Would Remote Working Bring any Benefits for Your Business?

Remote working is becoming an industry standard, especially in the IT industry and other digital related fields. However, at the beginning of this year Jackie  Reses, Chief Development Officer of Yahoo sent out a memo telling all remote employees that, by June, they would need to work in Yahoo offices.  “To become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people and impromptu team meetings” declared Jackie.

Many companies are afraid of remote working practices due to the fact that they don’t know how to properly manage it. Let’s see some of the benefits and challenges of remote working and then draw the conclusions.

The benefits of remote working

Here are two of the biggest benefits of remote working for both employees and businesses:

• Attracts and retains employees. Remote working appeals to most employees. It provides flexibility, helps with childcare and cuts down wasted time and money spent commuting. Remote working is a great way to attract and increase digital workers retention in a competitive market, as well as increase retention and improve staff morale.

• Increases productivity. Many employees working from home tend to be more focused than when they are in the office. Many distractions such as phone calls, noise or colleagues discussions make the office a difficult environment to concentrate. Plus, with work constantly accessible through cloud technologies, employees are more efficient allocating time to company’s projects.

The challenges of remote working

Here are three of the biggest problems of remote working for both employees and businesses:

• Security concerns. This includes the use of firewalls, anti-virus software and securing documents that contains clients’ or company’s information.

• Monitoring employees. There are employees who are not able to work adequately while not in the office. On the other side, there are managers who don’t like the idea of employees being unavailable or have no way to monitor them.

• Defective collaboration and communication between employees that can affect the company’s culture.  The lack of personal contact with the rest of the team can have a lasting impact on the success of your projects.

Indeed, remote working can create challenges in collaborating and it does make it harder to build a company culture. But remote working is also a great way to build trust, attract and motivate employees, and increase productivity.

Challenges can be minimized with the use of cloud technologies. There are some great cloud tools you could use to better manage your remote office. Here are 2 useful articles about cloud collaboration and communication technologies: Benefits of Team Collaboration in the Cloud; Team collaboration cloud solutions.

I recommend you to weigh the benefits and challenges of remote working for your business, and then decide if it’s appropriate for your needs.

Photo credits: www.buriantech.com