Calculating the impact of remote working across your business

We are now a few weeks into government-enforced lockdown measures, meaning businesses everywhere should be getting the hang of working remotely and connecting with their staff exclusively through digital channels.

For your employees, working from home might mean a relaxed dress code, endless coffee breaks, and a slightly uncomfortable work-life balance. But remote working will have plenty of impacts on your business – both positive and negative – and will help save lives and assist the NHS in their fight against this virus.

At Impact, we wanted to bring your attention to some of these, highlighting the positive environmental, social, and health benefits these new measures are encouraging. Depending on the number of employees and how long you’ve been operating remotely for, we have created an impact calculator that allows you to trace the difference you’re having and add some silver lining to the big disruptions we’re facing.

Avoiding the commute

One of the key benefits of remote working is ditching the commute. Across your entire workforce, you’ll be saving time spent driving, stuck in traffic jams, or on public transport. Just last year, the annual average commuting time was up 21 hours a year compared to a decade ago.

Now you’re operating from home, you’ll be reducing the harmful carbon emissions that vehicles emit into the atmosphere. We have also equated this to the equivalent number of trees planted to further highlight the positive environmental impact your remote working is having.

As well as this, each member of your team will be saving time and money by staying at home. Not to mention, you can expect increased productivity and a better mindset in your staff when they aren’t spending an hour each morning travelling to work on busy roads or packed trains.

Working from home

For many people, working from home can be a welcomed change of pace. Staff get more autonomy and can better manage their work-life balance. As a result, the extra freedom positively impacts employee productivity. 

Being stuck at home for extended periods of time also can also lead to more exercise. As opposed to spending all day at the office, people are being more intentional about leaving the house, engaging in more physical activities than they normally would. For the government-advised one form of exercise per day, we’re seeing more people going for daily walks, runs, or cycle rides as a way of getting out.

Finally, it’s important to mention the downsides of remote working. Especially when combined with isolation and social distancing, we’re all having a lot less social interaction. This can be detrimental to mental health and is certainly something to consider across your own staff. As humans, we’re naturally sociable.

During this period, stress will manifest in many ways, whether it’s irritability, disturbed sleep, or something else. And whereas normally we’d turn to social contact to help us manage, this is no longer an option. This is why exercise and alternative methods of communication are so important.

Epidemic impact

When faced with the current crisis, arguably the most notable impact of remote working is the benefits you’re having on preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Each day we spend at home reduces the chance of us spreading the virus. This infographic highlights how significant staying at home can be for saving lives and helping the NHS. And for every case we can prevent, the more lives we save.

Tackling this epidemic is a massive group effort and the more your business works from home, the more you’re helping the wider cause. That’s why we’ve included a way to measure both the cases prevented and lives saved by operating remotely, giving true meaning to your organisation’s efforts.

Post-COVID-19

By creating this calculator, we want to share some positivity on the impact of remote working. When you consider the impact from it across your entire workforce, you see significant environmental, social, and health benefits.

Post-crisis, we hope to get people thinking about what they can do to be better longer-term. Remote working can be a powerful way to reduce negative impacts. Hopefully, it will become something that more people are likely to incorporate into daily operations when things return to normal.

At Impact, we’re doing all we can to support our clients, audience, and network through this difficult time. This calculator is just one example of the Impact platform’s capability. We provide powerful calculations driven by minimal input data, resulting in impactful insights and reports. If you want to learn more, or want any advice on navigating this difficult time, feel free to email or call us on 0161 532 4752.