Employee Well-being: How One Organization Is Doing Things Differently

Before you ask, no, I am not being paid to write this article! I firmly believe in bringing to light stories that go unnoticed.

Discussions on employee well-being and mental health have been doing the rounds since the unfortunate demise of a young McKinsey employee. But this article isn't an autopsy of the incident. On the contrary, it's about something positive and it involves a certain remote hiring company that believes in keeping employees happy.

The remote hiring landscape bristles with all kinds of companies, from startups to behemoths. While many have tried and failed, Remote Resource is leading the way in one particular department – work-life balance.

But before I go into how Remote Resource is doing things differently, here's something to bring you up to speed on remote hiring:

• Remote hiring is growing at an exponential rate and is poised to overtake traditional hiring practices in the foreseeable future. While the concept isn’t entirely new (you will be forgiven for thinking that it is good old BPO in a new bottle, err, garb!), remote hiring or offshore hiring, as it is often called, posits itself as a practical solution for startups and SMEs, and even large companies.
• Remote hiring offers truckloads of savings for companies, not least startups – more than 50% on hiring costs, actually. Imagine what founders can do with the extra dollars!
• Remote hiring also solves the layoff question pretty effectively because remote employees are ultimately on the payrolls of offshore hiring companies. So, founders can just as easily downsize as upsize without affecting the employees themselves. This creates a win-win situation for every stakeholder if you ask me.
• Last but not least, remote hiring is all about harnessing the potential of the entire global talent pool. You want to hire a software developer from India? Ask a remote hiring company. You want the best and cheapest PHP developers to work on a hard-to-wrangle project? Talk to an offshore hiring company.

Remote hiring has grown in stature to become Aladdin's lamp for many a startup. But there’s a shadow under the metaphorical lamp.

Client work can be extremely demanding for remote employees, not so much because clients are likely to raise hell every time something goes wrong. It’s just that clients tend to have varied preferences and most remote employees have to work with multiple clients on a given day. So, it boils down to how well a resource can adjust to the work demands of different people. And it does take its toll on an employee’s mental health. A proper work-life balance acts as a stressbuster, keeping the mind refreshed enough to deal with daily challenges.

I know the remote hiring industry inside out and can safely speak for the thousands of people working as remote employees in India. The stress is palpable and, sadly, most employers tend to overlook it. This leads to burnout and, ultimately, the loss of good resources. But I’m not here to bitch about the work environments of every remote hiring company there is. I have always been a firm believer in highlighting commendable work and that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

I don’t know how they are able to do what they do, but the folks at Remote Resource seem to have found a magic wand of some sort, stitching together one big happy family of employees who huddle together and commiserate with each other in trying times. What counts more than the actual payout is the office environment, and Remote Resource seems to have struck gold in that.

Organizations in the Western hemisphere often harbor apprehensions about the work environments of their Indian partners. I have had many American friends come and ask me if I knew about companies running sweatshops in the garb of MNCs. I generally dodge such questions because I don’t want to badmouth anyone. But that doesn’t change the fact that many MNCs actually run sweatshops. I know of a certain Indian remote hiring company boasting 2000+ employees and an impeccable work culture that essentially runs a large sweatshop. Employees aren’t paid on time, overtime payments are never made in full (although it’s strictly against Indian laws), and anyone who wants to leave is bullied and harassed. In fact, they have garnered quite a reputation for lining their coffers with ransom money! It only makes sense for the organizations of the West not to partner with such companies because by doing so they are only encouraging bullies and keeping these sweatshops functional.

Remote Resource is a standout company in many ways. But the best thing about them is their treatment of employees. While companies globally are quickly forgetting that human beings are living, breathing organisms, Remote Resource seems to be upholding humanity above all else, going so far as to enquire about the mental health of individual employees - a breath of fresh air in the breakneck fast lane of the corporate world, if you ask me. And the result of their efforts is visible. Talented employees trying to flee brutal work environments are looking up to Remote Resource as a safe harbor. If only they could hire everyone that came to them!

It's a common conjecture that performance and humane treatment don’t go hand in hand. It’s also widely accepted that you got to wield the whip to make workers build pyramids. But Remote Resource is changing these set perceptions fast with their magic formula – treat employees well to extract the best out of them.