The world of work has experienced a huge shift in the past few years. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has become really popular, and more and more companies are embracing the global-first mindset.
Remote-first businesses are in an optimal position for building global teams, but you don’t need to be a fully remote company to tap into the global talent pool. You can keep your head office and still recruit staff abroad.
Perhaps you want to fill a niche role with expert talent, so it’s better to search far and wide. Perhaps you have plans to expand your business internationally, so you want to hire talent on the ground to scope out new markets. Or perhaps your company is just growing so fast that you can no longer limit your talent search to the local area. These are all great reasons to consider hiring employees abroad while your local workforce continues to use the office.
However, recruiting global talent requires a full commitment to global-first thinking. It means adapting your workplace to ensure international and remote staff can carry out their work as effectively as your office-based team. There are a few practical ways to do this.
Communication Is Key
First, it’s important to prioritize high-quality communication and collaboration by adapting your existing communication processes to better align your on-site and off-site staff. So how do you achieve that?
In theory, it’s simple; you embrace remote-friendly communication styles - even within the office environment. In practice, that could mean completely overhauling your internal communication policies and tools. While that may seem a little drastic if you just want to hire a few employees abroad, really investing in the minority can positively impact the company as a whole. After all, if one cog stops turning, the whole machine breaks down.
Office-based teams tend to have a lot of meetings, but this doesn’t always translate well to a global-first environment. At Omnipresent, we love asynchronous communication because it allows our globally distributed team to collaborate effectively across several different time zones.
By making use of comprehensive documentation and powerful remote tools, we reduce reliance on instant, face-to-face communication. This frees up our team to focus on deep work - the work that drives innovation, creativity, and results. It also means we don’t favor one time zone (or employee) over another, which could make staff resentful.
Make Inclusivity a Priority
Inclusivity is another crucial component of successful hybrid teams. For a start, you want to make sure your international hires feel included and integrated into the rest of the team, even if they live halfway across the world. This will help boost their engagement, motivation, and productivity. Secondly, inclusivity can help you attract and retain more diverse talent, which in turn can have a positive effect on profits.
Being truly inclusive is a huge undertaking, so start with the basics. Do your policies and processes reflect a diverse, global team? For example, do you provide a quality work setup for your international workers? Are all your internal communications remote-friendly? Do your core hours work for team members in different time zones? It’s important to consider how each of these policies may exclude certain members of your team, and adjust them accordingly if they do.
Stay Compliant
Finally, global-first businesses should be thinking about compliance. Every country has its own labor laws, and they differ significantly from the laws of your own country. It can be really challenging to keep up with them all, but fortunately, that’s where Omnipresent can help you.
When you partner with us, you don’t need to open offices or legal entities abroad in order to tap into global talent. We help companies like yours hire, pay, and manage remote talent compliantly in over 160 countries and regions worldwide. We take care of global employment administration like onboarding, payroll, and benefits, so you can focus on building a hybrid team that excels. Feel free to book a call with our team if you want to learn more.
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