Remote Work

April 6, 2020

All about the work-from-home life

Remote work is more than just a fad. Aside from its current necessity, it’s been gaining popularity quickly as more and more employees add it to their list of requirements when job hunting. Why? Because we all want a flexible schedule that allows us to make a living while still retaining the freedom to live without so much restriction.

Accessible

By 2028, 73% of all departments will have remote workers. Gen Zers are practically digital natives, and this familiarity is reshaping the workforce. Younger managers are allowing their team members to work from home. Remote work also presents an opportunity for companies to expand their talent pools to parents, employees who work multiple jobs, or out-of-state workers.

Economical

Working from home contributes £18.5 billion to the UK economy each year, and is expected to soar to £74 billion by 2020.That’s because remote workers don’t require a set working space or incur other costs like commuting, hardware, or electricity and internet bills. Remote work is no longer a benefit, but a make or break condition of employment.

Environmentally friendly

Telecommuters reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to 600,000 cars.  It’s simple: the fewer people travel, the fewer cars they use, the lower emission they produce.  Working from home also reduces the need to use disposable cups or wrapped food.

Preference

74% of workers would gladly leave their current jobs to obtain the option of working from home occasionally. Keeping employees happy will guarantee they will stay with the company for a long time.  A policy that allows for a “trial period” will give employees the option to see if remote work works for them, and it also shows them that the company has their best intentions at hand.

Before looking into the potential pros and cons, as well as some tips on how to ensure your remote work setup is optimised, check out our chat with Ben Leeves (Consider Creative) where we explore the current landscape and how it can offer innovative opportunities to agencies:

Pros vs. Cons

Being able to accommodate a schedule that suits your everyday needs sounds like a fantastic option. However, like everything in life, there are two sides to remote work.

PROS

Remote work allows employees to not travel for work which has an incredible impact both in the environment and their pockets. Employers also can reduce costs by setting up offices in flexible co-working spaces. However, let’s talk about how it can impact your everyday life:

CONS

Many companies are still reluctant to let their employees work remotely for several reasons. Generally, this is due to company culture, trust or the fact that company operations require a face-to-face approach and digitalisation is still not a priority. Here is the other side of the coin: 

 How do I do it?

Venturing into the world of remote work is more straightforward than it sounds. The team at Purr is no stranger to remote work, and we have been able to run efficient and healthy business operations thanks to three essential steps:

Some company setups will allow the company’s IT team to create a VPN for you. This secure tunnel would then give you the encrypted access you need to the vital files stored on your office network, which allows you to set up shop anywhere, with peace of mind.

Some of our clients take extra security measures to lock down systems like servers and databases by only allowing access from specific IP addresses. For this reason, Purr uses static IP addresses (an IP address that does not change) with our VPN  to solve this problem and provide login access to everyone in the team, so when they connect to the VPN, their IP address will now become the static IP. This means that when a team member is not in the office, they can access the restricted systems wherever they are in the world.

Purr Recommends

Being proactive in setting up systems and processes that allow remote work will prepare your team in different situations like offices closing temporarily or, like in 2020, the Covid-19 outbreak.

Using tools that have been created specifically for your company’s needs will unify your team’s communications and efforts to continue operating seamlessly.

This approach will help your business differentiate itself from similar companies. The proper application of tech will allow you to stay relevant to existing and new customers in any given situation.

The implementation of all these will help resonate across your team and give you an advantage over your competitors.

Get in touch

Either contact us using the details below, or fill out this form to send your message. If you’ve got a brief ready then attach that too. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. info@purrgroup.com +44 (0) 20 3137 5612 86-90 Paul Street,
Shoreditch,
London EC2A 4NE

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