With remote work the new norm, digital nomads take the opportunity to travel the world

With remote work the new norm, digital nomads take the opportunity to travel the world
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Kirsi Maharaj at Ring Rock Viewpoint near Sydney, Australia, one of the many countries she has worked in as a digital nomad.Supplied

Born and raised in Ottawa to immigrant parents from Trinidad and Tobago, Kirsi Maharaj always had an itch to move outside of her hometown.

Growing up, Ms. Maharaj and her parents would travel to see family in Trinidad, but they didn’t have the disposable income to visit other countries. Today, Ms. Maharaj is a digital nomad, running her own HR consultancy while travelling across Europe, Australia, Asia and more.

Ms. Maharaj started her HR career in tech. In 2017, she joined global data and analytics services company, Pythian, which was hiring talent internationally. “I had teammates in India, Costa Rica, Europe,” Ms. Maharaj says. “That was the first time I got a glimpse of cross-cultural working.”

When Ms. Maharaj joined Ottawa-based software company, Rewind, as a HR manager in 2020, she introduced a policy where employees could work from anywhere in the world for up to 90 days, with colleagues visiting places like Mexico, Japan and the U.K.

When it was Ms. Maharaj’s turn to work abroad, she chose Berlin.

“I was able to expose myself to a world that I never thought was accessible to me,” she says.

A self-described ‘new age’ HR professional, Ms. Maharaj says she always felt a “little judged” within Ottawa’s more traditional HR community – whether for her flexible employee policies or for her full leg-sleeve tattoo and “long and fun nails.”

In Berlin, Ms. Maharaj found her community. HR professionals there were more expressive in their personal style and talked about progressive benefits like menopause leave. “In Canada, we’re [still] talking about pay equity,” Ms. Maharaj says. “It was such an eye-opening experience.”

How work-from-home became work abroad

While there are no reliable statistics around the number of Canadians currently working as digital nomads, there’s no doubt that the surge in remote jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic boosted the work style’s popularity. Starting in 2020, countries such as Portugal, Estonia, Croatia, Barbados, Costa Rica, Spain and Italy began offering remote work visas to encourage people to relocate (with varying financial requirements).

A 2024 report by MBO Partners found that 18.1 million U.S. workers describe themselves as digital nomads – a number that’s increased more than 147 per cent since 2019. Of those people, 59 per cent are men, 40 per cent are women, and one per cent are non-binary.

Nick Dreher, a researcher and PhD candidate in policy studies and migration at Toronto Metropolitan University, notes that most digital nomads are white men from educated, middle or upper-class backgrounds, in part due to the uncertainty around workplace and government benefits for non-residents.

“There may be different implications for women [in a different country] with health benefits” such as maternity leave, he adds.

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Kirsi Maharaj near the Charles Bridge in Prague, Czechia.Supplied

Before the pandemic, Mr. Dreher says, most digital nomads were people in creative industries – such as touring artists or content creators – or entrepreneurs running their own businesses. But according to MBO Partners, since the start of 2020, the number of digital nomads with traditional jobs – such as Ms. Maharaj in HR – has more than tripled.

Mr. Dreher adds that while work identity is important to digital nomads, “the reason they’re doing this is for the life experience more than the work experience.”

A ‘duty’ to be a global citizen

Currently living in France, Amanda Baker is the founder and lead strategist of Baked Good Impact, working with businesses to build measurable environmental and social impact into their business models. Ms. Baker and her team do this through B-Corp certifications, employee retention strategies, multiyear impact strategies and more.

Growing up in small towns around Ontario, Ms. Baker says that being monolingual felt “isolating.” Seeking a change, she moved to Paris and enrolled in intensive classes to learn the language.

“Your ego gets knocked down so much being in a foreign country, because it’s like a part of [your] identity is not available when [you’re] walking around,” she says. “It’s hard, but it’s great.”

Ms. Baker, who has visited Egypt several times, plans to learn Egyptian Arabic after becoming fluent in French. She says that if a woman has the financial means to travel and isn’t required to stay at home – for example, to caregive for aging parents – they should consider experiencing life abroad.

“I feel like it is almost your duty to go and be a global citizen, because in the history of women, it has not been possible for most cultures, and for so long,” she says.

Understanding the drawbacks

While digital nomads tout the benefits of working in different countries, there can be drawbacks. Language and cultural differences may be a barrier. Support networks of friends and family may be diminished, at least at first. There may be legal or bureaucratic hassles to stay and work in a particular country. And nomads may end up getting doubly taxed – in your original country and your new home.

Another consideration is advancement potential. Ms. Maharaj says that many women considering becoming a digital nomad might be nervous about missing out on the in-office interactions that could land them a promotion.

However, she points out that she was promoted during her own travels. “If we can learn how to articulate the value of what we do in a tangible way, and then stick behind it, there’s no reason to feel like you are being left out,” Ms. Maharaj says.

In 2023, she moved to Australia, and by 2024, she incorporated her own HR consulting business. Now, she doesn’t feel her potential has to be limited by geography.

“Knowing that I can land safely on my two feet in any situation, I have faith that there is no challenge that I don’t have full confidence that I can handle.”

Interested in more perspectives about women in the workplace? Find all stories on The Globe Women’s Collective hub here, and subscribe to the new Women and Work newsletter here. Have feedback? E-mail us at [email protected].

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