- The choice is completely dependent upon your requirement and your budget, therefore, you must choose positively based on both sides of the story.
- Working from their respective homes makes the employees save time on travel and other things as well.
- CONS of hiring Remote Workers
Hiring remote workers: Growth is the ultimate goal of any company be it a start-up or an established one, every company’s vision of growth holds a large part of the market. This can only be achieved if the company hires workers willing to give their hundred per cent in the process.
The role of employees plays a vital part in the growth process. If the employees effectively work hard, then nothing can stop you to succeed as a brand. However, the trend of work-from-home is increasing day by day which has given birth to a different scenario of business altogether. While many people are even now struggling to get jobs, some people are still working from home even after the Covid has been loosening its hold on a few countries.
But this remains a question for a large part of the business community, in a time where there exist fewer jobs and fewer in-office employees, should we hire remote workers? Well, you can if you wish to and if you don’t have any choice, but at the same time, it is important for you as a company owner to know the pros and cons of hiring one. After all, you did not initiate a business to risk it all. Here are the top pros and cons of hiring remote workers.
PROS of Hiring Remote Workers
Helps cut costs both ways
For you as an employer, it is good if you have remote workers and you don’t have a set-up office space to get them seated for a whole day. It is costly, especially in less profitable times. Many companies, at the beginning of the pandemic smartly began working from home while some businesses got shut down.
Hiring remote staff helps an employer to cut costs even if the company is doing well in their respective agendas. It helps reduce the cost of office space, electricity bills, buying systems for the employees to work on and whatnot.
Utilizes time from the employee end
Time is the greatest wealth a man can ever have. Saving time and utilizing it efficiently is quite vital. Remote workers ensure this. Working from their respective homes makes the employees save time on travel and other things as well.
Usually, for a proper 9 to 5 in-office job, the employees are supposed to wake up early and run to reach the office as early as possible, rather a remote worker, no matter at what time they wake up, can sit in front of their laptops or systems to begin working. Hiring a remote worker makes them utilize time and energy at required time intervals rather than wasting them on unnecessary travel to offices.
Ensures more productivity on the employee end
It might sound unfamiliar to you but a remote worker tends to provide you with more productivity than an employee working full-time in your office. A survey held by Global Workplace Analytics witnessed claims of 53 per cent of remote workers that they were more likely to work overtime. At the same time only 28 per cent, of in-office employees suggested that they would do the same. This might be negative on the employee side but is a gain on the employers’ side. You get more productivity from remote workers than the ones who work in the office.
Access to talent residing globally while hiring remote workers
If your business resides in a remote location then you might not have access to as talented workers as your brand requires. However, hiring remote workers would give you an edge here. Sitting at home you can hire someone talented, more than the accessible employees into your location.
This is something an employer always faces; one has to hire someone who does not have the capacity to handle the work your company provides. Therefore, hiring a remote person is way better than settling for less.
CONS of hiring Remote Workers
Communication barriers
Time zones, active networks and unavailability of employees or employers at the same time; all of these scenarios give rise to communication barriers. I worked in a remote role for around 1 year and I personally know how communication gets affected adversely this way. One has to specially take out time to communicate with the managers to understand the depth of the work and what exactly needs to be done. Such communication barriers inflict pressure on the work scenario and delayed results.
One is not always available on phone calls, the only source of communication is through texts which do not contain the feelings of the writer. The texts might sound rude to the other person from both employee’s side and the employer’s as well. This also creates a rift between the sender and the receiver.
Miscommunications based on the Internet
Not every time Internet is accessible in one’s location, hence, resulting in miscommunications. Now residing away from your approach, on the other side of your Whatsapp, you are not aware of what the other person is doing or facing. An employee only notices to ‘delivered’ tick over the worktext that you send and that the person has not seen it. This might lead to miscommunication in the minds of employers that the other person is willingly ignoring the message (You never know if they are).
Now other than this, likewise mentioned above that not always your Internet works, it might also mean that the Internet is working in the employee’s location. Therefore, because of Internet issues, miscommunication occurs in the working scenario.
Dependency on stable Internet connection and power
And this goes till the time you work remotely only. No surety of when will this heal. An Internet connection and electrical power connections are a few of the many issues which remote workers face and due to this, employers and companies have to suffer. This is one of the most common situations one faces which has no solution other than the company providing its services to the employee at their remote location like the laptops or network systems or wifi connections.
This is one of the biggest cons of hiring remote workers. However, hiring remote employees has perks and negative aspects of their own. Therefore, see for yourself if you want to hire them or not.
Conclusion
The bigger perspective of hiring a remote worker for your organisation is largely dependent upon your requirement as well as your budget. If you are in the starting or setting up phase of your business, then you can prefer remote workers that will save you a lot of costs, whereas, if you are looking to set up your office space, then hiring full-time employees might help you in a certain way. The choice is completely dependent upon your requirement and your budget, therefore, you must choose positively based on both sides of the story.