Moving to Remote Working
Have you already started to let employees work outside of your offices? Sure, Sales have been doing it forever. But what about the jobs that have not traditionally been done somewhere else. In today’s hyper-connected world, it is almost impossible for a business not to be working from everywhere, but the question is: are you covering your corporate rear-end?
Remote Worker is Trending Upwards
Many companies have just let employees start remote work, so it happens without planning or forethought. Have you put together some standard teleworking forms that employees sign and quickly forget about? With about 3.4 million people in the USA alone working remotely as employees, you can double that number if you include freelancers (Independent Contractors). As an employer, you need to have a well-thought-out set of policies and tools to ensure your business is covered.
Remote work for Employer Impact
As an employer, you gain benefits and take some minuses
Employer Positives
- Less office space costs
- There is a broader selection of candidates, not just the ones near you, for those positions requiring specific skills and abilities.
- Studies show that workers who can work from home are more productive, happier, and work longer hours than their office-based colleagues.
Employer Negatives
- Collect sales taxes if an employee’s physical location can create a taxable location for the business. If you have just one employee in a state, the state can claim that you have a business presence in the state and require you to collect taxes or comply with the local laws within the state, like labor laws.
- Managing income taxes and other employee costs that the employer must pay for the employee in a different location.
- Time Zones Just how remote is remote? If the employee is far away, you may only have small windows of overlapping times to collaborate live. Make sure the work can be done asynchronously.
We have been helping companies plan, implement, and learn to thrive with a remote workforce no matter where their team members are in the world.
What is your company’s Remote Work practices? Please share it with us here in the comments section below.
