With the rise of remote and distributed work accelerated by the pandemic, and the workplace no longer being limited to any physical location, it’s now possible to recruit talent from anywhere in the world. In fact, persistent talent shortages might soon make it necessary to do so.
The good news is that thanks to global employment platforms like Oyster, global remote hiring will become increasingly common—helping you succeed in the war for global talent and build diverse teams that increase business performance.
Despite these potential gains, many companies are still hesitant to hire across borders. It’s understandable that they might wonder about the pros and cons of hiring globally remote employees. How easy or efficient is the process? Will it slow things down? Will it help the business? Are there advantages to hiring globally rather than locally?
These are important factors to consider, so we decided to investigate. Drawing on data from hundreds of companies that hire through Oyster, we attempted to answer these questions and offer a detailed and nuanced perspective of what it’s like to hire globally.
We’re delighted to present our findings in our Global Employment Report 2022. Whether you’re a C-suite executive, a People Ops professional, a hiring manager, or simply curious about the possibility of global hiring, the data and insights in this report will help you consider the benefits of growing your company by tapping into the global talent pool.
Here are the key takeaways in terms of the speed and ease of hiring, viability, and culture.
Speed of hiring
If you’re a busy People professional, the last thing you need is extra work. So if your talent acquisition strategy is going to include global hiring, it’s important that the process be fast and painless.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average time to fill a position is 36 days. When we looked at time-to-hire data for our customers, we found that it varied by country and industry, but for the countries where Oyster hires directly through its own established entities, the time-to-hire was generally faster than the SHRM average.
In other words, global hiring will certainly not slow you down. In fact, if you’re having trouble filling a role locally due to talent shortages, chances are you’ll find a candidate faster if you look overseas. And by having people work remotely from their own country, there’s no time wasted on visas or relocation.
Ease of hiring
With regard to the ease or difficulty of global hiring—it depends on whether you’re doing it yourself or using a global employment platform. The traditional way to do it would be to establish a legal entity in the country where you want to hire. But complying with the tax and employment laws of another country is an expensive and cumbersome process. Using an EOR is also a possibility, but they are typically expensive and more bureaucratic.
Global employment platforms like Oyster take away those layers of complexity by providing an end-to-end solution that allows you to quickly and compliantly hire, pay, and take care of team members—regardless of what country they’re in. It enables you to engage global talent without the legal, administrative, and logistical burden.
When we asked our customers how easy it was to hire through Oyster, 89% of respondents said it was either easy or not too difficult, and only 11% found it difficult.
Viability
For company leaders, it’s important to consider whether global hiring is viable as a business strategy. Will it help them grow and succeed?
Our customer base at Oyster skews heavily towards fast-growing startups and SMEs, with a few mid-market and enterprise clients. So, when analyzing our data, we asked ourselves: how successful are startups who hire global talent?
For startups, growth is a primary concern—growing in both revenue and headcount is necessary in order to raise funds. We found that the average funding raised by our customers was over $43 million per company. The average customer grows 14.8% annually with Oyster, and among our fastest-growing companies, 37% are growing at a rate of 30% or more per year. Some have even doubled or tripled in size.
Culture
The metrics above should allay any fears about the speed, ease, or viability of hiring globally. But perhaps even more important is the impact on company culture. With the Great Resignation and the tight labor market, it’s important for companies to make the employee experience as human-centric as possible.
The customer data we have doesn’t allow us to measure the impact of global hiring on culture in those companies. However, it’s possible to speak broadly and holistically about how building a globally distributed team might be a driver for a more supportive workplace.
Having a distributed workplace automatically means remote and flexible work policies, which contributes to better work-life balance—all of which employees have come to expect. Distributed work also means greater trust and autonomy, which leads to people feeling happier and more empowered. For instance, according to the most recent engagement survey at Oyster, 90% of our globally distributed team reported feeling satisfied or engaged at work, and 95% would recommend Oyster as a great place to work.
Finally, global hiring would enable companies to build geographically diverse teams, beyond the usual tech hubs and major cities. From a diversity and equity perspective, that’s a future worth aspiring to.
Conclusion
Being able to work from anywhere was once the stuff of science fiction. In fact, Sir Arthur C. Clarke predicted in 1964 that within 50 years, it would be possible for someone to conduct business from Tahiti or Bali just as easily as they could from London.
That imagined future of work is now a reality—one that is possible, viable, and human-centric. If you’re curious about how your organization can be part of that, our Global Employment Report is a great place to start.
Want to know more about how global hiring can help your company scale and thrive? Download the Global Employment Report here.
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