In brief

• Talent scarcity is driving organisations to expand global hiring, with digital skills in highest demand.
• Global hiring offers access to diverse talent, cost efficiencies, and greater organisational resilience, but brings complexity and cultural challenges.
• HR leaders must adopt unified strategies, robust infrastructure, and inclusive practices to turn talent scarcity into a strategic advantage.

It’s often said that the nature of work is changing, but the changing nature of the workforce itself is less often discussed – specifically, where that workforce is located. At LACE Partners, we are regularly asked to provide insights and thought leadership to the media on the most pressing issues shaping the People agenda, and one recent enquiry highlighted a profound shift that HR leaders must immediately address: the rapid acceleration of global hiring.

Our thoughts here are based on a recent request from a journalist covering a survey from Pebl, which found that 86% of HR and finance leaders plan to expand international hiring within two years, with nearly half expecting international workers to make up 50% or more of their workforce by 2027. This isn’t just a trend; it’s rapidly becoming the strategic baseline. This piece lays out the massive opportunities and critical risks due to this seismic shift towards global hiring, followed by four key, practical priorities for any HR function serious about building and managing a truly cross-border organisation.

The global war for talent has a digital twist

The foundational reason for this shift to global hiring is simple: the “war for talent” shows no signs of abating, but it now comes with a distinct technology twist. The most in-demand skills globally, including AI and digital fluency, data science, and cybersecurity, are nascent and relatively scarce. In a landscape defined by continuous digital transformation, the ability to secure these hard-to-find skillsets is paramount to delivering strategic business goals.

For an organisation to succeed, its growth agenda must be enabled by people, processes, and technology, and underpinned by a supporting governance structure. When the right people cannot be found domestically, organisations are compelled to cast a global net. The Pebl data underscores this urgency, forecasting a 57% jump in global hiring within the next year alone. Countries like the UK are even more aggressive, with leaders expecting to more than double their global hiring rate within two years. By 2028, a significant portion of executives predict that successful companies will “hire globally by default,” cementing this as the new normal.

The upside: Access, efficiency, and resilience

Global hiring is not merely a reactive measure to skill scarcity; it’s a powerful driver of business advantage that significantly enhances an organisation’s capability and competitiveness.

Access to a deeper, more diverse talent pool

The most immediate and obvious benefit of global hiring is the removal of geographical constraints from the talent search. By opening up hiring beyond domestic borders, organisations immediately tap into a wider, richer, and more diverse talent pool. This diversity is not just about demographics; it’s about a corresponding diverse set of perspectives, experiences, and problem-solving approaches. Diverse teams are repeatedly proven to outperform homogenous ones, leading to better decision-making, greater innovation, and stronger market adaptation. This is particularly vital when tackling global challenges like cybersecurity or complex regulatory landscapes.

The cost-effectiveness opportunity

Globalisation allows smart organisations to optimise their workforce expenses. There is a clear opportunity for cost-effective solutions by taking advantage of salary differentials between high-cost metropolitan areas and lower-cost, yet equally skilled, locations. This is not about simply hiring cheap labour; it’s about strategic workforce planning that balances skill acquisition with budgetary discipline, allowing resources to be allocated more effectively to core business functions. While legal and infrastructural costs will rise, the strategic long-term savings on talent acquisition and retention in lower-cost hubs can provide a significant competitive edge.

Increased productivity and “follow-the-sun” workflows

Beyond cost, global teams can fundamentally increase productivity by enabling “follow-the-sun” workflows. Geographically-dispersed teams, if managed correctly, can hand off tasks at the end of their workday to a team member in a different time zone. This creates uninterrupted progress and dramatically faster delivery cycles for key projects, product development, and customer support (which can run 24/7). This relentless operational momentum is a formidable advantage in today’s fast-moving markets.

Enhanced agility and organisational resilience

A globally-dispersed workforce increases an organisation’s agility and resilience. When a company is not concentrated in one physical location, it is better equipped to withstand local disruptions, whether they are economic, geopolitical, or health-related. Teams become more adaptable to global change, while leaders gain intelligence and insight into new markets, helping the entire organisation stay responsive and competitive. Global agility moves from a nice-to-have to a core defensive and growth capability.

The downside: Complexity, friction and culture

While the advantages are substantial, the transition to global hiring-by-default is fraught with complexity; HR leaders’ ability to understand and manage this risks are key to being able to take advantage of this opportunity.

Bridging cultural and communication gaps

Perhaps the most underestimated risk is the potential for misunderstanding and friction due to language barriers and deep-seated cultural differences. Communication styles, conflict resolution approaches, and even the fundamental interpretation of deadlines or feedback can vary dramatically between cultures. Without a conscious, deliberate effort on the part of management to establish clear, inclusive communication protocols, global teams can easily become fractured, hindering the creation of a coherent and effective working culture. The friction arising from cultural gaps can quickly erode the productivity gains expected from a diverse workforce.

Navigating the legislative and compliance maze

Having a global footprint immediately escalates the complexity of managing compliance. Organisations must now navigate a multitude of employment, data privacy, and taxation legislative landscapes. Labour laws differ significantly between jurisdictions – from termination rights and working hour regulations to mandatory benefits and union requirements (we touch on this in our podcast here). Furthermore, transferring sensitive employee data across geographical borders requires rigorous adherence to data privacy frameworks like GDPR, which presents a significant infrastructural challenge. This complexity demands a robust, integrated HR infrastructure capable of maintaining compliance and operational integrity across a continuously evolving legal and regulatory landscape in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.

Logistical challenges and employee wellbeing

The practical reality of managing teams spanning multiple time zones presents logistical hurdles that directly impact employee wellbeing. While “follow-the-sun” workflows sound ideal on paper, they often mean that team members must be online at the same time for critical meetings. This can result in early morning or late-night calls, impacting work-life balance and potentially leading to burnout or dissatisfaction if not managed with intentionality and empathy. The challenge to overcome is how to ensure that flexibility does not translate into sacrifice for the individual employee.

The action plan: Four strategic priorities for HR leaders

To harness the advantages of tapping into the global talent market while proactively mitigating the risks, we recommend HR leaders focus on four key strategic priorities:

1. Develop a unified global People strategy and HR infrastructure

The foundation of successful global teams is a globally consistent people strategy that is supported by a seamless HR infrastructure. This means moving away from patchwork local solutions and investing in platforms that truly facilitate payroll, legal compliance, and benefit administration across multiple jurisdictions. This infrastructure must be secure, scalable, and capable of providing real-time data integrity. A unified approach ensures fairness, consistency in the employee experience, and allows HR to operate as a strategic, borderless function rather than a collection of local administrators.

2. Implement practices for asynchronous work and time zone management

Logistical challenges cannot be solved by simply asking people to start early or stay up late. Organisations must establish robust asynchronous working practices. This means supplementing high-value team calls and check-ins with clear, professional written updates, shared dashboards, and collaboration platforms that capture progress without requiring immediate, synchronous input. Flexibility is key: setting flexible collaboration hours (such as a four-hour window where all regions overlap) ensures connectivity while protecting the rest of the local workday for focused individual work, helping to safeguard work-life balance.

3. Focus on inclusive communication and cultural connectivity

Building high-performing, multi-national teams requires a deliberate focus on communication practices that bridge cultural differences and build a deep sense of inclusion and connectivity. This goes beyond language training: it involves training managers to be culturally literate leaders, who understand and value different communication styles. HR should facilitate regular, informal opportunities for virtual team members to connect and build trust, transforming diverse groups into cohesive, effective teams. This cultural scaffolding is what transforms geographical separation into strategic strength.

4. Leverage data for proactive workforce management

In a dispersed environment, data is the only reliable way to monitor the health and effectiveness of the workforce. HR must apply the insights gleaned from a robust company listening strategy (something we talked about with the CPO from Aston Martin a few years back) – including pulse surveys, sentiment analysis, and operational metrics – to monitor engagement, wellbeing, and productivity. This data should be segmented by location and team to focus on locations where challenges are emerging (e.g., specific regions showing signs of high burnout or low engagement). This approach enables HR to take appropriate, culturally-sensitive actions where needed, moving from reactive fire-fighting to proactive, data-driven workforce governance.

Global hiring is a leadership challenge

The forecast is clear: global hiring is no longer an optional tactic, but a strategic and financial necessity, driven by the scarcity of digital skills and the economic pressure of inflation. The responsibility for the success of this new era of global work rests squarely on the shoulders of HR and People leaders. By proactively building the right technological infrastructure, establishing clear operational boundaries for cross-time zone collaboration, as well as deliberately fostering an inclusive global culture, HR can transform complexity into a sustainable competitive advantage. The future of talent is borderless; we need to put the HR strategies in place today to help us take advantage of that reality.

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