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?
It emerged organically, but my company started as a distributed company.
Formally, from the hiring process onward.
Skillcrush has been a remote company from the start and because remote work aligns so well with our mission and lifestyle, it was a no-brainer!…
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
Absolutely! Our teams tend to focus on communication because we do have so many remote members. We hold Town Halls quarterly so everyone hears the…
Absolutely. I think being remote defines our culture. It demands self-discipline of all parties, which yields top performers. In our case we leverage a management…
It absolutely can. Just like a company located in an office can have a dysfunctional culture. The key to any healthy culture is having everyone…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
Annual company retreats, weekly Google hangouts (non-work related), and gif battles on Slack.
Our creed includes the statement, “I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company.” We communicate through P2s (WordPress.com…
We train our new employees on our company culture, which is based on Accountability, Visibility and Respect. We have weekly onboarding meetings for all new…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
The key to a successful remote workforce is in the hiring. You must recruit highly skilled, professional team members who have demonstrated that they can…
Assess if this is the way you would like to drive your company and if the answer is yes—go for it.
Focus your efforts on developing rapport with your team. The stronger the bond, the greater the trust, which will allow you to focus on the…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
Finding the right talent – people that flourish in remote environments. Communicating goals and objectives and ensuring those flow through the organization. Coordinating complex projects…
It’s hard to have visitors. People feel weird about coming to your home. Now that we have an office, it feels like a good place…
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…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
XWP relies heavily on Slack and an asynchronous style of communication, which allows us to communicate effectively across 17 time zones.
We have at least quarterly team conferences calls.
Slack, weekly team Skype calls, biweekly one-on-ones, and with private notes in Groove.
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
We developed a concept of core hours and started to avoid hiring from locations where the core hours are during the nighttime. We did this…
We have implemented OKRs because at the beginning everyone just “worked hard” when we were a startup. But as we got older, people burned out,…
We used to have employees who worked in different states, but over time we have found it valuable to live close enough to each other…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
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.…
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…
Thankfully this isn’t a big issue, but as our team grows, it will become a challenge. More clearly communicating goals and aligning team members will…