DE Talk Unplugged: The Hidden Benefits of Remote Work

by | Oct 6, 2022 | Networking and Education

Two and a half years into the pandemic, many workers are still working from home. While some employers have plans to return to the office or have already returned, others are considering hybrid models, or even giving up their office space to remain fully remote. Still, much debate remains – is remote work beneficial to the employee, the employer, or both? In this episode of the DE Talk podcast, Ruth Toombs and Steven Apostolidis of Recruit Rooster sit down to chat about the hidden benefits of remote work and share some important things to consider when determining if remote work is right for your workforce. Here’s a quick look into this insightful conversation!

Ruth Toombs in the DE Talk studio

Ruth Toombs:

What we’ve really been looking at over the past well, three years now, including us, we were a company that worked as a hybrid, at least one to two days at home, and then suddenly everybody’s at home. So, this has raised a lot of questions and some anxiety with employers and even employees. And as far as looking at the current remote space, it used to have such a terrible reputation. Don’t you agree?

Steven Apostolidis:
Yeah, absolutely. And there’s entire industries that have been born from it, all the different software to make sure that you can actually track whether or not somebody’s mouse is moving. Everybody was always suspicious and dreading the idea that they didn’t have somebody to hold them accountable.

But it’s really proven, especially even through the anecdotes we can give about Recruit Rooster and DirectEmployers, it doesn’t really seem to actually come to fruition the way people thought it would. So, it’s been very productive on our end. I know we’ve had some of the best years these last two years.

Ruth Toombs:
Absolutely, and you mentioned something that was the biggest thing, it’s a lack of trust with your employees. And I think that puts a lot of pressure on the interview process. Instead of just crossing your fingers and sending employees home and thinking, well, are they going to work or not? Have a much better interview process and onboarding process so you can know, well, this is the person that I’ve hired versus I don’t know who I’ve hired.

Steven Apostolidis:
Most definitely, and that’s what I’ve always thought too, is if you’re going to hire somebody in, you either trust them or you don’t. If you think they had the work ethic that was actually worthy of you turning them into a full-time employee, at that point you should show them that same respect and say, “Hey, I thought you were qualified. I still think you’re qualified. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt to do your job.”

Ruth Toombs:
Absolutely, and that’s a way to definitely allow your employees to thrive. If you feel trusted, you feel valued. If you don’t trust your employees, that employee’s not going to feel valued. So that’s just opinion only, so we can look at some data here.

Remote work, according to projections in Forbes, 25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022. And that does not take into account, of course, global. And remote opportunities will continue to increase through 2023. That’s an incredible stat, so a quarter of the workforce is going to be working from home. So, sounds like employers have probably got to get on board.

Steven Apostolidis recording the DE Talk podcast

Steven Apostolidis:
Yeah, and especially when they start seeing some of these savings. I know there’s a lot of companies, even in our area, we’re in the office today, but even the surrounding office park, a lot of them are still sitting empty. And that’s a lot of hemorrhaged lease money every single month going into some of these buildings.

Ruth Toombs:
100%, and that takes us to that. There was a survey done and it asked about a thousand full-time employees, 505 of whom who were remote employees throughout the U.S., about their work habits and their productivity.

So, the results indicate that remote workers are actually more productive than their office-based counterparts. So, the study found the following. Steven, I’ll let you hit number one…

To uncover the results in depth, as well as the most common reasons employers are resistant to remote work, listen to the full episode! Want more DE Talk? Stay tuned for a special NDEAM episode coming soon – and be sure to sign up for email notifications or text alerts when new episodes become available!

Kacie Koons
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