As Vancouver grows year-over-year in population, the overall landmass stays the same size. Office towers are popping up everywhere, but there is only so much space to hold employees. As an alternative, you may have looked at utilizing remote workers before, but refrained since it requires a serious amount of trust with your employees. However, if that trust can be built, there are exuberant rewards that may come with it. Outlined below are the five benefits of hiring remote consultants.
1. Broader Talent Pool
If you are a Vancouver-based company, the best person for the job may not be in Vancouver. Maybe they live in Calgary. Allowing your business to utilize remote workers will increase the size of your talent pool significantly. And with recruitment firms like IT/IQ gaining a national presence, the potential for finding the right candidate can be very easily realized.
2. Lower-rates
Because remote consultants incur less costs since they aren’t commuting to work, their rate will be lower than if they worked on premises. Global Workplace Analytics said more than a third of tech workers would be willing to take a 10% pay cut to be able to work at home.
3. More Productive
Not everyone enjoys working from nine to five. Some people get the most done at 5AM and others get the most done at 11PM. When you utilize remote consultants, you give them the opportunity to be more productive, because they are working on their strengths.
There can be no water-cooler talk, if there’s no water cooler and nobody to talk with. Remote consultants are less distracted at home. According to a study conducted by Harvard Business Review, employees working from home were 13.5% more productive than their counterparts at the office.
4. Lower Operational Costs
When your employees are working from home, you require less real estate. PGi Collaborative Exchange says the average business would save up to $11,000 per employee per year, if employees telecommuted. These cost-savings come from the reduced real-estate spending and reduced technology spending.
5. Greener
No commute means less cars on the road. Global Workforce Analytics estimates that if employees with remote-work compatible jobs worked from home half of the year, they would save 54 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions and 640 million barrels of oil.
With all that said, not all jobs can be worked from home. Remote consultants are ideal for development jobs. However, they may not be best for project managers or business analysts as those roles require on-site expertise. If you can utilize remote consultants, give it some thought. Hopefully the benefits above make your decision a little bit easier.
For all hiring needs, check out our client services page or reach out to one of our Account Managers today!
