There is no getting around it – remote work and remote employees have become an integral part of the modern workforce. The pandemic made sure of that. The ability to work remotely has helped many companies stay in business that would otherwise have to close.

There are even companies that have chosen to be completely remote businesses and offload their physical presence. One thing is for sure, remote working will continue even after the fear of the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided.

The ability to work remotely has helped employees see a whole new way of working. You have now begun to question the need to combat the daily commute and be in the office every day. Owl Labs’ 4th Annual Remote Work Stand Survey found that 77% of the respondents said they would be happier if they could continue to work from home even after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The same survey also found that 1 in 2 people will not return to theirs Jobs when remote work isn’t on the map. Let that sink in.

This is how your company loses money if it does not allow remote work and remote workers in the future.

You’re spending on real estate you don’t need

Over the past year, we’ve found that most office jobs can be done conveniently and successfully from anywhere. The employees in these jobs don’t necessarily have to be tied to a physical office location to do their best job.

Now that the work is done and your employees enjoy doing it from home, why do you still have to stick to a full office space? Even if you adopt a hybrid work model, you will never run your office at full staff capacity.

Commercial real estate is incredibly expensive. Unless you are a multi-million dollar multinational corporation, office space with capacity may no longer serve its purpose. You could shrink your physical footprint and maintain a smaller office.

This saves you rental and operating costs in an unmistakable amount.

You’re spending way too much on the cost of recruiting

Let’s face it – recruiting is expensive. Whether you hire the services of a recruiting agency or do it on your own, you end up spending a bombshell before you find the right candidate. The opportunity cost of hiring the old-fashioned way is extremely high and something most companies are unaware of.

The cost of onboarding an employee, their benefits and perks, their work equipment, etc. are driving this number ever higher. The whole process usually ends up with more than you expect and want to spend more. If you knew this ahead of time, you would likely be hiring remote workers much sooner.

If you switch instead to hiring top talent from a Remote Employee Marketplace, open up your business to save massive recruiting costs. Such a marketplace gives you the flexibility to choose the candidates you want instead of receiving hundreds of resumes that don’t match the bill.

Remote employee marketplaces provide fully managed services when it comes to hiring remote talent. All you pay is the work, everything else including wages, benefits, recruitment, etc. is taken care of by them.

You can literally search for highly skilled and remote workforce without breaking the bank. Isn’t that a good deal?

You lose your best employees to companies that offer remote work options

The greatest asset for any company is the people who work there. And with employees who wish to retain the privilege of working from home, they would be giving up their jobs for those that would allow them to work remotely (at least in part).

In one Survey by PwC, 72% of respondents said they wanted to work from home at least 2 days a week, and 32% said they wanted to work permanently in a remote setup. These figures make it very clear that if employers did not offer their employees the option to work remotely, enough of them would be willing to quit.

Maybe not all, but you will definitely lose a decent amount of your best employees if you avoid working remotely. Every growing company wants to keep talent and not lose it to other companies and, worse, to competitors.

A longstanding proverb in HR circles is that employees quit their jobs because of their bosses. In fact, that’s not true. Most employees look for another job when they are dissatisfied with their current one. Some of the main reasons for dissatisfaction relate to pay, growth opportunities, and flexibility in working hours and location.

Working remotely offers such benefits to employees that they are unwilling to part with it. In fact, they would part with their work instead of giving up home work privileges when it came to that.

You lose the increased productivity that remote working makes possible

A cost-benefit analysis Global Workplace Analytics report that remote workers were, on average, 20-25% more productive than their colleagues in the office. It is now a proven and clearly visible fact that working remotely helps employees be more productive in their daily work.

Working in a remote work environment allows for less distraction for most employees. This would be the time they would have lost when someone stopped by their desk due to their daily commute, water cooler conversations, and random chats. Remote work enables them to focus more on their work.

It also gives them a sense of control over how they work and how they spend their working day. Remote working is inherently flexible that many employees find extremely useful. It enables them to strike a much needed balance between their professional and personal lives.

Final remark

Remote working is no longer a benefit of the job but has become a necessity that most employees need. It has become a central aspect of the job and not many employees are willing to forego the ability to work remotely or from home.

If companies want to stay competitive in a post-Covid post-physical office landscape, they need to adopt and fully integrate remote work practices. This will decide whether you win or lose.