Two-thirds of business are looking to recruit remote staff from overseas over the next 12 months, according to latest research.
Benefits and rewards platform Perkbox found that 62 per cent of business were looking to address talent and labour shortages in the UK, by hiring staff from outside their main country of operations.
It says this drive is being fuelled by tech advances since the Covid pandemic, which has led to more hybrid and remote working, with business are now leveraging these advances to boost a ‘borderless working strategy’.
This survey found that business leaders said this strategy would help them build a more diverse workforce and access a wider talent pool (cited by 35 per cent of respondents). Business leaders also said such a strategy would encourage innovation (32 per cent) and create a global workforce, better placed to serve a wider customer base (29 per cent).
Perkbox says that this change will mean HR and benefit policies need to be updated. Its research shows almost three quarters (73 per cent) of businesses who have already adopted borderless working say they have updated how they manage their global staff in the last 24 months.
So far, businesses have prioritised introducing flexible hours (43 per cent) and dedicated remote working policies (42 per cent). However, less than one in three (29 per cent) have realised the importance of developing a localised benefits offering to align to market needs, with only a third (31 per cent) have begun investing in tools to support borderless workers.
Perkbox CEO Gautam Sahgal says: “The increasingly competitive talent market has put greater emphasis on having the right policies in place which retain and motivate the best talent. As borderless working increases in popularity, leaders must now ensure they’re focusing on how to deliver those policies equally across both international and domestic staff.
“Central to success will be creating a holistic rewards and recognition offering. This is the cornerstone of creating an attractive employee value proposition and a unified company culture — one where your people are truly aligned with your purpose. Just as businesses reacted to the pandemic with innovation, they must again look to new tools which allow remote employees in locations around the world to feel seen and recognised for their hard work. Otherwise, they face losing them to the competition.”
