Regardless of whether your services are focused on the local market or are offered around the world, it makes sense to hire globally because you can select talent based entirely on skill and fit rather than location.
Tapping into the global talent pool and building remote-first cultures allows companies to assemble stronger teams, avoid brain drain, and reduce the environmental impact of their operations.
More and more candidates are also looking globally now that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the traditional office-based working model. With remote work becoming the norm, people have begun to reconsider work–life balance and what is important to them. It was a trend in motion before Covid-19, but the crisis has solidified the change. According to research and consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics, 80 percent of employees want to continue working from home at least some of the time beyond the pandemic.
Better Work, Better Life
Working from home, many have discovered, offers benefits beyond the obvious, such as eliminating time-consuming and tiring commutes. It also allows us to become more connected to family and community. For example, situations arise all the time in which someone needs help, and providing that assistance doesn’t take long. When we are near family and neighbors, we can often lend a hand when it is needed without disrupting our schedule. But if we are always at a desk in a distant office, those chances slip by. Having tasted a new style of working and living, many don’t want to go back to
the old ways.
And companies are taking notice. In Jobvite’s 2021 Recruiter Nation Report, 60 percent of recruiters surveyed said that they believe organizations will lose employees if they do not transition to a hybrid, fully remote, or remote-first culture, while 57 percent believe that a lack of work-from-home policies makes it harder to attract potential candidates. This is the reality of 2022, so employers must adapt.
The good news is that this cultural change brings with it great benefits for business. Shedding the requirement that everyone gather at the company office five days a week is like pulling open the curtain on a rich landscape of talent that was previously out of reach.
Create the Experience
This is where an element of the process called inbound recruiting comes into play. What’s that, you may ask? Inbound recruiting is the building of relationships through content designed to attract, engage, and hire the talent you seek.
Communicating an attractive employee value proposition throughout your recruitment process—and doing so in the right way at the right time and at the right place—is critical to attracting high-caliber talent and nurturing the talent already on your team.
The content you develop can take many forms and should provide flexibility in distribution. Written material is important, but multimedia content is a must in today’s world. Video, in particular, is one of the best ways to engage talent. Whether it is a short clip shared through TikTok or an extended look at a topic that creates a bridge between your brand and a potential candidate, video is one of the most effective ways to convey your brand and employee value proposition.
If you are like many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), you may not have a team of video producers, writers, and designers in house, and producing this content may seem difficult. In that case, working together with an employer branding agency is a great way to craft and package your message effectively and efficiently.
Best Practices for Remote Success
Remote teams often work together more effectively and productively than those based in an office. This is because engagement must be greater and, thanks to technologies that facilitate collaborative workflows, the playing field for input and contribution is more level. And with each person needing to take on more of a leadership role to manage their own work, there’s an opportunity to level up skills and develop leaders within the organization.
As you look to bring in talent from around the country or the world, here are four best practices that should be part
of your plan.
1. Provide opportunity, balance, and trust
Remote teams comprising global talent do present challenges not found in the traditional office space. When a person can work anywhere from anywhere, additional conditions must be taken into account. This includes considering working hours and time zones, as well as being open to flexibility that has long been shunned in many offices.
At this point in the pandemic, most managers have learned to let go of the mindset that having employees sit at desks where they can be seen equals productivity. And employees have grown accustomed to managing their own work and role on the team in a more independent environment.
This is all good news for tapping into the global talent pool, as the shift in thinking needed to take that step is well underway. One way to complete the transition is to move to a results-driven model, if you aren’t already using one. Trust is paramount in this new working world. When your team knows you trust them to get the job done—no matter where they are—they’ll perform at greater levels.
2. Build a strong company culture
Being on the same page is an obvious key to success in any group endeavor, but the extent to which it matters in business is sometimes underestimated. Whether you’re searching for talent locally or globally, establishing a corporate branding strategy is an important early step in the process. By clearly defining and communicating your company culture, you can more easily identify and attract top talent that aligns with your goals. We’ve shared advice on doing just this in our three-part series “5 Steps to a Winning Employer Branding Strategy.”
Maintaining that culture is very important in the world of remote work. Hiring globally brings greater diversity, but with that comes a wider variety of working and communication styles, cultural backgrounds, and social norms. Coupled with the lack of face-to-face interaction, these differences can lead to miscommunications and reduced efficiency. A cohesive environment—even when virtual—helps you get everyone on the same page through a shared identity, mission, process, and set of expectations.
3. Create a system that works for everyone
Returning to the need for trust, establishing a virtual system in which all team members are comfortable working with one another—and can do so efficiently and effectively—is the foundation for successful hiring and team-building globally. Trust grows naturally in face-to-face office settings, but requires more nurturing when the group is scattered and interaction happens online.
There are many tools that can facilitate this, ranging from dedicated systems designed for broad project management, like Basecamp or Trello, to those focused on specific functions, such as a talent acquisition platform for hiring, of which ZooKeep is an example.
Whatever you choose, you’ll need buy-in from everyone to make the process work. Beyond the technology, clear and consistent rules and structures must be in place to bring the team together. How are the tools used? When are they used? When will meetings be held and what will be covered? Think of these as part of building the foundation and structure of a virtual space that will serve the same function as a physical office.
4. Tailor your offer to the local culture
One more thing to consider when hiring globally is that the offer you make will need to be tailored to the location where the candidate lives. If the salary and benefits are not attractive when weighed against local options, it will be difficult to attract talent even with the benefits of remote work.
And don’t overlook the appeal of stability. It’s common to view remote workers as contractors rather than employees, but the message that sends can create obstacles to building a cohesive team and may cause anxiety over job security.
For greater success when sourcing talent globally, both before and after the hire, tailor your offer to the local culture.
Grow and Thrive in a New Talent Market
For a variety of reasons, it may be easier or more difficult for a given organization to adapt to the changes that have swept the business world. But one thing that has become clear is that there is no going back to the pre-pandemic world. What workers expect from employers has changed, and companies must change as well to succeed in the new normal. Those who insist on returning to an office-only culture will find themselves sinking as talent leaves for greener pastures. But those who build strong cultures around hybrid and remote-first workflows, and assemble teams of the best talent from around the world, will rise to the top.
See for yourself what an advantage an ATS can give your organization, and how little it costs. Book a free demo today at: https://www.zookeep.com
