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?
Because we have always been mostly remote-based it wasn’t necessarily a policy that had to be implemented – it’s just how we have always worked…
It started organically. We didn’t know how it was going to be, but every week we add important information to our GitLab Handbook. We like…
The remote workforce grew organically based on our hiring philosophy, which remains to hire the best people in the world, no matter where they live.
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Yes! Within our hiring process, we put a lot of emphasis on the cultural fit of potential employees and therefore have a pool of people…
Absolutely, one great way to have a healthy remote culture is through work retreats: We are all social people; team members who work remotely still…
Absolutely. The keys for us have been maintaining ongoing, open communication as a group, whether by Whatsapp, instant chat, email, Skype and phone, and ensuring…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
Retreats are a huge thing. We have an annual all company retreat, but we also have more focused retreats pretty regularly for smaller teams within…
Our online forum is an important part of our company, a place where everyone can share ideas and chat—a virtual water cooler, if you will.
We focus on the pillars of our culture: Fun, Action, Communication, Transparency, Trust (FACTT). Fun – Meetups, video chats just to make each other laugh.…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
Since you typically won’t be meeting with employees for casual face-to-face meetings like lunches, you need to find some unconventional ways to build informal rapport…
Keep a keen eye out for certain WFM (Works for Me) traits that give a professional a leg up if they chose to select a…
Try it, it’s not as scary as it seems! If your company is focussed on outputs and not inputs, then it shouldn’t matter whether your…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
We have to incorporate process and procedures much earlier based on the number of team members. With five people in an office, it’s easy to…
Finding the people who are happy working from home in the long term rather than just having a short term appeal. Each country brings a…
The hardest part of managing a remote workforce is creating and maintaining a dynamic culture. You must be intentional about setting expectations and over communicating.…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
We utilize many different communication tools, such as Slack, Skype for Business, Sococo, and of course conference line/email. We also have conference rooms in all…
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…
We track projects and tasks in Asana. Most of our communication happens within Asana by commenting on specific tasks. Outside of that, we constantly use…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
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…
As software tools have evolved, we’ve reached for solutions that boost transparency and real-time collaboration.
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…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
Our entire company is online from 3pm-7pm GMT which means we have a 4-hour window for all hands meetings, daily standups, and the off-hand meeting…
This is likely the largest challenge we face as a remote company. I don’t like making people stay up late or get up super early…
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.…