[WATCH] The future of remote hiring: With Elaine Dutton, at SiGMA Europe 2021

Dynamic and driven HR professional, Elaine Dutton, opens up about how businesses are slowing moving towards remote, the challenges employers face when hiring remotely and how businesses can get creative during the process

Study shows that remote workers work an extra 1.4 days per month than those in house, this total to approximately 17 extra workdays each year. Addressing those working in HR or Senior Managers of gaming, blockchain, or any related industry, Elaine Dutton, CSB Group speaks about remote working and the impact COVID had on this sector during Malta Week 2021.

Has COVID really impacted remote hiring? Is training and development still an important aspect when hiring? And what about the issue of performance management when you’ve got remote hiring? What would you ask for at the recruitment stage to make sure that you’ve got people who are actually going to be comfortable working remotely? Representing the company that won corporate service provider of the year, Dutton delves deeper into answering these questions.

She believes that COVID has actually pushed employers that were not thinking of remote hiring before to reconsider. The pandemic brought about a dynamic that has rushed the process of what was already in place.

Various companies in tech and related industries in the digital world were already very comfortable with remote hiring and with remote working, it certainly was not something novel when the pandemic hit. Remote working has been around for quite some time. What COVID did was push employees who were uncomfortable, and employers who kept it at bay and brought them to realise that there’s no way out. The outcomes are proving to be reaping benefits. 

This has opened up to employers having a wider pool of people. As talent can be sourced from workers who are based in a different country and are happy to stay elsewhere and still work with you. However, it can obviously bring in certain challenges if as an employer, you have not had proper performance management. 

“Remote working, remote hiring, and having people based everywhere around the globe is going to be a nightmare because it is already a nightmare managing people when they’re just across the hall in the office. Employees now have the opportunity to work from a cafeteria or from home.”

How are you going to have the reassurance that these people are delivering, what they’re meant to be delivered? What shall you provide in terms of goals and resources? 

Firstly, timelines should be clear and structured in any company. A lot of employers have been challenged to really look at their performance management processes and have structures in place to make sure that the employees are accountable as you still need to weed out the people who are non-porous in order to make it work. The process of disciplinary action might still be needed when ensuring that people are delivering when they should be delivering. In order for employers to not get caught up in the rush of remote employers, have to set timelines and deadlines. 

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One of the most asked questions from clients is: “So do we abandon our offices? Do you force people in, do you tell them to stay working remotely?” Employers have to be very careful as they’re dealing with people who are well sought after and can’t afford to lose them.

Creating policies that make sense and work for your company requires a lot of flexibility. Taking into consideration company culture is of equal importance and it is equally vital that you meet up in a physical place as a team every now and then. If employees aren’t based here they can recreate that environment in an online scenario.

There are various apps making it easier to join a group together. We can work remotely. We can work from anywhere. Technology is there. Let’s use it, but let’s not forget that we are ultimately human beings a camera can be a really powerful tool. Let’s make use of it to release its full potential. “Switch your cameras on and give people a proper introduction to the company.”

A nice video, from your CEO, can also work. Share this with the people have a more interactive kind of induction if this one cannot be done in the office, in the physical presence still think about it. Don’t just let it be something as an afterthought. No handbook with guidelines will do the job.

If we know we will have people working remotely, should we be looking at hiring in that perspective?  Are there different personalities that are more suited to work remotely than others? Probably not as all employees are happy working outside of physical office space. 

Maybe some of us don’t have the right setting to be working properly from home or from anywhere else. If you’re going to be working day and day, from your home you might start getting very casual and comfortable. You need to have that inner resource that keeps you on the straight and narrow. Self-discipline is key. The second one is resilience – the emotional resilience to be able to be okay, not to meet other people as some of us are predisposed to enjoy having others around them, for extroverts, particularly, especially people who are very strong on extroversion traits. 

You need to make sure that you’re recruiting people who are okay with not meeting other people on such a regular basis. “I’ve had people come to me and say, Elaine, please, please. Can I come to the office and see a couple of people is as this is driving me mad, especially people who are living on their own. Not everyone has partners and families.”

We need to make sure that these people have resilience. If they are going to be working alone for a significant amount of time, do they know what to do with themselves? Do you have hobbies? Do you have things that actually allow you to be out of home and meet other people in other situations?

Employees need to have the support system required whereby they will not be meeting people so frequently. “Let’s not just take it for granted that people understand it’s a remote job and that they have to figure it out,” Dutton adds.

One has to be clear and conscious of the mental and emotional challenges and wellbeing faced during this process. 

When thinking of structuring a pair for a remote working team, think of performance management, goals, objectives, and deadlines, passing them on to people, giving them a proper induction, a proper onboarding that they deserve, and then making sure that you’re there to sell. 

SiGMA Asia 2022

After the exciting set of conferences that was Malta Week 2021, the SiGMA Group plans to take the world by storm with the golden steeples of Kyiv and the snowy city of Toronto being hubs to draw the best and brightest of the iGaming world together. Our next expo takes us to cutting-edge metropolis of the United Arab Emirates for three days of networking, panel discussions, and festivities. Stay up to date with the latest and greatest through SiGMA News.