Written by Varshith 08 February 2023 | 4 min readThis blog sheds light on the significance of employee benefits for the Remote Workforce, exploring how they can increase employee productivity, job satisfaction, and overall well-being.
In recent years, there has been a significant rise in the trend of remote working due to advancements in technology and changes in world culture due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to its increased employee flexibility, enhanced work-life balance, and accessibility from any location with an internet connection, remote work is growing in popularity. A FlexJobs survey found that 63% of companies have hired more remote workers in the last year, and 96% of those companies plan to continue hiring remote workers in the future. Due to the potential for enhanced efficiency and cost savings, several businesses have embraced remote work rules. As a result, the number of remote employees has significantly expanded in recent years. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic caused almost 50% of the world's workforce to work remotely at some point from 2020 to 2022.
The rise of numerous new roles that may be completely remote has had a substantial impact on the job market. This is a by-product of the trend toward remote work. This has made it possible for people to find work anywhere in the world, regardless of where they are.
Engaging a workforce spread across the world is comparatively more challenging, since the dynamic of the work environment changes. Though remote employees work from the comfort of their homes, there are some frequent issues that come up, like internet issues, isolation, and mental well-being. As an organization, facilitating your remote workforce with adequate resources goes a long way in enhancing their overall experience, and helps you stay connected with them.
When your employees have all the resources they need to do their work, it motivates them to work more and produce higher-quality work. Additionally, it gives kids a sense of security by spreading positivity and fostering responsibility.
You can support them by giving them the hardware and other resources they might require in their home office. By allocating funds for workplace improvements, you may motivate your staff to work effectively. You might also think about paying for a co-working space that provides remote workers with a home office setting. Additionally, you can arrange to reimburse employees for maintaining their work-from-home setup, including monthly maintenance and connectivity allowances.
Offering health and wellness benefits are a great way to maintain a close-knit community with your remote employees as well. For example, during the Covid – 19 pandemic, companies like HCL and TCS offered a plethora of healthcare benefits for their employees to ensure that they are healthy and safe. HCL was ready to spend somewhere around Rs 1000 crore for their employees’ well-being and Tata Sons and Tata Trust offered to pledge Rs 1500 crore to provide PPE kits to frontline workers, respiratory systems, and other important resources.
The heart and soul of any successful company are its happy, healthy employees. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is even more crucial for staying physically and mentally fit when your employees are already working alone.
Giving remote employees access to over-the-top (OTT) subscription perks can enable them to enjoy premium entertainment and relaxation. Employers can positively affect the well-being and job satisfaction of their remote employees by offering this kind of incentive, which will enhance productivity and motivation. Employers can offer discounted or free access to popular OTT services for entertainment like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hotstar and to services that encourage knowledge and wellness like Discovery+.
You can also provide subscriptions to services that promote wellness and those that promote learning and development, like online fitness classes, health applications, virtual therapy, online courses, workshops, and ebooks.
Providing remote workers opportunities for learning and growth can boost their motivation and make them feel appreciated, which will improve their job satisfaction and lower their turnover. By providing training and development opportunities, employers can help remote employees build new skills, enhance their subject-matter expertise, and keep up with market developments.
By investing in your remote employees' learning and development, you can demonstrate your commitment to their professional advancement while also fostering a healthy business culture that prioritizes employee development. It can also keep their mind occupied and more focused on contributing towards the organization’s growth.
By enabling them to take a break from their work and recharge, unpaid time off can benefit remote employees and result in an improvement in their motivation, productivity, and job satisfaction. Giving employees the freedom to take time off when they require it would help them balance their professional and personal lives, resulting in a more wholesome and long-lasting work-life integration.
Additionally, allowing remote employees to take unpaid time off can enhance their well-being and mental health, lowering stress levels and fostering a healthy work atmosphere.
Additionally, having this choice enables employees the ability to engage in extracurricular activities, spend time with family and friends, or simply take a vacation from work when necessary. This allows them to feel appreciated and supported by their company.
Remote employees can profit greatly from a flexible work schedule because it allows them to determine their own schedules and balance their work and personal duties. Employees can work at their most productive hours and minimize distractions, which can result in higher output. Additionally, by preventing burnout and fostering work-life balance, a flexible schedule can lower stress and enhance mental health.
A flexible schedule can be an important tool for luring top candidates and keeping hold of the existing workforce in a competitive job market. This might lead to a more dynamic and diversified workforce, which would benefit the business by introducing fresh viewpoints and ideas. Companies can help remote workers achieve a better work-life balance, more job satisfaction, and enhanced general well-being by providing a flexible work schedule.
By addressing the potential for isolation and stress that remote employees may experience while working from home, mental health support can assist those employees. Employers may positively affect the well-being and job satisfaction of their remote employees by providing this kind of support, which will enhance productivity and motivation.
This can be achieved by offering frequent check-ins and online support groups to employees, while also providing online therapy sessions and encouraging them to take breaks and engage in self-care. It would be beneficial for the employees if special emphasis were placed on building a culture that values and prioritizes mental health by offering tools for stress management and mindfulness exercises.
Having a remote workforce was deemed a challenge initially, and now is an important benefit.. The primary distinction between Working from home and Working from the office is the job location. Employees at Work from home have greater freedom and autonomy since they may choose their own schedules and operate in an environment that supports their achievement. While providing opportunities for face-to-face interactions and teamwork, working from the office can provide a more organized and collaborative work environment.
The transition was of course possible thanks to exponential technological advancement which aided in shaping the hybrid workplace. This kind of workplace is still considered a ‘trend’, which means that the global workforce is still transitioning towards it – it is not a concept that has completely settled in our work culture. Irrespective of how the workplace is shaping up to be, the main objective for companies is to maintain the same level of communication and productivity as before.
Transition obviously means new challenges. In this case, communication and employee engagement were major areas of concern for many organizations, especially during the Covid – 19 pandemic. With the help of rewards and recognition platforms like Vega HR, many organizations were able to create a culture that accommodated all their employees working from different corners of the world. They were able to establish a healthy feedback structure where they were able to regularly give and take insights, along with internal social features and contests – all of this while giving importance to employee wellness with features like the Happiness Mood Index. Vega HR has truly helped shape the concept of rewards and recognition and embrace your workforce with ease.
Vega-HR is a powerful tool in the talent war, offering employee rewards, recognition, and pulse recognition. With an engaging platform, it fosters a world-class work culture, providing P2P recognition, social feedback, on-spot recognition, and monetizable incentive solutions with 3000+ coupons in various categories.
