The Defenestration of Geographic Search

The Defenestration of Geographic Search.

With the national growth of Work From Home and remote employment, have professional recruiters been dealt a new hurdle in their recruiting efforts? or is it now easier to perform a national search with one less search parameter: the time honored Zip Code?

It was only two years ago when most of the nation’s workforce awoke in the morning, brushed all of their teeth, maybe grabbed a cup of tea or coffee, and bolted out their door heading for a day’s work. Every work day.

Some savvy office-type of businesses took advantage of technical capabilities and designed alternate work arrangements where an office employee could take their laptop home and work from home (now called WFH). Then along came the pandemic demanding the shutdown of non-essential in-person work places. With that many, many non-retail businesses converted to remote operations. With the remote option, talent could “modem in” from home…and from anywhere!?For some, it created the ultimate work-life balance, a time saving/cost saving of a commute….the ability to attend the Sundance Film Festival and ski in Park City, Utah, and still log in real-time hours for work hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Of course, the necessary idea of remote working was not invented due to the Covid-19 health emergencies.?Business call centers had already been functional globally.?Sometimes a consumer could hear the background noises of a kitchen sink, a restless pet or infant. So, was remote work inevitable? Did the pandemic accelerate the acceptance of remote work?

This brings the discussion back to the initial premise above.?To further explain, do prospective employees hold the upper hand in demanding or requesting to work from home? Is this the new norm? Is it more difficult to find new hires or retain existing employees if part of the workforce wants to work remote. Then, there is the hybrid option, which means that the employee would have to be near the place of business on certain days or weeks. Or can a local business now hire from a national or international pool of qualified individuals that can work remote for that organization? Or, the third possible equation, does one balance out the other?

Welcome to the New Normal.