Whether it means a parent working from
home while caring for a sick child, a staffer who
logs into a company computer daily from a
coffee shop or an entire law firm that operates
online, remote working is gaining momentum
at small businesses. Technology that makes
communication and meetings easy is a big
factor in the growth of remote working, but so
is the shrinking labor pool that accompanies an
unemployment rate below 4% for over a year.
Many companies no longer look for help close to
their home base.
It’s hard to find definitive statistics on how many
people work remotely. Gallup’s most recent
survey in 2016 showed that 43% of employees
worked remotely in at least some capacity; that
was up 4 percentage points from 2012.
But even as remote working grows, business
owners find managing offsite staffers involves
more than giving them the latest technology.