Starting a company is one thing, but finding the right talent to hire for various tasks is one of the headaches most startups have to deal with. For starters, the compensation package of most startups is no comparison to what established companies offer. This makes it a bit challenging for a startup to afford experienced and skilled workers.
Second, most of these experienced workers want to work in a company they know is stable and is a going concern. With startups, it is difficult to tell whether the company will pick up and grow in a few years, so many of these professionals do not want to take that risk.
While these factors affect the acquisition of talents for startups, it doesn’t mean you cannot hire top talent for your startup. This is where remote workers come in. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many companies to embrace remote working, many startups and some established companies like Zapier and GitLab had already adopted this strategy.
What is Remote Working?
Remote workers are company employees who work outside of the traditional office space. If you decide to use remote workers, you will hire individuals like company employees but allow them to work from anywhere and not limit them to your physical business office space.
Remote Worker vs. Freelancer
Although these two groups work remotely from anywhere across the world, they are not the same. Remote workers are company employees who are employed on a long term basis and fully dedicated to your company’s work. At the same time, freelancers are short term contractors and mostly have multiple clients to deal with.
Why Remote Workers are Idea for Your Startup
1. Flexibility
Remote working offers employees more flexibility to work from anywhere they want, and when to work, increasing their productivity. Remote workers live for this flexibility in their working life. They do whatever is necessary not to let their remote working freedom interfere with their quality of work and deliverables.
As an employer, your job is to provide the assignments and issue the deadline for each assignment. The worker’s livelihood depends on their ability to deliver, and they will meet these deadlines, whether they are globetrotting or working from the comfort of their home.
2. Hiring From Anywhere
With remote hiring, you can access a wider talent pool from all over the world. The current advanced technology cuts across the globe, even in developing countries.
According to statistics, more than half of the world’s population, that is 4.13 billion people, have access to the internet as of 2019. This makes communication with individuals in a different country or continent much faster and quite reliable.
As an employer, all one has to do is to figure out the time difference between the two regions and schedule meetups, assignment deadlines, and reviews within timelines that favor both parties and ensure a constant flow of required work.
Another advantage of accessing a global talent pool is to boost your startup’s diversity. We are in an age where diversity matters a lot in every institution. You will not just be boosting your startup’s diversity for best employer ratings but also increasing the innovation and critical thinking of your employees by considering the different cultures involved.
3. Affordability
Remote workers are more affordable compared to hiring traditional talent. As mentioned earlier, employing remote workers allows you to hire talents from various parts of the world. This opens you up to a whole talent pool of individuals from cities or countries whose hourly rate is much lower than if you had to hire someone from a big city like NY or London.
Depending on your contractual terms, most remote contracts will not include benefits like health insurance or retirement savings plans. Most traditional employees will negotiate for these perks and sometimes expect to have these packages. But you can always include affordable perks to keep your employees motivated.
If you are bringing employees from out of town, you might have to cater to their housing. How much will you save by hiring a remote instead of paying housing costs in a big city? The answer is a lot!
Another factor that makes remote employees affordable is that you can choose to work with them on a full-time basis but pay based on one’s job completion or meeting of targets. It’s cheaper than having a full-time employee in the office who you struggle to give projects to so they do not remain idle, which can lead to disagreements or a bitter working relationship.
4. Easy To Let Go
Letting go of a remote worker who is not performing as expected is much easier than traditional workers if the employment contract states the process, like an issued warning, which leads to firing if the employee does not improve will work with remote workers.
On the other hand, traditional employees might feel uncomfortable with trial periods, even if some agree to work on a probationary basis. The letting go process will also require many legal checks to avoid court cases of illegal dismissal.
Should you hire remote workers for your startup? If you are looking to save money, have a more diverse team with different cultures and work perspectives, yes. Remote workers will offer you this and probably have better performance with the right management and performance measurement.
However, if your idea of employing talent is still based on having a traditional office where you can micromanage every employee, remote workers are not the best for you. With the current technology and health issues, given the pandemic, it is probably best to start embracing remote working in advance for your startup’s success.
