Small and mighty | Why a remote team is just what you need.
December 15, 2016 by ThySista
Filed under Business, Money, Opinion, Tech/Internet, Weekly Columns
(ThySistas.com) If you’re a business owner and are in the process of expansion, it might have crossed your mind that you would like to consider having a remote team in the place of the traditional in-house team. It’s highly possible to have an entirely remote team and to simply hire a virtual office for the business address and to hold meetings with clients from. The benefits of a virtual office are numerous, not least of all is the fact that most of the virtual offices from companies like Servcorp are in prestigious central business districts around the world. If you want to know more about virtual offices in Thailand (or around the world), click here. We would like to discuss some of the benefits of having a remote team – as well as some of the detractors – in the hopes that it helps you to make the decision, easier.
1. Access to the best talent, faster
When you are in the process of expansion you sometimes have to hire people pretty quickly and hope that they turn out right for your
business. Often though, if you have an in-house team you are restricted to hiring people from in your local area. This can come with its own set of limitations as people may not be looking for jobs at the time that you are hiring, and it may take time for you to find the right person for the job. When you have the ability to hire people from anywhere in the world though, suddenly you have a whole heap of people to choose from.
When you are hiring people from all over the world or the country, you also get to enjoy the cultural melting pot that can come from having a diverse team of people working for you. You’ll find that search times are usually shorter when you are hiring a remote worker as opposed to hiring for an in-house role, and often the quality of applicants is better.
2. You have a work-life balance
When your team are working from home, there’s a lot more time to spend doing the things you love because you’rse not commuting or spending time travelling to and from meetings. As long as you have a regular catch up which everyone is on (thank you, Skype!) you can enjoy the freedom that comes from setting your own path.
3. You’re more flexible when problems arise
If something happens like servers going down, it can be tumultuous for the team. But being a remote team can mean that you’re faster with responding to problems. It’s just the nature of autonomy and is bred from working independently. People are generally more agile, productive and happier, and can be better problem-solvers when they work alone.
4. Costs are low
When you consider that offices may be obsolete by 2030, renting an office and furnishing it is not a cheap exercise, and nor may it be future-proof. And then when you add in electricity, internet and all the others costs and guess what? Your business suddenly got costly. The costs of running a virtual team are minimal by comparison, and every dollar that you save can be spent on investing in the business.
When working with a remote team you need to remember that in order to be successful you need to have plenty of feedback and plenty of opportunity for collaboration as much as possible. Company culture can take a hit when people aren’t working all together and brainstorming, but thanks to tools like Facebook chat and Slack messenger it’s possible to ensure that a level of communication takes place in a really productive way. If you are thinking of remote work for you business, consider it carefully – but it just might be the new thing for your business.
Staff Writer; Jasmine Love
