By nature, remote companies aren’t limited by location which logistically grants access to talent all over the world. This surely means teams have a higher chance to be composed of people with various backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences. Simply because they can hire people living anywhere in the world and remote working offers:
- Flexible working hours and locations
- Lesser and shorter commutes
- Higher productivity and work-life balance
While the last several months have been challenging for everyone, remote work policies have opened the door to a rejuvenated global workforce in terms of diversity and inclusivity and opened the workplace to a number of groups who have been marginalized.
It could include:
- New parents who often struggle with returning to work after a baby is born or adopted.
- Women have long been the primary caregivers for families. Going forward, more women are likely to struggle with this sort of work-life balance.
- Many disabled job candidates struggle with commuting and navigating an office setting.
Remote working presents significant opportunities for employers to create a more welcoming work environment for employees who have struggled in the past, but that will only be effective if companies take active initiatives to do so, including:
- Increasing organisations’ talent target areas
- Run surveys to understand the demography of your organisation
- Build the personnel team and train them to take these initiatives
- Ensure leadership and managerial level employees prioritise diversity
Diverse hiring while remote working could have a few challenges, but they can always be addressed by better training and establishing best practices. Some challenges may include:
- Marginalized employee groups face a challenge in being seen and valued for their contributions to work. This exclusion could increase during remote working.
- Managers and team members need to more of an effort to keep in touch with each other, as remote employees may feel out of the loop compared with colleagues who are at office.
The benefits of remote work and flexible working schedules can be career-changing for employees. If you and your organisation are keen on hiring a diverse team (as you should be), creating a remote work policy can be one of the ways to make that happen!
Spotch is a fully loaded home office. Spotch aims to achieve not only an effective Work-From-Home (WFH) but making Work-From-Anywhere (WFA) as comfortable, engaging and productive as an office space.