Advantages of Hiring Remote Tech Employees
If anything, the pandemic allowed companies to try out remote work. Business organisations had only two options: halt business operations or allow their employees to work from home. Of course, they had to choose the latter.
Today, companies have started bringing their employees back to the office. A global workforce survey by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) shows that 73% of employees work from the office at least once a week, with 26% working in-office exclusively.
The way things are going, does it still make sense to hire remote workers? The answer is an emphatic yes.
The following are three advantages of hiring remote employees.
1. Overcome Geographically Induced Talent Shortages
Unless you are one of the biggest names in the industry (you know who they are: Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet — Google’s parent company), you must be one of the companies experiencing a tech talent shortage and skill gap.
A McKinsey & Company global survey published in 2020 indicated that 87% of organisations were experiencing or expecting a skill gap. The executives and managers surveyed were particularly concerned with tech skill gaps, particularly in data analytics, information technology, and web and mobile development/management.
Korn Ferry, meanwhile, reports that there can be a deficit of 85.2 million workers globally by 2030. Alarmingly, this talent shortage can lead to $8.452 trillion (GBPP 7.2 trillion) in unrealised revenue. This is no small amount, considering it is equivalent to Germany’s and Japan’s combined gross domestic product (GDP).
However, the Korn Ferry report yields one crucial insight. While the experienced employee shortage is expected to be universally felt, much of the scarcity is due to geography. Economies with low birth rates are especially vulnerable to skilled talent deficits. In contrast, India expects a skilled-labour surplus of 245.3 million workers by 2030.
In other words, while there might be a dearth of skilled tech employees where you are, there could be a surplus of talent somewhere else. Even if there were a shortage everywhere, just having access to a global pool of talent would still help you mitigate the effects of tech talent scarcity.
2. Save on Capital Expenditure
If you have a mostly remote team, you will not need a large office (or an entire building) to house your business operations.
Suppose you are a 50-person firm, but only five employees are in the office. The rest, four development teams, are all remote. As such, you can get by with an office space of only 60 square metres; that’s 12 square metres of gross space per person.
Now, imagine if every one of your employees must report to the office for work. You will need an additional 540 sqm (12 sqm x 45 employees) of gross office space.
Assuming that the annual cost of renting a luxury office space in Dubai is AED 3,710 per square metre. From AED 222,600, your office rental price will jump to AED 2,226,000.
Even if you found premium office space in a master-planned community that costs less than that — for instance, prime commercial space at Festival Tower in Dubai Festival City currently costs around AED 1,507 per sqm, so that’s AED 904,200 for 600 sqm — the 50-person office will still cost you 10 times the cost of a five-person office.
That’s just rent. How about the office furniture? Everybody will need at least a table and a chair. There must also be sitting areas and function rooms, all of which you’ll have to furnish and equip as well. How about the electricity, water, and internet? You must also stock the pantry, the bathrooms, etc. Since there are many people in your office, the consumption rate will be considerable.
Indeed, when you build remote teams, you can save on material costs. You may still need to provide your employees with office equipment and subsidise their office costs. However, that still costs much less than what you’ll spend when employees work from the office.
3. Quickly Scale Up Your Operations
How many developers are available where you are? If you are in a known tech hub like Chicago, Illinois, it is reasonable to assume that you’ll find more developers there than in a less tech-oriented place like, say, Juneau, Alaska.
Even in developer-dense cities, you will probably still find it challenging to fill open tech roles quickly. In such cities, the competition for tech talent can be exceptionally fierce. You might have to pay an arm and a leg (and more) to attract top talent to your company.
What do you do then if you need to start a project quickly?
Instead of waiting to fill your open roles with locals or talent from nearby cities, why don’t you cast a much wider net and fish international waters? By being open to remote hiring, you can screen talented employees from around the globe and fill your vacancies (and start on projects) much more quickly.
Hiring Remote Employees: Makes Business Sense
Unless there are insurmountable legal blocks to hiring remote employees, give this tech staffing solution a chance. Among its many benefits, it will enable you to mitigate geographically induced tech talent shortages, grow your team quicker, and help you save on capital expenditure.
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