With the right support, organizations can use international recruiting as a growth accelerator
If you have yet to hire overseas, you may want to consider the benefits of tapping into the international talent pool. For the software industry, in particular, global hiring has solved a host of issues – from finding top tech talent to tackling rising costs. The disruptions that COVID-19 caused only fueled this trend. Technology-backed solutions now enable not only larger corporations but smaller players to reconsider local recruiting strategies.
Yet, even some fast-growing companies may be reluctant to take a global approach to talent acquisition. Without the in-house expertise or infrastructure in place for cross-border hiring, the task can seem too difficult to manage.
How do you begin to look for talent in another country? What does it take to hire a foreign national? What local employment laws would come into play? Rather than seeing the opportunities that international recruiting actually brings, some business leaders may only see the challenges and decide to “make do” a while longer.
But what if you were able to put the apparent complexity aside and just look at the benefits of global hiring?
Access to more talent
Even before the pandemic hit, many articles chronicled the IT talent gap in FinTech and other technology-centered industries. A Fortune/Deloitte survey found that 71% of CEOs anticipated the skills and labor shortage would be the biggest challenge to doing business this year.
In response, organizations have increasingly begun to adopt low-code software, upskilling their existing workforce – and expanding the search into new areas, from regions with underprivileged populations to talent hubs in other countries. Slovakia, Poland, and India have all emerged as reliable sources of remote and highly qualified candidates for specialized roles. In short, global recruiting can help organizations overcome both tight domestic labor markets and the growing skills shortage.
Boost organizational resilience
The benefits of building global teams are supported by a recent McKinsey deep-dive into how organizations can best organize for the future. The study notes that future-ready companies share three characteristics, one of which is seeking good ideas regardless of their origin. That can be applied to an international workforce as well. If the most ideal fit for your organization is found in a foreign country, pursuing that talent can strengthen your position in a competitive global market and act as a catalyst for future growth.
A distributed workforce has the potential to add resilience to an organization’s operation. In the wake of the pandemic, some markets have taken longer to recover while others – such as China, India, and the ASEAN-5 – were not as hard hit, and forecasts show strong growth rates in 2023.
That gives companies with a global footprint an advantage as they are more likely to have the regional and local know-how of market dynamics and consumer preferences to take quick action to capitalize on demand. The ability to make fast, high-quality decisions is, coincidentally, another crucial organizational imperative that separates top performers from the pack, McKinsey writes.
Achieve cost reductions
A lower cost of living equals lower salary expectations. If domestic hiring has become too much of a payroll burden, global hiring can ease the pressure. Cost reduction is, alongside talent scarcity, a key driver of companies exploring overseas markets.
A country-by-country analysis can reveal which markets would be the most beneficial from a cost perspective. Which countries, for instance, do not require employer insurance contributions? In the end, such details can have a big impact on the size of your payroll.
Build stronger customer relationships
When doing business in another country, it’s certainly possible to manage communication from afar, but it’s rarely ideal in the long run. While video conferencing effectively brings global teams together, customer relationships still benefit from regular face-to-face interactions and local presence. This is especially true when an issue arises that needs a quick resolution.
In other words, by recruiting in foreign markets that matter to your business, you gain a local workforce equipped to handle cultural and market nuances that your domestic employees are not familiar with.
If your business is customer-facing, local staff also leaves you better able to provide timely support. Round-the-clock customer service requires employees in more than one time zone.
What’s next
If you’re new to global hiring, it’s hardly surprising to feel apprehension. There are indeed a wide variety of variables that need to be managed. Questions about compliance, entity setups, global payroll, and Employer of Record (EOR) solutions inevitably come up. But as the rise of international talent recruiting shows, it’s possible to overcome the challenges, confidently answer the questions, and build a thriving global organization.
In any event, your top team is typically better off driving big-picture strategy and initiatives that align with the organization’s value agenda than getting bogged down in the minutiae of hiring overseas. Other team members can then choose how to allocate resources and people to support those initiatives.
If a lack of in-house expertise and operational infrastructure currently prevent your organization from looking beyond borders for talent, consider enlisting the help of a trusted partner that can help you clear the path for global growth. With the right support, you can make going global a stress-free, highly worthwhile endeavor.
Read more:
When does using an Employer of Record (EOR) make sense?
Global expansion strategy: The risks of going it alone
How a high-tech Fin-Tech tackled four common global expansion challenges
