Advancements in technology make it possible for businesses to hire workers from anywhere in the world. Finding talent in any department of a company is easier than it ever has been, but it doesn’t come without its challenges.
While the Covid-19 pandemic forced many companies to embrace remote work, many are unsure about extending remote job opportunities or hiring virtual workers indefinitely.
In this article, we’re going to cover various benefits of remote jobs and show you why hiring virtual workers can give your company a competitive advantage and improve your bottom line.
What’s a Virtual Worker?
A virtual worker is a person who works part-time or full-time for a company from a remote location.
While the job description might be the same, you don’t hire a virtual worker as you would a regular full-time employee. In most cases, you hire them through a third party, they work as independent contractors, and you pay a specific fee for tasks you assign.
Many companies hire remote employees for a variety of work across different platforms. The virtual environment keeps a distributed team on the same level regarding expectations, skills, and operations.
Virtual workers can do almost everything that a regular employee does. They can handle inbound and outbound calls and deal with IT problems, among other functions.
What are the Top Benefits of Hiring Remote Workers?
Here are five benefits of hiring virtual workers for your company:
Virtual Workers are More Productive
While it may sound counterintuitive, virtual workers are more productive than their in-office counterparts. A Global Workplace Analytics survey revealed that virtual workers were 25% more productive than office-based employees.
The survey also reported that 53% of virtual workers were willing to work overtime, compared to a mere 28% of office employees. Another study by TINYpulse found that virtual workers felt 91% more productive. There are four contributing factors for this increase in productivity:
- Virtual workers are less distracted: They’re insulated from the daily distractions common in an office setup. They don’t get sidetracked by office noise, idle chats from colleagues, or impromptu meetings. This makes it easier to focus intensely on work more often.
- Virtual workers can work to their strengths: Remote working allows your employees to work when they’re most productive. They can create routines that complement their lifestyle and support their productive work.
- Virtual workers have more freedom and flexibility: Working remotely can be empowering; you have more freedom and flexibility to design your ideal work environment. It offers autonomy and communicates employer trust.
- Virtual workers avoid the stress of commuting: Long commutes don’t just take up a lot of time; they’re also stressful. By eliminating commutes to work, your virtual workers have more time to work and are less stressed.
Happier workers are more productive.
Reduces In-office Costs
When you hire in-house employees, you have more expenses, such as internet, rent, heating and air conditioning, office supplies, maintenance costs, and miscellaneous expenses.
While you might have to provide your virtual workers with tools like collaboration and communication tools to be effective in their roles, the costs are significantly lower. Research suggests that companies with a virtual workforce save up to $10,000 per employee every year in real estate costs.
Remote working also reduces wasted time, saving you tons of money. Studies show that in-office employees could be wasting 20% of their on-the-clock time or 8 hours per week on non-work-related activities. This can be quite costly for businesses.
With virtual workers, you only pay for the hours spent working on projects.
Access to Global Talent
Hiring employees who need to commute significantly limits your talent pool to your geographical area. But by hiring virtual employees, you can hire skilled and experienced job seekers from anywhere in the world — even across multiple time zones.
This has the additional benefit of making your workforce more diverse. You’ll be recruiting people with widely different ideas and outlooks on life, adding more innovation and creativity to your business.
Hiring virtual workers also makes your company more desirable to employees. Employees’ flexibility is becoming expected of remote work and is one of the millennials’ most important factors. So if you want to attract younger highly-skilled talent, consider hiring virtual workers.
Increases Employee Retention
The cost of recruiting and training a new employee takes up tons of resources and time, and the cost of replacing them is much higher. Research shows that it costs 20% of the salary to replace an employee earning $50,000 per year. For jobs requiring high training and education levels, you can expect even higher turnover costs.
Hiring virtual workers is the best way to improve your employee retention rates. Virtual employees enjoy an excellent work-life balance, resulting in higher job satisfaction and increased loyalty to the company.
Recent studies found that 95% of companies with virtual workers report improved employee retention. This is likely due to the increasing popularity of remote working.
Two-thirds of workers say that they’d take a job if it offered the option to work remotely. This isn’t surprising considering the enormous benefits of remote work. So if you want to attract and retain the best talent, you might have to consider introducing a more robust remote work policy.
Reduces Cost for Employees
Hiring virtual workers isn’t only financially beneficial to the employer; it also saves employees money. Virtual employees can save $5,000 per year they would have otherwise spent commuting, and that’s without factoring in the amount of money that employees spend on coffee breaks, buying lunch, or going out with colleagues after work.
However, you should be mindful of the hidden costs of virtual working, such as phone, electricity, gas bills, and equipment related to work. You should reimburse your virtual workers for these expenses either as a business expense or through salary.
The Hiring Process
In this day and age, it’s easier than ever to find virtual job seekers ready to fill an open position in your organization. Whether it be in customer success, software, tech, etc., Any hiring manager interested in remote talent acquisition will find themselves in the process of a virtual interview.
New Age Interviewing
Video interviewing is riding the wave of the job search future. Recruiters in the organization may find it difficult to pick up on cues like body language and eye contact, but they can typically manage candidates by paying attention to how they speak, their engagement level, and their skillset.
Third-party Resources
Employers can utilize resources such as virtual training programs to save time with onboarding fresh team members. Remote candidates aren’t always easy to recruit, but the right fit with proper guidance can be an essential asset to your organization.
If you’re new to virtual teams, lean on other sites to assist in the process to create a seamless transition for every person involved.
Remote Jobs For Virtual Hires Summary
Now that you’re convinced of the benefits of hiring virtual workers, you need to find the right people. When choosing your remote working team, it’s better to work with a third party to make the hiring process easier.
It will also be more useful to work with Americans instead of virtual workers outside your country or time zone. All our remote workers live in the US and have a college education. Contact us today, and let’s get started finding the right superstars for your team.