Managing Remotely
140 companies answer 6 questions
Managing a remote or distributed team successfully requires good support, planning, and communication. Whether deciding if and how to get the team to meet in person or defining the line between vacation and flexible work, the management of a remote team has differences from managing traditional on-site teams. In our Managing Remotely section we ask top remote companies how they keep their teams running smoothly from thousands of miles away.
Do you have remote communication protocols for your remote workers?
Within a global team, expectations are much closer to a 24-hour response time to chat-based communications, and meetings are scheduled well in advance and coordinated…
Yes. Here’s a direct quote from the handout we use: “Sometimes a quick response is needed to a question. When this is required, please either…
We expect people to be online during their scheduled workday. If they’re not going to be around or stepping out for whatever reason we ask…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
We meet once a year and vote for the location that most people want to do. So far, we’ve been to Barcelona, Bulgaria, the Philippines,…
For a remote team, the main focus is actually just to spend time together face-to-face, so plan everything around that. We find a yearly all-team…
In the earlier days when the team was ~15 people, we would gather the whole company together for week-long (Mon-Fri) retreats in different locations 4…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
We were meeting together about once or twice a month in person. Now we will probably shoot for about twice a year to get everyone…
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…
Yes, we do, and the frequency varies between teams. Some meet quarterly, others annually. We try to bring the whole company together annually for a…
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
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…
We also define goals for each of our employees. These goals are company goals as well as their personal goals. We review these goals on…
We’re an Agile organization, so self-examination is built into our workflow very naturally. We set goals, then examine and measure progress, output at regular, discrete…
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
As with any successful recipe, there are a number of important ingredients to a successful remote working organisation. These include: Establishing a culture of trust…
Communication, community, and transparency. Without those three things, your relationships with remote workers will fail.
Rely on the technology available. From Google Apps to Cloud offerings, explore options that will suit your company best. Set regular meetings (as long as…
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
At GitHub it’s important to us that we look after our employees. We’re not just in this for short-term productivity, we’re in this for the…
It can be tough to make sure everyone, across departments, is on the same page about the big picture initiatives in the company. We resolve…
Finding the balance between asynchronous and synchronous communication. It is tempting to try to do everything possible with asynchronous communication (e.g. email, etc.) but there…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
While we aren’t big on meetings, we do have a regularly scheduled Monday meeting where we go over any admin items and talk about the…
Most managers have a mix of head office and remote workers in their teams, and work hard to ensure people feel included and communicated with.…
We set OKRs for each team that are talked about in every all-hands meeting. We also have a #winning Slack channel where teams post a…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
People can use whatever device they’d like, as long as they can use the software and apps our team is already on 🙂
Team members can use any hardware that they please. After you’ve worked with Doist for six months, you are granted a generous hardware and software…
Because of the type of work our customer care professionals do, they must be logged into a secured workstation to address Card Members’ inquiries. Many…
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
Aha! currently offers 15 days of paid time off to all teammates in their first year and 20 days in the following years, as well…
Best in the industry. We provide 21 days PTO. We thought through this carefully and we considered doing what Netflix and a few other companies…
Teachers make their own schedule! They can teach one class a month or 100 if they like. It’s totally flexible and lets teachers be their own…
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
I used to worry about things not getting done or people not feeling responsible. But so far, our people care and everything gets done.
As is the trend with other remote companies, we worry about workplace culture. It’s a bit harder to foster when you only see one another…
Not many fears that I can think of. Really just accountability and showing up, but I don’t feel that’s any more of an issue than…