Working Remotely
140 companies answer 6 questions
Working remotely comes with unique day-to-day challenges. From the initial step of implementing remote policy to nurturing company culture while operating remotely, we ask leading remote companies to share how they approach running their distributed teams from an operational level.
How did you implement a remote work policy?
One person at a time! We’ve been all-virtual since our founding in 2001. When we were hiring our first team member, the “perfect” candidate lived…
We knew that in order for it to work, everybody in the team had to become “remote” workers and adopt the new mindset. So the…
We’ve been distributed from day one. Our only requirements are that our team be available for our morning scrum, that they track both their billable…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
This takes intention and effort because it is easy to let the days roll by focused on projects and milestones. The team should have a…
Absolutely. The keys for us have been maintaining ongoing, open communication as a group, whether by Whatsapp, instant chat, email, Skype and phone, and ensuring…
Absolutely. I think being remote defines our culture. It demands self-discipline of all parties, which yields top performers. In our case we leverage a management…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
I think adopting Slack has been the biggest improvement to our remote culture. It’s a lot more informal than Asana which lets us have more…
Tools are important… github, slack, hangouts, gdocs, trello Meet-ups are very important 15five has been a great tool for us to organize work Tinypulse has…
(a) At the start of our weekly one-on-one calls, we take a few minutes to talk about something that we are enjoying being involved with…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Believe that remote work can be more effective than in the office. On the other hand…sometimes people who start to work remotely expect to be…
Start by working on your company culture and having a good look at your founding or executive team’s values. It’s harder to build a remote…
You must excel at “human” connection. Dispersed workers still need nurturing. Find ways to reach through the technology and make people feel like people. You…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
This is true for any hire, but particularly true for remote hires: hiring the right person is critical to success. We have added many steps…
Aha! is growing more rapidly than any other company that I have founded or worked for. Chris and I founded Aha! because we believed so…
Isolation is the main one. We are human beings and making sure we spend time together in the flesh is crucial. We’ve made that easier…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We utilize conference calls for solving immediate issues as well as for operational meetings. We hold “Cockroach Meetings” if a problem requires immediate attention from…
We have found that most of our effective communication comes from two factors: frequency and consistency. Our team leads, for example, meet on a daily…
We use Slack all the time. It’s for work, play, water cooler topics, silliness and direct messages. It’s the hub of our culture. We also…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
Software is evolving and so are we. We always keep an eye on the latest developments and are always happy to try out new things…
As Trello has grown, we’ve had to implement various other communication tools. For example, we have a weekly “Company Overview” board, where we update projects…
As we’ve grown, we’ve had to focus more on how we communicate to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Our team loves email and thinks…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
We make sure everyone coming on board understands the different time zones. We work together to identify when the majority of workers are available and…
Our entire company is online from 3pm-7pm GMT which means we have a 4-hour window for all hands meetings, daily standups, and the off-hand meeting…
We offer some flexibility in work schedules so that team members can have somewhat of a normal schedule, but we also require work hours to…
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