Why Should You Employ a Remote Workforce?
Have you considered hiring a remote workforce? These are workers that essentially work away from your office (usually from their own home) and more and more businesses are getting on board with this idea. Here are a few reasons why you should take the plunge.
Simpler for you
If you hire your remote workers on a self-employed basis, this can make things so much simpler for you. There are lots of set rules that you have to follow when you hire your own employees, for example, you legally need to provide them with a workplace pension, you have to hire in the right way or you could be accused of discrimination and you have to sort the taxes and pay systems of everyone that works for you. When you hire self-employed workers, they essentially work for themselves so sort out their own taxes and the laws surrounding working with them are much less strict. You’re essentially a client of theirs, and the relationship is mutually beneficial in this sense. While it can feel as though you have less security with these kinds of workers, the turnover rate will be no higher than with traditionally hired workers if you treat them well. You’re not legally obliged to ensure they’re getting minimum wage for example, but of course, if you want the work done well and your employees to continue working with them you’ll pay them fairly. You might not be able to see them in person working, but keeping up to date is easy using technology- you can video chat, hold conference calls, email and use chat systems such as Google Hangouts to keep in contact with your employees.
You can hire based on talent
When you hire workers in the traditional sense, you have to employ people who can realistically get to your workplace every day. This means you’re limited by location, you can only ever really get access to candidates in a limited pool. However, when you hire remote workers, you can hire from anywhere in the world– even those that are in different time zones. This means you get access to the best talent, those that are great at their job and the very best people for your business.
Saves you money
When you hire remotely, the workers will already be using their own equipment. This means you won’t need to buy, nor will you need to hire premises (or bigger premises) for them to be based at. Again, you can save money on things like payment structures and pensions. There are some additional costs you’ll need to consider, for example, you might want to have a system built which assigns the work you set automatically to each worker and keep track of their progress. With remote workers, you’ll need a secure web gateway to protect your business from online criminals. But overall, you can expect to have fewer costs to deal with when hiring remotely.
Improves employee happiness
Finally, research shows how working from home makes people happier. You’re in your own comfortable space, there’s no one breathing down your neck and you can be flexible in your working hours. If your workers are benefitting from this, being happier can lead to better quality of work being done.
