From the hierarchical company structure of the ’50s to the now well known remote work model, a lot has changed in our work culture over the last couple decades. With the Covid-19 pandemic shifting our perspective of what a typical 9 to 5 looks like and companies trying to readjust their workspaces to adopt new health measures, going back into the office is no longer a viable or even desirable option for some.
At SomneoX, instead of shying away from this changing work dynamic we have chosen to truly embrace it and become a remote agency. Born during the thick of the pandemic, we were forced to delve into the remote model, understand it and really figure out how we could leverage this work culture to our advantage. Luckily for us, most day to day digital marketing tasks are done individually online, regardless of our remote “status”.
While many of us miss having our office spaces and seeing our colleagues face-to-face, there are some, like us, that are still intrigued by the work-life balance and the added benefits of working remotely. This blog post is meant to lay out the upsides to having a fully remote agency and showcase to our future coworkers and clients why we love being remote.
Table of Contents
Talent Acquisition
Most companies restrict their hiring process to personnel located within an hour of their offices. Being a remote agency gives us the opportunity to expand our talent pool. The world is our oyster, quite literally, as we can hire talents pretty much anywhere in the world.
As of July 2021, SomneoX is made of Brazilian and North American professionals.
Not only is our talent pool unlimited, but we have seen how many sought-after marketing professionals are prioritizing remote work as a condition of employment in their job searches. Remote jobs have become highly sought after and, as a result, remote agencies like SomneoX have more highly qualified applicants.
Because we have so many to choose from we are encouraged to find only the best fit for our team and our client needs. Each of us are actively keeping our professional social media profiles (like LinkedIn) up to date and constantly building relationships with brands and freelancers alike.
Asynchronous communication
You can’t have a remote agency without asynchronous communication. Fancy word, yes, but it basically means that we do not expect our messages to be answered immediately.
While it’s true that in an office you are expected to answer your colleagues and supervisors right away, it’s unrealistic to expect people to be readily available when you have different teams working on different schedules and time zones.
Having a greater autonomy on communication expands our sense of responsibility and trust in many ways. Not having immediate support makes us:
- More autonomous. We live up to the task of owning our area of expertise and finding the appropriate course of action before consulting our teammates.
- More focused. With less interference and parallel conversations going on at once, employees are able to better focus on their tasks, improving deliverability and time efficiency.
- Proactive. Because our time is valuable we don’t let small problems get in the way of our workday. Small adjustments and blocks in the road are promptly sorted out to let everyone’s job flow nicely and smoothly.
- Apprehensible. We make our communication worth the time. Every message and every email is written purposefully and to the point to avoid any misunderstanding. With intentional communication, we decrease our time spent on tasks and prevent reworks.
Mental Health
Despite being able to work from our couch, in a coffee shop, or even in a van (*cough cough* Gabriela Passos, Content and Operations Manager), we are all still humans and need human contact to keep sane. A survey by CIGNA reported that roughly a third of American adults are feeling more lonely during the pandemic, with that number reaching its peak at 70% for Millennials (23-38 years old).
Isolation has proven to be a major challenge for those working remotely. At SomneoX, we are constantly thinking about how we can better support our employees and take extra steps to make sure everyone feels heard and recognized to lessen the side effects of social distancing.
We have found that regular check-ins, 1:1 meetings and group bonding sessions have proven to be super beneficial in addressing any concerns of loneliness in the workplace and fostering a strong sense of camaraderie amongst our team.
We truly value creating and maintaining a healthy environment for our team to thrive, feel safe, and motivated in.
Client advantages
Not all clients are used to working with a fully remote agency like ours. Digital culture, in general, is still growing around the world, and many traditional entrepreneurs find themselves worried about the effectiveness of a different time-zone team doing marketing for them.
The truth is that many huge companies like Amazon and Spotify are going remote due to its increasing benefits for both customers and employees. Here are some perks for clients working with a fully remote agency like us:
- Time efficiency. We’ll never ask our clients to fly cross-country to meet us at a fancy board meeting when in reality everything can be done virtually. We prioritize efficiency, especially when it comes to our clients’ time and money.
- Adaptability. Being remote has given us the ability to adjust on the fly. Whenever our clients need something new or need to reschedule we are able to adjust our schedules and resources to our clients’ needs. This flexibility goes a long way and would not be possible if we were location-based.
- Fast-growing. Every day the internet is providing marketers with new, top-notch tools to enhance performance. With a flexible structure like ours, it’s easy and much more manageable to introduce new tools to our team and services.
Employee Autonomy and Transparency
Building a high-performance team on a remote work business model is no easy task. Distinct from physical offices, where we can see each other working day-to-day, remote work requires trust.
At SomneoX, we believe that it is important to foster trust among our team. The best way that we have found to do so is by empowering our team members to take ownership over their tasks, and create clear channels of communication where employees can feel heard and ask for help if need be. The end goal is to create a greater sense of independence among our team members and foster transparency and ultimately respect.
A recent look at Google’s Project Aristotle found that one of the key attributes to a successful remote team is trust. The analysis found that autonomy, respect, competence, and social status are critical inputs to build psychological safety, among employees and foster a greater sense of employee autonomy, and respect.
SomneoX has found that by fostering this dynamic amongst our team and working to create an open and respectful company culture we have managed to empower our employees and increase transparency amongst one another.
Going forward with our Remote Agency
All of us have worked in traditional workplaces and were told to keep our personal and professional lives separate. As a remote agency we know how hard it can be for team members to separate their work and personal lives.
Whether it’s because your cat jumps in front of the webcam during a company meeting, or you are struggling to set boundaries because your home and your office are one and the same. Separating your personal and professional life is not as easy as it once was.
At SomneoX, we recognize this and really try to prioritize a healthy work life balance for our team. We encourage our employees to take time off when they need it, and we are constantly checking in on each other, not just professionally, but personally to make sure we are staying healthy, physically and emotionally. We want to see each other excel and we know that it is super important to not just support each other in the (remote) office, but also out of the office.
Inevitably, this increased overlap brings a greater sense of camaraderie and trust. We get to see how each of our coworkers balances their home life and work, but most importantly we get to share in their personal and professional accomplishments alike.
Working with a remote agency has its own set of advantages, and we’ve mentioned just some of them in this blog post.
If you want to learn more about how our team makes the most of being remote, or if you have any other questions for us at all, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! We’re always happy to chat on what it’s like working from home as an SEO expert or digital marketer.
Get in touch today and let us help bring your business into the future by leveraging new technologies that are changing the way people work across industries every day.