Must Companies Embrace Remote Work To Survive?
A take on whether companies must stop dragging their heels with respect to their remote work policies, in order to simply exist.
A lot is said about how remote work enables flexibility, more time for the employee to do things of interest and take care of family and so on so forth. While these seem pretty obvious in themselves if the profession allows for remote work, why should companies even consider this? After all enabling employees to work remotely has so many problems starting with “Is this person really working or watching Netflix?” Or “communication problems”, “safety of important documents”, “psychological problems making the person feel lonely and hence performance at work dips”, “poor team interaction” etc. Phew! That’s a lot of problems that need fixing and probably the reasons why several companies are dragging their heels in adopting remote work policies.
Sign of things to come
The Remote Work Report, commissioned by Zapier and conducted online by The Harris Poll with 880 knowledge workers, 95% of the workers want to work remotely and yet 31% currently work in companies that don’t allow it. Of these, 74% would like to hand in their resignations when they find companies that would enable them to work remotely.
It would be disastrous for companies to take this data lightly and tell themselves that there are not many companies that allow remote work. Case in point is the recent Microsoft’s experiment in Japan. Microsoft Japan moved to a four day week as part of the Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019, and allowed 2300 employees to telecommute simultaneously this summer. The result was a boost in sales per employee to the tune of 39.9% compared to the same period in 2018. Not just that, meetings were more efficient and employees were happier.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. The number of remote companies is steadily growing. These companies do not have a typical “office” location that they go to every day. Most of employees are located remotely and work together virtually, with occasional meet ups. A variety of companies are emerging in the remote work space. Many of these are demanding technology savvy professionals beyond the software development space. Gone are the days when an individual’s technological knowhow can be restricted to Microsoft Office. Those who want to work remotely are not hesitating to adapt themselves and learn new technologies. In fact according to Buffer, 90% of the workforce are planning to work remotely for rest of their careers and most often refuse onsite jobs as they know they can find other remote gigs elsewhere.
90% of the workforce are planning to work remotely for rest of their careers and most often refuse onsite jobs as they know they can find other remote gigs elsewhere.
Accessing the best talent
The concept of a physical office space, came into existence as resources had to be shared in order to be able to produce something. Technology has made it possible for many occupations to move away from the need for a physical space to share resources, thus making it possible for people in many occupations to work from wherever they live. This is a huge plus point as companies in many fields can access talent from across the world, without having the hassle of arranging for a physical move which is expensive for the company as well as cumbersome for the employee, having to shift his/her family as well as base. Barnita De, is a product manager for banking products in the IT industry is a part of a global team that creates products that some of the biggest banks or financial institutions use. In her current role, she works with people across the world. The experience she confirms has enabled the her team to tap global talent, irrespective of geographical location and also cater to customers across time zones. “This strategy,” she adds, “has enabled us to move away from the hazards of micro management and strengthen our focus on the final deliverables.”
“Working as a global team has enabled us to move away from the hazards of micro management and strengthen our focus on the final deliverables.”- Barnita De, Product Manager For Banking Products for the biggest banks and financial institutions.
If Their Families Are Happy, Employees Are Happy And Hence Highly Productive
Surveys indicate that women feel the need for flexibility even more than the men. It has been estimated that 43% of highly qualified women dropped out of their careers when they had children. In contrast only 28% of men reported the need to cut down the number of hours on the job to take care of a child or family member. Working mothers in particular need the satisfaction of being available to take care of family needs, even if they have an excellent support system back home. Charmaine Timothy, Senior Manager Indirect Tax Strategy and Management – Founder of The Wonder Women World , works for certain periods of time at the office and the rest from home. Talking about how the remote work option has helped her, she says, “It is fast becoming a virtual world and with technology becoming advanced working remotely has become just as efficient as working out of an office. I feel it allows, especially a working mother like me, the flexibility of attending to my children (who are still in in their formative years) and also advancing in my career. It also helps me cut down travel time, delays and saves costs associated with making my way to a physical location every day. I am more productive- in fact I work much more while at home than when I visit my office given the time I save travelling, etc.”
“It is fast becoming a virtual world and with technology becoming advanced, working remotely has become just as efficient as working out of an office. I feel it allows, especially a working mother like me, the flexibility of attending to my children (who are still in in their formative years) and also advancing in my career.” — Charmaine Timothy, Senior Manager Indirect Tax Strategy and Management & Founder of The Wonder Women World.
Your best talent may have a travel bug and might work best as a “digital nomad”.
The change that is happening in the workspace is not restricted to the typical “work from home” option. It is getting extended beyond that. Remote workers work from multiple locations, sometimes while travelling and even in local cafes and co-working spaces.
Companies such as Behere and GoRemote, take the remote work experience to a sublime level. They enable you to become a digital nomad which means that you can travel, see the world and work while you do it. Behere enables you to find vetted and furnished apartments to live in, co working spaces in the vicinity and even gyms in the city you want to visit. They remove the hassle of finding good accommodation and other basic requirements to set you up and running for work, allowing time to explore and enjoy the new city. GoRemote offers interesting packages that start with 3 months to a year, covering various cities. So you choose the package that works best with your travel interests and work simultaneously. Like Behere, they do all the ground work needed to set up the workspace for you in the cities that get covered in the package. There are even Facebook groups such as Digital Nomad Jobs(26,000 members), Letsworkremotely(19,000 members), Remote Work & Travel/Digital Nomad Community(4600 members). There is even an India specific group that is called India Works Remotely. This group predominantly shares posts that discusses remote work as well as remote work opportunities in a variety of fields.
Going remote is intimidating but once you have a system in place, it all works out.
Going completely remote sounds almost impossible. However companies such as Webflow and Power To Fly are fine examples of companies that follow the remote model. Webflow is 70% remote, which essentially means that majority of their workers do not live in the same city. The same is true of Power To Fly. Their team is located all over the world, while the cofounders work out of New York. CEO of Webflow, Vlad Magdalin, explains that some companies start following the remote model because of whom they are able to hire. If better talent is available elsewhere and geographical location is the impediment, they use technology to break down that barrier and hire the person. He points out in an interview with Hackernoon that more and more companies are getting comfortable with the concept when they see others succeeding in adopting remote work as a business strategy.
More and more companies are getting comfortable with the concept when they see others succeeding in adopting remote work as a business strategy. -Vlad Magdalin, CEO, Webflow.
The story behind Power To Fly is different. They did not become remote by chance but more by choice. Their focus was on getting good talent and to set up a solid remote system that enables especially women to work from anywhere, thus giving them the flexibility to manage a good work/life integration.
Webflow and Power To Fly are just two examples to help showcase the shift in attitudes and the changes happening a the workplace. There are a number of companies operating remotely and the number is expected to only rise. Given that this is a trend that is not going out anytime soon, what is called for, is a paradigm shift in the way people running companies, operate and think. Companies that work remotely often quote that their focus is on results and they trust their employees to deliver. They don’t bother finding out when and where the work gets done, as long as it gets done. Focussing on the end results more than worrying about whether an employee is working or not, goes a long way in establishing trust. State of the art technologies such as Zoom, Github, Google Apps for Work, Buffer, Squiggle, etc, are already in place. It is just the matter of taking the first step to change.
How do women executives look at remote work as a policy? Find out in our previous article- Women Executives & Remote Work- Do They Feel The Need Better?
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