The global pandemic has forced a sudden and mostly successful pivot to working away from the office. While the circumstances are unwelcomed, it has forced the adoption and has accelerated this trend significantly of new ways of working – the Remote work.  Remote work is a type of flexible working arrangement that allows an employee to work from a remote location outside of corporate offices. The flexibility of working from home is beneficial for both employees and companies. Remote work is a growing trend, with many companies having a remote workforce. Previously, remote work was a luxury reserved for tech companies, but now more organizations are implementing policies that encourage it. 

Employers need to accept that remote working is here to stay and became the norm. Here are the top 10 reasons why remote work is still essential to your business in 2023:

1. Reduced costs on real estate, maintenance, and operational equipment – since owners can save a lot of money because remote jobs can reduce the costs related to real estate, maintenance, and operational costs like monthly rentals on office space, computers, phones, electricity, heating, and air conditioning and all the other little necessities that keep an office operating. On the other hand, employees may save money for gas / fare allowance on incurring travel expenses. 

2. Work-life balance – Working remotely can help your employees to achieve work-life balance. It allows them to spend more time with family and friends that can reduce stress and anxiety – lead to a healthier lifestyle and lengthen everyone’s life. Additionally, parents often find that they can spend more time taking care of children and other family members. Organizations may benefit from effectively managed work-life balance boundaries that can lead to higher employee engagement. 

3. Increased productivity – How do you measure productivity? Productivity is typically measured by an individual’s output vs. input over time with increased efficiency and will be beneficial and essential to the growth of an organization. With the right tool and efficient structure, studies have proven that working remotely increases productivity especially when employees are engaged and aligned with the company goals. Employees maximize productivity on their flexible time. Remote employees boost productivity because they eliminate distractions like commuting into the office, changing their work hours to fit their schedules, and worrying about being late. Create a daily and weekly report to monitor the progress of individual and team contributions. Set deadlines to meet individual’s and team’s goals. 

4. Access to a wider pool of talents and improved employee retention – Remote workers can be hired anywhere in the world and business owners have a wider choice of staff when selecting the perfect candidate to fit the remote job. This method of hiring is a great opportunity for employers to find staff with specialized skills, and it reduces the cost of training. Hiring remote workers will also benefit the company by not providing relocation or travel costs for employees.  Allowing employees to work from home can build trust and loyalty of employees – not only because of having job stability and performing meaningful work but also the loyalty gained from employer is the one reason the employees stay longer at the company. They won’t look for another job if they are happy and satisfied with their work. This is a cost saving for the company as it avoids new hires, and it also retains skills. 

5. Flexible hours for employee – WFH with flexible hours spent at their work will lead to higher productivity of having more time and fewer distractions than in the traditional office. This arrangement can boost employee morale and satisfaction.  To track the performance and engagement of each employee, develop a structural schedule for individual employees – a time clock or web-based application used to track an employee’s work hours. 

6. Reduced employee absence – Researchers conclude that occupations with high remote work availability experienced lower rates of employee absence. If a remote employee is feeling unwell, they are more likely to keep working unlike working onsite when they need to travel and get a higher possibility to call in sick – remote employees tend to stay on their job even they are sick. Also, working from home can reduce stress for employees so that they won’t take any unnecessary time off.  

7. Improved time efficiency – The travel time of an employee from commuting to and from work that spends an hour a day might affect employees’ productivity. Working from home can reduce or eliminate the amount of time for travel and distractions in the workplace. WFH can save more time for employees and can increase productivity by spending time on work related projects. 

8. Office politics diminished – In traditional offices, people will cause or may experience difficult situations like office politics – majority said, it’s a fact of life. The opportunity of remote working can also change the ways we interact with colleagues that may lessen office politics. Chatting with co-workers can be avoided when everyone is busy working remotely.  

9.   Better communication – In-person conversations in traditional offices may affect an individual or even team’s productivity like wasting time chatting or spending time in a coffee shop with co-workers. Employers may take advantage of this WFH arrangement to ease one of the distractions in the workplace and to make employees more productive than wasting time.  To improve communication and create a foundation between employees and immediate supervisor, employers may require employees to hold regular meetings or a quick chat using the company’s communication channel for a daily update. It will remind employees they are working in a structured system and are accountable to management. Also, it reminds employees to keep engaged in their work. Use technology to your advantage – encourage video calls for team meetings. Communication improved with remote working as it prompts collaboration. 

10.  Prevent the spread of infectious diseases – In the coming years ahead, as the pandemic begins to ease, remote jobs and hybrid arrangements are still in the trend of digital revolution – many companies are still planning to adapt to this modern workplace. Remote working is a way to communicate without requiring face-to-face contact, but this still enables us to continue working, primarily, the biggest concern of organizations when switching remote is to keep everyone safe and prevent spread of coronavirus. 

Remote working can be improved with the use of technology 

Take time to find the right tools and implement the right processes to make remote work as productive as possible. Remote work allows employees and companies to focus on what really matters—performance. The purpose of a collaboration tool is to support a group of two or more individuals to accomplish a common goal or objective. Encourage workers to adopt the system most suited for high productivity. Moving to a cloud is advantaged – it provides stringent security to your system and provides sophisticated automation for flexibility and productivity.

LG Networks, Inc. provides a range of solutions that will help your business not only succeed but save on expenses at the same time. Learn more by contacting our support team today!