These companies are offering their employees more
flexibility than ever
A growing number of
millennials want to work remotely, and fortunately for them, 170 companies in the U.S.
operate 100 percent virtually these days. That number is up from 26 in 2014
according to FlexJobs, an online platform specializing in remote and flexible employment.
FlexJobs
reports that the ability to work
remotely, even part time, helps employees
achieve a better work-life balance, and it therefore improves their overall
health and wellness. It can also help workers save up to $4,000 a year with
reduced spending on gas, parking, public transportation and dry-cleaning.
Perhaps that's why, according to Gallup's
State of the American Workplace survey,
more than one-third of the respondents said they would change jobs in order to be
able to work remotely some of the time.
And telecommuting
doesn't only benefit the workers; companies can reap rewards from it too.
Offering remote opportunities allows companies to work with top talent,
regardless of location. And because those employees are likely to be happier in
their jobs, it also leads to greater productivity, better performance and higher employee-retention
rates. Likewise, it of course saves companies money in office expenses like
equipment, amenities and more — plus rent and utilities if they choose to forgo
an office altogether.
Technology is fueling the growth of fully
virtual companies — tools such as Slack, Zoom, Dropbox and Quip, a document-sharing and editing
platform, make it easier than ever to communicate with employees based anywhere
and track their performance and workflow more accurately. Plus, according to Forbes, millennials, who are already very used to being
connected online, are projected to be the majority of the U.S. workforce by
2020.
So, what
companies are already fully remote?
1. Toptal
Toptal scouts the best freelance
engineers and designers from anywhere in the world and vets their qualifications
using a mix of proprietary software and online interviews. The company has
grown to more than 400 core employees working in 60 different countries.
2. Automattic
Automattic is the team behind
WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote, Longreads, VaultPress,
Akismet, Gravatar, Polldaddy, Cloudup and more. It's a totally distributed
company with 704 automatticians in 62 countries speaking 80 different languages.
It makes sense that they're so expansive, given how necessary these sites are
globally.
3. AnswerConnect
AnswerConnect is a live call-answering
service. Whether companies need call-handling services after hours or all the
time, AnswerConnect has a plan to fit any situation because it doesn't
have a call center; rather, its employees all do their work from the comfort of
their own homes.
4. InVision
InVision is a digital product design
platform powering the world’s best user experiences. The company works with
everything from Twitter to Vice to Netflix, so its
success from work-from-home employees is obvious.
5. 10up
This web design and development
consulting service describes its 120-plus-person team as "one big
happy family" that just so happens to be distributed worldwide and stays
connected with Slack, Google Hangout, and text.
6. Buffer
Buffer is a fully distributed team of
more than 80 employees working in several different countries (see this employee
time zones map!). The company's social media management tools are
used by over 60,000 paying customers around the world.
7. Ghost
Ghost is a blogging platform behind
the publishing efforts of organizations like NASA, Square and Graze. It's
open source, free and customizable — and created almost entirely by volunteers
from the nonprofit Ghost Foundation, which runs and organizes Ghost. The team
of developers and other staff work online from all corners of the internet.
8. Hubstaff
This time-tracking tool is used
by over 8,000 remote teams to track time and help with automatic payroll
processing and attendance scheduling. The company was founded in 2012 by two
entrepreneurs who wanted a better way to manage remote freelancers, so it makes
sense that it's built by a totally remote team too.
9. Doist
Doist is the team behind Todoist, a
popular productivity app that helps millions of people manage their tasks and
projects. The company has been around since 2007, and its team members are
spread across 20 different countries.
10. Knack
Knack is a cloud-based database tool
with over 3,000 customers (like Harvard University and Tesla)
that makes it easy for anyone to manage, share and utilize their data. Most use
Knack for creating things like inventory managers and customer portals. The
team behind it calls the internet its headquarters, but they still get together
twice a year at retreats.
