How to Leverage Not Having an Office With Future Employees

When you’re starting your business, having an office space can be a troubling expense. They can get quite costly, especially as you begin to add more employees to your team.

In a rather strange twist of events, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, many workers were forced to move operations to remote work. For many, this was the first time they ever worked outside of their offices. While the shift has been a struggle for some, others have seen greater freedom and flexibility not being tied to an office.

If 2020 demonstrated one thing, it’s possible for some businesses to operate without an office space. This can be extremely beneficial for startups and smaller companies.

Take a look at how employers can leverage not having an office space with future employees.

Remote Work

As mentioned earlier, many employees are finding great joy in remote work. While there are plenty of benefits in having an office space, people are demanding the ability to work from home in our current job climate. In fact, some people are going as far as to quit their jobs if they have to return to the office. This is where not having a dedicated office space has an advantage.

You can leverage remote work as a perk. You can frame not having to come into an office every day as a positive aspect. For instance, many people hate spending long hours commuting to and from work. When you work remotely, you don’t necessarily have to spend additional hours stuck in traffic.

While it does remain to be seen how remote work will work in the long run, for now, you can use it to your advantage.

Greater Flexibility

Remote work goes hand-in-hand with having greater flexibility in the workday. By not having to go into an office, your employees tend to have greater flexibility in their schedules.

Your employees have the convenience of doing other necessary tasks they might normally struggle with when working in an office. These could be something like having to leave the office to pick up their kids from school, drop them off at their home, and return to the office. Your employees also have the luxury of being able to do some common household chores like wash the laundry or take out the trash when they want to take a break from work.

While the flexibility is great, you should still create a work-from-home policy for your employees. This could require your employees to attend all mandatory meetings and ensure they have proper communications, like Slack or Chanty, active when they are working.

Higher Salary

Assuming your other finances are in order, with the money saved from not having to pay rent for an office, you have the option to offer a higher salary to a new employee.

When you don’t have to pay for office space, you’re saving money on a multitude of things you might not have otherwise realized. This could be saving money on paying for utilities, parking permits, furniture, or general office supplies.

You might be thinking that remote work is already a privilege itself, but salary matters a whole lot in the workforce. Offering a high salary is one way to attract top talent. For some, this is what matters the most when deciding on whether to take a new job or not.

Additional Benefits

Coupled with a higher salary, you also have the option to use the money you would have spent on an office towards additional benefits your employees will like.

Some common ones are healthcare insurance, retirement plans, or gym memberships. There are also less common ones like reimbursement for work-related internet and phone use.

You have the luxury to get creative with added benefits you can offer a new employee. However, you should make sure they are benefits your employees would really want.

As 2020 has shown, many people can be trusted to work remotely. This is beneficial to employers as they don’t have to spend unnecessary money on unneeded office space.

Not having an office space isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the current job environment. In fact, it can give your business better flexibility and freedom.