Uncovering the Silent Benefits of Remote Work

That ghost town effect is real—and could be costing your company thousands in wasted spending. With fewer people in the office, companies can condense their real estate footprint, allowing for more efficient workspace usage. That same Stanford study of remote workers allowed the participating company to save nearly $2,000 per employee on its office space rent, simply by using the space more efficiently. If, instead, a third of your employees are working remotely but doing so 90 percent of the time, the challenges to social cohesion are more pronounced. The one-third of your workforce will miss out on social interaction with the two-thirds working on-premises—and the cohesion, coherence, and cultural belonging that comes with it. One solution would be to bring those remote workers into the office more frequently, in which case multiple hubs, or multiple microhubs (as seen in the exhibit), might be the better choice.

In addition to cost savings, remote work can also lead to increased employee satisfaction, which can lead to higher retention rates. When employees have the flexibility to work from home, they can save time and money on commuting, which can improve work-life balance. This can result in increased job satisfaction, leading to a more productive and loyal workforce.

Increased efficiency

This increases the likelihood of finding the right fit for the job and ensures that the company has access to a wider range of skills and expertise. Starting a new job is stressful for most people, even under the best of circumstances. But new hires to an organization might feel overwhelmed if they are going from a traditional office to one primary based at home.

Next on the list of remote work benefits for employees is that this work model can help you manage your time more effectively. In addition to attracting better talent, remote work can help businesses keep the talent they already have. As explained, this is because employees who have the option to work from home are less likely to leave their jobs in search of greener pastures. When remote work is an option, businesses can cast a wider net when recruiting new employees.

Benefits of remote work for employers

Working from home eliminates lengthy commutes, enabling more time with loved ones. And on days when employees aren’t required to attend video meetings, they can dress any way they choose — including pajamas. This greater sense of comfort and better work-life balance lead to less stress. Employers should be aware that different groups perceive and experience remote work differently and consider how flexible working fits with their diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies.

• This article is based on a 25-minute, online-only Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of McKinsey between March 15 and April 18, 2022.
• Another 23 percent can work from home from one to four days a week.
• Organizations scrambled to put the right tools in place to enable remote work when the pandemic began.
• Thirty-five percent of respondents report having the option to work from home five days a week.
• Hiring remote talent means you can find the most uniquely suited person for the position.
• In many companies, there is a culture of “toughing it out” and coming in if you’re able to work.

A company’s potential security loopholes increase when factoring in antivirus software, firewalls and VPN configurations for employees’ home internet connections. Further complicating matters is when employees decide to work from a coffee shop or other location with public Wi-Fi, and when they bring personal devices onto a business network. Before the idea of remote work is even mentioned, businesses must be sure they can meet or exceed security expectations to minimize a cybersecurity disaster. Once a company’s employees are spread far and wide, leadership will want to keep tabs on them to some extent. In a remote work world, this means managers can no longer walk across the office to check in on their employees. Instead, they need to schedule virtual meetings to discuss routine project management tasks.

Pool of talent

Many people say the social interactions in an office are a benefit. But those are social interactions with people you didn’t specifically choose to socialize with. It’s a way to spend more time with people you choose rather than just people from the office.

Remote work makes it easier to avoid paying expensive rent or a large mortgage. In the past, getting a high-paying job required you to move to a city with a high cost of living. Now you can earn an excellent salary without living in a metropolitan area, which means you can save a lot of money. All too often, employers give employees assignments without asking how they are doing, what they like most how companies benefit when employees work remotely about their job and what they like least, Walters said. “Just being asked, listened to and heard goes a long, long way to maintaining and enhancing positive employee relations,” she said. That could be a factor for a remote employee who lives alone or is in an unhappy marriage, for example, as well as for an onsite worker where others’ attendance is sporadic and collaboration slim to none.

What are the most important advantages of remote work?

According to Doist, “Asynchronous communication is when you send a message without expecting an immediate response.” In other words, work and discussion don’t need to take place at the same time for everyone. Buffer, a fully remote company, has built great processes around asynchronous communication. “Async” builds a culture with fewer distractions, more time for deep work, and inclusive decision making (you don’t have to be in that meeting to be involved in the outcome).

But its widespread adoption due to the pandemic became a benefit of the modern job. Many companies already had long-term goals to set up remote work environments, but the pandemic accelerated the process. At a more macro level, a world in which millions of people no longer routinely commute has meaningful implications for the commercial core in big urban centers and https://remotemode.net/ for commercial real estate overall. Likewise, such a world implies a different calculus for where Americans will live and what types of homes they will occupy. As technology emerges that eliminates the residual barriers to more distributed and asynchronous work, it could become possible to move more types of jobs overseas, with potentially significant consequences.