COVID-19 has changed the way people work and forced companies to switch to remote working. The migration to virtual working went quickly and smoothly for both employees and employers.

Many things that happened in 2020 have become common, including work from home. It has made many of us tech-savvy and has improved the working conditions online.

Globally, about 68% of employees feel successful and more productive working from home. While 70% of the employees are satisfied working both at the office and remotely. Even when the pandemic is over, remote working is here to stay. The benefits of remote working have given rise to a hybrid working model where working from the office won’t be mandatory, but neither will be working remotely.

Remote Working Benefits For Employees

Working from home offers several advantages to the employees due to the following reasons.

Reduced Expenses

One of the most common advantages of remote working is the savings of extra costs. Apart from rent, travelling is a major expense for a majority of employees. Moreover, employees spend a few extra bucks at cafeterias, vehicle fuel and other miscellaneous things. But with remote working, all these expenses are cut down or reduced to a great extent.

Reduced Commute Time

Travelling to the workplace takes a lot of time and energy of employees. Employees who have long travelling hours feel drained and less energetic on reaching the workplace.

One of the advantages of working remotely is eliminating commute time. It saves employees time and energy, which can be put to better use and improve productivity as there is no need to travel to the workplace. For instance, a task that would take several days to complete while working at the office could be completed within a few days while working at home.

Flexibility

Remote work offers a happier and healthier life to employees. It makes employees more loyal and satisfied by lowering stress, providing time to improve personal relationships or pursue hobbies.

Moreover, reduced commute time in remote work helps employees save up their most active or energetic time for productive purposes.

Better Communication

Effective communication is the key to better productivity at the workplace. While working at the office, it is easy to communicate face to face and share information on a timely basis.

When working from home you need to work harder to maintain the same communication and keep the team updated about the progress.

However, with proper usage of communication tools, you can keep miscommunication at bay. For instance, a work update shared in a mail can be clearer when compared to the update shared face-to-face. And it is convenient to keep a record of things at hand.

Higher Productivity

Another advantage of remote working is fewer distractions. Working from home offers a quiet and peaceful environment that helps the employees to work faster and more efficiently.

Remote Working Benefits For Employers

The benefits of remote working are not limited to employees only but they are equally useful to employers or business owners. Even employers enjoy a few benefits of remote work. Some of them are mentioned below.

Far-reaching Recruitment

Companies tend to recruit candidates from the same city. However, the work from the home situation allows recruiters to widen their recruitment spectrum and select candidates from different cities. It also helps employers to look into sections that they wouldn’t look at in other circumstances.

Better Employee Retention

Remote work helps employees in improving their health and work-life balance which leads to employee satisfaction. Moreover, flexibility and independence in work improve employee satisfaction further. Higher satisfaction leads to higher employee retention.

Lower Costs

In common circumstances, while working at the workplace, companies had to pay several expenses apart from salaries such as office rent, electricity expenses, the maintenance cost of security systems and elevators, printing and miscellaneous expenses. Remote work eliminates all these expenses and reduces the extra costs.

Higher Employee Productivity

With flexibility and independence, employees can work more efficiently at home. Employees feel more relaxed in a calm ambience and work at a faster pace which in turn increases their productivity.

Fewer Leaves

Reduction in leaves is another advantage of remote working. With employees working at home with their families around and no more commuting for long hours to work, employees are in better health and comfortable ambience. They are less stressed or tired and can work as per their schedule without taking leaves.

Suggestions For Better Productivity While Working Remotely

Thinking about improving productivity while working from home? Following are a few suggestions to get improve productivity while working remotely..

Set up An Information Command Center

Remote work is relatively new for both employees and employers. There is a need for an individual who is dedicated to working with disbursed groups. You can set up an information command centre with a chief communicator who can talk to employees, reduce their concerns and solve any logistical problems.

Set Realistic Goals

It is not realistic to set goals of productivity the same as pre-pandemic levels. You should change your productivity mindset and offer a flexible workplace to keep everyone safe and healthy while maintaining optimum productivity.

Use Meeting Time Discreetly

More time is spent on meetings and there is lesser time for employees to fulfill their responsibilities. You must use your meeting time wisely and consider cancelling if the meetings are not too critical to the business. Instead, you can also schedule micro meetings of about 15 minutes to share information quickly and make sound decisions.

Use Resources Optimally

You may not have the same facilities while working remotely as you had when working at your workplace. Companies must set up remote infrastructure to test new processes and come up with strategies for optimum utilisation of e-mail, cloud storage and other online resources.

Install Great Technology And Maintain Cyber security

Protection from Covid-19 and virus protections online are both necessary during the pandemic time. Companies should take necessary measures to update virus protections and teach employees about cyber security. A dedicated IT staffer should be able to help the employees with technical and security issues.

Both employees and employers are benefitted from this initiative. So is remote working going to be over once the pandemic ends? The answer is not so difficult to guess.