Why Do You Want to Work with a Remote First Company? Find Out the Advantages!

Companies are undergoing digital transformation and the remote work model is being increasingly used, after all, there are benefits for both employees and managers.

An article published in the "Harvard Business Review" revealed that employees who work from home are 4.4% more productive.

There are a few types of remote work, and one of them is remote first.

Want to learn more about this topic? Keep reading:

• What Does Remote First Means?
• Remote Friendly vs Remote First Mindset
• Benefits of Remote work for Employees
• Benefits of Remote Work for Businesses
• How Do You Make a Remote First Culture?
• 7 Tips to Amazing Delivery Results Working From Home

What Does Remote First Means?

A remote-first company prioritizes activities being carried out remotely, not being necessary to be in the office. In other words, the work-from-home model is adopted by all, or almost all, the employees.

In some specific situations, such as leadership positions, it is sometimes necessary to go to the physical office. But, according to their roles and areas, employees have the opportunity to work from anywhere using their computers.

People who have never tried working from home have been able to experience the benefits of remote-first during the pandemic. However, this concept is not only related to routine change, it goes further.

How to Build a Remote-First Culture

The success of a remote-first company is directly related to the company's organizational culture and the way it communicates and passes on its missions and values.

If the human resources sector does not implement this organizational culture, remote-first can cause the team to lose focus and productivity.

Take a Tip from the Professionals

The performance evaluation can be defined as the identification and measurement of the actions that the employees of an organization carry out during a certain period. The performance evaluation aims to diagnose and analyze the individual and group performance of employees, promoting personal and professional growth as well as better performance. In addition, it provides human resource management with information for making decisions about salaries, bonuses, promotions, layoffs, training and career planning, providing the growth and development of the person being evaluated.

Do not waste time and download your excel spreadsheet right now.

Can any company go remote?

The decision to become remote must be very well evaluated based on the company's culture, employee profile, and whether they can maintain focus, demands, project management, and market characteristics.

Technological aspects, digital tools, and the company's structure must be taken into account for this new scenario so that the key turn can occur successfully.

Learn deeply about the power of remote work by listening to the following TEDx Talk:

Something people often get confused about is the difference between remote-first and remote-friendly businesses. But don't worry, we prepared the next topic, exactly to explain this!

Remote Friendly vs Remote First Mindset

A remote-friendly company might allow employees to work remotely a certain number of days a week, meanwhile, a remote-first mindset sets up its operations to be able to run with a fully remote workforce routine.

The big difference is that in a remote-friendly business some sectors work remotely and others do not, similar to a hybrid model where some days work remotely and others do not.

On the other hand, remote-first is a concept that makes the company 100% remote, being necessary to go to the office only in exceptional cases.

You must be thinking about the advantages of this way of working for the company aren't you? Let's check out some of them in the following topic!

Benefits of Remote work for Employees

According to research published by the American Economic Review, the average professional would be willing to accept an 8% lower salary for the option of working from home. This is because this type of work offers advantages such as:

• Save time and money: The shorter the travel distance, the faster you get to work. The fewer distances traveled, the lower the mobility costs. It saves you money
• Flexible schedule: You can start your workday earlier to get more out of the day, or you can work late into the night. This allows you to achieve a better quality of life, balancing work and work.
• Decreased stress: The noise level in offices is often high, especially in open-plan offices. With the home office, it is possible to avoid this kind of problem. You can build a productive environment by yourself and take care of your mental health.

Benefits of Remote Work for Businesses

The advantages of the home office include savings and increased efficiency for both parties: employees and the company.

• Cost reduction: Allowing employees to work from home helps reduce bills: employees can use their wifi and equipment. The company also saves on energy bills, office supplies, and details like coffee and snacks.
• Reduced turnover: Allowing employees to work flexible hours can increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover. This helps the company to cultivate a long-term team that develops an increasing degree of knowledge about its business.
• Increased Productivity: This is an advantage that benefits both companies and employees. With greater productivity, employees deliver more results, and this can end up generating extra income for them.
• Recruitment: remote-first allows the company to hire qualified and experienced professionals from anywhere in the world, opening a wider range for the correct choice of professionals from different time zones.
• Improved talent retention: in general, people prefer to work remotely, due to the increase in the quality of life, in this way it is not necessary to take traffic, you can be closer to your family, enjoy your time more, among other actions.

Besides the clear benefits of the work-from-home model, maintaining fluid, quick and easy communication between company and employee is also highly important.

How Do You Make a Remote First Culture?

Here are some valuable tips and best practices for successfully adopting a remote-first company culture:

Transparent Communication

One of the big complaints of remote workers is about communication.

It is essential to adapt communication for virtual work so that these gaps do not happen. The way you are going to use technology is super important for this.

The remote team must know where discussions are taking place, where decision-making is taking place and what the channels for support are.

For this, it is essential to implement good communication software, such as Microsoft teams or slack, and constantly remind employees of its importance.

Virtual Link and Networks for Support

When people work remotely, the healthy, everyday human interactions that happen in the office may be missed.

It is essential that a remote culture prioritizes virtual connections and takes steps to promote positive interactions among employees.

It is also interesting to organize meetings in real life. A happy hour or a dinner to celebrate the goals achieved is a great idea!

Inclusion and Trust

A work-from-home culture requires a high level of trust to function.

Employees are allowed to work anywhere and anytime, as owners of their own space every day. If employees feel suspicious or poorly managed, the company culture has problems.

Leaving work without asking when necessary cannot be frowned upon. It is also better to avoid using tools that take away the worker's privacy, such as those that monitor their work.

7 Tips to Amazing Delivery Results Working From Home

Now that you know the advantages of a well-done home office, we are going to present 7 essential tips on how to work from home for those who want to improve productivity and time management!

1. Find the Right Place

Some people work better listening to music or the simple sound of rain. But, some noises can become real problems for those who intend to work from home, such as the sounds of a dog barking, children, and cars.

The fact is, a busy room with people talking can be one of the worst possible scenarios to get work done efficiently, so switching to remote work can put an end to this problem.

Regardless of your preference, with or without sound, a quiet space limits the distractions you may experience.

So, make sure your workplace is the quietest place in your home. Your activity cannot be carried out anywhere to work as productively as possible.

If it is difficult to find a suitable place, choose a room with a door, in these cases, a headset can also help you.

2. Organize Your Table

Swimming with paper and pens will delay your development. While these can be very useful, extra notes, piles of paper, or even your cell phone take a toll on your productivity, not to mention your concentration.

The idea is to have on your desk only what you need to carry out your work with ease. Keep in mind that giving yourself space to work allows you space to think too.

3. Work Ergonomically

Investing in a good chair may be out of your mind, but in the long run, the investment is worth the return. No one wants to deal with the pain caused by sitting too long incorrectly.

For some people, working standing up at a high table is an excellent outlet.

It's really hard to be productive when you're constantly straining to see your computer screen or having back pain.

Little things like a stand for your computer can seriously increase your comfort level, allowing you to keep the screen at eye level.

4. Take Meaningful Breaks

You will need to distract your brain from time to time. Maybe it's a social network, a game, or a book.

It seems like an ineffective thing to do, but you might be surprised at the difference it makes. You can use an alarm clock to always remind you of your break.

For many people, working for 50 minutes and taking a 10-minute break is ideal, however, no rule works for everyone.

You can start by taking 10-minute breaks, if you find the time too short, just increase it, otherwise, just decrease it.

Be careful not to make your break so short or so long that it becomes ineffective.

Aligning tips 3 and 4: Regularly take a walk around your house. It is important to exercise to minimize the chances of wrist and cervical spine pain.

5. Dress Appropriately

One benefit of working from home is being able to wear those extremely comfortable pajamas. You might think that way is even more productive.

However, your brain might understand that, since you are still wearing pajamas, it is time to relax and take a nap.

So, every day, prepare yourself for a normal workday.

6. Optimize your to-do list

Before you start dealing with everyday problems, take a few minutes to plan a detailed checklist.

Then spend a few minutes making an even shorter list of activities that you know should be done in the next two hours.

This trick not only helps you remember and plan each task but also breaks your day into small, practical tasks. Once you've finished and marked your task complete, that visible accomplishment can boost your productivity!

7. Don't allow yourself to be distracted

There are probably people in your life who just don't understand that you are working even when you are at home, no matter how hard you try to gently remind them.

Whether it's a neighbor, a friend, your brother, or even your mother, show them politely but firmly that you're working, and at that time you can't be disturbed, you can talk to them during your break time.

Don't allow yourself to be distracted, after that people will only bother you when a real emergency happens.

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