Remote-first companies and the hiring advantage they have again in the market

With the news that Zoom is asking their employees to return to the office at least 2 days a week (oh the irony!), it’s a good time to talk about remote-first companies and the hiring advantage they have again in the market.

As someone who follows the tech and not sector, supporting a wide range of companies in both size and sectors. I’m often asked “what can we do to be more attractive in the market”. Let’s face it, despite big layoffs from numerous tech companies, the challenge to find and engage top tech talent is as hard as it’s ever been.

That challenge is bigger than ever before, the pandemic saw companies adapt to survive. It was a scary time in the world and survival came first, often making decisions for today and rightly so. But we’ve reached a point where companies are now asking (let’s be honest, telling) people to be office based again.?

Now that people have had a taste of what life can be like when you don't have to commute to the office. The freedom of doing the school run, that extra hour in bed, the freedom of choosing your daily schedule is invaluable and one that will never go away, despite your ping pong table and free breakfast Fridays!

Having been hired and successfully worked remotely for a number of years, telling a team of people who get approached daily on LinkedIn about new opportunities. That we’re moving to a hybrid model will go down like a lead balloon, it’s not what they signed up for and you’ll find hiring a real struggle, let alone retention. You might not believe this but having access to tech talent from around the world, gives you a “little” advantage on 50 miles around London.

Over the past 18 months we’ve seen more large scale multinationals move back to the hybrid model, it might be because they own the office space and want it used, it could be a little bit of government pressure about getting their people back into cities and towns, buying that train ticket, lunch, coffee, pint etc.. But there is only one winner here, smaller companies and start-ups. Lot’s of our clients cancelled their rented office agreements during the pandemic and haven’t looked back, often having a huge financial benefit that they can put back into their people.

Ok, let’s talk about some of the challenges around remote working. Not everyone is a seasoned veteran who can go about their daily tasks with ease, I know lot’s of graduates and junior engineers who struggle learning over video and miss that F2F interaction. People also don’t talk about the fact it can be quite lonely at times, if you’re not doing some 1-2-1 time with people, pair programming, virtual coffees, you can go a whole day without having any meaningful interaction. By heck, I know some people that don’t even put their camera on for their daily stand-ups.

The team here at Spencer Scott speak to thousands of people every month, from graduates to Senior / Lead personnel and it’s fair to say remote first companies have a huge advantage. Tech hiring has always been a competitive world where the large companies tended to have an advantage because of company status and money. But the world is changing, most people would now rather have the remote freedom and be involved in a smaller Scale-Up where they have a story to tell about the company / product journey. Not just being a bum on a seat because they’ve got a recognisable name on their CV.