At times like these, working remotely is not an option but a new fact of life for many. But yet, while slurping the double amount of coffee per day while still in your pajamas, it would be nice to know how your new routine compares to the good old office life.
We took a look into the benefits and downsides of remote work to give you more insight into whether it’s actually productive.
And the best way to do it? – Looking at companies who have been remote for years already. Without any external motivator. Because they like it. And in most cases, also benefit from it.
Going to the office is so 2019…
In the age of apps that combine collective work, communication and video conferences, working in the same office has become less of a necessity for many companies.
Recent studies have expressed that people working from home are more efficient, less likely to leave their job and that working in an open office (the most common type of offices) actually hinders productivity. Paradoxically, there also seems to be less communication in open spaces, as people are working in conditions where they can’t concentrate, become withdrawn and cooperate less.
Other big factors are the nightmares related to commuting to the downtown offices in metropolises, the massive office rental prices and the problems that rigid 9 to 5 office work creates for people with familiesor basically any of life’s emergencies.
Add to this the fact that, according to the study by Buffer, 98% of workers would like to work remotely at least some of the time and 57% are doing it all the time already – and one could say that verdict against the good old office work was complete already before the crisis.
According to studies, remote workers are more productive – Image source
However, humans are by nature collective beings that have an evolutionary history of physically doing things together. Decades of office work is deeply rooted in our culture and collective psyche. So the question arises: how many of us are truly capable of going fully solo when it comes to the working environment?
We have looked at several examples of companies that rely on remote work, put together a list of pros and cons and named some of the practices used by companies who embrace remote work as part of their company’s DNA.
Some of the more out-of-the-box practices we discovered are:
Basing the whole work operation and communication of a company on written text and creating real-time blogs running on the WordPress P2 theme
Rewarding remote working team members with regular team-building events in exotic locations
Team-building regularly playing the strategy game Civilization 5 on a company server
How to make a company thrive while working remotely?
Whatever the personal feelings of either the executives or workers are towards remote work, it is clear that not all industries can allow for remote work.
Thus, the tech sector has been, by and large, enjoying a luxury that people in several other sectors couldn’t afford, as a lot of the work does not require physical interaction between people.
Interestingly enough, up until the pandemic, among the companies hiring at MeetFrank, more than 51% allowed remote work their employees. Yet only 9.5% of the job offerings mentioned the remote work option in the offer description during the last three months.
This seems to indicate that managers are fine with occasional remote work but working fully remotely has not yet become a thing for these companies.
However these days, most companies are changing their attitude. The common line goes like this:
More companies are asking their employees to work remotely
These companies have remote work in their DNA
So how do companies make the lack of physical connection work for them?
Mostly, by using tech, of course.
There’s an ever-growing pool of apps for communication and group work – Slack, Airtable, Fleep, Asana, Basecamp, Office 365 for the work environment and Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts for video communication and holding meetings.
But trendy tech gimmicks can only get you so far, as many team managers have realised.
For example, the global remote company Automattic has its team members transcribing posts deemed too long for a Slack conversation into a custom made WordPress template for a better reading experience.
Also, all conversations, meetings and documents are always accessible to the entire company, for the sake of transparency. The company has made the text so fundamental in its operations that even work interviews are held via text chats, to evaluate the candidate’s textual expression abilities.
Shopify’s chic Toronto office. Image credit: Shopify
Online shopping retailer Shopify has remote workers all around the world, with teams scaled by making sure employers work hours within their own time zone, thus making sure the merchants will have support available 24/7, most likely in their native language.
In Klaus, Tallinn-based startup offering conversation review and QA platform for customer support teams, Slack play a central role in the management of a company as over 50% of the team works remotely.
The company’s founder Kair Käsper names Slack’s status reporting and setting concrete task timelines as vital for making remote work while citing Slack’s add-on called Geekbot as a good place to share non-work related stories (and bad jokes). The team also reserves an hour every week to have a call to discuss how the work arrangement is functioning.
Another noteworthy method of offering a sense of inclusion and equality for remote workers is the rule that whenever at least one of the people is attending a meeting via digital channels, everyone else will also do so.
Arkency, on the other hand, has structured their work processes so that being out of sync and working any time the employee wants, has become a value in itself. One of their more unusual team-building perks is the team server in the Civilization 5 strategy game.
Some companies rely on using perks such as travel and transport compensation for their employees. E-learning software development company Articulate offers telecommuting, equipment and technology stipend for setting up a home office, flexible, paid time off and annual retreats.
So, is remote work more productive?
As we can see there are plenty of methods used to make teamwork efficient and keep the workers motivated.
But how does remote work actually compare to office work? We’ve made a list of benefits of either one, so you decide for yourself.
Pros of working together
Team cohesion building and motivation benefits
Social interaction (can also be a disadvantage sometimes)
Managers have less visibility about people’s productivity
In-person meetings deem to be more productive than those over a call
The overall productivity in the team might both increase or drop, and it’s difficult to predict which one will happen
Some people like to have an office as a place to work from
Pros of remote work
Useful for expanding businesses (lower costs, possible to hire local talent who don’t have to relocate)
hire the best talent possible
lower costs on office/infrastructure, no costs for relocation
lower carbon footprint
motivated, professional workers tend to be more productive when working alone (fewer distractions created by colleagues) (should there be a reference to study with this claim?)
Less time spent on commuting
workers less likely to leave the company
workers less likely to fall sick
workers less likely to transmit viral illnesses
workers get to spend more time with their family and have more time to spend on non-work-related activities leading to less stress
The workforce becomes more diverse
The most popular remote work benefits as voted by workers – Image source
Although the pros of remote work seem to outweigh office work considerably, it has to be pointed out that going fully remote might still not be an ideal solution that works for everyone, be it a company, the manager or the employer.
Workers have cited problems like unplugging after work, loneliness and collaborating/ communication as top three struggles when working remotely.
Biggest struggles of remote work as voted by workers – Image source
In addition, for many people, remote work, mixed with the use of digital technology, might create the effect “always on”, blurring work and life boundaries and leading to stress, depression and anxiety. A United Nations report from 2017 detected that 41% of remote workers reported high-stress levels, compared to just 25% of office workers.
But having said that, overall, it is clear that remote work is becoming more popular among company managers, workers and researchers.
As Stanford University researcher Nicholas Bloom concluded in his much-referenced studies, remote work can lead up to a 50 decrease of worker attrition and a considerable rise in their performance. This came with a slight bit of warning though, as people working 100% remotely reported a growing feeling of isolation, so Bloom concluded that the ideal would be to balance working from home with occasional office time.
We found a massive, massive improvement in performance — a 13% improvement in performance from people working at home.”
This is something that a lot of people are actually doing, as the Swiss office provider IWG found out, 70% of employees in the 96 companies around the globe they studiedwork remotely at least one day a week, while 53% work remotely for at least half of the week.
So, does remote work work?
As with most things in life, there is no one definitive answer. Every major change in the lives of people (and people as workers) will have different consequences, depending on the context, the person and the company he/she is working in.
But it is clear that remote work was getting more popular rapidly already before the global crisis and that people will most likely be working more remotely than in the office quite soon anyway.
This will add new challenges for employers when it comes to team-building and work structuring for companies, while also, new frameworks need to be developed to reduce the potential feeling of isolation that occurs in workers.
As we learned from the examples before, some tech companies can get really creative in that.
“The right kind of communication is key to overcoming the trials and tribulations of virtual working. Employers need to put the right structures in place, such as scheduled video calls and regular team-building meetups, to build rapport. Bosses need to lead by example and create a culture where those outside the office feel valued.”
Overall, the positive effects of remote work seem to be considerably outweighing the good old 9 to 5 / 5 days a week routine of office work and all the logistical, and in the present context, health-related troubles it entails.
As we learned, communication, collaboration and creativity are the keywords for making remote work really work, for companies and individuals working for them.
If you have ever tried hiring a top-performing team member, you know it’s not that easy. 😖
You can publish a job offer and post it on a job board, and you may get around 5-10 applicants. But if you want to find the perfect hire, you will need 30+ candidates to choose from.
So what can you do to get more top job applicants?
No matter whether you have a huge HR & Recruitment department backing you up or not, there’s a lot you can do as the hiring manager.
How to find all the gems in the job market? – Image source
For the past 2 years, one of my key tasks as a team-lead has been to hire top talent. And as a marketer, I know a thing or two about human psychology, good copywriting, and getting the job offers in front of thousands of people. 👀
After hiring for 20+ roles, reviewing 200+ home assignments, and conducting 50+ interviews, here are my 10 suggestions: for writing the perfect job description, getting more people excited to join your company, and nailing down the perfect candidate.
Define who it is that you’re looking for
Write the perfect job description
Mention all the perks you can think of
Publish the job offer, duh…
Publish and share the job offer in 5+ other channels
Use social media ads to spread the word
Ask your community, team, and friends for referrals
Do outreach on LinkedIn
Test publishing multiple job offers
Make sure to give fast feedback to all applicants
Sounds fairly logical, right? 💁
Let’s take a closer look on how to nail down each of the above points so that you can 2x or even 5x the number of applicants to the open roles in your company.
1. Define who it is that you’re looking for
As you’re reading this article, you’re probably looking to start hiring FAST.
Sorry to start with the boring part, but going through this will help you get a lot more relevant job applicants.
Before you start to hire someone, it is critical that you know exactly what that person’s tasks will be, what skills they should have, and what type of personality is suitable for that role.
Map out these 4 key areas
Once you know the answer, it will be a lot easier to write a job offer with all the relevant information. You will also be able to create a better home task and a set of interview questions to assess the experience, skillset, and personality of your applicants.
Here’s a quick example. When hiring a Full-Stack marketer in MeetFrank, I wrote down the following:
Tasks they’ll be working on: Content writing for blog & emails, blog SEO, email automation, evaluating the marketing KPIs and suggesting ideas for growing results, website landing page management
Skillset needed for the job: Excellent English copywriting, knowhow of B2B marketing tactics and email marketing, SEO and website conversion optimization
Experience & seniority: At least 2 years of experience in digital B2B marketing + experience with email automation
Personality traits: Proactive, creative, problem-solver, curious to test new things, straightforward and no-fuzz, getting-things-done attitude
2. Write the perfect job description
Let’s start with a quick hack: Many times I was going to write a job description, I browsed similar openings on global job boards. 🤭It is sometimes crazy helpful.
This is especially helpful if you’re hiring for high-level roles or are not quite sure what to write to the job opening.
Say you’re looking for a Senior Mobile Developer. You can check out Indeed.com and the job openings for that role.
Browse other companies’ job openings
You can check out around 5-10 job openings and copy-paste the most useful ideas to your job offer template.
Example of a job offer you could “steal” the ideas from
Now that you have some ideas, you’ll be confronted with one of the key questions in every hiring process:
How to write a job offer that makes people excited about the role?
From a psychological standpoint, the most important thing for a person reading a job opening are these three questions:
Is this job opening relevant for me?
Would it be exciting to work in this role?
Am I qualified to apply for the job?
I kind of even like the character limit in MeetFrank’s hiring product. It makes you focus on the key things (notice that the job offer also answers to the above questions):
Who are you looking for?
What would the person be doing?
What skills and experience are needed?
Our job offer in MeetFrank
The good part about hiring with MeetFrank was that every time a person gets a job offer, they can also see a lot of extra information about the company, making them more excited to join.
Company profile in the MeetFrank app
If you’re publishing a job opening on your website or job board, you can add a brief company introduction to the top of the job offer. Here’s an example from the Airbnb careers page:
Don’t forget to write about your company – Image source
Based on the above best practices, you should be able to write much stronger job offers that attract top talent.
There’s one more thing you can do to get another 20%-30% of the readers interested in applying… Write about the perks of working in your company.
3. Mention all the perks you can think of
It is always a good idea to list all the employee perks in your company.
Although let’s be honest about it: the top-performers are not joining your company for nice-to-have perks. Above all, they will join because of the company’s mission, personal growth potential, and a great team.
However, adding the perks to the end of your job openings doesn’t hurt.
Here are a few ideas:
The number of paid vacation days
Company get-aways & summits
Healthy food and snacks
Great office location
Pingpong table and other games
Paid conferences & work travel
Parental and family leave
Healthcare benefits
Paid gym membership
Perks on Airbnb’s careers site
There is one more thing that’s becoming increasingly important to top talent: the opportunity for flexible work.
31% of job offers mention flexible work options – Image source
In the roles that are harder to fill in, companies are also allowing remote work.
According to another LinkedIn report, candidates don’t apply immediately after hearing about a job. Before applying, 59% look up the company’s website, 66% percent want to know about your company’s mission and values, 54% about perks and benefits, and 50% about the mission statement. Try to mention all of the above in the job opening or on your company’s careers site if you have one.
4. Publish the job offer, duh…
I’m not going to stop a lot on this point of the article.
However, it’s the next logical step in your hiring process to publish the job offer on your website.
You can later share the link to the published job offer in other channels as well.
5. Publish and share the job offer in 5+ other channels
Most people hiring will publish a job opening on their website and maybe also on the local job board.
And that’s it.
Then they will sit back and wait for the applicants to send over their resumes… 🙄
That’s why most companies fail to attract top talent.
Waiting for those applicants to come in – Image source
If you really want to reach the top talent, you can be sure that they are not lurking around in the job market. Because they are already happily hired.
So you need to work harder to make sure the best people will see your job offer.
Here are 5 ideas for increasing the visibility of your job openings:
Publish your job opening on LinkedIn.
Publish your job opening on your company’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles.
Reach out to universities, so they’ll include your job offer in student newsletters.
Publish your job openings in relevant social media groups, both on Facebook and LinkedIn
Publish your job opening on MeetFrank to reach 200,000+ passive job-seekers across Europe. #shamelesspromo
6. Use social media ads to spread the word
The nice thing about being a marketer is that I’m able to promote all the roles I’m hiring for.
Although we haven’t gotten that many good candidates from Facebook ads (more from headhunting and networking), I would still suggest testing it out.
Here’s an example of a hiring ad we recently did with MeetFrank.
MeetFrank hiring ad on Facebook
A good Facebook hiring ad should have minimal copy, but explain what the role is about and what’s the expected skillset.
Facebook allows you to target people based on their interests, so it’s quite easy to reach the right people.
You can target people based on their interests
Not sure which budget to use? You can set your ad to run for 7 days and use a budget of €100-€500 to see how many applicants you’ll get.
7. Ask your community, team, and friends for referrals
Whenever I am hiring, I also post about it to my personal LinkedIn profile.
Share the job opening with your LinkedIn network as well as other people you know in the industry. 🚀
For example, If I’m looking for a marketer, I also write to my colleagues and friends working in the field, asking them to share the job offer with their networks + recommend good people to reach out to.
Share the job offer with your LinkedIn network
I also like to post about the job openings to different Facebook groups for marketers. There are also online communities such as GitHub for developers where you can share the job offers.
Also, don’t forget to use the help of the team you already have.
You can even set up a company-wide referral bonus 💰, so that people are motivated to share the job offers with their friends and get them to join your team.
8. Do outreach on LinkedIn
Say you have a few good applicants, but you want MORE. 🔥
Doing some headhunting on LinkedIn is a good way to make sure the top people in the market are aware of your job offer.
You don’t even need a paid LinkedIn Premium account to do the outreach. Simply go to LinkedIn, check out the people in top companies in your market and the relevant people working there, and shoot them a message.
I usually send 20+ LinkedIn outreach letters per job opening.
Here’s an example of an outreach email: Keep it straightforward and informative + leave the option to ask some extra questions.
You can also keep it shorter on the first go, and send over additional information once the candidate has replied that they’re interested in hearing more.
Based on my personal experience, doing outreach on LinkedIn and inviting people to join your team feels a lot more personal than seeing a job ad.
9. Test publishing multiple job offers
Another hack for getting more job applicants is to publish multiple job offers with different titles.
You can create two near-identical job openings with different titles, and they will both attract varying candidates.
Around 60% of the applicants for both jobs will most likely duplicate each other, but the remaining 30-40% will be the extra people you managed to bring to your hiring funnel.
For example, if I’m hiring a marketer to MeetFrank, I could publish 2 job openings, one for Content Marketer role and another for Full-stack Marketer role.
10. Make sure to give fast feedback to all applicants
Reputation is everything, especially on the tech job market where top experts know other top experts, and bad recruitment experiences can be shared on GlassDoor.
A lot of job applicants will look up your company on GlassDoor or ask their friends for feedback. If you have a lot of negative reviews, less people will be interested in applying.
People will check out your company reviews
The least you can do as a recruiter or hiring manager is to give timely feedback to all applicants, even the ones that you’re not planning to hire.
If you need a more pragmatic reason for replying to your job applicants than just being a good human being, consider that you may want to hire some of them in the future.
Simply take 1 minute to copy-paste a polite rejection letter or send your applicants information about the next steps.
The best practice is to reply to candidates and their latest feedback at least every 72 hours. Even better if you can do it every 24h.
💎 By being responsive, friendly, and open with your applicants right from the start, you will create a positive feeling towards the company overall. This means a higher likelihood of people completing the home tasks, coming to interviews, and accepting your offer later on.
And that’s it! Test out the above best practices to get more applicants to any role you’re hiring for. Also, you can follow us on Instagram for more cool tips on hiring. 🙃
