More than half of organisations use at least some ‘borderless’ technology workers, according to a survey by tech research and consultancy firm Gartner.
Gartner’s definition of borderless working is when people work remotely across different countries with a contract of employment made across national borders.
The survey quizzed nearly 300 C-suite executives about their plans for and current adoption of borderless working.
According to the report, 58% of organisations surveyed said that they were employing IT and tech workers fitting this description, a figure that has doubled over the past three years.
Additionally, more than a quarter (27%) of leaders at these organisations were in the process of exploring borderless hiring.
Where an organisation did employ borderless tech talent, nearly a fifth (19%) of their entire IT workforce fitted into this category.
The top two areas that business leaders were looking towards borderless talent for were software engineering/application development (cited by 62% of respondents to the survey), followed closely by application support (cited by 55%).
A majority of respondents (71%) said that it was vital to incorporate the special needs of borderless workers into their workplace strategy.
Half said that they had already adopted tools that could help in this regard and especially in areas such as remote collaboration and productivity.
These included solutions such as digital whiteboarding, cloud-based office packages, remote meeting applications, and workstream collaboration tools.
India was the most selected country for borderless recruitment
The survey also found that India was the most commonly used country from which European and American organisations recruited borderless talent, with the UK in fourth place.
Similar proportions of European and North American companies had a preference for UK-based talent (28% and 26% respectively).
Organisations in mainland Europe also commonly recruited from other European countries.
Gabriela Vogel, senior director analyst at Gartner, said that the practice had been boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic and that it was no longer the exception.
The fact that retention and hiring was now seen as the third most important priority for CEOs also had an effect, she added.
The results of the survey were shared at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, where Vogel said that location is fluid in the global market.
As a consequence, IT workers were able to work across borders and the professional world was competing for the best talent.
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