Research show that remote working has several benefits for companies

According to a European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions survey, remote working is extremely attractive for most employees.

The survey, which investigated how European companies are providing flexibility to its employees to balance family and work, has found that 73% of the staff benefiting from more flexibility at work finds that more flexibility gives them a higher job satisfaction, with 61% of managers stating that they were feeling the benefits.

Remote working is one of the most important ways to provide a greater flexibility at work allowing employees to better manage and balance their family and work life. As such, the survey found that remote working is becoming common practice in the European countries, with the numbers rising exponentially over the last ten years.

In 2000, only 5% of European employees were working remotely, while in 2005 this number rose to 7%. In 2011 these numbers range from 24% in countries such as the UK and Italy, to 51% in Sweden, which shows that the technological developments in these last five years have led to a significant growth in the adoption of remote working technologies by European companies.

Research has shown that remote working has several benefits for companies and employees alike. On one hand telecommuting allows companies to save money and time, on the other employees save the trouble of travelling to and from work and allows them to work from home, increasing satisfaction and productivity, from which companies benefit as well.

Surely, remote working is not without its faults. Some might say that decreases communication between the employers and the management or that employees might become distracted more easily since they’re not working on the office.

In the end, it is always about technology. For telecommuting to work effectively companies must implement that right solutions to connect remote workers to the office. Today there are very good choices in the market, such as RHUB 6-in-1 web conferencing and remote support appliance which allows employees to work remotely while, at the same, they can be contacted and assisted remotely at any time using the video conferencing and web conferencing tools implemented in TurboMeeting.

Nevertheless, remote working is expected to continue to grow dramatically over the next ten years and become common practice in companies all over the world.