Is remote working a must-have benefit in IT recruitment?

Let’s not bury the lead. Remote working is an absolute must-have in IT recruitment if you want to attract the talent your business needs.

To put it more bluntly, according to a recent Forbes magazine article, as of 2022, “offering remote working isn’t a perk. It’s table stakes.”

Yet not every organisation currently includes remote or hybrid working in their IT job description. Not every leader wants to include it.

If you need to hire new IT specialists though, here is why it is worth considering including at least a hybrid working option in your job offering and how to do it:

How COVID-19 changed remote working

Lockdown orders and similar measures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic showed far too many employees the benefits of remote working for us to go back to the way things used to be.

This is very much a recent change though. Even a few years before COVID-19’s emergence, even the largest tech companies weren’t offering remote working to their workforce.

Today, it’s been estimated that almost 98% of employees in key tech businesses can work from home if they want to. And in an employee-led jobs market, employers largely have to go along with changes like this.

However, employers that have actively embraced the change (Airbnb is the classic example) have reaped benefits such as a happy and motivated team and easier recruitment for everything from web developer to software engineer jobs.

Do IT recruitment candidates expect remote working?

If you’re still not sure whether you need to offer remote working as a benefit in your latest IT job description, it’s worth reinforcing how difficult it is to compete in today’s market without it:

Around 98% of tech employees in a recent survey said they could work remotely some of the time.

-In the US, another survey showed 61% of workers would resign if they could work remotely somewhere else.

-Nearly 1 in 3 workers in that survey had already resigned because their employers did not offer remote working.

Think about the “passive” job seeker (and other benefits)

Although some business leaders are concerned about the potential lack of face-to-face interaction remote working could lead to, the phenomenon offers employers many benefits too.

In IT recruitment, one of the key advantages concerns what are often called “passive” job seekers. These are people who aren’t actively looking for a new position but still occasionally peruse job boards to see if something better comes along.

This can be very good for you if you are that “something better”. If you are an employer whose position is easy to beat simply by someone else offering remote working though, it’s less of a benefit.

How to start offering remote working

When COVID-19 hit, thousands of organisations were forced to start letting their team work from home at short notice. This resulted in ad hoc situations that should now be avoided with some simple planning:

-Check you really are offering remote working – it’s increasingly common to hear of employers who claim to be offering remote working only to state some variation of “we’ll be expecting you in the office four days a week” on the first day.

-Make your routine clear – if you are offering a hybrid model, make sure you are clear about how many days are in-office and your expectations and needs regarding meetings, lunch, and working hours upfront.

-Consider your tech – remote working requires careful consideration of the team collaboration software and videoconferencing tools you use as well as your cybersecurity.

Of course, this is just the start. But, with proper planning, a remote or hybrid working setup has allowed managers and leaders around the world to source the best talent (by removing geographic limits). Others have improved their remote setups to beat competitors in the talent stakes.

Because remote working might be a must-have benefit in modern IT recruitment. Yet it’s also an opportunity for you as an employer to start setting yourself apart from your competition.

In need of IT talent and not sure how to get it?

Let’s talk. Ernest Gordon is a specialist IT recruitment agency. We usethe latest AI recruitment tools to match your specific needs with the best candidates from our extensive talent pool.

Reach out to us today to tell us more about the candidate you need.