2022 Forecast: Trends in Remote Hiring

With 2021 drawing to an end, we reflect on the past year and look toward 2022, wondering what to expect. So many uncertainties: How will Omicron or other new COVID variants change the world? How will international supply chain issues, including a worldwide semiconductor chip shortage, affect business? What about the Great Resignation? And will workers who have now worked remotely, often for well over a year, willingly go back to the office?

Some of these questions have no clear answers yet, but there are some clear business trends we can help you keep on top of.

1. Nearshore staffing continues to gain steam.

The shift away from the outsourcing of core company functions continues. Instead of outsourcing major functions and projects, many companies are using outsourcing more selectively: to recruit, vet, and contract with talent (see section 7, below). But companies ARE still looking abroad for talent.

According to InfoQ, pandemic-related lockdowns and slowdowns in previously popular but distant offshore locations such as India have spurred interest in nearshoring or hiring from locations in the same or neighboring time zones for teams that are partially or fully distributed/remote.

Already trending before COVID, nearshoring provides companies with broader budget options and access to a larger talent pool. At the same time, geographic and cultural affinities enable nearshore team members to work together in real-time, shoulder to virtual shoulder, and build cohesive cultures.

In 2022, we expect to see Western European companies increasingly sourcing talent from Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukraine. For US companies, according to international business scholar Jerry Haar, “Real-time collaboration, cultural affinity, cost-effectiveness, and a growing talent pool” make the Latin American / Caribbean region “the crown jewel for nearshoring operations."

Briefly, then, nearshoring:

• reduces staffing costs
• increases the amount of available talent
• positions companies to withstand stresses and make strategic pivots
• helps meet workforce needs for specific projects or initiatives
• facilitates productive work cultures

These benefits make nearshoring one obvious, agile solution to challenges coming in 2022.

2. Companies are increasingly open to remote work, and they are looking for self-starters.

With the spread of Omicron, companies such as Microsoft, Meta (Facebook), Google, and Apple have now told their employees to expect to continue working remotely into 2022. And financial institutions such as Bank of America, Citigroup, and Charles Schwab have reversed or delayed initiatives to get staff back to the office.

As companies gain experience with remote workers—and hiring managers themselves adjust to working remotely—they recognize the advantages that come with hiring self- driven, remote workers.

According to Deloitte’s 2021 Outsourcing Survey Report,

• 87% of survey respondents (across 45 countries) say their organizations will, over
  the next 2–5 years, expand work-from-home capabilities to ensure business process
  continuity.
• 80% say they are not planning to “backshore” in the next 3 years.
• 26% are using “location-agnostic recruiting,” signaling an openness to distributed
  teams.
  

Not every employee is a great fit for remote work, but many thrive and increase productivity when not burdened with a commute or workplace distractions. So, it’s not just employers who are learning to love remote work. The workforce is getting comfortable out of the office—and it will be hard, if and when the pandemic recedes, to get everyone back to cube life.

3. Tech workers strongly prefer remote work.

A December 2021 survey of 14,000 people across Europe shows that only 14% of workers want to return to the office. And more than half say they have become more productive as a result of working from home.

In the United States, Indeed surveyed tech employees who had worked onsite before COVID-19 and then switched to full-time remote work. Nearly half (48%) now have the option to work from home, even though they weren’t doing so pre-COVID-19—and 95% of those intend to do so. Six out of 10 say they would even take a pay cut to continue working remotely. 

Reasons workers gave Indeed for planning to stay remote:

• 86% cite the increased flexibility and lack of commute.
• 83% say they can better meet their home and family responsibilities.
  

4. Demand for experienced software talent is rising.

The tech talent shortage is no secret, and it’s expected to get worse in 2022. As offshoring, nearshoring, and location-agnostic staffing become more popular, companies compete globally for good candidates, who are often bombarded by recruiters.

Some workers prefer the stability of long-term employment, while others like the variety that comes with project employment, moving from gig to gig. Some see the international job market as a good place to develop or improve skills that, in turn, make them more marketable, such as fluency in English and experience with distributed teams.

Also, the tech recruiting industry is seeing some consolidation as bigger service providers prepare for increased demand, and investment forms an angle for a piece of the recruiting pie. Hunt Scanlon Media details some of the acquisitions in the recruiting industry here. The bottom line? Finding exceptional software engineers and other tech professionals is going to be challenging in 2022.

5. Tech stacks are evolving.

Our recruiters at BetterEngineer are reporting:

• Strong growth in hiring for full-stack JavaScript roles. Full-stack engineers are valued for their versatility and ability to take more than one role during the software development life cycle.
• There is new growth in recruiting engineers with skills needed to work with blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Blockchain-enabled cryptocurrency continues to move toward or into the mainstream—as exemplified by the hundreds of Bitcoin Depots (crypto ATMs) popping up across the United States. NFTs were so popular in 2021 that the Collins dictionary named NFT its word of the year.
• Continued growth in specialized staffing. Specialized staffing agencies offer the expertise required to quickly hire tech teams or team members to meet current and new needs. (Whatever else 2022 brings, we know it will bring new tech needs!)

7. Work with a specialized staffing agency.

New COVID variants and economic uncertainties encourage companies to grow a remote, distributed workforce. However, sourcing specialized talent is extremely time-consuming. The proliferation of resume pipelines means that you may get dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of applicants for one posted position. Bringing aboard the wrong person or team can be costly and frustrating.

Increasingly, companies without a human resources department or with an already-stretched HR department are turning to specialized staffing agencies such as BetterEngineer, which recruits remote software engineers and builds teams.

BetterEngineer uses an augmented staffing model with a pool of 10,000+ nearshore and onshore software engineers to help clients find the right fit as fast as possible. Staff augmentation allows companies to choose from among highly filtered, well-vetted candidates to find the right team or team members. Options include using BetterEngineer to:

• hire a new team member on a contract basis with terms that fit your needs
• hire a new team member now with the option to make the hire a regular full-time employee in the future
• hire straight to your team from day one