While many businesses have seen and taken advantage of remote staffing, there are still a lot of misconceptions that prevent others from getting on board. In many ways, outsourcing would actually benefit their lives, depending on the types of jobs outsourced of course.
REDUCED WORKLOAD
Leading off with a direct example, having only sales specialists means that they have to source their own leads, do their own backend work, etc. By hiring a remote lead generations specialist or a backend administrator, you can effectively cut the workload off your sales team by a third. Having a sales team focus on their specialty instead of being tied up with data mining, updating spreadsheets, or fixing documents leads to more sales which means your top and bottom line can grow.
This reduced workload can also lead to in country employees gaining the time to upskill themselves. Upskilling employees is a form of empowerment that leads to higher employee engagement and retention, even within your remote staff.
INCREASE IN DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET
This may seem contradictory. How would hiring remote staff equate to having a bigger budget? This comes in two parts with one dependent on your in office staff performing better with less tasks. In line with the previous topic of reduced workloads, with your staff now able to focus more on their main tasks and generate more revenue, you would have more money for expansion. The second part comes in the reduced expense of salaries with a remote team. Take a team of customer service representatives for example, you can have a customer service agent work for $400 USD a month, a team of five would only cost you $2,000 a month. With the extra money saved, you can begin to grow your other departments.
The lower salary seems like a threat to US jobs, but there are two sides to this. Obviously the jobs that are being given to remote workers are taken, but it doesn’t have to be an entire department of remote workers. There are many companies using remote workers in addition to their already existing staff, for example tech or software companies will hire one or two remote developers to assist their already existing department. The other, less thought of side is that it creates new jobs. With a sales example, having a remote customer service department will bring in new potential customers, creating the need for a bigger sales team which means more local jobs.
IMMEDIATE HELP
If you’ve ever had a big project due and deadlines couldn’t be extended, remote staff would be a cost effective and time efficient option. The hiring time in other countries is much faster, especially in South East Asia, depending on the position, the requisitioned position could be filled and the new staff could be working in one to two weeks. The cherry on top would be that the staff could be hired as a project or contract based employee, meaning that after the project or agreed upon timeframe is past, the two parties can part.
Technology is advancing to the point where employees don’t have to actually be in the office. Extending this idea, they don’t even have to be in the same country, which allows you to save on salary expenses. Though this idea scares employees, it should actually encourage them. The benefits they directly receive from having remote staff means they can function at a higher capacity, it also allows the company to grow and allocate more financial resources to other areas.