Many important conversations need to happen face-to-face, and sometimes gathering everyone in a room and getting things done is critical. But these aren’t day-to-day needs, and if you’re searching for talent that’s in high demand, one way your organization can adjust is by making your company’s culture more open to remote workers.

This biggest inhibitors to offsite talent are culture and structure, and typically the hardest thing to do is convince executives that you’re not losing control when you hire people to work offsite.

So How Do You Convince the C-Suite to not Fear the Remote Workers?

Start by explaining the new labor conditions of the industry and the need to find smarter ways to react. But you have to do more than that. Battling fears with fears isn’t going to solve your problem. You have to demonstrate how your approach to hiring and investigating talent has gotten smarter.

Just like with any position you’re looking to fill you have to ensure a good fit with your company’s culture as well as curiosity and enthusiasm. When you hire someone to work remotely here are some things you need to find out.

Remote employees must be independent, collaborative and passionate.

When interviewing someone you really need to draw out whether these qualities are strong.

The person has to be flexible in regards to travel.

That means that a normal routine of offsite work is fine, but they have to be able to periodically report to headquarters for some face time.

The candidate and the candidate’s manager have to be good advocates for their ideas.

It can be a challenge to create strong bonds and develop trust with workers you’re not face to face with every day. This makes it harder for people to get behind your ideas. The remote worker has to be passionate in advocating and communicating ideas and has to report to a manager who’s willing to help out.

Relationships are where it’s at.

The candidate has to show a track record of establishing relationships and walking in step with everyone else on the team.

Finally you need to make sure all the infrastructure is in place to make things work.

Without an IT team, your remote worker has to be able to solve problems and be able to move around to where you need him or her with relative ease.

Not every position is amenable to working remotely. No, your nanny can’t watch your kids from their home. So be sure it makes sense and you don’t propose a scenario that’s bound to fail. Still these positions are the exception and not the rule.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.