Remote Workers help win the War on Talent

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

With the raging war on talent, managers seek the best way to find the best team members.  Remote workers may be the right answer, but many organizations are not ‘remote-worker friendly,’ making it difficult for the remote worker to be successful.  Managers are not comfortable managing remote workers, processes are not supportive of workers outside the office, and even culture-driven events (like the Wednesday happy hour or the quarterly offsite) exclude remote workers.   Recently, CIO.com published an article about the benefits of hiring remote workers (Full disclosure: I’ve been a remote worker for over 20 years so I’m a bit opinionated about this topic).  This article, Want better IT talent? Recruit remote workers, author Sharon Florentine writes,

As Jack Santos, research vice president at analyst firm Gartner, said in a recent webinar, organizations risk being less productive if they’re not paying attention to mobile and remote work practices. And, as current mobility trends continue to accelerate, hiring constraints based on location will all but disappear, except for those positions where an on-site presence is absolutely necessary.

Is your organization set up to include remote workers? What can you do to make remote workers successful in your organization? How can you make it a competency to successfully include remote workers?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a nice weekend!