What is remote work? Pre-pandemic, many people would have had a vague idea, perhaps with visions of working on a laptop from a swinging hammock in Bali.
But remote work became a lifeline for companies around the world during COVID. More people became accustomed to working from home, and it ultimately changed the way we approach work-life balance.
Working remotely means increased flexibility for both businesses and their employees.
But what does working remotely mean in 2024? How does it affect employers and employees? And how can you support your remote workforce to drive productivity and happiness?
Let’s dive in.
What does remote work mean?
Just as it sounds, remote work means performing one’s job from a remote location that’s physically away from the office.
While traditional work arrangements mean coming into an office every day, remote employees perform their jobs from off-site locations, using digital collaboration and communication tools, document sharing, and other functions to bring the office to them.
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Many such employees work from home, but in fact, remote work can generally be done from anywhere. Though some may choose to stay home permanently, others do their jobs from diverse locations. Common places for remote work can include:
- Home
- Coffee shops
- Coworking spaces
- Public libraries
- Hotels
- Family vacation homes
- Temporary and diverse geographic locations while living a “digital nomad” lifestyle
- Anywhere with computer access and an internet connection
How do people work remotely?
Some jobs, such as factory work and retail sales, require employees to perform their work in a specific physical location. Other roles like customer service, consultancy, and others have fewer limitations.
People working remotely can be employed on a full-time, part-time, contract, or project basis, and the actual terms of their arrangements can vary.
There are, however, two common models for remote work:
- Permanent
- Flexible (or hybrid)
In permanent remote work, the entirety of a person’s job is performed outside of the office. Everything from paperwork to team meetings and conference calls happens from the remote employee’s home or chosen location. They typically would have no reason to come into an office as they have access to all the information and tools they need to stay productive from anywhere.
Permanent remote employees are often part of remote teams, meaning all of their coworkers also work from home permanently. While such teams may have never met in person, they use collaboration and communication platforms to achieve common objectives and impart a sense of team and company culture.
Flexible remote work, also called hybrid work, is a combined working arrangement. Here, an employee is allowed to work from home but goes into the office sometimes.
Some flexible remote work arrangements have set schedules in which people have specific days for working remotely and going into the office. Others may have flexible schedules in which the employee can work remotely most of the time and go into the office on an as-needed basis, for example, to attend client and team meetings.
In the US, 71% of businesses plan to make some kind of flexible remote work a permanent option, permitting many or most employees to do remote work from home at least one day a week.
Remote work benefits for employees
While not having to come into the office every day may seem instinctually attractive, you might be wondering whether there are provable benefits of remote working for individual employees.
The good news is there are numerous remote work pros that can improve both an employee’s wellbeing and their work:
1. Better work-life balance
Working from home essentially cancels out the time required to travel to and from work, giving back remote employees several hours a week.
According to McKinsey’s American Opportunity Survey, 83% of employees say they’re able to work more efficiently and be more productive when working remotely. The ability to better focus for extended periods of time means they can potentially get their work done faster. Altogether, this leaves employees with more time for personal matters, promoting better work-life balance.
2. Healthier lifestyle
Because remote work and flexible schedules often go hand-in-hand, remote workers may have an easier time meeting the demands of a healthy lifestyle. For example, remote work from home can be more conducive to fitting in a workout during the day or cooking a healthier lunch, things that can be difficult to do from the office.
Nearly 60% of office workers reported that their stress levels have increased in the past year compared to just 36% of remote workers. Lower stress may reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, depression, and other conditions.
3. Happier at work
In a study tracking symptoms of burnout in remote and office-based workers 42% of remote employees reported high levels of happiness — double the number of office workers.
This increased happiness can compound other benefits of working remotely, both personal and professional, by contributing to a reduction in stress, better productivity, camaraderie with remote team members, and other advantages.
Remote work benefits for businesses
If you’re wondering whether companies benefit from allowing employees to work from home, you probably don’t need to look much further than the fact that after trying out remote work in 2020, companies such as Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook have all decided to allow employees to work from home permanently.
Indeed, there are many significant remote work advantages for businesses too:
1. Employee engagement
With better work-life balance, greater productivity, an ability to live healthier lifestyles, and other benefits for remote employees, it’s no surprise remote work from home makes workers more engaged.
Flexible schedules that allow people to work remotely build more positive employee experiences that lead to better business outcomes, including lower absenteeism, better quality work and higher profitability.
2. Higher retention
Research from Stanford shows that resignations fell by 33% among workers who changed from working in the office full time to a more flexible hybrid schedule.
Creating more flexibility for workers and letting them work how they want to work doesn’t only mean they’re less likely to quit. It also increases engagement, satisfaction, motivation, and loyalty, all of which further increase retention.
3. Better talent attraction
Owl Labs’ State of Hybrid Work 2023 report shows that 66% of employees are in the office full-time, yet only 22% want to be.
These stats underscore the importance of allowing remote working as a recruitment strategy. In fact, the same McKinsey survey mentioned earlier shows that a flexible working arrangement is a top three motivating factor in finding a new job, only behind greater pay or hours and better career opportunities.
4. Cost savings
One of the greatest potential benefits of remote work is to remote companies’ bottom lines. Remote work offers numerous cost savings for businesses, including a reduction in spending on:
- Real estate costs such as office rent
- Office utilities and maintenance
- Food (cafeterias, catering)
- Payroll
- Recruitment and onboarding costs due to higher retention
4 Remote working challenges
Yes, remote working brings myriad benefits. But that doesn’t mean you can make the switch overnight.
From managing communication to providing the right technology, there are some things to consider to ensure you reap the benefits.
1. Ensuring teams stay connected
When everyone is working in a different place, communication and collaboration don’t happen automatically. You need to make sure the distance doesn’t affect the quality of people’s work or timeframe they’re working in.
Take the time to identify the best communication and collaboration tools and clearly define with your team what each platform should be used for. These should be easy to set up and use and ideally integrate with each other.
Employing an all-in-one solution like RingCentral RingEX for team messaging, phone calls, and video conferencing is one way to make staying in contact remotely as natural as it is at the office.
Other solutions to consider include project management software, CRMs, and other tools.
2. Managing professional development
It’s often thought that as remote workers aren’t seen as often, they’re overlooked when it comes to promotions. This may or may not be a myth, but it’s still a challenge that you need to consider to ensure there’s no bias.
Remote workers should have equal opportunities for networking and mentoring as well as access to training and professional development resources.
3. Caring for employee mental health
Working remotely can result in isolation and loneliness, which can have a negative impact on employees’ mental health. The lack of social interaction can make people feel like they’re not part of a team, which can increase stress levels and reduce motivation.
Regular meetings, brainstorming sessions, and even virtual coffee breaks and team building activities create a sense of camaraderie and support your team’s mental well-being.
4. Maintaining boundaries
We mentioned earlier that many remote workers suffer from reduced burnout and stress. But some people may struggle to find a work-life balance if they have a lack of routine, suffer from a lot of distractions, or let their work hours bleed outside of normal times.
As a team leader, it’s important to ensure your remote team members keep their professional and personal lives separate. Encourage them to set boundaries and create a consistent work schedule just like they would in an office.
How can organizations support remote work?
Though research shows that remote workers can be more productive than office-bound workers and may do better on metrics such as job engagement and satisfaction, these benefits don’t happen without support.
They require proactive thought and planning about best practices for managing remote workers, the vital tools to stay productive, and many other facets of work life that may be taken for granted in the office.
How can businesses get the best results from remote work? Here are the main three pillars to consider:
1. Company culture
Numerous studies have found significant links between a strong company culture and other metrics of business success, including employee engagement, job satisfaction, and loyalty.
Much like developing societal norms, creating a work culture typically requires a high level of interaction and bonding, with behaviors and attitudes that are reinforced through the modeling of coworkers, leadership, and management.
A strong company culture involves laying a foundation established on self-reflection, research, and employee feedback. Next, companies must take steps to communicate their vision and integrate it with all aspects of work. For remote workforces this requires more intentional effort, with an emphasis on growing trust, camaraderie, and a shared sense of purpose via everyday remote workplace interactions.
2. Management and leadership
Managing remote workers requires a rethink of what management means. Given that most remote employees have high levels of productivity and are good at getting their work done, it’s safe to say that experienced remote workers don’t need a boss peering over their shoulder to make sure they do their job.
But they do need other forms of support. On an everyday basis, this might include help with time management, tools to stay productive, or better collaboration strategies.
There are also some bigger-picture ways management and leadership can better support remote workforces. For example, a lack of visibility from higher up may contribute to remote workers’ concerns about recognition and career advancement.
It’s important that people working remotely understand that managers and leaders are invested in their success, with regular touchpoints to ensure a flow of open communication. This may require different management tools and processes than would be used in the office, such as weekly one-on-one check-ins via video conferencing.
3. Technology
There is a reason that it took so long for remote work to become mainstream. Remote workforces require unique tools that allow them to flexibly perform their jobs from anywhere—and these simply didn’t exist a decade ago.
While you might have been able to get some work done from home on the occasional sick day, there’s a good chance your phone was going unanswered and you had to make do without critical documents and tools.
Cloud computing has changed all that. Now, instead of being able to access services and information only from within the network, remote employees are generally able to log on to tools and services online, essentially transporting the office to their location via an internet connection.
What tools do remote workers need to do their jobs? While the specific solutions may vary based on an individual’s role, some must-have tools for remote work include:
- Conference calling platforms
- Team messaging app
- Video conferencing solutions
- Work management software that allows team members to share and track projects
- Collaboration tools
- Secure document sharing
- Employee information and resource portals
How to choose the best tools for remote workers
While many solutions for each of the above categories are available, it is important to consider the unique requirements of remote workforces in selecting the right alternatives.
There are several things remote companies should consider:
1. Security
Without the protection of gated office environments and networks, remote companies should think about how information and communications will be protected. In selecting a cloud provider for any type of service, pay close attention to security standards, certifications and protocols, as well as any industry-specific compliance requirements.
2. Ease of use
Excessive and redundant apps, complicated tools that waste people’s time, outages, and other technology issues can cause frustration for remote employees, and also erode productivity and job satisfaction.
Look for tools that are intuitive to use, integrate seamlessly with other solutions and workflows, and don’t make remote work any more of a hassle than getting the job done in the office.
For instance, a unified communications solution like RingCentral RingEX can bring all your communications onto one platform. No more app-hopping and hours searching for the right information for your remote workers.
3. Scalability
One benefit of remote work for businesses is that it can be easier to scale workforces up and down based on need—things like office space and where to physically put everyone are not an issue.
However, for companies to scale efficiently, all employees need to be able to access critical tools from the start. Solutions that allow remote employers to quickly provision employees as needed help companies to better realize the full benefits of remote work.
What is remote work? It’s the present and the future of business
Now that so many businesses have experienced the benefits of remote work, it’s unlikely the workforce will ever fully go back to the office.
Working from home—or anywhere—offers benefits for employers and employees alike. But it also requires careful planning and the implementation of new tools and processes to help teams work closely, even when they’re not close physically.
View a free demo today to see how RingCentral could help you harness the benefits of remote working.
Remote work FAQs
What is remote working as compared to hybrid working?
Remote working is when an employee—or a whole team—does all of their work from a non-centralized location. They would, therefore, never come into an office or physical workplace. Hybrid working, on the other hand, is an arrangement where workers sometimes work remotely but also work on-premises on occasion.
Is remote work the same as “working from home”?
Working remotely and working from home are often used synonymously. For the most part, remote workers will choose to work from their own home most of the time. However, they might also work from a coffee shop or a coworking space
Originally published Jul 12, 2024, updated Jul 19, 2024
