Many Admin/Clerical Jobs Are Staying Remote!

….which is a trend that will create new sources of talent for Northwest employers!

Up until recently, most admin, service, or clerical jobs had been excluded from the “remote worker” group.  We’re finding that, post the Covid-19 shut down,  many of the admin roles we once filled with an “in house” employee, have morphed into jobs that employers are comfortable filling with employees willing to work remote on a permanent basis.

While the  “work from home opportunities” for higher level professional jobs in the financial, IT and sales arenas have been steadily increasing over the last decade, this trend hadn’t yet hit the administrative/clerical arena.  In fact most employers preferred to have their support teams physically “in the office” considering a pre requisite for an efficient collaborative work environment.

Post covid, we’re experiencing a growing trend for employers to reverse this trend and make office support roles  available to employees who not only may prefer to work virtually, but have to as a result of a change in their personal lives.  We’ve seen this trend particularly strong for support roles in specialty areas like legal, financial, marketing, HR or recruiting, etc.

The short and long term impact of this trend could be significant.

The ability to recruit for employees who live outside traditional geographical boundaries will expand an employer’s access to exceptional talent – sometimes in ways not envisioned pre Covid.  We recently worked with a client in New York City who asked us to find a high level staff accountant to be affiliated with their  office in Manhattan.  While we had done considerable work with them in their local Seattle office, they asked us to get involved with this particular recruit  because they had decided (based on the shut downs in NYC) that a candidate could be physically anywhere – even working out of their home here in Seattle.

At first the recruit was a little weird, but after the reality of what the employee would be doing started to sink in, we started to see that there was no reason why an employee working from somewhere here in the Northwest couldn’t do the actual work requirements.  In effect this employee was supporting work units sprinkled all over the US.  Loyalty to the notion of hiring a New York employee no longer made sense to our client.

While our client was motivated to find the right candidate in or outside NYC, they also enjoyed the lower salary requirements of employees working in less expensive placees to live than NYC.

Lesson?  If you’re  having a hard time finding the talent you need in the local marketplace, where top talent is either scarce or costs a lot more than your budget allows, consider expanding your search to include candidates living in other parts of the US where wages might be less for the same set of skills.

The opportunities for administrative employees to work in part-time or “flexibly scheduled” roles has also increased – providing new work opportunities for women (or men)  who prefer a flexible way to find that balance between their family care responsibilities with their need to increase family income. We anticipate that new opportunities to work remotely in clerical or administrative roles will be a way for displaced retail or hospitality employees with administrative skills to find new sources of income.

In addition to expanding their access to new talent,  reducing the number of people actually coming to a physical location each day will bring significant cost savings to employers who have been paying premium rates for facilities located close to public transportation. The impact of reductions in the demand for commercial office space, is likely going to be with us for some time.

A good news is that many of the skills needed to be good at administrative work – organization, focus, detail oriented  – are the same skills needed to be successful in remote, virtual work arrangements.

Check out this recent article on how to assess a candidate’s work from home capabilities to make sure you hire candidates who can thrive in these new remote settings. 

The staffing and recruiting world is changing.  Now may be the time to try something new!

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PACE Staffing Network is one of the Puget Sound’s premier staffing /recruiting agencies and has been helping Northwest employers find and hire employees based on the “right fit” for over 40 years.

A  4 time winner of the coveted “Best in Staffing” designation , PACE is ranked in the top 2% of staffing agencies nationwide based on annual surveys of customer satisfaction.

PACE services include temporary and contract staffing, temp to hire auditions, direct hire professional recruiting services, Employer of Record (payroll) services, and a large menu of candidate assessment services our clients can purchase a la carte.

To learn more about how partnering with PACE will make a difference to how you find and hire employees,  contact our Partner Services and Solutions team at 425-637-3312, e mail us at partnerservices@pacestaffing.com or visit our website at www. pacestaffing.com/employers.