The benefits of hybrid and remote work arrangements extend beyond individual organizations and employees, extending into society as whole. These benefits can be broadly categorized into societal, employer, and employee benefits. Although the research is always evolving, its clear that telework can provide clear advantages over traditional work schedules. See some below:
Employer Benefits:
- Employers that implement remote and hybrid work schedules report needing less overall office space. This has led to long term dollar savings as enterprising employers use the opportunity to right-size their office and parking spaces, with potential space savings up to 44%, and associated reduced rent costs.
- Employers can recruit employees from an expanded talent from an expanded talent pool, not just from their immediate geographical vicinity. Positions with a remote option can have up to as many as 5x more applicants, with heavy competition for relatively few roles.
- Increased employee retention, due in part to increased employee satisfaction, a win-win. Studies have shown a 25% lower turnover rates for hybrid and fully remote options.
- Teleworking can contribute to an organization’s sustainability goals by reducing the CO2 emissions associated with a commuting by up to 52% according to some studies.
Employee Benefits:
- Employees that telework report having an improved work life balance, finding time to take care of small tasks in between work without a loss of productivity. A recent survey from Pew Research Center reports that up to 71% of employees see improved work life balance.
- On average, employees could see a 72 minute reduction on their daily commute times, translating to large savings in both time, and gasoline costs.
- According to Forbes, people working hybrid or full time remote jobs report an increase job satisfaction and happiness of up to 20%.
You can use this Telework Calculator to calculate how much you could save by working from home, based on your car model, usage frequency and trip length.
Societal Benefits
- Long-term office energy demand reductions, and lower road congestion leads can lead to projected CO2 footprint savings of up to 29% for hybrid remote workers, after accounting for increased non-work trips by employees.
- Less cars on the road also translates to reduced wear and tear on the Nation’s highway and road network. According to this source, if all employees that wanted to work remotely were working on a hybrid schedule, it would total approximately 119 billion vehicle miles per year, saving the US “hundreds of millions” in road maintenance yearly.
- More people working from home also leads to a reduction in peak traffic. From 2019-2023, Raleigh saw the largest traffic reduction in all of the Southern US, due to having one of the Nation’s highest telework rates, with an overall reported traffic reduction of 17%.
North Carolina Telework 