With housing market prices in smaller cities making them an attractive alternative to Berlin, Munich or Frankfurt for young professionals who might want to start a family, KPMG’s HR department is casting its net wider than usual in the search for Germany’s top young legal talent.

The plan is currently at the pilot phase and will be road-tested in seven mid-sized regional cities, namely Freiburg, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Bielefeld, Bremen, Hanover and Mannheim.

KPMG’s chief human relations officer Folke Werner explains, “I think it makes sense to focus on the places where we can find the best talent. The future of work will be a hybrid model, the experience over the last two years has shown us that it’s entirely possible to work together from different locations.”

“The onboarding process must also contain a physical component because this is the foundational point where you build up your relationships,” he said. “Once the onboarding process is complete, I think it’s more and more feasible to work remotely.”

KPMG aims to recruit lawyers at the hub locations whose supervisors and teams are based in other major cities.