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Remote employees can help your startup to grow With advancing technology, working-out-of office to become increasingly popular

By Priyannkaa Dey

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

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An entrepreneur who is working towards building his startup from ground-up needs a team who can assist him in this journey and make things easier. However, at the initial stages when the funding is not enough to employ talent from various fields full-time, hiring remote employees on hourly basis or on the basis of other parameters can aid in attempting tasks that your full-time employees may not be able to complete in a satisfactory way due to the lack of expertise in that domain.

This has increased acceptance of the concept of working-from-home in many renowned organizations across the world and not just in startups. People have welcomed it, irrespective of the fact whether they are employees or employers because till the work is done in an agreeable way and according to deadline, there is nothing to complain about! Also, it is advantageous for both sides.

The benefits for an employee are quite evident but some might raise eyebrows that how can remote employees be useful for an organization, more so for a growing startup. Normally it is believed that unless you see the staff working in front of your eyes, they might be shirking work. Yahoo! was one of the organizations in the recent times that had disapproved the concept of work-from-home as many were taking advantage of it. But with time, the organization has softened its stance seeing the increasing need & demand for it.

Gradually, organizations are realizing that if they need good talent then they can't ask every employee to be based nearby or keep the search for the right person restricted to a local level. Startups may even want to hire people who are sometimes not based in the same country, especially from the technology domain. The lack of routine and the ease of working from anywhere can encourage such people who are experts in their respective fields to contribute some time to the tasks even after office.

There are no rules or meetings or infrastructure cost, they have to be paid on hourly basis or according to the work that they do. This can be quite valuable for a growing startup if they find people who are willing to work "seriously' but remotely. There might not be any workplace socializing for the employee but it will be beneficial for the company which will only pay according to the work done and submitted or in case of consulting, the number of hours put in.

Technology is transforming the way successful entrepreneurs are working nowadays. It has become increasingly essential to be connected with your clients round-the-clock and for that, employers hire people who can be available round-the-clock or at least work in shifts. Not all kinds of work can be done sitting in a remote location but the ones that can be done should be completed that way only as it will be considerably less costly.

Employees do not have to spend on commuting and related expenditure of dressing/wardrobe, etc. Employers, particularly startups will gain a lot too because firstly they don't have to employ people to keep a watch on a particular team as it is individual work and paid according to that. Furthermore, related costs like electricity, buying or renting a large office space to accommodate so many people will be cut down.

Additional benefits will be that numerous employees will do the easier tasks even when on vacation instead of letting it all pile up for later. This can be possible because work can be accessed from everywhere. This will lead to more productivity due to the necessity to complete a given task by the pre-decided deadline.

Employees won't be absent for sick-days unless very urgent or unmanageable as they can work in the comfort of their home. Phone; Skype; faster data download speed; easy work-transferring tools, websites, in-house softwares and cloud computing are definitely making it easier for new entrepreneurs and startups to explore & hire people who can genuinely be useful to their business. The place where they are based and timings are no more the deciding factors while inviting people on board; what matters is the work they do!

Priyannkaa Dey

Sr Sub-Editor, Entrepreneur India

With around five years of editorial and writing experience from magazines such as ‘DataQuest’, ‘Leisure & Resorts’, ‘Voice&Data’; Priyanka has also worked in the digital communication department of organizations like ‘Brentwoods’; ‘n & n Chopra Consultants Pvt. Ltd’ and ‘Delhi Public School Greater Faridabad’. Her interests include blog reading and writing. The author is a senior sub-editor at 'Entrepreneur Online' and has completed her studies from Jamia Millia Islamia.

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