Our partners at Marrable Services (London, UK) published an insightful article about remote working and its inherent advantages & challenges.
Advantages include increased employee satisfaction, the ability to employ better priced talent nearshore, reduced commuting time (or none at all for that matter) and lower workspace costs.
Quote:
Research by Stanford University has found that remote workers are 13% more productive, take fewer sick days and enjoy a quieter working environment than their commuting colleagues [...]. More than this, you may have realised that you need to look outside of your immediate location to find the right skills for a particular project, or to find high level skills at an affordable price.
Economic advantages include reduction of commuting time and the related environmental impact the company can realise, and reduced costs associated with the workspace itself: the size of the office, the furniture, the electricity used, the cost of heating and cooling the office space and so on. In fact, studies indicate an employer can save $8,000–$11,000 per employee when that person works from home even half the time.
"So what's not to like?" our partners ask themselves rhetorically. They go on to present rather vividly the risks - or challenges, if you like - of having your staff working from the comfort of their home:
There is one overriding consideration when allowing your workforce to locate themselves outside of the office – and ignore it at your peril! The issue that will keep you awake at nights is not whether the technology enabling your remote workers will fail, it is that somewhere deep inside you suspect that your team members are not beavering away in their respective back bedrooms but rather they are hunched in front of daytime TV with a cold kebab in one hand and an Alka Seltzer in the other.
"Yes, the key issue is trust", they conclude.
Read the whole article to find out ways to overcome these risks, build trust, and manage remote workforce successfully.