28 Aug The economic impacts of remote working

Remote working is slowly shifting economic trends

I’ve talked about remote working and its growing implementation for the past several weeks, but for good reason. During a pandemic, remote working represents a shift in the work world. Both as a response to a crisis, and a modern method of doing work. And, despite resistance against it as a permanent aspect of work, it will only continue to trend in popularity.

Bytagig, for example, is a great example of an organization ahead of the curve. Bytagig was (and technically still is) an MSP startup that has only seen growth since its inception. See, a few years ago, our company was handling a different sort of “crisis,” a shortage of IT infrastructure and cybersecurity expertise. SMBs often lacked resources to remain competitive, where Bytagig could help prop them up and provide lateral support. Because Bytagig is also a remote provider, it meant the business could stretch out and help clients from all over, not just an area in their physical proximity.

Because our business leads saw the future, it’s ahead of the curve by embracing remote work and remote workers. The agility of remote services gave Bytagig a promising level of agility, and by looking at remote work teams for support, it can also hire from just about anywhere.

Remote work’s economic pros

There’s a great side-benefit to remote working besides its flexibility, and that deals with wages. In my circumstance, it’s different, since I freelance, and often the price of a job is negotiated for a fair rate. Sometimes it’s a single contract and sometimes it’s hourly. But even as a freelancer, I see the positive impact of wage compensation.

That’s because wages are often dictated by location, relative to the cost of the area. For example, it’s no surprise houses and apartments in parts of California are expensive. But, depending on the work, the wages are increased to match the price of living. . . mostly. The idea is that usually, where cost of living goes up, so too do wages in certain job markets (not all, of course). If people can’t make a living, they can’t work.

But what about a job market that pays a higher wage, where the recipient lives in an area where the cost of living is much lower? That remote worker sees a larger wage, of course, and relative to their location, they see a greater economic boost. Naturally, not all companies and organizations offer wages like this, but those that do are indirectly contributing to a shifting work economy.

However, even if wages vary based on distance, there are other meaningful positives to remote work’s economic positives. Cutting into commute time, for example, is one of the major reasons remote workers enjoy their advantage so much. It saves them hours, and money since they reduce travel spending.

When happiness increases too, so does productivity. Remote workers are more likely to stick with an enterprise offering remote options while simultaneously making them feel valued.

It’s also worth considering that, as time moves on, the state of global occurrence is unpredictable. In other words, it means our economy and tech infrastructure will have an increasing need for remote working services. Enterprise leads should look at the future and consider the economic positives to adopting permanent remote working solutions, especially hybrid models.

-Douglas James