Are you profiting $2,000-per person from your remote workers?
Max Shapiro
Super Connector | helping startups get funding and build great teams with A Players
If you’re a business in America today, I’m guessing there’s a 56% chance your workers could be working from home.?
It’s estimated that 70 million US workers could easily do their work remotely. And around 30 million Americans are actively working on a hybrid or permanently remote model, which is a huge increase from before the COVID-19 pandemic.
So is remote work really working out?
In 2017, Stanford School of Business professor Nicholas Bloom published a study on the Chinese travel agency, Ctrip, and how it made $2,000 more profit per person after letting them work from home.?
Bloom said that remote workers avoided office-place distractions, and long lunches, and spent more time actually working.?
He also said remote workers concentrated better.?
Has that paper held up? Did the great remote working experiment we lived through COVID-19 really benefit businesses? Are you seeing the $2,000-per person profit from remote working?
Is productivity everything with remote working?
Founders and business managers are not all so excited about remote working.
Of course not all industries lend themselves easily to remote working. In the space startup sector, for example, CEO of AAC Cycle Space (Luis Gomes) said: “Some tasks have to be done in the facility. You can’t hire a civil engineer from South America to work remotely.”
But sometimes it’s more than the physical product you’re working on. Istvan Lorinc, cofounder of Morpheus Space, said remote working was ‘not a good thing’ at all.
“Imagine how much experience and knowledge is not being transferred because of remote work. In time, if this continues, the quality of work will decline.”
Forbes warned startups to not jump straight into remote working.?
When a company is still in the process of building a culture, Forbes said remote workers can fall out of sync or start working in silos. When that happens, deadlines are missed and misunderstandings simmer without face-to-face conversation.?
So, no, it’s not as easy as sending everyone home to be more productive.
For founders and managers with a hybrid or remote work team, how are you going to build strong teams that take pride in what they do? How are you going to build an environment of learning and co-operation through a digital platform?
Do workers want to work remotely?
Here’s something for founders and managers to chew on.
Gallup’s 2022 State of Remote Work report found this: of the American workers who can work from home, 60% want a long-term hybrid arrangement.
Employers should calm whatever panic they feel right now. Because the number one reason for remote working is not to skip work or fall into pajama syndrome. The top reason American workers don’t want to work at the office is to avoid the commute!
The next biggest reason is for wellbeing, and then balancing family obligations. The top fifth reason was because workers feel more productive and connected to the organization. A lot of people actually like working from home to finish something they can get done quicker than at work.
Reassuring, right?
But of course, remote working doesn’t mean zero-communication working. For someone to make the most of working from home, they can’t be doing it out of being vexed for the work or workplace itself.?
领英推荐
Productivity and profits are only going to grow when remote working becomes a positive for everyone at the business.
Are there any successful remote working startups?
There sure are.?
If you’ve ever looked to automate workflows or integrate web applications, you might have come across Zapier. It’s a 100% distributed company with hundreds of employees spread over 17 time zones.?
In 2022, Zapier hit $140 million in revenue up from $50 million in 2019 before the pandemic.
The business behind the WordPress website building and publication project, Automattic, have been fully remote for 15 years. They employ around 900 people in 62 countries and have no physical headquarters.
Even the US Government published a report that a quarter of Federal agencies saved 29% of usual costs after going remote.?
The biggest cost savings were in transit/commuting, renting office spaces, and reduced employee absence.
Is remote work working out for you?
It’s looking likely that remote work is here to stay.?
And if you’re a founder or manager in a business that could allow some days at home, it’s likely your workers would appreciate talking about a hybrid model.
In the best scenario, you can make it work in a way that boosts productivity and profits –?smiles all round.
But you’ll also need to put the work into good communication platforms.
You can also never neglect building a work culture and making all your team members feel like just that, part of a team. If there’s anything that’s always worse for your bottom line than remote work, it’s employee disengagement.
Could you make that kind of arrangement work?
If so, then you could be getting ready for a $2,000-person profit boost.
SOURCES
Entrepeneur
2 年Too long to read on a Shabos day
Fractional CFO Advisory Services | Expert Witness
2 年Awesome post, Max Shapiro! Nenuca Syquia - Better Organizations by Design, I'd like to hear your thoughts as well!
CEO, Founding Partner Global Health Impact Network and Funds
2 年Interesting article Max