Work from Home: 3 Ways to Make It Work

More and more these days, small businesses and start-ups are looking to freelancers and employees who work from home online to help facilitate the every day needs of the business. At the same time, many small business owners shy away from work from home opportunities, worried that the day-to-day responsibilities, and ultimately, the success of the business will suffer if not properly monitored.

There are, however, many pros to outsourcing some of your business needs to freelancers and employees who work from home. For instance, work can be done for your small business at all hours of the day. Plus, you might be able to find more qualified employees with special skill sets who aren’t necessarily located in your geographic region.

So how can you ease into creating work from home opportunities and transition these positions into your small business hiring process?

Test it out.

Use the employees you have today to test out work at home jobs. Determine whether or not this type of work environment not only works for your business but for you personally. By testing remote work, you’ll not only teach employees how to work from home but get a realistic picture of what jobs and responsibilities can be handled outside of the office and which need to be carried out in house.

Utilize remote work tools.

Because of the increase in work from home jobs, there are many tools out there for small businesses to utilize to better connect with employees who work from home online. One such popular tool is Basecamp. With applications like Basecamp, you can manage projects and remote workers at a low cost, creating a less stressful work from home environment for both remote workers and you.

Think big — and global.

If you do decide to create work from home jobs within your small business, expand your small business hiring and search outside of your regional area. Freelancers and remote workers don’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, there’s a very large international market of freelancers who have impeccable written and verbal English skills. And more often than not, these contractors will work from home online for half the price. What’s more, these workers can be working on your small business while you sleep, meaning your small business can be running in some type of capacity around the clock.

Creating work from home opportunities for your small business doesn’t have to be daunting. Test it out, see if it’s right for your business and build your work from home jobs and policies from the ground up.

Could work from home jobs make a difference in your small business? Share pros and cons now in the comments!