Are you struggling to hire the skilled employees you need? Even if qualified workers are in short supply in your area, the solution that entrepreneur Russell Glass (at left) found can work for you. In today’s guest post, Glass shares how his company is getting great results with “in-shoring.”
As a business owner, there is never a shortage of hats to wear. On Monday, you’re the sales manager; Tuesday, you’re the accountant, Wednesday, you’re the hiring manager— by Friday, you can’t even remember who you were on Monday. Business owners are busy; but more importantly, business owners are adaptable—and in today’s economy, being adaptable is a necessity for long-term success. As the founder of Bizo, a small but fast-growing Bay Area technology company, my company’s success is directly correlated to innovation and adaptability.
One of our biggest challenges at Bizo has been recruiting top-quality talent from within the local Bay Area. In order to remain competitive in the market and grow as a company, we knew that we also needed to grow our employee base—but how could we accomplish that goal with limited resources and candidates? Our solution: “in-shoring.”
We realized early on that to successfully scale our company, we needed to hire only the best people possible. Unfortunately, hiring quality talent based locally was becoming a significant limitation—and sacrificing quality talent was just not something that we were willing to do. At the same time, we didn’t feel we could build the right tight-knit culture we wanted by off-shoring to countries like India, Belarus or other far-away lands.
The solution? A simple one: use powerful, effective and inexpensive collaboration and communication technologies like Skype, Google Docs, Dropbox, instant messaging and Web conferencing to manage our company’s remote workforce and “in-shore” talent from our neighboring states.
“In-shoring” is a simple idea that offers significant benefits to those who practice it. At Bizo, we’ve built a culture that enables our teams to work together efficiently and cohesively—and by doing so, we’ve managed to:
- Build an infrastructure to hire incredible talent, regardless of where they live
- Lower our average cost per employee so we can hire more great employees
- Establish networks around the country which fuels our ability to hire more great people
Today, our 45-person company is represented in 10 states around the country, including one person in Hawaii. It is my belief that better companies are built with a diverse foundation, and “in-shoring” has the potential to alter the landscape of this country’s job market.
Job seekers need to believe that if they take the initiative to acquire new skills, there will be a job available to them. Leading a technology company, I believe that I and others in similar positions have a responsibility to do our part to create and fill jobs in this country. This is simple economics. If the economy thrives, we will be more successful and our children will be more successful.
With expanded education opportunities, a focus on “in-shoring” and continued innovation, we small business owners can overcome the structural challenges that we face today and help create a new wave of job creation.
So, what does “in-shoring” look like for your company?
Russell Glass is Founder and CEO of Bizo, a business-to-business marketing firm.
