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5 Ways Remote Work Policies Can Reduce Business Expenses

5 Ways Remote Work Policies Can Reduce Business Expenses

As an employer, there are numerous benefits of offering remote work policies. While you certainly do care about the fact that allowing remote work will make your employees happier and more engaged, many business decisions end up coming down to one thing—how they’ll fit into the budget and affect your bottom line.

But, did you know that allowing remote work (also known as “work from home”) policies can actually make it possible to reduce numerous business expenses, positively impacting your bottom line? Yup, it’s true.

In fact, letting just one employee work from home can save you $10,000 each year in business expenses, and save the employee up to $6,800 on commuting and other expenses. Here are five key ways how!

1. Remote Work Policies Allow You to Widen Your Talent Pool

Remote work policies allow you to tap into non-local talent—without having to pay for their relocation expenses. Seeing as an average relocation package costs between $21,327-$24,913 for an employee that is renting and $61,622-$79,429 for an employee who is a homeowner, this can save your business big time.

Keep in mind that these numbers are just an average of what larger corporations typically spend on employee relocation—your numbers will vary from employee to employee based on their location and job role. For example, moving someone who is at the executive level to New York City would be much more expensive than many other scenarios. Regardless of the exact number, offering remote work policies can make it possible for you to leverage the skills and experiences of top industry talent in other geographic locations who aren’t willing to move—or would cost your business too much even if they were willing to move for the job. 

2. More Remote Workers Means Lower Real Estate Expenses 

When you have employees that are telecommuting rather than working from your physical office location, you’ll need less office space. Think about it: with fewer employees in the office, you’ll need fewer desks, meeting rooms, kitchen space, and so on. So, offering remote work policies means you can lower your overall real estate costs. Seeing as real estate costs are often a huge chunk of the budget and one of the biggest business expenses facing organizations (especially larger ones), this is a big deal!

For example, American Express created a BlueWork program that assigns employees to one of four remote work categories based on their job role and personal preferences. While many employees do still work from an office every day, many are able to split their time between the office and remote locations or work from home all the time. American Express claims this program has not only improved productivity and morale, but also saved them between $10-$15 million annually in real estate costs!

3. More Remote Workers Means Lower Utility Bills

Offering remote work policies can help you not only reduce your real estate costs, but other overhead business expenses as well—a major one being your utilities. When you have fewer in-office employees, that means your internet, phone, electricity, and water bills will all be lower.

With the average cost of utilities for commercial buildings totaling $2.10 per square foot (which may vary by state and building grade), lowering that average in your business can quickly add up to a lot of savings over time. The best part is that all of these savings can go right back into your business to improve cash flow, develop new products, or give your employees pay raises that improve morale and long-term loyalty. 

4. Remote Workers Tend to be More Productive

While you may think that remote work or work from home policies will make your employees more distracted and less productive, the opposite is actually true. According to studies, 56% of remote workers think they are just as productive as traditional workers, and 24% believe they are even more productive than those in an office. Additionally, telecommuting employees are 53% more likely to work over 40 hours a week compared to non-telecommuters and are 13% more efficient than office workers.

What does all this increased productivity mean for your business? Productivity is directly linked to profitability, because when employees get more work done, that means you can deliver on tighter deadlines, create more products, provide more services, and drive additional sales. All of these revenue-generators will ultimately increase both your profit margins and overall bottom line!

5. BYOD Policies Mean Lower Device Expenses 

Many companies that offer remote work policies also allow those remote workers to take advantage of “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) policies. More and more organizations are offering BYOD policies for remote workers and in-office employees alike because they can result in huge savings on device expenses. In fact, 74% of businesses either already have or plan to implement BYOD policies in the future. Supplying hardware is a huge business expense for employers, but BYOD policies can help minimize the chunk of the budget spent on work devices. These savings can be seen immediately since you won’t need to purchase a device every time you get a new employee, which often costs well over $950 per device per person.

While BYOD policies are a great way to save on business expenses, just make sure you have policies in place regarding what kind of devices can be used if employees are able to choose their own (for example, some companies will require a Microsoft device but allow the employee to choose which version or model they want to use). Plus, it’s important to clearly outline who is responsible if those devices need to be repaired or replaced.

If done correctly, implementing remote work policies in your organization can help you save big on a variety of business expenses. But, if you want to see cost savings and more engaged, productive employees, the key is to provide your remote workers with the devices and business collaboration tools they need to get their job done from any location. If you don't, your bottom line, productivity, and employee morale can actually end up suffering.

At Protected Trust, our goal is to empower people to communicate so they can achieve their greatest potential from anywhere on the planet. We do this by simplifying technology and equipping modern business with the software and hardware they need to see success in a digitally-drive business landscape.

Our vision of a modern digital workplace is built on an ecosystem of Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft 365 platform, and we want to help get your organization there. Reach out to one of our experts today to get started!

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