5 Tips for Hiring Remote Employees Who Are a Great Fit for Your Company

 Although it’s back to normal for all businesses this year and employees are working in offices, there’s still so much to be said for hiring remote workers that you shouldn’t rule out this employment strategy.

Having remote workers is more cost-effective since you can save money on office space rentals, utilities and property taxes. You can also expect higher employee productivity and engagement since they tend to be happier, feel less stressed and have better work-life balance.

When you hire remote employees, you can choose from a global talent pool. You have more opportunities to find the ideal staff who can fit right in your organisation since you can have access to candidates from various parts of the world.

This advantage allows you and your team to work with people from different backgrounds, cultures and experiences, enabling you to support and highlight diversity and inclusion in your workplace.

Finally, you can have a more agile team, improve scalability and help protect the environment when you work with remote employees.

 

Ensuring Person-Organisation Fit When Hiring Remote Workers

One of the challenges of employing telecommuters is making sure they are a good fit for your company.

If you hire workers who don't suit your organisation, you will have difficulties getting them on board to help you meet your daily targets and achieve your business goals.

You can avoid this problem and ensure your new remote employees are the right choice for your organisation and play a role in your business’s success by following these hiring tips:

1.    Work with a recruitment company specialising in remote staffing.

Working with a company with an excellent track record in hiring remote talent lets you avoid a lot of inconveniences and costly, time-consuming mistakes you might make in the recruitment process.

With a recruitment partner, you won’t have to go through the entire hiring process. You only need to provide them with your requirements for the role and details of your company culture.

Once your solutions provider has all these details, they will send you the profiles of your ideal candidates, which you have to review and shortlist.

Because of this, you don’t need to spend time creating and posting job advertisements and sifting through hundreds of applications.

This allows you to save time on the entire process and spend more on selecting the most qualified candidates and the subsequent stages that enable you to find the people who will fit and excel in your company.

A recruitment company can also give you a more diverse pool of talent to choose from. As a result, you can hire candidates that support your commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

If you want to save time and money and hire the right remote employee for your company, work with a recruitment company from the start.

 

2.    Be specific with your requirements.

Creating a list of your ideal candidate’s must-have skills, traits, experiences and educational background can help make the hiring process more efficient and successful.

Your list should include the hard and soft skills and technical proficiencies your ideal candidates must possess.

Consider ranking these qualities by priority so that you can easily shortlist the most qualified applicants.

If you think candidates need a certain disposition to match a particular remote role and your company culture, add a personality questionnaire applicants can answer to make the screening process more efficient.

If you are working with a recruitment company, give them your ideal candidate profile, including your preferred personality type. Doing so can help them give you a list of applicants who are most likely to fit in well in your organisation.

 

3.    Prepare to conduct several interviews.

Since you won’t get to meet remote applicants personally, you have to conduct several interviews to know them more and properly evaluate if they pass your expectations.

Conducting several interviews allows you to gain insights into each candidate’s qualifications, personality traits and work habits, which you’re unlikely to get from a single one.

Aside from performing one-on-one interviews with yourself and the team lead, schedule a group interview to allow your staff to ask questions you may not think of asking and let them know their potential new co-worker.

Conducting several interviews also enables you and your team to start building a positive work relationship with the candidates.

These additional meetings can boost your chances of finding the right candidate to hire.

 

4.    Think about how well the candidate can fit into your company culture.

As mentioned, ensuring a candidate is perfect for your company culture is crucial to the recruitment process.

Aside from using a personality questionnaire and other psychometric tools, use the interviews to assess each applicant’s person-organisation fit.

For a fair and efficient evaluation, identify your company values beforehand. Doing so can help you prioritise the qualities to look for in the candidates.

Once you have identified your company values, create specific questions to ask during the interview to assess if the applicant's principles align with yours.

 

5.    Consider giving a pre-employment assignment.

Get an idea of how a candidate works by giving them an assignment that enables them to demonstrate their skills, attention to detail and determination to get hired.

Whether it’s writing code or creating social media video content, be specific about the assignment and hand it out after the first interview.

Try to give the task the same way you assign projects to your remote staff. This can help you assess the candidate’s familiarity with the tools you use and their ability to understand instructions.

Lastly, specify a deadline and be strict about it. Aside from evaluating the candidate’s work, get input from your team.

Hiring remote employees involves taking extra steps. However, the additional work you put into the process ensures you select the top talent who can fit into your company culture and contribute to your organisation’s success.