Have you considered hiring remote staff for your business? The trend for remote teams is rapidly spreading throughout the world, as employers come to realise that flexible working conditions can offer tangible benefits for everyone. Here’s the lowdown on what remote working involves and why businesses like yours are jumping on the bandwagon.
What does it mean to work remotely?
Working remotely simply means staff are working from another location besides the office where your business is based. In the majority of cases, it means that employees are working from home. They could be nearby and may pop into the office for meetings from time to time. Or, they could live in a different part of the country and you may never meet them. They might have to remain in contact through use of video call api or similar software. In some cases, remote staff work from different countries – this is another rapidly growing trend called being a “digital nomad”. Some companies operate entirely on a remote basis, sometimes meeting up a few times a year for face to face meetings. Other companies are hiring a mixture of in-house and remote staff to address their needs.
Moving your business online
With more and more businesses choosing to operate on a virtual basis, remote workers are often a necessity rather than a choice. Take online casinos for example. Moving their operations online has meant they have had to adapt to online visitors instead of footfall to their premises. To maintain the same welcoming feel that you’d find in traditional casinos, some companies are hiring virtual chat hosts. These staff members work from home, answering questions for new players and making people feel welcome. The result is that players get the same sense of community that they would come to expect from visiting an on-street casino.
How do companies and staff operate remotely?
With so many excellent tools available for remote teams these days, there is very little to worry about when it comes to operating remotely. For example, a Wide-Area Network, or wan, allows localized networks to communicate with each other from a large variety of distances, and therefore, making it significantly easier for employees and other important members of a business to work and communicate together as a team, irrespective of their location. And this is just one of the elements that you will need to help work remotely. Conferencing tools help people to quickly and easily dial in for virtual meetings. Skype is just one example with which, thanks to webcam technology and the ability to add multiple members to a call, impromptu chats and meetings can take place with minimal fuss. Then there’s instant messaging which is far more direct than firing off an email and waiting for the other party to check their inbox and reply. Project management tools such as Basecamp where teams can assign tasks and share updates are also hugely beneficial. Here is a useful list of tools for remote teams if you’re curious to know more.
Why go remote?
The general consensus is that remote teams benefit everyone. Your business gets to save money on things like power usage, office furniture, renting office space and supplies like tea and coffee. You also benefit from happier, more productive staff. Employees working from home report greater job satisfaction and a number of studies have reported a rise in productivity when employees are permitted to work away from the office.
Hiring remote staff
One caveat when it comes to hiring remote staff is that they must be high calibre candidates – remote teams need people who get things done and those who are prone to procrastination will not fare well in a remote setting. With that said, remote teams and businesses everywhere can testify to the fact that this is a system which can work astoundingly well once your business has the right tools and people on board.