In an age when working remotely is a commonly accepted practice, many organizations are still skeptical about letting their employees work from home. They think that doing so will disengage them from the workplace environment and that they’ll be too distracted to perform their work to specification. Yet, businesses that aren’t flexible on this issue could be missing out on several significant cost savings.
Your Energy Costs Decrease
When you have an office full of workers, there are a lot of expenses that are used to help them perform their duties. Depending on the environment, you have to either heat the office in the winter, or air condition the office in the summer. All of your organization’s workstations consume a significant amount of electricity, which can eat up a lot of your assets. That’s not to mention lighting, the purchase of snacks, coffee, and other boons that employees might benefit from while at the office.
If you allow your employees to work from home, that’s energy that’s not used. Energy that’s not used leads to more savings on your part, and your organization’s bottom line will increase as a result. You’ll see yourself spending less money on energy and earning more cash.
Your Operational Costs Decrease
When you hire new employees, unless you have workstations, laptops, and other devices on hand for them to use for their jobs, you’ll have to purchase new hardware for them. You don’t need us to tell you that new hardware is expensive, same goes for software solutions. Outfitting your employees with the tools they need, while your responsibility, can drain your budget.
If your employees are using their own technology to handle their day-to-day tasks, you won’t run into this problem. They’ll be taking advantage of their own technology, which adds a whole new level of depth to your organization’s budget. Granted, you’ll want to be using a mobile device management solution and a BYOD policy to ensure that these devices aren’t compromising your network security, but equipping your employees with these solutions is simple enough to warrant consideration; especially if you have an outsourced IT department that’s willing to help your organization get this technology set up.
Your Employees Will Be Happier
Employees that are capable of doing their jobs from the comfort of their own homes might like working for you, but the effort and time it takes to get ready for work and drive to the office can take its toll over time. Plus, if their job is especially repetitive and doesn’t require much oversight, they can quickly become discouraged about their situation. It’s a known fact that happier employees are more likely to stick around for long periods of time.
Letting your team members work from home has been known to improve both morale and work ethic. At home, there are less distractions for employees, especially if your office is open and there are several people who work in the same room. Your employees will appreciate the peace and quiet of their own home, and will be able to concentrate better on the task at hand. Furthermore, your employees will be more likely to do something that they’ve been trying to do for years; save some money. Since they don’t have to spend it on gas to get to the office, they’ll have some extra cash in their wallet, which is enough to make anyone smile.
If you decide to let your employees work from home (and you should), you’ll want to make sure that they’re equipped with all of the technology and access to critical information and data that they need in order to perform their daily duties. There are several technologies that aid in this endeavor, like a virtual private network (VPN), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), cloud-based data storage, and virtualization services. Most important of all is the mobile device management solution, which helps to keep employee devices and applications from accessing information that’s sensitive to their user role.
If you want to equip your business’s employees with the technology required to work remotely, give NetWorthy Systems a call at 877-760-7310.