This article is based on my 17+ years in IT and my 12 years as a remote Software Architect/CTO building complex SaaS tax software at 1/20^th of industry average cost.  (Yes, 1/20^th… based on several key metrics)

Highlights: How to Increase Worker Productivity

• Research consistently shows improved productivity, morale, and decreased absenteeism from remote workers
• In today’s connected world, online social interaction is the norm, and you probably already have the tools to support remote work
• Only 2.6% of the current workforce works remotely full-time, but 40% of professionals would leave their current job for a remote opportunity, and 30% would leave their job for a more flexible job¹
• Instead of spending $$$ to bring home to the office, save $$$, be greener, and bring the office home
• Which is the better investment; lavish offices with maintenance staff, insurance, etc. or morale boosting company trips, additional employees, and/or better tools|software|hardware?

The Idea is Simple, Embrace Flexible/Telecommute Work

It is simpler than you think to embrace telecommute work, and the benefits are astounding.  Every research study completed within the last 15 years has come to the same conclusions; improved productivity, reduced absenteeism, and more hours worked.  Yet, only 2.6% of the current workforce works remotely according to the latest stats available.  Even worse, the growth of remote workers has actually decreased from 2005.  But introducing remote work opportunities is much easier than you think.

Bucking the Current Office Trend

The current trend is to spend lavishly on creating a beautiful open-concept office with foosball, ping pong, free sodas, and more… to create a hip work culture.  In other words, spend a ton of money to make the office more like home.  All this to try and get you to forget about that 1 hour commute each way, noisy neighbors interrupting you constantly, and management that thinks they are like google|twitter|facebook because they provide an unlimited supply of mountain dew.

This trend is supposed to provide an advantage due to increased collaboration.  Yet, more people spend more of their personal time collaborating online than in-person.  For some reason, businesses think that what works for our social lives cannot possibly work for our business lives.  They could not be more wrong.

Imagine if instead of facebook, twitter, etc., you had to meet all your friends in-person in order to accomplish any social interaction.  Planning a BBQ sometime; let’s schedule a time to meet, to figure out when everybody could do it.  Hmmm, does not sound very productive, yet that is where most US (especially tech) management are today.

Visionary entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Carlos Slim and others are embracing the trend of flexible and remote work, but few in the US are.  Sometimes in business you have to question trends, and this is a prime example.  While Google|FB|twitter enjoy monopoly-like status in $Billion industries, you probably do not.  They can afford to spend $Billions on lavish offices, and $126k/yr on entry-level software engineers, you most likely cannot.

Why Go Remote?

How does this increase productivity?

1. Less interruptions; Did you know that studies show a single interruption can take more than 23 minutes to resume from?
2. Fosters self-reliance and creativity.  Rather than your junior employees constantly asking your most productive worker how to resolve an issue, remote workers are more likely to learn to resolve it themselves.  With google, stackexchange, blogs, linkedIn, etc. there are numerous resources to find answers.  While I encourage my coworkers to contact me, it was expected that they make a good attempt at resolving the issue themselves first.  People simply learn more by doing, than be being told what to do. There are still plenty of opportunities for collaboration, mentoring and team building!
3. More time at work.  The average remote worker will spend 75% of the time saved on commute at work.  With the average daily commute at 46 min, that is 34.5 minutes of extra work a day
4. Morale/culture.  It is simple; there is no better culture for most people, than the one at home.  In my experience the motivational factor of working from home cannot be underestimated.  Morale is rarely due to foosball, sodas, etc., it is fostered by the actions of management to customers, employees, and the market.  Spending $millions or $billions is a luxury for some, for others it is just trying to put a bandage on that minor leg scratch, when the leg’s been shot off.
5. Money for other productivity gains.  Need to upgrade desktops to quad monitors, add SSDs, invest in training, buy new servers… imagine everything that could be done with the money saved from office expenses.
6. Inspires better tools and process.  When we started remote work in 2002, we managed with Visual SourceSafe, phones and email.  Today, there are all kinds of remote-enabling tools available.  If the organization does not already have good project management, communication, and other work tools in-place, then going remote may force the organization to implement better tools and processes.  A win-win for all.
7. Encourages work-based assessments.  A large number of employee complaints stem from managers playing favorites or rewarding based on something other than work productivity.  Remote work forces the organization to reasonably measure productivity, rather than office politics.
8. Reduced sick time.  Up to 25% according to some studies.

How does it save costs?

1. Office costs can be enormous.  Lease rates, buildout costs, maintenance staff, electricity, sodas, food, insurance, they all add up.  You might want to use some money towards quarterly/annual meetings, but just imagine what kind of meetings you could have to boost morale with all those savings!
2. Salaries.  31.9% of workers would actually take a paycut of up to 10% in order to work remotely.  Many of those workers are experienced and willing to work remotely for less than they would in an office.  If your company is in a high salary location like NY, San Fran, LA, … then you can save approximately 40-60% on salary costs alone, just by being able to hire anywhere.
3. Ability to effectively utilize offshore resources.  If you are already setup for remote US workers, then it is easier to add remote offshore workers.  The pros and cons I leave to other articles.  Just remember that a good worker can be 28x more productive than the worst, so it is not all about the cost.

What are the problems with remote workers?

1. Reduced oversight.  If you are a manager that has to have more direct control, remote work may not be for you.  I would also point out the obvious; just because someone is sitting at their desk, it does not make them productive or even working for that matter.  Many would argue that the most effective managers measure the results.  After all, would you rather have an employee working 60 hrs/week but producing 10 widgets, or an employee working 20 hours/week producing 20 widgets?  Do you really need to see your employees at their desk to ‘know’ that they are working?
2. Loss of culture.  Many companies today mistake free soda and pool tables as ‘culture.’  Yet you will find the managers ill-equipped to actual manage employees, improve morale, set vision and goals, or do other critical things to create and maintain the company culture.  I would recommend with some of the money saved from offices to splurge on quarterly or bi-annual meetings.  Even without that, your employees will still talk frequently, forge friendships and do 90% of the positive things they would have done in an office.
3. Process/Technology X requires colocation.  Some people will claim that a certain process requires physical colocation.  For the most part, that is false, especially in today’s online interconnected world.  There will be some limited scenarios where physical colocation is important, but it should be very limited.  For example, in programming there is a concept known as paired development, where 2 developers sit at the same computer.  Only one developer is actually programming, while the other is mentoring, watching, learning, etc.  In today’s world even that can be done remotely using shared screen tools.

Conclusion

If you want a more productive, engaged workforce, embrace flexible work environments.  I leave the how to future discussions….

¹ 2014 Survey, GotGuru online survey of 249 self-identified professionals

²http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/research-cubicles-are-the-absolute-worst/, http://www.inc.com/adam-vaccaro/when-transparency-and-productivity-are-at-odds.html , http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/09/12/a-case-against-the-office-cubicle/