Managing Remotely

We only have our daily team call. We have no policies about communication. We do have an emergency channel for customers, but it’s...

No.

While we haven’t had the need to set strict norms, we all have an understanding of how to stay connected throughout the workday:...

This varies depending on the team. But at minimum, all emails should be returned by the next business day, and chats replied to as...

We try to avoid too many emails, instead using Trello to communicate, Skype for IM, Jing for training, etc. On weekdays...

Yes, in-person time is important. For us, the most important part of the retreat is all of the non-work time. We...

We do organize a company-wide trip twice a year. This gives everyone a chance to mingle and meet face to face....

For a remote team, the main focus is actually just to spend time together face-to-face, so plan everything around that. We find a yearly...

Yes we sure do! Jungle Camps twice yearly. It is a great way to meet, work, and grow together. It is...

Yes – see my blog where I wrote the definitive guide...

The full team meets together at least twice a year. There are meetups by various teams based on need and geography throughout the year.

Yes. Our leadership team plus a few select people meet yearly for strategic planning in person and sometimes more often as...

We try to get everyone into our New York office at least once a year for a holiday party.  Folks who...

We don’t require it, but we certainly encourage it. We just initiated a new exciting program to incentivize our employees to get together...

We host weekly meetups for all remote workers living in or visiting the Portland area — and anyone we’re working with is invited to...

For each new project, we have a lead designer and 1+ team members that create proposals and timelines that match up with...

One of the core Envato Values is that we ‘focus on results’. One of the biggest myths about remote working is...

Nobody works alone at Scrapinghub. Everybody reports to a manager that keeps track of their work and this feedback moves up the chain, as...

Weekly updates are detailed reports we receive every Friday that outline what each team member accomplished during the week and their focus for next...

As an organization, we hire really driven people, set clear and ambitious goals, and check in on them regularly throughout the year, both formally...

Trust, trust, trust and communication, communication, communication.

Truly, a distributed company operates with all the same leadership dynamics and laws of physics a traditional, co-located company does. Culture...

Communication and trust are the two most important things – and if you want them, you need to empower your team and...

Open communication, honest & constructive feedback and open mindedness + accountability

Creating patterns around internal communication, being intentional with scheduling connection and investing in retreats and in-person time.

Ensuring a consistent company culture and keeping everyone feeling connected.

Without the luxury of seeing colleagues each day, it can, at times, take longer to identify issues.  For this reason managers...

One of the hard parts we’re working through now is adding layers of management we didn’t have before. We�...

If you’re a typical startup, <10 people sitting in an office, then with everything that happens, everyone always knows about...

Keeping everyone happy and connected, not forgetting people.

It’s really all about creating intentional communication to ensure everyone is “in the loop.” We also have a Director of...

Informal water-cooler style conversations about company goals and vision. People want to work for a company where they like the product,...

We are in constant communication with members of our team using online communication tools, and it’s very easy to work together and collaborate...

A great remote team depends on a very strong culture to bind everyone together and make sure they don’t feel...

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...

Everyone does BYOD, mostly because everyone has different preferences and environments that make them most effective, but we will sponsor apps at times.

Aha! provides the best devices for every member of the team.

Everyone is free to get their devices from the company, but as far as I know everyone’s just using their own machine.

Our remote workers must have all of their own equipment to qualify for the work-from-home CSP position. They must have a...

All of our IT infrastructure is cloud based.  At this point we are totally happy with anyone on the team accessing their work email,...

We have a MANDATORY vacation policy. We realized that an unlimited vacation policy was having the opposite effect – team members weren’t taking the...

First of all, we have a flexible schedule and the only condition for the remote team members is to have at least some overlapping...

In short, “take some”. We used to not track days off, but it resulted in some people (mostly US employees) not taking enough time...

As a mom friendly organization we have a generous time off policy that includes paid sick days and paid family leave.

We have an open PTO policy, meaning that employees don’t accrue paid time off and we don’t track the...

I think my biggest fears are when we lose touch with someone. Every once in a while, someone will just “disappear” – they don’t...

My biggest fear is that remote work becomes too lifestyle-driven where people become complacent, too comfortable and chilled out. I still...

My biggest fear is that one day I’ll wake up and simply be too frustrated that I don’t get...

To me, making the work visible was a big fear. Even in traditional companies, there are people working nobody knows what...

That it would be harder than it actually is. In fact, the management problems are the same regardless of location.