In this 5-minute read:
- Pros of a remote team
- Cons of a remote team
- Additional resources for remote teams
Have you been pondering the idea of moving your staff to a remote situation? Allowing your employees to work from home is a big decision to make, and it can definitely provide many benefits for you and your employees. But there are drawbacks to consider as well.
We’ll walk you through the common pros and cons to help you in your decision. As you read through this list, make your own pros and cons list for your team and business to guide you along too.
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Pros of moving to a remote workforce
Take a look at these advantages of letting your team work remotely and see if they make sense for your business.
Access to wider talent pool
This is one of the top reasons employers want to open their workforce to remote opportunities. Allowing employees to work remotely also means that you can start hiring remote employees from just about anywhere, giving you access to a wider talent pool.
You won’t be limited to people who are only interested in moving to your city or have been there forever and want a change of pace. You can pick and choose based on those who have the best qualifications and not be forced to settle.
Larger reach for customers
When you hire employees from areas other than your own location, you open up your potential reach to new customers. Of course, this depends on what your business is, but having a person on the ground in new locations that you’d like to market to is beneficial for obtaining new customers that want to work with someone local.
Better work-life balance
Remote working can help you and your employees achieve a better work-life balance. It allows your team to manage home and family responsibilities easier, especially with any commute eliminated.
Employees can organize their schedules in a way that allows them to pick up kids from school, work house chores into the mix, and take their pets on a walk.
This can help eliminate some of the daily stressors that your employees (and you) face, thus increasing productivity and morale.
Saves time
Working remotely can save your entire team a ton of time from the commute removal alone. Maybe you or an employee were driving an hour to work (and an hour back!) each day. That saves you two hours to take care of those home responsibilities, focus more on your job, or just relax. Again, this contributes to that productivity and better morale.
Saves money
Moving to a remote team can save your business money. You’ll eliminate the need for a physical office space, or at least one that is large enough to house all of your employees. And that in itself can get really expensive. That also includes any utilities that may have come along with the rental of an office space.
Depending on the benefits that you are offering employees, you may be able to cut down on internet costs too. Most employees probably have reliable wifi at home (though it might not hurt to offer this for a remote employee package).
Cons of using a remote team
Everything has a downside, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work around them. Determine if these cons outweigh the pros.
Communication issues
When you’re not talking to someone face-to-face every day and most of your communication is via email or a messaging app, that can cause some errors in communication. You may need to provide additional training or a group meeting about how to improve communication to get over this stepping stone.
Hiring can be more complex
Hiring remote employees can provide its own set of challenges. Not seeing your potential hire in person makes it more difficult to read them and see if they’ll be a good fit for your team. Make sure to take extra time to think about each candidate before jumping in and hiring someone that you interviewed remotely.
Check out this guide: Best practices when hiring remote team members for your small business
Teambuilding is more difficult
It’s important that your employees feel connected to one another so that they can effectively communicate and execute projects in a productive way. With the distance and limited ways to speak face-to-face, many remote companies don’t even participate in remote team building.
This is important for morale and building trust among your team. If you’d like some ideas for remote team building, check out our guide: 10 fun and creative virtual team building activities to boost morale
One-on-one management becomes complicated
When working remotely, you can’t have in-office check-ins with each employee individually and you don’t see them in-person on a day-to-day basis. This can make it difficult to tell when an employee is struggling or may be facing burnout.
Work on building trust with your team members (as individuals) so that they feel comfortable coming to you when they have a problem. Maybe even plan on regular phone calls (weekly, monthly, or even quarterly) just to check in now and then.
Additional resources for remote teams
If you decide to move your company to a remote workforce, you may benefit from these additional resources:
- Helpful tools to support your long-term remote workforce
- Best time tracking tools for your remote workforce: features and pricing
- Why use a virtual private network and which VPN solutions you should consider
- Best practices when hiring remote team members for your small business
- 5 best project management solutions for small businesses
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