Research by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics found a 44% increase in remote work in the United States over the last five years. Remote work is becoming more and more popular in today’s workforce, and it can positively impact a company’s efficiency and morale in many ways. Unfortunately, many organizations are still hesitant to embrace it.
So we’ve rounded up five reasons why remote work can help your company boost productivity, employee satisfaction and transparency to take over their industry.
Remote or flexible employees have higher job satisfaction rates.
A study of 1,000 remote workers by Amerisleep found that remote workers are 57% more likely to be satisfied with their job than traditional workers. Job flexibility is an important factor in job selection today, and it can be one of the best non-monetary ways to retain employees.
Even better, that same Amerisleep survey found that remote workers tended to describe themselves as moderately stressed or not stressed. It’s a win-win situation: happier, less stressed employees work harder and contribute more to your team, allowing you to reach your company’s targets and goals even easier than before.
Workplace distractions and politics are no longer a problem.
Traditional workspaces are often rife with office politics and gossip, which can hinder productivity and drag down workflow. And if cliques form between co-workers, it can lead to internal tensions and disrupted communication.
Remote work gets rid of these conflicts entirely. Workers can instead do their jobs in an environment that works for them and optimize their efficiency.
Employees are more attentive and focused on their work.
A study by the University of the West of England found that workers with longer commutes tend to be more inattentive and moodier. Moving to a model that gets rid of commutes entirely means your employees no longer have to dread the long commutes to work (and in turn, work itself).
Instead, they can work from the comfort of their own home or office. And as an added bonus, you help the environment by cutting down on fossil fuel usage.
Your talent pool is now global.
Many traditional companies have to limit their talent pool to the city they’re located in. Remote teams don’t have this problem, because they support employees all around the globe.
This lets you prioritize talent and find people like content writers or customer support workers who fit your team best, no matter where they live.
Employee transparency is boosted.
There’s no doubt that working in remote teams can be tough, and communication can be difficult. Yet setting up the right communication base is important for more reasons than one.
Strong communication also creates a clear sense of accountability, because everyone always knows what everyone else is doing.
There are many ways you can facilitate clear, easy communication between your teams. Many remote teams use chat platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams to foster real-time communication between people in different places. This means teams can function as if they were all located in the same place. Questions can be answered immediately, and managers can be notified of blockers as they happen so workflow isn’t interrupted.
There are also many task and project management tools you can use to keep everyone in the loop. This includes apps like Trello, which creates shared task boards that keep everyone updated on what the need to do, and ScrumGenius, an asynchronous standup bot which asks your team a series of questions to gather info on their tasks, goals and blockers.
There are many other tools you can use to help your remote teams run smoother and work harder; you just have to find the ones that work for you.