How does it feel living in the future?
Driving electric cars, being able to work from anywhere with the help of a portable computer, communicating with anywhere in the world at will, having virtual partners, and whatnot, everything made into reality and served to us on a sweet smelling platter.
However, as our amazing technologies are making life much easier for us at one time, it is also raising the higher management’s expectations of us. For instance, on the one hand, all kinds of work are super simple to complete, but on the other hand, since we’re able to do it more quickly, we are expected to work more.
Because let’s face it, we have entered the 21st century with a bang in technology but the 9-to-5 work culture has still a long way to get rid of completely. However, things still have changed in many of the big enterprises as well as a majority of the startups.
The result? Let’s see.
The Remote work culture
With compact, pocketable technology at our dispense, many companies have opened their doors to full-time remote teams and even allowed their existing employees to work from home at their own convenience. In fact, there are a number of studies that support this change.
- According to data from SurePayroll, remote working increases individual productivity. In fact of the total people who were surveyed, as many as 86% said that they preferred to work from home to give their maximum.
- Similar is the case with efficiency, where employees say that working remotely helps them to achieve more in less amount of time.
- Remote working is also said to reduce employee stress levels. According to a PGI study, 80% of people who work from home experience high working morale and 69% reported reduced absenteeism.
- On top of it all, a PGI study reported that 79% of global knowledge workers work from home and 60% of workers are ready to leave their current jobs for a full-time remote working position.
But don’t think this will only give your employees a comfortable working environment because it straightaway cuts own the overheads costs significantly. Moreover, the improved productivity and efficiency of your people are in your benefit as well.
But is it the same case for all sizes and kinds of organisations? Let’s see.
Remote Work for your Business Model
The best argument standing in the way of remote work culture becoming a global rage and eventually the normalcy of the working class is that not all kinds of businesses and business models are fit for it. And to some extent, it is even true.
So if you want to know whether or not your company is ready for a remote work culture, look out for the following signs.
- Your company allows its employees to work from home on a temporary basis as a policy
Because if there is already a provision for working remotely, all you have to do is start monitoring the performance of your people on the days that they are working from home or simply implement it for a short duration to see the results.
- Most of your work is dependant upon digital or online mediums
If you’re an organisation of knowledge workers, you have all the technology in the world to adopt remote work culture. Softwares like Skype, Slack, Trello and realtime boards can make communication and collaboration between remote teams and the management a cakewalk.
- Your business is growing at a faster rate than your workforce
The biggest (and sometimes the only) goal of a business is to grow – in terms of infrastructure, capital, workforce, popularity, anything. But if your company is growing in business and you are not able to hire the required people at that pace, go for remote teams.
- Your competitors have already implemented it and your own employees are asking for it
This is a no-brainer. When your people now that they will be able to perform well in a more flexible environment and on top of that, your competitors are providing that flexibility, the only way to retain your best people is to count on them and adopt remote work culture.
Lastly,
There is no scarcity of examples of effective remote work culture in a number of different organisations. And if there is no other result but improvement in every area, we don’t have to tell you the right course of action.
So do your research, survey your people, find the best mix of technology and allow your people to work at their own comfort. In the end, only results matter and remote working can be as awesome as the internet is telling you, after all.
