Hiring a Remote Worker may seem like a strange choice at first compared to the tried and tested routine of hiring local staff. But hiring remote staff or giving pre-existing employees the ability to work from home or away from the office brings many benefits. Having your business web-enabled and allowing your remote workers to check in at regular intervals is all that is necessary to claim these benefits.
Best of all, one does not need to run the entire business online to claim the benefits of having remote workers.
Some of the benefits of hiring remote workers include:
Reduced Paper Waste
The first obvious benefit is the reduction of paper waste due to most correspondence being sent through digital means. Cutting down on paper waste not only helps increase the efficiency of organizing documents but also helps save money.
The lack of any physical files means that communicating documents is instantaneous, and does not incur postage or printing costs. This is hammered home by the fact that most people have smartphones, giving them instant access to emails.
The reduction of paper wastage also benefits the environment. Going paperless help reduce the number of trees which need to be cut and processed in order to make paper, in addition to reducing energy consumption, a business would use less energy when various printers, fax machines, and copiers are inactive.
Cost Savings
The money which would be spent on Real Estate and the subsequent utility bills such as water, power, and maintenance would be largely reduced. Having employees work from home or away from an office would drastically reduce the number of unscheduled absences, either due to sickness or troublesome weather.
The business is not alone in saving money, with the rise of gas prices and subsequently the prices for public transportation, coming and going to work is becoming more expensive. In a survey conducted by ConnectSolutions, the average remote worker said they saved approximately $4,600 per year by working from home.
Commute-related Stress Is Eliminated
Not only would the business benefit from having remote workers, but the workers themselves benefit from working at home. A study conducted in Sweden discovered that a commute that is longer than 45 minutes for just one partner in marriage increases the likelihood of the couple divorcing by 40%.
This also opens doors for potentially great employees who happen to be too far to commute or live in another country. This works especially well if you would want top-notch talent but the budgets won’t cover it properly, then you may be able to find an employee overseas with exactly what you’re looking for who is willing to work at a lower cost.
Not only would the bottom line of your business improve, so would the happiness of your employees. Happier employees are more productive, saving time, and getting more done with the extra time.
Reduced Employee Turnover
Estimates show that in order to replace an employee who makes $50,000 per year will cost your business 20% of their salary. Jobs that require high levels of training and education will have greatly increased turnover costs. Thus, many companies are using remote work in the form of a perk to retain their best talent.
Losing an employee usually disrupts productivity, according to the Reference for Business website. Once a replacement employee is hired, they will require weeks or possibly months of training before they can produce at the level of the former employee. These setbacks in time and productivity can be avoided by keeping the more experienced employee.
When you take in that 95% of employers say that remote work has a high impact on employee retention, it is no surprise that two-thirds of employees would migrate to another job to ease their commute, modernizing an old company or starting a new one with remote work taken into account is definitely a step in the right direction for both the company and the employee.
