Working Remotely

It started organically, but we have formalized things along the way. Mostly we expect people to be effective communicators and get stuff done.

Organically. Appen has been operating mixed remote and in-office teams for many years.

Early on it was very organic, but as we’ve scaled we’ve experimented with just enough formal policy to ensure we’re retaining the remote culture we…

Absolutely, but it takes a little more work and doesn’t happen as organically as it would in an office. We have a #water-cooler channel in…

Absolutely. But you have to work hard to garner it by using internal company jokes, slangs, and other fun stuff. A chat tool is essential,…

Yes definitely, but communication is key. As a group we all understand the culture of the company and what that means, what our core principles…

(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…

We do very regular team calls, and we have a “virtual water cooler” room in Slack where we talk about anything not related to work;…

We focus on the pillars of our culture: Fun, Action, Communication, Transparency, Trust (FACTT). Fun – Meetups, video chats just to make each other laugh.…

Running a successful remote company really comes down to trust and accountability. You have to have the right people on your team that you can…

Remote work naturally leads to results oriented working practices and management.  This is good for everyone.  Make sure your communications are good and improve your…

When introducing any change as significant as distributing operations, we recommend defining discrete steps and rolling out any change in iterative phases that adapt based…

Working remotely isn’t for everyone. It is well documented that it can be lonely for people who rely on work for most of their in-person…

The only real challenge is to convince people that they can work well from home. This problem has two factors – firstly people are used…

We have a great culture and team and have been growing very fast in the past few years. The biggest challenge is ensuring we keep…

We use several tools to maintain constant communication throughout the day.  Sqwiggle is our on-demand video platform, Attentiv.com offers us a constant stream to communicate…

Regularly scheduled meetings, not just to accomplish goals but to brainstorm and create new ideas.

We use a number of communication tools and place an emphasis on over communicating. Our daily internal communication tools includes Slack, email, Google Hangouts, Zoom,…

As Trello has grown, we’ve had to implement various other communication tools. For example, we have a weekly “Company Overview” board, where we update projects…

We’ve developed a knowledge base that contains core elements everyone needs to know. Not only do new staff need to study the knowledge base, but…

The most noticeable change for me has been the size of the company and the effect that has on team (and inter-team) dynamics. When I…

We offer some flexibility in work schedules so that team members can have somewhat of a normal schedule, but we also require work hours to…

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.…

Everyone adds their working hours to company calendar, then each team leader knows very well when everyone is on working time. This allows us to…