Those picks now in-
clude many companies that
have no significant ties to Chi-
na but are still at risk.
That’s why all but 2 per-
cent of the stocks in the S&P
500 fell on Aug. 5, when wor-
ries ratcheted higher after
China let its currency devalue
to its lowest level in a decade.
The damage has been
widespread since Trump
shocked investors on Aug. 1
by saying he planned soon to
extend tariffs across virtually
all Chinese imports. Though
Trump has delayed some of
the tariffs, they will ultimately
raise costs for US companies
bringing goods in from China.
Those companies will then
have to either pass higher
prices on to their customers
or give up some of their prof-
its. That’s a big deal for inves-
tors because a stock’s price
tends to track the path of its
earnings over the long term.
Among the losers in the
dispute:Energy companies
Energy stocks in the S&P
500 have plunged 10.2 per-
cent since just before Trump
sent his Aug. 1 tweet, the
worst decline of the 11 sectors
that make up the index.
National Oilwell Varco, for
example, of Houston, gets
most of its revenue from sup-
plying drilling and other tech-
nologies in the United States,
Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Nor-way. But its stock has plunged
nearly 22 percent, in large
part because the price of oil
has sunk on worries the trade
war will do lasting damage to
the global economy.Banks
Financial stocks have been
the second-worst-performing
sector in the S&P 500 in re-
cent weeks as the prospect of
less-profitable lending threat-
ens banks’ profits.
Comerica, for instance, has
been sucked into an industry-
wide downdraft. It is based in
Dallas and has some business-
es in Canada and Mexico, not
China. Its stock has sunk 16.2
percent during the recent
pick-up in trade tensions.
The escalation in the trade
war has led a growing number
of economists and analysts to
warn about a possible reces-
sion. And those concerns have
spread to the bond market,
where interest rates have
sunk sharply.Microchip companies
Companies that make
chips for laptops and other
electronics have been some of
the trade war’s biggest victims
because of how dependent
they are on China.
Micron Technology got
more than 57 percent of its
sales from China last fiscal
year. Not only that, it needs
China for rare earth minerals
found there, and it has signifi-
cant manufacturing opera-
tions in the country. Micron
sank 2.9 percent when Trump
announced he would extend
tariffs to products that in-
clude laptops and mobile
phones. Since Trump’s 2018
tweet that ‘‘trade wars are
good, and easy to win,’’ Mi-
cron is down 8.5 percent.Industrial companies
Stephen Volkmann, an eq-
uity analyst at Jefferies, asked
if any industrial companies he
follows is much more vulnera-
ble than others: ‘‘The most
important part is: Do we enter
a recession because of [tar-
iffs]? If that’s true, that’s true
for all my companies.’’SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
“It’s been a miserable exper-
ience,’’ said Tami Furuta.Recession?Unlikely,
ADOBE/GLOBE STAFF atleastthisyear
The number of companies with international operations has been on the increase.Trade war may
also affect those
lacking China ties