As we all know, remote working has become the new norm, and hiring professionals from other countries is seen as a great solution to fill in skill shortages/gaps when there is a talent shortage in the domestic/local market. While hiring international talent would bring fresh and unique skills to the team, there’s a high chance that it will create questions/insecurities related to their jobs from your local team. Questions like “Will they be talented/capable enough or will they add value to the team”. It’s only natural given the competition around and the best approach to deal with these concerns would be to communicate the need and discuss the advantages of hiring international talent with your domestic workforce so that there is no fear of being replaced/job insecurities among the team. This task requires a lot of work given the tension/stress it causes to the existing workforce and this blog offers just the insights needed to convince your domestic workforce to embrace international hiring.
Listed below are 5 key ideas to keep in mind while discussing hiring international talent with your domestic workforce.
Job security
Make sure your employees feel secure about their job when discussing the intention behind the idea of hiring international talent. It is important to explain to your team that the vision is not to replace the existing workforce but to complement them and that hiring international resources will not have any impact on their position at the company. A sense of job security should be created for your current team.
Get things done faster
Talk about the benefits of working with international teams, and how it helps with their workload. Explain how the team can get the work tasks completed faster when you recruit across time zones. Because your team is spread across different regions, your team is better able to work around the clock and meet deadlines without overworking or stressing over pending tasks.
Career growth
Describe how this change would enable your current team to move up the career ladder as they will be leading the hired international resources and also gain knowledge/experience working with different work styles, tools, and new skills. This will give them people management experience and also experience working with offshore teams. If they ever look for a new job, especially from large companies, they pretty much expect their employees to have this experience since they work with hundreds and even thousands of offshore team members. As a result, it would open up new employment opportunities in the future.
Diversity
Because hiring international talent allows exposure to new cultures and a diverse knowledge base, discuss how it would facilitate and benefit the whole team to think strategically and offer great solutions to your business challenges. Talk about how employees from diverse backgrounds can bring unique ideas to the table during brainstorming sessions given their experiences and challenges encountered in the markets they came from. Explain to your team how this combination of distinct thoughts and viewpoints enables the company to achieve great success. In addition to workplace diversity, it can also provide an opportunity for the domestic team to travel and visit their international teammates in their home countries and learn more about different cultures and traditions.
Honesty
Last but not the least, be honest with your team about why you decided to hire an offshore team. It could be to save money or to bridge talent gaps by tapping into the global workforce. Whatever it is, let your team understand the vision behind this strategy.
Conclusion
To summarize, communication is the key to getting your team on your side for the offshore hiring strategy. If you need help in sourcing and hiring international talent, consider GlobalSquirrels.com. Global Squirrels is an innovative and self-serviced subscription-based platform that will help you recruit, manage their payroll, and also provide a co-working space for your employees to work from one of their offices across the globe. Globe Squirrels have various service plans to offer based on your international talent needs (Purple Squirrel Plan: International PEO service, Orange Squirrel Plan: Staffing + international PEO service, Blue Squirrel Plan: Staffing + international PEO service + co-working space for your employee).
