We at DistantJob are firm believers in the advantages of remote work. That’s why our whole company is remote, and that’s why we have helped companies for almost a decade to hire remote programmers.
When companies decide to hire a remote developer, they not only have the opportunity to look for remote employees at affordable prices, but their pool of talent expands. Let’s look at the five top advantages companies experience when hiring remote programmers.
Benefits of Hiring Remote Programmers
1. Talent pool
One of the most significant benefits that companies experience when hiring remote programmers is that their talent pool increases. They no longer need to keep looking for employees in the same area, but they have the entire world to look for the talent they need.
As most of you probably know, hiring IT talent is not easy. There are millions of developers worldwide, but this doesn’t mean that all of them are talented. But when you start looking for a remote programmer, you will increase your chances of getting a candidate who understands your company’s culture and has the talent and skills you were looking for.
2. Reduce their costs
Imagine hiring a Silicon Valley developer for half the usual price. Sounds like a dream, right? Until it isn’t. Developers from Eastern Europe and other regions are extraordinarily talented, and they likely charge half than a U.S. developer.
Hiring remote developers doesn’t mean hiring 10 developers for the price of 1. You still need to make sure that the person you hire for the role is talented enough to fulfill your expectations. However, consider that many talented programmers live in cities where the cost of living is much lower than any city in Northern America. Therefore, you save money for equally (or better) IT talent.
3. Increase diversity
Diversity in the workplace is essential. Not because you want external companies/people to praise your company by saying, ‘Look how great, they have a diverse team.’ No, while the praising is great, increasing diversity has more significant benefits than that.
When you increase diversity, you give space to innovation and creativity. If two minds think better than one, imagine two minds with different ideas. Diversity in teams leads to debate, to think outside the box, and ultimately new solutions. And hiring remote programmers is a great strategy to increase your company’s diversity.
4. Reduce employee turnover
When employees work remotely, they can have more flexibility in their schedule, improving their work-life balance. For programmers, this means working at the times they are more productive. Ultimately, remote work policies help companies increase their employee retention.
According to State of Remote Work by Owl Labs, companies that allow employees to work remotely have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t.
5. More productivity
Every company wants to hire productive employees because we all know that time is money. And remote workers have proven to be more productive than on-site workers. They are not distracted by their coworkers or office noises and have more time to work on their tasks.
However, although remote programmers have fewer distractions, this doesn’t mean they don’t have distractions at all. That’s why it’s important to help your remote developers deal with distractions.
How Distraction Affects Remote Programmers
When you hire remote programmers, you’ll start experiencing all the benefits above and even more. However, not everything is great as it seems, and you’ll still be facing some minor challenges regarding remote management.
Can programmers work remotely and be productive? 100%, but this doesn’t take the fact that they will still face distractions. A programmer needs to establish a rhythm before he starts producing awesome code. But distractions break this flow immediately and for long periods.
I’m not even talking about dragging a programmer to an hour-long meeting where they’ll have little to no input. Small things, such as a short Skype call or even a Slack ping, will be enough to throw them off their game.
Research suggests that interruptions as small as 2 seconds – two seconds! – can break concentration for up to 15 minutes. And if you double the interruption to 4 seconds, the recovery can be even longer.
This is a very big deal. Studies have shown that a task, once interrupted, will take twice as long to finish. And worse: it will contain twice as many errors as if it had remained uninterrupted. And this problem is prevalent in our offices and work culture! Some papers estimate that about 57% of any task suffers an interruption. A programmer can only expect to get a single 2-hour uninterrupted session per day.
A remote programmer has an edge here. He can choose and design his working environment to cut distractions. But you, as a manager, have a part to play, too.
At Distant Job, we say that remote employees need to follow the same rules as your other employees. This does not mean that your rules and workflow can’t enjoy a bit of fine-tuning. This will benefit both your remote and our co-located employees.
How can you optimize your workflow thus?
Tips to Protect Your Programmers From Distractions
- Set the expectation that communication can flow during coding breaks.
- Set a moratorium on communications at coding times.
- Incentivize your programmers to set coding time goals and schedule them. Then the rest of the team will know when it’s OK to ping them for something.
- Make them understand that it’s ok to have notifications turned off while handling code.
- Schedule meetings days in advance, make them short and sweet.
There is no reason on earth for a meeting to last more than 45 minutes. Ours at DistantJob often last longer, but we recognize the extra time for what it is: friendly banter, not work.
And make sure someone is essential to the discussion before inviting them to a meeting.
These principles aren’t the easiest to integrate into the established company culture. But if you do, you’ll reap a fantastic increase in productivity.
If you’re looking to hire a talented remote programmer, and don’t know where to start, contact DistantJob today! In less than two weeks, we can help you hire the perfect candidate for your team.
