Number of technicians working remote and borderless has doubled

58% of organizations have at least some technician working in a fully remote borderless arrangement. This number has doubled in the past three years, marketing and research firm Gartner says in a report. 27% of leaders are currently exploring hiring borderless tech employees.

The survey found that among organizations that have borderless talent, 19% of their IT workforce is borderless. The survey was conducted among 288 C-level executives and their direct reports during the second quarter of 2022.

The top two areas of expertise that CIOs and IT leaders are looking at borderless talent for are software engineering/application development (62% of survey respondents) and application support (55% of survey respondents).

While 71% of surveyed organizations said it is critical to factor in the specific needs of borderless tech workers in their workplace strategy, 50% of organizations said they have fully implemented tools related to collaboration and productivity such as cloud office suites, workstream collaboration, meeting solutions and digital whiteboarding.

 “This is no surprise that the rate of hiring borderless technology staff doubled in the last three years as increasing retention and hiring has risen to the No. 3 priority for CEOs this year and 2023,” says Gabriela Vogel, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner. “The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated borderless hiring, and what began as an exception, is no longer.”

“Hiring borderless staff requires business and IT leaders to make significant adjustments to their operational model, including revising their management techniques, infrastructure and technology, cybersecurity and data protection, and pay equity,” said Vogel

India is the most selected country for recruiting borderless technology labour for European and North American companies. The survey found that Europe has a significant concentration of hiring inside its borders since Europe has favourable labour laws for hiring borderless staff.