For the information technology industry, the COVID pandemic has brought a digital transformation of business services and internal workflows, a record boom in e-commerce, and a dramatic increase in market demand.
The sector is tackling the challenges primarily through the globalization of its workforce, with the emergence of Western European and overseas companies offering huge salaries in the Hungarian market, which could see an average increase in production of up to 2.7% thanks to global teleworking.
Péter Borzák, CEO of INSPYRE Informatics, points out in his analysis that the timezone difference, the different work culture and the isolation can still cause surprises for Hungarian workers.
According to Gartner's analysis, by the end of the year, 51 percent of intellectual workers worldwide will be working from home - up from 27 percent in 2019.
Remote workers will make the 32 percent of the global workforce by the end of the year, from 17 percent of the pre-pandemic times.
"The dramatic pace of digitalization brought on by the pandemic has also ushered in a revolution in teleworking and the globalization of the information technology sector workforce. To alleviate the shortage of talented workers, companies from Western Europe and overseas that were previously distrustful of teleworking have also entered the Central and Eastern European labor market with huge capital and resources," states Péter Borzák, CEO of INSPYRE, on his experience.
The IT vendor company, INSPYRE Informatics has been a partner to US companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 500s, for many years.
The tempting pay can come with many drawbacks
The globalization of teleworking increases the risk of isolation and burnout in the long term, due to the lack of human contact and the possibility of informal networking.
"One of the biggest challenges is lying in the different time zones.
Between Hungary and overseas, there is at least 6 hours difference, and the fact that there are several remote positions within the US, so it's not uncommon to have up to 8 hours of difference within a team.
US companies usually try to compensate for this by using staggered core hours, so that European employees have 11-19 core hours instead of 9-17.
But this can go up to 21-22 hours with extra meetings.
The work culture, notice periods and leave arrangements are also completely different from those of Hungarian workers, so this may come as a surprise to many,"
says Péter Borzák.
The overall picture is still very positive
Experience shows that everyone wins with the globalization of the labor market.
This trend will not disapper as the pandemic subsides, but will stabilize as a good practice and a possible solution as trust and routines are built up.
A recent ground-breaking study by Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom found that a home office can deliver productivity gains of up to 13% per week, while companies can see average production increases of up to 2.7% thanks to teleworking.