Despite the growing popularity of remote work, there is still a lot of hesitation towards the remote work industry and remote workers.
The pandemic has brought the corporate world an unprecedented shift to a work-from-home setup to keep businesses operating. Despite the successful results and benefits the remote work setup has provided employees, many returned to working in the office.
According to Owl Labs, 44% of companies still don’t allow employees to work remotely. One of the culprits is the company’s readiness to embrace the remote working culture. Truth is, the transition to remote work is not as easy as creating a group chat or setting up a Zoom account and hoping that everything goes well. It requires dedication and trust in your remote team members and building the proper support, the right culture, and a two-way understanding of needs and expectations.
Sudo Staff has been successfully helping Australian companies build their remote team since 2020, while its principals have provided remote support since 2010. Here’s our experienced view of seven common remote work myths.
1. Remote work discourages creativity and innovation.
False. Remote working does not stifle creativity and innovation. Over the past years, companies that have had to resort to a remote work setup to keep their operations have shown great innovativeness and resilience. It was hard at first, but everything worked perfectly fine in the end, even without meeting employees face to face.
Being at home, where one is the most relaxed, can help bring out good ideas compared to working in the office, which limits your innovation. It is beneficial to offer your team an environment where they feel relaxed when sharing their ideas.
2. It’s hard to collaborate away from each other.
Partly true. Working remotely definitely limits our interaction with one another, which makes it harder to collaborate. However, with the right tools and support, a virtual team can become seamless over time.
Collaboration is harder when working remotely, but not impossible. You just need to use the remote collaboration tools available and be determined to ensure all team members participate to the fullest.
3. You can’t create meaningful relationships with workmates.
False. Having an office buddy, indeed, is what makes the workload bearable. You have someone you can go to lunch with and share office gossip with. They can even help you boost engagement and performance. When everything is virtual, making connections might seem impossible.
However, building connections remotely can create a wider net of opportunities to interact with employees who don’t live nearby. It is possible to make meaningful connections with employees across the globe and get to know their culture.
You can create activities that would help your team build connections, such as icebreakers, virtual parties, or a simple meet-the-team meeting.
4. A remote team is hard to manage.
False. Having a remote team does not hinder you from leading your team. In fact, leading remotely has been going on for a long time, with business executives leading companies and overseeing employees globally. You don’t need to be present to manage your team. How? Through the right tools.
A lot of tools are already present pre-pandemic, and plenty are still under development. Collaboration tools are continuously improving, and significantly accelerated during and post the pandemic.
5. There is no career growth as a remote employee.
False. Remote work is just like any other job, except it is done virtually. You should still reward your remote workers for good performance and consider them for promotion just as a local staffer.
Remote employees can advance their careers and lead their own teams as your company grows. Additionally, a survey done by Owl Labs shows that 35% of employees think remote work offers more and better opportunities for employment than local companies. Allowing remote work, in turn, contributes to why companies have lower employee turnover rates than those that don’t.
6. Remote work means flexible work hours.
Somewhat True. Employees who work remotely can be given the freedom to decide on their own schedule. Besides, flexibility is one of the best aspects of remote working.
However, the employer always decides what degree of flexibility works for their business and can require remote workers to follow the schedule they define.
With this in mind, Sudo Staffers work full-time during our customer’s Australian business hours to ensure that they are available and at work whenever their business needs them. They value the business and the other staff by starting and leaving work at the same time.
7. Remote employees are less productive.
False. This is probably the most significant concern of every employer on why they are still hesitant with remote work. Well, it is definitely scary to envision your employees just sitting around or soundly sleeping while you are paying them.
However, multiple studies have already been conducted showing that more employees working from home during the pandemic have become even more productive than they were in the office. The biggest struggle was, in fact, unplugging from their computers.
This shows that productivity isn’t just about the hours you put in your work but the employee’s output at the end of the day.
Despite this advantage, we must ensure that our employees can balance work and social life. Employers must help their employees unplug and encourage them to care for their mental health.
Remote work is the new company’s perk.
That’s right! Remote work is the new incentive. Afterwork hangouts are no longer enticing. The younger generation prefers to be at home or doing something somewhere else they want to be. Remote work allows them to have more time for themselves and less time getting ready in the morning and commuting to and from work.
While remote work definitely has challenges, millions of teams all over the world have proven over the past years that they can stay enthusiastic and innovative outside of the office. Despite many returning to the office, the remote work trend will continue and will not go away.
Wherever you are in the remote work revolution, the sooner you can go remotely, the faster you can make your company pandemic-proof or resilient to whatever the next disaster may be!
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