Advantages of a Virtual Workplace

Author: Dima Rifai

This here is another of our Virtual Workplace series of articles. Today we will discuss the advantages of implementing a virtual workplace, for both the organization as well as employee, with a focus on organization benefits.

Organizations have started and will continue grasping the concept of virtual workplace due to its immense benefits. So from an employer perspective, following are some of the benefits we count:

Dropped Costs

The organization is able to cut down costs dramatically with the virtual workplace. Those costs include the cost required to hire and support employees including safety costs, utilities and supplies expenses, transportation, in office-insurance, travel expenses to attend onboard meetings or conferences, retention costs, and the cost to outsource employees and use external experts. In some countries organizations that incur real estate expenses were able to cut costs dramatically, for example IBM saves 40 to 60 percent per site annually by eliminating offices for all employees except for those who truly need it.

Increased Productivity

Productivity is the core concern for organizations. That is why you find successful organizations seeking new ways to enhance and increase it. The virtual workplace does play a role in increasing productivity, of course for the right employees, where the employee feels he needs to prove himself more to show he is competent of working without being physically monitored .. otherwise, he will risk getting a red flag. With virtual workplaces employees are interacting further with other communities which are outside their normal environment, hence developing more skills and more expertise, and therefore enhancing productivity. So by putting more role and empowering employees, your are pushing them into better productivity.

Also the general productivity of the company is being enhanced, through providing more support for its global clients through different time zones. We will dwell on this topic further below.

Increased Market Opportunities

Based upon the last thought we mentioned, companies nowadays are more able to locate and approach global market opportunities. Since employees are located in many locations across the world, with potentially diversified languages, exposure to local markets, they can help out their company creating new market opportunities that can return tons of profits.

Improved Net Profit

With the cut in expenses and the increased market opportunities, the net profit increases for the organization that implements virtual workplaces. In fact, and organization does not have to pay cost of offices, rentals, electricity, water… All these expenses cost a company a fortune. And with the increased markets, it’s all a win-win situation. For example Hewlett-Packard (HP) doubled revenue per salesperson after moving its sales people to virtual workplace arrangements.

Improved Customer Service

With vast locations, customer service becomes highly efficient. More members are able to meet face-to-face with customers to provide them with the support they need. In addition, the support can be made available 24/7, the response is more prompt, and local languages support becomes available, all of which increase customer satisfaction indexes and hence more profit to the company, especially that satisfied customers are more likely to refer the company’s services to other customers.

Environmental Benefits

One useful aspect for the environment is through eliminating transportation of employees from and to the office, hence reducing automobile pollution and traffic. Another aspect is reducing the carbon footprint through large cooling requirements of offices, as there are .. effectively .. no offices.

The advantages for employees range from saving time, where the employee does not spend hectic hours of his day on the road to reach work especially during rush hours, to increased skills and creativity where employees learn from other more experienced ones located at farther locations. The employees are also more able to surpass the cultural differences and getting introduced to them. Pregnant women and working moms are able to work from home; employees can stay at home during road chaos, and increasing savings in commuting costs, child care, eating out and wardrobe. By having a feeling of being more in control of their lives, they experience greater health, reduced stress and more job stability.

These are our thought regarding the advantages and benefits of virtual workplace. What do you think?
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