The novel coronavirus has brought about drastic change in our ways of living affecting everything from working, studying, teaching, learning, shopping, and what not! The silver lining seems to be evading us. Thanks to the availability of the internet and the ability of businesses to allow remote work, especially in the IT industry, life hasnt become completely bleak despite the current global scenario.
In fact, remote working culture has turned out to be a huge money saver for modern businesses that do not want to spend a lot of money on maintaining office infrastructure and other expenses associated with physical offices. Remote working is the only way IT businesses can run these days. Whether you like it or not, remote work is very much here to stay at least in the near future and maybe for many more years to go considering the lasting impact of this pandemic. As a software, mobile app, or web application development company, you can benefit immensely from this trend of remote working.
Today, tech leaders have adopted remote work culture due to the many benefits that come along with it. Some of the tech biggies that have been following this culture include:
Twitter: Reportedly, Twitter has allowed most of its employees work from home forever.
Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg has also announced that at least half of the operations of Facebook will be moved remotely within next 5-10 years.
HubSpot: Same as other top technology companies, HubSpot has also allowed its employees to continue working remotely.
The other names in this list include Coinbase and Shopify.
Benefits of Remote Working
Many researches have indicated that remote working culture has introduced a lot of benefits for the employees as well as the employers. Many surveys, data, and studies have proven this.
Lets take a look at what the reports suggest:
1. Increased Productivity
A lot of people were highly skeptical that remote working will reduce productivity due to the interruptions, distractions, and lack of personal supervision. Although these points are valid to some extent, but thats not what remote working is all about.
As you work remotely, there comes the convenience and flexibility that all employees love for sure. In return, they work with more focus and immense enthusiasm and that interprets into improved and, sometimes, even multiplied productivity. They dont mind working for long hours and are happily available for work even on weekends and holidays, if required.
Some cool statistics that support this are as follows:
#1. About 25% of the workers happily accept work even after office hours.
#2. More than 50% of employees do not take leaves when working for home owing to the flexibility it offers unless taking a leave is absolutely necessary.
#3. A lot of employees are able to work with improved focus and that reflects on their improved performance.
2. Cost-efficient
A lot of companies now hire dedicated developers to work for them remotely. This option of hiring remote resources is especially beneficial for startups and small businesses that have a tight budget. Why? It is mainly because of the cost-efficiency factor associated with remote working.
If you own a mobile app development company and you do not have the budget to maintain so many full-time resources for your current projects, you may save a lot of money by giving out your tasks to a reliable team of developers or freelancers. But considering the challenges and difficulties associated with managing full-time resources, many businesses go for outsourcing.
Why giving out your task to remote resources or a trusted web, software, or mobile application development company is a cost-efficient proposition? It is because you will save the cost that you must incur for:
#1. Renting/buying office space
#2. Sitting cost of each employee
#3. Electricity usage bills
#4. Water and other facilities for office staff
By outsourcing, you save on the above as well as on training, hiring, and managing in-house resources.
3. Health Benefits
While working in the office, developers (who work at a web, mobile app, or software development company) end up sitting for hours without taking a break and, as a result, they often have to face serious consequences in terms of their physical and mental health. But, while working from home, they get more time to relax and work because of the family support and the fact that they can sit or recline as they like.
4. Better Collaboration
Contrary to the common belief that remote working makes collaboration difficult, the truth is remote working employees communicate more often than when they were in the office, as per many research and studies. Furthermore, most of these discussions are related to the project or business and there is very little room for gossiping or useless chats.
What are The Best Practices of Remote Working for an IT Development Company?
To enjoy the greatest benefits of this trend of remote working, make sure you employ the following best practices of remote working.
1. Monitoring The Progress of Staff
Remote work culture in a mobile, web, software, or full stack development company has a lot of benefits. However, there are some challenges too! For example, expecting your employees to be online at all times while working remotely may appear unreasonable.
But, at the same time, you need to monitor their progress! Dont follow them or try to monitor their moves! Rather, tell them to inform you when they join or leave for the day. Putting a task tracker in place will help you better in this.
2. Support Employees in Setting up Workspace at Home
If you expect improved productivity from your software developers and engineers, you must be considerate of the fact that they might need some financial support to set up workspace at their homes. It is highly recommended that you spend some budget on helping them maintain office setup at home as this will motivate them to work with increased focus and dedication for you.
3. Socialize and Document for Improved and Effective Communication
Emails and chats may not suffice when it comes to effective communication and better collaboration between teams when working from home. As a web development company looking for improved communication, you should try some real time file transfer and chat tools so that employees can connect with each other in real-time and feel like working together.
Other than this, remote work can help you expand the talent pool as hiring and managing employees beyond time and space is easier this way.
Summing up
Tosum it up, remote working trend across industries and businesses that emerged post-COVID-19 has a lot of benefits and by giving out your task to a professional and competent web, mobile, software, or full stack development company, you can reap all these benefits in minimum investment. Among the greatest benefits of remote working discussed in the post above few include cost-efficiency, time-saving, better resources at hand, and more.
