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?
We are starting to implement this a little more as we grow. We have a lot of de-facto standards just from having done this for…
Partially. There is a company scrum at 10am every morning during which people are expected to come, but it’s not a big deal if they…
We don’t set specific norms for the sake of creating true flexibility. Once you start putting in rules like this, or even once you start…
Do you organize remote team retreats?
Yes – see my blog where I wrote the definitive guide to planning an offsite.
Logistics are a pain, but the outcome is always worth it. Just allow plenty of time for planning and be frank with everyone that it…
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…
Do your remote team members meet in person?
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…
At any point across the year there will be teams attending ‘sprints’ in locations across the globe. Sprints provide an architect for groups to come…
We all meet once a year and when we travel to locations where we have part of the team we may get together one on…
How do you measure the productivity of remote workers?
Depends on the roll, but in most cases it becomes very clear who is productive and who isn’t. For engineers github is key.
Work is seen by the team. We notice output and their work speaks for itself. We all contribute in everything we can besides our regular…
We’re an Agile organization, so self-examination is built into our workflow very naturally. We set goals, then examine and measure progress, output at regular, discrete…
What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams?
Trust, trust, trust and communication, communication, communication.
Communication, community, and transparency. Without those three things, your relationships with remote workers will fail.
Keeping them engaged through regular communication is most important. They should also have a clear expectation of their role and how vitally important it is…
What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce?
There’s a lot of communication done in an office that you don’t have with a remote team. The unspoken communication is huge, and we just don’t…
Managing outgoing sales efforts.
There’s arguably more overhead placed on the shoulders of leaders in a remote company. The hardest thing is to acknowledge the overhead and be really…
How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture?
At Goodway, we don’t treat our remote employees any differently than if they were in an office setting. They can’t be seen as exceptions or…
Our team is very passionate about what they do. We’re just so incredibly busy and the information security space is quite exciting so everyone is…
First of all, we invite new colleagues to our headquarters in Cologne for the onboarding process. Then we have weekly team meetings which the colleagues…
What is your BYOD policy for remote workers?
Everyone does BYOD, mostly because everyone has different preferences and environments that make them most effective, but we will sponsor apps at times.
Team members can use any hardware that they please. After you’ve worked with Doist for six months, you are granted a generous hardware and software…
We do not provide any computers, cell phones, etc. since keeping inventory of items like that would be extremely expensive and difficult to retrieve at…
What is your time off policy for remote workers?
We have an open time off policy, which translates to take the time off that you need. We ask each person to discuss time off…
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…
All employees are offered 18 days a year of paid time off, which is built up over their first year on the job. Over time,…
What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
We very naively started all being remote, so there were no fears. Here’s a challenge that surprised me: on the same day, I had a…
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…
People being dishonest about the amount of time they are spending working on your project and doing things on the side. There are big brother…