Over the course of two years, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from 5.7% to 17.9%. This is significant, but many still expect the number to keep rising. As remote work deepens its roots and remains a preferred model, many business owners want to know how to better manage a distributed team. Can they offer flexibility in the workplace, while not sacrificing productivity? Here’s what we’ve learned.
Remote Workers Are Happier & More Productive
At StringCan, we work with a geographically distributed team - and we love it. We have team members in Arizona, Chicago, California, and the Philippines. Some of our team members work together in our office space regularly, while others fly in for team meetings every quarter. Depending on each person’s role and schedule, we’ve established a model of in-person versus virtual collaboration that works for everyone.
This has worked remarkably well for us and our clients, especially since it means our team members are happier. This is a major benefit of offering remote work, whether it’s a few days a week or every day. In fact, one study found that telework results in much greater levels of retention, engagement, and profitability than in-person work. And if you’re worried about productivity, teleworkers are an average of 35-40% more productive than their office counterparts and have measured an output increase of at least 4.4%.
When many companies first went virtual during covid, business owners were worried about employees shirking their responsibilities. What if they do laundry while they’re at home during the workday? What if they play with their kids after they get home from school? Turns out, employees can technically do these things or not - and it doesn’t matter. When given more time freedom, and flexibility, most remote workers will get their work done (with excellence) and have more time for the other aspects of their lives that matter. Who doesn’t win in that scenario?
Removing Limits & Future-Proofing
There are even more advantages to being a company that relies primarily on remote workers. One is the way in which operating as a distributed team removes barriers. For example, what if you need a stellar graphic designer, but no one in your local area seems to fit your exact criteria? You no longer need to settle for whoever is in your same zip code. Instead, the larger state, national and even global talent pool is available to you.
Additionally, being set up for remote work helps you future-proof your company. Remember how, when the pandemic hit, businesses didn’t know how to support telecommuters, structure their virtual communications and deal with their digital security from afar? It took organizations a lot of time and money to get all these factors right, but now we know what to do. We all hope that there won’t be another pandemic or reason the in-person world will come screeching to a halt again but having the flexibility of a remote team ensures your business can keep operating smoothly come what may.
Would you like to work with a strong team that understands how to win with remote work? Give us a call!
Work Habits & Productivity
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As StringCan's Chief Operating Officer, Sarah is a solutionist who loves to implement and enhance efficiencies for herself and the team. She strives to support and help people be their best self in and outside of work. Sarah also gets her best ideas by lounging in a body of water. Cocktail is optional. But not really.
Jay, the CEO of StringCan, oversees strategy and vision, building culture that makes going into work something he looks forward to, recruiting additional awesome team members to help exceed clients goals, leading the team and allocating where StringCan invests time and money.
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