More people are working remotely than ever before in America. The number of remote workers rose by 159% between 2005 and 2017. Clearly, the trend toward remote working’s on the rise and has been for some time now.
And it makes total sense from the perspective of an employee. After all, remote working offers newfound freedom and autonomy. You can work anywhere in the world, to your own schedule…and do it all in your pajamas.
But what about the employer? How do they fare in this transition away from traditional workplace environments? Thankfully, the benefits of remote workers go both ways.
In other words, everybody wins. From increased productivity and employee satisfaction to financial incentives, there’s a whole range of advantages to hiring remote workers. Want to learn more?
Keep reading to discover 6 top remote worker benefits.
1. They Boost Your Finances
First and foremost, remote workers save employers money!
After all, they’re no longer office-based. That reduces the need for an enormous workplace (or any place at all if the entire team works remotely). Then there’s less (or no) rent to pay, lower utility expenses to cover every month, lower janitorial fees to fork out for, and so on.
You know longer have to pay for ergonomic office furniture and technology either. All the money you’d spend on desks, chairs, sofas, computers, software, and Wi-Fi can be funneled straight back into the business.
2. You’re Protected Against Illness
There’s nothing quite like an office to help spread certain illnesses.
With lots of people sharing an enclosed space and recycled air circulating the room, all it takes is one sick person to start infecting everybody else! That’s bad news when the cold and flu season comes around. Business owners and managers can end up working with a depleted workforce.
Sustaining the same level of output becomes far harder, which hinders the ability to generate revenue. Throw in the need to pay employees’ sick leave and finances can soon get stretched.
Moving to a remote setup helps you avoid this fate! With everybody working elsewhere, there’s less potential for people to spread their ailments.
3. Improved Employee Satisfaction
As we noted in the intro, remote workers enjoy a host of perks to this particular arrangement.
They’re in charge of where they work! They can be sipping margaritas on a tropical beach on the other side of the world. As long as there’s an internet connection, then they can still do the work, communicate with the team, and do their job.
They can control their schedule too (assuming their boss is flexible and they deliver the necessary results). Overall, they have a newfound level of freedom and control.
The result? Employee satisfaction goes up, which, in turn, improves their willingness to work hard and deliver results.
4. Improved Employee Retention
Few things are more disruptive to employers than high employee turnover.
First off, hiring new staff is expensive and time-consuming! You have to advertise the position, vet the applications, conduct the interviews, weigh up the best candidates, draw up the contract, onboard the new starter, and train them up to do the job effectively.
Then, of course, there’s always the risk of hiring the wrong person for the job. A bad hire (be it through aptitude or attitude) can have a severely negative impact on the entire operation. Choose to fire them and the whole hiring process starts from scratch.
That’s why employee retention is so important. Keeping your current high-performing team in place prevents disruption, saves money, and facilitates prosperity all-around.
Strange as it sounds, remote workers tend to stick around longer than office-based ones. This is largely to do with the higher rates of satisfaction we talked about above. It makes sense: happier with their work, they’re less likely to leave!
5. It Facilitates Recruiting
Imagine that somebody on the team does decide to quit though. Or maybe the business is growing and there are new jobs becoming available anyway.
Hiring remote staff comes in handy here too. With no geographical restrictions in terms of who you can bring on board, you have access to a far larger talent pool.
In typical working arrangements, bosses are forced to hire people who live within a certain distance of the office (or convince them to relocate from further afield). Thanks to the internet, though, that’s no longer a problem for anybody willing to work remotely.
Imagine trying to create a new mobile app for the business. Try as you can to find an in-house developer for the job, there’s nobody nearby who’s affordable or available. Hire this remote app development team instead, though, and you’d get quality support, regardless of where you are in the world.
6. Productivity Increases
Many managers assume that remote teams wouldn’t perform as well as their office-based peers. After all, there’s nobody looking over their shoulder all day to compel them to work! Throw in the endless list of distractions and, surely, their rate of productivity would go down?
Yet the reality’s very different. Remote workers are well known to be more productive. Their levels of efficiency and effectiveness both go up; output increases as a result.
When you stop to think about it, this unexpected outcome makes sense too. There’s no time-wasting commute to consider, no chit-chat around the water-cooler to waste time, and no distracting office-politics to worry about.
Combine all that with a flexible schedule that encourages self-motivation, and it’s no wonder that productivity increases.
Enjoy the Benefits of Remote Workers
Remote working is becoming increasingly common (and popular) in the US. And it’s not just because the global pandemic made it so!
This transition from traditional fixed-placed working environments has been happening for a while. It’s no surprise either. As we’ve seen, the benefits of remote workers apply to both employees and employers alike!
Hopefully, this post has highlighted the primary advantages involved. Would you like to read more articles like this one? Search ‘remote’ on the website now.
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