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<\/div>Ctrip’s Remote Experiment<\/h4>\n
Chinese travel website Ctrip conducted an experiment where they allowed half of their workforce to work remotely<\/a> for 9 months.<\/p>\n When the experiment ended, Ctrip found that their employees were 13%\u00a0more productive working from home<\/strong> than the office and that the business had saved roughly $1900 per remote employee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom helped to orchestrate the study. He had this to say<\/a> about the results:<\/p>\n The results we saw at Ctrip blew me away. Ctrip was thinking that it could save money on space and furniture if people worked from home and that the savings would outweigh the productivity hit it would take when employees left the discipline of the office environment. Instead, we found that people working from home completed 13.5% more calls than the staff in the office did\u2014meaning that Ctrip got almost an extra workday a week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office\u2014way beyond what we anticipated. And predictably, at-home workers reported much higher job satisfaction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The positivity associated with flextime and remote work is not limited to Ctrip.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0previous article, we shared that 51% of employees were willing to change jobs to a new position in exchange for flextime<\/a> and that 37% would do the same if they could work remotely.<\/p>\n Those employees could be yours.<\/p>\n Offer your employees flexible time or work location options that will allow them to do their best work.<\/p>\n Offer flex time.\u00a0<\/strong>Flextime can be executed in several ways. It can mean having defined windows for arrival and departure (for instance, employees must arrive between 9 a.m. and 10:15 and leave between 5 p.m. and 6:15). Or, it can mean that employees can work whatever hours they choose as long as they meet a minimum number of hours or complete a minimum number of tasks. Which option would work best for your employees?<\/p>\n Budget for flex days.<\/strong> Flex days can also be interpreted in several ways. Some companies offer days off that are accrued by working extra hours during the days that are<\/em> worked during the week. Flex days can also indicate days that can be worked from home instead of in the office. Choose the version that makes the most sense for your team.<\/p>\n Allow your employees to work remotely.<\/strong> Working remotely simply means working from a location that is not your office. Provide employees with portable laptops instead of PCs so they can do their work on the go. And create an infrastructure to support remote and internal communication<\/a> by using instant messaging services like Slack and video conferencing services like Zoom or Google Hangouts. Employee engagement platforms<\/a> can facilitate this by providing interactive training modules, real-time feedback, and seamless communication channels. For frontline and distributed teams, platforms like Blink<\/a> unify chat, news, schedules, and forms in a mobile-first employee experience platform, boosting engagement, communication, and retention. And while it’s true that you’ll receive many more applications for remote-friendly jobs, you can use an applicant tracking system<\/a> to sort through those applications and find your leading candidates quickly.<\/p>\n The promise of career advancement is compelling for new hires and current employees.<\/p>\n Higher status, new challenges, and a pay increase are appealing, particularly for the top-level talent small businesses seek.<\/p>\n If you want to attract – and hold onto – skilled employees, you must give them opportunities, including career coaching<\/a>, career development tools, and career testing<\/a>, to grow with your business.<\/p>\n The facts support this.\u00a0 A 2016 Gallup poll<\/a> found that 87% of millennials feel that career growth opportunities are important<\/strong> in a job.<\/p>\n Newsflash – Millennials are your future employees!<\/p>\n However, small businesses often have short corporate ladders and limited funding for higher salaries.<\/p>\n But don’t be discouraged. While you may not be able to offer a corner office and a three-figure salary, that’s okay. Small businesses have other traits in their favor.<\/p>\n The key among these is flexibility.<\/p>\n In a small business, employees have the flexibility to carve out their own advancement paths. This self-directed growth can especially appeal to motivated individuals, more so than a predetermined career ladder. Using a skills matrix<\/a> can amplify this personalized career development strategy. It also provides a clear and structured approach to career planning<\/a>, helping individuals identify gaps and set actionable goals aligned with their aspirations.<\/p>\n Here at crowdspring, many of our employees are hired in one role but grow into other roles that they are passionate about<\/a>. As a result, our careers evolve organically in ways that we find personally fulfilling.<\/p>\n Speak openly and often<\/strong> about the opportunities for advancement at your company. Make sure your job candidates know the path to advancement at your business.<\/p>\n Keep the conversation going.<\/strong> Continue to touch base with employees once they’re hired. Discuss employees’ strengths and values. And touch base about how they feel about where their career is now… and where they’d like it to go.<\/p>\n Walk the talk.<\/strong> Don’t just talk about advancement – support your employees when the time comes for them to evolve into a new role. Be open to their feedback and allow them to create their own path if it supports your business. Additionally, leveraging an employee survey<\/a> could potentially bolster your small business’s employee retention strategies.<\/p>\n The average American spends most of their day at work.<\/p>\n If your business has a toxic work culture<\/a> – retention will suffer, and you’ll have trouble getting quality talent in the door.<\/p>\n But, if you build it (a positive work culture), they will come.<\/p>\n Okay, so maybe your office isn’t the Field of Dreams<\/a>.<\/p>\n But positive work culture has a tremendous impact on employee empowerment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Emma Seppala and Kim Cameron of the Harvard Business Review write in Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive<\/a>:<\/p>\n …a large and growing body of research on positive organizational psychology demonstrates that not only is a cut-throat environment harmful to productivity over time, but that a positive environment will lead to dramatic benefits for employers, employees, and the bottom line.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Corporate culture can be a mysterious, intangible thing. But it is immediately detectable.<\/p>\n I’ll never forget the day our new (temporary) costume studio supervisor arrived at my graduate program. Within the first few hours, she had fled the studio to speak with our eminently wise and sane production manager. She asked him, “What on earth is wrong down there?”<\/p>\n “What was wrong” was the terrible work culture the costume design faculty and staff fostered. Long hours, manipulative tactics, dismissal, harsh criticism, and mockery had created a poisonous soup of resentment, anger, frustration, and despair.<\/p>\n The culture was sick, and she knew it. She could feel it.<\/p>\n Your job applicants are walking into your business with fresh eyes. When they meet their prospective new co-workers, will they find an engaged, welcoming, enthusiastic culture<\/a>? Or, will they flee their interview, asking, “What’s wrong in there?”<\/em><\/p>\n We talked about finding and hiring highly effective employees in the following video.<\/p>\nYour action plan<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
2. Provide opportunities for advancement<\/h3>\n
Your action plan<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n
3. Create a positive corporate culture<\/h3>\n