Hiring has changed, but your hiring needs have not.
You still need the best executive assistants, project managers, and marketers, but now they also need to thrive in a remote work environment.
The trajectory towards remote work was already accelerating pre-COVID, and now it’s almost mandatory. Remote work has gone from being a rarity to being the default for 2020 and onward, with companies like Google, announcing they’ll continue remote work into next summer, spurring it on.
Facebook, Twitter, and Square are completely embracing remote work as a tenet of their company culture after dealing with the fallout from COVID-19.
So, if you’re looking to hire right now, it may be helpful to trace how the process has changed. You’re still hiring for the same positions, and you still have the same work that needs to be done, but hiring has had to shift to accommodate remote working.
This is where remote staffing comes in.
From the get-go, remote work is what’s on the table. You get the best talent ideally geared for remote work without shuffling through piles of resumes or questioning if candidates can handle working remotely.
What Is Remote Staffing?
Remote staffing is different from other alternatives, such as temporary help or outsourcing. Remote staffers are skilled W2 employees of the staffing company assigned to work with you long-term for the exact number of hours you need each month.
While traditional staffing companies are struggling to adjust because their roster of temps don’t have the remote work skill sets to add real value, remote staffing is in growing demand. Remote staffing is true remote-first, on-staff help, not freelance or contract workers.
While they work remotely, you manage them just as you would in-house staff, and they can be integrated into your company culture.
Why Should I Use Remote Staffing?
Due to COVID-19, hiring managers are facing the question of how to hire staff in the most effective and risk-free way. Remote staffing allows you to fill vital roles quickly with minimal risk. In that way, remote staffing makes good financial and strategic sense.
There is a sense of economic uncertainty right now, which makes companies wary of hiring for necessary positions that may or may not be around for long, or by selecting candidates not able to handle remote work effectively.
Remote staffing is ready-made for handling several key areas in a reliable and cost-effective way.
It speeds up the hiring process.
With remote staffing, you can shorten your hiring cycle. That means efficient hiring that saves money.
This matters now, especially, because COVID-19 brought new pain points to the hiring process. As of May, it was estimated that the coronavirus outbreak could wipe out 3 million jobs in the United States and nearly 25 million jobs worldwide.
There are inboxes of resumes to dig through because there are more people looking for work than there are jobs available. This can quickly overwhelm human resource departments, taking lots of time (and consequently, money) to handle.
With remote staffing, companies can fill positions in days instead of spending weeks screening job seekers. They can avoid delays due to screening agencies being understaffed. They can also test out remote talent without the complexities of traditional direct hiring, which can be difficult to do without meeting in person.
It is more reliable than comparable methods.
There is a difference between a virtual assistant and a remote executive assistant, and there is a difference between remote workers and temp workers.
Temporary staffing is about filling the role so the work gets done for a specific time period. It is a stop-gap approach.
There’s often a reluctance to use temporary workers because of variable skill levels and commitment to the work. Companies don’t want to commit training time to someone who might just be using temporary work simply because they’re in between jobs. And of course there’s no certainty that temps used to ‘in office’ work are effective working remotely.
Those concerns don’t apply to remote staffing.
Remote staffing is about finding solidly matched W2 staff that you need high performance from rather than filling a gap for a while.
Premium remote staff certainly have the skills, but maybe more important is that they also have peripheral qualities, such as commitment, availability and flexibility.
They are dedicated to making the right things happen.
Remote staffing agencies have already vetted their employees and are prepared to make the ideal match between a company and the remote worker they assign to you.
They’ve identified people who have a track record of working remotely successfully, with true “remote worker” capabilities. Many human resource or hiring managers struggle to evaluate potential hires for remote work success.
It’s good for company culture.
COVID-19 revealed that remote working can be hard on company culture, particularly for those whose culture relied upon in-person relationships as a key component. Companies found it difficult to adapt and integrate a sudden transformation to remote work, which impacted morale.
A major concern for companies in hiring remote staff is making sure that they embody company culture and keep up morale even while working apart.
Good remote staffing companies have embraced remote culture instead of treating it like an afterthought.
When using a remote staffing agency in the hiring process, companies get employees pre-loaded with a remote cultural ethic from the staffing agency itself, readily able to embrace the culture of their new workplace.
Employees who feel they work in a healthy workplace, with high morale, and a good work-life balance are 21% more productive than those who don’t. Getting the culture right with remote workers who are geared to good work-life balance is a win for the employer.
Remote Staffing Is A Win-Win
COVID-19 has had an immediate and stunning impact on how we work. But the radiating shockwaves from those forced changes don’t have to be negative.
What we’ve seen is that remote staffing is a win for both employers and employees.
It was true before the pandemic — with companies like Zendesk, Grammarly, Facebook, and more embracing it as an everyday solution. And it’s only getting better.
They’ve seen the value of being able to quickly scale up and down as customer demand and operational restraints vary wildly. They’ve seen the need to be able to hire fractionally, when a part-time role delivers higher productivity than a full-time role.
Employees with amazing experience and skills who now face a tough job market can, if they have the right experience and aptitudes, work with remote staffing agencies to find a quality employer without having to leave their homes.
This strange workplace landscape can be seen as full of opportunity for both employers and employees. If you’re interested in learning more or finding the right remote talent for you, get in touch with us here.
Topic: Remote Staffing
