Global Hiring and Emerging HR Tech: A New Path to Solving the Talent Shortage

BY Grace Turney | December 17, 2025

Noelle Pittock, senior director of onboarding and business operations at Remote, remembers the first time her team completed what was previously a six-to-eight-week performance review cycle in just 48 hours. 

The drastic change wasn’t only about speed; it ultimately saved 7,000 hours of work and achieved 95% completion rates. This breakthrough came from rethinking how technology could actually make work processes smoother instead of more complex.

The talent crisis has reached a tipping point. According to research from Remote surveying nearly 4,000 business and HR leaders worldwide, 72% of companies missed a key business goal or deadline in the past year due to talent shortages. These weren’t product failures, they were people problems. Teams simply couldn’t find and onboard the right talent fast enough to meet critical deadlines.

“The bottleneck isn’t that great candidates don’t exist. It’s that we’re looking in too narrow a place,” Pittock said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s December virtual conference. 

Opening Borders, Not Just Job Postings

The data reveals an intriguing paradox: 74% of HR leaders say finding qualified local talent is more difficult than a year ago, yet 79% would hire more international candidates if it were as easy as hiring domestically. The willingness exists, but the infrastructure just isn’t there.

Many companies are currently expanding their geographic reach, says Pittock. Some business leaders expect more than half of their 2026 new hires to come from outside their primary country. This isn’t a fringe strategy anymore; it’s becoming standard practice for businesses struggling with shallow local talent pools.

Noelle, a senior director of onboarding & business operations at Remote, led the virtual session (company photo)

Remote itself operates as proof of concept. The fully distributed company receives 30,000 to 35,000 applications per month across 90-plus countries, employing nearly 2,000 people without a physical office. “We haven’t faced a talent shortage by taking this globalized strategy,” Pittock said.

What’s held companies back isn’t desire, but clarity. Nebulous local regulations and compliance concerns make the risks seemingly outweigh the rewards. Modern HR technology is trying to change that perception through global-first sourcing tools, AI-assisted screening, location-based compensation planning, and legal hiring mechanisms like employer of record services that handle compliance complexity.

But finding talent is only half the challenge. HR teams also face an operational crisis managing the sheer volume of work across disconnected platforms. The average HR leader juggles 3.6 tools, with some using four to seven systems just for basic processes. These tools rarely communicate with each other, ultimately multiplying workload instead of reducing it. “When HR teams say they don’t have enough time, that’s not an exaggeration,” Pittock said. “That’s reality.”

Automation That Actually Reduces Work

The most effective teams aren’t just adopting new tools; they’re completely rethinking workflows. Remote’s approach offers a framework: simplify processes before automating them, consolidate platforms to eliminate data silos, and create automated workflows that don’t rely on institutional memory.

In hiring, AI screening now helps teams navigate increased application volume. Candidates can use AI to tailor resumes quickly, flooding recruiters with applications. One in five talent acquisition professionals report seeing AI-generated applications with misleading information, says Pittock. Remote’s pilot program used AI to extract skills, summarize resumes, and generate consistent screening questions, allowing recruiters to focus on qualified candidates rather than sorting through virtual piles of paperwork.

Onboarding presents another opportunity for automation. Remote onboards talent in over 100 countries by breaking the process into clear workflows with integrated systems, she says. Personal data automatically generates employment agreements in seconds and compliance checks verify identity remotely. 

By integrating AI directly into workflow platforms, Remote compressed reviews from six weeks to just two days. Managers complete reviews on day one using preliminary information and structured data. Leaders calibrate and finalize decisions on day two. The system achieved 85% employee satisfaction while completing reviews 15 times faster. “AI isn’t replacing judgment,” Pittock said. “It’s supporting it by handling drafting, summarizing, and formatting so managers can focus on substance.”

Starting Small and Scaling Strategically

For HR teams ready to simplify their workload while increasing productivity, Pittock recommends four immediate steps: remove one manual task you touch often, consolidate data into fewer platforms, pilot global hiring for a single role where widening the search meaningfully improves your candidate pool, and add one lightweight automation ritual like weekly check-in reminders.

The key is identifying what matters most to your team. “Take a pulse check with your HR leaders,” Pittock said.  “What’s the one most annoying thing they do every day that, if it disappeared overnight, would change how they work? Start there.”

These changes require minimal investment but create foundations for sustainable, high-performing organizations that remain people-centric even as they automate. The goal isn’t replacing any of the human elements in HR’s, it’s about freeing professionals to focus on what actually requires their judgment, creativity, and care.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Remote, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 

Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.

(Photo by dem10/iStock)

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The HR technology landscape didn’t arrive at its current complexity overnight. 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We can rebundle systems to give HR and business professionals holistic systems that provide exactly what they need.”The Three Pillar FrameworkToo often, Uhre said, HR tech is marketed around “what saves HR time.” But he encouraged leaders to rethink the goal altogether: “I’d love to shift this mindset from saving HR time to reducing friction for your employees.”An employee tech journey audit offers a practical starting point. “Talk to all of your individuals within your organization,” he said. “From the first day that they join your company, throughout the life cycle of their employment, where is it that they’re finding inefficiencies, and where can things be better?” And utilization is what determines value. “Utilization is the true test,” he said. Alex Uhre, an enterprise sales manager at Rippling, led the session (company photo)The proliferation of disconnected systems has created what Uhre called the modern “Frankenstack.” “APIs are great. Integrations are fantastic,” he said, “but they’re a bandage for what could be structural redesign.”The cost of this patchwork approach is significant: dual maintenance, data discrepancies, compliance risk, manual work, and fragmented reporting. “Efficiency comes from data talking to itself,” he said, “not having administrators check on APIs or check on integration.”Uhre shared the diagnostic question he urges leaders to ask vendors. 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The challenge is ensuring the tools are accessible enough for everyone to participate. “We need to make the experience for our team members basic,” she said.So, Tyson created a simplified, one-stop user experience within its HR administration system. Instead of navigating multiple portals with discrete credentials, employees can log in to a single platform to review dental insurance, submit medical claims, or learn about financial benefits.  When everyday tasks like these become easier, Desai says, employees are more likely to use their benefits. 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