The secret ingredient for employee retention
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Staff retention has always been a pillar for organisational success. Ongoing learning opportunities, employee benefits and work-life balance are just some of the factors considered when strategising on employee retention. Now, after the pandemic, remote work flexibility has been added to this mix.
It has been fascinating to watch how the global work landscape pivoted to accommodate social distancing norms. Remote work seems firmly planted in our present and future. According to a report released by the Pew Research Center, work-from-home flexibility is no longer a perk but an expectation. 60 per cent of workers want to have the flexibility to work from home at least some of the time. This is a sharp increase from 2020, when the same metric was at 6 per cent. While remote work was not fully supported by organisations in the pre-pandemic era, there has been widespread acceptance of remote work and the hybrid work culture by most employers.
In fact, the tide has turned so much that a recent McKinsey report indicates that 58 per cent of Americans now have the opportunity to work from home at least once a week.
There are many factors that make this mode of working popular. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Work-life balance like never before
Employees can work from wherever they want and avoid long hours of commute. Apart from pockets of time for collaboration with colleagues and others, employees can choose to work whenever they want. This allows them more time to spend with their families.
Inclusion and diversity to the fore
Flexible work models enhance your ability to build high-performance teams as you are able to access diverse talent across different target groups and meet the needs of a diverse team. This could include women who would prefer to work from home as it aligns best with the needs of their family. It could also be those with disabilities that make commuting difficult. Remote work is a great leveller of the playing field and allows equal opportunity to a talent pool that was previously not accessible to you.
Attract talent from anywhere in the world
Remote work pushes down all geographical barriers, allowing you the flexibility to cast your net wider and hire the right people from any part of the world. It also prevents you from losing employees because they wanted to move to a different location owing to personal reasons, like co-locating with their spouse.
Increased productivity
Working remotely allows for fewer distractions and interruptions that come with typical offices. This means that the time employees spend at work is more productive. This aligns with an ongoing survey conducted by a combined team of researchers from the University of Chicago, ITAM, and MIT. The research cited indicates that people who work in a hybrid work environment are at least nine per cent more efficient working from home.
This, however, does not mean that remote work is the panacea for all your employee retention and productivity challenges. It comes with its own set of challenges, like differences in work ethic and perceived status differences between in-person and remote workers. It could also lead to a lack of communication and access to information.
You can begin to address these and bridge the gap between in-person and remote workers by holding remote first meetings and ensuring uniform pay regardless of their mode of work (in-person or remote). Encourage employees to create virtual break rooms to foster communication and camaraderie. Ensure that your promotions are fair and transparent.
Make sure to build a work environment for remote work as it’s a sure shot way to increase employee retention. According to Gusto data, a fully remote worker is 13 per cent less likely to quit in the first three months. So, it’s crucial to your business to build a strong and sustainable remote work environment. To know more about remote hiring, please take a look at HirePro’s virtual hiring solutions.
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