Managing Remotely

We’ve never had to set policies around communication as our employees are very self-motivated and if anything need to log off more often.

Communication in a virtual environment is absolutely key to building trust. And so for this reason we expect our team to respond to emails, and…

We don’t have protocols per se but everyone seems to get it. The tools are just getting better and better.

Yes – see my blog where I wrote the definitive guide to planning an offsite. 

We will be arranging at least one team retreat this year and will be meeting at several industry events.

We meetup as an entire team at least twice per year. We call them JarFests. We work hard to plan them in a fun city…

Yes, twice a year we pull every corporate team member together for a few days where we are inspired by guest speakers, encouraged by our…

Our remote teams have many opportunities to meet in person. First and foremost, all of our new consultants in the United States visit Indianapolis within…

We don’t require it, but we do have hubs of team members in New York and Florida, and try to get together and cowork as…

Depends on the roll, but in most cases it becomes very clear who is productive and who isn’t.  For engineers github is key.  

How do businesses measure productivity of co-located workers? By how busy they appear to be when you walk by? By whether they enter the office…

It’s not a perfect science; we have had situations where employees were “skating” for a month or so and we did not notice. But, eventually…

Face-to-face as much as possible. Our default for meetings is Zoom with video.  Recurring public Slack “check-in/standup” updates. Depending on the team, these are daily…

Actually having one. A relationship doesn’t mean reading standups in a Slack channel. You have to put in the work to meet regularly with each…

Clearly defined feedback mechanisms, high levels of daily contact, use of communication tools such as Skype, Fuze, or GotoMeeting to create face to face exchanges.…

Working from home can be isolating, especially for staff who have never worked remotely or for TNTP before. You have to be proactive about building…

Keeping everyone happy and connected, not forgetting people.

Knowing what to do with all the awesome.

We invite them on a trip and do fun things together! We also have online events such as “best teaching moments,” contests, etc. to keep…

We make our communication better by having daily calls and hangouts between team members. We get the entire team together at the GitLab summit once…

Our team communicates regularly on Yammer, FlowDock, GitHub, and via email. We have Google Hangouts daily, and often have company-wide updates or individual “Ask Me…

All gig workers are required to supply their own equipment as a business owner.

We supply everyone a laptop, which they must use for their day-to-day work.  Phones and tablets are personal and must be password-protected if they are…

As a company we have internal policies that helps us to have key security measures that protects us from any liability concerns that possibly could…

Employees start with two weeks of paid vacation.  We also accommodate employees with school age children by letting them take extra unpaid time off over…

We have a minimum vacation policy at Buffer where we ask employees to take at least 15 days off every year, in addition to whichever…

We do not have a time off limit. However, for it to be worth my while to manage our resources, they have to contribute a minimum…

My biggest fear is that I do not always know what employees feel. When I make an update, what do they think? Sure, they give…

I think my biggest fears are when we lose touch with someone. Every once in a while, someone will just “disappear” – they don’t answer…

Accountability. The fear that people would simply flake, walk off into the distance, play video games instead of work. Sure they came true. And then…