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?
First of all: confidence. Relations have to be built on trust. Each team that is working for a client takes responsibility for all the issues:…
My co-founder Kerry takes all the credit for setting up our amazing guidelines, policies, compensation packages and benefits programs. She worked closely with a Seattle…
Founded it from the beginning.
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
This all comes down to hiring. It’s critical to hire like-minded folks who genuinely want to work together. For us, we have way too much…
Of course! A few things that we do is have team retreats to get together where we all meet in person. This helps bring a…
Definitely. FlexJobs has been a remote company for over 15 years, during which we’ve developed an award-winning culture recognized by Outside, Quartz, Entrepreneur, and many…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
Our online forum is an important part of our company, a place where everyone can share ideas and chat—a virtual water cooler, if you will.
We are in constant communication in email and use Google Docs to share and store ideas. “Team Calls” are essential to ensure that everyone feels…
We do very regular team calls, and we have a “virtual water cooler” room in Slack where we talk about anything not related to work;…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Because of the nature of our business, we often work with small businesses who are making their first remote hire. We emphasize the importance of…
There are some things that Appirio has done to maintain a sense of community within our remote workforce. Since most employees don’t go into an…
Success as a virtual organization or company that allows remote work really is about supporting each employee’s career, no matter what stage they are in.…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
The biggest challenge we’ve found is when we encounter verticals that aren’t able to handle an “officeless” company. One of our team members worked for…
It’s hard to have visitors. People feel weird about coming to your home. Now that we have an office, it feels like a good place…
Not being able to fully rely on people holding themselves responsible for their work goals and deadlines. Micro-management is always a pending threat with new…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
The ability to spontaneously connect with one another in our virtual office is honestly the best way to keep everyone connected. Those hallway conversations that…
Our internal wiki is at the top of the list. We use it as a virtual watercooler (think sports smack talk and podcast reviews) and…
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?
We leverage video conferencing more and more to communicate and “see” one another. It has helped fill communication gaps by allowing us to read body…
We have gotten closer as a team as we grow. We have new technology that connects us instantly and we have grown more as a…
As we grow, we build out more processes and planning. Done wrong, this could equal bureaucracy. Done right, these systems help us function despite not…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
We work in EST/CST business hours for the most part. Certain roles that are not client facing have more flexibility, but we still require at…
Our team works asynchronously and communicates largely via Slack, which keeps us organized across 17 time zones. Keeping an up-to-date shared calendar is also very…
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…