In a booming global economy, US firms are increasingly relying on a hybrid inhouse/remote staffing model. A diverse, distributed team, says Wishup Founder Neelesh Rangwani, adds efficiency and can improve a business’s overall chances of success.
Small and rapidly growing US companies are going global. In a recent survey, 58% of small businesses already had international customers, and 72% planned to grow a global customer base within the year.(1) To serve this customer base, says Neelesh Rangwani, founder of Delhi-based virtual assistant provider Wishup, and to stay abreast of global expansion, American businesses should employ the services of a global workforce. “In a world of highly capable and affordable workers,” he says, “those who look only to their local talent pool are passing up a significant competitive advantage.”
Workforce diversity helps growing companies meet the needs of an increasingly diverse marketplace. Recent research shows that a team with a member who shares a client’s ethnicity is 152% likelier than a non-diverse team to understand that client.(2) What applies to selling, notes Rangwani, also applies to buying. 76% of surveyed applicants and employees said that a diverse workforce was an important factor in their consideration of companies and job offers.(3)
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A major factor impacting employment in the US is the “great resignation,” an accelerated rate of employee turnover that began in September of last year when a record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs.(4) Workforce instability is not only disruptive, Rangwani points out, it is expensive. For jobs paying less than $50,000 per year, the average cost of replacing an employee amounts to fully 20% of that employee’s total salary.(5)
Part of that cost, notes Rangwani, reflects the time and effort management must devote to keeping the company staffed—an expense driven upward in rapidly growing companies by the need not only to maintain employee strength, but to expand it. For that reason, more and more US-based companies are turning to agencies to recruit and train candidates on the employer’s behalf. Among the documented benefits of using a virtual assistant marketplace agency are reduced overhead cost, reduced overtime pay, reduced risk, improved ROI, and the agency’s up-to-date access to the best talent networks.(6)
The gamut of staffing approaches today, says Rangwani, ranges from fully in-person—the entire workforce is recruited and hired by the employer and works on-premises—to fully remote, as found in many digital-first companies. He also notes that rapidly growing companies in particular are opting for a hybrid workforce in which local and remote workers interact freely across dispersed locations and markets. (7)
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Employers can be confident, says Rangwani, that the virtual assistant agencies will vet employees carefully and hire only those who are fluent in English and knowledgeable about American culture, society, politics, etc. The best international agencies, he adds, draw only from the top tier of applicants.
For US firms to compete in today’s global business community, having an international workforce is not only beneficial, it’s practically mandatory. The simplest and most effective way to hire such an international workforce, Rangwani notes, is through an international virtual assistant agency. “These agencies know the market,” he says, “and they have access to the top graduates of their country’s colleges and universities. If your rapidly growing company has global aspirations, they can be an invaluable partner in helping you fulfill them.”
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