Are Remote Working Teams The Future?
Hiring teams to work remotely may appear to be a risk you are unwilling to take. Questions surrounding productivity, skill, and effort come to the forefront of a hiring person’s mind. There are many things that can seemingly go wrong!
This notion, however, is completely incorrect. Here are five common myths regarding remote working totally busted.
1. Remote Workers Dictate Their Schedule
While this is true in some regard, all remote workers need to be up and working when their clients and coworkers are doing the same. Sure, they may be able to sleep in longer and cut out the commute, but that doesn’t mean they are their own masters of work-related time. A successful remote worker will have a set schedule that coordinates perfectly with the rest of the teams’ schedules.
2. Work Simply Doesn’t Get Done
The inverse is actually true. By removing the distractions of the office environment, such as coworkers stopping in to say “hi”, or a few minutes of gossip at the water cooler, remote workers focus on the work, rather than other people in the office. With fewer reasons not to pay attention to the task at hand, they can crank out more work each day. Productivity rises when people work remotely.
Credit: Georgi Georgiev from coupofy.com
3. Remote Workers Are Lazy
Nope, quite the opposite is true. Since many members of a remote team work in their physical house–although many do not–they often set aside a “working area”. Remote employees are not sitting in their lounge chairs, as they chat on a conference call. Instead, the use an area of their dwelling as an office. This allows for easier separation of work-life from home-life. This balance is essential to any person working remotely, which is why they create a “work only” space, to boost productivity.
4. Domestic Workers Are Better Than Those Overseas
Talent is talent. If you’ve found the perfect candidate, but he lives on the other-side-of-the-world, don’t fret! Just because he isn’t located within your country or timezone, doesn’t mean you can’t coordinate with him. In fact, as long as you set a standard time for all workers, you can pull in new, remote people from across the globe.
5. Remote Meetings Are Ineffective
Think about it: conference calls have been a part of business meetings for decades. What is the difference between an individual sitting in an office, and an individual sitting in his home work space participating in a conference call? Absolutely nothing. Conference calls, video calls, and chat-based meetings don’t change in effectiveness, based on an individual’s location. In fact, frequently coordinating communication of this type will only increase the effectiveness of remote teams.
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Taking on a team of remote workers can be a daunting task, but well-worth the effort. When hiring these teams, it is important to make sure you are clear about your expectations, including the amount of time spent working each week, specific working hours, and the quality of the work. Once these are in place, fear no more, and begin working with a very driven, talented portion of the business world!
Are you thinking about joining a distributed team or hiring remote workers? Our blog post series on “The Challenges of Remote Working” might be very interesting for you to check out.
Any myth you think we should add to the list above? Let us know in the comment section below.
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