Remote work is no longer an exception to the rule, but rather a new trend in organizing the work of business and individual entrepreneurs. If earlier remote work and flexible work schedules were associated with innovative startups, high tech and IT; currently more and more employees switch to the more flexible working modes, which offer either fully remote job positions or create hybrid organizations combining offline and online work. 

The new work mode is extremely popular in the Western world with a continued growth trend around the globe to this day. For example, worldwide searches on ‘remote jobs’ have increased five-fold over the last five years[1]. Only in the U. S.  remote workers accounts for almost 4 mln professionals. The top industries for a flexible job are IT and computer science, education, customer support and sales, finance and hospitality. Simultaneously, studies indicate that with the current pace of popularization of remote jobs, virtual work will surpass the fixed office work by 2025. Thus, the time to know more about the benefits of the remote business operation is now. Let’s discover the top-three benefits of remote work and how to make this model working for your organization.

1. Reduced operational costs

The fundamental benefit of the remote work is a chance to cut the cost of renting the office, refurbishing the workplaces, and save on utility bills.  While turning in a virtual organization, there will be no need to further maintain the office premises, which will significantly cut the fixed costs of business. As an alternative, it will be possible to rent a coworking premise to organize face-to-face events for business needs.Furthermore, remote jobs envisage digitalized document flow, which is not only eco-friendlier but also saves time and finance for documents organization and exchange in the long-run.

The saving effect is visible on the world giants, like Amazon, which declared annual saving 10-15 mln dollars owing to the introduction of remote work options.

2. Employees loyalty

By offering more flexibility to the employees, you can receive a great payoff in increased loyalty to the business. In particular, the hybrid and the virtual organization have 25 percent less turnover than traditional companies. Remote workers have more freedom to structure their working days based on their productivity schedules and more opportunities to find a work-life balance. The virtual model of working adds social value and creates greater opportunities to find and keep high-skilled professionals for your organization. For example, parents on maternal leave, rural dwellers and traveling fans can create greater value for your business while having a flexible schedule and not spending their time on commuting.

This is particularly important to keep the employees’ loyalty among Generation Z, which is by estimation will account for around one-thirds of the global workforce by 2020[2]. This new generation is not interested to be connected to a (work)place, they rather prefer to become digital nomads, who have more time to travel the world then their parents did during  active employment years.

3. Catching on the global trend

With the introduction of the rating systems and platforms for remote working, like FlexJobs or flashmob like #WorkingRemote on the 1st of August, virtual organizations gained a new level of acknowledgment and created a separate segment on the employment market. Bearing in mind the previous two reasons, it is essential to catch on the current trends to stay attractive for the best talents and stay afloat in the business for a long time.

So, what is matter to make the remote work effective and productive for your business and not to lose on hasty implementation of such an innovation. 

1. Effective remote team management

In the remote work, transparency, accountability, and trust play an essential role in smooth running the organization and achieving the operational goals. Building up an effective management system, based on KPI, clear allocation of tasks and tracking personal contribution helps to get team members to act together regardless of their zip code. For instance, remote workers at Google have a personal set of objectives and intended outcomes for a quarter and a year, which helps to maintain the high productivity level of the company.

Moreover, it’s important to ensure newcomers have a firm understanding of the company’s technological infrastructure and used tools. Online tutorials and introductory courses/sessions will be helpful to gain insights on the tech side of the work and set up the clear rules for the team.

2.Workplace cybersecurity 

Working remotely companies should pay additional attention to the cybersecurity of the online data and use secured channels of communication to minimize the risks of the important information being stolen from the cloud storage and online communication platforms.

3. Team building and raising employees’ engagement

A reverse side of a coin in working remotely is a potential feeling of isolation and disconnection between an organization and its employees. Therefore, common rituals and spending some time together are important to keepa sense of community within a remote team. To create a community, as an employer you can provide:

• Annual corporate meetings, which offer an opportunity to offline interactions and networking between the team members. This might be an annual conference, celebrating the birthday of a company or a common outdoor retreat.
• Regular online meetings, like weekly video conferences.
• Micro-learning opportunities, offered by a company, which is a WIN-WIN situation, where the employer gets a more skilled employee and employee receive non-material bonuses and stimulus for self-development.
• Career mentoring programs from the more experienced employees and managers for those who only start their professional path at your organization!

Written by Iryna Bakhcheva for PROMAN Consulting Agency.