Monetary, environmental and other benefits of Remote Teams

Telecommuting has become an obligated practice in these bizarre weeks provoked by the COVID-19 situation. And, correctly interpreting world’s best medical scientists and specialists advices – we must accept that these weeks might become months …
So, more than ever, it seems that the remote working culture is here to stay.
Apart of its instant organisation in the best possible way, adopting the best and most efficient collaboration practices and tools, even important is to accept and embrace the opportunity to sculpture at the same time the correct landscape for the future.
Aside the adoption of this correct practices and tools, let’s sum some of the immediate and upcoming overhead benefits which come along when adopting remote work and management into your organization. (And sure there are many more ..)

• Operational : Having your entire staff centrally located in one office, where you can watch them work, collaborate, and have face-to-face time with them whenever you want it, comes at a price … real estate (office spaces, parking lots, canteens, …) and operating expenses (office supplies and equipment, lighting, heating/cooling, cleaning, maintenance, …).

In 2015, Xerox – which has allowed remote work for 30 years (!!) – found that allowing work-from-home saves nearly €10 million in costs a year. Another Global Workplace Analytics study (over the US) found that 36% of employees would choose working from home over a pay raise.

• Productivity & Performance : Telecommuting – and fully mobile adapted productivity tools – allow employees to jump right into assignments no matter where they’re located, which speeds up the workflow and so lowers worker stress. Trough stronger autonomy via location independence teleworkers are an average of 35-40% more productive with fever quality defects than their office counterparts. 
• Decreased sick days and time off : Higher productivity and performance combine to create stronger engagement, and lower absenteeism. Remote workers seldom “call in sick” since they’re not exposed to possible germs from a shared working space. Reduced sick days and less need for ‘taking-time-off’ results in increased project progress at a lower social security costing. 
• Going green : If you calculate all of the electricity being used to run a brick-and-mortar office, along with energy-guzzling office equipment and supplies, it’s actually the opposite of an eco-friendly office. Nearly 11.6% of greenhouse emissions on earth come from office spaces as most companies still don’t or can’t buy their energy from a green supplier ..  Also, less people in offices means less impact on any transportation infrastructure to get to/from those offices. Resulting in reduced traffic jams, smaller parking lots, no overcrowded trains/trams/metros/.. 

“Organizations that continue to use 19th Century workplace designs and 20th Century workplace practices to do 21st Century work might not survive.”