One of the biggest innovations to come out; is rise of the internet has been the ability for more and more people to work remotely. Nowadays, the freedom to work anywhere as long as one has a laptop and wireless internet is enjoyed by many people around the world. The benefits to working remotely as a telecommuter are obvious; but what about the benefits to the employer? How can an employer benefit from hiring remote personnel, and what are the risks? This article sets out to shed a little light on the very popular new phenomenon of hiring remote personnel.
Benefit ”“ Cost-Effective
As an employer, the cost-savings to hiring remote personnel are numerous. In many cases, you are not responsible for paying out sick days, vacation pay or benefits. You do not have to account for added costs in your office infrastructure; that is to say, you do not need to outfit a cubicle for another team member, complete with computer and phone. The costs of creating a home office are taken on by the remote staff member. If your budget for a project is not very large, you have the option to hire a remote worker from overseas where the standard of living is lower, and therefore they are able to survive with a lower wage. Â Having the employee bear the brunt of the infrastructure costs allows you to either pay the employee more from the savings, or use the savings to enhance your company in other ways.
Risk: Miscommunications
An obvious risk to any employer when hiring remote personnel is the potential for miscommunications to occur. Regardless of how connected we are in the world through email, phones, FaceTime or Skype, there is still the possibility of information being explained poorly or misunderstood altogether. If as an employer you set a remote worker to task without making sure the parameters of the task are perfectly understood, you stand to lose valuable work hours -that you must pay – as well as completion of the entirely wrong task and quite possibly the missing of a deadline which could lead to all kinds of issues. Taking the time to communicate well is vital and when dealing with remote personnel, it is up to you as the employer to ensure that your vision is made crystal clear to your staff.
Benefit ”“ Beat Any Deadline by Hiring Remote Staff around the World
Another benefit to hiring remote personnel is that you can hire people from all around the world. This means that you can operate your business during standard business hours in the country you are based, while you have your remote data entry team working at all hours. This allows you to meet any deadline more effectively. If you are an employer with large amounts of data entry work and constant deadlines, you could amass teams of personnel strategically placed in different time zones to ensure deadlines are always met and there is a constant flow of data entry work occurring.
Risk: Accountability
If you are working in an office where you see your staff daily, over time you get a sense of people’s work ethics and styles. There is also a social element to sharing an office, and as you learn about your staff you develop empathy and understanding so that when a staff member takes a sick day to care for their child, you are able to work with this more generously. When you cannot see your remote staff, you have no way of knowing whether or not they are working. This means you can either implement some accountability structures, or just trust that they hit the deadline. Depending upon the nature of the work, you may wish to have daily or weekly check-ins, so that there are no surprises when the deadline finally arrives; you will know the work is complete.
As an employer, there are numerous options to staffing your company. If you are in the business of data entry and data entry management, you can take advantage of the opportunity presented by hiring remote personnel. As long as you are aware and ready for any bumps in communication or accountability, you could establish a successful team of remote personnel for your projects.
– Data Czar @ DEO
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