The spread of COVID-19 continues to affect many aspects of normal life and businesses are no exception. Most organizations have had to change the way they work. Other than those deemed essential infrastructure, every workplace has introduced measures to allow employees to work from home.
For offices that never had a work from home policy, this transition can be stressful and nerve-wracking. But it can also be a valuable opportunity. The benefits of working from home are immediate for employees. After all, no one likes the morning commute during rush hour traffic. However, flexible working or remote working has numerous advantages for employers that are not always immediately apparent.
Keep reading to find out how your business can seize the opportunities offered by allowing employees to work from home.
Happier and more productive employees
Few people enjoy the morning commute to work amidst rush hour traffic or sitting for an hour on a crowded train. Working from home eliminates this stressful time from your employee’s workday but it can benefit your business too. Stressed-out workers are more likely to suffer from low morale and their productivity often suffers. Working from home can give employees an hour or more of their time back and start the day with a fresh and clear mind.
You can minimize the number of days lost due to sickness or other absences as well. Employees can work from home and avoid spreading infections since they don’t have to come into the office. You may even be able to reduce the cost of employer-sponsored healthcare due to having a healthier workforce overall.
Being able to schedule work around personal or family commitments is a great perk to have from an employee perspective. But that flexibility helps your business as well. Your employees can still complete their work instead of having to take the day off.
Few things can help your bottom line better than happy employees as they are generally more productive and enjoy their work. Implementing a flexible work policy is a great way to ensure a happy workforce!
Improve employee retention
Remote working can be a valuable tool that allows you to retain employees who might have left in other circumstances. No business wants to lose a talented and valuable worker but such events do happen. Quite often people have to quit their jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with being happy and fulfilled at work. They may have to leave due to:
Having to care for aging parents or ill family members
Needing to stay home to take care of young children
Moving to a new city for a spouse’s promotion or job
Relocating for a child’s medical or schooling needs
These are people who are good at their jobs and even love working for you but they simply cannot come to work every day. Allowing them to work from home is a win-win situation for everyone. Talented people don’t have to quit a job they love. Your business wins by not losing a valuable employee. Additionally, you don’t have the extra costs of advertising and locating a suitable replacement and training them to take over the role.
In fact, flexible work is fast becoming an important consideration for many workers. A lot of people won’t work for a business that doesn’t allow at least part-time work from home. Others may be willing to forgo a pay raise if their manager allows them the freedom to work from home instead. Businesses can reduce employee turnover and the cost or hiring and training new employees with a good work from home policy.
Recruit talent from anywhere
One of the main obstacles to hiring great talent is the location. Your business may not have access to a wide pool of employees either due to the location or a skills shortage in the profession. You are restricted to a small pool of candidates who are willing to relocate or who already live close by. The best person for the job may not be in this narrow pool of potential workers.
Then how do you hire the best people for the job? In today’s digital age, there is no reason for companies to recruit talent from one city or area. If you can offer full-time work from home positions, you will find it easier to attract the top talent in any field. You don’t have to eliminate talented professionals who cannot commute to the office since they can easily do the work from the comfort of their home.
The best part is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on making this happen. All you need to cast a wide net for recruiting is a good business VoIP service. Businesses can interview potential candidates over video calls. You can interview more candidates in a day than you could otherwise via in-person meetings. It also eliminates the time and expense of traveling for candidates. You may be able to interview people who cannot travel due to cost or scheduling conflicts.
Lower overheads
One of the biggest costs for any business is office space. Once you have space, you need to outfit rooms with office equipment and supplies. Then you have utility bills – electricity, heat, water, etc. – on top of everything else. You also need office furniture like desks, chairs, couches in the break rooms, and so many more things for employees.
Imagine if a few or most of your employees worked from home. While you still have to give them the tools and equipment they need (like phones and computers), you don’t need the rest. Few businesses can eliminate the office entirely but you can always rent a smaller space or get rid of unnecessary items like coffee machines and couches. You can also save money on utility bills and office supplies.
Some businesses think that allowing employees to work from home requires a substantial investment in communications systems. The reality is that you do need an excellent communications system to make this work. But it doesn’t have to expensive.
A great business VoIP service doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars in equipment and software. Businesses can get started with a VoIP service in a few hours and nothing more than a few IP-enabled phones. The service provider will provide phone services and maintain the hardware for you. Businesses don’t have to worry about getting new features, regular updates or security for the matter.
You and your employees can start or continue working as usual even as the technology fades into the background. The best communications system is one that enables business workflows, not one that intrudes on users.
Environmental impact
Enabling a work from home culture pays off for the environment as well. Eliminating the commute for some of your workers helps others as well since there are now fewer cars on the road during rush hour. Businesses can help reduce air and noise pollution quite significantly if employees could work from home.
You can also lower your energy use and carbon footprint by emailing instead of faxing or using virtual documents instead of printing them out. How does this help your business? As more people become aware of and try to reduce their environmental impact, they expect companies to follow suit. Let your employees and customers know that your business is doing what it can to be a responsible and sustainable organization.
How VoIP can help employees work from home
VoIP services can help you realize the benefits of employees working from home in a cost-effective manner. When cutting expenses is one of the reasons to allow flexible work, new communications technology shouldn’t cost you more than the money you would save.
Similarly, the transition to working from home is not always easy for employees or the organization as a whole. Many people miss the structure provided by an office and regular working hours. A good VoIP service can help managers and workers check-in regularly about expectations and progress towards weekly dal or weekly goals. You can also have periodic video conference calls for teams to simply hang out and chat about the workday like a regular coffee break.
Other key VoIP features such as virtual meetings, group audio or video calls, digital faxing, visual voicemail, and multi-device ring can all help employees working from home. Good communications and planning are needed for a successful work from home policy in any organization. A VoIP service is the best foundation for a comprehensive and complete business communications solution.
Would you like to make working from home simple for your employees too? Sign up at VoIPstudio.com for a free 30-day trial and experience the benefits in the real world. You don’t even need a credit card to get started! Give us a call at VoIPstudio today and see how we can help you set up your workforce for success.
