SmallBusinessNewz

The majority of U.S. small businesses (64%) prefer hiring online over the traditional model of hiring onsite, according to a new survey from online employment firm Elance.

These businesses not only favor the online model, 87 percent view it as an important business strategy to improve profitability and competitiveness.

"The majority of businesses report that while they are not adding many new employees onsite, they are opting to hire and distribute work to online teams as a core strategy to help them do more with less," said Ellen Pack, vice president of marketing at Elance.

Eighty-seven percent of businesses identified cost-effectiveness as an important reason for hiring online because there is no need for additional office space, phone lines or computers for each hire.

When asked about the top criteria for hiring professionals online, businesses ranked pay rate as the third most important criteria (73%), citing the ability to access feedback and ratings from prior employers as the most important factor (89%) and viewing a portfolio of work as the second most important factor (84%). Only 19% of those surveyed ranked location as an important factor when hiring online.

Businesses are increasingly building organizations made of both onsite and online distributed workers. Sixty-four percent of businesses plan to hire both onsite and online as the economy improves. The majority (86%) of businesses had made at least one online hire. Nearly half (49%) had made between two and five online hires and 15% had made more than six online hires in the same time period. Only 2% of survey respondents plan to hire exclusively onsite as the economy improves.