With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have had to find unique ways of combating the Great Resignation. Yet, as remote and hybrid work environments are increasingly permanent, there are still many challenges that have emerged in the process. Here are a few:
Time management: Many people who work from home find it hard to balance their time between responsibilities. When you’re not in a traditional work environment, it can be easy to lose track of time and end up spending too much time on things outside of work.
Procrastination: In many cases, working from home can lead to procrastination. This is especially true because it’s easy to get distracted by everything that’s going on at home—cleaning, cooking, taking care of pets, etc. This means you may start your workday late and end up finishing late or worse–not at all!
Communication: Without regular face-to-face interactions with colleagues or managers in an office setting, it can be hard for people who work remotely to stay connected with their team members and company leaders.
Socialization: Working remotely also means being isolated from coworkers. While there are many forms of communication available between team members, it’s not always easy to keep everyone on the same page, especially if some people are more verbose and comfortable communicating than others.
One way to ensure that everyone is being heard is to have regular video meetings where all team members have equal time to express their ideas, opinions or concerns. You should also try and get feedback from every team member on major projects or decisions as well as checking in with individuals individually via email, phone call or instant messaging.
Nonetheless, combating the great resignation for many employers means making remote work your organization’s greatest strength.
With the gig economy on the rise, it’s more important than ever to offer a workplace environment designed to attract and retain top talent. People are looking for flexible hours, work-life balance, and opportunities for professional growth. They’re looking for jobs where they can work from home or telecommute, or even just have the freedom to choose their own schedule.
That’s why we recommend creating a culture that fosters productivity, autonomy, and connection. You’ll be able to keep your employees happy while attracting new ones.
While you’ll need to take steps to ensure that everyone is connected, remote employees also require a bit more structure than their on-site counterparts. We recommend establishing clear communication channels, setting expectations for availability, and implementing policies for managing time off.
Tech workers have more options than ever before—and that means you need to be able to attract the best of the best.
So how do you do it? What can you do to make sure your company is one that people want to work for?
We’ve got a few suggestions:
- Get on social media. Job seekers are looking up your company on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… you name it. When they find an out-of-date profile (or worse, no profile), they’re going to wonder what’s wrong with your company. That’s not exactly a good way to start off on the right foot.
- Ask for referrals from employees. This can help ensure you get quality hires who are already familiar with the quality of work that is expected from your company—and who can integrate into the culture easily because they know someone there already.
- Make sure your company has a unique culture and values system that sets it apart from others in your industry—and make sure it’s something employees actually like! If all you have is free food and no one likes the food you serve, what’s the point?
Combating the Great Resignation With Freelancers
In addition to increasing pay and benefits, other employers are combating the Great Resignation by targeting freelancers for projects. Let’s examine how freelancers can satisfy your staffing needs, particularly in a world with more unknowns than ever.
When it comes to hiring freelancers, there are pros and cons. If you choose to use freelancers, make sure that they are reputable and have a long history of satisfied clients. Freelancers also usually have a lot of experience doing the kind of work you need help with. Part of the reason they do so well working solo is because they have gained a lot of expertise in their field over the years and know how to get the work done quickly and efficiently.
They also bring a fresh perspective. Full-time employees can get bogged down in the details and lose sight of the big picture. A freelancer who is hired for a specific project can come in with an outside eye that’s not clouded by office politics or other concerns.
Here are some other pros of hiring freelancers:
- You can hire quickly, which is great for time-sensitive needs.
- You can get work done more quickly when your budget isn’t as limited as it would be if you were hiring full-time employees.
- They often have specialized skills that you don’t need all the time but might occasionally come in handy.
- Hiring freelancers can be less expensive than hiring employees.
There are also some cons to hiring freelancers. For instance, freelancers are much more likely to have multiple clients at the same time. This means you can’t expect them to be available around the clock and may not always be able to get a hold of them when you need them.
It’s hard to find someone with the right skills and availability, who is willing to work for the right price. Once you find them, it’s hard to know whether they’re worth hiring — or even if they’re real!
But when it works? It’s a godsend. You get work done without having to onboard an employee and deal with all the red tape that comes along with that.
Did you know that the average company can save up to 70% on their labor costs by outsourcing work to freelancers?
The best part is, if you find a great freelancer, it’s not just about saving money: You’re investing in a relationship that will make your company stronger.
Freelancers provide services that can help your business grow, from web development to marketing and even administrative support. And freelancing gives them the freedom to offer more competitive rates than an agency or full-time employee could.
But where do you find them? What kind of freelancer do you want? What questions should you ask? And how do you make sure they’re a good fit for your company’s culture as well as its needs?
To start, here are the four best places to find freelancers:
Combating the Great Resignation With a Decentralized Team
Freelancers, as described above, can help your company keep initiatives moving forward if you’ve found yourself negatively impacted by the Great Resignation. But for companies used to a dedicated workforce, managing teams of people with multiple clients adds a layer of complexity that can be more than you bargained for. That’s why another option is to simply outsource certain key projects or functions, ideally to someone with proven expertise in managing decentralized teams.
The model that Ascendle’s had in place is one version of this approach. We offer US-led project leadership, including product owners, Scrummasters, and lead architects. These people enjoy frequent interaction with our customers and ensure their priorities are clearly understood, and then communicate these tasks to contracted developers and quality assurance professionals. These teams are accustomed to and comfortable with remote working, having long since overcome learning how to use decentralized tools and juggling multiple time zones.
Moreover, these “teams” are just that. Rather than a group of individuals cobbled together, we prefer to work with teams of developers that have already established good working patterns with one another, once again decreasing ramp-up time and ideally further enhancing speed to market.
There are several key benefits to outsourcing key business functions, whether they be development, marketing, or customer service.
One such benefit is the ability to hire the best talent, regardless of location. This can be a game-changer when it comes to finding and hiring people who have a proven track record of doing great work—regardless of time zone or other factors that could be barriers in a traditional office environment.
In addition to working with the top talent, outsourcing often saves money. The cost of managing your own office and IT infrastructure can be enormous. Decentralized technologists will have their own offices and their own computers, which means the cost of that infrastructure is on them instead of on you. A decentralized team will also have its own management structure, which means they won’t be interrupted by internal meetings or other miscellaneous tasks—they’ll be focused solely on your project in a way that a centralized team simply can’t be. And even though the hourly rate for decentralized workers can exceed the hourly rate for a full-time employee, not paying benefits and having more flexibility to add and remove help as needed usually create benefits that drop directly to the bottom line. For many companies, combating the Great Resignation with a decentralized team can often be the most effective and affordable approach.
Agile Teams Are Better Equipped for Remote Work
If you’ve ever managed a team, chances are you’ve heard of “agile methodology.” But what is it? And how does it work?
“Agile” is a term that’s been used in tech for years to describe any approach to development that emphasizes collaboration between cross-functional teams. It’s all about gathering feedback early and often so that teams can quickly course-correct or change directions.
There are many different kinds of agile methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming (XP). Each has its own principles, but they all prioritize continuous improvement, the ability to pivot or change course based on user feedback, and cross-team collaboration.
In our next post in this series, we’ll discuss effective methods for managing a team of decentralized technologists. For instance, the agile approach can be incredibly helpful, particularly if you’re considering combatting the Great Resignation with a decentralized team. Consider these benefits:
- The agile approach is flexible. Changes can be made at any point, which means that it’s easy to modify a process if you realize it isn’t working as well as you’d hoped.
- It helps create a more dynamic team environment. By encouraging collaboration and communication, the agile approach is great for fostering teamwork in the workplace.
- It promotes clear visibility for everyone involved—from managers to individual contributors—about what work needs doing and where each person stands with their own tasks and responsibilities.
- This method also encourages prioritization of tasks so that all projects get done on time and within budget constraints while still allowing people some freedom when it comes to how they get there (i.e., what tools they use, etc.). You’ll be able to meet deadlines more effectively than if you were using a traditional “waterfall” approach.
- Agile is great for documentation: It encourages you to outline the key points first, then fill in the details later as needed, which saves time and keeps the important things from getting lost in the noise.
