Over the last few months business working models have changed dramatically. it is a subject we have discussed several times here on our blog. Tens of thousands of workers have been forced into remote working which has come, of course, as something of a surprise.
The good news is that this forced move enabled more businesses to see the feasibility of a remote team. But what many may not know is there are many other advantages to having a virtual team.
Your Costs are Reduced
You actually get more for your money when hiring workers for remote working. Very often, those seeking remote work put a high value on their freedom and flexibility over having a central office, and may be willing to work for less pay than a traditional employee.
Many small businesses have discovered the advantages of hiring remote employees and freelancers. Employees can legally shed many of the obligatory benefits associated with regular staff. If you start employing contractors from Upwork or People per hour you are not recruiting a unionised work force. You can scale up or scale down as circumstances demand and put it all down to the changes brought about by Coronavirus. This is a good moment to explore the remote working model.
Typically many of the freelance workers you hire will not be subject to UK or EU tax regulations so you will avoid much of the paperwork associated with standard UK office procedures.
In addition to the cost-savings, Forbes.com reports that 77% of those who work from home get more done in fewer hours thanks to fewer distractions like meetings, conversations, and noisy coworkers. In addition, Highfive.com reports that remote workers accomplished 30% more work in less time. It could be argued that increased productivity is due in part that many realise that they will have more free time to do the things they love if they get their work done in a more productive manner.
You Can Pinpoint the skills Required.
Instead of hiring one person to do a variety of jobs, having a remote team allows you to hire the right person with the right skills for the right job. Many virtual professionals today work for more than one person and therefore get very specialised in a set of skills. Candidates do not have to be ‘allrounders’ you can choose exactly the right person for the job in hand. If you are working on a web development for example and you want it done on an Elementor structure you can choose a team who are tightly qualified in that one programming skill rather than a generalist who might have only used Elementor occasionally. They would know all the little tricks around the platform and consequently save hours of valuable time which you are paying for.
Keep Good People
With a remote team, you can attract and retain quality professionals. In a recent study, 95% of employers reported that working remotely has had a high impact on their employee retention rate.
For moms, working from home provides the ability to have better work / life balance. For instance, if a child is sick, a mom can continue to work while monitoring her child. In the same way, she can take a break to go have lunch with her child or spouse and make up the time that afternoon or evening if needed.
Greater Flexibility
If your remote team members are independent contractors, you have the freedom to end the contract if they are no longer needed. There are no firing or unemployment penalties involved in this type of remote working. In addition, if you decide the person is not a good fit, you can more easily find someone who is.
More Reasons to Consider a Remote Team
A remote team also provides additional benefits to your business and the environment.
Having the ability to hire the right person for the right job and pay a fair rate enables small businesses to grow faster than ever before. By combining that with all these additional benefits, establishing a virtual team for remote working becomes a real advantage for many small businesses.
Another big advantage in using a flexible freelance team is that most of the recruitment platforms (Upwork/people per Hour/Fiverr) have a well regulated review and feedback system in place so that it is in the interest of a freelancer to perform to their highest level to obtain good ratings on their specific recruitment platform and guarantee recurring work and higher exposure on the platform. In some specialist skill sets such as Google Adwords, you can buy freelance time from a specialist working for some of the largest corporations who will do your ad campaigns as a ‘side hustle’ and you get the weight of experience that you could not afford or need on a full time basis.
At Hold Everything we are experts at providing many of the structures for remote work including professional phone answering and mail handling. Your staff may be scattered around the globe but you know you have a fixed point in a prestigious office in central London.
