Fifty-eight percent of organizations report having at least some technology talent working in a fully remote borderless arrangement, according to a new Gartner, Inc. survey. This number has doubled in the past three years.

Gartner defines borderless workforce as talent working remotely from different countries based on an employment contract made across national borders. As this trend continues to expand, the survey also found that 27% of leaders are currently exploring hiring borderless tech employees.

“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,” said Gabriela Vogel, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner. “The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated borderless hiring, and what began as an exception, is no longer.”

Gartner analysts presented the survey findings during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™, which is taking place here through today. The survey was conducted among 288 C-level executives and their direct reports during the second quarter of 2022 to understand their willingness to pursue a borderless tech workforce, their plans and adoption of a borderless workforce.

“Today in the professional world, location is fluid, the market is global, and the talent competition is agnostic as we are all competing under the same flag, technology,” said Vogel. “Consequently, countries are losing talent to other countries, the public sector is losing talent to the private sector, and all the verticals are in the same situation. There are no more competition boundaries, and business and IT leaders hire borderless staff where they have the biggest competitive advantage – what we call the “borderless zone,” added Vogel.

The survey found that among organizations that have borderless talent, 19% of their IT workforce is borderless.

“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

U.K. Has Equal Appeal for North America and Europe

Although India is the most selected country for recruiting borderless technology labor for European and North American companies, the U.K. ranks in fourth place with almost equal appeal from Europe (28%) and North America (26%) (see Figure 1). The survey also found that Europe has a significant concentration of hiring inside its borders since Europe has favorable labor laws for hiring borderless staff.

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.

Constraints Hindering Adoption

However, borderless is not for every organization. “There are certain constraints that hinder the adoption and expansion of a borderless operation and they range from complexity of administration support, culture issues to security and legality concerns,” said Daniel Sanchez-Reina, VP Analyst at Gartner.

Gartner clients can read more in “Survey Results: CIOs Solve the Talent and Skills Shortage by Hiring Borderless Workers.”

About Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo

Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ 2022 is the world's most important gathering for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to learn how to meet the moment and make a difference by providing the vision and results needed to lift their organizations to the next level. Follow news, photos and video coming from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo on the Gartner Newsroom, on Twitter using #GartnerSYM, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo include:

November 14-16 | India

About Gartner for Information Technology Executives

Gartner for Information Technology Executives provides actionable, objective insight to CIOs and IT leaders to help them drive their organizations through digital transformation and lead business growth. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/en/information-technology.

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