Tag: modern workforce

David Nilssen, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization member in Seattle, is the CEO of Doxa Talent, which helps businesses build and scale high-performing, borderless teams leveraging talent from across the world. He has more than 800 team members and zero office space. He is also the co-founder of Guidant Financial, which has helped 30,000 entrepreneurs secure $7 billion to start or buy a business in each of the 50 U.S. states. Below he shares the pertinence of business leaders adopting a global business strategy. 

Every CEO I talk to has the same fundamental concern. “We can’t find enough qualified people.” It’s not just your company or your industry. It’s a structural shift reshaping how we must think about talent.  

Here’s the reality: Gallup reports that 51 percent of U.S. employees are currently watching for or actively seeking new jobs—the highest level since 2015. That kind of churn is expensive. Replacing a frontline worker costs about 40 percent of their annual salary, while replacing a manager can cost up to double that. This cycle is both expensive and exhausting.  

But what if this isn’t just another post-pandemic disruption? What if it’s the beginning of a decade-long talent drought that will force every company to rethink where and how they source talent? My company manages more than 800 team members across six countries without a single office. I’ve had a front-row seat to the demographic forces reshaping global talent markets. The data tells a clear story most business leaders aren’t ready to hear: Your workforce strategy must go global. 

The demographic time bomb 

Most business leaders understand that talent acquisition is challenging right now, but few grasp just how permanent this shift will be. Birth rates have been sliding since the post-industrial era, with the global fertility rate falling from roughly five children per family a century ago to just 2.2 in 2024. In the U.S., this rate has plummeted to 1.62, well below the 2.1 needed just to keep the population stable. This isn’t speculative futurism. It’s simple mathematics. Fewer babies today mean fewer workers tomorrow.  

Population pyramids tell the story clearly. A healthy growing nation has a pyramid shape with a broad base of youth. Across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, these pyramids are inverting, with more seniors than toddlers. Even if society suddenly started having more babies, it would take two decades to impact the workforce. 

The evolution of worker expectations  

While demographics create the supply challenge, evolving worker expectations create a demand-side revolution. Post-Covid, the workforce has divided into five distinct personas, according to McKinsey research:  

• Traditionalists who value career advancement (but their numbers are dwindling)  
• Caretakers who prioritize flexibility for family responsibilities  
• Do-it-yourselfers who value autonomy and location independence  
• Idealists who seek purpose and development  
• Support-seekers who value employers that provide wellness resources  

The common thread? A dramatic shift in work location preferences. According to the U.S. Career Institute, only 5 percent of workers want to be in an office full-time, while 54 percent never want to go to an office at all. Many companies respond by compromising with hybrid policies, but this gives us the worst of both worlds—paying for both a physical office and remote setups without being optimized for either. It’s like paying a mortgage on a house you use just one day a week. 

Global talent as a strategic response  

The companies that win will be those that see these twin forces—demographic shifts and evolving worker expectations—as an opportunity to gain competitive advantage. Global talent addresses both challenges simultaneously.  

Remote work delivers what employees crave: flexibility, more time with family, and freedom from commuting. For example, our team members in the Philippines save an average of three and a half hours daily by eliminating commuting. That’s 38 extra days yearly they get back with family. This explains why retention stays strong despite competitors occasionally offering slightly higher compensation.  

For employers, going global lets you fish in a much larger talent pond, allowing small and midsize companies to punch above their weight class against larger organizations now demanding returns to the office. When I ran a company in Seattle, we competed for talent with giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Boeing. We couldn’t match their salaries, but we could offer something equally valuable: flexibility and purpose. 

Making global collaboration work: The split-shift advantage  

Time zones present a legitimate challenge for global teams, but there’s a solution we’ve found remarkably effective: the split shift. In this model, team members in places like the Philippines might start at 4 a.m. their time or 2 p.m. U.S. Pacific time. This creates a three to four hour overlap for collaborative work. When U.S. team members end their day, their international colleagues continue working, creating a 24-hour productivity cycle. This approach spares international team members the health toll of working all night while maintaining momentum on projects. 

Matching regions to needs 

Beyond time zones, matching the right region to your specific needs is critical:  

• India excels at finance and technical development  
• The Philippines is the gold standard for customer experience and back-office support  
• Colombia offers excellent nearshore opportunities for time zone alignment  
• Vietnam and Kenya shine in data labeling, coding, and design  

The key is finding the strategic fit between your needs and regional strengths rather than simply chasing the lowest labor costs. 

Building for the AI-augmented future  

The final piece of this strategic puzzle is AI readiness. Every technological breakthrough from the printing press to the internet sparked fears of mass unemployment, yet each time productivity and job creation increased overall. Generative AI will likely follow the same pattern. For firms that adopt early, it’s a tailwind. For laggards, it’s an existential threat.  

The human-in-the-loop future will see AI handling volume while humans provide oversight, judgment, and relational nuance. This makes a global talent strategy even more critical, as you’ll need diverse teams that can orchestrate systems rather than just execute tasks. 

The path forward 

The talent shortage isn’t temporary. Instead, it’s a structural reality that will define the next decade of business. Companies that recognize this demographic inevitability and adapt fastest will create a substantial competitive advantage. Your workforce strategy must go global not because it’s trendy, but because it’s the only sustainable solution to the demographic and workplace transformations reshaping our world. The question isn’t whether to embrace global talent—it’s how quickly you can adapt before your competitors do.