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?
From day 1 we made the decision that renting an office was a waste of money. We’ve never looked back.
Although certain policies have evolved as the company has grown and our needs have changed, we have always had remote workers and have always known…
My co-founder Kerry takes all the credit for setting up our amazing guidelines, policies, compensation packages and benefits programs. She worked closely with a Seattle…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Yes! At Parse.ly, we believe that a distributed team is an asset, not a problem to be managed. It allows for radical transparency about how…
We keep a constant communication flow in Slack, organize team meetings weekly and also throw weekly hangouts where our new employees introduce themselves or current…
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?
I think adopting Slack has been the biggest improvement to our remote culture. It’s a lot more informal than Asana which lets us have more…
Having fun is a really essential part of the Formstack culture. We rely pretty heavily on weekly team meetings, fun IM chats and, of course,…
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…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Commit to remote work, then figure out solutions to keep making it work. Avoid the knee-jerk reaction of just rolling it back. Trust your team…
Make sure work obligations are completely understood, that communication capabilities and a robust technology infrastructure are fully embedded in the organization, and that you have…
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?
We’ve had some bad experiences with remote workers. There are freelancers who try to work on other projects while billing time to Hubstaff, and we…
We’re all still figuring out the best way to do this, so little has been codified on how to do it well. Every challenge is…
The challenges in terms of managing a remote team relate to communication. So long as you can find ways to keep communication channels open, both…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We have a back-end portal, run by our head of teacher management, Daniel Charvat, specifically for communicating with our online teachers. Every time they log…
Chat and Skype
Monthly town-halls via zoom Team meet-ups Daily slack
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
We are more organized now. You have to be extremely organized if you want to go remote because it’s easy to get lost in emails,…
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…
We appreciate and understand the necessity of open and fluid communication. We always wonder, “How can we better communicate? What’s working and what isn’t?” We’re…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
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…
We make sure everyone coming on board understands the different time zones. We work together to identify when the majority of workers are available and…
First, establishing ahead of time when team members will be available. Second, hiring individuals who are willing to be flexible when necessary to coordinate with team members…