by Sania Yasmin, HR & Finance Supervisor at eddress
Picture the scene:
Wildflowers peak between the pavement cracks. Pigeons perched on a roof observe a formation of deers trotting in between rows of abandoned parked cars. Is this a scene from The Last Of Us game? No. The year is 2020, and the coronavirus has spread. Humanity is alive and self-isolating in the safety of their homes.
People are fighting the virus from their homes, using their laptops to stay in touch and remain productive. The COVID-19 pandemic has blown a mandatory wind of renewal into organizations across the world. Businesses and their employees have had to shift to remote work.
At eddress, we've embraced working from home. We appreciate how challenging it has been for everyone from 2020 until now and we believe that this shift is here to stay as it marks the beginning of a new business era.
Remote work, a new world of opportunities & challenges
Opportunities to work remotely have changed employees' lives and benefited their career and professional goals. Indeed, working from home has empowered employees to improve their work-life balance without sacrificing family or health to work projects.
For many, remote work has helped increase the focus on work & professional goals. In fact, without unnecessary office distractions, employees have greatly improved their productivity and engagement.
In 2020, organizations realized that technological and digital solutions enabled their team to carry on their work outside the office. But submitting work online was not enough. Home-based work needed to make communication and remote work technology a priority to prevent misinterpretation and confusion:
- Replace non-verbal office communication
- Support interpersonal connections (1 in 5 WFH employees identify communication as challenging)
- Create a professionally viable network (as without cyber training and tools, IT experts believe remote workers could become a security risk)
- Prevent loneliness (19% of remote employees report loneliness as their biggest challenge as per Buffer)
The future of working from home
You might believe that with things going back to the way they were pre-pandemic, working from home is a thing of the past. However, employees disagree.
According to Forbes research:
Employees have been able to trade their long, expensive, stressful commutes for activities that contribute to their overall health and wellness. When asked why they wanted to continue remote work:
- 40% said they save money working remotely
- 48% enjoy spending less time commuting
- 43% prefer the better work-life balance WFH offers
These reasons alone explain why over 71% of surveyed employees admitted that they would choose to be able to work from anywhere over a job promotion or compensation increase.
The pandemic has radically transformed people's relationships with the workplace.
Companies need to offer more flexibility and autonomy around work to compete in this new era. Review 42 reports that 55% of businesses globally offer some capacity for remote work. In our experience at eddress, giving your team members the flexibility to organize their work in the most productive way, when and wherever they want to do it, is game-changing.
The benefits of remote work
At eddress, we saw the benefits of working from home as we began to grow in 2018. Now a bright side of the pandemic is companies can hopefully see the benefits of remote work for themselves too. You can attract better talent when you open the pool to more people beyond one area, and WFH employees are considerably happier and more productive when you allow them to work where they want. For most industries, the days of micromanaging and keeping tabs on the number of hours your team members work are ancient practices.
A study by Standford observing employees working from home over 9 months found a performance increase of 13%. ConnectSolutions reports that employees who work remotely increase their productivity by up to 77%. Indeed, the removal of traditional office-based interruptions and distractions enables them to do more work in less time. On average, those who work from home spend 10 minutes less a day being unproductive, work one more day a week, and are 47% more productive.
Remote work has made it so much easier to hire. According to Buffer, 99% of remote workers want to continue telecommuting in the future. You can get better candidates at a remote company because plenty of people want to work remotely.
This increases your candidate pool. You can recruit employees from all over the globe, enabling you to find the perfect talent match.
Adding team members with different perspectives, experiences, and capabilities benefits your organization in many ways, enabling you to grow invaluable aspects of your company, such as scaling a team that connects users around the world.
Owl Labs notes that U.S. companies that allow working from home have a 25% lower employee turnover rate. Remote work can significantly improve employee well-being and satisfaction. In the end, happy workers are better workers because:
- They stay with the company
- They are more productive by up to 77%
- They save the company a minimum of $11,000 annually by working from home half-time or more
Working from home is the future
Freedom to work in the way that suits employees' needs is the best solution to building high-performing teams and creating sustainable growth for your business. So, all things considered, we're big believers that remote work is here to stay!
Speaking with our own remote employees and with the interactions we have with other people from remote companies, it's clear that the benefits can certainly overshadow the negatives when it comes to working remotely. While there are some slight challenges, these can be overcome by the presence of good technology, regular contact with colleagues, and attending monthly or annual events.
