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Are Your Remote Workers More Productive or Working Harder?

Jan 13, 2021 | Remote Work

One of the questions that managers have about remote workers is are they more productive? Sometimes, an employee can work more hours, work harder, but not get much accomplished. In a traditional office, managers were able to quickly hone in on this issue and fix little productivity problems as they arose.

This is not that different when dealing with remote workers. There’s even data that supports the notion that remote workers are just as productive as their office counterparts parts if not more so. Let’s start by looking at what the data has to say about work from home policies.

Data Points on Work From Home Policies

Prior to recent events that sparked a surge in work from home policies, many companies experienced great results from a strong remote work policy. In fact, there’s more concern about burnout than there is about where an employee does their job. Here are some interesting data points on work from home policies.

  • About 80 percent of employers are open to a more flexible schedule in a post-pandemic environment
  • Mercer founded the about 60 percent of employers are open to letting parents choose a more flexible schedule
  • About 37 percent are letting parents choose when certain non-essential, job-related task are to be performed

A lot of the data regarding work from home policies stems from the productivity of remote employees. A lot of households have both parents working, some sources say it’s about 60 percent. Offering a flexible work policy itself can be seen as a way to increase performance. If an employee knows they have a good setup with your company, they don’t want to mess it up by not being productive.

Remote Worker Performance

Stanford conducted a two-year study by professor Nicholas Bloom on the performance of remote workers, and he made some surprising findings. First, Bloom discovered that productivity was increased by some participants. The participants were, however, mostly those who had good internet service. The study did reveal that a lack of internet service, or poor service, greatly impacted performance.

Second, some jobs, mostly those by managers, have to be done in some office capacity. Some of these managers reported that they were about 80 percent as productive in the home compared to their office. So, not everyone who can work from home, should.

Which Employees Work Best From Home

The people that benefited the most seem to be employees whose job duties were solely done either over the phone or on a computer. The study did employees in the suburbs or in rural areas would benefit greatly. So, employees who do customer service, data entry, billing, etc are great candidates as remote employees.

How Should a Company Navigate the Remote Employee Environment?

This can be a tricky question to answer. As seen from the data above, most companies are going to include some form of work from home option to better accommodate their employees. Now, the question is how to implement that policy going forward. Most companies may benefit from outsourcing, especially if they want a workforce in another country. This is where a company like BrightR Limited can help.

BrightR Limited

When companies look to add a few remote employees from a country like Canada, they typically go through something like a PEO. A PEO is a professional employer organization that handles all the HR-related tasks of getting your new remote Canadian employees set up. BrightR can even help you get your current employees to get set up remotely in Canada if that’s an option for you.

If you need help navigating the remote work environment with Canadian talent, then click here to speak with a professional and get started today.

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