Many employees in the Philippines are seeking opportunities to work from home, enjoying flexible working hours while avoiding the heat, hassle, and cost of daily transportation to and from the office. Given the right setup, your local business can capitalize on the chance to tap this sector of the workforce. Offering remote working positions can lower costs while bringing in a high level of talent. So how do you set out to do this?
Assess and plan for transition
If you’re new to working with home-based employees, then a transition plan is vital to make the new structure work smoothly. Assess your organization and identify which tasks and workflows can be performed remotely, and which ones need to remain unchanged. Get input from the team and bring them onboard as you map out the new business processes, including new working hours and expectations of availability for meetings.
Set up communications
Good communication is essential to the success of any organization, and this element becomes critical when you intend to support remote work or telecommuting in your business. Infrastructure development in the Philippines is not yet comparable to much of the Western world; outside of the capital and major cities, there are many areas where workers won’t have reliable internet access, for instance.
You may need to consider the cost of subsidizing communications for remote workers, whether this involves issuing each employee a voice over IP phone or providing an allowance for them to use a co-working space.
Manage collaboration
Another consideration that becomes a priority when enabling remote work would be establishing a platform for collaboration. For simple file sharing, the likes of Dropbox or Google Drive may be cost-effective options to begin with.
Depending on your business and the tasks assigned to each employee, you may need different solutions in order to track and sync changes, control access level and privacy of sensitive data, and manage projects effectively. Cloud-based software subscriptions such as Microsoft Office 365 may also be necessary for each remote worker to carry out their duties.
Adjust management
When it comes to leadership, you and any other supervisors in your company may be accustomed to a high level of day-to-day engagement with employees. A micro-managing style isn’t the best when dealing with remote workers, but most employees still need some level of feedback and involvement from their leaders in order to perform well.
Consult with your HR department and team leaders to create a work-from-home policy that will guide everyone through the process of organizing, training, and supporting remote workers. Adjust your style to individual performance and preferences so that employees remain productive even without reporting to the office every day.
Recruit the right people
For many employees, working from home is an ideal scenario. However, every company offering the option to work remotely would be well-advised to carefully filter candidates for such positions. You need to invest in the recruitment process and get to know new hires in the same way that you’re already familiar with the capabilities and work ethic of your current employees. Recruit self-motivated individuals with great time management and professionalism. Once you know that you’ve hired people you can trust, see to it that you trust and enable them to do their job remotely.
Offering the chance for people to work remotely can be as great for business as it is for the employees, but it can be a challenging transition. Use these methods to streamline the process and reap the benefits.