5 Ways Working From Home Is Beneficial For Businesses
The future is flexible, and working from home (WFH) is the new office. While companies around the world were forced to quickly shift gears to remote work amid a pandemic, many have now realized the benefits attached.
Employers have found some surprising benefits come along with working from home, including increased productivity and cost savings. Here’s a quick breakdown of the top benefits working from home has brought to businesses across the globe.
1. It Saves Money
This is probably the biggest benefit to employers across the board. Having employees work from home has resulted in over $30 billion in savings per day for U.S. employers.
Companies with remote employees have a much smaller overhead because they don’t have to supply any office space. Along with not having to pay the rent/property taxes, companies are also saving on office furnishings, internet, and electricity costs. Not to mention all of the coffee a single employee goes through in a day.
Although there may be some initial investment in helping employees get set up at home, the long-term savings far outweigh these costs. Working from home also comes with more security complications and thus the need for more investment in security tools and training. Luckily, a VPN service is very easy to use, so you can enjoy all its benefits.
While missing out on some work freebies and events may be a bummer for employees, the CFO should be smiling at saving on these too. Zoom calls may not be the same as going out for a coffee at lunch, but they’re much cheaper.
2. Employees Can Be More Productive
Productivity is one of the more surprising benefits that come with working from home. There can be a number of explanations for this. There are a lot of distractions at work – from constant meetings to coworkers retelling their weekend exploits over the monitor. Sure, there’s a lot of opportunity for distractions at home too, but employees are generally happier at home and thus work harder.
Plus, employees feel comfortable taking short breaks when necessary, which has been proven to increase productivity. Not everyone needs to put in 8 hours every day if they can get just as much done in 6 with short breaks in-between. This is partly why remote employees have been shown to be 20% – 25% more productive than their office counterparts.
When working from home, there also tends to be a bigger focus on the work delivered instead of the hours. And employees may be scared of WFH privileges being revoked if they slack, so they tend to work harder instead.
3. Communication is More Efficient
When everyone’s bunched up together at the office, there’s a lot of social distraction. It’s easy to walk up to coworkers and start up a conversation or schedule those dreaded unproductive meetings that waste everyone’s time.
There are much fewer opportunities for socialization when working from home. It takes having to schedule a video meeting or be stuck in a text chain. Both options are a lot more effort which people are less likely to be excited to take part in. The result is that people mostly choose to communicate when it’s necessary and only schedule meetings when it’s needed.
4. More Employment Opportunities
With no need for people to commute to one location every day, the company doesn’t need to focus on local applicants. If a new position opens up, technically, anyone can apply for it. Of course, there may still be some location or time constraints depending on the company.
But either way, this broadens the talent pool and allows for more companies to pick the best employee for the job. Not to mention that this makes diversity hiring a much easier prospect too. The only downside is that this could potentially create more work for HR as they have to sift through more applications.
5. Positive Environmental Impact
The most obvious positive environmental impact of working from home is fewer cars on the road. While the pandemic has been undeniably horrible, it has also given people a chance to see how their actions affect the environment.
According to experts, the pandemic reduced greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 2.4 billion tons, which is the largest drop on record. That alone is a good reason to consider making remote work a more permanent solution.
Explore the Advantages of Remote Work
Working from home can be an all-around positive for both employees and businesses. Better home-work balance means more productivity, no offices mean fewer costs and no location dependency means a broader pool of talent.
