Remote work, a popular feature of the pandemic economy, is here to stay. Millions of workers have now benefitted from the flexibility and accessibility that comes with remote work options, and employers will be hard-pressed to bring these workers back to the office. Instead, recruiters, business leaders, and HR teams will be better served by leveraging remote work in favor of their employees.
This means establishing helpful work-from-home protocols that allow workers to thrive. From productivity to well-being, remote work can offer benefits for workers you’d otherwise be unable to provide. To achieve positive results and draw in ideal talent, however, you’ll need to make the most out of your remote work policies with a series of best practices.
Explore the benefits of remote work for employees, then use these tips to leverage remote work potential in favor of employees. Your workplace potential and productivity can grow as a result.
How Remote Work Benefits Employees
In the COVID era, remote practices have taken over. The workforce has shifted to allow employees to work from home for just about every job with the capacity to do so. Meanwhile, education has also transformed along digital lines. For instance, pursuing a master’s degree is more likely to take place in a virtual classroom these days, where the flexibility, technological skills, and customization potential is great for both students and professors.
The pandemic circumstances have made remote opportunities a must. But the benefits that came with these opportunities were a pleasant surprise. Suddenly, managing all of life’s demands became easier to navigate through mobile applications and cloud software, with remote options for doing just about everything. This includes telehealth, which is a service that allows a patient to visit with their healthcare provider over a smartphone.
The benefits of telehealth are similar to the benefits of the remote workforce in general. They offer unprecedented flexibility and accessibility for the people involved. In turn, this has led to measurable increases in performance statistics. These stats include:
- Working from home enhanced worker performance by 13%.
- Overall, 77% of remote workers reported higher productivity.
- Remote workers spent 15% less time avoiding work than on-location workers.
With such powerful performance boosts within the reach of any workplace capable of integrating remote work, it’s clear why this option won’t be going away anytime soon. For those in HR and recruiting, this means that you’ll need to develop strategies for not only integrating remote work but for leveraging it for employee success.
Because remote work doesn’t guarantee productivity all on its own. It takes a comprehensive plan from leadership to maximize potential and attract the best of the best to your business.
Tips for Leveraging the Potential of Remote Work
Remote work can be tricky to navigate. After all, communication is difficult when we have the benefit of speaking face to face. Remove all nonverbal cues, and reading a coworker’s tone or intentions becomes a guessing game. Meanwhile, remote work requires a different management style, at once more transparent and more hands-off.
To cultivate employee success, you’ll need to build patterns of support and clear communication. Only such a remote environment can lead to the reputation you want as a great company to work with, the kind of reputation that will attract the ideal candidates to any job listing.
To help you get there, here are some tips for leveraging the potential of remote work in the favor of employees:
- Build or acquire learning and onboarding tools to smooth the remote transition.
- Develop a set of remote management best practices, such as promoting clarity through daily check-ins and engaging your team in team-building exercises.
- Provide workers with health and wellness information and leverage them to lower health costs through community partners.
- Pay attention to the details, like encouraging workers to set up professional backgrounds for video calls and assisting them with tech challenges.
- Invite feedback and discussion to engage employees in the process of improving their own experience.
By following these tips, you can implement a remote work approach that truly puts the focus on the workers. As a result, workers from the globalized digital job market will be attracted to the opportunities you provide.
For recruiters, little is more important than your remote work policies and culture when it comes to landing applicants. This is because the workers of today understand the flexible opportunities now open to them on the market, and they’ll be drawn only to those that support a healthy environment. Prioritize a smooth online onboarding experience, friendly and connected team dynamics, and a transparent but trusting workplace to ensure greater success.
Creating the Perfect Remote Opportunities for Employees
Perfect remote work opportunities are in high demand these days. With workforces pivoting to develop remote options, those with the most people-centered approach to remote work will have the most success in landing the best possible talent for any job. Whether you’re a job seeker or a recruiter, it pays to understand the value of remote work.
With performance benefits in your grasp, you too can craft the ideal remote work conditions for both current and future employees. All it takes is the right strategies and an open, communicative leadership approach. Follow these tips for a remote workforce that truly favors employees while benefiting everyone.
