Remote Workers Could Be Your Biggest Asset. Here's How!

The future of work is just around the corner, and it’s only a matter of time when remote workers will take center stage. Every organization now is trying to maximize its productivity in its quest for success.

But there’s a much bigger and broader perspective to remote working. There are also a lot of questions.

Why is Remote Work trending? How well does it sync with today’s businesses? How is technology playing a role in its growth? And how can employers support benefits for remote workers?

It is my belief that working to develop a great remote working culture is an investment that will pay dividends for decades to come - Joel Gascoigne, CEO, Buffer

The corporate culture has evolved dramatically during the past decade. And we have seen major changes happening over this course of time. Employees are now moving from the traditional style of working to this new concept of remote working. This change can be credited to the advances made in the field of technology.

Further, with the advent of cloud computing, organizations have seen the rise of a collaborative workforce. And with this emerged a new section of workforce who could operate from anywhere and anytime. These workers are termed as the Remote Workers.

So, Who are these Remote Workers?

Remote workers are employees who perform their duties staying outside the office. They could be operating out from anywhere like a park, beach, coffee shop, or their home. Remote workers could be an organizations’ key asset as it helps them cut in their tangible resources. Resources here mean expenses on office space, furniture, amenities, electricity, etc.

In some cases, these remote workers can also be classified as “Distributed Teams” who aren’t bound to a traditional office space.

Remote Workers and Businesses Today – How Well do They Sync With Each Other?

• Remote workers help save time and resources, which is a crucial factor for businesses.

No matter where they are or what they do, their job moves with them. Keeping aside in-office distractions like water cooler conversations, unnecessary breaks, etc., helping save a lot of time. And businesses can hit the goal of getting the job done quickly without any compromise.

• Remote work bridges the gap between the work and personal life of an employee.

An employee’s personal life is also as much important as their work life. Remember, “Only happy and motivated employees will make the best out of your workforce.” Trust me, any employer who acknowledges that, has hit the gold mine in employee relations.

• A business runs more smoothly when it has the perfect match for its job roles.

It’s not always possible to get the perfect person for the job right next door. Sometimes you might’ve to go beyond the borders to look for them. Remote work culture has shrunk the geographic barriers between an employee and the employer. Consequently, it has now allowed enterprises to get the best from the huge pool of talents spread worldwide.

Why Remote Work is Growing Popular?

According to a survey, 90% of remote workers plan on working remotely for the rest of their careers, and 94% encourage others to give remote jobs a shot. (Source: Buffer)

In today's date, the world has shrunk, and so has the distance between an employee and their work. Above all, most businesses are now moving towards “Cloud Technology.” Likewise, it has allowed enterprises to work, store and share everything in real-time.

However, the most beneficial aspect of cloud technology is the collaborative work environment. Having face-to-face interactions over video calls with team members is a big advantage for employers. It allows them to handle a distributed team much efficiently.

Also, it has granted the employees the ability to work from anywhere. So no matter where they go, their work stays with them always. In contrast, cloud technology is the actual major factor for boosting remote work culture.

Three Factors Backed by Cloud Technology are the Key Elements Fuelling the Remote Work Culture.

1. The Choice to Work From Anywhere.

Wherever the employee goes, the job moves with them. Be it their home, coffee shop, park, or the subway. Remote workers can operate from anywhere. People now are more tech-savvy than ever before. Everyone is more conscious about saving time and getting the work done.

Cloud technology has changed the conventional way of storing the work or doing it in a definite place. In particular, it now gives better flexibility at it by enabling one to work and access the files from anywhere. For remote workers, this most noteworthy point provides a good balance between their personal and work life. It also saves them crucial time, energy, and considerable expenses.

2. Flexible Work Schedule.

This is another influencing factor for people to adopt remote work culture. The entire sphere of remote work environment revolves around having more flexibility. Remote workers are result-oriented and are not bound by the revolving hands of the clock.

A remote employee hardly follows any fixed routine or work schedule. Since everything is available on the cloud itself, one can access it anytime they want. Thus gaining them the advantage to get the work done at any time of the day.

3. Better Focus on The Work

If an employee can demonstrate results produced in a way that the company didn’t think possible, then a new way forward can begin to take shape. – Jason Fried

An employee performs the best when he/she is free from worries or is not under any pressure about anything.

Remote workers are work-driven beings on their own terms. They enjoy full autonomy over what they do and how they do it. As said earlier, Cloud gave birth to a whole new world of collaborative work culture. Remote employees can perform the job while playing with their kids, pampering the pets, or enjoying a nice view somewhere. This creates a stress-free work environment leading to a better focus on their work.

Remote Benefits for Remote Employees

Employee benefits has now become essential for motivating workers and get the best from them.

When it’s about delivering these benefits, ensure everyone gets it. If you can pay the salaries over the internet, consider doing the same to provide benefits.

Yes! But How?

By using the same cloud technology!

A lot of new online tools and platforms are now available for doing so. It’s now possible to disburse employee benefits for remote workers with a few simple clicks. Moreover, you’ll have a more diverse set of benefits available over these platforms. Furthermore, by using such a platform, you can be sure about all your employees' access to them.

Few benefits to Consider for Remote Workers

Recognition

Appreciating your employee doesn’t cost you a penny.

Recognizing an employees’ effort is the key point towards building a better workplace. You can do the same for the remote employees too. Consider giving them awards like “Employee of the Month,” “Best Performer,” etc. And all these become easy with a cloud-based employee engagement platform. Through this, you can hop in all the employees under one roof.

Likewise, there remains no difference between a remote and a full-time office employee. The remote workers, too, will feel like a part of your team no matter where they are. Moreover, this will also reflect their importance and how valuable they are to their organizations.

Vantage Circle offers a cloud-based Rewards and Recognition platform. Using this platform, employers can appreciate employees for their hard work and achievements on the go. With added features like peer-to-peer recognition, co-workers can appreciate, like, and comment on each other’s achievements.

Perks and Discounts

As the proverb goes, “Money saved is money earned.”

Helping your employees save on their expenses is a great move to do as an employer. The perks and discounts can be easily disbursed over a unified employee engagement platform. For this, you can provide them with gift cards, discount coupons for various things. This can include subsidized insurance plans, shopping & travel benefits, and many more.

It'll not only help your employees save their hard-earned income but will also keep them motivated.

Provide Them Access to All Your Resources

Working with proper resources is like a “cherry on the cake” for every organization.

These resources include amenities like office equipment, connectivity solutions, software, etc. Remote workers don’t get these amenities, or they have to manage them on their own.

But just because remote employees operate out of the workplace doesn’t mean they don’t need resources. Taking things to the cloud makes this task easier. You can use cloud-based software, services, learning amenities, and productivity tools to get the work done. Providing access to all these to your remote worker will be good too. Also, since they aren’t coming to the office, you can consider giving them a fixed amount for hardware entities needed for the work.

Related article: 17 Must-Have Tools for Remote Workers

Health and Wellness

Pay your workers, and they’ll work for you. Care for your employees, and they’ll love to work for you.

Nowadays, you can also support health and wellness benefits with the help of cloud-based applications. These apps have two primary benefits -

First, it helps employers to run effective corporate wellness programs and incentivize the top performers to motivate a healthy lifestyle.

Second, it enables the employees to keep track of their health status and participate in workplace health campaigns.

Thus, in a way making sure that your employees remain fit and active even if they are working remotely.

Vantage Fit is one such corporate health and wellness platform that can help you manage wellness programs for all your employees. On completing various health tasks your employees would be able to earn reward points. Also, they can compete with their other peers for the top spot in the built-in leaderboard irrespective of their location.

Moving Away from Cloud-based Benefits here

Bonus

Appreciate your employees for the excellent work done.

Happy and motivated workers are like the jewels to the crown for any organization. No matter where they are working from, you can show how much you value their work and appreciate them. Rewarding them for the same with a bonus amount could be very good.

Since you don’t see your remote employees daily, you don’t get enough chance to praise them. So just saying a simple thank you over the mail or a call might not create much impact. However, the same “Thank You” complimented with some surprise like a “bonus pay” will surely do the magic. With this, you’re not only making them happy but also earning their confidence over you.

Co-working spaces.

Providing your remote workers with co-working spaces can be a great way forward.

It is an obvious fact when one tends to work alone for a longer period of time, they start falling out from the herd. The feeling of working all alone hampers their productivity to a great extent. As an employer, you can bring the change by encouraging them to use a co-working space or reimburse for the same.

What are these co-working spaces?

Shared workplaces where people sit and use all available resources to do their work. The environment in these workplaces is very different from regular office spaces. Co-working spaces are trendy among the remote working community. Furthermore, such areas help create avenues for making connections and learn new things.

Successful Companies with Remote Employees

There are a few companies that achieved the top spot with remote workers. For example:

BUFFER

Buffer started in the year 2010 as a simple tool for scheduling posts on Twitter. Over 4 million users currently use it for managing their social media presence. The most noteworthy fact here is, remote employees, build buffer. Even their CEO operates remotely as they don’t have a permanent space anywhere. “Bufferoos” as their team calls itself, is spread all across the globe.

Though being remote, all employees at Buffer receive some pretty cool benefits like:

1. Company retreats.

2. Home office setup allowance. Indeed, they are the ones using most resources to maintain their efficiency

3. Stock options.

Click here to visit.

BASECAMP

Haven’t heard of it? Then welcome to the holy grail of remote workers. Headquartered in Chicago, US, Basecamp provides an all-in-one cloud-based platform for businesses. Their platform includes solutions like real-time chat, cloud storage, to-do list, documents, etc.

The company employs a large number of remote workers for various operations. Basecamp is also credited for developing the popular programming framework Ruby on Rails. Calling it the holy grail for remote workers, they’ve got a whole lot of benefits for all the workers. Few are:

1. Company-issued American Express cards with no limit.

2. Education allowances.

3. Co-working Space Stipend.

Click here to visit.

STACK OVERFLOW

The world’s largest developer community earns a reputation for promoting remote-first culture. They induct remote workers for a variety of jobs. These include roles across design, engineering, IT, and many more. Stack Overflow also provides benefits for remote workers at par with regular employees. Some of their benefits are

1. Sponsored health coverage.

2. Paid parental leaves.

3. Tuition reimbursements.

Click here to visit.

These three companies have created the benchmark for dealing with the remote workforce. In addition to this, other names on the list include Github, Moz, Mozilla, Skillshare, Spotify, Salesforce, etc.

Got some idea about a remote worker and how to deliver benefits for them?

Then now, it’s your turn to make the difference and start caring for your remote workers. Show that you care for them no matter wherever they are. Express your gratitude towards them for being a part of your team in your own way. Because once you start valuing your workers, they won’t hesitate to go some extra mile for you as well.

Working as a SEO Analyst and Content Marketer at Vantage Circle, Angshuman always stays curious and is passionate about learning new things. Got any question? Drop a mail at editor@vantagecircle.com