IT specialists prefer to stay at home

IT professionals still don’t want to return to offices, but the market is seeing some reshuffling. Hybrid mode is beginning to prevail over remote work, so candidates are paying more attention to the location of their future employer. In turn, companies are becoming more skillful in using knowledge of mode-related motivations in their recruitment processes.

Analysis conducted by the:protocol shows that the mode of work is one of the first elements that IT candidates look at when considering job offers. The other information they are primarily interested in is the salary range and a detailed project description.

- Work mode, pay scales, and the project - it’s a triad that doesn’t change. Our research shows that these three elements are the ones that IT candidates consider above all when reviewing offers. They are least likely to apply for positions where the work mode is not specified. Ads containing transparent information about how and in what proportions the company works are the most popular. Among these, remote and hybrid ads are currently the most sought-after. Analyzing the behavior of users, we can see that many candidates start searching the offers just by marking the filter on the expected mode of work - says Piotr Trzmiel, Head of Growth at the:protocol.

Hybrid vs. remote - yet something changes

As recently as 2021, most job offers aimed at IT professionals were for a completely remote model. Meanwhile, since 2022, the number of exclusively remote job offers has decreased regularly. In the first half of 2022, hybrid work became employers’ dominant model. In the second quarter, the trend deepened - as many as 60 percent of the listings on the:protocol service covered this mode.

- Although almost everything has been said about the home office mode, we can see that the labor market is still reshuffling in this regard. Recently, for example, there has been a lot of noise about the movements of global corporations recommending or even ordering employees to return. However, IT professionals expect flexibility, and employers are primarily interested in attracting and retaining valuable experts, so they are open to their expectations. However, they see the advantages of hybrid work, so it is beginning to dominate over remote work. As a result, employees, when looking for new employment, can no longer do so in complete disregard for their location – says Piotr Trzmiel.

Who doesn’t want to come back to the office? 

Increasingly, employers are also trying to gain a deeper understanding of candidates’ motivations and express this in their offers. Hence the information appearing in ads that companies don’t mind the so-called “workation” (the term means work combined with travel, most often tourism, performed from any location). They tend to support and sometimes even subsidize it. Targeted at a different group of remote work supporters, the benefits accentuated in ads sometimes also include funding the home offices. It is increasingly clear that the IT industry has “done its homework” and understood the assumptions of employees who do not want to return to offices.

The motivations of IT workers for remote and hybrid work substantially vary. The most media-savvy example is the so-called “digital nomads,” i.e., people who want to combine work with traveling the world. For them, what matters most is freedom and the ability to work regardless of place and time. Another group we could call the “established parents.” At first, the transition to home office mode was a shock to them, completely disorganizing their daily lives and the lifestyle they had developed. Over time, they changed their habits, and some finally had the opportunity to retrofit a home office and appreciate the advantages of working from home, such as optimizing working time and harmony between family and work life, among others. 

- Another interesting group is the representatives of Generation Z. For them, remote and hybrid work is all about freedom of choice and matching jobs to a dynamic lifestyle. It is worth remembering that people who have never been in an office before are also already successfully operating in the labor market. These are representatives of the generation that started working during the pandemic and found remote work as part of the “new reality,” – says Szymon Płodowski, IT HR Business Partner at Grupa Pracuj, owner of the biggest recruitment platform in Poland.