Recruiting the best talents

”The best talent to work on your business might not be by your doorstep’‘, says Temitope Olukunle, one of Africa’s top Global Talent Acquisition Specialists and Human Resources Consultant. This refers to the idea that the most qualified and skilled individuals for a particular job or project may not be physically located in the same place as the business.

In today’s global economy, it is increasingly common for businesses to work with individuals and teams located in different countries or regions. In effect, Temitope welcomes you to the concept of the remote work stratosphere in the present-day gig economy.

Remote work is essentially work that can be delivered outside the confines of a physical office location.

The ‘Gig Economy’ advocate believes that technology has enabled great flexibility and opportunities to access talents across the globe. In other words, Temitope advances the idea that businesses and organizations can lower overhead personnel costs and even scale their operations by engaging talents, especially from emerging talent pools like Africa and Asia.

Factors that make recruiting your best talents remotely attractive

In no particular order, Temitope’s top reasons include the following:

• Technology

Technological advancements in the 21st century have seen borders and barriers broken becoming more seamless. Innovations in messaging structures, payment systems, and learning platforms, among others, ensure that people can get the required training and infrastructure to perform value-added tasks from wherever they are in the world.

Temitope points to the trend of self-taught programmers in Nigeria, who account for 4.1 percent of the traffic that reaches FreeCodeCamp, an online programming platform. At present, nearly 145,000 developers from Nigeria continually update and upscale their programming knowledge to global standards, forming a veritable source of skilled workers for software companies around the world.

• Reduction in Overhead Costs

One of the biggest cost centers for many businesses is the rental payment for office space. These expenses can be significant, especially for businesses that operate in urban areas where real estate prices are high. By engaging remote staff, however, businesses can significantly reduce or even eliminate these expenses.

Remote work allows businesses to operate without the need for physical office space, which can greatly reduce the costs associated with renting or leasing a commercial property. Instead of paying for rent and utilities, businesses can simply provide their remote staff with the necessary equipment and tools to work remotely.

• Best talent at an affordable rate.

Hiring remote workers can be cost-effective for businesses because they are often more affordable than hiring in-office staff. This is because remote workers do not require the same level of benefits or overhead expenses as in-office staff. For example, remote workers do not require a physical workspace or office equipment, as they typically provide their own. This means that businesses do not have to invest in additional office furniture, computers, or other equipment.

In addition, remote workers do not require the same level of benefits as in-office staff. This includes things like healthcare, paid time off, and retirement benefits. While it is important to provide fair and competitive compensation to all employees, the lack of these additional benefits can help reduce the overall cost of hiring remote staff. Temitope believes businesses and companies can key into contracting the best talents via the remote work pathway. With the ubiquity of international recruitment platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr, many talented but out-of-work professionals can offer their skills and experience at agreed fees and commissions.

• A fast-expanding trend

Many businesses are turning to the remote work space to fill in roles and responsibilities that were traditionally carried out from an office location. Numbers abound that substantiate this claim. A study revealed that roughly half of South Africa’s workforce would be engaged in full-time remote work by the middle of 2021. Across Africa, current estimates have it that 42 percent of the continent’s workforce works from home at least once a week. Temitope believes that these numbers will only experience an upward trajectory as candidates distinguish themselves in their roles and businesses see a reduction in overhead costs and expenses.

• Engender a better work-life balance

Employee health, happiness, and productivity should be one of the main concerns of any forward-looking enterprise. Remote work opportunities are the perfect, low-cost mechanism to achieve this objective. Temitope cites that remote workers who are able to take a quick nap or tend to the little ones will put in more productive hours and thus give more value to the business they work for.

A recent study by a research group at Stanford University revealed that generally, remote workers averaged productivity levels 13 times higher than their peers in offices. Again, when the anxiety of commuting to and from work is also removed from the picture, you will have super-charged staff, ready to meet the day’s objectives.

Some challenges or barriers to remote work:

Temitope is not blind to the fact that remote work sometimes comes with certain challenges. These challenges dwell chiefly on issues such as loose workplace structure and weak team bonding and collaboration, as well as inadequate supervisory oversight.

There are also barriers peculiar to remote work environments in areas such as Africa. The first in the category will be the inadequate power supply and related power infrastructure. The United States International Trade Commission’s (USITC) study shows that 46% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa does not have adequate access to power supplies. In addition, fast and reliable internet access across the continent is pegged at 39 percent (2019), with data costs rising significantly over the years.

Conclusion

Although there are challenges and barriers to remote work, as discussed earlier, Temitope opines that the benefits of utilizing talents thousands of kilometers and at cost-effective rates will outweigh the cons of engaging in the practice of recruiting your best talents remotely.

Temitope Olukunle Okeseeyin

Founder, University of Freelancing.