Using Remote Work to Facilitate In-Person Hiring and Employee Retention
While many organizations have returned to full-time in-person workplaces, the shift to remote work during the pandemic has opened up a wide range of possibilities to supplement traditional in person workplaces with remote workers for certain circumstances. Even in a majority in-person work environment, Remote Work arrangements can be used selectively in case-specific scenarios to bolster and support an organization’s full-time in-person employee hiring and retention.
Following are 2 recent examples of how companies have used remote work to supplement their in-person work environments.
- Remote Work as a transitional step toward in-person employment.
- A Madison-area employer was able to source a very promising candidate for a challenging to fill Software Engineering position. However the candidate was unable to relocate immediately due to family obligations, the need to sell a home and the logistics of relocating to another state. By offering flexibility and the opportunity to work remotely initially, the employer was able to secure a valuable employee who could make an immediate impact while allowing time for the employee’s longer term transition to their in-person team.
- Remote Work as a tool to retain skilled or tenured employees.
- A long term, highly skilled engineer at a manufacturing company indicated that they were interested in retiring and moving out of state. The employee was open to continuing to work on a project or consulting basis, but would only be able to do so if they had the flexibility to work remotely. The employer chose to offer the employee remote work that allowed them to retain a skilled employee with significant institutional knowledge and industry expertise, while at the same time accommodating the employee’s transition into partial retirement.
These are just two examples of how Remote Work arrangements can be used to facilitate or augment regular in-person employment. Unfortunately, there is a pervasive notion that Remote Work exists in a binary opposition to In-Person work. This overlooks the spectrum of employment scenarios that can be mindfully constructed to best suit the needs of the organization while also offering valuable talent the flexibility necessary to make a meaningful and immediate contribution.
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