“I want you for the US Army.”

Given a little pop culture savvy and a little knowledge of world history, you would have likely been able to associate a particular popular image to that slogan.

That image in your mind likely would have been one of a stern, white-haired older gentleman, wearing a star-spangled outfit with a matching top hat, pointing at you with a bony finger.

That image with that slogan was an effective tool at recruiting able-bodied young men to join the US Army and fight in the First World War; that image, despite being over one hundred years old, remains relevant to this day as an iconic image from the past and a staple of popular culture.

The thing is, the image and the slogan were actually inspired by a British recruitment poster featuring the British secretary of state for war. The original image featured the Secretary pointing a finger at the possible recruit standing in front of his stern image.

The idea for the poster wasn’t original, but the execution was. The idea for the base may have originated from one country, but it was able to achieve greater success in a different form through the work of an artist in a different country.

Ideas can take on a brand new life when imported to places outside of where they were originally from. And therein lies the potential for remote recruitment and staffing.

So what is remote recruitment and staffing?

A recruitment and staffing agency is an entity that finds and screens candidates for employment for client-employers. Candidates who get a job through a recruitment and staffing agency do not become employees of the said agency but become employees of the agency’s client-employer.

A management agency is an entity that provides management services for client-employers. The progress of a remote staff can be hard to monitor, that is why an agency offering management services can put the client’s mind at ease and free up an executive’s schedule to do more with the company. Management services ensure that a trusted manager is always there to keep the team on track to meet its goals and delivering consistent and excellent team performance.

Globalization gives you an advantage

“The global competitive playing field [is] being leveled. The world [is] being flattened.”

–Thomas L. Friedman

The World is Flat

Computers, e-mail, fiber-optic networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software has made it possible to collaborate with people in real time regardless of where they are in the world.

Many companies have taken advantage of this leveling of the global playing field by outsourcing their productions overseas.

For example, JP Morgan Chase & Co is one of the oldest, largest, and best-known financial institutions in the world. It is a leader in wholesale financial services and has clients in over 100 countries around the world.

In 2005, it launched its Global Service Center (GSC) in the Philippines to provide strategic support to its Consumer & Community Banking and Corporate & Investment Bank lines of business. It has a significant presence in the Philippines and is one of the country’s biggest Business Process Outsourcing companies, employing over 15,000 Filipino employees. It currently operates in two cities in the Philippines: Metro Manila and Cebu.

Advantages of hiring remote staff

The distinction is fairly simple but quite impactful: a remote staff is an internationally sourced staff while a local staff is locally sourced staff.

Outsourcing is not a new concept. Prior to high speed internet and even before satellite technology made it possible for call centers to become an industry, brick-and-mortar businesses have engaged in outsourcing in one form or another.

The world of work is no longer limited to what can be materially accomplished in a physical office. Traditional office spaces are going the way of brick-and-mortar stores: they’re shedding their physical boundaries and moving all the stuff people need to the Internet.

Searching for candidates in particular locations can set a tight limit on talent pool selections. In many places, local talents are unwilling to compromise on salaries and benefits because of high costs of living. And being located in or near a corporate or industrial hub does hike up the cost of living, especially when said hub is located in highly developed countries.

That said, many of less developed countries, particularly in Asia, are peopled with professionals trained to anticipate and adapt to the challenges of globalization who are just as qualified as their overseas counterparts but have the advantage of living in areas with a lower cost of living.

The wealth of their knowledge and experience is accessible to international clients and these international talents are willing to be paid less for working harder than their Global North counterparts simply because they are located in places with a lower cost of living.

This lower cost of living is also matched by a lower cost of doing business. The Philippines in particular is an industry leader in business process outsourcing and has maintained its status in the Top 10 locations in the world for information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) in the 2019 A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index.

The components and framework used for determining the country rankings are the following:

• Financial Attractiveness, which includes compensation costs, infrastructure costs, tax and regulatory costs
• People skills and availability, which includes ITO/BPO experience and skills, labor force availability, educational skills, language skills
• Business environment, which includes country environment, country infrastructure, cultural adaptability, security of intellectual property
• Digital Resonance, which includes digital skills, legal and cybersecurity, corporate activity, outputs

To see the full 2019 report, click here.

The Philippines scores top marks in the aforementioned metrics.

The Philippines’ talent pool is full of educated professionals, comparably more than other Southeast Asian countries, with the number of higher education institutions in the Philippines being ten times more than its neighboring countries.

Filipino professionals are excellent communicators. The country boasts a high proficiency in English, ranked at #2 of 21 Asian countries in the 2018 EF English Proficiency Index.

Filipinos are also tech-savvy and adaptable. According to a World Bank study, as of 2017, 60% of the Philippine population use the Internet, well ahead of BPO industry leaders India (34%) and China (54%).

Qualities of a good remote recruitment and staffing agency

A good recruitment strategy can attract many interested and eager applicants, but it takes a good screening system to go through the most qualified and pick out only the best.

At C9, we work with clients to get a full understanding of the business processes they are looking to outsource and use client specifications as the main criteria when screening for talent. Once we have our roster we ensure that the remote staff we provide already have good internet speed, audio and video quality.

The recruits in our talent pool are specialists and can cater to particular niches. Once they are briefed on the work and the client specifications they are ready to go on board.

About C9 Digital

We specialize in digital marketing, customer care, and technology, and we recruit to fill those positions. We make sure that clients don’t waste time training up enthusiastic newbies for their staff: our talents are ready to work and will do so when you say go.

We provide campaign management and not just sourcing and staffing.

We provide consultancy and strategy to help you achieve exponential growth. We don’t just give you a team of workers, we will work with you to achieve your corporate and industrial goals.

If Old Uncle Sam were to point to us from a poster right now, asking us to work with you, we would answer that call. We know we are more than qualified to serve and we will be proud to do it.

If you’re looking for a remote recruitment staffing and agency, point to us. You want us, and we’ve got you.