It was the winter of 2019. Esther found herself in a rut with her 9-5 job which wasn’t a 9-5 really because she found herself typing away codes on her computer till 7 pm every single day. It wasn’t like she had much to look forward to in her tiny, dark, and dingy apartment of hers with an indifferent roommate in the big city of New York. The numbers of rent prices were getting bigger every year and the spaces were getting smaller. If there was one word she could use to describe her life, it had to be miserable. 

She wanted to escape but it didn’t seem like there was any place to run to.

One of these days, the air felt thicker with gloom. Her dingy apartment felt stuffier than on other days and her job was a tad more demanding. The urge to escape was bigger than the other days today. She dreamt of having the perfect job. 

This perfect job offered her the freedom to choose her location and her hours. She was required to visit the office only twice a year for a few days but other than that, she had the complete freedom to choose a bigger, warmer place to work and decide how long she needed to work every day. This job was about tasks well and completely done and not about the hours she spent glued to her desk. 

Fast forward to three years later, she is living the dream. She’s traveling the world and only goes to the New York office twice a year for a few months (yes, just how she imagined). She works out anywhere and everywhere in the world. She works for 4-6 hours every day because she’d decided that that’s the number of most productive hours she has each day. She loves to begin her day with stable Yoga practice and loves to end her day by reading classic literature. 

Most importantly, she also reports that her productivity has been higher and her job more fulfilling than ever before. 

When COVID-19 struck and the world got locked behind closed doors for an unknown duration. Little did we know then all our dreams for our jobs were going to come true sooner than we realized.

The subtle undertows of remote working were already in place before the pandemic but they were still underneath the deep, harsh reality of regular 9-5 jobs. Remote working then was just an idea and a far cry from a possible reality.  

With the pandemic, a new reality was in the making. 

Doors of corporations and organizations stayed locked month after month, ramming our lives at the threshold of remote work. 

The pandemic has introduced us to a whole new idea of normal. What seemed impossible three years ago is now a way of life for us now. It’d be safe to say now that the future of work has officially arrived. 

And with this future, the tables have been turned. With the whole world more accessible to both companies and individuals, the most skilled workforce has the upper hand now and every tech corporation wants a taste of it.

For the longest time, the most desired jobs required employees to relocate to the most expensive cities in the world. Living a decent quality of life and saving enough money for the future was a distant dream for most. But now that other extraneous factors like distance and locations have become what they are: extraneous, the most competent employees are proving to be the real winners, and this distant dream held by many is being thrown open for grabs. 

With the ongoing crunch in talent retention all over the world, and every tech corporation in the world struggling to keep its head above water, this power held by the most talented is only becoming more real and more pronounced. 

Employees have more power now. And the corporations are adjusting themselves to meet their needs. 

So What Is This New Problem of Not Being Able to Retain Talent? 

If anything, the pandemic has accentuated one fact about survival in today’s era: the only corporations that will survive are the ones that adapt to the changing ‘normal’ and the ones that refuse this change are the ones that have already perished or will continue to wither away. Companies now have to recognize that top talent is looking for something beyond their jobs now and the only way to stay relevant now is to create space for this need. Moreover, when it’s common knowledge that doing so does not compromise the quality of work, it’s only sensible to prioritize the needs of the indispensable workforce. 

This is especially true for the tech industry because by now most of the talent out there has figured out that the traditional style of working is not really a requisite for real work. 

It’s now time for companies to make use of the great talent that is waiting to be harnessed. Physical constructs are now a thing of the past and the creme de la creme of talent from all over the world is now a possibility for tech corporations. 

Moreover, the new normal in work lives has enabled also the best tech corporations to work because they can also transcend physical boundaries and hire the most kickass coders there are. By giving the topmost talent exactly what they need to be happy and successful, corporations are allowing innovation and creativity to flow through them to create a better present and future for mankind.

So now that we have decided to create the best environments for talent retention, how do we go about it? 

Remote Work and Flexible Hours Are Key Factors While Considering Jobs

The new normal has revealed the possibilities and joy of remote work to individuals and the most kickass coders out there are willing to settle for nothing less. Most surveys and data on the majority of tech professionals emphasize the importance of remote work options. Whether it is remote work fully or partially varies from person to person and the roles they’re performing at an organization, one thing remains constant- jobs without the option of remote work are not even considered. 

According to a report published by Forbes, 97% of employees they surveyed said that they don’t want to return to the office full time while 61% of them prefer being completely remote. 

Further, another report by OwlLabs says that 32% of the professionals they surveyed said that they’d quit if remote work wasn’t an option. The very report also found that only 36% of the professionals believe that being at the office is the best for individual work. 

While it seems as if the workforce has more power, organizations also need to consider that the new working situation is beneficial for them as well. With reduced costs of office rent, electricity, maintenance, and employee retention, organizations now have the option of investing in ways that can lead to long-term growth and development for the employees and the organization. 

Most of the thriving tech organizations in the world have already made the move toward the new normal. And the ones that stuck to the traditional ways of working incurred losses and difficulties and had to either move or fizzle out. 

The time squandered behind the wheel has been reduced too, leading to more productivity and efficiency during work hours. 

Top tech corporations across the world including Google and Apple have adopted the hybrid work approach as well where employees show up to the office for a few days and work remotely the rest of the week. 

This is what Google CEO Sundhar Pichai had to say about the new work situation: “We’ll move to a hybrid work week where most Googlers spend approximately three days in the office and two days wherever they work best,”

He further added that new, remote roles at Google are in the making. They’re also in the process of transitioning some existing roles to 100% remote. 

Apple has also introduced a new policy where employees go to the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and have the option to work remotely on Wednesdays and Fridays. They also have the option to take up to two weeks of further remote time. 

As per the recent report published by Mckinsey, eighty-seven percent of the workers surveyed embrace flexible hours and spend around three days a week working from home. The same survey also showed that remote work is popular with numbers going as high as 80 million only for Americans and that people want to work remotely as much as possible. Mckinsey’s prior research also shows that for the ones who left their jobs, flexible hours were a top reason to accept new jobs. 

Another report by the NY Times says that only 5% of fully paid working jobs in the US allowed flexibility in time in 2019 and that this number had escalated to 60% in May 2020 and this trend is only forecasted to rise further. 

We live in times when remote work is becoming more and more pervasive in our culture. Remote work has established this footing not only because of its high functionality but also because it has allowed employees to experience a higher level of well-being. While opportunities for career growth used to be enough to entice people in the past, people want more now; they’re seeking holistic personal development.

However, we also understand that a quick switch to remote work can be intimidating in the beginning. While the trend indicates that remote work is the way to go, there’s no defined rule for doing it. And to top it, where do you even find the best talent in the remote industry? And how do you begin looking? 

We have one answer to all your questions. It’s Workfall. We have spent years in the industry perfecting our methods of selecting the best of the best talent so that you get the best resource for your most passionate projects. 

With Workfall, you can hire remote developers who are not just dependable but also the best in the coding industry. At Workfall, we have a rigorous vetting approach that guarantees you the most kickass coders in the tech industry. How are we so sure that each of these hires is a kickass hire you ask? You can find out here. 

What’s more? You can hire the top talent with Workfall without breaking the bank and within a short span of time.