Now we've all experienced or seen how work has carried on despite limited access to a physical office space, have you really stopped to consider the applications of this to your own business long term? After all, it may work for a temporary lockdown, but the idea of figuring out how to completely overhaul the way you’ve been taught the adult world works is entirely overwhelming. I get it. It’s complicated. And scary. No one was really looking for a new normal, but there's a strong chance it has found us regardless.

There’s a possibility that with your line of work — or the people you hire — may not be the right fit. As with the majority of things in life, there are no guarantees. I can’t help you with that. But what I CAN do is walk you through the benefits of why you should try. Here are some solid reasons why building a distributed team is good for business:

 

1. Increase productivity and company loyalty with happier employees.

Happier employees are more productive employees. People working from the proverbial “home” (aka not the office) are bombarded with many fewer distractions. There are no impromptu — and unnecessary — meetings throughout the day to pull people away from doing what they need to do…work. No coworkers wandering by wanting to chitchat. No loud talkers. No clicking of a printer that isn’t their own. The only sounds are the clicking of their keyboard and the background noise of their location of choice. Do you focus better with white noise? Set up at a coffee shop. Enjoy silence? The middle of a park or forest is nice. Go wherever it is that inspires your best work. That’s the idea of remote working.

Maybe someone is happier when they take small breaks throughout the day to do laundry or finish last night’s episode of Suits. Maybe it’s their daughter’s birthday, and they want to surprise her with a cake at school, so they work all morning and finish the rest late at night. 

And if people are happier during their workdays, they will appreciate their situation even more. Another thing to consider is the ability to control your time off. It’s hard to imagine a gift better that the freedom to spend more time with your family. If you only have two weeks of holiday a year, and your parents or siblings live further than the house down the street, your holiday plans are made for you. Unless you enjoy hearing about that time you missed Christmas for the next thirty years. 

With remote work, you can work from your mom’s house for two weeks while she recovers from a knee surgery. Or attend your brother’s wedding without losing holiday time.

 

2. Build a reputation for adopting new technology and adjusting to modern trends.

Every company wants to be known for their innovation and forward-thinking decisions. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, your employees don’t want to be chained to a desk all day pumping out work without personal satisfaction. By 4pm, they’re all staring at the clock, making a grocery list and calculating what they have to cut out of their “free time” in order to go to the kids’ piano recital, call back their mother, AND go to the supermarket.

They know they’re no chance of catching up on The Bodyguard, but they’re somehow are starting to feel okay about it after hearing everyone’s summaries, spoilers, and opinions. After all, do they really want to spend Date Night staring mindlessly into the telly and falling asleep on the couch? They haven’t worn that new outfit since the last time they had a moment to go shopping six months ago.

Ok. I might be exaggerating, but it’s not that much of a stretch. If you show your employees that you care about them by allowing them to work in the manner they see fit, they’ll advertise how great your company is for being so open to change. There’s nothing like resistance to change to halt progress. That goes for your work structure as well.

 

3. Gain global perspective and attract more job applicants.

When you open up recruitment to the rest of the world, you will have better hiring options. Potential employees who are looking for more flexible companies will seek you out if they know you are open to remote work. Trust me. I work remotely, and the majority of people I run into tell me they wish they could do the same.

You may find better qualified candidates to fill positions. But you will also find people from a different part of the world whose perspective would be valuable to your company or project. After all, if you’re trying to market to America, you should probably seek the input of some Americans. Looking to expand into Latin America? A strong applicant from Guatemala might be just the thing you need to kickstart your efforts.

 

4. Decrease overhead.

Depending on your situation, you may be able to downsize your physical space or eliminate it entirely. For some, this could lead to becoming an entirely distributed team. Companies like Automattic make this work fantastically and are the benchmark to all remote teams. Consider all the money saved by not paying for an office and all the things in it. Copiers, paper, staplers, computers, repair work for when the copiers/coffee machines/computers break, etc.

Another thing to note is that surveys have shown that many people would take a pay cut in exchange for remote work. They’re saving money by not commuting, and for some, that can mean hours of life in a car saved each week.

 

5. Scale up or down with less complication.

With this setup, you aren’t limited by long-term leases and often have more flexible contracts with employees. If you want to expand or have to cut back, it is less expensive and complicated when employing distributed teams. There’s no need to set up a desk and give them a tour of the building. Just set a time to walk them through the account passwords and discuss deadlines, and you’re ready to go. You could have two employees or twenty. The process doesn’t change. Plus, when you scale up, hiring in different time zones allows you to extend your workday!

To be clear, distributed teams are not temporary employees or less valuable members of a company. They are hard workers and should be appreciated as such. They simply work differently. They may be in a position to take a pay cut for more flexibility or accept a less secure contract, but make no mistake, their work is just as powerful as traditional employees.

So forget your concerns about hiring a distributed team, and focus on the positives. When you go digital, everyone wins. Welcome to the future. Let’s motivate new graduates by showing them they can have that work-life balance.

 

Challenge: Think of one or two roles that you believe may be a good position for remote work and consider how you interacted with them today.  If those interactions had occurred online, would anything have been different?  Would it have been detrimental to the quality of work?