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?
Our company quite literally started complete remote, so it was part of our formation.
We started organically with a few employees to test tools and processes. After that, we offered it to everyone, along with the option to keep…
Totally organically. We did what felt right, we learned from our mistakes, and we continue to evolve by listening to what our staff needs.
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Remote companies can absolutely have a healthy company culture. At Remote Year, we are constantly discussing what needs to be centralized and what needs to…
Absolutely! We’ve been working on building Buffer’s healthy company culture from the start. The key thing for us was setting values as a team in…
Absolutely! A company culture is embedded throughout everything the company does, not a result of all employees being in the same physical location. We also…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
We love the work but we also know when to have fun and connect. Alongside the two retreats a year, we have our Friday Fikas,…
We embrace working remotely rather than shying away from it. All of our crew get a Timely robe on their one year anniversary. We celebrate…
Broadly speaking, our culture is based on the Relationship Care approach to servicing, an ethos that says service is a people business driven by the…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Remote work isn’t right for every company, but we think it could work for more companies than many people think. Online tools and in-person meetings…
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…
Structure and communication are key to having success with remote work. Having a set of tools everyone uses, and make sure everyone on the team…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
Getting everyone on the same page! Since we don’t “see” each other on a consistent basis every day, we have to constantly be thinking about…
At first we tried to have a casual meeting structure. This was extremely stressful and kept different team members in the dark about what others…
It can sometimes be difficult to accommodate for varying time zones and work schedules within the company. Lots of our employees work as they travel,…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We use Slack as our primary communication tool, both within our team and with outsiders. This gives us a way of alerting people quickly on…
We utilize Zoom.us for weekly all hands, and individual teams hold their own weekly Zoom standups. Everything else is in Slack. We dislike phones and…
Weekly phone calls, daily status reports from the technical employees, Slack
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
As the Internet has changed, we have opened more and more channels for communication with our teachers and between teachers. As we expand globally, our…
One of the biggest achievements for Skillcrush is that we have adopted transparent salary tiers where every team member has insight into what their colleagues…
We are using better tools, less email, thank god – less Skype. 🙂 We are a great running team, everyone knows how the other one…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
This is likely the largest challenge we face as a remote company. I don’t like making people stay up late or get up super early…
We generally work on East Coast time (8am to 5pm) but have early birds on the East Coast and night owls on the West Coast,…
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…
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