How Remote Work Creates Better Employees

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By Robin Madell

When considering work-from-home arrangements, a common theme among employers is remote work’s limitations. But as an outcome of the pandemic, many more companies have had a chance to experience the benefits of having virtual workers, and a growing number of organizations have experienced firsthand the many benefits of working from home for both employees and companies.

FlexJobs informally polled a sample of remote work managers and company executives for their firsthand insights on how remote work creates better employees. Their perspectives are below.

Happier Employees Are More Self-Motivated

As the CEO of an asynchronous hybrid workplace, Kimberly Silva, CEO at FindPeopleFirst, believes that remote work creates more effective employees because it allows for greater flexibility and a higher quality of life, which can make employees happier as well. Remote work “can alleviate the stress of long commutes and the costs associated with living in a more expensive city,” said Silva.

Bradley Bonnen, founder and CEO of iFlooded Restoration, agreed. “There will be no more commuting delays or wasted time,” said Bonnen. “Because of traffic jams, disrupted bus or rail schedules, or even flat tires, eight out of 10 employees report they’ve been late to work at least once. It’s not nice to spend a long period crammed into a tube with dozens of other people or battling rush hour traffic on long commutes. It also puts a damper on your employees’ energy and punctuality, which can have a bad impact on your business.”

Better Scheduling Options

For businesses open 24-hours a day, seven days a week, remote work can help with shift management, according to Adam Wood, Cofounder of RevenueGeeks. “Consider CNN or the crisis response teams of social media giants like TikTok and Twitter,” said Wood. “That presents a problem: few people are willing to work unsociable hours or nocturnal shifts! Remote work, when combined with the correct staff auditing and security solutions, can eliminate this issue completely.”

Erik Hansen, an HR Consultant at Right People Group, also believes that the biggest benefit of working remotely is that employees are able to take on assignments that fit their schedules. “For example, I usually work during the day, but I know that some of my coworkers like to work at night because they have kids,” said Hansen. “If we were all in an office together, it would be difficult for them to find a job that fits their schedule. But because we’re all remote, they’re able to work when they want and still be a part of the team.”

Energy Management Leads to Greater Productivity

Luis Magalhães, the Founder and Editor-at-Large of ThinkRemote and Director of Marketing at the remote recruitment agency DistantJob, has been managing editorial teams remotely for the past 20 years and training teammates to do so for nearly as long. Magalhães points to employees’ ability to manage when they work to maximize their energy and peak productivity times as a key benefit of remote work.

“There’s nothing better than an employee who decides to wake up at 4:30 a.m. so they can use their morning power hours to get their tasks done before all the Slack buzzing resumes,” Magalhães said. “Of course, people who feel more productive on the 9-to-5 needn’t forgo it. The point is that—if you provide a flexible environment and hire people with good time management skills—your employees will be at their absolute best much more often.”

The growing consensus is that rather than hurting individual or business performance, remote work actually creates more effective employees. From improving retention by creating happier employees who eliminate commuting and can set schedules that work for everyone to being able to rely on workers at their peak productivity, working from home has emerged as a clear strategy that helps businesses, as well as remote workers themselves.

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