Running a business is no easy task. The difficulty lies in the effort to make it grow. The last thing you want is to stagnate because of the sheer weight and number of the tasks you need to get done in order to keep your business running.
This is why most businesses are run by teams. Work is divided and delegated to specialists who are more than capable of performing them to the best possible extent. But it’s important to note that in the same manner that not everyone is born with a silver spoon, not all businesses have the resources to maintain a conventional team of in-house experts.
Thanks to technology and the internet, we now have an alternative as opposed to spending money on infrastructure, commercial leases, and even utilities in order to create a comfortable working environment for our team members.
Remote workers are skilled professionals who don’t necessarily need to show up to an office in order to perform their duties. As long as you and they are connected to the internet, work can be done. But, before you think about forming a remote team, you need to consider these aspects first:
Where Will They Work?
Most remote workers have a home office set up. It’s important to know where they plan to work especially since your team needs to be able to coordinate every now and then. While most remote workers will already have their own offices and their own equipment, if you truly need them to be organized, consider having your team work in a shared workspace instead.
How Will You Take Care of Timekeeping?
Another concern is how you’re going to ensure that your employees are paid fairly and if they’re working as they should. Since you’re unable to monitor remote workers personally, you need a way to ensure that you’re getting what you’re paying for.
There are plenty of timekeeping software options available, as well as platforms that have them. Upwork.com is one of the best examples of a platform that comes with timekeeping software integrated. Not only does timekeeping software help ensure fairness, it also helps you keep track of the progress of your workers.
How Will You Pay Them?
Another aspect that you need to set up is that of payroll. You could have a virtual assistant handle this for you, but first you need to have a secure medium through which to send payouts. Direct bank transfers work fine here, as does Paypal. Again, most freelancing platforms have a payment system built in.
How Will They Bill You?
This is where the age-old question comes up once again. “Do I pay you for piecework or would you rather be paid hourly?”
This depends entirely on the task that you need your remote team to do. For example, a task that has a major emphasis on the number of completed tasks would benefit greatly from a per-project payment scheme because this not only incentivizes your workers to accomplish more of their tasks in a given time frame, it also ensures that your remote workers produce as much output as they possibly can. After all, who doesn’t want to earn as much money as they can?
The downside to this, however, is that your workers might produce more work than expected, especially when you end up hiring someone who’s very capable at their job. (Why prolong something that you can competently accomplish quickly?) This affects businesses because they have less control over how much they’re going to pay their workers. And this can be devastating to businesses that haven’t earned a lot of money.
The exact opposite applies to an hourly billing cycle where there’s a good chance that workers might not be performing at their best because as long as they produce the minimally-acceptable output, they’re fine. In worse cases, workers may even prolong a task just so they’re able to earn more. The advantage of opting for an hourly billing scheme is that not only will your expenses be easier to gauge and control, but you’ll also be able to predict when your team will be working, which allows for team cohesion and effective communication.
Remote workers can save you a lot of money, especially since you don’t have to spend money to provide equipment and a physical office environment. However, if there’s one thing you should know about working with remote workers is that trust should be paid forward. There’s a different dynamic versus with that of an in-office worker and sometimes you end up with a golden goose, but other times, you could end up with a rotten egg.