- Hiring good staff can be tough, especially nowadays, but there are still ways to do it...
Today’s still-tight labor market has put a pinch on small businesses, creating capacity challenges that put your bottom line at risk. Job postings go unanswered, teams become increasingly overworked, and your ability to achieve your goals falters.
The global talent market may be the secret sauce that will allow your organization to identify the exact workers you require. Here’s how to find the skilled individuals you desperately need, no matter your company size.
1. Partner With an International Hiring Expert
Your small business may be ambitious, but expanding your hiring footprint from local to international is no small feat. The international hiring market is complex, rife with unfamiliar customs, expectations, and legal requirements. That’s why the first step you should take to hire international employees is to partner with an expert in the space.
To successfully go global with your recruitment efforts, you’ll want a partner you can trust. While your HR team may be well-versed in your business and U.S. labor laws, the international hiring market demands special support. Partner with an employer of record to handle legal requirements, tax matters, employment agreements, and benefits.
EORs focus their efforts on managing the regulatory requirements of international employment so you don’t have to. By choosing a trusted partner, you can concentrate on recruiting the types of employees your team needs and getting them working. Your EOR will handle the back-end details and take on the legal responsibilities, reducing your workload and overall risk.
International talent may also view an EOR arrangement as a signal that your small business is serious about hiring globally. By making the effort to ensure compliance with country-specific laws and offering equitable benefits packages, your employment opportunity will stand out. An offer from your small business with support from your EOR may appear more secure and attractive, giving your business an edge over larger organizations.
2. Work With Digital Nomads
The post-pandemic response to traditional work has led people to shift how they approach their careers. Employees crave flexibility, freedom, and options regarding where, how, and when they work. Stateside, many employers have made hybrid work the norm, but your international employees won’t be commuting. That’s why hiring non-traditional employees across the globe, no matter their country of origin, should be on your radar.
Many professionals are converting from traditional employment arrangements to freelance, contract, and short-term work. Often, this is also paired with location variability, driven in large part by the desire to work from any location. Coined “digital nomads,” individuals who move frequently view travel as a lifestyle, which demands flexible work lives to match.
Hiring these nomadic professionals in your small business can give you access to talent otherwise unavailable in smaller markets. From application developers to writers and even customer service professionals, nomadic work is popular across disciplines. With the right employment arrangement and flexibility, your small business can attract the best of the best.
To prepare to work with digital nomads, you’ll have to assess your current processes to ensure alignment with alternative workstyles. If your stateside team is accustomed to their peers’ availability from 9 to 5, expectations may need to be reset. Learn about autonomous work as a concept, which can prove beneficial for your domestic team, too, especially in hybrid environments. Update your internal expectations for collaboration, upgrading project management platforms, equipment, and work styles to match.
3. Outsource Certain Business Functions to the Experts
In some situations, it makes the most practical sense to hand off the responsibility of an entire segment or department. If your business is manufacturing a product, there are many steps between creation and delivery. Your proprietary process may be best kept in-house, but what about sales, customer service, and fulfillment? There are third parties that specialize in these functions and can boost overall efficiency and reduce costs.
Warehousing and drop-shipping are two popular areas in which product-based businesses can find excellent partners. Instead of managing huge warehouses and logistics, your company can hand off these specialized functions to the pros. In turn, you grow your team by way of this partnership, gaining multiple layers of benefits.
This approach can be especially advantageous when you’re already selling to the global market. An international warehousing provider can help improve delivery times, avoid customs hang-ups, and deliver when others can’t amidst global supply chain challenges. You might maintain domestic logistics in-house while outsourcing international orders, which can be streamlined within your check-out process.
Functional areas like customer service can likewise benefit from outsourcing, especially as there are global hotbeds of contact center work. Outsourcing customer service can enhance your support efforts, too, expanding the number of agents you can offer. You may be able to expand your hours of operations thanks to time zone differences, increasing options for your customers.
Grow Your Small Business With Global Talent, and Anything Is Possible
With the right partners, intentionality, and integration, your small business’s potential is limitless. By hiring globally, you’re able to pinpoint the talent you need with a level of specificity unmatched elsewhere. Plus, you’ll gain access to ideas, strategies, and approaches to your market that might transform your business for the better. So embark on your global hiring journey and find your best talent fit — before your competition beats you to it.