While the internet has been around for a while, the recent developments in cloud services, mobile applications, and related security measures have virtually brought down the barriers of office space and created a new domain of offshore developers or remote workforce. On one hand, while this enables businesses to hire the best talent in the industry and the ones most suitable to their needs, on the other, it lends employees the flexibility to choose their working hours, environment and even the flexibility to work while on the move.
This development is indeed a win-win situation for both employers and employees but there are a few considerations that must be taken into account before jumping the gun. Because while the remote workforce is generally cheaper to hire and offer better quality, they can also be sometimes tough to manage and hard to keep track of. On the employee’s front, they can sometimes feel detached to the organization; miscommunication on project requirements is always on the cards. So, if you want your organization to reap the benefits of having remote and mobile workforce while leaving out the potential drawbacks, here are the key considerations that must keep in mind:
#1. Seamless line of communication
The first thing that you must establish before deploying remote workforce is a seamless line of communication to ensure each of them remains constantly in touch. We are not just talking about employees communicating with their managers, but also communication among employees. Be it Skype or Slack for meetings, Office 365 for collaborating on documents or any other cloud service that makes it easy for employees at different geographical locations to work together, you must have a well-established communication channel before you begin.
#2. Cost management
Cost saving is one of the key aspects that allure any organization to hire a remote workforce. While they do save on the lower salaries, less office space, and other maintenance charges, there are other costs attached that must be clearly laid out from the beginning. From something as simple as phone bills, data charges, subscription fees to more complicated issues like device ownership, their maintenance, among others. While the common costs like subscription fees and phone bills are generally paid by the employer, you can decide on the device policy depending upon the sensitivity of your business.
3. Security
When employees work from a confined office space, everything is essentially under the control of the employer and they can easily implement various security measures to ensure safety and privacy of their confidential data. But with employees dispersed over large geographical space, this becomes a major challenge. Generally, there are two courses of actions that you can take in that case: 1. Deploy cloud services and VPNs to ensure the data remains secure during transmission; 2. Employ proper authentication and authorization measures to ensure the data remains secure with your employees, thereby eliminating any chances of unauthorized access.
#4. IT maintenance
Be it a network issue, software bugs or hardware failure, everything that happens inside the office premise has to be dealt by the employer, but such is not the case for a remote workforce. While you can have a support team to take care of the network and software issues remotely, managing hardware issues is a little tricky. If they use their own device they can troubleshoot it themselves but when the device has been provided by the organization, there is no option but to call them in.
Apart from all these major concerns, you must also have a clearly laid out IT policy, trusted locations, among others to ensure confidentiality of your data, thus, pushing the overall productivity.
If you hire dedicated offshore developers, most of the concerns are already handled by their respective organizations, but the most crucial ones like communication and security will need your proper attention.
