Why Hiring Remotely Will Prevent Your Failure
As an employer, remote working benefits you as much as your employees
As an employer, remote working benefits you as much as your employees
If your company doesn’t adapt to the changing market, your company is soon going to die…
Over the course of the last three years, I’ve tried to convince more than 500 companies, including many enterprises like Domino’s, to hire remote workers. This has led to 400+ remote jobs and our sprawling community of 3,000 members.
I know one thing for sure: If you are not building a company fit for remote workers, you’re going to die in a few years. The days when we had to go to an office are like 200 years old. Seriously.
Now we live in the Information Age where everything is connected. You can have a call with a team with its attendees sitting on a beach in Brazil, A mountain in Switzerland, a cafe in Singapore, or at their home in India.
We’ve correctly convinced companies that they need remote workers, and some of those who hired remotely are now doing amazing work. Take, for example, our client MindTickle, which has raised $50M in series D funding.
Our persistence and belief in the future of work revolution, where we’ll enable millions to work remotely, have made Indiez what it is today.
Our community is growing daily and we have members who have worked for companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft. Working with 400+ remote workers is kind of challenging but we have now successfully delivered more than 250(!) projects.
Change is impactful. Change can add thousands to your profits. Change can prevent failure. Here are some of the biggest arguments in favor of hiring remote employees.
Failure to innovate and adapt leads to the end of the company.
If Blockbuster did not ignore the impact of digital home media, 84,300 people would still have a job.
If Toys R’ Us did not ignore the impact of e-commerce, they wouldn’t have accumulated $1 billion in debt.
If MySpace did not adapt to the rise of Facebook by focusing on their niche, they wouldn’t have lost 40,000,000 unique monthly visitors.
These are not anomalies. Valuer has created a list of 50 corporations whose stubbornness to be open to change in their sector led to immense failure.
The end of conventional offices
The working world is always changing, and you have to keep up.
The working environment has already changed on an enormous scale in the last 30 years…
In the 80’s and 90’s. offices were made up of cubicles and c-suites. Independent working was encouraged while collaboration rarely occurred.
Due to the lack of technology at the time, communication was tough — hard paper copies of faxes and landline phone calls were the ideal way to liaise.
Since 2000, we have seen a focus on a comfortable working area. Change was needed and change has been committed.
Standing desks, comfy seating, and modern environments are some techniques that have been introduced to keep staff motivated and productive.
Communication has increased due to the rise of technology and the introduction of mobile phones and the internet has allowed for an organized and positive transformation for employers and employees.
The companies who did not keep up or failed to be open to these changes have ceased to exist today.
So what about the future of work?
Indiez is a 100% remote working company.
Why?
We know that this is the future of work. We know that by adapting NOW, we are well prepared with adaptability and innovation.
We also know that the benefits of hiring remote workers are helping our business as well as the people that we hire.
First things first, let’s start with focus. This is a benefit for both the employer and the employee.
A lot of home and remote workers exceed the expectations of their bosses because the level of productivity increases due to their ability to stay focused. PartnerCelic, an American Marketing agency, even noticed a trend they call ‘Deep Work,’ where for only 2–4 hours a day, their remote staff are so focused on their work, they do more than they would in an 8 hour office day.
Hire remotely and you are not limiting yourself to the area in which your office is in. You can hire the best of the best from anywhere around the world.
You could build a team and culture filled with many different nationalities, and with free tools such as Slack, Asana, Skype and Airtable, you’ll have no issues communicating. It’s even possible to have those ‘office water cooler’ conversations everyday.
If you open yourself up to the remote working environment and set a vigorous interview process like we do at Indiez, you will find that you only hire ‘gold’ employees and cut off the ‘beige’.
The best person for the job does not have to be in your area. The best person could be on the other side of the world. Open up remote working opportunities and find the best staff members worldwide.
Indiez has community members in more than 30 countries on 5 continents, and we truly believe that we have hired the best of the best.
Along with all this, hiring remotely allows you to bring in diversity to your teams. This is so important and made possible with the ability to hire worldwide. Diversity brings people together from different educations and backgrounds and ideas shared can lead to incredible work produced.
Having a diverse, international team in essence allows you to build a 24/7 company due to the various time zones in which they’re based. I have made it possible to have daily ‘standup’s with my team members regardless of where they are in the world.
You can also build something really special at a faster pace. For an exaple of this, check out our case study, in which we managed to build a BI tool for CXO’s in one week! This is due to our ability to work 24/7.
Nowhere to commute to? Nowhere to be absent from. 🚙🚆
One major benefit for employers to allow remote working is the limit of absences. Remote working makes it impossible for someone to be late to an office and impossible for people to not come into work due to reasons such as weather conditions.
The employee will find benefits by not having to commute to an office and the employer benefits as the worker will be on time. If you are completely open to flexible working, the employee is not limited at all as long as the work is done.
Everyone will turn up for work. If they are working during set hours, they will make sure they are always available during this time. If they can work when they want, they will go above and beyond to make sure that the work is done by the deadline.
“For employers, telecommuting can limit absences, increase productivity, and save money. This is most common in the tech sphere because tech companies have the infrastructure to maintain remote workers. With telecommuting the idea of the office space is changing but many are saying that it is for the better,” CEO of Quantum Networks LLC,
Companies such as Quantum and Doubledot Media are in a transition period of allowing more and more of their employees to work remotely and have already noticed these benefits.
A transition period allows for comparisons between your office working employees and your remote working employers.
Doubledot Media currently has 28 members on staff, 19 of which work remotely. Simon Slade, CEO of Doubledot, has seen no obvious difference between the sets of workers. He did suggest though that remote workers’ production rates are much higher.
“Show me the money” 💰
Telecommuting offers two advantages regarding finances. You will gain and you will save.
If your workers are more productive from home, then deadlines are inevitably hit. This means that your contracts are fulfilled, your customers are happy,, and they’ll repeat or refer.
The workers doing these jobs are also saving you money. You haven’t forked out for new equipment, you haven’t paid for their electricity, and you aren’t spending on their physical being in an office.
You’ll also save money in the recruitment process. Look at it like this. If you’re closed to remote working and you need to hire an experienced developer, you’ll have to hire an amazing person near you who demands a $100,000 salary. Hire remotely, and you could find someone who is just as qualified, just as successful, and just as willing to work, but based in another country where salary demands are lower. If their cost of living is not as high, if salaries are not the same, then this worker may only demands $45,000 a year.
That’s enormous savings of 55%, and its savings that won’t change the quality of the work — they may even produce better.
Money doesn’t buy happiness. But working remotely helps with this too.
A happy, healthy workforce is an incredible benefit for any company. Staff who work from home have an easier time eating healthier and are able to maintain and manage their work-life balance. This leads to a reduction in stress levels. Staples found in a recent study that remote working leads to employees having 25% less stress.
If your staff aren’t stressed, you’re going to see a decrease in turnover. The employee is going to be working in their chosen environment, they’re going to be happy, and there will be no reason for them to want to leave. Their morale should be higher as well.
You should also see a decrease in sick days, as happier people tend to be healthier people.
Along with this, if you are sick and you work remotely, you are not going to infect others — a benefit for absolutely everyone!
Join companies such as Amazon, Dell, Xerox, and Indiez!
Forbes has produced a 2018 list of 100 companies that are hiring remotely, and it includes some really big names.
Trust me, this isn’t a fad. emote working is here to stay, and it will only grow from here. From these benefits, it’s easy to see why.
Don’t let your inability to cope with change allow you to fall behind your competitors, and make sure that you prepare for what the future of work is most certainly going to bring.
Want to read more about remote working benefits or how to do it?
Read the Zapier Remote Guide here