Sounds impossible, right? In fact it’s quite simple: Have some of your employees work from home.
According to the Telework Research Network, if employees spent just one day a week working remotely, employers could save around $6,500 per year, per employee. Wow.
And there are many more benefits to the employer:
- better employee retention
- access to a larger labor pool
- higher productivity
- lower absenteeism
- reduced real estate costs
- tax incentives
- compliance with the ADA and the FMLA
So let’s take these points one by one:
1. Better employee retention. Many people “job hop” because they want to move to a different town, or because they sell their house, or because they have a change in circumstance such as kids going off to college. This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t like their job, it just means they can’t come into the office any more.
Enabling an employee to work remotely means you don’t lose his/her “institutional knowledge”, don’t suffer a loss in productivity while you search for and train a new employee, and can offer ongoing customer support from a long-standing employee who knows the business well.
2. Access to a larger labor pool. In rural areas, specialists in your field may be hard to come by. By hiring someone who works in another city, state, or even country, you are bringing their knowledge to the table without the expense of relocation.
3. Higher productivity. The Telework Research Network recently found that employees working from home increased their productivity by 27%. Tape that to your water cooler!
4. Lower absenteeism. Remote-based employees don’t have to call in for a snow day, tend to have fewer sick days, and generally can get their work done outside of traditional office hours in order to maintain their family commitments.
5. Reduced real estate costs. Office space is one of the largest business expenses. If you remove one-third of your employees from your main office, you have removed one-third of your expenses in rent, computer maintenance, janitorial services, and so on. Even better, rent out all that newly vacant space!
6. Tax incentives. Many states and cities offer tax incentives to companies who reduce their carbon footprint, which is easy to do if you have fewer on-site employees, doing less driving.
7. Compliance. By not requiring employees to come to you every day, you can employ a larger swath of the population – retirees, new mothers, and people with disabilities. This will allow you to claim federal tax rebates as well as ensure compliance with the ADA and the FMLA.
And, last but not least:
8. Everybody’s doing it. It’s not just the tech-savvy any more. Check out this list of the Top 100 companies to work for: 82 of the top 100 allow telecommuting, and at Deloitte, Cisco, Intel, and Accenture, more than 80% of their employees spend at least one day a month working from home. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/benefits/telecommuting.html
So, is it time to make the move?
