If a business owner insists on the sheer need to only hire locally, on what basis is this pattern of thought going to change in the future? Is it going to change at all? It is unnecessarily challenging to be forced to scramble around for alternative options when we’re confronted by
- Talent shortages
- Skill gaps
- Salary cost issues
So it’s necessary to talk about how we come to trap ourselves in certain mindsets, without considering the many business needs and opportunities we might simply be ignoring by focusing on a local team. Businesses are used to “knowing” people that they work with, but when does this comfort zone become a real limitation? (And these limitations can be tremendously detrimental to resilience, purpose, productivity, and even our mental health.) It can be a lose-lose situation if these decisions are blind or “obvious”. This is not to mean that the older, mid-90’s version of business/hiring isn’t valid anymore, but a 2023 workplace cannot be completely divorced from solutions that promise to revolutionize the very definition of the word ‘work’.
Let’s think about why we end up in this situation. Unless it’s a niche, highly localized product/service industry, the tendency to look for a local candidate is a defense mechanism. It’s a reaction to a sensible fear. The early years of a business are vulnerable, and small things can cause big damage. Perhaps we have already walked the path of alternative hiring, and been damaged: at a very early point, we may have chosen to work with someone who had no formal qualifications for a role, and they simply disappeared a few weeks later. This disaster may have cost us a client and wounded our reputation.
And to help our hard-built establishments survive and go to the next stage, we were forced to build barriers to these dangers. Hiring a local person is one way of protecting ourselves from the vast horrors of the unknown. The myriad reasons a small business owner might give themselves for not venturing beyond their city limits can range from ease of working to sharing a community spirit and supporting the locals. Most of these problems have been solved by technology, and building a business on community spirit can be harmful, if not downright xenophobic. In almost all these scenarios, every reason is part of a protective strategy.
But protective strategies exact a price.
–We meet our colleagues everyday, but cannot help feeling that they need more training to do their everyday duties well
–We’re very comfortable with our team, but our pockets feel a slight pinch, and we’re not sure if we’re paying realistic salaries
–We’re not certain if our business is underperforming; our attention is consumed by running operations smoothly
Local hiring is not a cultural tradition with its own legacy. There are shortfalls to this comfort; we cannot progress if every difficult decision is turned into a comfort zone. It’s not just recruitment; maybe we’re holding onto many similarly fruitless processes.
Maybe we have a five-step interview process.
Maybe we are asking for a minimum of five references and conducting a ridiculously expensive background check.
Maybe our hypervigilance is affecting our leadership.
Now, rather than convince ourselves that traditional modes of work are freakishly excessive, we have to understand the logic underpinning these systems. Every traditional element in the workplace was once a clever method of playing it safe. Hiring someone from the next town ensured familiarity and trust (which are still important values–we just have better methods of building them). References and background checks meant you weren’t throwing your employees to the mercies of a psychopath. Once upon a time, these survival strategies helped industries thrive, and they can still be used in very select situations. But for the most part, they do not serve any purpose anymore.
Once we recognize that the concept of local-only work is past its best-before date, we can begin to comprehend the price we’re paying for it. It’s a safety mechanism that’s actively endangering us now. The future of industries lies in our successfully letting go of this safety.
