Remote working is on the increase as more and more companies allow their employees the opportunity to work from home. If you’ve seen our previous blog, you’ll know that there are actually predictions that by 2020, 50% of workers will be doing their jobs remotely. Remote working has tonnes of positives for both employee and employer and so Prestige Recruitment Group have listed 5 Reasons Why You Should Offer Employees The Opportunity To Work From Home!
1) Increased Productivity
Every single person in a workplace environment is a unique individual with different needs, wants and preferences when it comes to working. Within a workspace, it can easy to forget that every member of a team will have different work styles that work for them. For example, some individuals will work better in the morning after they have just woken up, whereas some people will prefer to work at night. By appreciating your employee’s needs and giving them the choice to work when they feel most productive, your company's overall productivity levels will also increase.
Some people may argue that when people work from home, there are more distractions than there would be in an office. However, this is not always the case. Working from home gives your employees the chance to get away from the office environment, avoid time-zapping colleagues and work however suits them – whether that’s with blasting music, or complete silence. Being able to choose where you work rather than being forced to sit at a desk in an office space means that your staff will work more productively as they get to work how they feel works best for them.
2) Retain Talent
The idea of home is often associated with feelings of comfort and relaxation, and regardless how hard you try as an employer – no space you create will match the comfort created when at home. When someone is comfortable, they are the happiest they can be. Happy employees are unlikely to want to move company, and so offering remote working is a sure way to help retain talent within your company. More than ever, people want to be able to work remotely and that’s because there is such an increased emphasis on the importance of a healthy work-home life balance.
It’s evident that remote working is a great way to keep your employees happy. In fact, Investors in People (II) revealed that 32% of employees would rather have a more flexible working environment, such as the opportunity to work remotely than a 3% pay rise. So, if you offer your employees what they want, they are likely to stay loyal to your company.
3) It’s Eco-Friendly
When all your employees are working remotely, there is no need to travel into a workspace. By doing this, you are shrinking your company’s carbon footprint. Cisco WebEx reports that if those with remote work-compatible jobs worked from home just half the time, we could eliminate 119 billion miles of highway driving – which is enough to wrap around the earth almost 5 million times. As well as this, a report from FlexJobs cities the examples of Dell, Aetna and Xerox, who all experimented with offering remote work. They found that by allowing employees to work from home, the three companies together saved 94,294 metric tons of greenhouse gases – in one year. Seeing these facts and figures, it makes sense for your company to go green, and let people work remotely.
4) Cost-Efficiency
When all your staff work remotely, you can save your company a lot of money. For a start, employees don’t need to travel to work, which cuts costs from having to commute to the office. If your company is completely remote, there’s no need to rent an office space. You also don’t need computers, electricity, Wi-Fi, stationary and other office supplies. Therefore, your company will automatically reduce the amount of outgoings that you would usually spend on having a physical office space.
5) You Can Hire The Best No Matter Where They Are
With the development of technology, people no longer need to live close to their workspace. Gone are the days where you’d need to work somewhere within an hour travel time from your home. When you offer remote working, you can offer the job to anyone, without limiting the talent pool to a certain location. This means you can really search for the best of the best and ensure that they work within your company.
So now is the opportunity to allow your staff members to have some freedom and work from home when they can. The opportunity to work remotely is a huge positive that many companies actually sell as a benefit of their company, and it is slowly increasing.