Onsite Hiring Must Address ‘The Why’

I’m sick of onsite v remote too…late one I promise…

Not gonna lie: I’m sick of talking about onsite vs remote. Surely you’re over of reading about it.

But the fun’s only getting started. With the Fed fighting inflation by actively cooling the job market (which is working, more on this soon), things are starting to swing back the employers’ ways.

Well, not exactly. Not every company wants onsite. And not every company pushing onsite is able to get their way about it.

Because the job market is still strong enough for the only-question-that-matters to come into play:

????Why?

Job seekers and employees are (typically) reasonable. They just want to be treated like adults. Simple things like knowing why their work matters. What’s the business objective. What’s their future look like.

And of course: “why do I need to come onsite when I’ve successfully work remote  for the past 2.5 years?”

Don’t read that sarcastically. A lot of people are totally open to considering onsite or hybrid, but they want to know what’s driving the need.

There’s a Why behind that, too. They’ve seen too many flimsy answers.

“It feels like it’s time.”

“We want to build culture.”

“We’ve always done it that way.”

Which are all code for we don’t have a reason. You’ll sit on Zoom calls all day at your desk while we micromanage you.

As opposed to actual Why’s: 

“We use the office as a tool for collaboration sessions. Computers shut, phones off, full attention meetings have shown us quantifiably better results for strategy sessions, brainstorming and issue troubleshooting.”

“Everyone here is cross trained to build empathy by design. Leaders have done assignments in every division in the company – the call center, shipping, IT, marketing, etc. That level of cross-team collaboration is only possible onsite.”

See the difference?

Of course, explaining The Why is a lot easier if you have one to begin with…

Full episode of The 10 Minute Talent Rant, Episode 52 “How To Hire *gasp* Onsite” available here.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.