The current pandemic has changed how we work, causing companies to turn to at-home solutions while completely transitioning to fully remote. At Betts, we have fully taken our company remote while encouraging meetups in cities where our employees work from home. Across all parties, we have seen a vast increase in employee happiness and productivity rates.
This isn’t just happening at Betts; the tech industry is highly flexible, and location restraints do not affect work deliverables. Big tech companies like Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have adapted to hybrid models where employees can work from home or come into the office. This practice has been uncommon in our society to date. Still, it will undoubtedly persist long beyond the current pandemic due to the many benefits of productivity.
Increased Productivity and Performance
Working from home leads companies to focus on performance. In-person environments can sometimes be misleading, lead to bias, and create a lot of false positives in productivity rates. Coming in earlier than everyone else or leaving later is not a good indicator of how well someone performs, and working from home erases those misleading outlooks and only focuses on the end goal of performance.
Betts has reevaluated its performance culture. We do not have any set office hours, and as long as you meet your goals and aren’t affecting team cohesion negatively, work is being done when and wherever employees choose. With this, Bett’s performance has shifted upward, with employees having fewer interruptions and selecting the work environment they work best in. Bett’s research on SDR teams shows how successful this working model is. SDR teams’ focus has shifted their measures of success to hitting their KPIs instead of hours being spent in the office. In return, SDR teams achieve their goals faster than they would if they worked at an office.
Inclusive hiring and retention
At the start of 2021, Betts had a retention rate of 77% and as the year went on, we hired an average of 14 people every quarter and had fewer terminations, and now in 2022 we currently have a retention rate of 99%. The work from home flexibility has not only allowed Betts to hire more but retain more.
Years of industrial research have proven that diverse companies and teams lead to groundbreaking accomplishments and unlock new perspectives. Companies get to improve inclusivity with remote work options. Remote work enables hiring more people from different geographic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Having top talent from all over the world inevitably produces top-tier work and increased team cohesion. A company’s location or headquarters now no longer limits who is able to get hired at a company. Some companies, like Betts, no longer utilize their company’s work buildings and get to save the finances needed to maintain working facilities. Employees who are given a chance to work from homes and communities that they feel comfortable in have increased job embeddedness and produce more work at faster rates.
Non-Commuting Benefits
Commuting to work can be time-consuming and is associated with increased stress and anxiety levels. In the United States, the average one-way commuting time is 27.1 minutes. This time adds up and can get in the way of spending time with family or self-care. Those who may not work close to work have to wake up earlier, get stuck in traffic, and be physically exhausted. Working from home gives employees more time to focus on their priorities for the day since they do not have to worry about getting to and from work. This extra time can help plan and execute to-do’s for the workday and increase efficiency.
Overall Health and Happiness improvement
Employees who work from home tend to be more happy and loyal due to less stress and increased time committed to hobbies and interests. Work from home allows flexibility to improve personal friendships and romantic relationships, among other things. Employee retention is higher in remote settings, and manager relationships are more positive since there aren’t in-office job tensions with in-office power dynamics and politics.
Working from home can also lead to better health due to having:
- More time for physical activity
- The ability to eat healthier
- Less exposure to illnesses
- Ease of caring for a health issue or disability
At Betts, all full-time employees are owners of Betts, which creates a culture of care and loyalty. Since going virtual, Betts has bi-annual summits where all employees are encouraged to attend an all-inclusive resort to celebrate the company’s accomplishments, meet everyone in a relaxed environment, and hear some informal speeches about the company’s goals and growth from the quarter.
Betts has also implemented Wellness Wednesdays to boost employee mental health, which are designated to do anything that will relax and rejuvenate employees. Betts Employees are also encouraged to take a vacation, get a vacation stipend of $3,500, and have unlimited time off. These benefits are a result of high performance and productivity, enhanced by work from home. Work meetings have also been repurposed. Bett’s all-hands meetings are now bi-weekly and present encouraging content like promotions, birthdays, and new hire introductions – giving all employees a chance to catch up with each other and revitalize goals for the upcoming weeks.
Room for improvement
Some employees aren’t fit to work from home, negatively affecting productivity. Employees who thrive on social interaction from co-workers, feel inspired by physically seeing others working, and stay on track only if watched cannot succeed in virtual environments. There is still room for growth to make work from home adaptable to all workers, especially those who have been used to working in offices for years. The encouragement of paid work meetups and experimenting with Virtual Reality are just some of the ways Betts and other tech companies can connect workers on a more personal level.
The pandemic has reignited an era of digital transformation. It has broadened the use of collaborative technology in and out of the workplace. There is an increased desire for remote workplaces. If you have any questions about attracting top talent and specifically top talent looking for remote opportunities, contact us today to hire the best sales, marketing, and customer success professionals with Betts.