Today’s fastest-growing companies have embraced remote and hybrid workers as an integral part of their teams. These employees may not be in the office daily, but that doesn’t stop them from significantly contributing to the business’s success. New and established businesses that are looking to grow can benefit from hiring hybrid and remote workers. This modern strategy of employing remote and hybrid individuals can help a business see long-term success by reducing costs, improving recruiting, and facilitating daily operations.
Finding Talent
Recruiting, applicant screening, and hiring can happen faster with remote and hybrid workers. This enables them to find and hire top-quality talent. When a company doesn’t limit itself to an office, recruiting ability becomes significantly easier. A business can create a set of requirements for the ideal candidate and then look for the perfect individual. There is a reduced need to compromise or lower expectations because the candidate pool is significantly larger. The potential applicant pool is now worldwide, as a potential applicant could be anywhere.
Interviewing is also easier with remote and hybrid hiring. Since the role is already remote, there is no need to bring the employee into the office for an in-person interview. This makes scheduling and performing interviews easier and faster. The manager doing the interview can be more productive by transitioning between working and interviewing more easily than with in-person interviews.
Diversity and Inclusivity
With the ability to recruit worldwide, businesses can increase their employee diversity and inclusivity. Traditional businesses have a physical office location. They are required to recruit from a limited geographical area around that office location. Employees must be able to commute to and from the office daily. This creates a significant hindrance to recruiting. In contrast, companies hiring remote and hybrid workers are not limited in recruiting efforts. Employees can be recruited worldwide. This increases diversity and inclusivity as employees are hired for their knowledge and skills instead of their physical location.
Having a more diverse workforce helps employees feel more welcome. They are more likely to feel accepted and be more open about themselves. Companies benefit from this because it creates a team that feels closer and trusts each other. This encourages better collaboration and communication.
Culture Building
With increased diversity and inclusivity, companies can create a more accepting and diverse culture. When people from different places and backgrounds come together, they bring with them different perspectives and ideas. This diversity helps to build a culture that is more accepting and inclusive. Ultimately, the business as a whole benefits because there is less homogenous groupthink.
In addition, a strong company culture is essential for employee retention, productivity, and recruiting. It doesn’t take long for a bad company culture to permeate the company. In comparison, a strong positive company culture can quickly become well-known with hybrid and remote workers. A business will benefit from fostering a strong company culture because remote hybrid workers will communicate with their professional network about the business. This creates a positive reputation for the business. Top talent will then seek out the business as a great company to work for. This increases the overall quality of the team and reduces the recruiting effort required.
High Productivity
It has been proven that remote and hybrid workers tend to have higher productivity rates. There are several reasons for this. Companies that embrace remote and hybrid workers trust them, giving the employees more autonomy and confidence in their positions. This makes them work harder. Remote and hybrid employees also have greater control over their working hours, letting them choose the times when they are most productive. Finally, these employees are less likely to experience performance burnout. With more flexible schedules and the ability to choose where they work, these employees tend to experience less stress and fatigue than their in-office counterparts.
A business that is able to maintain high productivity rates with its employees will get more for its investment. With employees that get more done, the business can run a more streamlined team. This keeps employment costs down because fewer employees are required to get the work done.
Employee Retention
Businesses that hire remote and hybrid workers tend to have lower employee turnover rates. Remote and hybrid workers tend to feel happier and more fulfilled in their professional careers. When employees are happy with their professional careers and the business they work for, they are more likely to stay long-term.
In addition, businesses that hire remote and hybrid workers are more likely to trust their employees. While some may monitor or track their employees, the majority do not. The trust that they place in their employees is felt by the remote workers. When workers feel trusted, they value that feeling and take it seriously. This is a hard quality to find in a business, so they are less likely to leave and risk not having the same level of trust in their next role.
Finally, a strong, positive company culture isn’t about perks and amenities. Perks and office amenities are not even relevant for remote and hybrid workers because they aren’t in the office enough to utilize them. However, these employees report feeling satisfied and fulfilled in their roles. This is because companies that grow with their remote workers appreciate these workers. Open and frequent expressions of gratitude make remote and hybrid workers feel appreciated and valued. This raises morale and improves employee retention. It also encourages employees to continue working towards personal and company goals.
Payment Consistency
Several studies and surveys have shown that companies that fully embrace remote and hybrid workers tend to have payment consistency. When hiring, they have consistent pay scales for employees in similar positions. The physical location of the business or the employee doesn’t impact the pay scale offered. This consistency helps improve employee satisfaction by ensuring those performing similar roles are equally compensated. While companies hope that employees won’t share and compare their salaries, they can’t stop them from doing so. If there are significant disparities in payment amounts, this can lead to dissatisfaction and poor morale. In contrast, when employees are all on the same pay scale, they are less likely to feel undervalued.
To consider this from the business side, a consistent payment scale makes budgeting and planning easier. A business can more easily predict the cost of growth by knowing what it will pay for future additional remote and hybrid employees. Payroll management is also easier, as there is consistency across employee paychecks.
Growth and Innovation
A diverse team of employees is more likely to bring innovative and progressive ideas to the table. With employees from different cultures, locations, and lifestyles, companies are able to gain valuable contributions from different perspectives. Businesses can benefit from this diversity by having a stronger and more experienced team of employees. This higher level of professionalism means that businesses can focus more on documenting knowledge and processes than monitoring behavior. Instead of working about time sheets and breaks, employees can focus on solving problems and coming up with new ideas. As employees submit new ideas, the business can encourage future submissions with positive feedback and reinforcement.
With more streamlined operational costs in other areas, businesses with remote and hybrid workers are in a better financial position to take risks. These calculated and strategic risks can help a business see exponential growth. There is also reduced risk, as the company doesn’t have to worry about risking a large amount of physical assets.
Better Communication
A business that hires remote and hybrid workers must embrace a new method of communication. They need to use innovative methods for maintaining open and effective communication between employee team members and upper management. When employees work in an office, they can walk over to another employee’s office or desk and talk to them face to face. Video conferencing mimics this by making it possible for employees to speak “face to face” despite being hundreds or thousands of miles away from each other. Group video conferencing lets multiple employees collaborate and work together at the same time. This reduces miscommunication by ensuring everyone is in on the same conversation at the same time.
Another helpful communication tool is an instant messaging software. This allows employees to quickly communicate with each other without having to call or stop what they are working on. There can be group messaging threads, or employees can message each other one-on-one. By having a messaging system, keeps email inboxes cleaner, reducing the risk of an important email getting overlooked.
Communication goes beyond helping employees talk to each other. It also involves managers regularly checking in with remote and hybrid employees. Regular check-ins ensure employees feel heard by giving them a chance to speak directly with their superiors.
Effective Collaboration
With the use of today’s technology, businesses can facilitate employee communication. This communication is essential for remote and hybrid employees to maintain productivity and work quality. Interestingly, remote and hybrid employees are more cognizant of maintaining communication, which makes them more effective at collaboration. With tools like project management software, video conferencing, and Google Drive, employees can easily collaborate by working on a project together. Using project management software ensures remote workers are held accountable for their tasks and responsibilities. Video conferencing lets multiple employees talk and collaborate face-to-face. Cloud storage systems let employees upload documents and make them accessible to other employees instantaneously. Then, services like Google Drive allow employees to work in the same document together at the same time. This helps with version control.
Clear Business Goals
Progressive and forward-thinking companies that are willing to hire remote and hybrid companies also tend to have other innovative traits. One of the most common is the ability to set clear company-wide goals. These goals are then effectively communicated to employees for a united effort. Clear business goals help define why employees are hired, their daily purpose, and their role within the company. Having a clear goal for the company ensures the business continues to grow. It also helps the business leads track performance and identify potential issues before they become major problems that could potentially hinder the business’ growth.
Reduced Operating Costs
When a significant number of employees are not regularly coming into an office to work, businesses have reduced operating costs. Even when a business has flex spaces for when hybrid employees come into the office to work, this is still more affordable. A smaller office space means lower costs for rent, electricity, heating, cooling, and cleaning. It also requires less furniture, technology, and equipment.
To maintain a remote and hybrid team, a business will need to send the employee technology equipment and login credentials for software and cloud services. These are easily scalable as the business grows and requires more technology and software accounts. If the business experiences setbacks, it can reduce its operating costs quickly to limit the amount of damage. This helps a business recover from setbacks more quickly and resume growth sooner.
Improved Agility and Adaptability
When a business utilizes remote and hybrid workers, it has a greater ability to be responsive to changing marketing conditions. The business can have more liquidity because it doesn’t have a large investment tied up in a physical office. The business can also have employees working through several time zones, allowing it to always have someone online and working. A remote team is also accustomed to working online and collaborating with other remote workers. They adapt and overcome on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Shifting gears in response to changing market conditions or business needs is a natural task for them.
Grow With Hybrid and Remote Employees
When a business hires remote and hybrid workers, it can take advantage of the many benefits. The recruiting pool grows significantly, allowing for the hiring of top-tier talent. With increased diversity, company culture becomes more robust and accommodating. A positive company culture leads to happier employees who are more productive and experience less burnout. With this, improved communication leads to more effective collaboration and increased innovation.
Work with BOS Staffing to recruit and develop your remote and hybrid employees.
