How To Find Qualified Talent In Tight Labor Market?

Here’s a new way to find your best talent

A survey for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found 90 percent of human resources (HR) specialists are struggling to find qualified workers for their organization, and 73 percent said applications for open positions are also dropping.

Making this even more challenging, executives are now calling it quits. A recent story in the New York Times documented how chief operating officers and chief marketing officers are prioritizing family or career, and resigning from their jobs.

If you think it’s hard to recruit qualified talent, product managers, developers and leaders in New York or California, try recruiting in Lithuania. 
 

Kilo Health is based in Vilnius, Lithuania, which is a smaller city compared to other tech centers. Despite this geographical and population obstacle, our digital health and wellness company has been able to grow during this pandemic by finding talent in unique places that are overlooked by others. In fact, The Financial Times named Kilo Health the second fastest growing company in Europe, while Deloitte listed our company second in their Technology Fast 50 ranking

So how did we find, hire and integrate these talented employees into our company? 

Leverage Co-working Offices in Their City

Today’s new hires, regardless of position, don’t want to feel secluded in private offices. In most cities, you can get individual seats in these larger work hubs for only a few hundred US dollars a month.

Generally speaking, I’ve found workers gravitate towards a specific type of city. For example, Berlin is full of talented developers, engineers and tech talent, while Amsterdam and Stockholm are great for finding product managers and C-level professionals. 

It helps to have a popular co-working space at your disposal when recruiting these various workers for different roles. It gives them an opportunity to see their actual working environment, even though our headquarters and corporate culture might be in a different country. These co-working offices provide a sense of community and familiarity for our employees in their own cities. 

How to Integrate Foreign Workers into Your Company Culture?

Many HR professionals tell me they worry about the language barrier when it comes to integrating new employees into the company culture. Most workers you will want to hire speak English. It’s become the de facto international language, so don’t get too caught up in that.

Instead, focus your energies on building your brand in the recruiting country. High-performing professionals typically don’t want to work for a “no-name” company. They want to work for a trustworthy company and have a secure position. This is where public relations (PR) can help your company recruit top talent. In our case, it took Kilo Health a while to build our brand in the Netherlands and Germany, but today we continue to get qualified resumes and job applicants from these countries.

And pay close attention to that job description. I’ve found C-level professionals are more interested in the overall goals of a company, rather than perks and benefits. True leaders want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. They want challenging work, problems to solve and to make an impact. 

Today, we make sure every role description describes our company culture and how they will contribute. We also detail our compensation package.

Of course, compensation differences can alienate current workers. When we first started hiring employees in Berlin, we learned Germans get 10 additional days of vacation compared to Lithuanian employment law. Germans also have a 3-month’s notice period, so the onboarding takes longer.

Be prepared to have these honest conversations with employees, who might have questions why someone in another country is getting paid 30 percent more or has additional vacation time. If you break down the details for them, most employees will understand.

Your company might have in-house legal counsel to help with hiring practices in other countries, but if you’re a smaller company and this responsibility rests with you, make sure you get a basic understanding of local employment laws. In many countries, you might need to create a legal entity or find a third-party company to employ workers on your behalf. Regardless of the path you choose, just know that hiring foreign workers is just another pipeline for finding talent. If you’re not getting what you need in your own city, just know you have options in this global economy.

Ilona Bernotaite is the Chief People Officer of Kilo Health.  Connect Ilona Bernotaite