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?
Organically. We don’t even have a headquarters-type office – we’ve always hired remotely.
We’ve always worked remotely, so our policy is rather organic. As problems arose, our policy has been adjusted to answer those challenges.
Organically. We trust people to get their work done when they need to do it.
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Yes. It’s important to have someone manage the community and for those on the local team to stay aligned on how and when to communicate with…
Absolutely. One of our biggest assets is our company culture, and we work hard to cultivate it. It starts with hiring the right people. There…
Yes, absolutely, but this includes a lot of work. You have to agree on values and hire for attitude, not (only) for skills. An in-depth…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
The best thing we do, I think, is our yearly meetup. It’s a very democratic meetup, meaning that we vote on everything—where we want to…
Goodway tries to have our own level of perks and rewards that are equally as desirable and beneficial to remote employees. We use a program…
(a) At the start of our weekly one-on-one calls, we take a few minutes to talk about something that we are enjoying being involved with…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
We recommend going all in. Being virtual works for us because it’s embraced by a significant portion of our team – including top leadership. It’s…
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…
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…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
Interviewing and hiring new team members is one of the main challenges. Occasionally people are determined and send a solid portfolio during the hiring process,…
Some people are really happier in an office setting. There are now shared offices and places like the HUB for this kind of person to…
Aha! is growing more rapidly than any other company that I have founded or worked for. Chris and I founded Aha! because we believed so…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
Our communications stack is pretty typical for a remote company: chat, phone, email, video conferencing, regular meetings. Each of those channels can be extremely effective…
Digital tools like Zoom, Miro, Google Docs, Trello, or Slack work great! For more complex issues, Zoom calls can save a lot of time.
Our team uses Skype, Jing, Trello and Pivotal Tracker to communicate. We try not to use email, because information tends to get lost and inboxes…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
We found quickly that being fully distributed wasn’t going to work well for us. We missed seeing each other in person and the rare times…
We’ve definitely made communication a bigger focus. It’s not necessarily going to happen organically, so it needs to be somebody’s job to ensure that communication…
As we grow, we build out more processes and planning. Done wrong, this could equal bureaucracy. Done right, these systems help us function despite not…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
Time zone differences can cause confusion within a remote team. Luckily, while the overall workflow has to be coordinated, the specific tasks for providing our…
We work in EST/CST business hours for the most part. Certain roles that are not client facing have more flexibility, but we still require at…
Being in different time zones is an absolute advantage for MustHaveMenus. Most of our engineers are nine hours ahead of the rest of the team.…