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Virtualizing Workers And Globalizing The Talent Market Democratizes Employment

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The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the world of work and forced 42 percent of employees in the United States to work remotely from their homes. Under these circumstances, employers have had to learn how to recruit, hire and manage talent remotely – an uneasy proposition for companies used to in-person interviews and face-to-face meetings. With the right tools and a willingness to embrace change, however, businesses can use this opportunity to rethink their talent acquisition strategy and acquire top candidates from around the globe.  

The demand for remote working has been strong for many years, especially among employees in expensive metropolitan areas like San Francisco, where two thirds of tech workers said they would permanently leave the city, if they were able to work remotely. Despite employees wanting more flexibility to work from anywhere, only eight percent of U.S. employees worked from home at least one day a week before the pandemic began. While some employers were wary about the effects that remote working would have on their staff, by requiring full-time office hours, businesses were limiting themselves to only hiring talent who lived within a commutable distance to the office.

Now that remote working has become the norm for the foreseeable future, employers are realizing that virtualizing their workforces offers new opportunities to transform their talent pipeline. No longer bound by the physical presence of permanent and contingent talent, employers can now seek out the highest-quality workers from around the world. Companies that continue operating either partially or completely virtually can recruit skills from wherever they are bountiful and labor costs the most advantageous.

Eliminating the geographic restrictions for job candidates means that the talent pool for many organizations will be exponentially larger as a result. Without the need to have employees physically present, companies can source, engage, screen and hire from anywhere. Of course, there are compliance considerations, such as tax and work rule regulations, but access to skills will be fundamentally changed in the future.

An expanded, more global talent supply chain also means that employers have more racially, ethnically, culturally and generationally diverse candidates to choose from. This can greatly improve the chances of companies having a “purple squirrel” moment, which happens when a perfect candidate, with exactly the right qualifications and experience, is actually found for a job opening. The associated benefits include higher-quality candidates who will be a better cultural fit for many organizations. Employers can also seek out talent with backgrounds to further complement their existing workforces and add ingenuity and work experience to their organizational knowledge. Hiring times may also be reduced as choices become more abundant when fulfilling difficult job requisitions. Both of these factors will also inherently help improve talent retention.

While the benefits of a global talent pool are vast, as talent and the workforce become more dispersed around the world, companies will need to re-examine their talent marketing strategies and how they recruit in general. Employers will need to develop more sophisticated sourcing, screening and interviewing capabilities as they expand the scope of their recruitment efforts. They will have to identify markets where in-demand workers tend to congregate – the Silicon Valley for technology workers, for example – and acquire local market knowledge in these regions to attract the most qualified candidates.

In addition to learning how talent in new markets behave and what they are looking for, developing a strong employer brand will be more important than ever for businesses. In a way, virtualization of the talent supply chain democratizes employment around the world, as it means that everyone can compete for talent everywhere. With more options for candidates to choose from, the onus is put on employers to really think about how they deliver on their employee value proposition.

Several factors will determine how and if businesses will expand their talent search globally, including whether companies reverse course on working from home once a COVID-19 vaccine has been developed or if overseas payroll laws become more flexible. For now, however, the talent supply chain appears to be expanding rapidly as more employers and workers embrace the remote workforce. Businesses that capitalize on this change and use it to catapult their talent search will be better prepared for the new normal of work in the future.

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