The Origins of the Remote Staff Movement – Chris Jankulovski of Remotestaff.com
Remote Staff
Derek Gallimore talks with Chris Jankulovski, CEO and founder of Remote Staff. Established in 2007, the company primarily offers remote staffing services focused on the Australia and New Zealand markets.
Chris was one of the founders in the industry that revolutionized the way businesses work today. In this episode, Derek and Chris will discuss the origins of Remote Staff and remote working and how the perceptions changed over the past decades.
Chris Jankulovski is the CEO and founder of RemoteStaff.com. One of the pioneers in the industry, Chris is considered an “OG of remote work.”
Remote Staff: From its establishment to the years forward
Established in late 2007, Remote Staff sprang from the idea that in the future, employers will “strategically make a decision with staffing,” having both local and remote staff on hand.
Chris projected that it would soon make sense for companies to expand into lower socioeconomic environments to build their operations. This is due to their potential to provide low-cost, high-quality talent that can contribute to a business.
What he did not predict is the COVID pandemic, which further accelerated remote work in a year.
Remote Staff’s service offerings
The company mainly offers a wide range of talents divided into two categories:
- Support staff, which Chris projects comprising around 65% of hired employees, and
- Offshore staff, which covers the remaining 35%
Remote Staff focuses on recruitment to make sure their staff has the required skills and communication competency. This is why their screening process involves conducting English comprehension tests and CBT to see if an applicant is fit for remote work.
Per Chris, they can’t provide equipment such as laptops. However, they work with their employees according to their capabilities and help them with it.
How the perceptions and attitudes changed towards…
Remote work
Chris admits that there was a stigma in remote working, especially in local workers.
Now, remote staffing is “a more common staffing strategy” for running a business. Per Chris, in the heart of remote and offshore staffing nowadays is the “desire to expand routine, productivity, and growth” as a way to continuously structure their clients.
Outsourcing
For a long time, Chris stated that the media and the public were afraid of remote work taking away jobs from local employees. Now, everyone has started to realize that it’s not going to happen.
In addition, Chris believes that the world is slowly shifting to the knowledge era, which started a decade ago with the gradual increase of outsourcing and white-collar roles.
Companies nowadays are highly encouraged to integrate their business operating models with an offshore team. Not doing this could mean “you don’t have a competitive advantage at the moment.”
Remote Staff’s role in a globalized world
The company’s philosophy lies in helping provide job opportunities in emerging markets. For their clients, meanwhile, they are offering “cost-sensitive, affordable, and top talent.”
The company saw a surge in attracting top talent during COVID. Most of them, per Chris, want to “jump [to] permanent remote” and don’t want to go back to the office.
He understands the fleet of most employees in emerging markets such as the Philippines, where breadwinners often help their families. Remote Staff wants to make sure to “honor their [familial] responsibilities” by providing genuine work and on-time payroll.
How Chris views the challenges in working from home
A recent study shows that 38% of remote workers work from their beds. Twenty per cent of the respondents, meanwhile, work outside, and 19% work from their closets.
While improvising is one of their ways to get over remote working, survey respondents admit this brings both physical discomfort and distraction to them. Chris views this as a lesson of humanity for employers.
Filipino employees want to “learn, grow, contribute, make a meaningful difference, [and] know that they’ve been respected team value members in the organization.” This pushes them to be committed and productive when working remotely.
They continuously do employee monitoring by taking screenshots of the staff’s idle screens to make them accountable for their work. However, they still try to give autonomy to the staff to make them responsible “in a humane way.”
He as well reminds employers that they can give 90% efficiency since equipment and uptime won’t always be 100%.
An overview of Chris’s upcoming book
Chris’s upcoming book, “Just Keep Going,” tells his personal and entrepreneurial journey. Diagnosed with a rare condition at an early age, he decided to plot his goals and accomplish them progressively.
Per Chris, the book aims to help fellow entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams and goals in life and business.
Learn more about the book at justkeepgoing.com.
For those who are interested in hiring remote staff, check out remotestaff.com or remotestaff.com.au
Independent
