7 Work-Life Balance Strategies from Remote Company Leaders

While having a remote company comes with an assortment of advantages, that’s not to say that it doesn’t have a steep learning curve, too. Some of today’s top remote companies weighed in on how to make running a remote company work, from both a professional and personal perspective. Below are seven work-life balance strategies from remote company leaders.

Seven Work-Life Balance Strategies from Remote Company Leaders:

1. Create teams.

In an effort to provide cohesiveness among a remote workforce, you might think it’s good to have everyone working together and reporting to one main boss. At least, that’s what Sara Rosso, marketing manager, and Lori McLeese, head of HR, at Automattic, thought.

“When Automattic first started, everyone reported to Matt (Mullenweg, our founder). When we reached about 50 people, we divided into teams,” says Rosso and McLeese. “The teams have evolved over time. We’re open to experimentation with our organization structure, because we want to continue to have as little hierarchy and bureaucracy as possible.”

As your remote company grows, don’t be afraid to divvy up the duties of each worker in order to make separate teams. That way, they’ll work smarter and more happily together.

2. Know what works—and what doesn’t.

In the past, you might have held weekly all-staff meetings. That was fine, when your company had 10 employees. Now that your company has triple the staff, it’s time for some changes.

“The biggest things that have changed are directly related to scalability—the routines and policies we maintained as a team of six people just aren’t as relevant or effective for what’s now a team of 16,” says Tom VanBuren, content manager at Edgar. “ For example, we’ve significantly cut back on the amount of time we spend in company-wide meetings, and replaced them with smaller departmental meetings.

Making changes like this helps us stay efficient and respect everyone’s time as we grow.” So be open to recognizing what processes worked in the past and how to adapt them as needed.

3. Have crystal-clear communication.  

It’s the backbone of every remote company, regardless of industry: good communication. After all, if your team doesn’t have the tools to communicate well, their performance—and the company as a whole—will suffer.

“The tools and habits that work effectively at 80 people are radically different to what works at 300 people—your communication has to be far more regular, have more clarity, and requires much more forethought—and this is especially important when it comes to communicating organizational change,” says Coby Chapple, product designer, GitHub, Inc. “You have no choice but to evolve the tools you use and your habits around them in order to scale well.”

Be sure that the communication tools you implement work not only for the size of the company you have, but the number of teams within your organization, as well as reflecting the personal styles of communication of your various team members.

4. Adapt to automation.

While your workers might be used to doing everything themselves, they might not have to. Automating tasks can streamline processes and make your team more productive and effective by not bogging them down with unnecessary tasks.

“As the company has grown we have discovered and created new automation processes so our GobySavvy UX experts can stick to designing, and we can stick to growing the business,” says Ryan O’Connor and Dean Dutro, co-founders of GobySavvy. “ We are always on the lookout for a new tool or to create a new process that makes things better for our team and clients.”

Look for ways to reduce the responsibilities of your workers by automating certain tasks, which will allow them to focus on more important duties and give them the space to be creative.

5. Plan it out.

Having a small remote company means that you can sometimes be spontaneous, planning impromptu meetings and reaching out directly to coworkers. But as your team grows, that spontaneity doesn’t always work. That’s why you need to plan things out as much as possible, says Sieva Kozinsky, CEO of StudySoup.

“Our planning process used to be off the cuff, and mostly done in the meeting with the whole team,” says Kozinsky. “We’ve moved to a planning process where my co-founder and I plan our priorities for the week, and then connect with individual departments about what they can accomplish that day.”

6. Make in-person meetings.

If your company has employees spread out on almost every continent, it can be hard to gather everyone for get-togethers. But if your team is smaller, or if you have bunches of workers who live near each other, it’s important to schedule in-person meetings.

“We used to all be in Maryland. We had four team members in Maryland and it was really easy for us to all get together for lunch on a Friday once or twice a month,” says Nathan Gilmore, co-founder of TeamGantt. “Now that we have two people outside of Maryland (MA and OR), we have to make sure that they come visit in person.”

You can schedule all-staff yearly meetings, where team members can come together for both work and play. Or you can encourage workers who reside closer to each other to get together a few times a year for lunch, dinner, or drinks—on the company’s dime.

7. Stay true to the company’s core values.

Time and technology might change how your company functions, but what shouldn’t change is the reason why it operates.

“The way we operated and the values that drove those decisions haven’t changed,” says Ryan Chartrand, CEO of X-Team. “The tools and policies have evolved with the growth of the company, but when we look back, it still feels the same way it did when it was only 10 people.”

Working in a remote space can seemingly change from one day to the next, but always take the time to evaluate why your company does business the way it does, and keep your focus on its mission and core beliefs as a way to attain overall success.

These seven work-life balance strategies from remote company leaders can help guide any organization to create a stronger, more successful workforce that is at once productive, engaged, and most importantly, happy.

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By Jennifer Parris | Categories: Work Remotely

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