16 benefits of remote work for companies
Companies seeking remote workers often find numerous advantages to a remote work structure over bringing everyone into the office. It’s a creative way to move your business forward, hit productivity targets, and meet the needs of a post-pandemic workforce. Modern workers enjoy remote work’s flexibility and benefits; companies also benefit from it.
Here are the advantages of remote work from a business perspective.
Higher productivity
If there’s no other reason to consider remote workers, it leads to higher productivity. Fewer distractions from colleagues, improved morale, and self-reported better work-life balance are believed to be the primary reasons.
Empowered employees
With remote work, employees can dress how they like, pick their hours to some extent, and dictate their work schedule. This makes employees happier and more likely to deliver strong performance.
Onboard happens faster
Hiring and onboarding can happen faster with remote work. Shared digital workspace logins and video training sessions can be sent via email. In less than a day, you could hire workers, onboard them, and bring them up to speed so they’re at work within 24 hours.
More employee retention
Remote workers are often more loyal and happier and enjoy working from home. On average, remote work has lower employee turnover than office workers. This creates a tighter workforce and reduces the overall cost of training new employees.
Hire from anywhere
The entire globe is your talent pool. Seek specialized skills. Find workers with the experience you need and enthusiasm for the work. You can hire remote developers or recruit other staff members to satisfy different roles. Assemble a diverse team with the right skills, background, and approach to fulfill every job expectation.
Produce faster
One way a company can structure its business is to have a local team finish first, and then a remote team pick up the work. This way, you can keep up with 24-hour production, speeding projects without missing a beat.
Easy collaboration
Many people mistakenly believe collaboration is more challenging with remote work, but it’s often easier. Team members get tagged in group chats and group projects, and communicating is easy with a project management app. Before long, the entire team is connected, chatting, and keeping up with work tasks.
Languages and localization
When you hire internationally, you can get talent in different languages. You can access international talent for localization rather than relying on non-native talent to gear products to a target audience they aren’t familiar with.
Expand into new territories
Local is always better. If you are a software company expanding your market reach, expanding into uncharted territory may involve setting up a new team of remote developers at a regional level. This can be done remotely. You can have a ‘local team’ anywhere in the world.
Minimize office drama
When your team works remotely, there is less office politics, chit-chat, and conflict. This keeps your team focused on the task, resulting in better problem-solving and efficiency.
Reduced equipment costs
A busy office requires expensive resources, such as computers, printers, paper, desks, ergonomic chairs, etc. If most or all of your business is remote, this reduces the associated costs of maintaining an office.
Eliminate office costs altogether
Some companies that started with remote work eventually closed their offices. Though you give up a centralized workplace, this dramatically reduces total overhead costs. Meeting rooms or working spaces can be rented as needed.
Fewer staff absences
Absenteeism is an issue for many businesses. If a worker is unwell, they cannot come into the office due to the risk of spreading the illness. Remote workers make it easier and more comfortable for someone to spend their day at home with less stress and still sign in to work.
No outsourcing
There is an outsourcing risk. It may seem like an easy shortcut, but outsourcing utilizes less reliable talent. You also have less control over the effort they bring and will likely spend more time on quality control than anything trying to get their work up to snuff.
Less disruption
A remote workforce means that if there is an issue affecting you locally, it only prevents local work from being done. Even something as simple as a power outage or winter storm can mean a cancelled workday if you work remotely. With remote work, however, your workforce is always ready and can keep you running in a crisis.
It’s eco-friendly
Remote hiring is more environmentally responsible and eco-friendly, as it reduces or eliminates daily commutes to work and consumes fewer resources, resulting in a greener organization.