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 was a decision I made early on and decided to roll with it. I was already living the lifestyle when I started Jungle Scout…
We had a team member move to another state and we used her as our Beta. Originally, only a few wanted to work remotely –…
Organically. We trust people to get their work done when they need to do it.
Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture?
I think company culture could be defined as the way that people think and act within your company, the way they treat each other and…
Many of my consultants are local and we do attend many travel related functions together regularly. For those not local, they do visit headquarters several…
Of course. There’s many examples of it. It’s not easy though. The short answer to “How?” is: a lot of thought, care, attention to detail…
How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment?
We try to infuse fun into our remote work environment to nurture our culture. We do things online together like get festive for birthdays and…
Annual company retreats, weekly Google hangouts (non-work related), and gif battles on Slack.
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;…
What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote?
I think that it really can work quite well and is easier than you might think. The main thing is to set expectations for great…
Live, breath, think, love remote. Don’t do it because others are telling you it is the best. You have to be convinced it is, with…
Follow best practices and be disciplined. When you’re home, it’s easy to be distracted or goof off, and that’s when remote work can fail to…
What challenges have you encountered building a remote team?
At first, we there was a definite shift we needed to make to ensure that our virtual employees were always part of our thinking as…
Finding people who are the best in the world at what they do can be challenging. So far we’ve managed to assemble an amazing team…
Planning around time zones may be our biggest challenge. For example, when two people are working on the same project, one in Australia and the…
What are the most effective tools for remote team communication?
Skype, Video Conference, Basecamp/Asana, and of course Email. We also use tools like Tinypulse for soliciting consistent feedback and sending “cheers” to team members.
Practicing effective communication is an extremely big point of emphasis for us as a remote company, and I’ve recently written a post on remote collaboration…
We’re always on Slack and we take all of our video calls and team meetings through Zoom. We also use the Google Docs suite to…
What has changed about how your remote team operates?
The biggest things that have changed are directly related to scalability – the routines and policies we maintained as a team of six people just…
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…
As the Internet has changed, we have opened more and more channels for communication with our teachers and between teachers. As we expand globally, our…
How does your team address different time zone challenges?
Everyone is respectful of everyone else’s time and situation. However, if there is an important meeting scheduled at a normal time in EST, but very…
We generally work on East Coast time (8am to 5pm) but have early birds on the East Coast and night owls on the West Coast,…
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…
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