Remote work is more relevant than ever. Here are the benefits (for employers and employees)

This is the second of a three-part blog series on the growing importance of remote work in the business world. In this second instalment, we focus on the benefits of remote work and working from home for both employees and employers. You can read part one here.

If working from home ever had a time to shine, that time is now.

As most of us are aware, governments and employers across North America have rapidly implemented work-from-home policies to combat the spread of the new coronavirus. It’s all part of an overall strategy of social distancing – limiting the number and duration of social interactions for everyone, every day, until the pandemic subsides.

The idea isn’t new. During the devastating and more lethal Spanish Flu pandemic, in 1918, social distancing proved effective in the areas it was implemented. And in 2020, it’s also not new to most organizations in China: Due to widespread lockdowns starting in January, many organizations there asked much of their staff to work from home for months – as indicated by the explosion in popularity of work-from-home enablement apps such as Tencent Meeting, Dingtalk, and Lark.

As more businesses and schools across North America have closed their doors and moved online, the same thing is happening with collaboration tools from Microsoft, Google and Zoom.

As we said in the first post in this blog series, and as health officials have constantly advised, social distancing is absolutely vital right now, especially as some economies begin to reopen. The more we can all do as individuals to reduce the basic reproduction number of the virus – something that can be dramatically affected by factors such as environment and behavior – the better.

But is working from home simply a band-aid solution to the current problem, to be tossed aside when we feel safe to congregate in groups again? Or are we witnessing a sea change in how people work, learn and collaborate in a post-coronavirus world?

To answer that question, we need to step back from the current crisis and objectively weigh the benefits and drawbacks of remote work.

The benefits of remote work are profound.

Not everyone can work from home. That’s obvious. It’s also clear that not everyone benefits from remote work – a Financial Times article recently quoted one software engineer in China estimating that he was only 80 per cent effective while working from home.

But it’s impossible to deny that the business world is now starting to truly understand the value of remote work. Twitter has encouraged all employees to work from home since early March, but the company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, also announced back in February that the company needed more remote teams to keep its competitive advantage. Stripe said last year that its newest engineering hub would be completely remote – something the company’s internal surveying indicates has been a positive for both employees and managers.

Indeed, remote work has many concrete benefits for companies and employees aside from the current need for social distance. Here are just few of them:

1. Remote work improves employee satisfaction.

According to remote work watchdog Global Workplace Analytics, 36 percent of workers would choose remote work over a pay raise. And for companies looking to acquire younger talent, it’s worth noting that one survey indicated that more than 70 per cent of millennials would take a pay cut for a job with remote work flexibility. Remote work cuts down on unnecessary meetings, too, which is something everyone can get behind.

2. Remote work saves companies money.

Commercial real estate isn’t cheap, and companies like Dell have reported annual savings of $12M simply because remote work requires less office space. And Global Workplace Analytics estimates that remote work saves employers $11,000 annually per half-time telecommuter. On a related note, it has also been shown that remote work cuts down on sick days (because let’s be honest, most people are actually just sick of the office when they call in sick).

3. Remote work improves employee retention.

People tend to like remote work, and many gravitate towards jobs that let them do that. And it shows in the numbers: According to a Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) study, 46 per cent of companies that allow remote work say it has reduced employee attrition.

4. Remote work is often more productive.

That same SHRM study indicates that employees are more productive when working remotely, even when they’re sick (an apropos finding, given the times we find ourselves in), with seventy-seven per cent of remote workers indicating they are more productive at home. And managers back that up, with two-thirds seeing productivity increases from remote workers, according to a different survey.

5. Remote work expands the talent pool.

We’ve already mentioned Twitter’s commitment to remote work. But CEO Jack Dorsey’s quote – “our concentration in San Francisco is not serving us any longer” – hammers home the point that companies who only hire within their own geography are missing out on global talent. A globally distributed team gives employers access to the best candidates in the world, not just the best from their hometown.
From a business continuity perspective, around three-quarters of remote workers also say they would be able to stay up and running during a disaster – such as a pandemic – compared to just 28 per cent of their in-office counterparts. And, of course, there are societal benefits to remote work such as reduced traffic, less pressure on municipal infrastructure, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Obstacles to remote work

We’re not going to pretend remote work still doesn’t have it’s fair share of obstacles and detractors – some real, some perhaps not. First and foremost, having nearly every company move to a work-from-home model at the same time can strain bandwidth (and indeed, although Microsoft recently offered its basic Teams platform for free, reports say it is straining under the weight of thousands of new users).

But there are other, more longstanding obstacles to remote work. Employer distrust – which many commentators have pointed out is often strangely irrational – is probably one of the most pervasive. Some employees also worry about being “out of sight, out of mind” (although digital collaboration tools like Slack surely help with this). And it goes without saying that some people simply aren’t disciplined enough to work from home.

But possibly the largest obstacle blocking the way of remote work, especially for companies with sensitive internal systems containing valuable intellectual property, is a lack of IT and information security.

Remote work can be risky if you’re not prepared

The reality is that very few enterprises are ready to have everyone work from home simultaneously – yet, in many cases, that’s exactly what’s happening (and, to complicate things even more, at very short notice). That means many organizations are leaning on antiquated virtual private network (VPN) technology that not only struggles under the weight of new users, but isn’t very secure. VPN technology is still serviceable but can’t handle 10 or 20 times its normal workload, along with being hard to patch and propagate fixes across multiple devices. It’s also not at all secure if it connects a compromised end point to your system.

This is also an issue of equipment management, because remote staff can’t walk over to IT if their laptop is broken or needs to be imaged. The typical solution for many enterprises is to ship laptops from IT to its remote workers, but that’s inefficient and just creates more potential security issues through lost or compromised machines.

How Tehama enables remote work for enterprises

It’s safe to say that if enterprises practiced the same level of IT security vigilance as they’re now placing on handwashing, social distancing and antibacterial gel, hackers looking to access systems would have a much more difficult job. But, as we’ve seen, the reverse is actually true: The sudden rush to get everyone working from home has actually created new avenues for bad actors to penetrate systems.

It’s not easy to turn your entire IT operation on a dime when everyone suddenly needs to work from home, however. That’s why Tehama’s SaaS technology was specifically built to facilitate the secure, fast provisioning of globally distributed teams and a virtual workforce anywhere on the planet with an internet connection. Its cloud elasticity means it can scale up or down quickly as needed, with virtual offices, rooms and desktops provisioned in minutes – a far cry from most virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) offerings, which usually require weeks or even months.

Tehama’s secure perimeters, automated encryption, continuous malware protection, and network segregation maintains the highest level of security while running in any web browser on any device. It’s also SOC 2 Type II certified, ensuring airtight compliance through built-in controls, forensic auditing and activity monitoring.

Tehama is the fastest, easiest, most secure way to deploy a virtual workforce – period. And that’s something that’s likely going to be very handy in the weeks and months ahead.

Contact us to learn more about Tehama or book a demo.