When the Chinese travel site, Ctrip, gave their staff the chance to work remotely for nine months, their study turned up the kind of results that simply cannot be bought more cheaply: Not only did the remote workers feel happier and amp up their productivity levels, it also boosted staff retention. The research period was so successful that it saved the company $1900 per staff member during the trial period.
There are several reasons letting your staff work from home pushes up their productivity by a third – even more.
1. Silence is a Worker’s Best Friend
Creative remote workers are 20% more productive. But what’s the reason behind the positive figure?
Homes are often less chaotic than offices, which is why Harvard Business Review believes that remote work is most effective with creative workers. Marketers, designers, and the like need to exploit times when their right brain thinking is at its peak. They also need to create a working environment that pushes their inspiration to the max. Some creatives work best behind a laptop in front of a mountain view, while others fare better in a library. Few companies have the funds to build a Googleplex that provides a perfect environment for every worker, but every business can afford to offer the freedom to work remotely.
2. Flexibility Offers More Choices
One of the reasons Ctrip’s staff gave for their improved productivity was flexibility. Remote workers can stretch their work hours across the day instead of staying within their office’s rigid schedule. Those who had children could cut drives in peak hour traffic out of their schedules. They could adapt their work hours to their family needs by working chores into lunch breaks. Companies that operate on the go like Spotless Cleaning Chicago can keep track of work hours even when they’re constantly on the road.
3. Less Headaches for your Human Resources Department
Whether you’re organizing your content marketing writers or remote bookkeepers, you’ll need to track time and attendance with software that monitors hours and payroll online. This way, your productivity translates not only into the way your staff works, but your human resources department, too. Your HR manager should be able to focus less on payroll and more on the analytics of their reports.
We’re living in the age of big data, and every department you have should be able to assess ways of improving your company’s return on investment without having to waste time on repetitive tasks like payroll. Time tracking software makes this possible.
4. Your Digital Manager – at your Fingertip
Your time tracking software should include features that improve productivity even if your staff were using it in your office. Some of the best tools for this are:
- Real-time staff management: This tool lets management check up on the exact tasks each staff member is busy with in real-time. Management’s productivity is exponentially improved when employees’ work can be accessed within seconds.
- Client tracking: Staff and management can access clients at a glance from a single screen, which means clients’ fees and project costs can be assessed in an instant to keep return on investment at its best.
- Staff messaging tools: Every employee and manager can communicate, via the cloud, with any other worker so that every piece of communication is accessible to every employee. Fewer meetings mean more productivity.
Increasing productivity is one of the smartest ways to improve your HR return on investment, and few solutions work as efficiently as remote work. As long as your time tracking software has tools like IP address tracking and real-time task management, your remote workers can be managed as effectively as they could if they were working right under your nose.