When you read about the benefits of remote work, what comes to your mind?
Do you think of people working from their homes, and sometimes in their pajamas? You are right!
From the research findings by Buffer, 80% of respondents work from the comfort of their homes, and only on a few occasions do they work from other places. 3% of the remote workers operate primarily from cafes. And only a small percentage of up to 7% of remote workers work from coworking spaces.
Who Benefits Most in Remote Working Arrangement
Remote working is NOT all about making the employees happy!
Source: https://blog.vingapp.com/the-benefits-of-working-remotely-for-workers
For a long time now, employees have always preferred working remotely owing to the many obvious benefits this work model offers.
The employees can easily have a career and personal life balance when working from home, which is quite hard to achieve with a 9 to 5 office job.
Remote workers enjoy work flexibility. They can plan their day well and dedicate some hours of the day to work.
Employees don’t have to commute to the office; hence they save time and transport cost too.
As though that’s not enough, they easily juggle between their daily personal engagements with office work.
“There are so many positive aspects of remote work, especially when you are commuting less and doing good for the planet. I would say education and showing the real-world case studies is the way to go to convince the rest of the market. Employees are already demanding remote work flexibility, but companies need to feel comfortable with that, and they need to understand what the benefits are for them before rolling it out.” Iwo Szapar, Remote-how
Well, businesses benefit IMMENSELY from the highly motivated and dedicated remote workers.
So, remote working is a win-win arrangement where the employer and the employee benefit.
The employees enjoy their work more, while employers benefit from happy and high productive employees.
What Are the Benefits of Working Remotely
Here are the benefits of remote working for the employers:
1. Increased productivity
There is a conventional narrative that remote working is not real work and that employees don’t put genuine efforts to achieve the company goals. But statistics prove otherwise.
Compared to employees who work from the office, remote workers are more productive. Studies show remote workers are 14% more productive compared to their counterparts. This is true since they can decide to work only when they are highly productive. They don’t spend working hours worrying about commuting back home.
Basically, the workers have the freedom to work in the time of the day when they are most productive and with minimum distractions.
2. Guarantees Flexibility
Source: https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/remote-work-statistics/
Reporting to work in the same location every day is quite draining. Even employees who love their jobs tend to start exhibiting decreased morale.
To get such employees motivated can be an uphill task for the employer.
But allowing the employees to work from home could be a suitable solution. They have the opportunity to work from anywhere, and anytime.
Flexibility is enjoyable and motivating.
The employees will start working at their convenience. They will have a flexible schedule which they can adjust to fit their programs.
Up to 90% of remote working employees say they are happy when they are allowed to work remotely with flexible schedules.
3. Save on Business Operations Costs
Running an office entails a lot of costs, especially when you have several employees working from there. The charges involve travel reimbursements, employee training, installing and maintaining of office equipment, and rent.
However, you can cut these costs by 50%, when you have your employees working from home.
From research findings, Telework Research Network estimates that a business can save up to $10,000 annually per employee, which is quite significant.
With such huge savings, it’s practical for your business to scale within a short time.
Since the main objective of every business is to make profits, cost saving is quite an irresistible benefit of remote working.
4. Saves Time
Distractions are a common phenomenon with office workplaces and lead to reduced productivity if not checked.
On the other hand, remote workers will experience fewer distractions from colleagues. Only 39% of employees working remotely experience disturbances compared to 56% of those employees working from the office.
While remote workers will mostly dedicate less time to work, they are more focused on accomplishing much within that short time. They avoid all kinds of disturbances. This means remote working is the best; you will have tasks with tight timelines performed within the short notice.