A survey conducted by the Századvég Foundation for Public Knowledge involving professionals with IT graduations reveals that 62% of respondents worked exclusively in the office before the pandemic. This figure that dropped to 13% after the pandemic. In addition, the proportion of people working fully from home increased almost five-fold (37%). This trend is mainly due to the acceleration of digitalization in the wake of the pandemic and the investments needed to work in hybrid environments. This in turn could lead to a digital exodus, a real problem for the region's competitiveness.
"At INSPYRE, we are trying to counter this pull by focusing on benefits that would not be available in full-remote working. We also offer competitive salaries from a regional point of view, and we also try to put a lot of emphasis on keeping the team spirit, so we regularly organize tech talks and team-building sessions on various topics. We have also chosen an office ship as our headquarters to make the time spent onsite a more special experience for our colleagues," says Aliz Apró, Head of HR at INSPYRE.
The phenomenon of international remote work
With the emergence of the home office, the physical constraints of the labour market for some jobs have almost disappeared. With the right tools and infrastructure, it is easy to work from anywhere in the world without having to move anywhere. This phenomenon is called digital exodus. In most cases, the main motivation is the high salary and the possibility of working from home full-time, which at first sight seems convenient.
However, most of the time these contracts are short term and it is easy to fall victim to redundancies in a recession.It is more difficult to develop deeper relationships in this form, as the contact is exclusively online, and so, in addition to the fact that closer collegial relationships are rarely formed, performance often remains invisible, which can be a disadvantage in a cost-cutting exercise. And in the current economic climate, financial security is becoming more important, so it is worth considering these risks.
Strategies to retain IT professionals
At INSPYRE, we believe it is important to place a strong emphasis on the involvement of our colleagues in projects that are at the forefront of technology on a global scale.Accordingly, we are currently working on the development of a blockchain-based financial system, but also on artificial intelligence or big data projects.
For the future, a strong line is also emerging in the health technology line, where we are working with major pharmaceutical companies, research companies, medical device companies.In addition to developing cutting-edge technologies, we also see training less senior colleagues as an important asset. We would like to reinforce this with our leader mentoring program, which is more difficult to implement when working full-remote.
Upon recruitment, the hired colleague will be placed in a lead's team according to his or her skills and will be able to acquire the knowledge required for a senior level more quickly by following a tailor-made training path. During the recruitment process, we also identify interests and skills that need to be developed.
"In my opinion, because we have a rotation between projects, one can acquire this knowledge sooner and we can also create opportunities for them to try out new technology solutions on a live project. Because we have been working with our clients for many years, it is possible to work with companies/projects that you may not have had the opportunity to work on in an individual application. There may be a break of a couple of weeks between projects, during which time we give the developer the opportunity to learn through different courses", Aliz Apró points out.