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The Value of Remote Testing in Financial Services

Photo: Paragon Application Systems

July 8, 2024

For many workers, commuting to the office every day is a painful and arduous experience. Congestion, aging infrastructure, toll roads, and rising fuel prices, mean that the daily trek to and from an office is both time-consuming and expensive.

Commuters in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Delhi, and Toronto, face depressingly long and tedious journeys back and forth to the office every day.

Is it therefore any wonder that so many of the office employees who got their initial exposure to working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic do not want to go back to the daily grind of a long commute?

In fact, a significant number of employees found that working from home or other remote locations enriched their work/life balance, improved their mental health, and increased their job productivity.

Interestingly, despite an initial push by many corporations to get employees back into the office 100% of the time, some businesses have found significant benefits from continuing to support work-from-home and hybrid work options, and it’s this very reason why financial service organizations can benefit from implementing remote testing into their payment testing process.

The Benefits of Remote Work for Your Organization

Of course, there is no single right or wrong answer here. Every organization has its own unique operating environment, business requirements, management style, and corporate culture.

However, there is significant evidence that supporting remote and hybrid workers can deliver a number of benefits to financial services companies:

Improved Productivity and Efficiency: According to research by the US Career Institute, 79% of managers feel their team is more productive when working remotely. Pumple.com cites a research study conducted by Owl Labs where over 90% of respondents said that they are as productive or more productive in their remote work model.
Access to a Wider Talent Pool: Research by staffing and consulting company Robert Half, indicates that by hiring remote workers, many companies are better positioned to meet their hiring goals by attracting the best full-time talent no matter where they are located. Companies that support flexible work arrangements also see improved employee retention.
Enhanced Employee Satisfaction: USA Today research indicates that 68% of white-collar workers feel that working remotely has positively impacted their lives. Significantly, two-thirds of the respondents surveyed by the US Career Institute say that remote work is the most important aspect of a job, ranking even higher than salary.
Reduced Operational Costs: Global Workplace Analytics has created a “Telework Savings Calculator” which outlines the significant financial benefits that remote work policies can deliver. Their tool shows that if Americans who hold work-at-home compatible jobs did so just half of the time, US companies could realize between $525 and $665 billion/year from savings in real estate, absenteeism, turnover, and increased productivity. Full-time telecommuting can save companies between $20,000 and $37,000 per employee per year.
Increased Corporate Agility and Resilience: Many employers recognize that offering flexible work options will help them build and maintain the skilled workforce that they’ll need to compete more effectively across the global marketplace. They see hiring remote workers as a way to become more agile and increase their business resilience so they are better prepared to face the next “black swan” event when it occurs.
Environmental Sustainability: Employers who support a remote workforce contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing the carbon footprint associated with commuting and office-related energy consumption. The Scientific American reports that by not going into the office and taking appropriate energy-conservation steps, an at-home worker can cut their greenhouse emissions in excess of 50 percent.

Do Your Payment Testing Processes Support Remote Workers?

While some organizations remain unconvinced, more than 62% of American companies now offer flexible workplace options to their employees. And while the US currently has the highest average number of remote workdays per week of any country, the rest of the world is catching up quickly.

The World Economic Forum reports that by 2030, the number of global digital jobs that can be performed remotely from anywhere is expected to rise by roughly 25% to around 92 million.

Paragon has operated as a fully remote company since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 and has no plans to move personnel back into an office.

Our payment testing products have been used by key clients to support remote access for their own resources for more than 10 years. Our solutions enable any financial services company to take full advantage of the benefits listed above by providing:

24x7x365 remote connectivity to testing resources, including virtual ATMs
Flexible deployment options, including on-prem or cloud
Centralized control of user roles and permissions
Shared access to test scripts, cards, results, and reports
Multiple automation and integration capabilities

Are you interested in learning more about remote testing in the payment industry? With our web-based tools and simulators, as well as years of experience supporting remote testing environments, Paragon Application Systems can offer your business a great opportunity to expand and optimize its remote testing and QA capabilities.

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