Necessity is still the mother of invention
For over 30 years, we have been a company that prides itself on having a real work-life balance. Not just for partners or management, but for everyone in the organization. We are by all measures a family. We socialized together, we knew each other’s loved ones, birthdays and shared the ups and downs of life. Our office was sort of second home. When it came time for us to end our lease after 22 years in that “home,” we were worried about how that would affect the family. In July of 2019, as we began to look for our next perfect home, we decided to “temporarily” have everyone work remotely.
Our communication, our meetings, our work … it would all be in the cloud.
Nine months later, the family is closer than ever.
It started with moving all of our data off of our cumbersome, expensive servers to a remote site in the cloud. Everyone’s individual workstations are set up in their home offices, and Google G Suite is our new best friend, connecting all of us to the great server in the sky as well as to each other. Our work product is essentially our collective creativity and collaboration is critical to what we do so we maintained a physical conference site where we could congregate for regular meetings.
But a funny thing happened on the way to our search for a new home. We found that our regular video meetings were resulting in more collaboration than we ever experienced when we were physically together. The “Brady Bunch” screen each morning where team members are on screen together has been a revelation: real time chatting, sharing individual screens, critiquing one another’s work, discussing scheduling, and talking together about what’s happening on all fronts has been a spark to the pace and the depth of our work together. The lower stress levels that result from our group of “non-commuters” has created a positive and energetic work environment. Traffic is no longer a factor. Neither is weather or geography.
And guess what: no one is late for work anymore!
This all seemed to be too good to be true … So we inquired: are there statistics that support this?
Well, … there are. Here’s what we found…
-16% of companies exclusively hire remote workers.*
-Companies allowing remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t.*
-76% of workers would be more willing to stay with their current employer if they could work flexible hours.*
-People who work remotely at least once a month are 24% more likely to be happy and productive.*
-The number of people who work from home has increased by 140% since 2005.*
-4.3 million people in the USA work from home at least half the time.*
OK, so we didn’t invent this great concept. But we are certainly embracing it. What began as a temporary necessity has become a terrific new way of life for us. The work-life balance that is so important to our philosophy is thriving and growing. And our client partners, now thrown into this “brave new work remotelyworld” have found our head start and expertise to be a huge advantage. And with these uncertain times, the lower operating costs have actually made us more cost effective and competitive, which we think helps everyone as we navigate through what may be a prolonged period of disruption.
The technology is available, affordable and works very well. The need is here and more real than ever. In a trying time for all of us, the opportunity to make one segment of our lives feel less uprooted is so important. We didn’t invent this, but we’re certainly glad that necessity gave birth to it.
*Source: https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/remote-work-statistics/