When do you start looking for an offshore employee?Wanneer gaat u op zoek naar een offshore werknemer?When do you start looking for an offshore employee?Wann beginnt man sich nach einem Offshore Angestellten umzusehen?
Many companies struggle with finding the right person for the right position, because there is a lack of talent available in the market. The forecasts on the scarcity of talent are not very promising. As the economies grow and (especially in Europe) the population gets greyer, it will be harder and harder to find the right people. A recent research from Pwc shows that the search for talent is high on many CEO’s agenda’s. The question is: where do you attract talent?
Most companies think in terms of ’employees in the office’, because this is the way of organizing we are used to. If it gets hard to find the right person to work in your office, you may engage freelancers, employment agencies or external suppliers. This has the advantage of having local people that can work in your office and the contracts are flexible. The disadvantage: it costs a lot. Besides, the search is local and even the external companies search in the same labor pool, so chances are that this also doesn’t easily bring the right person in the right position.
Veel bedrijven hebben moeite met de juiste persoon voor de juiste positie vinden, omdat er niet genoeg talent beschikbaar is op de arbeidsmarkt. De vooruitzichten wat betreft de schaarste van talent zijn niet veelbelovend. De economieën groeien en (vooral in Europa) vergrijst de populatie, daardoor wordt het steeds moeilijker om de juiste mensen te vinden. Een recent onderzoek van Pwc laat zien dat de zoektocht naar talent een belangrijk punt is op veel agenda’s van CEO’s. De vraag is: hoe trek je talent aan?
De meeste bedrijven denken aan ‘werknemers op kantoor’ omdat dit de manier van organiseren is die we gewend zijn. Als het moeilijk wordt om de juiste persoon voor het werk op kantoor te vinden, zoekt u misschien naar freelancers, arbeidsbureaus of externe leveranciers. Het voordeel hiervan is dat lokale mensen in uw kantoor kunnen werken en de contracten zijn flexibel. Het nadeel: het kost veel. Ook is de zoektocht beperkt, externe bedrijven zoeken op dezelfde arbeidsmarkt, dus waarschijnlijk vindt u op deze manier niet de juiste persoon voor de juiste positie.
Many companies struggle with finding the right person for the right position, because there is a lack of talent available in the market. The forecasts on the scarcity of talent are not very promising. As the economies grow and (especially in Europe) the population gets greyer, it will be harder and harder to find the right people. A recent research from Pwc shows that the search for talent is high on many CEO’s agenda’s. The question is: where do you attract talent?
Most companies think in terms of ’employees in the office’, because this is the way of organizing we are used to. If it gets hard to find the right person to work in your office, you may engage freelancers, employment agencies or external suppliers. This has the advantage of having local people that can work in your office and the contracts are flexible. The disadvantage: it costs a lot. Besides, the search is local and even the external companies search in the same labor pool, so chances are that this also doesn’t easily bring the right person in the right position.
Viele Unternehmen kämpfen damit die richtige Person für den richtigen Posten zu finden, da es einen Mangel an verfügbarem Talent auf dem Markt gibt. Die Vorhersage den Mangel betreffend ist nicht vielversprechend. Während die Wirtschaft wächst und (besonders in Europa) die Bevölkerung immer grauer wird, wird es immer schwerer werden die richtigen Leute zu finden. Eine vor Kurzem durchgeführte Studie von Pwc hat ergeben, dass die Suche nach Talent bei CEO’s weit oben auf der Agenda steht. Die Frage ist: wo wirbt man Talent an?
Die meisten Unternehmen denken im Rahmen von “Angestellten im Büro”, weil dies die Art von Organisation ist, die wir gewohnt sind. Wenn es schwer wir die richtige Person, die in Ihrem Büro arbeiten soll, zu finden, können Sie Freiberufler, Arbeitsagenturen oder externe Anbieter verpflichten. Das hat den Vorteil, dass Sie lokale Leute haben, die in Ihrem Büro arbeiten und deren Verträge flexibel sind. Der Nachteil: es kostet viel. Außerdem ist die Suche lokal und selbst die externen Unternehmen suchen im selben Arbeitspool nach Personal, daher bringt Ihnen dies auch nicht einfach die richtige Person für die richtige Position.
At what point in time do you consider hiring offshore talent? I discussed this question last Sunday with one of our customers in an outside swimming pool in the sun in Cochin, because he was visiting his offshore team (a nice side-effect of offshoring). They have developed a software product for managing digital assets using some not-mainstream technologies. In Germany, it was not possible for them to find the right people. They had searched for employees by running ads, looking in their network, engaging recruiters. They had searched for freelancers and external suppliers. But no solution brought enough people to further develop their product fast enough. Because they had an employee with ties to Serbia, they started a pilot with two Serbian freelancers. This brought the option of offshoring to their awareness. Now they have their own team, hand-picked by themselves and managed on a day to day basis by their own managers.
Many companies don’t consider offshoring or consider it at a later stage. This might have to do with the perceived complexity and the changes that need to be made in the organization. It might also relate to the perception of ‘outsourcing’, where you describe a desired outcome in a requirements document, send that to a supplier and let them execute it. If it would be perceived as ‘hiring talent’, either through setting up your own company offshore or by engaging with an offshore staffing supplier, many companies might solve their talent problem more easily.
About Hugo Messer
Hugo Messer is a Dutch entrepreneur, distributed agile team specialist, and author. He is the founder and owner of Bridge Global, a software services provider, and ekipa.co., an agile coaching agency. He has been building and managing teams around the world for the past several years. His passion is to enable people that are spread across cultures, geography and time zones to cooperate. Whether it’s offshoring or nearshoring, he knows what it takes to make global cooperation work.
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You should look for an offshore employee, when it is feasible for the company. The employee should be goal oriented, a team player and motivated.