With the COVID-19 pandemic creating a hard reset point for organizations across the globe, business priorities such as sustainable operations and better employee welfare have come to the spotlight.
Corporate discussions now revolve around how to make the operations eco-friendly while continuing to be profitable. Organizations continue to realign themselves to the new reality where Work-from-Home or Remote Work is seen not as an option but as an important requirement by employees.
How do these decisions impact Employee eXperience (EX)?
Did you know that there’s a way for you to reduce the expenses, improve your local community’s health and improve your people’s EX?
A switch to remote work offers numerous benefits such as cutting down on traveling expenses of your firm, as well as the rental fee, which can be very expensive nowadays. Fewer vehicles on roads, no traffic jams, reduction in emissions from motorized engines result in lesser upkeep of infrastructure as well as overall cost savings.
By adopting a pro-remote work business model, you boost the Employee Experience by giving them back the time they would’ve spent commuting.
While working from an office is definitely something we’ve gotten used to, the bigger the office, the more noise it creates. While at home, workers can focus in silence, increasing their work efficiency and overall productivity.
With the pandemic loosening its grip across the globe, it would only be wise to evaluate everything it brought us and try to look for the rare positives. (Optional) remote working is one of them.
And as far as sustainability is concerned, remote working is a godsend. It reduces the transportational footprint.
As much as 30 percent of global carbon emissions come from transport, while 72 percent of them come from road transportation. Consuming digital resources have its toll on the number of energy workers consume at home as well. Yet, studies have revealed that Zoom or any other form of Video Conferences emit just around 0.6 percent of the carbon emissions generated on a typical commute.
Other Benefits
With electronic communication being the backbone of Remote Work, the use of paper has been substantially reduced as people who had a habit of printing an online document in an office just because it can be handy, moved away from the practice.
At home, people are simply more thoughtful about economics. While working remotely, all instances of sharing information via paper documents are virtually eliminated, providing solutions via emails, online documents, attachments, etc.
Reduced use of plastic is another benefit. It’s not a common sight to leave your home and get a plastic cup of coffee and breakfast packed in plastic just to get back to your workstation – your living room. But when you commute to work, it’s practically a rule of thumb. All the bottles, utensils, food packaging and other factors drastically increase the amount of plastic (ab)used.
Last, but not the least – energy usage. Fewer rooms to cool or heat, fewer places to keep lit up. While in the office, people are not as environmentally conscious about switching off lights, air conditioning and computers. Home economics works wonders here for our local communities here as well.
To sum up, switching to remote working not only cuts your costs and boosts your EX, but it also makes for an array of positive changes in our environment. No commuting means less CO2 emissions and reduced use of plastics for everyday necessities. Paper use is cut down as it’s far more convenient to use digital solutions and the amount of energy consumed is radically lowered by working from a small room, compared to a large office.
If you’ve implemented this or other sustainability initiatives in your business, check out Gulf Sustainability Awards. This program exists to honor great green projects and connect them with independent judges who assess the entries and provide valuable feedback!
