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?
Bitovi started with remote work from the beginning and the rest is history.
Being remote happened organically for us, but we formalized it into our core values. We wanted our team to know that we were going to…
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…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Remote companies can often foster health and vitality more so than an office culture. By granting trust to your employees to choose their own, optimal…
Yes definitely, but communication is key. As a group we all understand the culture of the company and what that means, what our core principles…
Yes. Our company culture is based on shared values. We have a company full of independent people who love making the web a better place.…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
We have remote social hangouts every Friday. Everyone is invited to hop onto a video call to hang out with their coworkers with a beverage…
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;…
Tools are important… github, slack, hangouts, gdocs, trello Meet-ups are very important 15five has been a great tool for us to organize work Tinypulse has…
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…
Go for it. It’s super unlikely you’ll be disappointed. It makes everything easier. But, be sure to get together in real space here and there…
Go all in, if you’re going to make the leap. In order to select and build the tools, systems, habits, and culture that really enable…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
One of the biggest challenges of running a remote company for me personally has been to remember to have a life outside of work. I…
Working remotely isn’t for everyone. It is well documented that it can be lonely for people who rely on work for most of their in-person…
Remote workforces are amazing, but they have their own unique challenges, just as a local workforce does. While in-person, one-off conversations may work great for…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We use several tools to maintain constant communication throughout the day. Sqwiggle is our on-demand video platform, Attentiv.com offers us a constant stream to communicate…
We use Google Drive so everything is cloud based and easily shareable. We have set up the hardware we need in our head office to…
We communicate via telecommunication, specifically text messaging and email, we embraced cloud technology, and we have occasional in-person team meetings. In addition, we videoconference with…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
Advances in technology have made communication between team members – and with our clients – faster, easier, and more reliable.
As the number of employees has increased, we have increasingly standardized procedures. With a smaller team, communication often occurs organically, but as the size of…
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…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
Currently, we hire only within the UTC-1 to UTC+3 time zones. Our core working time is between 10am-3pm (Berlin time) and during this time everyone…
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 is respectful of everyone else’s time and situation. However, if there is an important meeting scheduled at a normal time in EST, but very…