The advantages and disadvantages of hiring remote

Hello! Welcome to our blog. In this article we explore the advantages and disadvantages of hiring remote employees for your business. Times have changed, due to the pandemic, growing technology and a changing business dynamic, it’s now increasingly an effective business strategy to hire remote workers.

However, there are pros and cons to hiring a remote worker and we will explore that to help you make your decision. First let us go through the advantages of hiring remote.

Advantages of hiring remote employees

Small and medium scale businesses can benefit quite a lot from hiring remote workers through accessing high value talent for lower cost. Even big global businesses such as Amazon and Cisco make use of hiring remote talent. These are some of the following ways through which your business can make gains by hiring remote workers.

1. Having access to a wider talent market

Opening up your candidate search beyond geographical restriction would help you target a larger talent pool. There are many talented people around the world who are willing to work remotely because they cannot move about easily due to many barriers.

A study shows that remote work also unlocks the market of retired employees. It states that 75% of those who are retired but still want to work would opt for remote work. This is because they do not wish to or are unable to commute or spend long hours in the office.

2. Less overhead cost

Employees doing work remotely means that you can save costs such as office space and equipment, internet and kitchen costs. These costs add up for a business that needs to save its resources as it strives to succeed in today’s market.

Remote workers also usually are not as expensive as in person employees. Due to different markets and currencies, lower rates at your business location may still be financially rewarding to workers in other parts of the world. This means you save in both overhead and salary costs.

3. Increased productivity 

Many people believe that employees working from home would result in less productivity. Oddly, the reverse is true, remote workers are found to be more productive than in person employees. Less meetings, talks with co-workers, office events and distractions means employees are more focused on the tasks they are most needed to handle.

More than half of workers from a recent study report they are more productive working from home. Furthermore, due to their flexible work hours or areas, they are able to attend to any personal issues and get back to work versus an in person employee who would need to take the full day off to do the same.

4. Happier employees

Remote workers are generally more happy than in person employees because they can maintain a work life balance that is in their control. They can attend to personal issues that require their attention as well as schedule fulfilling activities and hobbies around their work time.

Having happier employees in your business means that you have less turn over of staff and thus less training and hiring costs. It also means that they will pay more attention to the quality of their work and feel engaged in helping your business succeed.

5. Focus on results

With less in person meetings and communication, the main way of monitoring work progress of your employees will be through the consistency and quality of their work. It is easier to measure and keep track of milestones for remote work.

All these reasons combined make a good case for hiring remote workers. However, it is important to know the disadvantages of hiring a remote worker and find ways to ensure it is a win-win situation for your business and your employee.

The disadvantages of hiring a remote worker

As with everything, hiring remote workers comes with its disadvantages. While most perceive the problem with remote work as low productivity or diligence, it is not quite the case as we have seen above. The drawbacks are actually connected to the distance, level of communication and qualification of remote skills.

1. Limited communication

Communication is a key part of a good work flow. You can easily arrange meetings or walk in discussions with in person employees when there is an issue, confusion, miscommunication or a task that requires attention.

However, with remote employees it is more difficult to easily or quickly get in touch. Given that video or audio or even text are less informative on the person’s mood, tone or body language, it is not easy to communicate about more complex issues.

Some of the ways to improve this are through regular communication, keeping the line open for questions or comments and arranging clear milestones for work delivery.

2. Lower team spirit

In person teams always have the advantage of building good team spirit by co-working, sharing discussions and bonding that most times remote employees simply cannot partake in. Building team spirit means that your employees work together to ensure tasks are completed successfully.

Given the distance and change in hours that remote workers have, it is difficult to maintain a connectedness and flow to the team that motivates working together. A way to mitigate this would be to hold online team meetings and discussions where remote employees are brought up to speed and feel as part of the team.

3. Finding the right fit

Remote work is not for everyone. While the studies above show that most workers would prefer a remote environment, it still takes skill, dedication, and diligence to stay productive and deliver on task.

Furthermore, you need to find the right remote worker who can be passionate about the work from a distance and deliver quality output. To ensure this it is important to clearly communicate your business needs and delivery requirements during the hiring process.

We can help you pick what’s best for you

At the end of the day what matters is building the right team to drive your business forward despite the location of that team. At AJ Connect we work to become your number one partner for your hiring needs.

We can help you decide what type of hiring is best suited for the role you are trying to fill. We are also with you until the end. Our experts will ensure you find the top in person or remote talent through our bespoke hiring process.