Skilled specialists from Lithuania are often recruited by companies operating in Western Europe that offer remote work. The arrangement is most common in IT companies, although telework is spreading to other fields too.
“This phenomenon is only increasing after the pandemic lockdown – we have discovered that remote work is possible in more and more positions and fields,” says Jurgita Lemešiūtė, managing partner at the recruitment company PeopleLink. “IT is an area that has long been using this way of working, but there are definitely more and more opportunities in digital marketing and analytics, where there is no direct physical contact with the client.”
However, teleworking is still far from universally applicable.
“It is certainly not possible for all professions to follow suit. [...] It is more difficult to do this if the position requires working with clients, some kind of participation in meetings, or a high level of teamwork, because most experts and managers notice that teleworking is not always the best option for very close teamwork,” says Lemešiūtė.
According to PeopleLink, with the shortage of highly skilled workers in the labour market, employers both in Lithuania and abroad are becoming more flexible in terms of the employee’s physical location. However, there are a few key things to consider before applying for a position where the work is done only remotely.
“The main difference in the specifics of teleworking is that it requires quite strong intrinsic motivation and work discipline, because you don’t work in a team, you don’t have a supervisor around you, and you usually have to plan your own working day,” says Lemešiūtė. “For many people, it is really challenging at first.”
Another challenge might be not having a separate space for work.
“Very often, teleworkers work from home and are staying at home all the time,” says Lemešiūtė, noting that some people change jobs specifically so that they can work in a team and an office.
“Yes, working from home a few days a week is really fun and efficient, but when you work at home all the time and all your colleagues are somewhere far away, that’s not acceptable to everyone.”
Cultural differences
Joining a company that is based in another country may also require one to adapt to a different work culture, something that might be more of a challenge without physical contact.
Alisa Miniotaitė, a management and leadership expert interviewed by LRT RADIO, says that employers usually hire people from other countries to work remotely when they do not plan to have a long relationship and only needs a specific task accomplished.
“There are three ways of looking at the employee in organisations. First, employee as a resource – I just hired them, they did the job, we parted ways. Second, employee as a partner – together we create value, and working shoulder to shoulder is crucial here. Third, employee as a seedling, for whom I prepare the soil, plant them and they grow and thrive in our organisation,” she says.
Remote work is most conductive to the first approach where employer-employee are not looking to build long-lasting relationship, says Miniotaitė.
It is not only Lithuanians who are recruited for remote work in other countries. Businesses operating in Lithuania are also looking abroad when they cannot find enough highly qualified employees.
According to the data of the remote recruitment platform Deel, the largest number of employees living abroad but working for Lithuanian companies comes from Belarus, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Armenia.
Asked whether these figures suggest that Lithuania can already compete with countries like the UK for talent, Miniotaitė says she is sceptical.
“First, it is hard to believe that Britons or Spaniards are really working in Lithuania. They are probably Lithuanians who have travelled to those countries and registered as residents there.”
According to Miniotaitė, salaries in the IT sector in Lithuania are around 20-30 percent lower than in the UK, Germany or the Netherlands. “I don’t think our offer is really equivalent yet, but I believe it will be very soon,” she says.
At the moment, Lithuanian companies are mainly looking for foreign workers from neighbouring countries, such as Ukrainians and Belarusians, as well as people who do not speak good enough English to get a job in Western Europe.
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