Australian technology companies are significantly more likely than those in other sectors to offer remote work as an option to employees, and those that don’t are losing employees to those that do, according to research released by HR platform provider Remote.

A global survey found that 46% of Australian technology businesses have adopted remote work as a paradigm, compared to just 32% of businesses across all sectors.

Tech companies are also more likely to offer flexible working hours (54%) and part-time options (44%) compared to all businesses (39% and 36% respectively). Australian technology businesses are meanwhile comparatively more likely to have at least 50% of their staff taking up these flexible work arrangements than businesses in the wider economy.

The survey also found that 74% of Australian tech sector companies have experienced increased demand for flexible work options among employees in the last six month, while 58% report losing employees to companies offering more flexibility in their work arrangements. Tech sector companies are also significantly more likely to report experiencing the benefits of offering flexible work in terms of employee satisfaction, (46% in comparison to 35% of Australian businesses), increased business performance (43% in comparison to 29% of Australian businesses), and reduced employee turnover (43% in comparison to 29% of Australian businesses).

But Australian businesses of all stripes are reporting finding it difficult to find the candidates with the right skills (31%). In addition, companies with mainly or fully remote workforces are facing challenges with managing compliance and regulatory issues (74%), managing remote teams (78%), dealing with increased costs associated with remote technology implementation (75%), assessing the cultural fit of remote candidates (77%) and receiving AI-generated resumes with false information (77%).

Remote co-founder and CEO Job van der Voort said these results show that more needs to be done to establish flexible and remote work as a viable workforce paradigm.

“We have only just begun writing the playbook on remote work and will need to work together to identify and tackle these challenges,” he said. “But the results also show that the benefits of remote work outweigh the challenges.

“We believe that distributed work is paving the way to a more successful, balanced and fair business world and are committed to helping other companies in adopting flexible work and attracting great talent from everywhere.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Delmaine Donson