How You Can Benefit From Becoming A Remote Company

The discourse about remote work is dominated by how it benefits employees. But in reality, employers gain just as much, if not more. Here are the key benefits of making the switch to the remote model:

1. It’s cost-effective

The most apparent advantage of running a remote company is that you’re saving a lot of money by having your staff work at home. Even if you still intend on keeping your office space, your employees can simply hot desk, thus saving valuable space.

You can also save a lot of resources on:

1. Utilities

2. Rent

2. Maintenance

3. Furniture

4. Cleaning

5. Equipment

It’s also worth noting that if you plan on hiring freelancers to do work for you, you can save even more money on tech equipment - the freelancer probably already has all the equipment they need at home.

2. It expands your talent pool

At the time of writing, there is a severe shortage of skilled tech employees. To overcome this challenge, business owners can hire remote workers.

Because these employees aren’t local and can work from anywhere in the world, you have a better opportunity to find staff with specialized skills without spending any money on training. As a bonus, offering this opportunity can set you apart from your competitors as the millennial workforce has already grown to expect the option of remote work.

3. Your staff is less likely to skip work

In the traditional office setting, most employees will try to skip work if they’re feeling under the weather. As a remote company, you can drastically reduce absenteeism since most remote workers will be open to logging full hours if they can do it from their beds, couches, and wherever.

Additionally, traditional employees will skip work if they have an event they need to attend, which is again solved by switching to remote working. Your employee can easily restructure their day without taking unnecessary time off.

4. Your employees will make better use of their (and the company’s) time

It’s no secret that many employees feel more productive when working remotely, but they also make better use of their time. Additionally, they are more efficient since they don’t spend any time commuting, and they also spend less time involved in office gossip to avoid putting in actual work.

As a plus, if you’re a remote company that hires workers from different time zones, you can be open 24/7!

5. Less drama

Put enough people in an enclosed environment for eight hours, and some interpersonal conflicts are bound to happen.

When working remotely, most employees won’t get involved in office politics - they’ll simply do their job without gossiping or complaining about their coworker’s constant expeditions to the water cooler.

6. Improved employee retention rates

Employee turnover is never easy, which is why you should proactively try some employee retention strategies. As it turns out, one of the best is offering more flexibility. 

Modern workers appreciate the fact that their company leaders trust them to do their jobs on their own accord and on their own schedule. In turn, this builds loyalty, making it less likely your employees will jump ship at the first opportunity.

7. Improved communication

While the lack of office chatter can make remote working strange at first, it’s still a better and more productive environment. 

This is particularly apparent when you consider communication. When working from home, your employees will talk to their co-workers only when it’s necessary. That way, unnecessary communication will be cut down to a minimum.

Yes, you might be inspired to become a hybrid or a remote company, but it still doesn’t make it any easy to make the switch. Thankfully, once you know the steps you need to take, the entire experience will seem a lot less scary.

1. Outline your needs

The first step is gathering as much information on your business and its core processes as possible. Then, you can compare your business to those that have successfully made the transition to remote work. 

What you should look at is whether making the switch is cost-efficient. More importantly, you have to check if your business processes are even conducive to remote work.

2. Make a list of remote service providers

If you’re trying to turn into a fully remote company, you’ll need to find remote alternatives to your existing in-person services. This step may include looking at training options to prepare some workers for remote work.

Alternatively, you may check if it makes sense to outsource some aspects of your business (such as accounting or HR).

3. Find the best way to centralize your systems

You need to find a cloud-based CRM platform to support your remote employees. This will be your ‘’virtual office space’’, so to speak, where your workers can collaborate, update company data, and access important files.

4. Find a communication platform 

Since communication is key to running a business, you need to find a remote-friendly system of communication. In many cases, email is ineffective for ‘’day-to-day’’ chatter so you should consider investing in software such as Slack.

5. Perform a test run

Don’t wait until the last minute to check if all systems are working -it’s better to run a small-scale test first. For instance, each department could switch to remote work one by one, or you can dedicate a day where you put the system and your employees through the paces.

6. Set clear expectations

All employees should have a clear idea of their responsibilities. This includes describing the consequences of poor performance or not meeting productivity standards.

You should also outline a process to support employees who may struggle during the first few weeks of the new remote company model.

While remote work seems like a buzzword right now, that doesn’t lessen its full potential. In a lot of ways, it’s a peek into the future for many companies. The question is when will it become a reality for your organization?

For example, if you have any staffing challenges, you can address them easily by opening your doors to highly-skilled remote workers. In that case, you can solve many problems by introducing remote work as soon as possible.

Once your remote infrastructure is in place, you can contact Griffin Global and connect with highly-skilled remote workers who can bring a completely unique perspective to your company.

Regardless of the current challenges remote workers face, technology is progressing at a rapid pace, and sooner or later, having employees from different sides of the world will become a mainstay.

Our bet is we’ll all soon forget about the days we had to go to the office.