How to Keep Remote Employees Motivated and Engaged

Have you just started your own business? If so, it might not be clear when you need to focus beyond your core employees and bring in some new teammates.

However, as your business grows, you might find your employees struggling to accomplish the assigned tasks. This might affect the quick delivery of projects.

As the business expands, you might also find it challenging to keep up with huge utility bills. Hiring remote workers is the best alternative in such a case.

You might be wondering who remoter workers are? These are employees of a company who work outside the traditional office environment. They can work from home, coffee shop, or any other place of their choice across the world.

Hiring remote employees is one of the strategies that help businesses achieve many positive returns. It leads to increased productivity among employees and many other benefits.

Are you still on the fence wondering whether hiring remote workers is a smart move for your business?

If so, here are the incredible benefits of hiring remote workers that you should know about.

Reduce Overhead Costs

Operation costs are one of the expenses that greatly affect the profit of a business. The more the operation costs a business can cut, the more the profit it makes.

Office lease rent payments are some of the costs that reduce the business’s profit. With a traditional office setting, other expenses that may arise are workers comp insurance and office maintenance costs.

But with hiring remote workers, such costs can be avoided. Remote workers don’t need a traditional office setup. They work from their place of choice, such as at home and in libraries. In such a case, as a business owner, you don’t have to face the cost of renting an office space.

You will also avoid paying for other overhead costs, such as workers’ comp insurance. If you are tired of dealing with huge overhead costs, then hiring remote workers is your best alternative.

Remote Workers Are More Productive

The success of a business relies on many key elements, with productivity being one of the major ones. If employees are highly productive, it’s easy for the business to achieve the set objectives timely.

Employees’ productivity depends on factors such as monotony, flexibility, and motivation. With traditional offices, a common challenge that most employees face is that of monotonous.

Employees have to work from the same station every day. This might make the employees feel less motivated and call in with sudden absences. However, remote workers have a more flexible schedule.

They can choose to work from home or any other space they are comfortable with. They can also dedicate more working hours than office counterparts as they can also work at night.

If low productivity is a problem you face, it’s high time you consider hiring remote workers.

Access a Wide Pool of Talent

One of the traditional office hiring limitations is limited access to a pool of talented employees. In most cases, the business is forced to hire employees from the locality or those willing to relocate. In such cases, employees who are more talented but cannot relocate are usually locked out.

When the business decides to go the extra mile of attracting talented employees, it has to offer accommodation to employees. This might not be healthy for a business as it adds to the already existing expenses.

But with remote hiring, the business has the chance of accessing a wider pool of employees. It can hire more qualified global experts who better match the organization’s culture.

If you want to have a team of innovative and talented employees, it is high time you hire remote employees.

Increased Employee Retention

Retaining key personnel is a challenge that most organization faces. When key personnel leaves a business, they usually leave behind a challenging gap to fill with fresh talents. Besides, the cost of hiring a new pool of talent is usually high.

Employee retention only arises when employees are satisfied with their working conditions. Traditional office setup doesn’t offer the employee a flexible schedule which leads to dissatisfaction.

But with remote working, employees have the chance of having a work-life balance. After work, they have enough time to attend to personal matters.

They also work from environments they are comfortable and satisfied with. They don’t also have to face the hustle of dealing with traffic in the morning while commuting.

This leads to increased satisfaction and high employee retention. If you want to increase the chances of retaining employees, hiring remote workers is the best move.

It Reduces Costs for Employees

Hiring remote employees does not eliminate the cost burden to businesses only. It also reduces the number of expenses the employees incur.

With traditional offices, employees have to incur the cost of commuting to the workplace daily. They also have to factor in the cost of buying lunch. However, with remote hiring, employees can work from the comfort of their homes.

This saves them from certain expenses such as commuting costs. Therefore, the employees will not have to worry about having a big portion of their salary going to expenses.

However, when hiring remote workers, you have to recognize the hidden costs they face. Electricity costs, phone bills, and other costs should be reimbursed for them.

Expand Your Marketing Opportunity

The growth of any business relies on the ability of the business to enter new markets. By hiring offshore teams from various countries, you can raise more awareness about your business in various places in the world.

Besides, when your remote employees are satisfied with the work terms, they will always work as ambassadors of your business. This aids in attracting the attention of new prospective customers from various markets around the world.

Hiring remote workers increases productivity in such a case and improve your global brand.

Simpler and More Efficient Management

When a worker is given a chance to work remotely, they become more independent. They learn how to work efficiently under no supervision to achieve the set goals.

If the whole team of workers learns to be independent, the manager usually has an easy time managing such a team. All the manager needs is to give direction and communicate effectively

Besides, remote workers can opt to work for long hours. This makes the achievement of set goals and objectives easy.

Easy Recruitment Process

The recruitment process is essential in any organization. It determines whether the employees the business hires are a good match for the organization’s culture.

Face-to-face hiring is usually more complicated and expensive. Besides, face-to-face hiring blocks out talented employees who cannot relocate to the areas where the business is located.

But with remote hiring, a business gets to save cost and time. Hiring online is easy and fast. It also allows the business to access a wide range pool of talented employees.

With online recruitment as a business owner, you can vet prospective employees thoroughly as time is not a limitation.

Reduced Stress Levels

The amount of stress an employee face can affect their level of concentration and motivation. When employees are highly stressed, they focus less on organizational needs and are less motivated.

This leads to a reduction in their productivity in the end. With office-based working, there is a lot of boredom and also workplace conflicts.

When such conditions are combined with other issues employees, face such as commuting hustle, they get stressed. But by hiring remote workers, issues of boredom and commuting challenges are eliminated.

With remote working, employees also have more flexibility. They can sneak for a few hours and attend to some of the issues that would be a source of stress. This way, the employees will be subjected to less stress giving them the chance to focus more on achieving the organization’s goal.

Less Absenteeism

Do you know around 40 % of people call in sick while they are not? Are those statistics worrying? Such incidents are due to employees being dissatisfied with working conditions or feeling stressed.

The dissatisfaction can be due to boredom or workplace politics. By hiring remote workers, you can reduce the chances of employees calling in sick when they are not.

When working remotely, employees can work from an environment they are comfortable with. They can also have the chance to sneak for a few hours and attend to some pressing issues.

This reduces the number of people calling in for sick without a good reason. Hire remote workers today, and the rate of absenteeism will greatly drop.

Fewer Distractions

Workplace conversations and friendships are very important; however, they can be a source of distraction. When in excess, workplace conversations can be a hindrance to productivity.

But with remote working, such distractions are eliminated. Remote workers have a more flexible schedule. Hence they can balance between their social life and work.

While at work, such workers can focus a hundred percent on the task at hand.

Tips for Hiring the Best Remote Workers

For the business to reap the benefits of hiring remote workers, it must handle the hiring process correctly. The right remote hiring makes it easy for the business to hire only talented and skilled employees only.

To ensure you hire the best remote employees, follow the steps below.

Know in Advance What You Need

Before embarking on the hiring process, you must understand the type of remote employees your business needs. You must have a clear description of the type of skills and talents they should possess.

The type of position to be filled is a key factor in determining the skills the remote worker should have. Hence before starting the hiring process, ensure you have the requirements well outlined.

Request a Recorded Video to Save Time When Qualifying Candidates

After making a publication you are hiring, you will get more applications than the available positions. You have to determine which candidates will qualify for an interview in such a case.

Requesting the candidates to send a short introduction video is the most effective way to qualify candidates. In this video, you can ask applicants to highlight the details of their qualifications.

By assessing all the videos, it’s easy to determine candidates who are serious and qualified for the remote work position.

Seek Experience and Soft Skills

While going through the applications, you must focus on applicants’ experience. You need to pay attention to the number of years they have been in employment.

If an employee has been shifting from one company to another, their commitment might be questioned. Applicants with long-term experience are usually more qualified.

However, it would help to on other core factors, such as problem-solving skills and teamwork capabilities.

Host Virtual Interviews and Request a Small Task

Even though you are hiring remote workers, you will still need to understand who they are in person. This can only be done virtually using the various available interviewing platforms such as zoom.

Before holding the interview, you can assign the applicants a task that they should complete beforehand. The task can involve a personality quiz or research on a given topic.

How the applicants handle the task can give you an insight into the character and professionalism of the candidate.

During the interview, you have to assess employees’ qualifications. You must ensure they have both academic qualifications and real-life experience.

Otherwise, hiring the wrong applicant will be a waste of time and money.

Hire and Train in Pairs

During remote employee training, you should always focus on efficiency. The process should save time and money while achieving the highest intended results.

This can only occur when the remote employees are hired and trained as a group. A group hire makes the onboarding process more efficient. It also adds healthy competition while giving space for cross-training between employees.

Besides, hiring and training remote employees while in pairs is time and cost-saving.

Have Clear Expectations and Guidelines

After you are done with hiring remote workers, the next process should be laying out the guidelines and expectations. Most employees’ biggest mistakes are not making such expectations and guidelines clear.

When such guidelines are not clear, they can be a source of conflict. It also leads to the new employees not fully understanding their role in helping the business achieve its goals.

When setting goals and expectations, it’s good you ensure they are clear and have them written down. You must cover all areas from the number of working hours and company culture to the standard working process.

Ensure to Build a Work Relationship

Translating to a remote environment is usually not an easy process. With remote working, the in-person element is removed.

But still, you have to create a good relationship between the employees and your business. This can be done by aligning the newly hired employees’ ambitions with those of your organization.

In such a case, every employee will be motivated to achieve their own goals and those of the organization simultaneously. To enhance a good relationship, you must build a solid communication foundation.

You must understand the needs of your employees and pay attention to their opinions. If your remote employees are located in different time zones. It would help if you chose meeting hours that suit all of them.

How to Evolve Your Business Into a Remote Company

If you are planning on hiring remote employees, you need to make some changes and improvements. The needs for remote working are quite different from those of office-based environments.

Here are some tips on making your business suitable for hiring remote employees.

Have a Centralized Piece of Communication

With remote working, there is no in-person relationship. The success of such working conditions relies on effective communication.

Whether you are giving instructions or attending to complaints, consistent communication is key. Hence before hiring remote workers, ensure you have a centralized piece of communication in place.

This piece of communication should also allow an employee to employee communication. This helps create a strong relationship between employees despite the distance between them.

Make It Easy to Share Work and Collaborate

Some projects require remote workers to work as a team. If there is no good collaboration, timely achievement of such projects becomes impossible.

Thus, before hiring remote employees, ensure you have the tools needed to share work and collaborate. You can utilize tools such as Google Docs and Slack to share work materials.

Plan for Health Insurance and Payroll Taxes

Taxation and insurance are elements that you must focus on when hiring remote employees. When you hire remote employees from different countries, you must know that taxation and insurance needs will differ.

Hence before hiring remote employees, ensure to make the right preparations. Such preparations should make handling the taxation needs of different countries easy.

For better results when handling taxation and salaries, hiring a payroll provider is the best option. However, be cautious when hiring a payroll provider.

If you land on the wrong ones, it will impact your business’s profit. Besides, if any mistakes are made when filling taxation, you might face legal consequences.

Therefore, you must hire reputable, licensed, and experienced payroll providers.

Schedule Regular All-hands Meetings

Remote employees can feel left out when it comes to the progress of the business. This is likely to happen if they are not constantly informed and involved.

The best way to keep remote employees informed is by having regular all-hands meetings. As a business owner, you must schedule such meetings to occur monthly or quarterly.

In such meetings, you have to inform the workers of expected changes that would impact them. It would help if you also asked for opinions and suggestions from the employees. This way, remote employees will feel like part of your organization.

They will be more satisfied and, in some cases, act as the ambassadors of your business.

Be Ready to Handle Difference in Time Zones

After hiring remote employees, dealing with different time zones can be a major challenge. A difference of three hours might not be a major deal. But when the difference exceeds six hours, it can be a challenge.

A huge difference in time zones can affect how a message is relayed and when meetings are held. One of the best ways to avoid the inconvenience due to differences in time zones is hiring employees from a specified time zone.

However, the main challenge with this method is locking out a pool of talented employees from other time zones. If you have to hire employees from different time zones, you must be ready to find common ground.

This is a point in time where fewer employees would be less inconvenienced if you were to hold a virtual meeting.

Consider Cultural Differences

Apart from time zones, you will also need to pay attention to cultural differences. When managing employees from different locations, be ready to deal with cross-cultural teams.

Cultural differences can affect the relationship between employees. It can also affect the working days and hours. The best way to approach cultural differences is first to acknowledge its existence.

From here, you can ask for a piece of advice from the remote team on how best to approach a task in response to their cultural needs. You must also address the benefits of appreciating and valuing cultural differences.

The cultural difference should be a chance to learn from each other rather than looking down on any culture.

The Incredible Benefits of Hiring Remote Workers Today

Hiring remote workers is an effective way of achieving positive returns for your business. Apart from helping you access a wide pool of talent, it also gives you a chance to enjoy other numerous benefits.

Read the above guide and discover the incredible benefits of hiring remote workers today.

Are you looking for reliable employment consultancy services for your business? At Bradford Jacobs, we got you covered.

We are an International Business Expansion and employment consultancy whose focus is changing how companies do business by creating a long-lasting impact on the economy.

Contact us today for all your employment consultancy needs.