5 Reasons Why Aussie Companies Should Hire Globally

If this pandemic has shown us anything positive, it’s that we don’t need boring commutes, fancy offices and rigid working hours in order to get the job done. As companies around Australia move to a permanent work from home or hybrid arrangement, the way we hire and scale teams is rapidly changing.

I was catching up with a friend recently who runs a web agency in Melbourne. He explained how since late 2020, they now open all their job ads up to anyone living Australia or New Zealand. And why not? New Zealand shares a similar timezone, similar culture and typically is a bit cheaper when it comes to salary negotiations, especially in the tech sector.

In todays day and age with tools like Hnry and Wise it’s so easy for kiwis to contract to Australian companies and vice versa. But why stop at New Zealand? Here in Australia, we’re very fortunate to have South East Asia right on our door step. Similar timezones (often the same as Perth), increasingly shared culture (Bali holiday anyone?) and SEA has around 28x more people than Australia.

Over the past 12 months we’ve been fortunate enough to travel through South East Asia and build out an amazing team. Now I want to share some of the top 5 reasons why you should consider hiring globally too.

1. Talent pool

This is by far the most valuable benefit for hiring a global team. When you look beyond your own country, you open the door to an educated and skilled talent pool often magnitudes of scale larger

In todays world we have a broad range of technologies, languages and frameworks we like to use. This can often find hiring the right talent who can hit the ground running difficult. You’ve got frontend, backend, full-stack, dev-ops, Javascript, Typescript, Node, React, Vue, Flutter, Tailwind, Go, AWS, Azure and everything else in between. When you restrict yourself to Australia you’re competing with the finite number of people who are skilled in the technologies you need.

That’s just for tech, what about graphic design, UX design, project managers, QA testers, the list goes on.

2. Speed

One of the reasons I love working with Indonesia especially, is how fast we can scale up our teams. Our current turn around time to hire a Senior Developer from job ads going live to their first day is between 2-4 weeks.

Wth in just a few days of our jobs ads going up, our recruitment team often see hundreds of skills applicants coming through. Interviews start within a week and start date is often within 1 month.

I’ve seen successful Australian companies struggle because they can’t hire and scale their teams fast enough. Their team are constantly getting poached by other companies and recruiters and technology decisions end up being made based on what the local talent pool can offer.

3. Capitalise on the “new normal”

Over the last two years we’ve seen unprecedented acceleration of work from home uptake. The “home office” is quickly becoming just the “office”. The days of travelling across cities, countries or even globally for meetings are changing forever.

People are used to this way of working, people are expecting this way of working. New tools and software have rapidly evolved to fill the market and drive remote productivity.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect to capitalise on.

4. Timezones

This one can go both ways, in some cases being spread across timezones can have a huge advantage to your business, in other cases it might be an obstacle. For us, as the world moves away from “meetings for everything”, and instead towards clear, precise written communication we find different timezones becoming more and more of an advantage.

We have staff who are able to continue working into the evening because their work day is still going while ours is coming to an end. This means when we wake up there will be new work ready for us to review and test. This allows us time to give feedback ready in time for the team to start their new day.

By having a global team it also allows us to have a much larger support desk coverage across a broader time spectrum. This means that often times we have someone who is online no whatever what time of day it might be for you or your clients.

5. Cost

According to several reports and studies, Australia ranks in the top 5 globally for highest paying salaries across the tech sector.

That’s not surprising either, given the recent sky rocketing cost of living across many of Australia’s cities, the talent shortage partially due to the border restrictions and a general global strain on skilled technical people.

Why limit your team by your budget? Why not take advantage of a globalised talent market that often offers incredible talent for competitive rates salaries.