Over 20 years ago a manifesto entitled Digital Nomads envisioned a world in which a combination of tech and flexible working arrangements has led to the cutting of the ties between work and location. They foresaw a future in which employees and freelancers worked from wherever they wanted, taking advantage of remote working in order to travel. Covid-19 may have all but frozen travel but it has meant that remote working has become normal for huge swathes of the population and we have all had to work differently. It continues to be an unprecedented social experiment grown from necessity and looks set to hugely impact the future of work. Post-Covid will we see an increase in digital nomads? Will a greater number of people opt to work from home, or expect some sort of hybrid working arrangement? Will workers move out of cities and into the countryside in their droves? And how will all this affect recruitment and the way we recruit in the future?
In 2020 we have seen location being impacted on two fronts. Being forced to stay in your home and within the confines of your local area has led many to reassess where they live. There has been a yearning for more space – both indoors and outdoors – and greater access to green spaces. Living in a city often comes at a premium and when it is no longer necessary to factor in a commute, paying more to live in a small flat becomes questionable. At the same time, the need for businesses to quickly set up remote working solutions has both accelerated the onboarding of technology that allows it and given rise to the realisation that many jobs can be performed remotely. The combination of those two forces will surely alter the location boundaries we are used to working with in recruitment.
A recent PwC report has stated that London’s population will shrink for the first time since 1988. In August the London Assembly Housing Committee revealed that out of a third of Londoners planning on moving, 46% wanted that move to be out of the city. The PwC report also predicted immigration to fall massively as a result both of pandemic travel restrictions and Brexit. Fewer migrants mean the need for more home-gown talent and – for jobs where remote working is entirely possible – recruiters would be wise to seek that out wherever it may be, whatever the location of the job. This will help to accelerate an exciting new trend described by LinkedIn’s Chief Economist as the ‘democratisation of skills’. The removal of location barriers will enable recruiters to source more diversely, allowing the expansion of talent pools to reach under-represented groups. And at a time when applications remain higher than pre-Covid levels (WaveTrackR December data shows that they were still 64% above the January-March 2020 average), the ability for candidates to search for jobs beyond their geographical location is a huge advantage.
Interestingly, it seems the pandemic and the events leading to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement have merely accelerated the two biggest trends of 2020. WaveTrackR data revealed that in 2019 ‘remote’, ‘diversity’ and ‘diversity inclusion’ all made it into the top keywords searched for by jobseekers. Workers have wanted change for some time now and it seems that change will be anything but temporary. Recruitment, of course, has also been forced to operate remotely whenever lockdown restrictions are in place. Thanks to that, virtual recruitment and onboarding has become normal, meaning it shouldn’t matter where a candidate is during the recruitment process. In a LinkedIn survey, 81% of recruiters agreed that virtual recruiting will continue into a post-Covid future.
However, despite all this, it would be wrong to assume that location will no longer matter. Quite apart from the roles and industries that require workers to be onsite, many businesses will want their workers to be able to return to the office as part a hybrid working arrangement at the very least and not all candidates will want to work remotely either. Location will therefore never become entirely irrelevant when it comes to recruitment. Having said that, for workers that are only travelling into the office a couple of times a week, a longer commute might not be a deal-breaker if that means lower costs of living, a better work-life balance, and flexibility to care for dependents. And when travel is back on the cards, we may well see a rise in digital nomads who can work from anywhere as long as they have a laptop and an internet connection. What is certain is that the advent of remote working possibilities has expanded the opportunities for both recruiters and candidates. In many ways, the world really may become your oyster.
WaveTrackR is an intelligent multi-posting tool, data analytics platform and candidate management system. It will advise you when, where and what to post, boost your recruitment power online and increase your ROI.
