Every company aims to hire only the best talents it can find in the market. And this can pose some problems along the way. With all the companies competing for the best and the most productive people out there, finding and hiring the best one becomes a big challenge.
So the game changes from finding top talents to attracting the best prospects by offering multiple benefits and competitive pay packages which the employee is going to enjoy by working for the company.
Money is no doubt one of the most important factors why people apply for a job but there are some other reasons why certain ones would choose one company over another. Flexibility in the workplace is an increasingly popular way of how employers attract workers and keep them for a long time.
It is one of the low-cost strategies that is working effectively and with the help of tools for managing people in the workplace such as Humanity employee management, doing all the tasks involved becomes easier than ever.
If you’re not yet into this kind of a workplace arrangement for your employees then you need to try it now and here are 4 other reasons why you really need to do so aside from the ones already mentioned above.
1. You’ll Get Access to a Wide Pool of Talents
If the employees you have needs to report to an office every single day in order to do work then the potential group of people that you can hire automatically becomes limited to the talents who are residing near your office.
That means you’re missing out on the larger group of talented people who are residing in a different city. Those who are from a different state or those top talents that are living in another country. Most of these people will not be willing to move to the area where your business is based.
Thus, if you need to tap with the right people who can do the job best, the issue about location needs to be conquered and this can be solved by allowing them to work from home.
2. Balance with Work & Life
It’s a known fact that enough rest and quality time for relaxation is important in ensuring high productivity and efficiency in the workplace. Most employers know this but ensuring that the worker gets enough time to rest and relax is mostly out of their control.
For instance, the time an employee needs to spend in a long commute to the office, the traffic jams he/she needs to face every single day and the stress it results to are common causes of rest time being lost.
And the time that is lost can never be gained back. Even if work ends at the right time every day, they would lack the quality time to spend with family or friends because they arrive home late. Allowing workers to work from home eliminates the need for a daily commute and makes the time for rest and relaxation readily available.
It also means that your employees can have enough sleep which will then translate into a better productivity rate, higher profits and bigger savings for the business itself.
3. Reduction in Overhead Expenses
Renting an office isn’t cheap. And you will be forced to get one if you want your employees to be in a single workplace when it’s time for work. Costs may vary but generally, if you want your business office to be located within the city, the cost would be much higher.
A statistical information gained from a study says that it costs a company around $10,000 of office rental each year just for a single employee. But the cost isn’t just about rental in this case.
You will need to factor in the basic utilities such as water, gas, and electricity. Then the computers, Internet, telephones, chairs, desks, cabinets and yes, even the coffee that’s much needed to keep your workers stay awake. Yes! it really costs money and for every employee that you add to the workforce, the figure for expenditure automatically rises.
But if you’re wise enough just like the other companies out there that allow work-from-home options or teleworking, you’ll be able to see a big chunk of the amount taken off from the overhead expenses. An employee who accidentally broke a leg and would therefore not be able to go to the office until it has healed can have the option to continue working from home thereby reducing the need to hire a new one and of course cutting down costs.
4. An Atmosphere of Friendship
Most of the time, employees have little to no control at all when it’s the office environment that’s taken into consideration. How the office is designed- from the work colleagues to the kind of office equipment to be used- is a decision that depends on a specific person.
And what happens is that everyone needs to learn to live with that person. A particular employee may be forced to become neighbors with a colleague which they don’t really like and has to do it every single day. Imagine how stressful that could be!
By offering a work-from-home option, workers will have better control over who they want to be with and what kind of equipment it is that they want to use. They have the liberty to re-arrange the office in order to match their mood and they can do it as often as they want.
Moreover, your worker can also stay with the people they choose like friends or family whom they can talk to or even share ideas with spontaneously. And since they are not colleagues at the same work, more ideas and fresh perspectives will come out which can be useful for improving the business.
This sparks creativity, problem-solving and even improves the work and life balance of your employee. This can’t be achieved if the workplace is confined in the office where workers see the same faces and talk about the same office gossips every single day. These benefits and advantages can only be achieved when you make your business open for employees to work from the comfort of their homes.
If you want a balance of both onsite and telecommuting work, you can be creative and arrange a system that can incorporate the former into each work week like requiring workers to report to the office once a week or even just twice a month for a meeting to discuss the overall progress of the business or project. Other options include a video conference call with everyone to discuss particular aspects of the business done once or twice a month. This would help build friendship and professional work relationship even with such unique workplace arrangement.