5 Benefits of Hiring Remote Developers

Here at micro1, we believe in the benefits of hiring remote. That’s not to say it’s without its difficulties, as we point out in 9 Challenges of Hiring Remote Developers. Nevertheless, there are countless benefits to growing your remote workforce, and on net balance, we believe the pros outweigh the cons, so tune in today where we outline 5 Benefits of Hiring Remote Developers!

Drum roll! The 5 benefits of hiring remote developers that we are looking at today are as follows:

• Growth
• Happier Workforce
• Expanded Talent Pool
• Lower Overhead Costs
• Higher Productivity and Retention
  

1. Growth

Let’s dive into each of these now. To start, in the post Covid-19 world, remote work has grown exponentially. According to one estimate by Forbes, remote work grew by nearly 20% in 2021 alone! Nearly half of US companies were already offering remote positions in 2019; that number increased to 58.6% in 2021. Moreover, approximately 75% of businesses plan to permanently shift to remote work after the pandemic ends. By the end of 2021, the number of open permanent remote positions doubled from 9% to 18%. That could increase to 25% by the end of 2022!

These are important metrics to consider as a business. You don’t want to be caught trying to fight a growing trend. Instead, you want to get ahead of the curve and start hiring remotely. Offering your team the ability to work remotely is a competitive advantage that will soon become an operating requirement. Legacy businesses will be playing catch up over the next couple of years.

But growth doesn’t just mean the remote industry is growing, which it is. Growth also means that using remote workforces can allow your company to grow faster. By having a more flexible workforce, it becomes easier to scale your business. By facing lower operating costs, your business makes more profits. By accessing the remote labor market, your company accesses an expanded talent pool. And by having a happier, more productive, workforce, rest assured that people are going to want to work for your company.

2. Happier Workforce

Most importantly, remote workers are happier than office workers. According to a survey by Owl Labs, workers working from home reported being happy 22% percent more than workers who always work onsite at an office. And that’s not just because they save hours on their commute everyday! They can work from various environments, such as coffee shops, home offices, outdoors, on their couch, etc. They can spend more time with family and friends, and their work hours remain flexible.

A report by Owl Labs found that 55% of respondents say they work more hours remotely than at a physical office. Only 36% of people believe the office is best suited for individual work. This means if you want a happy workforce, you should strongly consider allowing remote options. If people are working more from home than at the office, why are you spending all that overhead on something that isn’t optimizing for team happiness?

These remote workers studied reported having less stress, more focus, and a better work-life balance. The remote workers also worked 40+ hours per week significantly more often than those who never worked remotely.

3. Expanded Talent Pool

Moreover, you have access to an expanded talent pool by hiring remotely. Let's face it. Relocating workers is costly, challenging, and may involve risks. To hire the best in the world, you have to be willing to hire people from anywhere. When you hire remotely, your job listings have access to the entire world. No longer are you limited to finding developers in your city or state. In fact, there's no restriction on where they live — as long as they can provide high-quality work on time, it doesn't matter if they're in another country. This means that if you need niche expertise for a project, you can get it anywhere globally. And in today's day and age, remote work is so easy to implement that nearly all types of development jobs can be remote.

Next, remote workers are significantly more affordable than comparable office workers. According to syncHR, data indicates that when employees work remotely at least half the time, employers save around $11,000 per employee.

"That's great," you may be thinking, "but I can't just hire any developer." Well, it turns out you really can.

Increasingly, companies are beginning to recognize the benefits of hiring remote developers and are starting to put in place systems and processes to make this possible.

4. Lower Overhead Costs

One of the biggest benefits of hiring remote developers is that it is a lot cheaper than hiring an in-house developer. In fact, remote developers are around 21% - 60% less expensive than their onsite counterparts, as per one of the reports released by Upwork. There are many reasons for this: you don't have to pay for expensive office space or even spend money on things like furniture or computers or building IT infrastructure for your employees.

Additionally, if you are working with remote developers around the world, you will be able to take advantage of the lower costs of living in other countries. For example, if you hire someone from

Europe, you may get the same quality work as if you hired an American developer at a much lower cost.

Suppose you need to scale your team up or down. In that case, it's quite easy to do this with a remote development team as there is no need to fire anyone or hire new employees to cover an increased workload that is within your budget without spending on training, hiring process and associated costs with hiring in-house teams.

5. Higher Productivity and Retention

The benefits of hiring remote developers actually go beyond cost savings and growth. For example, in an office setting, distractions abound: colleagues dropping by for a quick chat, loud conversations, and more. Sometimes these distractions can take up more than 50% of your time! In a remote situation, your team isn't subject to these distractions and can focus on what's important - writing code!

According to a study on remote workers by Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, remote workers had a 13% increase in productivity compared to workers who worked in an office.

And the good news is remote developers are also less likely to quit their jobs since they have more flexibility at work. They are usually more engaged in their work as well as more satisfied with their jobs because they can focus on what they do best while enjoying more time to themselves. This improves your workforce retention rates and ultimately saves you money in the long term.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are definite benefits of hiring a remote developer to work on your project. The challenge, then, is how to find them? By now, you have probably heard that finding good developers can be difficult. The good news is that micro1 can hire skilled developers worldwide for your projects at a fraction of your budget. All you need to do is let us know your requirements and relax.