New guide focuses on benefits of remote work

The benefits of remote work have highlighted in a new remote work guide by some of Ireland’s largest employers.

Remote work has helped some of the employers access a wider talent pool and increase employee engagement and satisfaction - with no impact on productivity or customer satisfaction.

A new guide for companies on making the transition to remote work was launched last Thursday, created in partnership with some of Ireland’s most well-known employers. The guide outlines some of the positive impacts of remote work for large organisations, and addresses some of the common challenges employers are still facing.

Grow Remote launched the Remote Alliance Playbook to mark the one year anniversary of the Remote Alliance, a forum for large enterprises in Ireland to come together to address the challenges of remote and hybrid work. The Remote Alliance Playbook has been developed by Grow Remote in collaboration with founding Alliance members eBay, Liberty Insurance, ESB and Vodafone and is a summary of the learnings from these organisations as they navigate the transition to remote and hybrid working.

The playbook summarises the key questions employers are grappling with as they move to remote and hybrid, including how to manage uncertainty, when to bring people together for in-person time, how to deal with hybrid meetings, and how to ensure remote and in-office workers have an equitable experience. It also describes some of the positive impacts remote work has had on these organisations.

For example, Liberty Insurance, who announced in early 2021 that they were moving to a digital working model, found that remote work has given them access to a much wider talent pool. In the first six months since the Liberty Digital Way was launched, the majority of new hires have been individuals who live in places outside of Liberty's traditional office places.

Since implementing the new model, Liberty has also been Great Places to Work certificated, received a Best Workplace for Women award and increased their employee satisfaction indicators.

eBay, another founding member of the Remote Alliance and a contributor to the Playbook, also found that remote work allowed them to hire from a wider talent pool across the country. It has given opportunity to people that would not have been able to come and work for the company, due to their location. eBay also found that remote working has had no negative impact on productivity or quality of customer interactions whatsoever.

Joanne Mangan, Employers Lead at Grow Remote explained: “We know that remote work is good for individuals, for businesses, and for the wider community: the research backs that up. But implementing remote work at scale is very difficult and employers have no defined roadmap to follow. The more we can bring employers together to talk about their challenges and share their solutions, the more likely it is that we can make remote work stick - which will be to the benefit of everyone in Ireland.”

Siobhan Curtin, Site Director, eBay said: “I am very proud of the success of eBay@Home which has helped our customer success teams to achieve a better work life balance and has provided us as an employer with access to a wider talent pool across Ireland. The initiative has also made access to rewarding careers more accessible to a wider group of people that might have otherwise been unable to apply due to geographic location or family commitments. We envisage remote work to be a significant part of the benefits of eBay for a long time to come.”