5 Benefits of a Remote Workforce

Takis Athanassiou 5 Benefits of a Remote Workforce.

Whenever you work through a desktop screen, you are working remotely. You don’t have to be in the office, all you need is a good internet connection. In other words, technology has counterpoised the perks of commuting to the workplace. The number of remote workers is growing three times faster than the rest of the workforce, appending $1.4 trillion annually to the economy.

In a highly competitive global economy, working smarter signifies leveraging various benefits of a remote workforce.

Whether you have been toying this idea as a way to cut cost or your employees have been clamoring for you to add this possibility as they want to save their travel cost, there is much to gain from letting your employees work from home, coffee shop, library, or wherever internet connection takes them. Moreover, there are many positive impacts of allowing your employees to work remotely, including cost-effectiveness, increased productivity, and reduced turnover.

Remote Workforce Benefits For Business

1. Increased Productivity

According to research conducted by Harvard Business Review, it is found that remote workers are more productive than their in-office counterparts. They are shielded from the usual distractions of the office as no one is dropping by their desk or trapping them in a conversation at the water dispenser.

According to a recent Global Workplace Analytics survey, 53 percent of remote workers were willing to work overtime, on the other hand, only 28 percent of in-office workers said they would do the same. The same survey also found that 45 percent of freelancers report they can work smarter. On average, workers can spend an hour or more in travel time to and from the office. Remote workers can save several hours of commuting, which simply indicates more work productivity.

2. Reduced Turnover

Sending workers home can be the best way to keep them around for many years. Employee turnover can cost a business more than 33 percent of an employee’s annual salary. Getting a replacement is not as simple as posting a job and hiring a new one. Recruitment, onboarding, training, and productivity loss can cost a lot more.

Worker turnover is a costly hit to the bottom line of any business. According to a survey, 73 percent of remote workers reported high satisfaction with their jobs. 82 percent of employees said they would be more loyal to employers that offer flexible work options.

Work-life balance (74 percent), health (52 percent), and cost savings (43 percent) are the major factors employees want flexible work options. Consequently, hiring the right people is one of the keys to a successful remote work organization.

3. Cut Costs

Enabling employees to engage in remote work is beneficial for both the employers and the employees. The best way to save money is not to spend it.

In-office employees cost money for office furniture, desk, office supplies, electricity, janitorial services, and many other items needed to create a comfortable workplace environment. Remote employees can save these expenses. Mostly remote employees use their own devices, which greatly reduces the technology costs for an employer.

As for employees, remote employees can save between $2,000 and $7,000 annually than their in-office counterparts on transportation, clothes, food, and child-care.

4. Count on Fewer Sick Days

Another benefit of a remote workforce is that it enables your organization to breeze through cold and flu season with significantly fewer absentees. As a matter of fact, when you are teleconferencing with your team, you don’t have to hold your breath whenever any of the employees coughs or sneezes because there is a zero percent chance of people spreading germs to one another.

Companies with remote workers report 63 percent less unscheduled absences. Even if they do get sick during a workday, they have the option to complete their tasks over the weekend.

This is probably why remote workers have a lower stress level as well as increased work-life balance. It enables them to work more to be productive. Plus, they don’t have to take off from work to go to the doctor. Unscheduled absences cost employers an average of $18,000/year per employee.

5. Easier Access to Global Talent

When an employer hires an in-office employee, he restricts his pool of available talent to people within a reasonable geographical area. That said, there is a world of highly talented professionals outside of your commuting radius.

Hiring a remote employee increases the potential candidate pool that enables you to access global talent. Hiring and training remote employees enables employers to increase their company bandwidth without having to put a strain on financial resources.

For all these reasons, you need proactive steps and strategies to hire and retain a remote workforce. Now that we have established the benefits of a remote workforce, it is time to learn how to manage remote workers.

Remote Employee Monitoring: How to Do It Right

Remote employers mostly have uncertainties that their employees aren’t reporting time accurately. Most of the employers still worry about the level of productivity of remote workers. Data theft is another major concern in a remote workforce.

Seizing the benefits of remote employees is easy to do with an efficient remote employee monitoring tool. These tools are becoming indispensable in a business’s drive to be effective and thriving. Most employers use these monitoring tools so that they can:

• Track digital activities of their remote employees
• Track their GPS location during work hours
• Monitor their calls and email interaction with customers
• Record the amount of time they spend on other activities (websites and apps)

Xnspy is an employee monitoring tool that can help you in this regard. Its ease of usage and efficiency makes it one of the best monitoring tools.

Remote employers are now opting for Xnspy as a quick and smart monitoring tool. It is compatible with Android (Android OS 4.X up to 9.X) and iOS (iOS versions 6.X up to 12.4) devices.

You can easily download the app on to your company-owned devices. Even if your remote employees use their own devices, you can share your monitoring policy with them to download the software on their devices. Though privacy is a huge concern.

Transparency can help companies in this regard as most of the companies clearly outline their privacy policy by mentioning what and when they will be monitoring their employees’ devices.

Red Flags

Many employers find that it becomes difficult to track every single activity of each employee on a daily or hourly basis. Xnspy offers call, text messages, and email monitoring so that you can track all the interactions of your remote employee. This gives you a better understanding of how you can increase employee productivity.

You can also monitor apps and websites that your remote team uses and visits daily. With this information, you can know which sites and apps serve as a distraction. You can limit access to these websites or apps on your employees’ devices as Xnspy gives you remote control to these devices.

The monitoring software also offers email monitoring, so that you can identify any data breach incident beforehand, and no doubt, it can save you millions of dollars.

With Xnspy, you can also track the GPS location of your remote employees during office hours. This way, you can ensure that your remote employees aren’t pulling off a deal with your rivals or they aren’t lying about an appointment with a doctor. Plus, you can define suspicious words, contacts, and places and receive an instant alert on their usage.

With all this information, you can’t confront your remote employee of any disloyalty or dishonesty. You can only identify some red flags which need a clear explanation. This is where Xnspy’s advanced features come handy to provide critical evidence.

The Critical Evidence

With this remote employee monitoring tool, you can take a live screenshot of your employee’s device by using remote controls.

Xnspy Dashboard gives access to each activity along with their date and time details. You can also wipe device data or lock your employee’s device remotely. Plus, the employer can get an exclusive actuarial report for each employee.

This report includes the top 5 callers, top 5 call durations, top 10 frequently-visited sites, and a call time activity punch card. This report helps point out any discrepancy that makes it easy for employers to confront their remote team.

Conclusion

In the modern workplace, employers need to decide where to find the right talent. A few years back, this search was limited geographically to candidates that can commute to the office.

Technology has now made it possible to hire global talent. The right remote workers are out there, ready to offer their services. All you need is the right managing and monitoring tool and let them do what they do best.

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