8 Ways Remote Teams Can Outperform Traditional Teams
In this age of technology, working from home (WFM) has become one of the most important requirements among entrepreneurs. Both employers and employees find it more convenient to work in their comfort zone, thanks to its multiple benefits.
If you’re thinking of transitioning your team to remote work, find out why it is better than a traditional office culture. Let’s dive in.
1. Cost Efficient
One of the key advantages when it comes to managing a remote team is that it’s cost-efficient. Let’s break this down further.
In a traditional in-office setup, you are most likely to spend on office rent and maintenance, as well as other utilities like electricity and internet connection, office equipment like computers, servers, and desks. Some companies also provide transportation for employees, food expenses, coffee machines, among others.
But with a remote team, you can save all of the above expenses because now, they will be the ones responsible for these costs. You can then spend the amount on hiring more people. This helps increase your business productivity.
2. Work-Life Balance
Many employees report that working remotely from home makes them more satisfied as compared to working in an office. The question is, why?
It’s simply because they can maintain more work-life balance with flexibility in their workplaces, including flexible schedules. This allows them to have better control over their lifestyles.
They can spend more quality time with their family members, maintain a healthy lifestyle by working out at home, spend free time on their hobbies, and have a better social life.
Employees working in an office cannot enjoy these benefits as they have to strictly adhere to the schedule of getting in and out of the office.
As an employer, it’s also essential to not micromanage your remote workforce to help them feel empowered.
3. Time Saving
Consider the amount of time wasted by employees in a traditional work culture — water cooler talks, gossip, commuting to and from the office, lunch and snack breaks, consulting people from one table to another, and so on.
Imagine being able to use all those wasted hours for actual work that helps your business achieve its goals sooner. This is possible with a remote work set-up.
4. Talent Pool
In a traditional approach, if you want to hire someone for your team, you have to find the right talent locally. Since the person has to commute daily to and from the office, you have to choose someone who is residing nearby and will be available whenever you need them.
This limitation is resolved in a remote team structure. You can hire anyone from around the globe. It doesn’t matter if they live in Europe, Asia, or any part of the world since they are not bound to travel to the office.
5. Scalability
When you are growing your company, you have to scale up your operations team. This means that you have to hire new people.
Hiring new people means you would need more office space or rearrange your office setting to accommodate more team members. Most likely, you’ll be purchasing new desks, chairs, cubicles, and so on.
Meanwhile, in a remote work environment, you’ll only have to say three words: “You are Hired!” and that’s it. The rest of the planning and expenditure needed in a traditional structure would be unnecessary. This gives you the added benefit of being able to hire as many talents as you want.
6. Availability
Most office workers are required to work from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. Beyond that time limit, the energy of your employees starts to decrease. This means low productivity at the end of the day for your whole team.
In a remote working culture, such limitation is rare or absent — especially for companies with team members from around the globe. Everyone works in a different time zone.
This will ensure that your office runs 24x7, round the clock, and never stops working. Let’s understand this through an example: By the time you’ve called it a day, another person in your team from the opposite side of the world has just started their day. This ensures that your office is reachable at all times and your business is always up.
7. Relevance of Meetings
Conducting meetings in an office environment is easy. However, not every scheduled office meeting is in your employees’ best interests.
More often than not, meetings are unnecessary especially if they don’t really involve the whole team (yet they are required to attend them for the sake of keeping everyone updated).
This leads to wasted time and energy which could have been spent working on something that takes the business forward. Such an issue is less likely to happen in remote teams.
Your team is scattered around the globe. All of them are in different time zones. You can have only a few hours when everyone will be available for the meeting.
This forces you to think twice before conducting a meeting and ensuring that it’s relevant and essential for everyone. Otherwise, if you want to notify your team about anything, you can always drop an email or DM them on your communication platform.
8. Coordination and Collaboration
Coordination and collaboration are much better online. Who is doing what, when the task is due, how much work has been done — these questions are easily answerable online.
You don’t have to be on everybody’s shoulders to supervise them. A simple note for everyone takes only a few minutes to write and send. With the vast number of collaboration tools available online, setting goals, assigning projects, and reviewing your team's progress become more convenient than ever.
Summary
As you can see, running a remote team offers multiple advantages and opportunities for growth. This even becomes better if you know how to manage your team well — but that’s a topic for another day.
Remote teams are much more affordable, scalable, productive, and focused. These are the things you need to build a thriving, successful business.