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?
As with most things at Envato, what started organically has become a little more formal now that the Envato team is around 280. Formally acknowledging…
The organization has always had a strong remote working culture, which is formally acknowledged from the beginning of the hiring process.
Our remote work policy was a formal part of our business plan from the beginning. The company is now 3 years old (formed, 2013).
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
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…
Yes. While our employees work in different states and alone from home, no one feels like they are working alone because they see each other…
It must in order to do great work. Everyone in Help Scout loves what they do and we all share common values like excellence, craftsmanship,…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
We have an incredible Director of Culture and Development who is focused on developing a strong culture in a remote work environment. Examples of some…
We consider our remote employees for any event we plan as a company. We limit office parties to only twice a year since remotes cannot…
We have regular in-person meetups in the different areas where we operate, to give our employees the opportunity to learn and connect with each other.…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Embrace it! Find others in the same industry that have remote staff and ask if they would be willing to share their experiences. If the…
Either go remote, or don’t. Don’t have part of your team in an office with the rest working remotely. Your remote workers will feel isolated…
Trust your people, and it will work!
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
We’ve had some bad experiences with remote workers. There are freelancers who try to work on other projects while billing time to Hubstaff, and we…
Being remote, it’s top of mind for us to make sure that employees feel connected to one another. Data from our 2018 State of Remote…
One of the biggest problems is finding a team to build the application with the right skills at the right cost who are available when we…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We organize our communication and company activities around specific actions. So, instead of chatting about something that’s just popped up or sharing more ideas, we…
Monthly town-halls via zoom Team meet-ups Daily slack
If I had to pick one, it would be group chats. We have always used group chats (a la IRC) since we started. At first,…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
Remote working had previously not been as widespread as it is becoming. New tools and ways of working has made it easier to accommodate home…
It’s interesting to look back on this, because everything we stood for and the values that drove how we operate still haven’t changed. The main…
Our team has just gotten a lot bigger. Our head of teacher recruiting, Bel Chan, has done an amazing job with that. When she started…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
Slack and JIRA—the platform we use to track development tasks—are asynchronous tools, allowing us to manage communication even with different time zones. Of course, sometimes…
Everyone adds their working hours to company calendar, then each team leader knows very well when everyone is on working time. This allows us to…
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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