Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses were consistently increasing remote working efforts. However, following the pandemic, more teams found themselves moving nearly 100% of operations to remote and the upwards trend isn’t expected to slow. According to Forbes, by 2025 an estimated 70% of the workforce in the U.S. will work remotely for at least 5 days each month.
With the changing work landscape, it’s more important now than ever for businesses to ensure their teams are set up for success performing remote tasks. Not only will doing this mean a competitive edge can be maintained, but more businesses are beginning to see the unique benefits that remote working allows.
Below, we’ll take a look at synonymous benefits of remote working for companies regardless of industry and identify five ways teams can maximize their remote workflows.
The Benefits of Remote Working for Businesses
The benefits that remote working provides businesses are not going unnoticed. According to Forbes, the categories of productivity, performance, engagement, retention, and profitability are all boosted significantly through remote working. Here’s a closer look:
Productivity Increase:
Increased productivity by employees is an important benefit that employers are seeing as a result of remote working. In fact, a reported average of 35-40% in productivity levels is being reported.
Better Employee Retention:
A 12% turnover rate reduction is nothing to laugh at! Employees are reporting more flexibility and higher satisfaction rates with employers that provide remote working options, meaning a significant retention increase.
Less Overhead:
With the reduction (and sometimes, elimination) of office space needed, employers are saving some serious money. In fact, on average, businesses are saving an average of $11,000 per year for every telecommuter on staff.
Increased Hiring Access:
Because working isn’t limited to a particular location, employers are finding that they have better hiring access than before; talent can easily be procured from anywhere in the world!
Awesome heading!
More businesses than ever are making efforts to “go green” or become more environmentally friendly. Remote work enables businesses to more easily do their part for the environment by reducing commuting, limiting office waste, and reducing energy consumed with less office space being used. Not to mention, the amount of paper being used is drastically reduced by using more digital document solutions like electronic signatures.
Less Stress:
When there’s less stress involved, the overall satisfaction for employers and employees goes up! Taking busy commutes and sometimes hectic office situations out of the equation allows everyone to work in an environment they are often more comfortable in, thus reducing stress and boosting moods.
5 Workflow Boosting Tips for Remote Teams
Of course, while working remotely has great benefits for businesses and their teams, it doesn’t come without its challenges. It’s crucial that businesses take the right steps to ensure remote success. Here are five workflow boosting tips we’ve found helpful:
Move to the Cloud:
On a daily basis, businesses can share and process hundreds or thousands of documents. When working remotely, it can be a struggle to track, share, and complete documents without a centralized storage option. Consider moving document storage to a secure cloud option like Dropbox or Google Drive; this will allow teams to quickly and easily share and procure the documents they need in seconds without having to dig through emails or wait on faxes and scans.
Use Project Management Boards:
Because teams aren’t working face-to-face, strengthening the way they collaborate is essential. Project management software options like Asana or Trello help teams brainstorm, share ideas, and track task completion from wherever they are. For managers who are trying to streamline their team’s remote workflow, project management software options provide an easy way to assign tasks and check the status of projects.
Implement a CRM Solution:
Customer relationship management (CRM) software like Salesforce or ActiveCampaign helps sales, marketing, and support teams stay on track and keep things organized. Keeping up with and growing a customer base while working remotely can prove to be a big task, but with CRM software businesses can ensure efficiency is maintained and growth efforts are optimized. Features like contact and lead management, interaction tracking, email integration, and workflow management tools make CRM software a must.
Use eSignatures:
Electronic signatures are an important tech solution that businesses of all sizes, industries, and locations (remote or otherwise) are increasingly relying on. Through the use of electronic signatures, remote teams have been able to effectively ensure their daily processes can continue smoothly. Human resource managers can complete important employee paperwork easily, sales teams can close contracts faster than ever, important legal paperwork can be completed efficiently, and more through using an implemented electronic signature solution.
Define Processes:
With everyone working in different locations, defining clear procedures is more important than ever. Creating standard operating procedures (SOPs) and providing detailed employee handbooks help ensure that everyone knows what to do and that processes are handled the same way every time; this can drastically reduce confusion and conflicts and prevent mistakes.
