Managing Remotely
140 companies answer 6 questions
Managing a remote or distributed team successfully requires good support, planning, and communication. Whether deciding if and how to get the team to meet in person or defining the line between vacation and flexible work, the management of a remote team has differences from managing traditional on-site teams. In our Managing Remotely section we ask top remote companies how they keep their teams running smoothly from thousands of miles away.
Do you have remote communication protocols for your remote workers?
Everyone needs to attend the daily and weekly meetings related to their work. They should be reachable on Mattermost during working hours—these are set on…
We have clear, written guidance for our team members with regard to how quickly and thoroughly they need to respond to prospective business clients and…
The norms generally depend on the role, but we do have some. Editors are expected to respond to submitted work within 2 business days. Customer…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
Yes, we go to a company off-site twice a year. The off-site is a mixture of team sessions, presentations, working together, team activities, and hanging…
We don’t organise retreats, but we do have a ‘visit Melbourne’ subsidy where we reimburse remote workers $1,000 if they wish to visit Melbourne and…
In the earlier days when the team was ~15 people, we would gather the whole company together for week-long (Mon-Fri) retreats in different locations 4…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
Absolutely. We have some very structured events such as week-long annual engineering team meetups. Many of our remote team members also come by headquarters in…
Each year we hold a company meeting and try to gather together as many remote teams as possible. These meetings last a few days and…
As a whole company we have bi-weekly video calls every other week and we get together in-person 2x a year for all company meetings.
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
It’s not a perfect science; we have had situations where employees were “skating” for a month or so and we did not notice. But, eventually…
Depends on the roll, but in most cases it becomes very clear who is productive and who isn’t. For engineers github is key.
As an organization, we hire really driven people, set clear and ambitious goals, and check in on them regularly throughout the year, both formally and…
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
Actually having one. A relationship doesn’t mean reading standups in a Slack channel. You have to put in the work to meet regularly with each…
Communication is key; miscommunication is fatal. If you’re thinking something, take the time to call your employee and discuss it with him or her. I’ve…
There’s the obvious ones like trust, transparency and regular communication. One of the things I’d also add is structure. This doesn’t get talked about much…
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
Creating a healthy balance between trusting our team members to manage their work time and monitoring their activity. We have team members use time management…
Getting everyone to not use their mute buttons on group calls. It can be difficult to have meetings that require brainstorming and input from many…
It’s a bit of a tie for me — the two things I struggle with most are satisfying each person’s needs as a remote worker,…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
Keeping remote employees engaged is definitely a challenge. You need to make an effort to check in with co-workers and learn about their lives and…
XWP includes every XWPerson in a regional “Homebase” with monthly meetings. We also host regular XWP Live town halls, open to everyone at XWP. XWP…
Our team communicates regularly on Yammer, FlowDock, GitHub, and via email. We have Google Hangouts daily, and often have company-wide updates or individual “Ask Me…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
We don’t really have a formal policy. Most people use their own devices, but we make sure people have what they need. Everyone is free…
We allow our remote workforce to work with any devices or apps that will allow them to do their job to the best of their…
This is currently under discussion if we should begin allocating a stipend for laptops and such. Currently it is BYOD and we provide the apps.
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
We don’t track time off but expect people to take roughly 4 weeks vacation. Most of our team doesn’t have set hours so it’s really…
First of all, we have a flexible schedule and the only condition for the remote team members is to have at least some overlapping time…
In short, “take some”. We used to not track days off, but it resulted in some people (mostly US employees) not taking enough time off.…
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
The biggest fear is “culture cracks” as our CEO calls it. Since we do have such a significant amount of remote team members, it is…
Our biggest fear was that if we weren’t sitting right next to employees, it would be hard to ensure they are executing at the level…
As is the trend with other remote companies, we worry about workplace culture. It’s a bit harder to foster when you only see one another…