This article was written for our sponsor, Vaco. 

The labor market has transformed in the past few years, as the ripple effects from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to influence how people work and how companies find talent.

Since 2020, remote and hybrid work options have increased exponentially and continue to be popular methods businesses use to meet new talent demands. In particular, the chance to use remote workers has changed hiring practices as companies gain access to talent pools that would not have previously been available.

“As remote and hybrid work continues to grow throughout the global workforce, opportunities abound,” said Angela Fisher, a technical recruiter for Vaco’s direct hire solutions team. “This is an exciting time for our clients and job seekers alike. This trend will continue to increase global collaboration, and we at Vaco are excited to have conversations with current and future clients that are continuing to embrace this shift and leverage increased access to the world’s top talent.”

When a company creates a remote workforce, the benefits of hiring talent include lower costs, increased productivity, more diversity, reduced turnover, and access to specific skill sets.

“For many companies, managing a global workforce is not too different than managing their workforce through the pandemic,” said Erik Burckart, VacoBuilt’s chief information officer for advisory and strategic initiatives. “Collaboration tools like Slack and Zoom are key to the remote employee culture.”

Addressing the challenges of going global

One challenge of hiring on a global scale is collaborating across different time zones. Burckart has learned by experience the importance of helping colleagues connect and of setting clear expectations.

“I suggest to teams a minimum set of office hours where everyone is expected to be available for meetings, chat, and collaboration,” Burckart said. “A second challenge is work management.  When work and task management is used at only a basic level, there sometimes is not enough information in the system to have a global employee know what to do.  Days can be lost getting people on the same page. Best practices around clear documentation and requirements centrally located in a workflow management system help keep things moving in hours instead of days.

Burckart also suggests businesses invest in building relationships between global colleagues.

“Those relationships are key to your employee growth, success, and retention,” Burckart said. “Invest in it, even if it means a little more travel or a little more fun in the expense column.”

To help with these connections between employees, Fisher recommends companies invest in collaboration.

“To increase collaboration among teams, leadership should offer flexibility and use of tools and resources that reduce language barriers, provide education and opportunities to experience and engage in cultural understanding and awareness, and offer incentives and benefits that are deemed valuable across the globe,” Fisher said.

Another important aspect of this collaboration is that employees see the benefits of working for a business in the long term.

“Management and leadership of teams should be focused on finding a way to fairly motivate, compensate, review, educate, and promote so that a global workforce feels connected to the valuable opportunities and growth,” Fisher said.

Attracting talent

Companies that are ready to hire remote employees can use these tips, Fisher said:

  • Start with clear, cohesive, and compelling messaging in a job description that can easily be found online and delivered directly to job seekers.
  • Deliver enthusiasm directly to the seeker by creating and distributing videos, photos, and stories that show what it’s like to work at the company.
  • Explain benefits up front, as many candidates are requesting to review benefits packages before heading into first round interviews.
  • Whether you’re a startup, an established company, or anything in between, showcase anything new and exciting you’re doing at your company.

“It’s important to create an employee cultural identity that can span countries,” Burckart said. “To do this, we suggest having a list of values that all employees of your company must possess to join. The challenging part here is being willing to not hire a person because they do not meet your values. At VacoBuilt we call this our Permission to Play values. After you have that, you have to find an anchor in that new place. This is someone who not only exemplifies those values but ideally that can galvanize a team to get behind what you are trying to accomplish.”

With these tips, you can build a global workforce in an inclusive environment where employees from all over the world will want to work.

This article was written for our sponsor, Vaco.