Does Letting Your Workforce Operate Remote Work Really Reduce Office Costs?

The pandemic left little choice for companies to shift to remote work environments.  As a result, companies are now more intentionally embracing opportunities for remote or hybrid setups. Why? Employees love the flexibility, and businesses are saving money with an at-home workforce.

Remote work results in employee retention and higher productivity

Having a choice of work environment and location is now a key factor for many.  Therefore job seekers are looking for a better work-life balance and evaluating new career opportunities.

According to a recent FlexJobs survey, when asked what kind of work arrangement respondents would prefer post-pandemic, only 3% want to return to fully in-person work. Furthermore a whopping 58% now prefer a fully remote job, while 39% would like a hybrid arrangement.

What are the biggest attractions employees enjoy with remote work? A striking 81% of respondents report that the #1 reason they want a flexible job is to enjoy better work-life balance. Therefore, 70% say that working remotely helps to improve their mental health. In addition, reducing the stress of a daily commute came in third on the survey. In other words, with rising gas prices, commuting woes for employees bring a growing mental and financial burden that is elevated by working remotely.

The Benefits

It does require a certain degree of trust for a company to allow employees to work from home.  But businesses of all sizes appear to be reaping the benefits of that trust investment with increased productivity. As a result of eliminating daily commutes and lengthy in-person meetings efficiency has increased.  And most remote employees find that they can be more productive while working at home. Similarly, add in the benefits of not having to listen to the loud co-worker two cubicles over and the comfort that an at-home wardrobe offers and the efficiency gains continue to grow.  For Instance, these added conveniences make most employees willing to work harder to keep enjoying these new benefits. Many companies are profiting from a more focused, loyal, and productive remote workforce.

Reduce operating costs with a remote workforce

Different-sized companies might reap different cost savings from a remote workforce.  For instance, most companies realize reduced operating costs with more employees working from home. Here are three of the most notable areas where businesses are seeing cost savings when using a remote or hybrid workplace model:

• Property-related costs. Fully remote companies can liquidate significant amounts of real estate.  Even companies with hybrid workforces can reduce property-related expenses such as utilities, heating and air conditioning, insurance, parking fees, maintenance costs, and more.
• Turnover costs. With happier, more productive employees, costs associated with employee turnover and hiring are reduced.  You have a more loyal workforce.
• Business travel costs. Technology allows employee collaboration regardless of location.  More colleagues collaborate with tools like team messaging and video conferencing.  Resulting in companies seeing less need for business travel.

Even with the benefits of a work-from-home, struggles may arise as businesses endeavor to keep their teams connected and focused. Let’s examine some of the most useful technologies that help employees easily communicate and stay on task.

Effective collaboration tools for a remote workforce

Struggles with communication and collaboration are some of the sticking points with remote employees. Your workforce may be scattered across different cities and even different time zones.  Your teams need to stay in sync, excellent collaboration tools will be the valuable glue that holds it all together for your business.

Remote workers need tools to help them communicate face-to-face (well screen-to-screen) and enable written collaboration. Video chat software like Zoom and Google Meet offers face-to-face interactions that increase employee engagement. Employees initiate team collaboration via online calls, screen-share important resources, record valuable information for future use, and stay informed in chat rooms.

With written communication, internal emails in businesses are becoming a thing of the past. In-house messaging is quickly being replaced with collaborative communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Remote workers can establish private conversation threads and organize group chats. you can even align projects into defined group channels with simple search features.  Employees quickly understand the viability and ease-of-using these tools bring.  Collaboration – even with virtual employees – becomes easier than ever.

Deadlines still matter – incorporate powerful project management tools to keep your remote team on track

Whether in-house or remote managing projects across departments can be tricky.  Juggling different team priorities, personalities, and calendars alone can be a challenge. Add to that managing the expectations of multiple stakeholders and things can get lost in the shuffle.  Working remotely only heightens that potential. But similar to the collaboration tools we’ve discussed, project management tools can help ensure your employees are kept on track.

Two priorities rise to the top when considering effective project management tools for remote team:

1. Setting priorities

To ensure that the most important things get done first, use the tool to organize tasks and set levels of importance. Organize tasks with a task board and easily update the data as progress occurs. Clearly communicating priorities will help your team understand what needs the most attention.  This will allow them to devote their focus on what’s most important.

2. Seeing the Big Picture

A great project management tool allows your team to better understand a project as a whole. This helps your team stay on track with their particular role. Helping them see how it fits together with what other employees are contributing. These tools are typically very visual, making progress and goals easy to see and understand.

There’s a huge variety of project management tools on the market as remote work becomes more prevalent.  Most offer options that can expand with the size of your business and the size of your project. Some of the most popular options include Trello, Monday.com, Basecamp, Microsoft Projects, and Asana.

The deskside team can help you decide what communication and collaboration tools will work the best with your particular company’s needs. Is your company seeking the most cost-effective, most secure, and most productive ways to make your remote or hybrid workforce successful? We’re happy to discuss your goals and present needs to help you reap the benefits that remote work can bring for your company