Remote Staffing: Definition, Benefits, Challenges, Statistics

With the rise of remote working culture comes a rise in remote staffing or remote jobs. Although companies have been hiring remote workers for a couple of years now, this practice has seen significant growth in the years following the COVID-19 global pandemic.

In this blog, we will look at the various facets of remote staffing, including its definition, benefits, and challenges. We will also learn how remote staffing differs from outsourcing and how Office Beacon can be your ideal remote assistant provider partner.

What Is Remote Staffing?

Remote employees, as the name implies, are those remote virtual assistants you hire to work on your projects and assignments but who work outside the workplace. You can source these remote talents on your own or collaborate with remote staffing companies like Office Beacon to manage your staffing needs.

Remote staffing is increasingly becoming a viable option for small and medium-sized businesses with fluctuating staffing needs and a limited budget. These businesses can scale their resources as needed thanks to remote employees, eliminating unnecessary human resource expenses.

Remote hiring may sound similar to outsourcing, but it is not. How? Let’s find out.

Remote Staffing Vs Outsourcing– What’s The Difference?

Although remote staffing and outsourcing appear to be similar strategies, a fine line separates them.

For example, in the case of remote staffing, the employees you hire will only work for you, on your projects. In other words, remote workers are the same as your in-house employees, except they are stationed somewhere other than the office. You have complete control over those employees and can use them as needed.

On the other hand, when you outsource the work, your only priority is to get that job done within the deadline. You don’t have to be worried about who is working on your project, where they are stationed, or anything else.

All you do is simply outsource the project to a white-label service provider or an outsourcing company and wait for it to be completed before the deadline.

The bottom line is that with remote staffing, you get a dedicated team of employees who work solely on your projects, and you have complete control over them.

Whereas, in the case of outsourcing, you assign the project to a third-party company and expect it to be completed before the deadline. You have no control over the employees who are working on the project.

5 Key Benefits of Remote Staffing For Companies

The following are some of the major advantages of remote workers for companies. Let’s take a quick look at each one.

A. Access to Global Talent Pool

The first significant advantage of hiring remote workers or opting for remote jobs is having access to a global talent pool. In the case of in-office work, where geographical location is a major constraint, you have to hire employees from nearby areas only. 

This will limit your access to qualified human resources. However, with remote staffing, you can literally hire employees from anywhere in the world.

This means you won’t have to make any compromises in terms of skill, and you’ll get the exact type of talent you’re seeking for. The right employees will eventually contribute far more to your projects and organization goals, as well as play a crucial role in company growth.

B. Easy & On-demand Scalability

The next advantage of remote staffing is that you can quickly scale up or scale down human resources as needed. In the case of the in-office work model, you cannot hire or fire employees at your will. Both processes will take time and are challenging. Especially, laying off employees, even during a recession or a period of low workflow would be difficult.

However, with remote staffing, you can easily hire the staff and terminate the contract as soon as the project is completed or the resources are no longer required. This will allow you to keep your budget in good shape and avoid any unnecessary workforce expenses.

C. Reduced Overhead Costs

Since the employees will be working remotely, you will not need to arrange their office space, furniture, internet connection, electricity, food, and other office supplies. This will eventually save you a lot of money on operational costs. You can use this money to improve your IT infrastructure, raise employee pay, and so on.

At the same time, employees will also benefit from the remote work model. They will not have to spend hours each day commuting or money on gas and vehicle maintenance. In the end, both employees and employers benefit from this arrangement.

D. Increased Employee Retention 

According to a study, 76% of workers want flexibility in where they work and 93% want flexibility in when they work. This means that retaining remote employees is much easier than retaining employees in the office.

Not only does work flexibility contribute to increased employee retention in remote staffing, but so do better work-life balance, lower expenses, and competitive salary.

All of these factors will boost employee productivity and job satisfaction. And when employees are satisfied with their current jobs, organization, and policies, they are more likely to stay with the same company for many years.

E. Improved Productivity 

In order to be productive, employees must be satisfied with their jobs. Fortunately, since the remote work approach provides various benefits to employees, such as improved work-life balance and reduced expenses, there is a greater possibility that they will feel satisfied and motivated with their virtual assistant jobs.

Besides that, employees can redirect the time saved on travel to work. Also, employees will have fewer distractions when working from home. 

All these advantages of remote staffing are echoed in a study conducted by Global Workplace Analytics, which found that remote workers are 35-40% more productive than their in-office counterparts.

Now, let’s take a look at some surprising remote hiring trends and statistics in 2022.

7 Latest Remote Staffing Trends & Statistics 2022 

• According to a Gartner study, virtual workers in America will take the lion’s share of the pie in 2022, accounting for more than 50%. Teleworking in China and India will also continue to grow, though at a slower rate than in the United States.
• According to Global Workplace Analytics, the number of people working from home has increased by 159% since 2009. The two major contributors to this significant rise are the availability of advanced remote tools & technologies and the COVID-19 pandemic.

• As per Owl Labs, the industries with the most remote workers are healthcare (15%), technology (10%), and finance (9%). According to the same study, most employees prefer remote working because it provides a better work-life balance.
• As per a CoSo Cloud study, 77% of remote workers say they are more productive when they work fro
  m home.
• According to an Insider survey, 69% of millennials would forgo certain job benefits in exchange for a more flexible working environment.
• Remote working has contributed not only to the betterment of employees and employers, but also to the betterment of the environment. For example, according to the State of Telecommuting, remote working reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 600,000 cars!
• According to research, workplace distractions cost businesses $600 billion annually, and remote workers are 35-
• 40% more productive than their in-office counterparts.

These facts must be tempting you to hire remote workers for your company. But hold on. Hiring remote employees is not easy, and there are several challenges associated with remote staffing, as discussed in the following section.

Make sure you address them thoroughly in order to reap the maximum benefit of this novel work model.

3 Key Challenges of Remote Staff

The 3 major challenges that companies may face when hiring new remote talent are as follows:

A. Hiring The Right Talent

The first major issue you may encounter when hiring remote workers is finding the top talent. Although you may have a large pool of global talent, filtering the candidates based on your requirements and selecting the best among them is a difficult task.

This is due to the fact that the education, pay type, work practices, and other elements that your preferred candidate may have worked in or with would be completely different from what you are currently following. For this reason, in order to hire the top talent, you must consider all these factors.

B. Performance Monitoring

The next thing you should be concerned about, or a challenge you will face when you hire remote workers, is monitoring their performance. It is quite understandable that providing administrative support or monitoring employees who work in the same room or office is much easier than monitoring those who work thousands of miles away in a different country or continent.

However, you can mitigate this issue to some extent by investing in advanced remote working tools and technologies such as Atera, Ameyo, and ITarian. Moreover, you can also compare an individual’s performance to that of other team members on the same hierarchy level.

C. Effective Communication

The third major challenge when hiring remote staffing is to establish an effective communication channel between the employees and the teams. It is very likely that when most or all of the employees work remotely, there will be some communication delay or difficulties in working collaboratively.

This is why addressing this issue will be a major challenge for you since communication delays or miscommunication can not only sour your relationship with clients but will also derail day-to-day administrative tasks.

To avoid this scenario, it is recommended that you establish a full-proof communication link with the remote employees, provide support and all the administrative assistance they need.

These are the 3 most common issues with remote staffing. But, as they say, every problem has a solution, right? To address all of the challenges associated with remote staffing, simply partner with Office Beacon– a leading provider of remote virtual assistants and outsourcing services.

How Office Beacon Helps You Address These Challenges?

Office Beacon is a top virtual assistant provider that can certainly assist you with hiring the right talent and managing all your remote staffing needs. The company provides their services for a wide range of industries and verticals, including but not limited to:

• Insurance
• Healthcare
• Accounting
• Call center
• Information technology (IT)
• Construction
• Ecommerce
• Hospitality
• Manufacturing, and more.

In addition to providing remote staff and administrative support, Office Beacon also provides their customers with Flowz software support.. Some of the most popular Office Beacon software solutions are:

• Flowz Talk for instant text communication
• Flowz Meeting for video conferencing
• Flowz Projects for task management
• Flowz Drive for data storage
• Flowz CRM for sales contact organization and management

The company also has a very well-defined process in place to better understand clients’ unique needs and ultimately provide the best service possible. At the same time, it is worth noting that the company, so far, has served 4000+ clients worldwide!

In a nutshell, partnering with the Office Beacon can be one of your best decisions that will eventually contribute significantly to your company’s success. From finding the right remote employees to investing in the right technology, Office Beacon will be there for you!

Check out the complete list of Office Beacon services and software. To better understand their offerings, schedule a call with their experts.