One of the many overnight changes different companies had to strategically adapt to was the rapid shift of operations to remote work and work-from-home set up. And as we navigate our way through the unsure waters of the New Normal, remote work and managing remote teams will become a default for many teams – even after the pandemic is over.
John Hopper is the Managing Partner for TeamSpan Global Solutions. He oversees client relations in the US and helps different customers to pair with the right team and the right resources as best as possible. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies from different vertical industries – like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and other healthcare and marketing agencies. He has worked with remote teams for many years and has been instrumental in TeamSpan’s efforts to provide remote operations to different customers in the US. In this video, John talked about increasing your company’s bottom line by leveraging remote teams and remote work as the future.
How has your experience been working with remote teams in the Philippines?
The Philippines offers manpower that are savvy to American values, language, education, and business needs like no international resource. For many countries, sometimes it’s hard to communicate with them based on the language barrier or again, just not understanding exactly how our American workforce works. That’s not the case with the Philippines. The Filipinos are very American savvy. Don’t bet against them on the NBA finals because they’ll know more about the teams than you will. So it’s a pleasure working with the Philippine culture – with TeamSpan, in particular. And finding that to be a major asset for companies like mine.
How can companies leverage remote teams to their advantage?
It’s easy – its’s about six different steps. The first one is cost of labor. If you look at the savings that you will get by going remote to a company like TeamSpan, you’ll be reducing your overhead cost on labor by 50%, or more. Number two, dedicated workforce. The person that you will interview remotely becomes your person 100% of the time. They’ll wear your hat, they’ll wear your t-shirts – they’re 100% dedicated to your company – and they want to become part of your company, culturally and also in terms of business savvy. The quality of workforce is exceptional – college-educated, English-accent neutral and again, business savvy. Another way to leverage remote teams is the fact that any service that you might want; accounts payable, accounts receivable, data processing, call centers – you describe it, we can find it. And again, at a reduced cost versus the US. Training – our employees are trained by you, remotely. Just like what you’re doing now in this whole COVID environment. Certainly, we also have managers that supervise at no charge to you that could totally reinforce that training – making sure that we’re giving you the highest quality of workforce that you could possibly have. And what I think is also important is attrition. Attrition is significantly less with remote workforces like the TeamSpan workforce than in the USA. The bottom line is your bottom line. Increase profitability. Lower cost. High satisfaction.
Why do you think remote is the future of workforce?
It’s actually pretty easy for us to look at that right now with the pandemic having recently come and become the way that we’ve change the way that we manage here. We actually found out that we can work remotely – and do it very succinctly and productively. So, what did we learn? You can hire remotely. Companies are doing that all the time now. Whether that person is in your office, in the next state or quite frankly, in a totally different country – we hire now remotely and that’s the way that our workforce is being described. Number two: you can train remotely. Training over Zoom, over Google Teams, whatever it is – training right now is done remotely and done successfully. Number three: we found out we can manage remotely. Most of us working from home right now have a team of people – whether again, they’re right across the table from us or in the next town, we find out that now there are tools available today that allow you to manage remotely. And importantly, why is remote the future of the workforce? It can improve your bottom line. With the pressure right now for every company to achieve profitability in such a chaotic world, what we find is that bringing in remote workforces allow you to hit that bottom line, allow you to hire remotely, allow you to train remotely, and allow you to manage remotely.
So, hire remotely and see your business thrive.